How is saying the phrase "Hard working white American" demeaning

[BootinUp]

to other ethnicities exactly?

Its clear that she used that phrase because the group she is talking about is being called racists by the Obamanuts. It was an effort recognize they are not bad people because they don't identify with and support Obama over the other candidate.

[TheDoorbellRang]

1. I guess if you don't get it

Then you never will. Sad.

[SCantiGOP]

9. look at it this way

What would the reaction be if McCain were saying, "Assuming Obama is the candidate, I'll be in good shape because I'll get more white votes than him." There's no reason Clinton should get a pass for this shameful racist pandering.

[TheDoorbellRang]

46. Oh I know

I thought it was sad the OP is not able to see Clinton's comments for what they are -- as you say, shameful racist pandering.

[ampad]

12. Oh trust me they get it

They know exactly what she meant.

[Bicoastal]

2. I'll be brief.

It's NOT the "hard-working" part.

What she essentially said was "We all know Obama can't connect with white working class people, which is why you should vote for me." Right?

Essentially saying that working class white people wouldn't vote for Obama in the GE, making her the better choice. If she hadn't said "white", I doubt anyone would have had a problem with it--but it is clear which direction she was going in and what "pattern" she was referring to...

I ask you--why WOULDN'T working-class people vote for Obama in the GE when they happen to be white? Why would black, latino, and asian working-class Democrats vote for him, but not whites? What's the implication there?

[frazzled]

14. What? Black Americans are not hard working?

I think the "hard-working" part was indeed part of the offense, in addition to the suggested (il)logic that you point out.

[bowens43]

3. the implication, with a nod and a wink from hillary,

is that blacks are not hard working Americans.

[BootinUp]

4. That is such bullshit. nt

[KittyWampus]

8. because there's no long-standing racist stereotype of blacks as lazy, welfare queens.

if you don't hear that blatant invocation of racism, you are either deep in denial or lying.

[Mooney]

32. Why do you ask questions you don't want the answer to?

[MonkeyFunk]

6. Nonsense

that's just absurd.

You guys are going to have a very hard time getting the party behind your candidate when you spew lies like that.

[Lucky 13]

11. LOL! No I think your candidate is having a harder time getting ANYONE behind her

saying inflammatory statements like she did.

it's over. the sooner you guys admit it the better off ALL of us will be. Please consider it.

[MonkeyFunk]

16. That has nothing to do with

the lie you guys are pushing that she's a racist.

[SOS]

21. She's not

but whoever wrote that cue card (Mark Penn?) is clearly willing to run a quixotic, scorched earth campaign.
You could hear the hesitation in her voice. Those were not her words.
Her staff has done her a tremendous disservice.

[Lucky 13]

22. Her comments are what lead people to believe that.

Are you outraged that people are offended by what she said?

Maybe she should stop helping us make that argument by cutting out the racially inflammatory rhetoric.

[Doityourself]

29. Are you going to vote for Obama if he is the nominee? That's the question,.

[Leopolds Ghost]

50. He's a horrid, fat hobbit who hurts poor Hillary and makes up nassty lies.

[MonkeyFunk]

58. I know it's fun

but you piss on half the party at your own risk. It's just childish, stupid and ultimately counterproductive.

[intaglio]

69. The party and the voters are behind Obama

The racism is overt, the condecension toward the white working class is palpable.

You hear what you want to hear, Monkeyfunk, not what everyone else hears (other than the hard core of Clinton apologists). What I find frightening in all of this is that someone as ostensibly intelligent as yourself, manages to be so self deceptive. You have heard Hillary lie, triangulate and now play another racially provocative card. You saw her lie about Bosnia (at least 4 times) and have seen the contortions she goes into to excuse herself, yet you let a vindictive hatred and blind obedience overrule any trace of logic and rationality.

What I am saying to, indeed begging of, you is to go through the painful process of re-examining your core beliefs. It is a process I have undergone at least twice and I do know how difficult it is. I am not asking you to become one of the dancing fools who are a minor part of Obama's support, but rather an informed poster, critic and Democrat.

[scheming daemons]

5. Lumping "hard-working" and "white" into one category is a racist statement.....

...no two ways about it.


If you don't get it, you never will.


There are "hard-working Americans" of all colors.


There are "white Americans", some of which are hard-working and some of which are lazy.


Putting the two adjectives together, implicitly defines them as being associated with one another.


If she said:

"white Americans"

OR

"hard-working Americans"


there would be no issue.


Lumping them together is saying that the two are linked.


...and that's an offensive statement to any non-racist. If the statement came from McCain, YOU'D be hammering it too.

[SoCalDem]

63. AND..my guess is that since she and Bill are working so hard to

appeal to the Limbaugh base, it's OBVIOUS that they are aiming for people who would NEVER vote for a black person..the kicker is that those same people also will probably be voting for mccain in the fall..or not voting at all..

[SoonerPride]

7. What part of "white" don't you get

She shouldn't bring ANYONE'S SKIN COLOR into the mix.

She should simply say she appeals to people.

Not "white people like me more than him."

Just people.

This categorizing people into races is assinine anyway.

THERE IS ONLY ONE "RACE." THE HUMAN RACE. PERIOD.

[rodeodance]

10. It is not. Obama fans who say Hillary is racist because of it are disgusting !!

[Doityourself]

31. Whats disgusting is her even throwing that quote in there..

[dionysus]

45. i know you're upset hillykins put her foot in her mouth..again...

:rofl:

[Seabiscuit]

59. To Obamanoids, anyone who backed someone other than Obama is a racist.

I backed Edwards. That made me a racist to the Obamanoids.

Thank goodness not all Obama supporters are Obamanoids.

[Abacus]

13. "hard working Americans, white Americans"

is the quote I saw and suggests that "hard working" is synonymous with "white". She has certainly been courting white working class votes, but I think she flubbed the line in this case. I don't think she intentionally race baited here, but I'd want to hear the audio before drawing a conclusion. However, I don't think that she is above this sort of strategy -- what I witnessed from her and her campaign in South Carolina drove me firmly into supporting Obama.

[enid602]

17. or. . .

Or, she could have meant working-class people, AS WELL AS whites. Of course, she's hinting that he'll get more white votes if he puts her on the ticket. It wouldn't hurt him to broaden his appeal. No racism; just logic.

[Abacus]

19. No, try again

"Senator Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again.... Whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me. There’s a pattern emerging here."

No conjunction.

[enid602]

25. choice

I heard it on the radio, and thought it no more racist than Obama talking about typical whites. All of we democrats will have to develop tougher skins if we are to prevail. Broad coalition (Obama/Clinton) or go-it-alone (a la McGovern, '72). The choice is his.

[Leopolds Ghost]

53. How does Obama (or Kerry for that matter) compare to McGovern other than their obvious base support

That racist "hard hats" refuse to associate themselves with?

[enid602]

55. candidate

Well, I think Kerry actually won, and any weakness was from Swiftboating. I think Obama's has a wide base, but I think he'll need full support from the Hillary camp. If he wants to be ideologically pure and go it alone, he'll end up like McGovern, and losing due to a norrow base.

[Eric Condon]

15. She didn't say "Hard working white Americans."

She said "hard-working Americans, white Americans." And yes, there is a BIG difference.

What she said can easily be understood to mean "hard-working Americans, (in other words) white Americans."

To conflate those two groups into one mutually exclusive whole is the problem.

[FlaGranny]

26. Yes, she was definitely using

"white Americans" as a qualifier, which is quite obvious when you actually listen to her say the words. She wasn't saying hard-working Americans AND white Americans

[reflection]

38. Bam. Right between the eyes.

Putting something in quotes that wasn't said is terribly disingenuous of the OP. Thank you for setting the record straight.

[TahitiNut]

44. Gotta love that "hard-working, good German" vote.

:eyes:

[BalancedGoat]

75. The thing is...

... if she had just said "hard-working" again in front of "white americans" I wouldn't see an issue. Or if she had said "and". There is an unspoken "and by that, I mean" that is unmistakable.

[Lerkfish]

18. if you have to ask, you can't afford it.

:)

I'm enjoying the spin, though: essentially you're claiming she was defending a group from being called racist.
I"m curious what basis you have for the original attack she was defending them from.

[BlooInBloo]

20. It's so awesome when white folks pretend not to understand their own code.

[alphafemale]

72. Only when convenient.

:hi:

[LisaM]

23. The white vote is being broken down in ways the African-American vote isn't

becuase it's divided, as is the women's vote, etc.

The African-American vote is not. Black people, at least in the primaries, are voting more and more en bloc. So there is no need to break it down.

Obviously, black people comprise the same spectrum that whites do, from highly educated professionals down to working class Joes. However, they are voting for Obama in numbers in the 90th percentiles. So what campaign is going to fuss about breaking down how the different segments vote? It's not a divided voting bloc.

[Arkansas Granny]

28. A very reasonable explanation.

[Leopolds Ghost]

52. They've already broken down the African American vote by deliberately and systematically

Destroying the economy of African American areas.

[BalancedGoat]

76. I don't see it.

I don't get how she's breaking down the white vote in her latest statement. If you can further clarify what you mean I'm always willing to keep an open mind.

The problem, as I see it, isn't with the phrase "hard-working Americans" but with "working americans, hard-working Americans, white Americans". If she had replaced the last comma with "and" I would have found it acceptable, though a little redundant. If she had again said "hard-working" in front a "white Americans" I would have found that acceptable as well. To me, there is an unspoken "and by that, I mean" that is clearly implied by the structure of the statement.

I won't make the definitive claim that she is racist. I don't know her and have no clear idea of how she views people of other ethnicities. The term has been thrown around far too much on this board. However, I firmly believe that in equating "hard-working Americans" to "white Americans", even if only though implication, she is pandering to racists who view black as lazy. Perhaps it was just a mistake, but I don't buy that excuse. It seems to be a part of a larger pattern that I have given a pass for the most part.

I have no problem with opposing perspectives provided that are backed by sound reasoning. In my short time hear I've tried to stay above the fray in this place and always welcome view-points that challange my own.

[SeaLyons]

24. Nothing demeaning said by Hillary whatsoever....

those that say it is are just grabbing on to anything to slander Hillary. Calling anything and everything racist seems to be working for them.

[scheming daemons]

27. If a Republican said this in past races, you'd be coming down on him/her....

Because it's Hillary, you twist your logic around to defend her.


Cognitive Dissonance (look it up... it defines you).

[americanstranger]

35. Or if Obama had qualified like that...

...Hillary supporters would be screaming right now.

Just imagine if Obama had come out and said 'Senator Clinton's support among hard-working Americans, black Americans, is weakening again.'

People like the OP would be wailing about divisiveness likr there was no tomorrow.

To pretend not to know what Clinton was saying here goes beyond disingenuousness and/or willful ignorance.

- as

[SeaLyons]

39. wrong...

seems to define Obama supporters.

[DanTex]

30. In the same way as the Willie Horton ad

She doesn't have to explicitly say "black people are not hard working" to exploit the racial divisions. The Willie Horton ad didn't explicitly say "Dukakis let black dudes like this guy out of prison". But it played to racial fears and anxieties of white people.

We all know one of the racist undercurrents in society is the idea that black people are lazy and play the victim and live off of welfare and affirmative action.

Comments like "hard-working Americans, white Americans" stoke those sentiments.

So, no, it's not explicitly racist or demeaning. And she's not a racist person.

What she's doing is exploiting racist emotions in an effort to win an election. And even though she doesn't share those racist emotions, it's still not a good thing to be doing.

[oviedodem]

33. Why coudln't she just say " Hard working Americans" and leave it at that; why throw white in there?

[PoliticalAmazon]

34. With "working white female" Hillary hit the trifecta....

Hillary is pandering to the resentments most of us try to move beyond....

Look, when I was young it was the time when women's right were really becoming acceptble in the workplace. Still, there was gender prejudce and sexual harassment going on.

I worked through it, and moved on. I don't resent what happened, and I don't feed on unfair things that were done to me in the past.


But some people do, and it is these people, who have resentments against real and perceived injustices that Hillary is pandering to.

With "working white female" she hits the trifecta: resentments over perceived or real injustmens to women, whites, and working-class.

She's become more efficient in her pandering, combining several in one phrase, but it is still unethical and divisive.

[DanTex]

36. E.g. if a man says "I'm winning with tough, smart, male Americans"

when running against a woman, that would correctly be percieved as playing to gender issues.

Don't you think?

[dionysus]

37. "hard working people... white people" implies non whites do not work that hard..are you that stupid?

any other questions you want answered einstein?

:rofl:

[jillan]

40. Because the Obama people love playing the race card.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

41. No more demeaning than saying, "Clean white Americans."

or,

"Brave white American male soldiers."

or,

"Successful white American students."

or,

"Honest white American businessmen."

[TahitiNut]

43. It's stunning how deliberately tone-deaf some "Democrats" can be ... post-1976, even.

It's like 1948 again, and Strom Thurmond is a "good Democrat." Unfuckingreal.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

78. No, it's "Clean americans, white americans.

Big big difference.

[TheZug]

42. picture Chimpy or Dick Cheney saying it, and then you'll see

[ieoeja]

47. I think she misspoke (some).

First, I don't see how "vote for me because I can win the white votes" is greatly different from "let's oppose Civil Rights so we can win the white votes".

Nevertheless, had she said "hard working white Americans", it would have been only race baiting rather than outright racism. I suspect that is what she meant to do and say. Unfortunately, she did not. She said, "hard working Americans, white Americans". When I heard the audio this morning I was shocked. Phrased that way it really did sound like she was defining "hard working Americans" as "white".

"If you don't do well in school, you get stuck in Iraq."
"Hard working Americans, White Americans".

If you didn't know who said what, you would call the second statement disgusting and the first a simple statement of fact. Hillary said just the opposite.

It's hard when you're busy defending someone to assess them yourself. Especially when you're defending them from stupid shit. I know. I spent 9 years doing just that for Bill Clinton.

[graycem]

48. The offense is

when she says "hard-working Americans" then clarifies it by saying "white Americans" as if any other race, in this case she clearly means African-Americans are not hard working. I do not believe that she is racist, but she is certainly exploiting that racism trigger, and the longer she keeps it up, then I may reevaluate, maybe she really is racist and has just been using people all these years to further her political career. You can deny it but as a white chick, I cringed when she said it because I know what the hell she meant. And I'm afraid that you do not get to tell other people that they can't find it offensive when it most certainly is. You know you see it, but you are continuing the good fight. Carry on, but I assure you this won't get her all that far. It's pissing off SD's and the rest of us paying attention in this primary, who aren't racist. How can she win by taking that tack? Ah, she can't.

[Leopolds Ghost]

49. How is the phrase "Unashamedly Black, Unapologetically Christian" racist?

Answer the question, Jim4Wes.

[Leopolds Ghost]

51. I'm waiting.

[Leopolds Ghost]

54. (whistle)

[redqueen]

66. Did someone say that was racist?

That'd be weird.

[DearAbby]

56. Hard working AMERICANS

there should not be..."White", "Black", "Brown", "Purple" "Male" "Female". We are all AMERICANS, and we ALL work hard. It disgusts me, that Clinton is doing this.

[barack the house]

57. It's the assumption her voters are hard working over others, blue collar would of been adequate...

This can even offend those who are non minority on Obama's side really.

[JVS]

60. Why not just say "Glorious White Race"? I doesn't put anyone else down!

:eyes:

[SoCalDem]

61. Codespeak..

If you don't "get" it..you "may" be part of the problem..not the solution

[nemo137]

62. It's a dog whistle

It's the reverse welfare queen - it says to a certain listening "White people are carrying lazy minorities on their backs." It's the kind of thing that won the Reagan Dems the first time, so I guess she's going for it now.

[LoZoccolo]

64. When KFC says "We do chicken right", it is supposed to mean that everyone else does chicken wrong.

That's not my observation, but the comedian Tom Rhodes in Viva Vietnam.

[JVS]

68. And here I was thinking that it mean that KFC did everything else wrong but not the chicken

[LoZoccolo]

80. lol

:thumbsup:

[LSK]

65. WHY WHY WHY is she favored by "hard working whites"?

Is there some glaring difference between Hillary and Obama?????? Hmmmmmm

[Enrique]

67. she's saying Barack supporters are lazy

but well-educated. :shrug:

[Weevlitz]

70. Hillary and her supporters are losing it now...

Wow...I wasn't going to reply to this thread...but MAN...some of the Hillary supporters are just being ridiculous right now. To me...you can forget the entire "hard-working" part of the equation. Hillary has finally come out and said what she has believed all along...that a black man can't get elected because he can't get the white vote. That's what she's saying...and for you Hillary supporters to deny that...is just blind loyalty. She's out of options...she can't hide anything anymore...so now she's just coming out and saying it. It's her last grasp...her last shot...she's tried everything up to this point...so why not try telling what she believes is the truth.

And NO...I'm not saying Hillary is a racist...what I'm saying is that Hillary believes, that most white voters in this country ARE racists...that's what this comment says to me. It's not that SHE'S a racist...but the white voters that are supporting her wont support him because he's black. She's been disguising it with a very neat word lately...."electablity." She doesn't think that America will vote for a black man...and she's trying to save us from John McCain. This is the only reason for her to stay in the race...because she believes that Obama is the wrong race. I can't wait for America to prove her wrong.

[Jed Dilligan]

71. Hardworking Americans, white Americans

Patriotic Americans, white Americans

Morally upright Americans, white Americans

Law-abiding Americans, white Americans

Deserving Americans, white Americans

Responsible Americans, white Americans

Real Americans, white Americans

Can't you see how any such apposition could be taken as offensive?

[SemiCharmedQuark]

79. Bingo. It sounds like a reiteration of what a "hardworking American" is.

I don't think she intended it quite that way, but that's how it sounds.

[Renew Deal]

73. She implies that others are not hardworking, but worse, she's playing up race.

It's an intentional attempt to divide. It's pretty disgusting. And those that defend it are just as disgusting.

[krawhitham]

74. That is not what she said

"Hard working Americans, white Americans" was the quote

that statement makes it sound like only white people can be hard working Americans

[MilesColtrane]

77. Not sure if it's demeaning to other ethnicities...

I take it that she's implying that white Americans won't vote for a black man.

She's essentially labeling white working class Americans as racists.