Freedom is not that interesting in Black America.

What's interesting is this enormous power that befell us in the 60s when America owned up to its past.

The events of the past year have elevated the national conversation around race to degrees of tumult not seen for a generation.

Our guest today is no stranger to those conversations and has been a

key figure in the scholarship of race relations for decades, Shelby Steele. A renowned author,

columnist, and documentary filmmaker, Steele is an advocate for individual freedom and liberty

and has been a strong proponent of the civil rights movement of the 1960s for just this reason.

That movement, which was focused on the individual, has been perverted,

he says, by a move toward government dependent. Welfare and affirmative action programs have

only furthered racial divides. He argues these beliefs in his writing, including the popular

book, White Guilt, how blacks and whites together destroyed the promise of the civil rights era.

Now a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution,

Steele recently produced a documentary in collaboration with his son,

filmmaker Eli Steele, titled What Killed Michael Brown?

It's an investigation into the 2014 Ferguson, Missouri shooting,

just as George Floyd's death rocked the nation.

At the time of this recording,

Steele was embroiled in a controversy with Amazon over

the release of the film. Without any clear basis for their decision, Amazon had refused to

distribute the documentary. There have since been new developments in the story, so we'll have to

wait to see how it all plays out in the end. In our conversation, Shelby details his struggles

with Amazon and the journey he has gone through to get this important film made.

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