Black Rednecks & White Liberals

A collection of six lengthy essays on race, history and misconceptions. The “Black Rednecks” essay is probably the most important of the lot. In it Sowell demonstrates that much of what we stereotype as black cultural norms are actually the continuation of Scotch/Irish herder culture. The key to improving their lot in life is replacing this culture with one that embraces learning and puts aside the misguided tropes of honor culture. The rest of the book is similarly insightful and provocative in it’s subject matter: racist attitudes towards middleman minorities, the worldwide roots of slavery, education of blacks in America, etc. Filled with examples and statistics, and the general theme here is that institutionalized racism isn’t the primary thing holding back minorities.