My sis Wev McEwan, of whom I am awfully proud:
I'm not sad because Obama's the nominee.
I'm sad because there are women at this blog, in my personal life, across this nation, and—if my inbox is any indication—across the globe, women of all races and sexualities and socio-economic classes, many of whom weren't even Hillary Clinton supporters, many of whom voted for Obama in the primary, who have watched with horror the seething hatred directed at Hillary Clinton just because she is a woman...
And these women have witnessed this despicable but spectacular marriage of aggressive misogyny and their long-presumed allies' casual indifference to it, and wondered what fucking planet they were on that dehumanizing eliminationist rhetoric, to which lefty bloggers used to object once upon a time, was now considered a legitimate campaign strategy, as long as it was aimed at a candidate those lefty bloggers didn't like.
And these women felt, quite rightly, like feminist principles were being thrown to the wolves in a fit of political expedience.
And these women felt personally abandoned. By people they had considered allies.
And while they struggled to understand just what was happening, while they were losing their way along well-traveled paths that no longer felt familiar or welcoming, they were admonished like children to stop taking things personally. They were sneered at for playing identity politics. They were demeaned as ridiculous, overwrought, hysterics. They were called bitches and cunts. They were bullied off blogs they'd called home for years...
And now, at long last, even now, when Clinton cannot win, she is being pushed out, carelessly, rudely, with little regard for the implicit message in hustling a historic candidate off the stage and demanding her graciousness in defeat, despite offering her no graciousness in victory. Right to the end, there is a lack of respect that hurts to watch.
And I'm sad because I know there are women who are hurting. Not because their candidate lost. Clinton may not have even been their candidate. They're hurting because misogyny hurts all women, and because they have fewer allies than they once thought...
Go read Wev's whole post, For The Record. Pay special attention to what she says about the racism, the real racism, that is already an ugly feature on the Right this campaign. As things get under way, you'll want a firebrand like Wev on your side. And you won't have to ask or wait for her to get over Hillary's loss or her own hurt feelings because, one, she's tougher than you already, and two, she's already there. She's been there. She was there way ahead of you. Now go read what she has to say.
I'm doing something here I don't think I've ever done. I'm shutting off comments. I've been lucky. I have always had smart and polite and respectful commenters who even when disagreeing with me or with each other have kept things fair and civil. But for some reason I haven't been able to figure out this campaign has brought out the worst in a lot of people on the left end of the bandwidth and, while I trust my regulars, I don't want to spend the day batting away nitwit sore winners who find their way here just to prove Wev's point and in the process embarrass other Obama supporters like Pop Mannion, the Blonde, Leah, Victoria, Tom Bozzo, the gang at Lawyers, Guns and Money, and the many others who have somehow found that it was possible to like Obama without hating Hillary or her supporters and who were able to see that criticism of their guy didn't make the critic crazy, racist, or stupid.
If you have a respectful and sensible comment, please email it to me and I will post it here as an update.
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