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Andy's Reviews > Black Rednecks and White Liberals
Black Rednecks and White Liberals
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Update, 2018: I used to give blahblah like this the benefit of the doubt as a “conversation starter” but given the obvious and real current dangers of BS, I’m lowering the rating to 1*. Please see comment stream for additional details.
This can be a good conversation starter, but it has flaws.
One of the main excuses Sowell brings up over and over for why whites in the South wouldn't end slavery is that they were afraid of a race war because of the rebellion on Santo Domingo (Haiti). What he never clarifies is that those slaves had been liberated previously by the republic founded in the French Revolution and were then re-enslaved by Napoleon a few years later. That's a rather important detail . (A captivating recent book about this is The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo). The relevant part of the story for the white Americans' fear of race war is what happened after the initial emancipation. Did the newly freed blacks kill the whites? No. So the story of Santo Domingo is actually not a legitimate excuse for fear of race war, and could be used more accurately to make the opposite point!
The biggest disappointment is a lack of evidence-based recommendations for what will work here and now. Sowell makes a really big deal about evidence, so that is a fair expectation. He praises KIPP schools, but KIPP so far has failed in the long-term. He doesn't talk at all about the experience of the schools in Raleigh, North Carolina, which as far as I know is the one example of an entire American metropolitan area with children succeeding: see Hope and Despair in the American City: Why There Are No Bad Schools in Raleigh . I would have liked much more about that and other programs that actually work to move from a culture of failure to a culture of success.
One of the main points of the book is that black people in America mainly jumped in prosperity before the Civil Rights Act, not after, and the implication of that is that government programs don't help. But there were many factors involved. In the years from 1945 to 1965, middle-class prosperity overall in America jumped a lot, much of that on the strength of government policies designed to increase middle class prosperity. Did the prosperity of black people jump less, the same, or more than that of other people during this time? That, for starters, would be very important to know for the argument.
The book goes off on a tangent about German anti-semitism. Sowell quotes Hitler as saying that if Jews didn't exist, he would have had to invent them. I can't find a source verifying where Hitler said this. It seems hard to believe. I think the actual quote is from Sartre's "Reflections on the Jewish Question" where he writes that If the Jew did not exist, the anti-semite would invent him.
This is a political opinion book, not serious history, but then it is annoying how much Sowell trumpets his own supposed thoroughness and objectivity.
For better books about why there might be differences in wealth-building in America by race.
This can be a good conversation starter, but it has flaws.
One of the main excuses Sowell brings up over and over for why whites in the South wouldn't end slavery is that they were afraid of a race war because of the rebellion on Santo Domingo (Haiti). What he never clarifies is that those slaves had been liberated previously by the republic founded in the French Revolution and were then re-enslaved by Napoleon a few years later. That's a rather important detail . (A captivating recent book about this is The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo). The relevant part of the story for the white Americans' fear of race war is what happened after the initial emancipation. Did the newly freed blacks kill the whites? No. So the story of Santo Domingo is actually not a legitimate excuse for fear of race war, and could be used more accurately to make the opposite point!
The biggest disappointment is a lack of evidence-based recommendations for what will work here and now. Sowell makes a really big deal about evidence, so that is a fair expectation. He praises KIPP schools, but KIPP so far has failed in the long-term. He doesn't talk at all about the experience of the schools in Raleigh, North Carolina, which as far as I know is the one example of an entire American metropolitan area with children succeeding: see Hope and Despair in the American City: Why There Are No Bad Schools in Raleigh . I would have liked much more about that and other programs that actually work to move from a culture of failure to a culture of success.
One of the main points of the book is that black people in America mainly jumped in prosperity before the Civil Rights Act, not after, and the implication of that is that government programs don't help. But there were many factors involved. In the years from 1945 to 1965, middle-class prosperity overall in America jumped a lot, much of that on the strength of government policies designed to increase middle class prosperity. Did the prosperity of black people jump less, the same, or more than that of other people during this time? That, for starters, would be very important to know for the argument.
The book goes off on a tangent about German anti-semitism. Sowell quotes Hitler as saying that if Jews didn't exist, he would have had to invent them. I can't find a source verifying where Hitler said this. It seems hard to believe. I think the actual quote is from Sartre's "Reflections on the Jewish Question" where he writes that If the Jew did not exist, the anti-semite would invent him.
This is a political opinion book, not serious history, but then it is annoying how much Sowell trumpets his own supposed thoroughness and objectivity.
For better books about why there might be differences in wealth-building in America by race.
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April 26, 2013
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April 26, 2013
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Thank you for your adding all these details! As you illustrate, this is a fascinating but complex story. If the Haitian experience is going to be used as an excuse for not emancipating U.S. slaves then these many nuances deserve to be explained.
Sheryl wrote: "The Hitler quote goes back to Hermann Rauschning's Hitler Speaks."According to Wikipedia, Rauschning's book is generally considered to be a fraud.
Well, I admit I wouldn't quote it, but David Redles has strongly questioned Haenel's critique, and a lot of older historians like Hugh Trevor-Roper, Allan Bullock, Joachim Fest and Eberhard Jaeckel consider Hitler Speaks to be basically accurate. Sowell is very much of that generation, so it doesn't surprise me he'd use it.
Actually, I didn’t mean to. I just didn’t think to uncheck the Update box. Thanks for your comment.
Has this guy ever written anything worthwhile?
No idea. Thanks for your comment.
His economics writings, I think are highly touted. That is his training and profession so I'd expect that.
Ps your comment and Sheryl Tribble's response is very helpful. So far, I can finish it.... It's just got too many gaps and doesn't present full picture. To me, this book is like the folks that brush off slavery by saying there were white slaves too...
Thanks for your comment.
Thanks all. All this just really highlights the fact that this book tries to do way too much in very few pages. Not an academic work, so the bar is not high for providing evidence, but that just means the work is left to the reader if he/she wishes to be well-informed on any given topic listed in the book.
Thanks for your comment.
"In the years from 1945 to 1965, middle-class prosperity overall in America jumped a lot, much of that on the strength of government policies designed to increase middle class prosperity. "I would question if it were government programs that lead to the prosperity of anyone in the US. The prosperity was more to do with the rest of the industrialized world being blown to bits due to WWII. The US was the only large exporter after the war and a lot of IOUs from other countries.
We can see that a lot changed when Japan got back on it's feet and Detroit would not change its way of production and pay.
It has been said many times that war is good for an economy. It needs to be added that it's only good if you're the winner AND can plunder, or if it's someone else's war and that we have a lot of materials that we have sold them.
Thanks for commenting. The issue is the distribution within the population of the national prosperity in a way that moved people out of poverty and grew the proportion of citizens who were enjoying a middle class standard of living. The GI Bill, for example, helped many of the soldiers returning from WWII go to college at a time when that was a huge benefit financially. There is a long list of other programs and policies. Are you saying the GI Bill, for example, did not help anyone at all? If so, could you provide some evidence for that?
https://barrons-nj.newsmemory.com?sel...
Andy wrote: "Thanks for commenting. The issue is the distribution within the population of the national prosperity in a way that moved people out of poverty and grew the proportion of citizens who were enjoying..."I didn't say that the GI bill didn't help. I did say that if it weren't for being on the winning side after the war, there would not have been prosperity, including the GI Bill. That will was not supported by everyone, but it was a good thing, and it was after learning a lesson from WWI.
If we look at children born out of wedlock before and after welfare was introduced, then we can see how damaging some government programs are.
Again, being on the winning side after a world war that left the other industrialized countries in such rubble is why we prospered so well. A lot, and maybe most government policies have hurt more than they helped. Cash for clunkers, welfare, sub-prime loans, etc...
-OK, so you seem to be agreeing that government programs like the GI Bill can help to grow the middle class. Thank you. -With respect to your unrelated argument about how winning the war was the essential cause of prosperity, wasn't winning the war a government program?
I'll type slower for you.Even if the US wasn't in WWII and even if there was no GI Bill, the US would have prospered quite well because the US factories were the main supplier around the world (experts from US factories = lots of jobs) due to the other industrialized nations being destroyed. That prosperity could have been maintained if manufacturing would have been more forward-thinking. Look at Detroit and many other cities that are gone. Cincinnati used to be the machine tool capital of the world.
"Following World War II, Deming was largely ignored in the productivity-crazed United States. ... The message Deming made to the United States was that productivity without quality was a dead end. He attempted to teach engineers his philosophy, but the companies they worked for were focused on other things."
So, Deming sold his ideas to Japan.
You can come back by saying the government staying out of the war could have made jobs and brought up the middle class. You sound like someone who only wants to argue.
~ Some people are immune to facts.
'Thomas Sowell'
Oh goody, facts! That would be much better than rhetorical tricks like ad hominem attacks and red herrings. I can't wait for your facts about how the GI Bill and all that did not help anyone.
Welfare State. Is a reality. Fact not Fiction.
Like the GI Bill? Yes, I agree. Thanks for commenting.
Thomas Sowell always felt like a troll "I'm black but conservative"!"
Thanks for your comment.
The French Revolution did not free the slaves in Haiti -- the French revolutionary government initially offered citizenship to the wealthy but already free people of color; local white plantation owners refused to comply, and the slave rebellion followed.
It was only after the slaves were in control of a third of Haiti that the French Assembly gave rights to all free men of color. Slavery was not abolished by the French Assembly until 1794.
Napoleon *tried* to re-establish slavery in Haiti; he failed (he succeeded elsewhere, though). The Haitians won their independence in 1803. Despite Governor General Dessalines' guarantee of safety to the remaining whites, in 1804 he ordered all whites put to death, and when the populace didn't obey, he traveled the country and personally saw to it that it was done (with a few exceptions -- Poles, Germans, some professions, etc.).
So the difference wasn't that the Haitian's had been "re-enslaved" under Napoleon. The slaves rebelling in 1791 were inspired by the French Revolution, but they were not freed by it -- and they killed over 5000 whites within two months, years before the French officially freed them. They also killed about half the soldiers the French had sent over to try to stop the rebellion; the local French Commissioner freed the slaves under his jurisdiction because they were losing, and then the National Convention affirmed and established this choice.
The freed US slaves were not so violent probably because the US slaves were not being led by a vicious killer like Dessalines (if the French had not betrayed and essentially killed L'Ouverture, things might have gone better for the local whites), and, I suspect, because the US slaves did not have to fight for emancipation alone.
The average union soldier may not have seen himself as fighting to flee the slaves (many did not), but the average slave saw the war in those terms, at least by the end, and to start a race war would have been a betrayal of those who had freed them.
So in that sense the Southern fear of freed slaves was legitimate; their closest example was disastrous. Of course, the South also had the example of peaceful emancipation with the British Empire, but they knew the North wouldn't pay what the UK did, and they weren't going to give up all their wealth without a fight, so that didn't really count with them I'm sure. Slaveholders have feared slave rebellions going back to the ancient Greeks; southerners were no different.
I expect Sowell didn't discuss the emancipation of the French Revolution, because it didn't "take." It wasn't ratified in some colonies and was never applied in many others. It wasn't until 1848 that the Second Republic passed a law against slavery that had some teeth to it.