Shelby Steele was interviewed about his life, his career, and his writings. He described himself as a black conservative and talked about racism in the U.S. as paternalism. He also responded to telephone calls and electronic mail. A video clip was shown of Mr. Steele in his home office in Pebble Beach, Calif. as he described his working habits, his professional career, and the Hoover Institution. A video, which was taped in the BookTV Bus while at the South Carolina Book Festival in Columbia, S.C., was shown of a reader asking the author a question. Maggi Morehouse, an assistant professor of history at the University of South Carolina, Aiken, asked about the family dynamics that resulted in Mr. Steele and his brother having very different views. Mr. Steele's first two books, the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning [The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in America] and [A Dream Deferred: The Second Betrayal of Black Freedom in America], discussed race and race-