May whites have a racial identity? Are they allowed to be glad they are white or to think about what is good for them as a group?
Shelby Steele, a black scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University doesn’t say “no”; he says “hell no”.
“[B]eyond an identity that apologizes for white supremacy, absolutely no white identity is permissible. In fact, if there is a white racial identity today it would have to be white guilt—a shared, even unifying, lack of racial moral authority.”
[White Guilt: How Black and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Right Era, by Shelby Steele]
Dr. Steele continues: “Black children today are hammered with the idea of racial identity and pride, yet racial pride in whites constitutes a grave evil. Say ‘I’m white and I’m proud’ and you are a Nazi.”
Dr. Steele means all whites everywhere: “Today’s whites, the world over, cannot openly have a racial identity.” [Yo, Howard! Why did Dean have to embrace the Confederate flag? OpinionJournal.com, November 13, 2003]
