African-American author/thinker Shelby Steele was on Moyers' show last night with what I thought were really bizarre theories about Obama's appeal to whites.
Steele is one of those black conservative Republicans, and he has a new book subtitled about why Obama cannot win. He did not explain that too well on Moyers' show, which you can catch on PBS's website.
I found his analysis totally unconvincing, and almost racist, as he claims that African-American public figures are one of two types. "Bargainers" are those who do not view whites as racists, offering reassurance to what he calls "white anxiety" about that issue. "Challengers" are those who assume that whites are racist.
I don't get it. While I agree that Barack has some of the appeal of Colin Powell, in that he's not that "black", I think that Michael Jordan could probably run for Congress or a statehouse and win. And look for Charles Barkley actually to do that one of these days.
Among other "bargainers", Steele lists Oprah Winfrey, Bill Cosby, and, bizarrely, Sidney Portier. Huh? Steele, like Barack, had a white mother and black father and parents who took an active interest in his education. And he somehow claims that Barack does not give adequate credit to his mother for doing what apparently both of Steele's parents did--helping their kid in school.
"Challengers" in Steele's mind are people like Al Sharpton. He says that black people are uneasy about "bargainers", basically a re-hash of the suggestion that Barack is not black enough. I don't buy it.
I haven't read the Steele book or either of Barack's books, but Barack is a guy who has "paid his dues" big time. I really like his line about how he could have gone the route of corporate lawyer, but instead went into civil rights and community organizing. It's a great story, the kind of thing that winning candidates need and that win for them.
Steele, a fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, seems to me to be seizing an opportunity. He claims that whites welcome a figure like Obama because he assuages their guilt about being racist, and blacks distrust him because he is not a "challenger", i.e. does not see whites as prima facie racists. I think we are WAY beyond that kind of thinking.
Steele also claims that Obama is an "empty suit", that he has not articulated anything other than "hope", etc. BS. Some of Obama's statements in debates, such as an early one about responding to a terrorist attack, were in fact thoughtful and measured, as opposed to Hillary's.
I think this is another GOP hack who wants the 2008 race to be run against Hillary. The Hoover Institution is full of them. And while I disagree with his broad stereotypes about how black Americans think, with all the stuff that has gone on from the GOP in the past eight years, and the new initiatives about "voter fraud" and federally-mandated standards for state-issued IDs, it's really hard to imagine how any African-American can vote for the Republican candidate.
A year ago, I was with some die-hard Republican rich people at a New Year's Party. The kind of people who talk about welfare cheats and that kind of thing. Men watching football, women across the room, there was a lot of talk about how much they like Barack.