Man of High Integrity

There are very few people in this country who I genuinely admire and Shelby Steele is one of them. I was watching one of his C-Span interviews the other day (a rebroadcast from 1998) and Brian Lamb asked him, "So, when did you finally feel comfortable referring to yourself as a 'black conservative'?" Mr. Steele thought for a few seconds and finally answered, "I'm not sure that I'm comfortable with it still, with that or any other label."...I mean, how damned refreshing is that?..............................................................................And then there was another point in the interview in which he chronicled an event that happened on a certain college campus. He was giving his speech and right in the middle of it a couple of black campus radicals started heckling at him and calling him names such as "Uncle Tom" (of course) and "house slave". Again, he paused for a few seconds and said that it really didn't bother him and that he almost expected it. Of course, what he ultimately did have an issue with was the sight of all of those administrators and leftist college professors sitting in the front row; totally silent, sitting on their hands, all too cowardly to call for decorum out of bald fear of being called a racist. It obviously saddened him greatly this virulent bigotry of lowered expectations.