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Reader question:
What does this headline – Obama's race is the 'elephant' in the voter booth
– mean? What "elephant" are we talking about?
My comments:
The phrase in question here is the "elephant in the voter booth", and it's
a metaphorical elephant as well.
The headline means this: Barrack Obama (the Democratic frontrunner for the
next Presidency in the United States) is black. And his race is going to be a
thorny issue – an issue Americans will find hard to ignore. It's an issue that's
kind of taboo. However, this time American voters can no longer sidestep this
question.
The question essentially is this: Are Americans ready for a black
President?
First, definitions. Elephants are big, huge, enormous, gigantic, gargantuan
animals. An elephant in the voter booth is hardly the easiest thing to ignore,
speaking the obvious. However, if they could, I think people probably would
ignore the animal. Elephants and things of that size and nature are hard to
wrestle with, that's why people want to ignore them if they could instead of
confronting them face to face.
The original idiom is in fact "elephant in the room". Likewise, an elephant
in the room is hard to ignore or sidestep, but at the same time it's hard to
come to terms with. Hence, the elephant in the room becomes a metaphor for any
subject matter that is taboo, thorny and contentious. It could be either people
or issues – taboo and controversial people or issues that we want to but can't
simply sweep under the carpet.
In the case of Obama, if he wins the Democratic nomination – he has all but
clinched it over the weekend – American voters will have to ask themselves a
question they've never asked before. That is, are we ready for a black
President?
Well, the question itself says a lot about America, a country that claims
to be a land of equality and freedom. But tha's an elephant in the room we may
ignore for the moment. What we're talking about here and now is another
elephant, the issue of race in the next election. The prospect of a black
President is hitherto unheard of. It's unprecedented. Little wonder people will
make an issue of it, especially Republicans whose presidential nominee is John
McCain, who is white.
Pity that Obama and his nemesis Hilary Rodham Clinton are both Democrats.
Hilary, being a woman, is also unprecedented running for President. Had they
been in different parties, they might just as well be vying for the Presidency
itself rather than party nominations.
Well, then of course there would be two elephants in the same voter booth,
wouldn't there – blacks and women? At least that way one underprivileged group
would win it all, you know.
Anyways, here are a few media examples of the elephant in the room.
1. The Black Elephant in the Room
At least Obama was trying, in his speech, to start a dialogue about the
black elephant in the room. That's more than any white politician has done.
White politicians want the blacks to just behave, vote for them, and then go
away.
Rev. Wright, crazy though he may seem, said many things that some black
people think. Some of them do indeed believe that AIDS was created by the
government to keep black people down. Some do believe that 9/11 was an inside
job. Centuries of racism have led them to this point. You can scream and holler
all night about the ridiculousness of it, and you will, but there it is. Many
blacks just think differently about racial issues than whites. And remember a
little guy named O.J. Simpson, and how blacks cheered at his acquittal while
whites looked on in horror?
- 236.com, March 20, 2008.
2. The White Elephant in the Room
Meanwhile, most pundits, left and right, refuse to squarely face the white
elephant in the room: race.
The Republican victory turned almost exclusively on increasing its share of
the white vote. In 2000 Bush won the white vote by 12 points, 54-42; in 2004 he
increased this to a 17-point margin, 58-41. That increase translates into about
a 4 million vote gain for Bush, the same number by which Bush turned his 500,000
vote loss in 2000 into a 3.5 million vote victory this time around.
This increase came mainly from white women. Bush carried white men by 24
points in 2000 (60-36) and increased that margin by only one point in 2004
(62-37). But he increased his margin of victory among white women from only 1
point in 2000 (49-48) to 11 points in 2004 (55-44). This accounts for a 4
million plus vote swing for Bush. (Women of color favored Kerry by 75-24.)
- alternet.org, December 4, 2004.
3. Ignoring the elephant in the room
The soaring oil price and its underlying causes are the invisible elephant
in the room in the presidential race. While many of the candidates' proposals
can be chalked up to pandering in an election year, there is no evidence that I
can find that any of the candidates gets this "peak oil" problem. For example,
Robert Hirsch and Roger Bezdek briefed two low level Clinton staffers on the
dangers of a dwindling oil supply. No evidence supports the idea that this
briefing has had the slightest effect on thinking in the Clinton campaign.
We are all being sold down the river in this year's election. As the first
DOE secretary James Schlesinger said, "We have only two modes—complacency and
panic." Complacency rules, and panic awaits. I don't know who the next president
will be, but I can foresee that anxious day when our leader-to-be (or Jason
Grumet?) exclaims "Oh, no! Oil is $161/barrel! The economy is falling apart!
What do we do now?" Don't say we didn't warn you.
- energybulletin.net, May 7, 2008. |
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发表于 2016-7-9 23:48:38