Its theme is that many policies designed to help blacks are in fact harmful, sometimes devastatingly so. These counterproductive policies range from minimum wage laws to "affirmative action" quotas.As someone who spent decades as a university professor, I found the following particularly insightful:
Many black students who are quite capable of getting a good college education are admitted, under racial quotas, to institutions whose pace alone is enough to make it unlikely that they will graduate.Elite universities must create student diversity, whether or not it is in minority students' best interests. Affirmative Action makes good black and Hispanic students compete for passing grades with the world's very best white and Asian students - it is a recipe for failure, like asking a talented amateur to beat a healthy Tiger Woods at golf.
Sowell finishes his review with this Riley quote from the book:
Having a black man in the Oval Office is less important than having one in the home.
