To the Editor:
Dinesh D'Souza's 1995 book "The End of Racism" has raised eyebrows across America for the disturbing truths it uncovers about racial problems today. Many people who have not read the book have come up with very interesting manipulations of his arguments, including Mr. Kenji Hosakawa '98 in his editorial that appeared in The Dartmouth earlier this week.
D'Souza's formulation of rational discrimination (that urban cab drivers may be hesitant to pick up blacks opposed to whites given the greatly higher urban crime rates of blacks) does not justify its existence. Rather, he finds that it is an unfortunate result of the decay of urban black culture.
Rational discrimination is still immoral, D'Souza stipulates, but it doesn't make a cabbie a racist. When he spoke at Dartmouth last term, he told us that while there are great differences between blacks and other groups in almost all cultural standards (test scores, illegitimacy rates, savings rates) even when controlled for socioeconomic situation, there are basically three causes for discrepancy: racism, genes and culture.
Current political correctness tell us that all cultures are "different but equal". Therefore, unless every bit of every discrepancy can be explained by racism, we must be willing to admit the unthinkable findings of "The Bell Curve" that the problems are incurable.
Dinesh D'Souza gives us an alternative. Once attention is taken away from blaming raving bigots for everything and is focused upon improving group cultural standards, America will slowly but surely start down the road to the end of racism.
