Sardonic Sistah Says

Is an Obama/Edwards Ticket Too Sexy for the White House?

There is buzz that John Edwards is being thought of as a potential running mate for Barack Obama or attorney general.

Edwards is thought of as an upright and honorable man.  He ran a good for president earlier this year and many felt he may have jumped ship too early.  During his run the North Carolina senator tried to put the plight of lower class/working class Americans as the main agenda for this election cycle and after several months of silence he threw his support to Obama for president in May.

They could be a good team.  Both young, both intelligence with Edwards years of service making up for what Obama lacks.  He already knows the game since he was John Kerry’s running mate in 2004.  Even though months ago he said he wasn’t running for vice president he recently said he would “seriously” think about it.

 ”Anything that I’m asked to do by Senator Obama, either as a presidential candidate or as the next president of the Untied States, I would take seriously and seriously consider,” said Edwards.

It remains to be seen if Obama will ask him and now with the recent stories about him in the National Enquirer and Slate.com Obama might tap someone else.

Slate.com has several times relayed on their site the hot story in the National Enquirer about finding Edwards creeping out the back way of a Beverly Hills hotel during early a.m. hours.  He was allegedly there to see a woman the National Enquirer accused him of having an affair with last October and their supposed “Love Child”. 

Slate is wondering why the mainstream press is sleeping on this scandal.

It should be noted that a political alliance of Edwards named Andrew Young (not the former mayor of Atlanta) is the baby’s father.  Young is also married with children and, supposedly, Hunter and baby have been to the home of Young for dinner with Mrs. Young there.

So the question is if Edwards is the father of the baby should that influence how we think of him as a politiican?  Does it matter?  Do we really need to know that much about a candidate’s personal life?

Maybe yes.  After questions about McCain and his history with melanoma he released his health records.

Maybe no.  Using McCain as a reference again, Cindy McCain is his second wife.  During his first marriage he had a few extramarital affairs and ended up leaving her for his second wife.

People think that his slipping up in his marriage and having an affair would reflect badly on his character.  His wife is dealing with cancer, after all.  They’ve built a life together for 30 years and even grieved together over the loss of their son.  Many people take his infidelity personally and find this failing to be one that can override the work that he has done in the senate.

I see it differently.  I care more about whether he’s becoming best buds with lobbyists and getting special gifts and whether he has a white sheets with strategically placed eye holes hanging in his closet. If he’s cheated on his wife (it still hasn’t been proved) I wouldn’t like it.  But I think that there are better ways to gauge the character of a man than what he does in his bedroom.  A lot of our politicians have been philanderers but that didn’t make them any worse for it.  FDR had an affair Lucy Mercer (which the American public never knew about until years after his death) but if it influenced how he governed then the country must have liked it because he was elected four times.

I can understand why some people might change their opinion about Edwards if it’s true.  To many people marriage is still sacred and if he break that solemn vow to her then what are millions of strangers to him.  So they want to be informed about any picadillos, they want the whole truth and nothing but. 

Besides, sex is easier to follow in the news.  People forgave Ollie North, Ronald Reagan and George Bush 41 for their role in the Iran Contra scandal but people start spitting rocks when they think of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.

We might not be puritans anymore but just because sex sells just about everything doesn’t mean we’re any less uptight about the subject.  And there is no way that we could ever look the other way if we had a president pull a Nicolas Sarkozy.

Well, maybe if  we were weaned on it through a really good night time drama.

What the Washington Post did for Black Males two years ago the Chicago Tribune is doing, but in a wider spectrum.

The Exploring Race series that the Chicago Tribune began running online and in the paper for about eight months and is facilitated by Dawn Turner Trice.    After getting some interesting emails from readers they opened it up and began posting/publishing interesting essays from those living it or reflecting heavily upon it.  On the site you can read various essays like one woman began ruminating about race when told by people that her European name sounded black. A white female discusses her  30 year marriage to a Chinese man.   A  man ponders what’s in a name when weighing whether to be called Hispanic or Latino.

For a nation that doesn’t like to talk about race it sure is on the tips of our tongues lately.

What’s even more interesting is the section on gauging your own racism in Prejudice Compass.  In it you can read essays and watch videos.  I found the 1960 Cosby Video called “A Boy Like Me” to be really interesting.

This newspaper series is just a baby set but a needed one if we are ever to move towards any type of racial healing in this country.  Perhaps more major papers in more cities will try to encourage a discussion on race with its readers.  We have to talk about it sometime and putting it off won’t make it any easier.

In watching the second hour of “Black in America” dedicated to black men I am struck at how this segment has better focus, better flow.  Where last nights jumbled, crammed hour on black women seemed disjointed this hour has more better flow.  I wonder why it is?  Maybe it’s because there are more stories and more information to draw upon. 

But still I have questions.

Like the father who had a baby but didn’t show up for the birthday party (or, really, showed up late) and how he has another child that is also a year old.  Why not explore and discuss why black males are more proned to dating overlap.  Last night we looked at and discussed the numbers about the large number of unwed women but tonight they touched why black men and marriage.  I’m still curious about what is the number of black men who are of marrying age who aren’t married and what are their reasons for not getting married (not the thugs guys, the middle class guys). 

Or what Michael Eric Dyson brought up at the end of the show: how much does skin color effect black males?

And for black men, what defines their masculinity?  How does the hypersexual representation of them in the media influence their thoughts about their sexuality?

And last night they talked about black women and their health, why didn’t they mention black male health who have the lowest life expectancy?

There’s just too much to try to cover in a four hour special with commercials.

But overall this segment was better balanced.  It had both sides with black men taking opposing positions (although the go to guy for it was Joseph C Phillips aka Denise’s husband from the Cosby show). 

I guess we can’t expect it to be more than what television is best for: quick dissemination of brief information.  The quick series can be a touchpoint, though.  If things don’t ask the questions we need answered then we need to ask them ourselves.  And Tavis Smiley isn’t throwing those racial summitsjust to get upset with Barack for not showing up.  It also gives non-black Americans a chance to see how we live and just a snippet of things that we discuss and worry about.

So if you missed the series it will air again this Saturday.  The black women series will air at 8pm and the black men will follow at 10pm.