According to this story by Christi Parsons in the Chicago Tribune, Barack Obama came with it during a Democratic candidate’s forum yesterday to the NAACP (story below). The article compares his statements to the NAACP with a speech he gave at Howard University, where he spoke in “mostly lofty terms.” At the NAACP event in Detroit, however, Parsons’ describes Obama’s statements as combining “his intellectual assessment of social problems with a stronger does of personal feeling.”
You are currently browsing the archive for the politics category.
African American Political Pundit has an excellent survey of some of the takes on the Obama Girl video, which I’m sure you’ve probably seen by now (it’s after the jump, if you haven’t).
What do you think?
Fun and irreverent take on being young and down with the Obama campaign? Or sinister shadow of the Harold-Fordism Obama should expect throughout his campaign?
[6/20/07: Jack and Jill Politics has a nice update, here.]
I caught this over at Jack and Jill Politics. It looks like the Hilary Clinton campaign has released a video of the poet Maya Angelou officially endorsing Clinton’s candidacy. (It’s after the jump.)
The video is so interesting, as it uses Angelou’s blackness to authenticate Clinton’s femininity, and by some kind of metaphysical extension, her integrity as a candidate. Mainly consisting of images voiced over by Angelou, Read the rest of this entry »
Coincidentally, after my random in-class rant on nationalism and the Miss Universe contest, I came across this article at the BBC. It’s about Miss Mexico’s gown choice for this year’s Miss Universe pageant, which will be held May 28th in Mexico City. The gown was selected for Rosa Maria Ojeda Cuen from a field of thirty other dresses, and was admired because the selection committee “wanted a dress that made you think of Mexico.” Hector Terrones, who served on the selection committee, apparently also explained to La Jornada that “The design should grab people’s attention and have impact without giving too much information.” But critics, like La Jornada columnist Jorge Camil, vehemently disagree on the dress’ ‘message,’ claiming that:
It would be like Miss USA wearing a dress showing images of the Ku Klux Klan in the Deep South. [...] A beauty contest is very far from being the right
place to vent political and religious ideologies.
Oh my! Let’s have a look at this dress…
[I have friends hopping all 'bout the globe, doing creative, legal, and educational work on women's and race/ethnicity issues. Every once and a while I'll be posting dispatches. This one is from one of my old college roomates, Supriya Pillai. We lived right here. Anyway, below please find her impressions on this March's meetings held by the UN Commission on the Status of Women. I wonder, Eyes on Hillary, First Wives Club Contenders, Politicas, and Are We Ready? has there been anything from any US candidates on any international women's issues?]
. . . .
by Supriya Pillai
I’ve been in the basement of the UN for all of last week and I’ll be there until the end of this week. The Commission on the Status of Women meets every year to discuss government’s various commitments to a particular theme having to do with women. General, I know and, annoyingly, pretty non-binding, but the theatre I have been witness to has really been something. Watching world politics unfold in one room as people comb through language and text, the silent fights become more vocal. Diplomacy is just a nice way of fighting. Like, when most delegates take the mic, they respectively thank their other delegates, the chair and then they proceed with their “fuck yous”– but ever so gently.
This year, the theme is the Girl Child. Interesting to note, there are no international treaties, documents, etc that indicate that girls can express their human rights. Rather, there are places where girls are protected (i.e. by their families), but in and of themselves, they are not entitled to inalienable human rights. Read the rest of this entry »