The Tragi-Comedy of Michael Steele

By Danielle Belton

From Talking Points Memo:



One has to wonder: What is this man thinking?

A bigger gaffe machine than Vice President Joe "Mad Dog" Biden, Michael Steele has added to his cannon of ridiculous quotes a new doozy. This one about bringing the "fried chicken and potato salad" to attract "diverse populations." While it was an off-the-cuff remark, obviously meant to be funny, it's not in the sense that it again plays into commonly held stereotypes about African Americans. If these things were said by a white politician the cries of racial insensitivity would be deafening.

What's become the problem is Steele is now a "gotcha" comment machine for the press, always on the lookout for fodder to reveal him as a buffoon. The only strange thing is that Steele seems content to play this role to the hilt, as if patronizing minorities would ever win Republicans votes. If someone asks Steele how they'll attract Latinos is he going to tell the cameras that he'll bring the pulled pork and chicken mole?

What's also interesting is that Steele seems to be taking the opposite tract that other black Republicans have in the past to appeal to minorities. From controversial figures to TV pundits, most black conservatives and Republicans have actually gone out of their way to be as atypical as possible, beyond stereotype, in their efforts to show a "different" side of the black experience. Some, like Shelby Steele, present themselves as academics. Others, like center-right pundit Michelle Bernard, go for a polished look of confidence and assertiveness. Almost all of them, with a few notable exceptions, avoid stereotype like the plague, as if it is some universal code to not "shuck and jive" for the cameras. The same can be said for most educated blacks, most politicians and other members of the professional classes. Your mother would call this "home training." It could be argued that Steele has no "home training" and doesn't know how to self-censor himself from potentially damaging comments when a camera is looming near.

In the past, Steele might have been blasted by blacks for embarassing all black people on such a national scale, but as more diverse images of us appear in political life and in the media, there is less a sense of one offense damages the whole. Steele is judged only as hurting Steele (and subsequently, the Republican National Committee) and not a nation of blacks. Perhaps that is progress that actions of one in the media no longer condem the whole.