Godheval

If the leader of an organization is expected to represent his constituents, in terms of like ideology and practices, then the Republican Party could not have made a better choice than Michael Steele.

High on the long list of criticisms levied against the GOP is that the party is “out of touch” with the rest of the country – that its view on policy is obsolete, that its ethics is out of sorts with the progressive shift being observed throughout the country. Being a party that seems – perhaps only coincidentally – to align itself exclusively with the interests of older, wealthier, white men, it would also seem to be out of touch with an electorate that is becoming more ethnically diverse. This is not a reference only to the rising numbers of Latinos changing the demographics landscape, but to the more active participation by minority voters.

If the Republican party is in fact out of touch with the rest of the country, then it is almost symbolic that they would choose Michael Steele to lead them, as he is equally out of touch with African-Americans.  While I would – and have – argued that a person’s ethnicity does not obligate them to harbor any particular ideology or align themselves in any way with any ethnic group, there is the small matter of Steele being chosen mostly due to his being an African-American.

There have been some mutterings that the Steele appointment was akin to Affirmative Action – that is to say, that he was chosen exclusively for his ethnicity.  However, while it is true that Steele was probably chosen at least in part for being African-American, it is hardly an example of Affirmative Action, because the Republican National Committee is under no obligation to fulfill any quotas in their appointments.  The Steele appointment, unlike Affirmative Action, was not an attempt to foster greater inclusion, but the kind of exercise in racial politics for which the GOP has become notorious.

President Obama’s ethnicity played no small part in his election.  While he certainly was elected by virtue of his vision, his eloquence, and a message which resonated with a country’s desperate grasping for change, it is true that he may not have gotten as much attention were he not African-American.  He galvanized the vast majority of African-American and other non-white voters by virtue of being non-white himself.  He powerfully contradicted long-standing stereotypes of African-Americans in the public consciousness, and made people pay attention long enough to hear his message.  And out of a resistance to the racism that they had long denied but were forced to acknowledge as it reared its ugly head at Obama, many Euro-Americans voted for him as well – at least in part as an affirmation that they, unlike the nationalist fringe, were not party to such ugliness.

Given all this, it becomes clear that the dynamic between Obama’s ethnicity and his success as a politician is rather complex, not a simple 1-to-1 correlation.  In other words, he most certainly was not elected because he was African-American, but it was in part because he was African-American that people paid attention long enough to notice that he was a strong candidate.  A misunderstanding of this dynamic illustrates a greater misunderstanding of American racial dynamics in general.  And it is this kind of misunderstanding that has virtually ensured that the African-American vote, and that of other minority groups, have been lost to the Republican party for generations.

During the Illinois Senate race of 2004, the GOP found itself up against a strong Democratic candidate, one who happened to be African-American.  Their response to then Senate contender Barack Obama was Alan Keyes, a last minute substitute for Jack Ryan, who had suddenly withdrawn from the race.  Keyes, who had never been a viable candidate for any office, and had near zero political power or influence, was remarkable only for being one of very few visible African-American Republicans.  Predicated on the false assumption that Barack Obama’s singular claim to fame was his ethnicity, the GOP seemed to think that putting up an African-American candidate themselves would cut into his market share.  They were dead wrong.  Obama received 70% of the vote to Keyes’ 27%, the largest victory margin for a statewide race in Illinois history.

The GOP attempted a similar strategy in the 2008 Presidential campaign by selecting Sarah Palin as their Vice Presidential nominee, in an apparent attempt to draw the female voters they perceived the Democratic party to have lost by not selecting Hillary Clinton.  It backfired.  Women resented the suggestion that they were voting based on gender rather than an understanding of the issues – an understanding Sarah Palin vividly illustrated that she did not possess.

Now with Michael Steele we see the GOP again using blackface [sic] in an attempt to counter the widespread popularity of Barack Obama.  Strange that they would attempt the exact same strategy that failed not only once, but twice – a further indication of how out of touch they are with the electorate.  While Steele may have merits outside of his ethnicity, they have not gained him any worthwhile recognition, and until now he has been a barely relevant figure in American politics.  It is noteworthy to mention that his popularity was most significant amongst African-American Republicans, who as a minority within a minority, sometimes find public representatives hard to come by.

Since his appointment, Steele has hit the ground stumbling, making a number of gaffes and self-contradictions, all the while demonstrating that he, like much of the party, is out of touch.  Were he not African-American, would he have referred the economic stimulus as “bling bling“?  Would Minnesota representative Michelle Bachman have said to him, in a laughable attempt to speak AAVE, “You be da man“?  Or would Steele have declared it necessary for the GOP to have a “hip-hop makeover“, by initiating an “off the hook” public relations campaign?

It is as if Chairman Steele is trying to remind everyone that he is African-American, just in case they’d forgotten since they last time they saw his face.  And of course blackness – nevermind the 400+ years of rich history and traditions, struggle and accomplishment – is foremost defined by stereotypes and pop culture slogans.  Perhaps to people with zero knowledge of history, and whose only frame of reference when it comes to African-Americans is the television.  It may be that Steele is so out of touch with African-Americans that he has felt a need to mentally renew his own “membership”.  In the process, he is making a complete fool of himself.

Given hip-hop’s political origins, a case actually could be made for the GOP using the culture as a medium for galvanizing new party recruits.  However, doing so would require the GOP to take hip-hop seriously, not condescend to it by throwing around obsolete catch phrases.

If Michael Steele knew anything at all about hip-hop, he would know of its capriciousness, its capacity for rapid change, that the flavor of the day can easily be replaced by the flavor of the next minute.  Had he known anything about hip hop, he might’ve paused before making statements that were not only long out of circulation within the hip hop lexicon, but have since been co-opted by those who would ridicule the culture.  Probably everyone who embraces the culture, and anyone who at least appreciates the music, cringed collectively every time Michael Steele invoked hip-hop from some podium.

African-Americans as a group – diverse in their interests, their concerns, their ideologies, their practices – are a microcosm for the larger American population.  It stands to reason then, that in spite there being some unique issues to contend with, African-American concerns are simply American concerns.

The Republican party, in its stalwart resistance to change, its clinging to static values and obsolete principles, has proven itself of late to be ill-representative of the American population, and ignorant of those concerns.  Michael Steele therefore, as a man equally out of touch with the group from which he was selected, is the perfect choice to lead them.

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