If you're getting harassed, it's not helpful to know that racism has generally declined in America, when you're still experiencing it. That is a reality that we're still vulnerable to.

We have laws on the books. If somebody's discriminating against you, I strongly advocate suing them. That's the most effective thing you can do in terms of fighting racism. People understand that they're vulnerable to lawsuit.

The promised land guarantees nothing. It is only an opportunity, not a deliverance.

I was raised in a completely black world. In those days, if a white woman married a black man, she lived as a black woman, and that was just the end of it. So, I don't have a feeling of being bi-racial. I don't have a connection to it. People often come up to me thinking I do have a connection to it, and I kind of let them down because I really don't.

No matter how accomplished we may be, just any little white person can come up and say, 'Well, you wouldn't be here, if it weren't for Affirmative Action.' You put power in white people's hands, and then they use it against you. It's a trick bag.

Opportunity follows struggle. It follows effort. It follows hard work. It doesn't come before.

I know that whatever power Shelby Steele has always comes out of the writing. I'm not the greatest television pundit or the best public speaker, so it's my writing that's most important.