This video was insprired, if that's the right term, by a blog written by Dave Corn over at CQPolitics, and from which I discovered while reading Sam Stein's blog at the Huff Post. The title of the blog by Corn is "Hillary on Obama: Fear and Hatred on the Campaign Trail" and has these statements:
"When talking to Clintonites in recent days, I've noticed that they've come to despise Obama."...." They're not spinning for strategic purposes. They truly believe it. And other Democrats in Washington report encountering the same when speaking with Clinton campaign people. "They really, really hate Obama," one Democratic operative unaffiliated with any campaign, tells me. "They can't stand him. They talk about him as if he's worse than Bush." What do they hate about him? After all, there aren't a lot of deep policy differences between the two, and he hasn't gone for the jugular during the campaign. "It's his presumptuousness," this operative says. "That he thinks he can deny her the nomination. Who is he to try to do that?" You mean, he's, uh, uppity? "Yes." A senior House Democratic aide notes, "The Clinton people are going nuts in how much they hate him. But the problem is their narrative has gone beyond the plausible."
And I think the Clinton people have gone a little too nuts. It seems like they and the candidate herself has an issue with bright, smart African Americans as represented by Senator Obama. The campaign's mounting a series of words that point to this, from Bill Clinton describing Obama as "articulate" to these terms captured by Corn, particularly the term "uppity."
Now the term "uppity" is commonly and stupidly combine with "negro" in American Culture. According to The YBP Wiki , it means
"Uppity Negro, 1. A fearless black person who by social definition is “not in their place”. Unapologetic. 2. A black person who knows his or her American legacy, his or her actualized social status, and his or her social and emotional plights with still the identical high regard to self as an equally entitled American due the same privileges, attitudes, concessions, and respectability of the entitled.
A fair, just, and loyal person. Historically, a Black person who has been reprimanded or persecuted for voicing his/her dissatisfaction with or rejection of the sub-standard treatment of himself or other Black people. A Black person who holds others fully accountable for their actions and demands adequate treatment from everyone including family members. A Black person who was never or is no longer willing to rearrange himself or conform her behaviors simply to ensure the comfort of White people. A Black person who requires and demands respect, fair treatment, and regard. A Black person who is committed to reversing the crimes of self-refusal, self-denial, and self-hatred that are endemic to the Black community and detrimental to the Black psyche. One who is not in his or her place; furthermore, an Uppity Negro is one who has no concept of “place” definable by factors such as race or class. An Uppity Negro’s place is wherever he or she chooses it to be. www.uppitynegro.com"
By that defintion, and looking at the statements of the Clinton Campaign it would seem that they think Senator Obama does not know his place as a Black person. There's no other way to interpret their statements and any other definition without evidence would be a stretch at best.
This, then, is the a view at what the cultural glass ceiling look like and why we must break it. Senator Obama's a great example of the American ideal: that anyone can make it in their chosen profession in this country. Senator Clinton and her staff don't seem to get this, and it may be that in their anger over losing the lead in Iowa, their real prejudices have come to the surface.
If that's so, and I think it is, the campaign owes African Americans an appology, especially the "uppity" ones, like me.
