Word: guilts
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This historical fumble was merely an intellectual hors d'oeuvres. The real meat of the evening came with the presentation of Steele's theories. The crux of the argument was that: 1) White Americans live with perpetual guilt about their history as oppressors during the Antebellum period; 2) African-Americans exploit these latent feelings by claiming that white oppression is the primary social factor in explaining their lack of development; 3) Taken together points one and two lead to the development of policies of preference (affirmative action); 4) The keys to increased development for African-Americans are increased educational commitment...
These arguments have substantial room for improvement. It is difficult to believe that the majority of white Americans have latent guilt feelings about their past collective experience as oppressors. As a political scientist, I find it very difficult to accept social theories based on attitudes that are not accompanied by at least some minimal survey of the population of interest. Thus, if he wants to continue to make such claims, he must role up his sleeves and get out in the field...
...argument about policies of preference for African-Americans is too simplistic. If this interplay of guilt and exaggeration does lead to preferential policies, then why is that so-called "affirmative action" limited to only a small percentage of the African-American population? Is Steele maintaining that only white elites suffer from this latent guilt and only African-American are masters of over-emphasis for political and economic gains? If this political culture truly exists and is as easy to exploit as he claimed, why haven't the masses of African-Americans struggling to survive mobilized to take advantage of this...
...speech was his claim that African-Americans needed an honest assessment of their capabilities from white Americans. It was baffling to hear an advocate of self-help doctrine offer a paternalistic relationship with whites as a crucial variable in development. Moreover, how can whites who are plagued by latent guilt break that cycle and offer African-Americans and honest assessment of their capabilities? Furthermore, the history of race relations in American society demonstrates how whites, when given the chance to assess the collective capabilities of this group, have rarely provided "an honest account." The most important document in the history...
...when, after leaving her family and her village, she arrives in Saigon to be the servant girl in a middle-class home. Here the mother still mourns the death of her daughter, who would have been Mui's age. The father luxuriates in a torpid guilt. Upstairs Grandma intones prayers for the family dead. Downstairs the couple's three boys make mischief. The youngest taunts Mui with merciless glee; he is just about the only sign of wayward life in this house-and-garden mausoleum...