Shelby Steele Quotations

Freedom always carries a burden of proof, always throws us back on ourselves.

Most important, [research on affirmative action] has completely failed to show that affirmative action ever closes the academic gap between minorities and whites. And failing in this, affirmative action also fails to help blacks achieve true equality with whites - the ultimate measure of which is parity in skills and individual competence. Without this underlying parity there can never be true equality in employment, income levels, rates of home ownership, educational achievement and the rest.

The promised land guarantees nothing. It is only an opportunity, not a deliverance.

A black conservative is a black who dissents from the victimization explanation of black fate.

Too often the result of affirmative action has been an artificial diversity that gives the appearance of parity between blacks and whites that has not yet been achieved in reality...Preferences tend to attack one form of discrimination with another...Affirmative action encourages a victim-focused identity, and sends the message that there is more power in our past suffering than in our present achievements.

Opportunity follows struggle. It follows effort. It follows hard work. It doesn't come before.

Do not hurt your neighbor, for it is not him you wrong but yourself.

A Dream Deferred: The Second Betrayal of Black Freedom in America

From this point on, the race's advancement will come from the efforts of its individuals.

Freedom always carries the burden of proof, always throws us back on ourselves.