I’m starting to wonder how much McCain’s (er, rather, Rush Limbaugh’s) choice of Sarah Palin is really more about race than gender. Through the lens of so many of the speeches this week, including McCain’s, it seems to me that Republicans are trying to make this about “us” vs. “them.”
This sounds like not-so-thinly veiled racial undertones to me. Several pollsters this cycle have indicated that they are testing alternate language and messages around race, since some Americans don’t want to admit to being uncomfortable about voting for a black President. Are the Republicans speaking in code too? Is Palin the female version of George W. Bush’s “Aw, shucks, I’m just like you” image, with a signal that being folksy is preferable to the big city (read: not white, not like you) guy?
In my opinion the Republicans have continue to add weight on the historic mark of these elections involving both Race & Gender. For a while the empowerment of change was in the air, but as I listened as the week when by a new/old stage for America was set….to test the comfort and emotional level on who to elect. However, I’m seeing this as a side tracks from the deep root ills regarding true issue stands, and political strategies to better America. It fires me up to want to see that the truths are articulated over the false…Attention grabbing talk.
Not so thinly veiled. You know about the whole “uppity” thing right?
TUTORING SARAH PALIN
Dear Editor:
To borrow a choice word from the Republican Representative in Atlanta; John McCain, Sarah Palin, Rudy Guiliani and the laughing conventioneers are a bit too “uppity” for me. In both her St. Paul speech and now on the stump, Sarah Palin sarcastically mocks community organizers to beef up her small town mayor experience. While Bush aids and an ex FEMA attorney tutor Sarah Palin in foreign policy, the may want to add American History to the curriculum.
Clearly Sarah Palin does not get the American Revolution or the Abolitionist, Environmentalist and Civil Rights movements. She has no grasp of the Suffragettes and most certainly does not understand American Labor. She mocks Americans including John Adams, Frederick Douglass, John Muir, Eleanor Roosevelt, the Reverend Martin Luther King and Cesar Chavez. She also makes fun of my grandfather, Andrew Reeder, the first President of the Shipbuilders Union at Sun Ships in Philadelphia. This is personal and I take profound offense. There is a little “Norma Rae” in each of us.
I still have the edition of “The Philadelphia Inquirer” with my grandfather’s name in the headline and the photo of him being sworn in from a hospital bed. The officials never determined whether it was a workplace accident or attempted murder the day before the election but he survived. Following their victory, my grandfather and many others from their Local organized in their community again and created the neighborhood youth center. He always stressed the dignity of work and the pride of being working class.
We are an industrious, open-hearted and generous people. This is our American Spirit and the tie that binds our nation regardless of collar, race, sex, religion, orientation, education and job status. Americans work, so America works. My family and my public school teachers taught me well and this is just not how we roll in the lower 48. Sarah Palin scorns the very people that labored, at great risk, to give her husband a Union to join and the PTA that she claims launched her career. Republicans laugh at us for putting in a hard days work and then pitching in to improve our neighborhoods. With our Armed Forces serving in brutal conditions and milk over $5.50 a gallon stateside, that is elitist.
I am a white, Christian woman, with a college degree and snappy eyeglasses, too, and I have never encountered a woman less like me. I will never forget my American roots and Sarah Palin is no sister of mine. In this election, I am my brother’s keeper. I completely agree with Hillary Clinton, “No way, No how, No McCain/Palin.” My vote goes to Barack Obama and Joe Biden. That is how we put America first.
Solidarity!
Kim Reeder
United States of America
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Kim,
I have to agree with you completely. I can’t understand how they can call Obama an elitist for having an education and putting it to use. Sounds a lot like screaming, “Hey, that’s not fair because he’s smarter then me!”
I think the problem is as you say, Sarah Palin along with a lot of other Republicans just don’t get it. The system of trickle down hasn’t worked in a long time. Guess what… Globalization happened and “Top Down” tax breaks and incentives don’t work. Companies will get richer, continue to move jobs overseas and get a tax break for it.
Here’s another clue. It’s my opinion that they don’t want Americans to get a better education. Because if you had asked me about the issues 4-6 years ago, I wouldn’t have had a clue as to what they were talking about. But, the Republican scare tactics, along with me being in the military would have made me think that I should vote for McCain. Now that I have some education (Definitely not an expert) in economy, business law, labor relation, and the HISTORY of those issues, I can see that the system as is can not continue to work. And we can not afford another four years.
I’ll stop my rambling here and thank you for your awesome post.