The novelist Alice Walker takes to the pages of The Guardian, where “Comment is free,” to explain how Barack Obama can save America from our pitiful white selves and absolve Hillary Clinton’s original sin.
When I have supported white people, it was because I thought them the best to do the job. If Obama were in any sense mediocre, he would be forgotten by now. He is, in fact, a remarkable human being, not perfect but humanly stunning, like King was and like Mandela is. He is the change America has been trying desperately and for centuries to hide, ignore, kill. The change it must have if we are to convince the rest of the world that we care about people other than our (white) selves.
[…]
It is hard to relate what it feels like to see Mrs Clinton (I wish she felt self-assured enough to use her own name) referred to as “a woman” while Barack Obama is always referred to as “a black man”. One would think she is just any woman, but she is not. She carries all the history of white womanhood in the US in her person; it would be a miracle if we, and the world, did not react to this fact. How dishonest it is, to try to make her innocent of her racial inheritance.
To recap:
- All white people are evil [Except perhaps Barack Obama’s mother? -ed.].
- The chief consideration in electing an American president is persuading non-Americans (at least non-white non-Americans) that we care about them.
Glad we cleared that up.
If present trends continue, then, the general election will put “The American President Americans Have Been Waiting For” against “The American Change America Has Tried To Hide, Ignore, and Kill.”
Should be interesting.
