Description
If you believe slavery and white privilege are the underlying causes of our racial problems in America, this SDG will give you a different perspective to consider. If you do not believe this, this SDG will give you ammunition to support your views.
The core book is by Thomas Sowell, a highly esteemed, economist and Hoover Institution Fellow. He is also black, 90 years old, and has seen it all. He provides research and facts to support his contention that discrimination is not the cause of racial disparities.
The SDG will supplement the core book with articles and book excerpts from writers such as Victor Davis Hansen and Walter E. Williams. (Hanson is a white classicist and historian. Williams is a black conservative economist, and Sowell dedicates our core book to him.)
Weekly Topics
Core Book; use of additional articles, TBD. Weeks and Chapters match.
Chapter 1 Disparities and Prerequisites 1(Starrting page number)
Chapter 2 Discrimination; Meanings and Costs 29
Chapter 3 Sorting and Unsorting People 58
Chapter 4 The World of Numbers 87
Chapter 5 The World of Words 115
Chapter 6 Social Visions and Human Consequences 150
Chapter 7 Facts, Assumptions and Goals 186
Bibliography
Core Book:
Discrimination and Disparities by Thomas Sowell, originally published March, 2018, revised and enlarged March, 2019
Summary: Economic and other outcomes differ vastly among individuals, groups, and nations. Many explanations have been offered for the differences. Some believe that those with less fortunate outcomes are victims of genetics. Others believe that those who are less fortunate are victims of the more fortunate.
Discrimination and Disparities gathers a wide array of empirical evidence to challenge the idea that different economic outcomes can be explained by any one factor, be it discrimination, exploitation, or genetics.
This revised and enlarged edition also analyzes the human consequences of the prevailing social vision of these disparities and the policies based on that vision—from educational disasters to widespread crime and violence.
Sample Articles (to be expanded if proposal moves forward):
FTA: “The absence of a father in the home predisposes children, especially boys, to academic failure, criminal behavior, and economic hardship, not to mention an intergenerational repeating of handicaps. If today's weak family structure is a legacy of slavery, then the people who make such a claim must tell us how it has managed to skip nearly five generations to have an effect.”
https://amgreatness.com/2020/06/14/class-not-race-divides-america/
Class Not Race Divides America by Victor Davis Hanson, June 14, 2020
