Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    A Dream Deferred: The Second Betrayal of Black Freedom in America
    Unavailable
    A Dream Deferred: The Second Betrayal of Black Freedom in America
    Unavailable
    A Dream Deferred: The Second Betrayal of Black Freedom in America
    Ebook208 pages4 hours

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

    By Shelby Steele

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    "Steele has given eloquent voice to painful truths that are almost always left unspoken in the nation's circumscribed public discourse on race." —New York Times

    From the author of the award-winning bestseller The Content of Our Character and White Guilt comes an essay collection that tells the untold story behind the polarized racial politics in America today. 

    In A Dream Deferred Shelby Steele argues that a second betrayal of black freedom in the United States—the first one being segregation—emerged from the civil rights era when the country was overtaken by a powerful impulse to redeem itself from racial shame. According to Steele, 1960s liberalism had as its first and all-consuming goal the expiation of American guilt rather than the careful development of true equality between the races.  

    In four densely argued essays, Steele takes on the familiar questions of affirmative action, multiculturalism, diversity, Afro-centrism, group preferences, victimization—and what he deems to be the atavistic powers of race, ethnicity, and gender, the original causes of oppression. A Dream Deferred is an honest, courageous look at the perplexing dilemma of race and democracy in the United States—and what we might do to resolve it.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 13, 2009
    ISBN9780061743498
    Unavailable
    A Dream Deferred: The Second Betrayal of Black Freedom in America
    Author

    Shelby Steele

    Shelby Steele is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and Stanford University, and is a contributing editor at Harper's magazine. His many prizes and honors include the National Book Critics Circle Award, an Emmy Award, a Writers Guild Award, and the National Humanities Medal.

    Read more from Shelby Steele

    Related to A Dream Deferred

    Related ebooks

    Ethnic Studies For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    Reviews for A Dream Deferred

    4.5/5

    11 ratings3 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      A collection of essays on race and affirmative action.

      The author, a self-styled conservative black man, proposes that affirmative action doesn’t really help black people. Its point, he says is to provide redemption for white people from the stigma of racial shame. Additionally, in creating a victim mentality which leads to a culture of entitlement (as a way of attempting to make up for past abuses), it has come to provide a power source for the current black leadership. This seems to be as of about twenty years ago. It has not, however, done much for black people, as the young people have come to rely on affirmative action to get them places in college and jobs to which they would not otherwise have been entitled rather than working hard to earn their places in school and the workforce on their own merits.

      He makes his points pretty well. I don’t know if any of this has changed in the past few years. I get the impression that a lot of affirmative action programs have either been done away with or been reduced in recent years, and that other ideas, such as a work requirement for welfare, have been implemented, but I don’t know if the broader changes he was looking for have happened yet.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      This book is very enlightening. From his black vantage point, Shelby Steele talks about how America arrived at where we are today. I cannot really explain this book in a few short sentences. However, it opened my eyes to many topics concerning race. It was very informative and I cannot recommend it highly enough!
    • 5/5
      A powerful book which undoubtedly sparked a lot of controversy. I am sure many cussed out Shelby Steele under their breath as they read A Dream Deferred or even screamed Uncle Tom as they quit reading this collection of four essays on the topics of race relations, affirmative action and civil rights movements.No matter what one thinks of set-asides, quotas and preferential treatment based on skin color, gender or sexual orientation, Shelby Steele writes a well discussed argument. The final essay provides some light on his own story and wraps up what he spent the prior 168 pages elaborating upon.

      1 person found this helpful