2008 Elections: Working, Hard-Working

Today's Clinton gaffe: working, hard-working Americans, white Americans.

Hillary Clinton, in an interview with USA Toady, said those words. What popped into your head when you heard them?

Working=hard-working Americans=white Americans. That's the equivalence you're supposed to see. That feeds into every stereotype white America has been fed about non-white America.

Just when you think Clinton has been beaten down and you start to feel a little sympathy for that tough and seasoned fighter, she shows you that it ain't so much "tough and seasoned" as "willing to cock-punch you while you're about to extend a hand to help her out of the pit."

So now those of us who are not white &mdash Asian, Pacific Islander, Hispanic, Black, biracial &mdash just don't count, is that it? Because we don't represent significant voting muscle in the West Virginia and Kentucky primaries? Or what?

We don't work hard? Tell that to the Chinese who came to America to work on the railroads and stayed to start their own businesses because their children could not get hired despite excellent educations. Tell that to the Latinos y Latinas who pick your lettuce and tomatoes and make your wine and build your houses and clean your house and take care of your children. The Korean restaurauteurs and grocery-store owners. The Indian gas-station owners (like Mahatma Gandhi, remember that, Hillary?) and the Pakistanis who work at the 7-11s and the South Asians who form the backbone of the engineering and software industries. The African-American teachers and construction workers and office employees who have to work three jobs to put food on the table.

Coming from a woman who has lived in comparative wealth all her life, and sucked off the government teat one way or another for, as she reminds us, 35 years, that's damned insulting.

We're not going to fall for this tactic of turning this into white versus nonwhite people, Hillary. You persist in resorting to the lowest and most despicable tactics, but not this time. It's not going to work.

As a hardworking nonwhite person, ThePoliticalCat joins with hardworking white and nonwhite people everywhere to condemn these racist, divisive, contemptible words and tactics.

And, finally, a white member of La Casa de Los Gatos asks, "Hey, Hillary! What about all the nonhardworking white folks? Who's gonna speak for the slackers around here?"

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