This is an election about whether the people of Pennsylvania hate blacks more than they hate women. And when I say people, I don't mean people, I mean white men.
Hillary's case is not an attractive one, because what she'll essentially be saying (and has been saying, although very carefully) is that she can attract more racist white male voters than Obama can.And that's why I will never vote for Obama again, even though I voted for him in the primary. That's why I'm seriously considering voting for McCain in the general, even if Hillary is the candidate.
If Nora Ephron wants to consider me racist or sexist, even though I voted for Obama in the primary, even though I voted for Jackson in '88, and even though I would dearly love to vote for Carol Moseley Braun right now -- well, then, she exemplifies the "small tent Dem" attitude which has alienated many voters from the party since 1980.
Read her piece: She gives no positive reasons for anyone to vote for her preferred candidate. Instead, she threatens: Vote as I tell you to vote, or I'll call you a racist or a sexist.
If you have any sense of self, you'll disobey any such commands just to show that you're not the kind of wimp who bows to threats. No Republican ever called me racist.
To put it bluntly, the next president will be elected by them: the outcome of Tuesday's primary will depend on whether they go for Hillary or Obama, and the outcome of the general election will depend on whether enough of them vote for McCain. A lot of them will: white men cannot be relied on, as all of us know who have spent a lifetime dating them. And McCain is a compelling candidate, particularly because of the Torture Thing. As for the Democratic hope that McCain's temper will be a problem, don't bet on it. A lot of white men have terrible tempers, and what's more, they think it's normal.That's your strategy, Nora? You insult white men and then you expect them to vote as you direct? (See the cartoon here for a variant of that strategy.) If I called you a no-talent hag, would you want to date me?
People like Nora Ephron do the Republican Party's work so expertly that I wouldn't be surprised to learn of a covert GOP pay-off.
UPDATE: Becki Jayne at The Real Spiel has some very amusing observations about Ephron. Why does a woman who hates white men have such an utterly honkified filmography? Do you remember any black characters in Sleepless in Seattle or You've Got Mail?
And here's another thought. Suppose someone submitted a piece to Huffington Post containing these words: "And when I say people, I don't mean people, I mean black men." That statement would correctly be denounced as racist, right? Right. So why shouldn't we denounce Ephron's original statement as racist?
14 comments:
Who, pray tell, is Nora Ephron?
Never mind. Wikipedia should suffice for this one. She won't make it farther than that.
She wrote "Sleepless in Seattle" and "You've Got Mail," two films in which the male characters are not rage-filled bigots. She also was married to Carl Bernstein and later wrote a book about it, the name of which I cannot remember (which was turned into a movie, which I saw but nevertheless cannot recall at all).
I think a few women are in love with the "Stanley Kowlaski" stereotype, and thus tend to picture all men as Stanleys -- event though that stereotype is just as obnoxious and untrue as is any other.
Actually, I scanned wikipaedia before I wrote the comment, if only for some seconds. Her age, and being a daughter of Hollywood screenwriters tends to explain a lot for me. (I'm often tempted to include a link on the subject--in this case, early Hollywood--to something I've read and consider of value on the subject. Problem is, the links often are by you maybe know who or his colleagues, and I don't want to wear out my welcome.) The roots of Hollywood stink.
I know my mind is going when I have to Google "Stanley Kowlaski" to spur my neurons; and I worked as a techie in a theatre that produced the show, attended most of the rehearsals over a six-week period and worked the shows! Saw the Brando movie too. I've been living on the other side of the planet too long.
What I meant to infer through my comment is that she is but a transient little dot on the Earth and thus belittle her. But perhaps she deserves a little more credit for past work than I want to recognize. Sad if she's been sucked into a darker space.
"I'm seriously considering voting for McCain in the general"
I'm sure if you were the candidate, McCain would vote for you.
You've probably also pissed off enough McCain supporters in California that they'll vote the Dem just to cancel your vote.
Heartburn? I haven't seen any of Nora's movies.
Why won't you vote for Nader? Isn't it a far far better thing if only you vomit at the poll instead of your faithful readers all vomiting?
Nora Ephron suffers from solipsistic autism as she rails against men---whom she in her cubby-hole in LA thinks are all like her exes. Simply breath-taking on how an elitist like herself has absolutely no self-knowledge, no perspective on how the 80% of Americans who say they are NOT liberals [In about two dozen polls over the last decade, according to Jeffrey Goldberg of The New Yorker] live quiet decent lives & do not spend their days in self-promotion as she does.
Does Nora realize that the last 43 victors in US presidential elections have won because they got a majority of the white male vote?
Does this victim of her own delusions believe that "identity politics" as the left side of the Democrat Party practices it will bring a Dem to the White House?
It's called a cocoon, but this caterpillar will never morph into a butterfly, will she.
If there is anything such as a "public intellectual" left and a "marketplace of ideas," people like Eprhron are not included in a serious consideration of serious issues affecting serious people, i.e., not people who write in the HuffPuff brigade.
Wow, Joe, you sound like I did 20 years ago.... :)
Ephron's article is proof that the Jeralyn Merrit thesis - that the supers will be deciding based on electability - gives this process way too much credit for rationality. The supers have been racially guilt-tripped into fixing it for Obama. I say this even though I think that Hill will win PA by 12 points.
The basic idea is that the white working class can go eff itself. They are economic dinosaurs, to the elites. Their jobs have been shipped overseas (by the elites) and won't come back. What do you do with economically unnecessary people?
I realize I sound paranoid but as some smart cookie once said: "Even paranoids can have enemies."
Hi, Joseph. Good post. I quoted you and added some further observations about Nora Ephron at The RealSpiel.
It's sad to see people acting as parrots for the GOP. And whew! The projection.
There are people of color in bit parts, just not main characters. Dave Chapelle (Mail), LaTanya Richardson (Sleepless) are two, IIRC. I went through Ephron's filmography to look at the cast in her movies.
Joe - I don't think most Republicans find racism a serious issue and therefore they aren't likely to hurl it as an insult. Perhaps that's the reason none has called you a racist.
I won't be holding anything you write against the politicians you support. So in the future if you write some flippant piece about my demo I won't hold it against McCain. I would suggest you don't hold the editorials on Huffpo against Obama, he's not the editor.
Later on, I will argue with you about whether it is wise to vote Republican. But for now....
...what I find most amazing/disgusting/noteworthy (fill in the blank) about this is that not long ago, everyone was oo-ing and ahing about Obama's strength among white men, and that Hillary's only strong demographic was white women -- uneducated white women at that (and we all know what a skenky negligible lot they are).
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/22/live-blogging-the-pa-primary/index.html?hp
So, when white men supported Obama, they were good guys, doing the right thing. When they support Clinton, they are pig-Bubba-redneck-racists.
The narrative has shifted. Quoth the NY Times:
"Not surprisingly, both candidates are doing well among the same groups they have in other states."
Really? What about those white guys in Virginia?
(Link: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/22/live-blogging-the-pa-primary/index.html?hp)
Man, I'd like to be a reporter. Make shit up and get paid. Nice work if you can get it.
The book about her failed marriage to Bernstein was Heartburn. I confess I had to look it up, even though I saw the movie. The book sucks, but there is a good recipe for soft-boiled eggs in it.
Nora Ephron is a lightly talented gal whose parents were established Hollywood screenwriters. She has benefited from family connections no less than George Bush, although she is way less harmful. If her father was a bitter factory worker in Pennsylvania, we would have never heard of her.
Also note that her choice of husbands is exclusively limited to powerful and successful white men. If she's so down on white guys, why doesn't she marry a black dude who hauls cartons at chain drugstore? I'm positive they could benefit from her net worth. Share the wealth, Nora!
Oops, the first link referencing Obama's white male support should have been:
http://www.pollster.com/blogs/white_men_with_obama_since_the.php
Joseph,
I discovered your blog during the 2004 election and appreciated your dedication to the voting irregularities we experienced. I've checked back infrequently and read many posts I agreed with. Your current war on liberal blogs (if I'm interpreting this correctly) seems to be driven by some slight to you I didn’t witness. Before you make the official move from 9/11 conspiracy hangout (maybe I’ve been back more often than I admitted) to the Obama causes racist confusion hangout.
Any chance you can recap your issues with Obama vs. McCain for those of us that visit political blogs more often during election years?
Disclaimer: I voted for HRC in the CA primary but have come to regret it. You seem to have gone down the opposite path. I’d appreciate a better than ABC style view of why you think McCain and his guarantee of four more years of Bush is better than an Obama presidency.
Anon -- and don't expect your words to re-appear her if you continue to be anon -- I want to send a clear message: "Fuck Kos."
If that's not enough, read my latest.
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