Geraldine Ferraro
I’ve been thinking a lot about respect.
I know in our personal lives, we hope that we have garnered some semblance of respect from our families, our friends and the people we work with as that is in our posse. We have to recognize that some people are going to respect us and not like us necessarily.
We make the decision of how we display our respect for others. One thing that came to mind this past evening is do we judge people in broad strokes?
I started thinking about this last night as I was reading about Geraldine Ferraro’s comments about Barack Obama.
Her remarks where very sad if you ask me.
“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”
If someone had said in 1984 when she was on the presidential ticket that “Ferraro was lucky to be a woman” how would she have reacted? I’m seriously curious and then I kinda got my answer from Ferraro herself.
Ferraro isn’t backing down from her statement and it’s funny (not a ha ha kind of funny) because she is just another person who has reduced this campaign down to race and sex.
And she should have known better quite frankly because she has stood on the front line of in fighting stereotypes herself.
I believe that Barack Obama is well aware of the color of his skin just as Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton are well aware that they are women.
But didn’t she want to be judged in 1984 whether or not she would be a good leader? And she says this which diminishes her own role which I found to be so peculiar.
“I said in large measure, because he is black. I said, Let me also say in 1984 — and if I have said it once, I have said it 20, 60, 100 times — in 1984, if my name was Gerard Ferraro instead of Geraldine Ferraro, I would never have been the nominee for vice president,” she said.
I am in a younger generation than Ferraro. She has obviously had different experiences than I’ve had in my life and there are different waves of feminism in our world that are, in many ways, age-based. But I keep going back to that thing about the Golden Rule. She wasn’t very courteous about the very things she fought against herself when I was 19 years old and she ran for office.
I’ll be glad when we start talking about issues again nationwide instead of hammering the race/sex thing to death.
It should be noted she made similar comments about Jesse Jackson in 1988 when he ran for President. This is not the first time she’s made racist comments about a black man running for office.
Hillary should dismiss her from her campaign, immediately, like Obama did when one of his surrogates called Hillary a monster.
It’s so ironic…we should be celebrating this history making election, and so far it has shown us how racist and sexist people still are, and I’m talking about the democrats.
You are so right about this election. We should be celebrating this page in history.
I’m disappointed as well.
She is obviously correct and it’s very bad that she is being attacked much like democrats with lowercase “d” were attacked by the Nazis or the communists in the past.
Concerning your question what she would think if someone pointed out the equally obvious fact that affirmative action was behind her own 1984 nomination, the answer is that this woman is mature, honest, and realistic enough that she has agreed about this obvious fact about 50 times herself.
Whoever doesn’t see that many of these things are being controlled by affirmative action and reverse sexism and reverse racism must be blind.
Gerry, Gerry, Gerry…
[...] Newscoma: I am in a younger generation than Ferraro. She has obviously had different experiences than I’ve had in my life and there are different waves of feminism in our world that are, in many ways, age-based. But I keep going back to that thing about the Golden Rule. She wasn’t very courteous about the very things she fought against herself when I was 19 years old and she ran for office. [...]
[...] on this subject from: Music City Oracle, Carole Borges, Newscoma, Sean Braisted, Dork Nation, TGW, Silence is Golden, Great [...]
I feel that if a Rev of any other color made the same comments as Rev Wright it would not be accepted.
Geraldine Ferraro, is not a racist she is trying to say that if we talk negitive about Obama then we are a racist. Look what happen to her, she spoke her view and there was a big back lash.
The simple facts are that Obama goes to a church that does not like anyone of a different color, the rev Wright is not brining the county together but giving us a sample of what is to come if Ohama becomes president.
Hilary showed her weakness when she did not stand up for Geraldine Ferraro, as good as a friend Geraldine has been to the clintons, I am dissapointed
Poor America so many problems