Aight Check it:
Sarah Palin.
She's 44 years old. She has more real world experience/common sense than formal education—by a landslide. She got a house fulla kids—5 to be exact. And all 5 of them have names that don't make sense to anyone outside her community—and that's being generous. She has to work to support her family. As for her man, uh... well, we're not sure exactly what her husband does, really... Fishing? Hiking? Her daughter—the 17 year old minor with the odd name is already knocked-up like Juno. Plus she's known for having a major attitude according to the people she works with. So much so they gave her a nickname based on it, one that lets you know she's nobody to mess with. She's also accused of using her position to get even with a man who dogged out her sister by having him fired.
Yeah, Sarah Palin is straight up ghetto.
Now for context, I'm from communities filled with households headed up by hardworking women. I come from the Southside of Chicago where teenage mothers are common. I come from communities where women who stand up for themselves are often rewarded with intentionally unflattering nicknames. I come from communities where women frequently tell the young girls coming up right after them that the best birth control they have is to "keep your legs closed"—and despite combining it with love, attention, guidance, faith and education, it frequently doesn't work.
But my neighborhoods get written off as "the inner-city", "lower class" and "the hood". And because some of our efforts fall short, our communities are also written off as worthless or lesser-than just as the women who come from them.
Yet, Mrs. Palin, she of the great white state of Alaska is hailed as a "hockeymom" and a hardworking mom" for doing all the exact same things that Black and Brown women are largely vilified and I-Told-You-So'd for...
Now, I'm not saying she's not worthy of the VP slot or of the positions she's held prior. I'm not saying her abilities as a mother should be judged on the name she gave her kids (tho' i'll take "Latrice" and "Jamal" over "Bristol" and "Trig" or "Willow" any day of the week, but what do i know? I'm just from the hood.). I'm not saying Palin should be judged by what her daughter's gotten herself into—or by who's gotten into her daughter.
All i'm saying is that for all this incessant (white feminist) crap about 18-million-cracks-in-glass-ceilings, I'd like to see that benefit—for once—women who are not soccermoms, hockey moms, Hilary supporters— and women who are not white. Black and Brown women get raked over the coals for this type of behavior. But not white women...
Can you imagine if Michelle Obama had 5 kids with "black girl names" and one of them were pregnant before 21 without being married? How about Cynthia McKinney—not that she's getting any attention anyway—she's only the Green Party's presidential nom. Can you imagine any black woman in running for public office with Sarah Palin's personal story and fairly thin credentials being touted as "a good christian conservative that the right can be proud of?"
Can you imagine how much crap Michelle Obama would get or McKinney or any black female of either party in the political arena would catch for taking pics like this?
As Mighty Mos once put it--"so fat you can see it from the front." Now tell me SP ain't got a little hood in her? Yes indeed she do! If she turn around it's a wrap like Ace bandages. (Equality-in-coverage rant aside, something tells me that if she's elected, Bill Clinton's gonna do all he can to become the most famous intern in the history of the White House. He's looking at this one thinking, "Lewinsky... I settled for Lewinsky?!")
Back to the story:
Me neither.
granted she's a former model and this is hardly the most suspect pic anyone's seen of a public official...
Uh, yeah...
And oh yeah, since we're on a sliding scale—one where Hilary was allowed to conflate (among other things) her White House experience with that of Bill (the one who was actually elected pres) and governorships with international experience, lemme add this: If being Gov. of Alaska counts as foreign policy
expertise because it's near Russia, then Gov. Schwarzenegger's a
foreign policy wonk, too because California's near Mexico.
(Lastly, to be fair, if anyone ever finds pics of McCain or Obama or Biden in heels and a mini, i'll post 'em every day for a year. And no more Guiliani pics--that makeup/wig look still keeps me up at night.)
