Joshua Tinnin
Re: Condoleezza Rice a lesbian?
Tue Mar 30 22:35:28 2004
64.173.25.188

>>The controversy started last week when The Washington Post decided not to run a strip of the Boondocks comic strip that suggested Rice's single status may be contributing to the continuation of the War on Terrorism--or to quote from it directly, "maybe if there was a man in the world who Condoleezza truly loved, she wouldn't be so hell-bent to destroy it." While no other newspaper pulled the strip that day, the Post defended its decision by invoking a newspaper policy not to comment on the personal life of political figures; furthermore, they stated, "We had no way of knowing whether Mr. McGruder's assertion that Condoleezza Rice had no personal relationship was true or not."

But the strip is supposed to be humor, not serious commentary. I wonder if the Washington Post thought about this policy when running all the stories and op-eds about Clinton and Monica.

>>What isn't debatable, however, is that it's a sexist comment, which even the comic strip acknowledges--in the next day's strip, one of the characters reacts sarcastically to the first boy's suggestion to find Rice a boyfriend with the comment "What I really like about this idea is that it isn't the least bit sexist or chauvinistic".

>>This raises an interesting question, actually: is it okay to make sexist comments if, at the same time, you're pointing out that they're sexist? This answer, too, is debatable, but given that the character's comment about this idea being "sexist and chauvinistic" doesn't appear until the next day's strip, it's kind of a moot point to anyone who only read that day's paper.

The question which comes to my mind is whether the author has a sense of humor, or if she is so easily offended that she cannot see the forest for the trees.

>>The Post's decision received some mild coverage following the decision, but didn't really become front-page news until journalist Richard Blow, a former editor of George Magazine, suggested in his column a few days later that the Post pulled the strip in part because they feared Rice would be offended at the possible interpretation of the comment to mean she's gay.

>>"Particularly," Blow added "since there's already scuttlebutt to this effect in Washington, primarily, so far as I can tell, because Rice is single and comes across as a little frosty."

That sounds a great deal more like a sexist situation than anything McGruder might have said. Which I guess was Blow's point ...

>>But whether Rice or any of the political figures gossiped about actually are lesbians is not the point. It's the use of lesbianism as a slur that is so disturbing, since it's based not only on the assumption that a strong, confidant woman must not be a "real" (read: heterosexual) woman, but that only women in heterosexual relationships are "real" women. By implication, lesbians and unmarried straight women are always somehow "less than."

>>Blow might have thought he was doing the public a service by calling the Post on their decision, but he didn't do Rice or women in general any favors by giving Rice's detractors in the media a platform to spread gossip about her to a national audience and, at the same time, reinforce the idea that lesbianism is a shocking secret--all without any of them getting their hands dirty, since they are just repeating what others have said.

I'm curious as to why this is considered so important as to warrant a subject header on APFN. It's like reading a shocking headline on the cover of a tabloid, only to discover in the story that the actual details aren't worth consideration, and aren't shocking at all.

>>If this is what passes as unbiased news coverage these days, it's no wonder there are still so few women in power.

That's true. And, other than the Boondocks strip being pulled, it might also be said that this barely qualifies as news.