We have here, in Professor Steele’s beautifully written book a fully developed, full-fledge “background empty” theory of racism. But curiously it is only black racism -- presented without giving a single reason for why blacks have become such incorrigible racists? Perhaps it is in our black skins, or in the brown paper bags that we drink our malt liquor in? Or the dope we smoke? Or the crimes we commit? Or the number of white women we rape? This book gives us no clues, except to leave open the pregnant implication that maybe it is just that we are all quite plainly and collectively, stupid.
The only legacy of the past that Steele’s cosmic myopia will tolerate is the self-destructive “blame game” that blacks play on themselves. His message to them, which is a good one, is: Wake up black man, it’s a new day of freedom! Haven’t you noticed; the game has changed?
But this patriotic lament operates in a social vacuum: The other self-evident truth that is missing from Professor Steele’s analysis is that the “Grand Hotel” of existential racism is missing; the ultimate temple of racism, the reason d’etre for black racism lies in the mother of all racisms: In the 900-hundred pound gorilla always lurking and stalking American society in the background of all theories of race in America: It is White racism that is missing from Dr. Steele’s analysis altogether.
How can there be a credible theory of black racism, without even a mention of the impact of nearly four hundred uninterrupted years of sustained practice of white racism? Is it not true, that just as blacks are responsible for their own uplift, that whites are also responsible for dealing with their own guilt?
But despite this logical lacunae, the featureless canvas upon which Steele’s theory of black racism rests, must go on.
Bargainers and Challengers
The consequence of blacks playing self-destructive racist survival games on themselves, and calling it racial solidarity, and blaming it all on “the white man,” is that they are invariably left with only two ways to negotiate their claims before the all-powerful powerbrokers of the majority culture: either as “bargainers” or as “challengers.”
“Bargainers,” find clever ways to finesse their way around the issue of race (often showing deference to whites, giving their guilt a safe escape hatch, etc.) and in doing so, are frequently seen by other blacks as “tribal sellouts,” that is, as “Uncle Toms.” On the other hand, whites tend to see these bargainers as able to rise above their “victimized black condition” and are thus eligible for assimilation into white-dome, as honorary or designated whites. The best-known “bargainers” are Oprah Winfrey, Colin Powell, Clarence Thomas, and now Barack Obama himself.
“Challengers,” on the other hand, “confront” their way into power-sharing arrangements with the white power structure, using “white guilt” as their primary bargaining chip and tool for taking over the moral high ground. What they do is a kind of “moral coup d’ etat -- moral extortion by another name. The best examples of “challengers” are of course the Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
The author ties this whole package together in a grand crescendo that leads to a prediction about Obama’s chances in the presidential race. According to the author’s scenario, by having disingenuously adopted a pseudo black identity and pose (an existential imperative for Mulattoes it seems), Obama has set a trap for himself: If he presents himself to the voting public as a “bargainer,” he will lose the black vote, as they will see him as a tribal sellout. On the other hand, if he presents himself as a “challenger,” he will lose the white vote because “challengers” always use guilt to extract “unearned” concessions from whites. And since Obama needs both groups to win, in the end, he cannot be elected. QED.
The Fly in the Steele’s Theoretical Ointment: His theory is background dependent after all.
The flaw at the heart of this neatly crafted scenario is that it begs several important questions that keep lurking in the non-existent background: Why do blacks have the moral high ground in the first place? Why do they get to use “white guilt” as their most powerful trump card? Are only blacks (that is “challengers” and “bargainers”) perpetrators of racism? How can they be both the perpetrators and the victims of racism at the same time? Indeed, where is the real fount of all the white guilt that is being negotiated?
The answer, of course, is that all Americans – no matter the color -- are victims of racism. And, in the end, the perpetrators (who are white, not black) and their progeny, may be the greatest victims of all.
The flaw in Steele’s theory is his failure to recognize the paradoxical situation of American society: that EVERYONE in America is a victim of racism, not just blacks or other non-whites. Therefore, there IS a background to Dr. Steele’s story, whether he wants to acknowledge its presence or not. Black racism did not rise from the ether. Arguably it is but one of many ancillary features of the mother of all racisms: white racism.
Like the sea is for fish, white racism is the meta-world in which we all swim. Wish fulfilling thought, and tyranny by enforced silence, or feigning racial innocence, or attacking the victims, cannot cancel out a 400-year brutal racist past. That past lives on inside us, and if not there then inside all our institutions, in the hierarchical structure of our society, and in our psychology. It is in our cultural DNA. No one in America is a racial virgin. As Steele has said in his previous books, “there are no racial innocents in America.” We have all been de-frocked and de-flowered. The two axioms that underlie Steele’s theory do not hold. We cannot allow him to pass Go to collect his $200. Stop and go directly to jail.
To the extent we are Americans, means, by definition, that we are all also survivors of the American racial Holocaust. For better or worse, this is our common heritage. Victimization as a result of our history of racial genocide, oppression and conflict, is co-extensive with the American mindset, with American culture, with American politics, and with all of American psychology and thought. There is no “non-racist” or “anti-racist” platform on which an American writer such as Steele can stand on in America. Yet, Steele (as he hides out safely in the ivory tower of the Hoover institution and within his Mulatto skin) pretends that he is standing on just such a platform.
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