Michael Steele fails empathy at premier black college, insults a woman who lost mom to cancer

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Michael Steele fails empathy at Howard University

The RNC chair brings "off the hook" politics to a premier black college and insults a woman who lost mom to cancer



By Mike Madden

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/feature/2009/09/02/steele_at_howard/

WASHINGTON -- Back in January, Michael Steele promised the Republican National Committee that he'd bring the GOP brand into places it hadn't been seen in a while. On Tuesday night, the world finally learned what he meant.

"What's up, Howard? How's it goin'?" Steele asked, taking the podium at Howard University -- one of the nation's oldest, and most prestigious, historically black colleges -- for a stop on what the RNC is calling his "Freedom Tour."

***

Steele paced the room, asking students to stand up and tell him what their post-college hopes and dreams were, and trying to encourage them to reach them. (The biggest round of applause all night came when one student told Steele she hoped to be a U.S. senator from Maryland, and he said that probably meant she'd be a Democrat.) "It's important to be here, to show you that from 8th Street NW to this moment, it happens," he said. "It can happen." Which was true enough. But since nearly everyone he called on said they wanted to go to law school -- the talk was, after all, co-sponsored by Howard's Political Science Society -- the message flirted with condescension.

Things got worse when a young white woman (whom the Washington Independent's Dave Weigel identified as Amanda Duzak, a Towson University graduate student) interrupted him to say her mother had recently died of cancer because she couldn't pay for her chemotherapy. The crowd cheered -- and another RNC official there quietly gestured to a nearby campus police officer, who began walking over toward Duzak. People all around the room started shouting at Steele about how everyone in the country should have healthcare, and applauding those who were interrupting him.

But just when it seemed like Steele might have to slink out of the hall, he recovered -- by blasting Duzak for heckling him. "You can shout, and I can ignore you," he told her. "It makes for great TV. You'll probably make it tonight. Enjoy it." It was a harsh putdown, but it silenced the crowd (not to mention Duzak, who by that point was being escorted out by the police). The video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN2SM2ReJko

[noiretextatique]

1. great way to win friends and influence people, smuck

what a pathetic lackey...but he makes for great tv :eyes: seriously...keep it coming, dumbass.

[Chemisse]

2. Wow.

That is just unbelievable.

How do the Republicans get away with silencing dissent like that?

[dgibby]

3. What a POS.

Definition of Evil=lack of empathy.

[SpiralHawk]

4. "I can ignore you." - Repuglicon Homelanders to Americans

eom

[JustAnotherGen]

5. That's disgusting

Just disgusting. I'm half inclined to reach out to the young Democratics at Howard and make them a donation. Sigh - Had a couple of good nights as a pre-teen visiting three of my older cousins at Howard U. Too bad he had to go and ruin a huge tradition in my family.

[anneboleyn]

6. Disgusting. This country's mean streak is really starting to depress me.

Especially the repubs, but you see it everywhere. People have no empathy for the sick or for those who lost friends or relatives to disease. They don't care if others don't have health insurance, which gives us the unique privilege of being the only Western democracy without universal health care. Has this intense selfishness always been there or is it new?

[Amerigo Vespucci]

9. I keep thinking about the first few days / weeks following 9/11...

...remember? When people would say "excuse me" and "thank you" and if you were waiting to pull out into traffic at a stop sign someone would wave you in and smile and you'd smile back and wave thank you and they'd smile and nod, and no one was honking horns or flipping people off? Remember that brief little window in time when people showed others respect because...presumably...they were still to frightened to behave in any other way?

Remember how we went right back to the way we were before all of that happened, but maybe we ended up a little worse, a little meaner than we were before we were scared half to death?

You've hit on the single most disturbing aspect of all of this...the "mean streak." True, we anticipated the fact that there would be racism surrounding the first African-American U.S. President. I feel that the degree of the racism we've seen, in my mind anyway, could be labeled "unexpected," but not the racism itself. As much as we would like to think that, as a nation, we have progressed from that way of thinking, many people have not.

But it's the meanness surrounding all of these attitudes. It's the story I posted on DU about a week ago about the disturbing number of "bum fight" videos on YouTube...clips of homeless people coerced into fighting each other for the cameras to win a "prize" of money or food or alcohol.

I see Steele's comments in the same light. Forget about the fact that he said he would bring people of color to the GOP because he's got the "fried chicken and potato salad." The comments in this story were just mean, and you have to wonder how life is going to balance the scales in Michael Steele's life. I believe in Karma, and I believe in the fact that it can take years to show its hand. Steel is putting all the wrong deposits in his Karmic bank account.

:patriot:

[Coyote_Bandit]

10. Ummmm......

That mean streak has always been there. The difference is that now some wear it as a badge of honor.

[NashVegas]

7. Funny How It Goes When the Shoe's On the Other Foot, Ain't It, Mikey?

Learn to take what you're dishing out.

[TlalocW]

8. Thank you, Michael Steele!

For making sure hundreds of young and primarily Black (two demographics the GOP desperately needs) students stay or move to the Democrat's camp.

TlalocW

[Historic NY]

11. Its time to infiltrate the GOP public meetings more often...they

throw people out for asking questions. :wtf:

[waiting for hope]

12. Steele is a gift that keeps on giving ...