Shelby Steele’s Views on Blacks
Shelby Steele is a most inconsistent man (Interview, Opinion, Jan. 13). He suggests that African-Americans need to put a “stronger emphasis on individual responsibility and individual initiative” and then talks about the “need for society to invest major resources in the development of deprived people.” He also supports Head Start and society-sponsored programs to deal with problems of teen-age mothers and poverty in the “inner city.”
Steele is opposed to affirmative action, but does not seem to know if he got his own job at San Jose State University in 1974 as the result of an affirmative action program. After publicity espousing his ill-defined, contradictory views, Steele’s own individual initiative has been enhanced enough for whites across the nation to pay him well to testify on talk shows and other forums that they no longer need to provide assistance to African-Americans.
I am anxiously awaiting his next book, which will probably be titled “Interpreting Race to White People for Fun and Profit.”
KEN WIBECAN
Lynwood
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