In 1955 the killers of Emmett Till, a black Mississippi youth, were acquitted because they were white. Forty years later, despite the strong DNA evidence against him, accused murderer O. J. Simpson went free after his attorney portrayed him as a victim of racism. The age of white supremacy has given way to an age of white guilt—and neither has been good for African Americans.

Through articulate analysis and engrossing recollections, acclaimed race relations scholar Shelby Steele sounds a powerful call for a new culture of personal responsibility.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 62 reviews)

Missing facts

Shelby Steele's omissions of facts and critical thought are atrocious. These are a few issues that Steele fails to mention in his book. Withholding the truth is the same as lying.

1) Eisenhower had a lengthy affair with Ann Sommersby
2) The times of Eisenhower wouldn't have allowed the equivalent of $60 million dollars spent on what a president does behind closed doors. Especially since the country was nowhere near as partisan as it is today.
3) He mentioned the L.A. riots but doesn't mention the impact of the unjust verdict on the event.
4) Steele mentions global racism but doesn't mention America's impact on Latin America and Africa.
5) Steele doesn't know what racial experience every black has on a college campus. A friend of mine at U. of Maryland has the first black college president and received numerous death threats which were covered on national media.
6) Steele's "basketball to books" analogy doesn't point out that the parameters of basketball are the same for all players whereas educational achievement has very subjective limits.
7) Mark Fuhrman lied about his use of a racial slur in court. The slur was about the race of the primary suspect, OJ Simpson. Fuhrman was the lead investigator on the case. Could an investigator, who used racial slurs then lied about them, taint evidence? That possibility was brought into play.
8) Johnnie Cochran's job as a defense attorney is to get his client found innocent. Period!
9) According to the Labor Dept., WHITE women are the largest beneficiaries of affirmative action programs.
10) A person having to do an act, such as Steele quitting his job as a bus driver, to show their blackness shows more of a person's inner identity crisis. A true black person is black no matter what they do and need no validation of that fact.
11) Blacks have been at the bottom of most social indicators before and after the "Great Society" was even a concept. Hence, a constant underclass
12) Steele states, "Clarence Thomas has more moral authority on racial issues than Maureen Dowd." He gives no reason why he feels that way; hence, he must feel that way only because Thomas is black. Looking at Thomas' voting record, his moral authority is up for serious question.
13) Dowd's opinion is shared by most blacks and Thomas' qualifications were in question during his whole confirmation in the Senate.
14) Whites let blacks participate such as Jackie Robinson, the Tuskegee Airman, and Charles Drew among others not out of guilt but because those blacks were supremely talented to their white counterparts.
15) It is almost impossible to have individual wealth for the masses without fighting for social justice first.
16) Most black leaders have been asking for equal protection under the law and equal pay for equal work, not a hand outs from the government like Bear Sterns, Lehman Bros. Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac do.
17) Dick Cheney keeps his job when his chief of staff was guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice. Steele doesn't bring that up with his comparison to Bill Clinton.
18) You can only measure reform by results. Steele doesn't bring up other ways that reform can be measured either.
19) Steele doesn't mention on one page the plight of black women in our society.
20) If you feel guilty, you did something wrong.

Not saying that every white person feels guilty but Steele insinuates that feeling.

September 15, 2008

Magic Carpet Ride

This is a superbly wtitten and well argued book that views the impact of the sixties from a vanatge point that is often occluded by the almost universal excitement, attention, and interest that surrounds an intense time in American life--and is made problematic by the din of much generational noise trying to make sense of what was happening in American society and on the college campus.

As a New York City baby boomer who came of age at the time I have been following the differing interpretations of what this may have meant for many of us. Steele's informal (yet informative) sytle is very refreshing. I have also been at a loss to understand or explain what I would call "tyrannies of the left", namely, much of the misguided cant and shoddy scholarship that seems to be the standard fare in many college English departments. My particular gripe is how so many well intended people basically destroyed the CUNY system.

Once the hope of many who, like myself, couldn't afford higher education in the private "free market" but who knew that, with good grades and hard work, there was a place that offerred world class teaching and opportinities absent the requirement of tuition. It was once the crown jewel of "The Big Apple." No more. Open admissions and escalating fees have basically gutted what it once meant to have have access to a genuine higher education via meritocracy. Faculty were first rate and the students were among the brightest in the city.

Alas, the English department also has a right wing. My first exposure to this creature. Since I share Professor Shelby's concerns over what might be called "curricular rot", i.e., non-academic offerings posing as the genuine article, the politicization of damn near everything and, in general, the obscenely priced extension of high school that now passes for "college", I read his book with much interest. Sadly, it was a letdown of the highest order. His explanatory variable is "White Gulit": a new adventure in metaphysics.

The appeal of this concept is that it is a seductive illusion. Tantalizing, but impossible to operationalize and serving as a magic catch-all for whatever seems to trouble you. Like "black invisibility", its more irritating cousin, it clearly generates discomfort but is impossible to nail down because "black" and "white" are simply code words for very complex social realities. The drama they conceal is universal: What is the proper relation between freedom, the individual, and the state? Who benefits from this dialogue? The social sciences deal directly with these issues but neither a proper understanding a full formulation are available as slogans or suitable for bumper stickers.

It is not clear to me what Professor Shelby (as a "black conservative"--a term he clearly dislikes, yet champions) wishes to conserve. Before World War II , and absent the dissent of the sixties, the American higher education system did what all such system do: preserve class privilege for those who are favored. We have come full circle: college can now cost the price of a house.

Serious stuff. Solutions, however, will not be forthcoming from the English depaertment. Its left wing is currently enamored of French philosophers, and its right seems to be fixated on racial stereotypes. I'll leave it to the psychologists to figure out if Shelby' concerns fall within their purview. It used to be that when one studied college English one learned something of that subject matter and how to clearly express one's ideas. Oh, I forgot, that was in the "decadent" sixties when we all were less enlightened and were so foolish as to take our teachers seriously. I was never able to discern any political agenda in their course assignments where, I recall, the professors worked as hard grading them as we tried to muster the energy necessary to meet their expectations. Was that a dream? Was it a magic carpet suspended only by nostalgia? One never knows, after all, when looking back at the sixties.

September 05, 2008

The best book there is for understanding America's racial problems

Explains clearly, through the experience and scholarship of a black who came of age in the 1960s and had a ringside seat for the civil rights era, how we all went wrong. Since its purpose is not equal rights but "dissociation" of whites from accusations of racism, affirmative action is itself racist, as it assaults the uniqueness of all Americans by reducing them to generic blacks and generic whites. Hard reading, but is only 181 relatively short pages and will reward your effort. Can also be expanded to various other problems, such as the oversupply of handicapped parking spaces and the rising reverse sex discrimination in business.

The result of all this may be no less than the destruction of American strength, an end to the valued status of "personal responsibility, hard work, individual initiative, delayed gratification, commitment to excellence, competition by merit, the honor in achievement" (p. 109), and, with it, an end to American greatness. We need a national dialogue on how we can reverse it - Barack, are you ready? In the meantime, all Americans should read this book.
August 26, 2008

Great Book!

"White Guilt" by Shelby Steele is well worth your time. If you're wondering how race relations in this country have become so poisonous, Shelby Steele has a significant part of the answer. Here's how toxic race relations are in this country right now: it's significant (even though it should not be) that Shelby Steele is black.

Steele describes how guilt-motivated bad behavior on the part of white people has enabled anger-motivated bad behavior by black militants (e.g. Al Sharpton), to the point that the "conversation on race" that everyone talks about is difficult-to-impossible. Black or white, if you say the wrong thing, you're in big trouble.

I hope a lot of people read this book. It might help.

Here are some other books that might also help:
Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America
Come On People: On the Path from Victims to Victors

August 21, 2008

Double Talking

At first I was confused as to where he was going with the introduction but then as I read on it made a little more sense. I found that he seemed to do a lot of double talking that made some of his points difficult to understand. Along with the difficulty understanding the basis for some of his arguments, I did tend to agree with him on some occasions. If you like reading essay formats so to speak, this is a book for you. I tend to prefer a bit more of a story when I read.
August 05, 2008

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