Before his address yesterday, Shelby Steele sat down with the Daily for a brief chat on race-related issues in recent news.
Steele, who opposes affirmative action, did not echo accolades to Harvard for deep-sixing its early admissions program earlier this month. (Princeton followed suit last week, and the University of Virginia announced Tuesday that it would as well.)
Harvard's early action setup "was a pretty good program," he said, which vastly simplified the admission process for his daughter, who applied there and was accepted early.
"It's sad to see them give it up in the name of minority weakness," he said.
Rather than leave minority students dependent on structural changes, he said, he would prefer that Harvard "see the problem in the minority community." Minority students should drum up the drive to pursue educational goals themselves, he said, and should not have to rely on artificially created structural aids to help them get ahead.
Deval Patrick's spectacular victory in last week's gubernatorial primary puts him in line to become Massachusetts' first black governor. Yet Steele is dissatisfied with the example that Democrats like Patrick are setting.
"The sad thing is the alignment of the Democratic party with the black identity itself," he said. "Heaven forbid you are a [black] conservative, it's a betrayal to your race."
The democrat-black given has made for a stagnant political climate in the black community, he said. "It's a tragic place to be in. Both parties aren't bidding for our vote. Neither Democrats [nor] Republicans have an incentive to appeal to blacks. It's a loser's game."
In the spirit of events like last year's discussion between the Pan-African Alliance and the Tufts Republicans, Steele said that blacks who ignore Republican ideas "do so at their own expense."
He also spoke about the racial self-segregation visible on college campuses, for which he suggested several causes.
"The obvious one-- though people never mention it - is sex," Steele said. "People want to socialize with people who will be potential dating partners" without a "taboo like race" to get in the way.
"It's an added fear," he said.
- Kat Schmidt
