By Thomas Sowell
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Years ago, someone said that, according to the laws of
aerodynamics, bumblebees cannot fly. But the bumblebees, not knowing the laws
of aerodynamics, go ahead and fly anyway.
Something like that happens among people. There have been
many ponderous academic writings and dour editorials in the mainstream media,
lamenting that most people born poor cannot rise in American society any more.
Meanwhile, many poor immigrants arrive here from various parts of Asia, and
rise on up the ladder anyway.
Often these Asian immigrants arrive not only with very
little money, but also very little knowledge of English. They start out working
at low-paid jobs but working so many hours, often at more than one job, that
they are able to put a little money aside.
After a few years, they have enough money to open some
little shop, where they still work long hours, and still save their money, so
that they can afford to send their children to college. Meanwhile, these
children know that their parents not only expect, but demand, that they make
good grades.
Some people try to explain why Asians, and
Asian-Americans, succeed so well in education and in the economy by some
special characteristics that they have. That may be true, but their success may
also be due to what they do not have -- namely "leaders" who tell
them that the deck is so stacked against them that they cannot rise, or at
least not without depending on "leaders."
Such "leaders" are like the people who said
that the laws of aerodynamics showed that the bumblebee cannot fly. Those who
have believed such "leaders" have in fact stayed grounded, unlike the
bumblebees.
A painful moment for me, years ago, when I was on the
lecture circuit, came after a talk at Marquette University, when a young black
student rose and asked: "Even though I am graduating from Marquette
University, what hope is there for me?"
Back in the 1950s, when I was a student, I never
encountered any fellow black student who expressed such hopelessness, even
though there was far more racial discrimination then. We knew that there were
obstacles for us to overcome, and we intended to overcome them.
The memory of that Marquette student came back to me,
years later, when another black young man said that he had wanted to become a
pilot, and had even planned to join the Air Force in order to do so. But then,
he said, he now "realized" that "The Man" would never allow
a black guy to become a pilot.
This was said decades after a whole squadron of black
fighter plane pilots made a reputation for themselves in World War II, as the
"Tuskegee Airmen." There have been black generals in the Air Force.
Both these young men -- and many others -- have learned
all too well the lessons taught by race hustlers, in their social version of
the laws of aerodynamics, which said that they could not rise.
You don't hear about racial "leaders" like Al
Sharpton and Jesse Jackson among Asians or Asian-Americans. Here and there you
may see some irresponsible academics peddling that line in the classroom --
some of whom are of Asian ancestry, since no race of human beings is completely
lacking in fools.
But they do not get the same attention, or draw the same
following, as race hustlers operating in black or Hispanic communities. By and
large, Asian youngsters rise and fly.
Other groups in times past also arrived on these shores
with very little money and often with very little education, at least during
the immigrant generation.
A poem by Carl Sandburg, back during that era, referred
to a Jewish fish peddler in Chicago: "His face is that of a man terribly
glad to be selling fish, terribly glad that God made fish, and customers to
whom he may call his wares from a pushcart."
This fish peddler probably had not gone to college, and
so had no one to tell him that he couldn't make it, and that his children
couldn't rise, because this was such a terrible country.
No one can claim that there was no anti-Semitism in
America, any more than they can claim that there was never any anti-Asian
discrimination. There was plenty of both. But that is very different from
following "leaders" whose message would only keep them grounded,
after the skies were open to them as never before.
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