Sign in with Facebook
Taylor's Reviews > Black Rednecks and White Liberals
Black Rednecks and White Liberals
by
by
I read this book as part of a deal with a friend. He accused me of not being well acquainted with the counterarguments to my views that we have a problem with systemic racism in this country. I told him I would read any book of his recommendation on the subject if he would do the same. In the end, I agreed to read this book, and he agreed to read Michelle Alexander’s New Jim Crow. After reading this book, the first essay is the one that speaks to the issue of whether systemic racism exists in the US today.
So, in a nutshell the first essay of Sowell’s book says:
1) Rednecks from N. England/Scotland settled the American south and brought their culture, including violence, ultra-sensitivity to perceived slights, laziness, and lax sexual mores (these characteristics are collectively referred to in the book as “redneck culture”).
2) Redneck culture was adopted by black slaves in the antebellum south.
3) Over time, southern whites largely abandoned redneck culture because the consequences of bad behavior associated with the culture motivated them to change.
4) Blacks, on the other hand, exported redneck culture to cities throughout the country during the great migration, and have never been able to escape the culture because white liberals allow them to escape the consequences of their actions via the social safety net, etc. The result is modern day urban black ghettos.
5) Also, none of this is the result of slavery, as proven by the fact that some free blacks in the north were also descended from slaves in the Caribbean, yet never adopted redneck culture.
To say that the premise and conclusions drawn by Sowell here are problematic would be the ultimate understatement.
First, if (arguendo) an entire racial group adopted cultural practices of another group while enslaved by that other group, how can Sowell argue that slavery was not a cause of that adoption? Slaves were uprooted from their native land and forced under threat of violence and death to abandon their culture. Somehow, then, adopting a form of the culture of their new environment was not a result of slavery?
Second, Sowell’s conclusion is that many of the problems faced by modern day black communities are the result of cultural norms that have been passed down for generations, and not racist legacies of slavery. If any racism exists, Sowell argues, it is practiced by white liberals who keep black communities down by offering social services and support rather than allowing them to experience the natural consequences of their actions, which would spur them to improvement. Yet in all the pages devoted to supporting this hypothesis, Sowell never once mentions any systemic racism in our society after slavery.
Is his position that Jim Crow did not exist, or that it was not a racist system? What about mass incarceration of black people today? Leaving out any discussion of these and other parts of our history is a major omission. The result is an essay that is not the scholarly piece advertised, but a cheap underdeveloped opinion.
So, in a nutshell the first essay of Sowell’s book says:
1) Rednecks from N. England/Scotland settled the American south and brought their culture, including violence, ultra-sensitivity to perceived slights, laziness, and lax sexual mores (these characteristics are collectively referred to in the book as “redneck culture”).
2) Redneck culture was adopted by black slaves in the antebellum south.
3) Over time, southern whites largely abandoned redneck culture because the consequences of bad behavior associated with the culture motivated them to change.
4) Blacks, on the other hand, exported redneck culture to cities throughout the country during the great migration, and have never been able to escape the culture because white liberals allow them to escape the consequences of their actions via the social safety net, etc. The result is modern day urban black ghettos.
5) Also, none of this is the result of slavery, as proven by the fact that some free blacks in the north were also descended from slaves in the Caribbean, yet never adopted redneck culture.
To say that the premise and conclusions drawn by Sowell here are problematic would be the ultimate understatement.
First, if (arguendo) an entire racial group adopted cultural practices of another group while enslaved by that other group, how can Sowell argue that slavery was not a cause of that adoption? Slaves were uprooted from their native land and forced under threat of violence and death to abandon their culture. Somehow, then, adopting a form of the culture of their new environment was not a result of slavery?
Second, Sowell’s conclusion is that many of the problems faced by modern day black communities are the result of cultural norms that have been passed down for generations, and not racist legacies of slavery. If any racism exists, Sowell argues, it is practiced by white liberals who keep black communities down by offering social services and support rather than allowing them to experience the natural consequences of their actions, which would spur them to improvement. Yet in all the pages devoted to supporting this hypothesis, Sowell never once mentions any systemic racism in our society after slavery.
Is his position that Jim Crow did not exist, or that it was not a racist system? What about mass incarceration of black people today? Leaving out any discussion of these and other parts of our history is a major omission. The result is an essay that is not the scholarly piece advertised, but a cheap underdeveloped opinion.
Sign into Goodreads to see if any of your friends have read
Black Rednecks and White Liberals.
Sign In »
Reading Progress
June 30, 2020
–
Started Reading
July 9, 2020
–
Finished Reading
July 10, 2020
– Shelved
Comments Showing 1-5 of 5 (5 new)
date
newest »
newest »
I'm glad you brought up tough crack cocaine laws. That is the classic example to illustrate how tough on crime laws and the war on drugs systematized racism in the aftermath of the civil rights movement. Sentences for possession of crack were at least an order of magnitude greater (up to life in prison) than possession of similar quantities of powder cocaine. This conveniently assured that the majority users of crack (black people) were harshly treated while the majority users of powder (white college kids and the like) received very little punishment. Is there any way other than racism to explain the discrepancy in sentencing for those two drugs? And if the "justice" system of our government and society was the entity that created and enforced that disparity, doesn't that make the racism systemic?
Yes, from slavery to Jim Crow to mass incarceration, our society will find a way to discriminate. I'm quite hopeful that the recent protests will change our justice system to root out some of that racism, but if they are successful I'm sure those that will it will find yet another way to prevent real equality.
Holly wow. You gave this a lot of attention. And yet what a frustrating set of ideas. Have you read the warmth of other suns? It’s about that great migration and it refutes Sowell’s theories by showing the accomplishments of black Americans who were able to lift themselves out of poverty with simply better opportunities (not perfect ones) in the north. Anyway. It would be interesting to compare data from the two books since the data is so dissimilar along with thr conclusions. Not to mention how classicist it is. Low class northern British had the original redneck values. Pshaw. Conservative elitism at its finest.
The conversation between the two of you is very helpful; you've both given me food for thought. I'm about 10% into this book and it's been interesting so far - though I definitely fall on the side of "racism exists in this country and severely impacts black communities," I'm also from a small Southern town and have always been aware of the overlap between poor Southern whites and blacks in terms of culture.
Aaron, I laughed out loud at this claim that high Black "participation in the labor force" in the late 1800s is proof that racism wasn't holding Black people back. Please read up on Redemption, the period of brutal, violent racist oppression that followed Reconstruction in the south. Many Black people were forced back into extremely low-paid labor share cropping on the very plantations from which they had just been freed. And I do mean forced: there were many places where it was a crime for a Black adult to appear in public without a pass stating they worked for a white person. Black businesses were burned. Black people who voted or ran for political office were murdered. And, of course, all the nascent police forces were made up of white men who never investigated these murders or arsons. If this sounds fantastic or unbelievable to you, you've got some reading to do.
Sowell has written many books on many subjects, many of which overlap. Since you suggested only one book I chose this one, but, no, it is not an exhaustive look at the subject at all. Rather it is work that describes the framework by which to understand the black community, its history, and cultural underpinnings that affect the community today. Sowell states this himself in the preface.
You asked "how can Sowell argue that slavery was not a cause of that adoption?" Your 2nd bullet point refutes this assertion and so does the entire premise of the book so I'm not sure what else to say here.
Then you argue that Sowell omits discussions of systemic racism: well he does, in fact, speak extensively about slavery and mentions Jim Crow numerous times. It seems as though you are simply criticizing him for not giving your opinion on the matter sufficient weight in his book.
Based on your review, I think you may have missed the entire point of the book, which is to examine why blacks are not succeeding where other cultures have in spite of the fact that civil rights have made such strides in the last 60 years.
1. Here is how to think about this: You mentioned examples of PAST systemic racism: namely Jim Crow and slavery. Surely these have a lingering effect on the black community, but that's not the pertinent question. The question that matters is what is driving unequal outcomes TODAY? What systemic racism exists today that can be eliminated right now? I have yet to see that answered by anyone.
The fact is blacks who lived in pre-1960 America and blacks today both have Jim Crow and slavery in their past. So, that raises an obvious question--why is there such a prosperity disparity between THESE two groups? I think you missed the key arguments.
Sowell goes into this in some detail. Here are a few examples:
Page 159 as an example: "Official Census data show that blacks had slightly higher marriage rates than whites for every census from 1890 to 1940." From 1930 to 1934, 31% of first births to black women were premarital, while from 1990 to 1994, 77% were. Moreover, whereas in 1930-34 premarital births of children conceived before marriage but born after marriage were together still a minority of all black births, by 1994 these two categories constituted 86% of all black births."
Page 161: "...slavery has often been invoked as an explanation. Yet the fact is that in the late nineteenth century, when blacks were just one generation out of slavery, there was nothing like today's levels of unwed births or failure to participate in the labor force. It has been from the 1960s onward that these social pathologies have escalated."
Page 241: "The rise of blacks into professional and other high-level occupations was greater in the year preceding passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than in the years following passage of that act."
Page 240: "As of 1940...87% [of black families] lived below the poverty level. By 1960, this had fallen to 47%...By 1970, the poverty rate had fallen to 30%."
Page 55: "labor force participation rates were higher among non-whites than among whites in 1920 and 1930."
Today the black poverty rate is 18.5%. However, black households with no father sit at an abysmal 74% at or below the poverty level. The appalling statistics on children from fatherless homes with regards to suicide, crime, incarceration, wealth, income potential, drug abuse, obesity, mental illness, graduation rates are not disputed. Even Obama and Don Lemon, when given a chance to chime in on the black community within the last 10 years, focused their remarks on the plague of fatherless homes in the black community. And the hard data backs them up.
What possible effect could Jim Crow and slavery have had on these once-improving statistics since the 1960's? How are fatherless homes a result of systemic racism?
2. You also mentioned mass incarceration as an example of systemic racism today. Again, Sowell does't address this and I can only imagine it's because he doesn't see the matter as worthy of consideration on this topic.
First of all, what evidence do you have to suggest that blacks are not actually committing the crimes for which they are incarcerated?
Second, it was the Congressional Black Caucus in 1989 (specifically Rep. Charlie Rangel) and the majority of the black community that demanded tougher policies in the war on drugs for decades. Crack cocaine and heroine were devastating the black community so they demanded harsh penalties.
Black pastors such as George McMurray, Kurt Schmoke, and Rev. Jesse Jackson (among many other black leaders) were in full support of punitive drug laws. Jackson said: "I am the general in this war to fight drugs." "Drug pushers are terrorists. Those who consume drugs are engaged in treason against themselves, their families and their communities." Glester Hinds was a black leader in Harlem who in 1973 called for the death penalty for drug traffickers.
Left-leaning newspapers were all in on this "War on Drugs" and even 68% of blacks approved of harsher criminal charges for drug offenders.
So, are all the blacks who supported tough crime bills and harsh penalties in the war on drugs systemically racist?
And if the arguments of systemic racism today fail, as I believe they do, then what else could possibly account for such a decline in the relative welfare of the black community since the 1960s?
Final thought: is there anything you learned? Anything you liked?