Our Ms. Brooks: Reason For Hope
I've been woefully remiss in my weekly dose of Rosa Brooks, but other news intervened. Still, today's column in the Los Angeles Times deserves some attention, if only because Ms. Brooks' commonsensical corrective to the recent mainstream media junk is so very welcome. Her subject is the continued (although often hidden in euphemism and indirectness) attention paid to Barack Obama (he's Black, you know) and Hillary Clinton (and she's, well, a girl).
Even the dimmest media bulbs have noticed that there's something a little different about this year's crop of Democratic presidential candidates. Hillary Clinton, who won the New Hampshire primary, appears to have an extra X chromosome. Meanwhile, Barack Obama, who won the Iowa caucuses, has been blessed with some extra melanin in his skin, which also makes him stand out from the usual crowd of middle-aged, white-guy candidate-clones.
The media just can't stop gushing and clucking and gasping about it all. Oh, my gosh, Hillary Clinton is female! Barack Obama is, uh, black! Will American voters accept a female candidate? A black candidate? Are voters more sexist or more racist? What's a bigger problem in America today, sexism or racism?
Snore. ...
Increasingly, the media obsession with whether Americans will be less likely to vote for a black man or for a woman is also beside the point -- because to an emerging generation of younger voters, the very terms in which the questions have been framed no longer make much sense. ...
But increasingly, there's evidence that younger Americans just don't think about race in the same simplistic ways. They're more likely than older Americans to be minorities themselves, for one thing. In 2006, only 19.8% of Americans over 60 were minorities, compared with about 40% of Americans under the age of 40. And younger minorities come from a far wider range of racial and ethnic backgrounds than their older counterparts. Once, "minority" largely meant "black," which in turn meant "descendant of the Africans brought to the U.S. as slaves." Some of today's young minorities fit that profile, but others are descended from Filipino farmers, Chinese schoolteachers, Iranian engineers, Mexican construction workers, Congolese doctors or Haitian shopkeepers.
The tapestry gets even richer. The number of inter-marriages has gone up dramatically over the last few decades, and as a consequence, so has the number of multiracial young Americans, who -- like Obama -- are neither this nor that, but a bit of this and bit of that, with a healthy dollop of something else. And regardless of their own status, younger Americans are more likely than older Americans to have dated inter-racially, to have close friends of other races and to live in families with relatives from other racial and ethnic backgrounds. ...
Younger Americans tend to think differently about gender. Generation Y -- those born after 1977 -- is dramatically more accepting of nontraditional gender roles than older generations; a recent survey found, for example, that 63% "completely disagree" that women should "return to traditional roles" in society. These younger Americans are also far more comfortable with homosexuality, which makes them less likely to assume that women who behave in less "traditional" ways must "really" be lesbians -- and if they are, Gen Y-ers wonder, who cares?
Americans under 30 grew up in a world in which women are CEOs and secretaries of State, and in which women make up the majority of U.S. college students. And, as with race, most younger Americans can't see what the big deal is. Of course a woman can be president. Of course being tough -- or getting a little teary-eyed -- on the campaign trail doesn't make you more or less feminine, or more or less suited to power.
Bravo, Ms. Brooks. It's nice to see that someone has noticed that to a great extent this country has moved beyond the 1950's paradigm, even if that paradigm lingered well into the 1970's and 1980's because of the power structure.
The people who are in their thirties now see things a little differently, and if they can be energized enough to get out to the polls, well, we may finally see this country once again living up to the promises of the founders.
And I'd really like to be around to see it happen.
Even the dimmest media bulbs have noticed that there's something a little different about this year's crop of Democratic presidential candidates. Hillary Clinton, who won the New Hampshire primary, appears to have an extra X chromosome. Meanwhile, Barack Obama, who won the Iowa caucuses, has been blessed with some extra melanin in his skin, which also makes him stand out from the usual crowd of middle-aged, white-guy candidate-clones.
The media just can't stop gushing and clucking and gasping about it all. Oh, my gosh, Hillary Clinton is female! Barack Obama is, uh, black! Will American voters accept a female candidate? A black candidate? Are voters more sexist or more racist? What's a bigger problem in America today, sexism or racism?
Snore. ...
Increasingly, the media obsession with whether Americans will be less likely to vote for a black man or for a woman is also beside the point -- because to an emerging generation of younger voters, the very terms in which the questions have been framed no longer make much sense. ...
But increasingly, there's evidence that younger Americans just don't think about race in the same simplistic ways. They're more likely than older Americans to be minorities themselves, for one thing. In 2006, only 19.8% of Americans over 60 were minorities, compared with about 40% of Americans under the age of 40. And younger minorities come from a far wider range of racial and ethnic backgrounds than their older counterparts. Once, "minority" largely meant "black," which in turn meant "descendant of the Africans brought to the U.S. as slaves." Some of today's young minorities fit that profile, but others are descended from Filipino farmers, Chinese schoolteachers, Iranian engineers, Mexican construction workers, Congolese doctors or Haitian shopkeepers.
The tapestry gets even richer. The number of inter-marriages has gone up dramatically over the last few decades, and as a consequence, so has the number of multiracial young Americans, who -- like Obama -- are neither this nor that, but a bit of this and bit of that, with a healthy dollop of something else. And regardless of their own status, younger Americans are more likely than older Americans to have dated inter-racially, to have close friends of other races and to live in families with relatives from other racial and ethnic backgrounds. ...
Younger Americans tend to think differently about gender. Generation Y -- those born after 1977 -- is dramatically more accepting of nontraditional gender roles than older generations; a recent survey found, for example, that 63% "completely disagree" that women should "return to traditional roles" in society. These younger Americans are also far more comfortable with homosexuality, which makes them less likely to assume that women who behave in less "traditional" ways must "really" be lesbians -- and if they are, Gen Y-ers wonder, who cares?
Americans under 30 grew up in a world in which women are CEOs and secretaries of State, and in which women make up the majority of U.S. college students. And, as with race, most younger Americans can't see what the big deal is. Of course a woman can be president. Of course being tough -- or getting a little teary-eyed -- on the campaign trail doesn't make you more or less feminine, or more or less suited to power.
Bravo, Ms. Brooks. It's nice to see that someone has noticed that to a great extent this country has moved beyond the 1950's paradigm, even if that paradigm lingered well into the 1970's and 1980's because of the power structure.
The people who are in their thirties now see things a little differently, and if they can be energized enough to get out to the polls, well, we may finally see this country once again living up to the promises of the founders.
And I'd really like to be around to see it happen.
Labels: Election 2008
posted by Diane at 4:12 PM
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