Tammy Bruce: Steele on Obama: The Great "Bargainer"

Steele on Obama: The Great "Bargainer"

Your Must Read of the day: Shelby Steele's piece in today Wall Street Journal puts into perfect perspective Barack Obama, the issue of race, how Obama expertly exploits the issue and the intention to manipulate you with it. Obama's speech today illustrates Steele's proposal that Barack Obama is a race "bargainer." Read this segment from his speech today, then read the Steele article, written not in response to the speech but delving into Obama in general. It ties everything together.

From Barack Obama:

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners – an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible...

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

From Shelby Steele:

The Obama Bargain

Mr. Obama's broad appeal to whites makes him the first plausible black presidential candidate in American history. And it was Mr. Obama's genius to understand this. Though he likes to claim that his race was a liability to be overcome, he also surely knew that his race could give him just the edge he needed -- an edge that would never be available to a white, not even a white woman.

How to turn one's blackness to advantage?

The answer is that one "bargains." Bargaining is a mask that blacks can wear in the American mainstream, one that enables them to put whites at their ease. This mask diffuses the anxiety that goes along with being white in a multiracial society. Bargainers make the subliminal promise to whites not to shame them with America's history of racism, on the condition that they will not hold the bargainer's race against him. And whites love this bargain -- and feel affection for the bargainer -- because it gives them racial innocence in a society where whites live under constant threat of being stigmatized as racist. So the bargainer presents himself as an opportunity for whites to experience racial innocence.

This is how Mr. Obama has turned his blackness into his great political advantage, and also into a kind of personal charisma. Bargainers are conduits of white innocence, and they are as popular as the need for white innocence is strong. Mr. Obama's extraordinary dash to the forefront of American politics is less a measure of the man than of the hunger in white America for racial innocence...

But now the floodlight of a presidential campaign has trained on this usually hidden corner of contemporary black life: a mindless indulgence in a rhetorical anti-Americanism as a way of bonding and of asserting one's blackness. Yet Jeremiah Wright, splashed across America's television screens, has shown us that there is no real difference between rhetorical hatred and real hatred.

No matter his ultimate political fate, there is already enough pathos in Barack Obama to make him a cautionary tale. His public persona thrives on a manipulation of whites (bargaining), and his private sense of racial identity demands both self-betrayal and duplicity. His is the story of a man who flew so high, yet neglected to become himself.

Powerful and important. Please do read the whole thing.

The irony, of course, is this hunger for racial innocence is borne of the decades of being told we are racist, by the same people who then explain if we give them things or elevate them to power we will be washed of our crime. In other w0ords, Barack Obama is telling us, as he did today, that making him president is all we have to do to prove we aren't racist. And if we don't? Well, that's the threat.

Posted by Tammy · March 18, 2008 10:30 AM · Permalink
Culture Note | Leftists | Politics

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Wow. He actually went and did it. He finally mentions his white relatives, and then... damns his white grandma with faint praise.

What a Clintonian disembler and all-round creepy manipulator.

Posted by: Jack Bauer at March 18, 2008 12:24 PM

Well I am no longer being blackmailed. No pun intended. I have had enough of 'white' guilt.

Posted by: GenRach at March 18, 2008 12:38 PM

Yes, Obama sure can work it. I just watched his speech and he said nothing so very well . Even if he were to condemn the bigot Jeremiah saying " I do not agree with this man's ignorant and hate filled statements and I will no longer have anything to do with him because I cannot be associated with a man of such vile and repugnant character " that would do no good. He would be saying only what he thinks people would want to hear to feel good about themselves and voting for him.
Obama had twenty years of this hate preached to him every Sunday for the past two generations. It's in his blood. He never once got up and walked out . He nods in assent . This man has been part of his social life also. They sat around and talked jive together. I'm sure Rev. Wright has some pretty good Jew and Whitey jokes. Obama cannot just change his mind overnight and decide that perhaps the Rev. was mistaken. Maybe he is a racist/bigot/ hatemonger after all.
He has exposed himself for what he is and thank you dear Rev. Wright for bringing it all on. Hopefully the truth shall set Obama free..

Posted by: Young American at March 18, 2008 01:39 PM

After listening to Obama's speech this morning, a particular part of an Abraham Lincoln speech came to mind: “You may fool all the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time.”

Perhaps Obama was too busy running for president in 2005 to notice that his "spiritual advisor" Jeremiah Wright has pride of place, Chapter One, in the anthology entitled "Blow the Trumpet in Zion! Global Vision and Action for the 21st Century Black Church." (Augsburg Fortress Publishers--January 31, 2005)

There, on page 3, Jeremiah writes, ". . . Dr. Samuel DeWitt Proctor's name and persona became a permanent part of my personality, my personal development, my ministerial identity, and my understanding of the Christian faith as an African American living in the bowels of white racism and segregation."

Jeremiah goes on (on page 4) to tell of an occasion on which Dr. Proctor gave him a ride home from university and, "He explained his adaption of the Hegelian method of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, and he illustrated with biblical text after biblical text how his method worked . . ."

Then, on page 5, Jeremiah writes, "I was a part of the student sit-in movement of 1960 and 1961. I saw white Christian racism up close and 'in my face' as a freshman and sophomore in college--all while . . . trying to sort out my call to ministry, God's call upon my life, and the 'honkies' I was growing to hate with each passing day."

~~~~~
On the other hand, there's that Abraham Lincoln speech:
". . . "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.
I do not expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do not expect the house to fall -- but I do expect it will cease to be divided.
It will become all one thing or all the other. . . ."

http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/house.htm

Lincoln's is the kind of presidential vision America needs, and it's the polar opposite of the divisive "GD America" preached by Jeremiah Wright and listened in silence to by Obama for 20 years.

Seven

Posted by: Seven at March 18, 2008 02:21 PM

Were he president, Obama would realize the necessity to choose a position that will sometimes alienate. Presidents sometimes can unite only 50%+1 of the electorate. Obama failed today to choose between the anti-Americanism of his longtime minister and a reasonable alternative. Trying to have it both ways, he has failed to decide and therefore failed to lead. The president is not the national master of ceremonies--he unites, but of necessity he also divides. Randy.

Posted by: RandyGrHa at March 18, 2008 02:50 PM

I admit that the racial issues make me uncomfortable. I feel a tension between a desire to be sympathetic to people with troubled souls and a troubled history (this is a fancy way of admitting to my "white guilt"), balanced against a sense that these outspoken persons are so deeply invested in victimhood that they can never grow beyond it. Rev. Wright and the Obamas have prospered greatly in America, much more so than I have, and yet their successes only feed their anger. What do they want from me? What good can come from this endless paranoid hatemongering that none within their circle dares condemn? It seems the civil rights establishment has itself become the monster that it once battled against. It's a shame, but that's what we've come to. The onus is now on the decent people of the world to unequivocally denounce the Rev. Wrights, just as they once denounced the Klan. This has been the first public test of Barack Obama's character in his short time in the spotlight. And he failed it.

Posted by: Talkin Horse at March 18, 2008 03:40 PM

I got a chance to watch Steele on C-Span Book Tv a couple of weeks ago. He had a lecture on his new book entitled "A Bound Man". I'm starting to agree with his thesis.

As I stated in an earlier post, the kind of racism spewed by Wright is endemic of many black churches. It's totally anti-intellectual and dogmatic. You would be amazed how many people believe that garbage!! Plus, I think what Wright says spreads a kind of defeatism within the inner cities. If you can blame white folks for bad choices; it easier to do that then to take responsiblity for one's own life.

But the fact that Obama cannot fully repudiate Wright goes to show that he is not an independent man at all. He's totally shallow.

Posted by: SlimFemme at March 18, 2008 04:25 PM

Talkin Horse: Well-said. J

Posted by: jeweytunes at March 18, 2008 04:50 PM

Let me get this straight,according to Steele, by being above playing the race card, Obama is "Bargaining" and thus, playing the race card? And in so doing betraying himself by not being "black enough"? Is that what Steele is trying to say? Talk about doublespeak!

I have not heard anything racist in Wrights speeches, I hear him saying that Hillary doesn't know what it's like to be a black man. Truer words have never been spoken. She doesn't.

I haven't heard the Anti-Semitic comments attributed to the Rev,only vague references. As far as the Anti-American comments, I haven't heard for myself the allegations about the AIDS virus being attempted genocide. With the media having a credibility problem, I'll believe it when I hear it for myself. I have heard maybe three examples of his "extremism" that have been culled from the past eight years. I'll bet that there's not a single one of us who hasn't lashed out and said something STUPID in the past eight years.

Obama has rejected the comments made by Wright while having the strength of character to stand by his friend and mentor and not turn his back and condemn him. For his trouble, he is raked over the coals for being a loyal friend? We all have friends or relatives with whom we do not always agree.

The worst thing about Wright's comments was that they were made from the pulpit. There should be no place in a religious service for political speech. It is a fundamental abuse of an influential position for anybody to mix political speech with preaching.

All the while we seem to be ignoring McCain seeking out the endorsement of people who believe that America was founded to destroy Islam and the all Jews must convert or die, and that the Catholic church is a "Whore" and a "False Cult"

We cannot hold candidates accountable for everything that their supporters say. No candidate , no matter what party.

Posted by: BigDaddy978 at March 18, 2008 05:16 PM

For those who say they haven’t seen/heard evidence of the hate speech of Obama’s 20-year spiritual advisor Wright, there are approximately 300+ exhibits @ http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jeremiah+wright&search_type=

Including the one in which he says Bill Clinton did the same thing “to us” that he did to Monica Lewinsky and he gives the push-push body language with his hips to demonstrate and calls it: Ridin' dirty. @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Xb7AVw_no0

And Jeremiah says, “Jesus was a poor, black man.” (I wonder if Mary and Joseph or the Rabbis He taught in the Temple noticed?) @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdJB-qkfUHc

And Jeremiah blasphemes, “G—damn America.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzaayBFjzDM

And Jeremiah race baits, “Hillary ain’t never been called a [N-word]” (only he actually says the racial epithet in the pulpit). @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hPR5jnjtLo

Jeremiah Wright connects the 09/11 3000+ massacre to Israel @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnI431s1r6s

ad nauseam x 300+

The Jeremiah Wright Brand of Christianity is pretty much
the antithesis of the Christianity I’ve known all my life.

If Wright led him to Christ, what was Obama before that?

Seven

Posted by: Seven at March 19, 2008 12:48 AM

Here's the one aspect of the story that most seem to be missing.

Obama is an educated man. He understands the core tenants of Black Liberation Theology and HAS CHOSEN to practice it for over 21 YEARS as his personal faith (as has his wife) and adopt it for his children.

The Larger story centers on the 'faith' and what the core tenets of that faith are, not merely one of many messengers----Reverend Wright.

The "black liberation" theologians James Cone and Dwight Hopkins pioneered the religion that Obama's church espouses, and which Rev. Wright both adheres to and preaches.

Some of the main points of this 'Cult Theology':

Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community ... Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love. [1]

In the black liberation theology taught by Wright, Cone and Hopkins, Jesus Christ is not for all men, but only for the oppressed:

In the New Testament, Jesus is not for all, but for the oppressed, the poor and unwanted of society, and against oppressors ... Either God is for black people in their fight for liberation and against the white oppressors, or he is not [Cone].

1. See William R Jones, "Divine Racism: The Unacknowledged Threshold Issue for Black Theology", in African-American Religious Thought: An Anthology, ed Cornel West and Eddie Glaube (Westminster John Knox Press).

There are some serious issues to be addressed about WHY Obama chose to join this cult---the main message of which appears to be hatred. He's in it now, and has been immersed in this core doctrine for over 20 years.

Posted by: pasha at March 19, 2008 08:04 AM

I've never been more disgusted in politics, politicians and people than I am right now. Between the Obama / Wright connection and the seemingly endless pool of scoundrels in New York politics, I can barely get up the energy to read or watch the news anymore.

Posted by: PeteRFNY at March 19, 2008 07:47 PM

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Steele on Obama: The Great "Bargainer"

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