Shelby Steele Professions : Author Born : January 1, 1946 Browse All Authors Top 33 quotes by Shelby Steele It is time for blacks to begin the shift from a wartime to a peacetime identity, from fighting for opportunity to the seizing of it. Shelby Steele fighting identity opportunity Since the social victim has been oppressed by society, he comes to feel that his individual life will be improved more by changes in society than by his own initiative. Without realizing it, he makes society rather than himself the agent of change. The power he finds in his victimization may lead him to collective action against society, but it also encourages passivity within the sphere of his personal life. Shelby Steele agents black may Opportunity follows struggle. It follows effort. It follows hard work. It doesn't come before. Shelby Steele hard-work struggle success Every single progressive education fad of the past thirty years has hurt poor black children. Shelby Steele hurt children past I decided to live as an individual and as I grew older, and thought more, and read more and experienced more, my views became more conservative. But my group is liberal. Not only that, they say, 'If you're not liberal and not a Democrat, you're not black. If you're conservative, you're a sellout.' Here, then, I'm living with that kind of a pressure against my individuality. Shelby Steele individuality black views Too often the result of affirmative action has been an artificial diversity that gives the appearance of parity between blacks and whites that has not yet been achieved in reality...Preferences tend to attack one form of discrimination with another...Affirmative action encourages a victim-focused identity, and sends the message that there is more power in our past suffering than in our present achievements. Shelby Steele giving reality past My experience in life tells me that the values that are now being labeled 'conservative' are the only way that blacks can get ahead. Shelby Steele get-ahead conservative way A black conservative is a black who dissents from the victimization explanation of black fate. Shelby Steele conservative fate black Most important, [research on affirmative action] has completely failed to show that affirmative action ever closes the academic gap between minorities and whites. And failing in this, affirmative action also fails to help blacks achieve true equality with whites - the ultimate measure of which is parity in skills and individual competence. Without this underlying parity there can never be true equality in employment, income levels, rates of home ownership, educational achievement and the rest. Shelby Steele educational skills home Liberalism has become a moral vaccine that immunizes people against stigmatization. Shelby Steele vaccines moral people The promised land guarantees nothing. It is only an opportunity, not a deliverance. Shelby Steele land guarantees opportunity Part of our identity is the idea that racism is still there and that we are vulnerable to it. So, the question is, 'How vulnerable?' In other words, is it really a problem for us, or is it just a small thing. How do you evaluate racism in America on a scale of 1 to 10? My suspicion is that most blacks overrate it a bit. Not to say it's not there, but we overrate it because this masking is part of our relationship to the larger society. This is a way we keep whites on the hook. We keep them obligated, and we keep ourselves entitled. There's an incentive, you see, to inflate it a little bit. Shelby Steele racism america ideas All politicians are going to mask to some degree in order to present themselves in away they think will get them votes. What's different in Obama's case is that he's wearing a racial mask, this 'bargainer's' mask, and I think very effectively, whereby he gives whites the benefit of the doubt. He's essentially saying, 'I am going to presume you are not racist, if you won't hold my race against me.' So, his mask is a distinctly racial one. Shelby Steele race order thinking No matter how accomplished we may be, just any little white person can come up and say, 'Well, you wouldn't be here, if it weren't for Affirmative Action.' You put power in white people's hands, and then they use it against you. It's a trick bag. Shelby Steele white hands people I was raised in a completely black world. In those days, if a white woman married a black man, she lived as a black woman, and that was just the end of it. So, I don't have a feeling of being bi-racial. I don't have a connection to it. People often come up to me thinking I do have a connection to it, and I kind of let them down because I really don't. Shelby Steele white men thinking Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, good liberals both, pursued power by offering their candidacies as opportunities for Americans to document their innocence of the nation's past. Shelby Steele offering opportunity past If you are a minority, it is important that you have legal ways to defend yourself in the society in which you live. Shelby Steele minorities important way Freedom always carries a burden of proof, always throws us back on ourselves. Shelby Steele burden-of-proof freedom wisdom I'm not going to play a racial game. With me, you're going to meet a guy named Shelby Steele, and you will have to get to know me as an individual. The color of my skin won't tell you anything. I think there's more and more of that in America. Shelby Steele color games thinking I would love to see us, as blacks, get to the place where we say, 'I'm not going to play race games with you. Here I am. This is who I am. Take it or leave it.' 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