“Sowell continues: ‘This was said in 1956 in Indianapolis, not about blacks or other minorities, but about poor whites from the South… A 1951 survey in Detroit found that white Southerners living there were considered ‘undesirable’ by 21 percent of those surveyed, compared to 13 percent who ranked blacks the same way’.
For some reason or other, they absolutely refuse to accommodate themselves to any kind of decent, civilized life. They can’t or won’t hold a job, they flout the law constantly and neglect their children, they drink too much and their moral standards would shame an alley cat. ‘These people are creating a terrible problem in our cities. “Sowell’s first essay, which shares the book’s title, begins with this provocative quote:
Sowell argues that the income and educational gaps between white and black Americans reflect the perpetuation by “ghetto” blacks of this culture and its remedy must come from blacks.Ī review of the book by Neil Shenvi states that: Most interestingly, Sowell argues that the self-destructive behavior of America’s black ghetto culture is not genetic but rather the learned bad habits of the “Cracker culture” of the North Britons, Welsh, and Highland and Ulster Scots who immigrated to the American South and were its dominant slave owners. Sowell documents that most slaves, who have existed from almost the beginning of humanity, have not been black, nor has being a slave, as unacceptable as it is in the modern world, necessarily impeded the futures of slaves once freed. Digesting the book’s rich collection of data is worth the read. Like most good U of Chicago economists, he builds his arguments empirically. The book is a collection of six essays on the role and dominance of culture over race in the experience of black Americans and other racial groups (Germans, Lebanese, Chinese, Jews, and other middlemen minorities). I wish I had read it earlier, but better late than never. Thomas Sowell, a prolific and highly respected economist, wrote Black Rednecks and White Liberals in 2005, but I have only recently encountered and read it.
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