in which I discover that I have been profoundly mistaken

[lolaraincoat]

I lost a big bet to twotoedsloth just about eight years ago. Some years before that, I had predicted that the PRI would never allow itself to lose a presidential election in Mexico - certainly not in my lifetime. I believed that the historical patterns that held them in place were just too powerful to be overcome. Two Toes thought otherwise and we put a sizable amount of money on the question. I've never been so happy to lose $100 as I was that night, when priista President Ernesto Zedillo announced that he - and by extension the entire stinking corrupt bloated corpse of a political party that he represented - would respect the results of the election that brought the PAN to power.

I don't mean to say that President Fox and the PANista government turned out to be any good at all, mind you. Just that I thought the PRI could not be beaten.

If anyone had offered, this time last year, I would have bet much more against the possibility of a African-American with the middle name Hussein, who had lived a significant portion of his life outside the US, worked as a community organizer and written books without a ghostwriter, winning even a single primary. I would have acknowledged that sexism is a powerful force in US politics and daily life, but racism (so I would have said) is even more powerful.

And once again, I am overjoyed to have been proven wrong. The US is a different place than I thought it was. My fellow citizens are better people than I would have dared to hope. The strength of misogyny among voters in the US was not such a shock, though it pains me and no doubt pains Clinton's supporters even more.

Sorry guys.

But still. Wow. Just - wow.


.....

Comments

[logovo.livejournal.com]

I never thought that the PRI would loose while I was still young, they were just a fact of life, forever in power, specially after Cardenas lost. I was so surprised that I was wrong.

A year ago, when I started reading about race in the US and who benefited more from the civil rights movement, white women or black folk (as bell hooks keeps saying), I thought there was no way Obama could win the nomination. I'm in awe and surprised right now, to see once again that I was too cynical and wrong, wrong, wrong. And like with the Mexican elections of 2000, I'm very glad to be wrong.

[lolaraincoat.livejournal.com]

The first part of my academic career was devoted to explaining how the PRI maintained its power so effectively, so when they lost power that was a bit of a setback, personally. Still, worth it! Totally worth it!

I could - probably should - view Clinton's loss as an example of how limited the potential powers of middle-aged white women like me are, and therefore feel worse about it than I already do. But - worth it! Totally worth it! to see Barack Obama succeed.

[meri-oddities.livejournal.com]

Now let's hope and pray and vote (though I don't guess you can do that) that he wins the election in November.

[lolaraincoat.livejournal.com]

Oh, I totally vote. I live abroad but I'm still a US citizen, voting in the last jurisdiction in the US in which I resided. And even when I become a Canadian citizen I can keep my citizenship in the US as well, and intend to.

[meri-oddities.livejournal.com]

One more vote for our side!!

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Let us hope so.

[logovo1.livejournal.com]

Very, very sad but not surprised that "Woman" is the new "Nigger."

D:

dude!

[lolaraincoat.livejournal.com]

I know you're a Clinton supporter, and you know I love you, and I know you're furious about this, and you have good reasons to be. All the same, even in these circumstances I'd just as soon not have the N word used in any conversation at all - it's just, I dunno, more likely to shut down discussion than open it up.

Okay, that aside, I hope you don't sit this one out. The state in which we both vote is up for grabs again this November, and the differences between the Republicans and Democrats remain significant even if you truly dislike the candidate for whom you have to vote, which anyway I don't think you do.

[elphaba-of-oz.livejournal.com]

Noted. I say the same thing to my mom when she uses it to describe the father of her grandcildren. I figured that if Patty Smith could use it in a song title, I could get away with it in this context. You know me. You know I'm pretty damned far from racist.

The thing that makes me really angry about this primary season is the way that Hillary was pilloried by the press, and also by people like my mother. It wasn't all overt sexism, but some of it was. As a proud, strident bitch myself I can't help but feel that the nastiest social sickness of humanity was at work during the primary season.

Obama's race was an advantage to him. It fired up his constituency. Clinton's gander was an albatross around her neck. You know damned well that there are plenty of voters who cinsedr Obama to be an honorary white guy by virtue of his education and his maternal line. You know just as well that this country is peopled by plenty of just plain folks who would reject a Clinton/Obama ticket because it would put a woman (strident, emotional, weak, blah, blah blah) one heartbeat away from the magical, scary nuclear suitcase.

I'm waiting to see whether Hillary ends up on the ticket in the VP slot. It was a very close contest. It could have gone either way. Hillary has roughly half of the Party behind her. She deserves to be on the ticket.

Hillary's supporters are not disposable. The Party can't just assume that we will fall in line. If my Party wants me to play in their sandbox they will have to make one, very reasonable concession to me. I can't possibly be the only Clinton supporter who feels this way. If they choose to ignore me, I will choose to ignore them. If I do, it will be the first time in my life tat I will sit out a Presidential election.

[lolaraincoat.livejournal.com]

See, I think that there were some good reasons not to want Clinton as president that really did have nothing to do with her gender - I'm troubled by the idea of aristocratic families (whether Kennedys, Clintons, Bushes or Roosevelts) passing positions of power among themselves, just for starters. But I do understand that some opposition to Clinton's candidacy was grounded in her gender and never really moved past that point.

And I strongly disagree that Obama's race worked for him, except with voters whom the Democratic party can afford to ignore because they are such reliable Democratic voters.

And yes, I understand that you are not a racist, of course not. But most of us - me too, unfortunately - behave in racist ways once in a while. There's nothing to be done about it when we notice that we've done it except apologize if that's necessary and try not to make the same mistake twice. Now, me, I'm pretty good at making the same mistakes over and over again - but you knew that.

[idlerat.livejournal.com]

There was a very good piece in the NYRB in the winter about the positive role of Obama's race, focusing on younger and non-white voters. I don't remember who wrote it, but it was both moving and persuasive. & no, these are not voters Dems could rely on anyway - you're still living in the past, dude! A lot of first-time voters went for Obama.

I have to admit that I often thought of you during this process, of your frequent, confident declaration that no black candidate could get anywhere. It's not that I knew you were wrong- how could I? But I didn't know you were right. And you weren't! YAYYAYAYAY!

[lolaraincoat.livejournal.com]

I WAS SO WRONG AND THEN I WAS WRONG SOME MORE!!! YAY!!! Very very very happy about it too. You know, I am really pretty skilled at predicting the past. Not so much with the future. I should learn to just shut up, huh?

We, um, we kind of let the NYRB sub lapse this spring, so I missed that article.

Hey, I was thinking I might try to pop into NYC for the election itself, since I'm voting absentee anyway. I just - that is - if Obama really looks like he's going to win

*knocks on wood*

that's where I want to be for it.

[idlerat.livejournal.com]

That's a great idea! I mean, it'll be great for you to be in NYC at any time.

I think he is going to win. I really do.

[lolaraincoat.livejournal.com]

I think so too, but am afraid to think it very loudly. Still. Maybe! It could happen OMG!!!

And - hmmm. Early November is a not-great time of year from the POV of my job, but it's not terrible either, and wow, yes, I would love to be there. So maybe I will! MAYBE!!!

[elphaba-of-oz.livejournal.com]

Hey wait! You get to vote? Here? In this state? For the rest of forever, even though you live in the land of frozen milk and honey?

Cool!!!!!

[lolaraincoat.livejournal.com]

We go skating on the lakes of frozen milk and honey in the winter-time, yeah.

I'm not going to be able to participate in state-level elections forever, as sooner or later the relevant bureaucracy will figure out that I am not, in fact, away temporarily, as I have to keep claiming. But of course there are provisions for citizens who live outside the country to vote. And this year the Dems held a separate primary for voters permanently outside the US, too. (Obama won it by a landslide. I didn't vote in it.)

[idlerat.livejournal.com]

wtf?

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

As someone who has bitter experience of racism, I respectfully submit that you do not know what you are talking about.

[mulberryfields.livejournal.com]

Personally, I wouldn't have said that racism is more powerful than sexism in the U.S. (or vice versa) - apples and oranges, and operating in different (and differently visible) ways. Also, I know it's inevitable that people use this primary, and its results, as a measure of one against the other (sexism vs. racism), but I dislike it. The primary becomes another chapter of what's become a really objectionable, and counter-productive, archetypal battle in our dumb country. Of course race and gender are a factor in the election, but there's always hope that people are making a more complicated choice than whether they'd rather support a woman or a black guy.

That being said, though, yay. It IS historic, and surprising. (Idlerat, bowderlized, and driscoll came over last night to watch the speechifying at my place, and we were talking about how "historic" is the new "black.")

Lola, I wish you got the Colbert Report and Daily Show. I believe they've helped me stay sane. Can I send you some links to a few of my election-coverage favorites?

[lolaraincoat.livejournal.com]

First and most important, YES please do send links, thank you! anything that might help me maintain my shaky grasp on sanity would be most welcome.

Second, yes, I agree with you - the problem is the intersection of these two forms of hierarchy, so trying to compare one to the other is both futile and stupid (although you're right that I fell into that trap anyway. *sigh* Really what I should have said is that it's the same intersection working out differently in each case.

And yes I hope mostly people did make a more complicated choice than just scratching their heads and asking, hmmm, the white woman or the black guy? And yet that question was, I think, also part of people's decision-making process. It certainly was part of mine, or else I would have gone for Edwards, who was marginally better on issues than either Clinton or Obama when last I bestirred myself to look at their platforms back in, erm, January.

[mulberryfields.livejournal.com]

I agree - it undoubtedly was part of people's decision-making process! And yeah - when it down to the 3 of them, I favored Edwards too. I was actually going to vote for the white guy in the New York primary, but then he went and dropped out.

And reading your comments above ... New York for the election? Yes we can! You will let me know if you're coming, right?

I'll send you some links in an email!

[lolaraincoat.livejournal.com]

Yes I will let you know!

It depends on some scheduling stuff at work that I have very little control over, and can't predict very well. But I'll try to make it happen. ELECTION OMG!!!

[femmequixotic]

I'm happy for Obama and his supporters. I truly am. His nomination is an incredible moment in history and in January I fully intend to celebrate his inauguration.

But I will admit that this morning I do feel awfully desolate. The funny thing is that I didn't realize how much I cared about the primary until the misogyny got so overwhelming in the media coverage. That's one of the things that pushed me into the Hillary camp--the turning point for me was seeing the NY Times ask male political cartoonists to caricaturize the various candidates and almost all of them focused on Hillary's ass and thighs, distorting them in a way they'd never consider doing with the male candidates. That was soon followed by the amusement pundits had towards the "iron my shirt" heckler.

I don't know, the prevalence of media-based misogyny in recent months has just broken me. Maybe I was naive but I'd thought we'd gotten so much further since my mom was my age than we actually have.

[lolaraincoat.livejournal.com]

I know. I've been troubled and saddened by it too, and much more insulated from it since I never (literally, never) watch TV, only listen to CBC and NPR on the radio, and read the NY Times only on Sundays (and never any other US papers.) Even so, it hurts. But I am trying to be happy about Obama and focus on the positive, at least at the moment. I was happier last night when I wrote the original post; tonight, with the Times website saying that Clinton is going to concede on Friday, I am sorrowful.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

I agree there was an awful amount of misogyny, and Senator Clinton has had it directed at her from the moment her husband became a presidential candidate.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

At the end of the spring semester, I was wrapping up a class in political theory that I was teaching (not in my normal role, but as an adjunct) at a neighbouring institution to my own (which is the only college in the United States dedicated to the education of black women), I was pointed out to the students that they would be the movers and shakers of the country in twenty years time. One asked me 'do you notice what colour we are?' I said, 'this year we have a fair chance that either an African-American man or a white woman could be president and you're hung up on your colour?' (I could have asked 'What colour am I?).

If you had asked me, as a political scientist, a year ago, what the chances are of either a woman, or an African-American being a party's standard bearer, I would have said slim. I am gobsmacked, and hopeful. On the other hand, since February, I have been looking at the numbers (the actual turn-out at the primaries and caucuses) and they have been filling me with hope).

If you had asked me when I got my Ph.D in 1994, as a Latin Americanist/Caribbeanist trained in San Diego, whether the PRI would ever relinquish its grip, I would have agreed with you. But when I see people I was in grad school with like Juan Molinar Horcasitas jump ship to the PAN, and I see that the PAN has esconced itself as comfortably in Los Pinos as the PRI it's as much a miracle as seeing Barack Obama as the Democratic Party's standard-bearer