Robinson is the Interviewer, Steele is a black writer who rules.

ROBINSON You argue in your book The Content of Our Character that the civil rights movement has gone badly wrong. In what way?

STEELE The mistake that grew out of America's desire to fix the racial problem was that it inadvertently made victimization itself a kind of currency of power. Victimization now brings certain benefits, preferences, and entitlements. By rewarding victimization, we encouraged people to think of themselves as victims.




ROBINSON I want to make certain I understand your use of the term. What exactly do you mean by victimization?

STEELE Having to make your historical experience of injustice—of victimization—the centerpiece of your cultural and group identity. Blacks today are freer than at any time in our entire history, yet our identity is more grounded in victimization than ever.




ROBINSON Do you argue that victimization status is peculiar to blacks? That it is less pronounced among, say, Hispanics? Is that your position?

STEELE No. My argument is that victimization has become the currency of power for every group that's seeking redress from the larger society—women, Hispanics, Asians, blacks, and so forth. The power of those groups is grounded in victimization.




ROBINSON But victimization works, doesn't it? It is a currency of power. Once a group claims victimization, it does achieve special preferences and entitlements. From the point of view of the victimized group, what's wrong with that?

STEELE If my benefits come to me primarily as a black and not as an American, then the effect over time is to undermine common society—the common culture and democracy of America. I as a black don't identify with America—America is my enemy. This kind of thinking causes me not to move into the American mainstream. Which correspondingly causes me to fall farther and farther behind. That is the tragedy of that kind of power. That is the tragedy of victimization.

full article here:

http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/publ...962/steele.html

reading his book...this guy rules

"Will blacks disappear from higher education? That is not a decision for white Americans to make. That is a decision for black Americans to make. If blacks focus on education, I have absolutely every confidence that they can compete with everybody. "