Very Bad Thing
[2008-05-24 03:10]

A day after ranting about Hillary Clinton's (and John McCain's) lack of diplomacy, she serves up a doozie. In response to questions about her staying in the race against Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton said

My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it.

Hillary has made this argument before, removing the possibility that she just misspoke. This is not a case of someone putting their foot in their mouth and it's more than just a gaffe.

I don't know what the actual question was that lead to Hillary's response, so let's give her the benefit of the doubt and assume it was something like "Have any primary elections in the past lasted this long?" One might argue that Hillary's response was just a list of examples of contests that have been undecided this late into the game. But even if that were the case, choosing the assassination of a candidate as one of the examples shows incredibly poor judgment and poor taste. It also demonstrates a profound tone-deafness by Clinton.

Throughout the campaign, Barack Obama has been the subject of fear-mongering attacks focusing on his middle name and suggesting that he's Muslim. Either Clinton is aware that such smear tactics are going on, in which case her references to assassination are insensitive at best and despicable at worst, or she is not aware of the smear campaign, which would make her incredibly uninformed, isolated and/or stupid since her own campaign has been questioned about it (such as when the picture of Obama in a turban showed up on the Drudge Report) and her own surrogates have used the "Hussein" tactic.

Mike Huckabee also recently joked about someone pointing a gun at Obama, which also resulted in some blow-back in the media. Again, either Clinton was aware of these events, in which case she showed extremely poor judgment in thinking that allusions to assassination would not be perceived badly or she showed that she doesn't care, or she's not aware of these events (and, again, is uninformed, isolated and/or stupid). I don't forgive Huckabee for that comment either, as it shows the same insensitivity.

But most of all, it shows how insensitive Hillary Clinton is to the plight of people of color in America.

Something that people need to understand is that being not-white in America is to live in fear. Maybe not a lot, but more than none. American history is full of examples where people of color were targets of violence (not just discrimination) simply because of their ethnicity. The reason why the symbol of a noose is such a sensitive thing is partly because it harkens back to a time (not too long ago) when African-Americans were lynched simply for being black. Moreover, after 9/11, there were "reported attacks against Muslims and Arabs in communities across the country".

Part of the fear that many people of color have is that America could easily drift back to times when violence like this is condoned or, at least, tacitly accepted because society "looks the other way" and makes excuses for it, rather than addresses it.

As an Asian-American, I've been pretty fortunate and haven't had to deal with overt discrimination much. I'm also about as assimilated into American culture as one could be: I was born here, raised here, speak fluent English, don't speak Chinese, all of my friends are white and I am as much a slave to pop culture as everyone else. But even I have had encounters that have left me nervous. Three in particular stick in my mind:

First, back when I was in college around 1990, a joke was going around the University of Washington (it was posted on the UW Bulletin Board System) that went something like this:

A Russian, a French man, an Asian and a UW Student were on a cruise and partying on deck. The Russian opened a bottle of vodka, took one swig and then tossed the bottle overboard.

"Not to worry, there's plenty of that where I come from!" said the Russian.

The French man, in turn, opened a bottle of champagne, took a sip, and then tossed the bottle overboard. "Not to worry, there's plenty of that where I come from!" he said.

The UW Student thought about it a bit and then cracked open a beer, took a sip, and then tossed the Asian overboard.

This joke was an allusion to the fact that some people thought there was a high percentage of Asian students at the University of Washington. The implication was that there were too many Asian students at UW. Some blamed Affirmative Action for this and clearly some people weren't happy about it. As an Asian student at UW, this joke made an impression on me, as evidenced by the fact that I still remember it.

The second encounter I had occurred after college when a white employer mentioned how good it was that I was assimilated into American culture (spoke English, didn't speak Chinese, etc.). He was trying to be magnanimous, I think, but the implication was that I'd better act white.

The last encounter occurred within the past few months when a friend mentioned that the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II was not necessarily a bad thing. This, in some ways, frightens me the most, both because it was so recent (and apparently people still think this way), and because I think it is possible that America will someday butt heads with China. If that happens, I think I'll have to flee to Canada because I don't want to get herded into a cage just because I'm Chinese.

So, all of this just goes to show that racial tension is alive and well in America. Suggesting that Obama might be assassinated is horrible because it's true. And Clinton should be much more sensitive and aware of the matter. The fact that she's not or doesn't care proves to me that she is not a good person and not fit to be president, much less a diplomat.