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cimoreneI e-mailed my Mom, who is a giant Robin McKinley fan, about this (shorter Robin McKinley: Obama isn't black because I say he isn't black enough and anyway, only a woman president would be truly exciting).
My mom has always been my role-model in terms of political and social consciousness. She used to be president of the large New Orleans chapter of the National Organisation for Women; my parents took me on numerous marches including the the march on Washington for the Equal Rights Amendment and various Take Back the Night marches when I was little. But she responded to my email with
This hurt me in the foundations of my all-important Parental Pedestal (ask me about my over-identification with my parents and dependency issues some other time), and that's why I poured out this essay on What Was Wrong With McKinley.
This isn't about Obama's politics: it's about the right of people to define their own ethnicity or racial identification, and especially the fact that members of the racial majority don't have the right to define whether someone is oppressed enough.
An expression of white privilege is an exercise of racism even if it is done without racist intent or consciousness, but of these McKinley is not wholly innocent. As an intelligent adult who was explicitly by her rhetoric attempting to exercise power in the form of claiming intellectual authority/ the right to define his race/ethnicity (an important part of inner and external identity for any person, as most people are aware) in opposition to his self-defnition and the definition of society and the media at large. This takes intellectual balls and a certain inner conviction/security in her assessment on her part, to be convinced that she is right about him when he himself AND everyone else is in her mind presumably wrong. It's not likely that she thinks of that speech act as an assertion of authority or even a combative stance even though she came right out and declared that he as well as all society and the media are wrong about his race - it's a symptom of white privilege that she doesn't have to consider the ways that being completely secure in your right to define the boundaries of other races and assess the race of other people is contingent on HAVING racial privilege in the first place. She probably also didn't consider that the societal context - ie, the ascension of the first black president and the rhetoric/public dialogues surrounding that, which of necessity put race in the foreground - places a declaration that he's not black enough in the position, within the wider cultural dialogue, of denying his right to be the symbol and unofficial spokesperson for civil rights that society/media has located him as. In other words, she came into the party where he was a leading participant in a cultural debate on race and his supporters were attempting to negotiate "Racism is over now so now you can stop fighting" versus "Look how far we've come" along with looking to him as a role model, and said "He's not a role model (because he's not black), and he's not the first black president (because he's not black) but whether a black person becomes president isn't important anyway because I, as a white woman, say that I won't be interested until a woman is president." She's dismissed the incredibly complex and far-reaching current race debate, and to add insult to injury, has finished off by implying the gender debate is more important ("How can you let black men vote when you won't let your own wives and daughters?").
My mom has always been my role-model in terms of political and social consciousness. She used to be president of the large New Orleans chapter of the National Organisation for Women; my parents took me on numerous marches including the the march on Washington for the Equal Rights Amendment and various Take Back the Night marches when I was little. But she responded to my email with
well, i am not ready to boycott her for thinking Obama is not black enough-- he Is NOT a liberal, except by the definitions of Reactionary republicans. I love her writing and am ready to give her the benefit of the doubt. It would be nice if my favorite authors had the sense to shut up, though
This hurt me in the foundations of my all-important Parental Pedestal (ask me about my over-identification with my parents and dependency issues some other time), and that's why I poured out this essay on What Was Wrong With McKinley.
This isn't about Obama's politics: it's about the right of people to define their own ethnicity or racial identification, and especially the fact that members of the racial majority don't have the right to define whether someone is oppressed enough.
An expression of white privilege is an exercise of racism even if it is done without racist intent or consciousness, but of these McKinley is not wholly innocent. As an intelligent adult who was explicitly by her rhetoric attempting to exercise power in the form of claiming intellectual authority/ the right to define his race/ethnicity (an important part of inner and external identity for any person, as most people are aware) in opposition to his self-defnition and the definition of society and the media at large. This takes intellectual balls and a certain inner conviction/security in her assessment on her part, to be convinced that she is right about him when he himself AND everyone else is in her mind presumably wrong. It's not likely that she thinks of that speech act as an assertion of authority or even a combative stance even though she came right out and declared that he as well as all society and the media are wrong about his race - it's a symptom of white privilege that she doesn't have to consider the ways that being completely secure in your right to define the boundaries of other races and assess the race of other people is contingent on HAVING racial privilege in the first place. She probably also didn't consider that the societal context - ie, the ascension of the first black president and the rhetoric/public dialogues surrounding that, which of necessity put race in the foreground - places a declaration that he's not black enough in the position, within the wider cultural dialogue, of denying his right to be the symbol and unofficial spokesperson for civil rights that society/media has located him as. In other words, she came into the party where he was a leading participant in a cultural debate on race and his supporters were attempting to negotiate "Racism is over now so now you can stop fighting" versus "Look how far we've come" along with looking to him as a role model, and said "He's not a role model (because he's not black), and he's not the first black president (because he's not black) but whether a black person becomes president isn't important anyway because I, as a white woman, say that I won't be interested until a woman is president." She's dismissed the incredibly complex and far-reaching current race debate, and to add insult to injury, has finished off by implying the gender debate is more important ("How can you let black men vote when you won't let your own wives and daughters?").
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Date: 21 Mar 2009 01:22 pm (UTC)This doesn't even make sense! D:
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Date: 21 Mar 2009 01:36 pm (UTC)