Steele: Spoiling It For The Other Brown Folk (Like Obama)

RNC Chairman Michael Steele is taking a card from President Obama's Mainstream Media Defensive Maneuvers Playbook and just might be spoiling the chances of other dark-skinded people who aspire to high office. That would be, the Race Card.

You see, Steele is not exactly the best choice for the chair of the party that turns out to be the only place a Conservative can go to be elected these days. The conservatives are turning on him for being . . . well, for being himself.

Unfortunately, blackness is part of himself. So he does some high quality conflation (in regards to the motives of his critics) and comes up with a defense of himself that is mostly "they hate me 'cause I'm black" and expects that it will hold some water with the conservative base of the Republican party. No dice. You can't shut off a thinking mind by calling it racist, any more than you can with bigot/sexist/homophobe. This cat needs to go. Stand on your own two feet, not on your melanin concentration, if you are worthy of standing. If all you have is the skin color your mama gave you, you need to not be RNC Chairman.

Down with Steele!

You Didn't Adress Your Initial Point, VFD!

You're right, if you missed it. The problem with pulling out the Race Card whenever you are criticized is a different facet of a huge problem with Affirmative Action. It paints people you portray yourself like, with the brush you apply to yourself. If a school takes skin color into account when choosing students to admit, every person with the "complexion for the connection" will have a big question mark over his head: did he get in for academic merit, or because he's one of them? The same with the Race Card in this case. Are we sure we want to put a ______ person into the chairmanship this time? Remember what the last one pulled when he started taking heat . . .

These thoughts, of course, are both logical and not to be acted upon. The proper thing to do is to consider well their past words and actions, then to treat all similar persons* similarly until they prove themselves unworthy. How about all the darker-toned people out there with black chips on their shoulders go ahead and NOT pull this boneheaded stunt and give so much as a moment's pause for reconsideration based on skin color. Another dark man once had a dream that we would move beyond this nonsense. Then again, he got shot for his trouble, so maybe you're on the right track?

Or something.

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*Not similar-colored! That's the one criterion we can ignore!