Correspondence

...But Tell's pronouncement that "bedrock conservative principle won't have been violated, even if, in the process, the zero-deficit target sadly slips, say, from seven years to eight" is dangerous thinking...

...If blacks can achieve such a cultural renaissance," I conclude, "they will teach other Americans a valuable lesson in civilizational restoration . . . solve the American dilemma, and become the truest and noblest exemplars of Western civilization...

...My reason for examining the origins of racism is to challenge the view, publicized by Andrew Hacker in Two Nations and Derrick Bell in Faces at the Bottom of the Well, that racism may be a staple of the human, or at least Western psyche, so that we can never be rid of it...

...I point out that even in America, between 1830 and 1860, there were some 3,500 free blacks who owned more than 10,000 black slaves-a historical fact known to scholars, but carefully kept out of public view because it confuses the morality tale of slavery as a racist crime inflicted by white masters on black slaves...

...Only by recognizing and confronting cultural pathology and becoming fully competitive with other groups, I argue, can blacks discredit racism and join whites and immigrants in claiming the fruits of the American dream...

...Loury attributes to me the view that "slavery was not a racist institution...

...Why is the illegitimacy rate for poor blacks vastly higher than that for poor whites, and why are college-educated black women between eight and ten times more likely to bear children out of wedlock than college-educated white women...

...indeed, I express decidedly mixed feelings about the Enlightenment project, and firmly condemn the consequences of its evolution into the scientific racism of the 19th century...

...Why Loury has chosen to portray this position as not only mistaken but destructive and dangerous, I do not know...

...This suspicion helps to keep racism alive and so hinders progress toward a race-neutral society...

...However when Krauthammer says that "people who live longer suffer more disease and disability" he is following Wilfred Gaylin in making essentially a technical mistake...

...After all, if this is a purely American problem without distinctive ethnic dimensions, then why do blacks who come from families earning more than $60,000 a year score lower on the SAT and many other measures of academic performance than whites and Asians who come from families earning less than $20,000 a year...

...Yet Loury quotes the line as if it represents my personal jubilation: "One might speculate that [D'Souza] actually longs to hear those triumphant roars...

...Seven years to zero deficit is the last remnant of the GOP's 1994 Congressional platform that the public, and most certainly an unforgiving and skeptical media, will not forget as we approach the deadline...

...Max Singer Chevy Chase, MD...

...Loury takes angry exception to my use of the phrase "reductio ad Hitlerum...

...forget about the legacy of racism and discrimination-these people are naturally stupid.'" Is there any question that this is why The Bell Curve stirred up such angry condemnation...

...I cite black scholar John Sibley Butler about the importance of strengthening entrepreneurial institutions in the inner city, perhaps modeled on the rotating credit associations that have helped poor Koreans accumulate capital and become successful capitalists...

...None of Loury's examples proves otherwise...

...In fact, I point to the work of Charles Ballard, Kimi Gray, Jesse Peterson, and others who are setting up teen-pregnancy programs, family-support initiatives, community job-training, instruction in language and social demeanor, resident supervision of housing projects, and privately-run neighborhood schools...

...Discussing cultural breakdown, here is what I do say: "This is not merely an African American problem...

...The End of Racism is a comprehensive challenge to the conventional wisdom that racism is the primary cause of black failure...

...It took sixty years of hard work by the Democratic majority's offense, from the New Deal through the Great Society, to construct the current culture of profligate spending and fiscal irresponsibility...

...Strauss defines it thus: "A view is not refuted by the fact that it happens to have been shared by Hitler...

...This is an outrageous misrepresentation of my views...

...One of my main conclusions is that even though we now have substantial numbers of Hispanics, Asians, and Middle Easterners in this country, racism remains primarily a black-and-white problem...

...E. Scott Johnson Acworth, GA Three Score and Ten Charles Krauthammer is brilliantly right ("A Critique of Pure Newt," Sept...

...I conclude my discussion by noting that "painful though we may find it to read what people in earlier centuries had to say about others, it remains profoundly consoling to know that racism had a beginning, because then it becomes possible to envision its end...

...In a chapter that disagrees with The Bell Curve but which takes the book seriously and explores its implications, I point out that if the IQ theorists are right that there are biological, ineradicable differences of intelligence between races, then "it is hard not to hear the triumphant roar of the white supremacist...

...The End of Racism exposes as fatally flawed America's two contemporary policy remedies: multiculturalism and proportional representation...

...rather, they are aimed at camouflaging the embarrassing reality of black failure on merit standards of academic achievement and economic performance...

...Anyone who reads The End of Racism will see that Loury's other examples are equally misleading...

...This is not so...

...18) that Newt Gingrich makes a fatal mistake if he thinks that technology or anything else can be the basis for a revolution that will avoid the conservative truths about human nature...

...Wrong again...

...a hegemonic culture of pathology and a besieged culture of decency...

...And our government, if intended to move in any direction, was created to move slowly...

...I argue- citing Anderson-that "the inner city is characterized by two rival cultures...

...he simply writes as though they haven't been raised...

...The End of Racism is a tough book which faces painful facts, yet it is ultimately a hopeful book that is aimed at building a secure intellectual and moral foundation for a multiracial America...

...Loury accuses me of calling poor blacks barbarians who are incapable of civilization...

...Many people may not like Korean or Mexican immigrants, but there is no systematic belief that holds these groups to be inferior...

...Alarming numbers of high school students use drugs, get pregnant, or carry weapons to class...

...I argue that the main problem faced by African Americans is neither deficient IQ, as suggested in The Bell Curve, nor racial discrimination, as alleged by Jesse Jackson and other civil-rights activists...

...In this project Loury has played a central role, so whatever he thinks of my work, I will continue to benefit from many of his excellent writings...

...Rather, the book contends that blacks have developed a culture in this country that was an adaptation to historical circumstances but one that is, in many important respects, dysfunctional today...

...this allows him to saddle me with a view that is a profound distortion of my precisely stated position...

...The book shows that liberal programs such as affirmative action have little to do with fighting racism...

...What in fact I do say (citing Orlando Patterson, Bernard Lewis, David Brion Davis, and others) is that historically, slavery has proven to be a universal institution, practiced in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, China, India, the Arab world, the Americas, and virtually all of sub-Saharan Africa...

...In an omission that is both hurtful and surprising, Loury omits my crucial distinction between competing inner-city African American cultures...

...Like Loury, I believe that black cultural restoration depends on strengthening three vital institutions-family, church, and small business...

...Moreover, I point out that the main opposition to social and racial Darwinism came from evangelical Christians...

...James Fries showed in his elegant book Vitality and Aging, the longer lives we can expect in the future do not necessarily imply higher medical expenses per person, because the year (or decade) before death does not have to be more costly if we die at 80 than at 70...

...The good news is that when death comes later, the period of debility, suffering, and medical cost that precedes death from old age is postponed, not lengthened...

...consequently, it argues against positions which I do not hold...

...Despite such anomalies, I go on to argue that slavery strengthened American racism, which flourished not because of simple white "ignorance, fear and hate" but because of the contradiction between the principles of the founding and the practice of human bondage...

...He cites Elijah Anderson 's remark: "these communities are full of decent people with values no different from D'Souza's or my own...

...The goal set by the GOP last fall has become a battle cry of sorts...

...Here is the moral line that needs to be drawn...

...Let me, therefore, say what the book is about and then deal specifically with some of Loury's criticisms...

...This is precisely the sense in which I use the term...

...25), is mystifying, because it consistently misrepresents the book's argument and tone...

...Dinesh D'Souza Washington, DC Seven Years or Bust David Tell is right about the unfeasibility of a five-year plan to eliminate the deficit ("Our Kind of Budget Deal," Sept...

...These cultural pathologies are most concentrated among the underclass, but in some respects they also extend to the black middle class...

...After all, if you believe that "all men are created equal" and at the same time own slaves, then in order to be consistent you are compelled to hold, at some level, that blacks are somehow less than human...

...As for the book's tone: It is written with a view to being intellectually provocative while at the same time being morally sensitive...

...it is a national problem...

...Pointing to the hopelessness and squalor of many American lives, Loury charges that I have "not one useful word to say" beyond urging middle-class blacks to take responsibility for the lives of poor blacks...

...To let this target slip is to open Pandora's box, leaving us with nothing but hope in the end-the hope that government will eventually keep its promise...

...According to Loury, my discussion of racism's origins as an ideology of European superiority leads to an unambiguous defense of the Enlightenment...

...This group constituted a distinct social phenomenon by the 1960s, as desegregation and antidiscrimination laws went into effect...

...The American crime rate has risen dramatically over the past few decades, and juvenile homicide has reached catastrophic proportions...

...Loury charges me with asserting that "most middle class blacks owe their prosperity to affirmative action...

...As Dr...

...And I say that society has an obligation to help as well...

...Actually, this term is not original with me but was coined by philosopher Leo Strauss in Natural Right and History, published in 1953...

...Cultural relativism now prevents liberals from publicly asserting and enforcing civilizational standards for everyone, not just African-Americans...

...Has he read the book...

...What I write is much more nuanced and entirely defensible: "The effect of affirmative action has been to accelerate the growth of the first sizable middle class in the history of African Americans...

...I point out that some pathologies, such as extremely high African-American crime rates, have the effect of legitimizing "rational discrimination," such as cabdrivers who are reluctant to pick up young black males...

...Yet although scholars debate their precise effect, racial preferences have undoubtedly helped to solidify the black middle class...

...Yet four centuries after blacks were brought to this country against their will, the suspicion of black inferiority persists...

...One of the explicit theses of my book is that the genetic explanation for group differences in performance is misconceived...

...The most serious complaint of Loury's review is that I fail to recognize that black cultural failings are American cultural failings (his emphasis...

...My whole point is to call for a social policy that strengthens black people's "culture of decency" and works to end the dominant inner-city culture of irresponsibility...

...Loury does not dispute my analysis of these problems...

...At the same time, I argue that just as African-American culture has distinctive strengths, it also has developed identifiable weaknesses...