Kamala Harris critcizes Pete Buttigieg today

[brooklynite]

Link to tweet

[mr_lebowski]

1. Well, I could see making a point of the differences if need be, but 'naive' is a bit strong ...

Not a fan of this move.

There are, in fact, numerous similarities, if one is fair about the matter.

There are also important differences, of course.

[Lefta Dissenter]

5. And being gay is a choice?

I guess it’s easier to hide being gay than it is to hide being black.

[msongs]

10. so when did you decide to turn heterosexual? nt

[Lefta Dissenter]

13. LOL,

Beat me to it. I shouldn’t ramble so much! 😬

[at140]

16. I am age 79 and.....

and I still chase women, but forget what I chased them for when I catch them LMAO.

[cwydro]

30. Oh ho ho ho. How funny.

Let me assure you that being gay is not a choice.

[Lefta Dissenter]

12. I appreciate your honesty in not knowing,

And I don’t claim to know either. But I don’t recall making a decision - a choice - to be straight. It’s just who I am. I don’t know why it would be any different for gay people, even if they might spend a good portion of their lives trying to fit into a different mold.

[Celerity]

21. seriously, this is one of the most disgusting things I have read here in months

shameful to see this utter tosh on this board

I am

female

a PoC (mixed race black)

and a lesbian

I can bloody well damn assure you I had NO CHOICE in any of the 3

what's next?

A questioning stance that tries to lay doubt as the the utter rot of gay conversion therapy?

but but

Honestly, I just do not know!

pro tip

then in later life turned gay or lesbian

NO ONE 'TURNS' LGBTQ

ffs

[cwydro]

27. Being gay is not a choice.

God I can’t believe it when I see this crap here.

[cwydro]

32. "Turned?"

Oh god help us.

[nini]

7. yes it is easier to hide

You see a black person and it's obvious they're black. Not easy to determine ones sexuality one way or another simply by looking at them.

And before anyone jumps down my throat it does NOT excuse any abuse thrown at a gay person. That is just as shitty. It's just less likely to happen on appearances only.

[loyalsister]

15. I don't think it is a choice

But, I think it is important to acknowledge that when a white man embraces his gay identity he may be giving up a privilege he was born into.
A condition of being forced to choose between the ultimate US privilege and being honest to one's self and others about their sexual preference may be unfortunate, but it is not even close to the oppressive experience black people are born into and the possibility to pass and affiliate with the most privileged identity is either very remote or, more likely, not even within the realm of possibility.

[cwydro]

28. It is NOT a PREFERENCE.

Why can’t people get their head around that?

Please don’t speak about our gay experience, and also, please try and understand that it is NOT a PREFERENCE.

[loyalsister]

44. Using the contiuum construct

sexual behavior is understood without factoring identity. I was using that language as I do see validity to the idea that our sexual behaviors are driven by preferences of varying degrees which we made be motivated to deny. Being able to do so has important benefits in the social context.

[Tipperary]

47. When did you decide to be straight?

“Using the continuum construct.” Really?

[loyalsister]

55. There is such a thing as biologically determined preferences

I am privileged in that mine happen to align with what is most socially accepted.

[emmaverybo]

34. You cleared this essential distinction up. We are born into our ancestors' history. In America, the

history of racism persists. And yes, the possibility to “pass” is “remote” to “not even in the realm of possibility.”

As well, all white gays have benefitted from white privilege as a social, political, and economic
construct, and reality, a fact that does not preclude their having experienced discrimination, to the point of damaging and life-threatening hostility surfacing all the more by a relatively new unwillingness to stay in the closet and the decades old upfront struggle for gay rights—decades old vs. hundreds of years.

It is right to criticize Buttigieg. It is a teaching moment.

[loyalsister]

45. I would like to see him embrace it

rather than defend or deflect. I didn't see the debate, so I didn't see his response, but he actually has an opportunity to prove he understand that the difference is important and it would reveal an understanding of racism that many white people lack and becomes most apparent when they are defensive.

[melman]

14. Oh boy

You didn't just...yeah, looks like you did.

[Chemisse]

18. If being gay was a choice, I know a lot of middle school boys who would love to just be "normal".

It's not an easy path in life, and it's very very hard for kids who are different. No 12 year-old would choose that.

[demmiblue]

22. Shit statement. n/t

[madaboutharry]

3. This is unfortunate and I wish she wouldn't go there.

Gays in America can be fired in many places from their job for simply being gay, Gay teens are subjected to all kinds of bullying and even being thrown out of their homes, Gays in America have had to fight all the way to the Supreme Court for the right to live their lives with the same rights as straight people. Being Gay was once an accepted reason for being denied a government job.

Comparing suffering diminishes everyone.

[emmaverybo]

17. Gays who are white do not deal with institutional, systemic racism reaching all the way back to

slavery, through which their ancestors were brought in chains to America, a statement of fact that does not begin to show the cruelty of that bringing, or its aftermath, its long and enduring aftermath.

Although gays faced discrimination from their own families, the legal system, psychiatry, religious
organizations, in employment, and from the full force of the larger social condemnation, there is no equivalence in that discrimination, primarily against those either caught being out, or choosing to live as out, with historic racism, its scale, its damages, its mass cruelty and resulting mass suffering. Economically there is no comparison possible.

White gays were able to hide their preference for hundreds of years. And they did. They could. That they had to speaks to the issues Buttigieg brought up. But he also has benefitted from white privilege, as did every one of his ancestors. And today, he does not have to fear police will exercise
unconscious or blatant racism on him at the point of a gun.

He was tone-deaf. In the face of his experiences as mayor and a re-evaluation, a consciousness raising, that supposedly brought him to the Frederick Douglass plan, it is astounding he could compare his own experience to that of any AA person in America. I guess he needs to listen some more and learn.

[Act_of_Reparation]

31. Sounds like you could afford to do some listening, too.

[emmaverybo]

35. I have been listening as a mother, a teacher, a friend for many, many years. I have also been a

student of the history of the struggle for gay rights and the oppression on many fronts that occasioned it. It is not long ago that family members could force shock treatment on gay relations.


What is missing however from the equation making an equivalency is the weight, for white gays, who were the primary movers in that struggle when it first emerged, of white privilege.

Buttigieg and my gay daughter benefit from a long history of white privilege in America. That does not mean they have escaped the affect of homophobia. Neither have I. When the person you love most in the world is gay you hear things from friends, so called liberal friends, that blows your mind and gives you a ringside seat at the “best” of homophobia. You also make it your business to learn much more than you might have otherwise and you take a full accounting of your own prejudice. So you begin to understand the depth, the prevalence, the ubiquitous nature of all manner of that prejudice from ignorant stereotyping to threats to life—leading to my persistent, deeply personal fear.

Do not lecture me.

[Act_of_Reparation]

36. You cannot weigh two peoples' subjective experiences.

Objectively, there are differences, sure. Subjectively, you have no data. You have no way of measuring the actual effect it has on the physical and psychological health of those concerned.

[emmaverybo]

39. I think one difference is that gays experience the rejection of their own family and in some

cases are physically abused and threatened by them for being gay.

This kind of rejection, from one’s own personal community, is what is at stake when a gay person
tries to live authentically.

I agree about the subjectivity of experience. A person fortified by community, internalizing love and acceptance and pride in their identity, regardless of the larger world’s attitudes, has a gift
that can make a difference in mental health.

I hope we all join in each others’ civil rights struggle. I still think it was unwise for Buttigieg to try to state, not that his experience had given him insight, a bridge to understanding, but that it was
equivalent.

However, I hope he can go on to educate all of us, and particularly those engaged in civil rights struggle, about the points of similarity, about the impact on him and others, so that we can join forces. Social justice issues can bind together many groups who have experienced “otherness.”

[Tipperary]

43. Matthew Shepard.

If you do not know his name, please google it.

There are many more.

[mcar]

4. She is correct

I noted that during the debate last night.

[Renew Deal]

8. Wouldn't the reverse criticism apply to her?

[FreeState]

41. Bingo

She is falling for a right wing takingmpoint meant to decide us.

[BeyondGeography]

9. And the reason she couldn't say this to his face last night is?

Yeah, I know, everything is fair game but this isn’t what I’d call gutsy and principled politics from Harris. It’s also a window into why she hasn’t caught on IMO.

[PatSeg]

11. This is not a healthy debate

Neither of them can possibly know what it is like to be the other. They shouldn't have gone there. This is not productive and only stirs up all kinds of emotions, few of them good.

It is nice to say "Walk a mile in his/her shoes", but at the end of that mile, you will only glimpse a small fraction of what it is like to spend a lifetime in those shoes.

[Peacetrain]

19. Amen to that!!

Very well said.. "you will only glimpse a small fraction of what it is like to spend a lifetime in those shoes"

[PatSeg]

20. These are smart people

They should know better. Such attacks will only endear them to the opposition who loves seeing Democrats attack one another, makes their job so much easier.

[femmedem]

49. After the debate, Buttigieg said this:

"First of all, there's no equating those two experiences, and some people, by the way, live at the intersection of those experiences," he said. "What I do think is important is for each of us is to reveal who we are and what motivates us."

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/pete-buttigieg-work-cut-appealing-black-voters/story?id=67202113

[PatSeg]

54. Well said

Best to respect other people's experiences without judgment and acknowledge that we cannot completely understand what they've been through, though of course, we can always try.

[Celerity]

23. that is not what he said, he said that even if people had nothing in common in terms of

certain backgrounds and types of discrimination faced, there still was an urgent need to work with a diverse coalition to fight those multiple types of discrimination and injustice and raise up all groups. He was not putting his LGBTQ experiences on some imaginary balance scale and calling it equal, in fact he brought up the fact that historic racial discrimination over hundreds of years has left a broken system that compounds the injustice and that it needs to be a focal point for all people to help overcome and combat and reverse.

[FreeState]

42. +1 n/t

[Celerity]

24. I do want to add, that although you are a fellow Buttigieg supporter, posting a Fox News

tweet that also attempts to paint Buttigieg in a negative light and is designed (the tweet) and framed with language that leads to divisiveness is not something I personally would have rolled with.

[brooklynite]

25. If a story is factual, and not barred by Admins, I'm okay posting it

[Celerity]

26. that is fine, I just detest Fox and find they frame things in the most 'divide Dems' way possible

[brooklynite]

29. The best way to avoid letting Fox divide Democrats is not to give them something to divide with...

[Celerity]

37. that is too clever by half for me

If you really feel that way, perhaps you should have chosen a different type of OP, as Harris is the driving force here, not Pete, yet your OP uses framing (again laid out via that Fox news tweet) that immediately puts HIM on the defensive. Pete said nothing that was a priori 'divisive', that was simply an accusation that I find does not stand up under closer scrutiny (as I have already replied about in multiple threads.)

IF you think Buttigieg was indeed the 'divisive' one here, then why are you even supporting him at this point? This is not the first time you have posted an OP that put him in the cross-hairs. His Achilles heel is obviously with my fellow PoC. It may well prove fatal to his nomination chances.

If you are posting OP's re-enforcing this narrative (which again, in terms of his lack of support amongst PoC, and A-A's in particular, is indeed based on factual empirical evidence) then surely you must also have fundamental concerns as well about his very campaign and Buttigieg's chances as a candidate in general. This re-enforcing and amplifying would be seen as an entirely valid form of critique for a person who is against, not for, Buttigieg as our nominee at the end of the day.

It just strikes me as a bit odd.

[brooklynite]

38. I don't post stories that support my candidates or policies...

I post stories that are newsworthy and topical. A Presidential candidate criticizing another Presidential candidate fits that criteria.

[Celerity]

40. sorry (not that it matters at all) but that is just not going to change my opinions already stated

We are just going to have to agree to disagree.

I do genuinely enjoy many of your posts btw.

cheers

Cel

[Quackers]

33. Looks like Kamala is trying to stay relevant. She knows her poll numbers are slipping. nt

[The Valley Below]

46. I don't trust a FOX "News" reporter to frame Kamala Harris's positions.

I do think having one's own civil rights infringed can make one more sensitive to other people experiencing discrimination, racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry...even if they are not "the same."

I think Pete made that point very well. He impresses me greatly.

[madville]

50. Harris has zero natural political instinct

Everything is scripted, that’s why people don’t warm to her in mass.

[GitRDun]

52. I think her tactics are bad.

He was not comparing, in my mind, the struggles of LGBTQ people versus blacks.

He was basically saying he could relate in some way because of his struggles as a gay man.

That's not comparing. That's saying, "I SEE YOU" and I want to work with you.

The better tactic in my mind would be asking what interaction he has with black constituents in South Bend?

South Bend is 26% "Black or African American"... see

http://worldpopulationreview.com/us-cities/south-bend-population/

Surely he has something to report on his reach out work at home.

If not, he's not worthy of the nomination.

[kacekwl]

53. So if what she is saying no one who has not had the exact

same experience in life could understand or even try to understand what they need or want. So if a poor black family from the south can't expect a wealthy black family from say California to understand their needs and wants. And viceaversa. This could be said about and religion, race, etc. Where does this end ? All you can expect is a person to do the best they can . Trying to belittle someone because YOU think they can't understand YOUR plot in life seems unproductive and shallow.