Bonus Quotation of the Day…

(Don Boudreaux)

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… is from pages 133-134 of Thomas Sowell’s excellent 1984 book, Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality? (original emphases; footnote deleted):

[image error]In reality, the historical data show that (1) the economic rise of minorities  preceded passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by many years, (2) the existing upward trend was  not accelerated, either by that Act or by quotas that became generally mandatory in 1971, and (3) during the era of affirmative action, such disadvantaged blacks as young males with little experience or education, and members of female-headed households, actually retrogressed relative to whites of the same description, while more advantaged blacks rose both absolutely and relative to their white counterparts. In short, although affirmative action invokes the name of the disadvantaged, these are precisely the people who have fallen further behind under its auspices.