Jason Riley makes his living by his pen — and wastes no ink or time in mincing words.

“There’s a lot of intellectual cowardice going on in the country right now, and it’s a product, I think, of the ascendance of progressivism,” he tells The Post in an interview about his new book, “The Affirmative Action Myth: Why Blacks Don’t Need Racial Preferences to Succeed.”

The book’s title alone is sure to spur debate. Its author, a Wall Street Journal columnist and Manhattan Institute senior fellow, is somewhat bemused by his position as a provocateur.

“I find it annoying that I have to make what I consider commonsensical points that others deem controversial, to say, ‘No, police are not a bigger problem than the criminals.’ This is something that’ll get your head handed to you today to say,” he declares.

“ ‘Black kids should spend more time studying and less time playing video games, and that will go a long way toward closing the achievement gap in schools’ is a very controversial thing to say.”

Riley, who grew up in Buffalo, set himself a huge task with his latest work: show how affirmative action slowed previous trends of black upward mobility.