The Prescience of Shelby Steele

 

The Prescience of Shelby Steele

https://quillette.com/2020/10/08/the-prescience-of-shelby-steele/?utm_source=Hoover+Daily+Report&utm_campaign=620d7a76ae-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_10_09_07_13&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_21b1edff3c-620d7a76ae-72863337

Excerpt: Shelby Steele is experiencing a revival. For over 30 years, the controversial black American essayist and culture critic has consistently produced some of the most original insights to be found on the precarious issue of race in America and has been met with reactions that range from reverence to revulsion. Usually, it’s one reaction or the other. To his critics, Steele is a race traitor, a contrarian black conservative who makes a living assuaging the guilty consciences of whites at the expense of his own people. To his admirers, he is a lone voice of clarity in the chaos of America’s racial discourse who, at 74 years of age, continues to speak uncomfortable and disconcerting truths to power. But his greatest strength may turn out to be a knack for anticipation. As the social upheavals inspired by America’s “racial reckoning” rage on, Steele’s work now looks prescient—it identified the underlying forces that would eventually shape our explosive cultural moment, and offers a more honest accounting of our past and present.

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The Prescience of Shelby Steele - Quillette

I have long believed that race is a mask through which other human needs manifest themselves. I think we often make race an issue to avoid knowing other things about ourselves. ~Shelby Steele, Seven Days In Bensonhurst Shelby Steele is experiencing a revival. For over 30 years, the controversial bla...

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