Grabbed from Racialicious via Tami’s Blog
That said, it would be nice to see some glimmer of feminism coming out of our presumptive black male candidate. I’d like to know what he thinks of OJ Simpson, for example. Would he, law professor, stand up in front of a black crowd and admit that he thinks OJ got away with murdering a white woman - unlike the countless black males who actually didn’t murder the white woman, but were hanged anyway? In all cases, remember, the woman was actually dead.
More importantly, will Obama repudiate the misogynistic undertone in rap music, the tidal wave of bitch and ho vulgarity that does nothing to move young black (and white) women an inch closer to parity with men? Read more…
Tami’s response:
Wow! Just…wow, Nina Burleigh. In her recent post on Huffington Post, the writer wonders “Is Obama Man Enough to be a Feminist Too?” I wonder if Burleigh realizes how ridiculously race biased it is to ask a candidate to weigh in on O.J. Simpson and decry hip hop simply because he is a black man.
Will Hillary Clinton be taking a stand against Susan Smith, the white woman who murdered her children a year after the Simpson-Goldman murders and blamed their disappearance on a mysterious black man? Should she be expected to? The idea is ludicrous and so is any notion that black people always need to answer for the behavior of people who share their skin color.
Once again during this election cycle, a feminist proves that there is no shelter from racism, not even in supposedly progressive communities.
I don’t need Barack Obama to be the second coming of Andrea Dworkin or a Black Panther. As a black person and a woman, I need to know that, as president, he will move this country closer to equality for all people. That means helping to close the wage gap between women and men, and white women and women of color. It means ensuring committed gay couples have the same rights as committed heterosexual ones. It means ensuring that kids in poor inner-city and rural areas are guaranteed a good education just like rich kids in the suburbs. I’m not arrogant enough to think that I am the only person on earth to face inequality, and I am not entitled enough to think that a president’s work need be all about me. I wish some of my fellow American citizens felt the same way.
My response to Nina Burleigh’s Huffington Post article:
Yet more proof positive that most white people need to just shut up when speaking on racial matters.
First, why would Obama denounce rap? If 80% of rap consumers are white, shouldn’t Hillary be more responsible for denouncing it? After all, if the whites who make up 80% of rap purchases that results in billions of dollars in rap sales, thus making the misogynistic undertone of rap profitable, why are we placing the blame and the responsibility at the feet of black men and the rap artists themselves who are doing what you are supposed to do in a capitalist system (a system which is a thoroughly European creation), which is respond to market demand no matter the social consequence.
Second, why would Obama vilify OJ Simpson when Simpson was acquitted?
White people sure as hell didn’t vilify Mark Fuhrman or ask questions about the shady situation of a racist cop being the lead detective in a case and the one who discovers blood evidence implicating a black man accused of killing two white people.
Nooooo….Nina Burleigh surely didn’t look at the O.J. Simpson case in THAT manner…because if she did, she would have realized that her statement:
“…the countless black males who actually didn’t murder the white woman, but were hanged anyway?”
…mirrors the circumstances in the Simpson case identically! Innocent black man (acquitted in court), accused of murder, being hanged in the court of public opinion.
Oh Nina…just shut it. Please. You’re embarrassing to those of us whites of rational minds.
Posted on May 27th, 2008 by Dan
Filed under: Race | No Comments »
