To this day it is all but impossible for me to actually stop and think of my parents as white and black or to think of myself, therefore, as half and half.
Shelby SteeleRead
I think we have come to a place in black America, sadly from my point of view, where we have once again begun to rely on our history of victimization as our primary source of power to wield within society.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote discusses how some individuals in black America may be using their history of victimization as a means to gain power in society.
In this quote, Shelby Steele reflects on a perceived shift in the mindset of black America, suggesting that reliance on historical grievances has become a predominant strategy for empowerment. He posits that rather than seeking strength and agency from individual accomplishments or aspirations, there is a troubling trend towards emphasizing past victimization as the basis for societal influence and leverage, which he views as a limiting perspective.
Themes
VictimizationPowerSocietyBlack AmericaHistory
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion on social justice during a community meeting.
More from Shelby Steele
All quotes →Through protest - especially in the 1950s and '60s - we, as a people, touched greatness. Protest, not immigration, was our way into the American Dream. Freedom in this country had always been relative to race, and it was black protest that made freedom an absolute.
Shelby SteeleRead
Well, protest is central to the evolution of black American culture. It was protest that really finally won our freedom for us. Beyond that, it's always interesting to note that it expanded the idea of democracy.
Shelby SteeleRead
The 'safe spaces' for minority students on university campuses are actually redemptive spaces for white students and administrators looking for innocence and empowerment.
Shelby SteeleRead
The evil of slavery and colonialism was that these oppressions kept their victims out of history, disconnected them from the evolutionary struggle.
Shelby SteeleRead
Emmitt Till had walked into a cultural narrative in which his role was already tragically written. It was a narrative designed to preserve white supremacy. So it gave power - the right to kill - to any white claiming to defend the honor of white women.
Shelby SteeleRead
Similar quotes
You just sit there and tolerate it, the same way everything in this country is tolerated. Every deception, every lie, every bullet in the brains. Just as you are already tolerating bullets in the brains that will be implemented only after the bullet is put in your brains.
Imre KertszRead
When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people. It is excessively boring.
Oscar WildeRead
These illustrations suggest four general maxims[...]. The first is: remember that your motives are not always as altruistic as they seem to yourself. The second is: don't over-estimate your own merits. The third is: don't expect others to take as much interest in you as you do yourself. And the fourth is: don't imagine that most people give enough thought to you to have any special desire to persecute you.
Bertrand RussellRead
A photograph never grows old. You and I change, people change all through the months and years but a photograph always remains the same. How nice to look at a photograph of mother or father taken many years ago. You see them as you remember them. But as people live on, they change completely. That is why I think a photograph can be kind.
Albert EinsteinRead
As a species we're fundamentally insane. Put more than two of us in a room, we pick sides and start dreaming up reasons to kill one another. Why do you think we invented politics and religion?
Stephen KingRead
Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
Carl SaganRead