Walter E. Williams: Discrimination and Disparities I

[rangerrebew]

Walter E. Williams

 
Discrimination and Disparities

My longtime friend and colleague Dr. Thomas Sowell has just published a revised and enlarged edition of “Discrimination and Disparities.” It lays waste to myth after myth about the causes of human differences not only in the United States but around the globe. Throughout the book, Sowell shows that socioeconomic outcomes differ vastly among individuals, groups and nations in ways that cannot be easily explained by any one factor, whether it’s genetics, sex or race discrimination or a history of gross mistreatment that includes expulsion and genocide.

In his book “The Philadelphia Negro” (1899), W.E.B. Du Bois posed the question as to what would happen if white people lost their prejudices overnight. He said that it would make little difference to most blacks. He said: “Some few would be promoted, some few would get new places — the mass would remain as they are” until the younger generation began to “try harder” and the race “lost the omnipresent excuse for failure: prejudice.”Walter E. Williams

http://walterewilliams.com/discrimination-and-disparities/
 
 
Discrimination and Disparities II

Last week’s column discussed Dr. Thomas Sowell’s newest book “Discrimination and Disparities,” which is an enlarged and revised edition of an earlier version. In this review, I am going to focus on one of his richest chapters titled “Social Visions and Human Consequences.” Sowell challenges the seemingly invincible fallacy “that group outcomes in human endeavors would tend to be equal, or at least comparable or random, if there were no biased interventions, on the one hand, nor genetic deficiencies, on the other.” But disparate impact statistics carries the day among academicians, lawyers and courts as evidence of discrimination.

Sowell gives the example of blacks, who make up close to 70 percent of NFL and AFL players in professional football. Blacks are greatly overrepresented among star players but almost nonexistent among field goal kickers and punters. Probably the only reason why lawsuits are not brought against team owners is that the same people hire running backs and field goal kickers. One wonders whether anyone has considered the possibility that professional black players do not want to be punters and field goal kickers?

http://walterewilliams.com/discrimination-and-disparities-ii/

[goatprairie]

Most children learn at an early age that some people have a better aptitude for certain things than others. One of my best friends was a math whiz and salutatorian at his high school. I was not salutatorian or anywhere close.  I was not a terrible math student, but I clearly didn't have the aptitude my friend had. He was a vice-president of manufacturing at a Fortune 500 company before he retired.
As Dirty Harry said, a man has to know his limitations.
Everybody has certain talents and certain things they're just not very good at.
The same thing was true for me and my siblings. Two of my siblings did a lot better at math than I did. One became a mechanical engineer and one was a director for a Fortune 500 company.  I was not either of those things.
If siblings from the same parents can have distinctly different aptitudes, then it stands to reason that different ethnicities have different aptitudes.
Until all Americans understand that, we will be victims of the liberal idiocracy which, despite a world of evidence to the contrary,  has declared everybody as being equally intelligent.

[Fishrrman]

Goat wrote:
"Until all Americans understand that, we will be victims of the liberal idiocracy which, despite a world of evidence to the contrary,  has declared everybody as being equally intelligent."

The Bell Curve is as real as is Adam Smith's invisible hand...