Shelby Steele On “How America's Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country”

during football season this past autumn many players many african-american players knelt in protest during the national anthem in the words of our guest today they were not speaking truth to power they were mindlessly loyal to a black identity that had run its course close quote author Shelby Steele on uncommon knowledge now welcome to uncommon knowledge I'm Peter Robinson we're shooting today from the how Gaudet aureum of the trade tell building a new building of the Hoover Institution here at Stanford a native of Chicago Shelby Steele taught English literature for a number of years at San Jose State University then in 1990 his book the content of our character a new vision of race in America established him as an author of national importance now a fellow at the Hoover Institution dr. Steele is the author of a number of books including white guilt how blacks and whites together destroyed the promise of the civil rights era and shame how America's past sins have polarized our country dr. Steele is also a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal where he recently published a column headlined black protest has lost its power Shelby Steele welcome thank you good to be here the protests again you wrote of the players who took a knee during the national anthem in this last football season they were mindlessly loyal to a black identity that had run its course wow that's quite a claim go ahead and just just explain what you what you mean by that there is a blacks obviously have undergone in the course of America the three 400 years that America has been around and victimized blackness and slavery and segregation and all those things we were all very much aware of my point is that out of that came an identity a group identity that has been for better and worse focus grounded in the idea of blacks as victims and black victimization has become a sort of centerpiece of that identity and an identity I think in the case of the NFL protestors it's sort of dislodged from reality and functions put just pretty much on its own so once once they felt called upon to make some symbolic test against America and racism they do they sort of mindlessly went along with that without ever stopping to investigate whether there really was oppression to what degree of of oppression is involved in in American life today for for blacks my argument is that not very much mmm and yet the the in congruence of not refusing to kneel for the national anthem when this country despite its sins also was a country that for the last 60 years has truly transformed itself morally and and America to Americans today are different people in regard to to all these issues and I thought the protest was it was it was in a obsolescent gesture that made that no one found much meaning in you said in a recent interview on a ricochet podcast quote this is not segregated America I grew up in segregated America so I know the difference is closer let's talk a little bit about Shelby Steele's a young man mmm um you I have a few experiences here that you've written about notably in shame your last book and that I've heard you talk about because we've been friends for years your elementary school in a Chicago suburb mm-hmm your parents joins other parents ensuing to change that what was that school like that school was an elementary school in a school district where there were only two schools one was all white and one was all black and we would see the white kids drive to school the school bus and wintertime and we were a while we sort of you had to walk this we had to walk we got their textbooks when when they were worn out so we got their teachers when the teachers began to have problems and nervous breakdown or something they'd be transferred to our school so you experienced it yes it was abusive it was there's no doubt about it it was a horror and even among segregated schools this one was particularly bad my parents did they actually led the protest my mother and father organized the parents and boycotted that that school and so there were no students going to it and eventually they prevailed the teachers were were fired the principal was fired and the new school was was was started up so beginning when you were a little boy you saw real segregation yes real abuse everywhere and protest when there was something to protest well the the that's the point I think in the 60s when we think about the protest that so it began became really severe in the in the 50s and and mounted all the way to the 60s and I think of 1964 in civil rights bill as the point at which America capitulated and apologized we were wrong here's a huge piece of legislation affirming our our commitment to not do this anymore now that bill has a lot of problems that have subsequently come due to hurt us but as a as a historical gesture it was it was a a one to create moral acknowledgments of any society in ever it was a really remarkable event and blacks in in a sense deserve an enormous amount of credit for protesting in that era because there was every anybody there was no debate in America about whether or not there was racial discrimination everybody knew there was the question was what we're going to do about it and blacks protest push that I think all the way to the point where America finally did your pitch like Rosa Parks was genuinely a great figure she was Jenny Martin Luther King jr. is genuinely a historic figure these people sacrificed enormous Lee they took every kind of risk imaginable they achieved truly great something truly great it was a moment when black America as I say in the article touched greatness we extended the democracy past the barrier of race so historically that was that was in a sense our gift to America now you write in shame about a trip that you took to Africa at the age of 23 let me quote shame this entire trip was organized around visits to cities like Algiers cities associated with independence movements and revolutions that had swept the third world in the 1950s and 60s I wanted to see if there was some counterpoint to the American Way of life that was better yeah and what did you see I didn't find that but I think you know I was coming of age I was a college student it was just out of college I was working in the war on poverty programs and there was a point because after after the civil rights victories in the sort of late 60s where black people began to began to create this identity that we call blackness and this it was angry and it was resentful and it was separatist there was the illusion in it somehow that we could we would get farther as a separate unified people than we would by joining America and becoming regular citizens I will I confess I was caught up in that I wanted to see and it was what was so seductive about it is that it said blackness is the answer to all of your eggs is about life what you should do where you should should I go to graduate school well if you if you just really focused on blackness those issues kind of kind of go away at least that was the illusion I was seduced by that and so yes my wife and I took a trip to to Africa beginning at Algeria where we excuse me we met with the Black Panthers who were in exile there and we traveled south of the Sahara and to Ghana were wearing kuma had been the president to Senegal where Leopold's Singur these great sort of romantic colonialist figures anti-colonialist sort of revolutionary figure is you know dramatic to their countries and it was a good lesson very large very quick those countries were we're not doing well they were disorganized they were overwhelmed with corruption there was no sort of common direction they were lost and they hadn't and they couldn't go back to being a colony again and yet they also did not know how to go into the future and and building a new nation so I learned a lot there it transformed me it made me realize that your racial identity is is a passive thing it's not it's your your racial identity is not an agent of change it is not going to build a new life for you it is not going to do all the things that that life calls upon you to do for yourself in fact it's a delusion in which you can waste an awful lot of time back to your recent piece in The Wall Street Journal she'll be quote racism is endemic to the human condition just as stupidity is we will always have to be on guard against it but now in the United States it is recognized as a scourge what has happened is that black America has confronted with a new problem the shock of freedom mmm close quote the shock of freedom as a problem explain that well if you have been an oppressed people and we were obviously truly oppressed for centuries we learned all sorts of things in order to survive that I won't go into a long list but but we we learned how to reinvent ourselves we learned how to live with the this dis oppression with this sort of negative force in your life we we were I think miraculous we created a great music out of this we we did other things in that world there had a worldwide impact we expanded the idea of democracy and made it and made freedom and absolute we did all those things the one thing we never did never had a chance to do was to live in freedom we were never free we were always in a position of calculating our fate through those who dominated us we were never just free to invent ourselves as we wanted to ah and that the fact that beginning in the 60s when we began to confront freedom when I could backed up and said okay who's discrimination is wrong they're a bunch of laws to support that we're confronted well what do you do with freedom what are you gonna do now and historically it scared the hell out of us we would be fantasizing if we denied that who wouldn't be freedom is a frightening thing it places such a burden of responsibility on you on the person who has it you're now responsible you're rep you is based not on what you do well combined with that was the fact that for centuries of oppression had left us in many ways underdeveloped so when freedom comes freedom then says we're not oppressing you anymore you're responsible for you're under development and you fix it or you notice up to you and that was you know that way it required freedom requires a whole a wholly different orientation toward the world and we became afraid and what happens then again you when you're afraid you don't know how to move forward you start to move backward Shelby the argument would be and I know what the argument is because your piece in The Wall Street Journal created let's put it this way there was a response on the internet you could you can google Shelby steel and some of the quotations I've just read and you'll get a response and the argument would be no no no no stop there we're with you everything you've said makes perfect sense right up until you get to the point that we're free now mm-hmm as you as you say the era of black oppression is over no it's not there's still all kinds of racism endemic to this is how do you how do you well here's here's um here's some statistics I found 2015 black households at the 20th and 40th percentile of household income that is lower middle class and pretty poor people earned an average of 55 percent as much as white households at those same two percentiles and that's exactly the same same figures in 1967 and so the answer is dr. steel just look at that we haven't Africa I shouldn't say we Avenue african-americans haven't made an iota of progress of course this has to be because we're still unrest how do you deal with that our it's it's a corruption and it's a corruption because if you look at that's the statistical difference from then up up to now who says that's because of racism maybe it's because you yet you haven't yet developed the value system to the ideas with which to thrive in freedom maybe you don't know what to do with the opportunities that surround you it's understandable you were oppressed and and people have not pointed out to you the challenge of freedom and what do people do with with with freedom when they don't know how to handle it they reinvent their oppression even as it has faded away they make it up in their mind all over again racism is around every corner there is systemic racism there's structural racism there are microaggressions and and there's white privilege and all of the all of this this is is designed again to is the shock of freedom and not knowing I mean you look at today's black leadership they have no clue of how to move ahead all they can think to do is ask for more from the government well we've asked for the government has given us almost everything nowhere in history as the government paid off its people more than America has in the last 60 years and yet we are by most socioeconomics measures farther behind white America than we were in the fifties when we had none of these social programs and so forth so it is freedom is a is a it comes with a judgmentalism it it judges you if you don't know how to thrive and freedom its bigots it means that you are at fault you are in the worst word you can use regarding blacks you are inferior the chill idea but it's at the heart that's it is the heart of this shock of freedom because freedom now is saying you can't use oppression as an excuse anymore if you're not doing well it's not because of oppression for Christ for goodness sakes we've got affirmative action we've got everything to help you if you're not doing well now it's on you and and so one of my points about the protest the NFL protests and it's the same with with the black lives matter is that there's this sort of hysteria technical protesting that when they can't even articulate what they're protesting against when of racism is so virulent it ought to be obvious when I was a kid it was obvious no one denied it it was it was visible to everybody every day and that was the beginning in the end of it today where is it where are you being stopped well I want to rise I want to be a politician I want to be the president okay but you want to be the CEO of such-and-such a corporation okay you can do anything you want the reality and that and the problem with that is it occupies black America today is the fact that we are at last a free people Shelby you said a moment ago the federal government's given us everything let me read you you know this well President Johnson's 1965 commencement address at Howard University quote you do not take a person who has been hobbled by chains and bring him up to the starting line of a race and say you're free to compete with the others equal opportunity is essential but not enough close quote so this notion that there has to be compensation for all those years of oppression is fundamental to all policy concerning African Americans for the last half century and more mm-hmm and what I want to know is in your view was Johnson wrecked in 1965 but that view is wrong now that measures were necessary affirmative action transfer payments all of that was necessary but at some point it began to become to hold African Americans back what I just wonder what you're thinking or was it wrong to begin with or do we still need it now what is your thinking on that well it's so basic to the federal government's relationship with African Americans even today yes I remember that speeches been quoted I've quoted it how many times you can't bring somebody up to the starting line and that's been oppressed and expect them to compete what that is really about is not about black people because black people were in the position of coming into freedom you can do what you want you can help them or not but they're gonna have to deal with it in some way that statement was about what I've written a good deal about white guilt and it was it was a horrible historical far as I'm concerned mistake because what Johnson was saying was we are going to do we we oppressed you now we're gonna lift you up and redeem you you're still our responsibility your fate remains in our hands right your fate you don't see your fate as being in your hands it's now in our hands the government's hands every kind of philanthropic groups in everybody's hands but yours and so it was we then had to have had 60 years of white guilt why did why did just merica spend I've heard as the figure as high as 22 trillion dollars in that time spent on all manner of welfare and programs and and so forth educational programs none of what you've ever worked but it is it's a white guilt is a very specific thing it is not a genuine feeling of guilt nothing to do with that it is that the literal terror of being seen as a racist everybody knows in America that's the bottom line if you are seen as a racist openly in public you are ruined you have no life whites live and we've not acknowledged this enough 90 person was doing is saying I can't have you call me and I can't have you call this country a racist mmm and so I'm gonna give you a whole bunch of things I don't and I worked in those programs so I know I know them intimately they were just sort of what we would say jump off the toilet programs anything with just something we can throw money at to say we're not racist we don't care whether it works we have known it we have no we're not gonna follow up if it we had school busing for how many decades ruining the public school system no one even asked a question about what was the point of that all these bad ideas school integration is going to school an integration did absolutely nothing black students were still unable to compete because the focus was on what the government was going to do in this sort of thing and not on what what black students do so white guilt has been a real driver of these these corruptions and these these football players down on their knees know that and you know that the owners are gonna capitulate and throw some something their way Roger Goodell NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell quote they're talking about equality issues making sure that we're doing everything we possibly can we in the NFL are doing every or we enter the United States actually I'm not sure what he meant we're doing everything we possibly can to give people an opportunity whether it's education or economic what do you make of that statement what in the world is that going to do with football that has that is a you know just a perfect white guilt statement he's saying he may as well just say I'm innocent I'm innocent I'm innocent I'm innocent I'm innocent I'm not a racist I'm not a racist and he will find a way to see if I understand he has give millions of dollars to some some cause called social justice well what is that I can tell you what that is that's a lot of hustling that's a lot of black hustlers stepping forward to take that hundred million dollars and put it in their pocket and and and make things it's it's those are those of you again you you you you create a whole class of hustlers you make black leaders black leadership today is pretty much nothing left but hustlers who work white guilt all right so what is to be done what is to be done though let's just work our way through a couple of the obvious problems here we've got poverty african-americans are disproportionately poor two-fifths of african-american households receive food stamps it's a much higher percentage than for any other ethnic group and we've got inequality I mentioned a moment ago that the lower income groups in among African Americans were earned only 55 percent as much as the same their their counterparts or white counterparts turns out even if you go up the income scale you've got upper class and middle class blacks are in about two-thirds as much as their white counterparts which is the same figure as half a century ago so you've got disproportionate poverty and even among African Americans who are doing well they're not doing as well as their white counterparts mm-hmm what do you do you the first thing I think you do is you name the reasons why and certainly racism is no longer a reason if it is a reason it is 18th or 20th on the list of reasons it is not worth your time it's not worth focusing on or worrying much about there are no important forces in American life advocating for racism you need as blacks we need to ask ourselves why we have become so dependent on this delusion that we live in a society that is intent on keeping us down that's over with it isn't that kind of it's just over with we need to face ourselves more frankly you guys as 75% of all black children born out of wedlock you understand the kind of dysfunction just that statistic alone that's a problem now who's going to fix that the government we you know we there has to be right now we have an identity as blacks that's victim focus we're victims which basically is designed to tap in the white guilt and get to get them to give us all kinds of little basically crumbs and we're just sort of locked in to that and we owe and there's no examination of how self-reliance more personal responsibility for one's decisions in life that these are the things that now determine our fate and the and again I blame a lot of this on the original oppression we weren't that was not an experience it taught us these things these values and principles that other people take for granted well we've now got to take those take up those principles we've now got to stop thinking of ourselves as victims and think of ourselves as free men and women in this world with every kind of opportunity life is tough for everybody no doubt about that but but free people are free to move from one thing to another to find themselves to find their voice to find out what they can do in life and to me that's blackness that's blackness or it ought to be what has passes for blackness now is just a kind of mindless mimicry of anger there is that is is struck me with the NFL as as really an instance of pathos where it's sad it's just sad to see these football players out there on their knee when they can't even articulate what they're protesting against I can tell you that Martin Luther King knew what he was protesting against he articulated it as superbly as as possible and people responded the country responded these these players today of black lives matter and other sorts of groups are pathetic there's no other there's no nice way to say it they they are they just sat in you they don't inspire you they saddened you affirmative action do away with it I have an ambivalent position on affirmative action as I said if the Ku Klux Klan had invented a social policy to keep black people down they could not have done a better job than affirmative action but I have a very much mild point of view about these matters no affirmative action just basically says what's important about you is the color of your skin the very thing that was important about us when we were oppressed when do we get to be human beings when do we get to be people who compete on their own merit so now I get accepted at Harvard and I'm at Harvard and I'm on the campus and everybody there knows I wouldn't be there were not for affirmative action and you they're gonna rub that in my face and and they're gonna diminish me and so I'm fighting all over again for my humanity it wasn't one one fight enough I've got it we now have to overcome the blemish the the diminishment that affirmative action imposed on us again driven by white guilt White's are so blind to the humanity of blacks that they put a program like this force them into it it's not it's not invite it's it's not that's right you can't opt you can opt out you're you're in it and and then you have to make you have to rationalize that and by saying you're a victim and we're back in the same the same game again your of your I'm a victim and so therefore I deserve this and I don't have to become competitive and so so affirmative action is is the sort of archetypal re oppression of people that is an oppressive system that you've inflicted on black Americans so that you can get an optical an optic that shows you to be innocent of racism even as you are Magnus's yeah few last questions shortly and to return to your column in The Wall Street Journal quote the oppression of black people is over with we blacks are today a free people close quote the response to that column among African Americans I'm sure that they will be apoplectic and this is this and does prove my point because we we um you you see all the damage done over the last sixty years with by focusing on our victimization and so forth well rather than rather than say oh my goodness we we in fact it is over our oppression is over with we really are Free People we scream to high heavens that still is crazy that it's laughable can't you see racism everywhere white supremacy is just infused into the literally the air of America so that black people are well what is this this longing for an identity of black identity grounded in victimization is a longing for an excuse to not accept the challenge of freedom it is a way to escape that challenge shall be quotation here Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in his 2003 opinion and critter versus Bollinger a case that against his wishes permitted universities to continue affirmative action but here's what Clarence Thomas wrote in his opinion I believe blacks can achieve in every avenue of American life without meddling close quote your with Clarence Thomas absolutely here's the question let me give you a pretty complete list of the prominent African Americans who are with you and Justice Thomas it's Shelby Steele and it's Clarence Thomas and it's Tom soul and I have two fingers left I'm sure there are some that I'm not aware yes I'm okay so where are the other voices do you do you do yous are there some young voices coming up are you hopeful as you survey the scene yes I am hopeful because you know I think attrition solve certain problems how long can you can you go on in delusion you know how it takes more and more labor again the NFL protests was was important to me because there it was this is so over with this is so excelling at and whites backed away from football I mean the viewership went down the ticket sales were something tonight I don't even know how to express this exactly but I can tell you what a lot of my friends are is wait a minute we just went through eight years of an african-american president and every one of those young african-american men who's taking a knee is a millionaire but you know what White's don't get to say what the heck are you guys thinking what they do is they just turn off the chain there's something operating so that everything that goes around comes around to use a over worn cliche I mean it and one of the things that and one of the things I think that I play some hope in is I look for whites it's what I call race fatigue that as as we keep going down this path whites are going to become more and more immune to it and I think the foot the NFL football protest was a good example of that whites have now said we're not gonna come out in public but privately we don't believe you anymore we think you're a fraud we don't think you're that oppressed you know we can't say anything because then you just call us racist and we'll we'll pay another way but we don't buy it and you leave that we America is gonna see more and more whites turning away disbelieving it doesn't mean that they're going to become racist it means that they're not there they're going to see the reality which is that you two blacks you have not yet taken enough responsibility for the freedom that you enjoy this is a hard thing but I can tell you if if we got up tomorrow morning and white America said that in some symbolic way everything would be changed so Shelby where do you see I'm just thinking back to civil right I mean it is not insignificant that Martin Luther King jr. was the Reverend Martin Luther King jr. that the basis of so much of the moral energy of the civil rights movement was the black the african-american church as it does that is that Institute where do you see the voices where's where um where do those who agree with you place their feet when to set themselves to speak and to try to pursue this to say what you're saying well we're at a point it does at this time when when there aren't that man when when sad to say blacks who do that are going to be instantly called Uncle Tom's just as whites who do that are going to be called racist the blacks who are not in the victim focused identity they're going to be called Uncle Tom's and rejected and so forth and but there are I believe millions of people on both sides whites and blacks who know something's wrong no this is not real this can't be dependent on in the future and so you know the the more blacks voted for Donald Trump than for for Mitt Romney where'd that come from you tell me I'm puzzled on that - I had no people I have friends who who I never would I never would have dreamed that they would have done anything but vote Democratic who just liked the honesty of the man the you know he's not let me let me give you an optimized let me give you a possible president and then returned to the president the possible president is Oprah Winfrey no really you don't think that she would have an opportunity to speak to African Americans and to say the or you think she just wouldn't say the kinds of things that you were saying now she's had an opportunity to say these kinds of things and she is just terrified and so if if in other words she's not a person who's gonna break this this lock she's she is nothing against open with her and admire her as entrepreneur and a personality and celebrity in every way and she's she's smart lady and maybe she will run you know maybe I who can predict what America will do will she break this logjam her popularity is based on this long Jam being in place and to say all of a sudden that blacks are not victims anymore that they have to start making it they have to pick up more self-reliance and responsibilities would she be so loved so admired she's hiding behind a a the the conventional sort of conventional wisdom don't rock this boat if she starts to rock the boat I can't she she but if she do it you'd say more power to her I'd say more I'd say she I said she would have a chance to change change history all right Donald Trump is he racist no he's not racist is he helping after it let me say this but what is what is a racist I have racist impulses I've never met a human being who didn't we will always have to watch out for those impulses in ourselves they are automatic they are reflexive they're not reflective they're reflexive and we will always have to watch out for that and make them utterly impermissible so the point is is that you we we can't just say we can't use racism politically anymore it's it's we're not we're no longer in a place where racism exists yes but is racism a problem no and you I've heard you mention that you're impressed that race just doesn't seem to matter to Trump that's right you know I don't think I don't think Donald Trump is getting up in the morning and saying you know what I have to figure out how to keep do a better job of keeping black people down today I don't think that's the case I think when he went to Harlem during his campaign and he went to the black church and he leaned over the podium and he said what have you got to lose he spoke more honestly to black people than any person of his stature in my memory and some some black people heard that what are you gonna keep going back to the party that keeps offering you the very things that keep that oppress you you know there we're due for some changes and hopefully they'll come sooner than than later last question Shelby let me quote Frederick Douglass the great in the former slave in regard this is a 1863 in regard to the colored people there is always more that is benevolent I perceive than just manifested toward us what I ask for the Negro is not benevolence not pity not sympathy but simply justice the American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us do nothing with us your interference is doing us positive injury close quote that's Frederick Douglass speaking to white Americans in 1863 last question what does Shelby Steele say to white Americans today well I couldn't say anything better than that that is that is I'm very well I've quoted that myself abused it I'm a great fan of Frederick Douglass he's the greatest of all time what truth how long is it gonna take us to absorb that message so simply put yet so absolutely so absolutely true and what I would I would say to White's is have a little more faith in yourself do you have ill-will toward people of different races and backgrounds than you obviously know that's something you cannot indulge that's it that's it Shelby Steele author of the classic book the content of our character and most recently of shame how America's past sins have polarized our country thank you thank you very much for being for uncommon knowledge in the Hoover Institution I'm Peter Robinson [Music]

Channel: Hoover Institution

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Keywords: Shelby Steele, multiculturalism, protests, racism, affirmative action, race relations

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Length: 45min 20sec (2720 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 08 2018