Shelby Steele (born January 1, 1946)[1] is an American author, columnist, documentary film maker, and a Robert J. and Marion E. Oster Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

[3][4] Steele was born in Phoenix, Illinois, a Cook County village off Chicago's South Side, to a black father and a white mother.

His father, Shelby Sr., a truck driver with a third-grade education, and his mother, Ruth, a social worker, were founding members of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).

[5][8] He opposes policies such as affirmative action, which he considers to be unsuccessful liberal campaigns to promote equal opportunity for African Americans.

Therefore, he claims, blacks must stop "buying into this zero-sum game" by adopting a "culture of excellence and achievement" without relying on "set-asides and entitlements.

"[9] Steele wrote a short book, A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win, published in December 2007.

The book contained Steele's analysis of Barack Obama's character as a child born to a mixed couple who then had to grow as a black man.

On Uncommon Knowledge, an interview program for the Hoover Institute hosted by Peter Robinson, he said: "White America has made tremendous moral progress since the '60s.... And they've never given themselves credit for that.

Rock bands now find moral imprimatur in canceling their summer tour stops in Israel (Elvis Costello, the Pixies, the Gorillaz, the Klaxons).

And of course the United Nations and other international organizations smugly pass one condemnatory resolution after another against Israel while the Obama administration either joins in or demurs with a wink.What Killed Michael Brown?