Black Like Me

Thomas Sowell explores an old subject with a new perspective.

For most of the history of this country, differences between the black and the white population--whether in income, IQ, crime rates, or whatever--have been attributed to either race or racism. For much of the first half of the 20th century, these differences were attributed to race--that is, to an assumption that blacks just did not have it in their genes to do as well as white people. The tide began to turn in the second half of the 20th century, when the assumption developed that black-white differences were due to racism on the part of whites.

Three decades of my own research lead me to believe that neither of those explanations will stand up under scrutiny of the facts. As one small example, a study published last year indicated that most of the black alumni of Harvard were from either the West Indies or Africa, or were the children of West Indian or African immigrants. These people are the same race as American blacks, who greatly outnumber either or both. [SNIP]

[E]ven if a racist somehow let his racism stop at the water's edge, how could he tell which student was the son or daughter of someone born in the West Indies or in Africa, especially since their American-born offspring probably do not even have a foreign accent? [SNIP]

Slavery also cannot explain the difference between American blacks and West Indian blacks living in the United States because the ancestors of both were enslaved. When race, racism, and slavery all fail the empirical test, what is left?

Culture is left.

My Jamerican friend whose father has owned a dry cleaning franchise since the sixties says: "Who cares who likes you? As long as they get out of your way."

Read more.

(Thanks to Laura Ingraham)

Comments

[James M. Barber]

Culture is for more important than
race from my observations. What I am afraid of is the, American Culture in general, and black in particular, are dumbing down. Thomas Sowell is the most profound thinker and writer on race and culture alive today. Years ago Dr. Condi Rice got in arguments with William Schockly(Nobel Prize for Transistor) at Standford that blacks were less intelligent because they tested less intelligent. Stanford today has 17 Nobel Prize winners. Condi knew more languages and history than Bill Schockly. Colin Powell's parents came from West Indies. He got college scholarship by test and not grades or "affirmative action". He graduated in 1958 at 21 years of age. He took 4 1/2 to get four years of college. Condi changed majors and did not get degree until 19 years old. Families can overcome culture but it is hard. Condi's mother was science and music teacher and her father was guidance counselor and preacher on Sunday. My father showed me whites living in West Virginia that had little education and tested low IQ. Most of rich in suburdan DC were white. Is American culture lowering academic standards for all. Other nations such as Japan are far ahead of us in math and science.
James M. Barber

[Acidman]

I believe that you are a product of how you were raised. Black "culture" is NOT child-friendly and I believe that this fact shows up in test scores more than intelligence does.

If it were simply a racial issue, the African immigrants and the West Indians would fall on their asses, too--- but they don't. The difference is that THEY keep an intact family, send their kids to school and don't blame personal setbacks on racism.

In MY humble opinion, American blacks have been given a free pass for years--- if you screw up, it's not your fault. It's not YOU, it's the "system."

I call bullshit.

[Ara Rubyan]

A free pass? For years?

Wow.

[Michael]

Re: the African immigrants and the West Indians

Heck, I could see that back in the mid-60's when I was in high school.

With respect to a free pass, I find that questionable, if not going overboard. The problem is/was the culture or outlook of the times.

I think we have gotten beyond that for the most part. The crime is that there are those who try to keep Americans who are black the 50's and 60's because that's where they get their power from.

However I'm are culturally sensitive kind of guy so I'm not going to name names like Jessie Jackson or Al Sharpton..that would be too much.

[jeff]

It's amazing such observations are considered controversial. They did a 'study' in SF to solve the mystery of why Asian students outperformed everyone else. What do you think they found? Hint: it starts with a C (& no, it's not 'conspiracy')

[ilona]

Interesting theory. Culture isn't set in concrete... it can change if there is a focus, .... so what should be the focus of efforts?

[Solomon]

Free pass for years?? That isn't going to fly Acidman. Not in the slightest. And you don't have to go far in history to see how wrong you are.

As a black man that came from the criminal side, I can tell you that there are elements of "black culture" that isn't healthy at all. But heck, American culture as a whole as many unhealthly elements and "black culture" is hardly the main nor only acting force in the unhealthiness.

[baldilocks]

Acidman: that free pass has been good for less than the length of your life-time and barely the amount of mine.

You know how I feel about this. But let's not go overboard on the hyperbole.

[Steve Lambert]

Thomas Sowell's point is elegant and simple: it's the culture. That's it. It's not race or racism. It's not any inherent, genetic or congenital differences; it's not nature, it's nurture. Acidman's wrong, too. Nobody truly gets a "free pass". Because liberals think that some sort of affirmative action is going to even up the scoreboard, they saddle a qualified student with the stigma of "quota" or "affirmative action". I'm a white lawyer. When I oppose a black lawyer in a case, and the first thing I wonder is if he/she got a pass to get into law school. That's shitty. But, it's reality. Because of this attitude, which I think is prevalent, there are no free passes. If you get the pass to get in, you're tarnished with stigma of others saying: "I wonder if he/she could really cut it?" That's what's happened to the 'content of their character' rather than the 'color of their skin'. The "free pass" means your credentials are always questioned.

[David Harr]

I am sorry, and this represents a complete thread hijack of these comments, but the title here irresistibly reminded me of this.

Regarding Junior Griffin's (Richard Pryor) book "White Like Me," where he portrays a white man by covering himself with white shoe polish...

"Jane Curtin: You know, I don't want to offend you, Junior.. but I don't think I would believe you were white - even with shoe polish. Did any other white folks catch on to your game?

Junior Griffin: Not a one. There's some dumb honkies out there! They didn't catch on a bit!"

David

[Govindini Murty]

Baldilocks - great point! Culture, not race, defines who a person is. Having lived all over the world, plus being the offspring of a social anthropologist, I've definitely seen this in action. That's why I'm a filmmaker - since culture is what forms people, it's too important to be ceded to liberals. Conservatives need to re-enter film and the arts - and fight back! (That's why we founded the conservative Liberty Film Festival in LA.) Keep up the great work - it was great meeting you last night at the Hugh Hewitt /LA Press Club event!

[Govindini Murty]

Baldilocks - great point! Culture, not race, defines who a person is. Having lived all over the world, plus being the offspring of a social anthropologist, I've definitely seen this in action. That's why I'm a filmmaker - since culture is what forms people, it's too important to be ceded to liberals. Conservatives need to re-enter film and the arts - and fight back! (That's why we founded the conservative Liberty Film Festival in LA.) Keep up the great work - it was great meeting you last night at the Hugh Hewitt /LA Press Club event!

[Govindini Murty]

Baldilocks - great point! Culture, not race, defines who a person is. Having lived all over the world, plus being the offspring of a social anthropologist, I've definitely seen this in action. That's why I'm a filmmaker - since culture is what forms people, it's too important to be ceded to liberals. Conservatives need to re-enter film and the arts - and fight back! (That's why we founded the conservative Liberty Film Festival in LA.) Keep up the great work - it was great meeting you last night at the Hugh Hewitt /LA Press Club event!

[Govindini Murty]

Baldilocks - great point! Culture, not race, defines who a person is. Having lived all over the world, plus being the offspring of a social anthropologist, I've definitely seen this in action. That's why I'm a filmmaker - since culture is what forms people, it's too important to be ceded to liberals. Conservatives need to re-enter film and the arts - and fight back! (That's why we founded the conservative Liberty Film Festival in LA.) Keep up the great work - it was great meeting you last night at the Hugh Hewitt /LA Press Club event!

[beloml]

Steve Sailer has an interesting take on Sowell: http://isteve.com/

(It's on the right side; scroll down.)

[Mike Veeshir]

In MY humble opinion, American blacks have been given a free pass for years--- if you screw up, it's not your fault. It's not YOU, it's the "system."

I'm with Acidman on this one. At least if you count three decades as "years".
It started strongly in the 70s, when the Evans used to make fun of it on Good Times. They always made fun of liberals who came to the ghetto and excused the behavior of the delinquent types. They also didn't want to "be no tokens", They didn't want to be hired because they were black.

The total reversal of mores would be funny if it wasn't so tragic.

[Solomon]

This "black folks/free pass" is utter nonsense. How about I say that white folks are a "free pass". That white folks get "hooked up" even if they are undeserving simply because of skin color (and it's been going on for hundreds of years). C'mon.

As I said before, I acknowledge the problems within my racial group in America. I'm not one of those "don't air our dirty laundry" types. Air that crap so it can become fresh. I also know how feels to be revered as a thug (which I was) while the "smart blacks" get pimped slap by their own (which I unfortunately did back in my gang days). BUT this has been happening within the framework of racism and discrimination for a long time. Even though it is MUCH MUCH better now, the remnants still have effect. That's just the stone truth.

I work very hard each day to pass on positivity, values, and common sense with my fellow black folks. But I'm not that ignorant to just act like everyone else is doing the right thing and we're not.

[Oddybobo]

I cannot wait to get my hands on this book. I totally agree with Sowell, as my African friends have set forth this very sentiment.

[Retread]

The race and racism explanations don't stand up under individual example either. In my experience with friends and wo-workers, scratch white or black skin and underneath are similar aspirations and achievements and beliefs.

[Lester Spence]

What's new about this thesis? Sowell himself has been making this argument since the seventies. Take a look at his older works. Same argument different wrapping. The big question for me is, given Sowell's prominence, why hasn't he published a single article in a respected economics journal. Economics is the most conservative of disciplines...it can't be liberal ideology. I'm thinking it has something to do with merit.

[Patrick]

Racism is less today than say 1960,I think that's a fair statement.

People like Thomas Sowell sure didn't fail to succeed back then and you know he faced many obstacles in that era he won't today.

I respect Baldi's intellect as much as I do Laura Bush's. I think in 2005 a black person can do better financially and be freer in America than anywhere else on earth.

Doesn't mean we're 100% color blind,we aren't,but I'm 50,we're so much closer now than in my youth it is astonishing.

Of course it's cultural,look at our black leaders who have excelled,did Colin Powell fail due to racism? Nope and he sure faced it.

Condi Rice? Nope and she was personal friends with the little victims of the terrorist Church bombings in Birmingham,Alabama,it's fair to say she faced prejudice and succeeded.

The history of black folks in America probably laid a firm basis for using the race card for excusing failure because there sure has been plenty of racism here,but the strong and determined succeeded in the worst of times,today so much moreso.

[Steve H.]

That's an interesting entry.

Supposedly, in Barbados, the average SAT is way higher than it is here in the US, and of course, most people in Barbados are black.

Here in Miami, a lot of islanders grumble about being expected to join American black society. They go from being regular people back home to being part of an underclass here.

There is no doubt in my mind that American blacks are now responsible for most of their own problems. They segregate themselves voluntarily now, which is bizarre and counterproductive. And they persist in behaviors that scare the crap out of prospective employers.

The strangest thing is that blacks hypnotized by the Democrats simultaneously blame white people for their failures and expect white people to rescue them. If we're the bad people who put you in the poop, why on earth would you expect us to come back and pull you out?

You can see this attitude in some of the pathetic things black people in Harlem have said about Bill Clinton, who never shows up at his office there. They seriously said they hoped he would help them find jobs and so on. This is the guy who bulldozed a historic building put up by former slaves, in order to build his libary, and you think he's going to boost your application at the Post Office? HELLO?

We may be wrong to portray Jesus as a blue-eyed blonde, but I can see why Santa Claus is a Caucasian.

[Jeff Boulier]

The big question for me is, given Sowell's prominence, why hasn't he published a single article in a respected economics journal.

I suspect mainly because he's exited to the more political side of things. Most of his publishing in academic journals was in the 1960s, when he was more vigorously pursuing an academic career. I'm not qualified to judge the prominence of the journals in which he has written articles, though I think I recall the "American Economic Review" (1 article, 4 book reviews) is fairly well regarded. He's also frank about being less interested in the mathematical/statistical side of things.

Publishing in journals is hard work, and rather non-remunerative for someone not making academia his prime interest.

Thanks for the link to Sailer's site, beloml. I'm not sure I find his major arguement against Sowell particularly convincing; I suspect "po' white trash" were far more present throughout the South than he implies. The principle distinction of Appalachia would have been that none of the "aristocracy" settled there.

[Lester Spence]

Thanks Jeff for responding. To be honest though, it was really more of a rhetorical question. I'm a political scientist, and I'm well aware of how difficult it is to publish in top tier journals, especially if you don't have quantitative skills. And I can get paid much more writing the equivalent of a blog entry for NPR than I can trying to build a new lung from scratch writing an article for the American Journal of Political Science.

But, if you claim to be any good at what you do, this is what you do...as a scholar anyway. I think Sowell's argument is bogus. More than that, he's made this argument several times before over the last thirty years.

Bottom line for me is that Sowell is a hack who is only able to write the same tired book over and over again is because he's been subsidized by a group more interested in political results than in scholarship. If he really had the chops, this entire debate would've been over the first time he jumped in. And as he hasn't increased the number of tools he brings to bear--he still hasn't learned statistical data analysis techniques has he?--it isn't as if he's bringing new resources to his old old question.

[Lester Spence]

So I've been thinking about a leftist equivalent. A leftist social scientist who has pretty much rested on his/her laurels doing the same tired ass book over and over again. Someone without a decent set of journal articles to his/her name.

The social scientist version of Thomas Sowell off the top of my head is Manning Marable. And though Manning and I are much closer politically than Sowell and I, on the dimension of scholarship--the one I talk about both above and here--they may as well be the same person. I wouldn't waste a dime to read their works. I wouldn't even get them for free--my time costs money.

[chap]

I guess the next question is, if one thinks culture is affecting a group of folks getting out of a bad cycle, how to change that. (I haven't followed Sowell too much, but got here thanks to Cobb's comments on your post.)

One "reset" of culture might what we did--joining the military. So how about the military culture's effect on folks? I know I am not where I would have been if not for enlisting. I know it was quite a leg up for others. Or is the leg up the military culture gives people a product of self-selection (people tending to do well anyway joining the service)?

Is a successful cultural model able to be transmitted to a different population--for instance, the neighborhood that propelled middle class folks in Birmingham up to success?

[Jeff Boulier]

Forgot to mention this when I posted my first response to Sailer. He also writes:

"For example, when very young, Sowell's parents gave him to his great-aunt to raise (he didn't know he had several siblings until he was about 18). This kind of fostering out of the young is much more common among African-Americans than among whites. It's also much more common in Africa than in Europe, according to James Q. Wilson's book The Marriage Problem."

I might as well mention that I'm familiar with two cases of fostering in my mom's Southern (and, as far as I'm aware, not very African) family. In the 1930s, one of my great-aunt's daughters was raised by her sister, and was unaware of her true parentage. In the 1950s, my mom herself was sent 'back home' to be raised by her paternal grandparents for a few years.

[FASTAC 6]

When I worked a pediatric residential psych unit, we used to have lengthy discussions on nature vs. nurture. While I'm not a nurturing kind of guy, I come down on that side of the argument (in general). As one who has spent decades mucking about the insides of many human beings, I've come to the conclusion that "race" is an invalid concept. Skin color IS only skin deep, everything else happens between the ears. Your parents or their place of origin may have some demographic value in epidemiology, but this in itself does not make "race" legitimate. The military blows an official gasket if I refuse to answer the "race" question on forms; I ignore everyone else who asks that ridiculous question.

Great blog, glad Charles J. pointed in your direction.