Rhetorical Analysis Of The New Sovereignty By Shelby Steele

Racial oppression in the United States has been present for almost a century now. Although slavery was abolished in the 1860s, people associated in target groups are still being mistreated by racial oppression in different ways. In the article “Being Poor, Black, and American” written by William Julius Wilson, a sociologist and professor at Harvard University, Wilson shows that political, economic, and cultural forces are the primary forces that contains the distinction between target and agent group positions. From the immigration policies, the workplace policies, and stereotypical views portrayed by society, these all have an impact on how an individual can live their life. Altogether, these forces ultimately keep people in check with society’s rules and regulations on what is right and wrong and keep them from stepping out of their place.

The academic debate over affirmative action has become a bitter stalemate. Opponents consider affirmative action to be reverse discrimination, while supporters say that the relationship between blacks and whites is hardly symmetrical. The sterility of this debate suggests that it is time for a fresh perspective, and an analysis considers affirmative action in light of critical race theory (CRT). One of CRT’s tenets is that conventional civil rights scholarship has limited application to current racial problems. Because of the practical and political limits on affirmative action, disputes about its legitimacy are likely to fade as attention shifts to other problems and remedies.

In the second paragraph of "The Declaration of Independence" is one of history's most regularly quoted passages. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” (Jefferson) The Declaration motivated the colonist to seek independence from from the King of Great Britain. Even though the Declaration was trying to point out a positive outcome it does not go into detail about what the values of Americans should be, which is why not all citizens are treated equally. We are not living into the promises today because there are so many negativity that is happening in America today.

Many white Americans are living with the fear that they didn't really deserve their success, and that maybe luck and privilege had more to do with it, than brains and hard work. There are numerous reasons for the widespread discrimination at all levels, but the main reason for the existence of discrimination is a privilege to certain groups of people, and widespread social prejudice towards certain groups of people. Differences between people have always existed, but they gain in importance only when are different importance given to certain differences, so it creates privileges. People who are privileged in one society are often not aware of their privilege. It is very easy to be oblivious to the privilege. The problem of discrimination

In Rhetorical Sovereignty: What Do American Indians Want from Writing?, Lyons states, “sovereignty is the guiding story in our pursuit of self-determination, the general strategy by which we aim to best recover our losses from ravages of colonization…the pursuit of sovereignty is an attempt to revive not our past, but our possibilities” (2000). I agree with Lyons on this statement. Sovereignty should be way of retelling the history of different groups so those who do not know their story can become familiar with it. People cannot learn from history if they do not know their history. Once they know the history, then they can seek the possibilities they once claimed from it. This can go for any group of people, not just Native Americans.

When white Americans choose to self-educate about systemic racism they can become allies in the fight to dismantle racist structures in our society. Systemic racism is a theory that “takes a look at how individual, structural, and institutional forms of racism intersect, overlap, and create a deep-rooted form of prejudice and discrimination that advantages a cultural group at the expense of others in all institutions of a society - economics, political representation, the criminal justice system, employment, and many others.” (Luther College 2015). This includes discrimination affecting credit, schooling, justice, residential location, etc. It can be eradicated in the next century, but not without white people acknowledging that it is a real issue that cost lives. It is not the duty of the oppressed to make a liberty sales pitch to their oppressors. However, it is the responsibility of those benefiting from the oppression of others to become educated, listen, and use their privilege to combat injustice. Asian, Latino, Black, and First Nations people respectively do not experience white supremacy in the same ways. Throughout this essay I will focus on the systemic racism targeted at Black people, using the term “People of Color”, coined by Black Feminists in the 1970s, abbreviated to PoC, to refer to them.

Shelby Steele is a well-known African American author, professor, and commentator on race relations. Steele wrote several books, commentaries and essays, and one of them is “The New Sovereignty” in the 1990s. “The New Sovereignty,” by Shelby Steele was trying to persuade the American society, specifically all the minority groups seeking entitlement that America was meant to be a democratic society with integration and not a society that relies on collective entitlement. In this essay, Steele tries to remind the society what true democracy means. Steele argues that even though early civil right leaders fought to get democracy with integration, later on, the society was creating new segregation groups. The only difference was that before, segregation

My race is Black, my ethnicity is African American and my culture (349) could be described as complicated. In applying these factors to my personal experiences I will refer to Matthew and Emirbayer’s “What is Racial Domination?” to explain the racial biases and discriminations that I have experienced from Arkansas to Los Angeles and ultimately Irvine. From the day of my birth my life and the opportunities presented or denied have been defined by racial domination and the Institutional racism of White Americans.

S: The founding fathers, Jefferson in particular, wrote the Declaration to persuade American loyalists to proclaim independence from the British crown. The text also embodies the concept of equality and state superiority. Jefferson's subject the disunion of the colonists from the country of Britain, and the establishment of a rational government, one that would serve in the best interests of its people.

In Shelby Steele’s essay, “The New Sovereignty,” he targets two audiences. The audiences are Minorities who have taken advantage of their benefits from the government and just everyday American citizens. Shelby Steele’s purpose is to inform the people of the collective entitlement problem that has taken over America. Using repetition and historic examples, Shelby was able to make these rhetorical choices effective since the problem he addressed has also been repeating over time.

He used facts by comparing what happened years ago, and what was happening in the year that he wrote his essay. In the past, civil right leaders were fighting for integration and equality. By the late sixties, people didn’t wanted just equality, they wanted more privileges, and they were becoming separatist because they were not accepting people that were different, they only wanted people that were equal to them, and by saying equal I mean the same ethnic group. To support his claim, Steele states that “By the mid-Sixties, the democratic goal of integration was no longer enough to appease black anger. Suddenly for blacks there was a sense that far more was owed, that a huge bill was due” (Steele, 455). “I went on to explain that Martin Luther King and the early civil right leaders had demanded only constitutional rights; they had been found wanting, too. By the late Sixties, among a new set of black leaders, there had developed a presumption of collective entitlement that made blacks eligible for rights beyond those provided for in the Constitution…”(Steele, 451). “As early as mid-Sixties, white were made unwelcome in civil right movements, just as, by the mid-Seventies, men were no longer welcome in the women’s movement”(Steele, 456). Moreover, those comparisons helped him to get more credibility from his audience by demonstrating that Steele was not just arguing because he was angry, but because it was true based on his facts that in the past, people had the real definition of democracy, but later, people just wanted to take advantage of this

Intro: The American Dream attracts many people from all over the world, people have an image that living in America grants them the life of their dreams, but does living in america really grant people the perfect life? The Case For Reparations by Coates explains how African Americans have struggled in the past with racism and discrimination. He goes on to talk about their lives during slavery and post slavery, and how African Americans are unemployed and undereducated. Aja ET AL.’s essay From A Tangle Of Pathology To A Race Fair America also talks about the lives of African Americans, the discrimination, segregation, and unemployment. They both go on explaining how Blacks are always discriminated against and are not given equal

Shelby Steele opens the article “New Sovereignty” with the narration of a speech he was giving at a University. He talks about the early civil rights movements and its narrow demand for only constitutional rights. By the late Sixties/early Seventies the concept of collective entitlement was on the map. Steele then tells the audience of his idea of New Sovereignty and how it wishes to push for equality among all groups without creating inequality like many sovereign constituencies did so in the past. Steele then goes in depth of how only inclusion answers history’s exclusion and that how grievance groups have it all confused. His father’s disciple and wisdom had a huge impact on Steele’s perception of the Civil Rights movement and much of his

The way America as a whole handles integration and equality in society has been subject to some debate. It is not a debate of whether or not it is right or wrong, for that choice has already been made. In order for progress to occur, there needs to be equality. The debate lies in how equality and integration should be exercised effectively, so as to have our society be truly equal. Shelby Steel, in his article “The New Sovereignty”, does a successful attempt in explaining how current methods are not in favor of equality. A man of the civil rights movement, and a well-known commentator on race relations, Steele does a good job of illustrating to grievance groups that what is currently installed in the place of integration is in fact collective

Racial inequality has been around for the majority of the United States history, many have fought for equal rights but lost. Not until the late 1940s and 1950s did African Americans start to win the battle of segregation (Lec. November 11). By the mid-1960s progress was slow and very long, which didn’t please the Black youths. According to Oakes, northern states had many protest from African Americans that critized liberal whites ignoring racial inequality in the northern states, which would eventually erupted into a riot. With frustrations mounting up militant African American groups started to form in a new movement called Black Power (Oakes, pg866).Though there