From Thomas Sowell’s “Race and Resentment“:
Resentments and hostility toward people with higher achievements are one of the most widespread of human failings. Resentments of achievements are more deadly than envy of wealth. Achievements are like a slap across the face to those who are not achieving, and many people react with the same kind of anger that such an insult would provoke. Many of our educators, intelligentsia, media and politicians promote an attitude that other people’s achievements are grievances, rather than examples.
When black school children who are working hard in school and succeeding academically are attacked and beaten up by black classmates for “acting white,” why is it surprising that similar hostility is turned against Asian Americans, who are often achieving academically more so than whites?
These are poisonous and self-destructive consequences of a steady drumbeat of ideological hype about differences that are translated into “disparities” and “inequities,” provoking envy and resentments under their more prettied-up name of “social justice.” People who call differences “inequities” and achievements “privilege” leave social havoc in their wake, while feeling noble about siding with the less fortunate.