I was going to reply to you, TTFlyer, not because I think your response was unreasonable, but because I suspected you might have reached that conclusion without all the information from the book.
It is one of the flaws of AI-I last read that book about probably about six years ago, which is why I asked Grok to summarize it.
That book was written in 2005, more than 20 years ago, approximately 7% of the Black population at that time (about 12% of the total US population) was foreign-born in 2000 (around 2.4 million people out of ~36 million Black Americans). This figure comes from later analyses (e.g., Pew Research summaries of Census and related data).
Of that 7% foreign born just over a million blacks were NOT either natively born American citizens or from the Caribbean. This million out of a total population of around 37 million at that time in the US (2.7% of all blacks in the USA) was composed of blacks from either anywhere in Africa, or elsewhere in the world besides America or the Caribbean.
So, at no time back when Thomas Sowell was writing or researching his book was the population in question from anywhere in Africa, sub-Saharan or otherwise.
So Thomas Sowell was discussing the behavior of black Americans descended from slave populations, which was the overwhelming majority of blacks.
And, as Thomas Sowell pointed out in his book, there are distinct differences in culture and outlook between blacks in the USA descended from slaves and blacks from other areas of the world, such as the Caribbean and even Africa.
As Freeper Vaduz inferred, it is not about race, which was Sowell’s fundamental point-it wasn’t about race, a la a “Bell Curve” distribution when it comes to violence.
It is about culture.
And that was Thomas Sowell’s point-descendants of black slaves in America got their “culture” from the antebellum South, not from Africa. Modern African and Caribbean blacks do not appreciate being lumped in with American blacks. We can empirically confirm this (and have) by the weird phenomenon of blacks who think they will be fully appreciated and accepted in any African country simply on a racial basis, only to discover their skin color is too light or dark, or the structure of their facial bones reveals to an African that the American is probably descended from some other tribe.
Of course, we see that attitude here in America between American blacks descended from slaves. Oddly, but it is there.
A very black Ugandan foreign exchange student friend of our Spanish (Basque!) foreign exchange student was shocked and horrified by black American culture.
She stayed very far away from all American blacks, and only associated with the white kids who shared her values.
Her background included Christian, father at home, everyone worked and respected authority.
Light reflectivity is not the problem. It’s culture. And black America has a heavy dose of bad culture.
American blacks descended from slaves
So many whites have been slaves and much longer than blacks from around the world in many countries had slavery Rome had a long term lease on it.
Africa itself induced black slavery by selling their own people and still doing it.
Let me add - I was listening to a black preacher...he pointed out that while politics IS downstream from culture, culture is downstream from the arts (or "art"), and that art is downstream from the church (Christian church).
It made a lot of sense to me...
After all, look at all the beautiful (mostly) Christian/religious art that has been produced since the middle ages. Masterpieces!
Where has culture gone since that reverent art tapered out? (ans: in the sewer)...
Something to think about, though. It deepens the perspective.