From the author of the award-winning bestseller The Content of Our Character comes a new essay collection that tells the untold story behind the polarized racial politics in America today.
In his new book Shelby Steele argues that a second betrayal of black freedom in the United States -- the first one being segregation -- emerged from the civil rights era when the country was overtaken by a powerful impulse to redeem itself from racial shame. According to Steele, the liberalism that grew out of the 1960s had as its first and all-consuming goal the expiation of America guilt rather than the careful development of true equality between the races. This "culture of preference" betrayed America's best principles in order to give whites and America institutions an iconography of racial virtue they could use against the stigma of racial shame. In four densely argued essays, Steele takes on the familiar questions of affirmative action, multiculturalism, diversity, Afro-centrism, group preferences, victimization -- and what he deems to be the atavistic powers of race, ethnicity, and gender, the original causes of oppression. A Dream Deferred is an honest, courageous look at the perplexing dilemma of race and democracy in the United States -- and what we might do to resolve it.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
While Steele zealously praises civil rights victories, terming the movement that effected them "the greatest nonviolent revolution in American history (one of the greatest in all history)," he concludes that a simultaneous outcome--the stigmatization of whiteness--has led to disaster. Shamed whites try to prove their innocence through redemptive acts, according to Steele, and he has always disdained the "moral self-preoccupation" of post-'60s white liberals, which "made them dangerous to blacks--ready to give them over to an 'otherness' in which nothing is expected of them."
Steele, a self-described black conservative, complains, "The great ingenuity of interventions like affirmative action has not been that they give Americans a way to identify with the struggle of blacks, but that they give them a way to identify with racial virtuousness quite apart from blacks." He contends that victimization is the greatest hindrance for black Americans: while white liberals see blacks as victims to assuage guilty consciences, blacks parlay their status as victims into a currency that turns out to have no long-term buying power. Steele's conclusion: the only way for blacks to stop buying into this zero-sum game is to adopt a culture of excellence and achievement untrammeled by set-asides and entitlements. --Lise Funderburg
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Shipping:
US$ 4.00
Within U.S.A.
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New. Fast Shipping and good customer service. Seller Inventory # Holz_New_0060168234
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. Buy for Great customer experience. Seller Inventory # GoldenDragon0060168234
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Seller Inventory # M1-4-72BH
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New. Seller Inventory # Wizard0060168234
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New Copy. Customer Service Guaranteed. Seller Inventory # think0060168234
Book Description Condition: new. Seller Inventory # FrontCover0060168234
Book Description Condition: New. Buy with confidence! Book is in new, never-used condition. Seller Inventory # bk0060168234xvz189zvxnew
Book Description Condition: New. New! This book is in the same immaculate condition as when it was published. Seller Inventory # 353-0060168234-new
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Seller Inventory # Abebooks87127
Book Description Condition: New. New. In shrink wrap. Looks like an interesting title! 2.2. Seller Inventory # Q-0060168234