Daisy Hernandez

Are you going to amputate your leg?

I’ve had a lot of respect for Gloria Steinem’s work in the past. A lot. So I’m sad, and I admit surprised, to see how she’s gotten entangled in the “hey we have to choose between race and gender” mantra that dominated the Obama-Hillary run and that’s been revived on a smaller scale with the arrival of Palin.

In an oped last month, which yes, I’m only getting to now, Gloria writes presumably to upset, white women: “To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, ‘Somebody stole my shoes, so I’ll amputate my legs.’”

Sigh.

Notice to sad, angry or just confused, white women: no one stole your shoes.

You lost them.

And while we’re on the topic of small, snide remarks that make you go um…. Last night, Wyatt on the Daily Show agreed with John Stewart: McCain calling Obama “that one” was not racist; it was just weird.

But why wasn’t it racist? I can’t for the life of me imagine him saying that to Biden.

I mean, why didn’t Wyatt say: dude, that’s the problem. We’ll never know if it was racist or not, but it doesn’t matter because we have to keep our energy focused on the real shit like um, how the foreclosure crisis is impacting Black and Latino families more than whites but the media’s acting like it’s just a universal problem.

Ah, well, enough. Back to editing ColorLines….

Posted at 11:42 AM, Oct 09, 2008 in Elections | Permalink | View Comments