Talk:Shelby Steele

Matches with Hoover bio
This article has recently been tagged as a possible copyright violation of Steele's bio at the Hoover Institution's website. Out of idle curiosity, I set out to identify all the non-trivial sentence fragments in the article which are also in the online bio. Here's what I found:  In the lede para of the article, the fragment
 * who specializes in the study of race relations, multiculturalism, and affirmative action

is also found in the first para of the bio.  In the second para of the article, the fragment
 * argues that too much of what has been done since the Great Society in the name of black rights has far more to do with the moral redemption or self-satisfaction of whites than with any real improvement in the lives of blacks.

is also found in the fourth para of the bio.  In the first para in the "Recognition" section, the final two sentences
 * He also has written extensively for major publications including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. He also is a contributing editor at Harper's Magazine.

nearly duplicate the first two sentences of the fourth para of the bio
 * [Steele] also has written extensively for major publications including the New York Times and [the] Wall Street Journal. He also is a contributing editor at Harper's magazine.

 The second para under "Recognition" is identical to the fifth para of the bio, except for beginning with "He also" instead of "Steele".  In the third para under "Recognition", the fragment
 * has written widely on race in American society and the consequences of contemporary social programs on race relations.

is also found in the second para of the bio.  In the last para under "Recognition", the fragments
 * In 1991, his work on the documentary Seven Days in Bensonhurst was recognized with an Emmy Award

and
 * the Writer's Guild Award for television documentary writing, and the San Francisco Film Festival Award

are also found in the third para of the bio, as is the sentence
 * In 2004, Steele was awarded the National Humanities Medal.

 The entire first para of the "Background" section is identical to the last para of the bio.

My conclusion is that a significant fraction of this article has been taken from an earlier version of Steele's Hoover bio, probably with some minor editing. Sigh. CWC (talk) 10:03, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Non copyvio version
I'll take a stab at writing a non-infringing version at Talk:Shelby Steele/Temp. — Kaustuv Chaudhuri 16:06, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

"Black conservative"
Can we get a better reference than just "The Content of Our Character"? At least a page number where he identifies as a conservative? In that book, he explicitly says that he's not a fan of Ronald Reagan. Bueller 007 (talk) 23:56, 11 October 2020 (UTC)


 * That one has said that they are. 'not a fan of Ronald Reagan' is not a view that the speaker is not a conservative - only that the person is not a fan of Ronald Reagan's version of conservatism (or aspects of it). Worldviewman1974 (talk) 21:41, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Need to add What Killed Michael Brown to Documentary Section
Need to add What Killed Michael Brown to Documentary Section — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.107.97.137 (talk) 07:11, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

NPOV - is this guy really so uncontroversial that he's never been criticised?
I added the fan tag because it really does appear to have been written by his fans. Doug Weller talk 10:36, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
 * He clearly has been: https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Shelby-Steele-has-a-lot-to-say-about-black-2535245.php &#124; MK17b &#124;</b>  (talk)  17:01, 23 November 2020 (UTC)


 * This newspaper article is interesting and should be read. But it is strange, that it cites Amiri Baraka, as if his was a neutral position. Baraka is, as everybody knows, a fierce black racist and life-long Stalinist.--Ralfdetlef (talk) 09:18, 26 December 2022 (UTC)
 * This article and the various comments on it raises the problem of a 'neutral' point of view. The majority of pieces I have read on Wikipedia over the past decades fail to demonstrate a neutral position. I long ago gave up on commenting on all the entries that are written from a perspective that is either overly critical or overly non-critical; they are clearly advocating for a particular view, and constructed to support that view. When they do speak about counterviews, they use strawman arguments and cite weak sources. Worldviewman1974 (talk) 21:54, 19 August 2023 (UTC)