About That Assasination Remark

I'm gonna disagree with a lot Obama-ites and say that it was a mistake. I say that, not out of any love for Hillary Clinton, but because I can't see how this remark helps her at all. It's inconceivable to me that this would be a strategy. More likely she's tired and said something stupid.

But this brings me to two points. 1.) Hillary Clinton is an overrated candidate. For all the talk about toughness, in the waning days of the campaign, she has become a gaffe-o-matic. Why should we believe she would be stronger in the general.

2.) This is why it's foolish to compare racism and sexism. Hillary and some her blind-ass feminist supporters have asserted that there has been no racism in this campaign, or none when compared to racism. But Barack Obama had to get Secret Service protection before any candidate in history. I wonder if that has to do with racism. Part of this is our fault as we've allowed the definition of racism to devolve into the spectacular--the Rodney King tape or a Don Imus rant.

But the ugliest aspects are the things you don't see, or don't care to see. There is no American tradition of assassination in the feminist community. The sort of violence that consistently hung over Civil Rights workers, and ultimately got Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King, never hung over Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan. Again I think Hillary simply made a mistake. But I also think were she from my side of the tracks, a place where the assassination of black public figures has altered whole lives, she wouldn't have said something that stupid. Ditto for Steinem, who if she'd ever spent any significant time around black folks, would know that there are forces which are just as restricting as gender. I still don't think Clinton realizes what she said--she apologized to the Kennedy's, but not to Obama. The blindness is strong in that one.