Melissa Harris-Perry: since when has racism or sexism disqualified an American president?

[yallerdawg]

I can't imagine why MSNBC silenced THIS voice?

Source: Vox, by Emily Crockett

*****

“I am not even vaguely surprised by the idea that sexual assault would not be a disqualifier for the American presidency,” Harris-Perry said during a panel discussion. She was responding to a question from the Atlantic’s Peter Beinart about why Trump’s infamous “grab ’em by the pussy” Access Hollywood tape didn’t seem to affect the outcome of the election.

“In fact I was mostly irritated every time people would say, 'Oh God, we can't have a racist be the American president.' Because I kept wondering, 'Since when?’” Harris-Perry continued, to laughter in the crowd. “In fact, for most of American history, racism has been a prerequisite to win the American presidency. One had to actually demonstrate one's racism in order to become the American president. And the same was certainly true of sexism, and even of sexual assault.”

*****

Another way to look at the idea that racism and sexism are a “prerequisite” for the presidency is to acknowledge how difficult it can be to run an explicitly anti-racist or anti-sexist campaign. Hillary Clinton spent a lot of time doing that on the 2016 campaign trail, and it may have cost her among some white voters.

*****

As I explained in November, this is one reason why so many people (especially women) voted for Trump despite his boorish public behavior toward women, and despite the assault allegations against him. They not only didn’t expect anything different, they even saw his boorishness as a sort of asset. A strong (male) leader, the thinking goes, may not be polite, but he’ll beat up the bad guys for you — and a “bad boy” streak just comes with that territory.

As Harris-Perry put it, all of this means that 2016 was a “more normal election cycle than you might otherwise have expected.”

Read it all at: http://www.vox.com/identities/2016/12/14/13938396/gender-presidential-election-atlantic-melissa-harris-perry-racism-prerequisite

[Jean-Jacques Roussea]

1. Around the 90s?

[yallerdawg]

2. I don't know?

[Nonhlanhla]

3. Wow.

I like Bill Clinton (with some reservations), but if that image does not capture much of the racial dynamics of the United States, I don't what will.

[yallerdawg]

4. We better get ready!

Someone's "dreaming of a White Christmas" and they're all headed to Washington DC in January!

[Nonhlanhla]

6. I know, right?

This is so awful to watch. I grew up under apartheid in South Africa, and thought, when I first came to the US 20 years ago, that here I would find an integrated society. Boy, have I been shocked to discover sometimes an even more virulent racism here than the racism of my native country. It is heartbreaking. It is also absolutely clear to me that Trump's election is born of the desperation of whites who feel their numbers and power diminishing, as symbolized by the election of Barack Obama. I actually feel sorry for them (or I would if they had not ended up saddling us with Trump), because their humanity is so crippled by racism that they can't see what a quality human being Barack Obama is, and instead think the fake gold surface of Trump's hair makes him quality.

And how sad for us, since now we have to deal with it.

[Jean-Jacques Roussea]

5. This one.

[Nonhlanhla]

7. Not quite

This one does not capture the racial dynamics as explicitly. It does clearly show the stupidity to which racism gives rise, though, mixed with a bit of Christian hegemony.

[Jean-Jacques Roussea]

8. it definitely does

Pro football is a vast system of black exploitation and the jerseys are analogous of that.

[Nonhlanhla]

9. I see

I don't follow sports, so the reference did not come to mind as readily for me. In contrast to the black incarceration + white men in power imagery of the first image. (Not that there is any comparison between Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. Bill, for all his faults, was a good president to people of all races, in obvious contrast to Trump.)