Shelby Steele, most famous for being the guy who tells conservatives that they’re right about everything relating to race, tells conservatives that they’re wrong about race because they’re so right about race.
Essentially, he argues that the “left”, in the 1960s, claimed the mantle of redemptive moral authority through activism, and then lays the blame for conservatism’s utter (and decreasing) lack of appeal to minorities on conservatism’s lack of a mechanism to convince and redeem the American populace for its prior - and now dead - bigotry. If you want me to translate this to “I’m not a dick who constantly references Hayek”, he’s saying that Democrats managed to come up with a policy platform that addressed minority needs, however imperfectly, and Republicans sat back and reveled in the superiority of their ideology.
Oh, and they’re a party that openly embraces racism while simultaneously denying it.
Steele’s solution? Well, first, conservatives should revel in the superiority of their ideology:
What drew me to conservatism years ago was the fact that it gave discipline a slightly higher status than virtue. This meant it could not be subverted by passing notions of the good. It could be above moral vanity.
And then it should embrace racism while simultaneously denying it:
And so it made no special promises to me as a minority. It neglected me in every way except as a human being who wanted freedom. Until my encounter with conservatism I had only known the racial determinism of segregation on the one hand and of white liberalism on the other—two varieties of white supremacy in which I could only be dependent and inferior.
The problem with conservative minorities is their conservatism, yes, but there’s a deeper issue on vivid display with Steele: conservative minorites sound like fucking cultists.
Conservatism has painted itself into a terrible corner. It exists by contradicting itself - it harbors and favors racism while denying that racism exists at all. Note that Steele doesn’t address the racial history of American conservatism, he simply recasts it as an inherent and undeniable good, and then talks about his psuedo-religious rebirth as a right-wing Negro.
The appeal of conservatism is the mutuality it asserts between individual and political freedom, its beautiful idea of a free man in a free society. And it offers minorities the one thing they can never get from liberalism: human rather than racial dignity. I always secretly loved Malcolm X more than Martin Luther King Jr. because Malcolm wanted a fuller human dignity for blacks—one independent of white moral wrestling. In a liberalism that wants to redeem the nation of its past, minorities can only be ciphers in white struggles of conscience.
This is a prime example of conservative racial denialism as equality: the important factor for conservatives is not that we are all equal, but instead that the discourse on race not involve them in any way, shape or form. Conservatism absolves white people of responsibility and burdens minorities with a white/conservative-approved delusion: I am a full human being because I am willing to blame other minorities for the history of their skin color. The only reason that Steele believes that liberalism is a form of “white supremacy” is because of his inherent belief that whites are, in fact, superior, and the only way to avoid such a terrible specter is to avoid provoking or involving white people altogether. It’s better to be “free” than pursue actual freedom.
Liberalism’s glamour follows from its promise of a new American innocence. But the appeal of conservatism is relief from this supercilious idea. Innocence is not possible for America. This nation did what it did. And conservatism’s appeal is that it does not bank on the recovery of lost innocence. It seeks the discipline of ordinary people rather than the virtuousness of extraordinary people. The challenge for conservatives today is simply self-acceptance, and even a little pride in the way we flail away at problems with an invisible hand.
Liberalism, frequently criticized for its overemphasis on blame, is now apparently in search of a cleansing innocence. Conservatism, which rewrites and restarts history at the point most convenient for the entrenched and powerful, is actually facing down our past and asking us to all take responsibility.
I suppose in Shelby Steele’s world, black literally is white.
------
Registration is now required! We're still in the process of getting it all squared away, so for the moment don't forget to Login or Register using the links in the upper left menu before starting to write your comment.
They only beat you because they love you. These aren’t shackles meant to hold you down, they’re meant to make you free. I’m assigning you a space at the back of the bus, because I respect you just that much. This shit sandwhich will taste delicious, if you only learn to give it a chance.
Oh, sweet simple beautiful GOP. Know that you are only wrong because you are just too right.