Sowell says it best

For decades, Thomas Sowell has been a victim of the most Machiavellian racism of the left: It eschews any Black who disagrees with its dictated version of race-based realities or remedies.

The narrow, tiny tent for racial policymaking has no room in it for Black conservatives at all, but especially for a towering intellectual and social theorist with a uniquely qualifying set of credentials.

At 16, Sowell would have been voted the least likely to succeed at his Harlem high school in New York City. He dropped out that year, and, after being adjudicated a “wayward minor,” wound up in a homeless boys’ shelter in the Bronx.

His self-described “school of hard knocks” would last a decade and include various odd jobs and a U.S. Marine Corps enlistment before he found his way back to formal education that would ultimately include a bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degree from prestigious universities such as Columbia and the University of Chicago.

His early “misfortunes were in some ways fortunate,” he told biographer Jason Riley. “[T]hey taught me things that would be hard to understand otherwise … . It gave me a lasting respect for the common sense of ordinary people, a factor routinely ignored by the intellectuals among whom I would later make my career.”

Having actually lived through real-world experiences other intellectuals only theorized about, he said, removed a blind spot in social analysis and instilled a focus on empiricism and data-driven evidence.

Coupled with that thinking approach is a gift for writing which is centered around ideas, research and outcomes. As Riley noted, Sowell gives short shrift to fads — “wokeness” is but the latest iteration of a series of “social justice” advocacy thought dating back centuries — and heavy weight to facts, especially inasmuch as they might challenge popular beliefs.

Now 91, Sowell gave up his longtime nationally syndicated column in 2016, and his prolific personal bibliography includes 43 books, plus another half-dozen revised editions. He has written as a scholar-in-residence at the Hoover Institution since 1980.

The following sampling of Sowell quotes should inspire readers to want to read more of his indispensable writings.

Regarding widespread hypocrisy about diversity: “The next time some academics tell you how important diversity is, ask how many Republicans there are in their sociology department.”

In the wake of racial hostility toward police: “If not a single policeman killed a single Black individual anywhere in the United States for this entire year, that would not reduce the number of Black homicide victims by 1%. When the mobs of protesters declare ‘Black lives matter,’ does that mean all Black lives matter — or only the less than 1% of Black lives lost in conflicts with police?”

On race hustlers, 50 years ago: “The Black community has long been plagued by spellbinding orators who know how to turn the hopes and fears of others into dollars and cents for themselves.”

Debunking disparities as de facto evidence of discrimination: “Discrimination can certainly cause statistical disparities. But statistical disparities do not automatically mean discrimination. … The plain fact that different individuals and groups make different choices is resolutely ignored, because it does not fit the prevailing preconceptions, or the crusades based on those preconceptions.”

Calling out selective reporting that fits race-baited agendas: “The poverty rate among Black married couples has been in single digits ever since 1994. You would never learn that from most of the media. Similarly if you look at those Blacks that have gone on to college or finished college, the incarceration rate is some tiny fraction of what it is among those Blacks who have dropped out of high school. So it’s not being Black; it’s a way of life. Unfortunately, the way of life that is being celebrated not only in rap music, but among the intelligentsia, is a way of life that leads to a lot of very big problems for most people.”

Summarizing the root predicament of racializing everything: “When people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination.”

Explaining intolerant liberal bias in academic echo chambers: “The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work. Therefore we should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive.”

Analyzing universal health care’s flawed economics: “It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it.”

Showcasing the effects of gross politicization: “Immigration laws are the only laws that are discussed in terms of how to help people who break them.”

Declaring a basic truth: “When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.”

And finally, a key insight (from his early work at the Labor Department) about the inherent and intractable problem with government programs: “You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing.”