Comments on: Call on Black Superdelegates to Do the Right Thing

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 20:28:00 +0000

I was responding to Jill Tubman’s words: “even if it means they might have to vote for a fellow African-American. (I can’t believe I actually have to type sentences like that. Lord. What is wrong with these people? ” in the article as well as another Tubman link which a friend sent me that seemed to suggest that it was a racial duty to support Obama, and the fact that a lot of her pro-Obama posts seem to spend a lot of energy being anti-Clinton. Maybe I did misinterpret Ms Tubman’s words because of the context of the racialized appeals (NOT by Obama’s campaign, but by many of his black supporters) as saying, “What is wrong with these [black] people that they won’t support a fellow African American?” That’s very much the message I got from one of her older posts, which appeared on the GIRLFRIENDS list a couple of weeks ago. I included the quote in my original post so that people would understand what I was responding to in her comments.

Sorry about the “anonymous” moniker~ since I don’t have a google account and I’m not a blogger, that’s my only choice. I go by the name of IOLA LEROY, and that’s how I would have signed my comment had been able to.

By: ac

ac — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 22:08:00 +0000

@ Anon – I’m not seeing where your comment relates to the posted article or prior comments. You of course, are right – we shouldn’t vote based on our race or our sex. But that is neither stated nor implied in the article.

Jill is quite clear in her call for CBC superdelegates to vote with their districts rather than against their districts. She even acknowledges that some might then be casting for Clinton in the districts she won.

Maybe we’re all so used to seeing/hearing this race based voting assumption in the mainstream media that it’s permanently etched on our retinas and eardrums and now we see/hear it everywhere.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:37:00 +0000

There are a lot of good reasons to vote for Obama, but just because he’s black and I’m black is not one of them. Your suggestion that there is “something wrong with these people” who are black but might support Clinton insults your candidate, thinking black voters of “lay” or superdelegate status, and exhibits the simple-minded assumptions about how black people should vote that makes me cringe when I hear it in the mainstream media. Incidentally, I’m a black bourgeois democrat. I appreciate your enthusiasm, and agree with you that super-delegates should vote the way their precincts, counties, or districts voted (since we’re not winner take all, they needn’t just go with how the majority of the state votes), but let’s leave the simple-minded assumptions about racial solidarity in the voting booth to the simple-minded pundits in mainstream media.

By: Sabyen91

Sabyen91 — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 17:01:00 +0000

Well, I am not black and neither is my Representative, Tammy Baldwin, but my district (Madison area) went overwhelmingly for Obama. I wrote her to remind her of her constituents and their plainly stated preference.

By: natthedem

natthedem — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 15:31:00 +0000

I thought this article in the WaPo was pretty funny: Obama Wave Stuns Clinton's Black Supporters.

The money quote:

Remember all the commentator chatter last summer: Is Barack Obama black enough?

Well, he's black enough now.

By: Angela

Angela — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 14:59:00 +0000

I just read that a new 527 group has been set up to help Clinton. The Washington Post has an article “Independent Group to Air TV Ads Echoing Clinton Attacks on Obama.” They set it up after she announced she had to loan her campaign $5 milion dollars. The group is called American Leadership Project. The article says the group will start showing their ads in Texas and Ohio.

Also, I have read there are a couple of super delegates who switched from Clinton to Obama in the past few days.