Moyers 9PM EST- Steele on Race and Obama

Updated to change title, apparently Race an Racism has reared it's ugly head, even here on Kos.

If it's Friday, it's Bill Moyers Journal night, lucky us!

The impressive Kathleen Hall Jamieson providing more campaign watching tips;

Kathleen Hall Jamieson spoke with Bill Moyers last week about life after Iowa and the power of good speechmaking. She returns this week to look behind the flurry of post-New Hampshire predictions and how to watch debates:
"I recommend not watching before the debate and after the debate. I recommend that after the debate you turn the debate off and you talk with your family about what you saw and what was important to you. And you think about what you saw."

Shelby Steele, 'self described black conservative'

author of the recent book A BOUND MAN: WHY WE ARE EXCITED ABOUT OBAMA AND WHY HE CAN'T WIN.

Hmmmmm, looks like even George Will disagrees with Steele, this should be interesting. "Obama seems to understand America's race fatigue, the unbearable boredom occasioned by today's stale politics generally and by the perfunctory theatrics of race especially."

Daniel Yankelovich

It was "Dewey Defeats Truman" all over again after New Hampshire. How can polls be so wrong? Below you'll find some tips for evaluating political and public opinion polls and resources for keeping the campaign numbers in perspective.

I'm looking forward as usual to Moyers show.

•  Tips for Moyers

  by AntKat on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 05:46:02 PM PDT

•  I'll be watching...

  I always do!!

  by tshaw1 on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 05:59:30 PM PDT

•  George Will

  As a white male I think I speak for everyone when I say race and gender issues are boring and need to go away.

  by catfish on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 06:02:02 PM PDT

  •  And class issues too

    nobody wants to hear about income inequality.

    by catfish on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 06:03:25 PM PDT

    •  Oh! Wrong catfish. Income inequality is what

      serves as class distinction in America's society today.

      I certainly find nothing distictive other than 'money' that would elevate a Paris Hilton above most young women in this country, yet......

      by AntKat on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 06:08:52 PM PDT

      •  Hope the snark is obvious!

        Had to read yours a few times to be sure :)

        by catfish on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 06:12:25 PM PDT

  •  I agree, but between the time I posted this and

    checked just a few minutes later, I felt I needed to update the title, hoping all of us might benefit from the show.

    by AntKat on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 06:04:59 PM PDT

    •  That Kathleen Hall Jam

      is so fascinating. Every time she's on that show she brings a fresh insight I'd never considered.

      by catfish on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 06:13:05 PM PDT

•  I swear I'm not related n/t

  by Coldblue Steele on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 06:09:24 PM PDT

  •  LOL, thanks I'll take your word for it!

    by AntKat on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 06:12:41 PM PDT

•  Obama Supporters Looking for REDEMPTION

  Shelby Steele hit the nail on the head !!

  by Grand Poobah on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 06:27:01 PM PDT

  •  sorry..

    this Obama supporter is not buying it.

    by onanyes on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 06:44:48 PM PDT

    •  It's Always Been Obvious To Me...

      ...and many other black people I know. Steele did briefly address the issue of the big problem of an Obama Presidency, and that is when the white folks who think Obama represents the end of discussion on race come head on with minorities who think a black President is obligated to enact aggressive affirmative action and other reparative measures to deal with the legacy of inequality.  Somehow, I don't think all these Obama supporters who are ranting and raving this past week about whatever they believe is the racial slight du jour are going to be as zealous in fighting discrimination when the shit hits the fan.

      by Grand Poobah on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 07:01:58 PM PDT

      •  Big concern

        It is a question that if Obama wins for many whites racism no longer exists. "Hey that was racist!!" Shut the fuck up, we have a Black President."

        by Sansouci on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 08:34:09 PM PDT

•  Watching Steele

  Second time this week (previously on Charlie Rose).
  I'm not really familiar with his work.

  Seems very smug. Some interesting observations, though.

  by maryru on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 06:40:26 PM PDT

  •  Frrank Rich wrote this Dec. 2

    in his nyt column called "Who's Afraid of Barack Obama?"

    ...
    But much like the Clinton campaign itself, the Republicans have fallen into a trap by continuing to cling to the Hillary-is-inevitable trope. They have not allowed themselves to think the unthinkable — that they might need a Plan B to go up against a candidate who is not she. It's far from clear that they would remotely know how to construct a Plan B to counter Mr. Obama. The repeated attempts to fan "rumors" that he is a madrassa-indoctrinated
    Muslim — whether on Fox News or in The Washington Post, where they resurfaced scurrilously on the front page on Thursday — are too demonstrably false to survive endless reruns even in the Swift-boating era.

    Part of the Republicans' difficulty in countering Mr. Obama, should they have to, is their own cynical racial politics. For the most part, race has been the dog that hasn't barked in this campaign despite the (largely) white press's endless fretting about whether the Illinois senator is too white for
    black voters and too black for white voters. Most Americans aren't racist, most Republicans included. Those who are won't vote for the Democratic presidential candidate even if it's not Mr. Obama.) But the G.O.P., by its own doing, is nonetheless saddled with a history that most recently includes "macaca" and Katrina, Mr. Bush's appearance at
    Bob Jones University in 2000 and the nonexistent black population of its Congressional delegation.

    As the Republican leadership knows, this record is an albatross, driving away not just black voters but crucial white swing voters, too. Ken Mehlman, the former G.O.P. chairman, and Mr. Rove, as recently as in that Newsweek column, have implored their party to reach out to minorities. So have Newt Gingrich and Jack Kemp. But not even conservative leaders of this stature could persuade their party's top 2008 presidential contenders to show up for a September debate moderated by Tavis Smiley for PBS at the historically black Morgan State University.

    It's not because those no-shows are racists; it's because they are defensive and out of touch. With the notable exception of Mike Huckabee, most of the party's candidates have barricaded themselves from African-Americans for so long that they don't know how to speak to or about them. As sure-footed as these Republicans are in attacking the Clintons and Streisand — or in exchanging fire with Al Sharpton and hip-hop moguls — they are strangers to the mainstream multiracial and multicultural America exemplified by an Obama or an Oprah.

    An Obama candidacy would force them to engage. Or try to. A matchup between Mr. Obama and Mr. Giuliani, who was forged in the racial crucible of New York's police brutality nightmares of the 1990s, or between Mr. Obama and Mitt Romney, who was shaped by a religion that didn't give blacks equal membership until 1978, would be less a clash of races than of centuries.

    But there's another, even more fascinating hidden story line in the 2008 campaign that speaks to the potential prowess of an Obama candidacy. Despite the thuggish name-calling of a few right-wing die-hards (e.g., Rush Limbaugh mocking "Barack Hussein Odumbo"), the dirty secret of a number of conservatives is that they are disarmed by Mr. Obama even though they know his record is more liberal than Mrs. Clinton's.

    The drumbeat of approval has been remarkably steady. Last year Mark McKinnon, a top adviser to both the 2000 and 2004 Bush campaigns, admiringly called Mr. Obama "a walking, talking hope machine" who
    "may reshape American politics." Andrew Ferguson devoted pages in The Weekly Standard to raving about "Dreams From My Father," Mr. Obama's memoir, before dismissing its political sequel, "The Audacity of Hope." Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review, keeps trying to write anti-Obama articles but they're so mild that they never really contradict his judgment of a year ago that the senator from Illinois "is the only presidential candidate from either party about whom there is a palpable excitement." Even Tom Tancredo, the most virulent immigration demagogue of the G.O.P. presidential field, has spoken warmly of Mr. Obama.

    Perhaps most striking is the case of Shelby Steele, the archconservative scholar who shares Mr. Obama's mixed-race heritage. Though he has just written an entire book, "A Bound Man," to argue unpersuasively,
    in my view) that Mr. Obama "can't win," he can't stop himself from admiring the guy throughout. Peggy Noonan wasn't being tongue-in-cheek when she wondered in The Wall Street Journal last month whether Mr. Obama "understands the kind of quiet cheering he is beginning to garner from some Republicans." In her view "they see him as a Democrat who could cure the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton sickness."

    Or at least they do in the abstract. Should Mr. Obama upend the Beltway story line by taking Iowa, the Republicans will have every reason to be as fearful as the Clinton camp is now.

    Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

    by skywriter on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 07:35:16 PM PDT

    •  Umm

      Thanks for the column, but I think you've gone a little far over the "fair use" 3-paragraph limit for quotes here.  

      Anyway, in Moyer's interview I was most interested in how Steele expressed his view of racial behaviors (strong stereotypes) and how he related that to his own life experience.

      In the end, I felt like he was trying to convince himself.    

      by maryru on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 08:28:20 PM PDT

•  Steele's work raises interesting points

  and he helps me see what problmes some African Americans are having with Obama, and why some white voters are more comfortable with him.

  But not all people of any group think the same.

  Now, I can relate to this "you aren't really black" BS; I've had white people say that I am "not really Mexican-American".

  by onanyes on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 06:48:57 PM PDT

  •  Steele's "aren't really black..."

    line is where he's off because Steele refuses to acknowledge the diversity of thought among black community.  However, he has accurately articulated many of the issues African-Americans have with Obama.  On some issues, he hits the nail, but on other points, I think he's off.  Remember, Steele did gain his fame as a conservative apologist.

    by Grand Poobah on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 06:54:06 PM PDT

    •  the shame is

      Obama has been outspoken on Black issues as a State Senator, and he managed to get even a few R's on board.

      There are good ways to be a "challenger"; one doesn't always need to be "loud" to be effective.

      by onanyes on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 06:56:45 PM PDT

      •  One Doesn't Have To Be Loud...

        ...however as Steele as accurately noted, Obama has deliberately chosen to be ambiguous.  

        by Grand Poobah on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 07:10:16 PM PDT

        •  Ambiguity, please explain

          Was it Obama saying before the Supreme Court opinion that the mandatory drug sentencing laws where damaging to Black communities (and HRC ridiculed him for it)? Or  was it Obama being the first and only candidate that issued comment on the Jena Six? Maybe it is Obama's stances on Affirmative Action? Or is it Obama's constant conversations with the Kenyan President and opposition leader calling for calm and monitoring the conditions in Nairobi? Maybe it was Obama's years as a community organizer in Chicago or was it the years as a civil rights lawyer? Does Obama come off as a fire breathing nationalist? No. I am amazed at the ability to not look at the majority of his adult life, as opposed to the one and one and a third terms as public officials of the two other Democratic front runners.

          by Sansouci on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 08:54:56 PM PDT

          •  Ambiguous Is When...

            ...Obama builds his candidacy on the tag line "I'm rooted in the African-American community, but I'm not limited by it."  

            What the hell is that supposed to mean ?!   What exactly are these "limitations" from the black community that Obama has been liberated from ?  Talk about speaking in code.  That line sounds like it could be the title of a Shelby Steele anthology.

            by Grand Poobah on Sat Jan 12, 2008 at 02:43:06 AM PDT

            •  My interpretation . . .

              I think he is saying to the white voter . . . "I am not your stereotype of what a Black politician is (i.e. Jesse Jackson/Al Sharpton)." I don't have a problem with those figures for the most part (well maybe Sharpton and a little with Jackson) but because the average white citizen is not familiar with any Black elected official or the reality of diversity among Black leadership he has to spell it out for them. Rush Limbaugh has done a geat job of caricaturing Black leadership as buffoonish and opportunistic. And let's be honest he has to make appeals to white voters if he wants to become the POTUS. He is saying that there is a universality of concern within the African American experience that is not seen by white voters. He is very good at avoiding disjunctive politics. I don't think he is being purposefully ambiguous but is being/describing the inherently ambiguous nature of being African American in this society.
              p.s.
              Shelby Steele is a very thoughtful and articulate idiot.

              by Sansouci on Sat Jan 12, 2008 at 08:15:18 AM PDT

              •  Re: My Interpretation

                Barack Obama is a skilled attorney and politician.  Words are the tools of his trade and he chooses and uses them very carefully, with specific intent. Obama was using that line during his run for the Senate in 2004.  I have an inherent problem with any black person of any profession who feels the need to explain to white people that "he's not one of those... [insert whatever descriptive you wish]."   Did Carol Moseley-Braun explicitly distinguish herself from others in the black community when she won the very same Senate seat 12 years earlier ? The voters of Illinois had elected black politicians to statewide office before Obama (CMB, Roland Burris as Comptroller in 1979 and Attorney General in 1991) so the citizenry was certainly familiar with "Black elected officials [and] the reality of diversity among Black leadership" well before Obama came along.  Every white Chicagoan has seen black political figures up close ranging from Jesse Jackson (Jr. and Sr.) to Bobby Rush to Harold Washington to those statewide officials mentioned above. Yet, for some reason Barack Obama feels the need to distinguish himself by purposely sending out an ambiguous message that leaves room for interpretation.  You may interpret it as being benign, I find it calculated, coded and reason (of many) to view his campaign with suspicion.

                p.s., I agree that Shelby Steele is an idiot but even a fool can hit an occasional target when shooting from the hip.

                by Grand Poobah on Sat Jan 12, 2008 at 10:51:50 AM PDT

    •  Steele = Contradiction

      Some points I thought maybe but most others as he tried to analyze Obama, I thought what the fuck? Obama comes off as Eldridge Cleaver? Was this before or after Obama's quasi Cosby-esque criticism of the Black poor? It amazes me that despite the seeming "overcoming" of racism that Obama's candidacy could repreent or the diminished role of racial rhetoric in his speeches, Black conservatives have been extrordinarily critical of Obama. Whether he's not Black enough (Stanley Crouch) or we don't know him (S. Steele) Black conservatives have been laying the greatest amount of doubt on his candidacy. Despite a memoir and most of his adult life in the public eye, Obama has managed to completely conceal himself. He's not the son of a white women and a Kenyan, he's the son of Kreskin and Houdini. I think Obama's rhetoric is a clear indication of who he is. His relationship to White and Black America via his birth and his experiences is the logical grounding of his belief in the possibilities of discussion, unity, reasonable disagreement and controlled partisanship. His record in the Illinois State House exemplifies the possibilities of that position as rhetoric and program.

      by Sansouci on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 08:44:08 PM PDT

  •  Steele makes little sense

    He keeps contradicting himself. First he says that Obama is not a challenger and that is bad. Then he condemns the notion of the politics of the challenger. Then he condemns the idea of someone who comes to America without a charge of racism. Oh but wait for it....that's bad too.

    Ya know, I think Steele is living in an America that is moving on while he's stuck in Reagan's world. If we are to transform our world, our problems can only be solved by abandoning the hobgoblins of the past. That marks a beginning. Economic inequity, social structures, greedy corporate interests call for a sense of common ground. When Americans of good can yell louder than those who seek to keep us divided, we will shout them down.
    .
    Steele must be very comfortable in the republican party.

    by Donna Z on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 07:07:29 PM PDT

    •  not just shout

      but skillful persuasion.  There is a time to shout, a time to negotiate, a time to use gentle persuasion.

      But mostly I agree with what you said.

      by onanyes on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 07:09:28 PM PDT

      •  Just a tribute to buhdydharma

        I agree that principled persuasion's time has come.

        by Donna Z on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 07:37:32 PM PDT

    •  Steele maybe just a poor writer

      He uses whale words when minnows would be better understood.

      In his September 27, 1998 review of Steele's book A Dream Ddferred: The Second Betrayal of Black Freedom in America
      WP reviewer Jonathan Yardley wrote:

      Steele's arguments have many strengths. It is a pity that he diminishes them with tendentiousness and impenetrability; he seizes every opportunity to use the most sesquipedalian words available, and he has a real gift for clumsy phraseology. Honesty
      is among his virtues, but clarity, alas, is not. This makes it harder to understand what he's saying, but that mustn't be allowed to detract from the importance of his message.

      _ Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company

      by skywriter on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 07:56:56 PM PDT

      •  Good catch

        However, I listened closely and his struggle to support his argument just couldn't work out.

        by Donna Z on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 08:17:01 PM PDT

    •  Steele does not think clearly

      Therefore he does not write or speak clearly.

      
      

      by skywriter on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 08:42:54 PM PDT

      •  Now I'm watching a rerun of Charlie Rose

        More Steele

        He's saying the same crap

        by Donna Z on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 08:51:34 PM PDT

•  he is not being PC at all

  and I think he's raising some very thought provoking themes here, although I am not sure I agree with everything.

  I think challenger vs. bargainer stuff is very interesting and very accurately describes Obama. There is no doubt that Obama has been trying to run a campaign totally unlike the Jesse Jackson mold that puts off a large number of whites and instead is trying to stay away from racial politics completely to be seen as not the "angry black candidate" but just a "candidate".

  by michael1104 on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 06:56:09 PM PDT

  •  Binary thinking is one of the key problems

    I actually have a signed copy of Steele's first book from seeing him give a talk at UCLA quite a few years ago.  I thought then as I do now that he certainly has some throught-provoking points to make.  Unfortunately, as others have raised in these comments, I am not sure he is the clearest thinker or writer.  

    One of the biggest problems with most everything Steele discusses, and partly why I think he comes across as a bit conflicted and contradictory is that he reduces it all to X vs. Y when the problems under discussion are vastly more complex.  I find this to be a massive problem in our discourse, as if everything can be discussed in a binary fashion.  It leaves out my beloved nuance and flushes out real grains of complexity when they are vital to understanding.

    Race is not simply a black and white issue.  "White" and "Black" opinion are not monolithic.  That is taken as a given in the MSM when it comes to whites, but blacks are seen exclusively as civil rights archetypes (unless their just batshit crazy like JC Watts).  Both Steele and Obama are multi-racial.  Steele claims a "Black" identity, as is his perogative and his experience.  The legacy of slavery leaves us with the "one drop" rule and the concept of "airing dirty laundry" which is catching up with the likes of Bill Cosby these days.

    The Challenger vs. Bargainer duality offers some explanation, but again is not nuanced at all, and for me falls short of describing a lot of what's going on.  Obama seems to straddle the two, as do others.  

    I have to say Steele is worth listening to among few conservatives, but ultimately the arguments and the paradigm need to go a little farther.

    by Island Expat on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 09:58:23 PM PDT

  •  Many of my friends supported Jesse

    Jackson during his career, Rainbow Coalition until it sort of disintegrated.

    These supporters were all youngish and white.  Later we all supported Wellstone.  Then we went for Ellison in 2006.

    When a more moderate Democrat brought up race, we looked at her as if she were nuts.  We were simply supporting the most liberal candidates available to us.

    I didn't choose Obama this time nor did any of the old seasoned primary-goers and delegates I know.  He's just not 'liberal enough.'  Nothing to do with anger or race.

    Lately I've heard Edwards called 'angry' by unrelated parties.  Maybe he is.  I know I surely am angry, and I ended up in the Edwards camp after wandering around a bit trying to find a good fit.

    by Nastja Polisci on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 10:51:36 PM PDT

•  another thought

  One might read J. C. Watts' book "What Color is a Conservative".

  Note:  he was a Republican congressman from Oklahoma and a quarterback for the Oklahoma Sooners.

  He echos some of Steele's themes; note that Watts takes his party to task for some of its racial views.

  by onanyes on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 07:01:50 PM PDT

•  He came off to me like an Uncle Tom

  Maybe I totally didn't get him but he sounded a lot like some old white peckerwoods I know.

  by Hollowdweller on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 07:27:50 PM PDT

•  I hate to say this about Jamieson...

  She looks like Trent Lott in drag.

  by N in Seattle on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 08:03:17 PM PDT

•  Steele on Charlie Rose

  I didn't see Moyers interview Steele but I saw him on Charlie Rose and was infuriated.  Whites will vote for Obama because doing so will make them feel better about themselves, help them pretend they are not racists.  "Liberal guilt made me do it!"  Feh.

  Wotta crock.  

  Saw Steele's three hour stint on CSPAN's "In Depth" too.  This is a man who hasn't spoken to his own brother in years though they both work on the Stanford campus.  I smelled a lot of hate and anger under that stuffed shirt.

  by gmoke on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 08:03:40 PM PDT

  •  Agree with your last point

    I had that sense, too.

    But I'm going to challenge your "wotta crock". While I certainly wouldn't characterize this attitude as being true for a majority of Obama supporters, I wouldn't totally discount it, either.

    Especially among people who would not usually be called liberals.

    I've lived in a couple of places where white people were very proud to have elected a black candidate & expressed that it showed "we aren't prejudiced".  

    These communities had very small minority populations, were de facto segregated, and racist comments & actions were routine.

    I do believe that for some people casting a vote gets mistaken for real social change.  Just my .02.

    by maryru on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 08:41:42 PM PDT

    •  "We Aren't Prejudiced" Vote

      I do not disagree that there are some who might vote out of "liberal guilt,"  although I think that Steele's version of liberal guilt is not one I would agree with.  The number of those voters, especially if they have an alternative, is not significant, I submit, and certainly not as overarching a concept for white voters as Steele implies.

      "...casting a vote gets mistaken for real social change"
      Gee, you mean that electing a Big Daddy or Big Moma, a new congresscritter, or passing a new law is not the be-all and end-all of democracy?  Why, that's heresy here at dailykos!  The vast majority of the discussion here is focused like a laser beam on just that.  It's got to be the real lever of social change, doesn't it?

      PS:  I had hoped that John Edwards would take his work days idea into another dimension by using his campaign to organize people to make real change within their daily lives for themselves, that he would leave behind an organization that would continue to make real change whether he won or lost.  That's the way I'd like to see politicians run sometime in my life.

      by gmoke on Fri Jan 11, 2008 at 09:50:54 PM PDT