Shelby Steele on Obama's Accent
Black Star News interviewed Republican intellectual and best-selling author Shelby Steele. He spoke on various issues including Barack Obama, Affirmative Action, segregration, his biracial experience, and some of him written work.
On Obama's accent:
"BSN: What I’m curious about Obama is, where did he get his Black accent, if he wasn’t raised around Black people, but by a white mother from Kansas? Does his voice sound authentic or adopted to you? I figured you might have an insight about this since your mother’s white, too.
SS: It sounds a little hollow. Sometimes, he’s Martin Luther King, sometimes, he a Black militant from the Sixties, then he’s a Baptist minister. He can be so different. There’s not yet an Obama voice. That troubles me on other levels. It’s hard to know what bag he’s going to come out of when he takes to the podium. You’re making the point that, given his background, he doesn’t have the flava’, that he’s a bit artificial and struggling to get there. Yeah, sure, that is part of what I talk about in the first half of the book. I think this need to belong has trailed him all of his life." READ MORE...
Photo credit: Rita Steele
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I don't have anything positive or in agreement with him to say, so I'm going to leave it alone.
Shelby Steele is their 'boy', making sure to keep any attempt at social progress well undermined. It is far from surprising that they would choose the most vehement, ferverish, mixed-race person to derail this Black president 'crazy talk.' "Look at how Obama brushes his teeth in the morning!" might be next. It's amazing how, like countless others, Mr. Steele seems to believe he gets a 'white man pass' for negating someone who has more in common with him. But I've been told about scared negroes before who hide behind veils of pseudo-scholarly, pseudo-objective and pseudo-sociological 'analysis' to quell their bosses' fears. Don't worry, Mr. Steele - we won't call your name out while this new generation tries to fix up the mess of the past. Massa'll still love you.
I can understand your anger - you support the mainstream press' view that this kind of support for a Black candidate is nothing more than style-over-substance cult campaigning (how could a Black candidate be more successful utilizing the same methods as his white counterparts if not so, right? Especially with Michelle out-Hillarying Hillary.) In being a politician for change, Sen. Obama has to play on this chessboard, and he is doing so with more success, and none of the cynical hypocrisy of his opponents.
But, Mr. Steele, at least have the forthrightness to acknowledge that your priviledge to stick up for your and white America's disdain for Sen. Obama is the result of you playing the game too - albeit for goals to keep 'the good ol' days' exactly the same. I hope your children will have a greater appreciation and scope of vision, and maybe Dr. King and Malcolm X's visions wouldn't seem as incongruent.
There's more than one way to assassinate a leader. Congratulations, Mr. Steele, on crafting your method. Just make sure to concurrently design your own armor, because, whether you believe it or not, you'll always be half-Black in a land in which that has carried a death sentence. No amount of holier-than-thou, frightened and dismissive pundit-pounding will ever change that.
"Black accent?" I absolutely hate when people are shocked that black people act or talk a certain way (talking proper, or *white* as ignorant people would call it).
It's demeaning, even when they're complimenting us on "how cool" we act and dress.