An illuminating examination of the complex racial issues that President Barack Obama faced in 
 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 New York Times bestseller and NBCC winner The Content of Our Character. Poverty 
 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. Steele 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.

A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win PDF

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