Some people still accuse me of being a zealous Hillary supporter, even though long-time readers know that I've never felt much enthusiasm for the woman. I've never devoted a single blog post to trumpeting her virtues, although I have defended her against many a smear. As mentioned earlier, one of the "big" pro-Hillary sites has "censored" me because I said "screw Hillary" in a comment.
But now I want you to watch a pro-Hillary video. Watch only the first part -- it is germane to our present discussion. You can ignore the second half, which is sentimental campaign glop.
The first half, however, offers an illuminating compilation of outrageously sexist moments, in which various well-known media figures express a condescending attitude toward not just Hillary, but women in general. These clips say something ugly about our culture. I think the message would have the same power even if the video were about someone I truly hated.
Geraldine Ferraro got into trouble for suggesting that a black candidate has an advantage in the current political climate. I find that assessment foolish, at least in terms of the general election. But we can fairly say that a generic black candidate does have an advantage over a generic female candidate. A poll cited in an earlier post noted that 6% of the American electorate won't pull the lever for a black, while 12% won't vote for a woman.
Why the disparity? Perhaps because our society tolerates media displays of misogyny more readily than it tolerates race hatred. As others have noted, if Randi Rhodes had called Obama a "fucking pimp," she would be damned as a racist, and she would never work in radio again. But calling Hillary a "fucking whore" isn't considered sexist -- merely tasteless -- and won't lead to permanent job loss.
Similarly -- and this is a point I've made several times in the past -- you can buy dolls of Hillary Clinton dressed as a Dominatrix, but no-one would ever dare sell dolls of Barack Obama dressed as a slave or a minstrel. I'm not saying someone should sell a racially insulting figurine; I'm asking why our culture accepts one type of insult and not the other.
After my recent piece on Obama's record on the Iraq invasion was reprinted on D.U., the DUmmies naturally called me a racist. After all, who but a bigot would dare to critique the Savior From Illinois? Never mind the fact that I voted for Obama in the primary, and never mind the fact that I had voted for Jesse Jackson (father of the other guy in this photo montage to the left) in the '88 primary. And never mind the fact that I'd literally give five years of my life for the privilege of voting for Carol Moseley Braun in 2008. None of that matters. Anyone who disses the New Messiah must have a problem with black people -- or so saith the DUmmies.I expected those clowns to respond in that fashion. What stunned me was to see the photo montage above displayed as "evidence" of my supposed race hatred. One DUmmy suggested that I had gone out of my way to make Obama and Jackson look evil.
What the hell...?
When the image in question first showed up on this site, one of my readers, aitchd, felt that the two men resembled JFK and RFK. That was intentional. I didn't want a replay of that nonsense we saw from the technical illiterates on Kos regarding the putative "darkened" video -- so I lightened the source images and added shafts of golden light to make the two look noble and dignified. In this case, "smiling" shots would have been inappropriate (they would have looked like they were smirking), so I searched for photos displaying serious expressions. Also, the light had to come from more-or-less the same direction.
Have we reached such a level of hypersensitivity that the image shown above can be described as racist?
To the right, you will see a well-known unflattering shot of Hillary Clinton. I recently saw it on a D.U. ad, placed beside a very flattering shot of Barack Obama. A cute trick, eh?But -- it's not considered a misogynist trick. Nobody on D.U. has ever complained about it, even though many feminists frequent that site.
Yet the image of Obama above is considered racist.
Who draws up these standards?
Suppose I had decided to create an unflattering image of Barack Obama. Why should I be disallowed from doing so?
Over the years, I have often manipulated photos in order to create cartoonish images of politicians I don't like. I've published Dick Cheney as the Devil, surrounded by the flames of hell. I've shown you a naked George Bush playing "catcher" to Osama Bin Laden. I've had fun with photos of Mark Foley, Katherine Harris, Dennis Hastert, and so on.My readers had no problems with any of those images. But...
One time, to illustrate a story in which I argued that Barack Obama has been less-than truthful, I put together a "photo cartoon" of Obama with his pants on fire and his nose as long as a telephone wire.
Guess what? I was called a racist.I probably would have been called a racist even if the subject were Alan Keyes or Ken Blackwell or some other black person disliked by most Democrats.
Why am I allowed to lob "visual insults" at white people but not black people? Is it not, in fact, a form of racism to treat black politicians with a special deference?
Why did so many progressives forgive Edwards and Kerry for their votes on the 2002 Iraq resolution, while Hillary stands damned forevermore? Not long ago (as many now forget), Edwards was considered the only acceptable choice for lefties.
Now, I know that many of you -- particularly the low-IQ zealots out there -- will read this post and think that I am asking: "Hillary versus Barry: Which is better?" That is not the topic today, my friends. (Please spare us the progblog cliches about Hillary the-corporate-DLC-Illuminati-bitch-who-killed-Vince-Foster.) Today's topic is: "Racism or sexism -- Which does our culture tolerate?"
To help you see our topic in a clearer light, let me ask the question this way:
Why do we hate Ann Coulter more than we hate Michael Savage or Bill O'Reilly or Rush Limbaugh?
I may have asked the question before, but I've not received an answer that satisfies.
Veteran left-wing bloggers all know that a post about Ann will cause stats to tick up for that day. I've used that trick, just to see if it works. (It does.) Michelle Malkin has a similar effect, though she arouses somewhat less hatred. Magazines do stories about Ann Coulter because they know that she is the woman everyone loves to hate. Neither Savage nor any other male right-wing luminary arouses that level of antipathy.
Rush Limbaugh's impact on our society exceeds that of Ann Coulter. In my view, they are both venal. I view Ann as slightly less despicable, if only because she likes classical music. Yet outside of (and perhaps even within?) conservative circles, Ann arouses a visceral loathing that no other reactionary can match.
Why?
19 comments:
I personally hate Ann Coulter more because she's a woman like me. Of course, one may argue that she's not really a woman, but that's not the point. The point is that she is a peer, and she has let me down with her blatherings and beliefs. I'm all for kicking her out of woman-kind.
I consciously know this is also why I judge Hillary Clinton harsher, but not simply because she's a woman like me, but she's also a mother like me and a wife like me. The big fault I find with her has to do with her being a wife. She should have left Bill, but she didn't because it wasn't politically expedient. In what ways will this become a habit in dealing with unsavory governments and institutions? Is she going to continue to associate with them just because she wants to hold power? I guess that's the bottom line -- what is more important, dignity or power? I wish she had chosen dignity first. She could have been more powerful if she had left Bill and gone on to be a senator without him. Yes, I understand that this is all based on only HIM being the cheating spouse and not her. I don't presume to know her history so much, but I do know what made it to the headlines for months several years ago.
As for Obama, I share little with him. He is not a peer to me short of him being an American. I don't feel compelled to weigh him in the same way as Clinton. Unlike for some others, my ignorance isn't in his favor. I don't feel like investing a lot of time or energy getting to know him, and so I find myself choosing Clinton simply because of the other attributes and values she shares with me as a peer.
I know it's not especially logical, but at least I'm conscious of it.
.R.S.E.
R, I'm grateful for your comments. I'm not sure we should presume that the decision to stay with Bill was all due to political calculation. Lots of couples stay together after an infidelity -- I can think of numerous instances among my personal acquaintances.
A marriage belongs to those within it, as Sidney Blumenthal put it.
If pressed to offer an outsider's guess as to what happened in that marriage, I would say: Probably the usual. There are many couples who love each other and cannot imagine life without each other, but who have lost all sexual interest in each other. Many marriages fall into that pattern.
Perhaps the majority.
Perhaps that's the great unpeakable secret of American domestic life.
One exposure to Coulter and Limbaugh in the 90s was sufficient. Everything else about them has come to me 2nd or 3rd hand, thanks to masochists and sadists or worse. I confused (your mention of) Michael Savage with Dan Savage, mostly b/c I'm a pop culture illiterate. I had no idea who Michael Savage is until I just read his wikipedia entry. Dan's column I usually enjoyed, but my local 'alternative' free weekly stopped carrying it, so I stopped reading that paper. Saying that photo of Hillary is "unflattering" I think betrays your sexism about it, which is not to say you're 'sexist', although you often sound like a male chauvinist who means no harm. Here's your Toss-Up:
a. Hiromi Uehara
b. Ana Vidovic
c. Beth Orton
d. Dar Williams
e. Britney Spears
Interesting to me that 1913 Webster's dictionary doesn't have this word. My 1950s dictionary is at the office, so I don't know about it.
misogynist. One who hates women. Of or characterized by a hatred of women.
miss-o-G Y N-ist. My God. Who makes this stuff up. Couldn't someone just say "woman-hater" or "woman-hating"?
Now back to reading the article...
Gary McGowan
"Why am I allowed to lob "visual insults" at white people but not black people?"
People get away with it often (Search 'political cartoon obama' in google images) Just not YOU and just not Obama. It's called Lèse majesté. A great number of his supporters know jack shit about the Revolutionary War.
Gary McGowan
Why? Misogyny, woman-hating, whatever you want to call it. The idea that someone is not "man" enough to run the country. There's that manly man thing that runs through the veins of many people here, women and men alike, right and left alike. My god, what would happen to the United States if a mere woman could be the president????
On another subject, I'm appalled that your images have received the response they have, although I'm not surprised. Some 30 years ago I ran into a similar problem with the left when I dared to criticize the organizers of an demonstration aimed at pointing out the racism of a particular Deep South police department. Without going into details, I can tell you I still bear some of those scars, inflicted upon me at such a young and tender age, at an early and sensitive time in my political development. At that time, we were all called liberals, but that was when I quit referring to myself as such and claimed the mantel progressive. Now, sadly, I have to begin rethinking that. What's left?
"Racism or sexism -- Which does our culture tolerate?"
Whose culture? "We" no longer have one. The one we had was intolerable to the financier slime mold who now control the (once-public) airwaves. A continental republic with our constitution should be able to make mincemeat of those golems (or at least keep them under control). Alas, to badly paraphrase James Fenimore Cooper, our weakness is vulnerability to the manipulation and control of popular opinion.
Gary McGowan
"Why do we hate Ann Coulter more than we hate Michael Savage or Bill O'Reilly or Rush Limbaugh?"
Who is "we"? (Really, Joseph, I'd like an answer for that one.)
I don't hate them. I just ignore them. I don't ignore the fact that insane people are promoted in the media, but that's another thing.
Gary McGowan
"Why?"
Because she was intentionally promoted to create just that effect?
Just guessing.
Gary McGowan
Speaking of double standards, Dan Savage has written more than once how much vaginas disgust him. His words, not mine. And no, I am not making this up, and I don't have the time to supply the URL.
But he's the coolest thing! Andrew Sullivan regularly links to him!
If a right-wing columnist wrote that, he'd be toast. (Of course, they are too prudish to write such a thing.)
If a left-wing columnist wrote that black men make fine orators, but their blackness disgusts him, he'd be toast.
But Dan Savage is Mr. Cool.
I think you get my point.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant. The reason why misogyny flourishes, and racism is in hiding, is because we are too embarassed to call misogynists - such as Dan Savage - what they are. They say things, and the rest of us blush and hide.
Very thoughtful post, Joseph. As a woman, I've often asked myself these same questions over the years, in many different contexts. The presidential primary is simply the latest prism of analysis.
I've come to realize the hard way that there is nothing logical about hatred. I used to believe that logic could defeat it, or at least somewhat neutralize it. I don't believe this anymore. Hatred is too pure, and much too primal.
It is personally very painful to watch men that I used to respect lauch some of the most hateful, most misogynistic attacks I've ever seen. - Are you listening, Keith? Condescension is one of the most vile forms of hatred.
In the classic sense, Senator Clinton is neither the Madonna, nor is she the Whore. At best, for many men, she is the disapproving mother holding a stiff finger in their faces, intruding on their wet dreams.
Obama represents a threat that can be neutralized by the White Male Power Structure. Clinton embodies the reason why this Power Structure even exists.
We have not evolved beyond this. I'm not convinced that we ever will.
Kim in PA
J: It seems you're describing Dan Savage's gynephobia, a pernicious form of misogyny. Whence, the Immaculate Conception. Chaucer's 'Miller's Tale' depends on gynephobia for its shaggy-dog punchline. According to Belle Barth, Savage had been brought up believing vaginas had teeth, which he admitted to his first and only girlfriend, who told him he was crazy and then showed him how crazy he was. He gasped, "Who could have teeth with gums like that?" and immediately turned gay.
Joseph:
A couple of points you should consider:
"But we can fairly say that a generic black candidate does have an advantage over a generic female candidate. A poll cited in an earlier post noted that 6% of the American electorate won't pull the lever for a black, while 12% won't vote for a woman."
When this poll was taken, there was no such thing as a "generic" black or female candidate. There were Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, neither of whom are generic prototypes, but real flesh'n'blood human beings. As such, they bring their own respective baggage, good and bad, into the equation.
As much as I'd like to think otherwise, I suspect you and I agree that, despite being bombarded by 24/7 news, US citizens are remarkably underinformed. Despite that fact, by the time the poll was taken, everybody knew both candidates, and this coloured their perceptions and responses.
Had there been more than one "black" and "female" candidate at the time, the results might have skewed differently. But there were only these two, and it is unwise of you not to note that fact in your conclusions.
As you are well aware, from the outset of her campaign Hillary brought the highest negatives of a
any candidate, and it has remained so. I'm not saying that she deserves those negatives, but you cannot ignore their possible impact on the outcome of the poll you cite.
Consequently, it is disingenuous of you to offer such a poll result as probative of anything.
"As others have noted, if Randi Rhodes had called Obama a "fucking pimp," she would be damned as a racist, and she would never work in radio again. But calling Hillary a "fucking whore" isn't considered sexist -- merely tasteless -- and won't lead to permanent job loss."
The first sentence may be true, but the second is less certain. Had Randi been a man, I suspect her comeuppance would have been greater than it is.
For some reason it is deemed less sinful for a woman to make such a statement about another woman. Perhaps for the same reason that Jews can tell Jew jokes, or Chris Rock can comically differentiate between "blacks" and "niggers" with impunity. Whereas you or I would think better, being the WASP-ish types we are.
I do so much prefer thinking over polls. Thank you, Careful JFK Guy.
CJFKG, it may be that current events will inevitably effect a poll of that sort. But let's also face it -- conservatives can always point to Colin Powell as an example of a potential black candidate, while there's no comparable female superstar within the conservative pantheon. In other words, there's no Republican Margaret Thatcher...
...except, come to think of it, for Margaret Thatcher.
But a whole generation has grown up in America without knowing her. (I wonder how many 20 year olds even know who she was.)
So now I'm wondering how different these numbers would have been if the poll had been taken in the 1980s. Especially right after the Falklands war...
Sad to think that we may have gone backwards on an issue of that sort.
Here's another point to consider: The 6 percent who would not vote for a black are probably all on the conservative side. Thus, they become a factor only in the general. Do you think the anti-female voters are more evenly distributed across the parties? I suspect so, although I cannot cite data.
Oh, one last thing, CJFKG: I'm not a WASP but a WAEC, at least in terms of family history. Being a JFK guy, you can guess what the C stands for. AE stands for All-European. Mom was Italian. My Dad refused to discuss heritage, but his Mom once said that characters from just about every European nation lurked in his baclground. Plus at least one Jew and one American Indian. I'll never know if she was telling the truth or just what the mix was.
CUNT
http://preview.tinyurl.com/64tjeo
Part of a much bigger story just out:
"After Hillary Clinton's surprise victory in the January 8, 2008 New Hampshire primary, Roger Stone created a new, Mafia-style anti-Hillary Clinton {527} political committee entitled "Citizens United Not Timid," with the sole purpose of hammering the committee's acronym (CUNT) into rage-filled fascist circles, against Mrs. Clinton."
Gary McGowan
Hey J.
http://www.michaelsavage.com/
not the gay sex advice columnist whose first name is DAN,
not MICHAEL!!!
Michael Savage is pure evil, he broadcasts from his home since people hate him so much!
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