The Mismatch Theory

6min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

The problem with set asides and affirmative action, says Soledad O'Brien. You're setting up students that are not prepared to fail, he argues. If a test produces racially disperate outcomes, the test must be racest, she adds. The idea that you're going to compensate for it with a few remedial classes is absurd, Sorelly writes.

Shermer speaks with Jason Riley about Maverick — the first-ever biography of Thomas Sowell, one of the great social theorists of our age. In a career spanning more than a half century, Sowell has written over thirty books, covering topics from economic history and social inequality to political theory, race, and culture. His bold and unsentimental assaults on liberal orthodoxy have endeared him to many readers but have also enraged fellow intellectuals, the civil-rights establishment, and much of the mainstream media. The result has been a lack of acknowledgment of his scholarship among critics who prioritize political correctness.

Shermer and Riley discuss: Riley’s documentary on Sowell; Sowell’s philosophy that “there are no solutions, only trade-offs”; mismatch theory and affirmative action; race and IQ; why Riley thinks liberals make it harder for blacks to succeed; political correctness; BLM, antiracism, reparations; charity and welfare; income inequality and UBI, and much more…