CNN Article

I just found this article on CNN about race and gender in the upcoming election. It's very interesting and basically says the same thing I talked about in my first blog. Check it out:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/15/kaye.ohioracegender/index.html

Gender and Race in the Democratic Party

When it became apparent that the three Democratic candidates would be Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards it was clear that this election would be one of firsts. There could be the first woman president or the first black president. With the possibility of this monumental change, I was excited to see how these firsts would play out over the next months in each candidate's campaign. I was also interested to see what stance the media would take on these two candidates and how they would present them to the public. It quickly became apparent that the media, and the public, were willing to run with the gender debate but not so quick to jump on the discussion about race and all that entails. I think this illustrates the interesting point that America in general is much more comfortable discussing gender and the supposed character traits that can be assigned by this division. Contrarily, the media becomes hesitant to discuss race and use it as a categorically defining trait. I do not believe that there should be extra focus on Obama just because he is black, but if people are going to judge Hillary because she is a woman, what is the difference?

The difference is that race is such a taboo subject in America. People are so worried about being deemed racist if they use any sort of racial remark; however, no one is ever hesitant to say "oh she's that way because she's a woman." Further, I am not sure if the general population is even aware that this often occurs. It does seem pretty obvious when the coverage of the Democratic is analyzed though. There have been numerous debates over whether or not Clinton is too hard and cold, but there has not been too much debate over whether or not Obama is black enough. While there was some discussion months ago about this notion of Obama's blackness it has quickly faded. Lately there has been more focus on Obama's experience, not his race; however, the focus on Clinton as a woman has not faded.

By looking at the discourse surrounding these two candidates it is interesting to see how comfortable America is discussing gender but not race. It is alright for people to attribute feminine characteristics to a woman, but it is not alright for people to characterize a man just because he is black.