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September 08, 2008

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Amazing. A candidate is intelligent and well-spoken, and regardless of his challenging upbringing, is accused of being "uppity". Thanks for the discourse.

I find it ironic that we, in our "classless society" need a word to describe someone going "above their station."

Over here in Britain, you occasionally hear "uppity". It's not necessarily racially charged. I'd define it as "loud, outspoken, demanding equality" - with it usually being obvious which inequality is meant in any given circumstance. Over here I'd more expect to hear it in the context of class, employer/employee, teacher/pupil, landlord/tenant, male/female and other such inequalities, but it's very very obvious to me which inequality is meant in the context of Obama despite me never having (at least as far as I remember) heard the term in a racial context before.

Also, a bit like the n-word (or "geek", for that matter), it's not a term of abuse if you use it to describe yourself or people like yourself. To my ears, "thinks that they're uppity" sounds "they think they're courageous rebels fighting for freedom, equality and justice, when really all of those battles have been won decades ago, and they're just poseurs", but I don't think that's what's meant in this case.

Oh, I *LOVE* The Ticket's subtle and oblique way of calling a spade a... racist.

More on the n-word check it out:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP2U0jmZjec

No, the stupid thing is, he didn't accuse Obama or Hillary of BEING uppity.

He accused them of THINKING THEY ARE UPPITY.

To be uppity is to put on airs, to act as though you are "better than all that."

Obama thinks he is putting on airs, is what this guy said.

Nobody thinks he himself is uppity. OTHER PEOPLE think they are uppity.

(I grew up in a town w/ no blacks. You had to drive to Des Moines before you could find a black person. We used "uppity" plenty. I know it was used a lot for blacks, but it's not limited to them)

But I still think there's something really telling when he uses that word when he's talking about Obama and Hillary, regardless of what his syntax strictly parses as.

Because the ONLY people accused of being "uppity" are blacks and women.

Which means, really, he thinks the two of them are uppity.

@TootsNYC: Good point. However, he was talking about Barack and Michelle Obama, not Hillary Clinton. (For all I know, he thinks HRC is modest, unassuming, and--what's the word?--deferential.)

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