Tuesday, May 5, 2015

The Trouble in Baltimore a Function of Slavery's Legacy? Obama Says "Yes"; Sowell Says That's Tommyrot

First, this is Obama's take on Baltimore's woes:
Speaking on one of the final episodes of the Late Show with David Letterman, Obama said the effects of slavery, Jim Crow laws and discrimination in American history have left minority communities at a disadvantage.  
"We don't have to accuse everybody of racism today to acknowledge that as part of our past. And if we want to get past that, everybody has to make a little bit of extra effort," Obama said.
That's hogwash, says Thomas Sowell:
The “legacy of slavery” argument is not just an excuse for inexcusable behavior in the ghettos. In a larger sense, it is an evasion of responsibility for the disastrous consequences of the prevailing social vision of our times, and the political policies based on that vision, over the past half century.  
Anyone who is serious about evidence need only compare black communities as they evolved in the first 100 years after slavery with black communities as they evolved in the first 50 years after the explosive growth of the welfare state, beginning in the 1960s.  
You would be hard-pressed to find as many ghetto riots prior to the 1960s as we have seen just in the past year, much less in the 50 years since a wave of such riots swept across the country in 1965.
Game, Set, Match: Sowell.

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