My earliest recollection of Walter Williams is an article written by him that my mother placed on the refrigerator. Mom was never the type to push ideologies on me. She would drop hints. It's an old school, I'd dare say "African" where information is given in parables or some other roundabout way. Such things were said in that manner in order to prompt thinking from other people. I put "African" in quotes because I do know that other cultures do similar things.
Anyway. I'm not ashamed to say it but at the time I didn't care what Walter Williams had to say. Like most children living in the socialist paradise called "dependent". Economics was "when was I getting my allowance"?
I didn't care about taxes and the like, because meals magically appeared. Clothes showed up, shoes purchased, house heated and the living was easy.
"Summertime....and the living is easy..."
Anyway. He and Thomas Sowell were out of mind. Fortunately, I never became a big consumer. Though the living was easy, the money was not exactly what you'd call "long". So I did learn the value of "for sale" and the ethic of "learn to fix it yourself". But still.
I didn't really re-acquaint myself with Williams until MUUUUCH later in life. That was because once I took black wealth building seriously, I couldn't abide by certain victim mentalities that are quite popular in many black circles. For example, the pernicious idea that the reason for low black wealth being "white supremacy" when in fact the major reasons are:
1) Single parenthood. 2) Buying too much house 3) Buying too much car. 4) Women's hair care. 5) Mass consumerism.
These are all items that black people have direct control over and yet we are told we have no agency.
Doesn't mean that there aren't racist people out there that will put roadblocks in your way. But roadblocks almost ALWAYS have ways around them. If you're fixated on going down a particular road you'll fail to see the other roads running parallel to it. The point is to get to the destination, not any particular path to it.
Unfortunately, my peers when I was younger thought that the likes of Williams were sellouts and therefore unfit for study. It's a shame though. Williams was brighter than I am. Did more work than I did while I was "raising consciousness". We could have learned by looking at the data he presented and done a lot better.
It's unfortunate that for a large swath of America, Williams is a total unknown. It's particularly sad, but understandable explainable given the history, that he is unknown to many black youth in America while people with not even half his knowledge are given attention.
Rest in power.
