Shelby Steele attacks oprah, tiger, michael, bill and President Obama

hAS President Barack Obama deceived the masses about his ability to be the leader of the United States, inspite of his skin color? According to Shelby Steele it is time for the the masses to remove their rose color glasses and stop waiting on President Obama to become something that he is not..a black world leader. And the only reason the masses are in denial, is because they don't want to appear to be racialists, "joining oneself to an obvious falsehood in order to achieve social acceptance."

The masses brought into the election of a black president ending the racial stigma of Americans once and for all.

I would argue further that Barack Obama's election to the presidency of the United States was essentially an American sophistication, a national exercise in seeing what was not there and a refusal to see what was there—all to escape the stigma not of stupidity but of racism.

, writes Steele. African-Americans as leaders based simply on celebrity status seem to be Steele problem. And go on to list them,

Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan and yes, Tiger Woods have all been superb bargainers, eliciting almost reverential support among whites for all that they were not—not angry or militant, not political, not using their moral authority as blacks to exact a wage from white guilt.

These are empty shirts with no power, "Emperor with no clothes" mentality..arrogance, snobbish, but not real leaders, Steele includes Bill Cosby in this group. African-Americans who hide behind a mask of blackness that is negotiable to raced whites. Those raced whites who pretend that skin color does not matter,until the Tigerish behavior rises to the surface. And those African-Americans can not expect to exact a wage from white guilt after their fall from grace..they no longer have the bargaining chip of a colorblind society or the national insecurity about race.