Hoover fellow Shelby Steele spoke on race issues in America during a talk to the New Century Leadership Circle held at the Hoover Institution on April 8.

Steele described race issues as "a new kind of social morality that we practice with a kind of zealous intent. Today, we are very puritanical about social morality, so much so that we punish without the possibility of forgiveness." Yet, he noted, American society has a "broad-minded, tolerant attitude about private morality."

What caused the change? White guilt, said Steele. He describes this as a vacuum of moral authority where "whites are stigmatized as being racist simply because they are white."