Thomas Sowell on latest book: Intellectuals and Race

[kevm14]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6ImP-gJvas

Examining racism and how progressive policy made everything worse. This is 38 minutes, not some drive by sound clip.

I will correct this if I have it wrong but I think his basic argument is, the progressive policy that tells minorities (well, not asians, they don't see to have a problem climbing the socio-economic ladder) that all of their problems are due to either direct racism or institutional racism. Over several generations, this begins to be self-fulfilling. The statistics on single black mothers and black employment, for example, before and after decades of progressive policy, are at, the very least, surprising enough to hear Tom Sowell's explanation for how that happened.

He's not saying there is no racism, but that blaming everything on racism is actually damaging to the very minority communities these progressive policies are supposed to be "protecting."

[kevm14]

I watched it. It's pretty good. In a nutshell the liberal culture that started in the 60s caused the majority of the problems that liberals today are saying they are trying to solve (or claiming that this is just another legacy of slavery). It blows my mind because we were told the 60s finally began to fix the wrongs that were committed over however many hundreds of years. Yet, Tom Sowell explains that in the 50s and prior, black people were doing better socio-economically, and markedly better than they'd do a few short decades later. There's a narrative conflict based on my own education and it really agitates me.

[kevm14]

Pretty much this:

What Sowell talks about in the last five minutes of this interview is maybe the most important idea for today's young Blacks to hear. Today, there is no oppression towards Blacks (though I'm sure Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would disagree with me). So why is it that Blacks today are doing worse than the Blacks of their grandparents' generation, when there was real discrimination and oppression? The reason is that today's Blacks are indoctrinated to believe that to be Black in America is hopeless.

[kevm14]

Examining racism and how progressive policy made everything worse. This is 38 minutes, not some drive by sound clip.

Here is a shorter version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJ16r3m-DE4