Hillary's Concession Speech

Email Print posted by Alixandra 06/07/2008 03:48:58 PM EST

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From her speech:


"I am a woman and, like millions of women, I know there are still barriers and biases out there, often unconscious, and I want to build an America that respects every one of us.


"We must make sure that women and men alike understand the struggles of their grandmothers and mothers...


"Although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it has about 18 million cracks in it and the light is shining through like never before."



CONQUERING PREJUDICE

"Let us resolve and work toward achieving a very simple proposition: there are no acceptable limits and there are no acceptable prejudices in the 21st Century in our country...


"Children today will grow up taking for granted that an African-American or a woman can, yes, become the president of the United States."


Hillary Clinton

As a woman, who knows that women got the vote in this country ten years after the black men, and those women were jailed, beaten, raped, degraded, humiliated ... 


As a woman who made 10 times in sales what the men made in high tech and they still didn't want to pay me until I threatened a class action suit ...


As a woman, I'm incredibly proud of her.  Period.


Yes, we all need to get behind Obama and make this country a democracy again ...


But, I LOVE those 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling.

Love,

Alixandra

http://www.angelmystics.com

~*~

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Hillary's Concession Speech | 4 comments (4 topical, 0 hidden)
some questions (none / 0)

I am intrigued by Clinton's comment, "Although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it has about 18 million cracks in it and the light is shining through like never before."

How much do you think the gender factor played into Clinton's loss?  I agree that there is certainly a glass ceiling still in place in America, but from my observations there didn't seem to be much of a case of people not voting for Clinton because she was a woman.  If so, do you think it was more than the number of women voting for Clinton?  I saw a lot of misogynistic comment from TV pundits, but I didn't see any evidence of it translating to voters.  I think that since this was a dem primary, the race and gender factors were far less than both would be in the general election.

Also, what are your thoughts about her giving this speech today?  A lot of dems are upset that she didn't give this speech on Tuesday.  She had a monumentally greater audience then and it might have made more of a difference in healing wounds.  That said, if she campaigns hard for Obama from this point on and squashes ALL talk of VP, it won't matter much come November. 

by jawill11 on 06/07/2008 06:55:36 PM EST

Mysoginy and the primaries (none / 0)

I remember when Ellen Degeneres had a sitcom and the network tried to cancel it.  Ellen came out of the closet and the network didn't cancel the show.

Then everyone said how amazing it was Ellen came out of the closet despite the risk to her career and particularly her show.  This was considered incredibly brave and very risky of her and we were all supposed to feel good about he not getting cancelled despite taking this huge risk.

Except that is not how it happened at all.

See, the sequence was actually, network threatens to cancel show.

Ellen bravely comes out for whatever personal reasons.

Gay community rushes to her defense and becomes hardcore fanatic base of viewership.

Network fears backlash for seeming anti-gay and lets the show keep running.

Show develops extremely loyal niche following (as many show featuring prominently, non-offensive gay characters do) among the gay community.

I suspect the mysoginy thing was like that.  Is it real? Yes.  Did Hillary's campaign do well despite of the mysoginist vote or did it do well because women rallied to her cause in defiance of the mysoginist vote.  I suspect Hillary gained more votes due to being a woman with a real shot than she lost.  Just like Ellen improved her chances of staying on the air by coming out.

Does that take anything away from these two courageous trailblazers? No.  Not a thing.  But lets not pretend this is something it wasn't. 

 

by ProfRich on 06/08/2008 12:38:26 AM EST

[ Parent ]
Trailblazers (none / 0)
I like the way you put that,  They both made leaps and bounds in  there own way,  And for their rights .If just 10% of woman , And gays did the same , this country just might become a better place to be .  thanks for the truth pro.

by tuna on 06/08/2008 10:20:33 AM EST

[ Parent ]
Achieving Gender Equality (none / 0)
Those are lovely quotes Alixandra.Thanks for pulling them out of the speech. Yet, I have to add a thought.
 
Senator Clinton was unable to take us over into the promised land of gender equality, due to her perpetual anger over the injustices that women have suffered in the past and still suffer. I understand that anger. But anger won't get us the prize. It is merely a response and stops our forward momentum. Obama has suffered because of the color of his skin but he doesn't operate from a position of outrage. There's the difference.
 
Clinton saw the quest for the presidency as a righteous war on behalf of oppressed women, with her at the front of the column. Obama saw the quest for the presidency as a means to an end - to improve the lives of all, no matter what their sex or ethnicity.

by Verified1 on 06/08/2008 05:33:38 AM EST

Hillary's Concession Speech | 4 comments (4 topical, 0 hidden)
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