Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Not-quite-but-almost-political thought

I'm not overly into political discourse.
I vote.
I feel it is extremely important for me to vote.
I don't think Jesus was a Republican.
I don't think he was a Democrat either.

But, anyway, that's not the point of this post. I find the cultural undertones of the current Democratic Party Presidential Candidate face-off to be very interesting. I have a feeling, no matter how it truly goes down, the historical significance will center around the face-off between a historically repressed race and a historically repressed gender. Our history has seen significant human rights movements with both the African Americans and Women.

Let me throw out a question... If I were to completely remove political views, personality, character, basically everything except an African American candidate verses a Female candidate, which would you be more hesitant/more likely to vote for?

Stop and really think about your answer. I would argue that this question could help you in considering the level of prejudice or judgment you may have in you.

Now, this is me being open and vulnerable here. In the case outlined above, I would have more prejudice and personal background to wrestle through in order to vote for a woman (primarily I would say it has a lot to do with my belonging to a fairly traditional evangelical heritage where women in leadership is often debated as a biblical issue.

Is this a good thing for me? NO WAY! But, it has been a very healthy reality check for me. I have prejudice and judgment in me that is not healthy. I need to continually work through and submit it to Christ.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

As a woman, and knowing what it is like to be a woman, I would not feel comfortable having a woman run our country and lead the most powerful nation in the world. I believe the analytical, compartmentalizing, nonemotional thinking of men is better suited for the job and the decisions that must be made. No matter how "cold" a woman can be, her nature is not like a man's and her tender core will eventually overtake her pragmatic thinking and she will react accordingly, possibly not in the best interests of this country and its people. A person of a different race has absolutely no pro or con in regards to my vote. I honestly do not care what color or nationality a person is in regards to the Oval Office. I care about their experience, their belief system, their moral compass, and their integrity.

Anonymous said...

Correction - I do care about a candidates nationality. The constitution requires them to be born on American soil. I should have used the word ethnicity instead of nationality.

KLantz said...

I appreciate your honesty and raising this important question Derry. This is definitely a historic political season and I think it is good for our country to wrestle through these questions of prejudice, racism, and sexism. The question is, will we wrestle healthily or at all?