Shelby Steele thinks Obama reflexively racialist, if not racist.

http://tinyurl.com/mz9cxo
From Emmitt Till to Skip Gates Black victim, white oppressor. It’s a narrative we know well. By SHELBY STEELE
...This incident shows us an America so chastened by its racist past—and so determined to overcome that past—that, at least for a moment, the national politics (health care, Iran, recession) stopped ...We all know these cultural narratives, which is to say that we all know exactly where racial power abides in a given situation....And didn’t Mr. Gates...know exactly where to find power when he was confronted in his home by Sgt. James Crowley? Didn’t he—a lifelong student of African-American culture—know precisely the cultural narrative that would serve him best? Moreover, don’t we all know this narrative? Black victim, white oppressor. ... a sense of racial victimization could have easily developed within him. ....The great question in the Gates story is why he put himself so quickly into the cultural narrative, why he screamed “racial profiling” more quickly than a Southern belle might have once screamed “rape?”...seeing a tormentor where there was only a protector. ...if reports are correct—Mr. Gates challenged the initial request for ID by asking if it came because he was a “black man in America.”...Gates is an intellectual, a man ever aware of cultural and political resonances. “Black man in America” was a grab for historical resonance... you can frame the moment as an echo of history....Mr. Gates put himself inside a cultural narrative that said blacks could achieve ... but whites could never accept it. ... This narrative sees whites as incorrigible bigots and supremacists. It was once true and it gave blacks great moral power. But it doesn’t work so well in modern America,...
What was President Barack Obama’s excuse? Why did he step into the same cultural narrative that Mr. Gates had tried and failed with? Where race is concerned, I sometimes think of the president as the Peter Sellers character in “Dr. Strangelove.”...struggling to keep the Nazi arm down so that no one will know the truth of his inner life....When I saw Mr. Obama—with every escape route available to him—wade right into the Gates affair at the end of his health-care news conference, I knew that his demon arm had momentarily won out over his good arm. It broke completely free—into full salute—in the “acted stupidly” comment that he made in reference to the Cambridge police’s handling of the matter....This was a cultural narrative, a politics, and in the end it was a bigotry. It let white Americans see a president who doubted them ...Obama’s “post-racialism” was a promise to operate outside of tired cultural narratives. But he has a demon arm of reflexive racialism—identity politics, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and now Skip Gates...As for the odd triad of Messrs. Gates, Crowley and Obama, only Mr. Crowley seems to have functioned outside his cultural narrative.****One shudders to think what would have been the result if Sgt Crowley hadn't OBVIOUSLY been such a poster boy for the ideal non-racist cop. Gates might have gotten away with his bigotry ( and, if deliberate, his thirst for pain-free martyrdom ) and Obama for his racist "stupidly" and lecture on racial profiling. Obama stepped in it (deliberately,since the question was prepared for and planted ) because he not only jumped the gun but picked the wrong guy to slander. He can, after all, only get the near-100% of the black vote he already has and needs some of those he accuses of being racists to vote for him. Guilty feelings worked for him in the election but there was clearly no guilt this time.He still won't apologize, of course, because he can't lose any of the near-100% but he's trying to rise to 'even-handedness' by sponsoring the beer summit. The only one who has behaved unexceptionably in this mess has been Sgt Crowley. The tapes gainsay even the claim that both Gates and Crowley lost their tempers: Crowley was ever even-tempered and professional and gave Gates several opportunities to avoid the handcuffs that Crowley showed in an effort to get "Skip" to quiet down. Sgt Crowley didn't panic in the face of condemnations by his black mayor, black governor and black President but quietly has continued to stand his ground. He's another "Joe the Plumber" and more. ****