Shelby Steele
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This paper examines Shelby Steele's essay collection, The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in America. Steele contemplates the meaning of being black in America. He looks at the pressures that race puts on all citizens, but he is especially concerned with the black perspective. His own position as a successful, middle-class black man gives him interesting insights in the challenges of being black and some of the reasons why, in many ways, blacks in general are worse off than before the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He contemplates factors including race, class, black culture, and the effects of political policies, such as affirmative action. His book is an ultimate call to individual responsibility and acceptance of universal values in order for the individual to achieve his or her full potential. The title, The Content of Our Character, is drawn from Martin Luther King, Jr.'s most famous speech and one of its best-known lines: "I have a dream that one day my children will be known for the content of their character, rather than the color of their skin." Steele chooses this reference deliberately in choosing his title, and purposely turns into "our character." He is interested in examining race in ways that are still difficult to talk about in American society. Steele began writing the collection of essays that makes up the book as a way to try to understand his feelings about the issue and his own reactions as a middle-class black man.
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ork, Steele contends, because it implies that those it is helping are deficient in some way.
He contends that public policies ought to address the real problems that blacks face, including teaching them to handle independence and individuality. He writes, "When the Civil Rights Bill was passed, we were a people with very little experience of real freedom . . . Freedom is stressful, difficult, and frightening" (68). Many blacks, faced with the terrifying challenge of making their own choices, choose easier paths and less painful challenges.
Steele focuses one essay on the "anti-self," "the unseen agent of low self-esteem" (41). He observes that numerous social circumstances encourage the anti-self to sabotage black efforts. Whites, and human beings of all ethnicities, also face daily struggles with the anti-self. However, blacks have an especially difficult battle because the color of their skin sets them apart from others more strikingly than with any other racial group. Their blackness serves as a regular reminder that they are different. Although most of American society, including some rather significant laws and public policies, asserts that all people are equal and entitled to equal rights and privileges, being
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Approximate Word count = 1593
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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