Shelby Steele Pushing All the Buttons: Equating Quotas With Goals Home Edition

The author of the best-selling book "The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in America" is hailed by admirers as a breath of fresh air in a national racial discussion grown stale. To many others-those he labels the "civil-rights orthodoxy"-he is just another in a long...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Los Angeles times
Main Author Clayton, Janet
Format Newspaper Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, Calif Los Angeles Times Communications LLC 13.01.1991
Subjects
SAN JOSE
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Summary:The author of the best-selling book "The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in America" is hailed by admirers as a breath of fresh air in a national racial discussion grown stale. To many others-those he labels the "civil-rights orthodoxy"-he is just another in a long line of white-anointed black mouthpieces. In his pointed attacks on affirmative action, he casually interchanges that term with the loaded "quota," without a blink. This, during a time when "quotas" are becoming a hot-button issue for the national GOP to sway white Democrats. Put all those explosive elements together-topic, timing and messenger-and it's no wonder that the political spotlight is on the no-longer-obscure English professor from San Jose State University. [Shelby Steele] says he does not particularly enjoy the spotlight. If not, he has at least primed himself for it. He is everywhere-quoted in news stories, cited by national columnists, guest-speaking on college campuses. He can relax and talk colorfully with a few expletives deleted, and then look away a moment later, appropriately pensive for a photographer. Steele knows his moment is now and he will not be ignored. The book is the work of a lifetime, he says defiantly, and people "are not going to get away from it." Or him. A: Everybody wants to play this equality game. "If you're gonna hit blacks, hit whites." That's just silly racial politics. Who's got the bigger problem? Black people do. They're the ones who are suffering . . . . It's not self-created. Obviously, whites played a part in it. Obviously whites have a responsibility to help us get out of it. But who's got the goddamn problem when you go home at night? We do. Nobody else is gonna solve our problems . . . .
ISSN:0458-3035