Thomas Sowell on the economic inequities between whites and blacks today:

For most of the history of this country, differences between the black and the white population--whether in income, IQ, crime rates, or whatever--have been attributed to either race or racism. For much of the first half of the 20th century, these differences were attributed to race--that is, to an assumption that blacks just did not have it in their genes to do as well as white people. The tide began to turn in the second half of the 20th century, when the assumption developed that black-white differences were due to racism on the part of whites.

So far, so good:

What is not nearly as widely known is that there were also very large disparities within the white population of the pre-Civil War South and the white population of the Northern states. Although Southern whites were only about one-third of the white population of the U.S., an absolute majority of all the illiterate whites in the country were in the South.

I'm with you, Thomas:

Slavery also cannot explain the difference between American blacks and West Indian blacks living in the United States because the ancestors of both were enslaved. When race, racism, and slavery all fail the empirical test, what is left?

Culture is left.

OK, getting a bit sketchy here.  Depends on what you mean.

The culture of the people who were called "rednecks" and "crackers" before they ever got on the boats to cross the Atlantic was a culture that produced far lower levels of intellectual and economic achievement, as well as far higher levels of violence and sexual promiscuity.

Ahh, Southern culture as a whole is a problem--I can't really argue against that.

While a third of the white population of the U.S. lived within the redneck culture, more than 90% of the black population did.

So the African-Americans were victims of a British-based redneck culture--intriguing.  But why are Whites now in a better socio-economic position?

It eroded away much faster in Britain than in the U.S. and somewhat faster among Southern whites than among Southern blacks, who had fewer opportunities for education or for the rewards that came with escape from that counterproductive culture.

But why was it slower to disappear amongst Blacks?  Oops, the article ended--no explanation.  Why would African American's continue to be trapped in a culture imposed on it?  Why did they have fewer opportunities for education or for the rewards that came with escape from that counterproductive culture?  What is left?

Racism is left. 

Sowell, who is African-American himself, constructs a perfectly sound theory of why African Americans continue to, on average, to be stuck in lower socio-economic strata, yet willfully blinds himself to the basic reason why they continue to be stuck there.  There is no doubt that in the Jim Crow South and in America in general, racism limited economic and educational opportunities for for African-Americans.  Indeed, it is not surprising that an ethnic group that had such a culture imposed on it, and that was prohibited from even learning to read for the first two hundred and fifty-years of its existence on the continent, would lag behind in recovering from such a blow.  That legacy has disappeared only slowly--and Jim Crow's "separate but equal" played a large role in assuring that African-American recovery would be slow. 

Finally it must also be said that Sowell paints the American traditions of his race with a terribly broad brush.  There are many strong communal traditions which have served the African Americans well, through these difficult times.  Furthermore, their manner of speaking is relatively irrelevant to success, as long as they can function in the greater society.  Instead of focusing on elements of Southern culture that have done a disservice to Blacks, Sowell portrays the culture as all of one piece, chains that must be broken and discarded before African-Americans can take their rightful place in American Society.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  As citizens, African Americans are fully entitled to all of the rights given other races--culture notwithstanding.  Mainstream American culture can and must adapt as much to the African American culture as the other way around.

Sowell stood one step away from getting a grip on the problem and shrank from the obvious conclusion.  Let's hope he gets it soon.