To the editor,

Thank you, Mr. Pazdernik, for your suggestions on improving my education. I do want you to know, though, as a Ph.D. economist, I have, of course, read Thomas Sowell. Sowell is a libertarian Black economist with whom I vehemently disagree. He is quite wrong, for example, in saying that “poverty among minority groups is less a result of racial and societal discrimination than of a group’s values, ethics, and attitudes.” In a similar way, I disagree with Roland Fryer and Walter Williams, who like Sowell, blame the victims for their victimhood. For example, they believe the “war on poverty” failed due to the existence of government social programs, whereas in fact it failed because these programs were motivated by contempt for Blacks and the poor.

I believe racism and contempt for the poor are systemic to all our institutions, including education, healthcare, criminal justice, and housing. If you would like some enlightening reading, I suggest you read Caste and The Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabelle Wilkerson; Systemic Racism 101, by Aminah Pilgrim; Economic Issues and Policy, a college textbook I authored; and my paper for the upcoming Midwest Economic Association, An Analysis of the Mortality Data Underlying Trump’s Base of Support, which reveals both the economic and racial despair of Trump’s base leading up to his election, in part perpetrated by the type of nonsense espoused by the authors you cite.

I don’t mean any disrespect to you, Mr. Pazdernik, because your letter was not unkind. But I do feel compelled to respond when charged with being “intellectually lazy.” And I do not let my feelings supersede the facts.

Dr. Jacqueline Murray Brux

Town of River Falls