Shelby Steele - Race and the Obama Campaign

Video Title :	Shelby Steele - Race and the Obama Campaign
Description :	Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Shelby Steele discusses racial issues he sees behind the success of Illinois Senator and Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama. ----- A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win Shelby Steele examines the challenges that Barack Obama must overcome in his bid to become President of the United States in A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win. Having to cater to both black voters and white voters in what binds Obama, and his dilemma is that he achieved visibility more as a racial icon than as an individual. In his analysis, Shelby Steele discusses his own mixed race background, and he empathizes with Obama's inner conflicts even as he critiques him. He also identifies the two 'masks' that blacks wear in order to seek success and power in the American mainstream: bargaining and challenging, and he argues that Obama is too constrained by divisive racial politics to find his own true political voice - and proposes a way for him to break those bonds and find his own voice. Shelby Steele is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author of The Content of Our Character and White Guilt, and a contributing editor at Harper's; his work has also appeared in numerous other magazines and newspapers - Cody's Books Shelby Steele is the Robert J. and Marion E. Oster Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He specializes in the study of race relations, multiculturalism, and affirmative action. He was appointed a Hoover fellow in 1994. Steele has written widely on race in American society and the consequences of contemporary social programs on race relations In 2006, Steele received the Bradley Prize for his contributions to the study of race in America. In 2004, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal. Steele is the author of White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era and most recently A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win.
Views :	7539
Rating :	3.85
Keywords, Tags :	barack obama president racial culture racist whites blacks african americans pastor reverend wright church speech
Video Length :	5 : 43

Comments :

"Its very difficult to run a campaign against a black man."? Is that the reason why we have had so many black presidents in the past?

a great man,called uncle tom.

this fucking uncle tom. goddamn sellout.

Interesting he said this long before Obama gave the speech on race in Pennsylvania in March. But yes it when over my head too on the part of Obama's campaign being completely about race. I wonder what past Black presidential candidates think about this: Senator Carol Mosley Braun - 2004 candidate Rev. Al Sharpton - 2004 candidate Jesse Jackson - 1984, 1988 candidate

I don't get this guy's logic. To say that because Obama doesn't bring race into his campaign, then his campaignis 100% about race. What kind of twisted logic is that?

he's saying rather than merely having a discussion about race, Barack's campaign, and the election itself, is more a referendum on the country's attitude about race, at this point in its history..."that's all it's about." whichever way it goes, it will make quite a statement.

Shelby is not stupid, but he's exercising an agenda here. You gave two reasons,I'll give one. A) On one hand he says Barack needs to talk about the realities of race in the same way he (Steele) does, or else he must be "concealing" his true feelings ("being a bargainer"). On the other hand, he applies a special standard against Barack over other politicians who do/say whatever it takes to get elected. He wants Barack to be an Al Sharpton who cannot be elected. Yet Barack is on his way.

I think he's partially right. But at the same time, some people just find Clinton a bit creepy and suspicious. They don't trust her, so they go for Obama instead. He is the only other option, after all.

I don't get how 'creepy and suspicious' describe HRC. Where is that coming from? It seems to be a rationalized projection in an effort to support your decision for Obama...not based on substance or truth.

He's got a point.