[George] Stephanopoulos, offering up a question from a viewer named "Myron" via his blog, asked, "Do you feel that, as an African-American, you have a slimmer margin for error than another chairman would?"
"The honest answer is yes," Steele responded. "Barack Obama has a slimmer margin. A lot of folks do. It's a different role for me to play and others to play and that's just the reality of it. But you take that as part of the nature of it" [Brett Michael Dykes, "RNC Chairman Michael Steele says he and Obama have it harder because of their race," Yahoo News: The Newsroom blog, 2010.04.05].
Ring the bell: school's in for spin in the comment section....
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Update: Let's go to the videotape... and some commentary from Newsy.com:
Republicans don't use excuses. We believe that you have to earn your position everyday, because competition doesn't stop.
ReplyDeleteMr. Steele needs to hit the road.
I do believe a certain amount of "subconscious racism" exists in most white people. I know it exists in my own mind, however slight.
ReplyDeleteI work to overcome it, but work remains to be done. It's almost like a chronic disease, a chronic infection of the soul, that never quite goes away.
Ironically, when blacks play the racism card too often (or anyone plays it by victimizing blacks in general), I think it makes some white people's racism worse, because it sows the seeds of resentment.
This whole tragic business reminds me of the old Star Trek episode (original series) where two guys were locked in eternal combat because one had a face black on the left and white on the right, and the other had a face white on the left and black on the right.
Maybe it's a Zen thing, involving the principle whereby, in our attempt to avoid or mitigate a problem, we fall right into it or make it worse.
In the end, history will judge Barack Obama dispassionately alongside all the other Presidents, and no one will take race into account. His results will speak for themselves.