White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed ...

Required Reading:
Shelby Steele's "White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era" is required reading for all adult Americans, and, indeed, anyone, worldwide, sucked into the failures of skewed approaches to diversity. Steele writes beautifully; the ride he provides is elegant and smooth. The truth is tough: race relations are infected by white guilt - primarily on the part of wealthier whites - and that infection distorts reality and hurts whites and blacks alike. Racism, Steele argues, has become, in the post-1960s-Civil-Rights era, America's new religion. This religion is enforced by Political Correctness. You can cheat on your spouse and remain president; you can't, though, be suspected of ever having said the "n word," even in private conversation. Whites want to prove their own worth, and, to do so, they must exonerate themselves of any suspicion of being racist. In so doing, they set up a two-tiered system of behavior: one for blacks, and one for everyone else. Blacks are allowed to get away with a lesser standard, because whites don't want to call blacks on any failings, for fear of being labeled "racist." Steele first realized this when he, without wanting to - he just couldn't find an ashtray - dropped ashes on a college dean's carpet. He could see in the dean's eyes that he wanted to say something about Steele dropping ashes on his carpet, but he didn't dare do so, because he might be criticized for being racist. Steele argues that guilty whites present a similar lowered standard, for similar reasons, to all blacks, thus keeping blacks in a lower state. Steele points out that dramatic displays of "black anger" are not at all what some see them as - inevitable and liberatory explosions of pent-up, righteous forces in reaction against white racism. Rather, Steele argues, most dramatic, public displays of black anger are highly calculated strategic moves. Blacks, on some level, know that they can manipulate whites into delivering "crumbs from the table" if they, blacks, play the "black anger" card. Steele points out that such public displays were not common until *after* the Civil Rights movement; before it, blacks did not rise up and torch cities. Steele says that while Political Correctness pretends to be all about helping black people, it is really all about keeping black people in a state of childish dependency on white liberals. In fact, the major beneficiary of Political Correctness, according to Steele, is white liberals. They come off as magnanimous benefactors of poor, childish black people who could not make it without white liberals giving them lots of charity. Steele points out that those who benefit from white guilt don't want less racism, they want more racism, or at least the appearance of more racism. As long as white liberals and black activists are seen as combating racism, and benefitting poor, victimized blacks who could never make it in life without white liberals and black activist protectors, white liberals and black activists benefit from that perception. Steele says that white guilt does neither whites nor blacks any real, lasting benefit. Rather, he says, blacks' fate is in their own hands. They must practice self-sacrifice, delayed gratification, dedication to family, initiative and entrepreneurialism to get ahead in life. Again, this rather dry sounding message is written in elegant, highly readable and personal prose.

Perceptive as ever ...:
Clear discernment of a wrong turn taken after the Civil Rights victories of the mid 1960s. See what I mean by reading these quotes: 'Black America faced two options. We could seize on the great freedom we had just won in the civil rights victories and advance through education, skill development, and entrepreneurialism combined with an unbending assault on any continuing discrimination; or we could go after these things indirectly by pressuring the society that had wronged us into taking the lion's share of responsibility in resurrecting us. The new black militancy that exploded everywhere in the late sixties - and that came to define the strategy for black advancement for the next four decades - grew out of black America's complete embrace of the latter option.' (p.58) 'Authentic black militancy, of the sort that Malcolm X at times seemed capable of, always embraced responsibility as power itself. It demanded only the freedom and equal treatment under the law that would allow responsibility to be the same fount of hope, power, and advancement in blacks that it was for others. If Malcolm X railed ferociously against white America, he never called for a redistribution of responsibility for black uplift to whites or American institutions. His was a self-help black militancy that was naturally sceptical about what others would actually do for blacks. You might call it "hard-work" militancy, since it was built around the difficult principles of self-sacrifice, delayed gratification, family unity, individual initiative, entrepreneurialism, and so on. ... . What made this militancy authentic was that it truly sought to restore an oppressed people to human dignity through real development and without an enmeshment with or dependency on the guilt of whites.' (pp.59, 60) Everyone should read this!

Use language thats easy to understand:
This book would have been more enjoyable if Mr. Steele did not try to show off his knowledge of big words. Seems like I lose interest if I have to stop and look for a dictionary every page (keep it simple,, you will get your point across better)

Good book - Needs editor,:
Lots of good points but too many show-off, pedantic words and sentences that detract from the good ideas. This books message could have been written in a 2 page New Yorker magazine article.

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.