Shame: How America's Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country

Written by Shelby Steele

Narrated by Bain Randall

A prominent conservative scholar traces the post-1960s divisions between the Right and the Left, taking aim at liberals' victimization of African Americans and their failure to offer a viable way forward for American society The United States today is hopelessly polarized; the political Right and Left have hardened into rigid and deeply antagonistic camps, preventing any sort of progress. Amid the bickering and inertia, the promise of the 1960s—when we came together as a nation to fight for equality and universal justice—remains unfulfilled.

As Shelby Steele reveals in Shame, the roots of this impasse can be traced back to that decade of protest, when in the act of uncovering and dismantling our national hypocrisies—racism, sexism, militarism—liberals internalized the idea that there was something inauthentic, if not evil, in the American character. Since then, liberalism has been wholly concerned with redeeming modern America from the sins of the past, and has derived its political legitimacy from the premise of a morally bankrupt America. The result has been a half-century of well-intentioned but ineffective social programs, such as Affirmative Action. Steele reveals that not only have these programs failed, but they have in almost every case actively harmed America's minorities and poor. Ultimately, Steele argues, post-60s liberalism has utterly failed to achieve its stated aim: true equality. Liberals, intending to atone for our past sins, have ironically perpetuated the exploitation of this country's least fortunate citizens.

It therefore falls to the Right to defend the American dream. Only by reviving our founding principles of individual freedom and merit-based competition can the fraught legacy of American history be redeemed, and only through freedom can we ever hope to reach equality.

Approaching political polarization from a wholly new perspective, Steele offers a rigorous critique of the failures of liberalism and a cogent argument for the relevance and power of conservatism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Feb 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9781501209697

Shelby Steele

Shelby Steele is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in America, which won the National Book Critics' Circle Award. Steele's most recent book is White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era. He is a contributing editor at Harper's Magazine, and his work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, Newsweek, and The Washington Post. For his work on the PBS television documentary Seven Days in Bensonhurst, he was recognized with both an Emmy Award and a Writers Guild Award. In 2004, President George W. Bush, citing Steele's "learned examinations of race relations and cultural issues, "honored him with the National Humanities Medal. He lives in California.

Reviews for Shame

[Lukasz Kazimierczak · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Breath of fresh air taking into account what is happening in the world these days

[Scribd · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This books gives an honest look at race and American culture. It will make you re-think some of the “truths” many Americans have grown up “knowing.”

[Jesse Vincent · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I really wish someone was articulating this message in the mainstream media with the same clarity.

[mike · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The author makes a strong argument that the political left, fueled by shame or white guilt, hurts the advancement of black people, and it’s actually the political right that offers a path to equality, or at least equality of opportunity.

[Brian Godawa · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Facts and clarity on what the real issues are based on. This book makes both sides look at their part in this racial polarization. Thank you so much for this Thoughtful and helpful book.

[S. Kallin · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Brilliant insights! Mr Steele explains the underlying forces causing the struggles we now face in our culture.

[Todd Postlethwaite · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Shelby Steele is currently the most clear-thinking commentator on racial politics. His analysis borrows from personal experience, psychological insights, and an accurate appraisal of current political realities. It is essential that iconoclastic voices of his reason like his be heard our a time of ideology-driven distortion of the facts.

[Kris · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An absolute must-read! Very wise, not a word was wasted.

[Lee Moss · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What a brilliant man Shelby Steel is. This book is very thought provoking and has led me to have some very interesting conversations with friends

[peter mohan · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Shelby Steele, once agains brings sanity to a world gone mad.

[martybrandon · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Steele gives an eloquent account of his own conversion to conservatism and explains how the various movements in the 60s undermined faith in core American principles such as personal responsibility, merit, and equality of opportunity. He then explains why the current progressivism, with its emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion, will ultimately fail to uplift marginalized people.

His reasoning is based on personal experience and commitment to principles. While I (as a classical liberal) found it persuasive, though some may see the need for supporting data or historical examples. The book offers no solutions to our divide and left me feeling pessimistic for the future. While I was reaffirmed in my faith of equality and merit, I also see why this is likely to be a failed proposition for people that were long disenfranchised and must overcome significant disadvantage.

[bness2 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

If you already believe in Right-wing Conservative ideology, you may like this book, but it is actually not that good a defense of those principles. Steele relies almost exclusively on his own personal experiences (which are actually the good part of the book) and platitudes, with no data of any sort, to skewer Liberal principles and support Conservative ones.

His basic premise is that Liberals, in trying to address racism, are simply acting from a base of collective guilt for America's past sins. He contends that the main work of bringing equality to America for Blacks has been accomplished, and that now Liberals need to just back off and stop trying to do things like affirmative action, school integration and welfare programs, because all these programs have done and will continue to do is keep Blacks inferior and dependent. Steele sees Blacks as being lured into a sense of entitlement based on America's past sins.

In making this thesis, Steele completely ignores the fact that racism is not gone due to the Civil Rights triumphs of the 60s, it has just changed its character. There may no longer be Jim Crow, but the War on Drugs disproportionately targets Blacks and Black communities, which has led to a much larger proportion of Black inmates than their share of the population would predict. He also conveniently ignores the numerous studies showing that Blacks who are in every other way equal with Whites of the same socioeconomic category are far less likely to compete well for a job against White applicants, are far less likely to get a home loan, and are far less competitive in almost any other place you want to measure such. Even if they are more highly qualified than a comparable White applicant, they are still likely to lose a job or university slot to the White person.

With personal heroes such as Ronald Reagan and William F. Buckley, it is no surprise that Steele, like so many Right-wing Conservatives, sees government as the problem, and freedom as the answer. He believes in free markets (whatever that means), a flat tax and apparently little to no government involvement in dealing with issues of racism, sexism and poverty, other than making sure everyone is free to do what they want. All I can say is that his view of Liberals is largely a straw man, and Liberal policies have made progress, and continue to make progress toward solving some of the many social problems our country is still plagued with, and the motivation for Liberalism is not guilt, but rather a moral belief that all people deserve as level a playing field as possible to allow them to succeed.

[rolandb_15 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Excellent. the Author describes how liberalism has contributed to the creation of second class citizens in th 20th century.