It isn’t every day that I agree with stuff that is written in my hometown paper. However, this particular article is an notable exception.
Stephen Henderson in the Detroit Free Press writes:
What if Palin were a black woman governor from, say, Illinois, who had been added to the Democratic ticket? What if her 17-year-old daughter had been impregnated by an 18-year-old, basketball-playing black kid from Chicago with no college plans or discernable means of income?
Bet the house that we’d have seen a number of insulting and demeaning stereotypes invoked — by some of the same folks praising the Palins’ handling of the situation — over and over again.
How many times would we have heard about the evils of the “rap culture,” its focus on promiscuity, and its influence on young people?
How many times would we have heard the term “baby daddy” used as a pejorative — rather than as a hip term in the celebrity press — against the father? (In June, Fox News even referred to Barack Obama’s wife, Michelle, as his “baby mama.”)
How many times would we have been lectured about the rampant problem of teenage sex among African Americans, and how teaching kids about birth control, rather than preaching abstinence-only, just doesn’t work?
In short, how many times would this situation have been used to reinforce criticisms that African Americans endure — about rampant social ills, the collapse of the traditional family unit, a culture that supposedly doesn’t value stability — all the time?
Maybe those criticisms have some merit; but then why aren’t they being leveled as strongly against the Palins?
I hate to admit this, but he’s absolutely right. Because if it were Barack Obama’s daughters who were pregnant at age 17, the conservative press would be having a field day with them. It just seems to me that there is a large double standard, when it comes to Conservative women as opposed to Liberal women in the press in the blogging world and in the media in general.
Another example would be, what if it were Hillary Clinton’s daughter Chelsea, and she was 17 years old and turned up pregnant? You can be absolutely sure, that the Conservative media and Bloggers would be having a field day with her.
Steven goes on to write:
This is what I call the persistent, tacit bigotry of double standards. It’s not an overt racism, like job or housing discrimination. It simply plays out in stark differences in the way Americans see things and react to them.
It’s not unrelated to the bizarre celebration of the idea that the Palins are white trash — a term I caught several conservative commentators using endearingly during the Republican convention. It’s meant harmlessly, as a way of saying the Palins share important cultural touchstones and life challenges with an awful lot of other Americans.
But you’d never see or hear such flattering references to a black candidate being “ghetto.”
The substantive difference between white trash and being ghetto is probably negligible, but the perceived difference is huge, and I say that has got almost everything to do with race. Black culture is seen as besotten with damaging, dangerous and undesirable problems, so much so that any association with it can pose a threat to a black candidate. (Remember the flap over the Obamas’ fist bump after one of the big primary wins?)
But set the same problems in the context of a white family, and they can be excused away, or even celebrated as paragons of American culture. Sarah Palin’s daughter and her fiance are being hailed as moral heroes because of the way they’ve handled their situation; black kids would be condemned and held up as a teachable example for just being in that situation in the first place.
Ugly as it is, that’s an indelible part of American culture, and however this campaign ends, I doubt we’ll leave it behind anytime soon.
I’ll tell you, I’ve never much agreed with anything that’s published in the Detroit Free Press, seeing that this is a liberal area around here and all, but Stephen makes a very valid point. Why is it that we as Americans, especially we white Americans, when we see a young black woman pregnant at 17 years old, we want to call her a slut, but when we see a 17 year old white Conservative female get knocked up, we want to give her a free pass?
Furthermore, it just seems very funny to me, that when Hillary Clinton was in this race, there were a lot of people, Conservative and not so conservative, who were telling Hillary Clinton that she needed to get out of the race, that she was nothing more than a distraction, but now that Sarah palin is in the race, Oh, that’s just perfectly fine. It’s because the United States of America has a double standard, a double standard on liberal vs. conservative when it comes to women, a double standard when it comes to teen pregnancy in conservative white women as opposed to liberal black women.
I believe that Sarah Palin should be held to the same exact standards as any other person that’s running in politics. The very idea that Sarah Palin should be treated with kid gloves, because she is a woman is preposterous. Because feminists have fought long and hard for years and years, to get the same exact rights as men, and so if she wants to be in this race she should be treated with the same exact harshness as any other person male or female who decides to enter into the field of politics. Furthermore, Sarah Palin should be subjected to the same open criticism as John McCain and Barack Obama. If they happen to catch Sarah Palin in a lie, like the one she just recently told about selling a jet on e-bay, it should be exposed and she should be criticized just as harshly, as she would be, if she was a man. I am very sorry, but just because Sarah Palin has two breasts and a Vagina does not excuse her from criticism from the mainstream media.
But we all know that in this era of double standards, when it comes to women vs. men, that Sarah palin will be treated with kid gloves by the media and by people in her own party, who will go as far as to excuse some of her actions because she’s a girl.
Of course, I feel personally as a Fundamentalist Christian, that putting Sarah Palin on the ticket, is a classic example of the watering down of true Conservatism in America. Because quite frankly, 50 years ago, a woman on the Republican ticket either for President or Vice President would have been totally unheard of. It is been said that politics is a reflection of society is a whole, and likewise the Republican party is a reflection of Conservative society as a whole, and the reflection of the Evangelical Christian Conservative movement as a whole. I feel, as a former Evangelical turned Fundamentalist Christian, that putting Sarah Palin on this ticket is a reflection of the abject compromise that is overtaken that movement. Furthermore, the putting of a female on the Vice President ticket of the Republican Party, is a clear and open manifestation of Conservative society’s moving away from its strict adherence to Biblical truths. After all the Bible does say:
Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. (1 Timothy 2:11-14 KJV)
For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels. Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord. For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God. (1 Corinthians 11:8-12 KJV)
Now before anyonw bites my head off, and accuses me of being a sexist. Those words up there not my words, those words of the words of the Bible. The same Bible that Sarah Palin claims to believe in, it’s the same Bible that those Evangelical Christians claim to believe in as well. But yet, they totally ignore its words when they support a woman candidate for Vice President. It is truly a sad state of affairs.
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(To be fair, McCain’s daughter, Sidney, was dressed like a slut too…)