Tuesday, June 17th, 2008

2G2K Circus Returns! :: Talking Michelle + Affirmative Action

Our man in Brooklyn Ferentz LaFargue is back, after forswearing these crazy elections as bad for his health. Nope, Fox’s “Baby Mama” drama has pulled him off the fence.

He writes:

…Fox is not a news network, the only difference between them and The Daily Show is that most people, or rather most people that I know, don’t find their sense of humor funny. It’s one thing to poke fun at racism and xenophobia like Colbert and Stewart sometimes do, but it’s completely something else to perpetually peddle racist and xenophobic viewpoints.

Isn’t it funny–wrong word hmm–that their actual attempt at a humor show failed so miserably? Kinda like the Democrats for most of the past three decades. When you get a choice between fake humor and faker humor, you choose the fake.

While we’re on the topic of Michelle, Jalylah pointed out Linda Hirshman’s stupefyingly bad reading, as in so bad it seems deliberate, of Kimberle Crenshaw’s idea of intersectionality. Jalylah and others see Hirshman as trying to redefine feminism as a privileged white women’s thing, so they don’t find it suprising that Hirshman and others have had nothing to say about about the Don Imusing of Michelle Obama.

This election has been fascinating in the way it’s revived all of the passionate debates of the 90s around identity. So the affirmative action debate is back like neon breakers’ jackets.

A few weeks back there was an article on Obama and race in which the author–let’s just say his background makes him likely part of the Lieberman constituency–gratuitously called on Obama to completely disavow affirmative action as a way of winning the white vote. He won’t need to, polls show him doing exactly what he needs to do to win the election. (See the post below…) But I don’t doubt Ward Connerly’s efforts to eradicate affirmative action in Colorado, Nebraska, Arizona and Missouri (swing states all with the exception of Nebraska…yes, even Arizona) will keep the issue live going into November…

posted by Jeff Chang @ 8:09 am | 1 Comment

One Response to “2G2K Circus Returns! :: Talking Michelle + Affirmative Action”

w&w says:

June 18, 2008 at 4:18 am

To redefine feminism as a privileged white woman thing, eh? I thought that was the original definition and we’ve spent the last few decades trying to redefine it more inclusively (intersectionally?).

Seems to me that the Republicans would like nothing more than to make this election a referendum on the cultural politics of the 90s (or better, the 60s) — rather than, say, the Bush admin & the War in Iraq. Nice try. Obama has so far not let them wrest the narrative away like that.

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