Shelby Steele is old enough (71) to have grown up with and experienced customary and enforced discrimination against blacks and the civil rights tumult of the sixties as a young man. With genuine insight, Steele has focused on the no longer justified sense of victimization among blacks as fostering a disabling sense of helplessness and resentment against whites. He refers to himself as a “black conservative” and opposes affirmative action.
I know.
And I know that Shelby Steele is one of the Good Guys. He gets it.
But the article says he was not "born free" and this bothers me. A lot. Over half a million Americans were casualties in a huge war that freed the slaves over 150 years ago.
Shelby Steele was born free. There may be other things to talks about ("I remember segregated drinking fountains ...") but it bothers me when someone says "I was not born free". This is America. You were born free. You have a responsibility to make something of yourself. Shelby Steele has made something of himself. But a lot of others have not -- because "the Man" is keeping them down. It's a stupid way of thinking.