Journal Article

Moralism and Compensation in Shelby Steele’s White Guilt Theory

Nighaoui, Sami Chedhli

2019

Overview

This paper revisits Steele’s claims about the politics of social equality and justice by interrogating some of his postulates about the allegedly ineluctable effects of preferential policies on African American social mobility. Although his arguments about the psychological and cultural effects of preferential treatment on this community’s academic and economic performance might be relatively sound, he fails to provide solutions to go about the persistence of anti-black racism. The discussion of the potential impacts of preferential policies on career building among African Americans shall in this paper draw on the wider debate on the “moral politics” involved in the practices of victimization and compensation. The paper also demonstrates that preferential treatment is currently the only effective assistance that the government could provide for students from this disadvantaged community in the absence of concrete political solutions to the problem of unequal educational preparation by which it seems to be most affected.

• Publisher: Hasan Aydin,Yildiz Technical University
• Subject: Academic achievement / Admission Criteria / African Americans / Civil Rights Legislation / Community Development / Community Relations / Compensation / Cultural Influences / Democracy / Disadvantaged / Economic conditions / Economic performance / Economic theory / Equality / Ethnic Groups / Glazer, Nathan (1923-2019) / Government (Administrative Body) / Graduation Rate / Guilt / Ideology / Individualism / Justice / Labor Market / Liberalism / Minority & ethnic groups / Morality / Opportunities / Original Manuscript / Political Attitudes / Political Power / Politics / Postulates / Public policy / Race / Racial Differences / Racism / Self Actualization / Social History / Social justice / Social mobility / Steele, Shelby / Theory / Victimization / White people