Monday, February 11, 2008

What Ifs...

1a. What if Chelsea-gate were turned around, and it was Barack Obama's daughter who had been referred to in that disrespectful manner? Would the call for the TV reporter's dismissal, not merely his suspension, be supported by the general public? I ask this because at the moment, Mrs. Clinton has said his suspension is not sufficient redress, and many people are wondering if that's too harsh.

1b. What if it had been Imus who had made the disrectful remark? He was fired.

2. And what if it was Hillary who was the eloquent one, whose speeches were characterized as soaring rhetoric: would this be a help or hindrance to her? Reminds me of people dismissing the writing ability of Frederick Douglass, some saying he didn't write his memoirs. I'll have to look into that. The ponit is, there is a pattern of our accepting African American eloquence in English, but then dismissing it as so much fakery, smoke and mirrors, not real poetry, real feeling, real thought, real truth.

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