A Dream Deferred : The Second Betrayal of Black Freedom in America

Rating:
Summary: Read this book - a great way to celebrate ML King Day
Review: "A Dream Deferred" is imperative reading for anyone wrestling with the issue of the justice of racial preferences. While Steele believes that racial preferences defy the best democratic principles of our country, this book reaches more profoundly than that argument. Steele offers a powerful analysis of why racial politics remain so compelling, even as their practical effect is to work against their purported goal of freedom and equality. He argues that today's racial politics are the product of a "redemptive liberalism" born in the 1960's out of white America's newfound shame and desperate need to expiate it. This redemptive liberalism kindled a "grievance elite", with whom they struck the bargain of racial preferences, simultaneously providing redemption (largely symbolic) for white America and power (largely symbolic) for the grievance elite. Unfortunately, the policies arising from this bargain are necessarily iconographic rather than truly effective. Worse than that, the dynamics of the resulting racial politics put the appearance of racial virtue at such a premium that principles are sacrificed (the very principles that could foster an actual solution), and critics are a priori denied any moral authority to criticize. Groups formed to address once-legitimate grievances too easily become institutions whose continued self-interest depends on suppressing their members as individuals, and in perpetuating the grievances they are meant to address. Along the way, Steele suggests some interesting parallels to the rise of Soviet communism and Nazi Germany, and makes some interesting distinctions between FDR-style liberal politics and post-sixties liberal politics. He ultimately broadens his analysis to find that the success of racial identity politics has inspired the spread of a whole market in redemption for any group that can claim to be aggrieved. This enlightening diagnosis rings all too true.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful and nuanced essays on an important subject
Review: "Discussions about race" is almost an oxymoron. The positions most people hold are already fixed and there isn't much of the ability to hear the other side that is required to have a true discussion. Too often we simply look for writings and speeches that support our pre-existing notions, praise them as we find them, and think to ourselves, "If only the other side would just see as clearly as I and this author do this problem would not exist!" Or we find an author with whom we disagree and attack him so fiercely because we somehow feel that if we can debase the author we can debase the view with which we disagree.

Shelby Steele has been misused in both those ways. He has chosen a hard road because he writes sincere, thoughtful, and passionate essays that do not merely support or oppose widely held beliefs. Yes, he is attacked as if he were merely a water carrier for the GOP or praised as if all he were about were attacking affirmative action. He is far more subtle than this! Please take the time to read him carefully because there is so much more to gain from his writing, whether or not you end up agreeing with him.

This book consists of one very long and three shorter essays. I hate to summarize the ideas in the essay because they are more thoughtful than any summary I can give and the mere mention of the subjects involved will likely provoke a polarized response to a position already held. What I will say is that if you force yourself to put aside your already firmly held views ad read these wonderful essays with an open mind, you can find insights that can move you to new thinking and attitudes.

The best advice I can give you is to look for how he is challenging your presently held views rather than only noticing how he is challenging those with whom you already disagree. No matter which part of the political spectrum you currently inhabit, you will find a great deal of challenging and edifying writing here that will provide very nutritious food for thought on this important and sadly painful topic.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful and nuanced essays on an important subject
Review: "Discussions about race" is almost an oxymoron. The positions most people hold are already fixed and there isn't much of the ability to hear the other side that is required to have a true discussion. Too often we simply look for writings and speeches that support our pre-existing notions, praise them as we find them, and think to ourselves, "If only the other side would just see as clearly as I and this author do this problem would not exist!" Or we find an author with whom we disagree and attack him so fiercely because we somehow feel that if we can debase the author we can debase the view with which we disagree.

Shelby Steele has been misused in both those ways. He has chosen a hard road because he writes sincere, thoughtful, and passionate essays that do not merely support or oppose widely held beliefs. Yes, he is attacked as if he were merely a water carrier for the GOP or praised as if all he were about were attacking affirmative action. He is far more subtle than this! Please take the time to read him carefully because there is so much more to gain from his writing, whether or not you end up agreeing with him.

This book consists of one very long and three shorter essays. I hate to summarize the ideas in the essay because they are more thoughtful than any summary I can give and the mere mention of the subjects involved will likely provoke a polarized response to a position already held. What I will say is that if you force yourself to put aside your already firmly held views ad read these wonderful essays with an open mind, you can find insights that can move you to new thinking and attitudes.

The best advice I can give you is to look for how he is challenging your presently held views rather than only noticing how he is challenging those with whom you already disagree. No matter which part of the political spectrum you currently inhabit, you will find a great deal of challenging and edifying writing here that will provide very nutritious food for thought on this important and sadly painful topic.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant criticism but preaching to the choir
Review: I agree heartily with Shelby Steele that black America has been forced into a detour by the set-aside culture. However, Steele as of now couches his arguments in a way that will only preach to the converted, when in fact he could have wider influence. Steele appears to consider black leaders' addiction to set-asides as a "political ploy" when in fact it is based on a genuine misconception that racism is a decisive hindrance to all black lives. Many black readers, in response to Steele's points about democracy and incentive and contingency, consider such things irrelevant in the face of Rodney King, profiling, and the myth that most black people are poor. As it happens, Steele's points are valid even in the face of these things, but I wish he would write a third book where he took them by the horns. Otherwise, people he might have some impact on are more likely to reject him as not knowing "what's really going down".

Rating:
Summary: Good ideas, but not well supported.
Review: I agree with Steele's main point: that US society's only real motive in supporing affirmative action (and other policies that seek structural solutions to structural problems) is not authentic concern for American blacks, but merely trying to assuage a sense of guilt.

This is a great start, and I'm very eager to see this interesting idea developed! But unfortunately Steele takes it nowhere fast. In the end it just turns into bad writing based on plain old unexamined assumptions, instead of reasoned argumentation and support. Provocative ideas like this deserve better.

The main problem is the author simply assumes not that his POSITION is right and others' POSITIONS are wrong; but that HE is right and anyone else is wrong. But he refute their ideas, he has to at leasten to them for a minute; and he doesn't. Instead, it turns into really silly double standards of the sort: I am reasoned, THEY are fuzzy-headed; I uphold principles, THEY are beholden to superficialities; I voice my objections, THEY mindlessly repeat slogans; I am responsible for my freedom and agency, THEY are all cowed and cowardly. I am strident; and they resent that! And so on, and so forth, until you don't know which is worse -- that, or his interminable verbal benders where he seems intent on constructing as many sentences as possible entirely out of abstract nouns. (Try the Shelby Steele drinking game: take a drink for every sentence including any three of the words "freedom", "merit", "virtue", "ulteriority", or "responsbility". Double-score for for "moral accountability".)

Now, some writers just have their quirks, but Steele's bad habits just go on and on until they crowd out absolutely everything else. He overuses scare quotes. He charges ahead with weird generalizations that just leave you scratching your head: "Thus kitsch is always an invitation to a consoling sense of superiority." It... it is? Always? Invitation? What? "Ersatz virtue will thrive precisely to protect us from the risk of being stigmatized that real virtue always entails." It does? "'Diversity' and 'multiculturalism' have no substance as ideas except where they connote perfection exactly where America was shameful." I try to figure out what this means, but I can't get past the scare quotes and the nebulous abstract nouns and the assertion of a negative. Any decent editor would have said "Shelby, can you just say what you mean here?". But his publisher apparently didn't think he was worth a decent editor.

Steele seems happiest when the abstract nouns he's constellating are nice short words that gloss over the grey areas of American life: upholding educational "standards" glosses over the possiblity that one's SAT score may be a measure of nothing more "virtuous" than one's ability to score well on the SAT; "responsibility" and "individuality" and even "freedom" are clean-cut concepts only in a world where everyone has equal access to credit, education, and personal or family wealth. But he treats these all as absolutes; you're free, or you're not. You're responsible, or not. The dualisms pile up.

And the grandest dualism of all is his view of American ethnicity: black people, and those white people who feel guilty about those horrible things they did to black people, what with national original sin and whatnot. With this laughably minimalist view as the starting point, it's no wonder he strains to fill 180 pages. Life is so simple when you can see only two colors.

And all the while I had the nagging feeling that if Steele'd bothered to have a look at the relationship between Native Americans and white America's guilt manifest thru government, he'd have a much broader and deeper history to test his abstract generalizations against. But why ruin a good theory with bothersome data, especially complicated data with lots of grey areas? But THAT could have made for a book worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: Part II of CONTENT OF OUR CHARACTER
Review: If you read THE CONTENT OF OUR CHARACTER, you're likely to think that A DREAM DEFERRED is published by the Department of Redundancy Department. Yes, there is no doubt that A DREAM DEFERRED is an elaboration of THE CONTENT OF OUR CHARACTER. However, I for one, have not tired of Steele's central thesis. In addition, Steele is a brilliant writer. I never tire of good writing.

A DREAM DEFERRED reminds me of a rather poignant experience I had with an Ohio State University doctoral student. Three of us were sitting together over some coffee. Two of us were white male graduates, while the third was a Native American graduate student. He lamented the racial discrimination he faced with one particular professor. My colleague and I were quite distressed with the comments from this young man. We had some power and could do something about this unsavory situation. With some prodding, the young man eventually told us who the professor was. Upon hearing the name, puzzlement came over our faces, then a smirk. We were both familiar with the professor in question. He was terse, pompous and arrogant - all common characteristics of doctoral faculty. However, he was NOT a racist. We were able to convince the young man that his experience was not racially motivated but rather the professor was simply a jerk. No, he wasn't a racist; he merely treated everyone like trash.

A DREAM DEFERRED provides the basis for whites to understand the predicament faced by many minorities. They have difficulty distinguishing between social activities that are racially motivated and social activities that emerge as stressful but have no elements of racial bias. Steele suggests that whites must stand firm. Funny thing is -- Steele is well aware that most white will not follow his directions. African Americans must take the lead.

Rating:
Summary: A MANIFESTO FOR ELIMINATING THE WELFARE STATE
Review: Mr. Steele makes an eloquent case that "redemptive liberalism," designed not to actually correct problems but to assuage guilt for past sins, has not solved any of the problems of the black underclass, and in fact, is simply a form of lip service used by liberals and black power mongers. He makes clear, and argues persuasively, that "individual rights," not "group rights" are what made this country great and what the Constitution guaranteed and was designed to protect. (Readers of Ayn Rand's works will recognize the same championing of the individual and individual rights in Mr. Steele's book). I believe the depth of his arguments make a factual, logical, objective, and unemotional debate against his position extremely difficult. If a white author had written this book he or she would have be attacked, dismissed, and verbally lynched by the liberals and black power elite. Mr. Steele defines himself as a "black conservative," which most people would consider an oxymoron. The fact that he is a black man, and therefore could not possibly be considered a racist (as a white person writing exactly the same words would be) probably keeps the liberal media, liberal politicians, and the black power elite from mounting an attack on his work...which in turn simply reinforces his arguments!

I believe so strongly in the conclusions of this book that I am seriously considering sending a copy to every Senator and Congressman in the United States. It's that good and it's that important...for all of us.

Rating:
Summary: A courageous tome from a courageous writer.
Review: Steele's premise in this book is that the social programs of the left are engineered by White liberals who are not truly interested in the welfare of African Americans, but have as their motive the redemption of America's shameful history of racism and segregation.

An interesting theory, and a perhaps a valid one. The problem with the book, however, is that Steele has about enough material to fill a long essay. By the time you've gotten to the end of the 180 pages of A Dream Deferred you will have read the theory above (which I expressed in about forty words) two or three dozen times. Enough, already.

Shelby does not do a stellar job in developing this idea, but it's a good idea nonetheless. If you approach it with an open mind the premise rings very true. Listen to the rhetoric of many White liberals and it will strike an objective listener as a show to demonstrate the speaker's "humanity" rather than a true concern for the issue at hand.

Okay, in the previous paragraph I didn't develop this thought and didn't back my suspicion with any evidence, empirical or otherwise. The problem is that in A Dream Deferred, Steele doesn't, either - and he has 180 pages to work with! I just have a few lines of this amazon.com review.

An unsatisfying work. Hopefully someone will come along and do a more thorough job of developing what, in my opinion, has the potential to be a solid theory.

Rating:
Summary: Reawakening the Dream....
Review: This morning, sometime around three or four AM, I woke up thinking about Shelby Steele's A Dream Deferred. I read it a number of months ago and have been wanting to write a brief note about it. There are so few intelligent, reasonable, sane voices speaking about racial matters in America I feel it as a duty to try to acknowledge those who are so scorned by the forces of both white and black extremist liberalism. The thought that impelled me out of bed was that I owe it to my memory of the best friend I've ever had in my life, who happened to be black, long deceased and sorely missed. So I struggle for words, knowing I will never meet that high mark.

Others may criticize Mr. Steele for emphasizing this and underplaying that, but I want to praise his thoughtful probing of the dynamics of affirmative action and how it assuages white guilt while keeping some black people from developing their highest potential. As a former college English instructor, I occasionally had minority students who were accustomed to being handed A's and were shocked to receive C's. Repeated experience convinced me that affirmative action was part of the problem. They lacked the self-discipline and responsibility that Steele extolls: "Very often those who educate poor blacks feel excused from the responsibilities of high expectations and academic rigor by the very conditions that make such expectations mandatory."

My students had had years of misguided low expectations from both teachers and administrators and had ultimately internalized them. I recall one student telling me he had to have a grade higher than a C. When I responded that he should read the Harbrace Handbook from cover to cover and do as many of the exercises as possible, he stared at me in disbelief. I encouraged him to be gentle with himself and to expect to retain only perhaps sixty to eighty percent of his study but that with time and continual effort he would achieve a more sophisticated level of literacy. He reported me to the department chair, who, it will surprise no one informed about academic realities, accused me of all manner of racism and student abuse. The culmination of many such incidents, with both black and white students, led me ultimately to resign from teaching at Oakland University.

Having started as a TA in the early 1980s when most students in writing classes received the C they deserved, I found it difficult to hand out largely all B's, while the pressure for all A's sent me looking for another way to make a living so as not to participate in the fraud of "higher" education. Misguided white guilt only complicates matters for serious, capable minority students and makes it all the more unlikely they'll be called upon to strive to develop their abilities to the highest degree possible.. Steele perceptively touches on how university administrators are exacerbating this decline.

On another note, Steele states "to be human is to be responsible" and profoundly probes the intricacies of human motivation, responsibility, and the ways in which affirmative action and the thinking of politically correct race elites erode individual agency:

"Race should *never* play a role in social reform for many reasons, not least of which is that it is *always* used to help people avoid full agency for their fate. It always transforms the responsibility that free minorities should carry into a commodity that others will use for their own moral power. Race absolutely corrupts those who use it for redemption and absolutely weakens those who use it for advancement" (112).

To all of which I say, "amen." I hope, indeed struggle to hope, that men like Shelby Steele, Ward Connerly, Thomas Sowell, David Horowitz and others will find the resources to continue to set a new course from the lamentable situation that plagues race relations today, especially in the university, though the struggle against patronizing white guilt for true individual responsibility and achievement exists in all walks of life. It seems to me that it is a struggle that must be fought primarily by intelligent blacks and minorities who have had enough of the insult of affirmative action to stand up and fight for the unquestionable respect and honor they so rightly deserve and merit.

Rating:
Summary: La La Land
Review: To confirm Shelby Steele's citizenship in La La Land, turn to page 184 and read, ". . . in opting for integration (which Steele sees as our salvation), a citizen denies his or her impulse to use our most arbitrary characteristics - race, ethnicity, gender, sexual preference - as the basis for identity." Arbitrary? Really? And again, "Integration . . . is a fundamental absence of arbitrary barriers to freedom." Someone from another Land once said, "Freedom is what you have left when you have nothing else." So, I guess if you give up your race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual preference, then you would have nothing else. If that is what Freedom is, then I don't want it . . .and I don't think Steele does either, if he stops to think about it. But, then, thinking is not Steele's strong suite.

If you insist on reading this book, please be warned. After reading "America's racial shame" and "America's shameful past" (read White for America) for the hundredth time, you may be tempted to shout at the author, "Hey, wait a minute! How about some equal time? How about some Africa's shame (read Black for Africa)? If redemptive liberalism is so bad, try finding the descendents of the Black Tribal Chiefs who sold your ancestors down the river. Get some redemption from them. All you'll get is your body handed to you, one part at a time." But he wouldn't hear you . . . even if he sat next to you in the same room.

I looked in vain for good words such as, "excellence, sacrifice, discipline," but they are as scarce in this book as virgins in a whorehouse. Instead, we have the words of an Ivy League-trained black woman journalist: "I don't think we can tell the story of our victimization enough." Further, "Well, obviously we have a different time schedule as to when white people ought to be let off the hook." Surely they couldn't be using a code word for bell hooks of "killing rage" fame? bell hooks who fantasizes about knifing the white male in the airline seat next to her? Surely not her. Must be some other hooks that whites are to be kept on.

The First Betrayal of Black Freedom in America was when Whites enslaved Blacks. The Second Betrayal was when Whites responded to the Civil Rights Movement by becoming redemptive liberals. You'll see that phrase a lot throughout the book. You will also see words that Steele needs to make his arguments: Indirection, Ulteriorality, Aresponsible.

I know comparisons are odious, but I'll make one anyway. Compared with Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele is a midget. I can learn something every time I read Sowell. I get Indexes and Bibliographies and Notes. I get a world wide view of problems and attempted solutions through time from a widely read and traveled professional. I get well integrated arguments and the feeling that solutions can be found that actually fit in this world. From Steele, I get the impression of a person caught in a time warp. Sometime when he was walking the picket line during the Civil Rights Movement, he walked through a rip in the Time Continuum. He is still walking that picket line - around and around and around holding a sign, watching his own feet fall, feeling the days go by like years.