Shame: How America's Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country
Written by Shelby Steele
Narrated by Randall Bain
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
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.
Shelby Steele
Shelby Steele is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and Stanford University, and is a contributing editor at Harper's magazine. His many prizes and honors include the National Book Critics Circle Award, an Emmy Award, a Writers Guild Award, and the National Humanities Medal.
More audiobooks from Shelby Steele
White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Related to Shame
Related audiobooks
Facing Reality: Two Truths about Race in America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Black Lies Matter: Why Lies Matter to the Race Grievance Industry Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Smallest Minority: Independent Thinking in the Age of Mob Politics Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The New Right: A Journey to the Fringe of American Politics Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Rise of the New Puritans: Fighting Back Against Progressives’ War on Fun Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Enemy Within: How a Totalitarian Movement is Destroying America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Be the People: A Call to Reclaim America's Faith and Promise Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5America's Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Exit Right: The People Who Left the Left and Reshaped the American Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Color, Communism And Common Sense Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Devil's Pleasure Palace: The Cult of Critical Theory and the Subversion of the West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/525 Lies: Exposing Democrats' Most Dangerous, Seductive, Damnable, Destructive Lies and How to Refute Them Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Souls of Yellow Folk: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Red, White, and Black: Rescuing American History from Revisionists and Race Hustlers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Case Against Socialism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Race to the Bottom: Uncovering the Secret Forces Destroying American Public Education Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Outrage, Inc.: How the Liberal Mob Ruined Science, Journalism, and Hollywood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Slanted: How the News Media Taught Us to Love Censorship and Hate Journalism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Discrimination & Race Relations For You
Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5America's Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row (Oprah's Book Club Summer 2018 Selection) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Cross and the Lynching Tree Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Radical Inclusion: Seven Steps to Help You Create a More Just Workplace, Home, and World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5SUMMARY Of White Fragility: Why It's So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5God Is a Black Woman Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism 2nd Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, 10th Anniversary Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Walk Through Fire: A memoir of love, loss, and triumph Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5On Account of Race: The Supreme Court, White Supremacy, and the Ravaging of African American Voting Rights Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bullies: How the Left's Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences Americans Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Black Klansman: Race, Hate, and the Undercover Investigation of a Lifetime Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Our Hidden Conversations: What Americans Really Think About Race and Identity Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Black Boy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Letter to My Rage: An Evolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The End of Policing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Black Fatigue: How Racism Erodes the Mind, Body, and Spirit Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Say the Right Thing: How to Talk about Identity, Diversity, and Justice Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy: And the Path to a Shared American Future Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Be a Revolution: How Everyday People Are Fighting Oppression and Changing the World—and How You Can, Too Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Survivors of the Clotilda: The Lost Stories of the Last Captives of the American Slave Trade Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Shame
86 ratings13 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Breath of fresh air taking into account what is happening in the world these days
2 people found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This 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.”
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I really wish someone was articulating this message in the mainstream media with the same clarity.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The 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.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Facts 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.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Brilliant insights! Mr Steele explains the underlying forces causing the struggles we now face in our culture.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shelby 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.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An absolute must-read! Very wise, not a word was wasted.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5What a brilliant man Shelby Steel is. This book is very thought provoking and has led me to have some very interesting conversations with friends
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shelby Steele, once agains brings sanity to a world gone mad.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Steele 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.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5If 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. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Excellent. the Author describes how liberalism has contributed to the creation of second class citizens in th 20th century.