Ep. 9 – Jason Riley: “Stop helping Us: How Liberals Make it Harder for Blacks to Succeed”

Federal programs intended to fight racism and help Black Americans move up the economic ladder actually cause more harm and destroy black lives according to Jason Riley.  His book “Please Stop helping Us: How Liberals Make it Harder for Blacks to Succeed” explains why Black Americans continue to fall behind other Americans in education and income, and Riley says, “Don’t blame white racism.”  Riley, a member of the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute claims gains  made among Black Americans after passage of the 1964 civil rights act were already taking place in the decades before the law’s passage even though racism was more wide spread and legal in the United States.

In this episode of TALKENOMICS Riley says the original goal of the civil rights movement, equal opportunity, has been lost to a dangerous and destructive demand for equal outcomes. “Equal outcomes may be a noble objective, but nothing in human history suggests that they are realistic.”  Using the federal government’s own data, Riley delves into controversial subjects like black crime, black poverty and affirmative action to back up his thesis that the liberal left often gets it wrong and causes more harm to Black America instead of good. Riley writes, “…that a half century after the civil rights battles were fought and won, liberalism remains much more interested in making excuses for blacks than in reevaluating efforts to help them.”