This diary is written by a White woman over 50. I am a Mother of four, three boys and one girl. I support Barack Obama for President for reasons that have nothing to do with his race(s). I have never considered myself to be part of an "identity group". I have always considered myself to be a liberal, progressive woman who is trying to provide for my family and to be the woman my mother raised me to be as well as an example of a good citizen to my children, especially to my daughter.
Mrs. Ferraro, the ignorance of your remarks left me speechless. Senator Clinton, your response and the response of your campaign infuriated me. Since the two of you are White women, and you initiated and orchestrated these remarks, I believe that it is my duty as a citizen, as a daughter and as a mother, who happens to be a White woman, to reject, renounce and censure the two White women who are responsible for these remarks and their use in political discourse.
I call upon other White women, in particular Nancy Pelosi, arguably, the most powerful White woman in the country, to publicly reject, denounce and censure these women. It is not my intention to exclude African American women, Latinas or men, whatever their ethnicity, from this conversation. However, I argue as a White woman (because the woman who made those statements and the woman whose campaign is using those statements to divide our party are White) that it is White Women who must take the lead in rejecting, denouncing and censuring these two women by saying that these two women do not speak for us and do not represent our sentiments.
Barack Obama is the front runner in the campaign for the Democratic nomination because he has the character, the policy proposals and the ability to unite this country around common ideals which value every human being regardless of race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation. To claim that he is the front runner simply because he is Black, not only implies that his candidacy has no merit in its own right but also implies that women are powerless –whether because a Black man has received preferential treatment or whether Black women have neither the intelligence or the inclination to vote their conscience rather than their race. It promotes the idea that historically, White women are victims of Black men—an idea that has its origins in the racist discourse of the past in movies like "Birth of a Nation". It invites us to base our vote for President based upon fear and upon some kind of misbegotten racial pride. I have heard it said that White Women vote for Hillary as some kind of backlash against the fact that Black men received the vote before White Women. My answer to that is that it was White Men not Black Men who refused to give White Women the vote for so long.
Why is it that the 3:00 AM phone ad pictured ONLY White girls and their White mother? Don’t tell me that this was not a message to White women that the only way to safeguard yourself and your daughters is to elect a White woman as opposed to a Black man, as President. If we, as a group are honest with ourselves, we will admit that this was one of the messages of that ad. I, for one, am not deceived by it or by the invitation to victimhood that this ad represents.
I was raised by a wonderful, strong, capable and blind White woman. She was not rich. Her mother was an alcoholic who was married six times. She never knew her father. She attended the St. Augustine School for the Deaf and Blind in Florida from the time she was six until she graduated from high school. She could have whined and complained about life but she didn’t. She was smart and capable and strong. Upon graduation from the St. Augustine school, she attended Barry College (now Barry University) on a full academic scholarship from the Lions Club. She graduated cum laude with a degree in Music and Education. She taught sighted children in fourth grade with the help of a sighted aide. She married a sighted man and stayed married to him until he passed away. She instilled in my sister and me, the values that one makes one’s own destiny by hard work, perseverance and merit. My mother was not rich. She did not go to Yale, had no famous mentors, and never made a public name for herself.
Partly because she was blind, she never saw racial or ethnic differences in the people she met and taught us to look at a person’s character rather than their skin color, religion or accent. Through her, I met wonderful, strong women from all ethnic and racial backgrounds. Some were disabled, some were Cuban refugees, some were Holocaust survivors from the local Hadassah who learned Braille and translated her textbooks for her, some were local community activists who sought to counter racial discrimination in disability services for African Americans. None of these women whined or complained about their lives.
I am sure that there are many White women whose mothers, in their own way, taught their daughters the valuable lessons that my mother taught me. I am equally sure that African American, Latina and Asian women learned these same lessons from their mothers. Unlike our mothers, these two women, Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton, privileged as they were and are, choose to whine that women (particularly White women) are somehow precluded from the Presidency because they are women and because of some myth of racial preference. Perhaps, it is because they received so many breaks for which they themselves did not work, that they think like this.
I am trying to teach my daughter the lessons that my mother taught me. I am trying to teach her to work hard, to persevere against adversity, to look at a person’s character rather than the color of their skin, their accent, their religion, or whether they are rich or poor. When Geraldine Ferraro complains that Hillary Clinton is not achieving success in her campaign to become the Democratic nominee because Barack Obama, as a Black man, has gotten breaks that he doesn’t deserve, Geraldine Ferraro is undermining the lessons that I am trying to teach my daughter. When Hillary Clinton or her campaign manager refuses to reject, denounce and censure Mrs. Ferraro’s comments in the strongest terms or implies support for these sentiments by claiming that opposition to these statements is itself racist, she is teaching young women to accept victim status and to base their vote on racial or gender prejudice rather than on a candidate’s character. Senator Clinton, either you can convince the people that your ability and your character entitle you to be President or you can imply that people should vote for you out of some misbegotten idea of overcoming victimhood or racial or gender loyalty. What are YOU teaching YOUR daughter?
The only reason that Geraldine Ferraro has a public forum from which to make such reprehensible remarks, is because Geraldine Ferraro accepted the spot as the Vice Presidential Candidate on Walter Mondale’s ticket knowing that it was offered to her in part because she was a woman. Only a person who has agreed to be a "token" would believe that another does not get to a position of power apart from a racist or sexist agenda. Only a woman who is in the position of being a contender for nomination by her party as President because of who her husband is and who is running on her husband’s record because she fears her own record is too shallow, would accept and use the sentiment that race or sex plays a role in the qualities on which a candidate should be judged to revive her campaign. Senator Clinton, are you that afraid that your merits do not qualify you to be President?
As a White woman, the daughter of a White woman and the mother of a young White woman, I denounce, reject and censure Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton. You do not speak for me, and I believe that you do not speak for millions of other White women and women of all ethnic backgrounds who want our nation to be a country in which women or men, regardless of race, ethnicity, age, religion, disability, or sexual orientation are enabled to succeed because of their own merit and hard work.
I am neither naïve, nor misinformed, nor stupid. I consider myself to be a feminist and a womanist. I hope that other White women will speak out on this issue and will join me in denouncing, rejecting and censuring Mrs. Ferraro’s remarks and the use that is being made of them by Senator Clinton’s campaign. Speaker Pelosi, I look to you to speak out also and to make it clear that such remarks and their use, have no place in this campaign or in the Democratic Party.