How black Americans were on the rise before affirmative action, author Jason Riley explains in fascinating new book

New York Post ^ | May 6, 2025 | Kelly Jane Torrance

[nickcarraway]

Jason Riley makes his living by his pen — and wastes no ink or time in mincing words. “There’s a lot of intellectual cowardice going on in the country right now, and it’s a product, I think, of the ascendance of progressivism,” he tells The Post in an interview about his new book, “The Affirmative Action Myth: Why Blacks Don’t Need Racial Preferences to Succeed.”

The book’s title alone is sure to spur debate. Its author, a Wall Street Journal columnist and Manhattan Institute senior fellow, is somewhat bemused by his position as a provocateur. “I find it annoying that I have to make what I consider commonsensical points that others deem controversial, to say, ‘No, police are not a bigger problem than the criminals.’ This is something that’ll get your head handed to you today to say,” he declares.

“ ‘Black kids should spend more time studying and less time playing video games, and that will go a long way toward closing the achievement gap in schools’ is a very controversial thing to say.”

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TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS:

[rktman]

Ya think? More intact families, father figures, more respectful attitudes, work was good for folks..... Then, the ‘grate’ society........

[SomeCallMeTim]

100% agree. It’s been obvious for a very long time

Oh. By the way, it’s not a racial thing. If I’d gone to MIT, I’d likely have flunked.

[FreedomNotSafety]

Jason Riley alone is worth a WSJ subscription. The man has no fear and can write. The WSJ news writers can be lefty but the editorial staff can still is solidly conservative even to the distraction of the now populist FR. Riley is one of the best on that staff.

[OttawaFreeper]

“’Between 1940 and 1960, the black poverty rate in this country fell from 87% to 47%. Nineteen-sixty is not only before any affirmative-action starting. It’s during Jim Crow.’”

Between 1940 and 1960, the minimum wage went from 0.25 to 1.00. But from 1961 to 1980, it went from 1.00 to 3.10. Modern Jim Crow from the Democrats and their union friends, no doubt.

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/history/chart

[Tell It Right]

I 100% agree with the description of change in black families, often as told by Thomas Sowell.

I respectfully, though, disagree with putting most of the blame on the welfare state. I'd put more blame on spiritual changes from the sexual revolution. Whites bit into that hard (today about 1/4th of white kids live with one of his parents), but blacks bit into it harder (2/3rd one parent). And blacks are much more loud and proud about sexual promiscuity ("being black") than whites.

Sure the welfare state is part of the problem, and we need limited govt. But I'd put more emphasis on a spiritual great awakening.

[circlecity]

Thomas Sowell pointed this out years ago.

[Fury]

Nineteen-sixty is not only before any affirmative-action starting. It’s during Jim Crow.

As you note, it was in spite ofJim Crow.

[Vaduz]

Need for racial preferences is a way say your to stupid to do it on your own let us help you and rake in the cash chump.

[nopardons]

BTTT

[Uncle Miltie]

I quit reading the WSJ Editorial Page when real conservative Robert Bartley retired and corporatist leftist globalist Paul Gigot took over.

>95% of WSJ News and Editorials are purely Anti-Trump. Even when Trump is nowhere near the news item, they’ll spin it to make him look bad.

I only take it anymore because the wife likes the crossword.

[econjack]

The book Time on the Cross (Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman) was written in 1974 and states that blacks were economically better off before the Civil War than after it. It's a two-volume work, with the narrative found in Vol 1 and the statistical support found in Vol 2. Wonder how many people would read that book now.

[1Old Pro]

I quit reading the WSJ Editorial Page when real conservative Robert Bartley retired and corporatist leftist globalist Paul Gigot took over.

I stopped in the 90's when it went downhill.

[eyeamok]

A lot of it is because they have been listening to their black peers that sucked up to the Slave Masters as soon as they killed MLK jr. Up until that day the blacks knew they were fighting agaionst the DEMONRAT Party, they bought the whole thine, hook, line and sinker and look where they are now, firmly planted on the Demonrat Slave Master Plantation.

[Paal Gulli]

This is a direct quote from Shelby Steele's documentary, 'What Killed Michael Brown?':

"Back in the '60s, we blacks made a very bad deal with America.

"We demanded that America help us develop. But if this was logical it was also naive. It seduced us into putting our fate right back into the hands of the same White America that had oppressed us in the first place.

"We began to live by a formula. America's racial guilt was our power. White guilt became Black Power.

"Of course there was a catch. To milk White guilt we always had to be victims of White racism. White racism and black victimization became the heart and soul of liberal power in America."

[ProgressingAmerica]

Progressivism destroys everything it touches.

Blacks were simply the hardest hit. But the fact remains: Progressivism destroys everything it touches.

[heterosupremacist]

biden often used to mumble ridiculous things about black folks in America being victims of “systemic racism” and then announced that only ‘women of color’ would be considered for his scotus nominee; which was a purely racist proposal from the Scoundrel in Chief who personified the entire system of racial (and queer) privilege!