Racial Disparities Don’t Simply Boil Down to Discrimination

I don’t mind saying that this column represents a grossly understated review of “Discrimination and Disparities,” just published by my longtime friend and colleague Thomas Sowell. In less than 200 pages, Sowell lays waste to myth after myth not only in the United States but around the globe.

One of those myths is that but for the fact of discrimination, we’d all be proportionately represented in socio-economic characteristics, such as career, income, education, and incarceration. The fact of business is that there is no evidence anywhere on earth, at any time in human history, that demonstrates that but for discrimination, there would be proportionate representation in anything by race, sex, nationality, or any other human characteristic.

Sowell shows that socio-economic outcomes differ vastly among individuals, groups, and nations in ways that cannot be explained by any one factor, whether it’s genetics, discrimination, or some kind of exploitation.

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