SPASIFIK’s Tickled Pink humour columnist IRENE PINK is finding the race for the US Democratic Nomination between senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton fascinating to watch.
As a Polynesian woman I’ve always liked the fact that I’m a minority and an underrepresented gender rolled into one. In fact I’ve often thought that if I’d only been Jewish and in a wheelchair, I’d have my own television comedy series by now.
The fact that I can play the brown or female card comes in use, if only to win arguments against white, middle class blokes who insist that their lives are difficult now that they are forced to live in a politically correct world. Pinching fellow female workers on the bum and making slightly racist jokes never hurt anyone they cry. Which is true, such things don’t hurt but the imbalance of power which enables pinches and jokes to be made is perhaps the point.
It is always then, a fascinating struggle when two underrepresented groups are pitted against each other, something that is happening in the American Democrat Nomination for the 2008 presidential election.
Barack Obama, the black junior senator for Illinois is against Hillary Clinton, the female junior senator for New York. Even though I live thousands of miles away and am not African-American, I found it hard to pick between the two.
I therefore can’t imagine how it was for Black female Democrats in America to have to decide who they preferred for their nominee.
As much as I would like to say, preference came down to policy; the reality is that we live in a cult of personality. Whoever came across the best and spent the most money, wins.
It wasn’t even possible to differentiate on policy in the candidate primaries because both Barack and Hilary were on the same side.
The difficulty in this situation is that how you vote, is a reflection of how you see yourself i.e. am I a black woman first or a woman who is black, first?
Talk show queen Oprah Winfrey decided to support Barack over Hilary and on the surface it would seem that she had more in common with the Illinois senator than she did with Clinton.
But why?
Obama grew up in a middle class family, unlike Winfrey who had a childhood not far off being an African-American version of Angela’s Ashes. Both Winfrey and Clinton fought, struggled and succeeded in traditional male bastions, namely the media and politics. Surely the women have more in common?
Or could it be that in modern day America, the colour of your skin still causes doors to be shut in your face faster, than if you happen to wear a bra.
Barack got off to a great start by winning the first and one of the most closely watched caucuses in Iowa. A caucus, for the Democrats anyway, is like hundreds of town meetings with registered voters getting together to vote for their favourite candidate. The votes are then counted and the least successful candidate is cast aside and everyone re-votes until only one candidate is favoured.
After her loss in Iowa, Hilary’s team were not happy and decided that they needed to make her more approachable so had her look a little emotional in her next interview; a slight crack in her voice when Hilary talked about how tired she was apparently.
This closely fought election got me thinking about how I see myself.
If I had to define myself, I would say that I have always been “Irene Pink” first; the fact that I am a woman and Polynesian is important but pretty obvious.
Because I don’t classify myself by gender or ethnicity I still get surprised when I encounter either sexism or racism in my own life, mostly because it doesn’t happen that often but also because both behaviours seem so retro.
I’d also like to meet the person who felt they could dismiss me so easily. Being a comedian stems from a healthy dose of “smartarse” so I’m not backward about coming forward when under attack. Actually, I’m not backward in coming forward when not under attack - but that’s another column!
Maybe Americans need to look to New Zealand for reassurance as we have had not only women leaders, but also a transsexual member of parliament who was brown! And no, I’m not talking about Winston.
If only Hilary or Barack were Jewish or in a wheelchair, this election may have not been so close.
