As the buzz surrounding who Barack Obama would choose to join him on the ticket reached a feverish pitch last week, I couldn’t help but feel that something was lost from earlier in the election.
During the fight for the Democrat nomination, extremely important questions about race and gender were finally coming to the forefront of the nation’s consciousness, it seemed. I have problems with how those questions were debated of course, but for the first time the U.S. seemed like the country was on the right track to address an unrelenting history of discrimination.
To have gone from that to a discussion of Obama’s choice for vice president without any real analysis of the racial and gender implications of that choice makes me feel like the U.S. and the Democrat party has taken a step back from primary season. I have nothing personal against Joe Biden. Still, I think it’s worth mentioning that of the three candidates that seemed likely to join Barack Obama on his ticket – Evan Bayh, Tim Kaine, and Joe Biden – all three were white males.
I’m not necessarily suggesting that their identities as white males should be held against them. I would just have appreciated some real discussion of the implications of this development in the mainstream media, and I include blogs in this category.
Why do I bring this up in a post about the Sanctuarysphere? Because filling up this void will be the blogmigos that I mentioned earlier in this post. When I’m feeling like the coverage of the Democrat National Convention is whitewashed, all I will have to do is check out Awearness, or Scholars and Rogues, to get the perspectives on that I feel are needed.
While most use this as an opportunity to cheerlead for Barack Obama and the Democrat Party, I’m sure that my blogmigos will bring the critical perspective to the DNC that is necessary. For instance, if the Democrats are truly a pro-migrant party, then why are Democrats “outbidding the White House on spending for immigration enforcement“? What about the 49 House Democrats and the 3 Senate Democrats that sponsored the extremely anti-migrant SAVE Act? Even worse, why is it that “progressive” bloggers are pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into the coffers of anti-migrant Democrats like Eric Massa.
Sure, the Republicans have embraced nativism as a party platform, but that doesn’t make any of the above any less excusable. Thank goodness the Sanctuarysphere is on the scene because I don’t know where I would be if it wasn’t for my blogmigos. Good luck everyone, I’ll be following along with pleasure and I hope others will to.
