Are only left wing people allowed to have insights?

Diane Abbott - mischievously described by Rod Liddle in The Spectator this week as that "pantomime dame of an MP" - has sent me an "Oh no he isn't" message.

And very revealing it is too.

In my column in The Times on Wednesday I praised the writing of Stanford University academic Shelby Steele.

Ms Abbott had this to say:

Shelby Steele is not "one of America's leading chroniclers of racial politics". He is a right wing black man who voted for George W Bush in 1980 & 1984, supported the war in Iraq and makes a living peddling the kind of inanities about black people that white people like to hear.

Right. So it is impossible to be a leading chronicler of black politics and be right wing is it? If you voted for George Bush you cannot chronicle racial politics. You are disqualified. Only left wing people are allowed to have insights.

Extraordinary. What's the Iraq war got to do with it, Diane? Aren't black people allowed to support the Iraq war if they want? Or does that somehow cancel out their blackness?

Shelby Steele's writing is a revolt against precisely this sort of thinking.

If you want to judge whether or not my claim about Steele is justified, try reading his short, punchy book The Content of Our Characters. You will not regret the investment of time I assure you.

Comments

[Colin Buckley]

Shelby Steele voted for George W Bush in 1980 and 1984??? Where?

[Serf]

I suppose Thomas Sowell is not a commentator on race either