Upcoming U.S. Presidential Election

I don't think anyone at this point believes that a Republican can win this election, unless free elections are truly over in this country and they steal it again. Alas, the presidency of the United States boils down to a choice between(oh how I do hate binaries)two candidates--Hillary Clinton or Barak Obama. Both of these candidates have their winning points(in terms of winning the election, not necessarily something flattering--however I am not saying anything negative against either), Hillary is a great speaker, very poised, elegant, and would be a great choice for the first female president. Barak is cute, handsome, gorgeous(do you see my gaga eyes?), very charismatic, and an able leader. He is also Black and he would be a great and welcomed change in this country. I am supporting his campaign.

In terms of winning this campaign, I think that we must look to the historical trend that applies. In the history of advancement in American culture, it has been(although I don't condone it--its just a fact) the case that Black males have advanced and exist higher on the totem pole than white women. This is a point that I took up in discussion with some students in an African American literature course I taught one semester. Black men gained their suffrage(although, of course, this is only in terms of paper--Blacks weren't really freed until 1965--and this is even more so the case fof Black women, but more on that later) in 1870 with the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment. This caused a great rupture in the solidary between Black men and white women, who had been allies in the abolitionist movement. Indeed, many of the great Black male intellectuals and public figures of the mid and late 19th Century were also suffragists--Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. DuBois just to name two of the more prominent. However, that the white male power structure granted Black men the vote before they granted it to white women pretty much ended the alliance between these two groups and set the caste system under which we now exist. Here is a rough time line of the gaining of suffrage in this country which also serves as a totem pole for the value of groups in this country as well:

Wealthy white men always had everything-poor white men got the vote in the 1770s as well with the inclusion of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution-Black men got the vote in 1870 with the Fourteenth Amendement- White Women got the vote in 1920-Black women, Chinese people, Native Americans, and other ethnic groups got the vote in 1965.

This is the legacy of the American system of privilege. How does this all play out in this presidential election? If history has anything to do with it, then Barak Obama will be the next president of the United States, simply because male privilege is ensued, even where white women are concerned. If Hillary wins, it will be a disruption in the "American Way"-- which is not at all a bad thing. What may happen though--and it would be a great and interesting thing--Hillary and Barak would join the same ticket--and then we would truly see what is really real in the United States.