jeaun.com

a black man.

why?

i think a woman might be more likely to pull it off. i think there is still more racism against blacks than gender discrimination against women.
on the other hand, once white people no longer have the majority in a few years things might change. on the other other hand, i have no hard statistics about levels of discrimination.

on a side note, in last night's debate, al sharpton was surprisingly reasonable. he's not what i expected based on the popular image of him being a nutcase.

you could also bring a gay candidate into the debate, but that's certainly not going to happen anytime soon.

A black man. Just by sheer plausibility.

Colin Powell.
vs
Hillary Clinton

They are the only 2 I can think of with a shot any time soon and Colin would totally own Hillary.

Elizabeth Dole would win over Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson or the like. I think the woman would have to be a Republican because otherwise the public/media would rip her apart. Elizabeth Dole would probably win over Hillary too because she's not a power hungry, left-wing, dyke commie.

Speaking of debates, isn't it weird that the Democrats were speaking on Fox News, the company who copyrighted the phrase "Fair and Balanced" because they wanted to emphasize they weren't controlled by the liberal bias?

white woman

// isn't it weird that the Democrats were speaking on Fox News, the company who copyrighted the phrase "Fair and Balanced" because they wanted to emphasize they weren't controlled by the liberal bias?//

i swear those guys are vicious. roger ailes is a scary man. worth a google, even.

White woman. If for no other reason than she would represent a larger demographic.

First: actually, Jason, I don't know if you could reasonably add a gay candidate to our current debate. Gender and Race are both signifiers that are based primarily on external qualitative factors, and performance (it's important, obviously, to look at performance as it emerges out of an individual's psychology and as the "laws of the pack" influence the individual's psychology). SEXUALITY is a signifier based primarily on specific actions and the individual's psychology itself--performance is secondary (having a limp wrist doesn't make you gay, sucking dick if you have one yourself makes you gay). Technically, we've already had a gay president: William Jefferson Clinton engaged in extramarital, non-vaginal sex--actions which, by definition, place him under the category of "queer." (1) In order to add sexuality to this debate we would have to expand the parameters of the debate, and (2) people that lead "heterosexual lifestyles" are afraid of people that define themselves as gay IN A DIFFERENT WAY than white people are afraid of black people or men are afraid of women. I hope that made sense (and I'm not hell-bent on this argument, by the way--I would love to hear from someone who thinks I'm totally off-base.)

Really, it seems to me that this is a question NOT of "who has a greater chance of pulling this off?" but of "which deeply ingrained, horribly disturbing fear is greater, White America's fear of Black America or Men's fear of Women?"

Who has a better chance of winning? A white woman. Who has a better chance of winning respect on an international scale? A black man. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Terp, I'm confused by a couple of things.

1) I must not have been paying attention to the definition of "queer" lately. Let's imagine for a moment that I have a girlfriend. Okay, okay, are we all done laughing now? Good. Now, if this imaginary woman were to give me a BJ, that would make me gay? Or would I have to be married and then get a hummer from a woman other than my wife in order to send off for my official Gay ID? Either way, I'm a little confused as to how oral sex between a man and a woman causes the man to be classified as "queer." Who makes the definitions, anyway?

2) Respect on an international scale? I'm pretty sure that isn't part of the selection criteria Americans use to choose between candidates. At least, I'm pretty sure it wasn't a factor when choosing our current president.

It's interesting, Terp, that you mentioned the "which... fear is greater" question, because I was considering phrasing the question that way. And I think you're right, that's really the question at hand, since we're completely ignoring the merits of these fictional candidates.

In an ideal world, the question would seem absurd, because we haven't said a word about the merits of wither candidate, but we still have an opinion.

I think in that respect, a gay candidate could fit into the debate. But, it seems obvious to me that you'll find a lot more people in America frightened of a homosexual leader than a black leader or a female leader. That's why I mentioned the idea, but didn't actually enter the Old Gay President into the fray.

This is maybe beside the point, but I think you'd find that most people (including myself) would have a hard time accepting that Slick Willy is queer. (Clinton's image really amazes me; despite being a WASP, he's been referred to both as "the first black president" and now "the first queer president.") But, I think I may have missed the point of what you were trying to say in that first paragragh. Consider this an elucidation request.

I'm blog-jacking here, but Jarrod Routh and I had a good conversation on the topic. He said a white woman, based on historical precedence. He pointed out there isn't even a black governor yet.

But then we talked about the idea of fear, and it reminded me of some social psychology jazz. I think the decision would have be based on the black man and his ability to appear part of the white in-group. For example, think of the difference between Al Sharpton and Colin Powell. I think Powell is more the "white man's black man" and has gained more recognition from the American public than simply being a person of color. Sharpton, I speculate, would be seen more as the "black man's black man," and more white Americans would focuses on this otherness. Color would always be an issue if such a choice presented itself. I agree that if a black man and a white woman ran against each other, the black man would have to surmount his otherness; a white woman would have to demonstrate her capability.

I would predict Colin Powell could easily outflank Elizabeth Dole, but Hillary Clinton would probably take Al Sharpton.

Golly gee whiz, you make an off-the-cuff comment, and look what happens. I feel kind of like a Dixie Chick.

"Queer." I almost actually looked it up, but then I decided we could all tackle this simple problem without excessive citations. Some synonyms for "queer" would be "odd," "strange," "deviant." Are you with me? Okay, so in reference to sexuality, "queer" would describe some desire or behavior deviant from "THE NORM." If I define normal behavior as within-marriage vaginal copulation between a man and a woman (which I thought I sort of did above), then Clinton is "queer." HOWEVER, "queer" has, indeed become a word frequently used to describe non-heterosexual behavior, thus, under the definition of queer as such, obviously Clinton is not queer. If indeed we define normal behavior as just "heterosexual," then I suppose that a girl pooping on her boyfriend's face for the purposes of sexual arousal would be considered normal. My points are that these definitions are fluid (as is sexuality), and that the Clinton comment was meant to problematize the idea of adding a candidate to our debate based on sexuality.

Concerning the comment about international acceptance: it was meant to prompt ideas on different kinds of "mass phobias" in cultures non-American. As I tried to explain with the "fear" argument, this debate--at least to me--is more about voters than about candidates. It wasn't an actual answer, I was just sayin'.

Yeah, Terp, I thought I was fairly safe in making the assumption that you were using "queer" in reference to Billy C. only to mean that his behavior deviated from the heterosexual "norm." I guess where my confusion actually came from was that you had just used "gay" to mean the same thing. I was more curious about the potential gay/queer definitional dichotomy of the arguement than the actual social stigma associated (or not associated) with either word.

And you're totally a Dixie Chick. :)

As for the actual question at hand, I've got to say that I'm not convinced by the fear idea. I agree that it is unlikely that either a black man or a white woman is going to be elected in the near future. And ditto for a gay candidate. I'm just not convinced that the motivating factor that would keep the majority of the American electorate for casting any of those particular votes is fear. Unfortunately, I don't know what I would call it. Tradition? Knee-jerk reactionism?

It's pretty disheartening. I spend a lot of my time these days around very smart kids, most of them from pretty privelaged (read wealthy) families and backgrounds. A variant of this topic has come up in the recent past, arising out of a discussion of the Cali recall situation. The idea of a woman being elected to the presidency was brought up breifly, and was literally laughed out of the conversation. Of course, we got to the topic by extrapolating from the fact that Mary Carey is running for governor of California to "Jenna Jameson for president," but still. The very idea of a female president was literally laughable to this group of very smart kids, some of whom were women, including the president of our chapter of the American Medical Women's Association.

I think that I may be thinking of things the way that I am because I work in a service job. I'm observing the way that people interact and the way that people talk about things constantly. The racial stratification and attitudes regarding race in this city are so disturbing to me that I think that's why I chose the white woman over the black man. The anxiety that I see in white people over black power is one of the things that led me to rephrase Jason's question in terms of "fear."

The question of how these potential candidates are performing their blackness/whiteness or femininity/masculinity is great. I think that it's important to also keep in mind that, while Al Sharpton's racial exterior may be "blacker" than Colin Powell's, Mr. Sharpton has a perm. Aaron McGruder ("The Boondocks") has stated this over and over again.