You're Wrong, Ms. Ferraro

That's the title of an article by the Rev. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, President, Chicago Theological Seminary.

Crooks and Liars pointed me to this portion of Thistlethwaite's comments:

I think of all the ways this comment is offensive and I’m having a hard time choosing between “staggering ignorance of U.S. history and current culture” and the insightful Catholic theological category for human sin, “willful ignorance.” I lean toward the sin concept, because I believe this is a sinful statement on a number of key levels. But I’m not going to ignore historical and cultural ignorance either, as I believe it is the way forward for the country beyond the Ferraros and their monovision.

The New York Times has reported the Justice Department statistic that “an estimated 12 percent of African-American men ages 20-34 are in jail or prison…The proportion of young black men who are incarcerated has been rising in recent years, and this is the highest rate every measured.” Just for comparison, note that 1.6 percent of white men in the same age group are incarcerated.

So, let’s see, to follow Ms.Ferraro’s logic, the other 88% of African American men are being promoted to high public office? Facts dictate otherwise. There are more African American men now in prison than in college and the employment rate for African American men has dropped to just over 50%. It’s nigh on to impossible to get a job in this economy anyway, let alone when you have a prison record. Incarceration rates, unemployment and poverty are linked.

The reason I believe this statement by Ms. Ferraro is an example of the sin of “willful ignorance” is that a person would have to will themselves to actively exclude evidence fully available in every paper, blog, and 24-hour newscycle to come to the conclusion that it’s a “lucky” break for Senator Obama that he was not born a white man.

Ferraro's self-righteous resignation from the Clinton campaign ("The Obama campaign is attacking me to hurt you. I won’t let that happen.") may now help Hillary recover from Ferraro's foot-in-mouth disease but does nothing to redeem Ferraro's unconscionable statements. That she said the same thing about Jesse Jackson in 1988 only confirms the suspicion that white resentment underlies it all.
--the BB