Bill Moyer’s quest was Shelby Steele who talked of “A bound man” (Obama)—his new book

Bill was Excellent at the interview. Catch it if you can. Most interesting:


Shelby Steele

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January 11, 2008

With the wildly vacillating predictions about the viability of the Obama candidacy in the news, Shelby Steele's most recent book is getting a lot of attention. In A BOUND MAN: WHY WE ARE EXCITED ABOUT OBAMA AND WHY HE CAN'T WIN, Steele assesses the potential impact of Obama's campaign in terms of white and black America's presumptions about race and politics:

As a symbol, he raises several remarkable possibilities. Is America now the kind of society that can allow a black -- of whatever pedigree -- to become the most powerful human being on earth, the commander of the greatest military in history? Have our democratic principles at last moved us beyond even the tribalism of race? And will the black American identity, still so reflexively focused on victimization, be nullified if a black wins the presidency of this largely white nation?

Cover of A BOUND MAN

Enumerating the cultural and political constraints that keep Obama — and the nation — bound over race, Steele's answer is a qualified no.

…………Is America really ready to see beyond race? Read more from Shelby Steele below and talk back on the blog.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/01112008/profile2.html


And much of what Shelby said is below:
http://www.discriminations.us/2007/10/shelby_steele_on_obama_and_oth.html


At and after a recent lecture in Toronto Shelby Steele had some interesting things to say about Obama ... and others.

... he believes Barack Obama will not win the Democratic nomination for the presidency, in large part because he is caught between pleasing blacks and whites and can never please all Americans at once....

“He needs a self. There’s no self there. I think it comes from a lifetime of being bound up and playing one side, and another side, and never feeling that he had the right to be his own man,” Mr. Steele said in a hotel bar this week. “This is the tragedy, certainly, of the black intellectual class in America. They don’t think they have the right to be individuals, so they’re all just predictable, victim-focused, old line. It’s a generation that’s failed to really take us further. Obama is a part of that. There’s nobody there.”
....
He argues blacks in America typically wear one of two “masks”: They are either challengers or bargainers. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are challengers: Such blacks assume whites are racist until they prove otherwise. Bargainers, on the other hand, make a deal with whites by not rubbing their faces in a history of racism — think of Louis Armstrong or Oprah, he says.
Mr. Obama is an archetypal bargainer, says Mr. Steele, whose forthcoming book on the Democratic contender, A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can’t Win, will be released in time for the primaries.

“The question that hovers over Obama to this day: Is he really black enough? If white people like you, it’s very likely you’re not black enough. Black people are very suspicious of that. To prove himself to black people, he has to be a challenger,” Mr. Steele says.

“White America loves him because they think he’s a bargainer. And so if he goes with whites, blacks don’t like him and say he’s not black enough. If he goes with blacks, whites say, ‘He’s not the guy we thought

who writes for the conservative Hoover Institute and opposes things like affirmative action. I would expect him to dis Obama.

informative.

such as "bound"?

...a complex one. His ideas do give an explanation why blacks like him and Oprah have overwhelming white supporters/followers. I really want to know what blacks themselves think of Obama, too.

It's going to take more than a good voice and good preaching skills.

He does not preach anymore than Bill the man from hope ever did.

But Barack is underrated as a leader who knew that Iraq would be fucked up
While Hillary had no clue.

So young with a good voice, good speaking ability and excellent judgement.

Experience ain't shit if it is experience at making mistakes....

and he seemed to contradict himself over and over. It felt like he may have been working things out for himself while writing the book and I wonder how much of that was projected onto Obama. It was an interesting interview for sure.

His observations were interesting.. and he did say that the only candidate with a clear vision,
and a detailed plan was John Edwards...

This was preceeded by an interview with Kathleen Hall Jamison, a political communication expert,
who said it was vital that Edwards remain in the running... otherwise the corporate interests would have won, and narrowed down the field. Edwards message is important.

conclusion that if someone is too black then whites don't like him. That is BS! Steele must so hate whites that he believes that a black with a darker skin tone can't be elected president. He also denigrates blacks by catergorizing them into only two groups: bargainers and challengers. People are individuals, for pete's sake!

FrenchieCat (1000+ posts) Fri Jan-11-08 11:13 PM
Response to Reply #38
47. I watch some of it.....just now.
Edited on Fri Jan-11-08 11:32 PM by FrenchieCat
Some conservative Black guy from the Hoover Institute, Shelby Steele (I think) attempting to psychoanalyze Barack. I think he was dead wrong in his approach....and it sounded like Mr. Steele has a few issues of his own, let alone know anything about Barack. The guy sounded quite sinister and jealous, and appeared to have been wearing a mask for some time. Just read the first sentence at the Hoover site that I link to realize that this guy has his own problems to deal with.
http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/3506941.html

I didn't see anything else.

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ellisonz (1000+ posts) Fri Jan-11-08 11:18 PM
Response to Reply #47
49. Shelby Steele
Steele is a self-described Black conservative.<3> He opposes movements such as affirmative action, which he considers to be unsuccessful liberal campaigns to promote equal opportunity for African-Americans. He contends that blacks have been "twice betrayed": first, by slavery and oppression, and second, by group preferences mandated by the government that cause blacks to lose their self-esteem.<4>
“ The great ingenuity of interventions like affirmative action has not been that they give Americans a way to identify with the struggle of blacks, but that they give them a way to identify with racial virtuousness quite apart from blacks.<4> ”
Steele believes that the use of victimization is the greatest hindrance for black Americans. In his view, white Americans see blacks as victims to ease their guilty conscience, while blacks attempt to turn their status as victims into a kind of currency with no purchasing power. Therefore, he claims, blacks must stop "buying into this zero-sum game" by adopting a "culture of excellence and achievement" without relying on "set-asides and entitlements."<4>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelby_steele
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Donna Zen (1000+ posts) Sat Jan-12-08 05:37 AM
Response to Reply #49
74. Psycho-babble
After listening to Shelby Steele as he continually contradicted himself, it would seem that he needs to solve his own issues before he opens his mouth. Steele gets away with saying nonsense because of his know-it-all demeanor. While a thinker might be disturbed with his inability to prove his thesis, Steele never misses a beat. Also, Steele is willing to work off a civil model that doesn't exist. All people regardless of race do not approach problems with confrontation, nor is this a winning strategy.

Steele's words proved only one thing: he knows nothing about community organizing.

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Bread and Circus (1000+ posts) Sat Jan-12-08 12:05 AM
Response to Reply #47
63. The guy seemed brilliant to me...conservative or not
Obama's position is a very interesting and nuanced one. There are no easy answers for what he is trying to accomplish. He is trying to thread the needle.

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mahina (1000+ posts) Sat Jan-12-08 04:27 PM
Response to Reply #12
90. I saw that too,
and the author completely missed it. Obama is from Hawai'i. It is a cultural thing, and he was interpreting race without the cultural understanding of this place, at all. Big miss.

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