Dear Dr. Sowell,

The first question I would like to ask you, sir, is where do you buy your glasses? Specifically, the ones that allow you to see the world so clearly. In your photographs, they appear to be regular spectacles. However, those who are familiar with your books and commentaries realize they are really something far more. How a pair of glasses can allow you to see through all the fog, haze and smoke screens that are laid down continuously to obscure the truth makes those optics quite unique and rare. If you could just send along the name of your optician, I would be grateful.

One question I am compelled to ask is: Why (oh why!) did you not accept the offer to become Secretary of Education under the Reagan Administration? While I respect your reason and, indeed, understand them, I really believe that you could have made a difference. A difference not just for the country as a whole but for the path for minorities laid out by the "helping hand" affirmative action experts. Perhaps, instead of marginally qualified (based on low SAT scores) minority students being shunted into off into quota-filling elite universities (where they, more often than not, fail to graduate), we could actually follow admission standards and match students to the colleges where they are likely to succeed. Is it "discrimination" to have qualifications for admissions that are not designed to make admissions committees "feel good" about their "diversity" but to actually give the students a better chance to excel, competing with students on their academic level? If minority students are given the opportunity to succeed at a more equalized academic level, will they not be primed to then succeed at a higher level? Does not success breed confidence? If they are more closely matched to other students with similar composite test scores, will they not be more likely to take a chance on a science, engineering or a more rigorous discipline and eschew the less challenging "humanities" curriculum which has less potential for gainful employment?

And, if you had fought for the Secretary of Education position (and I have no doubt there would have been, predictably, strong resistance from many directions), would we not have better public schools under your direction? Would you not have shifted the national dialogue from the dead-end debates of "failing infrastructure, inadequate funding, and resegregation" and made changes in faculty structure and retention requirements? As you knew (and, apparently, no one else did) from your examination of the M Street School (later, Dunbar High School) in Washington, D.C., it is the teachers that make the school and not the physical plant or the books or the water supply. When teachers are not subject to incentives and disincentives for classroom performance, what is the likelihood that teaching excellence will improve? Why should it?

As Secretary of Education, would you not have insisted that the N.E.A. and A.F.T. start policing the skills displayed by their membership? And, if they did not comply, would you have established requirements through the your office? Sometimes, even government oversight is better than the absence of oversight. Particularly, when the education of our youth is concerned.

[N.B. I will leave aside entirely the question of whether the private sector could run the public schools better than the state and federal governments. I believe we both know the answer to that inquiry.]

Having also read your biography, "A Personal Odyssey," I must take a moment to tell you I think your extraordinary life portrays the possibilities that are, still, the "American Dream." Seldom have I read a biography that depicted such strength of character and uncompromising dignity. Your story is, truly, one of how hard work, sacrifice and commitment can overcome what the youth of today would dejectedly walk away from as a "stacked deck." I think the thing about your recollections that struck me most was the complete absence of "excuses" for both failings and affronts that your encountered along your path. When your teaching methods were questioned, you did not express outrage or accuse, you simply resigned and moved higher up the ladder. When you refused to acquiesce on your grading policies, your response was not to file a law suit; you simply did not compromise your values and your demand for your students - black or white - to meet your minimum standards.

In fact, I have to say, you are the most clearly focused and uncompromising intellectual I have ever read and, modesty aside, I have read more than a few. Few intellectuals are so unswayed by the unrelenting pressures (academic, political, racial, et cetera) they face and remain irresistibly true to their personal "truths." It must be extremely difficult for you to express the hard truths ("hard" only in the sense that they are not "mainstream") that you lay bare in your books and columns. I know that your personal ethnicity is not something you deign consider relevant to your writing but, for a black man to express the views you do, the difficulties must be considerable. Those who inhabit ivory towers that coincidentally share your ethnicity have often portrayed you - if they dare acknowledge your thoughts at all - as "self-hating" or a "sell out" or "a pawn of the white man." I, on the other hand, cannot possibly think of a man for whom those derogatory terms are inapplicable. A recurring fantasy I have that will, no doubt, remain unfulfilled is that you would have the opportunity to confront some of those who cast you in this light in a public discourse. Perhaps, a debate on what solutions exists to stimulate black achievement in the inner cities and the legitimacy of the prevailing notion of "institutional racism." Or, alternatively, might I propose "the priorities of the problems that face the minorities." Are they, for example, what a white talk radio personality says regarding a women’s college basketball team or, instead, that 70% of black children are born to single mothers? Are they the cultural significance of "sagging" pants or the societal impact of half of all young black men being incarcerated, on parole or on probation? If you ever feel the need, there are two professors - one at the University of Pennsylvania and another, late of Harvard and now of Princeton - that I would pay any price to hear you discuss these issues with. At my age, it’s good to have dreams to hold onto.

Finally, I want to comment on the wonderfully expansive body of literature that you have produced. I am not completely sure but I believe that I began with "Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality." I then moved on to "Inside American Education." These were consumed in short order with eye-opening clarity and new insights offered up abundantly. But, my real "enlightenment" followed the magnificent trinity of: "The Vision of the Anointed," "The Quest for Cosmic Justice" and "A Conflict of Visions." These wonderful tomes have allowed me to decipher political rhetoric in a new light. I, as mentioned, have finished your "Personal Odyssey" and, most recently, "Race and Culture: A World View."

How any person can have the breadth and scope of knowledge - not just factual but relational - that you have amassed in your lifetime is, truly, singularly monumental. Your interconnection of such a range of disparate facts and information along with a insightful interpretation of historical trends is a wonder for the human mind. Your ability to manufacture "common sense" from global nuances has made me understand just how far I need to go with my personal education. Fortunately for me, you have already written the textbooks I will require. I can only hope that, age 56 years old, I have time to assimilate a reasonable portion of the wisdom there.

It has been my distinct pleasure to become acquainted with you, even if only through your literature. In my opinion, you are a "force of nature." I can only hope that your contributions to American thought will be further noted and read by all who would aspire to lead our country.

My warmest regards and best wishes to you and your family,

Ronald Albright, M.D.