George Mason University economics professor and frequent Rush Limbaugh guest host Walter E. Williams has taken a break from writing about economics to write a book about his life. Williams’ new book, “Up from the Projects: An Autobiography,” tells his story of growing up in the projects and working his way to becoming one of the most famous, successful economists in America today.
Williams recently spoke to The Daily Caller about his book and what has changed since he was a young man in the Philadelphia projects.
The Daily Caller: Why did you write this book?
Walter Williams (WW): Dr. Thomas Sowell had been after me for years to do an autobiography and since he and I have lived controversial lives he said we better have our side out there. And also the encouragement of my wife, who is now deceased, and finally my daughter told me to get started right away lest it become a work of fiction — which is a nice way for a daughter to say you might lose your marbles.
TheDC: You write a lot about how the projects are different today than they were when you were growing up. What are some of the bigger changes?
WW: It’s not just the projects that are different, but poor people in general — poor blacks of yesteryear and to some extent poor whites — but I am talking about blacks in the Richard Allen housing projects in the late 40s early 50s — we did not go to bed to the sound of gun shots. People did not have bars at their windows. There was no graffiti. I include a photo of the building I lived in, there was no graffiti. The closest we got to graffiti was hopscotch chalk on the pavement.
My mother separated from my father and ultimately they got divorced in the late 40s but among [my sister and my] friends and associates — to my recollection — we were the only ones that did not have a mother and father in the home. And today the opposite would be true, that is to find a child with a mother and father in the home would be rare.
TheDC: What has caused this change?
WW: A lot of things. The illegitimacy rate right now is like 70 percent among blacks and back then you are talking about maybe 13,14 percent but any good economist will say, “look if you lower the cost of something people are going to do more of it and if you raise the cost, people are going to do less of it.” It just so happens that the welfare state has made illegitimacy and broken homes a more attractive proposition. It is not as hard on a person.
I know when I was a kid, a husband and wife that did not get along they’d say, “I’m staying until the kids are grown.” They’d stay with that obligation. And then also, to have a baby out of wedlock was just a disgrace and compared to today when women have babies out of wedlock — my wife has a huge family and they would have unmarried women who would have baby showers and we wouldn’t think of having a baby shower for that back then.
Also I point out, the kids who grew up in my neighborhood, every teenager who wanted a job had a job. My cousin and I used to caddy at the golf course. Worse come to worse we’d pick blueberries — get on the farm trucks early in the morning to New Jersey and pick blueberries. We worked at grocery stores, delivered mail for the Postal Service.
TheDC: You write about your disappointment that youth in the same spot don’t have the same work opportunities you did. What are the primary reasons for this?
WW: It’s a combination of things. The minimum wage is one, that is it discriminates against low-skilled workers and for the most part low-skilled workers are teenagers. And then we have become a litigious society, that is the Reading Railroad would not dream today of allowing kids to shovel snow from the train platform because of the legal implications and two because of labor unions who are not willing to see a kid shovel off snow for $20 or $30 when their member can get $100 or $200 for the job. So there are a lot of things that have happened in the labor market that have reduced economic opportunity particularly for those who are at the bottom of the economic ladder.
TheDC: You encountered racism during your time in the service — I love the story of you trying to check the “Caucasian” box on your duty form so you could get a better assignment. How did you manage not to become bitter?
WW: One can face hardships and difficulty and not become bitter. Because I faced discrimination in the military, it is not an indictment of all white people. That is, there are people who did ugly things and on top of it, a lot of the problems I had in the military were self-imposed. I was a troublemaker. I would resist and cause trouble and of course knowing what I know today, if I were to go back to 1959, in the military again, I would not do again what I did then.
TheDC: You write about how you lived in a nice neighborhood in Chevy Chase and were at one time mistaken for a lawn worker. You write that playing racial odds does not make you a racist. I was wondering if you might speak about that a little bit.
WW: The guy walked up to me. He was an elderly fellow, he was good hearted, he wanted to give me an employment opportunity, and he was just really embarrassed when I told him I couldn’t do [his yard work] because I was finishing my dissertation that afternoon.
And it works both ways. My wife encountered the same thing. I write that much to my chagrin and my admonitions against it, she hitchhiked a lot. One time she walked up to Connecticut Ave and a black woman gave her a ride saying she was going downtown. The lady said, “don’t you hate working for these stingy-ass white people around here?” and so [my wife] said, “No, I live here.” So the black lady was just assuming that because [Mrs. Williams] was black and in Chevy Chase, Maryland in 1971 that she worked there. And in terms of probability would be true. [Playing odds] doesn’t make you a racist any more than a doctor — my doctor would say to me, look Walter I’d like you to have a PSA every time we meet — the test for prostate cancer — because black men have prostate cancer at twice the rate of white men. And so he is using race as an indicator of something else, but that doesn’t make him a racist.
Or if I were to tell you, look at a particular college, let’s say you have black men, five white men, five black women, five white women, and they all appear to you to be equal in size and height and you had zero other information about them, and I told you to pick a five person basketball team and if you win the game you get a million dollars. Well how are you going to chose? Well, you wouldn’t chose any of the women, your choice is going to be dominated by black males, so you are using race as an indicator of something else and that does not make you a racist. Even the racist would do the same thing — if he wanted the money, he would chose all the blacks.
TheDC: How did you become a conservative?
WW: I call myself a radical not quite a conservative. A radical, in my opinion, is anyone who believes in personal liberty and I have always been that way…But my economic training I received at UCLA and the tenacious mentors I had gave some intellectual backing to some of my ideas and caused me to question things.
TheDC: How did you and Thomas Sowell meet?
WW: I met him in 1969 or ‘70 when he was a visiting professor at UCLA and then he went away to Brandeis. He returned the following year as an associate professor. I just walked into his office and introduced myself to him. I’ve never taken a class from him because, as a matter of fact, when he came out I was in my dissertation writing stages and not taking classes from anybody.
What started our friendship was he…asked me if I would go see the Mohammad Ali/Frasier fight with him, it was the first one and actually we saw it on the big screen in Los Angeles. Then our wives became friends and we went to social things together and we have remained friends to today.
TheDC: One of my favorite explanations you give when you fill in for Rush is your philosophical reasoning behind loathing seat belt and helmet laws. Would you explain it again?
WW: Seat belt and helmet laws. When I think about things I start from a position of self-ownership, that is, I own Walter Williams and you own you. So the very fact that I own myself means that one of the things I should be free to do is take chances with my own life. I don’t have a right to take chances with your life, so there is a basis for laws requiring me to have brakes on my car because if I don’t have brakes on my car then I risk somebody else’s life and I shouldn’t have a right to do that. But if I’m not wearing a seat belt, or not wearing a helmet, then I am risking my own life and I have the right to do that. But some people say, “look, Walter, if you’re not wearing a seat belt, you’re not wearing a helmet, and you have an accident and you become a vegetable, you become a burden on society. Therefore we are going to make you protect yourself by wearing a helmet.” That is not a problem of liberty. That is a problem of socialism. That is, one person should not be forced to take care of somebody else.
So when you start a system where people, taxpayers, are forced to take care of me then you do have a right to say, “Walter, since I am forced to take care of you, if you become a vegetable then I do have a right to do things to prevent you from becoming one.” But that ought to be offensive to people because it is kind of like my mother. When I was a teenager — you know when boys are teenagers they start smelling themselves and want to take over the household — my mother used to tell me, “look, boy, as long as I’m paying the bills and you are living in my house you are going to do what I say.” Now that is okay for children, but should the government say, “as long as we are paying the bills we are going to do what we say,” and I find that offensive for adults.
TheDC: If you had the power what policies would you implement to help revive the economy?
WW: My column next week talks a little about this. I don’t blame the president for our economy as much as many other people do. That is because the president has no taxing power and no spending power. That is, the president cannot spend one dime that the Congress has not already appropriated. So if we focus our attention too much on the president and the damage the president is doing — which he is doing a considerable amount — we miss focus our energies from what the Congress is doing because the spending that is going on, $3.8 trillion, that is happening as a result of what Congress is doing. The president cannot do that unless the Congress first appropriates things. If I had it my way, I would go back to our founding — recognize some things about our founding. Our nation went from 1787, from the time of the Constitutional Convention, up until 1920 and the federal spending — except during wartime — was no more than 3 percent of GDP. Today it is over 25 percent of GDP.