About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

26 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 306 (1991)
The Content of Our Character

handle is hein.journals/hcrcl26 and id is 312 raw text is: 306 Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review The Content of Our Character. Shelby Steele. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990. Pp. 175. $15.95, cloth. Two years ago I began reading the essays of Shelby Steele as they appeared in Harpers' and The New York Times Magazine.2 Steele's writings on race relations in America and the African- American experience struck some familiar notes about the empti- ness of racial discourse and the problems that plague African Americans in today's society. Along with this familiarity, however, I found a myopic simplicity in Steele's analysis. He sees the choices available for African-American advancement as limited either to individual achievement or to the isolation of racial group identification. What is conspicuously absent from Steele's analysis is a recognition of the complexities in race relations, complexities that are too often forgotten in the contemporary dialogue. Reading Steele's essays, I am left with the feeling that he can name the problems of race relations with some accuracy, but the solutions he offers seem those of an isolated and distant observer of African- American society. Steele's collection of essays, The Content of Our Character, borrows its title from Martin Luther King Jr.'s monumental I Have a Dream speech.3 Steele's exploration of race relations in America, however, conveys neither the sensitivity nor the insight with which those words were originally spoken. Steele defines his new vision of race in America by using the old, simplistic rhet- oric of self-help and individualism that devalues the continuing significance of race and racism in our society. Like the policy makers who seek to abandon civil rights enforcement, Steele as- serts that the real obstructions to black achievement lie in the under-achievement of the African-American poor and the failure of the social programs upon which they often rely. As advanced ISteele, The Recoloring of Campus Life, 278 HARPER'S 47 (1989); Steele, Ghettoized by Black Unity, 280 HARPER'S 20 (1990). 2 Steele, A Negative Vote on Affirmative Action, N.Y. Times, May 13, 1990, Magazine at 46. 3 Martin Luther King's I, Have a Dream speech was delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 1963. The title of Steele's book came from paragraph 19 of that speech: I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. The full text of the speech is reprinted in A TESTAMENT OF HOPE: THE ESSENTIAL WRITINGS OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. 217 (J. Washington, ed. 1991). [Vol. 26

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most