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White Guilt and War: Why Shelby Steele thinks the West is losing

  
 
Phex: Dorset Doom
23:59 / 04.05.06
Shelby Steele, author of A Dream Deferred: The Second Betrayal of Black Freedom in America, wrote a very interesting, if controversial, article for the Wall Street Journal, which you can read Here

The point put forward is certainly out of step with much of what has been written on the Iraq war, by both the Left and Right. Conventional logic says that the American military just isn't cut out for fighting against Guerilla forces- Vietnam proved that. Their billion-dollar weapons systems were made to roll across East Germany to take on similarly-equipped Soviet forces, not IEDs and enemy combatants who can blend into the civilian population at will. Others point to a funding crisis (yes, people actually believe the American military is under-funded), which has left ground troops without basic equipment like Body Armor.
But, Steele says, the problem is that the American military is holding back. Certainly, they could do much worse damage than they are already doing, even with conventional weapons, but still, the idea that America needs less restraint (as opposed to a smarter, better equipped and more flexible military) just seems counter-intuitive.
As for White Guilt, well we've already discussed the idea of White identity (having trouble finding the topic btw.) and I suppose guilt (or lack of) is part of that. It's a tough topic, and that's exactly why I'm bringing it up.

So what do you think? Are America's actions in Iraq and elsewhere 'too delicate' to be effective? Is this because of a desire on the part of America's leaders to dissasociate themselves from the White race's past?
 
 
Dead Megatron
01:18 / 05.05.06
Interesting point of view, but one with a few flaws.

First, yesAmerica's action in Iraq are 'too delicate' to win the war, but that has more practical reasons: the cash price of a total war*, which would be too difficult to sell tot the Congress; the cost in public opinion; the 'self-righteous' necessity of at least appear to be the good guy; the arrogance of the 'theocons' in charge who thougth it would be 'a piece of cake' (a vision the more experienced generals did not share); and I'm sure that there are more, similar, reasons.

The Western civilisation, with all its flaws, has indeed come a long way to recognize it's past sins and (sort of) ammend itself. But to refer to the realisation that 'genocide is bad, m'kay?' is 'white guilty' seems a bit, well, (I'm not sure what is the word that would fit best here - maybe 'biased' could work - but in the lack of a better term*, I'll go with ) racist. And not a line of thougth I'd say we should follow.

Btw, aren't the Iraq people caucasian in origin? Aw, well, to those protestant, capitalist, sexually-repressed, close-minded, fanatic guys in the 'White' House , anyone who's not exactly like them is pratically a monkey.


*although, in the long run, a long ocupation will cost more than a quick 'scorched earth' war.

**if anyone can think of a better way to describe it, I'd be more to help to re-word it.
 
 
w1rebaby
12:24 / 05.05.06
Well, it's yet another hopelessly infantile piece of pseudo-intellectual right-wing crap, isn't it? Or have I read it wrong? For a start it takes as a given that the US really is fighting a Proper War in Iraq - not a war of occupation, or ongoing pacification efforts until the installed government can take over that role. No, it's a War, a clash of civilisations, a fight against evil. We all know that you win Wars with Force, and we all know that the US has more Force than anyone else, so why aren't we winning this War? It must be because we're not using enough Force. (It also takes as a given that the US since Vietnam has "practiced a policy of minimalism and restraint", which... well, some people clearly have an odd idea of what these words mean.)

It's been a given that you simply cannot win guerilla wars through conventional military power for decades now. The only point at which sheer brute force against an opponent that stood there and tried to use brute force back was practical was in the initial invasion, and that lasted for a very short time indeed; it wasn't as if the Iraqi military ever stood a chance in a pitched battle. For anyone to seriously argue that if you just used more force now you'd be bound to win is comical.

There's also the US supremacist/isolationist myth there - that there is no rational reason for the US to engage in any sort of diplomacy, to avoid doing something because of somebody else's opinions, because it doesn't need anyone else, it's just so powerful. Even the Bush administration appreciates that there is a need to pay attention to what other countries think - they're just trying to push the boundaries as much as possible.

Given that the author's position is so completely paralysed by ideology, he must then desperately look around for other motivations for these entirely inexplicable actions. Other commentators in the same situation have been known to use such ideas as socialist domination of the media, PC liberals in the government, homosexualist infilitration and so on, but here we have "white guilt" shoehorned in to explain this scornworthy cowardice ('running from stigmatization as a "unilateralist cowboy"').

Clearly, of course, the fact that Mr Steele has taken a standard wingnut rant and written "white guilt" in the "why are we not winning" box wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that his book "White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era" was published this week.
 
 
Jack Fear
17:00 / 05.05.06
See, this is where he loses me...

Possibly white guilt's worst effect is that it does not permit whites--and nonwhites--to appreciate something extraordinary: the fact that whites in America, and even elsewhere in the West, have achieved a truly remarkable moral transformation. One is forbidden to speak thus, but it is simply true.

But...but I can't be racist! I'm on your side!

If there is still the odd white bigot out there surviving past his time, there are millions of whites who only feel goodwill toward minorities.

Interesting choice of word—"minorities."

And "goodwill" is a pretty imprecise term—so imprecise as to be nearly useless, as it does not preclude Othering and patronization. The doctrine of the White Man's Burden was predicated on goodwill. The slaveowner who believed that the Negro will live in sinful idleness unless he is put to work by an upright master may be said to act from goodwill. The frontiersmen who believed that the Indian must be saved from his natural savage state by forcible Christianization and relocation—"Kill the Indian, save the man," went the motto—surely acted from goodwill. The Australian authorities who stole generations of Aboriginal children from their families so they could be raised by white families, to fit them for life in civilization, doubtless acted from goodwill.

There are no serious advocates of white supremacy in America today, because whites see this idea as morally repugnant.

There are no serious advocates for women's suffrage in America today, either—not because anybody finds the idea repugnant anymore. In fact, quite the contrary: the advocates disappeared because the battle has already been won—the system is in place, and people reap the benefits of it every day.

White privilege certainly exists, but Shelby Steele cannot see it—for the same reason (pace Neil Gaiman) that a person standing in Trafalgar Square cannot see England.
 
 
Phex: Dorset Doom
18:24 / 05.05.06
Umm... Jack... Shelby Steele is black. Just so you know.
 
 
Jack Fear
19:20 / 05.05.06
Well then.

Ahem.

In that case, that article is the funniest goddam thing I've read all day.

(Actually, a little research indicates that Steele is in fact biracial, and is very light...which raises a whole passel of other questions, dunnit?)
 
 
*
23:02 / 05.05.06
I think you ought to be very explicit about what questions you think people should understand from this, if you're going to refer to those questions obliquely.
 
 
Jack Fear
00:38 / 06.05.06
Mm. On consideration, though, those questions are probably immaterial to the issue of whether Steele's thesis holds water. This is not a referendum on Shelby Steele the man, after all, but on his analysis of White Guilt.

Better, probably, to consider that argument on its own merits rather than go ad hominem. I'm just going to draw the curtain and say Goodnight.
 
 
Jake, Colossus of Clout
05:40 / 06.05.06
That article sounds like a load of right-wing hooey to me.

The premise is based on the fact that the U.S. hasn't gone all-out and used all of its resources against a country since WWII. Well, no shit. That was the last World War, after all. Seems to me, if a war involves damn near the entire globe, you might be forced to get the lead out in a bit of a higher quantity than usual.

The US waited to get involved in WWII until it was obvious that the Axis were an honest-to-gosh threat to take over America. Then we added our troops to a worldwide effort that included countries that, at the time, were more powerful than the U.S., i.e. Britain and Russia.

The U.S. used its full military might because there was a legitimate threat that the Nazis might be landing amphibious troop carriers on the coast of Maine if the government didn't do something.

Vietnam and Iraq are completely different animals. In Vietnam, the threat was the so-called domino effect: "If we let the Russkies bring their Commie values to Vietnam, God knows who will be next!!! Before we know it, Asia could be all Commie, all the time!!!" Just as ridiculous then as it sounds now.

Iraq is very similar: "It's a haven of terrorists, and they have TEH NUKULAR BOMMZ1!1!11!" That was enough to get the majority to support it, by making them want to piss their pants. "Let's go get 'em before they get us!" That sort of rhetoric has been effective since forever. Scare the shit out of people and they will fall in line.

Okay, I've just read over this article for the third time, and I find that it pisses me off even more:

It began, I believe, in a late-20th-century event that transformed the world more profoundly than the collapse of communism: the world-wide collapse of white supremacy as a source of moral authority, political legitimacy and even sovereignty

Really? Fucking really? That's why we invaded a country of non-whites in order to impose our values on them?

This does not mean that President Bush is insincere in his desire to bring democracy to Iraq, nor is it to say that democracy won't ultimately be socially transformative in Iraq. It's just that today the United States cannot go to war in the Third World simply to defeat a dangerous enemy.

Well, gee whiz! I could have sworn that the reason we went to war in Iraq was to stop that awful, awful man Saddam Hussein from nuking New York City. He had weapons of mass destruction, don't ya know.

White guilt makes our Third World enemies into colored victims, people whose problems--even the tyrannies they live under--were created by the historical disruptions and injustices of the white West. We must "understand" and pity our enemy even as we fight him. And, though Islamic extremism is one of the most pernicious forms of evil opportunism that has ever existed, we have felt compelled to fight it with an almost managerial minimalism that shows us to be beyond the passions of war--and thus well dissociated from the avariciousness of the white supremacist past.

Isn't it awful? That "white guilt" makes our enemies into people! The very thought that we might have to "understand" them before we bomb them! The audacity! It (and I have to post this again, it's so awful) "makes our Third World enemies into colored victims."

Anti-Americanism, whether in Europe or on the American left, works by the mechanism of white guilt. It stigmatizes America with all the imperialistic and racist ugliness of the white Western past so that America becomes a kind of straw man, a construct of Western sin. (The Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prisons were the focus of such stigmatization campaigns.)

Because Abu Ghraib and Gitmo would be rightfully seen as the institutes of justness and fairness that they are, if it weren't for that "white guilt."

Fuck that article.

Is this a joke thread? I really, really hope so, because that was one of the biggest piles of hideous, jingoistic shit that I've ever read. I have so much more to say about that article, but I'll reserve it, in the hopes that this article isn't actually being taken seriously on Barbelith. It must be May Fool's Day.
 
 
Jake, Colossus of Clout
23:00 / 06.05.06
Okay. I think I may have ranted and raved a little too much. I had consumed one too many adult beverages and that article made me fly off the handle. Sorry. I still think it's nonsense, though.
 
 
Cat Chant
13:48 / 09.05.06
Jack (Fear), I'm going to put in a mod request to have the photo of Shelby Steele removed from your post. Please let me know if you have any objections to this. I have very strong feelings that the photo should be removed, but for the sake of transparency and in case I've missed something, I'm going to raise my objections in this thread and give you a chance to respond before I put in the mod request.

In the context, the photo submits Steele's skin colour to 'our' judgement and suggests that we should take this into account when thinking about the relationship between his ethnicity and his political opinions. This makes me very uncomfortable as a reminder of particular 'tests' performed under segregation in the US, where people's skin would be compared to a given shade of brown (I think one was known as the 'pitch-pine test', but I may be misremembering) before they were allowed into a white institutions - I'm particularly uncomfortable because of the Barbelith-statistical fact that most of the people scrutinizing the photo will be white. Particularly in light of your feeling that the questions raised by Steele's biraciality* are irrelevant to this thread, I don't think any useful work is being done by the photo staying up.

(I do think there are a ton of interesting and complicated issues around mixed-race* political positions, the relationship between ethnicity and skin colour, etc, but those are for another thread.)

*Just a note on my inconsistent terminology: I'm more comfortable with the term 'mixed-race', but am using 'biracial' specifically for Steele following Jack's lead and also what I understand to be US practice.
 
 
*
14:44 / 09.05.06
Much appreciated, Deva. I haven't felt comfortable to add anything to this thread, which is a shame because I think the ideas themselves deserve a thorough trashi—er, analysis.

Here's an interesting article on how ineffective white guilt generally is, calling into question whether it is capable of damaging the effectiveness of the military actions of the US.
Since the O.J. trial, it seems as though almost any allegation of racism has been met with the same dismissive reply from the bulk of whites in the U.S. According to national surveys, more than three out of four whites refuse to believe that discrimination is any real problem in America (2). That most whites remain unconvinced of racism's salience--with as few as six percent believing it to be a "very serious problem," according to one poll in the mid 90s (3)--suggests that racism-as-card makes up an awfully weak hand. While folks of color consistently articulate their belief that racism is a real and persistent presence in their own lives, these claims have had very little effect on white attitudes.
 
 
Jack Fear
15:32 / 09.05.06
I have no objections whatever. In fact, delete the whole post if you'd like. As mentioned in my follow-up, Steele's racial background is a tangential red herring to the issues raised in the essay, and I shouldn't have brought it up in the first place.

That being said: Steele has some interesting ideas about race as a social construct (i.e., noting that he does not self-identify as black, while referring to Bill Clinton, without irony, as "America's first black President"), which may merit a thread of their own. They're reactionary ideas, and more than a little insane, but they're interesting.
 
 
Phex: Dorset Doom
20:38 / 09.05.06
We should note that when Shelby Steele uses the term 'White Guilt' he doesn't mean a 'sense of personal remorse' (c.f this Minor Threat song), but (sorry for the extended cut'n'paste) "The white elite's practice of accepting responsibility for the inability of black America to fulfill its socioeconomic potential. This mentality is purportedly manifested in one-sided policies such as affirmative action and social welfare systems that create dependency. According to Steele, the phenomenon of "white guilt" stems from the white elites' wariness of being viewed as racists and oppressors. Steele also charges that too many blacks adopt the identity of racial victimhood and thus disempower themselves by shedding personal responsibility for their circumstances."

So, Steele would perhaps see the surveys in (id)entity's post as a symptom of 'the white elites' wariness of being viewed as racists'- by saying racism doesn't exist they let themselves off the hook- It's less risky than saying 'Well, there's still a lot of overt and covert racism- but I'm okay, honest!'.
 
 
yemeth
19:21 / 13.05.06
Quite nonsensical article from my point of view. If the methods seem like trying to "reduce collateral damage" it is by a big part due to propaganda (which is hardly beaten sometimes in the media and in the amount of civil casualties), and to what the media doesn't cover and confront with such propaganda.

Of course, fighting a guerrilla instead of an army makes things quite more difficult; the american army "shock and awe", a friend in the military explained to me, goes on devastating with artillery and then sending ground troops to clean the mess. Any hard resistance spot? Call more artillery.

About the aftermath of the fast army vs army part of the conflict, on that experience in Iraq from people in the spanish army I was told, quite a lot of sub-armies of different countries tried to avoid as much as possible the americans due to their barbarism. Specially if they were really into re-construction. As a picture of this I was told, "What americans do not understand is that you cannot try to kill people and then the next day try to shake their hands".

And well, it is not that difficult to hide after attacking an army if you are on a big city; full of friends and with some paranoid enemy targets moving around. See how desperate they got in the hot spots, that they had to devastate Fallujah as a XXI century Guernica. Were the actions on Fallujah "soft"? I don't think the genocide that took place there was.


As for the perception of "white race", hmmm I despise the same Condolezza Rice, I promise. Now seriously, perspective depends on,... well, on from where are you viewing it, ideology,... In Europe it sometimes feels like, the US is that barbarian government that claims to be a democracy, conceiving it as if we were Greece and the US was Rome (pun for Europe intended as well). In my country -Spain- it goes way more to the extreme, and well, having a few immigrants from Argentina and Chile which had to escape military dictatorships promoted and helped by the US, the Iraq thing is not the first but just another savage thing to add to the US account. For another perspective, some friends from China see it as "class struggle" played in an international level (and hey, I get this from chinese which despise their ruling class through class struggle as well,... governments sometimes use such self-destructive ideological propaganda).
 
 
camofleur
19:14 / 31.05.06
I think the mere citation of race as a possible reason that clouds the whole issue of war and the structure of war conduct is an interesting one. That the US is still experiencing the after-effects of a model of racial segregation, which helped it to attain its dominant position as a world superpower, is surely self-evident. Which leads me to believe that much of the US' actions abroad could possibly be construed as a means of rectification, or righting the wrongs of the past. I'm not trying to advocate the notion that the US is some kind of superhero world police force, but i suppose on some level, the US' actions in Iraq do demonstrate some level of constraint. Whether they are doing so intentionally, or whether it is secondary to the desire for increased hegemony, I'm not sure.
 
 
Phex: Dorset Doom
22:36 / 31.05.06
The U.S as a superhero world police force... It reminds me of that old Spiderman line: 'With great power comes great responsibility'. The responsibility, I would say, is twofold: to use that power instead of remaining idle (which the U.S is doing) and to use it in a selective, proportionate and intelligent way (which they are most assuredly not). With the right leadership at every level from the President down they could be a tremendous force for good. Instead they're stumbling from one conflict to another, killing far more civilians than can be justified as collateral damage and their involvement in other parts of the world almost inevitably makes things worse for everybody involved. They're a powerful but out of control Incredible Hulk when we need a smart, principled and agile Spidey.
 
 
Hanuman
17:02 / 07.06.06
Steele's article has so many holes in it, I would use it to strain my pasta, except for the awful taste it would impart. It is a repugnate heap of totalitarian filth.

I think it's important to understand that when the right wing talks about using "more force" in Iraq, they're not talking about carpet bombing, massive armored assaults, or whatnot. The strategy in this kind of conflict would be very different than that -- different in ways that make this article even more loaded with grim innuendo than it appears at first.

There have been several interesting articles comparing the Iraq conflict to the Boer War and seriously advocating a similar battle plan. In the case of Iraq, what that would mean is setting up a system of concentration camps for the Sunni population, much like the British did with the Boers. These camps would not be literal extermination camps, like those in Nazi Germany -- no gas chambers -- and yet like those used in the Boer War, there certainly would be no lack of death among the inmates through disease, starvation, mistreatment, and so forth.

Of course, concentration camps alone will not solve the insurgency problem. There would also have to be a brutal system of total reprisal on any village that harbors terrorists, a threat of immediate death to any mullah who preaches against the occupiers, and so forth.

If this system were applied forcibly enough, it is possible that it would quell the insurgency. While it's far from a sure thing, it did work in the Boer War, and it has also worked in the past in Iraq -- perpetrated upon the Shi'ite and Kurdish populations by Saddam Hussain himself.

What Steele is arguing for, in a language that a neocon can read quite clearly, is the "strength" to take such drastic, inhumane, and unconscionable measures. In essence he's saying that Americans are just too whimpy to do what it would really take to stop the insurgency, because we would feel guilty about doing it. All I can say is, I hope he's right.
 
 
Soultrader
18:15 / 07.06.06
Dear Ms Shelby Steele,

Your comment that the US government feels anything but completely justified in its actions in Iraq is completely absurd. Surely you are using 'white guilt' as just another cynical ploy to advocate the continuation and extension of what is essentially an illegal occupation. If anything the lack of intensive aerial bombing is simply due to Mr Bush et als knowlegde that Iraq can destabalise itself perfectly well on its own without any outside intervention. If you do indeed advocate further military intervention I suggest that 'kill the arab scum' would be a better slogan than 'white guilt saves lives'. x x x.
 
 
Jack Fear
22:06 / 07.06.06
Er...

Ms Shelby Steele

Shelby Steele, as noted above, does not identify as black—but I'm pretty sure he identifies as male.
 
 
camofleur
07:41 / 09.06.06
Hanuman: I don't really think Steele is insinuating that the US should revert to enforcing Nazi-style concentration camps, I think it's more to do with his opinion that the US is not able to go into this war with its usual bullishness, as a result of this "white guilt" that he speaks of.

I think any implication that the text is advocating further torture is perhaps being a little suggestive.
 
 
Hanuman
19:44 / 09.06.06
camofleur - Sorry if I was unclear, but I wasn't suggesting that Steele was advocating Nazi-style concentration camps. What I was trying to say -- unsuccessfully apparently -- is that the way informed hawks (at least the ones I've seen online) imagine "winning" a war like this is not through the use of the military on military or even civilian targets (i.e. no huge bombing campaigns or tank battles), but rather through the use of the military to completely suppress the civilian population. This means such brutal methods as internment camps, reprisals, forced relocations, etc. being used on the Iraqis as a whole.
 
 
Phex: Dorset Doom
21:08 / 09.06.06
Essentially the 'Stragetic Hamlets' that worked so well in Vietnam.
Not that I don't believe you Hanuman (concentration camps* sounds like something Right-wing Hawks might be pushing for) but do you have a link to a blog entry/article etc. in which somebody outlines what 'get-tough' tactics might be? It's something Steele doesn't go into- what American forces would actually be doing if they weren't waging a 'minimalist' campaign.
I found this in a Business Week article:

RETURN TO THE POWELL** DOCTRINE.
Belatedly, the Bush Administration is turning to the U.N. and European allies for help in Iraq. The Administration strategy of unilateral preemption lies in pieces. In the end, America's attempt to go it alone in Iraq lacked the military resources and international legitimacy to work. A return to the Powell Doctrine of overwhelming force, with explicit goals and a clear exit strategy, would be a step in restoring America's legitimacy worldwide. It requires the use of massive military might that only allies can provide. It reintegrates the U.S. into its alliances and assures allies that their voices will be heard.

The fiercest anti-American backlash in history may well be under way. The policy of unilateral preemption and its inept execution has, in the end, made the U.S. less secure. The barbaric beheading of Nicholas Berg is a grim reminder that America faces a long war against a savage enemy. It must regain the respect of those it needs to win that war. To do that, America needs to change its rules of engagement not only in Iraq but in the world at large. A nation that relies on its global ties for economic growth, on immigration for its dynamism, and on foreign capital for its finances cannot long ignore virulent anti-Americanism before facing dire consequences. Restoring America's respect in Iraq is but the first step in restoring America's leadership and moral authority around the world.

(There's also a review of Shelby Steele's book, White Guilt, which may help in understanding where he's coming from)

*Camps intended to concentrate a large population in an easily managed area, as opposed to the Nazi extermination camps, in which the intention is to kill the population.
** Named after Colin Powell, incidentally.
 
 
Hanuman
02:37 / 10.06.06
Here is one such article that defines the plan, although the basics haven't changed in a hundred years: link.
 
 
Dragon
02:42 / 29.06.06
There will always be anti-American sentiment, as there has been for many years. This is nothing new. Why worry about it? If we are working for the right ideals as we see them, such as stamping out terrorists, why should we care what the rest of the world thinks?
 
 
elene
07:09 / 29.06.06
anti-American sentiment ... is nothing new. Why worry about it?

The article from Business Week Phex quoted states the reason, Dragon: the USA has become dependant on the rest of the world.

A nation that relies on its global ties for economic growth, on immigration for its dynamism, and on foreign capital for its finances cannot long ignore virulent anti-Americanism before facing dire consequences.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
08:18 / 29.06.06
And, to address the second part of your question, Dragon - because the US may have the ideal of stamping out terrorism, but its methods are inept. At present, the US is spawning terrorists so quickly that one suspects it of using Garry's Mod.

So, a bit of mindshare on how to deal with terrorism might be vital. When the Italians are rescuing hostages and you are shooting at the rescuers, you know you need to revisit your methodology.

That's part one. Part two is that, as mentioned above, the US does not have the resources to pursue its ideals singly. Its military is already overstretched by holding actions of dubious efficacy in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the very real possibility of death is limiting recruitment to sections of the populus who are potentially sub-optimal for military service. Unless you can take and hold nations holding every raw material you need, and every nation controlling a supply line - that is, most of the Middle East and Europe, along with a fair chunk of Africa and the American continent and quite possibly China - then you have to balance what you want to achieve with how far you can ignore the aims of the rest of the world. Globalisation 101, really.
 
  
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