Hester Woods
Abilene, Texas

Man of the people? Ha! Hardly. Just a lightweight liberal who wants to play president because he couldn’t cut it in the private sector if he had to.

“White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen…”

This is about privilege not white privilege. A poor white family would be dealt with exactly the same way as is described above.

The real issue here is not about privilege at all, it’s about hypocrisy. The problem is that the people who normally criticize about this issue (O’Reilly, Hannity, “Values” Republicans) are all on her side. They’ve never had a problem lying for one of their own and they aren’t about to start now.

We need to wake up and realize that these people never cared about these issues. They were issues that they could use to get the people to vote a certain way or watch a certain television program or station.

“White privilege is when you can call yourself a ‘fuckin’ redneck,’…”

A quick Google search of “Levi Johnston thug” gives you 64,000 results, but I think I take your point. I think you mean that were he black, the media would be painting him as a thug. I think that the media has painted him as a clueless idiot, and you can take your pick on which one is better. If your point is that the media characterizes him differently because of his race, sadly I think you are right.

However, I think the only ones who are trying to say that he is a “responsible, all-American boy” are in the McCain camp. I don’t agree but I don’t fault them too much for a necessary PR spin. We can all see through it. I don’t think you can say that the media or average Americans say he’s responsible. What you hear them saying is that he’s “doing the right thing.” That’s an opinion, an you can’t really argue one way or the other on it.

“White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges…”

This is pretty loose. The problem is that, if you were applying for a real job you would be scrutinized for this record either way. Depending on the job, it might matter, it might not.

What you have to ask yourself is, if John McCain’s VP were black, would people be making this charge? Again, I think your problem is that the people who would make the Affirmative Action charge are on her side. The bottom line is that they know that Sarah Palin is the GOP’s last, best chance to energize the base. As such, they just aren’t going to attack her, and they wouldn’t be attacking her for this regardless of her race.

“White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town…”

The argument is one of executive experience. While you might argue that tiny town mayor and low population state governor isn’t very good or very much executive experience, you can’t argue that it’s NO execute experience. You either have to argue this point on the fact that Obama’s status as a community organizer, campaign leader, etc, IS real executive experience, OR you have to go after Palin’s record of bad executive leadership.

“White privilege is being able to say that you support the words ‘under God’ in the pledge of allegiance”

Again, this is not white vs. black. This is just stupid. She said something stupid. Is it one of many things that helps to show that she is WOEfully under qualified to be VP? Absolutely. But does it clearly point to a race bias? No.

Biden said something the other day about how when the stock market crashed FDR got on the TV to communicate with the people and calm everyone down. There’s two things wrong with that. But, the idea that saying something stupid should disqualify you from holding elected office is… let’s just say quaint.

By the way, Palin said something about reading terrorists their rights. Again, it was stupid. But the above makes it sound like the Palin doesn’t want to the average Joe Citizen who gets arrested to be read their rights. Misleading arguments only hurt your case.

“White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast…”

On the gun thing, I would again say that is a privilege issue, not a white privilege issue.

On the Alaska first thing, ok, that’s just hilarious. I just Googled that and at the very least it looks like she WAS at one time part of such a party (though she has always been a registered Republican). It also looks like part of the point of the party IS to, at the very least, open a discussion of around the change of status of Alaska’s statehood.

I say again though, this has just gone unreported. I’ve never heard of it before this post. Again, this is a case where the people who would make this accusation are on her side. The liberals just don’t care about this kind of issue.

I also heard no criticism of Michelle Obama for not coming to the 9/11 memorial. I think this post makes the mistake of confusing what any random idiot might say or post as a comment to a blog with what actually gets reported or what people are actually thinking.

By the way, (speaking of the thoughts of a random idiot) I say let Alaska go. I’m not sure we need a state that takes hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government, but seems to have enough money floating around to have NO state income tax, NO state sales tax and can still hand out around $2,200 to every man woman and child in the state. Thanks Sarah! That sure sounds fiscally responsible to me. We’ll see just how close they are to Russia when they aren’t part of the U.S. any more.

But I digress.

“White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers…”

Community organizers, both white and black, were pissed off in the days after Palin made that remark. This fact was well reported. I can’t see how her making fun of them is an example of white privilege.

“White privilege is being able to convince white women…”

That’s not white privilege, that’s identity politics. That’s learning that many (not all, or even most) Clinton voters were never Democrats to begin with (I call them Clintoncrats). I think what gets missed here is that many of these women were voting for Clinton just because she is a woman. They are just as happy to do the same for Palin.

“White privilege is being able to fire people…”

Actually, she is being accused of abuse of power. There is an ongoing investigation and subpoenas have been issued.

“White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years…”

Yeah… I can’t disagree with you here. This is about a tolerance of crazy in white churches because whites are familiar that specific type of crazy.

“White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is…”

Again, I think you are getting caught it in Democrat vs. Republican, not black vs. white. The arguments around this are stuck in partisanship, not racism.

You have to go pretty far to find people who think that the Bush Doctrine question was a trick. Where I find it, is in comments on web articles about the interview. These are comments by people who are clearly partisan. They don’t even care if she’s right or wrong, let alone if she is black or white. These people would be saying that such a question was a trick (true or not) regardless of the color of Palin’s skin.

The same thing goes for the O’Reilly interview. Even O’Reilly had positive things to say about Obama after that interview. You can find people of all colors arguing all directions about this.

“White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW…”

These two things don’t track together.

How does McCain using his POW experience to show fitness as president relate to Palin’s belief that experiencing racism is a “light” burden?

I guess your argument is that the POW experience was a heavy burden and so, since McCain says it’s relates to fitness as President, that means that, by his logic, heavy burdens relate to fitness as President. Let’s forget that I don’t think McCain makes that claim. So, to attempt to connect these things, I guess you are saying that racism is a heavy burden for Obama and that in downplaying it, Palin is saying that it doesn’t count as much for fitness as president? And that is an example of white privilege that she is able to do so? That’s my best attempt, but I simply can’t see your logical connection between these two items.

Now, of course, if she said that she sure is stupid. I’d love to see a citation on this.

Here’s an example. I am an accountant. If someone comes to me for a job with a engineering degree would I say they were an idiot? No they are probably smarter than me at certain things, however they would be unqualified for the position. That is where Mrs. Palin finds herself. Truth be told, I simply fault McCain.

Thanks for the comment. Agreed, there is a lot of NOT SO-family-friendly garbage on TV/the radio. Agreed we need more options, particularly for our shorties/kids. And I would love to be able to support more black content creators/producers/directors etc., but alas I can’t. why? Because most of what makes it to the TV/movie screen and the radio airwaves is hot garbage. Admittedly, some of the garbage is milder and less explicit than others, but it still garbage. Again, nothing personal, but Tyler Perry falls into that category for me. I would never make a conscious sober-minded choice to allow my kids to watch a Tyler Perry flick. I don’t think it would be the worst thing in the world if they saw a Tyler P. flick, but I would never be the one to offer it up as an entertainment option. Again, my point with all of this is that we can – we must do better. We are so much more complex and wonderfully human than how we are typically portrayed on TV – the radio – the movie screen…

respectfully;

kdizo