I know there has been a lot of back and forth already about Clinton’s “hard working whites” comment, but I’m hoping to provide a balanced, civil approach.

First, I want to say that I don’t think she was trying to imply that black people are not hard-working. If anything, I think it was the opposite…I think she said “hard working people” and then clarified that she meant white people, so as not to imply that black people are not hard-working. If she had just said “hard working people” and not added “white people”, it might have sounded as if she was saying that the 90% of African Americans who have been voting for Obama don’t work hard. So I think people who have accused her of implying that black people are lazy are off-base.

That being said, I still find her comments offensive, because she is essentially asking the superdelegates to count the votes of certain demographic groups more heavily than others. It’s not just black people she is discounting here. I am a white woman with a college degree who voted for Obama in February, and she has essentially said that my vote matters less in gauging electability than the vote of a white person without a degree. She is discounting several groups of loyal Democratic voters, assuming that black voters can be taken for granted because they have voted 80-90% Democratic in the past. Meanwhile, according to her logic, instead of rewarding black voters for their loyalty, the superdelegates should reward the Reagan Democrats (a majority of whom voted for Bush in 2004) for being fickle, weighing their votes more heavily because they are considered swing voters.

Beyond that, what is most offensive to me about this and other comments she has made is that she is essentially hinting that she’s more electable because she’s white. No, she has not come right out and said that Obama is struggling with “hard working white people” because he’s black, but we all know that race is at least a factor here. While canvassing for Obama in Philly on election day, I met one working class white guy who told me point blank that he could not vote for a black man, and said he thought his mother and grandmother would disown him if he did. He said that I was just a naive young person, and he asked if my parents knew what I was doing, as if it was something scandalous. I told him that my mom was right around the corner, canvassing for Obama with a broken foot because she believed in him that much, and that my grandparents were voting for Obama as well. He was really surprised…he said that he could not imagine the people he knew voting for a black person. Given some of the other interactions I had in that neighborhood, I think he was probably right. It was a bit of a shock to me, having grown up in a relatively upper-middle class neighborhood and living next door to a black family and never witnessing such overt racism before. The bottom line is, there is some resistance among working class white people to voting for a black person, and Clinton knows it as well as anyone, and she didn’t have to say it directly for it to be obvious.

I know people who did not vote for Obama in the primaries because they thought America was just too racist to elect a black man, and they want Democrats to win this year. They may be right, and we’re foolish to think that it’s not going to be an uphill battle getting Obama elected. It’s everyone’s right as voters to consider electability, including electability arguments based on race and gender, when casting their own vote in the voting booth. But for the superdelegates to buy into that argument now and overturn the pledged delegates because they are afraid people are not ready to vote for a black man for president would essentially mean that they were denying Obama the nomination when he has earned it because he’s black. Even if America is not ready to elect a black man, we’ve come too far to turn back now. The voters have spoken and barring some last minute scandal that derails Obama’s campaign, there is no justification left for denying him the nomination.

I want to win this election as badly as anyone, but not to the point where I could accept a nomination process in which black voters were considered less important than white voters and the first African American with a chance to become president was denied the nomination despite having more votes and more delegates simply because of the color of his skin. I have faith in the American people to look beyond skin color and realize that Obama offers a better vision and better solutions for this country than John McCain. But even if I end up being wrong, I would rather see my party do what’s right and take the chance than abandon its commitment to civil rights and diversity and equal opportunity for all, which is essentially what the superdelegates would be doing if they took the nomination away from Obama at this point.