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Author Shelby Steele.
The audience included luminaries such as David Horowitz, Janet Levy, and Robert Spencer.
Last Thursday author Shelby Steele spoke to the Wednesday Morning Club at the Four Seasons hotel in Los Angeles. Steele made some points that I found eye-opening.
From my hand-written notes:
The Civil Rights era was a high point of our history in this country.
...But many people in America today, feel white guilt, and should not. They are forever having to prove they are not racist.
This is true on institutional levels as well. Institutions have to prove they are not racist.
...In war we often fight against that stigma rather than achieving our goals. So we don't talk about victory -- we talk about our exit strategy. Why do we do that? We are following a pattern of white guilt. We don't use the full measure of our power, because if we do use the full measure of our power to achieve quick victory, we will be seen as oppressors.
We end up leaving a little room for the enemy to fight us - almost encouraging, eliciting an insurgency, as if they have a right to fight us back, and we're going to protect their right to fight us back.
...This causes us to fight these long term wars that never seem to come to an end, but just seem to peter out.
Steele elaborated on this in his closing remarks (transcribed from an audio recording):
White guilt makes anti-Americanism into power. The American left - the international left, for that matter - which is almost all of Europe - wields this stigma against American power and says, "well you know the truth is" - and this is I think the deep core of the American left - and says, "the truth is, that America really is at its core an evil civilization that is in fact dedicated to racism, to imperialism, to raping people of color around the world of their resources," and so forth. And we have an iconography of characters and issues that symbolize this. You say the word "Haliburton" (laughter), and such terms, as an emblem of the "true" America, the "evil" America.
And so the reward you get for that is that you get to take the moral high ground. And you then in your anti-Americanism, you're the one who gets to set the terms of legitimacy. And so the real America has to dance to your tune. And that's real power. If you can get a power as great as America to dance to your tune and you get to control the terms of legitimacy, this has got a lot to do with what you see and hear in universities today, where the left has almost completely won out. But anti-Americanism puts you in that position where you get to control the terms of legitimacy -- and you always presume the worst about America. In that presumption you find real political power. So again, if you are Al Sharpton, or if you are Jacque Chirac, that is a source of enormous power. That is a power so big that it can contain the power of America. And it's just too tempting in many ways for them to avoid it.
How do we get out of this mess? I don't know; the older I get the more, I suppose, Libertarian I am - I think bad systems sort of eventually exhaust themselves. People like David Horowitz fight against them, and point out, and keep heightening, the contradictions - to use the old Marxist term.
But I think that the important thing - I think that the new right is in many ways a kind of correction against white guilt. The new right in America is saying, "well you know, we have made an enormous amount of moral progress in the last 40 years in this society." Racism is no longer a variable in anybody's life in this society. It just isn't. You can do pretty much what you put your mind to doing. But because we're so terrorized by the stigma, we don't say that about ourselves. We never say that because it would sound as though we were being racist, and inviting the stigma. But it's a fact. And it needs to be accepted. America is a very good country. (Applause)
I know this personally. It's a very good country. And again I think the right, my explanation of why talk radio, conservative talk radio has become so popular, is because it's a white-guilt free zone. (Laughter, applause). There are so many successful people in that area now, and they believe America's good. And they're not going to be pushed around. They're not afraid of the stigma. And of course look at them. They are mainstream. They are just utterly stigmatized. If even a conservative mentions the words, "Rush Limbaugh," people's hackles go up.
But these people have accepted stigmatization as the price they pay to say what they really think. And that's what I think the new right does, and I think that's where the fight has to keep going. And in confidence, in faith in one's self, that we are in fact, a good nation.
We Americans, as a people who want others to be successful and happy, and as a people who have been raised in the beautiful Judeo-Christian tradition of caring about other people's feelings, are susceptible to accusations that we have done wrong; those opposing America have found this to be a chink in our armor, and are using it falsely to attack us. I say "falsely" because it is not true that America is a racist nation. As Steele is quoted above to have said, "Racism is no longer a variable in anybody's life in this society."
At another event, just last night, I heard a woman make the often-heard claim that America was "the root cause" of terrorism because we had at one point supported people who later became terrorists. This is a perfect example of what Steele is talking about: playing on the susceptibility Americans have to accusations of guilt, in order to control what this nation does -- in this case, to preoccupy this nation with unreasonable accusations, so that we stop defending ourselves against terrorist attacks that are surely being planned.
To conclude: the eye-opening thing, for me, about Steele's remarks, was that he pointed out that accusations that Americans are racist, and that America as a nation is an oppressor, are inaccurate based on the facts, and are made only as an attempt to gain power.
#1
#2Well?
#3The limit is one debate at a time, per customer.
#4It's a simple yes or no question. You're trying to dodge.
#5Maybe you're trying to dodge the questions I asked in the other thread. I've got an answer for you, and we'll get to it here when we're done over there.
#6You have a lot of nerve accusing me of dodging because I happened to reply to one post a few minutes before I replied to the other.
#7Otto,
What happened to Mr. Byrd was horrific.
There is no excuse or justification for such hateful and monsterous behavior.
Unfortunately, there are incidents of hate crimes against members of all groups (i.e. immigrants, foreign nationals, women, religious, gays, disabled). These are isolated and are not tolerated by this society as a whole. It is a fact of life that there will always be hateful people in this world who are resentful, distrustful, and envious of others because of their own shortcomings and ignorance.
I believe that what Mr. Steele was saying was that racism is not a nationally supported or tolerated policy and that there are more economic, social, and political opportunites available, if people are willing to make the effort.
I live in the Washington, DC metropolitan area which demographically has an African-American majority. There is as much economic, social, and political diversity within the African-American community as there is in any other.
Many of my neighbors (I'm in the white minority here) are from Africa and are very hand-working individuals who feel that this nation has afforded them the best standard of life possible on earth.
It is interesting to note that many of them are resentful of African-Americans because they perpetuate the teaching of 'entitlement' because of the US slave era and subsequent Jim Crow Laws.
These immigrants and naturalized citizens from Africa know firsthand about slavery, tribal conflicts, disease, starvation, criminal military element, and government corruption because that is precisely what they escaped from in Africa. They came here for a better life.
It might be surprising for you to realize that all Africans did not come here in chains; most of them come here willingly.
My own dentist at Howard University is from Zimbabwe.
This nation has made some tremendous strides since I was born in 1954, and I refuse to be apologetic or guilty for something I was not responsible in creating or sustaining.
We need to be respectful of one another and reward true ability.
We need to continue to strive and make this a country of equal opportunity for all citizens rather than a country of attainment through emotional blackmail.
#8I agree with A.M.'s view.
#9Okay. And when should I expect the answer you promised to my question?
Was racism a variable in James Byrd Jr.’s life?
#10Was racism a variable in James Byrd Jr.’s life?
I believe it was.
#11It is beyond me why you are harping on this when it should be evident to you that civilized people (and I would expect all of The Big Picture's readers) condemn hate crimes and the senseless murder of Mr. Byrd.
Mr. Byrd was denied his equal opportunity for the pursuit of life and happiness; it was violently taken from him by criminals.
Racism is a hate crime.
However unpleasant this may sound, racism, in some form or another, is a variable in everyone's life at some point, and not the exclusive domain of African-Americans.
Even I have been denied, housing, memberships, and employment by ignorant individuals as a result of my race, sex, faith, politics, education, nationality, and dialect. White skin does not necessarily give you a passport to happiness and total fulfillment.
In some cases I have fought for my rights, in other cases I have shrugged my shoulders and moved on. I've learnt to pick my battles. There are always greener pastures somewhere else. I've done neither better nor worse than anyone else; This is what is to be expected in life. Life is not easy.
Don't use racism as a total excuse for not attaining goals.
One must learn to set one's sails to catch the wind, or row into the current, rather than complain about being stuck in the doldrums.
Again, hate crimes are not the policy of this country nor of the vast majority of its people. We cannot corporately be held accountable for the actions of criminals; we can only condemn and punish them.
Only through education, equal opportunity through ability. and mutual respect can we foster a climate which will diffuse prejudice.
On the whole, I think we are doing better than most of the world in creating a level playing field.
This is the message Mr. Steele is trying to convey.
My problem with Shelby Steele's analysis of white guilt is that he manages to blame African Americans for it. I find that astounding.
No one can make me feel guilty about something I did not do. Perhaps my understanding of guilt has something to do with that. I see guilt as a verb. I am guilty if I have done something wrong. I do not feel guilty. Guilt as an emotion is useless. Sorrow and repentence are required, not guilt. It is a tool of Satan to discourage people from accepting the wonderful pardon of salvation. So feeling guilt, how ignorant. Simply don't make it a part of your emotional landscape. All done. Don't blame African Americans because they point out that not just slavery has caused the issues of a black underclass, but Jim Crow, then a nasty and evil fight against civil rights through the early 1960s. Once Affirmative Action was made the law of the land immediately whites began to whine (not feel guilty mind you) that it is reverse discrimination. How interesting. To my mind reverse discrimination would have to entail keeping whites out of any opportuinty for advancement as Jim Crow did for us. Creating quotas like in New Haven, CT (a city I grew up in) that would only allow 2 African Americans teachers per year to be hired in the school system (not in the 1800s but in 1956 when my Dad applied with his degree in Physics to teach science but they had already hired 2 African Americans that year - by the way they offered him a position as janitor).
It irritates me to hear people talk about African Americans harping on slavery, slavery was so long ago that had this country embraced multi-culturalism after its destruction we would have a far different society.
Things are different today than 40 years ago, I don't think Cheney, Goodman and Schwerner could happen today (but I won't absolutely say it couldn't). But does that mean that racism is no longer a factor in the lives of African Americans, of course not, that is hyperbole and irresponsible to even say.
If white people feel guilt it is their problem not mine. Don't feel guilt, it paralyzes you and you cannot work with me to create change. But don't blame me because you feel guilt - what is the conservatives favorite phrase - "take personal responsibility."
#13Cassandra, Mr. Steele doesn't blame blacks for it. In fact, he goes to great lengths to show it's the confluence of both black and white psychosis that squandered the promise of civil rights.
Shelby Steele does challenge blacks to cast off the shackles of white paternalism and leave the stigma of affirmative action behind. It is a bad policy that presumes blacks are unable to compete--ever--regardless of circumstance.
Otto, I can't find the reference now but Shelby Steele makes the point that occasions of racism, like what happened to Mr. Byrd, are not proof of institutionalized racism. Whenever a single act of racism is spotted it's illogical to assume an entire county is racist. It is similarly ludicrous to assert that with each car jacking America is a land of systemic and tolerated car jackers. The evidence isn't there to support it -- only the hyperbole of Sharpton, Jackson, and others.
Thomas, perhaps you meant to say Shelby Steele doesn't soley blame blacks for white guilt, but by the fact that you state his premise is "...[t]he confluence of both black and white psychosis," it means that Mr. Steele blames blacks in some way for white guilt. That is wrong.
My premise is if whites have guilt, something I have not really seen evidence of, then it is their problem and however they deal with it is their issue. The programs created in the 60's and 70's to address what had been the pervasive influence of institutionalized racism were in fact needed. For instance, Affirmative Action is like the airlines program of having a cart at the gate for flights that come in late. They rush the passengers from the plane that arrived late, due to their own negligence, not the passengers, to their impending flight. If the passenger gets there and they do not have a ticket, the airlines will not board them on the flight anyway. The only way to get on the flight is to be prepared. So, whenever anyone accuses me of using affirmative action to take something from a white person, I laugh. It is ludicrous. I am prepared and perhaps so is a white candidate, but through no fault of mine, I have been underrepresented in management, higher educaitonal ranks, etc. Since I have been wronged by a society that had centuries of institutionalized racism, it is only fair that I get rushed to the front of the line. If I weren't qualified it wouldn't have gotten to the tie-breaker. I know my analogy is correct because I went to law school at Southern Methodist University as an affirmative action student. The average LSAT scores for my entering class were 40, mine were 42. The average GPA was 3.2; mine was 3.67. Did I have a problem being labeld Affirmative Aciton; no, I felt I was owed that chance for all of the Thurgood Marshall's who were well qualified but didn't get into mainstream law schools, not back in slavery days but in this century, due to institutional racism. Because I know who I am and know how I stack up against the competition, I never felt less than or worried that any of them felt I wasn't "worthy."
I am really ticked off that people often say it causes minorities to be looked at as less than qualified when they get a shot using any kind of government or corporate set aside program. Do people really think I give a rat's rip about what someone who doesn't pay me, or feed me or make love to me thinks about why I made it to anything? We truly are not that sensitive. So, if the reason you agree with Mr. Steele is a concern that black are being patronized don't fret, we don't care what you think. There is not white paternalism; it could only be so if I allowed myself to be treated as a child. I won't.
#15I think your analogy is close, but not enough. If you're prepared to succeed on your own are you confident enough to do it without Affirmative Action? I think it's great you're unworried whether people attach a stigma to you're success. Do you attach a stigma to everyone else's success if they're aren't black?
I'm confused how you qualified as an AA student if you had the credentials to get there in the first place. Shouldn't you have been admitted based on merit in the first place? If you can be admitted on merit than AA does nothing for you. If you are otherwise qualified and denied admittance than you may have been discriminated against, but that seems more like to occur at the University of Michigan.
Affirmative Action proponents see no end to its existence. That it will always be necessary. Do you feel blacks will be forever dependent on lowered standards? Justice O'Conner thinks they will for at least 25 more years.
What do you think of AA's prospects?
Well, I would have to be in charge of something to address your first question. I didn't ask to be accepted under SMU's Affirmative Action program. I applied, they accepted me and provided me a full scholarship, including a stipend, based on the fact that they accepted me under their affirmative action program. I couldn't have attended without that financial aid, so it was a no brainer for me.
I have seen some people who are successful that I wonder if they weren't white would they be so. That is my perrogative. I have also worked with some brilliant white people, from whom I have learned a lot. I am not really a very racial person. I have lived long enough to know there are jerks in all races, and there are great people in all races. Knowing that doesn't blind me to anything. Blacks did not create a society that institutionalized discrimination. We have been disenfranchied a lot from that. That is a fact but it certianly doesn't excuse any of our bums from their bumminess. But I will not concede that this society doesn't bear a responsibility for the institutional nature of racism. Individual racism is not my problem. I am an independent sort of person who can persevere one-on-one against any foe. But it is harder when because of societal forces I have had people listen to me speak and wonder about how "articulate" I am. Which is funny because everyone I associate with, which I admit is mostly African American, speak exactly the way I do. It is not a wonder to hear people speak like me, it is ignorance that has clouded someone's mind to think it is a wonder.
You don't fully understand AA to think that it admits minorities who are less than qualified. That pervasive rumor is certainly sad. There were 7 African Americans admitted in my 1st year class at SMU. Four had scores lower than the class average (which by definition several of the white students had to be under the average also, in order for it to be a true average) and three of us where above the average. Three of the students with below average LSATS had above average GPAs. These were qualified students who were admitted because they qualified. By the way only four of us graduated with our class. Three did not make it. Out of the total class 60% of the 1L class graduated with our class so our completion rate of 57% was pretty much in line with the general population.
My issue with discussing the end of Affirmative Action after only 30 years on the books, and several of those years with it under attack by courts and opponents, is that we are talking about overcoming centuries of institutionalized racism. This with a program that does not do to whites what was done to us - we had almost no access to opportunity, which AA does not do to whites. Is it really appropriate after only thirty years to believe that this country has done all that is necessary to overcome centuries of institutionalized racism? Remember I am not talking about slavery alone. I am talking about slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, quotas, separate but equal, et al. Doesn't it seem a bit unseemly to you that the beneficiaries of that societal preference for white privelege start talking at this early point of gutting the programs needed to level the playing field?
#17Before cutting and pasting from the book, I'm curious if you've read White Guilt and found it unconvincing or if you haven't read it and are responding only to the abbreviated examples here?
I have not read the book in its entirety. I actually first heard about it from George Wills commentary in Newsweek a couple of weeks ago. I actually heard Mr. Steele's hypothesis for this a few years ago, when he was still at Berkley. He spoke at a New Century Leaderhip conference I attended with a friend. He definitely emphasized then blacks had taken a tactic after the heyday of the civil rights movement to use "white guilt" to leverage gains, that were not so much advancements as crumbs that would never allow us to become citizens perceived as equals. I disagreed with him heartily then as I do now.
The perception of my equality by individual whites has never been an issue for me. My fight has always been about the institutional nature of racism. I do not believe that most individuals are racists. So why should waste my time with those few who truly are. As long as I do the work required of me, deliver innovation, quality and excellence as a matter of course, my success has always been assured.
I have been treated unfairly sometime as a result of a person who doesn't like black people, I am sure, I have probably also benefitted when someone who thinks of my culture as "cool" wanted me included in something; I have probably been discirminated against as a female, but I am just as sure that I have benefitted from that as well. I am much taller than most women, so I am sure there has been someone out there intimidated by my size and may have chosen not to include me as a result of that, I have also been told that I look like a model or flight attendant, which seemed to have been meant as a compliment so I have probaly benefitted from that. If you get my drift it is that prejudice exists on so many levels and everyone has probably been discriminated against. People have to deal with that individually.
That is not the same as the African American race facing discrimination that was institutionalized, a part of the fabric of society, which allowed this society to overlook our contributions and value for centuries. Due to that we have missed some advantages that others have taken for granted. Allowing African Americans to have set asides or other programs that are meant to address the hundreds of years where we were virtually locked out of the American Dream seems so acceptable to me, that the arguments of reverese discrimination for the little petty, non-systemic stuff whites have to deal with due to AA and other such programs is beyond me. Whites have never been excluded from the possibility of an opportunity in this country, African Americans have. Once that happens then one can talk with me about reverse discrimination.
#19"My fight has always been about the institutional nature of racism."
That sentence seems out-of-place in the rest of your posting. If your personal experience doesn't suggest it, and you believe most people aren't racist, then it's unclear to me whether you think racisim remains institutional or merely historical?
It has been 100+ years since slavery ended, and 40+ years since the civil rights movement. How long before you think blacks will catch up? Do you think they'll ever catch up as a group? If you're competing on merit why shouldn't the same be expected of everyone regardless of race?
Perhaps since I am 54 institutional racism is not history. I have lived through the evolution of this society from legally condoning racist policies, to a society that does not legally condone acts of racism. What has not been sufficently addressed is what to do about centuries of racism that only in the last 40 years has been not condoned by law. How long do you think people who have legally been kept from enjoying the American Dream should be allowed to use the law to bring their rank & file into the dream? See, I think it is chincy of those who benfitted from having the whole pie without competition from every segment of society to begin complaining after only 40 years of laws being on the books to allow blacks to have the legal right to exercise the American Dream. Had racism been legally ended with the end of slavery I would agree that you have a point, since you and I know institutionalized racism didn't even slightly end with the 13th, 14th and 15th amendements (remember Plessy v Ferguson, poll taxes, Emmit Till and Cheney, Goodman & Schwerner, etc.). It is just unseemly for whites to whine about Affirmative Action et. al. when there are still no laws on the books like poll tax laws and court decision like Plessy that keep them from having a right to go after anything they want.
I haven't given you a time because I have found that African Americans have made so many strides in this short time, more than probably any other race in the same circumstances might have, that we may not require government support programs very long, but the decision should be based on our perceptions not anyone elses.
#21If white aren't allowed to whine about AA, are Thomas Sowell and Shelby Steele allowed to? How would you answer their complaints against Affirmative Action?
Didn't Western Society pay handsomly to end slavery, not just in the US but world wide?
If whites aren't allowed to address black issues, should blacks be dismissed on white issues? Does the same go for men and women? To what extent do we keep putting people in boxes and not allow others outside the box to assert any interest inside the box? We can play that game to ludicrous ends or we can instead claim the constitution prohibits all of, and two wrongs don't make a right. Either racial preferences are constitutional or they aren't.
On a certain level I obviously have to agree with you that issues affecting one group or another cannot only be reviewed and discussed by that group. The problem is we are not talking about esoteric issues; we are talking methodologies for leveling a playing field that has been historically not level! How can the beneficiaries of that inequality decide that enough reparation for the centuries of depravation/and societal reinforcement of racists policies has been reached. It just doesn't seem appropriate. How easy it is for you to say, everything has been evened out, let's play by the rules that blacks wanted us to play by for centuries and use only the constitution as the standard for how people should be treated in this country? Too easy, I say. Where were you in 1968 when MLK was assassinated for just trying to march with garbage workers being treated so grossly unfairly you probably can't imagine the degradation of not having a raise in 6 years when all other city workers (mostly white) were given annual cost of living increases? See the racism I am talking about is not somebody not wanting to live around somebody else, that is petty. The racism I see AA and other government programs addressing is that kind of thing like the Memphis garbage workers. Like the unfair voting practices that ended up getting Cheney, Goodman and Schwerner killed in 1964. You can't blithely say, “We have played by the rules for almost 40 years so everything should be equal now, no more addressing the issues that created the underclass of African Americans in this country.”
So at this point, I say no you can't decide whether the playing field is leveled. You didn't have a clear enough picture of what it looked like from my vantage point on that field to really know.
#23Are you satisfied that 40 years of the new civil rights and Affirmative Action have 40 years'-worth of accomplishments? What statistics do you measure with to verify whether or not AA has helped?
Thomas Sowell's book "Black Rednecks and White Liberals" list multiple statistics about black families, divorce rates, out-of-wedlock births, employment, home ownership, education, and crime and discovered progress on these issues where actually retarded or stopped altogether after the 1960s.
Often, when people are too close to a problem to recognize it we accuse them of lacking objectivity, and encourage them to back away and reevaluate their prejudices, bias, and assumptions. I think Sowell and Steele are advocating just such a reevaluation.
I cannot think of a time when I have read anything of Thomas Sowell's that I agreed with. Before I went to law school I was a social worker. Many of the programs of the 60's and 70's were in place while I worked Texas ghettos. I could sue statistics about hunger and over poverty markers that indicate that those programs were in fact immensely successful in dealing with certain issues associated with poverty. Mr. Sowell wrote in 1999, that the end of Affirmative Action for the University of California system had in fact increased enrollment of minorities in the system. In a report commissioned by the California legislature this year, the University of California system has in fact decreased minority enrollment by almost 11%.
Increased representation of blacks in management positions in business and professions is indisputable. Today, blacks represent 18.6% of managers in Fortune 500 companies and 3.9% of executive (VP and above) in those companies. That was unheard of 40 years ago. But think about we represent about 12% of the population in general and therefore, if the all things were equal, wouldn't represent a higher percentage of executives. I am proud of the strides we have made in the last 40 years, but know that there is still much to do. Much we need to do within ourselves and much society needs to do to create a more equal society.
By the way, black homeownership in 1960 was 40.3% (with higher rates in the south, including Mississippi and South Carolina) and in 2004 is was 49.1% ("Black Homeownership: A Dream No Longer Deferred?" - by Lance Freeman). So again I find myself differing with Thomas Sowell, who knowing him, took the southern rates and extrapolated them to the entire black population. Also HBCUs are enrolling record numbers of students since the student aid programs were expanded in the 1960s and 70's so Mr. Sowell again is using some kind of misleading statistical data to infer that blacks are less well educated now than they were before the 1960s.
#25"Mr. Sowell wrote in 1999, that the end of Affirmative Action for the University of California system had in fact increased enrollment of minorities in the system."
I couldn't find Sowell's column. But I foudn statistics showing black admissions increased in 1999 over 1998. But is the goal minority enrollment or minority graduation? Many scholars have noticed minority graduation rates are deplorable in schools with tougher curriculums. Admitting a minority without equipping them to succeed does little exept perhaps placate the rainbow coallition and misguide blacks into thinking enrollment represents progress. Does college enrollment remedy the inadequacies of secondary education? What makes black enrollment more important than other minority or disadvantaged populations? Is the current formula of admitting the top 10 (or 12.5?)% to Texas schools discriminatory?
".. black homeownership in 1960 was 40.3%." and increased a whole 9% in 44 years? That's what Sowell meant by /retarded/, and that civil rights initiatives can't take credit for trends that started prior to the the 1960s.
Unlike you and Mr. Sowell I am very proud of the increase in black homeownership. Especially since that increase is not based on the the shacks that were owned by so many southern blacks in the 1960s, but include a large percentage of suburban and urban residences that represent a real entree in the American Dream of homeownership. Thomas Sowell is a self-loathing, sychophant, loved by the conservative fringes. Those of us who regularly listen to his negative comments regarding his own race and desire to turn everything African American anglo recognize that house negro mentality so destructive to our race.
Please understand that to my knowledge Thomas Sowell has never written a word with which I agree and his use of statistics and economic mumbo jumbo to prove his points are not persuasive at all to me.
#27Are Clarence Page, Shelby Steele, and Bill Cosby also self-loathing sychophants? Is every black conservative so easily dismissed? Similar accusations are made against Condoleeza Rice for not towing the black orthodoxy. Is it that difficult to believe blacks, like Justice Thomas, are intelligent and insightful people that can see things others inside the racial preferences bandwagon can not or do not want others to see?
I find it interesting the media is so in a wad over Ann Coulter's book but precious little has been said about Sowell's or Steele's books. Coulter's remarks aren't nearly as inflammatory as those made in Black Rednecks or White Guilt.
Clarence Page yes, Shelby Steele, almost all of the time and Bill Cosby no, just senile (don't quote me I am being a smart ass!:-)Actually the best quote I ever heard about black conservatives was from the late, great, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. My Dad who was student at Virginia Union University in 1949, heard a speech by Rev. Powell in which he said, "How can a black man be a conservative, he doesn't have a damn thing to conserve." At least in 1949, Rev. Powell was absolutely correct. I have never found myself in agreement with black conservatives, but it is based on my logic not some bandwagon that you may perceive me to be on. What I find with most people who disagree with me is that they usually can see that though their minds work differently than mine so they come up with different opinions, they concede that I don't make arguments without have a rationale for my argument.
Anne Coulter is a conservative pimp, in much the same vein as Pat Buchannan and Alan Keyes (oh and on the liberal side Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton) so nothing she says concerns me. She makes a dishonest living by pandering to what appears to be a larger group of idiots than I realized were out there, but her dishonesty doesn't affect me because she is not robbing my house, not stealing my identity to ruin my credit, so whatever she says doesn't really impact me.
#29This message is in response to a column on Shelby Steele:
My husband purchased a copy of White Guilt by Shelby Steele. After finishing it, he suggested that I read it; he thought that Mr. Steele had written a worthwhile book. Having heard Mr. Steele speak on cable TV, I had already formed the opinion that his Black conservative rhetoric just wasn't my type of reading. Nevertheless, since the book was close at hand, I would give it a try. I read several of the first chapters, most of the middle, decided I couldn't take it, and skipped to the last few pages. I called My husband and asked if Steele had talked about his wife in the book, since his father-in-law had been mentioned. My husband couldn't recall. I explained that it had been my experience that mixed-race authors (usually white/black) and black writers married to white women seem to think that their social perspective (being part of a white family) allows them to print all of their musings, criticisms, and conclusions about Blacks without being challenged. Conservative Blacks really don't deserve a separate label from conservative Whites; there is no distinction. I am disappointed that my spouse spent money on this book which is sure to further encourage Mr. Steele to continue to spew his (hard fought for) White perspective on what is wrong with Black America while excusing Whites (their culpability is generation-specific and needs to be contextualized and forgotten) in what he perceives as Blacks' flight from responsibility. Obviously, I agree with your column on Mr. Steele and wish to commend you for not following the blame the victim mentality (most people would agree that slavery, segregation, and institutional racism are not victimless occurrences) that conservatives have today (the gimme intellectuals who want all they can get, but scorn those who are not like them who want to do the same). As for Blacks like Steele and Clarence Thomas, it appears that their efforts to breed a better race of Blacks by marrying white women is gaining momentum. I am all for race mixing and interracial marriage but not at the cost of my being degraded as part of a race not willing to take responsibility for itself. And by the way, unlike Mr. Steele, 53 years of exposure to covert and overt racism has damaged my self-esteem. Perhaps, if I had had a White parent like Mr. Steele to soften the sting of racism, I too would have been less affected. Just imagine what even worse exposure did to generations before me. Near the end of his book, Mr. Steele states, "It is the rare black who gets to live without the world expecting him to pretend. So I don't mind so much that little bit of hot tar the world has poured on my head". I am glad that Mr. Steele found his freedom, due in large part to certain advantages (whether he admits it or not, to his whiteness), I just don't want his ilk to dump on what freedom my family has been able to achieve (despite American racist tendencies) without the same advantages he so freely exploits.
#30The Civil Rights era was the recipient of the pattern that provided the use of white guilt to leverage black advantage, and it was perhaps the greatest setback to racial equality because of the extortion-based benefits it extracted from the white race, forever foreclosing the possibility of racial equity, and forever foreclosing the mutuality required to understand slavery's role in American history as a mutual legacy - because it set blame and victim upon opposing pathways.
It would be interesting to know, assess, and evaluate from whence came such a forked road for each race, and how white guilt was imposed that required such a diversion from the business of racial integration. From the violence that was layered on top of white guilt, or the hammer which placed it there, from which America has yet to recover has left a path a destruction that is difficult to overlook in racial history, and difficult to swallow as a necessary force to enable human equity, much less human rights.
Blame setting and score keeping that was the civil rights era hasn't benefited from the practice. Where it was learned remains a mystery, but one instinctively surmises that it was neither from the black race nor the white one, regardless of how sensitive or hurt feelings were from the residuals of slavery. To be honest, it simulates the European guilt imposed after WWII on the axis of evil that was the perpetrator of Natzi thinking. But it has not yet been equated with that process.
To be sure, whatever caused it, it has had the potential to divide, not harmonize the races to achieve the kind of integration that might have been possible without it.
#31Cassandra,
Overall, I do not agree with many of your comments and am closer to agreeing with more of Thomas Gagne's comments. At the same time, overwhelmingly you write with conviction, confidence, and "food for thought". However, there is one thing that I believe diminishes significantly your ability to get your point across - you engage in too much "name calling" (see your comments above for details, as I do not want to repeat them here). Please consider eliminating this practice when you write - it makes you much less professional and convincing.
Best regards to you, a reader/listener
As Steele is quoted above to have said, "Racism is no longer a variable in anybody's life in this society."
Was racism a variable in James Byrd Jr.'s life?