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Why do we ignore common sense when it comes to black people in America? I remember reading an article about Shelby Steele, one of our most insightful writers on race relations, when he said, “The only thing that makes me interesting as a writer is that I speak common sense. Most commonly, some sort of common sense every day.” What he meant here was that his writing about the pathologies facing black people, from affirmative action to the permanent underclass, was so obvious that it was just common sense. Yet we continue to ignore or even reject this kind of common sense when it comes to black people.
Besides Steele, there is perhaps no greater preacher of common sense than Thomas Sowell. I preach and work on the south side of Chicago and sometimes I feel like I’m alone or like a Sisyphus figure trapped in a vicious cycle that isn’t going anywhere. But when I read Sowell that feeling of negativity disappears. I leave with a clear sense that I am not alone and that our problems, as terrifying as they are, are ultimately surmountable.
Moreover, Sowell’s common sense gives us no excuse but to act. For example, I recently came across this quote: “If you want to see the poor stay poor, generation after generation, just keep the standards low in their schools and make excuses for your academic shortcomings and personal misconduct. But don’t congratulate yourself on your compassion. “
THE VALUES I RELY ON IN THE FACE OF CHICAGO’S MISERABLE HOMICIDE NUMBERS
The public school down from my church has kids in the single digits who are reading and doing math on grade level. It’s a problem all over America. The common sense here is to fire the administration and teachers for their betrayal of their mission to educate our future. Yet we find excuses and the status quo worsens every year. That’s why I’ve spent over 12 years pursuing my goal of building the Center for Economics and Leadership to help these kids reach their potential. Common sense leads to common sense solutions.
Sowell mentions compassion in the quote above and the question here is why do we continue to be compassionate when it leads to failure? Consider this quote from Sowell: “What the welfare system and other kinds of government programs do is pay people to fail. To the extent that they fail, they get money; to the extent that they succeed, even moderately, their money is taken away. ”
How is that compassion? Where is the common sense in setting policies and attitudes that perpetuate the failure of a people emerging from one of the worst oppressions known to man?
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This brings me to another Sowell quote: “Since wealth is the only thing that can cure poverty, you might think that the left would be as obsessed with wealth creation as it is with wealth redistribution. But you’d be wrong.”
I love this particular quote because it reminds me why my work in my community is so important. My goal is nothing less than creating pathways to opportunity for my youth. The common sense here is that we need to develop talent to create wealth, whether it’s creating a forklift driver who can provide for his family or creating the next music sensation.
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After all, as Shelby Steele wrote, “Opportunity follows struggle. Follows effort. Follows hard work. It doesn’t come sooner.”
These words hold me. Common sense lets us know where we are, the reality we face. Only when we are honest with ourselves can we make real and meaningful progress. So why do so many Americans ignore common sense when it comes to treating blacks as equals? The short answer is power. They benefit from the kindness that comes with treating previously oppressed people as forever oppressed. That’s why Americans in the field like me decided to bypass these virtue signaling elites and let us accept common sense as our guiding light in undoing the damage done to our communities.
