Posted on 03/15/2022 2:55:57 PM PDT by Rummyfan
In a reasonable world, Thomas Sowell’s life would be celebrated in the same way we honor Frederick Douglass, George Washington Carver, and Marian Anderson—as a black hero, born into a genuinely systemically racist America, who not only endured but prevailed.
Sowell was born in North Carolina in 1930 to a recently widowed mother who already had four children and hadn’t the resources to care for another. He was raised by a great aunt and her adult children. By the time Sowell was nine, the family had relocated from Charlotte to New York City’s Harlem, the beginning of a decade of chaotic home life and learning to live in America’s most famous black ghetto.
Harlem life for children and adolescents was often combative, but so was Sowell. With his peers, he didn’t start fights but usually did well when they broke out. His autobiography, A Personal Odyssey (2000), gives the impression that in school he was the ideal student when a subject engaged him, a bad one when it didn’t, and had what are now called “conduct issues” with teachers who didn’t earn his respect. By 16, he was a high-school dropout. By 17, he and his aunt were so alienated that a family court agreed to let him live on his own. He worked for the next two years at a variety of jobs—a Western Union messenger, a helper in machine shops, eventually a civil service clerk, until the Korean War and the draft intervened.
(Excerpt) Read more at claremontreviewofbooks.com ...
This makes it sound like a eulogy? Please tell me not!
He is 91 years old.
Sowell is still with us but no longer follows the news or adds to it. He has found that photography is a much more pleasant way to spend his remaining years
He’s said everything needed to be said. Trying to engage those on the other side these days is shouting into a tornado. I wish him a long(er) and enjoyable life.
They say that like it’s a bad thing. Maybe it’s not. Maybe the ooooh-so-scaaaary “systemic racism” is just what any minority is going to face, in an otherwise non-racist society. You may not like it, but you’re a minority, and you’re not going to win many elections unless you’re really good.
Thomas Sowell is head and shoulders above most. His race has nothing to do with it.
It’s a review of a new biography of Sowell titled Maverick by Jason Riley.
Sowell is one of the greatest thinkers in America. Levin had him on I think as one of his first guests. Levin does not have those on his program least they be brilliant. Sowell is brilliant.
Decades ago, Dr. Sowell made it PERFECTLY CLEAR that I should never subject my kids to public school. Something that my family appreciates every single day.
Good for him! Being 91, why would he want any more stress?
An intellectual giant!
Dr. Sowell is still with us, and we are, of course, better for it.
(Dr. Sowell, 91 is the new 35!)
Thanks for posting this! Years ago, I read “Vision of the Anointed” and was blown away by it. I am going to update my reading list and grab his other books mentioned in the article, as well as Mr. Riley’s book.
If I could’ve been anyone else in life, it would’ve been Mr. Sowell.
What a brilliant man…
AND reread “Vision”!
Coincidentally I read Jason Riley’s bio of Sowell, “Maverick,” just two or three weeks ago. It’s very good, but as Riley states right off the bat it’s not so much a traditional biography but an intellectual history, how Sowell evolved from his early Marxism. Riley is a fellow ar the Manhattan Institute.
Vision of the anonited was a great read. It should be on every Freepers reading list.
He fought a lot harder against the system than almost anybody could.
I’m glad he’s doing things that are more soul-nourishing than political discourse.
Thanks.
Sometimes called a critical biography.
He is 91 and the perfect example of what actually thinking for yourself, and studying the way the world-and the economy really works can do for anyone-he is a true genius and still sharper in all his recent interviews than any economist/academic 1/3 his age-I have followed his articles and everything else he ever wrote since I was in college-he really knows what he is talking about...
Donald J Trump didn’t think Thomas Sowell was worthy of the Medal of Freedom. Instead he awarded it posthumously to Elvis Presley.
They say that like it’s a bad thing. Maybe it’s not. Maybe the ooooh-so-scaaaary “systemic racism” is just what any minority is going to face, in an otherwise non-racist society. You may not like it, but you’re a minority, and you’re not going to win many elections unless you’re really good.
It is not a secret, Sowell does not like Trump.
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