(no message)

(no message)

The fact that you refer to this as "Brutal black on black...." bears this out. White people make negative comments about other white people all the time, as there's no sense that all white people are supposed to be playing for the same team and think exactly alike. But there's this sense that that's how the black community works. And that makes it attention-getting (and "newspaper-selling" if you will) when one black guy seems to cut against the grain and criticize another black guy. When that happens, people seem to think that there's a fissure line in a solidarity of thinking among blacks that exists only in their imagination. Thomas Sowell's relevance is predicated on being the contrarian figure standing in opposition to that false assumption. He's no dummy, for sure, but -- as your subject line proves -- his words are notable because of his skin color.

...in the "black community", that entity we hear about all the time, that has never escaped the tribalism that handicaps it from being taken seriously. So your contention that "white on white" rarely draws attention is true due to the usual lack of tribalistic rationale in the disagreement ("I disagree and fight you because you are not part of my tribe regardless of the correctness of your position or debate").

Sowell is important -- and I disagree with those who state that he exploits a role as the black spoiler for its own sake as they are missing what he is really doing: exposing this tribalism for what it is. He continues to rake Obama for his positions, many of which are self contradictory (thanks to YouTube and the Internet) and which are held merely because of the "what's fair for my tribe" argument (eg, capital gains tax increases in the face of certain reduction in tax revenues from that source). When seen thru this lens, Sowell and others like Shelby Steele reject the tribalism that continues to plague the "black community". The very fact that they retain the "black community" moniker is testament to the tribal nature of the social order and how they see the world.

(no message)

(no message)

It's because his philosophy of life and politics is conservative and subsequently aligned with the GOP, which stands in opposition to the enormous majority of black people who vote Democrat. Sowell's impression is that they do so because they have come to expect and want the Government to be a problem solver or the creator of opportunities in their lives. Sowell thinks and votes different because he expects and wants the government to get out of the way of solving problems or taking advantage of opportunities. So, yes, he does focus his attention on other black people, but isn't that normal since he is of the same race or ethnicity, yet philosophically different than the majority?