Shorter Thomas Sowell
- Even though I’ve been pulled over by the police hundreds of times while driving, it’s not because I’m black. In fact, I’m white.
‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard.
UPDATE: Righteous Bubba‘s poetic take on Sowell is too funny to be hidden away in the comments:
Whose roads these are I think I know.
These public works they kind of blow;
Police can see me driving here.
But drive these roads with headlights? No.
My little car must think it queer
To drive without the lights on here
Between the hills a concrete snake
The darkest evening of the year.
A cop’s lights make me hit the brake
He asks if there’s been some mistake.
“The Oakland exit’s some ways back,
“Are you some kind of drunken flake?”
The roads are public, each bump and crack,
But each cock-eyed dream must have its hack,
I’ve not been stopped because I’m black
I’ve not been stopped because I’m black
Driving without his headlights on? I say waterboard Mr. Sowell!
Who’s with me?
Only about half the times that I was pulled over did I end up being given a ticket. Once a policeman who pulled me over and asked for my driver’s license said wearily, “Mr. Sowell, would you mind paying some attention to these stop signs, so that I don’t have to write you a ticket?”
Wait, I get it. Sowell has actually been stopped for DWB countless times. He just doesn’t realize it because every damned time he also happens to be breaking the law.
It was hard to believe that we had all just led charmed lives all these years.
Wingnuttia in a wingnutshell: life has always worked out pretty well for me; therefore there is no injustice in the world. QED.
Uh huh. Yeah. I’m always “accidentally” brushing up against various controls in my car, turning required features on and off.
This from a guy who makes fun of teh Clintons for telling lies and unbelievably wiggling out of accusations?
I don’t know what’s worse. The fact that 4 year old Sowell is standing just in front of the store entrance with the still-packaged, price-tagged toy he just shoplifted, and explaining that no, no, no, he didn’t, in fact, steal it, the toy actually followed him out — or the fact that his dingbat readership might actually believe him.
I read this last night. (I get paid to read Sowell. Hee hee.) Yeah, Thomas Sowell sucks it. Hard.
It’s all anecdotal evidence. And even if every word is true – an assumption which, based on Sowell’s past history, is being VERY charitable – how can you make any sweeping generalizations about whether there is any truth to the idea that some police in some parts of the country make it a habit to harrass blacks?
Sowell’s definitive study is based on 1. His own experiences. 2. A single (unnamed) black journalist. 3. His own family. 4. A study by an author associated with the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank which describes itself as a “free market think tank.”
Sowell frequently cites unnamed studies in his neverending mission to ingratiate himself with rich, white people, so he definitely gets points for naming the author of the study where he got his information and the conservative think tank she is associated with. He doesn’t really say a whole lot about the methodology of the study, typically – for a conservative – making it hard to really assess whether it’s useful for anything other providing cover for lazy conservatives and lazy libertarians who can now say, “I heard about a study that proves that the police are never racist and that black drivers are lazy and stupid and never take responsibility for anything, and the main cause of racism is black activists.”
I was going to try to find out a little about the study Sowell was talking about, a book by Heaher MacDonald titled “Are Cops Racist?” – a title that, typically for a conservative publication, screams its bias and its conclusion just from that framing – but I looked up the Manhattan Institute first and – guess what? – Peggy Noonan and William Kristol are on the board of trustees. Another person associated with the Manhattan Institute is Theodore Dalrymple, who wrote a piece for the L.A. Times saying it was unfortunate that so many Americans get their opinions from celebrities. He had three examples – Bono, Jon Stewart and Rosie O’Donnell – ignoring conservative foghorns like O’Reilly, Coulter and Limbaugh. He also willfully abused some Pew Institute information. (This Dalrymple piece should be Exhibit A in any discussion where some conservative zombie makes the ridiculous assertion that the L.A. Times is the liberal media.)
So, yeah, why bother doing any more work on this? Anybody who thinks Heather MacDonald might have writen an honest or useful book can go and take a look at it and report back. Me, I feel my work is done. I think I’m going back to bed for an hour and be sure I’m well-rested to watch the Colts beat the Pats.
Go, Colts!
An even shorter Thomas Sowell:
” Racism. I don’t have a problem with it.”
I just realized why this sounded so familiar.
Thomas Sowell:
My car is supposed to turn on the headlights automatically when the light outside is below a certain level, but sometimes I accidentally brush against the controls and inadvertently switch them to manual.
Larry Craig:
Now I realize while Sowell’s lame excuse — lame especially because upon hearing it no one but no one believes it — sounded so familiar:
Thomas Sowell:
Larry Craig:
And, of course, ‘I have not been stopped because I’m black. I never have been stopped because I’m black.’
Thomas Sowell is in fact a black man not white. Please try to get the basic facts right.
Who’s sending the third-string trolls, like noen and saul, over here lately? But, noen, when you read this, let me explain the joke to you in simple, one-syllable words that you might understand — the joke is that I know he is black, but he does not. Got it? kthxbai.
noen, I believe we’re all aware of that. I think it was an attempt at a joke.
For the record, when the cops pull you over and harass you a while without giving you a ticket, it generally means they were just harassing you for the hell of it. On the whole, if they can ticket you, they will. I say this as a woman pedestrian who used to be routinely hassled by the cops about “loitering” and “trespassing” and “soliciting”. It seems a woman dressed as a man at 3AM is pretty much a time-killer for bored local cops.
So not getting ticketed doesn’t speak to me of someone who hasn’t been pulled over for driving while black, it speaks to me of someone who hasn’t realized that’s what happens to him.
Whose roads these are I think I know.
These public works they kind of blow;
Police can see me driving here.
But drive these roads with headlights? No.
My little car must think it queer
To drive without the lights on here
Between the hills a concrete snake
The darkest evening of the year.
A cop’s lights make me hit the brake
He asks if there’s been some mistake.
“The Oakland exit’s some ways back,
“Are you some kind of drunken flake?”
The roads are public, each bump and crack,
But each cock-eyed dream must have its hack,
I’ve not been stopped because I’m black
I’ve not been stopped because I’m black
Clif, are you sure that is really noen?
noen said,
October 20, 2007 at 3:55
Oh? What “objective” was that, Mel? Denying little kids health insurance? Smearing twelve year olds? Lying about the fact that you authorized torture after telling everyone that you didn’t authorize torture? Politicizing the Justice Department by firing attorneys who didn’t toe the line? Commuting the sentences of the cronies in your party who did hatchet jobs for the Executive office, and reinforcing the popular opinion that y’all think you’re above the law? Kicking puppies in the head?
No, those were merely the ends to an end. Paul Krugman on Democracy Now on Wed said they basically wanted to usher in a new Gilded Age. On that Bush has been wildly successful. If you are one of the top 1% of this nation you worship GW as a god, and rightly so.
These are people who will indeed kick puppies and 2 year olds in the head and roast them on a spit if it means more money for them. They are perfectly willing to bankrupt our entire economy just to make a point. They are willing to send thousands into the meat grinder of war just to fill their pockets and then deny those soldiers adequate armor or will even give them sewage to drink just to make yet again another buck or two.
They are sociopaths. Full blown sociopaths. And when it all comes crashing down as it always does, they are utterly incapable of comprehending why.
They are filth.
Hoosier X, your comment was great, but somebody hacked into it and put “Go, Colts!” at the end. You should ask Gavin to look into this obvious security breach, but you should wait until after Super Bowl 41.5 this afternoon.
Ifthethhunder . . . , that is indeed noen. My bad. Looks like he was playing a parody troll. My bad. Don’t mind me. I’m new here.
I play parody troll meself sometimes, but all my ASCII bling™³²®© gives me away. Every time.
The really sad thing about conservatives is that this, indeed, is the best that most of them can do. noen should compile his greatest hits and get a job writing for Tucker Carlson or Mallard Fillmore or Condi Rice or … Thomas Sowel.
The only credible case Sowell has to support his thesis is the statistical analysis of this Macdonald person who, as it already has been noted, is a member of a partisan think-tank.
Despite that clear and compelling reality, notice how Sowell doesn’t cite even one of Macdonalds’s findings?
That hack’s stuff must be reallllly convincing stuff if an even bigger hack won’t even detail ANY of it to support his hacky toss-off column on how racism actually doesn’t exist despite all the evidence to the contrary.
But I’m sure that has nothing to do with why the media ignored Macdonald’s “empirical analysis.”
It just has to be because the media is wrong about a lot of cops being racist.
Yep.
I always treat trolls as real trolls. That noen comment looked way real. They are that lame. It’s very hard to make fun of them because there is always some genuine conservative cooking up something more batshit insane than you could ever imagine.
I just wish there fewer of them so firmly embedded in policy making positions where they can – and do – implement their disastrous delusions.
Dan Someone, Why the hell would someone named Hoosier X root for the Patriots?
Righteous Bubba, that Robert Frost parody is possibly the funniest thing I’ve ever seen on Sadly, No. Certainly the funniest intenionally funny thing.
Excellent Frost parody, Righteous Bubba. I have parody envy. Nicely done.
I hate cops. Fucking donut sucking leeches on society. I’d rather go back to waiting tables then be a cop, and I’ll kill myself before I go back to waiting tables.
That is all.
I’m with you, Some Guy. I think there’s selection bias towards people who want cheap power over others, and the people who aren’t assholes when they start their police careers are turned into raging assholes by the job.
Umm…..I think noen just had a misstep in the sarcasm department. He’s not really a troll.
Although it’s really easy to get confused these last few days.
Although it’s really easy to get confused these last few days.
Especially since the recent trolls have opted for the ever-popular combo of adolescent I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I crap and sheer, dumb I-can’t-read-ism.
*sigh*
I wish they’d just go back to the flaming batshit crazy stuff and leave the poop jokes and duh-wha? responses to the professionals.
“Officer, why would I have my lights on? It’s not dark outside.”
“Sir, it’s pitch black.”
“It could pass as white though.”
I have never in my life managed to turn off car lights by “brushing up against something” – and anyway, the damn lights turn on as soon as the key turns in the ignition so what’s his problem?
sometimes I accidentally brush against the keyboard and inadvertently fill the screen with p0rn windows.
noen is definitely on our side, s/he has posted @ (& against) McMegan, as well as often here. This “clif” guy, on the other hand, I’ve only seen here a few times, though I’m led to understand he has a site somewhere else.
I think “typical republican” may have the right, or correct, idea as far as parody goes.
I don’t know why I’m compelled, compelled I say, to say this on Sowell’s behalf, but I do stupid shit like that in my car all the time. I also leave turn signals blinking, windshield wipers flapping long after the rain stops, and have to turn down my car radio if i think I smell something funny from the engine.
Now I imagine the guy brushing against the wrong controls on the dashboard, and suddenly the boot pops open — the hood springs up — and an endless succession of clowns begin to pile out of his car, tripping over their feet and squirting each other with soda-water bottles.
Does this make me a bad person?
Righteous Bubba rules! Dr. Zen, that was pretty funny, too. Every time I go to vote for funniest blog, none of the candidates come up on the screen. It has been doing this for last 24 hrs. Anyone else having this problem?
Of course I do. The other parody trolls can suck it. I pwn you all.
Liberals. Hmf.
(I’m giving it away because I know how to use blockquote tags, aren’t I?)
Golly, thanks to all. El Cid delivered the inspiration.
To show my gratitude I will stop strangling this cute puppy for one day.
He can’t be that clueless, can he? How many times do you have to be pulled over by the police before you think something else might be going on?
“noen, I believe we’re all aware of that. I think it was an attempt at a joke.”
I guess I didn’t get it. Nobody is perfect and certainly not me. It was me BTW, no one spoofed me. We just haven’t had a disagreement before. And it really, really seemed to me that you were trying to say that Thomas Sowell was in fact white. I was so convinced of that I even looked it up to be sure.
Also Cliff, I didn’t say what I did in anger. I was not and am not pissed off. I just misunderstood. I think you’re a pretty funny guy but this one made a nice whooshing sound as it passed over my head. ok?
Also, I am a she not a he.
And yeah, I am having a hard time telling parody from true wingnuttyness lately. I blame Clinton.
(Was that funny? I try but you guys are better at this than I am.)
It’s always funny when you blame Clinton.
Ha ha.
But don’t blame Bush for anything. Ever. It shows you have Bush Dernagement Syndrome and you are an unhinged moonbat. And shrill. And you hate America.
Liberals. Hmf.
Speaking as one who has stopped by the cops because “I matched the description”, just because something doesn’t happen to you doesn’t mean it don’t happen.
Even though I know they exist, I still think “Black Conservative” is an oxymoronic statement….
Speaking as one who has been stopped by the cops because “I matched the description”, just because something doesn’t happen to you doesn’t mean it don’t happen.
Even though I know they exist, I still think “Black Conservative” is an oxymoronic statement….
If he was white, calling him “Uncle” Thomas Sowell wouldn’t be as funny.
Same with Clarence “Uncle” Thomas.
(Now watch the Reich Wing descend upon me for being a racist. They can be as “politically correct” as anybody when it suits them. Just look at Condi Rice’s confirmation hearing for Secretary of State.)
Sowell shouldn’t be arrested for “driving while black.” He should be arrested for “writing while conservative,” inciting a sophistry and abusing a straw man.
And Mr. Sowell, if you don’t understand the joke, I’ll explain what these terms mean.
He’s right about one thing, though. Automatic belligerence really isn’t the answer. Perhaps he should convey that insight to President Bush, or Michelle Malkin.
No, it isn’t the answer but it is *an* answer. When someone has their foot on your throat you might become a little belligerent too. It isn’t right but it is understandable. Thomas Sowel, like every other wingnut these days, thinks he got where he is today because of his innately superior qualities as a person. This is nonsense. He got to where he is because he had help. I know he doesn’t think he did, but he did.
Thomas Sowell sure doesn’t act like he’s getting the help he needs.
Shorter Shorter Thomas Sowell: White liberals know what’s best for black people!
I think I lost brain cells reading the comments.