Shelby Steele says the election shows that blacks no longer feel beholden to the Democratic Party.
Shelby Steele’s 2007 book about Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign, “A Bound Man,” was a provocative examination of identity politics in the first decade of the 21st century. It explained how black Americans grapple with a sort of dual identity—one that is shaped by a history of racial oppression and another that endeavors to transcend that legacy.
“Is America now the kind of society that can allow a black—of whatever pedigree—to become the most powerful human being on earth, the commander of the greatest military in history?” Mr. Steele asked. “Have our democratic principles at last moved us beyond even the tribalism of race? And will the black American identity, still so reflexively focused on victimization, be nullified if a black wins the presidency of this largely white nation?”
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Jason L. Riley is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, and a Fox News commentator. Follow him on Twitter here.
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