Thomas Sowell wrote in RealClearPolitics on January 26, 2016:
The latest tempest in a teapot controversy is over a lack of
black nominees for this year's Academy Awards in Hollywood.
The assumption seems to be that different groups would be
proportionally represented if somebody were not doing somebody else wrong. That
assumption carries great weight in far more important things than Academy
Awards and in places more important than Hollywood, including the Supreme Court
of the United States.
In an earlier era, the groupthink assumption was that groups
that did not succeed as often, or as well, were genetically inferior. But is
our current groupthink assumption based on any more hard evidence?
Having spent decades researching racial and ethnic groups
around the world, I have never yet found a country in which all groups -- or
even most groups -- are even roughly equally represented in most endeavors.
Nor have I been the only one with that experience. The great
French historian Fernand Braudel said, "In no society have all regions and
all parts of the population developed equally." A study of military forces
around the world failed to find a single one in which in which the ethnic
makeup of the military was the same as that of the society.
My own favorite example of unrepresentativeness, however, is
right at home. Having watched National Football League games for more than 50
years, I have seen hundreds of black players score touchdowns, but I have never
seen one black player kick the extra point.
What are we to conclude from this? Do those who believe in
genetics think that blacks are just genetically incapable of kicking a
football?
Since there have long been black colleges with football
teams, have they had to import white players to do the opening kickoff, so that
the games could get underway? Or to kick the extra point after touchdowns?
Apparently not.
How about racist discrimination? Are racists so inconsistent
that they are somehow able to stifle their racism when it comes to letting
black players score touchdowns, but absolutely draw the line when it comes to
letting blacks kick the extra point?
With all the heated and bitter debates between those who
believe in heredity and those who believe in environment as explanations of
group differences in outcomes, both seem to ignore the possibility that some
groups just do not want to do the same things as other groups.
I doubt whether any of the guys who grew up in my old
neighborhood in Harlem ever went on to become ballet dancers. Nor is it likely
that this had anything to do with either genetics or racism. The very thought
of becoming a ballet dancer never crossed my mind and it probably never
occurred to the other guys either.
If people don't want to do something, chances are they are
not going to do it, even if they have all the innate potential in the world,
and even if all the doors of opportunity are wide open.
People come from different cultures. They know different
things and want different things.
When I arrived in Harlem from the South as a kid, I had no
idea what a public library was. An older boy who tried to explain it to me
barely succeeded in getting me to get a library card and borrow a couple of
books. But it changed the course of my life. Not every kid from a similar
background had someone to change the course of his life.
When Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe arrived in New
York in the 19th century, they were even poorer than blacks from the South who
arrived in Harlem in the 20th century. But the Jews crowded into public
libraries because books had been part of their culture for centuries. New
York's elite public high schools and outstanding free colleges were practically
tailor-made for them.
Groups differ from other groups all over the world, for all
sorts of reasons, ranging from geography to demography, history and culture.
There is not much we can do about geography and nothing we can do about the
past. But we can stop looking for villains every time we see differences.
That is not likely to happen, however, when grievances can
be cashed in for goodies -- and polarize a whole society in the process.
