Invisible men

WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY ONCE SAID that Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams should never be on the same flight because if the plane went down it would mean the death of America’s only black conservatives. Somehow the right summing up these two brilliant, maverick intellectuals as conservative seemed to sell them short, while their rational stance on race pitted them against a left that expected like-minded views from black Americans on this topic. Even in his dotage Sowell is subjected to this, as when one of his books was reviewed by an academic from the London School of Economics who assumed the author was “a rich white man”.

Sowell has referred to the predominantly white intellectual elite of the left — those quick to classify the minds of minorities — as “the anointed”. He, Williams and the fellow travellers inspired and influenced by these men’s output over the years, have been called other names along the way. In the eyes of say, President Biden, these figures aren’t officially black because they don’t vote Democrat, while others had names for them that should have been consigned to history — Uncle Tom, “coon”, “house negro” — like those ancient racial slurs