Prometheus 6

via M at Problem Chylde

There are multiple narratives of sexism and racism. Stereotypes are malleable. They can be hybridized, coded, shifted across demographics, conjoined with other isms like class or ethnic prejudice, foregrounded or backgrounded. The "trumped white woman" version of sexism, for example, ignores the degree to which Michelle Obama is often described in terms depressingly similar to those of Hillary Clinton: she's too outspoken, not domestic enough, going to tank her husband's candidacy by not knowing her place. Similarly, if few are openly hurling the N-word at Obama, what to make of Bill O'Reilly's hankering to "lynch" the missus instead? And why would anyone think that Barack Hussein "Osama--oops, I mean Obama" is getting a free pass from our new-age profiles in prejudice? There's also the complication of how we inject class into narratives of race and sex. Any black person not categorizable as "underclass" has historically been sorted into one of two categories: (a) an upper-class person whose blackness is eliminated or (b) an uppity black whose personhood is eliminated. A large shadow of that anxiety-provoking split hangs over Obama: he's the "articulate, clean" exception washed of all relation to race. And he's also the daring "race man," the opener-of-doors for whose physical safety the community prays.