A Ferraro flashback ("if Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn't be in the race.")

Politico ^ | Mar.12 ,2008 | Ben Smith

[COUNTrecount]

"If Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn't be in the race," she said.

Really. The cite is an April 15, 1988 Washington Post story (byline: Howard Kurtz), available only on Nexis.

Here's the full context:

Placid of demeanor but pointed in his rhetoric, Jackson struck out repeatedly today against those who suggest his race has been an asset in the campaign. President Reagan suggested Tuesday that people don't ask Jackson tough questions because of his race. And former representative Geraldine A. Ferraro (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday that because of his "radical" views, "if Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn't be in the race."

Asked about this at a campaign stop in Buffalo, Jackson at first seemed ready to pounce fiercely on his critics. But then he stopped, took a breath, and said quietly, "Millions of Americans have a point of view different from" Ferraro's.

Discussing the same point in Washington, Jackson said, "We campaigned across the South . . . without a single catcall or boo. It was not until we got North to New York that we began to hear this from Koch, President Reagan and then Mrs. Ferraro . . . . Some people are making hysteria while I'm making history."

[COUNTrecount]

"So she has a HISTORY of racism. Which means the Clinton Camp could have, theoretically, been aware of it." Yet they haven't distanced themselves from this remark.

[forkinsocket]

Heh, Ferraro is envious of the fact that race trumps gender in the Contest of the Oppressed.

[Long Island Pete]

I have no problem with what she said. In fact its true. When was the last time a white 2 year Senator ran for the Presidency and won the nomination?

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

I agree. Hussein has no experience. If he were a white guy, and especially if he were a Republican, the MSM wouldn’t waste a single flash bulb on him.

But he’s a Democrat and half black. So they use him as a poster child...because THEY are racists who put the color of skin above the content of character and experience.

[forkinsocket]

Of course it's true. But it's not like she's lamenting the odiousness of the whole spectacle. She just wishes that she was the one getting the most-oppressed-minority prizes.

[MoreGovLess]

A disgusting venal sow in the Clinton camp? Shocking!

[woodbutcher]

It will be interesting to see if the libs and news media give her the same grief they gave Trent Lott.

CSSJR

If we do not wish to lose our freedom, we must learn to tolerate our
neighbor’s right to freedom even though he might express that freedom
in a manner we consider to be eccentric.

[Banjoguy]

I don't interpret her remarks as racist. I believe what she is saying is true.

The true racists are the people who are voting for Barack Hussein Obama because he's black. Further, racists include those who cannot just leave it alone, describing every person of color who may participate in any event by using the phrase, "the first, or the only, African-American" etc., etc., etc.

I'm really disgusted with that. Do these people think we are all blind and stupid? Why do commentators think we care about that? It seems to me, to be truly racist, to be preoccupied with the shade of someone's skin.

[DustyMoment]

I LOVE it when has-been know-nothing politicians like Ferraro open their pieholes and prove that America was right when we voted for the ‘Pubbie ticket instead of her and Mondale(?).

What a maroon!!

[kittymyrib]

Geraldine Ferraro, as all Dem liberals, just wants Blacks to know their place. Their place is in the voting booth, voting for white liberal leaders who are more intelligent and can take care of them with other people’s money. It’s worked out well for the Democrat Party over the past 50 years, so why would uppity Blacks dare rock the boat from time to time?

[tips up]

And if she wasn’t female, she wouldn’t have been on Mondale’s ticket, helping him lose 49 states...

[Eagle of Liberty]

"So she has a HISTORY of racism. Which means the Clinton Camp could have, theoretically, been aware of it." Yet they haven't distanced themselves from this remark.

The DNC is still ruled by two big camps, the Mondale camp and the Kennedy camp. Kennedy endorsed Obama and Mondale endorsed Clinton.

[Anti-Bubba182]

They are reporting this on Brit Hume now. They would be heating up tar and gathering feathers for any White Male GOP operative who spoke as she has. She got off easy.

[Lizavetta]

The irony is palpable, isn’t it?

[kinghorse]

To understand please refer to Sopranos season 3 episode 5, “Truth Is”.

Ok I made that up.

/related to persons whose name ends in a vowel

[easternsky]

I thought I read on some post here that he was much less than half black????

[kenavi]

I thought I read on some post here that he was much less than half black????

Which half???

[2harddrive]

I love it! The DemocRATS are killing eack other!

[joebuck]

"So she has a HISTORY of racism"

Actually it shows she has a history of pointing out the obvious in racial matters. This makes one Bull Conner in today's politically correct society.

[Dick Holmes]

I have no problem with what she said. In fact its true. When was the last time a white 2 year Senator ran for the Presidency and won the nomination?

Abraham Lincoln was a former 2 year Congressman, not Senator, out of office for over a decade, who had prior to that put in 8 years in the Illinois State House in the 1830s.