Look at it this way: we have a biracial candidate, a female and two other stock white male candidates.
Honestly? If I was taken to the poll and had a gun held to my head, I would vote Hillary. Why? Because she's a stone cold bitch. Come on, her last teary eyed episode aside, she's a rock. AND she has eight years experience in the white house.
Until earlier last month, I did think that Obama could be a likely candidate until I saw an interview on a news channel where he blasted Hillary. He blasted Hillary on her experience in the white house. To sum up his words best as I can remember, he said: "I'm sure Hillary has experience in the white house as I'm sure she consulted Bill on some affairs of the state. But she's just as qualified as my wife to be president."
WHAT THE FUCK?!
Hillary spent eight years right up there with Bill. And I think every American knows that she was involved, if not just as involved as Bill. Fuck you Obama, my vote is NOT for you. I don't want a misogynist president, thanks. Also, what's to stop anyone from shooting you? Hmm? It's great to have an avant garde election: a black man and a female as president. I should be shitting my liberal pants right now. But this is not an election, it's the media circus from hell. Society is not at a point where we can honestly and sincerely elect a woman OR a biracial candidate and take them seriously. It's an image to put on an ideal that we give lip service to. If you think that we can put a female president in cabinet while the pay rate is fucked; while the choice of abortion is taken out of the hands of the women it belongs to; while the rights of women to their bodies is a joke--you're dead wrong. A female president will not fix these problems. Small steps first. If we corner absolute equality without lip service or second thoughts, THEN we are ready to elect a female president.
Obama does not convince me. I do not trust him. While I think the problem with Hillary is that she can get the job done, the public won't take her seriously--I think Obama is a gimmick. I honestly do not think he will be able to manage a strong and united cabinet. I've listened to his campaign speeches, I have heard his platform, and to me it all rings with an air of canniness. I don't believe in him. And for me, as someone who is genuinely concerned about the state of America and its government--I can't possibly support a candidate who can't grasp me and seems to even thrive off of the gimmick of biracial. I do not think he cares about the youth of America. And the youth is what is important.
His Oprah factor makes me vomit. I hate Oprah. Well, hate is a strong word. Let me refine my statement. I respect her as a woman who came from nothing. She built an empire, my hands up atcha for that, big O.
BUT. This does not excuse her from being a corporate whore. There is such a thing as wanting
to change the infrastructure, to assuage and improve the glitches of society and its caste. And then there is absolute exploitation. There's a difference between selling out and buying in. Oprah began by buying in, but in the end: she sold out. Her book club is a joke. Her talk show is no better than exploitation and yellow journalism. I'm sorry, but you cannot convince me otherwise on that. If I want to see a strong black woman who I know has something incredible to offer, I'll hit up Queen Latifah.What am I looking for in today's elections? Someone who appeals to the youth. See, Bill and his sax went for it a few elections ago, and look what happened. The youth just poured right out of their family living rooms and into the poll booths. What I'm about to say may sound like the echoes of a dead horse being beaten, but it's true: The youth are the future of today.
We may be young, we may be angry, we may even be politically apathetic and insensitive. But that's because the majority of us have not been woken up. Most 18-year-olds that are registered to vote, vote in the tradition of their parents, which is how republicans and conservatives win the day. Another large percentage of us don't care enough to vote. We're focused on MTV, People magazine, looking beautiful and squandering our youth. But there's another valuable percentage of us for which the youth bestowed on us has not been wasted--I hope I can be considered part of this percentage. We are young, we are angry and constantly dissatisfied. We are punks, we are intellectuals, college students, high school dropouts, college dropouts, yuppies, retail bums, so on. But we've got an idea of how things should be run. We suffer from the pitfalls of having a part-time job with minimum wage
along with having health care rates taken out of our paychecks--health care we do not even have! We want college, but the tuition rates, lack of financial aid, and cutthroat competition with yuppie children of alumni thwart us. We feel the brunt of the middle class in the retail check-out lanes and coffee shops, and even in the street. We are considered wasteful, idle: not true. We were taken in by the generation that runs America today and thrown out on the streets like dogs. The baby boomers made us what we are. And now we are stuck in the dire straits of
wanting change.
There will always be dissatisfaction with the government among the youth. There will always be idealistic, angry twenty-somethings sitting in coffee shops and living rooms, drinking lattes and smoking pot (respectively) and arguing about change. But what all of the presidential candidates that I have seen in this election have done is ignore the amazing potential they could have by tapping into this industrious swell of youth. The youth are still angry enough to voice what they want in the world today, and we are loud enough to be heard. If we can get the baby boomer presidential candidates to turn towards us and hear us: we could change America into a better place.
All we have to do is disregard the media circus, and find candidates that are truly all inclusive to all demographics of America. Not biracial. Not Female. Not Democratic. Not Republican. A Presidential Candidate.
--Le Femme.
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