I am feeling dispirited by the increasing negativity of the presidential campaign. I am disappointed in Hillary Clinton and her rather delayed rejection of Geraldine Ferraro's comments about Obama. I'm shocked and disgusted by Ferraro's refusal to disavow her racist remarks.
And I'm heartsick that black folks are so turned off by what's going on that at least a few folks I know (one is too many) say they won't vote at all if Clinton is the nominee. Folks say it in different ways, but it comes down to the fact that they don't want to vote for "that white woman." Look, I understand that, --actually no, I don't. And I am certain that Obama can't think about Clinton in that way either. His mother was a white woman--of a different stripe than Clinton, I suppose. There is a beautiful story in Friday's New York Times about Obama's mother and her influence on her son. "In the capsule version of the Barack Obama story his mother is simply the white woman from Kansas . . . But [the] description [doesn't] begin to capture the unconvential life of Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro, the parent who most shaped Mr. Obama," writes Janny Scott. Because Obama's relationship with a white woman was a defining one--of love, admiration, and deep respect--I imagine that Obama is not quick to categorize Clinton as "that white woman." Let's follow his lead.
