Ferraro: defending "racial resentment"

Just as Hillary Clinton was preparing to leave the race, her supporter Geraldine Ferraro thought it wise to revisit and defend her comments in March. In an op-ed in the Boston Globe, she defended white frustration and fear as acceptable "racial resentment" instead of "racism."

They're not upset with Obama because he's black; they're upset because they don't expect to be treated fairly because they're white. It's not racism that is driving them, it's racial resentment. And that is enforced because they don't believe he understands them and their problems....

Whom he chooses for his vice president makes no difference to them. That he is pro-choice means little. Learning more about his bio doesn't do it. They don't identify with someone who has gone to Columbia and Harvard Law School and is married to a Princeton-Harvard Law graduate. His experience with an educated single mother and being raised by middle-class grandparents is not something they can empathize with. They may lack a formal higher education, but they're not stupid. What they're waiting for is assurance that an Obama administration won't leave them behind.

According to Ferraro, so-called "downscale," poorly-educated, whites are reluctant to vote for an elite, Ivy league black man because he would not understand them. They would, and have, voted for an elite, Ivy league white man. This is acceptable to Ferraro, because this is "racial resentment," not racism.

Marjorie Valbrun has the full take-down at The Root.