Intellectuals and Race (24 page)
Many people who advocate what they think of as equality promote what is in fact make-believe “equality.” In economic terms, taking what others have produced and giving it to those who have not produced as much (or at all, in some cases) is make-believe equality— as contrasted with real equality, which would be enabling the less productive to become more productive, so that they could create for themselves what they are trying to take from others. However, real equality is not only harder to achieve, it is
something whose achievement cannot be created by outsiders, as redistribution can be, but requires the efforts of those who lag. Make-believe equality, by creating a sense of entitlement to what others have created, reduces the incentives to making efforts to produce for one’s self.
Many of what are called social problems are differences between the theories of intellectuals and the realities of the world— differences which many intellectuals interpret to mean that it is the real world that is wrong and needs changing. Apparently their theories, and the visions behind them, cannot be wrong.
None of this means that economic or other inequalities must be supinely accepted. The rise of groups from dire poverty to affluence— the Chinese in Southeast Asian countries, the Lebanese in West Africa, and Jews in the United States, among many others— shows that history is not destiny. But these rises have almost invariably been achieved in mundane and often arduous ways that not only differ from the ways advocated by the intelligentsia, but have often been in ways directly opposite to the more dramatic and emotionally satisfying ways envisioned by the intelligentsia. Moreover, earned achievements, whether modest or spectacular, bring a self respect, as well as respect from others, that can seldom be gotten from even a successful playing of a parasitic role in the name of a make-believe “equality.”
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*
Which do not include Asian Americans or Jewish Americans, for example.
Epigraph
Chapter 1: Questions About Race
1
. Donald L. Niewyk,
The Jews in Weimar Germany
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980), p. 98; Raphael Patai,
The Vanished Worlds of Jewry
(New York: Macmillan, 1980), p. 57.
2
. E. Franklin Frazier, “The Failure of the Negro Intellectual,”
E. Franklin Frazier on Race Relations: Selected Writings
, edited by G. Franklin Edwards (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), p. 274.
3
. Rochelle Sharpe, “Losing Ground: In Latest Recession, Only Blacks Suffered Net Employment Loss,”
Wall Street Journal,
September 14, 1993, p. A12.
4
. United States Commission on Civil Rights,
Civil Rights and the Mortgage Crisis
(Washington: U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 2009), p. 53.
5
. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System,
Report to the Congress on Credit Scoring and Its Effects on the Availability and Affordability of Credit
, submitted to the Congress pursuant to Section 215 of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003, August 2007, p. 80.
6
. Harold A. Black, et al., “Do Black-Owned Banks Discriminate against Black Borrowers?”
Journal of Financial Services Research
, February 1997, pp. 185–200.
7
. Daniel J. Losen and Jonathan Gillespie,
Opportunities Suspended: The Disparate Impact of Disciplinary Exclusion from School
, The Center for Civil Rights Remedies at The Civil Rights Project, August 2012, pp. 7, 15.
8
. Sharon Noguchi, “Report: Ravenswood Has Nation’s Highest Suspension Rates for Asian/Pacific Islander Students,”
Contra Costa Times
(online), August 8, 2012.
9
. “Enrollment in California Public School Districts,” downloaded from the website of the California Department of Education at
http://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/sd/cb/dataquest.asp
on August 10, 2012.
Chapter 2: Disparities and Their Causes
1
. Charles Issawi, “The Transformation of the Economic Position of the
Millets
in the Nineteenth Century,”
Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire: The
Functioning of a Plural Society
, edited by Benjamin Braude and Bernard Lewis (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1982), Vol. I:
The Central Lands
, pp. 262–263.
2
. Bernard Lewis,
The Jews of Islam
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), p. 214.
3
. Yuan-li Wu and Chun-hsi Wu,
Economic Development in Southeast Asia: The Chinese Dimension
(Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1980), p. 51.
4
. R. Bayly Winder, “The Lebanese in West Africa,”
Comparative Studies in Society and History
, Vol. IV (1961–62), p. 309.
5
. Charles Issawi, “The Transformation of the Economic Position of the
Millets
in the Nineteenth Century,”
Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire
, edited by Benjamin Braude and Bernard Lewis, Vol. I:
The Central Lands
, pp. 262–263, 266.
6
. Winthrop R. Wright,
British-Owned Railways in Argentina: Their Effect on Economic Nationalism, 1854–1948
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1974).
7
. John P. McKay,
Pioneers for Profit: Foreign Entrepreneurship and Russian Industrialization 1885–1913
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), p. 35.
8
. Jonathan I. Israel,
European Jewry in the Age of Mercantilism 1550–1750
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), p. 139.
9
. Carl Solberg,
Immigration and Nationalism: Argentina and Chile, 1890–1914
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1970), p. 68.
10
. S. J. Thambiah, “Ethnic Representation in Ceylon’s Higher Administrative Services, 1870–1946,”
University of Ceylon Review
, Vol. 13 (April-July 1955), p. 130.
11
. Lyle Spatz,
The SABR Baseball List & Record Book
(New York: Scribner, 2007), p. 335.
12
. Jean Roche,
La Colonisation Allemande et le Rio Grande do Sul
(Paris: Institut Des Hautes Études de L’Amérique Latine, 1959), pp. 388–389.
13
. James L. Tigner, “Japanese Immigration into Latin America: A Survey,”
Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs
, November 1981, p. 476.
14
. H.L. van der Laan,
The Lebanese Traders in Sierra Leone
(The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1975), p. 65.
15
. Ibid., p. 137.
16
. Ezra Mendelsohn,
The Jews of East Central Europe between the World Wars
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983), pp. 23, 26.
17
. Haraprasad Chattopadhyaya,
Indians in Africa: A Socio-Economic Study
(Calcutta: Bookland Private Limited, 1970), p. 394.
18
. Haraprasad Chattopadhyaya,
Indians in Sri Lanka: A Historical Study
(Calcutta: O.P.S. Publishers Private Ltd., 1979), pp. 143, 144, 146.
19
. Carl Solberg,
Immigration and Nationalism
, p. 50.
20
. Felice A. Bonadio,
A.P. Giannini: Banker of America
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), p. 28.
21
. W.D. Borrie,
Italians and Germans in Australia: A Study of Assimilation
(Melbourne: The Australian National University, 1954), p. 106.
22
. Carl Solberg,
Immigration and Nationalism
, p. 63.
23
. Pablo Macera and Shane J. Hunt, “Peru,”
Latin America: A Guide to Economic History 1830–1930
, edited by Roberto Cortés Conde and Stanley J. Stein (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), p. 565.
24
. Carlo M. Cipolla,
Clocks and Culture: 1300–1700
(New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1978), p. 68.
25
. Nena Vreeland, et al.,
Area Handbook for Malaysia
, third edition (Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1977), p. 303.
26
. Winthrop R. Wright,
British-Owned Railways in Argentina;
Gino Germani, “Mass Immigration and Modernization in Argentina,”
Studies in Comparative International Development
, Vol. 2 (1966), p. 170.
27
. John P. McKay,
Pioneers for Profit
, pp. 33, 34, 35.
28
. Jean W. Sedlar,
East Central Europe in the Middle Ages, 1000–1500
(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1994), p. 131.
29
. Charles Issawi, “The Transformation of the Economic Position of the
Millets
in the Nineteenth Century,”
Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire
, edited by Benjamin Braude and Bernard Lewis, Vol. I:
The Central Lands
, pp. 262, 263, 265, 266, 267.
30
. Victor Purcell,
The Chinese in Southeast Asia
, second edition (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1980), pp. 7, 68, 83, 180, 245, 248, 540, 559.
31
. Arthur Herman,
How the Scots Invented the Modern World
(New York: Crown Publishers, 2001), Chapter 5; Maldwyn A. Jones, “Ulster Emigration, 1783–1815,”
Essays in Scotch-Irish History
, edited by E. R. R. Green (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969), p. 49; Eric Richards, “Australia and the Scottish Connection 1788–1914,”
The Scots Abroad: Labour, Capital,
Enterprise, 1750–1914
, edited by R. A. Cage (London: Croom Helm, 1984), p. 122; E. Richards, “Highland and Gaelic Immigrants,”
The Australian People
, edited by James Jupp (North Ryde, Australia: Angus & Robertson, 1988), pp. 765–769.
32
. Philip E. Vernon,
Intelligence and Cultural Environment
(London: Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1970), pp. 157–158.
33
. Nathan Glazer and Daniel Patrick Moynihan,
Beyond the Melting Pot: The Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians, and Irish of New York City,
second edition (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1963), pp. 257–258; Andrew M. Greeley,
That Most Distressful Nation: The Taming of the American Irish
(Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1972), p. 132.
34
. Vladimir G. Treml,
Alcohol in the USSR: A Statistical Study
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1982), p. 73.
35
. Mohamed Suffian bin Hashim, “Problems and Issues of Higher Education Development in Malaysia,”
Development of Higher Education in Southeast Asia: Problems and Issues
, edited by Yip Yat Hoong (Singapore: Regional Institute of Higher Education and Development, 1973), Table 8, pp. 70–71.
36
. Robert J. Sharer,
The Ancient Maya
, fifth edition (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994), p. 455.
37
. See, for example, Roy E.H. Mellor and E. Alistair Smith,
Europe: A Geographical Survey of the Continent
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1979), pp. 1–17; Norman J.G. Pounds,
An Historical Geography of Europe: 1800–1914
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 37–65; Jocelyn Murray, editor,
Cultural Atlas of Africa
(New York: Facts on File Publications, 1981), pp. 10–22; Thomas Sowell,
Conquests and Cultures: An International History
(New York: Basic Books, 1998), pp. 99–109.
38
. J. F. Ade Ajayi and Michael Crowder, editors,
Historical Atlas of Africa
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), Section 2; Kathleen Baker, “The Changing Geography of West Africa,”
The Changing Geography of Africa and the Middle East
, edited by Graham P. Chapman and Kathleen M. Baker (London: Routledge, 1992), p. 105.
39
. Fernand Braudel,
The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II
, translated by Siân Reynolds (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), Vol. I, p. 35.
40
. William S. Maltby,
The Rise and Fall of the Spanish Empire
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), p. 18; Peter Pierson,
The History of Spain
(Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999), pp. 7–8.
41
. John H. Chambers,
A Traveller’s History of Australia
(New York: Interlink Books, 1999), pp. 22–24.
42
. H. J. de Blij and Peter O. Muller,
Geography: Regions and Concepts,
sixth edition (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1992), p. 394.
43
. Oscar Handlin, “Introduction,”
The Positive Contribution by Immigrants
(Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 1955), p. 13.
44
. Ulrich Bonnell Phillips,
The Slave Economy of the Old South: Selected Essays in Economic and Social History
, edited by Eugene D. Genovese (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968), p. 269.
45
. See, for example, Thomas Sowell,
Conquests and Cultures
, pp. 175–176.
46
. See, for example, “We’re Doing All Right, But What About You?”
The Economist
, August 16, 2003, p. 43. Russia has a Gross Domestic Product per capita that is less than half that of Britain, France or Germany and less than one-third that of Norway or Luxembourg. The Economist,
Pocket World in Figures,
2011 edition (London: Profile Books, Ltd., 2010), p. 27. Meanwhile, the per capita income of black Americans is 64 percent of that of white Americans. Carmen DeNavas-Walt, et al., “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2009,”
Current Population Reports
, P60–238 (Washington: US Census Bureau, 2010), p. 6.