GOP: You Can't Out-Race The Party Of The KKK

There's an article about black Republican National Committee members not supporting Michael Steele that includes the most telling line about his leadership:

Steele, a former Maryland lieutenant governor, Senate candidate and state party chairman, was touted as Republicans' response to the first black president, Democrat Barack Obama.

This use of the race card by a "post-racial" Right has been glaring from the start - Democrats have got a black leader so (rather than finding someone truly effective) we've got to have a black leader - and has been part-and-parcel of Steele's weakness:

When Steele announced his bid for re-election on a conference call, he concluded by saying, "Who you elect as our next chairman will speak volumes about our willingness to truly be the party of Lincoln," according to the Washington Times. A prominent member of the RNC, James Bopp Jr., complained to the Times that Steele had used "the race card." Steele responded by calling Bopp "an idiot" and accusing him of bitterness over a consulting contract the RNC canceled.

Sure. And so the race game goes on. If these are the rules the Right wants to play by, then this quote - by Ada Fisher, the black RNC committeewoman from North Carolina - is even more damning to "the party of Lincoln":

"Nobody asked the black members of the RNC what they felt, and I don't know that the other people were courted or asked for their votes."

That's the way it looks from here, too, on the Left and the Right:

If whites want to show they're non-racial, then they throw up a black man who puts his race first (Barack Obama, Michael Steele, Zo/Macho Sauce) but - if they've got blacks who are truly striving to be non-racial - then they'll take that as a signal to ignore them because, we guess, those blacks have to also learn (for the billionth time) that life just ain't fair.

(And, of course, whites asking - and listening to - those blacks about how to get to our "post-racial" ideal is out of the question. They know what they're doing,...) *Sigh*

There's apparently no way for most whites (grappling with a post-racial ideal) to understand how real inclusion works and/or to establish a level playing field. They're still too caught up in race to escape it.

Which is all extremely depressing.