agree with this unethical regime and we will not buy from it until they change. the top of that empire. so we absolutely have the power to vote every second. the more we do that as consumers the better world we live in. >> what a cell think this inspirational powerhouse. [applause] [applause] tweet a set book tv shelby steele, the latest book coaching, where did that book

title come from? there are many different themes i couldn't find that single thing finally we came upon with my wife so the word shame. >> does that central theme you're going for the ideas that america, arguably the greatest country in all of history also committed also committed the greatest sins they dehumanize the entire race of people, year in and year out for a very long time. so it's a profound evil amidst stunning greatness.

and so now that greatness i think is what finally delivered us from what we're doing wrong. but on the other hand, it's a shame that we will now have to deal with. maybe were still too close to the 60s when we first acknowledged it. but i think it's one of the most important events how does society believes in freedom and grounded in freedom deal with having it? so the book tries to look at different aspects of that irony. >> in my reading of it but shane belongs to the 1960s liberal movement in your view so that's

toward the other political polarization. that's a fair assessment. >> in the 1960s the view changed and the same is that we are the politics, the ideology that will bring back legitimacy. liberalism has dominated american politics for the last 50 or 60 years. simply because it took over this terrible shame said we will end racism and sexism. we will overcome all of those things. and with the people we hurt but have great societies i will redeem them and bring them up to

par with everyone else. that will restore our legitimacy as a free society. >> in your book the n-word issues pretty liberally. >> yes need think some people are some groups co-opted they didn't necessarily want to be they co-opted the word. yes. they took it over and almost made a romance around it asserted described to that word that kind of power in the truth that would never have been there before but did serve their

argument. because much of their argument coming from minorities from america the last few years we now demand in the name of what we suffer, that gives us an entitlement so that word was just a part that contributed to that larger point of view. power and victimization. >> why did you post the story of your swim team. >> i included that story talking about the swim team i was the only black kid on the swimming team that is the captain of the team and the coach and i were very close really but in the

summer before my senior year he had three weeks of summer vacation for the entire team and his mother's home in upper lake michigan and he never invited be. i was excluded. the team organized around without me knowing anything about it this wonderful time that there can have on the lake and i was never told about it. >> the implication there is that he collaborated with racism. he was my friend in a good coach and we liked each other but his mother said no blacks can come so he honored that in plotted with the parents of the other swimmers and so forth and that cannot happen.

he was a metaphor he knew better. he liked me. i liked him. i babysat for him. and yet he collaborated in a way that was cruel. but sending me a message that larger america said there's something unacceptable. he was not able to see that but i think he was. so i talk about him of the situation that america is now in and now looking at minorities and he called me up and call me every name in the book i was very calm because i knew he was

wrong and he knew he was wrong. in america now stands before it's a minority, humble and apologetic and begging for some relief from the stigma of racism. and that is minority power. so that little incident of quitting the swimming team and i did not quit the swimming team because of what he excluded me. i grew up in segregation and sought all the time. i'll be here all the time talking about incidences segregation. but i knew he was compromised. so that's what it ended up amounting to.

>> what was your parents life like a 1940s chicago. >> my parents are two very exceptional people. i will write about them in the future. my father was black from the south the third grade education my mother was upper-middle-class white from ohio they were very different on the surface. once you get to know them you saw that is probably what father who is better read and spent more time reading that my mother but for them they were exceptional people and that they knew they had no illusions about the fact that they were going to have to fight for a place and they did it without ever complaining they were founding

members, i grew up in what they call floor baby. so i marched all through childhood and demonstrated and that's where i came out of an they lived their entire lives fighting for civil rights. when there were truths. admirable people. >> were they wrong? >> they were not wrong, they were right they were not wrong. in their day this was a deeply blanket leave racist society. i grew up and i couldn't go anywhere. i never ate the restaurant till i was 17 because blacks couldn't

go in the restaurant segregation was everywhere. they are fighting a real concrete on apologetic enemy in america society you get to stay inferior. of the great novelist said you're probably right but go slow. we probably never heard of patrick henry, give me freedom or give me death. my parents would give me freedom or give me death. they were never apologetic. they fought to the bitter end so i grew up seeing all of the and it had an impact on who i became in the long run.

now, 50 years later america is a different place. it is no longer stopped in hopes that any black person in american life. you can do anything you want. you can be the president, ceo a dishwasher, anything you choose to be in america today. does that mean every white person is going to love you? i don't know and don't care. but you have that opportunity. so the civil rights movement today is very different. they're not fighting against a real racist, real enemy that will stump their lives with bigotry. they're fighting now basically for the rewards for all their manipulating white guilt.

they're using the story of black to manipulate the story into entitlements so we have a generation this is not the silver rights movement of my parents. not the one i grew up in. >> what's your connection to stanford university? pgh so, fellow at the institution at stanford university. it's always been very happy about this great institution and great people there. great environment and probably it's meant everything to me in my work. and has facilitated that. i'm a fan. >> this is your tenth or 15th book?

>> there some that were here and there. >> shelby has been our guest on book tv commissioning is polarizer country, one final question. i know you hear freedom fest. their specific reason your hair. >> i have a son shelby steele who is the young documentary filmmaker and he has a new film a called i am how jack became black. and it's a look at identity politics. jack is his son and they had it identifies primary racer he can

go to school here in the united states of america. the show the essential corruption. why doesn't work i'm here to see then sure him on. >> you're watching book tv on c-span2, 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books. book tv, television for serious readers. >> welcome to nashville in the southern festival of books, this is book tv's live coverage. you'll hear from others throughout the weekend including national book award finalist patricia bell