Dear Senator Clinton:
You don’t know me, though I know perhaps too much about you. In any case, let me introduce myself. I’m a pastor of a Unitarian Universalist congregation in New York. I’ve been married for 24 years, to a man who loves the vast majority of what I do. I’ve got two sons, who think having a mother who’s a minister is pretty cool. I’m African-American, just so you’ll know. I’ve been a Democrat all my life and a feminist (womanist, really) before there was a name for us. And in the interest of full disclosure, I’m a personal supporter of Barack Obama, and have been since he announced his candidacy, though members of my congregation span the political spectrum.
There’s really no reason for you to listen to me, but being a writer and a minister, that’s never stopped me from speaking. I feel I would be remiss in not being direct in my commentary about what is happening in this race for the Presidency. I would never presume to tell you not to run, even in these days when the doors of possibility are closing fast for your candidacy. You have every right to run for President, to make your case to the American people, to prove to those of us who are Democrats that you should be our party’s choice to run against John McCain. So far, however, the only case you have made to me is why I should not vote for you, even though I have never voted for a Republican in my life.
I guess I am part of that statistical anomaly being reported in the mainstream media; the roughly 20 percent of Democrats who say they will not vote for you if you wrest the nomination from Sen. Obama. You didn’t ask me, but let me tell you why I won’t vote for you, and why you have made my determination stronger with each passing day.
Let me begin with your relentless efforts to move the goalpost. You and your advisers continue to issue talking points about what it takes to make a viable nominee for the presidency, and those points have changed with each change in your political fortunes. This is fundamentally untrustworthy, and that is bad enough to call into question any candidate for the presidency. But though you have no hesitation about capitalizing on the issue of gender and the historic meaning of your candidacy, you continue to remain blind to the implications of race in this campaign (unless you view it as a liability for Sen. Obama).
There are few of us African-Americans who have not experienced the bitterness of playing by the rules, only to have others change those rules when it seems we will prevail. All of us who are drawn to Sen. Obama’s candidacy, and even those of us who might be drawn to yours, are paying close attention as you and your camp, faced with defeat, keep attempting to change the rules of this very serious game, as Sen. Obama meets every criteria for victory. He has won more states than you have; you respond that they haven’t been the right states. He has won more of the popular vote than you have; you respond that it’s the delegates that matter. He has won more delegates than you have; you respond that we need to let the superdelegates play out their role, as determined by the Democratic National Committee. He agrees to abide by the DNC rules about Florida and Michigan’s exclusion, just as you did at the start, before it became more expedient to change your mind when the political calculus suggested that those states might move you toward the nomination when nothing else could.
For all of your supposed awareness about our multicultural America, you are curiously blind to the implications of your current behavior. The notion that a qualified black man should take second place to a qualified white woman who is the wife of a powerful white man, (evidenced by your condescending suggestion that Sen. Obama might be your vice president) is anathema to any student of African American history. The coded message sent by your campaign harks back to the days of “Miss Ann,” the plantation owner’s wife who holds the power of life and death over the black people within her family’s reach. Your ambition for the White House notwithstanding, such sweeping power over the hearts and minds of African-Americans is long gone. I regret to say that your assumption of black allegiance or black gratitude is a dream that you (and apparently Pat Buchanan) have been having. I respectfully suggest that you wake up, Sen. Clinton, for if Barack Obama’s candidacy has done nothing else, it has cemented for an entire generation of African-Americans the reality of our own agency. No one has a right to our vote; no one can assume our loyalty, perhaps ever again. At long last, those of you who seek our votes will have to earn them. I must tell you that you have done little to earn those votes so far, especially when you have so egregiously and deliberately misstated so much about Sen. Obama’s campaign, its appeal, the man himself, and Sen. Obama’s relationships with others in the African-American community, particularly his relationship with his pastor, The Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
As a liberal religious minister, I am offended by the way in which you have used America’s ignorance about religion in general and about the black church in particular–both as a club to disable Sen. Obama’s campaign and as a stepping-stone to the nomination. I am offended that someone like yourself, who has over the years flaunted her close ties to African-American communities, would suddenly feign ignorance about the family status that black pastors frequently enjoy among members of their congregations, a status that is no less real because it is freely chosen. I am especially offended that you have not acknowledged the ways in which you (and nearly everyone else) has taken out of context the particulars of Rev. Wright’s sermon. Not only did he preach that sermon in relation to a particular text (Psalm 137), which he uses to warn his listeners against the dangerous escalation of violence and revenge, but he also “footnotes” the most contentious part of his sermon, clearly quoting a former US ambassador’s view of American history as his source. Even if you do not have access to YouTube, where a more contextual excerpt of Rev. Wright’s sermon is available for viewing, your staff certainly does. What’s more, this is not the first time you have attempted to use religion as a wedge in this contest. Why else would you have answered a question on “60 Minutes” about whether you believed Sen. Obama was a Muslim by saying “not as far as I know?”
But context and nuance do not seem to be what you or your campaign are seeking; it seems only scorched earth will do. There have been moments when I have wished that Sen. Obama would be more aggressive in his response to the distortions and vitriol issuing from your campaign. But I have changed my mind, especially after listening to his incredible speech on race in America, which brought me back to myself and reminded me why he is the candidate that best represents the future into which my family and I hope to live. I want someone leading this nation who isn’t afraid to ask me to be better tomorrow than I am today, who asks me to think past my own pain and recognize the pain of others. In much larger and more important ways, he is doing what I try to do in my congregation each week–encourage my people to connect to something greater and to reach for something higher than the immediate, petty things that consume so much of our time. And he is working hard to lead us by example, by modeling for us how we might be with one another, how we might be while under attack from the mean-spirited and short-sighted people and events that could distract us if we let them.
You have chosen a different path, and in all good conscience, I cannot follow you on it. Not only have I lost respect for the kind of presidency you might create, I have also lost faith that you could prevail against a right-wing machine who will use your own recent tactics against you, and with far more effectiveness. As it stands now, the poisonous level of the campaign you have waged has provided the right with ample material for every 527 group they can afford to fund, no matter who the nominee. Fueled by your sense of entitlement and your campaign’s lack of boundaries, you may have sabotaged the opportunity for progressive government in the United States for a generation. I hope with all my heart that I am wrong. But if I am right, I hope you will not fail to take at least as much credit as you have given yourself for the Northern Ireland Peace Process and your interventions in Bosnia.
With deep regret,
The Rev. Rosemary Bray McNatt
Preach it, my sister! I am struck by the parallels between the attacks of one campaign against another and the national shame of torture tactics. If one side practices torture, it means that torture will be used against them. If one side practices cruel attacks against the opponent, it means that cruel attacks will likely be used in return. The only way to end that vicious cycle is to refuse to engage in it, which for the most part Senator Obama has managed, except for some correction of misperceptions.
It also seems to me that the phrase “loyal opposition” is applicable in the Jeremiah Wright situation. We in the Free Church expect our parishioners to disagree with us on some issues; we hope that they will tell us of their disagreement and will stick around because of their loyalty to the institution. Hillary would leave her church if she disagreed with the minister. What does that say about her ability to be faithful? And how does it contrast with her faithfulness to Bill, who shamed her publicly with his behavior?
I know it galls a great many people to see a highly intelligent, charismatic, kind leader from the African American community outshine a highly intelligent, workhorse of a leader from the women’s movement. It invokes memories of the days when African American men got the vote before women, no doubt.
But we can’t afford to get hung up on this. Thanks for your remarks, Rose.
Thank you for writing this, and so eloquently coming to the crux of the matter at hand, for me — what do these sorts of tactics say about the kind of President Senator Clinton might be? Not one I can bring myself to vote for, and I’ve never voted Republican, either.
I have gotten a lot from reading your views and agree with almost everything you say. I have had great problems with Senator Clinton from the beginning and knew that she would be the last person I would support among the Democrats. Her recent behavior has only increased my distaste.
And yet —- I am old enough to remember when many very liberal people voted for Nixon or sat out the election rather than vote for Hubert Humphrey because of our anger at Lyndon Johnson, and Humphrey’s support of him. In later elections a significant number of liberals deserted Jimmy Carter for Anderson and Al Gore for Ralph Nader — giving us Reagan and Bush. Yet whatever we were unhappy about at the time, the alternative was far worse for the country and for the causes we cared about — particularly because of the choices made for the Supreme Court by Nixon, Reagan, and Bush, which far outlast the many disasters of their presidencies. I like McCain as a person better than I like Hillary, but in terms of the Supreme Court and most other policies, I think he would be far worse for America. Having been around longer than you have, I long for the day when I could be excited about a presidential candidate in a general election. I still think the chances are very good that Senator Obama will get the nomination and that would be wonderful, a day to remember and hope for the future.
But despite all the dashed hopes and asassinations of 1968, those who voted against Humphrey, in hindsight, made a grave error for all the things we cared about. So I can’t dismiss voting for Hillary, yet, remembering how much we lost when in our anger we failed to support deeply flawed Democrats against the even worse alternative.