Well, I think I have heard it all. The president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Charles Steele Jr., said that Michelle Obama has been the recipient of rougher treatment than her husband for a reason. He said that one has ancestors who were slaves and the other doesn’t, meaning the Obamas.
Listen to a portion of his speech here.
Barack Obama is “of the system. He’s going to be in the system,” Steele told a morning gathering of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials.“Why are they attacking Michelle Obama, first lady Michelle Obama, and not really attacking, to that degree, her husband?” Steele asked. “Because he has no slave blood in him. He does not have any slave blood in him, but Michelle does.
“This system is an issue. I don’t care what you say. You can’t expect the system that enslaved you save you,” Steele said. Steele admitted to the crowd that his remarks about the Obamas were intended to be provocative, but afterwards declined to expand upon them. If you ask me, his comments were idiotic, at best!
The SCLC said his larger point was that — even should Obama win the presidency in November, the problems faced African-Americans will still require an outside voice. I don’t believe for a minute that Michelle Obama is being treated roughly because she has slave blood. Hello people, how is that relevant to anything? Michelle Obama is being “roughed” up because of her views and the fact that she is a pretty vocal and outspoken person. Aren’t there more important things for the SCLC to worry about–crime in the inner city, high drop out rates, low voting rates among inner city blacks, etc? I will not take away from the fact that Mr. Steele is a civil rights icon in his own rights and that he has given his life to the improvement of blacks in America, but his comments were unfounded and totally off-base. His comments beg the question of why we continue to talk about slavery in this country as though it will determine our future. From Steele’s comments, it would seem that the very thing that we used to denigrate us, is being used to define us. Just my thoughts, you be the judge….
Filed under: Charles Steele Jr.
Black Political Thought 