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Race and Liberty in America: “What Killed Michael Brown?” | Shelby Steele — Transcript

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0:01[Music]
0:06what's wrong with
0:08decrying america for systemic racism
0:11and why does it make white americans
0:12feel so good to condemn themselves as so
0:14bad
0:15when it comes to race and why have the
0:17standard solutions to the hardships of
0:19america's black communities like the
0:21great society public housing and
0:23affirmative action
0:24how come those have done more for white
0:26psyches than for black lives
0:28we will explore these questions and more
0:30on today's episode of
0:31independent conversations thanks so much
0:33for joining us everybody i'm graeme
0:35walker coming to you from the
0:36independent institute here in oakland
0:38california
0:39we're just across the bay from san
0:41francisco and we aim to give you a kind
0:43of independent outlook
0:44on the events of our era and today we're
0:48going to tackle some of these tough
0:49questions with the help
0:51of noted literary scholar and cultural
0:54analyst dr shelby steele welcome dr
0:57steele
0:58thank you good to be here it's a thrill
1:01to have you really um
1:02you know people probably know of you but
1:05for those who don't know some of the
1:06pithy
1:07pieces let me just remind folks that dr
1:10steele is a senior
1:12fellow at the hoover institution at
1:13stanford university uh written often for
1:15the new york times the wall street
1:17journal
1:18harper's i guess you're still a
1:19contributing editor at harper's is that
1:21right
1:22i believe so lucky them um
1:25you won the national book critic circle
1:27award for your book the content of our
1:29character a vision of race in america
1:31you won
1:32a bradley foundation prize for
1:34outstanding achievement
1:36uh your phd is in english from the
1:38university of utah if i've got that
1:40right
1:41and boy you have a number of other books
1:43such as not only the one i mentioned but
1:46uh
1:4620 200 207 white guilt how blacks and
1:50whites together destroyed the promises
1:52civil rights era another one 2014
1:55a bound man and why we are excited about
1:58obama and why
1:59he can't win so uh
2:02i got that one right and a bunch of
2:05others and a bunch of others so
2:07you've been pretty busy on the score for
2:08a long time haven't you
2:11i guess so i guess so now that you
2:13mention it yeah i mean as a literary
2:15scholar
2:16you know people might wonder well how
2:18did you start thinking about race in
2:19america if your whole thing was
2:21literature and i think somehow there are
2:23connections that are not obvious to me
2:24on the surface right
2:26uh yeah there there are connections it's
2:30um
2:32race is a human problem uh literature
2:35studies race that examines it shows us
2:39[Music]
2:40shows us how human beings get caught in
2:43these dilemmas and
2:44and what motivates people and so forth
2:48so
2:49for me was the sort of natural coming
2:51together of things
2:52literature still is my uh my
2:56default intellectual uh interest
3:00that makes a lot of sense and i was
3:02wondering as i was looking at your
3:04long history of intellectual production
3:08and whether it was a shame that you got
3:09pulled away from the study of literature
3:11but
3:11you didn't entirely get pulled away
3:13because as i look at your most recent
3:15work
3:15this remarkable documentary film what
3:18killed michael brown
3:19there's a concept of poetic truth which
3:21we're going to come back to in a minute
3:23but i have a feeling that that came to
3:24you through your literary insights
3:27yes yes
3:30it involves the concept of license uh
3:33with language and reality
3:35and uh i have found that in thinking
3:38about race to be
3:40uh extremely uh useful
3:43you uh were pretty much involved in
3:47the civil rights movement and the war on
3:48poverty back in maybe the 70s can you
3:51tell us a little bit about what you
3:52did in those days that kind of got your
3:54career going and got you thinking
3:57well i have to say i grew up in a in a
3:59family my mother and father
4:01met as founding members of
4:04core congress of racial equality back in
4:07the early 40s
4:10and so i was a core baby i grew up in
4:13the civil
4:14rights movement and and um
4:17um my family every i mean every night
4:20they were they were at meetings and and
4:22we were in marches on the weekend and
4:25and so i remember when when uh
4:28uh martin luther king was just a
4:30newcomer we wondered if he'd really work
4:32out um
4:36so i had that is sort of the world i
4:38came out of
4:39i um read a good deal about it
4:44and had certain heroes as a kid james
4:47baldwin
4:48malcolm x others elders cleaver was a
4:52great writer
4:53one of the first class writers i think
4:56of that era
4:58and so i the the involvement just
5:00continued all the way through
5:02uh high school through college i was the
5:05founded the civil rights group on my
5:07campus at a
5:08little college in iowa co college um
5:12and continued in that way
5:15um and i say indulged indulged in the
5:18black power movement for
5:20a good little while and sort of examined
5:23that as a as a point of view as a way to
5:25look at america
5:27um i sort of uh
5:30worked for years in government programs
5:32uh
5:33war on poverty programs you were in east
5:36st louis yeah tell us just briefly about
5:39east
5:40louis yeah um quite an experience
5:44uh so it's always been something i've
5:46been engaged with and
5:48traveled a good little bit in africa and
5:51i'm very interested in africa some of my
5:53first uh
5:54publications were on the literature that
5:56began to come
5:57out of africa uh in the late 60s and
6:01and all the way up to today where it's
6:03now
6:04it's now prolific and international your
6:08father was quite a remarkable character
6:10he was i think the son
6:12of a man who had been born into slavery
6:14your grandfather have i got that right
6:16my grandfather was born in slavery yes
6:19and then your father lost both his
6:21parents when he was a very small boy
6:23right he was uh he was about 12 when his
6:27uh
6:27mother when his father died excuse me he
6:30was eight when his father died he was 12
6:32when his mother died wow
6:35and made it had to make it on his own
6:38pretty much from that point on
6:41again he had many siblings but they he
6:43was the youngest
6:44and they were in as bad or worse shape
6:47than he was
6:48so he was pretty much on his own uh from
6:51the time he was 12.
6:53made his way to chicago on his own in
6:55chicago took him
6:56six months to get from kentucky to
6:59chicago
7:01and that didn't work out he first went
7:04to detroit
7:05and then that didn't work out then he
7:07went to ended up in chicago where he
7:10spent
7:10pretty much the rest of his life and and
7:13that's where i was born
7:14hard-working man very hard-working man
7:18determined um um
7:22i i can't you know get emotional i can't
7:25talk enough about
7:26about him he was i was lucky i don't
7:30think i'll ever be in his league as
7:32as simply as a human being uh
7:35he was he he truly was marvelous and
7:38people who knew him knew that and
7:42he was he was enormously respected uh in
7:45our
7:45uh in our community uh as was my mother
7:50along with him
7:50she uh she too was a remarkable woman
7:54um my father had a third grade education
7:56my my mother
7:58had a master's degree from the
7:59university of chicago
8:02oh my god that was quite a quite a pair
8:05quite a pair
8:06and uh uh i can't say enough about
8:09either one of them
8:10they uh were truly remarkable people
8:13uh but they they together they did
8:17things the school i went to was
8:18segregated and horrible
8:20and and uh abusive to to
8:23black children and both my parents
8:27organized all the other parents they
8:28boycotted that school
8:30they ultimately got rid of the
8:32superintendent the principal several
8:34teachers
8:35wow we built a built another school
8:39all as a kind of outgrowth of this
8:41commitment to civil rights and equality
8:44uh and and so forth they they
8:47caught hell for it they they uh uh were
8:50pillaring in the chicago sun times and
8:53other newspapers but
8:55um they were to the two strongest people
8:58i've ever known
8:59something happened to the civil rights
9:02movement
9:02or maybe not to the civil rights
9:04movement but to those who
9:06claim the legacy and the mantle of it
9:08and you were totally on board with the
9:10civil rights movement but
9:12the heirs of the movement today who
9:14advocate uh
9:16systemic racism and so forth you seem to
9:18be kind of a nemesis
9:19of that group how different your
9:22perspective must be from what you
9:23thought it was going to be when you were
9:25younger
9:27uh yes uh it's a little heartbreaking to
9:29be
9:30to be honest about it um
9:33we won the civil rights there's there's
9:35certain
9:36tools that groups have when they come
9:39out of
9:39oppression we came out of oppression in
9:42the 1960s
9:44we won a civil rights bill voting rights
9:47act
9:48open housing law um
9:52america said we were wrong and we we're
9:54going to
9:55we may not do it perfectly but we're
9:58going to try
9:59uh things turned around at that moment
10:03we as blacks became challenged
10:06to then enter the game enter the society
10:10and prove ourselves well
10:14if you have been oppressed for four
10:16centuries
10:18that is an extremely difficult
10:21challenge to face you it's intimidating
10:24um
10:26it causes enormous anguish not
10:29a feeling of excitement and happiness
10:31but
10:32what are we going to do now we've always
10:35relied on somebody else that's the
10:36nature of oppression
10:38how do we do it
10:41one of the things groups do i'm writing
10:45about this now is that
10:46uh in in situations like that is go
10:50backward
10:51and say no no no you think we're free
10:54now because of all that legislation
10:57no we're really uh
11:00it's still here we still have to
11:03organize that
11:04racism is everywhere it's not just an
11:07isolated incident here and there
11:09it's excuse me
11:12it's systemic it's
11:15it's uh broad-based it's invisible
11:19uh but it's it's like the air itself
11:22for blacks and it holds us down and so
11:25we need to continue to be treated as
11:27victims who are
11:29who are taken care of who are lifted up
11:32by
11:33the larger society's desire to redeem
11:36itself from what it did to us
11:39keep that sort of symbiosis going
11:42uh and so a lot of what comes out of
11:45black america
11:46today none of us back in the 60s foresaw
11:50this that we would reinvent racism
11:54rather than do the harder work of
11:57attacking freedom
11:58seizing freedom and using it
12:02and so that's where we we've it seems to
12:04me
12:05made a profound mistake that i'm sure
12:09we'll correct
12:10at some point but the cult of
12:12victimization
12:13appeals not only to those who hope to
12:16you know be done right by but also to
12:18those who feel guilty and that
12:20is kind of how the poison of the last
12:23few decades has affected our society
12:25on race relations if i understand your
12:27argument correctly
12:29yes that's the other side of the
12:31symbiosis is that
12:34when america admitted to i mean think
12:37about it admitting
12:38that yeah we we truly
12:41oppress these people for 400 years
12:45terribly we denigrated them in every way
12:48we dehumanized them
12:50we debased them we all of our culture
12:54symbolism reflects our belief that
12:57they're
12:57inferior uh we denigrate everything they
13:01believe in and everything they do
13:02and then you suddenly have to admit
13:06that that happened that really
13:10to me that's in in this sort of social
13:12cultural way
13:13that's the biggest event in the 20th
13:16century for
13:17for america is the this great what i
13:20call
13:20great confession mm-hmm uh
13:23we yeah we did it and of course johnson
13:27president johnson
13:29right away um launches the great society
13:33the war on poverty affirmative actions
13:36school busing
13:37public housing expanded welfare payments
13:40on
13:40and on and on well once you once you've
13:43confessed your guilt then you have to do
13:45your your
13:46restitution and that was perhaps the
13:48psychology of the great society
13:50that's exactly right you have to you
13:52have to pursue
13:54redemption in some way and so america
13:57spent
13:58the last figure i heard of was 26
14:00trillion dollars
14:02since in the 60 years since the passage
14:04of the civil rights bill
14:06on programs to uplift blacks and
14:09and and the
14:13irony of course is that blacks are
14:15farther behind whites
14:16today than they were 60 years ago when
14:19they were
14:20when they got nothing from the
14:22government and we're actually
14:23closing that narrowing that gap between
14:26blacks and whites
14:27yeah you had some data that in one of
14:28the things i saw you you produced which
14:30said that from 1947 to 1960 that the
14:33black poverty rate
14:35dropped during that period from 87 to 47
14:39and there was really no black underclass
14:42to speak of
14:43uh up until you know the 60s got going
14:46that's right uh the the black underclass
14:49is almost
14:50entirely uh the the
14:53the spin-off of all of this that what i
14:57call to just
14:58just sum it up in a phrase white guilt
15:03uh and i don't mean when i say white
15:05guilt i don't mean a feeling
15:07of guilt of guiltiness some whites feel
15:10it something
15:10some some don't it's it's an abstract
15:13sort of idea but
15:14white guilt is the terror
15:18of being seen as a racist because if
15:21you're seen as a racist you lose
15:23all your moral authority and you're weak
15:27and vulnerable in the world
15:29and whites couldn't stand the thought of
15:30that and so they began they
15:32dumped programs and favoritism and
15:36preferences
15:37and everything they could possibly dump
15:39on blacks
15:40to sort of win back the moral authority
15:43they had lost
15:44by confessing to this this long history
15:48of oppression
15:49and those social programs then have the
15:51effect
15:52inadvertent effect of depriving uh
15:55african-american citizens of
15:56a sense of agency to the extent that
15:59they become dependent is that
16:00how that worked this is the most
16:03pernicious
16:04thing and one of the most pernicious
16:05things in this whole story of race in
16:08america
16:09as whites were tr tried to redeem
16:13themselves from this shameful hit racist
16:15history
16:17in order to do that they they took
16:20responsibility for
16:22black development away from blacks onto
16:25themselves and said
16:26look you're inferior
16:30we don't have faith that you can make
16:33yourself
16:33equal to the rest of us we don't have
16:36faith in you
16:38that's why we're going to give you all
16:41these programs
16:42all racial preferences of every kind
16:44today you know diversity inclusiveness
16:47uh it just never ends the the white
16:50guilt so
16:51taking over responsibility for black
16:54development
16:55so what is what happens in 60 years
16:58blacks don't develop
16:59they get public housing they get schools
17:02they get all sorts they don't develop
17:04it's tragic because they've they don't
17:06see themselves
17:08they see themselves as victims of racism
17:12rather than as people uh in charge of
17:15their own lives
17:17that's the worst thing you can do
17:18because that's what steals their
17:20humanity away that's what dehumanizes
17:23them
17:24so when we look at black leaders today
17:27they break my heart they
17:28all they they're just constantly in line
17:31asking for more
17:32more of these sort of white guilt
17:34programs as i call them
17:36we if we don't get more resources in the
17:38inner city
17:39we'll never be able to compete
17:42well can you get a piece of chalk and
17:46apply it to a blackboard then you've got
17:49the resources you need to educate the
17:51children
17:51in front of you uh
17:54but when you probably do better than the
17:56internet victim
17:57you think your fate is in the hands of
18:00others
18:02then you you uh you languish
18:06and we're languishing now we should be
18:09competing
18:11the mindset of being a victim um
18:14creates a kind of tinderbox of potential
18:17anger of course
18:18as well as conflict and it was into that
18:21tinderbox that some of these recent
18:23public events uh into into which
18:27matches were thrown at the instance of
18:29michael brown's
18:30death in 2014 and then george floyd's
18:34death last year there was an explosion
18:38but the explosion was made possible by
18:40this mindset of victimization
18:42and by all these sort of uh
18:45inadvertently harmful policies that were
18:47adopted through this
18:48process you just described so you set
18:50out a couple years ago
18:52to try and make sense of michael brown's
18:54killing which until george floyd
18:56seemed to be the emblematic instance of
18:59continued black suffering at the hands
19:01of white power in america
19:03and you've recently produced a
19:05documentary film
19:07the title of it is what killed michael
19:10brown
19:11and when did you release that not long
19:13ago right
19:14last fall four months ago i had the
19:18privilege thanks to
19:19your generosity of looking uh viewing
19:21the whole thing yesterday for the first
19:22time
19:23it is a remarkable film um and what i
19:26found especially helpful is that
19:28you took the incidents around michael
19:30brown's death
19:31august 9 2014 18 year old young man
19:35killed by a 28 year old white officer
19:37darren wilson
19:38those are the bare facts of the case you
19:40examined that
19:42and saw that the reaction to it actually
19:46illustrated all the problems you've been
19:48describing here in race relations and
19:50the psychology of white guilt
19:52uh and would it be helpful would you
19:54mind if i showed
19:55part of your trailer uh for that film
19:59no that was not mine okay so we're going
20:02to stop and pause and everybody joining
20:04us is going to see
20:05my assistant is going to trigger that
20:08and here we go
20:14a black boy dead in the street shot by a
20:19was white policeman this was an
20:20assassination it was
20:22four and a half hours before they
20:24finally removed the body it's like they
20:26left the body out there
20:28as a warning for us to this day there
20:30are people who
20:31blame ferguson market for michael
20:33brown's death
20:34all the way off because this is how he
20:36worked when he got shot
20:38yeah when he got assassinated
20:43when everybody gets to go home we stay
20:45black homie
20:48ferguson is a microcosm of this
20:51country white cop black kid
20:54absolutely race race played a
20:56significant part of the reaction
21:01what happened in ferguson was more about
21:03america
21:04the very same america that would explode
21:07in 2020
21:10where every black was george floyd and
21:13every cop was
21:15you can derek better next time by doing
21:17the right thing
21:19since the 60s whites have lived under
21:22the accusation that they are racist
21:24ferguson really became kind of a
21:25destination city for successful african
21:27americans
21:28we were not part of white flight no some
21:31people want to be angry at someone
21:33michael brown had tried to buy
21:35cigarillos the night before
21:37with pot he put his hands in the air but
21:39the officer still approached with his
21:40weapon drawn and he fired several more
21:42shots
21:43some witnesses have also said that they
21:45actually saw you stand over him
21:46that'd be incorrect what did you see in
21:48that face aggression
21:50there was nothing it was like hollow
21:52just looking through me what
21:53demons might have been at work within
21:55him and to make the final fateful charge
21:58against officer wilson
22:02america's original sin is not slavery
22:06it is simply the use of race as a means
22:09to power
22:11when truth becomes the lie and when the
22:13lie
22:14becomes truth if michael brown valued
22:17his life
22:17he wouldn't take the chance of risking
22:20it was it really racism
22:22that killed michael brown
22:34what killed michael brown wow i mean
22:38the bare facts were in dispute for a
22:41while but then they weren't
22:42uh the the young man uh had uh been
22:46in an altercation he had hit the police
22:48officer in the head is that right
22:51and then he was running away from him
22:53and then he headed back toward him in an
22:54extremely menacing way
22:56and were his hands up well the police
22:59officer shot him
23:01begging for mercy or not
23:04the every witness says that there was
23:07not a single witness who was actually on
23:09the scene
23:10says that his hands were up he
23:13has he balled up his fist and charged
23:17the policeman
23:20after he had been shot once
23:24and um the policeman kept telling him
23:26please stop stop stop
23:28and uh he never he didn't
23:32um you have to to note that michael
23:35brown was overweight over 300 pounds
23:38he was an extremely powerful young man
23:40he was not
23:41as though he was there was no real
23:44threat there was a
23:45there was a threat it was clear to
23:48everyone there that
23:50that he died
23:54by provoking the policeman
23:57into a position where he had to fire out
24:00of self-defense
24:02now ultimately even the obama justice
24:04department agreed that there couldn't be
24:06charges brought against the officer
24:08right
24:09the justice department the fbi
24:13two different grand juries investigated
24:16this
24:17this case none of them found a single
24:20shred of evidence to suggest that
24:24um uh that there was a racial motive
24:28uh that that uh the
24:32policeman provoked it um
24:35not one shred of evidence and four
24:36different thorough
24:38because all of those investigations
24:40wanted desperately
24:41to find evidence of racism that was
24:44their their goal
24:46but even even with that given that bias
24:49they were unable to do so um
24:55so it became even a bigger fight uh
24:58and the the fight in that sense again
25:00any
25:01what i've learned over the years um
25:04people will dispute this but
25:06it's just a life of observation
25:10that any time people
25:13pick up the issue of race it is in the
25:16interest of power
25:18race is is nothing more nothing less
25:21than a
25:22means to power
25:25and so the government was looking for
25:27power they wanted michael to be a victim
25:29of racism
25:31that justified 60 years
25:34of political liberalism in america give
25:36away liberalism
25:38and so and so that's what they were
25:40after that
25:42the their hope riding on this young 18
25:45year old boy
25:47was that he would be a source of
25:48enormous power
25:50and he was george floyd was
25:53trayvon martin was and
25:58it had because become a source of power
26:01in american life it's it is uh touching
26:04every single institution in america
26:06in american life what's fascinating
26:08about the michael brown case
26:10is that even though pretty much everyone
26:13responsible acknowledged that the
26:15officer wasn't
26:17guilty of what he'd been claimed of just
26:19outright racist murder
26:21nevertheless uh somehow michael brown
26:24had to be emblematic
26:26it was people insisted that he be upheld
26:29as somehow the poetic embodiment of all
26:32this oppression
26:33even though he himself didn't seem to
26:35fit the profile
26:37and you said that eric holder
26:40actually the attorney general at the
26:42time under president obama
26:45he held he couldn't hold the police
26:47officer responsible but he decided to
26:49use a different technique you said he
26:51followed a formula of power that had
26:53been developed by al
26:54sharpton and others and ultimately made
26:56ferguson pay
26:57even though he couldn't make darren
26:59wilson pay what does that mean
27:03well what it means is that that um
27:07people like sharpton and and so their
27:11their goal again in their pursuit of
27:13power and they are about
27:16they are about really nothing more
27:18nothing less than than sheer political
27:20power and and they're in american
27:23society
27:25race is is an extreme is a rich
27:28rich source of power if you can find
27:32blacks who are victims and whites who
27:34are oppressors
27:36then it seems as all these incidents
27:39seem as though
27:40america keeps duplicating its old
27:43sickness of of white racism and black
27:47victimization
27:49and therefore because i'm on the side of
27:52the black victim
27:53power should redown to me so president
27:57obama
27:58went and eric holder entered the whole
28:01ferguson mess in pursuit of power
28:04uh and um no doubt they
28:08they won some of that power uh
28:11whites were really on the defensive and
28:14and
28:14uh even though the truth was on their
28:17side
28:18they lost the argument and we now today
28:22a few years later
28:24uh are are asked to accept that racism
28:27in america
28:28is not isolated incidents but is
28:31systemic
28:33is is is prolific it's everywhere
28:36uh and michael brown and and
28:39uh uh and
28:42trayvon martin and freddie gray and any
28:45number of other young blacks killed by
28:47white policemen
28:48are evidence of this systemic racism why
28:51do we
28:52why do we have to why do we want racist
28:54racism to be systemic
28:56because it's power and systemic racism
29:01i under the flag of systemic racism
29:04i can demand that corporate america
29:07change its
29:08its ways i can imagine that professional
29:11football
29:12allow this i can i can uh that
29:14universities transform themselves uh
29:17in in this in this way that uh
29:20churches any institution in american
29:24life
29:24i now have the power
29:27to get those institutions to change
29:30and they all will because none of them
29:32want to be seen as racist
29:34they have white guilt and so white guilt
29:38this is the symbiotic bond right
29:41here the sort of sick uh tie
29:45uh and it's it's it's completely
29:47injuring america
29:49because the objective truth
29:53the michael brown was what exhausted
29:56every drug known was in his body
29:58uh he was he had been in four high
30:01schools in four years he was from a
30:03broken home
30:05the father was abusive on and on
30:08uh those things have nothing to do with
30:10his death
30:12what had to do with his death was that
30:13the white there was a white policeman
30:15who was a racist
30:16well if that's america and that's what
30:18the political left points to in in
30:21in america today and that is
30:24uh an extremely powerful point of view
30:28um that symbiosis
30:31of guilt and power uh
30:35generated the support for the
30:37multi-trillion dollars you just
30:39mentioned a few moments ago
30:41among other things we've mentioned the
30:42great society
30:44public housing for example you said at
30:47one point that the
30:48the new liberalism as opposed to the old
30:51liberalism the new liberalism coming out
30:52of the 1960s created
30:54created the world that killed michael
30:55brown and it was always more about
30:57assuaging white guilt than developing
30:59blacks
31:00so for example you told us in this
31:02documentary which i highly recommend
31:04our viewers watch that st louis
31:08had a thriving black aspiring community
31:11and black middle-class community
31:13there was a high level of home ownership
31:15as high as white neighborhoods
31:17but it didn't look good and whites were
31:20feeling guilty and so public housing
31:22was decreed the neighborhoods were
31:25bulldozed
31:26instead was put up these horrible
31:28concrete monoliths
31:30notoriously known as the pruitt igo
31:32projects and many many others like them
31:34around the united states
31:36the pruitt igo of course project has the
31:38particular appeal of having been
31:40had to be dynamited was it finally in
31:43the 1980s i think it was it was
31:46dynamited
31:4770s in the 70s because it was had become
31:50such a horrible infestation
31:51of degradation for its inhabitants
31:55but you you have argued that public
31:56housing was a form of socialism which
31:58created
32:00the very damaging conditions that
32:02supposedly it was
32:03to make up for how did that work
32:06absolutely
32:07um you
32:10you couldn't have done a worse thing to
32:12blacks uh then
32:14then something about public housing and
32:17the worst
32:18feature of of public housing like
32:20pruitigo and robert taylor homes in
32:22chicago where i grew up and so forth
32:25um the the terrible thing
32:28about that again is the government
32:33is really interested in winning back
32:36the moral authority the legitimacy
32:39and the power that it lost
32:43when it confessed to four centuries of
32:45racism
32:47and so therefore the last thing they
32:50care about
32:51is black people black people are simply
32:54pawns
32:55in a scheme of white redemption
32:58and white liberalism is about the
33:01redemption
33:03of of whites in america and of the
33:06legitimacy of our government
33:08but specifically redemption through the
33:10creation of programs that deploy
33:12power to control economic resources for
33:15the ostensible good of the recipients
33:17but their actual harm
33:19that's right um because when they took
33:21over
33:22the the housing that blacks had in st
33:24louis very much like the housing i grew
33:26up in
33:27my father was a part of was created
33:30entirely by blacks
33:32uh it was it was really a transition
33:34neighborhood
33:35they were on their way up the minute
33:38the government the civil rights bill
33:40passes the government jumps in
33:42says no you'll live here in this
33:44beautiful high rise we've built for you
33:48the evil the pernicious aspect
33:52of that was white america said
33:55to black america we have no faith that
33:59you can agent your own
34:00uh your own overcoming we have no
34:04faith in anything about you except
34:07your inferiority
34:10we believe liberalism is based on a deep
34:14faith not in black agency and self-help
34:18development but in the myths of racism
34:21that you're inferior and you can't do it
34:24without us
34:25you won't it is unfair of us to withhold
34:28all of our vast resources from you
34:30because if we do that
34:32uh then we'll be in we'll we'll be in
34:36all sorts of
34:36of we'll be guilty i think your point is
34:40racist
34:40your point i think is is not that uh
34:43individuals and families and churches
34:45and whatnot
34:46didn't have a role to play in being
34:48charitable and helpful
34:49and so forth but it was the centralized
34:51power of the state
34:53which claimed resources and redeployed
34:56them
34:56that's right and you know that you know
34:58that that
34:59liberal power is at work when you you
35:01see one thing
35:03there is never then those policies those
35:06programs
35:07never ask anything
35:10from black people they don't care
35:15so i'll give you affirmative action you
35:17can go to to
35:18to the university over your head
35:22uh but i don't i'm not gonna ask
35:26anything from you
35:27so affirmative action created this
35:29situation in america since the 60s
35:32where blacks and universities had the
35:34lowest grade point average
35:36and the highest dropout rate of any
35:38student group in america
35:40because they were brought there and
35:42stuffed onto the campus
35:44as examples of white innocence
35:48not of black greatness not a black
35:50overcoming
35:51but of how good white people are and how
35:55innocent they are
35:56and how they deserve to stay in power
35:59and so it's an ing white guilt is
36:01ingenious it's absolutely ingenious now
36:04we're getting a whole new cycle of it in
36:05the wake of
36:06george floyd and so forth that the
36:09insistence upon
36:12white guilt and whites are now
36:15and others especially white americans
36:17seem to be driven by a compulsion
36:19to denounce themselves and to denounce
36:22the whole system of private property and
36:24free exchange
36:26the constitutional order it's all to be
36:28trashed the more vociferous they are
36:30about trashing it
36:32the more righteous they feel i guess
36:35and if you don't mind i actually have
36:37prepared this one clip
36:39that i found especially telling on this
36:41point
36:42about white guilt and the the kind of
36:46parasitical or symbiotic relationship
36:48i'm going to play this
36:50little clip from your a video starts
36:53right here by implication
36:56all of white america stood accused the
36:59power here was literally enormous
37:05whites around the entire western world
37:07hit the streets in protest
37:09against this murder
37:11[Applause]
37:18[Music]
37:21these whites seem to say as an
37:24anti-racist
37:25i am guilty of racism but this
37:28confession of guilt
37:30as with all whites past and present
37:34is also their proclamation of racial
37:36innocence
37:47this desperation among whites for
37:50innocence of racism
37:52often presses america into bad faith
37:55solutions to racial problems
37:59the time to end the american experiment
38:00and then start all over again
38:03i think that we have to burn it down
38:06do you think it's time to end the
38:08american experiment
38:10yes
38:14this was the desperation that fueled the
38:17liberalism of pruitt i go
38:19the war on poverty affirmative action
38:22school bussing
38:23diversity this and diversity that this
38:26grab for entitlements
38:28continues to this day these programs
38:31give white america moral
38:33legitimacy or at least the illusion of
38:36it
38:37even as they utterly fail to help the
38:39black underclass
38:41these programs give white america
38:45moral legitimacy or at least the
38:47illusion of it even as they utterly fail
38:49to help the black underclass
38:51i don't know if anyone in america is
38:53saying this besides you
38:56well thank you well i guess it needs to
38:59be said
39:00not that i'm happy to say it no i mean i
39:03wish it weren't the case but
39:04but you know the more you think about it
39:06the more you realize there is this
39:08profound compulsion driving the
39:10self-denunciation of masses of people
39:13yeah and you of course
39:16it's an inner compulsion but it's also
39:18an external compulsion because if you
39:20don't
39:21you know fly the flag of
39:22self-condemnation fly the flag of
39:24anti-racism
39:25then you might be accused of racism and
39:27then you might lose your job or
39:28you know one thing or another right what
39:31a strange
39:32social psychology yeah
39:36well it's uh it is interesting but the
39:40the threat of stigmatization as a racist
39:43is one of the most powerful weapons uh
39:49certainly is black leadership in america
39:51lives and dies by this kind of a weapon
39:54this
39:54this ability to to manipulate white
39:58guilt
39:59um and and the left of america uses the
40:02term racism as though and racist
40:05as though everybody in the world is
40:07qualifies
40:09um and and we can sort of it's so bad we
40:12can see them doing it we can see the
40:14manipulation
40:17but they do it anyway and it works
40:19anyway
40:21in no way white's just simply
40:25uh are in this history has put them in a
40:28situation
40:29circumstance that
40:33is
40:36is undermining what is
40:39the the broader culture uh
40:43because if if what what terrifies me
40:46about white guilt
40:47is that it it weakens the ability of
40:50white americans to stand
40:52up for the principles that made america
40:55great in the first place
40:57the principles that led us finally to
41:00end slavery
41:01that led us finally to pass civil rights
41:03legislation
41:05but again if whites now would
41:09have had this sort of gun to their head
41:12uh
41:12and they they're
41:16people just sort of shake them down and
41:20get all sorts of little goodies and
41:22because after all america is a wealthy
41:24country
41:25and so we can we can afford literally to
41:27give give away a lot of
41:29a lot of things and we do we can afford
41:31the luxury of
41:32insisting upon policies which will harm
41:35the intended beneficiaries and benefit
41:37ourselves
41:39that's right and benefit ourselves
41:42that's that is
41:43that you said you said at one point the
41:45civil rights movement was a good faith
41:46movement and blm is a bad faith movement
41:49that's not going to make you a popular
41:51character what did you mean by that
41:53uh well i meant i meant that that black
41:57lives matter
41:58is naked manipulation of white guilt
42:03it has nothing to do with the
42:06development
42:07of black america which is which
42:09continues
42:10to be underdeveloped and that
42:12underdevelopment gets worse
42:14every day what does blm blm do
42:17they chase down white people to shake
42:20them down
42:22they're thugs that's what they are
42:25they don't speak for me i i don't have
42:28any
42:29uh any doubt about black lives
42:32mattering or white lives mattering or
42:34asian lives
42:35and and so forth uh you're raising
42:39a what i call poetic truth
42:43a an illusion of of racism
42:46that is that is systemic and so forth
42:49because you're basically
42:50excuse my word you're pimping it
42:54you're you're selling it to you know
42:56that americans are afraid for their own
42:59innocence they're afraid they're
43:01insecure
43:02morally about around race
43:05and you seize you go into that crack of
43:09insecurity
43:11and you light a match wow and you
43:14you and you and they give you things
43:17they say put the match out please
43:20and and they give you things and they
43:22let you kneel at the football game and
43:24they
43:24uh give you another another government
43:28program another
43:30uh another uh bia you know
43:33diversity and the the terminology of the
43:37movement escapes me at the moment or
43:39maybe i just don't want to dignify it by
43:42expressing it but that's what
43:43black lives matter is about it's shaking
43:46down white people
43:47most black people are very you have a
43:49very jaundiced view
43:50of that organization because they they
43:53say to themselves
43:55i grew up when there was real racism
43:57what are you talking about
43:59your obligation given what came before
44:02the sacrifices that came before you
44:05is to make something of yourself as an
44:07individual
44:08that's your contribution to the race
44:11that's everybody's obligation to the
44:13common good it's not a agreement
44:15or a race thing at all we all have that
44:17obligation
44:19to make the most of what you know god
44:21has given us and to benefit others
44:23you know according to our ability yeah
44:26ourselves uh
44:28you you have what you've hit on is that
44:31the human psyche is driven by
44:35poetry in a certain sense that is to say
44:38there's this poetic construction
44:40about black victimization and white
44:42guilt which profoundly
44:44it's it's it has enough elements of
44:47truth to be appealing
44:48but it has a poetic mystique and people
44:51respond to the poetry
44:52rather than to the facts and
44:56they get a lot of satisfaction out of
44:57responding to the poetry
44:59both both sides of the equations get get
45:01satisfaction out of the poetry
45:02rather than the truth right i thought
45:05that people were supposed to be driven
45:06by self-interest but you say they're
45:08driven by this kind of strange
45:10psychic poetry well it is
45:13uh because it it
45:16poetry gives you the illusion of
45:18illumination
45:19and emotional connection oh now i've
45:23i've finally i am illuminated by the
45:25truth
45:26my parents those old fogies who come
45:29from the earlier era
45:31who who didn't have the advantage
45:33there's they're stuck
45:35uh but i'm illuminated by this truth
45:38that there is such a thing as systemic
45:41racism that it's around
45:42every corner that every black who wakes
45:45up in the morning
45:46is simply beset by a society that has
45:50holds them in contempt that wants to
45:52beat him down i believe that sort of
45:55dark story that dark poetry
45:59because it puts me in it makes me a
46:02redeemer
46:04it makes me puts me on the side of
46:06redemption
46:07i'm gonna save those people um
46:11as long as they admit that they're weak
46:12and helpless and they that they need
46:15right right the slave owners
46:18did not go that far the white
46:21segregationists did not
46:23nearly go that far they didn't take over
46:25your soul
46:27and say you have to be an inferior being
46:29in order to
46:30for to justify us for us to justify
46:33ourselves
46:34they didn't do that we were better off
46:37with the segregationists i grew up with
46:40i could talk to them and they weren't
46:43gonna
46:43they didn't give me an inch the
46:46segregation they said well what can we
46:47do about it it's god's will
46:50everybody wants to be with their own
46:51kind too bad for you
46:54wow well you you quoted robert woodson
46:57at one point in your film saying
46:59bigotry is external but being patronized
47:02is internal
47:03i think that's kind of what you're
47:04saying now exactly exactly yeah woodson
47:07said it very well
47:08one is the one is actually you're saying
47:09and he's saying more corrosive than the
47:11other
47:12even though it may be wrapped up in all
47:14sorts of platitudes and meia culpas and
47:16self-denunciations
47:17the patronizing may be more corrosive
47:20than this it's so bad if we're in a
47:23situation
47:24at this moment in american history where
47:27blacks are asking their
47:30own people to believe in their
47:33victimization
47:36rather than in their freedom
47:40that's where we're at today and so and
47:42so we get nowhere
47:45years go by we getting how many more
47:48black kids need to be shot
47:50it goes on and on because our own
47:53leaders
47:54our own people insist that we that you
47:57see us as victims
47:59and that we think of ourselves as
48:01victims who cannot
48:04make it unless we uh uh
48:07someone else comes in and and doesn't
48:10engineers us agents that's
48:12us uh uh
48:15into a better a better life a better way
48:17of living
48:18we can't do it we're so
48:21the one thing black people need now is
48:24self-possession
48:26everybody needs that and that's
48:29that's the one thing america still won't
48:32will give
48:32because now in order to give black
48:34people self-possession
48:36white america would have to say what
48:38frederick douglass wanted them to say
48:40150 years ago leave us alone
48:44freddie douglas hat is so right leave us
48:47alone
48:48because you'll come in here and you take
48:49possession of our of our problems in our
48:52life
48:53and next thing i know you want me to be
48:54a victim and i've got to go around
48:57in this wealthy free society where
48:59there's only a shred of racism left i
49:02know i grew up in it
49:04and act as though racism is still a
49:06profound problem for me
49:09no the problem for me is is that i don't
49:11i don't know
49:12haven't had experience with freedom
49:17so how to deal with it in order to
49:19concede to others
49:21a sense of their own agency and
49:24self-responsibility
49:25those on the dominant side in this case
49:28maybe the white side
49:30what they have to really they would have
49:31to relinquish something
49:33to concede that power that freedom that
49:36agency to others they'd have to
49:38relinquish all these things
49:40which give them the gratification that
49:43they crave
49:44of being anti-racist non-racist
49:46assuaging their white guilt
49:48they don't want to give that up they
49:49would rather keep their clients in place
49:53than relinquish the gratification of
49:56assuaging their white guilt is that how
49:57it goes
49:58absolutely that that's uh that's how it
50:01goes uh
50:03they're saying i need my innocence more
50:05than i need you to do
50:06do well right yeah uh i'm not uh
50:11i'm not even going to ask you to do well
50:12because i don't have the moral authority
50:14to do that
50:15right uh so we're at a terrible
50:18sort of stalemate okay so we've got
50:21loads of questions coming in from people
50:22watching with us here today um
50:24some of them i've asked the questions
50:26myself in my own words uh
50:28simple question coming in so i take it
50:30you're not keen on critical race theory
50:32dr steele
50:35true critical race theory is a wonderful
50:38example of what i'm talking about it it
50:40expands victimization uh
50:43it it uh it says that
50:46when you demand for for uh
50:50uh something from the larger society
50:53that
50:54that you don't even have to explain it
50:56or justify it
50:57you just should be given this and begin
51:00so
51:01i mean it just it escalates the
51:04symbiosis that's already in place
51:06uh by keeping keeping whites in charge
51:11and blacks again in the position of
51:13having their hand out begging
51:15in in the name of their victimization
51:19so it is an ugly
51:22uh demeaning dehumanizing ideology
51:27but again it is supported in a society
51:30that lacks the moral authority to
51:32sit look it's people in the eye and say
51:35stop it
51:36you know better than this you know
51:39better than this you wouldn't you don't
51:41want to
51:41do you wouldn't raise your own children
51:44by giving them this kind of license to
51:46indulge in the notion of themselves as
51:48victims
51:49well as parents what do we do is say you
51:52may be victimized but you're going to
51:53have to do this anyway
51:56that's the nature of life buddy grow up
51:58that's actually love
52:00that's absolutely love i love
52:04my people i am so proud
52:07i can see that what other people have
52:09survived four centuries
52:12of brutal dehumanization have produced
52:15in one
52:16century 20th century one of the great
52:18literatures of the world
52:20have transformed music across the face
52:24of this earth
52:26black america uh i'm extremely proud
52:30and and that is why i challenge my
52:33people it's time for us to
52:35it's time for us to forget about racism
52:38and think about freedom become doers not
52:41beers
52:44you're not the first um uh back in the
52:47i guess 60s and 70s a remarkable man
52:50named trm howard
52:51we published a book last year by
52:53independent institute here called trm
52:54hower
52:55a doctor entrepreneur civil rights
52:57pioneer you read this when it first came
52:59out
52:59he was an interesting example of a man
53:02who took freedom seriously and was
53:04responsible for himself and his own
53:05people and community
53:06and he didn't want the government to do
53:08it absolutely
53:11highly recommended book yeah those are i
53:14came along before the passage of the
53:16civil rights bill and those were the
53:17kind of men i knew
53:18those are the kind of men who were
53:19involved in the civil rights movement
53:22blacks were we were total self-respect
53:25one total responsibility for our own
53:28fate
53:29created black colleges black medical
53:32schools black banks
53:34black banks black businesses of every
53:36kind
53:37um and we gave all that
53:41up on the the promise by white america
53:45that they needed to redeem themselves
53:47more than help us develop and we're
53:50still stuck there so now blacks are out
53:52here
53:53undeveloped no the black family has all
53:56but destroyed
54:0075 children percent of black black
54:03children are all born out of wedlock
54:06how how do you how do you get out of a
54:08spot like that
54:11and we think the answer is to just keep
54:12squeezing nickels and dimes
54:14out of white america here's another
54:18question that fits right in i'm afraid
54:20to say
54:20dr steele what do you think about
54:22reparations and california governor
54:24gavin newsom's task force to study and
54:26make
54:26recommendations on reparations for
54:28slavery
54:30i don't think he'll have me on his task
54:32force i don't think so
54:35one for one thing um
54:38there's no such thing as respirat as a
54:40reparation
54:41here's one thing that that i want to try
54:43to remember to get in
54:45uh there's no such thing as reparations
54:48white america what's my challenge to
54:52white america white america at some
54:54point
54:55is going to have to accept itself
55:00for what it is white america did
55:03in fact in earlier times commit
55:07arguably the worst instance of human
55:09oppression ever
55:11you there's no nothing you can do today
55:14no program you can create
55:16no reparations that you can come up with
55:19that are going to get rid of that
55:20they're going to
55:21erase that from history it is a part of
55:25history
55:26it is also true that the western world
55:28has created arguably the greatest
55:30civilization ever
55:32that's also true what whites need
55:36must understand you like all people
55:40are fallen you have within you the
55:44capacity to do evil things
55:47if you're a human being all human beings
55:49do
55:51none of us escape that we have to grow
55:54up which means we accept that we have
55:57these
55:57dark potentialities within us
56:02racism is a reflex boom you you
56:05it make it presents itself before you
56:08have time to defend yourself against it
56:10there it is
56:11we need to know that and watch out for
56:13it
56:14and in our struggle to be better human
56:16beings
56:18we will make progress we will let other
56:21people make progress
56:22we will get ahead we can't
56:25it's it's a fantasy to think you can buy
56:27your way out of four centuries of
56:29oppression
56:30you can't do they don't have enough
56:32affirmative action programs
56:33they don't have enough reparations all
56:36you're doing is perpetuating
56:38the illusion that you can give somebody
56:41what's been taken away you can't and
56:44perpetuating that
56:45illusion is highly gratifying to the
56:47majority community
56:49and even if it involves
56:52inflicting further damage on the
56:54intended recipients
56:56absolutely it still is highly gratifying
56:58to the dominant community they won't
56:59give up their pruitt igos
57:01their diversity things their affirmative
57:03action stuff
57:05they won't give it up because it's too
57:08satisfying
57:10so you know if i'm a white american i
57:12need to relinquish my insistence
57:14uh that i've got to expiate through
57:16government policy and instead let people
57:18go back to being people
57:20yeah that's right um and when you see me
57:23coming
57:24the worst thing you can possibly do is
57:27lower standards
57:30i'm i'm i'm pro-black therefore i
57:33believe
57:34american institutions when it comes to
57:36admitting people
57:37to them when you see a black suit a
57:41person
57:41come you should raise the standards
57:46that doesn't sound fair
57:50you should raise the standards i heard
57:52you
57:55uh here's a a simple and nobody will
57:58believe i'm equal
57:59until you do i'm afraid that's the way
58:02human psychology is regardless the way
58:03the world works
58:04the way the world works yeah
58:08uh maybe this is close to the final
58:10question here
58:11how do we affect cultural change in
58:13impoverished communities do we
58:14do we need to adjust america's political
58:16economy to help raise the floor or do we
58:18need a more local approach or what
58:20what can we do to improve all this mess
58:23shall be still
58:25the the problem is in in your use of the
58:27word we
58:29precisely implying no doubt white
58:32america
58:32or the government or the government um
58:36what we need to do is to get out of the
58:39way
58:40of of those people we need a society
58:42that's fair
58:44that does not discriminate against
58:46people on the basis of their race
58:47we need that desperately we don't have
58:50that we have nothing
58:53but after that we must leave people
58:56alone
58:57i have faith in black people i know they
58:59can do it
59:00i know they can find a way to do it
59:02again my father who had a third grade
59:04education
59:06he had four children all of them had
59:08phds
59:09he never got a dime from the government
59:13from white guilt uh
59:16and that's the attitude that's where
59:19black pride it seems to me
59:21comes in black pride will save us if we
59:24if it
59:24enables us to stop giving our lives
59:26putting our lives in the hands
59:28of of other people uh you take care of
59:31yourself
59:32i'll take care of myself
59:35and uh that's the way it ought to be
59:39uh i know some millennial-aged
59:42young people who have really good hearts
59:45and they might well be listening some of
59:46them may be watching right now and i
59:48just imagine some of them saying
59:49themselves but
59:50but dr steele shouldn't we be advocating
59:53for social justice after all
59:55isn't that a good thing to do social
59:57justice after all is social justice
1:00:00we have the least racially discriminated
1:00:03the least racist society
1:00:08in the history of the world i grew up
1:00:10when there was rank
1:00:11racism every everywhere every aspect of
1:00:14my life was kurt
1:00:16i'll be here all day if i if i go down
1:00:19the litany of
1:00:20what racism did what i saw it do
1:00:23i'm telling you we're free today black
1:00:26people can do anything they
1:00:28want including be the president
1:00:30including to be the ceo of a major
1:00:32corporation
1:00:33they can be uh a great opera singer they
1:00:35can be
1:00:36they can make the best uh rap music
1:00:39they can do anything
1:00:42uh they're no different than anybody
1:00:45else
1:00:45they're they're just the same they're no
1:00:48better they're no worse
1:00:50we have to stop treating them as a
1:00:52special case because there's not
1:00:54that's not what it's about they're not a
1:00:56special case
1:00:58it's you the white america
1:01:01that wants them to be a special case so
1:01:03you can throw nickels and dimes at them
1:01:06and make yourself feel like you're a
1:01:08great person
1:01:09you're you're for social justice
1:01:13no you're not you are for the continued
1:01:15oppression
1:01:16of black people through the mechanisms
1:01:19and policies
1:01:20now designated social justice right
1:01:23yeah that's exactly right it's pretty
1:01:25ironic um
1:01:26it's remarkable to have a chance to talk
1:01:28to you about these things dr steele
1:01:30thank you thank you on behalf of all of
1:01:32our
1:01:32participants around the country who
1:01:34tuned in it's been
1:01:36pretty amazing and if they want to watch
1:01:38what killed michael brown what do they
1:01:40do
1:01:41uh it's on amazon it's on salem i think
1:01:45right now
1:01:46it's uh you should watch out for it it's
1:01:50going to
1:01:50soon be on many other platforms as well
1:01:53but it's been on
1:01:54on amazon for a good while now and you
1:01:56can literally
1:01:57to begin with did they really yes they
1:01:59did oh man how did you overcome that
1:02:01people people the wall street journal
1:02:04took a position on it
1:02:06and so i don't know where we finally get
1:02:08we got a phone call that said uh
1:02:10we're sorry we made a mistake so they
1:02:13thought that it was somehow
1:02:14uh unacceptable they thought it was
1:02:16unacceptable
1:02:18to contest the nasty letter and they
1:02:21basically
1:02:21said they told us not to do any tricks
1:02:24to try to reapply
1:02:26oh wow that that
1:02:30there was nothing we could do well
1:02:33luckily we got the the wall street
1:02:36journal all right for them sometimes
1:02:38uh good well that sounds like amazon
1:02:40there was an
1:02:41editorial on it and it got picked up and
1:02:44so
1:02:44it's been now streamed on amazon for
1:02:47about four months
1:02:48it sounds like the amazon folks
1:02:49themselves had a case of white guilt
1:02:51which they thought
1:02:52sought to expiate by chiming in with the
1:02:55critical race theory agenda
1:02:57and canceling you that's exactly right
1:03:00i've been canceled a lot i'm this is not
1:03:02new to me i'm
1:03:03i'm afraid that that is true i've been
1:03:05watching from afar
1:03:07admiring your hard work um so again
1:03:10thank you and let me encourage everyone
1:03:11to go
1:03:11uh find and watch what killed michael
1:03:14brown you can get the
1:03:15trailer on youtube right now uh very
1:03:18much worth seeking that out
1:03:20uh dr shelby steele thank you for
1:03:22joining us
1:03:23for our independent conversations will
1:03:26you come back some other time
1:03:27i'd be happy to and uh i appreciate your
1:03:31your invitation to come this time it's a
1:03:33pleasure to see you
1:03:35let me remind all of our friends uh that
1:03:36you can always turn to the independent
1:03:38institute for
1:03:39uh resources on this and other subjects
1:03:41go to independent.org
1:03:43and you can find your fill of antidotes
1:03:46to some of the problems that we've been
1:03:48talking about today
1:03:49so with that goodbye shelby steele
1:03:51goodbye everybody take care and come
1:03:53back again for independent conversations
1:03:55bye-bye thank you thank you
1:04:00[Music]

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