“Last night, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin accepted the nomination to the vice-presidency at the Republican National Convention.
Originally the buzz about Palin, focused on her having a vagina. Her presence was analyzed as a calculated McCain strategy to lure disgruntled, hard core Hillary Clinton supporters.
Then the shift went internal, to her uterus, her identity as a mother to five, the youngest with some form of developmental delay, and a 17 year old daughter, unmarried and pregnant.
So what does this Palin parranda of information and analysis mean to mamis of color, Latina mamis like me? Not surprisingly, nada.
Sarah Palin wants to put herself out there as “every womanâ€. She wants to be seen as “just your average hockey momâ€, and other mommies see themselves and their reality reflected through Palin, except, mamis of color, that is.”
excerpt by Maegan “La Mala†Ortiz, Racialicious from the post: Mccain’s VP pick Palin and the Politica and Privilege of White Woman’hood/ Mommy’hood
Whether you are a Republican or a Democratic the hypocrisy of Palin is deafening.
A woman of color with five minor kids with one of them is pregnant would be written off as: GHETTO.
I don’t like the term ghetto, because it has a negative connotation and it’s just a racial slur dressed up in class.
Do I have a problem with people having five kids or teen moms. No. I think it’s horrible that teen moms have been demonized by our society. You’re not a bad person just because you got pregnant before you were 18 or before you were married. Having premarital sex isn’t a sin and literal proof of that action is not a sin.
I have a problem with the double standards.
Why would the Republican Party embrace Palin when for years, heck for decades women of color have been demonized for doing the same thing.
Not only demonized, but sterilized.
I talk to many older women of color who had their babies in General Hospital and many of them have gotten their tubes tied.
This is what happens when you’re poor and you are a woman and you have the audacity to have children.
You are sterilized and your children are denied food and a decent education.
I have no problem with Palin’s five kids or having a pregnant minor teenage daughter, but I do have a problem with a party who has demonized women (and more specifically women of color) Â for so long changing the rules at this late in the game and showing us it wasn’t about morals, but about race and class all along.
I guess would we should be thankful. At least we got the truth from them for once.
by Browne Molyneux
I thought we were all in agreement already that Sarah Palin is ghetto/white trash.
My parents gave me only two real rules as a child. Don’t get anyone pregnant and don’t get arrested. It wasn’t that hard.
Marshall,
I can’t jump on board with the whole “white trash” or “ghetto” thing. I know it’s a bit different, but as I have never liked the term ghetto, I’ve never liked the term trailer trash or white trash either. It just seems wrong and classist.
I have friends that live in trailers and they are good people. They aren’t trash. They are just poor.
I think Palin is dishonest. I think she is a hypocrite. I don’t like her political stance on a variety of topics from the environment to women’s reproductive rights, but she’s not a bad person, because of her family.
My issue with her is strictly on policy. I’m not of the mindset that just because we don’t agree with a person’s political agenda that it’s ok to use slurs to describe them. Dehumanizing people based on family, national origin, gender, race, sexual orientation, religions are all uncool things.
There are so many constructive and productive ways to breakdown the wrongness of McCain and Palin that bringing up puritanical views of how you should live your life or what either of the two candidates are biologically never needs to be brought up.
And can we really compare getting arrested to getting someone pregnant?
I know you’re being a little tongue and cheeky, but you know as a point to jump off and dialogue I appreciate your comment.
Browne
The double standards were brilliantly displayed in this video clip:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/04/daily-show-takes-on-the-s_n_123908.html
Stewart makes me want to own a TV. That was a great clip El Chavo. I’m never sure if deep down inside if it’s really the hypocrisy that bothers me or just the sheer a**holeness of certain people. My mind says it’s the hypocrisy, but other parts of me are calling bs on my head…lol…
Hypocrisy all right. How much would you wanna bet that if one of the Democrat candidates had been the one with a preg teen daughter instead, the Republicans would have been all over it?
I also love how Palin’s governing experience is touted
so much. So she governor of Alaska, so what? Alaska has a population of 626,932 people (by comparison; Long Beach, CA has a pop. of roughly 500,000) I heard one of her PR people defend Palin’s foreign policy capabilities by saying:
“Well you know, Alaska is the closest American state geographically to Russia!” (true story!)
Since Alaska is also close to the North Pole, perhaps Palin also knows Santa Claus.
Alaska is also near to the North Pole geographically. Perhaps Palin can also improve our relations with Santa Claus. We certainly can use it.
Palin is part of a Grim Fairy Tale that we have to make sure doesn’t become True.
Change can only happen from the bottom (us) up. Cast your vote for Reality.
@charabeyta
Great analogy!!! And we all have to remember in the original Grimm Fairy Tales everyone died. Of course now since we’re in the land of spin and pr, it will probably be disneyfied and will all end up really poor instead.
@Al Desmadre
I live next to the LA Times building maybe I can convince them to let me be the publisher…lol… Experience is such a subjective term, if you’re Republican.
I truly did not want to even write about the election. There are so many people already writing about it and the Dems seemed to for once have gotten their sh*t together. I had faith that this would all work out. I am in Los Angeles, but the more I’m hearing the more terrified I’m getting. I need to calm down.
And to me and for the people of the US this time it’s not even about the party. It’s about the state of this country.
I could care less about Democrats.
And while I’ve always said I would vote for the person who I want. Whose views are closest to mine. This election the state of the country is so bloody awful that I’m going against that. I’m usually in theory and ideal land for most of the day. This year I’m coming out of the ivory tower and doing some community organizing work, figuratively of course.
I’m voting against idiocy. I’m voting against selfishness.
I wanted to vote for something, but oh well.
That makes me sad, because I never thought it would come to this.
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/61410aa4ff