Part 1 of our Sowell trilogy reviewed the book "Intellectuals and Race". This piece reviews Thomas Sowell's recent book - Wealth, Poverty and Politics: An International Perspective, and holds that:
-- Sowell adds little new to the subject but instead recycles old material
-- Attempts to add contemporary relevance such as incorporating some David Landes 1998 fall short
-- Sowell continues his cherry-picking approach, often ignoring or ducking contrary data and analysis
-- Focused on old material , but if an opportunity to bash "the liberals" arises, he is quickly contemporary
--Use of marginal or extreme statements by people with little credibility to set up strawmen to "refute"
--Pose as an objective empiricist but in reality sometimes presents slanted, one-sided views
-- Some good detail and insights are included on the role of geography- ironically debunking "geneticism"
Previous instances of recycling. Now let's get down to bidniss. Like an aging musician reissuing pieces of his back catalog for the fan base, Thomas Sowell pulls another recycling job in his book Wealth, Poverty and Politics: An International Perspective, 2015. He did it previously with his 2011 tome called Intellectuals and Society where he basically deals with old news- the Stalin era, the Hitler era, "appeasement" by Chamberlain and so on. He has very little on what's happening now, in the contemporary era, circa the mid or late 2000s. And it is interesting what Sowell avoids in that book. His chapter on intelligence in that book for example deals mostly with stuff prior to, or around WW2, and somewhat into the early 1970, Carl Bingham circa the 1920s, along with Darwin, Galton, European immigrants to the US in the early 1900s, HL Mencken's eugenic and anti-black rantings, etc. But all this is quite dated. Mencken's racist rants for example are from 1937.
This is rather old news. What's happening NOW circa the 2000s? Who's making similar arguments NOW, in the contemporary era? Sowell avoids saying, and that is understandable. To discuss the "black inferiority" theme writings of the present day - folk like JP Ruston, Linda Gottfredson, Richard Lynn , Tatu VanHaven, Dinesh Dsouza, etc, would expose people who are fellow travelers, or fellow recipients of cash from right-wing, sometimes racist sources like the Pioneer Fund. Such contemporary right-wing types have a well funded network of think-tanks, conferences, books and Internet forums and websites, energetically propagating their particular party line- some quite influential like Charles Murray, and Dinesh D'souza. But Sowell maintains a convenient "politic silence" on what his contemporary right wing buddies are writing, despite a book claiming to examine the wide impact, including the damaging impact of "intellectuals on society." Sowell though, is quick to bash "liberals," but when it comes to examining such work by his right wing fellow travelers, he is a convenient no-show.
Old news, yet again - Sowell's analysis of wealth and poverty internationally recycles old material but has little to say about key contemporary issues re wealth and poverty internationally
And the same pattern continues with this book. Basically it retreads arguments from his previous books, throws in a few "new" references from David Landes' The Wealth and Poverty of Nations -1998, (a dated reference [over 20 years old] in terms of analysis of new developments in the economic development field), and a few others, and repackages the whole claiming an "International Perspective." Use of dated general references is a common pattern in Sowell's work as seen in more detail below and it shows in the virtual absence of any credible or substantial discussion on aid flows, structural adjustment, financing etc. As a result, most of the book has little to say about a contemporary international perspective on issues of wealth and poverty. Yes it is nice to read about German immigrants who were efficient farmers in both 19th century US and Brazil, or Italian immigrant stone-working skills in the 1800s and early 1900s in the US and Argentina. And yes, we are regaled about gentlemen in the Tudor era preferring professions to messy trade (effete weaklings not robust free-marketers!) and so on. But much of this is old news he covered way back in the early 1980s in his books: Ethnic America (1981) and The Economics and Politics of Race (1983). There is relatively little new, or contemporary, save when opportunity arises to bash "the liberals."
Sowell tries to add contemporary relevance by pulling in a few references from David Landes (1998) to discuss wealth and poverty of nations, but they are rather too little, too late. As is typical with his cherry-picking approach, he often fails to discuss important factors that influence wealth and poverty internationally, including international trade, terms of that trade, the outsourcing of American manufacturing capacity to cheaper Third World locations, the impact of the global financial system and so on. The book has few references to key issues of international trade for example, nor does it discuss the international financial bodies that influence wealth and poverty in the Third World, such as the IMF, and its "stabilization" demands imposed on underdeveloped nations. Nor does he deal significantly with the whole morass of international debt, including the negative manipulation of Third World economies by bankers and other Western financial or institutional players. Even David Landes in his book discusses the predatory manipulation of the more powerful West (in the form of the US) to exploit Latin America and create dependency. But Sowell not only skips such key matters, but has little new as to analysis, or case studies, or data to bring to the table. Instead we get half a page of factoids- such as suicide rates of Chinese immigrants in Peru and Cuba circa the 1800s, but we can't even get much ink on CONTEMPORARY issues like Third World Debt or tariff regimes (pro or con), and how such things affects wealth and poverty.
It could be argued that Sowell is focusing on various individual ethnic groups as he has done in previous work like 1981's "Ethnic America." OK, but even here there is little significant analysis of the contemporary era. Where for example is the detail on contemporary Asian immigrants, many having substantial levels of educational attainment, BEFORE coming to the US, much more than the peasant farmers of the 19th century? Where is the detail on African immigrants, some of whom (not all- some are refugees from Africa's many conflicts or environmental crises) bring substantial levels of education with them prior to arrival? It is true that Sowell does mention that in England, some children of low income African immigrants outperform native whites, in some schools, but how does this square with other data where the children of other like immigrants lag behind native whites? And how does it square with some African immigrants in general bringing substantial educational levels prior to arrival in the UK or the US? Sowell does manage to work in sneering references to "the welfare state ideology" to explain the lag of the low income whites and US ghetto blacks, but predictably, has no credible data on alleged "welfare" effects to put on the table. Would this mentality for example explain why whites derive a greater level of welfare benefits than blacks despite much greater wealth and income? Nope.. Sowell sneers then quickly moves on.
Meandering multi-cultists
Some of Sowell's claims are just plain shaky strawmen he sets up to "refute." For example he says- quote:
Sowell along these lines also skips over the CONSERVATIVE or right wing version of multiculturalism, including the distorted textbooks on into the 1970s denigrating and distorting the history and culture of minorities, and presenting a sanitized picture of white goodness, particularly in the South. Hence the Daughters of the Confederacy conservative activist group for decades dominated how the US Civil War would be presented-. You see, it did not much to do with slavery, but rather "state's rights." But this is laughably circular. Exactly what was the key "states right" at issue? - slavery. But in Sowell's world, apparently only "the liberals" offend in such matters of distortion.
Cherry picking for good lickin' - the case of 'elites' and Griggs versus Duke
One of the problems with Sowell's work is his penchant to cherry pick items that fit his particular libertarian ideological axe to grind. while ignoring or sidestepping contrary data, or analysis. The result too often seems like a libertarian propaganda exercise, and a dated one at that. In other words, his is not always a balanced analysis. As already noted above analytical coverage and depth on key issues on wealth and poverty is weak, despite factoids and anecdotes here and there. When he attempts a detailed discussion on a contemporary issue some of the same weaknesses appear. For example, Sowell criticizes the landmark US Supreme Court employment discrimination case- Griggs vs Duke Power (1970) decision that employers must validate tests that have which have a disparate impact on minority groups when those tests are 'unrelated to measuring job capability.' Note again the dated topic- Griggs is from 1970- what's actually happening NOW circa his book 2015 on issues of employment discrimination? Have any other significant court cases or executive or legislative actions occurred since 1970? And how exactly does Griggs tie into "wealth and poverty"? We never find out.
-- Some good detail and insights are included on the role of geography- ironically debunking "geneticism"
Previous instances of recycling. Now let's get down to bidniss. Like an aging musician reissuing pieces of his back catalog for the fan base, Thomas Sowell pulls another recycling job in his book Wealth, Poverty and Politics: An International Perspective, 2015. He did it previously with his 2011 tome called Intellectuals and Society where he basically deals with old news- the Stalin era, the Hitler era, "appeasement" by Chamberlain and so on. He has very little on what's happening now, in the contemporary era, circa the mid or late 2000s. And it is interesting what Sowell avoids in that book. His chapter on intelligence in that book for example deals mostly with stuff prior to, or around WW2, and somewhat into the early 1970, Carl Bingham circa the 1920s, along with Darwin, Galton, European immigrants to the US in the early 1900s, HL Mencken's eugenic and anti-black rantings, etc. But all this is quite dated. Mencken's racist rants for example are from 1937.
This is rather old news. What's happening NOW circa the 2000s? Who's making similar arguments NOW, in the contemporary era? Sowell avoids saying, and that is understandable. To discuss the "black inferiority" theme writings of the present day - folk like JP Ruston, Linda Gottfredson, Richard Lynn , Tatu VanHaven, Dinesh Dsouza, etc, would expose people who are fellow travelers, or fellow recipients of cash from right-wing, sometimes racist sources like the Pioneer Fund. Such contemporary right-wing types have a well funded network of think-tanks, conferences, books and Internet forums and websites, energetically propagating their particular party line- some quite influential like Charles Murray, and Dinesh D'souza. But Sowell maintains a convenient "politic silence" on what his contemporary right wing buddies are writing, despite a book claiming to examine the wide impact, including the damaging impact of "intellectuals on society." Sowell though, is quick to bash "liberals," but when it comes to examining such work by his right wing fellow travelers, he is a convenient no-show.
And the same pattern continues with this book. Basically it retreads arguments from his previous books, throws in a few "new" references from David Landes' The Wealth and Poverty of Nations -1998, (a dated reference [over 20 years old] in terms of analysis of new developments in the economic development field), and a few others, and repackages the whole claiming an "International Perspective." Use of dated general references is a common pattern in Sowell's work as seen in more detail below and it shows in the virtual absence of any credible or substantial discussion on aid flows, structural adjustment, financing etc. As a result, most of the book has little to say about a contemporary international perspective on issues of wealth and poverty. Yes it is nice to read about German immigrants who were efficient farmers in both 19th century US and Brazil, or Italian immigrant stone-working skills in the 1800s and early 1900s in the US and Argentina. And yes, we are regaled about gentlemen in the Tudor era preferring professions to messy trade (effete weaklings not robust free-marketers!) and so on. But much of this is old news he covered way back in the early 1980s in his books: Ethnic America (1981) and The Economics and Politics of Race (1983). There is relatively little new, or contemporary, save when opportunity arises to bash "the liberals."
Sowell tries to add contemporary relevance by pulling in a few references from David Landes (1998) to discuss wealth and poverty of nations, but they are rather too little, too late. As is typical with his cherry-picking approach, he often fails to discuss important factors that influence wealth and poverty internationally, including international trade, terms of that trade, the outsourcing of American manufacturing capacity to cheaper Third World locations, the impact of the global financial system and so on. The book has few references to key issues of international trade for example, nor does it discuss the international financial bodies that influence wealth and poverty in the Third World, such as the IMF, and its "stabilization" demands imposed on underdeveloped nations. Nor does he deal significantly with the whole morass of international debt, including the negative manipulation of Third World economies by bankers and other Western financial or institutional players. Even David Landes in his book discusses the predatory manipulation of the more powerful West (in the form of the US) to exploit Latin America and create dependency. But Sowell not only skips such key matters, but has little new as to analysis, or case studies, or data to bring to the table. Instead we get half a page of factoids- such as suicide rates of Chinese immigrants in Peru and Cuba circa the 1800s, but we can't even get much ink on CONTEMPORARY issues like Third World Debt or tariff regimes (pro or con), and how such things affects wealth and poverty.
It could be argued that Sowell is focusing on various individual ethnic groups as he has done in previous work like 1981's "Ethnic America." OK, but even here there is little significant analysis of the contemporary era. Where for example is the detail on contemporary Asian immigrants, many having substantial levels of educational attainment, BEFORE coming to the US, much more than the peasant farmers of the 19th century? Where is the detail on African immigrants, some of whom (not all- some are refugees from Africa's many conflicts or environmental crises) bring substantial levels of education with them prior to arrival? It is true that Sowell does mention that in England, some children of low income African immigrants outperform native whites, in some schools, but how does this square with other data where the children of other like immigrants lag behind native whites? And how does it square with some African immigrants in general bringing substantial educational levels prior to arrival in the UK or the US? Sowell does manage to work in sneering references to "the welfare state ideology" to explain the lag of the low income whites and US ghetto blacks, but predictably, has no credible data on alleged "welfare" effects to put on the table. Would this mentality for example explain why whites derive a greater level of welfare benefits than blacks despite much greater wealth and income? Nope.. Sowell sneers then quickly moves on.
much multi, but few culti..
Some of Sowell's claims are just plain shaky strawmen he sets up to "refute." For example he says- quote:
"Multiculturalists today decry any recognition that some peoples have superior achievements or inferior achievements at a given time and place, though it is blatantly clear that Greeks were far more advanced than Britons in ancient times and Britons were more advanced than Greeks in the nineteenth century."
But predictably, he can give no credible specific example of these dastardly "multiculturalist" methods." What serious multicultural author or school textbook for example goes about "denying" that ancient Greece was on several counts more advanced than ancient Britain? Key multicultural texts and writers do no such thing. They do note however that dichotomies such as "primitive" versus "civilized", or the automatic assumption that a Western source is better than a non-Western one, or automatic genuflections to the imperial "grandeur that was Rome" are simplistic and distorted ways of understanding the complexity of history, economics and human culture. They also advocate a more balanced recognition of the accomplishments of other peoples rather than the glorified stereotypes. Greek science and architecture for example owes several debts to Egyptian and Middle Eastern influences depending on time and place. The "glory that was Greece" did not spring out of a vacuum, as any credible contemporary historical text shows. Are there things that can be criticized by some multi-culturalists? Certainly, but lets deal with the issues honestly not present a one-sided view.
Sowell along these lines also skips over the CONSERVATIVE or right wing version of multiculturalism, including the distorted textbooks on into the 1970s denigrating and distorting the history and culture of minorities, and presenting a sanitized picture of white goodness, particularly in the South. Hence the Daughters of the Confederacy conservative activist group for decades dominated how the US Civil War would be presented-. You see, it did not much to do with slavery, but rather "state's rights." But this is laughably circular. Exactly what was the key "states right" at issue? - slavery. But in Sowell's world, apparently only "the liberals" offend in such matters of distortion.
Cherry picking for good lickin' - the case of 'elites' and Griggs versus Duke
One of the problems with Sowell's work is his penchant to cherry pick items that fit his particular libertarian ideological axe to grind. while ignoring or sidestepping contrary data, or analysis. The result too often seems like a libertarian propaganda exercise, and a dated one at that. In other words, his is not always a balanced analysis. As already noted above analytical coverage and depth on key issues on wealth and poverty is weak, despite factoids and anecdotes here and there. When he attempts a detailed discussion on a contemporary issue some of the same weaknesses appear. For example, Sowell criticizes the landmark US Supreme Court employment discrimination case- Griggs vs Duke Power (1970) decision that employers must validate tests that have which have a disparate impact on minority groups when those tests are 'unrelated to measuring job capability.' Note again the dated topic- Griggs is from 1970- what's actually happening NOW circa his book 2015 on issues of employment discrimination? Have any other significant court cases or executive or legislative actions occurred since 1970? And how exactly does Griggs tie into "wealth and poverty"? We never find out.
Sowell grinds one of his favorite ideological axes- spinning Griggs as yet another imposition of "distant third parties" or and/or "elites" against sensible job performance rules. But this is cherry-picking while hiding or distorting the full context. Griggs vs Duke came into court in the first place, not because of "elites" "interfering" with the good people, but because the Duke Power Company, had discriminated against blacks for years, freezing them out of significant opportunities and promotions, no matter how qualified. This was quite beneficial to whites. Sowell of course does not mention how whites benefited.
Nor does he mention that it was soon after the landmark 1954 Brown vs Board decision, that Duke Co. suddenly implemented "new" educational requirements to move up for promotion even though some of these new impositions bore no direct relation to job performance. White workers for example were hired on and promoted prior, WITHOUT having to get a diploma. And when the new rules went into effect, Whites, who were already on the job, and already had enjoyed decades of "reserved," white only higher slots, were grand-fathered in, and did not have to meet the "new requirements." Black employees looking to move out of the old Jim Crow slots however, had to meet the "needed" "new" requirements. The impact of the new, seemingly "race neutral" rules was to freeze the existing system of white benefit and advantage in place, since many blacks, who might have been capable of particular jobs without needing any new layers of "requirements", now found themselves STILL frozen out of better slots and opportunities, for many did not meet allegedly "needed" "new" educational requirements. They were routed to the back of the line again, despite whatever the Supreme Court might say.
In short, whites, already benefiting from decades of preferential treatment, were ushered or locked into the higher slots and opportunities- they had little to worry about- their privilege and profit were preserved. The detailed study by Robert Samuel Smith (2008) Race, Labor, and Civil Rights: Griggs Versus Duke Power and the Struggle for Civil Rights lays out many issues. As Smith notes-Quote: "White employees were hired into higher classifications without high school educations prior to the company instituting its high school policy in 1955. Workers in the Labor, Watchman and Coal handling Departments continued to be hired without the high school requirement, but only white worker received promotions before the [Civil Rights] Act."
Courts examined hundreds of documents in detail and took testimony from witnesses, including the testimony of black workers directly affected by years of discrimination. It is not the picture of "elite" third parties handing down rulings from on high without knowing anything about what was happening on the ground. Even lower courts that ruled against the black plaintiffs, acknowledged the past discrimination and the present "white lock-in" results, but held that absent an EXPLICIT or OPEN racial policy or barrier as in the past, Duke Power's new seemingly "race neural" rules were allowable. Sowell does not criticize or dismiss these lower court rulings in favor of the corporate defendant. Nor does he criticize similar appeals court rulings, though it should be noted that the Griggs appeal panel did find discrimination against blacks. Before it went to the Supreme Court, a 3-panel appeal court reversed the lower court ruling in part- holding that while there was little explicit discriminatory intent Duke, residual discrimination arising from employment practices prior to Title 7 was NOT insulated from remedial action. And the appeals court did find that black employees prior to the 1955 new rules were victims of discrimination.
The appeals court, interestingly showed some of the company's manipulations such as "promotion" of black janitors. that still locked them down in the traditionally "colored" Labor Department. Interestingly again, it was only after the lawsuit that Griggs somehow "found" some black workers with diplomas to hire. Before the lawsuit few such workers were apparently not in existence, and Duke, again, only after the lawsuit, mysteriously, suddenly stopped restricting Negroes to the Labor Department. But of course Sowell skips over all this. It is when Sowell comes up against a ruling he doesn't like, namely the unanimous Supreme Court decision, that he insinuates the specter, as he does in several of his previous books, of "elites" dictating policy without knowing the true situation. Here again Sowell's "cherry pick only what data I like" approach reveals itself.
Interestingly the Supreme Court that delivered this ruling was one appointed by right wing president Richard Nixon, under his conservative chief Justice, Warren Burger. Also of note, appeals Judge Simon Sobeloff, while concurring with the finding granting the old-line black employees relief, dissented from the majority ruling arguing, that the manipulations by Duke company were part of a cunning covert pattern seen in other cases- Quote: "The pattern of racial discrimination in employment parallels that which we have witnessed in other areas. Overt bias, when prohibited, has oftimes been supplanted by more cunning devices designed to impart the appearance of neutrality but to operate with the same invidious effect as before." (cited in Smith 2008) Such grim reality on the ground is apparently beyond the conception of Thomas Sowell, himself a "distant third party" observer.
There is also sometimes a strawman aspect to Sowell's arguments. He frames a good part of his discussion of discrimination for example to say that race may not be the only factor that causes discrimination. But is this blinding insight and truism anything new? What serious analysts "ignore" that say, people in urban areas, for example, generally make higher wages than people in rural areas? Yes people vary for different causes, but that does not mean racial discrimination is absent, nor does it mean that claimants to racial discrimination have no burden of proof on their shoulders- far from it.
Strikingly missing from Sowell's analysis is any discussion of CONTEMPORARY discrimination against blacks. Again, what is the state of things NOW circa the book 2015, something that can be readily ascertained by looking at any recent college text on employment discrimination? Contemporary data or policy on the issue? It is as if such a thing barely exists, and the only problem is "liberals" stirring up trouble by filing disparity claims. But as we have seen in previous blog posts, contemporary discrimination is very much alive and well. And contemporary studies Such as Pager and Shepard 2008 (The sociology of discrimination- Racial discrimination in employment, housing, credit, consumer markets.) illustrate this in detail, whether by careful statistical analysis, "tester" audits of employers or landlords, or studies of EEOC claims and court cases.
Nor does he mention that it was soon after the landmark 1954 Brown vs Board decision, that Duke Co. suddenly implemented "new" educational requirements to move up for promotion even though some of these new impositions bore no direct relation to job performance. White workers for example were hired on and promoted prior, WITHOUT having to get a diploma. And when the new rules went into effect, Whites, who were already on the job, and already had enjoyed decades of "reserved," white only higher slots, were grand-fathered in, and did not have to meet the "new requirements." Black employees looking to move out of the old Jim Crow slots however, had to meet the "needed" "new" requirements. The impact of the new, seemingly "race neutral" rules was to freeze the existing system of white benefit and advantage in place, since many blacks, who might have been capable of particular jobs without needing any new layers of "requirements", now found themselves STILL frozen out of better slots and opportunities, for many did not meet allegedly "needed" "new" educational requirements. They were routed to the back of the line again, despite whatever the Supreme Court might say.
In short, whites, already benefiting from decades of preferential treatment, were ushered or locked into the higher slots and opportunities- they had little to worry about- their privilege and profit were preserved. The detailed study by Robert Samuel Smith (2008) Race, Labor, and Civil Rights: Griggs Versus Duke Power and the Struggle for Civil Rights lays out many issues. As Smith notes-Quote: "White employees were hired into higher classifications without high school educations prior to the company instituting its high school policy in 1955. Workers in the Labor, Watchman and Coal handling Departments continued to be hired without the high school requirement, but only white worker received promotions before the [Civil Rights] Act."
Courts examined hundreds of documents in detail and took testimony from witnesses, including the testimony of black workers directly affected by years of discrimination. It is not the picture of "elite" third parties handing down rulings from on high without knowing anything about what was happening on the ground. Even lower courts that ruled against the black plaintiffs, acknowledged the past discrimination and the present "white lock-in" results, but held that absent an EXPLICIT or OPEN racial policy or barrier as in the past, Duke Power's new seemingly "race neural" rules were allowable. Sowell does not criticize or dismiss these lower court rulings in favor of the corporate defendant. Nor does he criticize similar appeals court rulings, though it should be noted that the Griggs appeal panel did find discrimination against blacks. Before it went to the Supreme Court, a 3-panel appeal court reversed the lower court ruling in part- holding that while there was little explicit discriminatory intent Duke, residual discrimination arising from employment practices prior to Title 7 was NOT insulated from remedial action. And the appeals court did find that black employees prior to the 1955 new rules were victims of discrimination.
The appeals court, interestingly showed some of the company's manipulations such as "promotion" of black janitors. that still locked them down in the traditionally "colored" Labor Department. Interestingly again, it was only after the lawsuit that Griggs somehow "found" some black workers with diplomas to hire. Before the lawsuit few such workers were apparently not in existence, and Duke, again, only after the lawsuit, mysteriously, suddenly stopped restricting Negroes to the Labor Department. But of course Sowell skips over all this. It is when Sowell comes up against a ruling he doesn't like, namely the unanimous Supreme Court decision, that he insinuates the specter, as he does in several of his previous books, of "elites" dictating policy without knowing the true situation. Here again Sowell's "cherry pick only what data I like" approach reveals itself.
Interestingly the Supreme Court that delivered this ruling was one appointed by right wing president Richard Nixon, under his conservative chief Justice, Warren Burger. Also of note, appeals Judge Simon Sobeloff, while concurring with the finding granting the old-line black employees relief, dissented from the majority ruling arguing, that the manipulations by Duke company were part of a cunning covert pattern seen in other cases- Quote: "The pattern of racial discrimination in employment parallels that which we have witnessed in other areas. Overt bias, when prohibited, has oftimes been supplanted by more cunning devices designed to impart the appearance of neutrality but to operate with the same invidious effect as before." (cited in Smith 2008) Such grim reality on the ground is apparently beyond the conception of Thomas Sowell, himself a "distant third party" observer.
There is also sometimes a strawman aspect to Sowell's arguments. He frames a good part of his discussion of discrimination for example to say that race may not be the only factor that causes discrimination. But is this blinding insight and truism anything new? What serious analysts "ignore" that say, people in urban areas, for example, generally make higher wages than people in rural areas? Yes people vary for different causes, but that does not mean racial discrimination is absent, nor does it mean that claimants to racial discrimination have no burden of proof on their shoulders- far from it. Strikingly missing from Sowell's analysis is any discussion of CONTEMPORARY discrimination against blacks. Again, what is the state of things NOW circa the book 2015, something that can be readily ascertained by looking at any recent college text on employment discrimination? Contemporary data or policy on the issue? It is as if such a thing barely exists, and the only problem is "liberals" stirring up trouble by filing disparity claims. But as we have seen in previous blog posts, contemporary discrimination is very much alive and well. And contemporary studies Such as Pager and Shepard 2008 (The sociology of discrimination- Racial discrimination in employment, housing, credit, consumer markets.) illustrate this in detail, whether by careful statistical analysis, "tester" audits of employers or landlords, or studies of EEOC claims and court cases.
Another standard line of Sowell across many books is to poo-poo the effects of Civil Rights Laws by using a simplistic macro, national level comparison -such as income before laws, (in certain years) versus income after (in certain years). But this is too broad brush. Civil Rights Laws had most of their impact where discrimination was worse- that is, the South. Sowell, who so often comes up with the most obscure factoids (such as suicide rates of Chinese in 1800s Cuba), carefully avoids even a basic regional comparison. Data by credible scholars in fact does show that in the South, the coming of the Civil Rights Era measurably improved black employment, income, and other crucial life variables like health. "Heckman and Payner (1989) use microdata from textile plants in South Carolina to study the effects of race on employment between 1940 and 1980, concluding that federal antidiscrimination policy resulted in a significant improvement in black economic status between 1965 and 1975." Likewise detailed CONTEMPORARY data such as Gavin Wright's Sharing the Prize (2013) illustrate the same point of significant black gains under after Civil Rights Laws both North and South, not only for things like employment, but in educational attainment, occupational status and even health. The forcing open of southern hospitals (through threat of withholding federal funds) for example was a boon to black health . See Gavin Wright's- Sharing the Prize for more detail.
In addition, detailed analyses do show that the Civil Rights Movement era saw significant increases in black job growth and occupational status, North and South As one scholarly study by Harvard Economics Professor Richard Freeman shows-QUOTE:
"(1) Relative demand for and income of black workers were raised in the postwar period by governmental and private antidiscrimination activity following the 1964 Civil Rights Act and possibly by a general societal decline in individual and market purchases of discrimination relative to levels of productivity.
(2) The black occupational distribution improved greatly in the 1960s as a result of the significant supply response of black workers to economic opportunities, as well as of the increased relative educational attainment of the black population. Black workers shifted occupations rapidly in response to reduced discrimination and improved opportunities.
(3) Black women advanced more rapidly relative to their white counter-parts than black men in part because declines in discrimination have greater effects on job markets, such as those for women, where on-the-job training and cumulated experience are less important and where gross turnover of the work force is rapid. Such markets allow older as well as younger workers to take advantage of new opportunities, and, moreover, they are the special province of women..."
and
".. the federal law extends to the South, accounts for one-half of black employment and exhibits the greatest differences between black and white incomes. One indication of the extent of the federal effort in the South is the fact that two-thirds of employer-union-agency cases before the EEOC in 1970 originated there, with Texas, Florida, and Louisiana having the largest number of charges investigated."
The reader should note the large gains in the South, where Civil Rights had more impact- something Sowell conveniently skips discussing in multiple books. The data also shows a significant, measurable impact of Civil Rights Activity in the first 7-9 years after the CRA of 1964. QUOTE:
"The most important finding of Table 6 is that the post-1964 period did, in fact, witness an exceptional increase in black incomes, unaccounted for by previous trends, cyclical boom, or increased black educational attainment, and linked to civil rights activity. In regressions (1) and (4), the EEOC measure has a sizable significant coefficient, which implies that anti-discriminatory activity was responsible for increases in the black-white income ratio, from 1965 to 1971, of 15 percent for males and 27 percent for females, or 9 and 16 percentage points, respectively, from levels of about 60 percent in the early sixties."
--Richard Freeman, Economics Professor Harvard University, University of Chicago- 1973- Changes in the labor market for black Americans, 1948–72, Brookings Institution. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, No 1, 1973.
It is difficult to say whether Affirmative Action head-count QUOTA plans in the 1970s (such as in higher Education -the Bakke Case 1978 for example) had as much impact as the opening up of equal opportunities under the CRA. AA head count Quotas and Civil Rights Equal Opportunities, while related (such as in courts requiring discriminating employers to finally start promoting women or blacks) are not the same. Claiming quotas to be 'essential' for black advance 3 decades after 1964 is a shaky exercise, especially given rising black educational attainment, and economic changes. But whatever the complex mix of factors, the data debunks some of Sowell's persistent attempts, and more directly, attempts by such right-wing public intellectuals as Dinesh Dsouza or Charles Murray, to poo-poo or dismiss civil rights as a significant factor in black gains in the 1960s.
Claims of stagnant black progress debunked. In his 2002's biography, Sowell, still continuing his pattern of trying to downplay the Civil Rights Act asserts:
"Additional blacks entered professional and other high-level positions in the five years following passage of the Civil Rights Act—but these additions were fewer than in the five years preceding passage of the Act. " --Sowell, A Personal Odyssey p 268-269
It is interesting that Sowell gives no supporting evidence to back this statement. But hard empirical data by other scholars shows the claim to be shaky. As scholars Devey and Stainback note:
"Even more striking is the rapid increase in white women’s access to managerial jobs after 1971. White women move from being underrepresented in managerial jobs by 70 percent to being underrepresented by only 12 percent at the turn of the century. While they have not yet reached parity, white women have made remarkable and consistent gains. Black males also have made gains in private sector managerial employment, although their advances are not as dramatic or consistent. Black males were barely represented among managers in this EEOC reporting sample in 1966, being underrepresented by 90 percent relative to their employment in the sector. They made sustained improvements through 1983, although they were still substantially underrepresented at –54 percent of their general labor market employment. No further progress was made through the 1980s, but progress began again across the 1990s."
[FROM: --Donald Tomaskovic-Devey and Kevin Stainback. 2007. Discrimination and Desegregation: Equal Opportunity Progress in U.S. Private Sector Workplaces since the Civil Rights Act. Ann Amer Academ PolSci 609:49-84] https://www.jstor.org/stable/25097875?seq=1
The astute reader will notice that the biggest beneficiary from the Civil Rights Act is white women, but that the blacks, though still substantially underrepresented, did make measurable progress better than before the Act, for the managerial level jobs, debunking Sowell's claim. It is interesting that Sowell chooses a quick (and simplistic) "5 years before-5 years" after comparison so as to obfuscate the longer term upward trend. Other scholars noted below also show the same pattern of black gains after the Civil Rights Act. The Act did not "cause" ALL the gain- no one piece of legislation can claim that- but it did help the large pool of qualified blacks (from professionals to blue collar workers) who had been frozen out of the market before the Act. This pool of people is somewhat analogous to black baseball players before Jackie Robinson's era- more than qualified, and in some cases better qualified than whites, and/or more competitive,, but still locked out of the game by white racism and protectionism, despite a lot of hypocritical talk about "merit" and "free markets."
Apparently these thugs are "representative" of black folk or "liberals"..
Sowell is often occupied recycling old material, but he quickly becomes contemporary when its time to bash "the liberals." If the opportunity arises for a bit of liberal bashing, for sins real or imagined, Sowell in on the case like white on rice, but has little to say about his right wing ilk. He even throws in the standard bogeyman standbys- Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Twana Brawley (from 20 years ago- notice again the dated pattern) as examples of evil liberalism in the present day. Such things play well with Sowell's libertarian and right wing "base."
The Negro menace: Sowell also works in a few incidents of "black wilding" or something called "the knockout game," played apparently by mostly black teens, involving approaching an unsuspecting victim and punching them out. Apparently such vile (and idiotic) activity is only newsworthy when said negroes knock out a few Jews- and Sowell insinuates that liberal "apologists" condoned some attacks out of misguided concern for "troubled youth." Exactly who the liberal "apologists" are he does not say. Surely the standard bogeyman Al Sharpton would be among the liberal villains, but turns out that Al Sharpton issued a strong condemnation of the youth gangs carrying out the "knockout" attacks, but this of course is not mentioned by Sowell. Various incidents are ginned up into a sinister conspiratorial pattern of black evil against white people by Sowell and the right wing authors he cites, such as Michael Flatherty. But how does Sowell, a "distant third party" himself, know the right wing narrative is true?
Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter in a 2012 news conference considered the "knockouts" to be simple assaults not any "racial trend." Likewise NY City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly declined to identify any sort of "racial conspiracy" or trend, debunking the claims of Sowell and his supporting authors. Other observers question whether a number of reported assaults were part of any "negro knockout" "trend" as opposed to the vicious excesses of a few criminal gangs who happen to be black. Jeffrey Butts, who specializes in youth criminal justice at John Jay College, says there's no real pattern to the way the attackers choose their victims, but they are always alone, and they stand out. "The victims are someone who the young people consider to be an 'other,'" Butts explained. "That could be a racial difference, it could be a religious difference, it could be an age difference, it just could be a class difference."
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/deadly-knockout-game-what-it-is/
And in some incidents, there was no "negro menace" to white people per se. The teen perps in one Philadelphia incident for example were white. In several other "knockout" videos, the victim and attacker are both black. And contrary to right wing claims about "the media" supposedly "ignoring" things, the attacks got wide media coverage, particularly when the victims were elderly white Jews and the perps were black. The racial angle was picked up right away and Al Sharpton weighed in with strong statements condemning said attacks, which rapidly declined after a brief flurry of activity. See: ("Knockout Games-The Biggest Form of Cowardice; Rev. Al Sharpton". Huffingtonpost.com. 2013-11-25. Retrieved 2013-12-08)
The CBS story on "knockouts" debunks the right wing narrative about "the media" not covering such stories. CBS Video clips clearly show young negroes knocking out whites. CNN picked up the story and gave it a fair amount of play- even interviewing boxer Mike Tyson who condemned the attacks. So where was this story being "ignored" by "the media"? What right wingers seem to be really bothered about is that local media generally refuses to gin up various incidents into some sort of sinister anti-white "wave" of violence by blacks. These are the same conservatives who decry "playing the race card" but do not hesitate to deploy it when they find it convenient.
Menace from the laggards but not the advantaged: Sowell tries to "spin" the "negro knockout artists" into a narrative about how "more advanced groups" are likely to suffer violence from "lagging" or "backward" groups- like the Russian peasant pogroms of old against "more advanced peoples" like Jews in Eastern Europe. But this is dubious. The pogroms of Eastern Europe and elsewhere by so-called "lagging" groups, involved mobs of hundreds or thousands attacking a relatively small minority, sometimes with the connivance, indifference or even active participation of the legal authorities. Where is there anything similar among blacks in America? Are the swarms of black folk in NYC rushing out to Coney Island, Brighton Beach or Sheepshead Bay.to attack "advanced" Jews, with the police ignoring the violence? And in the United States most "race riots" have been by supposedly "advanced" groups (white) attacking "lagging" groups (Blacks, Latinos and Asian) including over 3,000 lynchings of blacks. But of course you will hear very little about this from Sowell in his "group comparisons." See http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-crime-knockout-idUSBRE9AP11Z20131126
Predictably, Sowell has nothing to say about attacks by white racists against blacks-several are documented every year in the US. Nor does Sowell have much to say about police abuses against blacks (as witnessed by the multi-million dollar payouts cities keep making to cover or settle misconduct cases by their mostly white officers). [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/chicago-police-settlement-misconduct-210-million_us_5787f6a6e4b03fc3ee500a88], or the continued abuse of civil forfeiture policies and laws- just ask the black motorists having their property seized without being charged with any crime. Where is the great libertarian Sowell, who has much to say about government abuses elsewhere, on such? This omission is telling, for police abuses are an integral part of the story behind the black ghetto riots of the 1960s and beyond, not only "hooliganism", as any credible history shows. Pointing this out does not mean one does not support police or is "against law and order." But Sowell's selective omission on this score shows he is too often prone to parroting right wing propaganda, rather than objectively examining the issues at hand. These examples are detailed but they illustrate a pattern- not that of an author analyzing the issues in a balanced or even comprehensive way but of someone cherry-picking various items, and ignoring data to the contrary, so as to grind a particular ideological axe.
Side note: Some statistics show whites MORE likely to be carrying weapons and contraband than blacks, but its blacks arrested and profiled more.
Strangely, data from both NY and Minnesota show blacks having LESS weapons or contraband on them than whites when stopped by police, yet the blacks are targeted MORE and have force used against them to a greater extent.
And here's data direct from City of Minneapolis. The blacks were stopped almost 3 times as much as whites, and in addition, many of the blacks were stopped in higher crime hoods. Yet with the deck stacked in every way against the negro, it turns out that the whites stopped were carrying MORE contraband than Blacks or Latinos.
Right wingers oft rail against "socialism", but have little to say when its whites who are profiting. In apartheid South Africa, the highest rate of nationalization of industries anywhere outside the Communists' bloc was instituted. Why all this government control? To provide jobs for the white Boer population, with said whites having a government employment rate of about 40%. QUOTE:
"The origins of apartheid go back to the early years of the twentieth century, when large numbers of white farmers began moving into South Africa’s growing cities. There they discovered, to their horror, that they did not automatically earn higher wages than other races. But they had the right to vote—and non-whites did not. And so the South African government instituted “job-reservation” laws designed to ensure that only whites got jobs that paid well. The government also set about creating jobs for whites in government-owned industries. As Allister Sparks notes in The Mind of South Africa (1990), in its efforts to provide high-paying jobs for whites, the country “eventually acquired the largest amount of nationalized industry of any country outside the Communist bloc.”
--FROM: Ray and Anderson. 2011. Krugman's Economics for AP. pp. 715
In fairness, it should be noted that some of the book's detail debunks standard right wing claims about "genetic" explanations for "lagging" groups, as well as right wing "environmental" explanations, such as the supposed efficacy of cold climates for promoting and fostering advanced civilization. For example various right wing proponents are able to offer few credible explanations as to why most of the foundational advanced civilizations sprang up not in supposedly benevolent cold climates, but in hot or warm tropical or sub-tropical climates, from Ancient Egypt, to Mesopotamia, even to sub-tropical southern Europe. Why did the allegedly more virtuous cold climate northern or Eastern Europeans "lag" behind historically?
As regards the tropics and sub-tropics, Egypt or Kemet for example is partially in the tropical belt, and its dynastic civilization was foundationally laid by Africans from within and to the south of the Sahara as virtually every credible scholar or specialist in the field affirms (Morkot 2005, Lovell 1999, Raxter and Ruff 2008, Smith 2002, Kemp 2005, etc etc. ad infinitum) Look dear reader- CONTEMPORARY scholarly references! Curiously, the supposed master of empirical data Thomas Sowell has little to say on this matter that directly bears on what some of his various right-wing allies are pushing. Still for what its worth, the book debunks a number of overblown and hypocritical "HBD" or "hereditarianism" claims on this score. Several details were given on the white Irish in previous posts for example, showing that would be northern European pacesetters were unimpressive "role models" of anything, but Sowell adds rural whites or "hillbillies" to the list of examples. He also shows that exceptionalist claims of sole northern genius, somehow divorced from the massive borrowing and copying from non-European cultures over history are quite dubious.
Poor northern Europeans also show the same patterns as blacks on IQ - QUOTE:
"The parallels with blacks go beyond the opinions of others. A 1932 study of white children from small communities in the Blue Ridge Mountains found that these white children not only had IQ scores somewhat lower than the national average of 85 for black children, but also had IQ patterns similar to those of black children— such as doing their worst on abstract questions and having IQs closer to the U.S. national average of 100 in their early years, with a widening gap as they grew older."
--Thomas Sowell. 2015. Wealth, Poverty and Politics_ An International Perspective. p 33
Europeans are beneficiaries of numerous things copied or borrowed from NON European peoples
QUOTE:
"What this meant was that the indigenous populations of North America and South America had both a smaller economic universe and a smaller cultural universe than that of peoples in Europe, Asia or North Africa. Not only could exotic goods travel thousands of miles across the Eurasian landmass, they could also travel thousands of miles across water in large ships.
These imports included many things that originated in Asia— paper, printing, gunpowder, the compass, rudders, stirrups, spaghetti, chess, and a numbering system that Europeans called Arabic numerals (because they first saw these numerals in use among the Arabs, even though the numerals actually originated in India). All these things created in Asia became part of the cultural universe of Europeans. Much knowledge from the Middle East and North Africa also found its way into Europe, including the agricultural and architectural advances that the North African Moors brought with them when they invaded and conquered Spain. When the British confronted the Iroquois on the east coast of North America, the mental and material resources at the disposal of these two races were by no means confined to what they had each developed themselves.
The British had been able to navigate across the Atlantic, in the first place, by using the compass invented in China, doing mathematical calculations with a numbering system from India, steering with rudders invented in China, writing on paper invented in China, using letters created by the Romans, and ultimately prevailing in combat using gunpowder, also invented in China."
--Thomas Sowell. 2015. Wealth, Poverty and Politics_ An International Perspective. p 43
or:
"Moreover, the technology that the Europeans brought to the Western Hemisphere was not simply the technology of Europe. Because of the geography of the Eurasian land mass, Europeans were able to bring to bear in the Western Hemisphere the cultural features of lands extending far beyond Europe, but incorporated into their civilization. Europeans were able to cross the Atlantic Ocean in the first place because they could steer with rudders invited in China, calculate their position on the open sea through trigonometry invented in Egypt, using numbers created in India. The knowledge they had accumulated from around the world was preserved in letters invented by the Romans and written on paper invented in China. The military power they brought with them increasingly depended on weapons using gunpowder, also invented in Asia. The cultural confrontation in the Western Hemisphere was, in effect, a one-sided struggle between cultures acquired from vast regions of the earth against cultures from much more narrowly circumscribed regions of the New World. Never have the advantages of a wider cultural universe been more dramatically or more devastatingly demonstrated than in the conquests that followed."
-Thomas Sowell, The Thomas Sowell Reader, pg 416-418
This pattern of Europeans heavily borrowing and copying from other non-European cultures is noted by other conservative scholars, QUOTE:
"By 1500, therefore, Western Europeans had acquired an impressive array of learning from their Byzantine and Muslim neighbors, and had imported an equally impressive array of technologies from distant China. In short, Western Europeans profited greatly in terms of wealth and power from their uninhibited sampling of ideas, goods, and practices circulating within the Old World Web. This held fateful consequences for American and world history after 1500...
There towns and trade had not decayed as much as in the north, and rapid revival set in after 1000 when Italian merchants joined the network of long-distance commerce centered in the Indian Ocean and bolstered by Chinas radical commercialization.
By tightening their links with the rest of the Old World Web in this fashion, Western Europeans encountered far more sophisticated and more highly skilled peoples than themselves. But as long as local agricultural and artisanal production expanded as rapidly as they did between 1000 and 1270, and as long as Christian knights continued to be generally successful in battle against foreign foes, crude Westerners could feel confident that God and their Christian faith would safeguard them while they plumbed foreigners’ knowledge and skills for purposes of their own."
--McNeill, William Hardy - The Human Web_ A Bird’s-eye View of World History-(2003). pp 138-139
Bottom line:
While here is good detail on things like geography and the characteristics of immigrant groups and their rise from poverty - this is a rehash basically of some of his earlier work like the 1990s book "Geography and Culture," or even 1983's "Economics and Politics of Race." This is very little substantive coverage of contemporary factors involved in wealth and poverty. Much of the anecdotes, such as the "Negro knockout artists" will play well with "the base" of right wingers and libertarians, (old ghetto riots by US negroes anybody?), but they seem irrelevant to the many core topics (like contemporary debt regimes, and trade for example) that need coverage, and there is little new for the discriminating reader. Looking at the lack of contemporary substance, one cannot help but get the impression that Sowell is "playing" his base by re-releases of old material. Some of this is understandable. In his 80s now, with little up to date research done for over a decade, Sowell comes across as a canny curmudgeon, squeezing out a last coupla paydays, from "the base."
LINKS TO OTHER POSTS:
https://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2022/05/critical-race-theory-debunked-white.html
Biden won, get over it, but can he breakout in Covid era?
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/686085999190798340/6179060851903968774
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/686085999190798340/6179060851903968774
https://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2020/11/teflon-dons-coating-in-trouble-can-he.html
The Teflon Don may reap benefit from Floyd protest violence and looting
https://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2020/06/teflon-don-may-see-fulsome-benefits.html
The Teflon Don- Covid-era approval rating may signal November success
https://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-teflon-don-covid-era-approval.html
https://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2020/06/teflon-don-may-see-fulsome-benefits.html
The Teflon Don- Covid-era approval rating may signal November success
https://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-teflon-don-covid-era-approval.html
Would a Biden win be any big loss for Republicans?
https://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2020/04/would-biden-win-be-any-big-loss-for.html
Tchalla's "Wakanda First" philosophy looks a bit like Donald Trump's "America First" approach
https://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2019/01/tchallas-wakanda-first-philosophy-looks.html
Significant EEOC Race-Color Cases- Covering Private and Federal Sectors
https://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2019/01/blog-post.html
'AsiaRate' Lawsuit against Harvard shows dirty little secret- white quotas used at elite universities
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2018/06/asiarate-lawsuit-against-harvard-shows.html
Some gays find welcome home in the 'alt-right' as nationalist organizations step up recruitment
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2018/05/some-gays-find-welcome-home-in-alt.html
Racial discrimination is alive and kicking in employment, housing and credit markets
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2017/07/racial-discrimination-is-alive-and.html
Sowell 3- new data shows backward tropical evolution? Wealth and Poverty- An International Perspective in Trump era
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2017/07/sowell-3-new-data-shows-backward.html
Sowell 2- Wealth, Poverty and Politics- International Perspective - Trump era to bring these issues into sharper focus?
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2017/07/sowell-2-wealth-poverty-and-politics.html
Sowell- Liberal intellectuals and hard questions about race differences- Trump era may force them to focus?
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2017/07/sowell-liberal-intellectuals-and-hard.html
Trump properties discriminated against black tenants lawsuit finds
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2016/07/trump-properties-discriminated-against.html
Stealing credibility- Dinesh D'souza has prison epiphany- after hanging with the homies- Hallelujah Hilary!
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2016/05/straining-credibility-dinesh-dsouza-has.html
Shame on you, and your guilt too- A review of Shelby Steele's 'Shame'
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2016/05/a-review-wealth-poverty-and-politics.html
Go with the flow 3- more DNA and cranial studies show ancient African migration to, or African presence in ancient Europe
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2016/04/go-with-flow-3-more-dna-and-cranial.html
Go with the flow 2- African gene flow into Europe in various eras
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2015/11/go-with-flow-2-african-gene-flow-into.html
DNA studies show African movement to Europe from very ancient times
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2015/09/dna-studies-show-african-movement-to.html
Guilt3- Why the "white privilege industry" is not all there
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2015/09/guilt3-why-white-privilege-industry-is.html
Guilt2- Media collaborates with guilt mongers - or how to play the white victim card
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2015/09/guilt2-media-collaborates-with-guilt.html
How Obama plays on white guilt
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2015/08/how-obama-plays-upon-white-guilt-hilary.html
Blacks oppose free speech- more ramshackle "research" from "the East"..
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2015/08/blacks-oppose-free-speech-ramshackle.html
Hands off the Confederate flag
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2015/06/hands-off-confederate-flag.html
Despite much more wealth than blacks, whites collect about the same rate of welfare and are treated more generously
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2015/06/despite-much-more-wealth-than-blacks.html
African "boat people" ushering in European demographic decline
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2015/05/african-boat-people-ushering-in.html
The forgotten Holocaust- King Leopold's "Congo Free State" - 10 million victims
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-forgotten-holocaust-10-million-in.html
Are violent minorities taking over California and the West?
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2015/04/are-violent-minorities-taking-over.html
Presidential hopeful Ben Carson meets and Greeks
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2015/03/presidential-hopeful-ben-carson-meet.html
Contra "ISIS" partisans, there have been some beneficial effects of Christianity
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2015/03/contra-isis-partisans-there-are-some.html
The social construction of race, compared to biology- Graves
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-social-construction-of-race_8.html
Why HBD or hereditarianism lacks credibility
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/10/why-hbd-or-hereditarianism-lacks.html
Leading Scientists criticize hereditarian claims
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/08/leading-scientists-criticize.html
Thai me down - Thais fall behind genetically related southern Chinese, Tibetans below genetically related East Asians like Koreans and other Chinese
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/08/thai-me-up-thai-me-down.html
Time for liberals to respect "the south" ... in a way of speaking.. the south of Egypt that is..
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/08/time-for-liberals-to-respect-south-in.html
Irony 2: touted High IQ "G-men" cannot reproduce themselves
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/07/irony-2-higher-iqs-correlated-with_25.html
Unz and Sowell: Unz debunking Lynn's IQ and Wealth of Nations. Sowell debunking the Bell Curve
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/07/unz-and-sowell-unz-debunking-lynns-iq.html
Irony 1: touted High IQ types are more homosexual, more atheist, and more liberal (HAL)
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/06/irony-high-iqs-produce-more-atheists.html
Elite white universities discriminate against Asians using reverse "affirmative action"
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/06/elite-white-universities-discriminate.html
Deteriorating state of white America
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/05/deteriorating-state-of-white-america.html
Racial Cartels (The Affirmative Action Propaganda machine- part 2
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-affirmative-action-propaganda.html
Hereditarian's/HBD's "Great Black Hope"
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/04/blog-post.html
Exploding nonsense: the 10,000 Year Explosion
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/03/exploding-nonsense-review-of-cochran_8.html
We need "rational racism"- Convicted felon Dinesh Dsouza becomes his own test case
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/01/we-need-rational-racism-proponent.html
The Affirmative Action Propaganda Machine- part 1
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-affirmatve-action-propaganda.html
Two rules for being "really" black- no white wimmen, no Republican
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/01/to-be-really-black-you-cant-have-white.html
The Axial age reconsidered
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-axial-age-reconsidered.html
Cannibal seasonings: dark meat on white
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2013/12/i.html
"Affirmative Action" in the form of court remedies has been around a long time- since the 1930s- benefiting white union workers against discrimination by employers
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2013/09/affirmative-action-as-term-appears-in.html
Mugged by reality 1: White quotas, special preferences and government jobs
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2013/06/mugged-by-reality-1-white-quotas.html
Lightweight enforcement of EEO laws contradicts claims of "flood" of minorities "taking jobs"
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2013/06/blog-post.html
Railroaded 3: white violence and intimidation imposed quotas
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2013/06/railroaded-3-white-violence-and.html
Railroaded 2: how white quotas and special preferences blockade black progress...
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2013/06/railroaded-2-thow-white-quotas-and.html
Railroaded 1: How white affirmative action and white special preferences destroyed black railroad employment...
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2013/06/railroaded-how-white-affirmative-action.html
Affirmative action: primary beneficiaries are white women
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2011/04/affirmative-action-primary.html
7 reasons certain libertarians and right-wingers are wrong about the Civil Right Act
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2012/05/7-reasons-libertarians-may-be-wrong.html
Assorted "Role models" debunked- hypocritical heriditarianism
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2009/11/hbd-debunked-debunking-hypocritical.htmll
Social philosophy of Thomas Sowell
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2011/07/social-philosophy-of-thomas-sowell.html
Additional gene flow data... :)
Go with the flow 2- African gene flow into Europe in various eras
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2015/11/go-with-flow-2-african-gene-flow-into.html
DNA studies show African movement to Europe from very ancient times
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2015/09/dna-studies-show-african-movement-to.html
Guilt3- Why the "white privilege industry" is not all there
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2015/09/guilt3-why-white-privilege-industry-is.html
Guilt2- Media collaborates with guilt mongers - or how to play the white victim card
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2015/09/guilt2-media-collaborates-with-guilt.html
How Obama plays on white guilt
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2015/08/how-obama-plays-upon-white-guilt-hilary.html
Blacks oppose free speech- more ramshackle "research" from "the East"..
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2015/08/blacks-oppose-free-speech-ramshackle.html
Hands off the Confederate flag
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2015/06/hands-off-confederate-flag.html
Despite much more wealth than blacks, whites collect about the same rate of welfare and are treated more generously
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2015/06/despite-much-more-wealth-than-blacks.html
African "boat people" ushering in European demographic decline
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2015/05/african-boat-people-ushering-in.html
The forgotten Holocaust- King Leopold's "Congo Free State" - 10 million victims
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-forgotten-holocaust-10-million-in.html
Are violent minorities taking over California and the West?
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2015/04/are-violent-minorities-taking-over.html
Presidential hopeful Ben Carson meets and Greeks
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2015/03/presidential-hopeful-ben-carson-meet.html
Contra "ISIS" partisans, there have been some beneficial effects of Christianity
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2015/03/contra-isis-partisans-there-are-some.html
The social construction of race, compared to biology- Graves
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-social-construction-of-race_8.html
Why HBD or hereditarianism lacks credibility
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/10/why-hbd-or-hereditarianism-lacks.html
Leading Scientists criticize hereditarian claims
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/08/leading-scientists-criticize.html
Thai me down - Thais fall behind genetically related southern Chinese, Tibetans below genetically related East Asians like Koreans and other Chinese
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/08/thai-me-up-thai-me-down.html
Time for liberals to respect "the south" ... in a way of speaking.. the south of Egypt that is..
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/08/time-for-liberals-to-respect-south-in.html
Irony 2: touted High IQ "G-men" cannot reproduce themselves
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/07/irony-2-higher-iqs-correlated-with_25.html
Unz and Sowell: Unz debunking Lynn's IQ and Wealth of Nations. Sowell debunking the Bell Curve
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/07/unz-and-sowell-unz-debunking-lynns-iq.html
Irony 1: touted High IQ types are more homosexual, more atheist, and more liberal (HAL)
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/06/irony-high-iqs-produce-more-atheists.html
Elite white universities discriminate against Asians using reverse "affirmative action"
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/06/elite-white-universities-discriminate.html
Deteriorating state of white America
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/05/deteriorating-state-of-white-america.html
Racial Cartels (The Affirmative Action Propaganda machine- part 2
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-affirmative-action-propaganda.html
Hereditarian's/HBD's "Great Black Hope"
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/04/blog-post.html
Exploding nonsense: the 10,000 Year Explosion
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/03/exploding-nonsense-review-of-cochran_8.html
We need "rational racism"- Convicted felon Dinesh Dsouza becomes his own test case
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/01/we-need-rational-racism-proponent.html
The Affirmative Action Propaganda Machine- part 1
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-affirmatve-action-propaganda.html
Two rules for being "really" black- no white wimmen, no Republican
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/01/to-be-really-black-you-cant-have-white.html
The Axial age reconsidered
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-axial-age-reconsidered.html
Cannibal seasonings: dark meat on white
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2013/12/i.html
"Affirmative Action" in the form of court remedies has been around a long time- since the 1930s- benefiting white union workers against discrimination by employers
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2013/09/affirmative-action-as-term-appears-in.html
Mugged by reality 1: White quotas, special preferences and government jobs
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2013/06/mugged-by-reality-1-white-quotas.html
Lightweight enforcement of EEO laws contradicts claims of "flood" of minorities "taking jobs"
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2013/06/blog-post.html
Railroaded 3: white violence and intimidation imposed quotas
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2013/06/railroaded-3-white-violence-and.html
Railroaded 2: how white quotas and special preferences blockade black progress...
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2013/06/railroaded-2-thow-white-quotas-and.html
Railroaded 1: How white affirmative action and white special preferences destroyed black railroad employment...
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2013/06/railroaded-how-white-affirmative-action.html
Affirmative action: primary beneficiaries are white women
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2011/04/affirmative-action-primary.html
7 reasons certain libertarians and right-wingers are wrong about the Civil Right Act
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2012/05/7-reasons-libertarians-may-be-wrong.html
Assorted "Role models" debunked- hypocritical heriditarianism
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2009/11/hbd-debunked-debunking-hypocritical.htmll
Social philosophy of Thomas Sowell
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2011/07/social-philosophy-of-thomas-sowell.html
Additional gene flow data... :)
Bogus "biodiversity" theories of Kanazawa, Ruston, Lynn debunked
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2010/09/blog-post.html
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2010/09/blog-post.html
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2010/04/blog-post_1818.html
In the Blood- debunking "HBD" and Neo-Nazi appropriation of ancient Egypt
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2009/11/blog-post_29.html
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2009/11/blog-post_29.html
early
Europeans and middle Easterners looked like Africans. Peoples returning
or "backflowing" to Africa would already be looking like Africans
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2010/05/blog-post_1754.html
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2010/05/blog-post_1754.html
Ancient Egypt: one of the world's most advanced civilizations- created by tropical peoples
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2010/09/blog-post_06.html
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2010/09/blog-post_06.html
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2013/03/playing-greek-defence-review-of-thornton.html
Quotations from mainstream academic research on the Nile Valley peoples
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2010/04/blog-post_9251.html
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2010/04/blog-post_9251.html
http://egyptsearchreloaded.proboards.com/thread/15/basic-database-nile-valley-studies
OTHER LINKS
Race, IQ, and Wealth: What the facts tell us about a taboo subject By Ron Unz
HBD EVOLUTION, BRAIN SIZE AND NATIONAL IQ CLAIMS DEBUNKED
IQ claims and miscellaneous data
Race, IQ, and Wealth: What the facts tell us about a taboo subject By Ron Unz
HBD EVOLUTION, BRAIN SIZE AND NATIONAL IQ CLAIMS DEBUNKED
Evolution, brain size, and the national IQ of peoples ... -
Jelte Wicherts 2010
http://wicherts.socsci.uva.nl/wichertsPAIDrejoinder.pdf
------------------------------------
Why national IQs do not support evolutionary theories of
intelligence - WIcherts, Borsboom and Dolan 2010
Personality and Individual Differences 48 (2010) 91-96
http://wicherts.socsci.uva.nl/wicherts2010.pdf
----------------------------- -------------
Are intelligence tests measurement invariant over time? by
JM Wicherts - ?2004
--Dolan, Wicherts et
al 2004. Investigating the nature of the Flynn effect. Intelligence 32 (2004)
509-537
http://www.iapsych.com/iqmr/fe/LinkedDocuments/wicherts2004.pdf
-------------------------------------------
LYNN AND VANHAVEN'S IQ AND THE WEALTH OF NATIONS DEBUNKED
---------------- -------
www.anth.uconn.edu/faculty/mcbrearty/Pdf/McB%20&%20Brooks%202000%20TRTW.pdf
------------------------
Race and other misadventures: essays in honor of Ashley
Montagu... By Larry T. Reynolds, Leonard Lieberman
http://books.google.com/books?id=5DLrgG_MflgC&pg=PA190&dq=r-+k-+selection+races&cd=1#v=onepage&q=r-%20k-%20selection%20races&f=false
--------------------------------
Race and intelligence: separating science from myth. By Jefferson
M. Fish. Routledge 2002. See Templeton's detailed article referenced above also
inside the book
http://books.google.com/books?id=t9OdPPLIgMAC&pg=PA64&dq=r-+k-+selection+races&cd=7#v=onepage&q=r-%20k-%20selection%20races&f=false
------------------------
http://www.ogiek.org/indepth/what-they-mean.htm
---------------- -------
Oubre, A (2011) Race Genes and Ability: Rethinking Ethnic
Differences, vol 1 and 2. BTI Press
For summary see: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/05-02-18/
---------------- -------
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/course/topics/curveball.html
-----------------------------------------------------------
--S OY Keita, R A Kittles, et al. "Conceptualizing human
variation," Nature Genetics 36, S17 - S20 (2004)
http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v36/n11s/pdf/ng1455.pdf
--S.O.Y. Keita and Rick Kittles. (1997) *The Persistence ofRacial Thinking and the Myth of Racial Divergence. AJPA, 99:3
http://www.councilforresponsiblegenetics.org/pageDocuments/WAURRSZQOE.pdf
---------------- -------
HBD RACE EVOLUTION CLAIMS DEBUNKED BY GENETICISTS
Alan Templeton. "The Genetic and Evolutionary
significnce oF Human Races." pp 31-56. IN: J. FiSh (2002) Race and
Intelligence: Separating scinnce from myth.
IQ claims and miscellaneous data
HBD RACE AND INTELLIGENCE CLAIMS DEBUNKED
J. FiSh (2002) Race
and Intelligence: Separating science from myth.
------------------------------------------
MORE HBD DEBUNKING
-------------------------------- ---------------------
Oubre, A (2011) Race Genes and Ability: Rethinking Ethnic
Differences, vol 1 and 2. BTI Press
----------------------------------------------
Krimsky, S, Sloan.K (2011) Race and the Genetic Revolution:
Science, Myth, and Culture
-------------------------------
Wicherts and Johnson, 2009. Group differences in the
heritability of items and test scores
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2009/04/24/rspb.2009.0238.full
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2013/06/coming-apart-can-murrays-down-with.html
"SELECTION FOR"- "SELECT FOR" HDB
CLAIMS DEBUNKED- "SELECTION" IS NOT THE ONLY KEY FORCE DRIVING CHANGE
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2012/12/demic-diffusion-notes-and-tropical.html
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2012/05/7-reasons-libertarians-may-be-wrong.html
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2012/08/cro-magnons-are-us-debunking-claims.html
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/03/exploding-nonsense-review-of-cochran_8.html
--Joseph Graves, 2006. What We Know and What We Don’t Know:
Human Genetic Variation and the Social Construction of Race
http://raceandgenomics.ssrc.org/Graves/
J. Kahn (2013) How a Drug Becomes "Ethnic" - Yale
Journal of Health Policy, Law and Ethics, v4:1
http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1072&context=yjhple
------------------------------------ -----------------
http://evolution.binghamton.edu/evos/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/PageProofs-Graves_race.pdf
-------------------------------------------- ----------------------------
other links
Evolution, brain size, and the national IQ of peoples ... -
Jelte Wicherts 2010
http://wicherts.socsci.uva.nl/wichertsPAIDrejoinder.pdf
------------------------------------
Why national IQs do not support evolutionary theories of
intelligence - WIcherts, Borsboom and Dolan 2010
Personality and Individual Differences 48 (2010) 91-96
http://wicherts.socsci.uva.nl/wicherts2010.pdf
----------------------------- -------------
Are intelligence tests measurement invariant over time? by
JM Wicherts - ?2004
--Dolan, Wicherts et
al 2004. Investigating the nature of the Flynn effect. Intelligence 32 (2004)
509-537
http://www.iapsych.com/iqmr/fe/LinkedDocuments/wicherts2004.pdf
-------------------------------------------
LYNN AND VANHAVEN'S IQ AND THE WEALTH OF NATIONS DEBUNKED
---------------- -------
www.anth.uconn.edu/faculty/mcbrearty/Pdf/McB%20&%20Brooks%202000%20TRTW.pdf
------------------------
Race and other misadventures: essays in honor of Ashley
Montagu... By Larry T. Reynolds, Leonard Lieberman
http://books.google.com/books?id=5DLrgG_MflgC&pg=PA190&dq=r-+k-+selection+races&cd=1#v=onepage&q=r-%20k-%20selection%20races&f=false
--------------------------------
Race and intelligence: separating science from myth. By Jefferson
M. Fish. Routledge 2002. See Templeton's detailed article referenced above also
inside the book
http://books.google.com/books?id=t9OdPPLIgMAC&pg=PA64&dq=r-+k-+selection+races&cd=7#v=onepage&q=r-%20k-%20selection%20races&f=false
------------------------
http://www.ogiek.org/indepth/what-they-mean.htm
---------------- -------
Oubre, A (2011) Race Genes and Ability: Rethinking Ethnic
Differences, vol 1 and 2. BTI Press
For summary see: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/05-02-18/
---------------- -------
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/course/topics/curveball.html
-----------------------------------------------------------
--S OY Keita, R A Kittles, et al. "Conceptualizing human
variation," Nature Genetics 36, S17 - S20 (2004)
http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v36/n11s/pdf/ng1455.pdf
--S.O.Y. Keita and Rick Kittles. (1997) *The Persistence ofRacial Thinking and the Myth of Racial Divergence. AJPA, 99:3
http://www.councilforresponsiblegenetics.org/pageDocuments/WAURRSZQOE.pdf
---------------- -------
HBD RACE EVOLUTION CLAIMS DEBUNKED BY GENETICISTS
Alan Templeton. "The Genetic and Evolutionary
significnce oF Human Races." pp 31-56. IN: J. FiSh (2002) Race and
Intelligence: Separating scinnce from myth.
HBD RACE AND INTELLIGENCE CLAIMS DEBUNKED
J. FiSh (2002) Race
and Intelligence: Separating science from myth.
------------------------------------------
MORE HBD DEBUNKING
-------------------------------- ---------------------
Oubre, A (2011) Race Genes and Ability: Rethinking Ethnic
Differences, vol 1 and 2. BTI Press
----------------------------------------------
Krimsky, S, Sloan.K (2011) Race and the Genetic Revolution:
Science, Myth, and Culture
-------------------------------
Wicherts and Johnson, 2009. Group differences in the
heritability of items and test scores
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2009/04/24/rspb.2009.0238.full
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2013/06/coming-apart-can-murrays-down-with.html
"SELECTION FOR"- "SELECT FOR" HDB
CLAIMS DEBUNKED- "SELECTION" IS NOT THE ONLY KEY FORCE DRIVING CHANGE
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2012/12/demic-diffusion-notes-and-tropical.html
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2012/05/7-reasons-libertarians-may-be-wrong.html
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2012/08/cro-magnons-are-us-debunking-claims.html
http://nilevalleypeoples.blogspot.com/2014/03/exploding-nonsense-review-of-cochran_8.html
--Joseph Graves, 2006. What We Know and What We Don’t Know:
Human Genetic Variation and the Social Construction of Race
http://raceandgenomics.ssrc.org/Graves/
J. Kahn (2013) How a Drug Becomes "Ethnic" - Yale
Journal of Health Policy, Law and Ethics, v4:1
http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1072&context=yjhple
------------------------------------ -----------------
http://evolution.binghamton.edu/evos/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/PageProofs-Graves_race.pdf
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