{"product_id":"bound-man-why-we-are-excited-about-obama-and-why-he-cant-win-paperback","title":"Bound Man: Why We Are Excited about Obama and Why He Can't Win - Paperback","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eShelby Steele\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn illuminating examination of the complex racial issues that \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003ePresident \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eBarack Obama \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003efaced \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003ein his race for the White House, a quest that forced a national dialogue on the current state of race relations in America, by the author of the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestseller and NBCC winner \u003ci\u003eThe Content of Our Character.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003ePoverty and inequality are typically the focus of dialogues that take place during presidential elections, but Obama's bid for so high an office pushed the conversation to a more abstract level where race is a politics of guilt and innocence generated by our painful racial history--a kind of morality play between (and within) the races in which innocence is power and guilt is impotence. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSteele writes of how Obama was caught between the two classic postures that Blacks have always used to make their way in the white American mainstream: bargaining and challenging. Bargainers strike a \"bargain\" with white America in which they say, I will not rub America's ugly history of racism in your face if you will not hold my race against me. Challengers do the opposite of bargainers. They charge whites with inherent racism and then demand that they prove themselves innocent by supporting Black-friendly policies like affirmative action and diversity. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSteele maintains that, during the race, Obama was too constrained by these elaborate politics to find his own true political voice. Obama has the temperament, intelligence, and background--an interracial family, a sterling education--to guide America beyond the exhausted racial politics that now prevail. And yet he is a Promethean figure, a bound man. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSays Steele, Americans are constrained by a racial correctness so totalitarian that we are afraid even to privately ask ourselves what we think about racial matters. Like Obama, most of us find it easier to program ourselves for correctness rather than risk knowing and expressing what we truly feel. Obama emerges as a kind of Everyman in whom we can see our own struggle to accept and honor what we honestly feel about race. In \u003ci\u003eA Bound Man\u003c\/i\u003e, Steele makes clear the precise constellation of forces that bind Obama and proposes a way for him to break these bonds and find his own voice. The courage to trust in one's own careful judgment is the new racial progress, the \"way out\" from the forces that now bind us all.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eShelby Steele is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is the author of the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestseller \u003ci\u003eThe Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in America\u003c\/i\u003e, which won the National Book Critics' Circle Award. Steele's most recent book is \u003ci\u003eWhite Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era\u003c\/i\u003e. He is a contributing editor at \u003ci\u003eHarper's Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e, and his work has also appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, Newsweek, \u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e. For his work on the PBS television documentary \u003ci\u003eSeven Days in Bensonhurst\u003c\/i\u003e, he was recognized with both an Emmy Award and a Writers Guild Award. In 2004, President George W. Bush, citing Steele's learned examinations of race relations and cultural issues, honored him with the National Humanities Medal. He lives in California\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 192\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.4 x 8 x 5 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e January 11, 2014\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52449430864179,"sku":"9781416560678","price":23.11,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0300\/5595\/6612\/files\/blcvRmdkbDA5RVBYYmVVT2YrT3VmZz09.webp?v=1759049848","url":"https:\/\/www.vysn.com\/products\/bound-man-why-we-are-excited-about-obama-and-why-he-cant-win-paperback","provider":"VYSN","version":"1.0","type":"link"}