Welcome, Instapundit readers. This school choice video shows the best way of dealing with the problems described in this post (though, as Walter Williams explains, that’s only part of the answer).
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If you care about helping the less fortunate succeed, I’m commenting today on a Thomas Sowell column that will make you sad and angry. It is a story about how powerless and disadvantaged people are being hurt to advance the political interests of some elitists.
Here is the clever way he starts the column. I particularly like the reference to Social Security as a Ponzi scheme, which reminds me of this cartoon.
There have been many frauds of historic proportions — for example, the financial pyramid scheme for which Charles Ponzi was sent to prison in the 1920s, and for which Franklin D. Roosevelt was praised in the 1930s, when he called it Social Security. In our own times, Bernie Madoff’s hoax has made headlines. But the biggest hoax of the past two generations is still going strong — namely, the hoax that statistical differences in outcomes for different groups are due to the way other people treat those groups.
Then he gets to the meat of his topic.
The latest example of this hoax is the joint crusade of the Department of Education and the Department of Justice against schools that discipline black males more often than other students. According to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, this disparity in punishment violates the “promise” of “equity.” Just who made this promise remains unclear, and why equity should mean equal outcomes despite differences in behavior is even more unclear. This crusade by Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is only the latest in a long line of fraudulent arguments based on statistics. If black males get punished more often than Asian American females, does that mean that it is somebody else’s fault? That it is impossible that black males are behaving differently from Asian American females? Nobody in his right mind believes that. But that is the unspoken premise, without which the punishment statistics prove nothing about “equity.”
Professor Sowell contemplates the motive for this Obama Administration initiative.
What is the purpose or effect of this whole exercise by the Department of Education and the Department of Justice? To help black students or to secure the black vote in an election year by seeming to be coming to the rescue of blacks from white oppression? Among the many serious problems of ghetto schools is the legal difficulty of getting rid of disruptive hoodlums, a mere handful of whom can be enough to destroy the education of a far larger number of other black students — and with it destroy their chances for a better life.
Sowell elaborates further, pulling no punches.
Secretary Duncan and Attorney General Holder want to play the race card in an election year, at the expense of the education of black students. Make no mistake about it, the black students who go to school to get an education are the main victims of the classroom disrupters whom Duncan and Holder are trying to protect. What they are more fundamentally trying to protect are the black votes which are essential for Democrats. For that, blacks must be constantly depicted as under siege from whites, so that Democrats can be seen as their rescuers. Promoting paranoia translates into votes. It is a very cynical political game, despite all the lofty rhetoric used to disguise it. Whether the current generation of black students get a decent education is infinitely more important than whether the current generation of Democratic politicians hang on to their jobs.
Very powerful stuff. And it should be disturbing as well.
I’ve already commented on the implicit racism in the minimum wage law and the reprehensible decision by leftists to put the interests of teacher unions ahead of the interests of black students.
Now we can add something else to the list.
If you like Professor Sowell’s insights, I’ve highlighted more of his work here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. And you can see him in action here. A truly gifted public intellectual and a (thankfully) prolific writer.
Reblogged this on Gds44's Blog.
You have to understand the sanctimony of the left – they don’t so much want to help people as to be credited for helping people.
Good article. Thanks.
The left – and intellectuals in general – think that having an idea, and promoting it, is the main thing. Whether it actually delivers on its promises is a filthy bit of statistics, and not to be touched by any true philosopher.
Your last quoted paragraph makes it look like Sowell said “Very powerful stuff. And it should be disturbing as well.” He didn’t (and he is unlikely to ever use a phrase like “very powerful stuff”).
You really need to read Dr. Sanity’s post The Democrat Shame Culture. Excerpt:
The Democrat/leftist ummah … constantly create victim groups that they can feel superior to and “champion”. All that is required is for those groups to remain perpetual victims and constantly complain about their downtrodden state so that the elites of the left can show off what better people they are. They have even created a complicated victimhood heirarchy to deal with competing victimhood claims; and when push comes to shove–i.e., when Democrats or leftists do something wrong, immoral, unethical, or even evil–they can always claim to be victimized themselves. It’s a nice little scam they’ve got going on the side to maintain their shame culture.”
Another way understanding this ‘shame and guilt’ culture distinction is that, those who will do anything to avoid shame, have bought into psychological denial big time; their emotions and the need to feel good about themselves have become more important than reason, truth or reality.”
Yes, Professor Sowell is brilliant, and my favorite philosopher. I wish I’d read his magnum opus A Conflict of Visions when I was in my twenties.
If an educator really hated black people, and was in a position to control education for black children, he would:
(1) Promote the use of Black English Vernacular in school, and never “correct” alternate spelling or punctuation. This may be done under the guise of promoting equality between languages and cultures, but it meets the racist’s goals of separating the cultures and denying blacks entry into professions where it is required to express complicated thoughts in uniform grammar.
(2) Promote a sense of anger at the dominant culture. Teach the children endlessly about the injustices their people have suffered, and about how the dominant culture is arranged, at its very core, to despise and destroy black people. Make heroes of the academics who codify these things into Critical Race Theory and sociology books like”You Can Never Get Ahead In America Black Man.” You can justify this to your peers that your raising the consciousness of your students and alerting them how the deck is stacked against them. Actually, of course, this meets your racist goal of damaging black ambition to join the dominant culture where there are a vast number of lucrative and satisfying careers.
In summary; Damage ability and damage ambition.
I’m not an educator, and frankly, I don’t truly know what goes on in inner city classrooms. I don’t really believe that Arne Duncan and Eric Holder hate black people and desire to see them fail. But I can tell you that here in Chicago, about 60% of the students in the public schools will drop out before earning a high school diploma. Any educational policies that attempt to reduce that number by making the diploma easier to obtain (rather than encouraging children’s performance) spells further disaster for black people as well as for liberal democracy which requires broad and effective education. And will be functionally indistinguishable from racism.
[...] Dan Mitchell commenting on Thomas Sowell’s recent syndicated column, The Big Hoax: [...]
Shouldnt that say that black education is less important than dems keeping office?
The disparity in discipline of different racial groups is manifestly a product of Republican racism, because as we all know, the big government-big education complex is clearly a Republican artifact.
In his narrative; Frederick Douglass recounts the conversation of his master, Mr. Auld, when he found out Mrs. Auld had been teaching Frederick to read: “Mr. Auld refused to allow Mrs. Auld to continue teaching Frederick Douglass, stating that: “If you teach that nigger how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would forever become unmanageable and of no value to his master”. If blacks acquire education and therefore prospects, it makes them unfit for the Democratic “plantation”. It might be said that the mentality of the modern Democratic Party is little changed from the mentality of the Democratic party of old.
>You have to understand the sanctimony of the left – they don’t so much want to help people as to be credited for helping people.
Exactly right. I taught for a couple years as a visiting instructor at one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country. They had a special program to admit inner city black students who would then be able to “enrich” the experience of the largely white (and academically strong) student population, and gain the best college education available (so the argument ran).
The only two black students I got to know in the time I was there were two of these young men, both of whom were in danger of flunking out of my class. They were fine young men, and if they had gone to one of their local state college campuses they probably would have graduated with honors. But because some well-meaning and wealthy college administrators at a very rich school wanted to feel good about themselves, these students were tossed into the deep end of an academic pool that their educational background hadn’t prepared them for. Instead of building a pattern of successes, they built a pattern of failures: that’s what these sanctimonious academics did to them.
sooo… why should reading that Thomas Sowell article make me angry and sad? he makes a logical argument and doesn’t ever condemn the poor and less fortunate. can someone please point out the flaw in Sowell’s argument and how it is anti-poor people? because it is not done so within this article…
[...] Thomas Sowell Wonders Why the Obama Administration Is Trying to Undermine Educational Opportunities … (danieljmitchell.wordpress.com) [...]
[...] Thomas Sowell Wonders Why the Obama Administration Is Trying to Undermine Educational Opportunities … (danieljmitchell.wordpress.com) [...]
[...] Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams have very appropriate comments on this [...]
[...] of Professor Sowell can read more of his work here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. [...]
[...] Not surprisingly, Thomas Sowell nails the issue, as does Walter Williams, with both criticizing the President for sacrificing the interests of [...]
[...] IN SPITE OF the union. There are more links to more stories at the end of the article, including this one by PROUD Georgia Bulldog Dan Mitchell (Flat tax or National Title for the Dawgs – it’s [...]
[...] Fans of Professor Sowell can read more of his work here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, [...]
[...] Not surprisingly, Thomas Sowell nails the issue, as does Walter Williams, with both criticizing the President for sacrificing the interests of [...]
[...] Not surprisingly, Thomas Sowell nails the issue, as does Walter Williams, with both criticizing the President for sacrificing the interests of [...]
[...] Fans of Professor Sowell can read more of his work here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, [...]
[…] Fans of Professor Sowell can read more of his work here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, […]