Pity me, diversity police
I think Too Sense says much of this better and with some more evidence that I'm willing to wrangle up right now. Read away.
So did anyone hear about Elizabeth Edwards' comments about how John Edwards gets less media coverage on his campaign because he isn't black or a woman? The flipside of this, then, is this idea that because John Edwards is a white man, it's tougher for him media-wise on the campaign trail, given the recent Hillary/Obama fever.
This sounds like an attitude that I've come across many times in my own experiences ... where white men feel that they're on the outside in this new world of diversity politics. That they don't get fair treatment because "minorities" are getting tons of help and attention.
You know, like any achievement a non-white/non-male person does is because someone came in and made it so like magic, and that white male authority is crumbling into the sea somewhere. Even though reality shows that most money and power is still firmly in moneyed, white, male hands, and that strides by those who aren't those things usually have had to be backed by acts of Congress, i.e. other (mostly) moneyed white men.
Every once in a while something adds fuel to the fire, like when Don Imus got canned over his "nappy-headed hos" comment. (There was a lot of bullshit involved all over - hi Al and Jesse - but that wasn't going to end well for Imus anyway.)
But this idea of white men's helplessness at the hands of the diversity police goes so far that even a presidential candidate is speaking to it. Last month's Esquire issue had John Edwards on it with the words "Can a white man still be elected president?" as he stands with his hands on his hips, looking patriarchal despite his sports watch. (And Esquire is about as diverse as a piece of toast.)
It's a delightfully pithy comment, with how much heat Hillary and Obama have right now and Edwards doesn't (through a combination of some unfair media crap, but mostly his own campaign's repeated bumbling and some other bad developments). But it gets even more interesting when Elizabeth Edwards - who's become the voice of John's campaign more than he is - speaks to this same white-male insecurity, that he doesn't get as much good media coverage because he's not black and/or a woman.
Hey, it's a real comment. The media loves novelty, and having two credible president candidates be a black man and a white woman is enough to whip the media into a lather. But a good chunk of that media attention has been far from kind, and the endgame of all of it is still whether a white woman or a black man can get elected. There's an undercurrent in coverage of Hillary and Obama that one slip-up, one time that they look extreme or threatening to the status quo, it's all over, and they're waiting to see who budges first.
(And if you ask me, these two are about the best contenders for becoming the first black president or the first female president, given their overall moderate natures. And through the prisms of race and gender, it helps that Hillary can be socially coded as a more "masculine" or "strong" woman, and Obama isn't socially coded as really "black" - African-American, the descendants of American slavery, etc. - since ethnically he's half-white and half-Kenyan, and so far doesn't want to appear a firebrand on racial/social issues.)
Of course, this all overlooks the obvious: rich white men have a very impressive record when it comes to the American presidency - like 41-2, and the two are white men who weren't rich. John Edwards, obviously, is a rich white man. But he may not be the rich white man who gets elected this time.
So did anyone hear about Elizabeth Edwards' comments about how John Edwards gets less media coverage on his campaign because he isn't black or a woman? The flipside of this, then, is this idea that because John Edwards is a white man, it's tougher for him media-wise on the campaign trail, given the recent Hillary/Obama fever.
This sounds like an attitude that I've come across many times in my own experiences ... where white men feel that they're on the outside in this new world of diversity politics. That they don't get fair treatment because "minorities" are getting tons of help and attention.
You know, like any achievement a non-white/non-male person does is because someone came in and made it so like magic, and that white male authority is crumbling into the sea somewhere. Even though reality shows that most money and power is still firmly in moneyed, white, male hands, and that strides by those who aren't those things usually have had to be backed by acts of Congress, i.e. other (mostly) moneyed white men.
Every once in a while something adds fuel to the fire, like when Don Imus got canned over his "nappy-headed hos" comment. (There was a lot of bullshit involved all over - hi Al and Jesse - but that wasn't going to end well for Imus anyway.)
But this idea of white men's helplessness at the hands of the diversity police goes so far that even a presidential candidate is speaking to it. Last month's Esquire issue had John Edwards on it with the words "Can a white man still be elected president?" as he stands with his hands on his hips, looking patriarchal despite his sports watch. (And Esquire is about as diverse as a piece of toast.)
It's a delightfully pithy comment, with how much heat Hillary and Obama have right now and Edwards doesn't (through a combination of some unfair media crap, but mostly his own campaign's repeated bumbling and some other bad developments). But it gets even more interesting when Elizabeth Edwards - who's become the voice of John's campaign more than he is - speaks to this same white-male insecurity, that he doesn't get as much good media coverage because he's not black and/or a woman.
Hey, it's a real comment. The media loves novelty, and having two credible president candidates be a black man and a white woman is enough to whip the media into a lather. But a good chunk of that media attention has been far from kind, and the endgame of all of it is still whether a white woman or a black man can get elected. There's an undercurrent in coverage of Hillary and Obama that one slip-up, one time that they look extreme or threatening to the status quo, it's all over, and they're waiting to see who budges first.
(And if you ask me, these two are about the best contenders for becoming the first black president or the first female president, given their overall moderate natures. And through the prisms of race and gender, it helps that Hillary can be socially coded as a more "masculine" or "strong" woman, and Obama isn't socially coded as really "black" - African-American, the descendants of American slavery, etc. - since ethnically he's half-white and half-Kenyan, and so far doesn't want to appear a firebrand on racial/social issues.)
Of course, this all overlooks the obvious: rich white men have a very impressive record when it comes to the American presidency - like 41-2, and the two are white men who weren't rich. John Edwards, obviously, is a rich white man. But he may not be the rich white man who gets elected this time.