The XX Factor: What women really think.

Michael Steele's a Symptom of a Bigger GOP Disorder

Marjorie, I'm glad you came out against Michael Steele's dorky grasp at urban cred. Sprinkling "off the hook," "friggin' awesome," and "slum love" into his discourse and then prancing around acting like he's started the business of redeeming the Republican Party suggests an insultingly superficial, cynical view of how voters make their choices and why they've chosen Democrats of late—that Americans are no better than magpies, drawn to whatever's flashiest, and that Obama won because he acted cool. It's not just Steele who takes this view, either. It's a widespread idea throughout the GOP that Obama outcooled Republicans, and what the Republicans really need is to double their number of Facebook friends, get hip to Twitter, and start dressing in Baby Phat instead of Brooks Bros.

The afternoon Steele was elected GOP chairman, I stood at the back of the Capital Hilton ballroom with a cluster of young African-American Republicans there to support—unexpectedly—Katon Dawson, the RNC chair candidate notorious for formerly belonging to an all-white country club. This group of Katon junkies argued that yeah, electing the South Carolinian would trigger a brief period of bad PR, but they actually liked him because he was the candidate the least enamored with reanimating the GOP with a superficial makeover. Steele, on the other hand, came in for special derision: He talked the outreach (er, inclusion?) talk but didn't walk the walk. As Steele walked toward the podium to accept his party's nomination after the fifth ballot, one black Republican whispered to me he never could forgive Steele for shamelessly busing in homeless Philadelphians to campaign for him in black neighborhoods during his '06 Maryland Senate campaign.

Michael Steele's Urban Cool Lingo: Endearing It's Not

Melonyce, I don't know if you are the only one who "finds RNC Chairman Michael Steele's dorky grasp at urban credibility a little endearing." but I surely do not. Why does Steele even need urban credibility? To relate to that large and growing GOP demographic of young black men who wear baggy pants and listen to Jay-Z, Lil' Wayne, and T.I.? I'd be willing to wager they aren't lining up outside the RNC's headquarters, and neither Michael Steele's election as chairman nor his urban-cool, or should I say urban-fool, way of speaking is going to change this.

In what way is Steele more sincere than his predecessors? Ken Mehlman went on listening tours before black organizations and black journalists and publicly acknowledged GOP mistakes and apologized for playing racial politics in the past. He courted black voters and didn't talk down to them. His efforts may not have gained the GOP tons of new black voters, but it earned Melhman some respect. Steele, by comparison, wants to give the GOP "a hip-hop makeover"? (I'm rolling my eyes here because I have no idea what that even means) and has banned the word outreach.  

If it's the golf shirt set—whether black or white—that Steele is after, then why not speak to them in their own language, like a serious-minded adult? Given Steele's many missteps that have already led members of his party to call on him to step down, I don't think anyone could argue that he has made the GOP look looser or more dazzling. If anything, he looks just as befuddled and grapsing as his discredited party as it tries to change its image overnight after having been soundly rejected by voters in November.

If Steele really wants to shake up his party he should take a page from Colin Powell, an unapologetic black Republican who was not afraid to criticize the GOP or take positions against party dogma on such things as affirmative action. Black Americans may not have voted with Powell or agreed with his support for the Bush administration, but they respected him. Steele is losing fast what little respect he has with black folks, and with white folks, too, for that matter, and it has nothing to do with whether "he's black enough." It has everything to do with whether he's credible enough. He isn't. 

Steele would be more defensible if he would just embrace his inner geek and stop trying to sound hip by using outdated hip-hop terms. I mean is it really necessary for him to sprinkle "off the hook" throughout every conversation? We get it, Mike; you know black slang, congratulations. Bling, bling for you and all that. But trying so hard to showcase your skills in black vernacular makes you seem like you're trying way too hard. It's called pandering, and as a black independent voter who tries to keep an open mind about black Republicans (as hard as that is), I find it deeply insulting. I don't want to be talked down to, or patronized, by a Republican of any color who is stupid enough to think I can be persuaded to give the GOP some love if he slings silly slang my way. This is just as transparent as reluctantly selecting a black man to lead the Republican Party soon after a black Democrat is elected to the White House and selecting an Indian-American to give the Republican response to the new black president's address to Congress and selecting a black Republican carpetbagger and perpetual candidate from Maryland to run against a popular black Democratic candidate from Illinois for the U.S. Senate in 2004. (The same Democrat who would become president four years later.) It reeks of rank desperation and recalls the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia when the genius organizers of that pseudo-diversity fest bused in black preachers and black church choirs to perform at the convention. That party leaders actually believed this would ensure their big-tent, we-are-the-world bona fides, was the subject of many late-night talk-show jokes.

The GOP would do better to simply try to address some of the issues important to black voters, such as racial inequities in the criminal justice system and the warehousing of black men in prison and on death row. How about they tone down their hypocritical hostility to social programs (Republicans prefer the term "entitlement programs") that help lift black families out of entrenched poverty? How about they at least pretend to be just as outraged over the level of corporate welfare that took place under the last administration and that enriched Republican fat cats and contributed to the economic morass we now find ourselves in? How about if Michael Steele got a clue?