In part four of my Uncommon Knowledge interview with Shelby Steele, Shelby explains why he entitled his book about Barack Obama A Bound Man. The bind in which Obama finds himself? He himself has demonstrated the heights to which a black man can rise by taking responsibility for his own life—but preaching personal responsibility to his fellow African Americans in any but the most tepid and tentative terms is out of the question.

Consider, Shelby says, Oprah Winfrey, probably the most famous and successful black person in the nation.

If Oprah Winfrey says, ‘I think…personal responsibility is the greatest source of power we have,’ what white person is going to stand next to her then? Because the instant a white person stands next to her, [as she tells African-Americans] they need to be responsible for their own uplift, that white person is going to be seen as a racist. Any black person who stands next to her if she were to say that would be seen as a sell-out, an Uncle Tom….[The same thing would happen to Oprah Winfrey that has already happened to] Bill Cosby, who did [preach personal responsibility. Cosby]…enters a kind of exile.
And that is the way it goes. We have not moved beyond that yet.