2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumOn Hillary Clinton's Pandering
Has hot sauce ever mattered this much in an election? Earlier this week, during the run-up to the New York Democratic primary, the condiment became part of a minor controversy involving Hillary Clinton. In an interview with the hip-hop morning show The Breakfast Club on urban radio station Power 105.1, an interviewer asked Clinton about items she always carried with her. Clintons answer was immediate. Hot sauce, she said.
On a radio station targeted towards black people with music that most would consider connected to black culture, Clintons comments looked for all the world like a textbook attempt at pandering from a campaign that has long been accused by young black people of doing just that. The interviewers themselves responded immediately, questioning Clinton about pandering in a joking way. The response on social media was critical of Clinton, and echoed sentiments that have often been expressed on Twitter and Facebook before for previous campaign faux pas. But this particular incident provides a good case study on just what pandering is and the difficulties of making genuine intercultural and intergenerational political connections that seem to plague Clinton the most with young black voters.
I got hot sauce in my bag has become a common refrain after Beyoncés hit single Formation gained popularity as a pro-black anthem, espousing a worldview that proudly embraces certain stereotypes and characteristics that were once deemed too black for polite society or undesirable. Hot sauce has long been associated with a certain ugly caricature of black culturea caricature that frankly doesnt make much sense. Quasi-objectively, hot sauce is just really damn good.
But it does make sense, then, that many young black people might be upset by a white politician claiming to love hot sauce in an interview that was clearly targeted towards them and their vote. The situation might not be any different if a politician were to awkwardly proclaim a love of fried chicken or watermelon in a speech at Howard University, or if a former governor of Massachusetts were to ask Who let the dogs out? while posing with a group of black people for a photo.
more: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/04/hillary-clinton-pandering-radio/479004/
grossproffit
(5,591 posts)obamanut2012
(26,068 posts)pdsimdars
(6,007 posts)Herman4747
(1,825 posts)are nauseating.
PDittie
(8,322 posts)And if somebody else puts hot sauce in there, I hope they forgot to tighten the cap.