This is a post by Ammo Grrrl which is a regular Friday feature at Powerline. She is there for her often astonishingly insightful humour, but this time there’s no humour, just insight. DELIBERATE, WILLFUL IGNORANCE is the title, but it is about the need to fail among the black community in the United States as the only form of in-group success. We white people should apparently mind our own business and stop using our own criteria for success to judge other people. This is from the column but you should go to the link and read it all.

Wouldn’t you think that the “leading intellectuals” of a historically disadvantaged group would look around them, carefully note what habits of mind lead to success, and urge everyone within their sphere of influence to emulate these habits?

Louis Armstrong was taken in as a young boy by a Jewish family in New Orleans (the Karnovskys). He wrote and spoke very movingly about the attitudes and habits that contributed to Jewish success even in the face of horrendous bigotry. He made some invidious comparisons between the black and Jewish approach and outlook that did not endear him to the black community.

Oddly, no one doubts that success in all forms of sport requires self-discipline, hard work, persistent effort, application and diligence.