Embassy Events 2003
Author Shelby Steele in Poland Discusses U.S. Race Relations
17-21 February 2003 |
|
Ask Shelby Steele about racism in America, and the answer could be
surprising: "Racism in the United States today is not significant at
all. It is no longer a barrier to advancement of blacks and other
minorities in American life at all. It is simply not there. Many, many
other things are barriers, but racism is no longer one of them. We
have, I think, gone farther than any other human society in containing
racism as a source of oppression."
As part of Black History
Month, the U.S. Embassy invited Shelby Steele to speak to various
audiences in Warsaw and Krakow February 17-21. His message: The United
States is one of the most open societies in the history of the world
for people of all races. Steele says America has the capacity to
examine itself in a moral way, recognize the past and take steps to
make up for past injustices. His view challenges the established view
"official America" has of race, he says, but the American public at
large is open to a new perspective on race relations.
According
to Steele, the U.S. civil rights struggle led by Dr. Martin Luther King
was a movement for individual rights and responsibilities. He says it
was in harmony with American traditions of individualism, liberty and
fairness, and that's why it was so successful. Unfortunately, Steele
notes, its character began to change in the late 1960s. Instead of
working to improve the prosperity and competitiveness of blacks so that
they could take their rightful places in society, Steele believes the
movement focused more on black demands and white guilt.
Steele
maintains it was expedient for both blacks and whites to give in to
demands for preferences and group rights rather than address the
difficult task of developing the capabilities of individuals. He
believes society lowered its expectations for blacks and sought
compensation through racial quotas. This had the pernicious effect of
contributing little to overall prosperity, he says, while solidifying a
self-destructive black group identity and contributed to the statistics
on illegitimate births, poverty levels, dropout rates, and crime.
"I
think that what government can do to alleviate, to help end poverty in
America, is be more honest to people who suffer from poverty by asking
them to be responsible. Responsibility is power in itself. In being
responsible you give yourself the opportunity to move out of poverty,
to educate yourself, to maintain your family life, to maintain
institutions within your community, and so forth, that will end poverty
in time."
In order to break this pattern, Steele contends blacks
and whites have to recognize that racial problems cannot be solved by
government fiat or special treatment. Racism is no longer a significant
impediment to anyone's progress, he says, but the legacy of racism is,
because people carry with them the cultural habits of slavery. To
change this, he says individuals must make choices about fundamental
aspects of life such as child-rearing and commitment to education.
His
conclusion: Both blacks and whites are Americans, with fundamentally
the same values, and together they can create a better future. "We have
a common ground, a common language of values to build on. And so I
think that when we get away from those values, as we too often do, they
save us every time. We have something to return to that we share in
common. And so that's where I see the hope being."
