Clean

OK, what is this picture of?

Did any of you say that it’s a cat? How about a bear?

No, it’s a dog, right? We all know it’s a dog even though I think that none of us have seen pooches with 90-degree angles. And even though it has four legs, a tail and cute ears we know that it is not a cat or a bear. In our mind we have some unvoiced criteria by which we can categorize things that are ‘like’ but not identical. These schema’s allow us to recognize that Goofy, Astro, our own beloved Fido and that character from Dire Straits ‘Money for Nothing’ video are all dogs. If we couldn’t make these distinctions we’d never be able to function.

Now, close your eyes and then bring up an image of a dog. What did you see? I saw a dachshund. If you didn’t see a dachshund, did you fail to follow these simple directions?

Now, how about I ask you to picture a ‘bitch’.

One of the dogs memorialized here in the last few months? Ann Coulter? Bette Davis? Your ex-girlfriend?

If your choice was a human female, are you a misogynist? Or more simply a member of our society, where ‘bitch’ as a pejorative is an overwhelmingly more common usage than the clinical term.

Now, how about the word ‘clean’?

I am gladdened that Joe Biden so quickly rendered himself an irrelevancy in this campaign (he’d be a great Sec of State but now he’s just hubristic noise), but when one opponent sizes up another, ‘clean’ never refers to somebody’s hygiene or physical appearance.

Biden sadly does not have the ability to listen to his words before they hit the air. Bill Clinton would not have used the word clean in reference to a black opponent, but Bill’s op-research people would know that Obama’s record is free of moral stains.

I am ecstatic that Obama is running. I don’t know if I want him as President but I want him in this campaign. I believe that this is our opportunity to grow up. If we are going to celebrate diversity then we are going to have to learn how to live with it, our and our neighbor’s.

And we’re going to have to learn the difference between racism, prejudice and cultural frames of reference. To fight Racism, or homophobia, or sexism we need to learn how to distinguish between our neighbors’ limitations and our enemies’ evil.