Defending Palin? Challenging Media Sexism

from NewsOne.com


LEFT OF BLACK
Sexism, Misogyny and Sarah Palin
by Mark Anthony Neal

Much of the election news cycle these past few days has been devoted to wardrobe issues, specifically, the amount of money that the Republican National Committee has spent on clothes and makeup for the Vice-Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin. In addition, questions have arisen regarding Palin’s use of Alaska state funds for travel with her family, travel that may not be related to her official duties as Governor.

That many cable news networks felt compelled to devote air time to speculation about the cost of Palin’s wardrobe and her family’s travel itinerary is the by-product 24-hour news programming. This incessant need to fill every hour with content, no matter how trivial, contributes to the dumbing-down of an American electorate salivating for information. But there’s something more troubling at play here, an issue that has everything to do with the brave new world that Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton have ushered in.

Senator Hillary Clinton and Governor Sarah Palin share very little ideologically or politically, but during the 2008 election cycle, they will be forever linked by the palpable sexism that has accompanied mainstream media coverage of their campaigns. Frenzy over the cost of Palin’s RNC sponsored wardrobe is not unlike the mocking of Clinton’s pantsuits. In a society largely concerned with the physical attractiveness of women, it’s not surprising that women politicians with national constituencies would also be subject to beauty contest standards, even by so-called respectable journalists. Indeed, the lack of mainstream commentary about the not-so-hushed descriptions of Palin as a “MILF” and Clinton’s lack of so-called MILF appeal speaks to how insulated many of us are to how these dynamics function in media coverage.

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Post-Race Nostalgia?

from Vibe.com


CRITICAL NOIR:
Love that (White) Girl: Post-Race Nostalgia in the Age of Obama and Palin
by Mark Anthony Neal

Raphael Saadiq has been managing the archive for much of his career, beginning more than 20-years with his work with Tony, Toni, Tone, songwriting collaborations with D'Angelo (of which "Untitled" is the clear standout, his stellar production on tracks like Mary J. Blige's "I Found My Everything" and the Earth, Wind & Fire comeback recording Illumination, as well as his own shade-short-of-brilliant-though-obscure solo recording career.

Saadiq is in fine company with the likes of Jimmy Scott, the late Ronnie Dyson and Rahsaan Patterson--men who share Saadiq's proclivity to finesse vocals in registers well beyond the privilege masculinity affords. Quite frankly, upon hearing "Love that Girl" the lead single from Saadiq latest album The Way I See It for the first time, I thought I was listening to woman. Yet it was a woman--some Joss Stone look-alike lovely--that arrested my attention as I gazed on the video treatment for "I Love That Girl."

Retro-fitted with a sound heisted from the Brunswick label's rhythm section--and imaging packaged with a giddy 1960s innocence reminiscent of The Wonder Years, "Love that Girl" is perfectly pitched for the so-called post-Race moment. The video for Raphael Saadiq's "Love That Girl" succeeds, in part, because it trafficks in the very anxieties of this moment, by inverting the cynicism that that informs much of the political discourse emanating from media pundits.

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Who You Callin' a Sexist?

from NewsOne.com

LEFT OF BLACK:
Memo To John McCain: A Male Chauvinist Pig is Still a Pig
by Mark Anthony Neal

So, Senator John McCain’s campaign has accused Senator Barack Obama of sexism in relation to the latter’s use of the phrase, “if you put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig.” That the mainstream press has spent so much time and energy on this non-issue, speaks volumes about the extent to which real examples of sexism and misogyny remain beyond their full interpretive grasp.

As recently as a month ago, NBC commentator and former NFL player Tiki Barber referred to his on-air colleague Jenna Wolfe as a “full medal cunt,” during NBC’s Olympic broadcasts. The comment generated little, if any, press scrutiny. Now, the same press wants us to believe that Obama’s use of an odd colloquialism is somehow tantamount to issues like domestic violence, inequitable wages, the rape and murder of female military personnel by their male peers and the media’s own questionable coverage of Senator Hillary Clinton and Governor Sarah Palin.

Of course, that it was John McCain who felt compelled to raise the issue of sexism in the Obama campaign is absurd in and of itself. My guess is that Senator McCain has likely never heard of the Ms. Foundation or the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance, let alone the hundreds of less prominent, though no less effective, organizations and activists that combat sexism, misogyny and violence against women and girls on-the-ground, everyday.

This is the same John McCain who uttered nary a mumbling word when a supporter rhetorically asked, in reference to Senator Hillary Clinton, “How do we beat the bitch”? Now we are to accept that issues of gender are high on his list of domestic concerns? In this particular instance, McCain is in company with many other men: he refuses to challenge other men on legitimate examples of sexism and misogyny.

In the process, he, like they, becomes complicit in the very sexism and misogyny that they claim to be concerned about.

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Gov. Sarah Palin: A Double Take

from The Root

From Clarence Thomas to Sarah Palin, nobody plays cynical identity politics like the GOP.

The Grand Old Bait and Switch
By Salamishah Tillet | TheRoot.com

Sept. 3, 2008--John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as the GOP vice presidential nominee has re-inserted the "woman" question into the presidential debate.

By choosing the second white female vice presidential candidate, McCain is trying to fashion himself, Sarah Palin, and, by extension, the entire Republican Party as more committed feminists than the Democrats.

But what is being called a "maverick" decision by McCain, is in fact just another version of the old Republican game of bait and switch with identity politics. Starting with George H. W. Bush's nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, the GOP has been trying to convince Americans that any "woman," "African American" or "candidate of color" will do. And while the argument can be made that any diversity is better than no diversity, this Republican version is especially egregious because it often appoints minority candidates who vote against public legislation that insure that other members of their group have the same opportunities, choices and paths to success as they did. In effect, diversity, which dismantles affirmative action programs and women's reproductive rights, is the worse form of political fraud.

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Salamishah Tillet is an assistant professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania and co-founder of the non-profit organization, A Long Walk Home, Inc., which uses art therapy and the visual and performing arts to document and to end violence against underserved women and children.

ALSO

When did single parenthood and teen pregnancy stop being important to the family values party?

All in the Family
By Stephane Dunn | TheRoot.com

September 3, 2008--The Internet was buzzing with rumors that Gov. Sarah Palin's 4-month-old son is actually the child of her 17-year-old daughter, Bristol. To silence these rumors, Camp McCain-Palin released this bombshell: Bristol couldn't have had the infant because she is five months pregnant.

Whew! This is the stuff of Access Hollywood.

McCain claimed he knew about the pregnancy, but the timing was suspect. The announcement, squeezed in-between a pared-down Republican Convention and Hurricane Gustav's impact on New Orleans, allowed the bomb to fall more like a leaf.

Now, the storm has subsided, and the political one is roaring back up. The Republicans are in defense mode with some arguing that it is in poor taste to make Palin's family situation a campaign issue.

Really? When one considers the high-wattage criticism surrounding the year's most-famous pregnant teen, Jamie Lynn Spears, and all the talk about how the actress's high-profile glorified teenage pregnancy and the news reports of a teenage pregnancy pact that followed, it's hard to pass off Bristol's pregnancy as a kind of private family affair.

But even worse, some Republicans are spinning Bristol as a poignant example of the-right-to-life and an opportunity for the potential second family to relate to regular folk.

This is the same Republican Party of the mid- to late 20th century that solidified a careful ideology of "family values" with emphasis on traditional mores and thinking. Cracked-face or not, the rightist swing of Republican politics doesn't neatly allow for such "mistakes" as teenage pregnancy for a candidate, especially during a major election year.

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Stephane Dunn is a writer and author of Baad Bitches & Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films (August 2008). She is also an assistant professor at Morehouse College.