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Edited on Sat May-03-08 10:53 AM by EffieBlack
You think he/she is also sick of being treated like a bunch of idiots?
For some reason, we have gotten caught in this notion that people - both "regular," i.e., white people, and minorities - dislike, distrust and don't "connect" with anyone who either was not born working class or is of a different race than they are.
So we get treated to insulting political analysis such as "Hillary Clinton doesn't connect to regular people," and "Barack Obama isn't black enough," etc. This results in embarassing spectacles such as Hillary Clinton knocking back the brewskis in the neighborhood bar and Barack Obama putting on bowling shoes and bowling a few frames (badly) to look like they belong.
Interestingly, this attitude tends to result in the candidates trying harder to prove that they're part of the "white" crowd, while there has been little pressure for either of them to prove how well they connect with black folk, who are now being treated as invisible and irrelevant in this campaign.
In Obama's case, I believe this is partly because that question has already been asked and answered - by black folks themselves, the same people whom the press proclaimed earlier this year would not vote for him because he wasn't black enough for them. It also has something to do with the fact that, while it's considered a GOOD thing for a candidate to prove how "down with the common white folk" they are, it would be the kiss of death for a black candidate to look like they're trying to hard to prove how "down with the brothers" he is. Hell, some white folks are scared to death of Barack Obama, one of the most laid back, assimilated black men on earth - imagine how freaked out they'd be if he suddenly started engaging in the behavior necessary to prove that he is "keeping it real," a concept that seems usually to apply only to successful black men.
But not this time. Unfortunately, we haven't been spared the corollary sideshow of poor Hillary Clinton doing her best to "keep it real" by trying to prove that SHE is really just one of the girls from the old neighborhood. It's sad, really, not to mention woefully disingenuous. Does anyone think that Hillary Clinton, a former First Lady and current member of the most exclusive club in Washington REALLY hangs around in bars drinking with the fellas or that Barack Obama
My experience in this regard - and I do have quite a bit of it - is that most people of whatever class or race are quite good at connecting with people who don't come from their background. They also don't generally resent people who do come from their background but who moved out and up into a, for lack of better word, higher class. In fact, they appreciate seeing someone like them who "made it" and find that it gives them and their children hope that they, too, can eventually do the same.
When we sneer at people with less money or less education or fewer connections by insisting that they are too bigoted or ignorant or uncouth to graps complex concepts or to understand what is in their own political best interests ("Sure, the gas tax holiday is a gimmick that would be an economic debacle, but it sure is good politics for Hillary Clinton because these yahoos down are fascinated by the shiny 30 cents a day they'd get and Obama sounds elitist when he says so, Jim") or that they are so backward that they think that the only person qualified to be president of the United States is someone who seems to have had the same limitations that have held them back, we do a disservice to us all.
I'm not a white working class person - and never will be, so I guess, according to the Pat Buchanan standards for political success, I'll never get to be president - but I've lived with, grown up with and was even raised by plenty of them and believe that folks from that demographic must be sick and tired of being told how limited and stupid they are by people sitting on their well-fed, sedentary butts in comfy tv studios.
I give them more credit than that.
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