Jack & Jill Politics

Rikyrah already gave her take below, I just wanted to cosign and add some things.

Last year, when John Lewis decided to endorse Hillary, I was pretty disappointed. This is what I said at the time:

It occur[s] to me that there’s a very real generation gap among black folks when it comes to Obama and Clinton. For people like John Lewis who lived through segregation, the idea of a black man being president in their lifetime must seem really far-fetched.

The fact that Obama has managed to stay so close to Clinton in fundraising while falling behind in the polls suggests to me that there are a great deal of people out there who would rather see him as president, but simply don’t think it’s possible for a black man to win.

But something happened between now and then. All of a sudden, it didn’t seem so far-fetched anymore:

MILWAUKEE — Representative John Lewis, an elder statesman from the civil rights era and one of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s most prominent black supporters, said Thursday night that he planned to cast his vote as a superdelegate for Senator Barack Obama in hopes of preventing a fight at the Democratic convention.

“In recent days, there is a sense of movement and a sense of spirit,” said Mr. Lewis, a Georgia Democrat who endorsed Mrs. Clinton last fall. “Something is happening in America, and people are prepared and ready to make that great leap.”

There could be no Barack Obama without John Lewis. That much is obvious. But Lewis’ initial skepticism of Obama was borne of a life and a time many of us can barely imagine. Since Montgomery, Selma and Washington DC, Lewis’ generation has inspired us. Now we have finally begun to inspire them.

But enough mushy stuff. Let’s just all enjoy this picture:

Pretty much explains the last forty years of race and gender politics in America between black men and white women, doesn’t it?

UPDATE: I know it ruins a joke if you have to explain it, but in the interest of not being taken the wrong way, what I am exclusively referring to is the fact that the liberation movements of the past hundred years have brought white women unprecedented access and proximity to power, (which is a good thing) despite the sexism still pervasive in American society. But whether we’re talking about pay disparities, elected office, or college admissions, the rest of us have been left behind. And I don’t think that’s something many people have begun to apprieciate.