Wednesday Morning Starting Five: The Michael Steele Likes Fried Chicken and Potato Salad Too Edition
Michael Steele needs to chill fam. Seriously. I don’t understand why he continues to subject himself to all this mad coonin’. This is ridiculous. You know his own party is laughing at him, not with him. He’s the cat at this picnic. There’s no Black man, woman or child in their right mind who will drop everything and become a member of the GOP just because he says so. I don’t understand why you would do this to yourself Mike. Brotha please get it together. Real Rap? He reminds me of Humpty “I look funny, but yo I’m makin’ money see” Hump.
Straight gangsta mack…
I wonder if he likes the girls with the boom?
To the links…
Michael Steele is such a nice guy. He’s willing to give the brothas fried chicken and potato salad to come on down and replace him as the token Black guy and join the republican party. (Huffington Post)
Carl Crawford robs ‘em with a great catch and wins MVP of the All Star Game. The American league has won 13 straight. (MLB.com)
A nice ABA to NBA pictorial of Doc. (Philly.com)
Day 3 of the Sotomayor confirmation hearings. Crazy how she has to defend the truth huh? (WaPo)
Racial Gap in Testing Sees Shift by Region. (NY Times)
Like Jackson, Usher strives to make the world a better place. I see you Kelley L! (USA Today)
168 Believed dead in Iran Jet Crash. (LA Times)
Lakers pull offer to Lamar Odom. (LA Times)
Give it to ‘em Queen…
I betchu anything that Michael Steele is probably a really funny, fun, friendly guy in person. And I’m serious about that. But he may have the last laugh. First of all, he’s paid in full. And maybe just maybe he’s a self-appointed “plant” who wants to further sabotage the GOP from within. After all of this is through, he can write a book about how funny he thinks it was that he had everybody goin’ for so long.
What are the real world consequences of his comedy?
Is this not a real opportunity for Steele to act seriously on the work of forging a viable agenda for Black folk within the GOP? The game is sufficiently rigged that a two-party system is not going to be overthrown any time soon. Obama has as good a chance of being re-elected as any sitting president in recent memory.
The GOP, however, could seriously make inroads at the local and state level by pressing forward on issues that are of value to large numbers of Black folk. Steele continues to paint Black folk as an impoverished and ignorant mass who are susceptible to his childish games.
He is foregoing an opportunity to strengthen the types of economic ties between US, Caribbean and African residents with their home countries. He is foregoing an opportunity to build his ranks based on economics and trade and a serious vision for authentic progress and reform. He is foregoing an opportunity to demonstrate leadership in mapping a route to reconciliation that would dramatically improve the negotiating power of Blacks within the GOP in 2016.
Steele is demonstrating the same perilous lack of foresight that ennobles the ignant ass statement, “Don’t hate the player; hate the game.” It is rare to meet someone who holds that position that actually understands the game. Michael Steele should be talking about agricultural collectives predicated on sound investment principles; he should be talking about driving funds to those suburban and rural areas where Black folk are located that need an infusion of capital to create innovative and viable economies. He’s talking about fried chicken and some folks think that shit’s funny.
Hardly.
Isn’t there a role here:
http://blog.nj.com/njv_editorial_page/2009/07/a_new_black_wall_street_rises.html
for Michael Steele that has something to do with consolidating power at the county and regional level for what could be a tremendously valuable political base?
Childish games should be put away after a time. Steele is passed his days of pissing away moments in the sandbox. Time to grow up.
Claude:
Just to clarify — I don’t believe that you think offering chicken for votes is funny. At least I hope you don’t think it’s funny.
I think if you’re at all correct, Steele is making the mistake that David Chappelle made in assuming a capacity to grasp racial satire in his depraved audience that simply did not exist.
Chappelle was wrong and “retired.” Steele should either do the same or step his game up.
@Temple3
I should re-state by adding this to the beginning of my comment:
“Aside from his remarks that go beyond racially insensitive and beyond Chappelle-ism, I betchu anything that …”
I was just assuming that everyone agreed that his comments about food weren’t funny. And I don’t think it’s possible that he’s so completely oblivious that he himself doesn’t know. So my comment was meant as a tongue-in-cheek type of thing.
Steele and others like him will just go away by themselves, even without our help. There are so many other more important things to focus our attention upon. Ya know.
I do believe there are more important things to focus on, but prior to the election of Barack Obama, there was a largely universal lament among Black folk that the Democrats and Republicans were unresponsive to our needs.
Obama’s election demonstrated that the electorate was wholly fed up with Bush. However, the ascent of Steele could serve as mechanism for meaningful inroads within the GOP. Many of the black folk who do not vote for the Democrats went Republican because they believe the Dems were beholden to the old guard CRM leadership or teachers unions or other entities that may or may not have black folks best interests at heart. They went Republican to become power brokers (of a sort).
Steele may not go away. Ward Connerly didn’t just go away. Clarence Thomas hasn’t just gone away. Even Armstrong Williams won’t go away. It is precisely the fact that Steele is abdicating real responsibility for fulfilling the ideals of the party that fueled Reconstruction during the dominant era of the Dixiecrats that he is so problematic.
I don’t believe he is just going to fade away.
All of them will fade. It’s already begun. That’s why it takes such increasingly bizarre antics to get attention. I’m not saying it’ll be overnight, but this fade follows the basic rules of manifestation … what we focus on expands. If you don’t believe me then try looking down from a high wire while trying to cross to the other side to something you really want, over somewhere you definitely don’t want to go (metaphorically). Increasingly unconscious people like Steele do play a helpful role in that they give the rest of us someone with whom to practice being even more conscious.
I suppose that whether he fades away or not is essentially immaterial. We can certainly agree that whatever he does, he will not maximize the moment.
Michael Steele has blown his chance, he’s not taken seriously. He’s the jockey holding the lantern on the GOP’s front lawn.
Melissa Harris-Lacewell had a theory about why Steele was nominated as the head of the GOP. The GOP saw President Obama as some sort of Superman. And what is Superman’s weakness? Kryptonite. So they theorized that:
1. Steele and Obama came from the same planet
2. Based on Theory #1, Steele would have the skill to neutralize Superman/Obama.
My theory: the GOP saw Steele as Superman, but he turned out to be the Bizzaro Superman.
Des that is a perfect analogy.
Claude as long as this guy is shuckin’ and jivin’ in pseudo representation of us, he’s important to focus on.
This is a very important time for Black politics. Our children are paying attention. They cannot see guys like Steele as role models.
We need strong!
Whether or not you are down with the political process or not, this is not the time to say “Why so serious?”
He does hold a position that at least sounds “important” right?
Don’t underestimate his impact.
Mizzo things have a way of rising to the surface, therefore Steele will never become a role model for my kids (and probably none of our kids) even if they watched him 24/7.
You may be underestimating the natural gifts of kids, in other words.
What kids will do, though, is sense our energy about something or someone, even if we don’t speak. If there’s a tremendous amount of negative energy towards something then they will notice it (or fear it) much more than if there is no energy whatsoever put upon it. So the question is, why would we want our kids to notice this man?
The flip is also true. If they sense a tremendous amount of positive energy about something, they will notice that just as much. Whichever way has more energy will win their attention, whether negative or positive.
And, because kids crave attention (we all do) they will “become” whatever we ourselves are focusing on, seeing as that we put so much attention on it.
So when you say “our children are paying attention,” you are right, they are noticing politics, but they are not noticing Steele, unless we are steadily noticing Steele.
It’s like if favorite baseball team as a kid just won the World Series, you don’t even think about the last place team other than to make a mental note that they suck.
So I would say, don’t over-estimate Steele’s impact. Do over-estimate the sensibilities of your kids.
One last point is that my video of my 4-year-old last year (http://blackfivesblog.com/?p=594), which was 100% unprompted, un-rehearsed, and un-prepared, proved that a young kid can pick up plenty of stuff on his own, just from “feeling” the energy and enthusiasm of his parents, because I know for a fact that he wasn’t paying attention to the exact words we were speaking at the dinner table.
on that “racial gap” New York Times link…
There is a reason the Wisconsin gap is so low: Milwaukee Public Schools is a complete joke. I’ve been there a number of times to work with out-of-school youth initiatives and some recent promising alternative schools. The solution would best come from alternative educational settings as I don’t know if MPS can be rehabilitated as an institution.
Why you ditchin on micheal steele? Is is because he knows the repub party doesn’t oprress the black people and make them think they have to live a life in povery ridden communities and live on welfare? Look up Black Conservative party and look at what these folks have done and realize they have sided with a party who respects them and their accomplishments not a party who wants to keep you poor and answering to them