Thomas Sowell: Black Rednecks and White Liberals

Thomas Sowell is an American economist, social theorist, political philosopher, humanitarian and author. A National Humanities Medal winner, he advocates laissez-faire economics and writes from a libertarian perspective.

He is currently a Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Sowell was born in North Carolina and raised in Harlem, New York. He dropped out of high school and served in the United States Marines during the Korean War.

He earned a bachelor's degree from Harvard University in 1958 and a master's degree from Columbia University in 1959. In 1968, he earned his doctorate degree in economics from the University of Chicago.

Thomas Sowell is arguably one of the brightest thinkers in America today, of any background or origin. Anyone who thinks Barack Obama is "bright" has never read anything by Thomas Sowell.

Throughout his career in economics, Sowell has served on the faculties of such universities as Cornell and University of California, Los Angeles and think tanks as the Urban Institute and since 1980 the Hoover Institution. He has written over 20 books since 1972.

This book is a collection of essays, with the title essay being Sowell's thesis about the origins of the "black ghetto" culture. Sowell argues that the black ghetto culture, which is claimed to be "authentic black culture", is historically neither authentic nor black in origin.

Instead, Sowell argues that the black ghetto culture is in fact a relic of a highly dysfunctional white southern redneck culture which existed during the antebellum South. This culture came, in turn, from the "Cracker culture" of the North Britons and Scots-Irish who migrated from the generally lawless border regions of Britain.

Sowell gives a number of examples that he regards as supporting the lineage, e.g.,

an aversion to work, proneness to violence, neglect of education, sexual promiscuity, improvidence, drunkenness, lack of entrepreneurship,… and a style of religious oratory marked by strident rhetoric, unbridled emotions, and flamboyant imagery.

Sowell further argues that this "culture" did not exist uniformly among blacks, especially those considered "free persons of color" or those trained in schools operated by people immersed in New England culture (who were, in turn, passing that culture to black students, specifically the need for a strong work ethic).

His essay argues that, among those groups, educational statistics were on par with similarly-trained whites (and higher than southern whites in general), and continued on an upward trend until the advent of multiculturalism.

In the collection's second essay, Sowell explores the origins of antisemitism among those harboring jealousy toward Jews for their financial and entrepreneurial successes. Sowell argues that the jealousy is historically quite common among ethnic groups who have had historic success as economic "middlemen" who derive a profit from the service of bringing needed items to the marketplace. Among other historically persecuted "middlemen minorities" were Lebanese and Chinese immigrant merchants. The resentment is due to a perceived "lack of added value" that these middlemen provide, as it is not easily observable.

The collection's third essay features Sowell's discussion of the history of slavery in Western culture. Sowell argues that Alex Haley's popular mini-series Roots is more myth than reality. Although Sowell acknowledges the West's promotion of slavery, he argues that the same Western culture led the charge in the late 19th century to abolish it in the Western Hemisphere, and that little attention has been given to the continuation of slavery in Middle Eastern countries.

The fourth essay features Sowell's argument that Germany should not be defined solely by the 12-year period of Adolf Hitler's reign from 1933-1945. 

The fifth essay features Sowell's discussion of the early days of Dunbar High School in Washington, D.C. and its eventual deterioration from its place of prominence in early Black education, which Sowell argues was a direct consequence of the famed Brown v. Board of Education United States Supreme Court decision. 

The final essay features Sowell's criticism of multiculturalism. Sowell argues that historical events cannot properly be understood through the attitudes of someone living in a different time period (e.g., viewing slavery as right or wrong through 21st century attitudes) but can only be properly understood in light of the economic, political, and social views of the time period in which the events occurred.

This is an important book by a serious and important author, and is another must read for anyone who seeks a real understanding of these issues. I highly recommend this book.