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Imprimis, On Line -- August 1992
Imprimis, meaning "in the first place," is a free
monthly publication of Hillsdale College (circulation
360,000 worldwide). Hillsdale College is a liberal arts
institution known for its defense of free market
principles and Western culture and its nearly 150-year
refusal to accept federal funds. Imprimis publishes
lectures by such well-known figures as Ronald Reagan,
Jeane Kirkpatrick, Tom Wolfe, Charlton Heston, and many
more. Permission to reprint is hereby granted, provided
credit is given to Hillsdale College. Copyright 1992.
For more information on free print subscriptions or
back issues, call 1-800-437-2268, or 1-517-439-1524,
ext. 2319.
------------------------------
"The New Segregation"
by Shelby Steele,
Author, The Content of Our Character
------------------------------
Volume 21, Number 8
Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan 49242
August 1992
------------------------------
Preview: At Hillsdale's Center for Constructive
Alternatives February 1992 seminar "Thought Police on
Campus: Is Academic Freedom in Danger?" author Shelby
Steele made an eloquent plea for a return to the ideal
of genuine equality and an end to "the politics of
difference," which has produced not only a divided
campus, but a divided society.
------------------------------
The civil rights movement of the 1950s-1960s culminated
in the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights
Act--two monumental pieces of legislation that have
dramatically altered the fabric of American life.
During the struggle for their passage, a new source of
power came into full force. Black Americans and their
supporters tapped into the moral power inspired by a
300-year history of victimization and oppression and
used it to help transform society, to humanize it, to
make it more tolerant and open. They realized,
moreover, that the victimization and oppression that
blacks had endured came from one "marriage"--a marriage
of race and power. They had to stop those who said,
"merely because we are white, we have the power to
dominate, enslave, segregate and discriminate."
Race should not be a source of power or advantage
or disadvantage for anyone in a free society. This was
one of the most important lessons of the original civil
rights movement. The legislation it championed during
the 1960s constituted a new "emancipation
proclamation." For the first time segregation and
discrimination were made illegal. Blacks began to enjoy
a degree of freedom they had never experienced before.
Delayed Anger
This did not mean that things changed overnight for
blacks. Nor did it ensure that their memory of past
injustice was obliterated. I hesitate to borrow
analogies from the psychological community, but I think
this one does apply: Abused children do not usually
feel anger until many years after the abuse has ended,
that is, after they have experienced a degree of
freedom and normalcy. Only after civil rights
legislation had been enacted did blacks at long last
began to feel the rage they had suppressed. I can
remember that period myself. I had a tremendous sense
of delayed anger at having been forced to attend
segregated schools. (My grade school was the first
school to be involved in a desegregation suit in the
north.) My rage, like that of other blacks, threatened
for a time to become all consuming.
Anger was both inevitable and necessary. When
suppressed, it eats you alive; it has got to come out,
and it certainly did during the 1960s. One form was the
black power movement in all of its many manifestations,
some of which were violent. There is no question that
we should condemn violence, but we should also
understand why it occurs. You cannot oppress people for
over three centuries and then say it is all over and
expect them to put on suits and ties and become decent
attache-carrying citizens and go to work on Wall
Street.
Once my own anger was released, my reaction was
that I no longer had to apologize for being black. That
was a tremendous benefit and it helped me come to terms
with my own personal development. The problem is that
many blacks never progressed beyond their anger.
The Politics of Difference
The black power movement encouraged a permanent state
of rage and victimhood. An even greater failing was
that it rejoined race and power--the very "marriage"
that civil rights legislation had been designed to
break up. The leaders of the original movement said,
"Anytime you make race a source of power you are going
to guarantee suffering, misery and inequity." Black
power leaders declared: "We're going to have power
because we're black."
Well, is there any conceivable difference between
black power and white power? When you demand power
based on the color of your skin, aren't you saying that
equality and justice are impossible? Somebody's going
to be in, somebody's going to be out. Somebody's going
to win, somebody's going to lose, and race is once
again a source of advantage for some and disadvantage
for others. Ultimately, black power was not about
equality or justice; it was, as its name suggests,
about power.
And when blacks began to demand entitlements based
on their race, feminists responded with enthusiasm,
"We've been oppressed too!" Hispanics said, "We're not
going to let this bus pass us by," and Asians said,
"We're not going to let it pass us by either." Eskimos
and American Indians quickly hopped on the bandwagon,
as did gays, lesbians, the disabled and other self-
defined minorities.
By the 1970s, the marriage of race and power was
once again firmly established. Equal-ity was out: the
"politics of difference" was in. From then on, everyone
would rally around the single quality that makes them
different from the white male and pursue power based on
that quality. It is a very simple formula. All you have
to do is identify that quality, whatever it may be,
with victimization. And victimization is itself, after
all, a tremendous source of moral power.
The politics of difference demanded shifting the
entire basis of entitlement in America. Historically,
entitlement was based on the rights of citizenship
elaborated in the Declaration of Independence and the
U. S. Constitution. This was the kind of entitlement
that the original civil rights movement leaders claimed
for blacks: recognition of their rights as American
citizens to equal treatment under the law. They did not
claim, "We deserve rights and entitlements because we
are black," but, "We deserve them because we are
citizens of the United States and like all other
citizens are due these rights." The politics of
difference changed all that. Blacks and other
minorities began demanding entitlement solely based on
their history of oppression, their race, their gender,
their ethnicity, or whatever quality that allegedly
made them victims.
Grievance Identities
By the 1980s, the politics of difference had, in turn,
led to the establishment of "grievance identities."
These identities are not about such things as the great
contributions of women throughout history or the rich
culture of black Americans. To have a strong identity
as a woman, for example, means that you are against the
"oppressive male patriarchy"--period. To have a strong
identity as a black means that you are against racist
white America--period. You have no choice but to
fulfill a carefully defined politically correct role:
(1) you must document the grievance of your group; (2)
you must testify to its abiding and ongoing alienation;
and (3) you must support its sovereignty. As a black
who fails any of these three requirements you are not
only politically incorrect, you are a traitor, an
"Uncle Tom." You are blaming the victim, you are
letting whites off the hook, and you are betraying your
people.
In establishing your grievance identity, you must
turn your back on the enormous and varied fabric of
life. There is no legacy of universal ideas or common
human experience. There is only one dimension to your
identity: anger against oppression. Grievance
identities are thus "sovereignties" that compete with
the sovereignties of the nation itself. Blacks, women,
Hispanics and other minorities are not even American
citizens anymore. They are citizens of sovereignties
with their own right to autonomy.
The New Segregation on Campus
The marriage of race and power, the politics of
difference, and grievance identities--these are
nurtured by the American educational establishment.
They have also acted on that establishment and affected
it in significant ways. After a talk I gave recently at
a well-known university, a woman introduced herself as
the chairperson of the women's studies department. She
was very proud of the fact that the university had a
separate degree-granting program in women's studies. I
stressed that I had always been very much in favor of
teaching students about the contributions of women. But
I asked her what it was that students gained from
segregated women's studies that could not be gained
from studying within the traditional liberal arts
disciplines. Her background was in English, as was
mine, so I added, "What is a female English professor
in the English department doing that is different from
what a female English professor in the women's studies
department is doing? Is she going to bring a different
methodology to bear? What is it that academically
justifies a segregated program for women, or for
blacks, or any other group? Why not incorporate such
studies into the English department, the history
department, the biology department or into any of the
other regular departments?"
As soon as I began to ask such questions I noticed
a shift in her eyes and a tension in her attitude. She
began to see me as an enemy and quickly made an excuse
to end the conversation. This wasn't about a rational
academic discussion of women's studies. It was about
the sovereignty of the feminist identity, and unless I
tipped my hat to that identity by saying, "Yes, you
have the right to a separate department," no further
discussion or debate was possible.
Meanwhile, the politics of difference is
overtaking education. Those with grievance identities
demand separate buildings, classrooms, offices,
clerical staff--even separate Xerox machines. They all
want to be segregated universities within the
universities. They want their own space--their
sovereign territory. Metaphorically, and sometimes
literally, they insist that not only the university but
society at large must pay tribute to their sovereignty.
Today there are some 500 women's studies
departments. There are black studies departments,
Hispanic studies departments, Jewish studies
departments, Asian studies departments. They all have
to have space, staff, and budgets. What are they
studying that can't be studied in other departments?
They don't have to answer this question, of course, but
when political entitlement shifted away from
citizenship to race, class and gender, a shift in
cultural entitlement was made inevitable.
Those with grievance identities also demand extra
entitlements far beyond what should come to us as
citizens. As a black, I am said to "deserve" this or
that special entitlement. No longer is it enough just
to have the right to attend a college or university on
an equal basis with others or to be treated like anyone
else. Schools must set aside special money and special
academic departments just for me, based on my
grievance. Some campuses now have segregated dorms for
black students who demand to live together with people
of their "own kind." Students have lobbied for separate
black student unions, black yearbooks, black Homecoming
dances, black graduation ceremonies--again, all so that
they can be comfortable with their "own kind."
One representative study at the University of
Michigan indicates that 70 percent of the school's
black undergraduates have never had a white
acquaintance. Yet, across the country, colleges and
universities like Michigan readily and even eagerly
continue to encourage more segregation by granting the
demands of every vocal grievance identity.
White Guilt
A great contributing factor is, of course, white guilt-
-specifically a knowledge of ill-gotten advantage.
Ignorance is innocence, knowledge is guilt. Whites in
America generally know that there is at least a slight
advantage in being white. If a white person walks into
a department store, chances are he or she is not going
to be followed by the security guard as I am. This kind
of knowledge makes whites vulnerable. (Incidentally, I
do not mean to deride all forms of guilt. Guilt can be
a wonderful thing, a truly civilized emotion. Prisons
are full of people incapable of feeling guilt.)
A member of a grievance identity points a finger
and says, "Hey whitey, you've oppressed my people! You
have had generations to build up wealth and opportunity
while I've had nothing." Almost automatically, the
white person's first reaction is: "Am I guilty? Am I a
racist?"
The second reaction is escapism: "All right, what
do you want? What is it going to take to prove to you
that I am not racist?" White college and university
administrators say, "You want a black student lounge?
You got it. We have a little extra money, so we can pay
for a black yearbook. We can hold a separate graduation
just for you. What else do you want?"
The third reaction is blindness. Obviously, when
you are preoccupied with escaping your own feelings of
guilt, you are utterly blind to the people causing it.
So college and university administrators blindly grant
black students extra entitlements, from dorms to
yearbooks, and build an entire machinery of segregation
on campus while ignoring the fact that 72 percent of
black American college students are dropping out.
Black students have the lowest grade point average
of any student group. If whites were not so preoccupied
with escaping their own guilt, they would see that the
real problem is not racism; it is that black students
are failing in tragic numbers. They don't need separate
dorms and yearbooks. They need basic academic skills.
But instead they are taught that extra entitlements are
their due and that the greatest power of all is the
power that comes to them as victims. If they want to
get anywhere in American life, they had better wear
their victimization on their sleeve, they had better
tap into white guilt, making whites want to escape by
offering money, status, racial preferences--something,
anything--in return. Is this the way for a race that
has been oppressed to come into its own? Is this the
way to achieve independence?
A Return to a Common Culture
Colleges and universities are not only segregating
their campuses, they are segregating learning. If only
for the sake of historical accuracy, we should teach
all students--black, white, female, male--about many
broad and diverse cultures. But those with grievance
identities use the multicultural approach as an all-out
assault on the liberal arts curriculum, on the American
heritage, and on Western culture. They have made our
differences, rather than our common bonds, sacred.
Often they do so in the name of building the "self-
esteem" of minorities. But they are not going to build
anyone's self-esteem by condemning our culture as the
product of "dead white males."
We do share a common history and a common culture,
and that must be the central premise of education. If
we are to end the new segregation on campus, and
everywhere else it exists, we need to recall the spirit
of the original civil rights movement, which was
dedicated to the "self evident truth" that all men are
created equal.
Even the most humble experiences unite us. We have
all grown up on the same sitcoms, eaten the same fast
food, and laughed at the same jokes. We have practiced
the same religions, lived under the same political
system, read the same books, and worked in the same
marketplace. We have the same dreams and aspirations as
well as fears and doubts for ourselves and for our
children. How, then, can our differences be so
overwhelming?
------------------------------
Shelby Steele, the author of the widely acclaimed book,
The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in
America (St. Martin's Press, 1990), is a professor of
English at San Jose State University. His work has also
appeared in Harper's, the New York Times Magazine,
Commentary, the Washington Post, and the American
Scholar. He is a recipient of a National Magazine
Award, and one of his essays was chosen for The Best
American Essays 1989. Dr. Steele is currently at work
on a second book.
###
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