I am not convinced by arguments that Hillary Clinton is not getting fair-treatment because she is a woman and I don’t think Barack Obama is getting ill treatment because he is black. These issues cut both ways, after all, and for many race and gender are primary reasons for supporting one or the other of these candidates.
I don’t know the exact etymology of the word ‘uppity‘, but I’m sure someone has written a dissertation about it. I’m not a expert but I take it to mean ‘not knowing your place’. And if I’m right, there really isn’t anything a black man could do that would be more ‘uppity’ than running for president. After all, they’ve made whole movies about the absurdity of a black president. The strange and vaguely miraculous thing about Barack Obama is that he seems to transcend this construct. It’s this transcendence that Black Entertainment Television founder Bob Johnson was referring to when he complained bitterly:
“That kind of campaign behavior does not resonate with me, for a guy who says, ‘I want to be a reasonable, likable, Sidney Poitier ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.’ And I’m thinking, I’m thinking to myself, this ain’t a movie, Sidney. This is real life.”
In Bob Johnson’s version of ‘real life’ black men wear bling, sell drugs, and rent hos. At least, that’s the version of ‘real life’ he’s been selling black youth on his cable network for the last 28 years. But no gold-toothed tilt-capped gangsta is going to come anywhere near the Oval Office, and that means a brother with such ambitions can’t really be keeping it real. He’s gotta act ‘white’ like the Dr. John Wade Prentice character played by Sidney Poitier.
With a few notable exceptions like Bob Johnson, the black community is sophisticated enough to understand the challenges that Obama faces. They understand why he ‘doesn’t act black’ and they also understand why he isn’t talking to their issues front and center in his campaign. It’s all part of ‘passing’, and getting both ‘the suits’ and Joe and Jane Six-Pack to feel comfortable about a black president. It might almost seem Manchurian if Barack Obama was not raised by his white mother and Ivy League educated.
Yet, no black candidate, no matter how smooth and talented, can avoid a certain amount of injured race pride in the white community. We’ve owned that Oval Office for over 200 years and some whites are not all that keen on giving it up. What they don’t want to see is any gloating. Gloating is putting ‘uppity’ right up in whitie’s face. So we get little protests like Richard Cohen’s:
“Obama is nearly as good as he thinks he is.”
Or Gail Collins’:
“…people here worry that Barack Obama is getting show-offy.”
Attaturk takes this as racial code for ‘uppity’, which it may well be. But it’s also, perhaps, the same kind of resentment students always feel about the smartest kid in the class. How do you say it?
“[Obama] wanted to explain that he was too good — too patriotic! — to wear a flag pin on his chest.”
Barack Obama thinks he’s better than you. Never mind that he is better, he doesn’t have to rub it in all our faces. That’s another form of ‘uppity’.
And then there is Saint John McCain. McCain has a decision to make. He can keep dissing his racist, bigoted supporters that are willing to go after Obama’s pastor, his father, his middle name, his race. It will be like six or seven Sister Souljah moments a day as Johnny tries to swat away the hate. Or, McCain can just go over to the dark side and let all that hate do the work that his charisma cannot. What he can’t do is take the high road and then not actually take the high road. If he tries, he’ll lose on both fronts as talk radio listeners come to believe they can’t say anything without getting denounced and the rest of us can’t believe his base is so intolerant and full of hate.
And then there is the press. They like Obama and they know an inspiring story when they see it. But they didn’t pick this guy. Who does he think he is winning this nomination over the Establishment candidate? I think there’s a word for that. Starts with a ‘u’.
Seems like they have a major problem with uppity bloggers, too. Not unlike Hillary Clinton’s problem with uppity voters.
I think it’s a sign of how far we have drifted from the egalitarian ideals of this country that there are so many ways to be uppity these days.
that’s a very glass-half-empty way of looking at it.
When did we ever have egalitarian ideals that would allow a woman or black president? Seems like that’s brand spanking new to me.
I think the ideal has been there since the beginning. Some of the signers of the Declaration of Independence wanted to abolish slavery. The idea of universal suffrage was at least discussed. The document says that all men are created equal — that’s the ideal, even if the reality was that only white male landowners got in on the deal at first.
The story of American history up until Reagan was the painfully slow adjustment of reality to approximate the ideal. Since Reagan, we have been retreating from those ideals in practice while vociferously claiming adherence to them in rhetoric.
The gap between rhetoric and reality is what is giving us this youth-driven revolution now. As Charles Sykes once observed, the unrest in the 60’s was driven not so much by new ideals as the insistence that rhetorically praised but unimplemented ideals should actually be acted upon. Now, at the turn of the new century, another generation of young people is enacting some unimplemented ideals — ideals that went unimplemented so long because we weren’t able to hold the line against the atavistic reactionaries represented to the GOP.
The future belongs to them, and I wish them well with it. They’ll fall short of their ideals, of course, but with luck, they’ll carry them farther than the generation before them, maybe even far enough to counteract the national degeneration that began with Reagan.
Glass half full? Yeah, I guess so. The last thirty years should have been better, should have been more than a desperate rearguard action against the conservative horde.
good points. the ideals are spelled out in our founding documents. But the reality is that it has always been ‘uppity’ for a woman or a racial minority to think they could be president. Until now. And even now, there is resistance.
to a naive audience, they would never guess that he was black. He carries none of the markers of eubonics in his voice. His voice is pure Chicago, and he sounds like me, only better, clearer and with fewer vocal defects (I am white). Possibly that is what Johnson is worried about. He’s a guy who happens to be black, not a black guy. That’s what has worked for him so far. Sure he’s black. He belongs to a black church that does not apologize for its race. Again, that’s offensive to some.
He appears to me to be a guy who is content within his own skin, who believes that he, himself, is a person of value. His validation does not depend on the subjugation of others, nor does it depend on their adulation. This too is problematic to some.
In short, he’s a good guy.
You’re close. But I know
Short version: Up-Pity means I hold the same aspirations that whites consider to be their exclusive domain. Forever
Boy/girl, you want to raise yourself Up– Pity you will never have what it takes.
so here we are at 8 years into the 21st century and having to ask permission. As long as human beings inhabit earth, there will be those who think we should.
To them we’ll say, stand aside, don’t be in my way.
Up-Pity means I hold the same aspirations that whites consider to be their exclusive domain. Forever.
*APPLAUSE*
Maybe Barack Obama thinks it’s just plain STUPID AND CHILDISH to wear a lapel flag pin! If he does, he can’t say it of course. Anywlay, that’s my opinion. Someday someone might shout this out and US persons in the vicinity will sheepishly look at each other and suddenly realize they’ve all been thinking that for as long as any of them can remember. Incidentally, I haven’t noticed many women wearing such pins. Sure, they don’t have so many lapels, but then all kinds of pins are common fashion accessories. I guess they’re not really patriotic. Where does this hideous right-wing (?) fashion come from in the first place? I don’t think that even that McCarthy guy was into the flag pin fetish. It is the emblem of a political movement, a philosophy of life, with which Obama might have trouble identifying, you know. It has nothing to do with the US. Yesterday I looked for the first time at his campaign website and was surprised not to see a big, brassy flag (oh my god, the right-wing now knows the big secret). Instead the flag has been subsumed into a soothing landscape of the sun rising over wavy red and white stripes like hills or a sea. It has something Japanese about it (oh no, I’ve done it again, the right-wing can run with that for centuries!). The times are too dire to laugh about all this nonsense. Curiously, the people at Mrs. Clinton’s campaign website have reduced to flag to a pennant. I refuse, absolutely, to google Saint McCain’s website. The burning question of the young, bristling 21st century: are you patriotic?
is that, as Barry Goldwater once put it, “extremism in the defense of our country is no vice.” Actually, in my opinion, it is a vice, but not one that all agree upon. The jingoistic, nationalistic, hyper-patriotism has led to so many many problems for all of human history that it certainly is the most severe of all cultural defects, surpassing even religion, the second-place personality defect.
However, you cannot gain points by accusing someone of hyper-patriotism. Liberalism has been successfully branded by conservatives as a political liability. We need to brand fascistic hyper-patriotism as the same level of defect. Wearing the flag pin is a character defect in my opinion. Our country, of which I am proud, is no better, and is often worse, than any of 40 other countries. If you believe that we are the best and no others are anywhere near as good, you are a danger to self and others.
I recently posted on the subject of — America: love it or leave it — and it seems appropriate to repost it here.
http://www.bartleby.com/73/1641.html
I see no reason to accept the bastardized frame of patriotism. If someone is goose-stepping under the banner of patriotism in order sell jingoism then there is no reason to accept their label at face value.
“-“I confidently trust that the American people will prove themselves … too wise not to detect the false pride or the dangerous ambitions or the selfish schemes which so often hide themselves under that deceptive cry of mock patriotism: `Our country, right or wrong!’ They will not fail to recognize that our dignity, our free institutions and the peace and welfare of this and coming generations of Americans will be secure only as we cling to the watchword of true patriotism: `Our country–when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right.'” – Carl Schurz
I don’t have a problem with people wearing flag pins. What I have a problem with is people who wear flag pins as a substitute for actively working to improve the country. You know, the types who spouted “America – Love It Or Leave It” 30 years ago, as if America were this static thing that had to be worshipped and could not be changed or improved on. “America – Change It Or Lose It” is more like it.
The world is catching up to John Prine, who long ago declared that “Your flag decal won’t get you into heaven anymore.”
The leveling isn’t going to work
Besides, I think McCain passed up experience a long time ago and is now wandering in the afterglow of old and forgetful
A part of me is quite happy to see the crowing at the black man who has a middle name Hussein. Because Obama is structuring this race with a movement at his back, the smallminded, racist, fearmongering arguments could and should get ground up under the feet of those who yearn for the wisdom that comes with all having an equal voice. New chapter in civil rights is an enticing opportunity.
Webster’s Unabridged dates the word to 1875-1880, and reports that it was coined here in the United States. It’s probable etymology is “Up” + ity.
The Oxford English Dictionary adds some detail, defining the word as “Above oneself, self-important, `jumped-up’; arrogant, haughty, pert, putting on airs.” The first use of the term listed in the OED is from JC Harris’ 1881 “Uncle Remus”: “Hit wuz wunner deze yer uppity little Jack Sparrers, I speck.”
…couldn’t resist the excuse you gave me to surf my dictionaries for a few minutes.
Obama is nearly as good as he thinks he is.
This is the same line of attack that was used on Al Gore in 2000.
It translates as “He thinks he’s better than ordinary people because he’s smart and has a Harvard education.”
This is to set up the choice for the “folksy hero” John McCain.
It really is only adding the “uppity” implication to the way they ran against Gore and somewhat the way they ran against Kerry.
right. McCain graduated near the bottom of his class at the Naval Academy and he had a ton of demerits for cutting up.
Vote for me, I’m an unserious student just like you.
“I am living proof that you can get a GPA of C- and STILL become president.”
He forgot to mention that you can be president, and fail at that, too.
Have you read The Nightingale’s Song? Fascinating profiles of five Naval Academy grads, including McCain, who have all left their mark on recent American history. And interesting to me how in each case the course their life would take was pretty much already set by the time they were Midshipmen. A good read.
As Booman and others have pointed out on numerous occasions, the thugs are a one-trick pony (ok, maybe two tricks when you add in the ‘war on terra’). Obama’s people have gamed this out long in advance. That’s the beauty of the bottom up approach. Those rallies aren’t just to impress super-delegates, they also create emotional bonding. People who see him like him. I don’t think they revere him; that’s a different kind of bonding and can only be earned by performance in office. But they trust him. You can’t run the elite meme on him. He is ‘elite’, but he gets people to think, ‘why not the best?’
I don’t think I’ve ever heard the word “uppity” used except in connection with a black person (and not in the past 20 years at least) OR in a situation that’s meant to evoke the spector of racism in the past. Maybe it’s just my geographic location and our history of intense racial divisiveness. But I certainly never heard the term applied to the smartest white kid in the class.
So if any of the media ever do use the term uppity I would consider it racist. But what’s been said so far seems to me to be similar to how the GOP branded Gore and Kerry – liberal elites who think they are smarter and better than everyone else. So maybe it’s racist or maybe they are just running on the same model as the last two campaigns because they just don’t know how to run against Obama.
And btw I do think Hillary Clinton gets ill treatment, expecially from MSNBC, because she’s a woman. Now, I think if she were exactly the same but a man (and I guess that means Bill would have been the first woman president) she’d still get ill treatment because she’s not very likeable and because of her links to a past administration the press loves to bash, so I don’t get too worked up by it. But I think it exists.
Remember Clarence Thomas’ confirmation hearings, where the truly undeserving right-wing-sellout Thomas accused the Senate Judiciary committee of conducting “some sort of high-tech lynching” of the “uppity Negro?”
How’d that work out for us? That’s the last time I remember the term used much in public discourse.
The silly flag pin flap reminds me of a bumpersticker I have:
“If going into a church makes you a Christian
Does going into a garage make you a car?”
Look how the Republicans wrapped themselves in red, white and blue, and then dealt out misery at every turn. I can’t remember who said it, but the quote is “there is no flag big enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people”.
The Republicans taught us for all time that flags and flag pins are no measure of patriotism.
Good point. It’s always seemed to me — in one of my rare moments of concurrence with the Jehovah’s Witnesses — that the adoration of the flag is essentially idolatry. And too often, flag-worshipers behave in much the same way as that loud, obnoxious variety of Christian who talks Jesus all the time but would never, ever live up the least part of the Sermon on the Mount.
Sometimes I wish we didn’t even have a flag, for much the same reason the major religions prohibit graven images: people begin to worship the symbol instead of what it represents.
I am not convinced by arguments that Hillary Clinton is not getting fair-treatment because she is a woman and I don’t think Barack Obama is getting ill treatment because he is black.
At the top level, of course not — being black or female is just the line of attack. If Obama or Hillary were Sikh or Greek or chiropractors with eczema, they’d use that too.
At lower levels — that of the TN GOP, for example — it sure looks racially-motivated to me.
I’ve always thought the the Law of Jante expresses a certain attitude, one that doesn’t reflect well on human nature. I’ve seen the Law of Jante described as the dark side of egalitarianism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janteloven