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Originally Posted by opflix
this "opinion" article is sort of off base a little... it ignores the psychological reprecussions that slavery has had on blacks & black culture that stems beyond those who were actually slaves.
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If this is true, then why does the demographic/economic comparison of Southern US blacks and West Indians differ so widely? Weren't both groups slaves?
Here's an excerpt:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editor...l?id=110006608
Three decades of my own research lead me to believe that neither of those explanations will stand up under scrutiny of the facts. As one small example, a study published last year indicated that most of the black alumni of Harvard were from either the West Indies or Africa, or were the children of West Indian or African immigrants. These people are the same race as American blacks, who greatly outnumber either or both.
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But slavery doesn't stand up under scrutiny of historical facts any better than race or racism as explanations of North-South differences or black-white differences. The people who settled in the South came from different regions of Britain than the people who settled in the North--and they differed as radically on the other side of the Atlantic as they did here--that is, before they had ever seen a black slave.
Slavery also cannot explain the difference between American blacks and West Indian blacks living in the United States because the ancestors of both were enslaved. When race, racism, and slavery all fail the empirical test, what is left?
Culture is left.
Like I said earlier, I don't buy Sowell's culture- and geo-centric hypotheses whole hog but it does offer a refreshing alternative to the currently trendy " environment/external factors" camp.