Shelby Steele – Modern Liberalism and America’s Racial Divide

~A Russel Kirk Lecture at The Heritage Foundation’s B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics ~ Today’s racial divide has far more to do with the peculiar strain of liberalism that grew out of the 1960s than with race itself. Americans know, but find it hard to openly admit, that active racism is no longer the greatest barrier to black and minority advancement. Steele discusses the likelihood that today’s racial disparities are due more to dysfunctions within the black community, and to liberal social policies that have encouraged minorities to trade on past victimization rather than to overcome the damage done by that victimization. Still, the assertion that blacks today remain stymied by white racism is a dogma of modern American liberalism that cannot be questioned. The mere claim of racism has become a potent political tool that conservatives have not found an adequate response to. The cost of this failure is great. Redemption – paying off the nation’s sins – has become the moral imperative of the age and the nation’s racist past has destroyed its moral authority in the eyes of many. View more: https://www.heritage.org/progressivis...