I’ve had commenters on my blog tell me I can’t write about what goes on in Worcester because I live in Sutton, even though I grew up in the city, taught school there for 34 years, and owned an income property in the Plantation Street area up until last July.
I’ve been told by some Black people I’m not qualified to make observations or give advice on Black issues because I’m not Black. That’s true but my people, the Italians, weren’t considered white by the United States Bureau of Immigration until 1922, slightly less than 100 years ago. Besides, I’ve always said that Black is not a skin color; it’s a state of mind. By that measure Clarence Thomas and Ben Carson are white men.
Religious commenters deny my right to comment about the Pope, the Catholic Church, Christianity, Judaism, or any other mythology because I am an openly non-believing atheist. But I was a devout Catholic from age 5 to 23. My parents meant well sending me to church, but in the final analysis they were guilty of child abuse.
None of this makes any sense to me, because if you carry these pronouncements to their logical conclusions only fat people can talk about obesity, only drug addicts can voice their opinions on the problems created by the war on drugs, only cops can criticize other cops, and so on. Besides, it doesn’t seem to have stopped Republican Christian politicians who are not Muslims from voicing very hostile opinions about Islam.
With that preface, I want to make some keen observations regarding the 2016 presidential election and the major female candidate for that position, Hillary Clinton.
In my opinion, any woman of any age in America (not just “baby boomer” women) who doesn’t want Hillary Clinton to become the president is truly deeply disturbed. I know, I know, that’s harsh. But consider:
We live in a very liberal state, but we have never elected a female governor and only elected our first female senator four years ago. However, we have elected a Black senator and a Black governor.
The United States, which has a population in which women are slightly in the majority, has elected a Black president but has never elected a female president. Yet Taiwan, a country in a part of the world that has always been overwhelmingly dominated by males, just elected a woman to its highest office. Angela Merkel is the leader of Germany, the most powerful country in Europe. There are female presidents in Africa, and there was a female Israeli Prime Minister (Golda Meir) and an Indian Prime Minister (Indira Gandhi). These are just a few examples that counter our “American exceptionalism.”
There’s a subconscious process called “internalization,” and it occurs when women and other minorities accept the message that they’re inferior. Even in 2016 there are women who believe that political leadership is too important to trust to anyone but men. Political analysts have often reported that women are more critical of female candidates than of male office seekers. This is the “crabs in the bucket” syndrome, where the escaping crabs are pulled back down by other crabs. It’s the famous line from the comic strip Pogo: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
There’s nothing wrong with voting for a woman just because she’s a woman, providing she’s a woman who will support women’s issues. Hillary is pro-choice, pro-birth control, pro-equal pay for equal work, pro-everything that women want and need.
Women who vote for a male candidate are voting against their own self-interests, not unlike the chicken who votes for KFC.
Hillary Clinton is by far the most qualified candidate in either party. Perhaps that’s not saying much, but it is what it is. The symbolism of having a female as the country’s leader makes a vote for her worthwhile. When will women get another chance at the brass ring?
I had lunch recently with a friend of mine who supported Hillary over Obama in 2008. But he stood in the freezing cold in January 2009 at Obama’s inauguration, and he reported that it was a very moving and emotional experience because the Black people in attendance were crying tears of joy at this historic event.
Now young Black men have a role model and the knowledge that it’s possible to achieve the highest office in the land regardless of their skin color.
Shouldn’t women want to have the opportunity to cry tears of joy in January 2017 over the historic election of the first woman president, a woman who’ll be a role model for their daughters and granddaughters, a woman whose election will finally shatter the glass ceiling that has held women back since the founding of our country?
I’m not a woman—you won’t hear me roar—but if I were I’d want Hillary Clinton to become this country’s 45th president, and its literal FIRST LADY.
by 
Exactly. I couldn’t have put it better.
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I totally agree…Hillary has my vote!
“There’s nothing wrong with voting for a woman just because she’s a woman, providing she’s a woman who will support women’s issues.”
There’s everything wrong with voting for a woman just because she’s a woman, and you proved that by adding the proviso that follows that statement. That’s not voting for a woman because she’s a woman, that’s voting for a woman because she espouses the core values that you seek in a candidate, and the fact that she is a woman is a plus. Otherwise, Carly Fiorina would be an equally acceptable candidate for whom to vote, simply because she’s a woman.
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Well said. And I didn’t realize I wasn’t white!