Shelby Steele

"For many on the left a hateful anti-Americanism has become a self-congratulatory lifestyle."

"The Achilles’ heel of the left has been its dependence on menace for power. Think of all the things it can ask for in the name of fighting menaces like “systemic racism” and “structural inequality.” B…"

"he left gets power from fighting white evil, not black despair. Today’s left lacks worthy menaces to fight. It is driven to find a replacement for racism, some sweeping historical wrongdoing that mora…"

"The great ingenuity of interventions like affirmative action has not been that they give Americans a way to identify with the struggle of blacks, but that they give them a way to identify with racial …"

"There is a price to be paid even for fellow-traveling with a racial identity as politicized and demanding as today's black identity. This identity wants to take over a greater proportion of the self t…"

"hy are there no Martin Luther Kings around today? I think one reason is that there are no black leaders willing to resist the seductions of racial power, or to make the sacrifices moral power requires…"

"hough fear always seeks a thousand justifications, none is ever good enough, and the problems we run from only remain to haunt us."

"he left, whose existence is threatened by the diminishment of racial oppression. The left’s unspoken terror is that racism is no longer menacing enough to support its own power. The great crisis for t…"