Free Republic

From time to time, readers ask me what books have made the biggest difference in my life. I am not sure how to answer that question because the books that happened to set me off in a particular direction at a particular time may have no profound or valuable message for others— and can even be books I no longer believe in today. The first book that got me interested in political issues was Actions and Passions by Max Lerner, which I read at age 19. It was a collection of his newspaper columns, none of which I remember today...

Let's say, just for the sake of argument, that there are some intelligent people out there who have never read anything by Thomas Sowell. (I know, I know, the chances are remote, but work with me here.) They've never enjoyed his fascinating excursion into group traits in "Ethnic America," nor his penetrating analysis of what has gone wrong with the schools in "Inside American Education," nor his brilliant dissection of the inevitable pitfalls of regulation in "Knowledge and Decisions." There is hope. His new volume, "Black Rednecks and White Liberals," offers a taste of some of his earlier work as...

BLACK REDNECKS AND WHITE LIBERALS. Can't wait to get this one! Comes out next month!!

THE REDNECK PROBLEM By WILLIAM RASPBERRY May 17, 2005 -- THE plight of have-not blacks in America's urban ghettos, says economist Thomas Sowell, can be laid at the feet of white people. And not just any white folks. The culprits are that particular breed of white people known as "rednecks." If you've followed the writings of Sowell for as long as I have, you'll know that he's not saying anything as simple as racism accounts for today's black poverty. He's saying something much more complex and, to my mind, far more intriguing. Immigration from the British Isles to the New...

Black identity has become a hot item in the movies, on television, and in the schools and colleges. But few people are aware of how much of what passes as black identity today, including "black English," has its roots in the history of those whites who were called "rednecks" and "crackers" centuries ago in Britain, before they ever crossed the Atlantic and settled in the South.  Saying "acrost" for "across" or "ax" for "ask" are today considered to be part of black English. But this way of talking was common centuries ago in those regions of Britain from which...