Black Rednecks and White Liberals

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Black Rednecks and White Liberals is a collection of essays by Thomas Sowell, published in 2005.

1 Title essay
2 Other essays
3 Editions
4 External links
5 References

[edit] Title essay

The title is based on Sowell's thesis about the origins of the black culture found in modern black society. He argues that what is claimed to be ‘authentic black culture’ is actually a relic of a highly dysfunctional white southern redneck culture, and the dependent slave culture. This in turn came from the ‘Cracker culture’ from the border regions in Britain; namely, the North Britons and Scots-Irish who immigrated from the harsh English border. Sowell gives a number of examples that he regards as supporting the lineage, e.g.,

an aversion to work, proneness to violence, neglect of education, sexual promiscuity, improvidence, drunkenness, lack of entrepreneurship,… and a style of religious oratory marked by strident rhetoric, unbridled emotions, and flamboyant imagery.^[1]

Sowell also provides figures to support his argument that there was a far bigger divide between the cracker/redneck culture and the North than between white and black. E.g. Northern blacks tried to stop redneck blacks coming up from the South, and the same happened between northern whites and redneck whites. He also shows how northern blacks were more successful and better educated than poor southern whites before the post-Civil War exodus of free blacks out of the South.