What Hillary Clinton Should Remember as She Courts Black Voters

[Renaissance Man]

After Hillary Clinton announced earlier this week that she will seek the Democratic nomination for president, an IMAGE that's periodically made the rounds in recent years resurfaced. It's a photo, perhaps PhotoShopped, of Clinton engaged in what appears to be a good-natured laugh while a little black girl standing next to her gives the pol a perfected side eye. One friend, a black woman, texted me THE IMAGE—no words, just the image—Monday morning. A Facebook friend, also a black woman, made it her profile picture soon after the announcement.

The deep cynicism and obvious exasperation of the little girl, or of whoever thought to create this now-viral mash up, speaks volumes about a hurdle Clinton will need to clear as she courts black voters—particularly black women voters—this election cycle. As I've noted before, black women are often called the most reliable progressive voting bloc, with their PARTICIPATION in 2012 contributing to a higher turnout rate for black voters than for those who are white for the first time ever. If Clinton's efforts at a more family- and woman-friendly campaign fall on deaf ears in black communities, that spells trouble for her.

Clinton has a HISTORY of using dog-whistle politics when it suits her, and it's painful to remember the ways that she wielded her whiteness as a weapon during the 2008 primaries. There was that interview with USA Today when she, in an effort to explain why she still expected to win the nomination despite recent defeats in Indiana and North Carolina, said the following:

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in the interview, citing an article by The Associated Press. It "found how Senator Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening AGAIN, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.… There's a pattern emerging here," she said.

/SNIP

http://m.thenation.com/blog/204553-what-hillary-clinton-should-remember-she-courts-black-voters

This is a good article, and definitely something her camp should consider. There are a lot of black voters that remember the 2008 primaries. They don't remember them fondly, either.

[Kelvin Mace]

1. The argument on this very forum will

be "If you don't vote for HRC, you want the GOP to win."

[morningfog]

17. It already is.

[bravenak]

2. This is why I'm not very supportive of Hillary. This among other things.

I been giving Hillary the side eye since her race baiting ass campaign last time. I was told on DU that her race baiting was perfectly fine, since she was campaigning. I did not agree. I don't vote for race baiters, even Democratic ones. Black votes don't matter to her, no need for me to jus give my vote to an undeserving party. If she wants it she can work for it.

[cali]

3. Nothing startled or offended me more in that primary than the ease with

which the Clinton Campaign resorted to dog whistle politics.

[bravenak]

4. That hurt me. How easy it was for both of them.

Losing respect for the Clintons was hard to deal with. I'm over them, more cynical now.

[cali]

6. bravenak, this has been one of my concerns about her ability to win the general

What do you think she needs to do to change how you and others feel?

[bravenak]

7. I think she needs to go out and immerse herself in all communities.

No pandering, just talk to everyone she can. And apologize for the stuff she said. She says good stuff about the middle class, but ignores the poor. Black people, even rich ones care very deeply about poverty issues and the prison state. She needs to address the racial inequalities just like she does with sexism.
I'd like to see her go to housing projects, and trailer courts and ask people how they live, what prevents their success, and address some of the failures of 'welfare to work' and the housing crisis many are experiencing. She needs to care about the poor most of all.

[cali]

8. that sounds like solid advice. I hope she recognizes that she has to do something

[KamaAina]

9. #BlackVotesMatter

[bravenak]

10. Yes!!!!nt

[KamaAina]

11. And if that goes viral

only we will know that it was coined by a white guy.

[bullwinkle428]

16. Joy Ann Reid was being interviewed by Mark Thompson the other day on his

radio show, and she made the comment that the #blacklivesmatter movement "will not give Hillary a free pass", and how she will have to do more than just provide lip service as a way win the votes of African-Americans.

[merrily]

5. A good number pf white voters remember the 2008 primaries on that issue too and not fondly.

The photo of young Obama in traditional garb.

The insinuations Obama had not only used drugs but had dealt them. (At one point, the head of Ebony made a speech just about alleging that, with Hillary present and thanking him when he finished.)

The attacks on Wright's "black liberation theology."

You know, Jesse Jackson won this state, too.

This whole thing's a fairy tale.

Shuckin' and jivin'-not exactly natural vernacular for someone born and raised in NY like Cuomo.


Obama would not be where he is if he weren't black, just as I wouldn't have been where I was f I weren't a woman. (Ferrara, but she did not run in the primary for VP so it wasn't the same at all.)

Bubba to Kennedy (in private): You're backing Obama rather than Hillary only because he's black. A couple of years ago, he would have been bringing us coffee. (As reported in Game Change and never denied. mediamatters made a deal of no quotations marks, much as I am not using them in this post, because I am going from memory. I think that was a weak sauce attempt to cast doubt that fails.)

hard working white people.

That's what I remember, just off the top of my head. I never read the memo the Obama campaign prepared on this, either. Those are the things that seared my mind, one by one as I heard them or heard about them in 2008. (except the thing with Kennedy, which I did not know about until Game Change was released.)

2008 was also the first time I heard the term "racially-tinged." As far as I ever knew before that, something was either racist or it was not. You could debate whether something was racist or not, but I never heard of racially tinged before.

[KamaAina]

12. She has a ready-made liaison to the black community

her husband, who was jokingly referred to as "the first black President" before there was a real one. Hopefully she will have good enough sense to realize that and act on it.

[cali]

14. Not anymore. He was one of the worst in her campaign when it came to offending

the black community.

It's one of the major reasons that she is reportedly keeping him sidelined.

He made truly repugnant comments.

[LexVegas]

13. Everyone panders. Obama pandered to homophobes in SC during the primaries.

He won.

[cali]

15. That doesn't help her- and she needs black voters to win.