~"There is a price to be paid even for fellow-traveling with a racial identity as politicized and demanding as today’s black identity. This identity wants to take over a greater proportion of the self than other racial identities do. It wants to have its collective truth-its defining ideas of grievance and protest-become personal truth.... These are the identity pressures that Barack Obama lives within. He is vulnerable to them because he has hungered for a transparent black identity much of his life. He needs to 'be black.' And this hunger—no matter how understandable it may be—means that he is not in a position to reject the political liberalism inherent in his racial identity. For Obama liberalism is blackness."
"There is a price to be paid even for fellow-traveling with a racial identity as politicized and demanding as today’s black identity. This identity wants to take over a greater proportion of the self than other racial identities do. It wants to have its collective truth-its defining ideas of grievance and protest-become personal truth.... These are the identity pressures that Barack Obama lives within. He is vulnerable to them because he has hungered for a transparent black identity much of his life. He needs to 'be black.' And this hunger—no matter how understandable it may be—means that he is not in a position to reject the political liberalism inherent in his racial identity. For Obama liberalism is blackness."
-Shelby Steele
My Responce -I wonder what Shely Steele thinks now that Obama may actualy win? Does any one know how he feels?
1 comment:
Obama is the anti-Shelby Steele. Whereas Steele sold his soul for success, kowtowing to the vile, racist GOP, Obama succeeded on his own terms.
Be honest about Steele. In Steele's arguably most despicable work, "White Guilt," he blames the decline of American and Western power on the dissipation of white supremacy!
How is someone like Steele supposed to react in the presence of the success of Obama? Both men are biracial, raised by single white mothers. Both intelligent and desiring success in the world.
Look at the path of the two. Which man will go down in history as a truly self-made success? Obama who carved a placed in the world without selling his soul. Or Steele who acted as boot-licker to the worst elements of the GOP?
http://www.blackcommentator.com/183/183_freedom_rider_shelby_steele.html
In a recent interview, Steele, seemed ecstatic about Obama's success. I'd like to think that Steele recognized the errors of his way.
I'm new to this site. I am not a Republican. I'm a happily liberal independent. I could never vote for most Republicans because of the racism that has been part of its fabric since the late 1960s.
So, often, I've tried to understand black Republicans ability to ignore the hatefulness of the peers. While I can understand the message of self-reliance that seems like a reminder of the words of Booker T. The reality is that the GOP has been the party of victimhood.
Election after election, the GOP has blamed hard times on blacks, Latinos, the poor, gays, and "libruls." There seems to be little sense of personal responsibility. Something is wrong with your life? Well, it's the fault of the Negroes and Affirmative Action? Your taxes are high? Blame the evil, unpatriotic libruls.
It's like a broken record. Reagan had his mythical welfare queens, Bush the father had Willie Horton, and Bush the son had liberals and the threat of evil gay marriage.
It's fear, fear, and more fear.
But look at the results? Huge deficits. A decline in the middle class. A terrible infant mortality rate. A hypocritical stance on life: abortion is evil but paying for education is bad, just as its even better to toss addicts in prison.
Criminal behavior like exposing an undercover CIA agent is held up as noble thing. Why? Look at Scooter Libby. He committed perjury but got off.
How can people who are supposedly Christian embrace someone like Karl Rove, a man whose history of evil should make good men and women shun him? Sadly, that's not the case at all.
Ann Coulter? Here's a woman who is anti-semitic, racist, and hate-filled but she is cheered by adoring throngs. Why? Instead of adhering to any kind of recognizable morality, the GOP championed the Social Darwinism and bloodsport hate that we see on playgrounds?
Then we have Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and Pat Buchanan. Where to begin? Limbaugh whose racism is legendary. Hannity who gained fame on his New York radio program by airing the opinions of a Neo-Nazi. Buchanan who served as one of the primary architects of the Southern Strategy still finds time for interviews to promote his books on neo-nazi radio programs in the South.
Come on, people. Why do you think African-Americans and others are repulsed by the GOP?
Colin Powell's words denouncing the GOP's recent hate campaign is a long time coming.
This is a rant. Sorry. It's just that I find myself shocked by the continued refusal by most "black Republicans" to admit to the racism in their party and how intrinsic it is to its fiber.
I'm not naive in believing that the Democrats don't have racists (Geraldine Ferraro) or the cynical slip of the tongues of Bill Clinton, but there is a tangible difference.
I've read people lauding Michael Steele and Ken Blackwell on your site. Do you understand how repulsive that is to anyone who knows the history of these two?
Steele had no problem with his running mate having a fundraiser at a club that excludes blacks and Jews. Blackwell, not only accepted the endorsement of a white supremacist in his campaign for governor, but is regarded as having disenfranchised black voters in the 2004 elections in Ohio.
Condi Rice is probably one of the few black Republicans like Colin Powell who's hands aren't covered in dirt from hurting other AFrican Americans in their ascent within the party. But look at how they have been treated when they spoke about the realities of race? Both were denounced by many whites. Bush admin officials lied and said Rice supported Bush's anti-Affirmative Action position.
Indeed, for Rice, the rumors of her being gay, have squelched her prospects of being McCain's VP choice. Bet he regrets that move.
So, here's the thing. How many young African-Americans are going to look at both the GOP and Democratic Party and asked which party offers them the most hope for success? Especially after looking at the racist and xenophobic attacks made by the GOP.
Some of your site contributors have Arabic names. Look at how the GOP denigrated Obama's middle name of Hussein. Isn't that one of the reason's why Powell said that he would vote for Obama?
Look. It would be great to have alternative to the Democratic Party for African-Americans. But the reality is that the GOP is not it. This election has shown where the GOP stands and it's knee-deep in the past.
Until such time as Newts, Rushes, Anns, etc. have vacated the party, there's no hope for the GOP seeing African-Americans returning to the party in the same numbers as existed pre-Kennedy/Johnson.
http://www.fayobserver.com/article?id=307949
As long as the GOP is the home of white mobs intimidating black voters, it will continue to repulse a lot of voters.
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