Thomas Sowell on Black Lives Matter
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In this video Thomas Sowell talks about Black Lives matter, race hustlers, the welfare state ideology and myths about black progress in this country. Check out the 22 books that Thomas Sowell highly recommends: https://sowellism.com/books/Get Thomas Sowell's quotes daily on Instagram: https://bit.ly/31wxbkH
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well i must say i even though i'm
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regarded as pessimistic
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i was never pessimistic enough to think
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that things would degenerate to the
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point where they are now
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black lives matter is a tool to
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reimagine
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a world where black people are free to
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exist
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free to live what is your opinion of
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black lives matter
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i think they're one of a long list of uh
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groups that are self-serving
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and i think they can do an enormous
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amount of damage just
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by the fact that they're promoting this
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belligerent attitude toward the police
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which in turn
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tends to create all kinds of bad
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episodes
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all of this furor has been created
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over an incident in which i i don't see
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any serious disagreement namely that the
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policeman had no business
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sitting on this man's neck uh
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and the most conservative people i know
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i said
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no he had no business doing that the
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liberals say it
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i don't know what to what the argument
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is about professor molina abdullah is
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the la co-founder of black lives matter
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what immediate changes are you wanting
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these protests to achieve
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we want defunding of police well i must
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say i
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even though i'm regarded as pessimistic
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i was never pessimistic enough to think
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that things would degenerate to the
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point where they are now
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where adult human beings are talking
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about
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getting rid of the police when they're
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talking about
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reducing the number of police reducing
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the
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resources put into police work at a time
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when murder rates have been skyrocketing
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over what they were just a year ago
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in 2019 and what is frightening is how
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many people
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in responsible positions are caving in
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to every demand that is made repeating
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any kind of nonsense that you're
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supposed to repeat
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i do believe that we may well be
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we may well reach a point of no return i
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hope that of course that will never
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happen
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but there is such a thing as a point of
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no return george
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floyd's story has been the story of
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black folks
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because ever since 401 years ago
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the reason we could never be who
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we wanted and dream to be in is you
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kept your knee on our neck
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racism is not about just the end of the
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times where you are called
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a bad word by somebody who's ignorant
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and doesn't like
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black people right that's prejudice
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instead it's about how society is really
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structured
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to keep people of color from positions
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of power to make it more difficult
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say for communities of color to own
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property to own homes
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to advance in society all the all the
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incentives politically
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offer for black leaders to blame all
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problems in the black community
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on the largest society and that enables
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them to take on the role
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of being the defender of the black
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community against enemies
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which in turn creates the situation in
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which many blacks
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don't feel that anything that they do is
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going to is going to help themselves
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unless it's done politically as a group
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that there's no point i mean why why
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would you if you believe what
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that's what they say why would you want
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to knock yourself out in the school
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knowing that the man is not going to let
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you get anywhere
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one of the most pathetic things i heard
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in recent years
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was a young black man saying that you
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know at one point
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he thought he would join the air force
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and become a pilot
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and then he says he realized that the
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white man is not going to let a black
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man become a pilot
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and he was saying this decades after the
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tennessee airmen
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had established their reputation in
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combat in europe
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hopelessness hopelessness is one of the
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big products of the
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of the race industry that you have you
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have no chance
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you have to produce that kind of feeling
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in order to serve the interests of those
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in the race industry
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and if you're a black person in america
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from slavery from day one
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the number of injustices that have held
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black people back in america
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amount to an insurmountable like you you
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look at you look at black people's
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freedom you look at black people's land
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just taking that away from black people
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alone is crippling them and so you
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combine that with slavery and then you
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look at jim crow laws you didn't let
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black people in america
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live in the areas that they wanted to
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live in they couldn't get loans from the
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banks that they wanted to get loans from
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if you look at the average credit score
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of people of different ethnic
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backgrounds you'll discover that the
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order in which they are they rank
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by credit score is also the order in
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which they rank
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by acceptance for the highest quality
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mortgages
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that is whites for example uh are turned
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down far
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more than asian americans so when you
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combine all of those things
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i think it's safe to say that black
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americans have a conversation that they
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need to be having with the united states
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it doesn't involve me it doesn't involve
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white people doesn't it's like it's like
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yo
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american government meet the black
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people you see you can't have a welfare
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state in a democratic country
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unless you first have a welfare state
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vision the vision of grievances
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victimology and resentments the idea
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that the world owes you something i've
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been able to find a single country in
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the world
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where the policies are being advocated
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for blocks in the united states have
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lifted any people out of poverty
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i've seen many examples around the world
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of people who began in poverty and ended
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in affluence
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not one of them has followed any pattern
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at all like what is being advocated for
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blocks in the united states
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many groups have remained in poverty for
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a very long time
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trying to follow those patterns black
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americans a group often identified as
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beneficiaries of the welfare state in
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america
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made considerable economic progress in
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the 20th century
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but much if not most of this progress
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was
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prior to the massive expansion of the
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american welfare state as of 1940
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87 of black households were in poverty
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over the next 20 years that declined to
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47
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this is all prior to the civil rights
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laws
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prior to the social welfare policies of
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the johnson administration
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over the next 20 years it fell an
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additional 18 points
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but that that was not that that was just
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the same trend
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continuing at a reduced rate
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uh affirmative action was even worse
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poverty rate was something like 30
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percent
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among black households before
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affirmative actions
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and a decade after affirmative action it
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was 29
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this is not the same as the 40 decline
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that occurred
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before there were any civil rights laws
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and before there was any social welfare
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state
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people have discriminated against other
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people wherever they've had the power to
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do it
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almost everywhere in the world in almost
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every period of history
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some groups are kept backed by this and
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some groups it seems to make no
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difference whatever
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and so forth for example as you have
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entrepreneurial skills
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the fact that people didn't hire jews in
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the 19th century didn't stop jews from
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hiring each other
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and setting up and dominating industries
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such as the garment industry or the
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beginning of the great hollywood movie
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studios and other areas of the economy
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it is the skills that are crucial and
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nothing and not not the fact that other
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people are willing and unwilling to hire
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you
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even groups that that have a great
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animosity towards other groups will
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nevertheless hire members of those
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groups with skills
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in the long run if there are enough of
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them to make it worth their while
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what's the lesson in that statement for
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black americans
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skills are what matters if other people
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will not
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acknowledge your skills in the short run
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then those same skills are useful
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in the black community with other blocks
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it's what has made other groups
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advance from poverty to affluence i know
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of nothing else that's really done