Dr. Shelby Steele says white guilt exploitation of black pain leaves blacks dependent on American liberalism
Shelby Steele, senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and author of 'Shame: How America's Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country,' joins Martha MacCallum with insight on 'The Story.'
Author and Hoover Institution senior fellow Shelby Steele questioned Tuesday whether presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden is actually concerned about the problems facing black America following the death of George Floyd last month and the subsequent protests and violence across America.
"We live in, for a lack of a better term, a white guilt world," Steele told "The Story" host Martha MacCallum. "What is Mr. Biden doing? Does he really deeply care about black America and the problems that we have, or is he using our pain as a kind of advertisement of his own moral vanity?"
BIDEN SURROGATE, FORMER VA GOV MCAULIFFE SUGGESTS CANDIDATE STAY UNDERGROUND
Earlier in the interview, MacCallum played a clip of Biden's video message, which was shown at Floyd's funeral in Houston.
"Looking through your eyes, we should also be asking ourselves why the answer is so often too cruel and painful," Biden said. "Why, in this nation, do too many black Americans wake up knowing that they could lose their life in the course of just living their life? Why does justice not roll like a river or righteousness like a mighty stream?"
"Does [Biden] know anything at all, really, about the difficulties that black Americans face now, many of which have nothing in the world to do with racism?" Steele asked.
The author went on to compare what he called the "white guilt exploitation of black pain" to the more obvious sin of segregation.
"In either case, we end up as blacks dependent on what people like Joe Biden, the Democratic Party, American liberalism, what those things do," he said. "We in a sense are dependent on them, and we are trained and encouraged to see our opportunity through them."
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Steele also told MacCallum that he wished that the messages from Biden and Rev. Al Sharpton, who delivered the eulogy at Floyd's funeral, were more positive.
"What happened in Minneapolis is an obvious tragedy. But it is not something that is going to interrupt our greatness, and it tells us all the more clearly that we have to be the engineers of our fate. We have to be the agents of our fate in America," he said.
"We need to go with that, to like ourselves, to respect ourselves, and stop continually trying to solicit to the Joe Bidens of the world in that corrupt symbiosis with white guilt; thinking that that is our way ahead. It is not our way ahead -- we are our own best resource."
Fox News First
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox.
By entering your email and clicking the Subscribe button, you agree to the Fox News Privacy Policy and Terms of Use, and agree to receive content and promotional communications from Fox News. You understand that you can opt-out at any time.