Drew's Reviews > Black Rednecks and White Liberals

Trash.
I respect that Prof. Sowell is trying to make a complicated point for a general audience, but so much of the language in this book, language that comes from Prof. Sowell and NOT from his sources, seem better placed in a high-school English essay than in a book. I made it through about 10 pages before I stopped, mostly because I couldn't trust what I was reading - how much of it was "fact", as Prof. Sowell seems all to glad to highlight at every chance he gets, and how much was the author's own subjective understanding coming out through his own analysis, unsupported?

Here are some choice passages that made me question what I was reading, and ultimately put the book down.

"In earlier centuries, Scotland was a poor and backward country, like Wales and Ireland..." p.5. The use of "backward" here has strong implications. Prof. Sowell contends that people from the American south emigrated from these regions, so by association, if these regions were "backward", then people from the American south would be "backward." That term conveys a very particular view of southern Americans, beyond the citations that are provided.

"In this world of impotent laws, daily dangers, and lives that could be snuffed out at any moment, the snatching at whatever fleeting pleasures presented themselves was at least understandable." p.5. Understandable by who? Understandable by Prof. Sowell? Quite the claim, with lots of assumptions. Again, this is not cited, and stands on its own as a pretentious and patronizing characterization of life that is somehow not as good as the more "forward", maybe, parts of the British isles.

Same paragraph:
"Books, businesses, technology, and science were not the kinds of things likely to be promoted or admired in the world of rednecks and crackers." My god, what? This is not supported by any evidence - Prof. Sowell makes what might to him be an obvious connection between "backwardsness" and liking to read, but that's only on his own personal analysis, not based on anything he seems to take from other writings. Could you provide a citation that says "Because people threw chamber pots out of their windows instead of having running water, then they obviously don't like books?"

The whole thesis of this book seems to be that these somehow-undesirable people from Scotland came to the American south, then passed on their somehow-undesirable culture to African-Americans, and that this culture is now embodied in urban poor areas... so this quote seems to imply that, in the long run, the reader should see how (obviously) African Americans don't like books (because of course black people don't like to read, am I right, guys?) I just can't with these assumptions.

Racism? I can't tell, and that makes me very wary.

Trash trash trash. Maybe if this had been written more objectively, or if Prof. Sowell had been able to hold back his own biased analysis of his "facts", then this book would be readable. It seems like there could be some interested observations in here - I would be interested in learning about demographic shifts, and cultural attitudes that come with cultural shifts during immigration - but I am not interested in biased writing that can crawl like a worm into my own analysis without my knowing it. No thank you, Professor.