In a year when President Clinton has convened an initiative on race, Shelby Steele, one of the most talked-about authors on the subject, has weighed in again with A Dream Deferred: The Second Betrayal of Black Freedom in America now available from HarperCollins ($24).
This collection of essays traces the untold story behind today's polarized racial politics. Steele argues that the liberalism that grew out of the 1960s is really a redemptive liberalism that is focused less on developing true equality between the races than on redeeming the nation's moral authority after three centuries of racial oppression.
The four essays tackle questions familiar to readers of Steele's bestselling "The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in America": affirmative action, multiculturalism, diversity, Afro-centrism, group preferences, and victimization.
Steele is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution who specializes in the study of race relations, multiculturalism, and affirmative action. He received a National Book Critic's Circle Award in 1990 for The Content of Our Character. He was a professor of English at San Jose State University for more than 20 years.
A Dream Deferred: The Second Betrayal of Black Freedom in America is available from HarperCollins at 1-800-242-7737.
Visit Shelby Steele's Web Site at www.hoover.org/fellows/shelby-steele or the Hoover Institution Web Site at www.hoover.org.
