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Gawain of Orkeny
05-11-2005, 17:00
How white liberals have turned dysfunctional black culture into a sacrosanct symbol of racial identity
And other wisdom on the most hotly-contested culture and ethnic issues of our age, from Thomas Sowell
Black Rednecks and White Liberals
by Sowell, Thomas

Lazy, lawless, and sexually immoral - that's how Northern employers and cops regarded poor Southern "rednecks" as late as the 1940s and 1950s. Many Southern blacks, Thomas Sowell explains, picked up the same habits. But while both white and black Southerners have moved up in class and affluence, Sowell notes that ghettos are still filled with "black rednecks" who have never escaped these self-destructive patterns. Why not? Their attempt to escape, as Sowell demonstrates in Black Rednecks and White Liberals, has been consistently and repeatedly hampered by white liberals. The Left, says Sowell, has turned dysfunctional "black redneck" culture into "a sacrosanct symbol of racial identity."

These essays bring you the most enlightening results of Sowell's over twenty-five years of fearless and groundbreaking research on racial and cultural issues. He tackles a broad spectrum of issues, sweeping aside entrenched liberal clich�s and dogmas. He ably supports his profoundly original and arresting vision with data that liberal analysts would prefer to ignore or have failed to grasp.

In numerous ways Sowell boldly challenges the racial orthodoxy that has prevailed largely unchallenged since the 1960s among leftist academics and the media elite. He even dares to explore the real history of slavery, asking why historians have produced volume after volume about Africans enslaved by white Americans -- and all of American slavery's historical and sociological fallout, real and imagined -- while virtually ignoring the fact that slavery has been ubiquitous throughout history and is still practiced by Africans in Mauritania, the Sudan and parts of Nigeria. Elsewhere he draws striking parallels between the tragedy of Jewish history and the bloody fate of Ibos in Nigeria, the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and other "middleman minorities."

Wisdom from Thomas Sowell:

* Proof that the peculiar subculture of Southern whites and that of blacks did not result from slavery

* Why the low test scores of some European immigrant children cannot be automatically attributed to their being new to the United States -- and hard facts about how some kinds of cultures tend to produce lower mental test scores, whether the people in those cultures are black or white, American or European

* How elements of transplanted Southern culture came to be seen as immutable features of a distinctive "black identity" -- despite their mirroring very similar cultural patterns among Southern whites in times past

* Evidence that black pioneers and leaders of the early twentieth century were not just "the cream of the crop" but emerged from a culture very different from that in which most blacks were raised and educated

* How racial barriers erected by "black rednecks" prevented black cultural elites from separating themselves as much as they would have liked from lower-class blacks

* White liberals: how Leftist intellectuals, politicians, celebrities, judges, and teachers have aided and abetted the perpetuation of a counterproductive and self-destructive lifestyle among blacks

* The much-overlooked source of many of the prevailing misconceptions of the histories of both blacks and whites in America

* How white liberals have promoted a conformity of beliefs and affirmations among blacks, with those who hold different viewpoints banished from consideration intellectually and ostracized socially

* "Middleman minorities": how certain kinds of economic activity engaged in by minority groups increases resentment against them more than their ethnicity

* How the widespread belief that Jews and other middleman minorities have made no productive contribution to the economies in which they lived has often been belied by the decline or collapse of those economies after their departure

* Proof: contrary to liberal myth, for most of history, slavery was not based on racism -- and most slaves did not differ racially from their masters

* What the Western world -- and the United States in particular -- had that made the abolition of slavery possible, while slavery was still taken for granted in the Islamic world and other non-Western societies

* Why modern-day liberal critics are wrong, and Abraham Lincoln was wise not to have made the moral case for the abolition of slavery in the Emancipation Proclamation

* How Leftists scream for slavery reparations from the American government while saying nothing at all about non-Western slaveholding countries past and present, from which no reparations or other concessions can remotely be expected

* Bias: how scholars have long known that slavery was a worldwide institution, going back thousands of years, but this has not led them to provide adequate coverage of slavery outside of Western civilization

* A cardinal and illuminating reason for German cultural predominance in Eastern Europe

* Why the genocide of the Jews perpetrated by Hitler's Germany is even more chilling than most people realize

* How the differences between W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington have been exaggerated by modern-day liberal revisionists for political purposes

* One of the most obvious -- and most overlooked and suppressed -- reasons for the deficient educational performance of black students

* How putting unqualified people in charge of black colleges and universities for the sake of racial proprieties was a serious setback for the schools, and for the young people who were educated in them

* Revealing details of the decline and academic collapse of Dunbar High School, once an elite school for blacks in Washington, DC

* How the desire of predominantly white colleges to secure a demographically representative student body made lower standards of admissions for blacks virtually inevitable

* Why the magnitude of employment discrimination cannot be reliably measured by the relative numbers of blacks in particular occupations

* Prominent educational "experts" who ignore or dismiss examples of black educational success because they don't fit in with their ideological agenda

Over the last thirty years, Thomas Sowell has established himself as one of our nation's most brilliant and insightful conservative commentators on racial issues. Black Rednecks and White Liberals is his masterwork.


I heard him on the radio the other day.
He gave me a whole newperspective on racism here in america . Well not a whole new one ~:)

Kanamori
05-11-2005, 17:10
Sometimes, it's hard to finish these articles after a few sentences ~;)

bmolsson
05-12-2005, 05:59
I read somewhere that black slaves where preferred since they work harder and are less sick than others. The indians where not suitable at all for this reason. Don't know how true that is....
Don't really think that slavery as such have anything to do with racism. I believe racism is more about fear for something different rather than anything else.

AntiochusIII
05-12-2005, 07:58
The points of Mr. Sowell listed here contains continuous generalization, accusation, and continuous and deliberate reiteration of skin colors or classes based on wealth among the so-called "disputing parties" have convinced me that his words, after being analyzed thoroughly, present only a few good questions with doubtful, arguably biased answers from himself that are accompanied by statements that can easily be intrepeted as hateful and/or racist.

In fact, the last words of the article can be intrepeted by cunning debate opponents in such a way that makes our Mr. Sowell looks like a conspirator...

"Black Rednecks and White Liberals is his masterwork." ~D

Byzantine Prince
05-12-2005, 08:15
Um, who cares about black people?

I'm gonna be honest, I don't like 90% of black people. No, not because they are black. I can't stand the way they talk, the way the dress, the way they carry themselves, the way they act all hardcore. I can't f'n stand it all. Thank god there are not many of them where I live.

Papewaio
05-12-2005, 08:42
BP how old are you?

Do you have a job?

Do you understand that you have shown very few redeeming qualities so far.

An utter lack of understanding of your fellow man (The Great Coin Debate).
A dismal understanding of science.
A large dislike of 'the masses' yet showing no outstanding ability above the average person.

The only reason I am going to state you are not a racist is because you seem to hate everyone.

May you fall in love with a member of a minority and open your eyes and your heart to others.

It is rather scary to meet someone who lacks both empathy and scientific ability...

Byzantine Prince
05-12-2005, 08:54
Pape, I respect your opinion but what you just posted is uncalled for. I stated that I dislike 90% of black people because of the way they act not the skin colour. So if I fell in love with a black girl that I liked I would be more then pleased with that. But that would probably that she had qualities that were similar to mine therefore in that 10% I might understand and actually like. How is that racist?!?!

Papewaio
05-12-2005, 08:56
I might understand and actually like. How is that racist?!?!

Its not... that is why I stated:

The only reason I am going to state you are not a racist is because you seem to hate everyone.

Your statements seem to be that of a callow youth... that is why I am interested in your life experience...

Byzantine Prince
05-12-2005, 09:00
What you stated implies that I hate everyone so therefore blacks included, not that I dislike the way they act. You still selectively chosen to call me a racist.

Maybe if you lived in North America you'd realise how bad black people seem here. You call me callow yet you haven't experienced what it's like to watch dirty black gangsters roming the streets and trying to look all angry.



It is rather scary to meet someone who lacks both empathy and scientific ability...
I love how you throw in scientific ability as if it counts for anything to me. ~:joker:

Papewaio
05-12-2005, 09:34
I love how you throw in scientific ability as if it counts for anything to me. ~:joker:

A fundamentalist, a facist and a racist have what in common?

Ignorance.

Byzantine Prince
05-12-2005, 09:40
EDIT: You know what? Yes I'de rather be everything you just painted me with then be someone like you.

Paul Peru
05-12-2005, 10:17
I believe he has a few points that correspond with my views.
While I'm frantically :furious3: opposed to racism and racialism and racial awareness and the likes, I believe that it should be permitted to be critical of cultures and communities.

PC thinking has made it hard to say anything bad about cultures and communities that are (predominantly) composed of ethnical groups that are perceived as presently or formerly oppressed or less fortunate.
That's racial thinking right there!

I don't think I like Mr. Sowell, though, and I'm suspicious of his motives.

One thing: I think that being able to view slaves as somehow inferior or at least significally different has been quite common (and probably helpful) for slavers and slave owners.

Spetulhu
05-12-2005, 14:48
What you stated implies that I hate everyone so therefore blacks included, not that I dislike the way they act. You still selectively chosen to call me a racist.


I think you were called a misanthrope, not a racist. :book:

Gawain of Orkeny
05-14-2005, 02:44
I don't think I like Mr. Sowell, though, and I'm suspicious of his motives.

Do you think hes a racist?

Devastatin Dave
05-14-2005, 03:05
Um, who cares about black people?

I'm gonna be honest, I don't like 90% of black people. No, not because they are black. I can't stand the way they talk, the way the dress, the way they carry themselves, the way they act all hardcore. I can't f'n stand it all. Thank god there are not many of them where I live.

LOL, I've seen more punk white teenage boys that act all "gangsta". Acting like an ignorant ass is hardly cultural and it is not more prevolant from one skin pigment to another.

Proletariat
05-14-2005, 06:15
Uhm, Thomas Sowell is an African-American, and is one of the few true intellectuals out of my country in recent years.

Crazed Rabbit
05-14-2005, 06:47
LOL, I've seen more punk white teenage boys that act all "gangsta". Acting like an ignorant ass is hardly cultural and it is not more prevolant from one skin pigment to another.

True that. And yet, for some reason, many liberals tend to worship any counter-cultural thing ( like 'village life', since its 'so natural and pure'.).

Perhaps these liberals like to stifle anything that even appears somewhat normal, there eyes blinded to its faults as they 'celebrate diversity', as if diversity is an end unto itself.

Can anyone say why the liberals do this? I just can't get into their mindset.

Crazed Rabbit

Paul Peru
05-15-2005, 13:33
Do you think hes a racist?
He seems to be "racially aware".

Byzantine Prince
05-15-2005, 16:54
LOL, I've seen more punk white teenage boys that act all "gangsta". Acting like an ignorant ass is hardly cultural and it is not more prevolant from one skin pigment to another.
I haven't except for a couple of wannabes who are really not nearly as dangerous as the black thugs. Not saying they don't exist, just saying they are in the small minority.

It kind of is a cultural thing though DD. That's where I think you got it wrong. Look at all the rap artists coming today. The majority of them promote that image of gangsta thug. Hell some of them can't even spell. And they all dress in the style of jail clothes. Since when is having long wide shirts and baggy pants that show your ass cool? Since when did everyone started using bling bling and start saying gangsta? That culture IS popular wether you like or not, and if you look around black communities you'll the majority of black people dressing and acting exactly in that manner.

Gawain of Orkeny
05-15-2005, 17:00
Look at all the rap artists coming today. The majority of them promote that image of gangsta thug.

Well as much as I hate rap I cant agree with this. True gangsta rap does that and also degrades women. But there is lots of rap without that crap in it.


The majority of them promote that image of gangsta thug. Hell some of them can't even spell. And they all dress in the style of jail clothes. Since when is having long wide shirts and baggy pants that show your ass cool? Since when did everyone started using bling bling and start saying gangsta? That culture IS popular wether you like or not, and if you look around black communities you'll the majority of black people dressing and acting exactly in that manner.

I think this is part of what the author is speaking about. These would be the black rednecks who think its cool to be stupid and make where they live a cuture of violence and stupidity. Imagine growing up somewhere where its bad to learn and try to advance yourself. Where your told everyday that you are oppressed and that its not your fault your dumb and poor. Well its is and you better wake up and smell the coffee. Start instilling better values and stop listening to those white liberals whos only concern is getting your vote.

Byzantine Prince
05-15-2005, 17:02
Maybe those damn liberals are doing this on purpose.

Gawain of Orkeny
05-15-2005, 17:13
Maybe those damn liberals are doing this on purpose.

Of course they are thats the point.

PanzerJaeger
05-15-2005, 20:06
Well here in the South things are very self segregated in the black community. There are those who have come out of the vicious circle.. id say 30%.. and then there are the thugs, punks, gangstas, lower classes - whatever you like to call them.

From what ive gathered the successful blacks and the lower class ones really dont like each other, as both seem to be an embarrassment to the other.

I try not to go to the lower class areas as im white and that just opens myself up to criminal activity - its really a horrible place in the ghettos. BUT there are also upper class black neighborhoods that are fine to go through.

For some reason, no matter if they are poor or well off, they still live in "black neighborhoods". Interesting..