Shelby Steele

Snob fact: For Senate Michael Steele was endorsed by Mike Tyson and Don King. Tyson is the ex-husband of Steele's sister. All this week, and all the next, The Black Snob is taking a look at the views of black conservatives on Barack Obama. We’re examining who likes him, who doesn’t. Who will vote for him and who won’t. So far we’ve looked at the views of Amy Holmes , Condoleezza Rice , Alan Keyes , Colin Powell , Armstrong Williams and more. Republican Michael Steele was at one point the...Read Full Story

Conservative author Shelby Steele. Photo from Canada's National Post. This is part of a black conservatives on Obama series at The Black Snob. Previous entries were done on Amy Holmes , Condoleezza Rice , and Ward Connerly . Shelby Steele has always been fascinating to me. On one hand I find his views interesting . On the other hand I feel like his views on race are severely stunted. Like his opinions on anti-intellectualism in black culture. I don’t think black people have cornered the...Read Full Story

Almost two months ago I wrote a lengthy series on black conservatives and Barack Obama's candidacy. I wondered if the lure of a historic presidency would supersede their diverging political beliefs. If it would cause black politicos to put their differences aside and chose racial solidarity in the face of historic adversity over their hard-won, independent beliefs. Or would the desire to see a black president be so strong that it would out-weigh their own political ideologies? For some it...Read Full Story

I’ve been wondering what Shelby Steele , a research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institute, would say next about President Obama. A conservative, Steele has written several good books about race in America. As a man of mixed race in the same way as Obama, Steele has a unique vantage point from which to talk about Obama’s promise and how he does his job. Steele has an article out in the WSJ . And, as usual, it is worth reading in its entirety. I’ll include a few bits here. Steele begins by...Read Full Story

Conservative author Shelby Steele in the Washington Post opinion section tackled the ever-controversial topic of affirmative action and persistent racial inequality in the article “Affirmative Action Is Just a Distraction.” In a nutshell, he argues that persistent racial inequality today between whites and African Americans is primarily a result of black underdevelopment rather than racism. Today's "black" problem is underdevelopment, not discrimination. Success in modernity will demand...Read Full Story

Steele's Arguments Shelby Steele has written an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal which purports to explain why the Republican Party cannot make inroads among persons of color. According to Steele, conservatives (whom Steele conflates with Republicans) do not appeal to people of color because Democrats have seduced them with a mutated form of liberalism that rejects individualism and replaces it with a politics of redemption. Steele argues that "redemptive liberalism" attracts persons of...Read Full Story

Hoover Institution Stanford, CA Nov 11th, 2008 Shelby Steele asserts that Barack Obama won the presidential election by successfully basing his candidacy on race, "Obama's special charisma … always came … from the racial idealism he embodied. … This was his only true political originality." Steele holds that whites voted less for real "change" than for documentation of a change that has already occurred in race relations in America. But will four or eight years of Barack Obama free whites...Read Full Story

Black Star News interviewed Republican intellectual and best-selling author Shelby Steele. He spoke on various issues including Barack Obama, Affirmative Action, segregration, his biracial experience, and some of him written work. On Obama's accent: " BSN: What I’m curious about Obama is, where did he get his Black accent, if he wasn’t raised around Black people, but by a white mother from Kansas? Does his voice sound authentic or adopted to you? I figured you might have an insight about...Read Full Story

2008 Presidential Elections are quickly coming to a close and all current political polls show a very interesting race but one in which John McCain seems to be losing. But, let us not forget that most people thought that Al Gore won too and look what happened. The point is that things are going to get dirty and that’s for sure. Just today, pill-popping, drug addict and radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh said that General Colin Powell’s endorsement of Senator Obama was solely because of race...Read Full Story

Regarding the article “Obama’s post-racial promise” by Shelby Steele (a self-described Black Conservative) that appeared in the Los Angeles Times as an Op-Ed piece on Nov. 5, 2008, I have the following remarks: __________ STEELE: Barack Obama seduced whites with a vision of their racial innocence precisely to coerce them into acting out of a racial motivation. RA: This is a rather omniscient declaration. Exactly how does Steele know such a thing? Answer: He doesn’t. In order for...Read Full Story