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Thomas Sowell discusses his newest book, Intellectuals and Race — Transcript

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0:04he holds degrees from Columbia and the
0:06University of Chicago but his
0:08undergraduate years at Harvard hold a
0:10special place in his heart the principal
0:13advantage of a Harvard Education he has
0:15said is that you never again have to
0:17feel intimidated by anyone with a
0:19Harvard
0:20Education Economist journalist and
0:22author Dr Thomas Soul uncommon knowledge
0:26now
0:37welcome to uncommon knowledge I'm Peter
0:39Robinson Thomas Soul has taught
0:41economics intellectual history and
0:43social policy at institutions including
0:45Cornell UCLA and Amherst a fellow at the
0:48Hoover institution at Stanford
0:50University Dr soul is the author of more
0:52than two dozen books his most recent
0:56intellectuals and race Tom soul welc
1:00welcome good to be here the
1:04progressives I'll quote intellectuals
1:06and race broadly speaking while in the
1:09Progressive Era socioeconomic
1:11differences were attributed to race in
1:13the liberal era such differences were
1:15often attributed to racism let's take
1:17each in turn the progressives and the
1:19Liberals the progressives of course
1:21dominated the first several decades of
1:23the last century who were they and
1:27broadly speaking what did they believe
1:29about race
1:30they believe that differences in
1:32performances and outcomes between races
1:35were due to genetics and therefore that
1:37they they also believed in things like
1:39Eugenics uh and they set the stage for
1:42what ultimately became the the
1:44Holocaust and why did they call
1:46themselves progressives or why did they
1:48come to be called progressives well I
1:50guess they they seem to think that uh
1:53they alone were were interested in
1:55progress but of course everybody uh
1:57wants believes in some changes and they
2:00believes that those changes will be for
2:01the better so uh
2:04it's it's hard for me to understand how
2:07they could distinguish themselves from
2:08others by that that term but they
2:10believe they could and I guess that's
2:11what matters all right you quote HL
2:14Menin whom you call a prominent
2:15intellectual during the Progressive Era
2:18quote it is apparent that the Negro no
2:20matter how much he is educated must
2:22remain as a race in a condition of
2:24subservience that he must remain the
2:26inferior therefore the effort to educate
2:28him has awakened in his mind Ambitions
2:30and aspirations which in the very nature
2:33of things must go unrealized close quote
2:35it's that phrase in the very nature of
2:37things that gets to the view yes that
2:39was a pervasive view during that era and
2:43it is straightforward pure racism in the
2:47strict sense of believing that the races
2:50are materially different from one
2:52another yes
2:55um it's it's it's sort of hard to uh
3:00one of the one of the problems with this
3:02way of thinking is that ET IT
3:04eternalized a set of circumstances that
3:06exist at the moment uh and when you
3:09realize how even a whole century is just
3:12a blink of an eye uh in the history of
3:15the human race and when you realize for
3:17example that uh IQ tests have only
3:20existed for about a century and are by
3:22no means infallible
3:24uh you if you look back over the
3:28centuries and you see how the races that
3:30were on top at one time were now no
3:33longer on top I mean at one time the
3:35Middle East was the leading civilization
3:38in the world and before them China for
3:41even more centuries was the leading
3:43civilization of the world and even
3:45within Europe uh it was precisely the
3:47southern Europeans who were so much more
3:50advanced than the people in Britain or
3:52Scandinavia back in the days of uh of uh
3:56Greece and Rome Greece and Rome uh uh
4:00but what what the people of that era did
4:02was take the different achievements of
4:05different groups uh and sort of freeze
4:08them in stone as if there was no past
4:10and there would be no
4:11future uh it's possible to dismiss Menin
4:16Menin is one one of the figures you
4:17mentioned here as a provocator or a
4:20reactionary but you note that his views
4:22were shared by John mayard KES HG Wells
4:26George Bernard Shaw woodro Wilson
4:29leading figures looked upon even today
4:33as leading intellectuals of the first
4:34years of the 20th century they weren't
4:37bad or malevolent
4:40people talk for a moment or two they
4:43based as best I can tell from from the
4:45book The IQ tests they believed that
4:48they actually had objective evidence
4:51they had proof of the differences
4:53between races arising from these
4:56intelligence tests that began to be
4:58given around the time of the first world
5:00war yes where did these tests come from
5:03well different places some from Stanford
5:06terman for example uh but
5:11uh one of the people Brigham who who was
5:13the author of the SC College Board
5:16Scholastic aptitude test uh made the
5:18argument that uh these tests disprove
5:20the idea that Jews were very intelligent
5:23uh because they scored low on the Army
5:25mental test in the first world war and
5:28now 7even years later he finally comes
5:30out and says you know that admits that
5:33his conclusion was without Foundation
5:35because um many of the immigrants who
5:38took that test were raised in homes
5:40where people didn't speak
5:42English uh they didn't look into the
5:44data on on BLS where who who's uh my
5:47gosh the uh amount of Education that
5:50blacks had at that time was pathetic and
5:52the quality was even worse uh so one of
5:54the ironies that I found in going
5:56through these things in detail was that
5:58if you look at the Army test
6:00that blacks did U much worse on very
6:03easy questions uh that required a
6:06knowledge of words than on much more
6:09difficult questions that did
6:11not uh and so for example the questions
6:13were uh tell which of the following are
6:16opposites they had things like Black and
6:18White Night and Day up and down and
6:20blacks got wiped out on those tests and
6:23the reason is that how many of them knew
6:25what the word opposite meant at that
6:27point right but the but the test for
6:30example required you to look at pictures
6:32of stacks of blocks including some
6:34blocks you couldn't see but which you
6:36had to infer from the shape of the stack
6:39and count them and blacks didn't do
6:41nearly as badly on those tests got it
6:43you also note that certain cultural
6:45groups scored especially low on abstract
6:49reasoning it's not just
6:51African-Americans it's also Gaelic
6:53speakers in the Scottish Hees it's
6:55Indians in South Africa it's
6:57workingclass children in rural England
7:00it's lower class youngsters in Venezuela
7:03it's a particular culture that is
7:07perhaps too poor to have the time as it
7:09were or the the the intellectual
7:12resources to devote to abstract
7:14reasoning I would look at it somewhat
7:16differently you would I would say that
7:18uh very often we try to explain for
7:20example why the Irish didn't do as well
7:22as the English uh and the real question
7:25is well the real fact is that the Irish
7:29uh were much more typical of people
7:31around the world than were the English
7:33and the real question is why did the
7:34English do so much better why was there
7:36an industrial re Revolution on one
7:38Island and not on the other that that
7:40that that's right uh and I I think the
7:42same same thing here that
7:45uh if you go far enough back in history
7:48I suspect you'll find that most of the
7:49human race had no interest in
7:51abstractions and so the question becomes
7:53certain kinds of cultures do have a have
7:56a desire for ab get into abstractions
7:58and that becomes an enormous advantage
8:00to them but uh uh I wouldn't try to
8:04explain why the others didn't do it
8:06because the others were un were
8:07unfortunately what the majority of
8:09people are like in the world even today
8:12all
8:12right liberals intellectuals and race if
8:16minorities were seen as the problem
8:17during the Progressive Era the majority
8:20was seen as the problem during the
8:21liberal era that began after the second
8:23world war the central premise of liberal
8:26intellectuals for decades was that the
8:29racial problem was essentially Inside
8:32the Minds of white people explain that
8:36Tom well what gr Mall who did the
8:39classic study on this uh said was that
8:42he you didn't have to look at what
8:44blacks did you could only look at you
8:45just look at what the white was whites
8:47were thinking and this suggests that the
8:50that these random thoughts from nowhere
8:53what were the reason reason for the
8:54problems the the problem was that
8:57different groups of people have been
8:59different in substance all around the
9:01world and for centuries and that blacks
9:03and whites in the United States are no
9:05are no exception to that uh and it's
9:08very hard to have a society where people
9:10with very different cultures
9:12coexist Tom you quote an intellectuals
9:15and race the famous black writer James
9:17Baldwin he's writing a 1960 quote people
9:20in Harlem know they are living there
9:23because white people do not think they
9:25are good enough to live anywhere else in
9:28a new house in project in Harlem they
9:30naturally began smashing Windows
9:33defacing walls and you'll forgive me but
9:35this is his language urinating in the
9:37elevators close
9:39quote what's wrong with his thinking oh
9:43my gosh you need a couple of hours but
9:46it so happens I grew up in Harlem in the
9:471940s
9:491950s uh and you didn't expect to find
9:52people urinating in places where black
9:54people lived in fact the P there's very
9:57little attention given to the fact that
9:58the public house housing of that era was
10:01radically different from the public
10:02housing of today I remember we had a
10:04relative of V got into some public
10:06housing we were so proud because you had
10:10to have a certain character a record and
10:12so forth to get in uh these were not
10:15places where you had dumping grounds
10:17with people who were at the bottom of
10:18the pile there was no less
10:20discrimination in the 40s and 50s in the
10:22minds of white people toward black
10:24people when you were growing up in
10:25Harlem that's right and yet Harlem
10:29I was just thinking about this the other
10:31day that that great Duke Ellington
10:33classic Take the A Train yeah the A
10:35train was and remains as far as I know
10:37the subway train up the west side of
10:40Manhattan it's what white people used to
10:42get to Harlem Harlem was an attractive
10:44place it was a place of culture and
10:47excitement so what was it then if it
10:50wasn't in the minds of white people what
10:54what took place in Harlem in the
10:5660s I think the 60s was was a period of
10:58generally irrationality and wherever
11:01there's irrationality there are people
11:02who know how to turn that irrationality
11:04to their benefit and you began to get
11:07some very opportunistic uh leaders who
11:09then began to say things that they knew
11:12to be false for which they knew would
11:13Advance their careers no let me quote
11:15intellectuals and race one more time
11:17among the differences between the two
11:19eras that is to say the time you grew up
11:22in Harlem and the 60s was that the
11:25intelligencia of both black and white
11:26became more prone in the later period to
11:28make EXC excuses for moral squalor and
11:31barbaric Behavior your words here after
11:34such Notions permeated the society
11:36barbaric behavior and moral squalor
11:38became accepted Norms within some
11:41segments close quote so you are not
11:43merely making the argument I'm asking
11:47that the liberal view that what was in
11:49their minds dictated the behavior of
11:52African
11:54Americans that you're not merely making
11:56the view that liberals were
11:58mistaken you're you're making the view
12:00that they're that they you're making the
12:01argument that they were culpable
12:04yes uh and and as I point out a few time
12:07places in the book you can go to England
12:10and see the very same pattern emerging
12:13including this this pattern where uh
12:15kids in school who are trying to do well
12:17get beaten up by other kids uh uh
12:21Theodore doll rmle is a doctor in
12:22Britain and he writes about the the kids
12:25who come to who have to go to the
12:26hospital they're they're so badly beaten
12:28up simply because they're doing well in
12:31school and these are white kids uh lower
12:33class in Britain so you see the very
12:36same pattern and all the things that are
12:38supposed to explain that pattern and
12:39explain it away among blacks are found
12:41among people who have none of those same
12:43factors but what what's the same in both
12:45places is that the intellectuals have
12:48told them that the world is unjust that
12:51other people are keeping them down that
12:53the fact that they don't have what other
12:54people have is somebody else's fault and
12:57if you buy that vision then of course
13:00there's no reason for you to do well in
13:01school and you resent those who do do
13:03well because they they they've bought
13:06into the enemy uh way of
13:09thinking multiculturalism first the
13:12Progressive Era in intellectuals and
13:13race then you deal with the liberal era
13:15and then comes the era of
13:17multiculturalism intellectuals and race
13:19quote the era of multiculturalism might
13:21be considered an extension of the
13:23liberal era but it has evolved its own
13:26characteristics multiculturalism is an
13:29insistence that the particular cultures
13:32found among less fortunate groups are
13:34not to be blamed for disparities in
13:37income or education or crime rates but
13:40are on net positive yes close quote
13:44explain
13:45that well I I I don't know how to how to
13:48say it differently
13:52um you you you can't find any fault with
13:56any group that is uh less fortunate that
13:59there are no there are no uh behaviors
14:01that they need to change in order to
14:03advance Society needs to accept them as
14:06they are in other
14:08words the causes are to remain the same
14:11but the effects are to change and if the
14:13effects don't change then it's society's
14:15fault so for
14:17example the there was a period I'm
14:20trying to remember now I believe it was
14:21in the mid 70s when uh substandard
14:25English began to become a can to become
14:29viewed as a discipline of its own within
14:31linguistic studies and so forth and for
14:35all I know it was all perfectly
14:36legitimate that certain speech patterns
14:38would be traced back to various regions
14:40in Africa and so forth and this is this
14:43is a language of its own it has its own
14:45validity but the argument your argument
14:48would be I don't really care what its
14:50validity is it's holding people back
14:52it's preventing them from participating
14:54in The Wider Society is that right AB
14:56absolutely and also none of these things
14:58went back to AA Africa oh is that so no
15:00you you can yes they did not go back to
15:04Africa uh if you look at uh the peach
15:07for example using the word ask for ask
15:09and stuff like that uh all of that goes
15:11back to the South and and and it goes
15:14back to the parts of Britain from which
15:16white Southerners came so if you trace
15:19the call calling uh hog entrails chitlin
15:22uh that was that that that was in a
15:24certain section of Britain the section
15:26from which whites moved into the South
15:28and and they were known as rednecks and
15:31crackers in Britain in centuries past
15:33before they ever set foot in the South
15:36uh so the whole thing is as phony as the
15:38$3 bill all right once again
15:42intellectuals and race the key word
15:44among Advocates of multiculturalism
15:46became diversity ah yes sweeping claims
15:50for the benefits of demographic and
15:52cultural diversity have prevailed
15:54without a speck of evidence being asked
15:57for or given
16:00name a few institutions in which
16:02diversity is championed
16:05without so without evidence go the
16:09question would be name one where where
16:10that isn't the case uh I would say the
16:13whole ivy league uh
16:16Stanford uh Berkeley Corporate America
16:20yes it it's really it's really
16:22miraculous almost I mean I can't think
16:24of a word that has gained such
16:26widespread use and which is utterly
16:29unchallenged without one Speck of
16:31evidence if you look at societies that
16:33are diverse they have all they can do to
16:36avoid uh Mutual Bloodshed I mean India
16:40for example is very diverse and and you
16:42know the barely coheres as a Nations
16:46that's right when when when India uh was
16:48given its freedom by Britain and split
16:51into India and Pakistan I mean the
16:53number of people slaughtered between
16:55Hindus and Muslims ran into hundreds of
16:58thousands all right uh so this brings us
17:01to affirmative action of course and uh
17:04let's take a look at the 2003 Supreme
17:06Court case uh gruder versus B Ballinger
17:09in which the Supreme Court upheld the
17:12affirmative action admissions policy of
17:14the University of Michigan law school
17:16writing for the majority Justice Sandra
17:19de o Conor the Constitution quote does
17:22not prohibit the tailored use of race in
17:26admissions decisions to further a
17:28compelling interest in obtaining the
17:31educational benefits that flow from a
17:34diverse student body close quote that's
17:37pretty high sounding what's wrong with
17:39that it would have been nice if she
17:41could produce one Speck of evidence for
17:45it doesn't it feel intuitively correct
17:47though no that you put students together
17:50with other students of different
17:51backgrounds the same of volum that it is
17:54intuitively uh accepted that doesn't
17:57relieve you from having to look at the
17:58evidence to find out if that's true uh
18:01one of the things that the uh when I was
18:03going around when I was taking my kids
18:05around to pick colleges uh I would go
18:08into the lunchroom at
18:10lunchtime and look around and if I found
18:12that all the black kids were at the at
18:14one table and all the white kids were
18:16different table I knew what the what
18:18what the atmosphere was at that school
18:20uh I went to school in the in the 50s I
18:23never saw that so you you you say what
18:27what the benefits are going to be and
18:28then you come along and test it you
18:30don't just say that sounds so wonderful
18:32there's no need to go go any further and
18:34and and if you look at what has happened
18:36in these places uh you find that the
18:38polarization is far greater after these
18:41policies have followed than they were
18:44before so the test this never occurred
18:46to me before but I I think we've just
18:48invented the soil test well the test is
18:50not admissions the test is whether
18:53there's diversity at the lunch table
18:56well there's that or or or or people
18:58sitting with their groups of their own
19:00oh yes okay intellectuals in race quote
19:04a growing body of empirical data shows
19:06that black students
19:08mismatched with the colleges or
19:10universities they attend fail or drop
19:11out more often than other students the
19:14problem is not that these black students
19:16are unqualified the problem is that they
19:18are mismatched with the college or
19:21university that has admitted them for
19:23the sake of quote
19:25diversity now what do you mean by
19:27mismatched
19:29well I I'll give a simple example uh
19:31when I was teaching at Cornell in back
19:33in the 60s the average uh SAT score of
19:37of black students at Cornell was at the
19:3975th
19:40percentile uh uh the average SAT for the
19:44white students in Liberal Arts was at
19:46the 99th percentile we all taught to the
19:49students who were at the 99th percentile
19:51students who were at the 75th percentile
19:54had a hard time trying to keep up they
19:56didn't have the reading speed they
19:57didn't have the mathematical facility
19:59and so on had had these very same
20:01students gone to someplace where the
20:03other students were the 75th percentile
20:06they'd have had no problem half the
20:07black students at Cornell at that time
20:09were on academic probation it was even
20:12worse at MIT the average black student
20:15uh when a study was done some years ago
20:16at MIT scored in the top 10% Nationwide
20:20in math they scored in the bottom 10% at
20:25MIT so the point is there are a lot of
20:28very good schools in America where they
20:29could have gone and been right in the
20:31swim yes of elite institutions just not
20:35at MIT that's right all right so we've
20:38established in intellectuals and race
20:40the progressives are obviously culpable
20:42they were racists they were straight
20:44forward racists under woodro Wilson you
20:47make the point it was under Woodrow
20:48Wilson that certain agencies in the
20:50federal government first begin to
20:52enforce segregation yes in Washington so
20:55so culpable culpability on the part of
20:58the progressives
20:59you've just told us that the
21:01Liberals by enunciating their views
21:05insisting on them in public again and
21:07again and again set up a kind of
21:09intellectual culture that made things
21:11worse not better again they're at fault
21:15and now you're saying that
21:17multiculturalists if
21:19only this example of bringing kids into
21:22institutions for which they're ill
21:24qualified you take bright hardworking
21:27otherwise perfectly well-qualified
21:29students and put them in the wrong
21:30institution and you set them back in
21:33life yes and they're culpable as well
21:35they ought to know better yes
21:38intellectuals and race quote the
21:40intelligencia pay no price for being
21:43wrong I think that's the secret of their
21:45influence how how's that well I I I if
21:49you come up with a lot of wrong ideas
21:51and pay a price for it you're forced to
21:53think about it and and to change your
21:55ways or else get eliminated but there's
21:57no such test the only test uh for for
22:00most intellectuals is whether other
22:02intellectuals go along with them and if
22:04they all have a wrong idea then it
22:06becomes Invincible Tom you're coming
22:09pretty close to saying intellectuals
22:10aren't very
22:12smart they are very smart and in very
22:15limited areas and they don't realize
22:18that it's the limited areas that's the
22:20problem I mean chess Grandmasters are
22:22very smart I mean if you can stand there
22:24blindfolded and play three different
22:26players without looking at the board and
22:28be them you're pretty smart so your
22:30argument would be that at an elite
22:33institution the folks in the physics
22:35department are really good physicists
22:38and the folks in the English Department
22:39know everything there is to know about
22:41Shakespeare and Milton but there's no
22:43reason to suppose at all that they've
22:46done any work in or studied the evidence
22:48on affirmative action or any of the
22:50other policies by which they attempt to
22:54uh to deal with racial problems in this
22:56country and yet they all somehow or
22:58other believe the same things about it
23:00yes
23:02okay this is all very disconcerting Tom
23:04you
23:05know Cosmic justice intellectuals and
23:08race quote no individual or group can be
23:11blamed for being born into circumstances
23:14that lack advantages but neither can
23:17Society be automatically assumed to be
23:20either the cause or the cure for such
23:23disparities yeah close quote so what
23:27you're arguing is
23:31that
23:33despite despite centuries of uh several
23:37centuries of slavery for I'm talking now
23:40about AF the African-American experience
23:42in this
23:43country slavery ends you've got Decades
23:46of Jim Crow you've got policies that
23:51have created substandard conditions in
23:54one inner city in America after another
23:57to this day
23:59despite all of
24:01that for the African-American child born
24:05in inner city Detroit tomorrow it just
24:08is what it is it's nobody's fault that
24:10that child is likely to have worse life
24:14expectations than the white kid born
24:16tomorrow in Greenwich
24:18Connecticut that's
24:22true uh you can't the the ease with
24:25which people draw connections between
24:28one thing and another it's just amazing
24:29I mean it's like uh it's like I mean the
24:32average of of black kid today I think is
24:34probably better off certainly materially
24:37than uh say Ben Ben Carson was when he
24:41was growing up Ben Carson the famous uh
24:43surgeon at John's Hopkins right right uh
24:46who is immensely accomplished in every
24:48way yes right uh I would say that
24:52um certainly the black kids who uh are
24:55growing up today have a higher material
24:58standard of living than I had uh the
25:00only the diff difference was that uh the
25:02schools were good when I came along they
25:05were especially good in New York at that
25:07time hard as that is to believe uh U but
25:11uh uh the kids who grew up in that same
25:13place where I lived they will not get
25:15that same education now that can be
25:18blamed on
25:19somebody but it has very little to do
25:22with what happened uh 100 or 200 years
25:26ago and it's true in other countries I
25:28mean in Nigeria for example there's a
25:30tribe the ebos who are living in one of
25:33the least least fral parts of Nigeria
25:36who were in fact enslaved uh in
25:38centuries past by other tribes and so on
25:41uh when when the British moved in and
25:44set up schools the EOS went for the
25:46schools by the time Nigeria became
25:49independent the ebos had climbed above
25:51the other groups that had been ahead of
25:53them to begin with so but there are all
25:56kinds of U cross Cur of factors uh the
26:01particular culture of the particular
26:03geography you run through the whole list
26:05of them here's you site in intellectuals
26:07and race you cite an observation by the
26:10intelligence expert IQ scientist James
26:12Flynn that just stopped me cold after
26:15the second world war you've got large
26:16numbers of American troops remaining in
26:19Germany for that matter there's still
26:20several tens of thousands there today
26:23and both black and white American
26:26soldiers had children
26:28with German women and Flynn discovered
26:32that those children growing up in
26:34Germany showed no IQ differences at all
26:39the the the black kids and the white
26:42kids the
26:43same quote quoting intellectuals and
26:46race Professor Flynn concluded that the
26:49reason was that The Offspring of black
26:51soldiers in Germany and now you're
26:53quoting Professor Flynn grew up in a
26:55nation with no black subculture yeah
26:58close
26:59quote which means what which means they
27:02experienced exactly the same
27:04expectations is this the no no no the
27:07expectations are external the culture in
27:09which they grew up was was was not the
27:11culture in which black kids grew up in
27:13America today so they had there's no
27:15gangster
27:16app
27:18in that was
27:20pervasively available in
27:24Germany so here's what I'm getting there
27:27is something
27:29about black subculture in America today
27:32that holds African-Americans themselves
27:35back yes in fact I I I went into this in
27:38a previous book which about black
27:41rednecks and white liberals because that
27:44same sub let's talk about two of your
27:45books
27:46here go ahead because that very sub same
27:50subculture held white whites in the
27:52South back as well that in the time this
27:55this mental testing in the first world
27:57war turned up among other things the
27:59fact that whites from various oh four or
28:02five southern states scored lower on the
28:04mental test than than blacks from four
28:07or five northern states and so it really
28:10was a question of the subculture that
28:12was there which was a handicapped to
28:14both all right and
28:17so whose job is it to say wrong
28:21subculture folks you're you're harming
28:24yourselves well I would think in an
28:26ideal world that intellectuals might
28:28take on that task but uh the world that
28:30we live in I've noticed is not not ideal
28:32all
28:35right what is to be done take a look at
28:38president Lyndon Johnson speaking at
28:40Howard University in
28:431965 but freedom is not
28:47enough you do not wipe away the scars of
28:52Centuries by saying now you are free to
28:55go where you want and do as you desire
28:59and choose the leaders you
29:01please you do not take a person who for
29:05years has been hobbled by
29:08chains and
29:10liberating bringing up to the starting
29:12line of a race and then say you're free
29:16to compete with all the
29:18others and still justly believe that you
29:22have been completely
29:24fair is it's pathetic it's not a
29:27question of there's no you who has the
29:29control to be completely fair or
29:31completely
29:33unfair I mean the circumstances are
29:36someone once criticized the mental test
29:39on grounds that the tests were unfair
29:42and what and I think it was David rean
29:43who said the tests are not unfair life
29:46is unfair and the tests are measuring
29:48the results but who has control of Life
29:52who has control of the
29:54past who has control of the culture that
29:57people have in the present which they've
29:58inherited from the
30:01past so Lyndon
30:04Johnson he's in
30:07fact although good liberal that he was
30:10at least in regard Lyndon Johnson had a
30:12complicated career and changed positions
30:14on issues many times but good liberal
30:16though he was at that moment he was in
30:20fact engaging in a breathtaking
30:23arrogance yes on two counts one that
30:28white people were the ones who were
30:31responsible for where black people stood
30:33in the race that it was up to whites
30:34entirely that blacks as he describ I'm
30:38devastating black people are passive
30:40they're acted upon that's right that's
30:41right and then the
30:43second act of arrogance is the
30:46supposition that somehow the federal
30:47government could fix it yes uh it is
30:52staggering uh but if if you wanted to be
30:55charitable you could say well he said
30:56this in 1965
30:59but if you say all right why are people
31:01now repeating it in
31:032013 when we've had uh uh nearly half a
31:07century of of experience to the contrary
31:11and if you look within the black
31:12community those blacks who had escaped
31:14what I call the black redneck culture
31:16they've moved
31:17on so but it is it's in it's it's it's
31:20the culture of the different parts of
31:22the black community had they were they
31:24were
31:25different Daniel Patrick moan in his
31:27famous 1965 report entitled The Negro
31:30family the case for National Action
31:34close
31:35quote longish longish quotation but it
31:38gets to something I believe moan the
31:41fundamental problem is that of family
31:44structure the Negro family in the urban
31:47ghettos is crumbling a middle class has
31:49managed to save itself but for vast
31:52numbers of the unskilled and poorly
31:53educated the fabric of conventional
31:55social relationships has all but
31:57disintegrated
31:58so long as this situation persists the
32:01cycle of poverty and disadvantage will
32:04continue to repeat itself close quote
32:07when moan wrote those words the
32:09illegitimacy rate among
32:11African-Americans was
32:1325% today the illegitimacy rate among
32:16white Americans is
32:1836% among Hispanics more than 50% and
32:22among African-Americans More than 70%
32:26yes
32:29aside from throwing up your hands in
32:32despair what H what what is to be done
32:36first the first thing to be done is to
32:38understand that this was a result of
32:40policies begun in the
32:431960s this is not a legacy of what
32:45happened 100 years before the 1960s the
32:48breakdown of the black family is not a
32:51legacy of slavery no if you uh the
32:54classic study of this goes all the way
32:56back to the era of slavery and they find
32:58that most uh black kids even under
33:00slavery had lived with two with two
33:03parents and that was true all the way up
33:06until the
33:071960s uh and so you if you really want
33:10to find out what has H what's changed it
33:12has changed since the
33:131960s and the fact that that that whites
33:16now have a higher rate of illegitimacy
33:20than blacks had when moan wrote suggests
33:23that this is something that spreads out
33:25but but if you look at something else if
33:27you look at those blacks I look at black
33:29husband wife families mhm uh the uh
33:33poverty rate among such families has
33:35been in single digits ever since every
33:38year since
33:391994 and so it's so so if you look at
33:42the you look at the external causes why
33:46the the the the husband and wife
33:47families and the uh welfare single Mo
33:50mom families all are are facing the same
33:53uh society and objective things but the
33:56but the results are radically different
33:58because the cultures and values are
34:00different so you would you would roll
34:05back
34:06welfare I guess that's the principal
34:09policy you you you let's Okay so what
34:11would Tom Soul do one you'd roll you'd
34:13eliminate welfare you'd reform welfare
34:15what would you do roll it back all right
34:17and what about affirmative action
34:19eliminate it just gone yeah colorblind
34:22policy
34:25completely all right well what Prospect
34:28for that do you see
34:31none no black no black leader of any
34:35standing I'm talking about a political
34:37leader as opposed to an intellectual
34:38such as yourself you've got well there's
34:40you there's Walter Williams is there do
34:42you get the sense that there's a that
34:44that there's a growing generation a
34:46rising generation of African-American
34:48intellectuals who say enough of this I'm
34:51with Tom Soul well I don't know if
34:53they'll go that far there's no point
34:55that would be asking a lot there's no
34:56point being Reckless
34:59but uh I I think uh there are people
35:03like like uh Shelby steel and many
35:06others uh Larry ELD you run through a
35:07long list and there are more s more such
35:10people now than there were say in the
35:111970s but in terms of political leaders
35:14all the all the incentives politically
35:17are for for black leaders to blame all
35:20problems in the black community on the
35:22larg of society and that enables them to
35:25take on the role of being the defender
35:27the black community against enemies
35:30which in turn uh creates the situation
35:33in which many blacks don't feel it
35:35anything that they do is going to is
35:36going to help themselves unless it's
35:38done politically as as a group that
35:41there's no point I mean why why would
35:43you if you believe what the what what
35:44they say why would you want to knock
35:47yourself out in the school knowing that
35:49the man is not going to let you get
35:50anywhere one of the most pathetic things
35:53I heard recent years was a young black
35:56man saying that you know at one point he
35:58thought he would join the Air Force and
36:00become a pilot and then he says he
36:03realized that the white man is not going
36:05to let a black man become a pilot and he
36:08was saying this decades after the
36:10Tennessee Airmen had established their
36:12reputation in combat in Europe you know
36:16but but the hopelessness hopelessness is
36:19is one of the big products of the of the
36:21race industry that that you have you
36:23have no chance I remember giving a talk
36:26at Marquette and at the end of The Talk
36:27among the questions it was asked young
36:29again young black man got up and he said
36:32even though I am graduating from
36:33Marquette University what hope is there
36:36for me and uh having gone through
36:40college when I was in the 50s I don't
36:42remember any blacks and saying that in
36:44the 1950s when there was a lot more
36:46obstacles to overcome than there were
36:48when this guy is graduating from Marat
36:51but you but you have to produce that
36:53kind of feeling in order to serve the
36:56interest of those in the
36:59industry final question
37:02then maybe we can maybe we can think in
37:04terms of that young man at Marquette or
37:06let's put it this
37:08way somewhere watching this interview
37:11there's a young Thomas Soul there's an
37:14African-American who's smart and wants
37:17to do something with his
37:20life what's seems to me I've we've
37:23already got one piece of advice you'd
37:24offer to him is stay away from the from
37:28the racist industry stay away from the
37:30what what what ADV race Hustlers what
37:32advice would you give a young tomama
37:35Soul how do you make something of
37:38yourself as an African-American in
37:41America
37:42today the way anybody else would you
37:45equip yourself with skills that people
37:47were willing to pay
37:48for all right Thomas Soul author of
37:52intellectuals and race and black
37:55rednecks and white liberals black
37:57rednecks and right white liberals and
37:59the author of another two dozen other
38:01books every one of them worth reading Dr
38:02Thomas Soul thank you thank you for the
38:05Hoover institution and the Wall Street
38:06Journal I'm Peter Robinson
38:09[Music]

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