Does White Guilt = Black Power?
White Guilt = Black Power By Shelby Steele The Wall Street Journal | January 8, 2002 THERE SHOULD BE many more imbroglios like the one currently playing out at Harvard University, enough for America to finally understand that white guilt is exactly the same thing as black power. But it is testament to the daunting power of white guilt that confrontations like this one happen so rarely. Harvard’s new president, Lawrence Summers, is reported to have rebuked arguably the most famous professor in the university’s well known, if undistinguished, Afro-American Studies Department Cornel West. Even on their face, the reported charges behind this rebuke seem screamingly true that Mr. West is an academic lightweight, that his service to Al Sharpton’s presidential campaign and his recording of a rap CD embarrass his professorship, and that his uncritical grading practices have contributed to Harvard’s serious grade inflation problem. Indignation With this sensible rebuke, there has begun an elabo
