Interesting article on what/who Barack Obama represents..

[LaraOnline]

I thought this was a thought-provoking article... although I guess the big question to this particular uneducated person (me) is, just who is Shelby Steele?
Perhaps this article has already circulated throughout your domestic media, but I thought it was interesting to post.
Although, the subject matter is rather inflammatory, so I don''t expect there will be too lively a discussion!
I am interested in this kinds of issues, partly because my sister-in-law is of Aboriginal descent, and so, of course, are my niece and nephew.
As an individual, our perceived place in the world is such an important part of our overall life experience...
Obama''s election - well, even just his solid popularity to date - really adds another interesting aspect to the ongoing debate amongst the multiracial population of the US, and, around the world.

linky

This is the lead paragraph,, it''s an interview between an Australian journalist and university researcher, Shelby Steele.

 

[starsapphire]

That is a great article. I am white, and have never really understood what it is with the "slave/victim mentality" that a lot of blacks still have, and I mean the ones 40 and under. I also have felt the "white guilt" thing for some reason. I think a lot of this is unspoken or something. I had a discussion with a black coworker a few years ago about something someone famous had said and the media had jumped all over this person for the comment. My friend could not believe what the fuss was about. She did not take offense, and said that there are people who just want to make something out of nothing just to get attention. I think Obama appeals because he is smart and articulate, and is adept at saying what people want to hear, like all politicians do. Maybe it is because he is half white too. I don''t know.

 

[decodelighted]

Date: 11/2/2008 7:18:50 PM
Author: starsapphire
there are people who just want to make something out of nothing just to get attention.

so true. soooooo true.

 

[swimmer]

Another interview with Steele on NPR link
He raises some interesting points, but like a true conservative keeps having to say "no one knows anything about Obama" which is just silly. Um, if you can read or hear, you have the ability to do some research. Obama has been very clear about his goals (hard to be specific about exactly how things will be done pre-election but that is always true) concerning education, tax policy, our role in world trade, peace negotiations, etc. Steele''s comment about Gen Powell is very interesting, to him (S), for a black man to accomplish this monumental height, it would have to be in his terms or it simply can''t happen. Mindless really. I mean, I can acknowledge that Nixon opened China and not claim that economic forces started by Democrats really caused that shift in the PRC, why can''t we all agree that some things of value can come from people of different political stripes?

Steele is so wildly jealous and twisted up inside because he both needs to be applauded for being a black man who overcame so much to be a prof at Stanford and of course rejects the racism that made this difficult. He wants to be applauded and yet... video But Randall Kennedy''s video addresses these issues of white guilt and the support of Obama so much more powerfully that my feeble attempts video Note: Kennedy''s Ni***r: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word is a must read for all Americans...or anyone interested in race relations in the US. My students always weep at the Tiger Woods'' interview.

 

[LaraOnline]

Here's another really cool article based on Obama, from our national paper...



linky

Here's the first few pars...

"SO now we know for sure. The Noam Chomsky-John Pilger-Phillip Adams view of America is wrong. In George W. Bush's America, a land allegedly rife with militarism and racism, the white military hero lost and the black memoirist won a slashing election victory.

In a nation supposedly enthralled by fundamentalist religion, the presidential ticket with two mainstream, Protestant, capital-C Christians lost to the ticket with a vice-president of Catholic background who favours abortion on demand, and a presidential candidate who drifted into religion when he drifted into politics and who has one of the most pro-abortion records of any legislator.

In a sense all of this is beside the point. These were not the issues on which this election was fought.

Nor are they the dynamics of American society.

It is indeed a wonderful thing for the US to have its first black president. No African-American child need ever fear there is any limit to what they can achieve. Whatever you think of Obama's policies and capacity to govern well -- and I have my doubts -- his election is a powerful symbol of America's inclusiveness and opportunity. Which other big, rich, predominantly white society has elected a member of a racial minority to be its head of government? Not Australia.

So as we salute Obama, let's salute America as well. " (continues)

 

[LaraOnline]

FWIW, an article on the Obama election by one of our premier Aboriginal thinkers, Noel Pearson.
Pearson seems to support Shelby Steele's view of the world, to quite an extent.


linky


here's an excerpt, anyway...

"- Put aside millennial hopes that Obama will achieve a post-racial America or some other form of race transcendence. Rather, Obama can achieve an apex within Steele's dialectical paradigm: a position where blacks and whites take responsibility for race. For both the emphases of responsibility will be different. For whites to take responsibility, they must not dismiss racialism as a real social evil, and they must understand that past discrimination left a legacy. For blacks to take responsibility, they must wake up to the fact that racism does not present the kind of barriers to full citizenship that it once represented and that it is not a catch-all explanation for all of their problems. And critically, problems of race -- however real they may be -- must not justify a psychology and politics of victimhood.

The leader that achieves this apex of responsibility concerning race will be one who both challenges and bargains. Obama has used both during the course of his campaign. While he was predominantly the bargainer, there were also indications of his inclination to challenge. Obama will achieve great things for racial politics if he fashions a post-victimhood challenge for whites and blacks (we can and will all live up to our creed) and a post-victimhood bargain (blacks can take a fair place in America without needing white guilt).

Beyond the question of race, there are three domestic policy agendas that confront the US in this time of crisis, to which Obama must forge solutions: the problem of the American underclasses; the problem of the American working poor; and the need for a national gain-sharing deal between those who take the upside and those who wear the downside of globalisation. - "

Noel Pearson is director of the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership.