Squeamish though yours truly might be about anatomical references, I have to bestow upon a Heather Wilhelm article my headline of the day award–heck, make that headline of the week:
In Search of a Likeable Uterus
Here is how the story under the headline begins:
On Tuesday, Killer Mike, a rapper who loves Bernie Sanders, spoke to a crowd of 4,800 people at Morehouse College. His intent was to discuss our glorious future under democratic socialism. Along the way, however, he said something problematic: “A uterus doesn’t qualify you to be president.” Fact check: This statement is true. It is obvious, logical, and should not even need to be stated aloud. Heck, I’ll even repeat it: A uterus does not qualify you to be president.
But, as you can imagine, the rapper soon found himself under fire (but not for vulgarity–for being mean to Hillary):
Poor Killer Mike, caught in the social-justice crossfire, tried to defend himself via Twitter: He was taken out of context, he noted. He was merely quoting a friend. That friend was Jane Elliott, whom Killer Mike described as a “progressive activist woman,” which, in case you’re not aware, is code for “she can’t possibly say anything offensive, because she sides with us."
It is true that Killer Mike quoted Jane Elliott on that stage at Morehouse. Unfortunately for him, even in the proper “context,” it was pretty clear that he quoted her approvingly. This earned him a rather stern closing sentence from Vox: Reducing Clinton’s candidacy to “her reproductive organs,” Emily Crockett wrote, is “not just crude and demeaning, it also trivializes a serious and complicated fight for gender equality and representation.”
This might come as news to Hillary Clinton, whose entire campaign revolves around occasionally reminding us that she’s a lady, because she doesn’t have much else going for her, but potato, potahto, right?
I was stunned by the vulgarity when I first heard the rapper's pensees, but this is what politics in America has come to.
Wilhelm's ridicule is the only way to address it.