Please pass this along to any Democratic candidates you may know

So I'm reading Eschaton, where Atrios is whipping on somebody named Jonah something for misrepresenting a Dean debate answer and this thing jumps out at me:

What I want is a country that will start valuing ordinary human beings again, whether they're Latino, African-American, Asian American, Native American. No matter who they are, we are all in this together.

It was the dream of Martin Luther King when I was 21 years old at the end of the civil rights movement that if one of us was left behind, then this country was not as good as it could be or as it should be.

And what my campaign is about, something else that Martin Luther King said, which is that, "our lives begin to end when we stop speaking up for the things that matter." That's how we are going to change America.

We're going to invest in small businesses, not just in the Latino community, but in every community. We're going to invest in people who need help. We're the only industrialized world -- country in the world that doesn't have a universal health care system that includes every single person. We can do that and we can do all these things if we're all in this together...

I would like Mr. Dean and every Democratic candidate running for every office in the nation to please, please include white people when you run down the list of ethnicities you want to help out. If you don't say it the wingnuts assume you're excluding them. Or will claim you're excluding them, favoring minorities at the expense of the NASCAR dads (alias Angry White Men, who are, by the way, still angry for some reason). And the hordes without number that react rather than think end up opposing you because you didn't say their name.

I feel weird as hell saying this out, but on reflection I realized lose nothing if you guys say this out loud because you ain't going to leave them out anyway.

LATER: Mithras adds a reason for mentioning white folks:

It's incorrect to assume that all whites feel included by the political process, because there are many who don't. They don't necessarily feel put upon for their ethnicity, but they would respond to a clear message: We are here for everyone.

I hang my head in shame. Well, not really…but I do hate missing the obvious stuff.

Posted by Prometheus 6 on October 10, 2003 - 5:50pm :: Politics
 
 

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