My frustrations with the race- and gender-war coverage that the Democratic primary is getting from the mainstream media just reached a high point. Here is the racist, sexist blather from CNN that did it for me:
Recent polls show black women are expected to make up more than a third of all Democratic voters in South Carolina's primary in five days.
For these women, a unique, and most unexpected dilemma, presents itself: Should they vote their race, or should they vote their gender?
No other voting bloc in the country faces this choice.
This kind of coverage is so lazy, offensive and wrong that I hardly know where to begin with it.
First there is the assumption that all black women vote according to physical features--skin color and gender--rather than according to their assessment of each candidate's stance on the issues, character, or experience. Apparently black women are so simple-minded that the only way they might possibly determine how to vote is by asking themselves, "Do I vote for the black man or the white woman?" The idea that a black woman might vote, say, for John Edwards (who is not even mentioned in the article) never occurs to the CNN newswriters. The idea that a black woman might vote, say, for the candidate with the best health insurance reform plan, the most integrity, or the most experience isn't even considered.
Second, there is the line at the end about no other voting bloc facing this choice. I see: so white men, for example, are clearly superior beings who would never think about voting along gender or racial lines. CNN's crack political team evidently never met a white man who wouldn't consider voting for a woman or a black person. The idea that white men might be just as blinkered and dumb as CNN assumes black women are is preposterous.
Third, this is Martin Luther King Day, so what better time to run a story about how Presidential candidates are judged by the color of their skin--or the function of their genitals--and not by the content of their character?
In the last two weeks I have read and heard all kinds of things about who dissed MLK, or whether Latino voters would rather vote for a black male or a white female. I have heard nothing--nothing!--comparing the candidates' energy policies, the candidates' foreign policies, the candidates' economic policies, or the candidates' policies on Iraq. All that stuff, I guess, is just way too hard for the mainstream media to understand and present. Instead, we hear only about whether the black horse or the white horse, the mare or the stallion, is ahead. I don't ever recall being more ashamed of my country's news media.
jim, agreed...cnn and all the news media need to sell time...this must be what the public, or mass public is interested in hearing...it does get a bit boring, and we have to suffer through this for the next 10 months...my remote works well in getting me onto some discovery channel with better programing...the good news is that exactly one year from today, we will either have a white woman president, a male black president, or as we've had all along, a white male one...and life in america will continue
Posted by: steve fabrikant | January 21, 2008 at 09:06 PM
The problem you are frustrated with (as am I and many people) is the problem Black feminists have felt for a very long time. Which minority issues to they push hardest for: women's rights or African American's rights? Are they always different? Often? may would say they are often different. So, which team do they throw the most support behind. And, by throwing support behind either, do they become defined not by who they are (individual human being) or by their minority status[es]?
Posted by: Anthony Frame | January 30, 2008 at 03:24 PM