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More Discrimination a Poisonous Cure for Discrimination

Reviewed by Eric Langborgh

     A few weeks ago, a disgruntled black man named Ronald Taylor went on a shooting rampage in a town just outside of Pittsburgh, eventually shooting five white men and killing three of them. Letters were found in his apartment containing invectives aimed at whites, Jews, Asians, Italians, police, and the media, all of whom he blamed for his lot in life.
     Several years ago, massive riots took place in Los Angeles and other cities around the United States following the acquittal of four L.A. police officers from charges that they had used unnecessary force in arresting Rodney King. Hundreds of blacks and Hispanics took to the streets causing over $900 million in property losses as they destroyed and looted downtown businesses.
     No crimes had been committed against Taylor or the rioters by their victims, but the "white devil" of "institutional racism," as many on the Left have spun the incidences, somehow legitimized their rage.
Institutional racism is also behind the supposed need for government interference in the lives of its citizens for the cause of "civil rights." This shadowy phenomenon is theoretically behind the lagging economic status and poor schoolwork of many members of underrepresented groups. The results of this regulatory state as a cure, however, are no less destructive to society than the above criminal acts.
     A Cure Worse than the Disease: Fighting Discrimination Through Government Control is M. Lester O'Shea's admirable effort to empirically and logically show the faulty premises behind, and the ramifications of, using unequal laws to rectify perceived unjust discrimination in society.
     "In a stunningly brief time," O'Shea begins his work, "the dominant view in public discussion has come to be that the prominent group of white males, in particular, have such animosity toward women, darker-skinned people, older people, and people of every type of handicap, physical or mental, that only if government and courts have ultimate authority over individuals' advancement can such centuries-old oppression be overthrown."
     O'Shea contends the very notion that America is racist, sexist, ageist, ableist, etc. is fundamentally implausible. That some invisible hand of oppression is holding all people down who are not heterosexual white males is not feasible in a land where Adam Smith's "invisible hand" is at work. The author reminds readers of Booker T. Washington's advice that, an "individual who can do something that the world wants, will, in the end, make his way regardless of his race."
    Consumers care little about the ethnicity of those who make the products they desire, as Detroit found out when Japanese cars became popular. An entrepreneur knows he can make windfall profits by making use of neglected human resources. A company cannot compete within its own country, much less the world market, if it insists on hiring less-qualified white males at the cost of better qualified women and minorites working for its competitors. The prisoner's dilemma which breaks down all cartels in the end through the incentive to "cheat" also makes ludicrous the notion that some conspiracy of racists and bigots would work together to hold whole portions of the population down, therefore costing themselves customers and money.
     The idea that America remains hopelessly bigoted is implausible, the author explains. For decades Americans have been exposed to education, speeches, films, television, and books denouncing bigotry of all sorts. Recent studies show that 95% of Americans surveyed agree that merit, rather than characteristics unrelated to work ability, should be the basis for hiring and promotion decisions. Even in 1972, 97% of whites surveyed called for equal opportunity for blacks to get any job.
     Far from revealing their "true selves" in the privacy of the voting booth, Americans have been more than willing to support candidates and issues that support "affirmative action" for women and minorities. And that well-intentioned sentiment is just the problem, writes the author.
     "Even if there is significant discrimination," he argues, "it doesn't automatically follow that free choice in this area should be replaced by government control."
     O'Shea points this out in his description of how socialists impute villainy to the successful. "[T]he Nazis, unwilling to attribute the success of Jews in Germany in so many areas…to ability or effort, attributed it instead to trickery and clannishness."
     Likewise, for today's unsuccessful groups the explanation for the white man's success is "institutional racism" and the exploitation of minorities and women. "All this nonsense proves is that the relatively unsuccessful are relatively unsuccessful: that is, they are relatively scarce at the top," says the author, "which proves nothing whatsoever about racism."
     It does, though, raise questions as to why certain groups are more successful than others. The achievements of Asians and Jews as groups, and the abundance of individuals from "under-performing" minority groups—people like Oprah Winfrey, who had to make her way in the free market absent any affirmative action—certainly belies racism as an excuse. Irish and Italians, as well as various Asian groups suffered much discrimination upon immigration to the U.S. The Japanese suffered in internment camps during World War II. Yet all perform very well in America today both scholastically and career-wise.
     Blacks point to slavery and Jim Crow (another example of government discrimination and racial preferences), but the former has been abolished for over 130 years and Jim Crow has long since passed, as well. What is forgotten is that the West was the first civilization to end slavery, as tragic a practice it was, because Westerners slowly came to realize that the abrogation of another man's right to the liberty of his will was antithetical to Western values. Conversely, slavery is still practiced in parts of Africa, and is the underlying practical principle of communism, such as seen in Red China.

     For the purveyors of multiculturalism, this is anathema to even mention. So writes O'Shea,

The current vogue for 'multi-culturalism' in practice amounts largely to denigration of Western civilization, uncritical enthusiasm for anything from primitive cultures, and an insistence that Western Europeans are the villains of the world…. a consistent and honest multi-culturalist would take note, say, of the position of women throughout the non-Western world, in Africa, in the Moslem world, in India, and suggest, 'We must be open to the wisdom of the rest of the world and should think twice about the desirability of women's possessing the status and freedoms they enjoy in the West.'

     The normal response of man is to flee oppression—that is, genuine oppression that can't be borne without relief. Where are the flocks of oppressed fleeing our shores? Why would boatloads of Haitians and Vietnamese and Cubans flee into oppression? Obviously, oppression cannot be an explanation for group failure.
     What then?
     O'Shea dares to tread some very politically incorrect waters here in explaining relative group success, which is refreshing in one sense and sure to challenge the reader even as he may not agree with all the conclusions. He brings up The Bell Curve and the "simplest" explanation that differences may in fact be genetic. He enters some dangerous territory here, but his thoughts ultimately emphasize the triumph of individualism over group dynamics. "No one hires, or otherwise deals with averages, but rather specific individuals, and, regardless of averages, all races are found at all points on the IQ spectrum."
     Even leaving intelligence aside, behavioral problems go a long way toward explaining group differences. The illegitimacy rate among blacks is much higher than among whites, soaring in recent years to over two-thirds of all black births, and over 80% in some slum areas. "Growing up in a single-parent home, much more likely than the average to be dependant on welfare, very possibly in an environment pervaded by drugs, alcohol, gangs, and violence," the author concludes, "is not likely to encourage good study habits."
     Most alarming is a recent study by university anthropologists of Washington, D.C. schools that concluded, "many black students may perform poorly in high school because of a shared sense that academic success is a sellout to the white world." Among the taboos: speaking standard English, studying in the library, and being on time. Stories abound of good students being ostracized by their classmates when their scholastic achievements are recognized. One San Francisco student wrote, "I remember hearing words like 'Oreo' and 'wanna-be-white girl' all through my school days and the taunts continue to a lesser degree in college." Large numbers of black students drop out of high school.
     "Not helpful is the common practice of ignoring family and community conditions and attitudes and instead denouncing the schools," writes O'Shea.
     Up to this point, the response has been to throw more money at these schools, even though per capita spending in "inner-city" schools is often much higher than schools with better performing students. The response has also been to institute racial preferences in college admissions, thereby excluding qualified whites and Asians while rewarding those with bad study habits.
     In the marketplace, the response has been equally as grave. Frivolous litigation pervades our courtrooms with huge settlements going to discrimination claimants. Racial quotas are instituted in large corporations for fear of government reprisals. A Cure Worse than the Disease does an excellent job in empirically showing the damage of multiculturalism and political correctness.
     This is not to say the book doesn't have its weaknesses. The strident tone and assumption of a conclusion in the beginning of the work threatens to turn off fence-stradlers before they reach the meat of O'Shea's argument. The author's heavy use of personal experiences, especially in the first few chapters, subtracts from the analytical quality of his book. Though his memory of race relations in a better time may be enduring to him, more first hand accounts and statistics from earlier times in America's history would have served his case better. Personal perceptions are not as persuasive as the abundance of statistics, headlines, facts, and logic weaved throughout the rest of the book.
     And though this reviewer appreciates the wide-sweeping take on the whole issue of the anti-discrimination regulatory state and its quasi-religious underpinning, a fair and deeper treatment of the statist Jim Crow Laws would have added much to this otherwise very good book. The almost dismissive tone of previous state-sanctioned discrimination against minorities puts somewhat of a hole in what would have been an almost airtight case against governmental reverse discrimination.


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