UPDATE: About four hours after this entry was written, I note report at Huffington Post that Derbyshire has been fired by National Review: National Review Fires John Derbyshire, Writer Who Penned Racist Screed .
I think the most disgusting and disheartening aspect of current American culture is the massive resurgence of vicious racism, much of it still masked, but much of it now just arrogantly on display.
A quarter or more Americans will never accept President Obama, just because they cannot accept the fact he is black. If you can look at the deluge of racist photoshopped images of Obama as a witch doctor; as a monkey baby sitting on lap of two apes as parents; growing watermelon on the front lawn of the White House; riding in an Air Force One plane with “Nigger” on the stabilizer tail, or as a Black slave in chains eating watermelon; and claim they are not racist, as did the people who created these examples when confronted with them, then you and I really do not have much more to talk about. You are not only a racist, you are damned pathetic excuse for a thinking human being.
Drop to the bottom of this post for the pictures mentioned above.
National Review Editor Rich Lowry has been savaged over the past few days by many from all political spectra in America for a recent blatantly racist post in the conservative online National Review, Murders That Don’t Count.
Here is a key paragraph from Lowry’s column, in which he explains the poor White man’s burden that Zimmerman, who shot Trayvon Martin, is carrying, for shooting the unarmed Black teenager. Because, of course, as Lowry so sagely explains, if another Black hat shot Travyon, no would would give a damn.
Everything about the Trayvon Martin case is a matter of contention. About this, though, there should be no doubt: If Martin had been shot by a black classmate, if he had been caught in a random crossfire, if he had looked at a gang member the wrong way, his death would have been relegated to the back pages of the local newspaper. Not a cause, not even a curiosity: Just another dead young black man. Nothing to see here. Please, move on.
Now another writer for the National Review, John Derbyshire, has published a blog so blatant in its distillation of racism and bigotry towards Blacks that even Forbes magazine is calling on the National Review to fire its author, if it indeed means anything by its protestations it is not a racist rag. Here is a link to Forbes, article titled Why National Review Must Fire John Derbyshire.
The context triggering this piece by Derbyshire, is of course, the decision by a number of prominent Blacks to discuss in television interviews and in online posts and interviews, the talks that they as Black parents have had to have with their children, in order to prepare them to survive in a world in which racism still exists, and in which they will find themselves unfairly targeted and presumed suspicious and dangerous, simply because they are Black, and for no other reason.
In the wake of the Trayvon Martin’s shooting, many black parents have discussed the advice they give to their male children about not getting themselves shot in a misunderstanding with a white authority figure. Derbyshire’s talk, on the other hand, is about how to avoid being harmed by a black person. He gives such advice as “If planning a trip to a beach or amusement park at some date, find out whether it is likely to be swamped with blacks on that date,” and “If you are at some public event at which the number of blacks suddenly swells, leave as quickly as possible.”
Derbyshire also recommends befriending some “intelligent and well-socialized blacks” (IWSBs, for short) so that you can deflect charges of racism by noting that some of your best friends are black. Alas, he adds “the demand is greater than the supply, so IWSBs are something of a luxury good, like antique furniture or corporate jets: boasted of by upper-class whites and wealthy organizations, coveted by the less prosperous.”
So, while Lowry is advising blacks not to worry so much about the systematic profiling of blacks as criminals due to their race, his colleague Derbyshire is writing a piece specifically urging white people to engage in such profiling, among various other racist nonsense.
And this is the problem for Lowry and other conservatives who want to be taken seriously by broad audiences when they write about racial issues. Lowry wrote a column containing advice for black Americans. Why should black Americans take him seriously while he’s employing Derbyshire? If Lowry wants NR to be credible on race, he should start by firing John Derbyshire.
Derbyshire has penned a blog entry leveraging the pearls of wisdom of wisdom of his own experience and a few anecdotes, completely devoted of any reference to studies, fact, or actual evidence, in order to provide helpful advice and tips to his children how to behave in the great post-racial America that they live in.
John Derbyshire’s main concerns for himself and his children? Whites must, like him, bemoan and bitch about the fact that he is not permitted to call someone a nigger. And of course, his advice to his children if they want to be safe? Stay out of Black neighborhoods.
No racism here, of course. How could anyone think that of his suggestions are the least bit racist? Oh, the humanity. That many of us think they are probably makes us racists. That’s the response I get from my racist relatives when I confront them with their own racist remarks, I am pretty used to it after nearly seven decades.
Derbyshire’s main points of advice to his kids boil down to these.
(10a) Avoid concentrations of blacks not all known to you personally.
(10b) Stay out of heavily black neighborhoods.
(10c) If planning a trip to a beach or amusement park at some date, find out whether it is likely to be swamped with blacks on that date (neglect of that one got me the closest I have ever gotten to death by gunshot).
(10d) Do not attend events likely to draw a lot of blacks.
(10e) If you are at some public event at which the number of blacks suddenly swells, leave as quickly as possible.
(10f) Do not settle in a district or municipality run by black politicians.
(10g) Before voting for a black politician, scrutinize his/her character much more carefully than you would a white.
(10h) Do not act the Good Samaritan to blacks in apparent distress, e.g., on the highway.
(10i) If accosted by a strange black in the street, smile and say something polite but keep moving.
(11) The mean intelligence of blacks is much lower than for whites. The least intelligent ten percent of whites have IQs below 81; forty percent of blacks have IQs that low. Only one black in six is more intelligent than the average white; five whites out of six are more intelligent than the average black. These differences show in every test of general cognitive ability that anyone, of any race or nationality, has yet been able to devise. They are reflected in countless everyday situations. “Life is an IQ test.”
Derbyshire’s talking points as summarized on ThinkProgress
The following URL links to the original Derbyshire post at takimag.com. Read it. Explain how this is not a pathetic racist screed.
Now if you read that and don’t feel like you just climbed in the Wayback Machine with me and Mr. Peabody to take a stroll down early 1960’s Birmingham, Alabama, my home town, then you really need to open your eyes. You are not seeing clearly.
