Individual and group differences are real. So is inequality. The contrarian Black intellectual Thomas Sowell, who turns 91 today, showed us the way to understand and to remedy both.
America’s most wildly successful Black intellectual, Ibram X. Kendi, has declared that “the only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination.” Kendi champions a two-tier system in which expectations for Black Americans are permanently lowered and test scores are abolished. If Kendi gets his way, the false, racist notion that African Americans can’t possibly match the achievement of other Americans will be set in stone—if they could, why would you need to hire based on skin color rather than talent?
The new moral order that supports this far-reaching program of state and institutionally sanctioned racism is based on a presumed Orwellian control over language. If you oppose the new racism, Kendi proclaims, then you’re a racist. Better sign on to the new “Black” math, designed by people who think African Americans deserve shoddy education—a revival of the old separate and unequal setup—or else face permanent consignment to the camp of Bull Connor.
