McWhorter doesn't argue there is no longer any racial discrimination in the United States, but racial discrimination is not the major problem for blacks today. Let's look at it. Black people have the nation's highest victimization rates for murder, assault, rape and other violent crimes, but it's not whites who are culpable. Black students have the nation's lowest academic achievement. That can't be blamed on racism because academic achievement is the lowest in cities where the mayor, superintendent of schools, and most principals and teachers are black, such as Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Detroit.
Academic achievement is also the lowest where the most money is spent on education.
Washington, D.C., ranks second in spending and ranks 49th in achievement. I, for one, have confidence that if black youngsters spent as much time and effort studying math and English as some of them spend playing basketball, they'd produce the same excellence in math and English. The fact racism kept blacks out of college and professional basketball and football years ago doesn't stop us from today's domination. And the reason isn't affirmative action, it's excellence. Would you like to see them add this columnist to their newspaper.