Northeast-style racism

Friday, March 14, 2008 by Dave Winer.

I grew up in the northeast, not far from where Geraldine Ferraro lives, and I recognize the racism of the northeast, where people nod knowingly that blacks who are competing with whites have been given some kind of advantage that makes it possible for an inferior person to compete with a superior one. 

It's easy to trigger this kind of logic in a northeastern white supremicist, just say that a black guy wouldn't be there if he weren't black.  

You can say "It's True," in a tone that says that disagreement is naive. "Of course," you are supposed to say.  

I've seen Jews and Catholics do this, two types of people who have themselves been victimized by stereotypes. 

But it's all lunacy, and definitely not true when you're talking about the leader for the Democratic Party nomination for President.  

It's lunacy but it's lunacy that works. All around the northeast, esp in Pennsylvania, people are talking around the kitchen table, saying of course he wouldn't be there if he weren't black, and identifying with Hillary Clinton, a white person who's about to lose her job (one she was never elected to) to a black person, unfairly. 

Someday America will grow out of this lunacy, and will stop judging people based on their race. That Obama is a very serious candidate for President says a lot about him, but it says even more about us, that the racism of Ferraro and the northeasterners who reason as she does, is falling into the background.