Trying to Make Sense of Being a Black Conservative?

Contrary to what posts on Think Progress might imply, Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele is a man skilled at intellectual gymnastics. When Steele spoke at Princeton University on Monday afternoon, invited by the Center for African American Studies, it was amid a mess of contradictions he did his level best to reconcile. In his discussion with Princeton politics professor Eddie Glaude, Steele tried to both be a prominent conservative and a black man asking the audience to transcend political differences. Steele’s plea to focus on what best solves the dire problems facing the African-American community somehow seemed less than sincere.

Glaude asked Steele if it was possible to reconcile substantial economic inequality with democracy, citing social science data on inequality along racial lines. Steele was effectively unable to answer the question. He meandered through a sequence of clichés about the American dream and could not offer a cogent policy proposal for how to address some of the most persistent problems with the American economy.

This moment was symptomatic of the rest of Steele’s comments, which hit all the right rhetorical notes but had little substance under the flourishes. He did not come across as stupid, uninformed, or unreasonably gaffe-prone as he sometimes does in news reports, but he did come across as a man without solutions to some of the biggest problems that lie at the intersection of race and politics.

Steele’s best moments came when he described his background and upbringing. He spoke movingly of his mother, who worked a minimum-wage job at a Laundromat and still managed to put Steele and his sister through college. He spoke about the impact that the civil rights movement had on his life, and told a story about where he was when he found out that Martin Luther King, Jr. had been assassinated. And, unlike certain other big names in the conservative movement, when asked to identify some of his favorite books, Steele named some by writers of color: the writings of Booker T. Washington and works by W.E.B. Du Bois, though he did, it must be noted, consistently mispronounce Du Bois’ name.

Steele, who describes himself as "Lincoln Republican," noted that from his understanding of Washington and Du Bois there is a moderately conservative middle ground that is neither racist nor liberal in its application of the welfare state. With that in mind it’s easy to see how—particularly when he’s speaking to this audience—Steele could bring conservatives to stand for equality, justice, and unity along with the marvels of unfettered capitalism.

Unfortunately, today’s conservatives aren’t expressing much an interest in unifying the country. At the Conservative Political Action Committee in Washington, D.C., last weekend, a speaker labeled Lincoln as displaying "sociopathological behavior" on a panel called, "Friend or Foe? Abraham Lincoln on Liberty." Michael Steele is a prominent conservative, and his job is to promote the interests of the ideology. But when those interests are to oppose everything from health care reform to labor reform, advancing a unification argument is awfully difficult.

Steele’s argument seemed to be that "extraordinary times" such as those in an economic recession "require consensus." But in addition to standing in the way of social reforms, conservatives also often seem to disagree with him on his supposed position on the achievement gap’s ability to harm young people of color, the need to support the middle class, and on the idea that ordinary Americans are more important than banks.

Both Steele and Glaude, despite coming from opposite ends of the political spectrum, are interested in making the United States a better place for blacks, and in ensuring that other black Americans can become political party chairs and Ivy League professors. It was a savvy and productive move to frame the conversation this way: the discourse didn’t deteriorate into the shouting matches found on cable news, even though at one point it came very close.

But as much as Steele seemed interested in listening, by the end of an hour and a half it became apparent that there is a very big gap between Steele’s rhetoric of nonpartisan dialogue and the political reality. It seems unlikely that Steele will ever convince his fellow conservatives to view the world through the lens of W.E.B. Du Bois or Booker T. Washington. When Glaude asked Steele how he tries to "make sense of being a black conservative," Steele replied, "You pray, baby, you pray." If anything, that’s surely the foundation on which his intellectual gymnastics can make sense.

Emily is a staff writer for Campus Progress. She attends Princeton University.

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