Steele: Obama was the Real Problem in the Gates Affair
By LisaB on August 3, 2009 at 10:45 AM in Current Affairs
I was hoping that Shelby Steele, a “self-described black conservative,” would eventually weigh in on Gates-gate. The WSJ published an op-ed, “From Emmitt Till to Skip Gates,” by the “author, columnist, documentary film maker, and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, specialising in the study of race relations, multiculturalism and affirmative action.”
Through the story of Emmitt Till, Steele reminds readers of black Americans’ inescapable, unforgettable memories of America’s history of racism, and describes the lingering effects on Professor Gates of the murder of the 14-year-old Till because he supposedly whistled at a white woman. Steele says Gates acted according to a “cultural narrative” that is both well understood in society and difficult to escape under certain circumstances.
On July 16, 2009, after a tiring and long trip home from China, Professor Gates found himself in a stressful situation with a white police officer and, rather than thinking things through, fell back on a cultural narrative he both knows well and understands thoroughly: Black victim, white oppressor:
And didn’t Mr. Gates—jet-lagged and vulnerable—know exactly where to find power when he was confronted in his home by Sgt. James Crowley? Didn’t he—a lifelong student of African-American culture—know precisely the cultural narrative that would serve him best? Moreover, don’t we all know this narrative? Black victim, white oppressor. Here he was, no longer young, slight of build, professorial in look, and still he was under suspicion of being a common burglar in his own home. Add to this the fact that he knew himself to be utterly innocent. Out of these simple facts a sense of racial victimization could have easily developed within him. Few blacks would not at least wonder at this point if they were not being racially profiled.
———-
The great drama at the core of American race relations is always the same: Can black Americans ever be truly equal—are they capable of achieving it and are others capable of accepting it? Mr. Gates put himself inside a cultural narrative that said blacks could achieve it but whites could never accept it. (His 50 honorary degrees did not save him from having to produce ID in his own house.) This narrative sees whites as incorrigible bigots and supremacists. It was once true and it gave blacks great moral power. But it doesn’t work so well in modern America, as the Gates affair makes clear. Handcuffs were Sgt. Crowley’s answer to Mr. Gates’s moral muscling.
Steele obviously feels that Gates made an all-too-easy, fatigue induced error when confronted with police at his home and I think he’s got a point. Had the incident not gone further, perhaps everyone could have taken a breath and smoothed things over.
The real trouble began when BO waded in and made a hash of things.
But then Skip Gates was tired. What was President Barack Obama’s excuse? Why did he step into the same cultural narrative that Mr. Gates had tried and failed with?
Steele then makes an absolutely on-the-nose observation about Obama. It is absolutely brilliant, IMO.
Where race is concerned, I sometimes think of the president as the Peter Sellers character in “Dr. Strangelove.” Sellers plays a closet Nazi whose left arm—quite involuntarily—keeps springing up into the Heil Hitler salute. We see him in his wheelchair, his right arm—the good and decent arm—struggling to keep the Nazi arm down so that no one will know the truth of his inner life. These wrestling matches between the good and bad arms were hysterically funny.
When I saw Mr. Obama—with every escape route available to him—wade right into the Gates affair at the end of his health-care news conference, I knew that his demon arm had momentarily won out over his good arm. It broke completely free—into full salute—in the “acted stupidly” comment that he made in reference to the Cambridge police’s handling of the matter. Here was the implication that whites were such clumsy and incorrigible racists that even the most highly achieved blacks lived in constant peril of racial humiliation. This was a cultural narrative, a politics, and in the end it was a bigotry. It let white Americans see a president who doubted them.
Using Steele’s labels, I’ve often thought Obama is really a “challenger” wearing the mask of “bargainer.” A “challenger” is someone who says to whites, “you’re a racist until you prove you are not.” Some, like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, personify this type of AA approach to whites. Whites are forever on the hook.
A “bargainer” is someone who says, “I’ll assume you’re not a racist if you don’t hold my race against me.” Steele says people like Bill Cosby, OJ Simpson (presumably BEFORE the trial) and Obama himself are bargainers. Whites love bargainers because they feel they are not automatically on the hook.
But it has always seemed to me that Obama’s background, church and associations over the years, rather than being “post-racial” are more in the style of challengers. Whatever the case, and Mr. Steele no doubt has a more nuanced argument to make, he finishes his article with an admonition for the president and those who would assume he makes all the right steps.
Mr. Obama’s “post-racialism” was a promise to operate outside of tired cultural narratives. But he has a demon arm of reflexive racialism—identity politics, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and now Skip Gates. You can only put a demon like this to death by finding out what you really believe. We should hold Mr. Obama to his post-racialism, and he should get to know himself well enough to tell us what he really means by it. As for the odd triad of Messrs. Gates, Crowley and Obama, only Mr. Crowley seems to have functioned outside his cultural narrative.
All things considered, I think Steele’s thoughtful commentary on the Gates affair is the best I’ve read. Do go and read the entire article, it’s worth your time.
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When I first read the part about the comparison of Obama and Peter Sellers in “Dr. Strangelove.” it took me a while to stop laughing.
This was not the first and I dont think will be the last time that Obama’s graff arm will go flying up, and not just in response to race.
Shelby Steele (along with other black conservative commentators like Thomas Sowell) has been my hero for some time now. I am heartened that he has added his rational voice to this incident.
His language eloquently describes the situation without adding more fuel to the fire.
Here is an excerpt about Obama from “A Bound Man: Why We are Excited about Obama and Why He Can’t Win” – which Steele wrote and published last year:
“There is a price to be paid even for fellow-traveling with a racial identity as politicized and demanding as today’s black identity. This identity wants to take over a greater proportion of the self than other racial identities do. It wants to have its collective truth — its defining ideas of grievance and protest — become personal truth…. These are the identity pressures that Barack Obama lives within. He is vulnerable to them because he has hungered for a transparent black identity much of his life. He needs to ‘be black.’ And this hunger — no matter how understandable it may be — means that he is not in a position to reject the political liberalism inherent in his racial identity. For Obama liberalism is blackness.”
“…only Mr. Crowley seemed to have functioned outside his cultural narrative.”
Gates being tired and being a professor are simply excuses. Obama the Cool turned into Obama the FOOL.
Gates and Obama played the race card and lost. How that’s going to work out for either of them remains to be seen.
This may be somewhat OT but I read that Gates is married to a white woman, and his first wife was also white. How does this play into race relations and what does it say about Gates? He is obviously a white hater and a black apologist, so I truly do not know but am puzzled by it. Any answers?
he had left before Crowley arrived. From the pics of the house, it looks like the driveway is on the side of the house. not sure if he was able to drive away without the witness seeing him leave, or what.
buzzisbacklatte i agree with your comments
BUZZ..
This whole matter about Gates(”You don’t know who you are messing with”) and Obama’s name debate and Your “Fool” Comment…all reminds me of a Guy I consider the greatest “Challenger” of ALL..
Muhammid Ali..( Cassius Clay) who hated his “Christian” name and kept shouting to Boxer Ernie Terrell in 1967 “What’s My Name FOOL, Whats My Name..?”
So..Thanks to President Obama…all America did was go from Kool-Aid to “FOOL-AID..”
And more “Whats My Name” Boxing Games..
Oh Boy…does Obama know how to make “Fool-Aid”
“FOOL-aid”. Sounds like you’re on to something, PH
Ali went to court and changed his name legally, some refused to acknowledge it and paid the price in the ring.
To a large number of Americans, insulting the cops who protect them is like insulting the troops who defend America. Now what politician not in the middle of a neurological episode could forget that? It’s like Willie Mays dropping a pop fly to short center field.
This ‘typical white person’ and ’stupid cops’ stuff — it’s the kind of thing my father would say after his stroke — the ugliest buried emotions breaking through to the surface. I’ve got big unanswered questions about the President. He reminds me of H.A.L. in 2001. I’m worried.
I don’t understand, really, WHY you have so much race’s issues and sexism is so NO important to you. That’s discrimination too, Do you mind discrimination?
If we truly need additional dialoque about race [I frequently think everything that could be said has been said], Steele’s comments are the sort that are rarely heard: honest, thoughtful and incredibly intelligent.
Thanks for bringing the op-ed to our attention, Lisa. It deserves to be read widely.
Where did the cab driver go? The 911 caller saw two men and does not say one man left the premises, was he hiding inside the house – why?.
Why didn’t he come outside with Gates? I don’t care about the cab driver I am just sick of not getting the full story.
That’s what I want to know.
Where is the rest of this story???????
Where is the other guy?????
The cab driver more than likely assisted Gates, and elderly somewhat handicapped gentleman, with his luggage, and the clumsey break-in that was witnessed, then left.
When Crowley showed up, Gates obviously jumped to a number of conclusions, all of them wrong, and all of them tied to a reflexive sensitivity to the respective races of the men. I can only imagine how many times Crowley must have rolled his eyes while Gates took off on a foundationless tirade. I doubt that Gates ever considered how the situation may have truly looked to Crowley, a cop that was almost certainly doing things by the book. I seriously doubt that Crowley considered Gates guilty of B&E, he was probably trying to determine the possible whereabouts of the two men that were reported in the 911 call. Gates eventually crossed the line with his insults and accusations and the rest is history. A pathetic and silly chapter in history, only made important by a stupid and insulting comment, by a pathetic and silly President. Another superficial diversion.
I’ve felt the same way about no longer needing a race narrative and the race card.
It’s Adapt, Migrate, or become Extinct.
It would appear that neither Obama or Gates have been truly able to adapt or migrate beyond the Rev. Wright, Billy Ayers, and MalcolmX hate narratives and belief systems. Their way of thinking is rapidly becoming extinct, if it really isn’t already.
Therefore, anything said further from either of those two will fall into the category of Racial Pimping.
I understand the cultural narrative. I do. But Steele and other commentators are missing one important fact. We are talking about fu@king Cambridge. Cambridge, as close to liberal utopia as you can get in the USA. Politically correct, culturally diverse, left of left Cambridge municipal goverment.
Please…. it’s more likely little green men from Mars will land on my town common than a racist cop lasting more than one minute on the City of Cambridge payroll.
The only problem with Mr. Steele’s article is that, no matter how much he tries to be objective, he still lays the old, tired and constant narrative of the AA being a victim.
Obumble isn’t really at fault because of “history”. He may have stumbled and shown that he himself is a true racist but it’s really just an historical bi-product of the bad white people.
If we’re going to be post racial, it’s time to construct a new narrative. Racism exists in all people but not all people are racist.
i was thinking about this last night. frankly i am beyond sick and tired of obama and his racial issues. they are HIS issues. i don’t care about his race but his mindset just clearly disgusts me. there is nothing post racial about this guy. all the red flags were there but the american idol voters wouldn’t listen.
and the shame of it is when a real issue with a minority being mistreated comes up, people will be jaded by cxxx like this.
hollywood finds a narrative and it stays the same no matter what. right now hollywood, music, and cable are all rapper fans. if i were a member of the aa community that would irriate me. sterotype is hollywood’s friend even after it is way out of date with reality.
I think 0bama is very adept at using the race card as he showed us again and again during the campaign. He taught his little minions some of whom show up here to cry “racist” at the drop of a hat. However, there was a thin wall of separation (and transparent enough through which some of us saw the real 0bama) between those who cried racist and 0bama himself during the campaign. But that wall was shattered by this incident when 0bama showed his true colors in an unscripted and unguarded moment.
I think 0bama is very adept at using the race card as he showed us again and again during the campaign. He taught his little minions some of whom show up here to cry “racist” at the drop of a hat
Call me cynical, but I think part of the strategy (besides Obama’s obvious racial profiling – white Irish cop= bad cop and racist) is to further distract us from his insane health care reform ideas.
On July 29, Chris Matthews and Joan Walsh did a bang-up job of hammering home the BS idea that any opposition to Obama’s proposed reforms are simply because whites don’t want to see a black POTUS succeed. Total fodder for the insane
Check it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNDmVRqcrAo
As long as people like Obama continue to “race bait” and “play the race card”, we will never truly be able to move on as a society. The assumption now is that anytime anything involves a white person and a black person in a negative light, it surely must be racism on the part of the white person. Did it ever occur to society that most people are like me and judge someone by their character, NOT their skin color? I am so sick of the Jesse Jackson’s and Rev Al Sharpton trying to keep this alive with the rare incidences that come up every year. Most importantly, I am sick of them creating a racist situation where none ever existed! I am a lifelong Democrat, and I am sick to death of this crap!
Well said, Disgusted. If people like Sharpton and Jackson stopped creating racist situations where none existed, they’d have no reason to showcase their stagy outbursts and imagined white villainy on the news and on the street. They’d be out of business. Obama’s approval of this behavior diminishes and undermines true racist incidents that do exist.
Jackson and Sharpton and their ilk (Obama/Gates) can’t change narrative because they’ve made it their career to be professional victims. It is laughable that a black man who has achieved the amount of financial success and recognition (often when none is due) this gang has, cries racism. It is so insulting to many of us who put all our relationships on the line to stand up for civil rights, etc. Especially so when they won’t stand for women’s rights.
They won’t change because they haven’t been paid off enough…affirmative action isn’t enough when cash reparations are still on their minds.
In a previous WSJ piece in which he attacks the Sotomayor nomination as racial tokenism (unlike, say, the supremely qualified Clarence Thomas filling Thurgood Marshall’s seat), Steele declares “I have called Mr. Obama a bound man because he cannot win white support without bargaining and he cannot maintain minority support without playing the very identity politics that injure him with whites.” No, Shelby, the subtitle of your very thin book, A Bound Man, was “Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can’t Win.” Period. So poor Steele is doubly miffed, that our first black President isn’t politically more like him and JC Watts and Michael Steele, and that Obama’s crushing win last November made him look the complete fool.
That Obama “waded into” the Gates-Crowley controversy is a lie and Steele knows it. He responded to a reporter’s off-topic question with the perfectly reasonable answer that given that Gates is physically hobbled and was in his home his handcuffing and arrest was “stupid,” that is, utterly unnecessary. It is still a reasonable response though Crowley is a decent man and first-rate cop as Obama subsequently observed.
Finally, for all the ink or cyberspace consumed by this trivial affair, why has there been no mention whatever on the PUMA blogs of Dana Milbank’s witty quip that if Hillary had called the “beer summit,” she would have ordered Bitch brew? Only the hated “Obot” sites like Kos have taken the Washington Post to task for it. Funny that.
“Obama’s crushing win last November” ?? wow.
since when is 54% crushing?
What’s sad about Obama’s win is that we will probbly know how much was due to illegal acts of ACORN or ????
I have several friends who voted Obama. When this fact is brought up its “So what if Obama stole the election, GW did too!”
I would say that I get that comment from 2 or 3 out of 5 at least.
“Obama’s crushing win last November” ?? wow.
since when is 52% crushing?
Well, Claudy, Obama won 52.92%, 7.2 points and 9.5 million votes better than McCain. Let’s call it 53-46. I would call that a crushing margin and so would any reasonable person especially when you compare that outcome to other Presidential challengers who have taken back the White House from opposition party control.
The truly depressing aspect about the numbers isn’t that Obama won, but that there are that many fVcking morons that voted for him.
Onofre,
Just got done with Golden Gardens and saw an old friend over there who is the laziest liberal I have ever met.
He has always been critical of me and all those who want to excel and make something for themselves and not have to rely on Daddy’s money.
His mouth dropped out when he saw my unabashedly American no nonsense truck with the Hemi.
I make no apologies and will reward myself with nice products in exchange for saving companies and employing people.
Funny thing,
My jaw dropped out when he told me that he has done a 180 and hates the democrats and realizes that they are Marxist’s that don’t represent our interests.
My old buddy even admitted that he listens to this guy named Levin…
Now if I can just work on him getting a job and not hanging at the beach all day…
Maybe too much to ask..
Hey Mr Moss,
Epiphanies are wonderful experiences. Your friend seems to have had one. Whenever someone tells me of one I drop everything and dig into how it happened. I’ll ask them tons of questions: Where were you? Were you drunk? Were you asleep? Were you standing in front of a burning bush? How does it feel to know the truth?
I think that Obama may rival Jesus with the amount of epiphanies that he will generate, but in quite the opposite manner. Hopefully, like your freind, the epiphanies of Obama will be a mass realization that he is a fraud, a liar, and the farthest thing possible than the image that was crafted for him by his minions. The false facade will crumble.
Obama is a Christmas tree! (this is my latest epiphany)
He is an ordinary object that was brought into our homes, adorned by the media with tinsel, glitter, shiny bulbs of hope and change, and a star on top to draw in the mesmerized. The glowing lights were lit on election eve, carols were sung, hot buttered rum was consumed, and the hypnotized electorate drifted off to slumber with the comforting thoughts that they would awaken the next day with the permanent warmth that they felt while basking in the glow of the twinkling lights from the artificially decorated tree they lovingly called Tannen-Obama. Oh Tannen-Obama, oh Tannen-Obamma, how ever green the three branches of government be.
But……as is usual, the feeling fades, the needles fall, arguments ensue about who will will dis-adorn the damn tree, and the tree itself will end up dragged into the woods, or left on the curb for the recycler. At least in a perfect world.
Interesting thing about my liberal friend
He was sitting on the fence still not sure. Conflicted and confused and probably insecure about his vote for the fraud.
I drove all the way to Ballard for some reason tonight.
I swear this guy had an epiphany right in front of me tonight.
I was there to close the deal!
Another Tea Party Patriot born!
One at a time, the momentum builds, the pendulum swings, and these cliches come true.
Very good analogy Onofre.
I don’t buy cut trees anymore. As a tradition I buy a new fir or pine tree each year and then have the live memories going forward. I got tired of seeing a poor tree worshiped and then kicked to the curb a few days later…From space it must look totally insane.
Damn, you’ve added remarkably to my analogy. From space, the Obama phenomenon WOULD look totally insane. But I guess, from any perspective, it makes no sense.
That’s simply not true. I have read the anger on many blogs, including the “PUMA” tilted voices/blogs.
But then, if you’re using the Daily Kos as a site of feminist virtue and activism or a Hillary Clinton defense site, you really have lost your marbles!
What would that “crushing blow” Obama win number be without ACORN???
http://www.rottenacorn.com/activityMap.html
I have heard it said that blacks, while they can be bigoted, cannot be racist because they do not have the power behind them that the white majority does. I think that this case shows that this may no longer be the truth.
Good point. Maybe this point shows, we have finally progressed and moved on and it’s only those who wish to use it to further themselves wish to keep it alive. And now, the others are saying ENOUGH.
it never was the truth. anyone can be a racist at anytime.
“Because they do not have the power behind them” is an attempt to redefine the word “racism”.
Agreed. Anyone can be racist. Racism isn’t exclusive to whites.
That line of thinking is just another excuse for not taking responsibility for personal actions and success.
LisaB,
This is an excellent article in every way. Exceptional!!! Thanks very much.
This presupposes that Obama ever WAS “post-racial,” a concept I find laughable. As others have so eloquently pointed out, Obama used/uses the race card at the drop of a hat, whenever he wants to SILENCE people and put them on the defensive. It is reprehensible, really.
Post-racial Obama most certainly is not. His weighing in on thiss, castigating Sgt. Crowley as his ratchet response without knowing ANY of the facts, is telling indeed, and what it says abt Obama is not good at all. “Fool” is a mild term…
Thanks for this, LisaB!
Excellent point. And our only examples are NOT post racial, just like his comment “typical white woman” of his Grandmother. That was such a racist comment. I’ve never seen examples that he was ever post racial. He seems to alway revert to a racial narrative.
Pr. Obama does not know the meaning of post-racial. You are spot on — the racist meme was used to bring everyone to heel last year. I am glad to see that when he tried to use it again last week, it bit him hard. As other have said, when there is a real issue regarding racism to be considered, it will be given less weight because he and his surrogates have irresponsibly been crying wolf all this time.
Steele comarisng Obama to the Peter Sellers character in Dr. Strangelove is spot on — he cannot hide his knee jerk reactions. Or arm jerk as the case may be.
The article was good.
I believe the idea was that they cannot be racist because their bigotry did not have an ability to affect on the white person they are bigoted against — unlike the white majority which could affect a black person’s employment, areas where they live, etc. I was just noting that in this case, Professor Gates comments about the situation could very likely have caused the officer to be fired if there had not been tapes and crowd testimony. At the present time, with black govenors, mayers, police chiefs, as well as people such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, I don’t know if the argument holds water as well as it used to.
Everyone seems to overlook the disparaging attitude of many blacks towards Asians and Jews. I have never seen such racism as I observed by black soldiers in Viet Nam toward the Vietnamese. Black soldiers routinely called our South Vietnamese allies “gooks” and continued that attitude towards Asians when they returned to the States. I was amazed to see this because my time in Viet Nam was during the height of the Civil Rights movement in the U.S. So blacks who were telling the rest of us not to judge people based on the color of their skin were more than happy to disrespect an entire group based on the color of their skin.
And, let’s not forget Jesse Jackson’s infamous “Hymie town” remark when referring to NYC. Jackson’s defense was that he made this statement in private. As if that somehow made it alright.
Frankly, I am sick of listening to blacks accuse everyone else of racism while never examining their own bigotry.
I read this a few days ago, and agree. Steele has always had Obama’s number.
It was a very good op-ed by Steele; at least it was until the very last sentence:
Huh? That statement bothered me. I hope Steele means this positively. Or is Steele actually saying that all police are bound by the same “cultural narrative?” Or is he just saying that white police are bound by a cultural narrative? What about the cultural narrative of black police officers? What would that be?
If Crowley portrayed himself outside of HIS cultural narrative, Leon Lashly, a 26-year-veteran black police officer at the scene of the arrest, portrayed himself outside of HIS cultural narrative at the very same moment. Lashly functioned under a a “police” cultural narrative–a class cultural narrative–and not a racial one.
Steele might well be right; but I think even his assessment is limited by the “cultural narrative” of race applied to every situation. In this case, I believe that class also played a large part.
There are new “cultural” narratives emerging. The old “cultural narratives” won’t work anymore. Black cultural narratives of victimization are no longer sustainable, in a world where we have a black president–even when that black president tries to resorts to them–or black professors, scholars, CEOs, police officers, etc.
It strains credulity to see a Black President of the United States attempt to portray blacks as victims; it strains credulity to see black professors resort to the “victim” ploy as well. That’s why there was such a backlash over Obama’s “race card” in the Gates affair.
I’m profoundly grateful to Sgt. James Crowley, and Sgt Leon Lashly for epitomizing the REAL lessons of EQUALITY for all Americans.