Shelby Steele

Shelby Steele (born January 1, 1946) is an African American author, columnist, documentary film maker, and a Robert J. and Marion E. Oster Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, specializing in the study of race relations, multiculturalism, and affirmative action. In 1990, he received the National Book Critics Circle Award in the general nonfiction category for his book The Content of Our Character.

Early life and education

Steele was born in Chicago to a black father and a white mother. His father, Shelby Sr., a truck driver, met his mother, Ruth, a social worker, while working for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). His twin brother is Claude Steele, who is currently Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost at UC Berkeley, and formerly dean of the School of Education at Stanford University.

Steele received a B.A. in political science from Coe College, an M.A. in sociology from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Utah. Steele met his wife, Rita, during his junior year at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where he was one of 18 black students in his class. Steele was active in SCOPE, a group linked to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and he met Rita at an activist meeting. In 1968, Steele graduated from Coe and went on to earn his master's degree in sociology from Southern Illinois University–Edwardsville. Steele attended the University of Utah, where he taught black literature and studied for his Ph.D. After earning a Ph.D. in English in 1974, Steele was offered a tenured position at the university but turned it down owing to hostility encountered as part of an interracial couple in Utah. Steele accepted a position at San Jose State University as a professor of English literature, teaching there from 1974 to 1991.

White guilt

White guilt is the individual or collective guilt felt by some white people for harm resulting from racist treatment of ethnic minorities by whites both historically and currently. White guilt has been described as one of the psychosocial costs of racism for white individuals along with empathy (sadness and anger) for victims of racism and fear of non-whites.

It can be characterized as a strong, emotional feeling of direct responsibility for the unequal circumstances of ethnic minorities living in historically and culturally European nations, or the Western world largely due to historical exclusion of non-whites from mainstream white society. Discomfort when talking about issues involving race is also a common characteristic of white guilt.

Judith Katz, the author of the 1978 publication White Awareness: Handbook for Anti-Racism Training, is critical of what she calls self-indulgent white guilt fixations. Her concerns about white guilt led her to move from black-white group encounters to all-white groups in her anti-racism training. She also avoided using non-white people to re-educate whites, she said, because she found that this led whites to focus on getting acceptance and forgiveness rather than changing their own actions or beliefs.

Shelby

Shelby may refer to:

People

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In the United States

In Antarctica

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Steele

Steele may refer to:

Places

People

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Liberalism in the United States

Liberalism in the United States is a broad political philosophy centered on the unalienable rights of the individual. The fundamental liberal ideals of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion for all belief systems, and the separation of church and state, right to due process, and equality under the law are widely accepted as a common foundation across the spectrum of liberal thought.

Modern liberalism in the United States includes issues such as same-sex marriage, voting rights for all adult citizens, civil rights, environmental justice, and government protection of freedom from want. National social services such as: equal education opportunities; access to health care; and transportation infrastructure are intended to meet the responsibility to "promote the general welfare" of all citizens. Some American liberals, who call themselves classical liberals, fiscal conservatives, or libertarians, support fundamental liberal ideals but disagree with modern liberal thought, holding that economic freedom is more important than equality, and that providing for the general welfare exceeds the legitimate role of government