"Because he's Black???"

I am referring to Geraldine Ferraro's offhand comment (which she later apologized for) about Barack Obama's success being because he is Black. How often do Black people get their successes--and their failures--chalked up to their "race*"?

When was the last time you heard someone attribute a white person's success--or failure--to their whiteness?  White people succeed all the time based on the privilege we get from our perceived whiteness.  Country club memberships, dinner invitations, confidential conversations, investment opportunities, job offers, private meetings, classified information, all come our way because people make assumptions about our trustworthiness, intelligence and loyalties when they perceive our whiteness. But instead of ever uttering the words "white privilege," we have a special word generally reserved just for white people: merit. Oh yeah, sometimes "suitability." He or she was just a "good fit."

Why is this glaring misperception hardly ever mentioned? Whiteness does not automatically equal anything positive though the whole culture conspires to act as though it does.  White people have done nothing to earn most of the privileged treatment we get, and we know it.  This is why we are so messed up, and, I would argue, why this culture is so screwed up about sex.  Witness the Spitzer phenomenon.  I was asked to write an opinion piece about that, which I'll share momentarily.

*I put the word "race" in quotes because biologically there is but one race--the human race. What we call race is a social division that has varied over time and still varies across cultures. For example places like Brazil, Cuba, Curacao do not draw lines between people in the same way we do.  In other words, "black" and "white" identities don't hold up across all geographical borders.

Comments

[tallon]

I think what she was unsucessfully trying to say and what I would agree with is that if Obama was white, with as little experience as he's got, there is very little chance that there would be all the hoopla around him. I think that because he's black, and there are so many people (myself included) wanting to see the first black american president, people are simply overlooking the fact that he's got a mere three years in the senate, in terms of the political arena, and would require a considerable amount of on-the-job training. He hasn't earned the trust of women, we hardly know him. He hasn't earned the trust of the gay community, he allowed one of his spokespersons, an ex-gay gospel singer to address thousands of his (obama's) supporters, with a speech filled with anti-gay statements. He went out of his way to request not to be photgraphed with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, while at a benefit, during the time when Newsom defied state law banning gay marriages, and gave marriage licenses to 4,000 gay and lesbian couples. He refuses to see the connection between the oppression of blacks, and other poc and the gay community. He supports a separate but equal policy, and while you may note that Clinton does as well, there are two things I say to that. First, Clinton has been an ally to the gay community for a lont time, and the general sense that I get from her is that she would support gay people getting married, if it weren't such an issue for a general election. Second, he's black, and when he says that he knows what it's like to live in this country as a black man, he's saying that because he's black he knows what it is to be oppressed, etc. So if he's going to use his blackness to try to create a point of relating, than he should expect that we would hold him to it, which means that as a black man, I expect him to stand against a seperate but equal attitude. He hasn't earned the trust of the Latino community, having given us very little attention, until after he lost Texas. I don't think he has gotten where he is in terms of being a senator, etc. because he's black, but if he were to become the next president, I think it would be precisely because he's black. It's not the worst thing that could happen, dumb-ass white guys have done it plenty of times, but it is appalling to me that a more experienced woman, who has better plans, and has put in the time and effort over the years to earn the public trust, is being screwed over just so we can have a black president. It feels like O.J. Simpson all over again.