COMFORTABLE WITH OUR PREJUDICES
This entry was posted on 2/10/2008 6:33 PM and is filed under uncategorized.
During the height of President Ronald Reagan's popularity, former first lady Rosalyn Carter made one of her typically soft-voiced but lacerating comments when, asked her opinion of Reagan, she said, "I think he makes us comfortable with our prejudices."
This was a shocking comment at the time, what with all the "morning in America" lyricism and media man-crush going on at the time for Reagan, who had survived an assassination attempt with grace, humor, and strength.
But that remark of Mrs. Carter's stuck in my head, and I've thought of it often in recent days. To be comfortable in our prejudices means that we don't feel so bad for having them--if, that is, we recognize those prejudices.
I've been watching the Democratic race for well more than a year now, and the cyrstallization of candidates down to one white woman and one black man focuses even more attention on the subject of prejudice.
And here is what I have concluded: While subtle racism still exists in our society--witness hidden-camera reports of white and blacks applying for the same job or apartment--the truth is that the civil rights movement over the past generation has done a great deal to expose racism and to educate people about the nature of racial prejudice.
I think that, for the most part, when we have a racist thought, we recognize that thought as racist and we might even feel a bit guilty for having it. I'm the most unbigoted person I know, but I had more than a few racist thoughts myself when O.J. got away with murder. It took me several years to fully understand what had been going through the jury's minds, and a bit more time to get to where I could sympathize with that. But that verdict forever more changed my mind on the death penalty. Whereas I'd once toasted the execution of John Wayne Gacy by sitting up until midnight (his time of execution) with a glass of celebratory wine; I now see it as a matter of class, celebrity, and money. Rich celebrities of either color can slaughter innocents and get away with it; po folks can not.
Still, I knew my grumpiness over that verdict was in part based on the widespread celebrations depicted on T.V. news reports within the black community, and that my thoughts, consequently, were tinged with racism, much as I hated to admit it to myself.
I'm quicker to recognize it in myself now, and quicker to push it away, and I think that's true of all races. We're all prejudiced toward SOMEBODY--be it the cab driver who barely speaks English or whatever. My husband, for example, will never be able to trust people of Vietnamese descent, and he's less bigoted than me.
But that is a prejudice you can recognize.
I think sexism is, in fact, far more pervasive in our society. All you have to do is watch the defensive, sputtering, half-assed apologies grudgingly choked out by various MSNBC commentators, Don Imus, and the like--they will apologize when forced, but they honestly, truly, DO NOT THINK THEY ARE SEXIST. They will say--loudly--that women should be given equal status under the law and in the workplace, while at the same time, mocking a ranking senator and presidential candidate as being a nagging shrew or cackling witch.
Case in point: One Sunday, on interview shows, Hillary laughed quite a lot. Oh, the carrying on about her cackle and how she didn't take the race seriously and how it was all faked and calculated. Few weeks later, Guliani did the same thing, and wouldn't you know? Wow, he was just SUCH a good sport! Didn't take it too seriously! What a guy!
The Don Imus crack about "nappy-headed hos" was racist, no doubt about it, but overlooked in all the subsequent brou-ha-ha was the underlying sexism. It has become culturally common to refer to women as "ho's" or as being "pimped out" or what-have-you. And that doesn't even touch the blatant mysogyny of a 527 that would print up T-shirts and raise funds based on an acronym for the female vagina that is so offensive I refuse to utter the word in any context--again, we must remember, this is a message tailor-made for a female opposing candidate. For president of the United States!
A McCain supporter asks, "How can we beat the bitch?" And he laughs and says, "Good question." And no one in the mainstream media is outraged by that. No one demands an apology.
But when asked, he backtracks and talks about how much he respects his fellow senator. How would he have felt if someone had asked Hillary Clinton, "How do we beat the bastard?" and she had laughed and said, "Good question."
Furthermore--how would the media have handled it? There would have been howling from the rafters, not just from the right wing, but from the Times and the Post and everybody in-between. Hillary Clinton would never get away with laughing at an opponent's being called a bastard.
All kinds of exit polls are asking people if race or gender factors into their decisions, and over and over again, they may be admitting when race does, but they claim that gender does not.
This is because sexism is still not recognized in this culture; people are comfortable with that prejudice. They honestly do not recognize it in themselves.
One thing this campaign has done is focus a spotlight on that fact, through all the boneheaded male bozos out there--and some women, too, who can be more sexist than anyone--who keep making these inappropriate remarks and then keep being stunned and surprised when those remarks are found to be offensive. They apologize because they are forced to, but they don't really believe the apologies. They don't really think those apologies are necessary.
It was "a figure of speech" or, they were "only kidding" or the statements were "taken out of context" or somewhere else, they said good things. Supposedly.
I think, if we have to weigh, as Democrats, which prejudice will hurt us worse in a general election--racism or sexism--I seriously believe that sexism will hurt us far worse. The absolutely DEMENTED Hillary-hatred we've witnessed for sixteen years now defies any attempt at logic, and it is only the lunatic fringe of a very real prejudice that lurks at the hearts of men and women in alarming numbers.
As a woman and as a feminist, I wish it weren't so. It saddens me, a great deal. But as a Democrat and a realist, I have to say, we have a more practical chance of upsetting the prejudice of racism than sexism on election day. People who once were comfortable with the prejudice of racism have been rethinking that comfort-level through the years. Decades-old civil rights crimes have been re-prosecuted successfully in the deepest darkest South. Most people would love the way this country would look if that prejudice could be overcome in a presidential race.
Sexism is far more complicated, far more subtle, and far less recognizable. Especially where Hillary is concerned.
Damn shame that we've got to give a bald look at our prejudices to guage our chances in November, but we must.
Too much is at stake to risk a Bushian do-over, and nobody is going to be prejudiced against a white male war-hero.
