Bill Moyers interviews Shelby Steele about Barack Obama. Steele is not the first to suggest that when Americans look at Obama (at least right now), they see the better angels of their own souls rather than the actual man and political leader who is truly there. What’s interesting about Steele’s observation is his utter fatalism about an inevitable disillusionment with Obama as his policy positions necessarily come into greater focus than his inspiring messages about “hope” and transcending the problems of our past.
I’ve had my hopes dashed by politicians whose promises and rhetoric clashed against reality before, but not being African-American, I probably can’t really appreciate the kind of standing as a social outsider that has historically come along with dark skin; Steele shares Obama’s “double outsider” status because like Obama, his mother was white and his father was black.
I know there are several Obama supporters who regularly stop by and I too am fascinated with the phenomenon of the rise of Barack Obama. Steele, who describes himself as a conservative and associates with other conservative academics, is understandably not as enchanted with Obama as a more liberal black historian would be. Basically, Steele asks, “Why is Obama different than anyone who’s come before?” My question, though, is Steele’s pessimism really warranted — haven’t Americans as a people matured somewhat from even ten years ago; isn’t the Obama campaign itself, win or lose, a process of cross-racial acceptance and integration?
