So I spent most of Tuesday evening glued to the television watching coverage (on various channels) of the results of Super Tuesday. One thing that was common to all outlets was this characterization of the Democratic race:
CNN Commentator: "Obama is expected to very well in Maryland, there's a huge black population in Maryland."
Hmm. OK. So only black people vote for Obama?
PBS Commentator: "Hillary has done very well in getting the women of Iowa out to vote."
Woman = Hillary supporter?
I feel like the media is getting lazy when it assumes that like attracts like, and I think it's a very easy (and disappointing) mistake to make when one candidate is a visible minority and one is a woman. They are constructing a framework for the Democratic story (the woman versus the black man) that imposes a certain slant on how we view what's going on.
But I think the issue of why people are voting, and for whom, is more complicated than it is being constructed; and mainstream media outlets are misleading viewers in not pursuing further analysis about who is voting for who. For instance, what about the fact that Hillary's voting record shows that she repeatedly supported the War on Terror? Even though I'm a woman, I'd find it unconscionable to vote for her given my desire to see the American occupation of Iraq come to an end, and I'm sure many white American women, who, if these media outlets are to be believed, should be wearing Hillary T-shirts, feel the same way. Or, what about the fact that statistics show college-educated, middle-to-high income Democrats (who don't have anything in common with these "black, inner-city" supporters of Obama being imagined by the commentators) are coming out in droves for Obama? What unites these two disparate populations to this one man? What is it about Obama that has become the common denominator? This is compelling information (to me, anyway) that is missing when one simply draws lines by race or gender.
What's most troubling to me is what is NOT being articulated in the quotations above, but is definitely being said: by easily making the statement that women vote for a woman, what's also being communicated is that only a woman could support a woman. The same goes for Obama: only a black person could vote for a black man. The subtext of both of these quotations is insulting and hegemonic.
I have no idea who I'd vote for, by the way. I'm just excited to see a Democratic president, any Democratic president, wreak some havoc in Washington...