Media Analysis of Obama/Clinton PA Primary

This morning I woke up to check in on the PA primary, to see if Clinton was still leading by 10 points. She was. But when I was watching CNN, their morning anchors bantered on and on, segment after segment, over and over again about Obama’s “white problem,” to explain why Obama struggles to get votes in the primary from white working class America. I was so disgusted by this framework because it presumes that the problem is Obama’s, as opposed to AMERICA’s race problem. The fact of the matter is, Obama has done everything but get a chemical peel (and be a Republican) to appeal to white voters, what else do they want? Some of these people will never vote for him, simply because he is black.

The other problem, as so eloquently put by The Root.com columnist Melissa Harris Lacewell, who spoke to “the Blacks are Men, and the Whites are Women” narrative put forth by CNN and the rest of the press:

“A lot of people have tried to gently explain the divide, so I’m just going to put this out there: Sister voters have a beef with white women like Clinton that is both racial and gendered. It is not about choosing race; it is about rejecting Hillary’s Scarlett O’Hara act…Black women voters are rejecting Hillary Clinton because her ascendance is not a liberating symbol. Her tears are not moving. Her voice does not resonate. Throughout history, privileged white women, attached at the hip to their husband’s power and influence, have been complicit in black women’s oppression. Many African American women are simply refusing to play Mammy to Hillary.”

Amen. Similarly, Black Commentator asks the Clintons to account for their longstanding relationship to the descendants of Scarlet O’Hara, The Daughters of the Confederacy.

And race/gender issues aside (sort of), Talking Points Memo TV did a great analysis of the delegate battle, which helps to sort through all the rhetoric about Clinton’s “being able to win the “must-win” states for Democrats. Definitely worth watching.

Tags: Barack Obama, daughters of the confederacy, Hillary Clinton, Pennsylvania primary, scarlet o'hara