Book Review: White Guilt

A book review of a book you can get here from Amazon.

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White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era

Speaking the language of moralism, individual freedom and responsibility, contrarian cultural critic Steele builds on ideas he earlier articulated in his National Book Critics Circle Award–winner The Content of Our Character (1990). Today's problem, Steele forcefully argues, is not black oppression, but white guilt, a loose term that encompasses both an attempt by whites to regain the moral authority they lost after the Civil Rights Movement, and black contempt toward "Uncle Tom" complicity with white hegemony, resulting in a shirking of personal accountability. Steele makes a passionate case against the "Faustian bargain" he perceives on the left: "we'll throw you a bone like affirmative action if you'll just let us reduce you to your race so we can take moral authority for 'helping' you."

I enjoyed this book and gave my rating for the following reasons:

1. It's short and to the point. The author tells us what we need to know and skillfully encapsulates pivotal events that occured during a short period of time and which lead us into the reality we face today. I love books like that.

2. The author establishes his credibility by weaving a narrative of his life with the development of his thesis. This isn't a book that was written by a person who just read a lot of books in order to write a book.

3. Accessable writing style. It's like the author is sitting across the table having coffee with you and telling you a story. Shelby Steele comes across as a man of unusual wisdom. It would be great to see him in person some day.

4. This book tells a truth that is in line with my personal life experience. Racism has never gone away. Somewhere back in the 1960's it morphed from one form to another. From "old school" racism that consisted of segregating blacks and making them responsible for themselves while denying them access to jobs, loans, etc. to "white guilt" motivated racism which consists of rigging outcomes to be equal by lowering standards for blacks. This is all just fine with guilty white liberals as long as they can claim moral authority in return for providing the equal result for the blacks they've lowered standards for.

Anyway, this is a short and well written book that'll perhaps make you think of things in a way you never have before. Five stars!