Sister Souljah Moment

In United States politics, a Sister Souljah moment is political jargon that describes a politician's public repudiation of an extremist person or group, statement, or position perceived to have some association with the politician or the politician's party. It has been described as "a key moment when the candidate takes what at least appears to be a bold stand against certain extremes in their party" and as "a calculated denunciation of an extremist position or special interest group." Such an act of repudiation is designed to signal to centrist voters that the politician is not beholden to traditional, and sometimes unpopular, interest groups associated with the party, although such a repudiation runs the risk of alienating some of the politician's allies and the party's base voters. The term is named for the political activist Sister Souljah.

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Famous quotes containing the words sister and/or moment:

    Before any woman is a wife, a sister or a mother she is a human being. We ask nothing as women but everything as human beings.
    Ida C. Hultin, U.S. minister and suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 17, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)

    When van Gogh paints sunflowers, he reveals, or achieves, the vivid relation between himself, as man, and the sunflower, as sunflower, at that quick moment of time. His painting does not represent the sunflower itself. We shall never know what the sunflower itself is. And the camera will visualize the sunflower far more perfectly than van Gogh can.
    —D.H. (David Herbert)