Dean is slightly Elvis-like/Not Just Whistling Dixie - gentle talk on race

[papau]

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/01/02/deans_blunt_talk_about_race/
Dean's blunt talk about race

Dean's blunt talk about race
By Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist, 1/2/2004 CHARLESTON, S.C.

HOWARD DEAN SAID, "I'm trying to gently call out the white population." His genteel example was a story he tells to voters about how his chief of staff as governor of Vermont was always a woman. After two or three years, Dean noticed that she had a "matriarchy" in the office. When the chief of staff was going to hire a new person, Dean said, he told her, " `I notice we have a gender imbalance in the office, and I wonder if you could find a man.' She said it's really hard to find a qualified man. I got everybody laughing about that." That is Dean's icebreaker to get audiences to understand institutional racism. "The punch line of the story that it's so hard to find a qualified man is everybody does it. Everybody tends to hire people like themselves. And I get them all nodding, including the African-Americans in the audience."<snip>

"Dealing with race is about educating white folks," Dean said in an interview Tuesday on a campaign swing through the first primary state where African-American voters will have a major impact. "Not because white people are worse than black people about race but because whites are in the majority, and therefore the behavior of whites has a much bigger influence on hiring practices and so forth and so on than the behavior of African-Americans." <snip>

Dean would not discuss the Clinton era. He did say that as president, he would try to end disproportionate drug sentencing and mandatory sentencing. He said he is a firm supporter of affirmative action. He said perhaps preferential points could be given to companies seeking federal contracts who can demonstrate diversity...
Dean said proactive measures are still necessary to counteract the unconscious biases that confirmed by many studies showing that job discrimination continues to be a major problem. "One generation does not make up for 15 generations of slavery and Jim Crow," Dean said..<snip>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48313-2004Jan1.html


Not Just Whistling Dixie
In South Carolina, Howard Dean Warms to His Universal Voter Message
By Mark Leibovich Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 2, 2004; Page C01 FLORENCE, S.C.

<snip>As he traverses the tricky terrain of South Carolina -- home to the first-in-the-South primary on Feb. 3 -- Dean wears his exotic Northern bona fides plainly, if not proudly. He is doing so in the service of a broader message: Geographic, cultural and racial differences can be bridged in the name of creating jobs, providing health care and opposing war in Iraq. <snip>

In an interview with the Boston Globe a few days earlier, Dean, a Congregationalist who rarely attends church, described himself as a committed believer in Jesus Christ. While acknowledging that he was raised in the "Northeast" tradition of not discussing religion, Dean told the Globe that he would begin to include references to Christ during campaign stops in the South. <snip>

[madfloridian]

1. A couple of segments from your 2nd article....very nice ones.

SNIP..."Dean gives good rope-line. He gets good rope-line, too.

"Come to Myrtle Beach, Howard."

"Come to Hilton Head, Howard."

"Ban Fox News, Howard."

"I'm an unemployed steelworker. Help me."

One man hands Dean a check for $77. Another places his hands on Dean's shoulders and looks him earnestly in the eye. "I'm a Southern guy, Governor," the man tells him. "But I like your message. And I enjoy skiing in Vermont."

Another snip:
SNIP..."Amen, says Jackie Gore ("no relation to you-know-who"), recently laid off from her job as a buyer-planner at Cummins Engine Co. She drove 45 minutes from her home in Mount Pleasant to see Dean.
Will Dean connect with Southern voters? I don't think so," Gore says. But that's beside the point when she needs a job. That reality transcends any vague and frivolous yearning for "connection" with a presidential candidate.

"When he talks to you," Gore says of Dean, "he speaks the truth, he talks real. Some people say he comes off angry, but that's just enthusiasm. He has that way of hooking you in. You don't care where he's from."...."

[madfloridian]

3. Kick for good articles.

:kick:

[chocolateeater]

2. Thank you

for the links. These are good articles. O8)

[Pavlovs DiOgie]

4. Good stuff!

nt