This started as a comment, but I’m going to post it here so that you all can discuss while I recover from my rancid stomach ailment.
So. First, let me say this: Derb’s article is “controversial” in the same way Juan Williams’ noting that he gets a bit frightened on a plane when he sees Arabs in the row in front of him tugging at their vests was controversial. Meaning, it was honest — and as such, it was not sufficiently filtered for a media climate where political correctness still provides the parameters for what is and isn’t acceptable.
Eric Holder famously noted that we’re afraid to talk about race in this country. Derbyshire proved he, at least, isn’t. And his comrades are crawling over themselves to gain distance.
And the reason is, Holder, the left, the “pragmatic” right — they don’t really want to talk about such things. They only want to talk about the need to talk about such things, while simultaneously demonizing any real attempts to do so. An easier way to bank some cheap grace you won’t find in a PC-soaked society.
Some of what Derbyshire said in his article I didn’t agree with; some of what he argued I take no position on, because I’d need to see the evidence cited expanded on a bit and given a more rigorous test; and as a practical rhetorical matter, I think Derbyshire did himself no favors by singling out blacks. But what is indisputable is that the article is set up as a talk he’d have with his kids about race, and the opinions he’s formed — and that he’d pass on to his children — are his, while the reasons he’s developed them he sourced w/ links. That is, he tried (within the constraints of the format) to show his work.
That his article brought out some unsavory types in the comments — WHY WON’T DERBYSHIRE TAKE ON THE KIKES? — has less to do with his article and more to do with certain people who are always drawn to such pieces.
It was in many respects a brave article — and that can be true whether you believe Derbyshire a racist or not. But given that it was written in the context of bounties on George Zimmerman, or Spike Lee Tweeting out home addresses, or Al Sharpton — who is invited to Easter breakfast at the WH — actively working to incite violence and subvert the justice system, well, it expresses a kind of anxiety that exists in the culture right now.
Derbyshire set his article up by noting that in any large population, there will be trends; he sought to take a look at the trends and reach conclusions based on them. Whether or not you believe the conclusions he reached are valid or not is almost immaterial. Because what was truly important about his article was the citation of the trends —- which, sad to say, we’ve been taught studiously to ignore. Funny how people who yell “SCIENCE!” and want to put conservatives in re-education camps fear actual data, isn’t it?
We can expect the left to express howling outrage over such a piece. The subject matter itself is not to be broached — but if it is, it had better reach a pre-determined conclusion emphasizing the goodness and righteousness and social effectiveness of the left’s pet identity politics / multicultarlist schemes. That this doesn’t means it needs to be shouted down, and its arguments not even considered.
That many on the right are hurrying to run away from Derbyshire is also, however, completely predictable. These are the people who are giving us Mitt Romney, and who — while they talk about the evils of identity politics, or the problem with race-based affirmative action, or the ruse of “multiculturalism” as a social ordering mechanism — haven’t the courage of their convictions: they will talk in generalities (and be called racists for their troubles, any way), but when it comes down to citing specifics, their first instinct is to show the left how they, unlike throwbacks like Derbyshire, are one of the good ones.
This of course reinforces the left’s control over the social narrative, whereby they — by virtue of their leftism — are champions for racial and ethnic minorities, while those on the right are guilty of racism until they prove otherwise.
Me? I already know I’m not a racist, and so I just feel sorry for those who think they can hurt me by calling me one. I’m not afraid to talk about this stuff, and in fact I’ve been saying we need to for years now. So much the government has done — mostly from the left, but some of it on the right — to “help” blacks has been all about helping themselves secure a voting bloc. And even if we allow that, early on, the intentions of liberal social engineers were good, there’s simply no excuse for not reviewing how the policies have worked or not worked, or what has been the trajectory of the black experience in the US since the end of slavery.
I’ve often recommended America in Black and White to readers — the “progressives” HATE that book and its reliance on numbers and its scientific and historical approach to data — because it gives lie to the entirety of their racialist agenda and shows the outright failures of their policies, which often times have had the precise opposite effect of what was intended with their implementation.
At any rate, Derbyshire should be commended for broaching the subject, even if you wish to condemn him for the opinions he draws from the data. And of course, all the typical caveats exist — anecdotes aren’t data, etc., — just as what is also true is that Derbyshire was writing an article, not a dissertation or monograph or scholarly journal piece.
If we are really interested in “having the conversation,” we need to have somebody who is willing to start it. Derbyshire did. And the reaction has been to denounce it or run from it.
That speaks to where we are as a society.
****
update: As does this. We aren’t “losing more slowly.” We’ve lost.
The bottom line is this: if Derbyshire’s facts are correct, then what is “indefensible” and “racist” are the facts themselves. My guess is, there are variables Derbyshire excludes; wouldn’t the proper response be to take him at his word — that the advice he offers has been culled from his analysis — and answer the analysis by examining the rigor of the facts used to generate it?
If we are no longer free to examine facts and draw conclusions — and have the right to draw the wrong conclusions, and be corrected by way of an intellectual give and take — that what on earth does that say about any commitment to knowledge and learning?
What is indefensible, it seems to me, is NR’s pretending to be a magazine dedicated to conservative thought when what it really is is a magazine dedicated nowadays to GOP politics. Or at the very least, it filters its editorial decisions through that rather vulgar lens.
“That’s racist!“
As, of course, is this.
shoot … busy with Easter stuff — grandsons + hardboiled eggs, some assembly required … and missed said Derby article and it looks like the server hosting it has melted. I’m just getting “server busy” messages.
Brings to mind the comments about O said by Geraldine Ferraro. She got some flack for her temerity, but it was weak tea and the whole episode was swept under the rug in short order. I don’t think, strike that, I know Derby’s opinions will not be given the same treatment; being that Derby is of the ideological enemy.
BTW, I always believed that one of the reasons Ferraro was given such a speedy pass was because, for the most part, the left really knew she was spot on and the whole subject had to be banished from any airing. Kinda hard to castigate w/o bringing up the reason for castigation.
In the links that Derbyshire provided in his piece regarding the “Talk”, each parent alluded to the fact that it was the man in blue was the one who would judge the young black man. In other links in the article where sited facts.
I was raised color blind… but that does not mean I do not see hostile intent when I see it. That doesn’t mean I see hostile intent every where. but I could tell you stories – which would just be that – stories. My prespective.
What Mr. Derbyshire said needed saying and I don’t care if it isn’t politically correct. Race relations in this country are not set back by the white man.
Darleen, Derb’s article is screen-capped in its entirety here, just scroll down.
http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/2012/04/john-derbyshires-talk.html I did not think Derbyshire’s were driven by some white supremacy agenda. Some of the thing he said were wrong, but I also have heard these same sort of comments from people of all races, socio-economic backgrounds, sexual orientations, and political persuasions. Usually after two or three drinks in a private conversation. Some of the most blatant have been from far left leaning people who work in government social services.
The faux outrage over this has already started. And of course the left will paint every conservative and Republican as a racist over the comments of one guy. They should contemplate Matthew 7:1-5. If they want to disagree with Derbyshire with argument, humor or facts, by all means do so. But if they want to just label us, well fuck them.
What did he say that was wrong?
Without reading his piece, I’m just going to assume that Derb started this hashtag on Twitter.
thanks sdferr
brb
Of course, with screencaps you don’t get eggroll, or links, but that should go without saying I guess.
EBL, where was he wrong? Where in the linked articles about the “Talk” did anyone say that the plight of the inner city creates the kind of suspicion the men in blue might have? Derbyshire provided links to both the “Talk” and the statistics he thought were valid for the post. Is there new data? Any data that proves the data provided was incorrect?
The left has created this yes, and they will no doubt cast the stones to see where they might strike, but do point out where Mr. Derbyshire was wrong, I do not see it.
Damn, I can’t believe you can write this well when you’re sick.
Well said, Jeff.
done, reading but wish it was the original so I could see all the links.
My initial reaction is that the majority of correct stuff in it is totally scuttled by what can only be characterized as a “racist” stance … that is, prejudging an individual’s moral worth by the behavior (good or bad) based on an inherent characteristic like melanin level.
e.g. his #4 & 5 are belied by his #10f, g, h, #11, #12
Darleen, be patient. Read the full text with the links. Your initial reaction is what fuels the melanin level presumption.
Having grown up in a black neighborhood and being bused across town for school, we did not have to have the talk. It was understood what could happen to us at any given time. I had black friends, but they were treated as bad as us. My family moved in my junior year of high school to a suburb and I could not believe how nice it was to be able to walk to the park without having to possibly having to fight someone. We need to have this talk. All this bullshit about race relations we get now does not help. Even Jesse Jackson said when he heard footstep behind him he was relieved it was a white person. I have read this site for a few years now and I rarely comment. This is just something that am am glad that Jeff brought up.
[…] -Jeff Goldstein’s […]
I read the thing because it was linked on memeorandum, with breathless LeftLibProggs pointing and shouting, as is the norm when they scent blood in the water.
JD’s intent, I thought, was to assemble what is ‘The Talk’ some parents might have with their kids about things racial, much like The Talk mothers have with their daughters and fathers with their sons (or used to have) regarding sex (that’s all handled in 1st grade or prior now, so there’s no need for parents to trouble). JD touches some very pointed issues and painful issues that are barbed and pointed, and he knows it. Why he wanted to have this ‘The Talk’ with the rabid denizens of the Left snarling and frenzied over Trayvon already is beyond me.
Camille Paglia courted the same kind of trouble when she suggested that it was unsafe for young women to behave like young men. For instance, it is not a good idea for a young woman to hitchhike, backpack across Europe or sleep under bridges. She had the temerity to go further and say that all the self-defense training in the world, e.g., Karate, &c, was no match for a male who outweighs her by fifty to a hundred pounds and is intent on rape or beating the snot out of her. Ditto to showing up at frat parties in a bikini and doing keg stands.
I think the worst insult that anyone can throw Derbyshire’s way is that he didn’t know what would result from the piece. I’m interested to see what he will say in response to the furor; perhaps he was inspired by the spirit of Breitbart.
An observation and some advice to conservatives…
TRHein, you should ask Jeff and Dan Riehl that question too. Where do I disagree with John Derbyshire? I do not think Blacks are inherently less intelligent than other groups. I do believe in cultural and societal conditions that cause bad socio economic results (and Murray demonstrated that in Losing Ground). But if you think Derbyshire is right on all points, defend him. I have been all over the web today and the paint brush they are flailing around about conservatives and racism is pretty broad.
My post was saying the discussion should be civil and rational.
TRHein, I am not vilifying John Derbyshire. I give him credit for his honesty. He is not an independently wealthy man and his taking a huge risk with this. I suspect he will lose his job over this and be vilified by the left and right. As Jeff notes quite well above, either we have the honesty to discuss this issue or not.
Denounced,by NR of course, but linked too.
Consider this as background.
Has anyone bothered to point out that they are performing the very kinds of discrimination and bigotry they’re pretending to stand up against?
It’s all a show. Since we’ve decided it’s easier just to join the outraged howling than fight on principles of intellectualism, we’ve already lost.
There’s a theme here.
By the way, do you think Derbyshire cost Republicans the black vote?
Let the reality and the irony commingle and marinate.
EBL, I would urge you to read “The Bell Curve”. Derbyshire is, as Jeff notes, having the discussion that Eric Holder said we as a “nation of cowards” were afraid to have. Kudos to him and he is more than able to defend himself.
I’m disgusted that Jonah, Lowry et. al., are so willing to toss him overboard. And for what? To stay in the good graces of whom? The Right Kind of People?
I imagine that this part raised the most eyebrows:
My comment is awaiting moderation? Since when?
Oh, it’s link-o-riffic. Potential spam. Never mind.
Hint: It’s not just Amazon that hates you, di. (j/k)
Having been raised in Utah, where the black population is small and mostly dispersed (and where we don’t have festering “projects” full of the poor and maladjusted), it would never occur to me to follow, much less give, the advice presented in point 10.
Of course, if we’re to have this discussion on race, I’d like to talk about point 9:
It’s not just Amazon that hates you, di. (j/k)
Don’t be ridiculous. Technology is our friend.™
Has anyone bothered to point out that they are performing the very kinds of discrimination and bigotry they’re pretending to stand up against?
Yes. I did. You did. Dan Riehl did. The Other McCain did. Bob Belevedere did.
Leigh, I read the Bell Curve. I also read Losing Ground.
I was vague about my disagreements w/ Derbyshire in the post (which was initially just a comment) because I didn’t have access to the piece when I wrote it. I’d read it last evening, then read through the comments, before passing out yet again. So I was going from memory.
I’d say this: I’m not sure I’d be more likely to scrutinize black politicians unless they were black politicians from heavily black districts, eg., Marion Barry, etc. And even then, I’d only do so were they Democrats. I think that’s because I’d know the kind of poisonous racial politics they’d been steeped in and react accordingly.
Still, to pretend this is racist, rather than prudent, is silly. As I’m sure some of those Asians and their dirty stores Barry promises to run off can tell you.
I think young people who only know about “the other” what they’ve seen on network TV would probably be wise to at least consider the subpoints to Derb’s #10, until they have a better first-hand grasp of just what they can actually expect from large groups of strangers with a substantially different worldview from their own.
Their mileage will vary absolutely, and as much based on what they bring to the… ahem, party… as what the other people bring — but there are worse things to default to, where you don’t have firsthand knowledge, than statistics.
As for his #11, we’re all encouraged to disbelieve such claims so staunchly that any attempt to support such a claim must be dismissed unevaulated. That bothers me at least as much as the question of whether the claim is true.
And the more people are exposed to evidence of #9, the more likely it becomes that the next David Duke will actually gain traction.
That would not be good for race relations (he understated).
I do believe Derbyshire’s advice is prudent, as you say Jeff. It is only because he is referencing blacks in his post that he is taking heat. If he were talking about drunken yoots, not of color, hanging around the corner and hooting at the wimmins or snatching grandma’s grocery money or beating up nerdy fat kids, people would just nod and “tsk tsk” about kids today.
There are plenty of reasons, I think, why #11 might be true, without it being of any significant importance in real life — not least of which is, having a high IQ correlates pretty easily with stupid behavior too, it’s just not the same kind of stupid behavior as one sees from those with low or average IQ.
I’ve never read The Bell Curve.
Who exactly were they testing, all people of African heritage or just the ones in the U.S.?
Did they control for maternal and infant nutrition?
Did they control for the presence of the father in the home?
Did they control for parental care during the first 3–5 years, e.g., was it mostly a parent or was there lots of day care?
Did they control for the neighborhood in which the child was raised? What about the schools?
Did they evaluate black Canadians and Brits and French and Brazilians?
Did they evaluate wealthy Africans?
Did they separate out African immigrants from the descendents of slaves?
What were the actual conclusions?
Also, even if it turns out that in the strictest objective terms, Africans have lower average IQs than Europeans and Asians, so what? You don’t base policy on it, you don’t treat people differently, you don’t give a rip one way or another.
If you’re hiring someone or admitting them to college, subject everyone to the same criteria and let the chips fall as they may. Outside of that, someone’s IQ (which measures IQ, not goodness or virtue or common sense or dedication or loyalty or problem-solving or compassion or decency) doesn’t need to be any kind of criteria when deciding how to deal with someone.
Derbyshire is not expressing some white supremacist platform. So if that is the racist intent that people are trying to argue about his story, they are wrong. What Derbyshire piece has is some general truisms that frankly have a basis in fact (like Marion Barry’s attacks on Asians, etc.). I disagreed with points of his argument, but so what. I know that many of the people who are rushing to attack him today have said or thought exactly the same things he is saying in that article.
They are hypocrites. And they are not willing to talk honestly about race. Scroll the comments at Huffington Post. They are all about how conservatives are racists and how Republicans are out to destroy the “progress” in America. They are liars.
Seemed to me that Derb set out to pull a “That’s not a knife. That’s a knife” on the race-baiters. And more or less succeeded.
What Derb is going through proves the point I was making here:
Whether or not my hypothetical restaurant would have ever opened, the fact is that basic property rights (and freedom of association) would allow it to be opened… and no one dares to acknowledge that fact.
I console myself with the remembrance that The Gods of the Copybook Headings always catch up to us and apply their own brand of encouragement to acknowledge the truth.
I also find it completely typical that the Corner post linked to has had its’ comments disabled.
Of course, SDN. Conservative thought is to be hidden. Being very unhelpful when it comes to winning elections in the United States of Benetton.
this is the only blog I go to what has the intestinal fortitude to start a thread on this topic so far
I think Mr. Derbyshire makes the mistake of egregiously over-generalizing… Atlanta is not Boston is not Dallas is not Houston is not Los Angeles is not Detroit is not Chicago is not Akron
me I would happily surry down to a stone cold picnic no matter who was there just probably not in Detroit, because Detroit terrifies me
I also find it completely typical that the Corner post linked to has had its’ comments disabled.
They worry the unwashed masses will embarrass them. They do not realize that it is too late for that.
The conversation Derbyshire is desirous of having is all well and good. I just question his timing, is all.
But (10 (a-i)) are more important to heed today, right this minute, than they were before he wrote that. Or at least they will be, once his essay is ‘translated down’, echoed and enhanced via word-of-mouf, to the rank-and-file @KillZimmerman sorts.
‘feets! God to see you, old bean~!
Heritage found that when you compare apples to apples in the realm of kids raised in two-parent, law-abiding, middle-class families, the delinquency statistics show no racial component.
In other words, if you want black kids to have the same advantages I had, make sure they’re raised as I was.
****
Mandatory:
Stable home consisting of my mother and father, married to each other, for the duration of my childhood.
One parent getting up at 0-dark-thirty every day to go to work and the other taking care of business at home.
A neighborhood with low delinquency rates (though the neighborhood delinquents lived right next door to us, and the smoke from their joints drifted into my bedroom window on hot summer nights).
No question as to whether I’ll do well (or at least my best) in school, and no option of dropping out.
Both parents are law-abiding.
Regular chores at home.
Parents are prudent with finances and don’t live high off the debt hog.
Optional but highly recommended:
Parents both have a college education.
Weekly church attendance.
Extracurricular activities such as music lessons.
****
In other words, I didn’t become a reasonably successful, functional adult because I was white, I became such because of how I was raised. Any person of any race with these same advantages has the same chance of a good outcome as I did (especially if they’re the same age: being born after “I Have a Dream”). I’ve met black women in my same demographic who are perfectly intelligent, functional human beings.
And any person of any race who is raised in the ‘hood—or poor, rural America (think Harlan County, KY), without both parents, with poor infant and childhood care, without good parental examples to follow, with too many bad influences around—has the same chance of a bad outcome.
It’s just that the government cannot (or will not, especially under the influence of progressivism) make people into good parents or good citizens without making itself wholly irrelevant. I learned to be a functional adult by being raised in a home with functional adults and by being taught continually in church how to distinguish right from wrong, and that if I want to be a good person, I often have to choose what is right over what is easy.
And THAT, mes amis, is why the government has been making war against Family and Church: it can’t stand to be upstaged, supplanted, or questioned.
He dicho.
Jeff, I don’t think the Republicans have any of the black vote. Since Holder wants to have a real discussion on race, this is a good start.
Bingo, charles w.
The leftists screeching about this need to answer why Obama got 97% of the black vote — including the vote of Republican Colin Powell, eg.
The timing would be perfect if “our” side had any stones. I mean, the New Black Panthers are out putting bounties on “White” hispanics, and t-shirts are being sold denouncing pussy ass crackers.
Just because the left pretends that stuff doesn’t exist doesn’t mean we need to.
Derbyshire missed the political component. Which makes me worse than he: it’s not a black thing, it’s a Democrat thing that exacerbates a black thing — which likely wouldn’t be a thing were it not for the Democrats.
Di, from the dust jacket of The Bell Curve:
“Breaking new ground and old taboos, Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray tell the story of a society in transformation. At the top, a cognitive elite is forming in which the passkey to the best schools and the best jobs is not longer social background but high intelligence. At the bottom, the common denominator of the underclass is increasingly low intelligence rather than racial or social disadvantage.
The Bell Curve describes the state of scientific knowledge about question s that have been of people’s minds for years but have been considered too sensitive to talk about openly—among them IQ’a relationship to crime, unemployment, welare, child neglect, poverty, and illegitimacy; ethinic differendes in intelligence; trends in fertility among women of different levels of intelligence; and what policy can do—and cannot do—to compensate for differences in intelligence. Brilliantly argued and meticulously documented, The Bell Curve is the essential step in coming to grips with the nation’s social problems.”
It is an excellent read and covers all of the areas that you questioned in your post and more. At nearly 1000 pages, it isn’t beach reading.
Along with this making the racism charge a useful bludgeon to use against the right, realize as well that to accept the premise of studies like the Bell Curve is to totally destroy the foundation of the lefts whole belief system.
Geez, my touch typing bites anymore.
Conservative thought is to be hidden.
Not sure that Derb is expressing “conservative thought,” though. The concepts in points 10 (a-i) are present in the ranks of the Left but also Not Discussed.
And if the Left actually believed that (11) were false, untrue, wrong, and bad, they would never have tried to solve the problem of fewer blacks in college by lowering the academic standards for admission—they’d have taken pains to make sure admissions were as color-blind as possible.
As ‘feets says (hey pikachu!), how I regard the blacks around me has much less to do with their being black than how they’re dressed, what they’re up to, which part of the city I’m in, and in which city.
During my short stay in NYC, when I was on the subway platform and in the cars, I tried to determine which of the people around me might be trouble and which not.
The 22-year old black guy in khakis and a polo, carrying a backpack, was not trouble. The 50-year-old black guy in greasy work overalls, carrying a lunch pail and dozing in his seat, was not trouble. The 25-year-old black woman trying to keep her three kids from running off was in trouble but not trouble to me. The 35-year-old black guy in a three-piece suit was not trouble either, but neither was he on the subway.
OTOH, any young male covered with piercings and tats, wearing gangsta clothes and affecting a gangsta attitude, was probably not trouble if he was alone, but in groups he’s definitely trouble. Them I would stay away from.
Also, I managed to get very, very lost (in Yonkers, no less) while driving a pickup laden with all my worldly possessions from Ithaca to Brooklyn, and ended up driving through Harlem at about 6pm, when the streets are full with people going hither and yon. My stuff was uncovered—anyone could have dashed over while I was at a stoplight and boosted my VCR—but nobody paid the nervous white chick in the truck any mind at all.
****
OK, then. Have I established my non-racist cred yet? Did I manage to do it without tossing Derb under the bus? Did I avoid having my pw breathing privileges revoked? :D
Hi, happy! *waves*
among them IQ’s relationship to crime, unemployment, welare, child neglect, poverty, and illegitimacy; ethinic differendes in intelligence; trends in fertility among women of different levels of intelligence; and what policy can do—and cannot do—to compensate for differences in intelligence.
Did they consider the causal arrow to flow from IQ to the social pathologies, or did they consider the reverse relationship?
That’s a hard mistake to make when your purpose is to be absolutely non-specific in the first place. The point is not that the same facts will be true everywhere — it’s that until you know what the facts are on the ground, there are some assumptions that one is safer making than not.
By the way, Derbyshire links in his piece to the same advice being offered to blacks by blacks. It’s not the advice that matters; it’s the color of the person offering it that makes it either right or wrong.
Somewhere, Stanley Fish is smiling.
I wasn’t talking about him. I was talking about NRO disabling comments.
If I had kids to have a talk with about such things, I would stress at every opportunity that I have not been everywhere, done everything or met everyone — and neither will they. But I have been to places I’d never been before, done things I’d never done before, and met people I’d never met before, and I’m still breathing.
So, what I have to say on the matter might be worth taking into account.
Hmmmph. I guess it’s time to buy another couple 1000 rounds or so… )
I have never been more fearful for my life and that of my young son at the time (11) than when i took that wrong turn in Baltimore near Camden Yards and never more grateful in my life than i was for the black cop who drove up, assessed the situation and led me to the nearest expressway ramp.
More evidence that we can’t have an honest discussion here.
I was talking about NRO disabling comments.
I retract my objection, then.
Carry on.
Thomas Sowell reviewed “The Bell Curve” in Vol. 28, American Spectator, 02-01-1995, pp 32.
Duke’s Brodhead, from SDN’s link at Volokh : “. . . why students took offense . . . the primal insult of the world we are trying to leave behind . . . ”
What is may not be allowed to stand in the way of what “we” will make come to be. We will not have “facts” to look upon, for “facts” cannot be trusted to have the proper intentions. Conclusions first, rationales after. This . . . this is political science indeed.
If you can’t get to the sporadic server at takimag, here’s the paragraph that includes “the talk” that blacks have with their own kids:
The problem with arguments about IQ is that so many people have never actually met someone who qualifies, by IQ score, as a genius. If they had, they would instantly grasp that more intelligence does not equal less stupidity.
In fact, not only is such an assumption untrue, it is perhaps the most dangerous untrue idea sentient life has ever conceived. Idiots and geniuses are equally prone to boneheaded mistakes — the difference is that the genius’ boneheaded mistakes kill more people more efficiently than the idiot’s.
howdy!
also you have to dress appropriately for where you’re going I’m not saying you have to wear a hoodie just maybe you should save the Forever 21 stylings for when you’re in less diverse company but remember that the MOST important thing for you to wear is a smile
and bring your appetite! Food-sharing is an incredibly important ritual for when you are meeting new people.
“the MOST important thing for you to wear is a smile”
And possibly, besides offering a hand to shake, sometimes be prepared to offer a joint or a flask of the good stuff to share.
Hi Mr. Martin, would you like a pull on my hip-flask scotch?
red yellow honey sassafras and moonshine!
Why sure Mr Zimmerman, would you like a handful of Skittles in return?
um… are they gluten-free?
“WHY WON’T DERBYSHIRE TAKE ON THE KIKES?”
I’ve never been kicked out of a Dairy Queen by young angry “kikes” who wanted to feel like thugs they saw on TV.
Maybe Derbyshire”s internalized some unfortunate bullshit based on real life experiences that frightened him. That happens to a lot of people. Maybe a few idiots acting like a violent dangerous ass in public semi-regularly, and then being supported or tolerated in that, by their less idiotic fellows has serious reputation based consequences for people who look like they do whether that’s fair or not.
Now this may sound a bit schizoid as in “there is more than one of me up here in my head and sometimes the different me’s fight” BUT instincts are powerful things. Our reflexes and reactions are partially based on them. They are informed by multiple sense impressions. If we have multiple triggers of a fight or flight instinct from a similar source that gets catalogued as a threat. Similarly if we are constantly told about the danger and perfidy of a source then we will catalog THAT as a threat based on third hand experiences. We can transmit this kind of to others and they can either accept or reject it. Those who have had similar first hand experiences to these transmitted third had accounts will probably be MORE inclined to accept them and reinforce the reflex/reaction of fear and hostility.
I’m not saying it’s right. I don’t “approve” of it. But as Chris Rock might say regarding men who hit women, ” I UNDERSTAAAAAND IT!”
Modern racial discussion is always supposed to be the self designated oppressed lecturing and intimidating the designated oppressor exclusively. The Oppressed party never wants to discuss any changes to be required of them and their behavior. The grievances can go back 400 years to other parties and they still apply and any counter grievances are discarded as attempts by the designated oppressor to resume the pattern of oppression.
It’s stupid, unfair, and sick, and it WILL lead to fights and nonsense and tragedy. Sadly it is profitable.
more intelligence does not equal less stupidity.
Well, higher IQ, anyway. Don’t know whether IQ = intelligence so much as it measures how well you take IQ tests.
Me, I don’t know what my IQ is, but I do know that on the GRE I scored in the 97th percentile for language, 54th for logic, and 39th for math (or something like that). I’d prolly score low on an IQ test on account of I’m like an idiot savant.
Heavy on the idiot, light on the savant. I can’t even do crosswords in ink.
Jeez, I dunno, but if you have a flashlight handy we could read the ingredient label together. Or better yet, you could read it out loud for the both of us, since some of those words look kinda daunting now that I’m seeing them for the first time.
I want to add that I find it VERY VERY hard to believe that 40% of American blacks have an IQ below 81 and that I hope I misread that or that Mr. Derbyshire misquoted it.
Technically, schizoid = unsocial (not anti-social), such as with hermits and autistics. Think Sheldon Cooper on Big Bang Theory minus the roommate and the other two guys.
But your use of “schizoid” to mean “internally divided” is not uncommon, as it’s thought to be a deriviative of “schizophrenic,” which also doesn’t mean “split personality” either, but we don’t have a good scientific-sounding word to mean that, so “schizoid” it is.
the authoritative-looking list says skittles are kosher … we were at a conference where google was giving away free skittles the other day and NG had a sugar crash to where we had to leave the hall and walk around cause she thought she was gonna fall asleep
then when we got back someone had stolen our google cups – and there were hardly any black people even there!
the MOST important thing for you to wear is a smile
I’m thinking something in .45 ACP, but to each his own.
I wouldn’t go screaming ‘racist!’ at Derbyshire, but I do disagree with a significant chunk of what he wrote.
I especially roll my eyes at the part about staying away from concentrations of blacks and black neighborhoods.
I have noticed it to certainly be true, a lot of white people are simply and literally afraid of black neighborhoods. And even if they’re fine with wealthy and nice black neighborhoods, they’re still terrified of the ghetto.
But even in the worst of the worst neighborhoods where crime is sky high, it’s not just some senseless warzone. A great deal of the reason for the disparity in crime is gang related. It’s not just wanton violence everywhere, or dispersed through a wide population, it’s a select minority even in these areas that drive the averages through the roof.
The vast majority of blacks, even in the ghetto-ass projects, are not running around looking to mug and shoot people, and regardless of their racial views, aren’t hostile to any white they see walking around.
The high levels of crime there are in those areas, the people living there literally live with it. They have to live amongst those violence levels all the time. But they do, and they live there. It’s not like it’s a death warrant to visit the damn place, they live there all the time. But they are also used to living in such neighborhoods, and are ‘street smart’ about it, so as not to get themselves shot.
Those neighborhoods are not really such a great danger, so long as you’re not a total naive fool. But for suburban whites who avoid even driving through, it may be a frightening learning curve. You know, don’t go wander into a crackhouse, don’t stroll up the street into a group of gangbangers selling drugs on the corner. Same as if some tourists wandered into a foreign city, if you have no idea where you are or how things are done and where not to go, you’re liable to stumble into trouble. Tourists in general, all over the world, are much more likely to get mugged or shot or robbed for this kind of reason.
But the strict majority (by the numbers) of people in these neighborhoods are not engauged in any way with that kind of activity, they are hiding from it and avoiding it, and in those areas, they have to put up with that their whole lives. And most of them do without problem.
I’ve been in neighborhoods like that all the time, and I’ve never really had a problem. There are certainly some dangerous places, and the most dangerous ones do happen to be black, where I would not suggest anyone go if they could avoid it. But a vast majority of the area that most white people are liable to be scared of, most of it is fine. Perfectly fine.
But I notice a lot of people are terrified of each other. One time I found myself with a reason, out in the boondocks in a hick type rural area, to go into a trailer park. I didn’t even think about it, I’d been in dozens, had friends who lived in them, very nearly moved into one after highschool, but my brother was with me, and apparently this was the first time he had been in a trailer park. Not a black trailer park, a white trailer park, full of (as I guessed before we even went in) a disproportionate number of blue-haired retirees. Always lots of old people in trailer parks, the kids move out so they sell the house and get a trailer. But he had never been in one apparently, and was actually kind of worried and scared to go into the thing.
Sort of like the class divide discussion relating to that new book by Charles Murray, Coming Apart: The State of White America (which I haven’t read, but I’ve seen lots of articles). He eliminates the race element rather than try to control for it, but it’s the same thing, only thornier. The more isolated we become, the easier it is for the media to trump up marginal behavior into a narrative of the terrible and omnipresent danger we all pose to each other. And the more terrified we are of each other, the more isolated we’ll become.
Oh but of course IQ tests measure intelligence! The incredibly intelligent geniuses that design the tests ace them every time! Q.E.D.!
Meh. I place less value these days on the obscene number of IQ points those tests awarded me than on the number of bones in my head. To my surprise and chagrin, it’s exactly the same number as in the heads of the title characters in Sean Hayes’ latest movie.
But when I do a crossword on paper, I do it in pen. That way I can keep a permanent record of my mistakes. No reason why my wife should be the only one keeping score.
Entropy, that is undoubtedly all true — but Derbyshire’s point #9 makes a counterpoint worth considering. Until one has the opportunity to learn the pertinent facts in that particular place, what assumption should one make about an unknown place?
Our reflexes and reactions are partially based on them. They are informed by multiple sense impressions. If we have multiple triggers of a fight or flight instinct from a similar source that gets catalogued as a threat. Similarly if we are constantly told about the danger and perfidy of a source then we will catalog THAT as a threat based on third hand experiences. We can transmit this kind of to others and they can either accept or reject it. Those who have had similar first hand experiences to these transmitted third had accounts will probably be MORE inclined to accept them and reinforce the reflex/reaction of fear and hostility.
Let us observe that this could just as easily come from a black guy who is explaining why he doesn’t trust cops or white people or Korean shopowners.
I know I plan to be good and skeert if I ever wander into southeastern Kentucky.
One thing to remember is this is a “talk” to your young inexperienced kid. One that is designed to help get him/her safely to the point of having the experiences which can then modify the “rules” to fit life as they live it.
Part of parenting is to provide a reasonably safe environment in which the experiences can be learned, and to slowly release the training wheels as they learn to navigate without them. A balancing act which none of us get completely right but still must do.
I was not speaking technically. I was speaking colloquially of a scisma the latin word for a split.
And I am are not talking about manifestations of multiple personalities here.
I am talking about an individual seeing to avoid personal responsibility for unpleasant things by trying to explain his actions and motivations as being beyond his direct control and driven by the conflicts and cooperations of imaginary specialized personas that he imagines he is composed of. It is the inner child stuff mixed with a lot of Jungian baggage. The individual who accepts this model of self generally stops training himself to behave well and instead starts propitiating and communicating with his imagined inner demons.
I’m saying that I’m not generally comfortable blaming things about ourselves on our instincts but instincts do require some discipline to overcome and that maybe MR. Derbyshire has failed to overcome his own instincts and thus been programmed with a bit of unneeded hostility that has made his opinions on race unseemly.
That doesn’t make him the KKK.
From the Sowell review of Bell Curve:
Huh. I wonder a high degree of facility with written language, which would evidence itself on written tests, is evidence that one’s brain has been organized differently (or better) by engaging with written language, the way playing a musical instrument helps you with math skills.
” The vast majority of blacks, even in the ghetto-ass projects, are not running around looking to mug and shoot people, and regardless of their racial views, aren’t hostile to any white they see walking around.”
Derbyshire was telling his kids that about 5% are hostile and that about 50% will do nothing if they see his kids coming under threat from that hostility. He was not suggesting that the vast majority of a bad was the danger. His point was that there was danger somewhere in that neighborhood and that a lot of the people there would not help his kids to confront it in any way if it decided to attack them. Thus caution was the primary concern.
I cannot vouch for Derbyshire’s estimates. I’m just pointing out that he did not suggest that vast majorities were the problem.
Regarding IQ, I can state unequivocally from years of watching CourtTV, and shows like The First 48, that crime makes you stupid.
I used to live in a fairly violent, racially diverse part of Sacramento, during the period when it was becoming more violent. Most of the potentially dangerous encounters I had tended to be with white people because, even in a diverse area the majority were still white; avoiding black neighborhoods didn’t keep me all that “safe.” As a result, I learned to watch for danger signs unrelated to skin color.
As far as I’ve ever been able to tell, the danger cues aren’t all that much different between one race and another. One night a couple of spoiled rich white boys set off my warning flags, imagine that.
I’ve found that my future job performance was often most adversely impacted by the failed job performance of supervisors and managers on whom I depended to be able to do my job.
“But what is indisputable is that the article is set up as a talk he’d have with his kids about race, and the opinions he’s formed — and that he’d pass on to his children — are his, while the reasons he’s developed them he sourced w/ links. That is, he tried (within the constraints of the format) to show his work.”
So in other words, the problem with Hitler’s Mein Kampf was that he didn’t include footnotes. Got it.
How does Mr. Lowry know exactly that nobody at National Review agrees with Mr. Derb? I think mostly he’s just worried that National Review will get tagged as a segregationist publication.
Again.
I lived in a neighborhood that was starting to slide into dangerous in Pittsburgh while my kids were small. My eldest boy walked four or five blocks to elementary school that was majority black and his best friend and favorite teacher were also black. Like McGehee, the problems I had were with the punk-assed white kids trying to act like “wiggers”. They’d mess up my Christmas decorations, tried to steal my kids’ bikes if they left them in the yard, et cetera.
I was home alone a lot at night since my husband was working on call. I got spooked by kids climbing up my steps from the street, drinking while sitting on my retaining wall and generally being a nuisance. I got ADT yard signs and an NRA sticker for my front windows and a big dog for inside. After I yelled at them a few times and called the cops once, they left me alone.
[…] we’ll never have “an honest discussion” about race in this country like Eric Holder wishes we […]
” So in other words, the problem with Hitler’s Mein Kampf was that he didn’t include footnotes. Got it.”
Is that even worth responding to? If Derbyshire is wrong about his talkw ith his kids then he’s just like Hitler and his talk with his kids expressed as an article on a blog is akin to Mein Kampf? REALLY?
Can you say that without all the hyperbole?
“I especially roll my eyes at the part about staying away from concentrations of blacks and black neighborhoods … a lot of white people are simply and literally afraid of black neighborhoods. And even if they’re fine with wealthy and nice black neighborhoods, they’re still terrified of the ghetto.”
Don’t be silly! Next time you are in Chicago, park downtown and visit the Chicago Cultural Center at Michigan and Washington. Then walk six miles straight west to the suburb of Oak Park. Please report your impressions of the walk. Any rational person, of any race or background, would be afraid on that walk.
Derb’s article will now split conservatives between one faction that claims to be fearless in the ghetto, and another that honestly acknowledges that rational actors with actual data can wisely and freely choose to avoid possible harm.
PS: LGF and Twitchy both posted Derb’s article with the links elided. That was not a nice thing to do.
Was Hitler writing to his kids about how Germans kids ought to stay out of Jew neighborhoods but some Jews were okay and even wonderful ?
Is Hitler the only source of racism or racial stife ever? Is all racial nervousness HITLER now? Are we THAT sloppy and stupid? Did Derbyshire describe his talk with his kids as “his struggle”? Is he really meeting the description of a white purity guy looking to subjugate Europe when he married a Chinese woman?
Where’s the Hitler? Why is there now a ‘Warning Hitler’ sticker on this?
So in other words, the problem with Hitler’s Mein Kampf was that he didn’t include footnotes. Got it.
Yes, Maikeru48, that is the only logical conclusion one may draw from Jeff’s evaluation of Derb’s article.
That said, let me help you out, if you’re not beyond help:
The problem with Mein Kampf is that it was written by an evil sociopath whose lust for power and world domination led to the deaths of vast numbers of people plus millions of devastated lives. Hitler’s racism was only one among many evil aspects of his being. Which racism was derived from the eugenics movement that progressives, socialists, fascists, Fabians, and the rest of the European and American intelligentsia held to be “settled science.”
Derb, on the other hand, decided to write a complementary piece to the many articles about “the talk” that black parents have with their kids, articles that were spawned by the Trayvon Martin case. The fact that he “showed his work” means that he was hoping to support his opinions with facts, not merely spout off emotionally.
Jeff’s main point being that “having a national conversation on race,” as so many insist we should have, isn’t really what people want, especially if it means dealing with inconvenient statistics, however you may wish to interpret them.
But thanks for stopping by to show how badly you missed the point.
” So in other words, the problem with Hitler’s Mein Kampf was that he didn’t include footnotes. Got it.”
So much dishonesty in two short sentences.
I think we should be able to refute or at least challenge Derbyshire’s article without getting out the Hitler bat. If he’s misguided then he’s misguided and talking to him and persuading him is the remedy. But he’s not sufficiently evil to be designated as a cruise missile target. He is not instantly transformed into some equivalent to Pol Pot because he wrote something that provokes an emotional reaction that could be seen as motivated by fear of aspects of the Black population in the US. He is not a crack in the world.
Going straight for the Hitler button is the kind of reaction I’d associate with San Francisco. Are we all just San Francisco mobbies now?
You miss Maikeru’s point, palaeomerus. By not condemning Derb unequivocally, Jeff is a Nazi apologist.
Is that about right, Maikeru?
Derb is from a country where the white underclass is more stupider and violent than America’s not-white underclass
except maybe for Detroit
oh my goodness that’s sort of an unfortunate juxtaposition
how are you Mr. Whistle Happy Easter to you
A blessed Easter to you too, happy.
As far as I’ve ever been able to tell, the danger cues aren’t all that much different between one race and another. One night a couple of spoiled rich white boys set off my warning flags, imagine that.
That’s precisely it. You know, avoid loitering groups of young men who seem to be looking for something troublesome to do, avoid people who seem to be trying to hide out and avoid people, etc.
It’s the same sort of survival sense you should really hope to possess anywhere you go, and if you don’t, you’re leaving it up to chance you don’t wander somewhere you shouldn’t be, pretty much no matter where you are, at least in an around a city.
There’s all sorts of danger out there. But I’ve been in quite a few black neighborhoods, including terrible ones, and most of them are not even terrible. Most poor black neighborhoods – I don’t know how they’re defined statistically, but block by block, they are just regular neighborhoods. Albeit maybe neighborhoods with theft problems and gang-on-gang violence that drives the statistics through the roof on things like murder.
An R. V. Williams Easter cheer to you all.
When I was at Hopkins, you’d be around very beautiful neighborhoods. Make a wrong turn on Howard St, however, and you were in bad neighborhoods. And you knew it. Because you were supposed to.
Derb’s out at NRO.
*
I don’t think you do. And frankly, I prefer my words, which is why I bothered to set them down.
Having said that, you embody my point: dismissive self-righteousness meant to earn cheap grace while studiously avoiding the position Derbyshire takes, and most specifically, how he may have come to adopt that position in this, the 21st century USA, 50 years after the Civil Rights Movement.
— Or rather, instead of avoiding it, you — and others like you — believe he holds that position because that’s who conservatives are. And you don’t even grok the irony of holding that position, I’ll bet.
they are segregating Mr. Derb?
that is so how they are
And the flip side of the welcher coin enters the room.
Blech.
peeps be upon you Mr. guins!
Without that person’s having to fear being cast as a racist. In fact, they’ll be celebrated by white liberals and elected by a largely black Democrat constituency.
And there’s the rub.
Don’t be silly! Next time you are in Chicago, park downtown and visit the Chicago Cultural Center at Michigan and Washington. Then walk six miles straight west to the suburb of Oak Park. Please report your impressions of the walk. Any rational person, of any race or background, would be afraid on that walk.
I live in Chicago by the way.
I’ve been inside Robert Taylor, I’ve walked past Cabrini Green while it was still standing. I’ve been in west Chicago, inside charity-run housing projects, and god knows I’ve been all over the south side and southeast suburbs. I once got arrested in Markham. Totally not my fault though.
You can point to the worst gang-violence areas where the gangs are absolutely out of control, and as you say, even most black people in Chicago would be uncomfortable walking around in some areas on the west side. Also since that would take you in the area where the latino ghetto is too.
That’s not to say you couldn’t make that walk and be fine. That would be a hell of a long walk anyway though, a ridiculously long trip on foot. Even in those west side areas, one should be careful, but I’ve been there, nobody shot at me. I’ve had to park 4 blocks away from where I was going, and had to walk around, nobody mugged me. Not one time but many.
And compared to those west side ghettos, the entirety of the east half of the south side and the south suburbs looks like the Hamptons.
A bad neighborhood is a bad neighborhood, but a black neighborhood, even a poor black neighborhood, is not automatically a bad neighborhood. Judging every black neighborhood you see as a bad neighborhood where it’s dangerous just to walk unless you know otherwise, would be very nearly just as silly as doing that to white neighborhoods. Maybe, on account of the statistics, like 3% less silly or something. Diet hypochondriac. The vast majority of the black neighborhoods are nice places where people raise children.
I’m curious where you get this from. I’ve lived near some of these areas of which you speak. And if you aren’t every bit as solicitous as Derbyshire cautions his children, you’re being foolish.
Sure, the chances that you’ll enter and leave unaccosted are significant. But let’s stop pretending that there isn’t a significant difference in environment between neighborhoods housing the projects of West Baltimore and those surrounding Federal Hill (which, ironically, used to be horrific, before they were cleaned up and gentrified — and put behind gates — as part of the city’s rebuild of the waterfront and tourism).
I think one commenter below had it right: some conservatives will now look for ways to separate themselves by suggesting that they have no fear of walking through, say, Cabrini Green, because they don’t see color.
I am colorblind when it comes to judging people I meet; and I believe in colorblindness before the law. That doesn’t mean I don’t have senses and don’t understand where and why I’m more likely to be a target of crime or violence.
Yes, but I learned these things from personal experience. Derbyshire is talking to children with no firsthand experience.
Holy shit, they fired him?
That’s insane.
He may even be talking from a position of limited firsthand experience. How would he teach a child to recognize danger signs he himself has never seen often enough to identify?
You know where I’d be afraid to walk? Grizzly bear country. They tell you when you’re walking on trails in a place like that your best bet to avoid surprising a bear is to talk. Not hum or make random noise that a bear might mistake for an animal, but talk — like a human being.
I never know what to say.
“Holy shit, they fired him?”
Of course they did. And they don’t want your commerce either. This is news?
Even singing is out, because bears don’t hear that enough to associate it with people. Me, I think bears need free concerts.
That’s a nice succinct anecdote.
And goes to the issue di raised, where she (inadvertently, but quite commonly) analogized distrust of police on the part of urban blacks with Derbyshire’s arguments. Police come in all shades sizes and colors. But when you hear “blacks mistrust police” you hear “blacks mistrust whites.”
Whip yourself accordingly.
Eat me.
It would never occur to me to say that to a bear, guins.
I took the wrong turn onto 14th street in D.C. with a bunch of pals during the ’68 riots. Oh what fun that was.
” His latest provocation, in a webzine, lurches from the politically incorrect to the nasty and indefensible. We never would have published it, but the main reason that people noticed it is that it is by a National Review writer.”
I think perhaps Mr. Lowry is still living in 2005.
National Review is not the name it once was either in print or on the web. Too much tolerance for the fickle likes and dislikes of Christopher Buckley saw to that. They severed that strand a bit too late.
Like Hasbro’s Wizards of the Coast and countless other brands before them they shifted into something that divided their audience in two and never really got it sewed back up again.
I think Derbishire needs them far less than they need a Derb. Who do they really have left with any name recognition? Mark “better on paper than on the radio” Steyn? Maybe Jonah “I like Sci-fi, see? I’m one of you!” Goldberg? Lowry himself is the boring obsequious ‘low hanging fruit guy’ on McLaughlin Group which itself has slipped several pegs down the relevancy meter. He also shows up on Fox panel shows every now and then.
Is National Review really much of a brand to protect anymore? It’s third heyday has come and gone.
Of course they are free to associate, hire, and fire, as they wish but their ability to provoke any meaningful discussion on the left and right has been horribly eroded by their timid emergency measures anytime someone writes something they don’t want to be linked to. They used to be tutti-frutti mixed with rocky road, and now they are at best a harmless dilute saccharine.
” Like Hasbro’s Wizards of the Coast and countless other brands before them”
I meant to write ‘niche brands’ there. Sorry.
Yes, but I learned these things from personal experience. Derbyshire is talking to children with no firsthand experience.
Well, how did you get that experience, save but by experiencing it when you were inexperienced?
And how else would your kids or anyone else?
I don’t think he should have been fired, but I will say I think he’s mistaken, if he’s telling his kids to avoid black neighborhoods because they’re dangerous.
They really are not very dangerous. Lots of white people are really scared of them though, scared of being in them, scared sometimes of even driving through them.
To use another example of what I’ve seen some good and sensible people be strangely apprehensive about, and remove the racial element:
I’m not saying there are no dangerous trailer parks in all the world that you should really always stay the hell away from, no horrible trailer park cesspit of violence and mayhem in all the world, but it is wrong to be knee-jerk scared of trailer parks, unless you know somehow they are one of the ‘good’ trailer parks. The vast majority of trailer parks are shitty and poor but just fine and full of nice people. A lot of them may also have high crime problems, by the numbers, but you are not liable to be shot up just for walking around in them or saying hi to people. If they tend toward anything, my experience has been that trailer parks are generally retirement communities with lots of geriatric people living on social security, maybe plotting to win the lotto so they can tow the thing to Florida.
” I never know what to say.”
I usually talk at length about how I never have this problem when I’m in coyote country and how rattlesnakes are smart enough to avoid foot steps and why should I be all freaked out by freakin’ bears? Not even proper Kodiaks, just little crappy little black and tan local-region bears. Sure they can can KILL me but so what? So can a bobcat or a medium sized feral dog.
By entering into the situation having been forewarned?
I’m just going to stop it there.
I’m literally sickened listening to some of the bullshit I’m hearing today. Like we’re going to join with the rest of the idiots and insert the multiculturalist bullshit we’ve learned ahead of our better judgment.
The fact is, the left and Democrats have stoked racial animus. And then they insist we’re racist for noting that it exists? Talk about a fool’s game!
I’m not playing by those rules. And if that means I’m not a filled with Christian good will and grace as some of you here? I can live with that.
I started out with advice of the type that gets a man like Derbyshire fired.
” They really are not very dangerous. Lots of white people are really scared of them though, scared of being in them, scared sometimes of even driving through them.”
They aren’t exactly homogenous either. Detroit is not Hackensack is not Houston is not Nashville. Some of them ARE extremely dangerous if an outsider wanders in. They have people looking out for outsiders. Some aren’t. And yeah there are dangerous poor white neighborhoods too. There really are. But nobody ever said that they weren’t. That’s just not what Derb was talking to his kids about.
The firing of John Derbyshire is yet another symptom related to what this nation has become with respect to language and thought.
We’re on life support.
Palaeo, I find it’s easier to take along someone else who can do the talking. Usually I’m treated to assurances that while there may be a few bad bears out there most are just going about their lives and trying to avoid trouble, and the whole idea of “good” bears and “bad” bears is just a human construct which we impose on them against their will.
Which is why even the “good” bears hate us and think whatever the “bad” bears might do to us, we have it coming.
Di…
Well, not in Corbin…
Exactly. Why this rush to create a false equivalence? The statistics are what they are, if they are what he says they are.
It helps if McGehee’s hypothetical companion is slower than you are. That way, she* is the one who will get eaten.
*if you need a lot of talking done, your best bet is to bring a woman.
” And yeah there are dangerous poor white neighborhoods too. There really are.”
To expand on this I had my 9 EEE doc martins stolen in Taylor, TX by dudes who thought I was a little too punk rock to be walking through their development. They shoved and smacked me a bit but did not use their knuckles or kick me thankfully. They wanted me humiliated and run off more than harmed. I was not set on fire or anything like that and once they had my shoes (not my wallet or anything) they instructed me to run on out. So I did.
Relax people: support Romney. He’s promised he won’t go after Obama, so the risk of being DIRECTLY branded racists aren’t in our favor!
I’d be afraid to live in Corbin, Kentucky. It’s probably dry.
There’s a reason you hear about places like Corbin. But aren’t allowed to talk about places like the area in Sarasota where those two drunk Brits looking to score drugs got shot as more than just isolated incidents — and even then, with the racial factor removed at the outset, replaced by socio-economic factors.
What bothers me is we’re afraid of the truth. Which is why we aren’t even allowed to look for it or examine it.
It could be Inconvenient, you see.
The Ricochet podcast crew (made up of people I generally like) has decided that the primaries are over and we have a winner. How tiresome.
I haven’t decided who to write in yet. I’m thinking Palin, just because she was the last candidate I was actually enthused about. Plus, I don’t care any more if people call me racist. I know it just means they’re stupid.
I’d be afraid to live in 1919. That crazy fatal flu thing was still going around back then.
entropy:
Perhaps for rational reasons?
Yes, most of the time you can walk through those neighborhoods unscathed. But then, the odds are hundreds of times higher that you’ll be assaulted — or worse — in those neighborhoods than in others. Plus, it’s not exactly a culture that welcomes outsiders, is it?
If you’re convinced by race-baiters that whitey is the devil, you’re much further on your way to killing crackers, since they have lost their humanity in your eyes.
Thanks, Jessie and Al! You guys are awesome!
I am colorblind when it comes to judging people I meet; and I believe in colorblindness before the law. That doesn’t mean I don’t have senses and don’t understand where and why I’m more likely to be a target of crime or violence.
Sure. But it is not even mostly a race thing. Like in the comment Dicentra had about being on the subway. The old lady ain’t gonna mug you. The kid in the sweater listening to his ipod isn’t dangerous. Young punk/thug looking male, or worse, group of rowdy males? Might become a problem.
We can point to the fact that the numbers are indeed tripled per capita, or some such, and indeed they are. And that’s certainly emblematic of some deeper issue which does deserve discussing. But all the same, the stats for things like murder are tripled, so it’s 12 out of 100,000 instead of 4 out of 100,000.
So the people there are .00008% more dangerous and murderous. Most people don’t murder people anywhere, though.
Well, I’m sure Marion Barry would agree that those railroad jobs should go to locals.
It’s a culture thing.
That culture just happens to be more common among people of a certain skin color.
Meanwhile, the press does its best to keep stoking the hate — they’re now claiming, based on the word of a Detroit Nazi, that neo-Nazi gangs are patrolling Sanford, FL. Jacobson does something the press couldn’t be bothered to do, contacts the Sanford PD, and finds out it’s not true.
But, then, they’d say that, wouldn’t they?
Fired for writing an insightful column about matters of the day? NRO can’t handle the Derb’s truth. Nothing left over there but chicken livered fat guys, nerds and a few tokens.
I hope Steyn quits in solidarity.
[…] far, some serious writers have taken on the now infamous article. We’re still waiting for Bob Belvedere at TCOTS to […]
Look, I know it’s not always a race thing. I know who to look out for as a matter of behavior. But that doesn’t mean I’m not aware of other issues.
And honestly? I don’t need a lesson in racial sensitivity. Or statistics. And I’m kind of appalled at the people here who think it’s some sort of badge of honor that they’ve wandered through unsafe places — that they’ve named, for reasons I’ll leave it up to you all to figure out — and did so without worry, only to survive the sojourn.
Which of course makes it completely okay!
I’m not going to suggest that such behavior is stupid and overly self-conscious, but
But hey. Maybe the fact that I know someone who was raped because she didn’t want to be seen locking her car door that colors my judgment on these matters. Wish I had the courage some of you fearless world travelers do!
And goes to the issue di raised, where she (inadvertently, but quite commonly) analogized distrust of police on the part of urban blacks with Derbyshire’s arguments.
I analogized the urban black distrust of cops with entropy’s argument that if you experience bad things more from one type of person than another, your instinct is to fear them all.
If you ask an urban black why they don’t trust cops, they’ll tell you it’s because of the bad experiences they’ve had (or heard about) with cops.
anyway, I’m sick.
And I’ve gotten sicker. So TTYL.
Okay, di.
You and entropy should get together and write a paper.
Cops are suspicious guys and girls. It’s their job and one, I’m sure, quite a few if not most of us wouldn’t do or want to do. Cops are also assholes to everyone. I’ve only ever gotten traffic tickets and only two of them ages ago and they treated me like I was an ax murderer. I’m about as lily-white an Aryan as you can get, so I discount the race thing as to why cops are looked on with distaste.
Feel better, Jeff. Drink Satch’s Pedialite or whatever it’s called now.
And I’m kind of appalled at the people here who think it’s some sort of badge of honor that they’ve wandered through unsafe places — that they’ve named, for reasons I’ll leave it up to you all to figure out — and did so without worry, only to survive the sojourn.
I was not the one to start naming places. Someone else brought up walking through the west side. There are some very dangerous areas over there. I’m just saying, because this guy is asking me to come walk through some specific place, I’ve been to that place and lots of others like it around here.
And at one point I was scared of being in pretty much any urban black neighborhood. But my personal experience even in some of the worst ones that I had some concern in, has led me to believe the idea of danger in a lot of these areas is greatly overblown.
I really don’t think Derb should have been fired for his column, I wouldn’t call him a racist and I haven’t. But on the whole, I do think he overstates what those statistics merit, I really don’t agree with a lot of what he wrote.
But whatever, I started arguing about this before he got fired over it. Now that’s he fired, if I had come along now, I’d be grousing that I can’t believe they fired him over it and defending him.
I can see why Jeff is annoyed.
You and entropy should get together and write a paper.
On what?
Look, I confessed to being afraid while lost in Yonkers and Harlem. If I inadvertently wandered into a run-down section of a city populated mostly by non-whites I’d be in a hurry to get back out.
It also would never occur to me to give Derb’s “talk” to a kid, not because I’m so all-fired enlightened but because I was raised in Utah, where there aren’t enough racial minorities to be a “threat” to anyone, so the negative stereotypes didn’t get passed around so much.
Besides, we’re too busy fighting about whose Jesus can beat up whose. When it comes to bigotry in Utah, it’s religion that determines the fault lines, not race.
I suggest that “heard about” is the vast majority of the “evidence”. The Cincinnati riots in 2001 were sparked by the constant drumbeat that “police are killing our young black men” — and a list of a dozen names. Two of the those named had actually been shot in questionable circumstances — and the police had stood trial and, ISTR, prison sentences. The rest were obviously justified shootings, including one where the “murdered young black man” had climbed into a police cruiser, shot the officer, and then been shot by her.
Meanwhile, over the years of these cases, 10-20x as many “young black men” had been killed by other “young black men”.
The endless claims that “we’re mistreated!” leads to casting every experience as mistreatment. Last week we had Tyler Perry claiming that he’d been “hassled” by the police — and then describing a traffic stop indistinguishable from my own experience.
“Lexington Herald 11/1/1919:
ah yes the era of proggtard wilson.
He’s not overgeneralizing. He establishes a set of prudent, fact based parameters and then talks about the advice he’d give his children.
I can’t count the times I’ve engaged a rather militant black person who’s told me that I wouldn’t dare walk through their neighborhood alone. I’ll leave it to you to suss that out and suggest that you do it. The short version is “That ain’t safe for you.”
I tend to respond with “Why would I want to visit your particular shithole? Really, what could possibly draw me there? What is there that might interest me?” Crickets. I recently invited one of them to meet me in a delightful restaurant in La Jolla. He declined. No, he disappeared.
I think a lot of black folk think that white folk get a free ride from the cops.
We don’t. They hassle everyone they have decided is a problem. What we don’t do, on average, is get righteous with them and start arguing, because we know where that will lead.
You cannot win arguing with the police. No, it isn’t fair.
I suggest that “heard about” is the vast majority of the “evidence”.
Well, yes. I failed to say that one’s “experience,” when it’s not direct, is to be taken with a grain of salt. I knew a black college student from Toronto who came to the U.S. and was taken aside by other black women and “educated” as to the Truth of race relations. When she pointed out an “example” of racism directed at her, and I told her that the same thing happens to everyone—myself included—she refused to believe me.
Honestly? I’m more afraid of working in an office full of vehement Leftists than walking through a poor neighborhood. Walking through the neighborhood doesn’t pay the mortgage, and most of the folks in the poor neighborhood don’t feel Called to humiliate and ostracize me for being a hated conservative.
Speaking of Ricochet, here’s a conversation about the Derbyshire contretemps that I started in the Member Feed over there last night. Up to 127 comments now.
Sounds like Camille Cosby claiming that her son, Ennis (who was tragically killed by a Ukranian(?) immigrant who was mentally ill) was a victim of racism when in reality it was a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Indeed. Ever been on a Mensa political message board? It’s fucking scary. Illogic is everywhere.
Wait, they fired him? National Review of Cowards. Fuck me. No, fuck them.
Mensa? Gad, I haven’t thought about that gaggle of losers in ages.
If charter schools were so good, why didn’t the white folks keep them for themselves?”
I was doing an NCI thing in Baltimore a few years back and went for a stroll because I felt like it. I got maybe a couple of blocks out of what would be considered the touristy area when common sense and instinct kicked in and told me to turn my ass around. Clearly, I’m a racist.
You should have brought Entropy with you, Pablo.
If you’d asked me yesterday (prior to reading all this stuff) where in the U.S. I’d be most afraid to go alone and on foot, I’d have named Laredo and Tucson and other Mexican border towns and the hippiest part of San Francisco.
You know where I’d be afraid to walk? Grizzly bear country.
I used to live next door to Glacier National Park. Have probably spent well over a hundred days in the park and about half as many nights, including multiple solo backpacking trips.
Yes, I’ve bumped into grizzlies, never had a real problem myself , but two friends did get mauled once while hiking Cracker Lake trail – a mother defending her cubs, and there were bear realted fatalities during the same overall time period.
The scariest encounter I had was probably the time I bumped into a bear on the trail to Mokowanis Lake. I heard it scratching a tree nearby but couldn’t see it, so started in with the ‘human speech’ thing (most common thing people say/shout is ‘hey bear!’) A moment later it appeared on the trail just in front of me, about ten yards away. It looked back at me and showed total indifference. It may sound silly but that is the last thing you want to see from a wild animal.
Thankfully he had an agenda that did not include me.
Grizzlies are worrisome, but I’m way more cautious about wolves – they always work as a group. The re-introduced wolves appeared in my area of North Idaho the last couple years I lived there. They changed wildlife patterns in a big way.
Groups are always the problem.
On a personal level, I could tell you why I’d never write something like Derbyshire’s article, but I won’t. I could tell you why I don’t have a big problem with Lowry’s response, but it doesn’t mean I agree with it.
Right now, the climate isn’t ready for honesty. I admire those who are willing to engage honestly, but it’s also worth noting that a realistic assessment of the race situation in this country would indicate that an honest conversation about race is not likely to have any positive effect.
That’s not the same as giving up, it’s merely an acknowledgement that if you are fighting a war, it’s always wise to pick your battles wisely.
I’d probably be most afraid of walking in Salt Lake City, where the white people have an extra layer of whiteness. Mormons are kind of like hippies for Jesus.
I used to live next door to Glacier National Park. Have probably spent well over a hundred days in the park and about half as many nights, including multiple solo backpacking trips.
Have you ever been to the South Fork of the Flathead in the Bob? That’s kind of my fantasy fishing trip, but, Grizzlies scare the hell out of me.
it’s merely an acknowledgement that if you are fighting a war, it’s always wise to pick your battles wisely.
so what battle/skirmish/difference of opinion is the one?
What bothers me is that I said that in my post. And then I explained why it was important that he bring up the issues. Only to get predictable lectures.
It’s disappointing.
I’m not blaming you. I’m just in a bad mood.
and
The prosecution rests.
That’s not the same as giving up, it’s merely an acknowledgement that if you are fighting a war, it’s always wise to pick your battles wisely.
Been hearing this for decades, on every topic. I’ve yet to see anyone who advocates for “picking the battles wisely” state that, yes, this is the battle to fight.
So, I gotta tell you, “picking your battles wisely” sure does seem to be the same as giving up.
It’s never time to fight for what we believe in. That’s why we need to suck it up and vote for His Inevitableness.
You know who are quite brave when talking about black crime and bad neighborhoods? Black folks.
I should assemble a list of warnings black people gave my dumb, ignorant ass when I first started making non-college friends on the south side of Chicago. They really couldn’t have cared less about white, progressive disapproval.
Maybe they viewed me as some sort of child who needed a bit of education. Quite nice of them, really.
I’d probably be most afraid of walking in Salt Lake City,
Actually, you want to avoid Temple Square, in downtown SLC, because of the hordes of sister missionaries who will accost everyone they can to give them “the talk,” Mormon edition.
I went to Temple Square last Sunday to photograph the magnificent flower beds (DAFFS! DAFFS! DAFFS!), was accosted by a pair of sisters from Tahiti and Germany, and despite my cred as an effing Returned Missionary, they still insisted on getting my phone number so they could call me back for references.
Nobody escapes.
Your people are indeed persistant, di. I used to feed the missionary boys lemonade and sandwiches when they were biking around my neighborhood in California.
That’s just anecdotal, bh. And your bringing it up makes you racist.
The people who protect the sensibilities of the poor blacks who just can’t help theyselves told me so.
so is this a good time to discuss the “ideas” of frank marshall davis and saul alinsky? the obummer boyz?
It’s disappointing.
Well, I don’t disappoint myself but I can get where you are coming from.
I don’t have to agree with Derbyshire, I would not have shitcanned him and ran screaming for the hills. I would discuss the matter with him, and perhaps disagree with him.
So long as people are truly insane with fear though, I haven’t much hope for anything. That’s evident in Lowry’s “we canned him” article, many people are literally terrified with accidentally associating with someone who might be racist.
It’s insane, and I know of them very well. As to what can be done about that… beats me. It’s very religious. Even broaching the topic amongst some people is like debating whether we should be concerned about Satanism with Rick Santorum. You won’t change his theology with an argument.
Put a chain around your Weber grill, dummy.
Huh? Why? Because of some amorphous fear of the unknown, Mr. Black Racist? They’re just so crazy about ribs they’re gonna steal it?
Don’t show money like that.
That’s crazy talk. Because there are all these black people around here again, right? You’re a bad person, Mr. Black Racist.
Let’s cross the street.
But the house party is on this side. What, are you really afraid of a couple guys on the corner? Would you be afraid of them if they were white, Mr. Black Racist?
Nah, stay in the car. He hangs out with fools.
What? A white man can’t score weed from a black man? Doesn’t that depress his income, Mr. Black Racist? You sicken me.
From the Ricochet thread:
I signed up for Ricochet because of the podcast, and for the solidarity with Peter Robinson for calling the gig “Silent Cal Productions,” but I don’t participate in the threads.
They tout the anti-flame, anti-troll code of conduct as one of the selling points, but if you can’t get into it with someone but good, what’s the point of even being on the Internet?
newrouter says April 7, 2012 at 7:31 pm
“so what battle/skirmish/difference of opinion is the one?”
I guess this would be: The Battle of the Election Year Argument About Race, Where We Are Trying To Make the Case for Getting a Black Guy Booted Out of the White House battle.
It seems to be happening in a time when we’re attempting to replace said black guy with one of the whitest people to ever try to occupy the office. And doing so within the context of, at this time, an extremely volatile situation that is still unfolding (ie, the Martin/Zimmerman show).
So no, I don’t happen to think it’s very wise to take this as a good moment to be having the “this is what I’d teach my children about black people” talk, and doing so very publicly.
this might be fun
Detroit students suspended for demanding education
This is the point at which you provide substantive rebuttal of what he wrote.
I like walking about where I live it has a high “walkability factor” and I often walk about and have adventures one time I went to the good luck store and the good luck girl made me a money candle! I wrote my name on a piece of paper three times, small as I could. The good luck girl took the paper and tore off three strips each with my name on it, and tamped the papers down into the candle. She paused then and looked me in the eye.
She said sometimes, as the candle burns and the papers catch on fire, the glass what the candle is in can break, so you want to make sure you put the candle in a bowl of water.
I said is that bad luck, if the candle breaks?
She giggled at that and said *if* the glass is all black all the way around then yes, that is bad. But if it is clear or even half black and half clear, then that is ok.
Seeing she had my attention she proceeded to show me how one goes about infusing the candle with one’s energy before one burns it.
Here is what you do. You grab the candle and you rub it all about your head. You can do this as long as you want, then you proceed to rub the candle downwards across your torse, your arms, down your legs, and don’t forget the bottoms of your feet! What you are doing is not just infusing the candle with your energy, you see – you are also cleansing yourself of the bad luck.
What you must NOT do is go back up once you’ve gone down with your candle. So once you’ve rubbed your head and have moved onto your torso – you NEVER go back and rub your head some more. This is very important to know for so you do it right.
Then a young man what has been sitting quietly stood up and walked towards me. He had those deformed sort of ears what people get sometimes when they insert giant discs and whatever into their earlobes. To fix this basically what you have to do is get someone to chop off the floppy bits. Having deformed ears is sort of unlucky I remember thinking.
What the young man said to me was to remember to say two things right after I put the incense what had been blessed on the wick but before I lit the candle.
First you have to say by permission of my guardian spirit I ask for prosperity. And then I was supposed to say something to the effect that this prosperity I sought, I wanted my ancestors to guide its deliverance unto me, for cause of how wise they are I guess.
I repeated that back to him, I gave the good luck girl $11, and then I walked back home, picking up some vegan thai on the way. My neighborhood has a very high “walkability factor” you see.
Well, BurtTC, it would seem the perfect time to have that battle as our enemies have set it up for us.
I’m sick of people knee-jerking about issues of race, religion, sexual orientation (to name but a few) for fear of offending” someone somewhere somehow. How long are we supposed to sit back and bite our tongue while persons in power run around lying their asses off at every turn? Are they such delicate flowers that when someone like Derbyshire writes an unvarnished piece that the only recourse is to fire him? To shut him up? What next, drive him from his home and his livelihood altogether? Will that make it all better?
It seems to be happening in a time when we’re attempting to replace said black guy with one of the whitest people to ever try to occupy the office.
well i was for herman cain because of “concerned” peeps like you.
On it’s face, that is one of the most hopeful things I’ve seen in a while. But then, they suspended the (black) kid for his temerity…
This is the point at which you provide substantive rebuttal of what he wrote.
That’s what I did, in the comments above.
Crawford says April 7, 2012 at 7:36 pm
“…So, I gotta tell you, “picking your battles wisely” sure does seem to be the same as giving up.”
I would suggest to you, other battles are happening elsewhere. Some people are fighting, just not this particular battle. So no, not giving up.
So no, I don’t happen to think it’s very wise to take this as a good moment to be having the “this is what I’d teach my children about black people” talk, and doing so very publicly.
And next year there will be a different reason. And the year after that. And the year after that.
Last summer black mobs indulged in acts that would have been called race riots if whites had done them, in Iowa, Milwaukee, Peoria, Chicago, St. Louis, and Philadelphia. This year it’s already started — Minneapolis is considering a curfew because of “youths” attacking tourists — and we’re, of course, not ever to talk about what’s happening.
It’s never the right time, it’s always too sensitive a subject, we’ve always got to walk on eggshells and not disturb the carefully nurtured chips on some peoples’ shoulders.
I like walking about where I live it has a high “walkability factor”
how about some wok suitable dishes?
Not really, Entropy. Assertions are not a substantive rebuttal.
newrouter says April 7, 2012 at 8:01 pm
“well i was for herman cain because of “concerned” peeps like you.”
I don’t know what point you are trying to make, or if you’re being serious or not. Herman Cain was not a serious candidate for President of the United States.
I would suggest to you, other battles are happening elsewhere. Some people are fighting, just not this particular battle. So no, not giving up.
Then go fight those battles, and leave those willing to fight this one to it.
Except when you’re being mugged.
Herman Cain was not a serious candidate for President of the United States.
Because?
Because of that scandal of course. You know, the one that disappeared when he quit?
your *torso* I mean
But then, they suspended the (black) kid for his temerity…
yea the communist controlled education system did that. and note the chitown nea gal asking why “white” peeps be pushing charter schools. it is almost like you can control a population by buying off it’s “middle class”. hey baracky would never do dat.
I must have missed that. I see your differing opinion, through.
Crawford says April 7, 2012 at 8:02 pm
“And next year there will be a different reason. And the year after that. And the year after that.”
You’re right, let’s go ahead and pencil it in for next year.
In the mean time, instead of having an argument this year on why blacks do so poorly on standardized tests, let’s have a discussion about how horrifyingly ineffective President Obama’s policies have been for the poorer strata of society, including blacks. That’s a battle we can have RIGHT NOW, but you’d have to be willing to accept that such a battle might help Willard Romney get elected.
Herman Cain was not a serious candidate for President of the United States.
neither was a 1 term senator from illinios named barack obama.
but he be prez!
http://nutter2011.com/?p=723
Grab a drink before you watch that. It’s long, but it’s worth it.
The current president is a disaster, but that won’t help Romney to get my vote.
No, he was never a serious candidate because he had no intention of winning the office, and no credible case to be made for why he should be elected. Including being horribly unprepared to deal with bimbo eruptions, that he had to have known were just waiting to happen.
His inability to articulate a credible policy on topics like abortion and Israel, that didn’t give some of you reason to believe he wasn’t serious?
instead of having an argument this year on why blacks do so poorly on standardized tests,
holder be right there be cowards
Some people act like we can’t walk and chew gum at the same time. For instance, we’ve managed to have this conversation — and yet still are able to discuss “how horrifyingly ineffective President Obama’s policies have been for the poorer strata of society, including blacks.”
It’s almost as if the either/or arguments represent some kind of logical fallacy or something!
His inability to articulate a credible policy on topics like abortion and Israel, that didn’t give some of you reason to believe he wasn’t serious?
are you talking about mittens?
really we can’t about teacher’s unions and the edu clusterf#@k. really.
I’ve never quite understood the ‘oh, the worst part of the crime-ridden ghetto isn’t so dangerous’.
I’ll bet if you decided to scramble down the side of a random mountain in Afghanistan you would statistically avoid all the IED’s and not get hit from any pot shots from Islamic warlords…..but why would you want to take that chance? No, any sane person would say ‘hey kids, you shouldn’t take a risk like that for no reason.’
Cain had it coming. You have to be able to take the bimbo eruptions and prepare for them in advance. And a President has to prove himself an expert on every subject. Because what we’re doing is hiring a king / Secular God.
Talks about race, though? Why, those are concersns for another day. Pick your battles, people!
Lord knows Mitt will: Santorum and Gingrich? Okay to attack those honkies. Obama? A good, misunderstood man who may just be in a wee bit over his well-meaning, very smart, very clean and articulate head.
Very true, Mr. Nessman. I’ve been to Cabrini-Green – like Entropy – and it was disgusting and creepy, but seeing as it was in the middle of the day I wouldn’t exactly say that I felt like I was in danger. That’s true of the overwhelming majority of slums I’ve been to. But at night it’s an altogether different deal.
Jeff, you seem to be putting words in my mouth, which is not what I’d expect from you. My whole point, if I have one, is that Derby decided to throw an incendiary bomb out there. Fine, if that’s what he wants to do, go ahead, but acting like NRO should have his back is silly. Whether you agree with it or not, they would prefer to see Mitt Romney elected, and they don’t necessarily think it does them much good to have this particular race argument that this time. At least not on their dime!
You don’t have to agree with them to at least see why they might prefer to do it their way, rather than yours.
25 years after Allan Bloom adopted his NR article into The Closing of the American Mind, the NR, now run by those educated under such conditions, fires Derbyshire to prove Bloom a sage.
well it will be fun in 2012 to talk about the 1% and the “war on women” oh and tacos for the diversity. yes we can!
is that Derby decided to throw an incendiary bomb out there
facts = bomb throwing. you’re eric holder kindof guy
Incendiary? Why? Explosive material, truth, or all of the above?
LOL! Jeff, do you really want to have a discussion about the relative faults of the various Presidential candidates?
Go ahead, I’m not interested. You get to choose between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. Go ahead. Choose. Or don’t. It can be fun discussing alternate realities, but in the end, this is the one in which we live.
Intellectual freedom is so silly.
Wasn’t on their dime. Wasn’t on their site.
the NR, now run by those educated under such conditions,
commie
pussywhipped both“. . . an altogether different deal.”
Ha! How about at early evening in a snowstorm, during a HUD public housing construction job-site Christmas party that’s been going on since 1:00 in the afternoon, fueled by endless half-gallon bottles of cheap whiskey, rum, vodka, gin and soda pop, where you and the sole other “white boy” are the only critters in the room with any dope left in their pockets? Party on my brothers, party on. And the waaaasted dude telling you he’s going to gut your teenaged ass like a fish? Heh, he’s just havin’ a lil’ fun is all.
Jeff, do you really want to have a discussion about the relative faults of the various Presidential candidates?
put your mittens on!
While I’m not Jeff, why not? We haven’t selected an nominee yet.
That’s mighty white of you.
That’s true of the overwhelming majority of slums I’ve been to. But at night it’s an altogether different deal.
True.
There are places I’ll go in the day I wouldn’t go to at night.
Pablo says April 7, 2012 at 8:33 pm
“Incendiary? Why? Explosive material, truth, or all of the above?’
Sure, let’s go with c. Throw in, he probably had some idea how NRO would react, and you’d just about cover it. And maybe that’s a good thing. If his purpose was to have this out with them, demonstrate how gutless they’ve been to ignore race issues, for whatever reason, then by all means, do that.
If you wanted me to list my priorities though, it would go something like this:
1. Get those crooks and idiots out of the White House.
2. Everything else.
Derbyshire may have other priorities, but that would be my explanation as to why I don’t really find his article all that helpful at this time.
In the meantime, instead of having an argument this year on why blacks do so poorly on standardized tests, let’s have a discussion about how horrifyingly ineffective President Obama’s policies have been for the poorer strata of society, including blacks.
It’s the same argument, dude.
President Obama is just the latest preacher of the progg doctrine that whitey is still the problem and that We Need These Programs To Protect The Black Man From White Racism.
Programs that are designed to supplant Family and Church with Gubmint Programs that reward out-of-wedlock births, discourage marriage, and hollow out education to the point that you’re almost smarter by not having gone to school.
Poor maternal and childhood nutrition and intellectually impoverished environments easily explain why the IQ test scores are lower. Encouraging marriage before childbearing and not dropping out of school, and in a couple generations, presto-chango, higher scores.
But Gubmint Programs have the felicitous effect of creating generation after generation of voters who believe that Democrats are the only thing standing between them and Jim Crow laws.
Which, that’s a feature not a bug.
Arguing that Obama is bad for the most vulnerable is not enough: the whole progressive enterprise must be visibly and vigorously dismantled to prevent future damage by progressivism.
And that means digging out the deeply embedded shard of glass from the gash—a painful, gory, unpleasant exercise—but leaving it in—as we have heretofore done—means that the wound will only appear to have healed over, when in fact the shard is still in there, shredding muscle and vein and sinew.
Crawford says April 7, 2012 at 8:34 pm
“Wasn’t on their dime. Wasn’t on their site.”
I know, but Lowry explained why he thought they needed to respond. Whether you agree with him or not, that’s on you, but he felt Derbyshire was operating under the benefit of his fame, which was largely obtained at NRO. So as far as Lowry is concerned, it’s their dime.
I’m not expressing an opinion one way or another, because honestly, I have no use for NRO. Never have.
Thank you, dicentra. You made the point I wanted to, but couldn’t phrase it to my satisfaction.
acting like NRO should have his back is silly.
They don’t even have to have his back. They don’t have to endorse it, it was published under a different magazine or webzine or whatever. They don’t have to fire him, that is less than just ‘no having his back’, that is ‘joining in with the beating’.
They would prefer to see Mitt Romney elected, and they don’t necessarily think it does them much good to have this particular race argument that this time.
You think they’re running the magazine in accordance with electoral politics? That is not going to go very well for them. NR cannot really influence presidential politics that much anyway. That is why Rush says he will not ‘hitch his wagon’ to any specific political candidate.
Canning people because it’s good for an election is pretty shallow, especially for a magazine. You think Mitt Romney can possibly win if his chances are so slim as to hinge on the employment of Derbyshire? Psshh.
I think they ran away screaming from the appearance of racism.
If you wanted me to list my priorities though, it would go something like this:
1. Get those crooks and idiots out of the White House.
2. Everything else.
Until “everything else” is taken care of, there will always be crooks and idiots in the White House of both parties.
The “win it NOW and we’ll deal with the details later” strategy is part of what got us here. We never deal with the details later. The news cycle churns out the next outrageous outrage and nothing every changes.
Fight every battle that the enemy puts in your path—and win it.
Because right now? Sounds like you’re just trying to avoid being called a raaaaacist by the usual suspects, as if they kinda sorta had a point.
but that would be my explanation as to why I don’t really find his article all that helpful at this time.
yea because nbc screaming a badly edited tape to 30 million of g. zimmerman is much more fun. your mittens are wet.
It seems that Derb has created a Rorschach from what I’ve seen on some sites and their comments.
So as far as Lowry is concerned, it’s their dime.
That’s asinine.
They did not fire him because they felt he was stealing from them, giving content that they had paid for to other publishers.
They were scared of being called racists (which they will be anyway).
Then why the hell did you repeat the canard? You have no opinion, have use for them, yet support uncritically their firing of someone for saying something they don’t want to hear someplace else?
dicentra says April 7, 2012 at 8:41 pm
“It’s the same argument, dude.”
Amen, you’re preaching to the choir here, but you can hopefully acknowledge that it matters how you present your case. Derb’s article reads like a litany of problems, and he leaves open the suggestion that the fault lies in those poor blacks themselves, which of course it does, to the extent that it does. But if you are fighting against the Progressive agenda, wouldn’t it be helpful if you were to make it clearer to those poor folks that you are trying to help, and not just find fault?
Derb has created a Rorschach
You can Be Breitbart or you can slap the lamb’s blood on the lintel.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/morning-jay-our-pathetic-president_635461.html
Obama is setting up to run against not the President, and that is exactly who you are giving him.
He is also preparing for a bare knuckle brawl, you are defining absurd rules for your candidate.
Election year thinking is fine, as it is. But our problems are bigger than than that and I don’t see a compelling reason why they ought to be shelved in service of electoral considerations, especially given the choice we seem to have before us.
During a goodly part of the year, you get on and off the train at night.
Have you ever lived in a bad neighborhood or is this more of a sightseeing tour you’re describing?
Hells no! I think we should scuttle primaries altogether and let Karl Rove tell us who is going to represent us.
And I LOL! when I think it.
In all seriousness, and without the snark: have you ever considered what role your attitude — and by you, I mean all those who think like you do — has in creating the “reality” in which you live?
It’s a type of willful fatalism masquerading as realism, it seems to me.
So, did anybody fire Marion Barry when he said that DC needs to find a away to get rid of all those dirty asians? Just curious.
“By the way, do you think Derbyshire cost Republicans the black vote?”
Risking eternal condemnation (or at least the mother of all JDenouncements;-),
I’d go one step further and ask this question:
If Barak Obama was revealed to be the anti-Christ; what percent of the black vote would he still get?
You assume I don’t see why they’d do what they did. That couldn’t be more incorrect. I see it perfectly. And it’s to that that I’m objecting.
Walking about in Ann Coulter’s shoes must be awful tough on the bunions.
Which, apparently, we’re not even allowed to admit exist.
Was that the purpose of the piece?
And do we really want them looking to us for help? Or looking to themselves?
Fire Superman? Are you crazy?
Link was in Jeff’s post.
Meanwhile, the same is happening down under.
Bertie!
Have you ever lived in a bad neighborhood or is this more of a sightseeing tour you’re describing?
Bad neighborhood?
Look, this has gotten far enough away from what I was saying anyway. If you want to tell your children stay out of black neighborhoods and away from anywhere blacks congregate in number, go ahead.
what i like is that the black panthers can give a $1,000,000 death warrant to zimmerdude but the nazis are the thing at Armed Neo-Nazis Now Patrolling Sanford, Say They Are “Prepared” For Post-Trayvon Martin Violence
shake your hoodie
Crawford says April 7, 2012 at 8:49 pm
“Then why the hell did you repeat the canard? You have no opinion, have use for them, yet support uncritically their firing of someone for saying something they don’t want to hear someplace else?”
I really couldn’t possibly care less whether NRO fires Derbyshire or not. The impression I have is that this was more of a shot as he was walking out the door, but again, I don’t care.
I thought we were discussing whether this type of article is helpful or not. Personally, I could agree with it, but not find it very helpful at this point.
Two weeks ago, when everyone was going nuts over the vital matter of birth control devices and who would pay for them, a lot of people on the right were arguing with each other about it. I don’t recall anyone saying they thought they agreed with Sandra Fluke, but a lot of people were saying it didn’t do much good to argue with her about it.
Again, agree or disagree with that question, but that’s not the same as giving up or giving in to the federally funded birth control advocates.
There is a common theme here, and it’s the ability of the left to determine what issues to toss out there at any given point in this election cycle that will help them garner votes. Next week it will be school lunches, the week after that it will be seniors eating dog food, the week after that it will be something else.
They toss them out there, and the right starts tearing at it. You don’t to love Mitt Romney to eventually reach a point where it becomes clear that it does no good to keep taking the bait.
I just read on Michelle Malkin that Arby’s hates conservatives. Given the effects of an Arby’s roast beef sandwich on my lower intestine this may well be true.
Well put.
Derbyshire may not have the best bedside manner, but he at least recognizes a wound when he sees one, even if he isn’t necessarily correct about how it got there.
Derbyshire and Rush Limbaugh have a lot in common. Both had their incomes at risk because a certain segment of the population did not like what they had to say and believed they should be punished for daring to say it. So will NRO suffer the same fate as some of Rush’s former advertisers. Stay tuned.
During a goodly part of the year, you get on and off the train at night.
I have a car. Never liked public transportation.
If I told you who and what gave them that power, you’d just get mad at me.
put the localized communists out of business now – joe stalin
we like big business!!
HOW DARE WE ENGAGE IN DEBATE!!!!
Yeah, yeah, “pick your battles wisely” — which, again, always seems to mean “slink away from the battle, cringing and whimpering, begging for mercy”.
[My bold.] I have no such desire. And, if you read every caveat Jeff gave, you wouldn’t end on such a flounce. You wouldn’t lecture.
Honestly, though… I do find your take on Chicago to be a bit… sanitized for your convenience. Not enough to call bullshit but more like I sorta doubt you’re ever been to Harold’s after dark.
So, what’s it okay to talk about, this being an election season? Lower taxes? I’m for ’em!
WHEEEEEEEE! Take that, progs! Consider the election ours!
what I decided is that National Review is a pussy brand anymore what is basically a fat chick and a snooty Indian ponce sitting in an office with some guy what didn’t get that Alex Keaton was meant to be a satirical figure
oh and Mark Steyn is somehow involved. He likes showtunes. A lot.
The truth is, I’ve not yet felt compelled to offer my son any such advice. But it seems to me a dereliction of parental duty to pretend there aren’t bad sections on earth that he’d do best to approach with caution or, if he needn’t be there for some truly pressing reason, avoid altogether.
I’ve raised a very kind and trusting son. Sometimes that worries me.
Jeff G. says April 7, 2012 at 8:53 pm
“In all seriousness, and without the snark: have you ever considered what role your attitude — and by you, I mean all those who think like you do — has in creating the “reality” in which you live?
It’s a type of willful fatalism masquerading as realism, it seems to me.”
If it helps, a brief history lesson of me might be helpful. Back in December (and earlier) I was trying to tell anyone who would listen that we could choose between Mitt Romney and Rick Perry. All these other candidates were essentially irrelevant. People could make their cases as to why they would have preferred one of the other people, but that wasn’t going to mean any of them had a realistic shot at being nominated. The process is what it is, and one of the things the R party does is select its candidate conservatively. That usually means “the next guy in line.” This year, that was Mitt. Perry was the only person who could have upset that process, by virtue of his experience and his positions. When they decided to go after him, and he couldn’t articulate a reasonable defense of himself, he was toast. So we got Mitt.
All along this process, I’m one of the last people who could be accused of being a Mitt cheerleader. At the time, when I was telling people “Perry or Romney, choose between the two,” I honestly couldn’t imagine there was anybody who would willingly choose Romney!
So yeah, I’m more than a little bit fatalist, but I had to be dragged, kicking and screaming to reach this point.
The best part is NRO fired him ON THEIR BLOG and then turned off the comments.
So WHO is this gesture even for then? Who is reading NRO these days? What purpose does it serve now? It’s a ghost. It’s an after image. It is a hollow cast in the sand where NRO once layed down when it still lived.
Should we just make up bumperstickers with a red, white and blue elephant and
NOT OBAMA! ’12
on them?
I suspect the only safe topics are just how white Mitt Romney is, and how racisty racist-racist Republicans are.
So, what’s it okay to talk about, this being an election season?
ann romney i’m told
I used to think Romney was white til I googled Rob Portman
Perry was the only person who could have upset that process
how many states did perry win?
I used to think Romney was white til I googled Rob Portman
ann romney will fix dat.
Crawford says April 7, 2012 at 9:09 pm
“HOW DARE WE ENGAGE IN DEBATE!!!!
Yeah, yeah, “pick your battles wisely” — which, again, always seems to mean “slink away from the battle, cringing and whimpering, begging for mercy”.”
I’d be happy to have the debates. If it were up to me though, the one about birth control? I wouldn’t have Rick Santorum as my lead debater. And white/black relations? Yeah, no, not Mitt Romney.
Come up with somebody who can take the lead on these debates, then let’s have them. We tend to wade in with our feet in our mouths though.
Perry was never a serious candidate. Look at his debate performance — only a fool would have supported him.(*)
(*) Stated just for the purpose of making it obvious what a dumb-ass approach to winning friends and influencing people it is.
Romneys not white, he’s transparent.
So where is the outrage for the racist comments of Marion Barry?
Wasn’t the “birth control” debate essentially a bunch of Romney supporters premptively shouting “theocrat” and pretending that Santorum was going to outlaw rubbers because SATAN ? Well, Rush did call that nice law student a slut, before republicans lined up to denounce him, but other than that I mean.
And, if you read every caveat Jeff gave, you wouldn’t end on such a flounce. You wouldn’t lecture.
I never accused Jeff of anything. Derbyshire said it.
I do find your take on Chicago to be a bit… sanitized for your convenience. Not enough to call bullshit but more like I sorta doubt you’re ever been to Harold’s after dark.
Look dude, “black neighborhoods”, “anywhere blacks congregate”. Do not blame me because people are insane, I am not anyone trying to shut him up or shout him down or decry him or denounce him.
But if I’m sanitizing my argument, so are you. Because that man said ‘black neighborhoods’. Not ‘urban ghettos’, ‘black neighborhoods’, ‘anywhere blacks congregate’. I know I don’t have to sanitize Chicago to make that bullshit. Not all black neighborhoods are government projects or urban slums.
So again, if you want to tell your children what Derbyshire said to his kids, go for it. I don’t even suppose you do, but that is all it boils down to, I don’t see how you can fault me for disagreeing with him if you don’t agree with him either.
And no, I’m too picky to eat at Harold’s Chicken Shack, day or night. I met the guy who owns it once though.
Sorry, preemptively
Crawford says April 7, 2012 at 9:21 pm
“Perry was never a serious candidate. Look at his debate performance — only a fool would have supported him.(*)
(*) Stated just for the purpose of making it obvious what a dumb-ass approach to winning friends and influencing people it is.”
Looking back on it, maybe he wasn’t. You could certainly make the case that anyone serious about being President would have been better prepared for the debates.
In case it needs to be said though, because I thought it was sorta frowned upon around here to assign meaning to others, when it is not supported by the words of the speaker, I never said anyone was a fool for supporting any particular candidate, nor did I imply it.
He is extremely rich.
I think there’s 80 of those things.
If it were up to me though, the one about birth control? I wouldn’t have Rick Santorum as my lead debater
you be a journolister my “friend”.
I was unaware he was the “lead debater” in any argument.
Why not? He’d be up against Al Sharpton. I’m unaware that Romney has ever incited murder and riot.
Derb just took the lead in the debate on race. The only way his foot is in his mouth is that his supposed friends have forced it there — and keep shoving, apparently out of the belief that if they can get him to bite his own thigh, they’ll be absolved of the guilt of having associated with him.
You do realize there will never be a conservative who is “acceptable” to lead any debate, right? They’ll be mau-mau’d and Bork’d and Joe the Plumber’d and Zimmerman’d and Breitbart’d and Palin’d until they learn their place.
And by declaring that “this is not the time for that battle”, you’ve undercut someone who showed their willingness to engage in the battle. You may think it’s the wrong time, but that other person apparently disagrees.
(And, really, you object to the material Derb included about IQ? Here’s a way to shut objections to that down: “Isn’t recognition of that the basis for admission preferences at colleges and universities?”)
Here are things that happen on the south side during the day. Your friend is told that he looks like a nice person to rape in prison. There is some discussion of sweet asses and white punks. People stand in front of the door so that the two of you can’t leave until the owner looses his shit and says to take it outside. This is in a liquor store in the middle of the day. Your friend’s car gets straight up fucked.
Here’s another fun thing. You’re walking around with a very dark skinned Indian friend. Which is sorta like stealing a sista you learn. You get taunted for a couple blocks until guys start grabbing her. If the bus doesn’t come? Well, I guess that one doesn’t matter. It’s just stupid to not own a car.
Is this different than the sight-seeing tour?
i like how sandra the fluke showed up upon santorum’s rise. hey almost magic.
Weird. The more I read Derbyshire’s piece, the more I agree with Jeff’s post.
One thing you should know is that Derbyshire’s curmudgeon bit had been wearing on NR for some time. Well, not the curmudgeon stuff, but the way he expressed it. As someone said, “He’s the sort of guy meant to have his own blog” way before that became a thing.
What started a fair bit of it was his comment once at NRO that Chelsea Clinton–when she was a junior–was a “two bagger,” meaning that when you had sex with girls who look like her, you put one bag over your head and one bag over her’s.
NR took a lot of heat for that, especially from Buckley.
They do provocative, in other words, in the think-tank sense, not the common one.
See, in those two instances, it was made fairly clear that white boys should pay some attention to where they are. That they shouldn’t get lost.
If you want to pretend that I want to fill my kid’s heads full of nonsense or that I can’t tell the difference between Will Smith’s neighborhood and the corner of Fucked and Oh Shit, that’s not on me.
i laugh at all of this because otherwise it is chop chop and that be no fun.
If you want to pretend that I want to fill my kid’s heads full of nonsense or that I can’t tell the difference between Will Smith’s neighborhood and the corner of Fucked and Oh Shit, that’s not on me.
If you want to apply my criticism of what Derbyshire said to yourself and take offense to it, that’s not on me either.
As a plain point of fact, I never remember saying a damn thing about you bh.
Crawford says April 7, 2012 at 9:31 pm
“…And, really, you object to the material Derb included about IQ?”
Did I object to it? I don’t believe I did.
If you want my opinion though (I’m going to give it, whether you do or not), Derbyshire’s particular argument isn’t what I’d like to see from my lead debater. I’d prefer one that refers to failed socialist programs, a mindset that has dominated race relations, and education of students, and the value of cultural civility etc. etc, and so on and so forth. We could make the case that those people, collectively the progressives and effectively the Democrat Party, they have done so much harm to poor black people in this country, and we have solutions.
Simply pointing out how poorly blacks do on tests, and how unpleasant it is to be around them, that doesn’t really help, it seems to me.
They do provocative, in other words, in the think-tank sense, not the common one.
well at least they are “NOT A MAJOR TELEVISION NETWORK” doctoring 911 zimmerman tapes.
I didn’t get to choose my battles until I’d won a bunch of the ones I hadn’t chosen.
Other than saying I want to tell my children about scary black people.
Derbyshire’s particular argument isn’t what I’d like to see from my lead debater.
yo dude: derb ain’t running for office. dry those mittens toute suite!!11!!
America can’t handle any debate that isn’t defined by the Brookings Institution
Derbyshire’s piece has resulted in an interesting performative at PW and in the blogsphere in general. It has reinforced the PW narrative on language and intentionalism quite strongly.
I don’t see it as a turning point, more as a marker on the road to a failed nation.
Those stories sound incredibly familiar, bh. I actually broke up with a girlfriend because the idiot chose to live in the middle of Harlem and I was sick of being accosted every single time I walking to or from her place. Well, that and I was sick of buying liquor from behind a bullet-proof glass partition.
That really deserves a post of its own, with nothing else said.
America can’t handle any debate that isn’t defined by the Brookings Institution
no the proggtards at brookings “define” what can be “discussed”. over to you espn
Was in Chicago, either 2000 or early 2001 and was walking up the street rolling m suitcase when a dude comes up pestering me for a handout. Must have been close to a jail cause the guy was giving me a story about how he had just been release and needed the cash to get somewhere. Told him i could relate. He asked if i had ever done time. Said yeah, told him i had problems with anger management that always seemed to manifest when i was being pestered.
Dude did a double take and moved on to the next mark.
Always liked the Chicago assignments. Loved the Greek diners. Talk about value meals.
And i made the part up about anger issues.
Derb isn’t having the debate on your terms, sorry — you ceded the field to him by declaring it was the wrong time for the debate.
And, as dicentra pointed out, you’re missing that Derb’s making the same argument you say you’d prefer, albeit from a different direction.
C’mon Rob, you know process is the be all and end all.
“I was sick of being accosted every single time I walking to or from her place. Well, that and I was sick of buying liquor from behind a bullet-proof glass partition.”
Dude,
You gotta move to Florida! You can get liquor at Walmart and girls hangout at the beach in bikinis.
HOW MUCH EASIER CAN IT GET?
Mr. Derb is very security-minded and yet he rather recklessly got his ass fired. He knows these pussywhore review monkeys personally… they’ve shared all sorts of rambunctious conservative intellectual adventures together for many many moons. He had to have some idea how they’d quail and blanch like startled baby prep schoolers. NR must not a particularly significant source of income for him I guess.
But a money candle never hurts.
It’s always best when you can’t tell what the guy on the other side is mumbling at you over his radio. What? That’s not even a word, dude. What?
must not *be* a particularly significant source of income for him I mean
America can’t handle any debate that isn’t defined by the Brookings Institution
why are they in charge?
I thought AEI was in charge
But a money candle never hurts.
are you the 99%?
Other than saying I want to tell my children about scary black people.
I don’t really even want to argue it anymore, since it will seem piling on the guy and I’ve no desire to do that. He can write whatever he wants and he’ll get plenty criticism enough.
But if you must insist,
Avoid concentrations of blacks not all known to you personally. Stay out of heavily black neighborhoods. 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). Do not attend events likely to draw a lot of blacks. Do not settle in a district or municipality run by black politicians.
That’s what he wrote, just a bit. I disagree with it. There we are.
For this we’re to wonder if I have ever been in a Harolds?
I might point out, Jeff was rather offended for some reason by me listing out places I’ve been to in response to this same thing, and yet here we are back to playing a game of guessing if I’ve ever met an actual black person and have I ever been in a Harolds? Damned either way I suppose.
He’s basically advocating voluntary complete segregationism. “Stay away from black people” is what that all says. To the extent he caveats it with the standard “But some of them are quite decent and OK personally” he undercuts his own caveat by making fun of having a few token black friends as a foil against accusations of racism.
So, go for it dude. If you want to agree with it, agree with it. If you don’t agree with it, I don’t see why you’re arguing with me about it or listing all the times you’ve been accosted by racist black people.
Yes, I suppose in that Jeff is right too, we should be grateful that Derb has started us of by advocating racial segregation from the stupid blacks. That’s just the way to start things.
Crawford says April 7, 2012 at 9:50 pm
“Derb isn’t having the debate on your terms, sorry — you ceded the field to him by declaring it was the wrong time for the debate.
And, as dicentra pointed out, you’re missing that Derb’s making the same argument you say you’d prefer, albeit from a different direction.”
I do think it’s the wrong time to have his particular debate, but I also like Jeff’s point above, which was something the effect that it’s not an either/or thing.
Look at it this way. If you know a guy who always smells bad, you could sit him down and have a discussion about the benefits of regular bathing. If I walk by and say “he smells like poo, I’m sick of smelling his nasty arse!” You could say we’re making the same argument, from different directions, and you’d be right.
You could also turn around and tell me how rude I’m being, and it serves no purpose for you to say things like that. And guess what! The end result might be that the guy ends up taking a shower, but he probably wouldn’t have done so if you hadn’t essentially told me to pick another battle. You might have even saved me from having a new battle thrust upon me: namely, a punch in the nose from Mr. Stinkybritches.
no media matters for baracky is in “full commie mode”
Had a fun one of those once, I was already about half in the bag, talking over a shitty intercom with a dude could barely speak English, trying to order a single malt I wasn’t sure how to pronounce to begin with.
“A La-frog, or La-frewg, or maybe La-frooog.
Ah, fuck. Just gimme some Jim Beam.”
I’m just gonna go with wtf here. That feels like a full and complete response.
Burt, I don’t think you have any idea what your position is anymore; you’re not making sense.
You object to what Derb said because it was “rude”? Why didn’t you say so? Then we could have all just laughed at you and moved on.
You could also turn around and tell me how rude I’m being, and it serves no purpose for you to say things like that.
yea well honesty is the best policy
Heh, the wtf isn’t for you, B Moe.
I’ve been there. And I think I was only trying to say something like “beer”. It’d be easier for us to remember these things if we were sober when they happened. But… less fun.
I wasn’t offended.
David Weigel walks it back like a banshee
original post here
You people know why this place is better than the ghetto?
HALL MONITORS!!!
Crawford, I’m making perfect sense, you’re just choosing to ignore it. Go ahead, argue with phantoms if you want, I’m done trying to reason with you.
That’s what I said?
I hadn’t realized. I thought I’d said his conclusions were almost immaterial — that what was brave was admitting to having the talk and to showing his work for why he thought the talk necessary.
But hey, sometimes you’re a closet segregationalist and you didn’t even know it!
Speaking of which, did I mention that, given the opportunity, there’s a chance some of my best friends could be black?
Speaking of the south side of Chicago, years ago, not long after the opened the new Comiskey Park, I went to a White Sox game. After I had parked my car, a young man in the neighborhood stopped me. He wanted to let me know, this was not necessarily the best neighborhood in which to park a car. He thought I might benefit from having someone willing to watch it for me, while I enjoyed the game.
I told him I thought he was making some rather good points, and asked what he thought it might be worth to have someone who was willing to watch my car while I enjoyed said game. We agreed on $10, which I thought was a very reasonable price.
I did enjoy the game, and when I returned afterwards, my car was intact, and parked exactly where I had left it.
Now, would that have been a good time for me to whip out the ol’ Derbyshire method of arguing race relations? Would that have been a battle worth picking in that moment?
We agreed on $10, which I thought was a very reasonable price.
you made valerie jarret proud and rahm too
Now, would that have been a good time for me to whip out the ol’ Derbyshire method of arguing race relations? Would that have been a battle worth picking in that moment?
I smell non sequitur.
Frelling echo chamber.
Ok,
This is where Bob Reed drops in and drops some soothing heart-warming counsel that we all agree on and wonder why we didn’t think of that.
Rocketman to base,
Come in Rocketman.
Is this supposed to be a serious question?
Me, I’d have moved my car. But then, I’m the cautious type. And not someone who is willing to pay tribute. Something about being blackmailed, even with a wink and a nod, galls me.
Plus, I’m pretty sure Derbyshire was writing an article. On the subject. On purpose.
By the way, Danger, if I moved to Florida I’d get fired before I acclimated to the fact that it wasn’t a vacation. I did a consulting gig in Miami, and were it not for the fact that I was working for an English-challenged French company, I would have paid dearly for having spent 90% of my time alternating between looking out the window and staring at my watch.
That doesn’t sound very pragmatic of you, Jeff.
My black friends are all nerds so they don’t count. of course I’m a nerd to, so I don’t count either.
And not someone who is willing to pay tribute. Something about being blackmailed
it is chicago dontcha know
Mr. Derbyshire’s DMV Lady link is broken for me I wonder what it’s supposed to link to
Wonder what would have happened to your car if you didn’t pay the ten.
I was at Costco once perusing the software and this very large black guy came up to me rather quickly, and I was like “what the frel?” but he immediately started geeking out about a video game I was looking at and I realized he just wanted to talk to someone.
“who sent you” is what the chitown commies say.
I guess any very large guy would have given me pause, really.
I have it on good authority that I only costs $5 to watch a car.
Rather than arguing race relations with a
blackblackmailingcarwatcher, Derbyshire would be more likely to attempt to give the kid a short course in statistics and statistical analysis before moving on to park somewhere else.we don’t wanna talkta no one who wasn’t sent.
that it only costs
(No idea on how some of these typos happen. “I” requires a shift key, I’m not on a phone.)
I was at Costco once perusing the software and this very large black guy
hang out in the “hood”. it gets real.
But hey, sometimes you’re a closet segregationalist and you didn’t even know it!
I’m frustrated is all. I don’t think you’re a segregationist.
“Now, would that have been a good time for me to whip out the ol’ Derbyshire method of arguing race relations? Would that have been a battle worth picking in that moment?” What are you talking about? Derb counseled avoidance, not confrontation. He _is_ a gun owner, and teaches his kids to shoot, but his article says nothing about attacking or even standing up to belligerents. What would you whip out?
Abe,
You could ease into it by moving in the winter. Only the fat snow-birds are wearing bikinis below 70 degrees;)
it’s hard to know for sure but I think if he’d left out the IWSB business he’d have been in much better shape
that’s not really ringing true is it
True about who hf? Seems to work for Joe Biden.
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.
link
that’s no amulet Joe has that’s an immunity idol
That was a clear Wisco slur! (But, still, I want to apologize on behalf of my people.)
They do get chunky in these parts.
“I’m frustrated is all.”
And that is what Obama is after. When you get to that point you are likely to either withdraw or act out irrationally. Either way he wins.
(btw, someone with evil inside as his avatar should recognize it and be prepped to counter it;)
Here’s a fun story about correlations.
There once was a kerfuffle that involved young men. It was implicit at times and at other times it was quite open. People saw — and admitted — a correlation there.
Other correlations? Verboten.
Does anyone here not see young males as the factor with the highest correlation?
Isn’t that what makes everyone’s radar ping loudest?
You are all deeply, deeply sexist. And you want to make your children deeply, deeply sexist.
The day I hear that critique of empiricism… is the day I’ll also reject that stupid critique of empiricism. But, I’ll feel like we’ve made a positive step into a future where we pretend that women commit tons of violent crimes because of justice or equality or something.
I think it probably means something that Mr. Derb wasn’t standing ready with a retort to the NR pansies
“I think if he’d left out the IWSB business …” Some of Derb’s points are probably factual, like points 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 14. Some points are “common sense situational awareness,” like 10b and 10i. Some points, like 10d, do not stand without further qualification; e.g, you’d expect to be safe at a Howard University 50th Annual Student Reunion. His point 9 is marred by his pulling numbers (5%, 50%) out of his ass; the point is likely true, but the exact numbers are arguable.
His points about picking the right clerk at DMV, and the throwback naming of NAACP and UNCF seemed childish to me. Maybe he was being puckish, which would be a bad choice in such an article.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but he did not express malice or threats. His thoughtcrime is called by some “racial realism.” Is racial realism in the absence of malice an abomination?
(But, still, I want to apologize on behalf of my people.)
No worries, Snow-birds keep the taxes low here and our blood is too thin to venture out on the beach at winter.
So, win-win!
(Maybe sonar pings. Not sure what radar does. Blip, maybe.)
For the sake of [better establishing!] the gender-neutral society we attribute violent criminal behavior to females in order to even out the otherwise factual disparities? Won’t they be thrilled, the females? “Finally!, they’ll say, “We’ve made the cut! We’ve reached a scary parity!”
I don’t know about racial realism but I think you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone on the National Review staff that isn’t actually in agreement with all or most of what Mr. Derb said
Via Sara(p2p), a new Zimmerman story.
Feets, I invite any of NR honchos to take the Two Hour Chicago Westside Tour I described above, or, alternatively, explain how they would advise their kids whether to take the Tour.
Econ gives us a way to think about this.
Rent is lower in some areas and higher in others. All things being equal, you’d obviously like to spend less on your rent or mortgage if you could.
Where do they live?
that’s a very good point, the where do they live thing
Don’t mean that in a “let’s find out” sort of way. I mean that in a thought experiment sort of way.
Just watched a fascinating video of a white man in the wrong part of Baltimore. He would have found Derbyshires advice valuable.
Instead he found himself beaten, robbed and stripped naked by a black crowd.
Move along…nothing to see here.
I see nobody else has yet mentioned that Derb wrote in March that he is undergoing chemo.
I hadn’t known, gp.
Statistically speaking, it most likely didn’t happen. So tell your video it’s racist for being so anecdotal. Then have Rich Lowry fire it.
There is a common theme here, and it’s the ability of the left to determine what issues to toss out there…
They toss them out there, and the right starts tearing at it.… it becomes clear that it does no good to keep taking the bait.
a) These people aren’t random trolls who can be bored into leaving you alone if you ignore them.
b) They’ve made the Long March Through The Institutions for the express purpose of making sure that certain fights will be so brutal and merciless that decent people would rather not show up for them at all. So they win by default. The Bully’s Veto, I think they call it.
c) There’s “taking the bait” and there’s “making them wish they hadn’t brought it up.” Which we don’t do. Which we should.
d) Read Ender’s Game and contemplate why Card nicknamed him “Ender.” Hint: it was because the kid had the instinct—when the bullies came ’round—to fight not just the current skirmish but the next one and the next one. In other words, beat the other guy so badly that he’ll never come back for more. (The adults hid from Ender the fact that he’d killed two bullies that came after him.)
e) Please demonstrate with concrete examples how these numerous Internet squabbles “hurt our side.”
I don’t know about racial realism but I think you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone on the National Review staff that isn’t actually in agreement with all or most of what Mr. Derb said
Nothing about how white liberals lead their lives or the policies they advocate would suggest that they aren’t in general agreement either.
These are the people who are giving us Mitt Romney
No they are not.
very good point Mr. Abe
“After I had parked my car, a young man in the neighborhood stopped me. He wanted to let me know, this was not necessarily the best neighborhood in which to park a car. He thought I might benefit from having someone willing to watch it for me, while I enjoyed the game.
I told him I thought he was making some rather good points, and asked what he thought it might be worth to have someone who was willing to watch my car while I enjoyed said game. We agreed on $10, which I thought was a very reasonable price”
Exact same thing happened to me outside the Imperial Beer factory on 4th of July 2004. The U.S. Embassey holds a 4th celebration there every year but there are no parking areas. We parked and a “hispanic” or “white hispanic” (take your pick, this is Costa Rica) came up and demanded $10.00 to park along the autopista. I told him (in Spanish) that if anything happened to my car, I would hunt him down and cut his throat. Four hours later, we returned to the car and there wasn’t a scratch.
Nothing about how white liberals lead their lives or the policies they advocate would suggest that they aren’t in general agreement either.
But the fact that the raaaaacist charge sticks when you’re not a card-carrying leftist—and your behavior is identical—is awfully telling, I’d say.
Telling of what?
That leftists believe that being leftist protects you from being racist, and conservatives believe that accusations of racism—from the aforementioned pinheads—are so scary that they should be avoided at any cost.
“and conservatives believe that accusations of racism—from the aforementioned pinheads—are so scary that they should be avoided at any cost.” Not the conservatives I have known. YMMV.
dicentra says April 7, 2012 at 11:30 pm
“a) These people aren’t random trolls who can be bored into leaving you alone if you ignore them.
b) They’ve made the Long March Through The Institutions for the express purpose of making sure that certain fights will be so brutal and merciless that decent people would rather not show up for them at all. So they win by default. The Bully’s Veto, I think they call it.
c) There’s “taking the bait” and there’s “making them wish they hadn’t brought it up.” Which we don’t do. Which we should.
d) Read Ender’s Game and contemplate why Card nicknamed him “Ender.” Hint: it was because the kid had the instinct—when the bullies came ’round—to fight not just the current skirmish but the next one and the next one. In other words, beat the other guy so badly that he’ll never come back for more. (The adults hid from Ender the fact that he’d killed two bullies that came after him.)
e) Please demonstrate with concrete examples how these numerous Internet squabbles “hurt our side.””
I want to make sure we’re talking about the same thing, because, if we’re not, then this discussion gets needlessly confused.
If we’re talking internet battles, by all means, let’s have them. Always and in all ways, and I’ve argued that point elsewhere, especially in light of the fact that some people really do seem to want to quietly avoid offending, hoping they’ll just go away.
I think I’m looking at the bigger picture here though, which is, in light of this Presidential election, and the general nastiness in society over the Martin shooting, I’d prefer better tactics from “our” side. And to the extent that places on the internet, like here, NRO, Ace’s place, and elsewhere, set the tone and/or reflect the larger community of right-leaning citizens, I’d like to see some wisdom applied to how we make these arguments. And yes, when we make them.
For me, as I said earlier, I consider getting this current Administration out of the White House to be my biggest priority. I would go so far as to suggest they’ve set race relations back in this country, in ways we haven’t really begun to see. The sooner the racists who run the executive branch of the federal government are out of power, the more likely it is we can have a reasoned discussion of race.
At AoSHQ ONT, moderator Andy sez “If you really believe what Derbyshire wrote was OK and that NR was out of bounds in firing him, you should unass this place for Stormfront.” Followed by lots of deleted comments and no more Derb talk. The excommunication is well underway. Watch: soon, all Derb content will disappear from NRO archives.
Gulermo says April 7, 2012 at 11:40 pm …
Would you really have cut his throat, had there been a scratch on your car? See, to me that’s too high a price to pay. $10 I can handle, a murder charge though…
I’m looking at the bigger picture here though, which is, in light of this Presidential election, and the general nastiness in society over the Martin shooting, I’d prefer better tactics from “our” side. And to the extent that places on the internet, like here, NRO, Ace’s place,
And the better tactics from NRO and Ace are what, now? I’ve seen nothing so far but frantic ablutions designed to wash off any excrement that passes through the fan on the way to Derb’s doorstep.
I’d like to see some wisdom applied to how we make these arguments.
Do tell.
First of all, there’s no “we”; just a lot of individuals doing their thing.
Second, there are myriad ways to respond to Derb’s column and its critics that are far more constructive than what NRO and many others have done.
Third, “better tactics” in the face of people who find it USEFUL to call you racist don’t involve more niceness or gentleness: it involves mopping the floor with them, vigorously and thoroughly. They don’t have the better arguments or the moral high ground; they win through maintaining their malicious attacks through sun and storm.
I fail to see how forfeiting the game every time things get uncomfortable constitutes “better tactics,” unless your goal is to avoid being called names.
Entropy, you appeared to have missed the part of his article that went…
Bolding added. Maybe you should read the entire article for understanding next time instead of just for quotes.
I also missed the part of the article where Derb mentions that the moral worth of a person is directly proportional to his/her IQ.
I notice that Derb’s name is still being used to advertise their November “Post Election NR Cruise”. But he’s stealing THEIR oxygen to foment views they’d never support.
I guess there are only 35 reasons to go on that cruise now.
Bummer.
What a useless little runt of a magazine.
http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2012/04/06/crowd-beats-strips-robs-tourist-on-st-patricks-day-incident-caught-on-camera/
Happy Saint Patrick’s day!
Luckily we got to hear about this three weeks after it happened! Why? Because some guys put this video on youtube to make fun of the guy they saw having the shit kicked out of him.
gp,
Mr. Derbyshire was pointedly relating his own “experiences” that led him to his conclusions regarding “the talk”. No where did he state all, most or some whites agreed with his conclusions.
To say that he pulled numbers out of his a** when you don’t know what his experiences were, other than the one he related regarding the large group of blacks at the beach, is just putting your own experiences up against his. Much the same way as others here were positing their experiences as proof it must not be all that bad to take a walk in black neighborhoods Mr. Derbyshire experienced.
I may not agree with all his conclusions or the conclusions of some of the material which he links but I am not going to project my experiences into his to try and justify why. This works the same as language which is what pw is all about so I am a bit surprised at some of the comments on this thread.
[…] What Jeff said. So. First, let me say this: Derb’s article is “controversial” in the same way Juan Williams’ noting that he gets a bit frightened on a plane when he sees Arabs in the row in front of him tugging at their vests was controversial. Meaning, it was honest — and as such, it was not sufficiently filtered for a media climate where political correctness still provides the parameters for what is and isn’t acceptable. […]
if you get your news from “hotair.com” you still don’t know anything at all about Mr. Derbyshire’s travails
but you probably know that painter of light Thomas Kincade has got the moves like Whitney he got the moves like Whitney
Try as I might I can’t see BurtTC standing athwart even tiny Rich Lowry yelling stop.
Word. I may have to homepage PJM again. Which sucks.
National Review is clearly a hotbed of racism and Mr. Lowry’s housecleaning is just a start
They might as well just rename it the National Bigot Review I think
I’m only comfortable talking about race
at the Pinewood Derby
Judging by the opinions of the AoSHQ cobs Andy and CAC, it is a crime against humanity to refuse to stop and render aid to stranded motorists. More than enough reason to be shunned by polite company. When I pointed out that that is just nuts, I was advised that oh, we changed the subject. Wouldn’t want to talk about that today.
So how about those Cubs?
That mirrors much of the far-Left’s chattering on the Twitter.
Sigh. Eric Holder is likely dancing a jig, given the current conversations about race are moving in exactly the direction he wants ’em to: smothered and covered. (A little Waffle House breakfast lingo there.. )
Actually, there (was) a law in place in Arizona that made it a criminal offense to not stop and render aid to a stranded motorist (that was true back in ’73, when I took the driving class in HS). Now, with the advent of cell phones, ‘rendering aid’ might just mean phoning it in.
Mr. jdw the nice kids at the venerable white people journal National Review are about to see what it feels like to go from riding in the front of the bus to riding under it I think
National Review is going to find themselves stuck with thousands of totebags that they are still trying to give away with a subscription ten years later—kind of like the Weekly Standard does.
Maybe they can hire Fred and Mort, the erstwhile Beltway Boys? Two old pasty white guys for one!
‘feets, check that first Twitter link. It seems that everyone who is not a card-carrying Obambi-voting far-Left Democrat is now a RAAAAACIST!. You too, you see; and if you try to deny it, the racialists will change the qualifiers so as to fit you more perfectly.
There is no ‘win’ when you are on the wrong side of The Narrative.
I agree Mr. jdw but it seems that the nice white folk at National Review are under the impression that they’ve chanced upon an Adroit Maneuver whereby they can dodge that bullet.
I’m intrigued.
Mr. Mike Wallace also’s got the moves like Whitney he got the moves like Whitney
busy weekend
dicentra says April 8, 2012 at 12:55 am
“…I fail to see how forfeiting the game every time things get uncomfortable constitutes “better tactics,” unless your goal is to avoid being called names.”
My opinion, and that’s all it is, would be to go after the race baiters in positions of power. That would be members of the Obama Administration, University types, media liars, and the all-purpose race mongers like Sharpton and Jackson. And throw in a Spike Lee or two as well.
Take them all on, directly. Use all the force of fact and reason you can to destroy the lies and hate they bring to race relations in this country.
But leave the IQ stuff, and the black guy with the flat tire, and the gathering of dark skinned folks at a Temptations concert out of the discussion. My assumption is that you are trying to win them over, get them to see the ugliness of the race baiters on the left, not alienate them further.
it remains a lot striking Mr. Burt how very very few blogs on the right have the balls to throw up a Derb thread
cowards is cowards
On his twitter, CAC took it as a personal insult to his (non-white?) family if you won’t stop and help them when their car breaks down. Fuck you, he says. Now we’re getting into a really weird brand of conservatism where, upon observing an accident, we’re required to search our souls and carefully analyze the reasons we might choose not to stop, making _certain_ our judgement is nominally race-neutral and selfless. If we happen to notice that one of those we failed to assist is black, we must suffer self-guilt, and opprobrium if CAC finds out.
I expect that shit from progressives, not from conservatives. Rorschach test indeed!
Principles of AoSHQ conservatism: curse a lot, brag about getting drunk (but not for realsies,) curse some more, root out impure thought, colorful curses, support TARP, watch war porn and sucky action movies, stamp out racism, say cocksucker a lot, ewok jokes, enforce political correctness, dirty words, and no naked titties allowed.
[…] Goldstein notes the racial fear mongering angle and defends Derbyshire as well. He also makes a couple of excellent points about the Left’s […]
Everyone is sorting themselves out quite nicely. John has provided a public service.
dicentra:
…but nobody paid the nervous white chick in the truck any mind at all.
Where in Harlem? It’s a big place.
So there I was on my bike getting some exercise.
“Self,” I said to myself, “today is a fine day to
see something new, and finally put to rest
your reflexive and provincial apprehension
concerning that storied patch just north of Central Park.”
As I was peddaling along minding my own business
I noticed that I had become an object of interest to
a party up ahead, a party of males of various apparent
ethnicities, white excluded.
As I passed them, one (looked Jamaican, the evident leader of the group)
gave a fellow in a wheelchair (who looked hispanic) a terrific
shove so that the wheelchair was knocked over onto its side
and both wheelchair and contents came skidding into the street
toward me. I swearved to avoid being knocked down,
and noticed that all eyes were on me,
not the poor fellow in the wheel chair.
The impulse to stop and help the poor guy passed in an instant.
I was struck by what he said as he was getting dumped.
He didn’t say, “Help, help” He said, “Hey, quit it!”
He said it like kids do when one keeps poking the other.
They took me for a bleeding heart liberal, blinded by doctrine,
and threw out a victim as bait.
Now, were they racially motivated? Or were they just after my
bike, and my wallet? I believe the answer is, “All of the above,
with a trip to the hospital as a bonus.”
I kept pedalling, made a loop, and returned on another street.
If the locals were armed (instead of just the gangs)
then this sort of thing would not find a place to take root.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1454&dat=19781014&id=QesyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=LhMEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2808,2816296
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1454&dat=19781026&id=OesyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=LhMEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5375,5310833
Jerry Romine was a teacher and a friend of mine. It is not always a good idea to stop and help stranded motorists regardless of color or sex.
it looks like one of the guys what killed your friend is out and about already
“very very few blogs on the right have the balls to throw up a Derb thread” Loesch at breitbart.com weighs in: Derb’s article is “indefensible,” so I gather all of us defending it don’t exist.
“Would you really have cut his throat, had there been a scratch on your car? See, to me that’s too high a price to pay. $10 I can handle, a murder charge though…” Who knows? He believed me though and that’s the point. You have no problem encouraging criminal behavior? In most places extortion is a felony.
“I’m looking at the bigger picture here though, ” Arrogance will only take you so far in life.
Yes, SaraG, they are.
You’re just going to have to deal with it.
Cold-blooded fucking murderer. Shot an unarmed, unresisting school teacher point blank between the eyes, paroled at 52.
Got to make room for all those dangerous pot smokers, I guess.
gp —
That must be the official position of the current BlogCon.
There’s a reason they keep the likes of me away.
Somebody write to Dana Loesch and tell her I defended it, and ask her how or why my defense is flawed.
I’d like to know.
If she says something about Mein Kampf with footnotes we’ll know we’ve reached the Singularity.
You defended the indefensible, d’uh!
“and ask her how or why my defense is flawed.” Are you kidding? It’s indefensible, case closed. You may not even inquire about any of the conveniently numbered individual points in the article. Blanket condemnation is the order of the day, so as AosHQ Andy tells half his readership, go back to Stormfront, we’re changing the subject.
Breitbart Is Here! Oh wait. Breitbart would _never_ touch an issue with racial aspects. Breitbart WAS Here!
Once a subject is off limits for discussion, how can you possibly make any headway on it?
If she says something about Mein Kampf with footnotes we’ll know we’ve reached the Singularity.
Not the technological singularity, mind you. Just the kind where a measured rate suddenly and abruptly changes its descriptive function with no proper transition.
This same thing would be happening no matter what was said, so I think it’s easy to lapse into the general template for these discussions.
But…
we’re required to search our souls and carefully analyze the reasons we might choose not to stop, making _certain_ our judgement is nominally race-neutral and selfless. If we happen to notice that one of those we failed to assist is black, we must suffer self-guilt, and opprobrium if CAC finds out.
Huh? The dude said, tell your children not to help black people.
That is not “making certain your judgement is nominally race-neutral and selfless” or else “racism”.
Derbyshire is not writing “use good judgement when you see hitchhikers or ‘stranded’ people on the road”.
He said ‘Don’t help black people’.
Can anyone possibly make an argument that, keeping in mind black crime statistics are triple what white crime statistics are, that we will make a decision to never help anyone who’s black, and say that their judgement might even be race neutral? It’s explicitly racial.
Because 24 out of 100,000 black people are murderers, as opposed to 8 out of 100,000 white people. Ironically, if you read some of Derb’s own links like the FBI crime statistics, it also illustrates this point which I think goes against his own framing of that statistic.
Does that extra 16 out of 100,000 violent murderous thugs rationally justify the advise that we should just avoid all of them?
To see someone in trouble and immediately assume you probably shouldn’t help them because they’re probably trying to bait and rob you, because their black, that is not in any way a rational and correct conclusion to draw from the .00008% increased crime rate.
I am not accusing you of having that view. I am not exaggerating it either though, it isn’t a straw man – that’s what Derbyshire wrote.
Tell me if you had black kids in your family, you wouldn’t be pissed at the thought of everyone getting this advise from their parents?
not even 24 hours and she’s already exploiting Mr. Derb’s misfortunes for The Cause?
Miss Loesch is very resourceful for a white person I think
All racism/bigotry is not equal. Having and expressing an opinion is not the same as actually attacking people.
The zero tolerance war on any racism in the mind in any amount is not only silly bullshit it is craziness that results in absurdities like people being examined by self appointed witch finders and “decoding”.
Let’s confront the people trying use it to actually pick a fight or hurt people. The people who keep to themselves and are willing to discuss their feelings honestly are NOT the same as the hitlers, the KKK burning a cross on a lawn, the boss who won’t ever hire “them”, eugenicists, or skin head thugs. If anything hounding out these mostly innocuous thought-crimers seem to be a substitute for confronting the real thing. Because real neo-nazis and their kindred groups will hurt you. Real billionaires with a theory of who has value and who doesn’t can ruin you if you oppose them. Derb’s are no great threat. They make great targets.”
” I fought racism! And it didn’t/couldn’t fight back! Bonus! No comments allowed! gimme a medal! ”
And punishing a Derb while ignoring similar (actually much cruder and more dangerous) content from a Sharpton, the NBPP, and a Marion Barry shows how insane the double standard of “may I profess racial offense or not?” really is.
Arguing against Derbishire makes sense.
Overcoming his portrayal of his views with better arguments and a refutation of hois own, if you can manage it, is a moral duty.
Condemning him and shunning him publicly because ‘he thinks bad’ and ‘he’ll cause trouble for us’ is craven, and collectivist. You don’t have to defend his article or his views but you ought to defend his right to speak and answer for them.
New post up, for those who wish to continue the discussion.
Personally, I’ve now lost 11 pounds in a bit over two days. So I’m going to hope I’ve said my piece effectively enough that I can now bow out, once again disappointed and dispirited by so many on the “right.”
I can’t help but think that we’re no longer losing more slowly, but that we’ve lost. The fact that the right’s political narrative is now being shaped and legitimated by feedback loop of squishes pretending to be conservatives is (or perhaps more generously, conservatives in theory, but pragmatists when it comes to the fight: they’ll attack you for fighting back twice as hard as they’ll attack the left for the insult), it seems to me, the final nail in the coffin.
Being a pariah is not new to me anymore. And yet it is still quite surreal, knowing as I do that, through it all, I’ve only ever stood on principle.
Mr. Entropy there’s a lot to criticize about in Derb’s Racist Screed but he’s mostly trying to say, in the context of the Trayvon dealio, that wandering about willy nilly can be unwise no matter what race you are.
Christ on a cracker when National Review wants to host a get-together they rent a goddamn cruise ship for so nobody unsavory intrudes.
“To see someone in trouble and immediately assume you probably shouldn’t help them because they’re probably trying to bait and rob you, because they’re black, that is not in any way a rational and correct conclusion” We’ll have to agree to disagree on that one. You admit X = 3Y, but say because X is so small, other (PC? Humanitarian?) considerations override the rational math of MY safety. I say no.
“wouldn’t you be pissed at the thought” I’ll live my life my way, and if it butthurts CAC I can’t help him. He’s poised to take personal offense, as is Coates. If I were black, I’d be pissed at the black thugs, but I guess it’s easier to be pissed at Derb protecting his daughter.
I repeat from above: “rational actors with actual data can wisely and freely choose to avoid possible harm.” I now add: “without moral reservation.” If not, then WTF is liberty?
If you see someone in trouble on the road then phone it in. I’m not even applying race here. Anyone who is not obviously wounded. Tell the police, sheriff’s dept. or state troopers about it and give them a location. They will help.
You admit X = 3Y, but say because X is so small, other (PC? Humanitarian?) considerations override the rational math of MY safety. I say no.
This is why people say lies, damned lies, and statistics.
I suppose you think smoking causes lung cancer.
Statistical likelyhood any person you meet will murder someone this year: something on the order of .00008%, .00024%, one is triple the other, scary stuff. Just like with lung cancer and smoking, actually, similar sorts of numbers.
Anyone who is not obviously wounded. Tell the police, sheriff’s dept. or state troopers about it and give them a location.
Jackass.
Really though, that’s not universal help. If you see me stranded on the side of the road, if you don’t wanna help, fine don’t help. But don’t call the cops on me!
Like I needed them to tow my broken car away and impound it for $2000.00 before I can find a phone and get a private tow for $80, or ticket me for breaking down or something.
I love the mentality of it though. Don’t do anything yourself; call the government to help.
If I had black kids in my family I would be telling them much the same things.
Also, what I would do and what I would counsel children or young family members to do are two very different things.
I’ll bet it is in your case also.
Derb protecting his daughter.
By statistically conflating a tiny minority with the whole.
Do you think asians should avoid white neighborhoods?
As the numbers pile up, I find myself wanting the advice – advise distinction back.
Entropy, if Derb’s daughter were to be killed, would you expect the fact his statistics weren’t perfectly accurate to console him?
Is there a significant percentage of the white population that thinks Asians have it coming?
Go to the new thread guys!
Entropy, if Derb’s daughter were to be killed, would you expect the fact his statistics weren’t perfectly accurate to console him?
What if his daughter gets killed in a white neighborhood?
Should he feel bad for not warning her to avoid white people too?
Hell, avoid men.
One of Derbyshire’s links: http://lagriffedulion.f2s.com/fuzzy.htm
Blacks are, by the numbers and in the mean, one standard deviation more aggressive than mean white people, where it takes over 3 standard deviations from the white mean to be aggressive enough to initiate a violent assault.
Meaning the vast majority of everyone of all groups isn’t going to assault you.
Black people are more criminal and more aggressive, roughly by about the same proportion with which men are more criminal and more aggressive than women.
Do we tell our daughters to avoid males? Well… Yes. Yes we do.
But they don’t listen. And really, men aren’t all criminals, when you see us stranded on the side of the road, sometimes our cars just broke down, we’re not trying to carjack anyone.
“Hell, avoid men.”
Exactly. We will have a gender-neutral society, by hook or by crook.
And therefore, another battle of the stereotype vs. “Science”.
” Jackass.
Really though, that’s not universal help. If you see me stranded on the side of the road, if you don’t wanna help, fine don’t help. But don’t call the cops on me!
Like I needed them to tow my broken car away and impound it for $2000.00 before I can find a phone and get a private tow for $80, or ticket me for breaking down or something.
I love the mentality of it though. Don’t do anything yourself; call the government to help.”
Could you be ANY MORE of a pathetic deranged shit head?
A ticket and impound for breaking down? Are you an imbecile?
They call a wrecker for you! They often wait with you until it gets there! Can you control your bizarre psycho cop terror at all? Shit what if the cops are pod people? Or robots?
Stupid Aashole.
New PW Derb thread guys. Go there.
“Let us observe that this could just as easily come from a black guy who is explaining why he doesn’t trust cops or white people or Korean shopowners.”
Another blogger has said that Derbyshire wrote his piece explicitly in response to such a column as you describe–in the New York Post, I believe.
Playing traffic copy rarely goes over well.
cop, not copy.
cop.
Wow. Not even the happyfeets re-infestation can account for 46
34 comments.My personal opinion is this where “something needed to be said” and “hey, maybe it’s time to retire” conveniently coincided. Out with a bang, I’m guessing.
[…] 2: As you might imagine, there’s a lot of good stuff on these issues at Protein Wisdom, and Jeff’s doing his fundraising, now, […]
[…] like that “candid discussion about race” is gonna sort of happen whether Establishment Beltway Careerist Think Tank Conservatives want it to […]
Racism today has been reduced to a Pavlovian deterence stimuli that induces flinching, silence, or at least imbalance in the target. It is guilt, shame, and permission to hate in a spray-can. It is an instant agent of transformation towards a sub-human “hostile” status; apply directly to the forehead.
Is somebody about to point a mistake of yours out or make you look like a careless, lazy, sloppy, witless, dumb shit? 0—> RACIST!(TM).