By Walter E. Williams
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
After reading Dr. Thomas Sowell's latest book,
"Intellectuals and Race," one cannot emerge with much respect for the
reasoning powers of intellectuals, particularly academics, on matters of race.
There's so much faulty logic and downright dishonesty.
Many intellectuals attribute the behavior patterns of
blacks to "a legacy of slavery" or contemporary racial
discrimination. But when one observes similar behavior patterns among Britain's
lower-class whites, which can't be attributed to "a legacy of slavery"
or discrimination, it calls into question the explanations for black behavior.
It's lamented that blacks are "the last hired"
and, during an economic downturn, "the first fired," because blacks
are terminated before whites. That's seen as evidence of discrimination by
white employers, but white employees are terminated before Asian-American
employees. Is that employer discrimination against whites? Intellectuals accept
statistical data as showing discrimination when it reinforces existing
preconceptions and reject or ignore it when it doesn't.
It's the same story in the housing market. Newspapers,
television commentators, civil rights leaders, academics and politicians see
racial discrimination as the cause for black mortgage loan applicants being
rejected more frequently than white applicants. In 2000, black applicants were
turned down for prime mortgage loans twice as often as whites; however, white
applicants were turned down nearly twice as often as Asian-Americans.
The racial discrimination explanation requires that we
believe that white bankers racially discriminate not only against blacks but
against whites, as well. It also requires that we believe that black-owned
banks are in cahoots with white-owned banks, because they, too, turn down black
mortgage applicants more often than white applicants. The true explanation is
not rocket science. Lenders prefer to lend to people who will pay them back.
Average credit scores are higher among whites than blacks and higher among
Asian-Americans than whites.
During the early 20th century, there were mass migrations
of blacks from the South. Both the black-owned Chicago Defender and the Urban
League offered published advice to their less tutored brethren, such as:
"Don't use vile language in public places." "Don't throw garbage
in the backyard or alley or keep dirty front yards." "Do not carry on
loud conversations in street cars and public places." Jews, Germans and
Irish made similar appeals to acculturate their ill-mannered cousins. These
efforts produced positive results over the years.
That has changed with today's multiculturalism vision.
Efforts to get minority groups to acculturate to the linguistic, dress and
other norms of the larger society are seen negatively by multiculturalists as a
form of cultural imperialism. Intellectuals and academics call for celebrating
diversity. That means wearing one's trousers low enough to see one's butt, men
wearing a head full of pigtails, and using poor language that's sometimes
vulgar are part of the liberal's vision of "celebrating diversity."
Then there's the "acting white" charge, when black youngsters who
conduct themselves according to the norms of the larger society are criticized
and often assaulted by their presumably "acting black" peers.
Sowell concludes that our nation is painting itself into
a corner when it comes to thinking about racial problems. Whole cities, of
which Detroit is a classic example, have been devastated physically, socially
and economically by racial problems -- which cannot be discussed honestly by
elected officials, people in the media or academics, who do not want to become
pariahs or, even worse, lose their jobs. This moral paralysis is paid in blood
-- mostly the blood of black people preyed upon by criminals, though in recent
years, there have been violent mob attacks on white people in shopping malls,
on beaches, on public transportation vehicles and in other public places. These
attacks often go unreported, are minimized or are reported without detail, even
though the attackers shouted their hatred for white people. The use of
sufficient force to stop these attacks would be called "excessive" in
the media and by politicians or "community leaders."
My own conclusion is that black people waged a successful
civil rights struggle against gross discrimination. It's white and black
liberals, intellectuals, academics and race hustlers who have created our
greatest hurdle.
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