Steele gives an eloquent account of his own conversion to conservatism and explains how the various movements in the 60s undermined faith in core American principles such as personal responsibility, merit, and equality of opportunity. He then explains why the current progressivism, with its emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion, will ultimately fail to uplift marginalized people.

His reasoning is based on personal experience and commitment to principles. While I (as a classical liberal) found it persuasive, some may see the need for supporting data or historical examples. The book offers no solutions to our divide and left me feeling pessimistic for the future. Though it reaffirmed my belief in equality and merit, I also see why this is likely to be a failed proposition for people that were long disenfranchised and must overcome significant disadvantage. ( )

I'm not really sure what to say. Steele's writing is sharp and full of paragraphs that need to be picked apart. More so than with any other book I have read since last year, I have felt the privilege and the shame that comes with the past---and my identity--- while reading this book.

And yet, I wanted more. More citations. I want the stats on his claim regarding abortion statistics(when it is harder to get and less legal, after all, how do we measure?) A link to that interview with Baldwin(why read the text when you can watch it?).

I want a dialogue. Between Steele, Kendi, Sowell, Coates, Riley, Alexander, Carol Swain, and Austin Channing Brown. I entered this conversation to learn. Education and experience, especially this year, has taught me to do more listening to, and less discounting of expressed observations different than mine. I'd even settle for the old repeating column in the opinion section of the newspaper. Any way I can get it, that is my current dream. But I shall probably have to make do with books.

If you already believe in Right-wing Conservative ideology, you may like this book, but it is actually not that good a defense of those principles. Steele relies almost exclusively on his own personal experiences (which are actually the good part of the book) and platitudes, with no data of any sort, to skewer Liberal principles and support Conservative ones.

His basic premise is that Liberals, in trying to address racism, are simply acting from a base of collective guilt for America's past sins. He contends that the main work of bringing equality to America for Blacks has been accomplished, and that now Liberals need to just back off and stop trying to do things like affirmative action, school integration and welfare programs, because all these programs have done and will continue to do is keep Blacks inferior and dependent. Steele sees Blacks as being lured into a sense of entitlement based on America's past sins.

In making this thesis, Steele completely ignores the fact that racism is not gone due to the Civil Rights triumphs of the 60s, it has just changed its character. There may no longer be Jim Crow, but the War on Drugs disproportionately targets Blacks and Black communities, which has led to a much larger proportion of Black inmates than their share of the population would predict. He also conveniently ignores the numerous studies showing that Blacks who are in every other way equal with Whites of the same socioeconomic category are far less likely to compete well for a job against White applicants, are far less likely to get a home loan, and are far less competitive in almost any other place you want to measure such. Even if they are more highly qualified than a comparable White applicant, they are still likely to lose a job or university slot to the White person.

With personal heroes such as Ronald Reagan and William F. Buckley, it is no surprise that Steele, like so many Right-wing Conservatives, sees government as the problem, and freedom as the answer. He believes in free markets (whatever that means), a flat tax and apparently little to no government involvement in dealing with issues of racism, sexism and poverty, other than making sure everyone is free to do what they want. All I can say is that his view of Liberals is largely a straw man, and Liberal policies have made progress, and continue to make progress toward solving some of the many social problems our country is still plagued with, and the motivation for Liberalism is not guilt, but rather a moral belief that all people deserve as level a playing field as possible to allow them to succeed. ( )

Excellent. the Author describes how liberalism has contributed to the creation of second class citizens in th 20th century. ( )