Geraldine Ferraro
I have to admit that this was a tough call and one that I've been thinking about for a couple of weeks now because there were just so many viable candidates for this award. As I was looking through the list of posts for the year in review I just couldn't help but think to myself that "Damn - I have my work cut out for me".
I mean you had Amy Winehouse and her cracked up "Blacks, Pakis, Gooks and Nips" lullaby, Sharon Stone saying that the earthquake in China and all the people who died was "karma", Republican Rep. Lynn Westmoreland calling the Obama's uppity, Mickey Rooney forgiving all of us Asian Americans who took offense to his role in Breakfast at Tiffany's, Pau Gasol thinking it was absurd that we got offended by the Spanish Chinky Eye team, Charlie Sheen going on a racist rant but saying he really isn't racist, Gov. Don Carcieri's wife comparing teenagers who criticized her husband to suicide bombers, John McCain for still being in love with the word Gook, and - well - you get the picture (and really, this list could have gone on and on).
But for me at least, above everyone else, I had to go with Ferraro because she didn't just come out with racist speak just once in saying that Obama was only where he was because he was black - getting her ass handed to her by the Clinton campaign - but she couldn't let it go after that.
She couldn't just fade away.
Instead she took up the fight for the "reverse racism" crowd. She tried to lump every one of my white peeps who are down with the brown into the "Obama's playing the race card" contingent. She decided to get into the same fear and hate mongering tactics that others have been using in this society since the day it was bred and that people like George Wallace used as the foundation of their campaigns.
She was everything you just never imagined she would be.
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Here's a previous post on Ferraro from earlier in the year that helped solidify her place as the winner of this category.
Geraldine, The Race Card, and Clueless White People
While I can't discount some of what Geraldine Ferraro had to say in her recent Boston Op-Ed concerning aspects of sexism in the current Democratic Primary -- because all you have to do is look at every president we've ever had in our history, as well as the candidates who've run, to know that sex has mattered and continues to matter in who as nation we elect -- I just can't believe she's talking about race and racism again after she went completely batshit in March and then got her ass canned from the Clinton campaign.
I mean did Geraldine feel that demoralized (as she should have) from being called a racist that she now has to take up for clueless white people who think Obama is playing the race card, and are worried about "reverse racism" because she thinks it's going to vindicate her?
Apparently so.
The Race Card
I'm not saying the race card doesn't exist. Because it does.
It's nothing more than an ad hominem argument when a person is on the side of a losing battle, and even though there's absolutely no legitimacy to the claim of racism whatsoever, it's used so they can slither their way out alive.
But let's get it straight in saying that when people usually say someone is "playing the race card", that when the majority of pundits use that term, it's simply done because they can't see or won't admit to the real and legitimate part that racism has and still plays in our society; that many times it's people's own racism, indifference to racism, or simply a defense mechanism (because it's too hard to look at themselves) that makes them use that term in the first place.
It's an easy bandwagon for people to jump onto, and one that Ferraro seems intent on fueling.
The fact that she wants to be talking for the people who think Obama has been playing the race card throughout the campaign, and are frightened because no one's "calling him on it" is just mind-boggling, because Obama has every right to talk about race and racism in this country and how it can also affect his bid to be the Democratic candidate and President of the United States.
Just look at the white only club, good or bad, that has taken office, or the history of racism and equality for some that has permeated our nation, or simply a recent Washington Post article about the racism that his street teams have encountered.
Saying that Obama is playing the race card is like saying Sharon Stone really had something important to say when she said maybe it was karma that killed all the innocent people in China during the recent earthquake.
It's just fucked up.
I've heard that before
Ferraro also claims she and her new found supporters aren't racist but they just have "racial resentment", and that their fears of "reverse racism" are justified because Obama said "Our Time Has Come" and because essentially they're white and he's black, and because white people can't open up their mouths without being labeled a racist.
Are you kidding me?
Racial resentment is just a nice white way of trying to cover up being a racist.
Being afraid of Obama without any justification simply because he's black and their white is like trying to justify the lynchings of black men because they dared to look at a white woman.
You can't.
It's rhetoric like this that also gives power to the notion that if a person of color is prejudice against someone who's white (wrong as this is), that this in some way is the same as the systematic racism that's been going on for hundreds of years when clearly the two aren't even close, even though we like to throw around the term "reverse racism" as if they were; in effect minimizing institutionalized racism.
At the same time, Ferraro tries to lump the segment of the white community who's educated themselves about race, and who aren't afraid to have real and courageous conversations about something like white privilege and who work to help end racism in this country, into the same boat as the people she's speaking for and supporting, even though each are at opposite ends of the racial awareness spectrum.
Put it all together and it's the same type of fear and hate mongering and obfuscation of truth that has been going on for years, and that's been the foundation for every piece of oppressive legislation against people of color since our inception as a country.
Did Geraldine think people really wouldn't notice that?
