Today’s Wall Street Journal ran a sharp op-ed piece by Shelby Steele. Without doubt, Steele has been one of the clearest and most forceful analysts of the tortured reality of race relations in the post-civil rights era. He has written with devastating persuasiveness about the the way in which white liberal guilt insists on making racism the primary source for black identity in public life, creating roles for black men and women to play—those of the challenger and bargainer.
By my reading, today’s op-ed pushes Steele’s usually perceptive psychological analysis too far. It is true, as Steele observes, that black men often succeed by making themselves blank slates. This allows whites to write their fantasies onto the careers of black professionals.
Fair enough. Obama is undoubtedly a shrewd operator, and I don’t doubt that he has played that game.
But does race explain enough? I’m inclined to agree with Steele that our president seems strangely remote, someone whose core convictions are really meta-convictions about understanding, balancing, and managing convictions rather than actually having them. However, I credit this to his postmodern education, as well as his insular existence as a favored son of an elite liberal culture that rewards irony and critique rather than conviction.
December 30th, 2009 | 7:44 pm
Woody Allen once reduced his parents’ values to “God and carpeting.” There have been moments when I reflected on my years in New York publishing and law school, when it seemed that my colleagues’ values could be summed up as “abortion and fine dining.” Prof. Steele’s piece provides more insight than in much of what I’ve read recently; particularly by Catholic writers such as Peggy Noonan. Sophistication — which is about all that I encountered during the 2008 election — has always seemed the base metal of intellectualism and beliefs. Sophistication meant that when I didn’t join the casual saunter for Sen. Obama, I found myself accused by friends and co-workers of racism. (And compare that to the vigor of “March, march, march for Martin Luther King;” the old John Fahey tune.) An unpleasant experience from those I thought knew me and my values (even as they condescended to my conversion to Catholicism — a natural progression given my values and experiences). Steele is onto something here. Sophistication is sentimentality for the cool; lukewarm is their hot. Sophistication is also the foundation of “I’m personally opposed to abortion but will not ‘obstruct’ a woman’s right to one” as a cradle Catholic told me on Thanksgiving evening. Outside of abortion, affirmative action, and unionism, what is the President intellectually and emotionally passionate about? And, for that matter, his supporters? The comparison to President Reagan may discomfort some, but it correctly raises that question. It is not an inconsequential one.
December 30th, 2009 | 11:08 pm
FYI – it seems that the hyperlink to Steele’s article is broken – I get a ‘Page Not Available’ error when I try to use it.
December 31st, 2009 | 8:55 am
[...] replaced by meta-belief, which is not uncommon (mostly on the left). In part I think that explains their envy of those who [...]
December 31st, 2009 | 10:43 am
First Thing’s own David P. Goldman tackled the issue of Obama as a “mirror” and mimic of his followers’ convictions, rather than a man of conviction himself, in a series prescient of essays over a year ago.
December 31st, 2009 | 4:09 pm
We’re witnessing the effects of affirmative action. (For a good critique of that, from an unexpected source, read Justice Thomas’ “My Grandfather’s Son.”)
This presidency is an affirmative-action presidency. For all the self-congratulation of many on both the left and the right, that his election showed that the country had moved “beyond racism”, what actually happened was a sort of reverse racism. Obama could never have become president last year without the qualification of being black.
A thought experiment: how many articulate Democratic young white Senators were there last year, who were all better qualified than Obama? What sort of chance would any of them have had to win the nomination from Hillary Clinton? But an articulate, attractive empty bag of wind could blow her off her pins because of the unique qualification of being black.
December 31st, 2009 | 4:50 pm
For more on what Obama is ‘passionate’ about one ought to read Steve Sailer’s articles on Obama’s autobiography.
Steele says some good things here but they are not altogether new. ‘Sophistication’ is just to say that the election of Obama signified the victory of sentiment over intelligence when it comes to the topic of race.
I give Steele credit for the fact that he doesn’t post his picture next to the article. By refusing to post a picture of himself-as-black-man, he doesn’t try to win the opinion of his white readers in the same manner in which Obama won the support of his white voters.
Only those white readers which do not take a secret delight in agreeing with the black man Steele are succeeding in looking at racial differences in the properly unsophisticated manner which Steele presumably endorses. Every white man in particular ought to ask himself if he is taking such delight in the article, or in any instance in which he thrills to find something of value in something produced by a ‘person of color.’
In the book of James this is called the sin of showing partiality. It seems such a harmless sin until one realizes that our society’s mass indulgence in it has elected Obama; is causing the ruin of our education system; is bankrupting the country through spending on social welfare programs; and has caused the mortgage meldown.
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