On The Firing of John Derbyshire
I love National Review — love the magazine, love the website, love the people there, love their work. And I know that NR has to protect its brand name and is well within its rights to decide whose work it will publish and whose it won’t. Furthermore, all joking aside, (because I hate political correctness and I kid around about stuff like this a lot), I think racism is a kind of moral sickness. It’s an insult to God and self-destructive to boot. It reminds me of that old definition of resentment: ”It’s like taking poison and waiting for the other guy to die.”
And yet — and yet — for all that, I wish National Review hadn’t ended its association with John Derbyshire over Derbyshire’s openly racist article for Taki’s Magazine.
Two reasons I feel this way. The first and simpler one: Derbyshire is not a secret racist. He’s an avowed racist. He has been for years and years. Other writers at National Review have chided him for it, even yelled at him for it. But to fire him now has a touch of Inspector Renault to it. As in, “We’re shocked — shocked — to find racism coming from a racist!” It smacks of nervous CYA before the expected onslaughts of the left. Personally, I say to hell with the left. Leftism, even assuming its good intentions, has been more destructive to our black citizens than the bloody Klan. So let the left condemn us. They will anyway.
But secondly — more importantly — and more difficult to explain: I believe racism like Derbyshire’s deserves a full and free airing. It represents a strain of thought that exists on the right and is shared by some people of good will. I have friends who agree with Derbyshire. I have argued with them — loudly sometimes. But I don’t abandon them because I can see they aren’t motivated by hate. And Derbyshire does not seem to be speaking out of hate either. He’s not a person who thinks blacks (the main target of his racism) should be denied any rights or targeted for harm. He believes rather that science shows black people to be less intelligent and more prone to violence than whites. He believes that to deny the evidence of this is tantamount to a kind of creationism.
Now the most frequent word used to describe this opinion is “indefensible!” But Derbyshire does defend it, and he defends it very well. I find his arguments — to use one of his own words — “bracing,” in the same way I find it bracing to read good atheist arguments, even though I very strongly believe in God. What good do we achieve by silencing people like Derbyshire or demonizing them or excluding them? Isn’t that just the sort of Virtue Preening (“Look how non-racist I am!”) we expect from the left? It seems to me it only serves to make racism kind of thrilling and forbidden — a secret philosophy that dare not be uttered. It gives it the aura of a hidden truth rather than a moral error. Instead of cries of “indefensible,” and “you’re fired,” I’d like to hear honest, well-informed voices argue back against Derbyshire. I think they would win the argument. If not, I’d like to be able to decide why not.
I don’t know Derbyshire. I was on a panel with him once and shook his hand, and I gave his racist book We Are Doomed a generally positive review in The New Criterion, though I disagreed with him. I understand he is having some health issues and I wish him well. And, as I say, I love the folks at National Review and understand they are well within their rights to act for the good of their brand.
Still, I wish they’d reconsider.
The writer you’re talking about clearly states in his article that he is afraid and makes his case with facts to show why he thinks he has logical cause to be scared.
Being scared of something is not the same as hating and/or despising it, it’s not ‘racist’ at all, in fact, calling someone who is merely scared (and not a hater) a racist actually *is* racist.
If some black people have an IQ issue, should this not be confronted in an open, practical way with a view to solving the problem as good as we can and using appropriate methods to help the people who are negatively affected?
And I have to ask: is a low IQ really so embarrassing? Lots of people of all colours have low IQs, in fact, half the world population has a below average IQ and most live happy, full lives.
But if we decide that a low IQ *is* a real problem, should we not be using science to help us solve that? But that can only be done if we establish (and accept) the facts. It’s not inconceivable that studying the issues under discussion without fear of the truth could lead the development a drug that boosts IQ (for all races even!) in a directed way.
Would it not be truly ‘racist’ if we do not do just that?
I read Derbyshire’s article (quickly) before it was censored, and I didn’t find anything untruthful in it. In fact, his advice not to go into heavily Black neigborhoods was justified on the very same day by the video of a black mob, laughing and cheering, attacking a lone white man, stripping him naked, and making off with all his possessions.
It is a long-established fact that the average American black weighs in with an IQ of 83 or so. As for crime rates, just look at prison populations and there is your answer.
The real problem is that we are not allowed to SAY any of this.
Love to see all the NRO writers condemning Derbyshire to take a walk like that unfortunate white guy did in downtown Baltimore in the middle of the night. Derybyshire has the guts to say what I am sure all the NRO writers believe deep down.
You’re a great guy, Andrew. I love your work. And a nice guy. And apparently a brave guy, for advocating a discussion with someone you disagree with on the most volatile topic in our society. Not everyone will thank you for that.
I have stopped using the word “racist” in the normal way because it has ceased to mean anything other than a slur. It’s about as useful as “xenophobe”: it already decides an issue by labelling.
But I think Derbyshire is largely right.
As he said in an interview today, he believed all the optimistic social engineering of the 60′s, but a half century later, the failure is all around us, plain as day, but strictly forbidden to notice. He wants his kids to face reality. Parts of it ain’t pretty. And because it threatens The Grand Narrative, he and it must be silenced. Lay the sins on the scapegoat and drive him out into the desert.
The facts are that certain racial and ethnic groups have manifest and empirical strengths of genetics and culture which make them, as a group, consistently better performers than others. I am thinking here of East Asians and Jews. Combine very high average IQs, strong families, and cultures which reward delayed gratification, learning and competitive accomplishment in high-income fields and it’s no surprise that, as groups, they have higher measures of success than (for Asians) Whites or (for Jews) other Whites.
No one is going to deny this outright, even if it makes them uncomfortable. Even “positive stereotypes” are dangerous, they say, because they inspire envy and the resentment of invidious comparisons. Or suddenly, in a breathtaking pirouette away from group-based obsessions like privilege, reparations, level playing fields, legacies of this and that, disparate impact and affirmative action, Only Individuals Count. But because they can smell where the argument is going, many people of a certain type will really be itching for the Shut Up button. There is an implication that groups are not equal. And this violates the Prime Directive of contemporary progressive, enlightened and forward-thinking post-racial society.
The real manure hits the cooling device when you look at Blacks as a group.
Liberals and most Blacks desperately want to believe that their very unfortunate state of social dysfunction, etc. is SOMEONE ELSE’S FAULT. And as a nation we have driven ourselves nuts on that assumption. But it’s a lie. And it got our catastrophic President elected. Maybe once it was true. But after FIFTY years of relentless support, license and deference and oodles of money and vats of moral highgrounding the outcome clearly suggests that it is their own doing.
“…SOMEONE ELSE’S FAULT….as a nation we have driven ourselves nuts on that assumption. But it’s a lie….”
You are exactly right, EssEm. That is at the heart of the matter. And it is one of those Big Lies which just keeps on churning and wreaking destruction, especially within black communities, but also hurting our nation as a whole.
“He believes rather that science shows black people to be less intelligent and more prone to violence than whites. ”
So why is “believes” in there? What do Derb’s beliefs have to do with what scientific tests show over and over again? Derbyshire provides the data, he doesn’t need to “believe”. It is an explosive issue because so many false premises and edifices are built upon the “beliefs” of persons like yourself who have deeply imbibed Leftist canards.
You, Andrew, are the one talking about your sacred shibboleths on so-called “racism”. And the breathless way you begin by lecturing about your own righteousness compared to those dirty racists strikes me as dripping in the type of Virtue Preening you decry.
Let’s have the discussion on race which Holder is too cowardly to have. Let’s talk about the facts, and why our prisons are overflowing with violent black criminals, and why the heart of every metropolis in America which is dominated by blacks or run by blacks is a little third world cesspool. Of course it’s a complex and delicate matter, but those uncomfortable, stubborn facts are out there, staring right back at us. And fearing the discussion only strengthens the retrograde aspects of the Leftist lies which surround and smother the truth.
When it comes to race, the overwhelming posture exhibited by politicians and pundits across much of the political spectrum today is what Andrew Klavan calls Virtue Preening (“look at how non-racist I am). These preeners either lie, or are severely ignorant and misguided.
I read the Derbyshire article at Takimag. At this point, I don’t care if it can be called racist or not. What I do care about is that the Derbyshire article expresses some truths, and that Derbyshire has been severely criticized and penalized, in large part for expressing those truths.
Unlike many who have held forth on these issues, I have directly experienced much of the bad behavior by blacks which Derbyshire describes, for much of my life. My hometown had a population of about 15% black. My white parents were conservative and Christian. They were not bigoted against blacks, and I grew up without racial prejudice. Then, in middle school and high school, I frequently experienced severe violence from some blacks, because of my white skin and my good grades. I also, from childhood into adulthood, saw first-hand the degradation present in much of black culture, and on frequent display in predominantly black neighborhoods of small cities such as my hometown, and in large cities. Much of this degradation has crept into the culture of other Americans too. In school, at my jobs and in other contexts of daily life, I frequently encountered the results of the entitlement mentality prevalent among many blacks. I have often seen what Derbyshire has described of the major role which government employment plays for blacks, and which is detrimental for them and for the rest of us. I do not know how much the violent and otherwise problematic elements of much of black culture are due to genetics or to culture, but they are present in ways that differ from other cultures, and which reflect poorly on blacks as a whole.
I have also experienced much decent behavior by blacks. I became friends with my car repairman, who was black, honest, intelligent, an excellent repairman and decent to all of those whom I saw him encounter. Before he died, we spent much time together, not just in his shop, but in each other’s homes, sharing meals and going fishing. I try to deal with people depending upon their individual character. What Derbyshire describes of blacks as a whole, though, must be taken into account by anyone who wants to live with common sense and in safety.
The attempts to silence Mr Deryshire, and all non-PC speech, strike me as only a small step away from the actions of islamic fundamentalists in prosecuting Christians for their beliefs. It is intolerance, plan and simple, and conservatives should not tolerate it.
Mr. Klavan – I agree with most of the folks here who see nothing wrong with John Derbyshire’s article. I read the article as well, and could see very little to disagree with. Regretfully, blacks, and in particular black youths, do tend to be more violent (on average) and blacks, on average, do have lower IQs than whites (but Herrnstein and Murray had already pointed that out in the Bell Curve). Explain to us how any of that is ‘openly racist’ when it’s just a statement of fact.
BTW Because of how NRO treated the Zimmerman/Martin affair, and now because of Lowry’s firing of John Derbyshire, I no longer go to that site, and I plan to let my subscriptions to NR lapse. (That’s in the plural because I gift NR to my children.)
Racism is the belief that there are inherent differences in races that determine their cultural and individual achievements. Derbyshire openly identifies himself as a racist, though he says he’s a benign racist. With respect, I believe you’re confusing the term racism with something else – race hatred, maybe, which would be different.
Mr. Klavan – Thank you for responding. That’s more than Mr. Podhoretz has done to the same question I asked him.
But to continue your point, you definition of racism is ” … the belief that there are inherent differences in races.” Suppose, one observes empirically that homicide rates of individuals defined to be black are five times the rate of individuals defined to be white and suppose one observes that IQs of individuals defined to be black are less than those defined to be white (or that IQs of Jews defined to be Ashkenazi are higher than those defined to be Sefardi), would noting such differences make one a racist? Suppose further that one notes such differences but thinks that individuals should be judged on their own merits and not the merits of the group to which they belong – how would you classify the individual who thinks that?
To me, I note differences and that such differences explain why certain things happen the way they do. Does that make me a racist? I think not because I judge people by what they do and how they perform, not what they look like.
Can some things be changed in black communities? IMHO I think the dysfunction in black communities can be changed but it would take a tremendous committment by black leaders to end the victimization mentality that I think is rampant in the black community. I think what is also needed is an end to the welfare state which just subsidizes that dysfunction. Also, it might take a return to Christianity and Christian morality on the part of blacks to straighten out their lives. (Note, I’m Jewish.) I say that based on Charles Murray’s analysis in Coming Apart where he observed a falling away of religious committment amongst low income whites. Of course, a return to religion would take some real reverends, and not the faux ones such as Jackson, Sharpton and Wright.
Andrew–is that what “racism” means? I thought it meant that you disliked someone because of their race.
if to be a “racist” simply means that you might believe a stereotype–Jews are good with money, blacks are good athletes, Irish people drink–then we’re all racists in one way or another.
Kavan says,”Racism is the belief that there are inherent differences in races that determine their cultural and individual achievements.”
I would add, inherently defective, or inferior because of their race. That goes to the bone. That is also why using the term renders it useless. Racists are ugly, ignorant and evil.
This sounds like that “We’re going to enforce equal outcomes” balderdash.
Really, now.
Have you heard the story about the NJ police academy grad who couldn’t get a job because of his high IQ? – The cop shop said that guys like that are just as expensive to train as everybody else – but they are easily bored by police work and tend to drift away pretty quick to other professions. – All the time and effort invested in training them goes down the toilet.
Now you know why the cops are so dumb… If they weren’t, who would do that job? – A job, I will note, that has to be done.
My point here is that a high IQ is just a symbol, like a dollar bill symbolizes work or material. This particular symbol is only important to a small group whose IQ’s are high, though.
The rest of us don’t really put that much time into worrying about it, much less the idea of trying to bring everybody up or down to some common level, to no particular purpose.
Have you ever thought through what it would be like, if you somehow got your way? Everybody would be sitting around arguing about who is going to do what instead of doing it, just like those people in the story about the Tragedy of the Commons.
No, thanks!
I remember I was riding down the street on my bicycle and two cars carrying a bunch of white guys rolled down the window and threw bottles and cans at the spokes of my tires and said, “Get out of the street nigger”.
And I know when I play Call of Duty online lots of white guys start saying when they find out I’m black, “So you’re a nigger” or “nigger bitch” since I’m a woman.
I simply don’t understand that mentality at all. I don’t want to understand a mentality that would look at me and say, “You’re more prone to violence, crime and let’s face it, you’re dumber than I am.” Exactly what is that helping?
I see people quoting statistics…and saying, “well the truth is the truth” but my question is, then what is the solution?
I guess according to him and others like him, the solution is, “stay with your own kind.”
That is the exact same attitude that many black racists have about whites. They feel they have a right to their racism because of the injustices that have happened in our shared American history. I personally believe that’s a load of shit…point of fact you know what it’s like, you shouldn’t emulate the behavior…and yet…they want to give it back to “whitey”.
This in turn causes knee jerk responses like the cited article and the comments in this thread to the point, that people are accusing Klavan of lying about some “home truths”.
I got what you’re trying to say here Klavan, but you have to see even in the comments in response to your article…given a voice to ignorance only begets more ignorance and not enlightenment.
Miss Malevolent: You say: ‘I guess according to him and others like him, the solution is, “stay with your own kind.” ‘ My solution is entirely different. It is: be as you could as you can be. Excel in what you do and do not dwell on the fact that your skin color may differ from the majority’s skin color. If that should mean, ‘not staying with your own kind,’ do that too. Don’t be pigeonholed into something you’re not.
What constitutes “enlightenment”, “solutions” or “helping”?
A good part of the frustration you see in the comments comes from people who, like Derbyshire, once believed in all that. Really did. In the last 50 years America has been glutted with enlightened helpers offerings solutions. And the Whites involved often did it because they felt some kind of moral obligation to make up for past situations. More than 40% even voted for the current President.
But a couple of things began to show up over time.
Laws were changed, special treatment and accommodation was offered in school and employment, and Whites who voiced or exhibited anti-Black feeling were increasingly ostracized, fired, etc. By each other!
Black America developed some serious worsening problems: massive numbers of births to unwed mothers, fatherless families and all the social and psychological damage that does. Continuing educational failure. And consequent unemployment and poverty. Hugely disproportionate criminality. (And the bizarre celebration of this in Black youth culture.)
But the blame was always still on White racism. No matter how much energy and money and accommodation, it was still always the same story.
What a lot of us have realized is that only Blacks can solve Black problems. We’ve done all we can. And trying to decoy us from the massive self-destructiveness in Black culture by playing the victim game –Trayvon being the latest installment– while forbidding us to talk about the actual problems (including ongoing high level Black on Black murder or, God forbid, Black on White assaults) has made a lot of us say, I’m done. It’s not my problem, buddy, it’s yours. Whatever moral capital you had from your skin color and history is all spent. Leave me out of it.
If enlightened solutions and helping means making believe everything would be just fine if only Whitey would change his heart, then that train already left, and crashed. Lots of us are tired of the game.
PS This is about groups. Individuals vary (even Derbyshire is clear on that). But groups are what run the world.
Hi Drew:
YOu are right about everything in your article except the definition of racism, which got me thinking about what it could be.
For a long time, I have had the vague notion that the word ‘racism’ has been redefined by Political Indoctrinators to mean something more than what most people mean by that word, and that this ambiguity is used by the PC-heads to their advantage. In other words, they have a wide-ranging, hazy definition that they use to ensnare victims but have a narrow, specific definition that they use to describe the general concept of racism to interested parties. In this way, people who are not paying attention (i.e. centrists or moderates) end up assuming that people charged with racism are racists according to the specific, narrow definition that they were never accused of.
To my rescue comes Eric S Raymond, who has cut to the heart of the matter by analyzing the current definition of racism, determining what is wrong with it and positing an improved definition in its place.
So fasten your seatbelts and check out his post:
http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4278#more-4278
Good article. “Racist claims are those which (a) prejudice individual judgment of individuals, and (b) are based on false generalizations. We cannot allow true generalizations to be considered racist. If we do that, either (a) we can no longer condemn racism as such, or (b) we get stuck in a situation where we’re not allowed to notice that white men can’t jump and black men can’t swim, wondering why our our sports teams aren’t “balanced”, and falsely ascribing to bigotry what arises from natural differences in distributions of ability. And the poison spreads.”
Canadian Cincinnatus – Thanks for the link. Eric S Raymond expressed what I was thinking, and he did it very well.
Part of the thought regime we are under forbids us from considering certain Victim Groups as groups if the facts are unflattering.
Here’s a thought experiment. Andrew should be good at this; he’s a novelist.
Take the major canonical racial groups in America and separate them, giving each of them an appropriate amount of land of similar quality and a proportional amount of money and tell them to start over again and build a country from scratch just for themselves. “Racism” can’t be in play anymore because each group of us is all by ourselves.
Based on past performance, describe what happens to the White country, the Black country, the Hispanic country, the Asian country, the Aboriginal country.
Enjoy.
Reactions of “high visibility conservatives” to Derbyshire’s article are NOT an intelligence test — they are a test of integrity and decency. Several of the “leading conservatives” and “conservative” outlets are failing it badly — by participating in (or even running to the front of) the lynch mob posse against Derbyshire — just to “purchase” one of these “I’m not a racist” amulets that Derb is writing about in his article.
I like and respect Andrew Klavan’s work and I was a little bit anxious when I saw the title of his posting on the subject. I’m delighted to see that Andrew is passing the decency test with flying colors and the integrity test — adequately.
one thing I haven’t seen anyone take note of:
in the very beginning of his article, Derb talks about “black parents having ‘the talk’ with their children,” and then he leads into “so here’s my talk.” so he’s writing a parallel column, right? and writing what he tells his kids (or would tell his kids, whatever) comparing it to what black parents tell THEIR kids.
he doesn’t quote this other “talk” but he must be referring to the kind of thing many of us have heard accounts of from our black friends: you get advice about not trusting white people, or how to act if the police stop you so you won’t get into trouble (since they’re against you), and so on and so forth.
so if those parents aren’t racists, then why is Derb?
I’m quite frankly surprised that NRO would fire him over this. free speech ain’t what it used to be.
Mr. Klavan,
Under your definition, is it racist to say that most terrorists are Muslim?
If not, in what way does that statement differ from anything Mr. Derbyshire said in his recent column?
Well, Islam’s not a race, that would be one way.
No sympathy for Derb here. I had a subscription to National Review from 1972 to about 2007. Thirty-five years. He is the reason I cancelled it. His review of Ben Stein’s “Expelled” was a disgrace. He bragged about not having seen the documentary, and then insisted on conflating Creationism with Intelligent Design.
Not that I will return now that he is gone. I consider NR today to be neo-conservative at best, big-government conservative at worst. They shilled shamelessly for Romney. Our experience with GW Bush should have taught them to defend conservative ideas first and foremost, and then, only then, to endorse particular candidates.
National Review needs to change its name to “The Magazine formerly known as the conservative magazine, National Review.” Tom Sowell is always a great read, Jonah Goldberg is worthwhile, and so are a couple of others. Not enough to make me give money to Rich Lowry and Ramesh Ponneru, sorry.
Way to actually engage what Derbyshire wrote. Too much discussion on the internet is second-order, manufactured, out of context, straw-man, fake outrage.
I’m tired of conservatives going on about how he has a right to say it (which hasn’t changed- he’s just not going to be at NR anymore) without addressing what “it” is.
I read “We Are Doomed,” so I didn’t see what all the fuss was about. I guess the internet finally noticed.
The problem with shouting down people like Derbyshire (not that there are that many intelligent, articulate racists out there) is that the ideas don’t go away. They just go into the private sphere. Unless they are actually refuted people continue to believe them, but they don’t do anything career-killing like voicing them in public. I have no doubt that many people defending the “right” of Derb to speak (which he still has) agree with what he says but are too scared to say so. As is said often, the solution to bad speech is more speech. So where’s the speech? Where’s the point-by-point takedown?
And Derb is wrong. Morality is about trying to meet ideals even if they are unachievable. By trying we are doing the right thing, and perhaps we may actually make things better. Hard-hearted pessimism ignores the very real changes in our material and social lives over the past few centuries. Being disgusted with our many failures is a natural, perhaps rational, conclusion. But it hasn’t all been a failure. And if we believe in God, then we are called to do better.
Banishing racism from the public sphere is a good idea because racism doesn’t solve any problems but only creates one more. How can we change if we believe change is impossible? Maybe it is, but to have any chance at all we need to act like it can happen. It’s still quite possible to identify problems without resorting to racist stereotypes.
Yeah- A lot of what he says is fear-driven, but some is just plain common sense. I’ve lived with blacks- in the Filmore District in San Fransisco, and I also worked as the only white man on a bricklaying crew in New Orleans for a couple years. If you actually live with blacks, they leave you alone. If you live with them and are involved in some sort of ministry or social help organization, you are respected.
I observed a lot of what Derbyshire says, first hand, regarding intelligence. But I don’t know to what degree that low intelligence is due to poor parenting and cultural conditioning. A lot of black kids fight to get into, and do quite well, in the KIP schools springing up in needy areas. I can’t say I have seen the same degree of hostility, percentage-wise, that Derbyshire sees. But I do know this: their world is much more circumscribed by whites, than the other way around. We don’t think much about black people when we’re not around them. We, however, are almost constantly on the radar of the black person. Then there’s the whole resentment about slavery issue. I pastor a church in Greece with a lot of Africans. I find myself strangely more comfortable around these Africans than I am with some African-Americans.
“A lot of what he says is fear-driven, but some is just plain common sense.” Just because something may –and that’s your interpretation– be “fear-driven” is not an argument against it. That is part of the current regime of rhetoric, where if an action or opinion comes from a so-called negative emotion, (unless it’s envy and resentment, the engines of the Left) it’s illegitimate. Fear is a natural, necessary and often extremely appropriate and “rational” reaction.
How lame and PC you are Klavan – facts are not racism – one does not discuss facts anymore, right? – you are drinking the kool aid – the narrative as it is meant to be – a cocktail game of gotcha – well, facts are facts and the black population has gone down the tubes in the US, markedly so since 1950 (family, education, neighborhoods) – so you can wring your hands, but it is right in front of you – the slow suicide going on in the black neighborhoods is as obvious as a rainy day and it will be that way until they disappear as an identifiable race in the US by inter-marriage or their now very high mortality rates…saying that isn’t racist and pointing out the obvious should not be – but then blacks are the national petting zoo for the elites…
The problem isn’t in the “black” neighborhoods. It’s in the urban neighborhoods. You can see the decline of morality, and its effects, in certain areas. They may have a higher percentage of blacks than the US average, but there are whites and hispanics in those areas who behave in the same way, with the same consequences. Likewise, blacks, whites, and hispanics who live in suburban or rural areas and respect religion and education are doing quite well.
The problem with Derbyshire’s argument is that it’s lazy. He’s supposed to be an excellent mathematician, but he misses the fact that he’s using race as a proxy measure for culture. When he says to avoid black neighborhoods, he’s mostly talking about avoiding poor neighborhoods where the occupants’ behavior is the cause of their ongoing poverty. That kind of behavior is found among all races. If you walk through one of those neighborhoods, you don’t need to know the racial distribution to get antsy. You can tell by the lack of upkeep that the residents opt for short-term contentment over long-term improvement. A good mathematician may use proxy data where he has to, but he knows its limitations, and he’s careful about the conclusions he draws. Derbyshire isn’t.
Speaking for myself, I’m a racist. I must be, because someone told me I was. I was told I was a racist because I think Obama is incompetent. So, Drew, one of your main points…the definition of racism…falls upon deaf ears. It’s no longer one thing…it’s a label that’s splashed upon people when no other argument or device will work. Why? Because it works, dammit. You immediately drop whatever rational discussion you were having to defend yourself against that charge of “racism”. It’s almost as bad as being accused of child molestation. You have to bend over backwards to prove that you’re not. I think that’s why the slur is splashed around so much.
And, frankly, Derb was right on in his assessment. There’s one writer who describes it as “Negro Fatigue”…white people being tired of having black americans blame their condition exclusively on white racism. The Kerner report was written a half-century ago, and yet it still seems to be the basis for “race relations” today.
As far as Miss Malevolent goes, well, there will always be assholes in any race. But a white person is FAR more likely to be a victim of a black criminal than the other way around. Check the DOJ statistics, but that statement is probably “racist” on its face, as well. And your comment about “Islam as a race”…technically true, but when I make the statement that airlines should screen middle-eastern males between 18 and 40 at a higher rate, that’s “racist”. So perhaps and utterance is “racist” if it doesn’t conform in perfect harmony with our unicorn-populated, utopian world where We All Get Along.
Derb’s article was racist because he focused solely on the black community, which is by no means the only troubled community in America. You could substitute the words “white trash,” “Mexican,” or even just “poor people” for any of Derb’s points about black people and they would apply equally. I grew up in Central California and over the past ten years I’ve lived all over the Western US: Texas, Hawaii, Arizona, and Colorado. In most of these places, I was a minority as a white person, and I can tell you that I’ve experienced hostility from every race I’ve ever encountered (including my own – especially while traveling through the South). And you know what the common factor was among all of them? It was their socio-economic status, NOT their race.
Here’s an example. You know who hates whitey the most in Hawaii? You’d think it would be the native Hawaiians. After all, wasn’t it white people that overthrew the monarchy and all that? In reality, the most hostile people to whites you’ll find in Hawaii tend to be other islanders – Samoans, Tongans, etc. – people that are relatively new to the islands. They hate “haoles” (and maybe to a lesser extent the ethnic Japanese community) because whites are seen as the haves and they are the have-nots. There are definitely “no go” zones for whites in the islands. The issue is class resentment, not race. Ever notice how differences in race all tend to evaporate when everyone’s on the same educational, social, and economic plane?
Derb’s article also pissed me off mightily in that it was nothing but a giant whine session. Never mind that it might have been racist, I found it offensive because it was un-American and un-Christian. It’s too bad that people like him are focused on bitching about the problems within the black community instead of figuring out ways to help a very troubled AMERICAN community.
Amen E2. What was to me so depressing about Derb’s article was the heartlessness of advising not to help a stranded black person. I have been an avid Derb fan forever, but it was unpleasant to read such shallow thinking. I was thinking it was maybe his illness, but I suppose it was inevitable something like that would come out. It also doesn’t help that most of this was ordinary situational awareness, and is mostly only relevant to the US. Derb has been such a stalwart voice for reason and sanity (or a semblance of it), that I felt that he’d let the side down. As E2 notes, slums or depressed areas have ALWAYS been dangerous places.
Wayne – I wouldn’t say that slums were always dangerous. My dad tells stories of carousing around Harlem in the 1940′s. There has been a shift in our culture in recent decades. But as E2 noted, it’s cultural, not racial. In a way, all this Derb controversy has been The Idiot’s Guide to Race, Culture, and Poverty, getting all the lazy thinking out of the way before we have the intelligent discussion, which will be led by Charles Murray.
Nature or nurture?
In the Medeval Era, Iceland was the most violent society in Europe….now is the least violent….but the racial/genetic demographic has not changed…..
Great. Now we only have to wait a thousand years. Cool.