The Left’s Misguided Attack On John Derbyshire
This is strange for many reasons and requires a bit of a preface. Charlie, or "Chuckles" Johnson, as I've been forced into calling him today given his more recent behavior, was all over me on Twitter yesterday for embracing an item by John Derbyshire, one which I hadn't even read. Somehow Johnson magically determined I was in full agreement with it, presumably, simply because I went to work for the late Andrew Breitbart. That was true beyond all doubt to Johnson, even if I didn't know, or much care what Johnson was ranting in unhinged fashion about.
First, my thinking rarely lines up with David Weigel's but it appears to on this one from John Derbyshire at TakiMagazine, which I normally don't read.
There is a talk that nonblack Americans have with their kids, too. My own kids, now 19 and 16, have had it in bits and pieces as subtopics have arisen. If I were to assemble it into a single talk, it would look something like the following. Please share this article by using the link below. When you cut and paste an article, Taki's Magazine misses out on traffic, and our writers don't get paid for their work.
This is not to say I agree with everything written by Derbyshire, though this reminds me of a childhood experience growing up in a racially-mixed neighborhood with several good black friends.
(9) A small cohort of blacks—in my experience, around five percent—is ferociously hostile to whites and will go to great lengths to inconvenience or harm us. A much larger cohort of blacks—around half—will go along passively if the five percent take leadership in some event. They will do this out of racial solidarity, the natural willingness of most human beings to be led, and a vague feeling that whites have it coming.
I don't know about the "have it coming" feeling in my experience, though certainly, some blacks hate whites and some whites hate blacks, unfortunately. I can't read people's minds and didn't sense that. However, I do remember standing next to Ray, who was one of my best friends in sixth grade. Ray was black and we were in the playground watching a fight start between a white kid and a black kid. We both knew both of them.
Ray looked over at me and, to paraphrase after all these years, said, Dan, you know if this gets bigger and we end up getting pulled in, I have to be with my people, right? I didn't like it. I felt confused and even a bit hurt – but I didn't question it, either. I think I kind of shrugged my shoulders and said something like, Yeah, I understand. Truthfully, I didn't understand it. I just knew it was the reality in that situation and as true for me as it was for Ray.
What he was saying was, we're still going to be friends, afterward, right? And I thought, well, sure. Why not? We all would be when we played black versus white football, or soccer, that weekend, depending on the season – unless another fight broke out, which rarely happened. We just had to do what we had to do here and both instinctively knew it, somehow. It wasn't about us. In any event, it never came to that and Ray and I always remained friends until, when older, we both moved away and lost touch.
Getting back to Derbyshire's piece, this below is at least one of the items in it with which I disagree – and I can't really ever perceive of myself giving this kind of talk in the first place. It is, however unfortunately, an acknowledgement of how significant portions of the population, both white and black, view the other quite differently from their own, if you will. As for this, I'd likely be as cautious of a white, or black individual before helping. If they didn't look right, or looked suspicious somehow, I probably wouldn't stop to help. If they looked okay, I would, no matter what color they were.
(10h) Do not act the Good Samaritan to blacks in apparent distress, e.g., on the highway. Please share this article by using the link below. When you cut and paste an article, Taki's Magazine misses out on traffic, and our writers don't get paid for their work.
My larger point is, the left is always screaming racism, often even when it hasn't been proven to exist – as in the recent case of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman. Even the media falsely screamed it. So, along comes Derbyshire and, I don't know, confesses it, on his part? And all the left can do is scream, get him! Silence him! He must be fired!! What does that solve? It's as if the left wants it to appear as though America doesn't still struggle with racial issues … except when seizing upon an incident, or issue they think they can exploit for political gain. Frankly, they're even trying to do that here, as with Johnson attacking me over it for no reason and with no clue.
I end up as, not hurt, but a bit confused, just as I was back in the schoolyard that day with Ray. The left should be thanking Derbyshire for being honest – for confirming so much of what they themselves always seem to be saying. Yes, America still has racial issues with which to struggle.
I've always assumed they were going to be worked out eventually and more over generations, than educationally in one generation, or even three, not through affirmative action and such. That, by the way, doesn't mean I think certain individuals who've known true disadvantage shouldn't be considered for special help. They should when its helpful and prudent. But this screaming and calling for censorship, casting out, or worse, blood is counterproductive and is never truly going to solve anything. By both sides simply screaming at one another, all one ensures is more fighting and divisiveness. So, what good is all the fuss? Just as it is worse than bad, but dangerous in the Martin/Zimmerman incident.
It may not be pretty to read, or come close to some ideal, but how much of what Derbyshire wrote is mostly true in a still too significant portion of America's population, black, or white? And why is the left intent on only dealing with it by screaming and freaking out, when only a calmer, more sensible conversation over time is the only positive way in which to deal with it? It's as if the left, not the right, is absolutely determined to ensure that racial division will always exist in America? Why is that?
Perhaps it's just as seems to be the case with Chuckles. Racism is only truly worth addressing if and when you believe you can somehow attack people with whom you disagree politically. Honestly, just how noble is that? Not very, in my opinion, for what it's worth.
“It’s as if the left, not the right, is absolutely determined to ensure that racial division will always exist in America? Why is that?”
It is pure Frankfurt School dogma, Dan. Constant war, along whatever real or imaginary lines can be used, to break down the American culture.
It is how the Collective rolls.
Calling a broad, flat weapon or tool a broad, flat weapon or tool. Your evocation of boyhood feelings — tribal vs individual one-on-one — towards your buddy who happened to be black is very touching and insightful.
Related: Shelby Steele’s “racial bargaining” argument:
“When whites — especially today’s younger generation — proudly support Obama for his post-racialism, they unwittingly embrace race as their primary motivation. They think and act racially, not post-racially. The point is that a post-racial society is a bargainer’s ploy: It seduces whites with a vision of their racial innocence precisely to coerce them into acting out of a racial motivation. A real post-racialist could not be bargained with and would not care about displaying or documenting his racial innocence. Such a person would evaluate Obama politically rather than culturally.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-oe-steele5-2008nov05,0,6049031.story
http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/2012/04/john-derbyshires-talk.html
Well said Dan.
Derb’s article is spot on in every respect. The pro-diversity, pro-Affirmative Action pseudocons who have a problem with it are as disingenuous as any liberal. Moreso, in fact: at least liberals are open about their desire to discriminate against and marginalize whites.
As much as I’m glad for the article itself, I’m even more glad that Derbyshire put the goons at NRO in such an uncomfortable spot. Let’s see how conservative you neocons really are.
I’d like to be able to read the article in question, for myself, before joining the calls to crucify the man or, to be lenient, call for his firing, by my fellow scared shitless to offend in an election year, Honkies on the Right.
( The links to the story seem to be swamped, & this piece just touches the surface.)
I grew up in an all black neighborhood in the 70′s & 80′s, and know for a fact that there are sensible black parents, in intact homes, that teach their kids that it was then, and isn’t now, safe to go into many black inner city hoods, even in the daytime, especially if you wear the wrong color, even unknowingly.
Political correctness is destroying our country. Looks like this guy decided not to be politically correct.
His piece will no doubt save a few lives, as troubling as it may be for some to read it, and give the subject some serious thought.
Blacks, & Hispanics, can write, and say things about whites, without a problem, but let some white person, or Conservative Black, or Hispanic, write or say something even remotely true, and honest, about them, then watch out.
There will never be an honest, open, discussion of the near total breakdown of the black family unit since the 60′s, in this country, because Liberals, and the Race Hustlers, know, white, and black, to the marrow of their bones, that they would lose their stranglehold on the black vote in this country, if such a thing happened.
“Avoid concentrations of blacks not all known to you personally.”
Bullshit. You can go into Black churches with impunity. Even if you go into Rev. Wright’s racist hotbed, you will be welcome unless you are hostile to them first.
There are many places in the rural South where you are perfectly safe at any hour.
SOME of what Derbyshire relates is factual.
A LOT of it is not. I don’t live according to statistics, but take every individual as they come.
Wait, racism has been disproven in the Trayvon Martin case? It’s pretty clear that he was a victim of racial profiling. If you don’t think an assumption of guilt based solely on the color of a subject’s skin is racism, then you have no business offering opinions about racism — because you obviously have no clue what racism actually is.
“It’s pretty clear that he was a victim of racial profiling.”
That is a flat out lie. If anything, the evidence shows the opposite to be true.
Which kinda shows you up for the racist, dunnit?
Personally I like when you right-wingers admit you’re racist. Rather than pretending you aren’t, you all should do it more often.
Justin LOVES him some delusional “thinking”.
Who supports legal racial discrimination? (Hint: Collectivists.)
@Justin,
If everyone is racist, then no one is racist.
Then again, you may consider this non-racist post somehow racist:
http://theothermccain.com/2012/04/07/they-told-me-if-i-voted-for-mccain-white-folks-would-keep-charter-schools/
What conservatives are understanding is that the Left is not engaged in honest dialogue on much of anything.
If Trayvon were white, would he have been deemed suspicious, had the cops called on him, followed, confronted in the rain, and shot dead? Why do I suspect that if he was white, he would have got a nod instead of boundless suspicion? “He’s suspicious and not from around here”, is code for “there’s a nigger loose in my Florida gated community!” It’s not racism, per se. It’s class warfare, color coded for morons.
Wow.
Orange is completely, incomprehensibly out of ITS FLUCKING MIND…!!!
Cripes.
http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/2012/04/john-derbyshires-talk-you-have-no-right.html
An observation and some advice to conservatives…
I give John Derbyshire credit for his bravery (some would call it foolishness) and honesty. He had to know what would result from this and he took it on. I do not agree with all his points. But I know people of all races, sexual orientations, political persuasions, and socioeconomic classes say stuff like that all the time in private (usually after a couple of drinks).
It will be revealing to see the reaction to all of this. Hypocrisy, thy name is faux outrage. And it will be, sadly, very predictable.
Thanks, Ragspierre. I believe that the thin gruel of substanceless denial you puked up there only serves to buttress my broadside. Cripes indeed.
Yah, boy…
You are SOOOOOoooooo awsomely awesome, Orange.
In Bizzaro World.
I mean, COULD you be LESS attached to the facts????
“That is a flat out lie. If anything, the evidence shows the opposite to be true.”
What? Look, how many white people did Zimmerman follow and shoot for walking down the street and “looking around?”
Also, check out Zimmerman’s neighbor. He’s practicing racial profiling while he denies anyone engages in racial profiling.
http://quickhits.tumblr.com/post/20421553367/a-zimmerman-supporter-demonstrates-how-to
I think that the problem here is that too many people don’t even know what racial profiling is. It’s not hating people because of the color of their skin, it’s fearing and suspecting people because of the color of their skin. It’s not out and out neo-nazi, white nationalist hatred, but it’s still racism.
And speaking of neo-nazi, white nationalist hatred, why is it that these morons sound so much like Derbyshire?
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/neo-nazis-patrolling-streets-sanford-fla-trayvon-martin-shot-killed-report-article-1.1057851
“Look, how many white people did Zimmerman follow and shoot”
How many Black people did Zimmerman follow?
None.
Stupid, lying, RACIST Collectivist puke.
Alzooo…
There are no NEO Socialist Worker’s Party idiots in Sanford.
What MORONS…!!!!
Ragspierre is so unconvincing and rude in his arguing that I’d almost be willing to bet he’s a False Flag op…that’s probably just my inherit sense of optimism, giving someone else’s useful idiot more credit than is deserved.
Meh.
You looked into the LIE about the Neo-National SOCIALISTS in Sanford…???
Naw.
Thought not.
http://legalinsurrection.com/2012/04/sanford-fl-police-deny-any-indication-of-neo-nazis-patrolling/comment-page-1/#comment-328819
What an idiot.
Orange: “”He’s suspicious and not from around here”, is code for “there’s a nigger loose in my Florida gated community!”
The gated community where this occurred is only 47% white. Trayvon’s own father lives there.
Further, did you know that George Zimmerman led an effort just the year before in support of a black man who was sucker punched by a white kid?
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/national/south/view/20120406zimmermans_family_george_handed_out_fliers_protesting_police_coddling_of_white_suspect/srvc=home&position=recent
snip: “George Zimmerman on Jan. 2 handed out fliers at black Sanford churches, urging them to go to City Hall and demand that Tooley be held accountable, according to family members.
The following day the commission voted to oust the police chief, and Collison was arrested.”
Further, he is a spanish speaking mentor to Black children:
“http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2012/03/george-zimmermans-defenders-come-out/50325/
Even black neighbors are speaking out in his behalf:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ama-yawson/george-zimmerman-trayvon-martin_b_1399944.html
snip: “A black female neighbor has publicly stated that George Zimmerman was the only person, black or white, who welcomed her to the community.”
So much for “code words”.
The problem is — he told the truth and the PC crowd, left and right do not like it. Too bad, so sad.
http://thoughtsandrantings.com/2012/04/07/follow-up-why-i-wrote-what-i-wrote/
I have to admit that many of the things in the”Talk” make me uncomfotable because they do seem bigoted. Sometimes I wonder how much of what people call racism is really just a reaction based on socioeconomic class. I live in a normal middle class neighborhood where probably 40% of my neighbors are other than white. These are people “just like me” – they have jobs, they maintain their homes, they don’t sell drugs on street corners, they have BBQs in the backyard in the summer. How I feel about my neighbors is different than how I might feel about a single mother with a bunch of kids and no husband, living in some beatdown house, living on welfare. I don’t identify with that woman whether she’s white or black.
Derbyshire is not talking about the dealing of Blacks on a individual basis, he’s talking about the danger in dealing with them in groups. There is going to be a lot of hand wringing by the right on this, and what we will find is hypocrisy in full force. We can’t expect the TSA to do a better job with out profiling. Every time we walk down the street in a major city I profile every individual that could pose a threat to my well being. That’s not racism, that’s just good old fashioned common sense.
It seems to me that if America wants to have a discussion on race, whites are going to have to open their wussified clap traps and be a little more open about the frustrations we see in minority communities.
Jane, how close are you to a major metropolitan area? How much of your driving time is through these areas? I have no problem with blacks or anyone else that enrich their lives through hard work. What I have a problem with is people that feast on the decency of society as if it’s a fuel for their indecency.
My wife had a problem with a black guy at a dept. store the other day. I won’t go into specifics but if I had been there, I would have imposed my own form of justice upon his skull. The incident left her shaken, the lilly whites in the dept. store didn’t seem to have the ability to detain him and my wife was left to file a police report, probably never to see a rectification of the incident.
Make no mistake, it has nothing to do with socio-economics that 13% of the populations makes up over 50% of violent crime in this country, as in other countries. The black community is cloaked in victim status, finding it easier to play the role of victim rather work towards an obtainable worthwhile goal.
“The left should be thanking Derbyshire for being honest” At least Eric Holder. He’s the one who called us a “nation of Cowards” for not talking about race. Of course, JD did talk about it and then he got fired, so…go figure!
I see some guy is mowing down random black people in Oklahoma…. how long until you guys invent some story about him being a Democrat? Just like Tim McVeigh… oh wait, you pretty much couldn’t get away from that one. All of today’s domestic terrorists are Conservative. Such angry, nasty people you are.
“The black community is cloaked in victim status, finding it easier to play the role of victim rather work towards an obtainable worthwhile goal.”
Dwork, that is a racist comment.
Sorry, dude. When you start a sentence with “The black community is…”, you HAVE to know that is a bad thing.
Remember, people are individuals. The Collective thinks in terms of identity groups, Conservatives in terms of persons.
Did you miss the part where I said “It’s class warfare, color coded for morons”? The practice of playing politics based on the relative levels of melanin present in a given human’s flesh is a divisive trap that all too many are willing, nay eager, via the practice of vincible ignorance, to fall into. It’s not race. It’s class. As in socioeconomic class.
The way it’s being played here (and in many other places) is very alien to my rustic midwestern sensibilities. Dipshit cop wannabes patrolling gated communities, packing concealed heat and confronting interlopers? Really?! Legally allowing for some sort of automatic I-felt-threatened-so-I-killed-a-kid defense to forgo the leveling of any legal charges at all for what happened there? Really?! That’s not how it’s done where I live. It might as well be a different country, the way Florida does this stuff.
This issue kinda proves a suspicion I’ve been harboring of late. It looks as though the lower socioeconomic classes (both parties) have been ball faked into fearing and fighting amongst themselves, whilst the end-game pillaging of our nation’s wealth by the meta-welfare whores that make up the bulk of our already failed financial elite continues apace.
protip: Stop rhetorically indicting “racism”, and instead tee off on “bigotry”. Calling someone a racist is like calling an “authoritarian” a “fascist”…it usually causes the recipient to recoil in anger.
“Really?! That’s not how it’s done where I live.”
Which is a very different place than Reality.
“All of today’s domestic terrorists are Conservative. Such angry, nasty people you are.”
That is a lie, and you are a liar.
Zimmerman is a registered Deemocrat.
IF you refute that, provide proof.
Ragspierre, let me ask you this. How do you feel about how the TSA currently performs its duties. Do you like seeing old women searched? Do you like seeing children as young as 2 years old searched? What have conservatives (and you may not have been aboard this train) been saying about profiling regarding how the TSA does its searches? If we were to identify specific people for searches, is that not identifying a specific person within a specific group of people? Is that racist? I guess by your definition it is.
Racism by its intended definition is the belittling of a race by defining it as inferior to another. Would you seriously take on Islamic extremism by dealing with only the individuals in that community, one by one? I live in the Chicago area and the condition and depravity in the inner city is an epidemic. Walk through those streets, walk through Englewood (which you surely wouldn’t do) and not tell me that there isn’t a problem with the community.
Because Derbyshire dare said what those that are white shall not speak, are going to face the wrath of those within conservative movement that are to scared to upset the apple cart.
“All of today’s domestic terrorists are Conservative”
Prove it with facts, scumbag.
“If we were to identify specific people for searches, is that not identifying a specific person within a specific group of people? Is that racist? I guess by your definition it is.”
Yeah. It WOULD be racist. AND STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooopid, too. The Israelis do not use “race” in their profiling.
They DO take each passenger on their own, according to traits they have found empirically to be consistent with BEHAVIOR.
My safety or lack thereof in Chicago or any other place is not a function of color. I could introduce you to people in Detroit or LA that are lilly white and as thuggish as they come. Some of the worst people in Chicago are white.
Hey Jason,
Ever heard of ELF, ALF, John Muhammad, Unabomber, it was investigated that McVeigh was in contact with some people in the middle east. Look it up, some serious journalism went into that investigation only to have the feds never look into it. How about Harlan James Drake, Casey Brezik.
The are loons on both ideological sides. You can google these names if you like.
Again Raggs, your naive if you think that your risk in Chicago isn’t predicated on geography, what world are you living in?
And it seems you like using that term racism. Grow up.
“your naive if you think that your risk in Chicago isn’t predicated on geography”
Geography?
Now you’ve shifted. Color. Race. That is what we were talking about.
Cripes.
And I use words that apply.
Excuse me Rags, Geography is just another word for inner city black community.
Guess I was afraid of being called racist again.
“Guess I was afraid of being called racist again.”
Easy to stop that. Don’t write racist stuff.
It is not racist to state that ALL people should be careful in predominately black neighborhoods because of the discrepancy in violence compared to other areas. That is fact.
You think it, you know it but don’t want to acknowledge it.
I guess Eric Holder was right.
“we are a nation of cowards on matters of race”.
i read the article. he simply said “look at the statistics…and use common sense” in your daily activities. apparently, statistical facts are just too shocking for the delicate sensibilities of some folks. is it better to pretend that none of it’s true ? how can things improve if we are too afraid to face reality ? shouting “that’s racist!” solves nothing.
“The black community is cloaked in victim status, finding it easier to play the role of victim rather work towards an obtainable worthwhile goal.”
Dwok, that is what you said. It is…
1. a racist generalization
2. not true
3. not what you are trying to say you said now.
Don’t ever make the mistake of telling me what I think.
“Don’t be a good Samaritan to blacks in apparent distress …”
Explain that one to Jesus.
That said, some of what Derbyshire said is the same stuff I’ll bet Jesse Jackson told his kids.
If anyone is interested in supporting Derbyshire, his website has a paypal link: http://www.johnderbyshire.com/
Whites pretty much police their own bigots. It is now taboo to use racial or ethnic slurs in all business and most social settings even if no one of the target group is present. Thus open expressions of bigotry tends to be confined to a few white subcultures. Blacks seem less willing to suppress such language among their own.
Then there is the economic factor. Programs aimed at countering the effects of bigotry have many blacks prosperous. This has two effects. First it means many can never admit the underlying problem is solved lest the gravy train stops. Second, those who are being unjustly enriched often find an excuse to justify their ill gotten gains by demonizing the source. Affirmative action hiring, corporate franchises to scions of so called civil rights leaders, government contract set asides, huge amounts of corporate advertising in black media enterprises with a fraction of the readers of white venues scrambling to find advertisers, the list of payoffs to assuage white guilt is long. How many recipients seek to ease their own conscience by seizing on the idea the white man is the devil? Consider the size and prosperity of the congregation of the Reverend Wright.
The “Left” is always screaming about racism because conservatives are racist.
It’s so easy even a Right-Wing bigot can understand…
Ahem, how bleeping STUPID must one be to “…embrac[e] an item by John Derbyshire, one which [one] hadn’t even read”? Is fork in the face stupid sufficient or must one be rock hard, black hole, super dense singularity-type stupid? I ask because those of us with triple digit IQ’s generally actually READ a piece BEFORE we, um, embrace it, or otherwise form an opinion. Go figger, eh, Dip Thunker?
Thanking you in advance for your answer, as without your help those of us who ambulate upright will never know.
The idea that anyone, anywhere, at any time, could possibly defend John Derbyshire’s column, makes me weep for this country.
One thing is true and proven by all sides of the issues and the comments I’ve read, that most are just projecting the limitation of their own beliefs. Those who see racism as a integral part of all people, can’t see beyond that thought, and as I heard quoted often of late, they are “hammers in search of a nail”..Gates showed it with the police, Obama showed it with his comment “the police just acted stupidly” long before any investigation had started. Sad to say now, that in some of his comments John Derbyshire seems to be showing it as well. It does prove once again, that we are no more equal in the eyes of the world, then when we are at our worst in the ignorant ways we see skin color, instead of the deep soulful qualities that are the true source of what any person can be.
The true problem it seems to me, whether black, white, brown or any other color you wish to name, is the ignorance of a person that would ever allow color to be a source of distraction to how we judge anyone.
Truly, it seems that if that is the only way you an see another person, you should quietly reframe from commentaries that advertise to the world your limitations.
http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/2012/04/separated-at-birth-creepy-leftist.html To Chuckles…
Er, Dan, you should fix the ends of those quotes you posted. Taki’s site is apparently obnoxious enough to spike the copy-paste function.