Why Barack Can’t Win
February 12, 2008
Shelby Steele has a new book, titled A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can’t Win. Paul Beston of the urban policy magazine City Journal notes that Steele is a conservative black man who is critical of the use of victimhood as a source of political power; that’s become a popular world view for Asians tired of trying to be overachievers.
Liberals have slammed the book as insulting, but Steele believes that Obama is trapped between needing to fit into the culture of victimization to be authentically black, while the falsehoods of Afrocentrism are evident by his own transcending the supposed bounds of race in America. The lists of superintendent and fire department finalists I’ve seen that are nearly devoid of white men say to me that, to many of our leaders, diversity really is “Job One.” Steele suggests that compared to a flock of more experienced white guys, it is Obama who has “power to enthrall whites.”
Hillary’s primary pamphlet statement — which calls to down “big oil” tax breaks (like on ethanol?) — offends me, while Obama’s entry didn’t automatically identify any industry as “the enemy.” Yet his verbiage reminds me of writing test-scoring rubrics that don’t give credit to empty generalizations, no matter how well written.
In the popular Boondocks comic strip (that’s Secret Asian Man in black), Barack is a smile-faced, “don’t worry be happy” guy devoid of the cynical rage that afflicts all of the other African Americans in the strip. Democrats will flock to an affirmative action ticket, but that strategy has never won before.
Asian(s) for McCain?
Mitt Romney is the accomplished honors student, but where are all the people who actually like him? John McCain is back from the dead, and his only Asian outreach was pledging the last time around to never say “gook” again.
It’s not the liberals but fundamentalist Republicans, from our own Michelle Malkin to Rush Limbaugh, who think McCain is the Antichrist who threatens the nation if elected. Yet McCain lacks the legions of people who hate him like Hillary, or flinch at Obama’s light experience. Significant faults aside (I’ll let the Democrats list them), he’s a likeable guy.
One successful Al Qaeda attack will sink Obama, while McCain’s plan to defeat terrorists isn’t to expand the Peace Corps or leave Iraqi democracy to the party that bombs the most public markets with disabled women.
I don’t think that a citizenship path for illegal immigrants is a bad idea, and the campaign reform bill and Bush tax cut aren’t deal breakers for me. According to vajoe.com’s presidential calculator, McCain tied with Romney for my views. At 33 percent, Obama even beat Hillary’s 0 percent rock bottom agreement rate.
Republicans, take a cue from the hugging Democrats and just start running the top two. If Romney comes in second, he can take over after McCain’s second term. I’d rather have him on a hunting trip than Cheney.
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12 Responses to “Why Barack Can’t Win”
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I do not know why Asians are so prejudiced. My girlfriend is Thai and she says Asians do not like Black people. Not only that, she says Asians like to deal in cash so they can skim the profits. Shelby Steele and black conservatives like him hate themselves and that is why they are always on the opposite side of other black folks.
Does any editor at AsianWeek read these pieces before publication?
The author makes no connection between Steele’s book and Asian America. Seems like just an excuse to run an anti-Obama headline.
And without any explanation or justification for this statement — “Democrats will flock to an affirmative action ticket, but that strategy has never won before” — the sentence is just gratuitous.
Hey, Keith, you should also scan the author’s recent “review”? of the ‘66 Steve McQueen flick, “The Sand Pebbles.”
Almost as cogent as the above er, ah “column”?
we’re all kids in the playground
and we can’t deny the cruelty of the words
that come out of our kids’ mouths
regardless of race, religion or creed.
To the contrary, Steele has hit the problemm square on the head and the old-time, self-appointed Black leaders don’t like that. Younger Black people today are tired of that old, victimization mantra and are rejecting it left and right. Asians are racist because they think it makes them honorary White people they don’t see that America has changed and that’s just too bad for them. We will see how this goes in the future when the show down between China and America commences. Fair skinned Asians are prejudiced against darker-skinned Asians as well; Asians have a lot of self-hatred in their communities and I think that is why so many of them marry White people. They want to breed the Asian look out of their descendants.
Who cares what the asians think! European farmers and the poor Africans built America, the asians came much later. Obama is winning without the asian support because he is crossing the race and class lines in America. Rural and urban alike are voting for him.
Asians are prejudiced against other darker Asians as well. I wrote a longer statement on this , but the editors here took it off. I guess they don’t approve of free speech or the truth.
Oooh, looks like I hit some nerves there. Obama very much connects with the Asians being torn between being white wannabe overachievers and black wannabe victims. You missed the backwards link to Boondocks from our very own Secret Asian man, a good attempt to follow the path trailblazed by African American comics. The Yes We Can video does have Kelly Hu backing him up. I don’t think having me as a supporter is going to do him much more damage than the sort of things the left is already making fun of in the two Yes We Can McCain parodies (neither of which have Asians in them..) But given a choice between the grumpy old straight talking guy who isn’t afraid to take flak from his own party and the “who can make a rainbow” candyman, McCain is right on Obama’s heels after running over the Republican field, and will probably keep moving ahead. If McCain ultimately wins, that should speak to the value of confronting reality by the throat instead of wishing it away by closing your eyes, clicking your heels, and uttering nice things like “Yes we can”.
Wow !
The immeidiately foregoing post, ostensibly from “Art Hu,” actually makes sense.
And is contiguously rational, as in sentence to sentence and thought to thought.
Which leads at least this “reader” to wonder, “who”s” Art Hu? The reviewer of ancient movies without a clue? The expediter of nouveau Stanford/Binets and ivy-league degrees? Or, simply, our ambassador from “Little Saigon” again.
The inditer of the abovementioned paragraph is far too hip to current jive to be one and the same with the Vietnam War apologist, who seems to regurgitate the daily “talking points” of the Rovian machnie.
Whatever, all I can say to THIS “Art Hu” is, have you seen the latest delegate count? And do you dig the fact that the great unwashed are finally awakening to the sad facts of this administration AND the madness of another century of unwinnable wars?
Frank Eng
Frank, Steele said Barack couldn’t win, not me. I wrote this before Romney pulled out, but it looked like McCain was heading for the top at the time. I edited out that the survey actually showed Huckabee to be my main man, but good Christian soldier that he is, he can’t win. Right now Obama looks like the Democrat to beat, but I agree with Wall Street Journal op ed today that says that Obama is fine if you believe that the #1 pressing issue with America is that it sucks because it’s unfair to people of color, gender, income or whatever and we’re going to heck in a handbasket. But if you believe that America is a great nation, and that race really and truly has nothing to do with presidential qualifications, and you’re willing to vote for somebody who isn’t afraid to say something that’s probably going to be politically incorrect now and then, I’m predicting your average Joe or Jane and maybe even your average overachieving Asian is going to go with the naval aviator who cheated death at least twice You did hear about hopping out of his skyhawk after his fuel tank got hit by a rocket and running away seconds before the fireworks really went off? He then volunteered to fly from the Oriskany - the figures I remember is that somewhere between 1/2 and 1/3 of the bomber pilots were either captured or dead by the end of the cruise. McCain is also very much aware that the Rolling Thunder campaign was bungled by Johnson and McNamara and accomplished next to nothing for US losses incurred. You and Obama can go protect yourself against terrorists and foreign threats with protest signs, I’ll stick with McCain, thank you very much. Seattle is still smarting from McCain shooting down the Boeing tanker deal, he might be strong enough to stop the ridiculously expensive Army Stryker program and go back to tracked M113s and M8 buford light tanks for Iraq, but that’s something for a later column.
And, yes, America “sucks.”
First and foremost, because it is acting like the juvey idiots running foreign policy or the lack thereof.
EVERYthing “we” have done, before and since the Tonkin “incident,” has been counterproductive, as in “Contras,” and a bleeding, enervating drag on the national weal, never mind the conscience, if it exists.
We had a “tea” party in Boston harbor over much less oppression than that undergone by Palestinians day-to-day. And, if my sources are correct, the “Arab” Palestinians are, lke the “jews,” “semites”?
It’s a bit like the Mainland and Taiwan, where the ruilers are NOT the natives. And the current “spy” emanationsare about as relevant as this post on this “blog,” or am I being hubristic?
Finally, “Arthur Hu,” I insist that America can NOT be the “great nation” it professes to be until the day, THAT day, when the Establishment begins to come to terms with the ract that, at best, we can only HOPE to be the cutting edge of “civilization” and a “humanity” that transcends race and gender, and culture and “belief.”
Frank Eng
P.S.: Abuut “foreign threats,” I think, along wutg Pogo?, that the domstic threat of juvey idiot pirate crews dismantling the Constitution is front-and-center ahead of those sadassed IED wielders. As for “protest signs,” count me a longtime, lifetime?, protest signer.
Oh, and please, please, find another ghost writer for your film reviews.
The above was the secone half of my rant and screed.
Per usual, thsse aging fingers writ and moved on sans recognition.
Whatever, what I stazrted out to say was that my perception is that THIS “Arthur Hu” is not “who” he claims to be.
The Art Hu of film reviews, of the flaws and fecklessness of “educzation” today, and of “Little Saigon” rues of war and loss, can NOT be the author of the paragraph I am trying to address.
This Art Hu is far too hip and considerably more cogent, which iw to say, logical and consistent from sentence to sentence and thought to thought.
That said, NEITHER Art Hu, ultimately, makes “sense” as in either logic OR sensibility.
About Asian weanna-whites, I believe that to be a proper subject for the psychoanalysts and the socioculturalist. My personal experience and observation is that, like EVERYthing else in this our world and this our existence, a “standoff,” as in “half-full” or “half-empty.”
I am impressed, today, that McCain eschewed “earmarks,” ditto his courage under fire, but neither “qualifies” him to be the next Chief High Poobah of this neverneverland of overachievers and underperformers.
Oh, and Arthur Hu, whomsoever you may be, rest assured that even if Obama “wins,” and lives to eke out his “agenda,” the odds are that not all that much will change. For ANY of us, wannabes or ass-kissers.
I just hope the theoneocon jackanapes can be retired to the wings, the woodworks?, that too, and that this nation may once more begin to position itself as a possible beacon to humankind.
For now, would any Laintio in his or her right mind, want to face la migra?
And everysone must, at the very least, savor the California del Norte as a hiccup of history?
Frank Eng
P.S.: Mr. Knigbt, or Captain Obvious, please hire a better ghostwriter for your future film reviews.