The Thomas Sowell Type | The Bad, Ugly, & Downright Dishonest

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—Thomas Sowell

The worst thing about Sophist Sowell, beyond his loyal uncritical cult following,  is that he is so damn good twice a day, it makes his bad even more vulgar and inexcusable.  I am pained to have to listen through his bull shit to get to his sprinkles of genius. And he is a genius only because “black” communities have time and time again failed to be self-critical. If I had to call it Sowell is not our friend. This man defends Trump against racism and thinks Bush (yes, war on terror Bush) was an okay guy. He is the prototype of the anti-African black American intellectual. He is the role model for a generation of black bourgeois -hate and appeal to white conservative audiences. He is so vulgar that he cannot say the word racism, even when no other word exists to describe the situation, for fear of giving 2 cents of validity to the “Black Left”, as he perceives it. ¹ Sowell is quick to redirect the inequality faced by African Americans as a global phenomenon that all people faced at some juncture in their history.  But we are not talking about ALL Around the World, we are not talking about the Arab Slave Trade, we are talking about America. Sowell is consistent with his patriotic permanent defense of his slave master’s interest, so even when he might be right, his motivations are all wrong.

Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer decried the notion of reason as some disinterested historical force, claiming that logic, rationality, scientific method, and other gifts of the enlightenment were often marshaled towards nefarious ends under the guise of ambivalence and the lie of inevitability. —John Semley

For all his oratorical skills and quick wit, he won’t even have a face-to-face moderated panel discussion, let alone a debate to put himself up for intellectual scrutiny. Just like newbie Shahid Boleston, these guys are designed to speak to a fan base, not their peers. Like what happened to Steven Pinker when challenged by Medhi Hassan.

Question: Who is Thomas Sowell? He is the black mascot and a cult of personality for the conservative class. And he is an economist? But which economist takes his work seriously? But do your own research on this one. I personally think he has a deep background in economics, the same way Jordan Peterson has a background in whatever it is he has a background in and uses that scholarly position and his quick wit, sharp reflexes, iconic scholarly Black looks,  and oratory skills to become popular.  ²

Thomas Sowell is primarily a popularizer, teacher and policy commentator rather than an academic research economist. He has few publications in economics journals given 50 years since his PhD, and most of those are in economic history. So he is not thought of as an important theorist. Of course he is a prolific and widely read author, primarily on economics and economic-related topics.— Aaron Brown, Columnist at Bloomberg

PATTERN OF ERROR

It is very important to be specific in our critique of Sowell, no point in just calling him a sell-out or a born-again conservative capitalist ambassador. But at the same time, we have to be practical as to who will read an exhaustive critique of Sowell. This is not a fisk of Sowell’s 5-decades-long work, just identifying the dirty little habits of a sophist.

Sowell uses references casually, probably hoping no one would actually check them out. He cherry-picks, yet accuses others of cherry-picking, shallow evidence to support his assertions. There are no examples of the failure of anything he believes in. To call him one-sided and motivated would be an understatement. He deploys strawman arguments of opposing thinking, representing the opposition as ridiculous. Sowell is, like Jordan Peterson, selling books to a fan base. Because the glaring errors are so astounding, he must also know they are B.S. In his book on basic economics, he states, “When Alexander the Great began spending the captured treasures of the Persian, prices rose in Greece,” and that is it. No context beyond that. . He will not shy away from being ahistorical and even misquoting sources to shoehorn his contested events into his rigid dogmatic framework. Sowell is NOT a historian; he uses history as a weapon to anachronistically secure his capitalist arguments in antiquity. Where did this statement come from? Where is the evidence? But this is a common pattern with him. We not going to cite all, but this is his modus oprendi.

“Sowell’s economics in a social vacuum is as meaningful as color in the absence of light”— Kirkus Reviews³

Josef Gregory Mahoney, a Marxist scholar critiqued Sowell’s Basic Economics as “ahistorical”, writing that “no knowledge of history, or anything else for that matter” would allow lay readers to place their trust in the works. Sowell’s economics is not free of subjective views, and he downplays the extent of institutionalized racism. In one interview even his conservative White colleague had to almost force him to admit racism is real. He could not bring himself to use the word. Sowell is not totally wrong when he says not all disparities are due to discrimination and our work makes this identical point over and over again ⁴. And if we are misattributing disparities to discrimination leads to misguided government interventions that actually make things worse, increasing disparities where they’d intended to shrink them. We see this time and time again where the government puts the blame on things (like foreigners) that cannot be blamed for the poor performance of native South Africans in the market. After all the Somali shops are smashed and closed down, the people are worse off for it. Because the problem was never the Somali or Ethiopian tuck shop⁵. But it is politically expedient to deal with problems in these simplistic terms that keep the voting public happy.

As a diehard loyalist to Laissez-faire ideology, he thinks that non-intervention in social problems is the best way forward. So the inequalities in society are made worse, according to Sowell, the more governments try to fix them. At that rate, we should all give up parenting. The suggestion is so irresponsible I do not even think it deserves a response.  Jennifer Doleac criticizes this way of thinking and states that:

“…existing evidence is that government intervention can move us closer to our societal goals and make markets work more efficiently. But the possibility of unintended consequences is real and should push us to (1) consider what is causing the disparities we want to address, (2) design interventions that target those underlying causes, and (3) rigorously evaluate the policies we implement, to make sure they are having the net benefits we’d hoped for—⁶

RED NECK ORIGIN OF BLACK CULTURE

Racists will love this book. Sowell himself has dedicated his life to neo-conservative politics. But we have to judge the content of the book, like we judge all other books. For us, it is a little easier, even without getting too deep in the book, because this subject is something our film 500 Years Later touches on. Our work since then has deeply expanded on it. So when we see certain beats between Sowell and our own independent work, then Nairobi, I think we have a problem. I have lived long enough to watch people transformed in front of my eyes! That has nothing to do with slavery. We asked this question in 500 Years Later.

You can dismiss some of what Sowell says because his Nia is all wrong, but the truth cannot be escaped. Speaking about the Caribbean, what happened to the Windrush generation after arriving in the UK? What happened to African Americans, who were conservative, when they moved into cities like Chicago?  What is 100% true is that none of this culture came from Africa! People do not behave like that in Africa. If they do now, it is because of the African American influence going back into African urban cultures. We see this in Jozi and Nairobi, less so in Addis Ababa and Dakar. But we do see it in Israel! What Sowell gets wrong is that this cultural problem is not single-sourced. It is ripe in South Africa also, independent of Redneck culture.

Black Necks is one of Sowell’s most iconic books is Black Rednecks which makes a connection between current Black culture and the British rednecks. The first essay, the book’s namesake, traces the origins of the “ghetto” African-American culture to the culture of Scotch-Irish Americans who migrated from the British Isles to the Antebellum South. The second essay, “Are Jews Generic?”, discusses middleman minorities. The third essay, “The Real History of Slavery,” discusses the timeline of the abolition of slavery and serfdom. The last three essays discuss the history of Germany, African-American education, and a criticism of multiculturalism.

An AI overview of issues with the book is as follows:

• Academic Critiques: The book has been formally reviewed in academic publications, such as The Journal of African American History. In one such review, economist James B. Stewart criticizes Sowell’s methodology, arguing that he uses “highly selective historical case studies” and that his treatment of cultural exchange is “sloppy,” ignoring important works that contradict his thesis. Critics often argue Sowell downplays the lasting effects of systemic racism and historical discrimination, leaning too heavily on a narrative of cultural deficits and individual agency.
• Empirical Studies: Some social scientists have actually tested aspects of Sowell’s “cracker culture/black redneck” thesis using empirical data. For example, a 2009 study in Deviant Behavior by Matthew R. Lee, Shaun A. Thomas, and Graham C. Ousey found some evidence suggesting a “southern cultural influence” was associated with higher rates of argument-based homicide in both white and Black communities in the South, providing some empirical support for that specific part of his argument, while not endorsing the full scope of his claims.
• General Reception: The book is widely considered controversial because it challenges prevailing narratives about race and inequality. Proponents see it as a valuable resource that emphasizes cultural factors and individual responsibility, providing an important counter-narrative to explanations focused solely on race or discrimination.

The problem with both Sowell and Stewart, and the Dyson, etc, Bill Cosby position, is that NONE Of them, unlike us, are pointing to an African cultural solution! So I think people still float! And anyone floating is going to gravitate right into the economics of the dominant culture, failing to establish an authentic culture of their own. And that is the alarming missing conversation that I dont think either wants to have

BARBARY PIRATES DECEPTION

“More whites were brought as slaves to North Africa than blacks brought as slaves to the United States or to the 13 colonies from which it was formed. White slaves were still being bought and sold in the Ottoman Empire, decades after blacks were freed in the United States.”

Okay, so the deception is that he’s narrowed the slave-trade to only those slaves who went to the United States, whereas the majority of slaves went to Brazil or the Caribbean. Of the 10.7 million slaves who survived the voyage to the Americas, only around 450,000 were shipped to North America. As for the number of slaves shipped from Europe to Africa, noone really knows the total, but he’s likely thinking of the well-publicised Robert Davis estimate of between 1 million to 1.25 million, which I believe is on the high side of estimates. Peter Earle, author of The Corsairs of Malta and Barbary and The Pirate Wars, said that Prof Davis may have erred in extrapolating from 1580-1680 because that was the most intense slaving period: “His figures sound a bit dodgy, and I think he may be exaggerating.”

This goes back to a very common pattern with Sowell, comparing two different things: Chinese as an established group and Jews as an established ethnic group vs African with an enslaved identity. What is the person watching his video walking away with? More whites were enslaved than Blacks. He allows the open Barbary Pirates represented at their highest numbers to be compared to the specific political USA territory. Knowing full well that the smallest number of the low estimate of 10 million went to America. We have seen this before, where they tell you how many enslaved Africans arrived, but not how many left.

SOWELL GOES DIGITAL

In recent years, Sowell ™ has been tech-savvy and has entered the digital fray with his own website, videos, and an entire production team with voiceovers. It is funny because anyone familiar with Sowell would know this is not of his design; someone is branding him. We would know a bit about this as we did it with Frances Cress Welsin and Alik Shahadah. Even Maya Angelou was digitized and platformed by associates of ours.

Groups that are lagging often their biggest impediment is their leadership.—Thomas Sowell

So he pretends to save his white benefactors, but he doesn’t understand the legacy of racism and oppression. He is focused on canceling anything that makes American oppression look bad. So if he can find someone who survived slavery to achieve something, he will then say, “Slavery is not an excuse”. I do not like excuses either, because we are responsible for our own development, but that does not mean that oppressing people is not going to 9/10 hold them back. Even if we are responsible, legalized oppression is part of the problem and needs to be removed. Book after book, he is selling us that there is no inequality related to the poor performance of any group. There is no point in discussing White supremacy, as he has just made every excuse possible to protect them. He says, “Just look at the Jews and the Irish! If Jews are so unaffected, then who is the ADL looking for antisemitism in a tea leaf? Why is every other article in Western media about Jewish feelings on college campuses? So, antisemitism is real, but racism against African Americans is not?

This video by Sowell is only a reference; the content is at times ridiculously false. I do not think Sowell understands oppression. He is comparing the mass slaughter of a united group of ethnic Chinese with culture, history, and language to the mass slaughter of people who were chattel. Honestly. Why are you comparing disparate groups? Compare like and like. Compare African Americans to Native Americans Native Australians or Native Fiji Islands or African Arabs in Iraq?

 

He pretends there is nothing called inequality as an agent holding people back. And will go to South China and the Igbos in Nigeria to find evidence to prove racism doesn’t hold people back. But is financial success the only metric? Good research shows that even communities doing well financially and socially bear the scars of living in hostile environments (Muslims in the UK). And if Sowell is so diverse to dig up in passing Chinese in oppressive Southern Asia, why not visit South Africa? And all the examples in Israel where racism does just that?

So if there is a cherrypicker, Sowell is the first intellectual who gets 10/10 for that. We try to be fair, maybe someone says AHS does cherry-picking but if we do, we are doing it out of ignorance aka not knowing. I promise you that. The minute that information becomes available we will always return to it and factor it into any statement as humanly possible. Our entire policy is to avoid cherry-picking data.

 

 

I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH HONEST CRITIQUE

Everyone is missing the mark regarding Sowell and his minions such as Jason Riley. Welfare has conclusively destroyed African American and African British households. But, It is not the only thing. it is up in the top 5 along with liberal values, feminism, etc. Affirmative action and BEE (South Africa) are a mess, but that might be due to poor implementation. How come when his boss’s (Friedman’s) capitalist free-market policies failed in Latin America (Chilie to be specific) he did not throw capitalism under the bus?

In this video attributed to Sowell, he invokes Malcolm X name to gain our ear. But then attacks Noam Chomsky indirectly by using his face (without discussing any specifics) in his video. Sowell is therefore manipulative, using skeletons of truth to tell better lies. Yes, we cannot trust the White liberal but Malcolm also warned us about the House Negro. I do have to laugh, do you honestly think when Malcolm X was alive he was so respected? Not even King enjoyed 75% of American approval. Now Sowell, of all people is iconizing Malcolm X. 

Welfare did give incentives the single mother syndrome. (Fact). YES, the African American family did somehow survive Jim and Slavery. He provides stats for this. But what he is doing wrong is focusing in on a problem he has with the welfare state (as he does with affirmative action, and blaming everything on that one thing. He doesn’t look any further in his investigation. His goal (i think) is not the 💯 the health of the African American family but another way to attack welfare and other liberal systems that seem to benefit people based on race.

So I feel that Sowell in his mission to protect his slave masters attacks anything pro-Black or that might be construed as giving African Americans a leg up. He is sometimes right but his motives need to be questioned. It is no wonder why Candace Owen echoes a lot of his rhetoric and data.

BLIND ATTACK ON SOCIALISM

Sowell had the cheek to attack Chomsky for “going outside of his field”. That is funny. But Thomas you step outside your field and talk about culture (without understanding the basic mechanisms of culture), identity, and slavery. Noam Chomsky is not stepping outside his field. He is renowned for politics. Just because someone plays guitar doesn’t mean they are locked into that field and cannot be a master of another. How is Noam Chomsky stepping outside his field when he has been doing politics just as long as he has been a linguist? He has been around for as long as you do what you do and more. So what prevented Ibn Sina from being a master of religion and science? Did he also step outside his field? So who was Robeson?

Paul Leroy Robeson (/ˈroʊbsən/ ROHB-sən;[2][3] April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was an American bass-baritone concert artist, actor, professional football player, and activist who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and for his political stances.

Who was the polymath Ibn Sina?

Ibn Sina (Persian: ابن سینا, romanized: Ibn Sīnā; c. 980 – 22 June 1037 CE), commonly known in the West as Avicenna (/ˌævɪˈsɛnə, ˌɑːvɪ-/), was a preeminent philosopher and physician of the Muslim world,[4][5] flourishing during the Islamic Golden Age, serving in the courts of various Iranian rulers.[6] He is often described as the father of early modern medicine.[7][8][9] His philosophy was of the Peripatetic school derived from Aristotelianism.[10]

I could go on. Even our very own Alik Shahadah makes films and wins awards for them yet wrote about White supremacy, African Agency, Culture, African Holocaust, Sociolinguistics and African Agency, African race, and Arab slave trade. And was a music producer. So which one of those things was “outside of his field”? Because I do recall PhD scholars referencing his work. You can watch the films and listen to the music and ask is he “stepping outside of his field”.

he insults socialists for their failure to have ideas that transform society but what does he say about his mentors and their legacy in South America? See Legacy of Milton Friedman.

SOWELL AS A RELIGION

WHERE HE IS STRONG

But we cannot argue with Sowell when it comes to the necessity of education, and how the lack of it combined with this “black” culture has destroyed our development.

That video is an example of the good and the bad of Sowell. He does superficially cite the German example but limits the conclusion to a lack of rap music. As a critical thinker, I cannot go with what I like, I have to be critical of what I like as well. What other factors could be responsible for the Afo-German equality compared to their White peers? He says lack of the Black Sub-Culture. Okay but what about the fact that they are mixed heritage? I am just saying because you open yourself up to that suggestion. And if we are rigorous we need to see he opens himself with that very same data. Sowell has a unique way of only interpreting data the way that works for his arguments. Maybe the Afro-German kids are all Middle class and should not be compared to Lower class African Americans but African Americans from a middle-class background? His work is sloppy and selective at times. But we are open to corrections if this is a generalization.

In that same video with the L BJ speech did he say it was up to whites entirely? So these two sophists do not like that so they misrepresent what he said. In a society the responsibilities are different but everyone is responsible because everyone is affected. And we made this point with regard to South Africa. And we need to be very clear, as it is critical. We Africans are responsible because we are in this sinking boat. I can stop there. But that is not how life works because life is holistic. We need to worry about what we can do, but if Whites and other groups also want a better world they also need to be part of the solution. Because the underdevelopment of Africa hurts the entire world in the long run. I hope people understand that. Our responsibility is different from theirs. It is our kids taking the licks! We have an immediate responsibility. I would argue their responsibility is “Stop the fake help”. But to suggest complex social problems are exclusively the responsibility (blame) of one group is ridiculous. Same with South Africa. How can you divorce the government form a solution to a national crisis? How can some citizens be responsible when we can demonstrate the role of everyone in everything?

So many factors go into the broken Black home. As in the case of the UK that includes incentivising welfare to single moms. But that does not let the so-called “Black” culture off the hook. And people who are sincere need to stop worrying so much about if they are being implicated in the problem and worry about fixing the problem.

WHO IS SOWELL

Thomas Sowell, an American economist and social theorist, has written extensively on the topic of intelligence and IQ (intelligence quotient). His views can be summarized as follows:

• IQ and Economic Outcomes: Sowell argues that IQ is a significant predictor of various economic and social outcomes. He believes that cognitive ability influences educational achievement, job performance, and overall socioeconomic status.
• Cultural and Environmental Factors: While he acknowledges the role of IQ, Sowell emphasizes that it is not the sole determinant of success. He highlights the importance of cultural, social, and environmental factors that can influence both IQ and its impact on an individual’s life.
• Critique of Affirmative Action: Sowell has criticized affirmative action policies, arguing that they often overlook the complexities of intelligence and achievement. He suggests that such policies can lead to mismatches in educational and professional settings, ultimately harming those they intend to help.
• Race and IQ: Sowell has addressed the contentious topic of race and IQ, noting that while there are average differences in IQ scores among racial and ethnic groups, these differences are influenced by a myriad of factors, including socioeconomic status, education, and cultural background. He cautions against drawing simplistic conclusions about the intelligence of groups based solely on average IQ scores.
• Importance of Individualism: Sowell advocates for a focus on individual capabilities rather than group identities. He believes that policies and discussions should center on personal merit and achievement rather than broad categorizations based on race or ethnicity.

Overall, Sowell’s perspective on IQ is nuanced, recognizing its relevance while also stressing the importance of broader social contexts and individual circumstances.

SOWELL PROTECTS WHITE RACISM

During interviews in 2019, Sowell defended President Trump against charges of racism. Sowell assessed President George W. Bush as “a mixed bag” but “an honorable man.

RECOMMENDED READING

Joseph E Holloway, Ronald W Walters, Sterling Stuckley, Carol Anderson, Brenda Gayle Plummer, Charles V Hamilton, Haki R. Madhubuti, Robert C Smith, Joseph E Harris, Gerald Horne. The Color Of Law: A Forgotten History Of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein

PDF

https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:EU:c7d73ffe-c6a1-417c-bb0f-8d6fcd80ecd4

1. No one writing this article is left or right as a reference[↩]
2. just like Neil Tyson, America always needs iconic black faces in high places[↩]
3. Review of Sowell[↩]
4. Cultural as a Barrier to Development[↩]
5. Article on South Africa[↩]
6. Doleac, Jennifer L. 2021. “A Review of Thomas Sowell’s Discrimination and Disparities.” Journal of Economic Literature, 59 (2): 574-89.[↩]