Jason L. Riley Quotes

The economic and social progress of black Americans in only a few generations is something unmatched in recorded history.

What makes America unique is not slavery. It’s emancipation.

Liberal elites control the media, by and large. They control academia. They run the foundations that hand out intellectual awards and prizes.

[Sowell's] writings on intellectual history have stressed, time and again, that intellectuals are a special interest group. They have their own self-serving agenda and their own priorities and ought to be understood as such.

Bad schools stay open because those schools still provide good jobs for adults. Whether or not the children are learning is a secondary concern at best.

Sowell would often be asked how it felt to go against the grain of so many other blacks. He would inevitably correct the premise of the question. “You don’t mean I go against the grain of most blacks,” he would respond. “You mean I go against the grain of most black intellectuals, most black elites. But black intellectuals don’t represent most blacks any more than white intellectuals represent most whites.” 

Charter schools don’t have such vocal and passionate enemies because they don’t work, but because they do. Therefore, they pose a threat to the education status quo. They threaten the current power balance that allows the interests of adults who run public education to come before what’s best for students.

It’s no mystery why black activists want to keep the focus on white racism. It helps them raise money and stay relevant. And it’s no mystery why politicians use the same tactics—it helps them win votes.

Ultimately, it’s an attempt to downplay the role of culture and personal responsibility in driving social inequality. Blacks are blameless, whites are evil. Whites who reject this narrative are labeled as racists. Blacks who reject it are dismissed as dupes or opportunists.

Think about the current debate that we’re having over critical race theory. These ideas were once relegated to college seminars. Now they are entering our workplaces through diversity training. And they are entering our elementary schools through The New York Times 1619 Project, which attempts to put the institution of slavery at the center of America’s founding. That’s absurd. Slavery existed for thousands of years, in societies all over the world and long before the founding of the United States. More African slaves were sent to the Islamic world than were ever sent to the Americas.