May 2007: Washington Monthly: The American Conservative Crackup
But that’s exactly what Steve Sailer, a columnist for the anti-immigration site VDARE.com, tried to do in a piece he submitted to the American Conservative magazine, where, at the time, I was assistant editor. Using quotes from Obama’s 1995 autobiography, Dreams From My Father, Sailer portrayed the senator not as a unifying figure, but as an angry black nationalist who completely rejected his white racial heritage as a young man and might do the same as president. “[T]here is the confusing contrast,” he wrote, “between the confident, suave master politician we see on television and the tormented narrator of Dreams, who is an updated Black Pride version of the old ‘tragic mulatto’ stereotype found in ‘Show Boat’ and ‘Imitation of Life.’ ” Sailer surmised that Obama “offers important testimony about the enduring glamour of anti-white anger.” Even before I read the piece I knew I wouldn’t like it. TAC’s editor, who was pleased with Sailer’s work, had told me as much. But I found the piece so offensive when I first read it that I jumped out of my chair and rushed into the managing editor’s office to try to kill it on the spot. She and the editor promptly dismissed my objections. The piece is provocative, they said—it’s edgy. It’s racist, I said—and the magazine will be regarded as such for publishing it
But that’s exactly what Steve Sailer, a columnist for the anti-immigration site VDARE.com, tried to do in a piece he submitted to the American Conservative magazine, where, at the time, I was assistant editor. Using quotes from Obama’s 1995 autobiography, Dreams From My Father, Sailer portrayed the senator not as a unifying figure, but as an angry black nationalist who completely rejected his white racial heritage as a young man and might do the same as president. “[T]here is the confusing contrast,” he wrote, “between the confident, suave master politician we see on television and the tormented narrator of Dreams, who is an updated Black Pride version of the old ‘tragic mulatto’ stereotype found in ‘Show Boat’ and ‘Imitation of Life.’ ” Sailer surmised that Obama “offers important testimony about the enduring glamour of anti-white anger.” Even before I read the piece I knew I wouldn’t like it. TAC’s editor, who was pleased with Sailer’s work, had told me as much. But I found the piece so offensive when I first read it that I jumped out of my chair and rushed into the managing editor’s office to try to kill it on the spot. She and the editor promptly dismissed my objections. The piece is provocative, they said—it’s edgy. It’s racist, I said—and the magazine will be regarded as such for publishing it
