“I bet you 20 bucks that I’ll get the black questions and you’ll get the women questions.”

Maybe I was in a bad mood when I read the article. Could be that whenever hair is part of the conversation (I’ve been a baldy for 17 years) the crank meter goes up. Whatever the reasons there was something slightly annoying about yesterday’s New York Times article about black women, Clinton, Obama, and South Carolina.

Articles like this are to be expected in such a historical moment. A white woman and a black man with a legitimate shot at the White House (acknowledging of course the trailblazer Shirley Chisholm) is atypical, but the article is based on the assumption that black women in South Carolina, the first primary state with a substantial black population, are somehow torn between identity loyalties. Do they support their sister in the struggle Hillary, or their brother man Obama?

Of course political reporters never ask white men about their racial/gender identities and voting, and ultimately that is what bothered me. Minorities are expected yap about tribe loyalty while our majority peers get to opine about the economy, health care, and the Iraq War.