For today's story, we will travel far afield from the typical domains of politics or science or law that have so often provoked our thinking into an often overlooked area of human relations:
To which gender do you belong?
It's a simple question, or so common sense would tell us-either you're male, or you're female.
As it turns out, things aren't quite so simple, and in today's conversation we'll consider this issue in a larger way. By the time we're done, not only will we learn a thing or two about sex and gender and sexuality, we'll also learn how to offer a community of people a level of respect that they often find difficult to obtain.
During 2008, I have sometimes heard a variation on the following question: who would you vote for if both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were white men? In other words, are you supporting or not supporting one of the two Democratic candidates because of their gender and / or ethnicity? Typically, my first reaction is to say that of course I would still support Obama, since none of the reasons I give for supporting him are based on the demographic groups he represents. However, upon further thought, I think that if both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were white men, I might actually vote for Hillary Clinton. Here's why:
If Hillary Clinton was a man, that would mean that (s)he is the homosexual life partner of a former President of the United States. That's pretty cool. I can get behind that breaking that barrier.
If Barack Obama was a white man, then what's up with his Kenyan family? Feels kinda colonial. Clearly, being married to an African-American woman shows that he is open to other cultures, but something feels off about a white American having an 90-year old Kenyan grandmother. Wouldn't that have happened while the British were still occupying the country?
So, there's a deep thought for a Friday evening. Maybe I would vote different if both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were white dudes. How about you?
While many of us have been raised on the Jeffersonian notion of arriving at consensus through rational, democratic discourse on a series of discrete issues, the truth is that cultural differences permeate almost every aspect of our political divide in America. There is very little difference between identity and ideology and between identity and issue politics. This can be easily demonstrated by noting how the main ideological institutions in this country--family / region, religion, education, work and media-are also the main determining factors in identity, and also in how someone will vote:
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