OP-ED
Help Trumps Hope Every Time
by Dr. Barbara Reynolds
NNPA Columnist
Never before has the political clout of African-American women been so crucial as in this presidential race when they make up as high as two-thirds of registered Black voters. Black women voters are the primary reason why Sen. Barack Obama pulled Oprah and Sen. Clinton garnered Maya Angelo and the majority of the Black women in the Congressional Black Caucus in their respective camps.
As expected Sen. Barack Obama trounced Sen. Hillary Clinton in the Chesapeake Trifecta of Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.
With most of my Maryland and DC friends beating the drum for Sen. Obama, I tried to join the parade. Usually I am a drum major, leading momentum, but not this time.
Like many African-American women, I have struggled with the dilemma of selecting a Black man or a White woman to go against warmonger Sen. John McCain. My problem was that both Senators Obama and Clinton are darn good.
Finally I voted for Sen. Clinton. My first reason was that as seductive as Obama’s mantra of hope, the Clintons legacy of help is more substantive and stronger.
Hope by definition is not based on facts. It is an emotional expectation. Things hoped for may or may not come. But help based on experience trumps hope every time.
How do you abandon someone like Hillary Clinton, who at every opportunity worked for causes benefiting the poor, especially children? Her work began in her early days with her mentor Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children’s Defense Fund and at Yale Law School, where she pursued children’s studies. Early on her stated life’s goal was to be a “voice for America’s children.”
Look how different things would be that before any policy, rather foreign or domestic, could be advanced, the fate of our children would be the first consideration, a value that I believe Clinton would bring to the table as president.
Under Bill, this nation championed diversity. With Bill and Hillary as first Lady in the White House, Black unemployment declined, small business loans to African-American doubled, there was strong support for affirmative action and more Blacks in his Cabinet and in high positions than ever before. In addition, Hillary made history by selecting a Black woman, Maggie Williams, as her chief of staff. To offset plummeting election returns, Williams has been promoted to head her campaign staff.
In fact during the Clinton years, the nation experienced the longest economic boom in history: unemployment dropped from 7.5 percent to 4 percent, the Dow Jones Industrial Average of stocks rose from 3,200 points to over 10,000, and the federal budget rose from a quarter-trillion-dollar deficit to a surplus of nearly that much.
Now since one Clinton cleaned up the first mess created by Bush I, why not let another Clinton clean up the mess created by Bush Light and why not a woman?
Traditionally, I have sympathized or cast my lot with the “underperson,” the one needlessly being picked on or ridiculed. Media treatment of Sen. Clinton has been degrading.
Much of the news media have gone bonkers over Sen. Obama, pandering and refusing to ask tough questions, while intensely and sometimes nastily grilling Sen. Clinton. Pundits continue to stress that Clinton is “polarizing,” and that 41 percent of voters say they won’t vote for her as if to cement a self-defeating prophecy.
When the Clintons were in office, I worked at the executive levels of journalism. It was overwhelming to see how many White men, even liberals, detested Hillary not only because she is a woman but because she did not play it safe and took on controversial issues, such as trying to win health care for the more than 44 million people who can’t afford it. She lost the fight, but it took courage to start it and I believe she deserves another chance to win it.
Atty. James Walker, a law professor at the University of Connecticut, explains the disparate treatment this way:
“In light of issues like the Don Imus firings, neither politicians nor the press want to go near anything racist. The public environment has been sanitized toward political correctness, but there are no holds on sexism. That is why there can be open season on Sen. Clinton.”
“Hillary is getting the benefit of Bill’s baggage, his dirt from the Monica Lewinsky scandal. But Obama is getting a clean slate because of the guilt recently brought to the forefront of how America has treated Blacks. That means an easy walk for Obama and the opposite for Senator Clinton,” Walker said.
I also find it troublesome that so many influential Republican conservatives are confessing their love for Sen. Obama. When people who are my enemies become friends of my friends, I am just naturally suspicious. For example, I remember how Republican Bill Bennett was excoriated on his national radio show for inferring that if Black women had more abortions that would reduce the crime rate. Bennett, no friend of Blacks, is now in love with Obama. I wonder why?
In any event, Sen. Obama, tall, brilliant, handsome, with a wonderful wife and a message of hope would make a good president, but I embrace Clinton because at the highest levels they have helped make life better for African-Americans. My vote for Hillary in the Maryland Primary was my way of saying Thank You.
http://www.blackpressusa.com/Op-Ed/speaker.asp?SID=16&NewsID=15276Just so you know the facts.
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