“Bitter” condescension
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Politics is amazing. A single word spoken in the wrong context or a single word poorly chosen can damage all the good will that a politician has sought to build. In recent years, using the word “niggardly” has put one politician in the hot spot, and politicians continue to hammer one another over word usage. Some might say that the media’s and politicians’ fixation on words is excessive, but I would disagree. Politicians fight with words. They push their agendas with words. They debate with words, and they write laws composed of words. Words are the sharpest weapons in their arsenal, and it therefore behooves them to choose words carefully.
In the latest word battle, both Clinton and McCain are attacking Obama over his usage of the word “bitter” in a speech to Pennsylvanians. According to the Washington Post,
“Our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s not evidence of that in their daily lives,” Obama told the group. “You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
Hillary the Pit Bull responded:
“It’s being reported that my opponent said that the people of Pennsylvania who face hard times are bitter,” Clinton said during a campaign event in Philadelphia. “Well that’s not my experience. As I travel around Pennsylvania. I meet people who are resilient, optimist positive who are rolling up their sleeves.”
McCain, who is all but guaranteed the Republican nomination and who is taking the opportunity to take shots at the Democrats, joined in with Hillary:
McCain’s campaign also criticized the comment Friday. “It shows an elitism and condescension towards hardworking Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking,” said Steve Schmidt, a senior advisor to McCain. “It is hard to imagine someone running for president who is more out of touch with average Americans.”
While I’m an Obama supporter, I agree with both Clinton and McCain in that Obama chose the wrong word to use. As an Asian American male, we hear the word “bitter” used against us all the time, and rather than reflecting a simply damaged attitude, as Obama probably intended, the word reflects a kind of defeatism that both Clinton and McCain correctly identified. When a Person A describes Person B as bitter, there is undoubtedly a connotation of elitism, condescension, and general disdain. The word “angry” denotes a visceral reaction to a situation gone wrong or unsettling, but “bitter” denotes a loss of control, the kind of feeling that only losers feel. It is similar to the word “jealousy” in that there is a value judgment contained within it.
My point is that words make a big difference. While Clinton is just playing desperation politics and McCain is just having fun in Romney’s absence, they are correct to attack Obama’s choice of words. The lesson for Asian Americans is this: Don’t let anyone call you “bitter” unless you really are.
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nskripchun
1:35 pm | Apr 12, 2008Not the best way to phrase things, but I think there’s some hard truth in Obama’s words. Many of the same people who fuel racist, anti-immigrant sentiment and a ultra-fundamentalist Christian perspective that is intolerant are the same folks who have been neglected by their government. “Small-town America” has been hurting for pretty much the past 5 decades.
Obama’s follow-up comments (at Ball State University):
“Lately there has been a little typical sort of political flare up because I said something that everybody knows is true, which is that there are a whole bunch of folks in small towns in Pennsylvania, in towns right here in Indiana, in my hometown in Illinois who are bitter.
“They are angry. They feel like they have been left behind. They feel like nobody is paying attention to what they’re going through.
“So I said, well you know, when you’re bitter you turn to what you can count on. So people, they vote about guns, or they take comfort from their faith and their family and their community. And they get mad about illegal immigrants who are coming over to this country.”
After acknowledging that his previous remarks could have been better phrased, he added:
“The truth is that these traditions that are passed on from generation to generation, those are important. That’s what sustains us. But what is absolutely true is that people don’t feel like they are being listened to.
“And so they pray and they count on each other and they count on their families. You know this in your own lives, and what we need is a government that is actually paying attention. Government that is fighting for working people day in and day out making sure that we are trying to allow them to live out the American dream.”
And yeah, Hillary at this point is just the unwitting tool of the Republican Party. She’s like salary-free attack dog to tear down Obama before the general election.
Mellel
1:56 pm | Apr 12, 2008I disagree. Bitter was the right word and politics be damned. Obama not only called these people bitter, but explained why they are bitter and what their bitterness causes them to do. I can’t help but notice that McCain and Clinton gloss right over these issues and focus on a damn word.
Only when politicians start telling it like it is can progress be made. When Obama says “bitter” you see the problem, you know it’s there, and you understand that something must be done. When Clinton uses words like “optimistic” and “resilient”, it slides over the problem and pretends that nothing needs to be done.
“Resilient” and “optimistic” are words reserved for a nation’s second-class citizens. They’re empty compliments used to deter dissent.
jaehwan
11:40 am | Apr 13, 2008Skrips:
When is she going to step down? It was about time…what…two months ago? I think she has the attitude of “If I can’t be the Democratic to win the White House, then nobody can!”
Mellel:
I don’t disagree with any of this. At the same time, “telling it like it is” can be done in different ways. It’s like telling minorities to “get over” racial oppression. To a certain degree, we have to, but usage of “get over it” puts all the responsibility on the minority and none on the rest of the country. The word “bitter” works the same way; it implies a problem with the designee. As a prospective leader of the country, Obama has two responsibilities to these poor people: tell it like it is, and motivate them to improve their lot in life. The use of the word “bitter” hurts his ability to motivate because it is condescending, and he realizes it according to the NY Times today.
I don’t disagree with you on the factualness of what he said. I just think it was a poor way to say it because it accuses rather than uplifts.