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Housecleaning

The article to which Derbyshire’s piece was a response.

Incidentally, I should add that my comment on the Steyn article — pointing out that Derb’s article isn’t “indefensible” — never made it through moderation.

Take that for what it’s worth.

And this, too.

231 Replies to “Housecleaning”

  1. geoffb says:

    Teaching teens that when the police stop you you should be polite and do what the officer tells you is a “talk” every race has with their teenagers even though the ideas of how to deal with and get along with others should start way before teen years.

  2. newrouter says:

    Now, it’s you who inspires fear.

    yea the “knock out” game and riots over $200 shoes will do that

  3. dicentra says:

    Suggested trajectory:

    Your kids vocally observe that some people have different-colored complexions than theirs: “That’s OK: God made people in all colors. Don’t worry about it.”

    Your kids go to elementary school: Talk about slavery, civil war, Jim Crow, as it comes up in class. Make sure you include David Barton stuff on black Revolutionary War heroes and the progress blacks made up until the progressive movement. Maybe even talk eugenics and Hitler.

    Your kids go to middle school: Teach them about the evil that is identity politics and let them know that you want them to have GOOD friends of all types, and by “good” you mean they don’t drink or take drugs or smoke or swear or shoplift.

    Your kids go to college: Teach them about the evil that is Howard Zinn and the “-studies” programs and then hold your breath and cross your fingers and hope for the best.

    Oh, and tell them if they bring home a potential spouse who is fully invested in identity politics, you’re disowning them.

  4. newrouter says:

    don’t needlessly start a fight in a conceal carry state

  5. LBascom says:

    Dude woulda been better off telling the boy about the bloods and cripts and study hard so he don’t get gold teeth, tattoos, and kicked outta school before he’s legally a man.

    Or, if you’re Derbyshire, reinforce the idea he’s feared, know you’re but a talisman to any white people wanting to be your friend, and you’re naturally unequipped to compete with people that aren’t black. Whatever.

  6. newrouter says:

    And this, too.

    my friends we must reach across the aisle – mclame

  7. newrouter says:

    ot

    A conservative lawyer explained the logic for overturning ObamaCare as lucidly as I’ve heard, and on the condition of anonymity.

    “The court is going to find a spurious exception to a spurious doctrine,” he said. Then he offered a version of the rationale the Supreme Court majority will, he predicts, use to overturn not just the mandate, but the entire bill:

    You have built an imaginary mansion, with thousands of rooms, on the foundation of Wickard v. Filburn — the 1942 ruling that broadened the understanding of how the Commerce Clause could be used to regulate economic activity.

    We aren’t being asked to radically revise the Commerce Clause and throw out seven decades of law, and we won’t. But we know the founders never intended the Commerce Clause to allow the Federal Government to regulate everything on the planet. So we are going to accept Randy Barnett’s basically spurious exception to that basically spurious idea, and throw out the Affordable Care Act on the grounds that the Commerce Clause regulates “activity” (which we don’t really believe), but not “inactivity” (because, why not draw the line somewhere?).

    This is to say: You have built a fantasy mansion on the Commerce Clause. You can hardly blame us if, in one wing of this mansion, down a dusty corridor, we build a fantasy room called “inactivity,” lock the door, and don’t let you in.

    link

  8. Marcopohlo says:

    Lowry is misinformed and preaching from ignorance. Which should get him fired. But I’m not holding my breath.

    Go get ’em, JG.

  9. LBascom says:

    Obviously, Lowery is quite insane. i hope Steyn tells him so.

    This is my favorite part:

    28-year-old George Zimmerman, who had taken it upon himself to patrol the neighborhood armed with a gun.

    Take it upon himself? Is Lowery really that unfamiliar with the Neighborhood Watch program?

    Mr. W, I’ll bet you a million dollars Mr. Lowery has never lived outside of an upscale gated community in his life.

  10. RI Red says:

    Third thread request – ask and ye shall receive. Thank you, Jeff.
    Now. NRO has succumbed to chicken shit-itis. Why can’t we have an “honest discussion” about race, just the way the chief law enforcement officer of the United States wanted us to? True, we may have to discuss uncomfortable facts. True, they may lead to an indictment of liberal “caring ” policies.
    Next post is to NRO advising that I will find Steyn on my own and will be removing NRO from Favorites.

  11. el diablo gigante says:

    And yet somehow, the national media has ignored the brutal attack on this guy: http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2012/04/06/crowd-beats-strips-robs-tourist-on-st-patricks-day-incident-caught-on-camera/ which pretty much proves that Derb is onto something

  12. gp says:

    LGF, frenzied by the fresh blood in the water, has identified another minor NR thought-criminal to be fired. Will Lowry submit again, or will he rue his Derb decision in the completely predictable onslaught of lefty demands for more heads? When the mob comes for Steyn, what does NR do?

  13. palaeomerus says:

    The Derbyshire article is indefensible in a court of political correctness and timidity run by empty suits who fear how it might complicate their lives and who want to spend their time and energy tackling the really easy issues over and over again with ‘Best of 2005’ answers.

    NR is more of a ritual remembrance of a lost magazine than a real magazine. It’s an old snapshot in a file cabinet in an age of .jpg’s stored on the cloud and smartphones.

  14. palaeomerus says:

    Listening to LGF on issues of who needs to be fired is a sure sign of institutional dementia. And probably of writers and editors with way too much free time on their hands.

  15. palaeomerus says:

    Mr. Buckley is not spinning in his grave quite yet, but he is grimacing and face-palming a bit.

  16. gp says:

    “will be removing NRO from Favorites.” When Maggie and K-Lo are the only remaining writers surviving the purges, your browser itself will refuse to surf there. So you don’t have to worry about grooming your favorites.

  17. SGTTed says:

    Lowry is a douche. He might as well be a Progg for caving in to Trial by Assertion.

  18. B Moe says:

    Has Lowrey always been a moron or is this a new development?

  19. dicentra says:

    As a totally throw-away aside:

    I don’t stop to help anyone who’s stopped at the side of the road, especially if there’s an adult male on the scene.

    Not because of who they are but because of who I am: a single, non-mechanically inclined female traveling alone. The risk of my being harmed is much higher than the possibility that I could be of actual help.

    Which says more about my own ineptitude than about their malice. I tried once to help a woman with a dead battery in a parking lot where I happened to be and might have damaged her battery with my Power Dome (couldn’t see the + and – on her battery terminals).

    So.

  20. leigh says:

    That Lowry rticle is full of misinformation.

    Lowry should fire himself for lack of fact-checking before publication.

  21. leigh says:

    It does my little black heart good to see the beat down the editors are getting in the comments over there.

  22. RI Red says:

    Di, like I said before, stopping to assist goes under the category of “No good deed goes unpunished.” In this day of cellphones, the risk /reward ratio gets close to asymptotic.

  23. gp says:

    Read the Owens “Talk” article JG linked above.

    His son is eleven, and yet he understands these references: Barney Fife, the Unabomber, kowtowing, apartheid.

    This 11-year-old drives, apparently, because Dad advises him how to handle a traffic stop, driving while black: “Show your hands and don’t raise your voice. Avoid provocation. Better to swallow your pride than your teeth.” Because white people are allowed to yell at and provoke the police. It’s a white perk.

    Don’t let The Man force you to “genuflect when confronted by a stranger.”

    He concludes that “safety tips are no guarantee.” But they can sure get you fired and shunned, like Derb’s did!

  24. palaeomerus says:

    Mr. Buckley is now pounding on inside of the coffin lid and shouting “Don’t you idiots make me come UP THERE! “

  25. newrouter says:

    so a black parent is given an opportunity to publish his racial biases in a newspaper but an obscure writer in an obscure online publication does a white version of it and the white guy is the problem?

  26. palaeomerus says:

    LGF : stamping out all implied, coded, inferred, virtual, secret, or integral definitional racism on the right (even if it’s planted by cohorts) ONE SPASTIC SHIT-FIT at a time! And then totally ignoring it on the left. Or the past of his own blog. Because REAL lizard’s don’t ever look to the left or rear.

  27. RI Red says:

    Yup, NR. Only blacks can talk about / get a free pass on racism.

  28. gp says:

    “I don’t stop to help … Not because of who they are” capsulizes the new Personal Moral Disclaimer Requirement.

    Now we’re required to think “Driving late to my appointment, no time to stop and help with that flat tire … Oh … Oh jeez, it was a family! Now I feel like a total shit! Did I _really_ have to be on time for my oncology appointment? Damn, nowhere to turn around. Fuck me I’m a racist!”

  29. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Lowry’s always been pretty much of a moron.

    Stacy McCain had his number quite some time ago.

  30. Pablo says:

    Not because of who they are but because of who I am: a single, non-mechanically inclined female traveling alone. The risk of my being harmed is much higher than the possibility that I could be of actual help.

    In the reverse, I’ll stop and help a lone female. Last time I did so was out way in the sticks where there was no cell service. Nicely dressed woman, turned out to be a realtor. Changed a flat for her, and oddly enough, she did not have sex with me.

    Dudes are on their own unless there’s some compelling reason for me to stop, like I know them or we’re in the middle of a forest fire or something. Maybe if they’re handicapped.

  31. Pablo says:

    palaeomerus, I’ll be interested to see if CJ decides to dump on Steyn. That would be hilarious.

  32. gp says:

    Meh, who knows what Buckley would have done.

    Iowahawk was one of the first guys to tweet “Derb has to go.” Did you notice that? Never paid attention to twitter before Saturday.

  33. leigh says:

    Dave (Iowahawk) only likes to pretend to be edgy.

  34. palaeomerus says:

    Iowahawk is funny but like Frank J Fleming I’ve found plenty of stuff to disagree with him on. He’s of the Hot-Air school and once of the LGF back before the creepy pods infiltrated.

    Actually Frank doesn’t seem that funny to me anymore probably because I’m used to his delivery now.

  35. Pablo says:

    Disconcerting revelation: Bobby Valentine bears a disturbing resemblance to Joey Hairplugs.

    *There might be a little Howard Dean in there too

  36. newrouter says:

    Iowahawk was one of the first guys to tweet “Derb has to go.”
    purge the candidates(ricky, newt get out), purge the commentariat. mittens our new soviet man.

  37. gp says:

    Not just LGF, the whole left apparatus will now try to split NR and Steyn, whose specialty is demographics. They’ll shriek: “He counts brown people!!” He got sued for hate speech in Canada. (He prevailed, but at great expense.) The left has drawn blood and is thirsty for more.

    I bet Steyn is smart enough to see what’s coming, and to have already planned a slow exit from NR for plausibly deniable reasons. He knows for sure NR won’t be covering his back.

  38. geoffb says:

    I’m quite sure that all sides and publicly available evidence was looked at through the fair lens of social justice.

  39. B Moe says:

    Changed a flat for her, and oddly enough, she did not have sex with me.

    I hope you do better than that when you send the story to Penthouse.

  40. newrouter says:

    “How do you teach about the law when there has been no justice in this case?” said Jackson, 26.

    Chavette Jackson has struggled….Jackson, a second-year law student, teaches juniors and seniors at the District’s Dunbar High School

    maybe know what the f*ck you’re talking about and quit spewing bullshit to folks.

  41. Pablo says:

    I hope you do better than that when you send the story to Penthouse.

    Oh, you mean when like she dragged me into the trunk? Gotcha.

  42. newrouter says:

    Chavette Jackson

    named after another gov’t motors “winner”

  43. happyfeet says:

    Mr. Iowahawk is distilled awesomeness I think plus he really contributes for reals contributions. All in all I think Mr. Iowahawk is an all-around top-notch wazzle and that he should probably win a Prize.

  44. leigh says:

    Geez, Pablo. Those letters are easy-peasy:

    Dear Penthouse,

    You’re not going to believe what happened the evening I stopped to help a girl with a flat-tire….

  45. happyfeet says:

    Dear Penthouse,

    Just wanted to let you know I tried the recipe for the chipotle smashed sweet potatos and… yum! Only thing is I added just a splash of cream for so it would be just a little creamier. Everyone loved it and they asked where I got the recipe and I just smiled and said Southern Living! Cause of I’m embarassed to say I got it from your magazine cause of people would judge cause of how you have all those pictures of naked people.

    Ok thanks ttyl,

    happyfeet

  46. happyfeet says:

    *potatoes* I mean

  47. dicentra says:

    Because Jeff’s comments aren’t getting through at NRO (prolly because he doesn’t have an existing account there, and I do), I posted one for Team Intentionalism.

    And for Team Irony, this April 6 article by Rich Lowry titled “When Redemption Is Real.”

  48. newrouter says:

    “How do you teach about the law when there has been no justice in this case?” said Jackson, 26.

    2nd year law “student” doesn’t know about the presumption of innocence before being proved guilty. the proggtards are a cancer.

  49. cranky-d says:

    I think you did a good job on your comment, di.

  50. Marcopohlo says:

    Lowry has blocked comments on most of his NR stuff; comments about Zimmerman and Derbyshire on the others do not seem to be posting, except for the high-status posters (who are indeed taking him to task).

  51. dicentra says:

    Because white people are allowed to yell at and provoke the police. It’s a white perk.

    I’ve actually had the unforgettable experience of having a flashlight shined in my face and hearing a cop yelled “FREEZE!”

    My friends and I were engaged in a dumb prank, the prankee didn’t know who we were, thought we were burglars, and called the cops.

    So what was my reaction? Mouth off to the cops? Figure that because we weren’t actually committing any crime—and because we were whitey white white—we could ignore their instructions?

    Hell no. I knew that the cops were coming into a wholly unknown situation, and that it was my responsibility—to myself—to not give them the least reason to think I was a threat to them or anyone else.

    Mouth shut, I methodically did everything they said. I figured that as soon as they saw we were just a bunch of dumb, unarmed kids, they’d relax and we could explain. But when that moment arrived would be decided by them, not by me.

    Which is what eventually happened. The target of our dumb prank was plenty mad at us for scaring the bejeezus out of her but she didn’t press charges.

    Me? I’m just glad I wasn’t brainwashed into thinking the cops were against me because of my complexion, else I mighta got myself shot.

  52. dicentra says:

    I think you did a good job on your comment, di.

    Thanks. It’s also 10 pm Eastern and nobody will see it.

  53. leigh says:

    Marcopohlo, regular readers have pointed out that there are never any mods on deck on the weekend and comments always pile up in moderation until Monday.

    Lowry be lying.

  54. sdferr says:

    OT[ish] — Just for the amusement factor, Pat Sajak‘s NBC News edited Gettysburg address:

    Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, dedicated to a great civil war.

    The world will little note what they did here. It is rather for us to perish from the earth.

  55. Marcopohlo says:

    Leigh: interesting. Do mods work on Easter Monday, I wonder.

  56. Pablo says:

    I’ve actually had the unforgettable experience of having a flashlight shined in my face and hearing a cop yelled “FREEZE!”

    I’ve had that whilst staring down the barrel of a gun. While wearing a tie. I put my hands in the air with a coffee pot in one of them. Alarm malfunction. We figured it out, on the cop’s schedule. That’s just how it goes.

  57. cranky-d says:

    Me? I’m just glad I wasn’t brainwashed into thinking the cops were against me because of my complexion, else I mighta got myself shot.

    If you have decided that the world is against you because of the melanin content of you skin, everything will be filtered through that lens.

    Almost every time you deal with the police, it’s a shakedown. That’s the fact of it. If you don’t suck it up, you will make trouble for yourself.

  58. ujee0Oot says:

    gp: Oh jeez, it was a family! Now I feel like a total shit!

    Oh the little darlings! I remember one little fella, no more than 6 or 7 years old, who snuck up on me in a crowd and pretend stuck a blade in my right kidney. He was soooo cute!

    true story.

    Trust that they have a cellphone and AAA account and can handle the situation just fine, same as you. If not, the patrol will come around eventually. Keep your appointment. And, OBTW, color doesn’t enter into it.

  59. bh says:

    I liked your second comment more than your first, di.

    Let me throw out two little dealios and see if you don’t see a problematic connection. (I’ll add a problem of my own.)

    1) IQ correlates strongly with the SAT.

    2) Affirmative action disregarding the SAT results in some kids being put in academic environments they can’t handle. So they drop out.

    There’s an answer to number 2 other than kids being put in academic environments they can’t handle. Racism. This is the preferred narrative.

    1 is true. I contend that 2 is true.

    Take away the innate intelligence aspect of IQ. Does that fix this?

    (My problem is that I’d emotionally prefer a tabla rosa. I might be disappointed with the universe though. I often am.)

  60. bh says:

    I’ll add another problem which I wasn’t thinking about but I’ve never quite been able to figure out an answer for.

    As all populations must select for intelligence, how would we have any really noticeable intelligence differences? I get the idea of melanin and any such thing being based on environment and then not being a factor later. But where, on earth specifically, has being slightly dumber ever helped anyone live long enough to reproduce or help them reproduce?

  61. newrouter says:

    who defines iq?

  62. newrouter says:

    who made the test for iq

  63. bh says:

    I’m guessing that was Dr. Ike Que, nr.

  64. newrouter says:

    sowell pointed out that iq tests in the 1910-20 ain’t the same 1950-60

    link

  65. McGehee says:

    I’ve actually had the unforgettable experience of having a flashlight shined in my face and hearing a cop yelled “FREEZE!”

    When my friend and I told another acquaintance about having a deputy sheriff pull his gun on us, the other acquaintance mouthed off about how he would have told the deputy sheriff to shove his gun up his ass and offered to help if he couldn’t manage it by himself.

    Said acquaintance was, like my friend and me, white. I wonder if he’s still alive?

  66. bh says:

    There’s a term for that, IQ creeping up. The Flynn effect… the internet tells me.

    Seems too quick to be a genetic thing.

  67. newrouter says:

    who designed the “iq test” is all i be axing. what the eff is iq? does “chavette jackson” know?(its {gender neutral}got a “job” in porn land)

  68. dicentra says:

    I liked your second comment more than your first, di.

    Second comment here or at NRO? And this thread or previous ones? I’m up to six on this one.

    I’m all over the place.

    Affirmative action disregarding the SAT results in some kids being put in academic environments they can’t handle. So they drop out.

    I saw that with my own eyeballs at Cornell. The inner-city black kids weren’t up to it. Definitely “diversity” admissions. The middle-class black kids were at the top of the class.

    My problem is that I’d emotionally prefer a tabla rosa.

    A pink board? That could work, except most feminists hate pink.

    It’s better to set up the admissions gate such that it screens out them what are unlikely to handle what’s on the other side of the gate. That applies to boot camp and employment and all other stuffs.

    If black kids are disproportionately unable to clear the gate, then help them jump high enough, before they gets to it, and if they still can’t, help them find something they CAN do, and do well.

    Just make it all color-blind and put the hustlers et al. out of business.

    Otherwise, we get more of this. Which, I think this time they’re serious.

  69. bh says:

    Ha! (Tabla rosa, that is.)

    Based on this and many other comments I’m fairly confident you have far betterest verbal abilities than myself, di.

    Give me a minute on the rest. I’m also a degenerate smoker again.

  70. newrouter says:

    intelligence ain’t knowledge ax bobby fischer

  71. dicentra says:

    Oh hey: Derb’s first post-NRO interview. With Gawker.

    Haven’t read it yet; Ima post it here first.

    In other news, Glenn Beck bought the Oval Office set from JFK (it was shot in the same studio he now occupies) and updated it to the Bush era.

    I have no idea why.

  72. newrouter says:

    It’s better to set up the admissions gate

    who manages your gate. effin aft employees? what’s nice about algore’s invention is that you can get rid of the “admissions gate “.
    there’s a khan academy for quadratic equations.

  73. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Affirmative action disregarding the SAT results

    Dinesh D’Souza wrote a whole book about that particular bit of liberal do-gooderism.

  74. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Ha! (Tabla rosa, that is.)

    You’re still short a U.

  75. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Switch to cigars bh,

    then you can be a cultured degenerate smoker

  76. newrouter says:

    The big question is whether these problems, as they manifest themselves in the U.S.A., are solvable. Current orthodoxy is that they are, and offers a laundry list of solution methods. Fix the schools! End poverty! Stamp out racism! Affirmative action! Fifty years ago a thoughtful person could sign on to those prescriptions. I know: I was around: I did. Yes (we said) once unjust laws had been struck down, and some social massaging of that sort been done for a few years, the races would merge in happy harmony, and the word “race” and its derivatives would drop out of the language. We all believed that. I believed it.

    Plainly this hasn’t happened, except of course in the upper classes, which go by their own rules. For a thoughtful person today to believe that these social-engineering nostrums will (for example) bring black crime rates to a level indistinguishable from white crime rates, involves a strenuous act of what Orwell called “doublethink”—massive self-deception. Does anyone, after all those decades, all those trillions of dollars, all those failed social-engineering experiments, does anyone really, honestly still believe in the nostrums? I don’t.

    My own sense of the thing is that underneath the happy talk, underneath the dogged adherence to failed ideas and dead theories, underneath the shrieking and anathematizing at people like me, there is a deep and cold despair. In our innermost hearts,we don’t believe racial harmony can be attained. Hence the trend to separation. We just want to get on with our lives away from each other. Yet for a moralistic, optimistic people like Americans, this despair is unbearable. It’s pushed away somewhere we don’t have to think about it. When someone forces us to think about it, we react with fury. That little boy in the Andersen story about the Emperor’s new clothes? The ending would be more true to life if he had been lynched by a howling mob of outraged citizens.

    link

  77. dicentra says:

    Breitbart designs at The People’s Cube.

  78. palaeomerus says:

    I think part of the problem is defining a race in the first place. Negro/colored/black/African American is more of a general description of appearance than anything else. There is usually some degree of hybridization and it occurs to the point that I have seen plenty of “black” people who look pretty “white” to me. And by pretty white I mean I took their word for it that they were black.

    So I’m not sure that genetics or some sort of a divergent anatomy the culprit here in a lower average IQ or racial sociological potential. And of course, that’s assuming that the IQ differences are legitimate, valid, accurate, and precise averages and analyses of legitimate, valid, accurate, and precise observations in the first place.

    I think this would almost certainly have to come down on nurture rather than nature.

    And that’s unfortunate because while Eugenicists wanted to control breeding through incentive and coercion the nurture people are worse. I dread the day that a country gets behind the wacky behavioral development idea to control all aspects of upbringing to yield smarter more functional, capable, innovative, dependable, happier, and more socially compatible people and sees the family and other archaic principles of society and the individual as an obstacle to that utopian scheme. Or worse they develop a diet and surgery that supposedly yields near ideal humans. If we need experts to design all experts of our lives then..well…no more dystopian experiments please.

    Also I’d like to see if the average white IQ is dropping or oscillating whatever or if we are just grouping IQ’s falsely based on appearance and weird rules of ancestry or if the IQ test perhaps over estimates IQ in whites according to some biasing factor such as the white guy looks dumb in a way that seems smart so it fools the standards of the test.

    I have no idea but these are areas I would want to investigate before I trust in psychometrics sorted for Demography and start to form some sort of policy suggestion based on them.

    In fact I think the whole concept of liberty is that within the bounds of harming others (and please, let’s employ no pathological or tricky externality/opportunity cost/potential earnings based definitions of ‘harming others’ where if I give you $25 but I could have given you $50 then I somehow owe you another $25) you have the RIGHT to be stupider or whatever than some expert would like you to be. You have the right to raise your kids your stupid way. You have the right to fall behind or be held in a state of mild contempt and you have the right to return that contempt. You have the right to drop out and walk your own way.

    So looking at a response to this IQ data in a “let’s fix society from the top down” mood is probably very dangerous. But then Derbyshire never did that. He just decided to wark his kids on what his observations were and sourced them in case his kids should doubt his methods.

    That may not be the ideal attitude, and finding a way to effectively argue against it and debunk it or at least show doubts with it is a good thing. On the other hand, calling the whole topic racism and labeling anyone who will participate in it ” racist ” in the same sense that a guy burning a cross on someone’s lawn or injuring or killing them, or a man calling for a genocide is racism is just a cheap way to try and end an unpleasant conversation. It’s more “Shut up! they explained”.

    In fact internalized racist feelings or thoughts is not a crime or even a cultural anathema. Actions are crimes. Thoughts and opinions should not in and of themselves be seen as crimes. The idea that bad thought should be detected analyzed and coercively eliminated by some authorized custodian in order to eliminate criminal actions and the harm they cause is just more simplistic utopian bunk.

  79. dicentra says:

    My own sense of the thing is that underneath the happy talk, underneath the dogged adherence to failed ideas and dead theories, underneath the shrieking and anathematizing at people like me, there is a deep and cold despair. In our innermost hearts, we don’t believe racial harmony can be attained. Hence the trend to separation. We just want to get on with our lives away from each other. Yet for a moralistic, optimistic people like Americans, this despair is unbearable.

    Well, I do despair for racial relations to ever live up to MLK’s dream—not because such a thing cannot be attained, EVAR, but because so many awful people benefit so thoroughly by keeping the wounds fresh and festering.

    I’m reminded of the professional mendicants in Colombia who would keep messing with an old leg wound so that they could maintain the visual aid to their begging. The edges of the wound would be yellow-white and crusted, the flesh surrounding it hardly covering the bone, and the muscle underneath atrophied and useless. It was genuinely gross, and they’d probably never be able to recover even if they wanted to, at this point.

    As sad as it was disgusting.

  80. happyfeet says:

    it grieves me to hear that you are once again supping at the dark mother’s smoky teat Mr. bh

  81. dicentra says:

    I dread the day that a country gets behind the wacky behavioral development idea to control all aspects of upbringing

    I thought we were already here. We just need some Alphas to set up the labs.

  82. palaeomerus says:

    “Tabla rosa”

    Tabla Rosa is the best damned wine anyONE everrrr… put in a a box. (hic!)

  83. bh says:

    Ha! (Tabla rosa, that is.)

    You’re still short a U.

    Have I ever told you guys my embarrassing story about trying to pronounce cogito ergo sum in class?

    Long story short, tabouli roscoe.

  84. bh says:

    Okay, back to the earlier dealio:

    It’s better to set up the admissions gate such that it screens out them what are unlikely to handle what’s on the other side of the gate. That applies to boot camp and employment and all other stuffs.

    If black kids are disproportionately unable to clear the gate, then help them jump high enough, before they gets to it, and if they still can’t, help them find something they CAN do, and do well.

    Just make it all color-blind and put the hustlers et al. out of business.

    I really like that. So… I don’t know. I award you 17 internet points.

  85. bh says:

    I’ve been living in smokey shame for awhile now, ‘feets. Alas.

  86. palaeomerus says:

    Harry Potter: “Cog-ito ERGOSUM! ”

    A specter of René Descartes appears and hands Harry some graph paper.

    Harry Potter: Thanks!

    René Descartes : Qu’est-ce? Je ne parle pas anglais Sir jeune!

    Harry Potter: Hey, just fuck off. Alright?

  87. happyfeet says:

    if you want to hear about my magical cocktail again just ask… the side effects were relatively minimal, really, and went away more or less on their own

  88. newrouter says:

    who is the manager of the the “iq club”

    I don’t care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.
    Groucho Marx

    I have a mind to join a club and beat you over the head with it.
    Groucho Marx

    I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.
    Groucho Marx

  89. cranky-d says:

    Someone asked above why we as an evolving species wouldn’t select more for intelligence.

    It may be that high intelligence is not a survival asset. There is a minimum intelligence required and that’s it.

    It’s probably lower than you might think.

  90. OCBill says:

    Got Jonah Goldberg’s newsletter where he defended NRO’s decision to fire Derbyshire. He points to the video of the Brit’s Baltimore beating and says it proves nothing since he could find videos of whites beating up blacks for no reason. Yeah, those are in the new all the time. Not.. He also said if we disagree with him, we should go away. So I unsubscribed.

  91. palaeomerus says:

    Maybe if you are too smart you don’t have any barriers to shape the directions your thoughts take and you end up just fantasizing all the time and you can’t make any contact with failure or reality because you can so easily explain it all away and hop into your happy dream bubble.

  92. palaeomerus says:

    OCBill canceled his OWN damned subscription!

  93. bh says:

    Other hehs abound. 15 internet points for everyone.

  94. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Have I ever told you guys my embarrassing story about trying to pronounce cogito ergo sum in class?

    I have a similar story involving Francayze.

  95. bh says:

    I want to hear about the magical cocktail, ‘feets. I might become overly aggressive on one of those anti-smoking drugs you liked if memory serves though.

    Astute thought, cranky. That’d still be relatively universal though, right?

  96. newrouter says:

    Maybe if you are too smart

    the “smart set” are usually wrong big time ax mao or che or stalin?

  97. happyfeet says:

    ok you start on chantix and keep smoking for about three weeks to a month – then you add wellbutrin and when the wellbutrin kicks in is when you drop the smokes over a long weekend… the chantix deprives you of the pleasure of smoking and the wellbutrin makes smoking seem like a lot of work….

    I kept both up for 3 months then quit both

    in retrospect I should have stayed on wellbutrin for 6 months or so

    after I quit the drugs – maybe 5 weeks after – I developed a bad michael j fox style tremor

    it was very worrisome

    the doc put me on lexapro, which she had wanted to do from the beginning cause she’s a quacky quacky bought and paid for lexapro whore

    anyway so I stayed on that for like 6 weeks and yes the tremor went away and then I quit the lexapro against dr. quackatha’s advice – it was a horrible miserable drug

    found out later that there’s formulations of chantix what are used to treat parkinson’s – so I have no idea what it means that chantix withdrawal caused those sorts of symptioms

    probably nothing good

  98. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Jared Diamond speculated that the average aboriginal might have a higher IQ than the average city dweller, simply because there was more thinking was involved in how you gonna survive the Kalahari today?.

    VDH wasn’t having any of it, though, as I recall.

  99. bh says:

    Everyone knows that’s pronounced “Frank’s crazy”, Ernst.

    I’d go past calling that the smart set in sneer quotes and just acknowledge they weren’t very smart at all, nr.

  100. happyfeet says:

    oh… the chantix gives you crazy dreams but for me it was mostly just at first

  101. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Who’s ever said Mao or Che or Stalin were smart?

    Cunning, decisive, ruthless, sure, but smart?

    Trotsky was smart. What became of him?

  102. bh says:

    Wellbutrin, that’s the one. Took that for a very short time and wanted to punch people in the elevator. And on the street. And through the phone.

    My natural Wellbutrin levels are quite high already, I guess.

  103. gp says:

    Jeffrey Lord at AmSpec writes that Derb would run away from Justice Clarence Thomas, Congressman Allen West and Herman Cain. He deliberately ignores the fact that Derb’s article stipulated at least twice that the Talk applied to people you don’t know, to situations in which you have nothing else to go by but a statistical distribution. JLord, remember, recently and enthusiastically defended Rush over the Fluke contretemps.

    via Taranto, who has also given Derb the heave-ho.

  104. newrouter says:

    ok you start on chantix and keep smoking for about three weeks to a month

    don’t take new drugs to quit old drugs. just quit old drugs.

  105. palaeomerus says:

    Stand aside damn you! That straw man MUST be toppled for the good of us all!

  106. happyfeet says:

    oh that’s right I remember now

    Mr. gp at this point if Mr. Derb is not of a mind to defend himself it’s hard to expect others to.

    He stands accused of racism, after all.

  107. newrouter says:

    Who’s ever said Mao or Che or Stalin were smart?

    : marked by often sharp forceful activity or vigorous strength

  108. gp says:

    “if Mr. Derb is not of a mind to defend himself ” Has he said anything since Saturday? I didn’t know.

  109. happyfeet says:

    Mr. newrouter it’s a miraculous thing I quit even with all the helpful chemicals

    I did try to quit cold turkey – I was in pain for a month (which I took off from work)… and all I accomplished was I read all of the Harry Potter books and that was also when I got to go through the eye of a class 3 hurricane, which was kinda cool

    we drank wine and watched live oaks fall and it was the last time my family was ever really together

  110. newrouter says:

    JLord, remember, recently and enthusiastically defended Rush over the Fluke contretemps

    so?

  111. newrouter says:

    it was the last time my family was ever really together

    good luck to you and yours

  112. Ernst Schreiber says:

    He stands accused of racism, after all.

    Silly picachu: VERDICT first, then the trial.

  113. bh says:

    what’s nice about algore’s invention is that you can get rid of the “admissions gate “.
    there’s a khan academy for quadratic equations.

    I missed this.

    We’re entering a new age where nr and I share a brain it appears.

    I’d like to apologize beforehand for all the daydreams of naughty redheads playing ukele covers of Sublime songs, my friend. It’ll pass, I’m sure.

  114. bh says:

    Ukulele, maybe? Stupid Hawhyans and their stupid Hawhyan talk.

  115. Ernst Schreiber says:

    I thought the naughty redhead thing was a myth. You know, like girls who’ll put out just because you, a total stranger, changed a tire for ’em.

  116. bh says:

    Don’t kill the dream, Ernst.

    It’s such a beautiful dream.

  117. Ernst Schreiber says:

    I’d share my experience of redheads with you, but that would definitely kill the dream.

  118. dicentra says:

    “if Mr. Derb is not of a mind to defend himself ” Has he said anything since Saturday? I didn’t know.

    By all means, DON’T read my upthread posts, especially not the one with the post-kerfuffle Derb interview in it.

    Cripes. My avatar is by far the most visible of all. You should be looking for my comments FIRST, then if you have time, read the others.

  119. Jeff G. says:

    I just followed suit, OCBill. I’m so sick and tired of hearing that because the data led Derbyshire to “unconservative” conclusions that — well, INDEFENSIBLE!

    Reminds me of how global warming science works. To question it makes you a denier. And clearly, Derbyshire is a “racial harmony is possible through left wing politics and multiculturalist fantasies from social engineers” denialist. Which I’d relay to Jonah, but he doesn’t give a fuck what “trolls” like me say, anyway.

  120. OCBill says:

    dicentra,
    followed your link to your link to gawker’s interview with Derb. He’s still the Derb we’ve come to know, refreshingly candid to say the least, especially since he knows he’s talking to hostiles. The comments are what you’d expect at gawker, either pseudo-intellectual self-congratulations or wishing death on Derb for failure to adhere to orthodoxy or both. Worth the read, but skip the comments.

  121. palaeomerus says:

    Does NRO imagine that they are STILL the gate keeper for conservatism? Y’know after they’ve repeatedly shat their pants by “tactically” supporting moderates over conservatives in election races ever since 2006?

    Wow. I guess nobody told ’em that they’ve become the soft serve of right wing nutrition.

  122. palaeomerus says:

    BTW Pluto is still a planet in MY head. And a cartoon dog.

  123. happyfeet says:

    thanks dicentra I did miss that I will read it now

  124. OCBill says:

    I didn’t actually “cancel my own damn subscription”, just unsubscribed from Jonah’s newsletter, and at his request I can stop checking back in to see if they’ve come to their senses.

    I did have a subscription a number of years ago to their magazine on dead tree, but it’s kind of a rip off, being only about 10 sheets of thinnish paper, stapled in the middle and folded in half. They’ve been in a death spiral ever since WFB passed. I can only imagine how pleased he’d be at what they’ve become, endorsing a pro-Planned Parenthood, pro-Minimum Wage, pro-Socialism anti-Reagan “Republican”, who became an NRA Life Member by purchasing a membership the year before he decided (officially) to run for president.

    There are still some bright lights there, notably Steyn, but I can read their stuff elsewhere on the web.

  125. palaeomerus says:

    Romney strikes me as being Nixonian. I expect if he wins he’ll feed the unions instead of send them away from the table. I suspect he’ll fool around with protectionism too.

    I thought the GOP was smarter than this. We are playing “trust the mercenary” and he probably thinks he’ll teach us to love the middle again and get us on hand shaking terms with the democrats after a bit of victorious aisle crossing benevolence.

    Shit.

  126. palaeomerus says:

    ” Which I’d relay to Jonah, but he doesn’t give a fuck what “trolls” like me say, anyway.”

    Go away racist trolls! But vote for Romney! We all need to come together. Then you can go the hell away again and live in some damp oubliette in a dingy cavern deep underneath the shame forest and you can survive by eating Bircher tracts. ‘Till we want you to vote for someone who is ridiculously bad for the party again.

  127. George Orwell says:

    Holy crap. While in the wider picture these two incidents seem of little consequence, the reaction of prestigious conservatives of late to Rush and Slutgate, then to Derb’s screed has finally convinced me.

    These people are useful idiots. And they are as useful as allies as Iago was as a matchmaker.

    Places like NRO are truly the first to surrender at the whiff of a complex subject smacking of something politically incorrect. Poor Mark Steyn remains one of the few willing to speak up for inconvenient speech. Given the spinelessness of Lowry and the NRO chieftains, they will be too frightened to ever ban someone as well known as Steyn, but a minor figure like Derbyshire? Just another egg in the omelette of accommodation.

    Can anyone think of a truly controversial position NRO has been willing to air and discuss fully in the last five years? By which I mean, a position uncomfortable among conservatives?

    Sorry, gay marriage doesn’t count. That has been talked to death freely, and some years ago Jonah Goldberg pronounced the subject dead, as in “gay marriage won.”

    Can you imagine the warty toadiness that will suffuse NRO if Romney wins? It will become nothing more than a house organ of heavy donors to the RNC and Romney’s major backers, doing what political donors always do: rent-seeking.

  128. John Bradley says:

    As y’all have noticed, Derb’s piece has proven quite instructive as a measure of our esrtwhile allies on ‘the right’: push come to shove, we don’t really have any.

    The “INDEFENSIBLE!” and “Burn the witch!” responses have knocked a whole bunch of sites out of my bookmarks. Ace, Powerline, NRO, Breitbart, American Spectator: dead to me. Granted, most of them already were, but that’s hardly the point. With such stalwart conservatives friends, who needs leftists?

    As far as I can tell, Jeff’s about the only blogger that actually offered a defense for the “indefensible” (which was largely ignored, as neither he nor the rest of us really ‘exist’ as far as the Respectable Conservative Blogs are concerned). You’d think the ability to have a calm, rational, academic discussion about even the most sensitive of topics would be what separates us from the animals (aka, the Left). At least, that’s what our side keeps telling itself, but apparently they never really meant it. Shutting down ‘unacceptable’ speech and un-personing the guilty out of polite society? That’s something they do. I just hadn’t realized how all-encompassing a term ‘they’ happens to be.

    It’s just very dispiriting to have it demonstrated how easily the self-appointed champions of ‘our side’ fall into idiotic clique/tribal/mob mentality; the basest of human natures.

    Practical upshot: the only two places I can still read without being regularly insulted are PW and RSM’s site — and I’m not too sure about RSM.

    On the plus side, this is doing wonders for my productivity.

  129. Slartibartfast says:

    I just thought Lowry’s shot Martin when he began to lose a fistfight to him seemed to elide a significant factor in the matter, to wit: what Trayvon Martin was up to.

    Not that anyone knows for sure, but when unsure, just leave that part out, ok? Because keeping it in for the sake of adding blame to Zimmerman would be racist, if Zimmerman were sufficiently dusky.

    So, fuck it. The zombie William F. Buckly shall struggle forth from the damp Earth and eat Rich Lowry’s brain; not that he’ll notice the loss.

  130. mt_molehill says:

    The “INDEFENSIBLE!” and “Burn the witch!” responses have knocked a whole bunch of sites out of my bookmarks. Ace, Powerline, NRO, Breitbart, American Spectator: dead to me. Granted, most of them already were, but that’s hardly the point. With such stalwart conservatives friends, who needs leftists?

    This is why you never go full Derb. It’s death in the political sphere. Even failing to adequately criticize the jackass who goes full Derb is enough to do you in. Even going half Derb, like Will Saletan (or before him, Charles Murray), will leave a taint on you for the rest of your life.

  131. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Can you imagine the warty toadiness that will suffuse NRO if Romney wins? It will become nothing more than a house organ of heavy donors to the RNC and Romney’s major backers, doing what political donors always do: rent-seeking.

    Actually, I suspect there will be a contemptible amount of navel-gazing and handwringing about what it all means for the future of the conservative movement.

    Right in time for the ’14 midterms.

  132. Car in says:

    Cripes. My avatar is by far the most visible of all. You should be looking for my comments FIRST, then if you have time, read the others.

    Sorry, Di. I look, of course, for Pablo’s comments first.

    duh.

  133. Ernst Schreiber says:

    This is why you never go full Derb. It’s death in the political sphere.

    So what other topics are consigned to the outer reaches of tartarus and daren’t be broached?

    You know, just for the record.

  134. Car in says:

    Have I ever told you guys my embarrassing story about trying to pronounce cogito ergo sum in class?

    I have a similar story involving Francayze.

    ga. I tried to say “Die Zauberflote” in front of my German MIL.

    The laughs were humiliating.

  135. Car in says:

    Someone asked above why we as an evolving species wouldn’t select more for intelligence.

    It may be that high intelligence is not a survival asset. There is a minimum intelligence required and that’s it.

    It’s probably lower than you might think.

    HA, yes, this ^.

  136. Car in says:

    In addition, hard work, diligence , etc are rather big survival assets whether you’re living in the wild or in modern society.

    Which makes me wonder why we’re subsidizing those who completely lack those skills. You know, the democrat BASE.

    I thought the Dem’s were Darwinists? Sound like they’re practicing a bit of intelligent design.

  137. DarthLevin says:

    Would it be expedient to begin referring to Trayvon Martin as “Saint Hoodie”? Skip the beatification and move right to canonization?

    I’ll await an answer in the denunciation queue.

  138. Ernst Schreiber says:

    I tried to say “Die Zauberflote” in front of my German MIL.

    The laughs were humiliating.

    Reminds me of the story about the wife of some American dignitary or other who meant to say “I’m feeling cold” while actually saying “I’m frigid.”

    Not unlike Kennedy’s famous “I’m a jelly donut!” speech.

  139. JHoward says:

    Incident Derb just handed the great and tiny Rich Lowry — yes, you can use that — his intervention opportunity. It’s a good thing because this is where he either gets his conservative together or he does not.

    What are the odds on personal reform after an addiction anyway?

  140. McGehee says:

    I tried to pronounce “Cesare Borgia” in a poli sci class discussion of Machiavelli. That was when I discovered my love of mirth and laughter.

  141. JHoward says:

    Notwithstanding the sorry bugger’s exponentially growing list of detractors, I may have to retract that. Had the great and tiny Lowry banned the pre-Romneyite Coulter?

  142. leigh says:

    Well, folks, The Rev hisself, Al Sharpton will be in Tulsa later today to pronounce the city raaaaaaaacist because of the shooting deaths of three black men on Good Friday. The fact that the shooter is a full-blooded Cherokee Indian bent (yes, bent he is) on revenge for the shooting death of his dad by a black man is irrelevant. There can be no Red on Black “justice”.

    “Justice” is for Trayvon only.

  143. Car in says:

    If only it were illegal to kill black folks in Arizona he wouldn’t have to go and inflame “his people.”

    NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE.

  144. Crawford says:

    [Jonah Goldberg said] he could find videos of whites beating up blacks for no reason.

    Not in nearly the same numbers, nor sporting the same levels of smug righteousness and thuggish glee.

  145. Crawford says:

    Would it be expedient to begin referring to Trayvon Martin as “Saint Hoodie”? Skip the beatification and move right to canonization?

    Been doing that for a while. Don’t forget that his name is trademarked, so it’s “St. Trayvon(tm)”.

  146. RichardCranium says:

    …will leave a taint on you for the rest of your life.

    Is that like getting teabagged?

  147. RichardCranium says:

    It may be that high intelligence is not a survival asset. There is a minimum intelligence required and that’s it.

    It’s probably lower than you might think.

    My dad used to opine that he thought the optimum IQ was around 90.

    That way you’d be smart enough to figure out a solution to whatever problem you are trying to solve, but not so smart that you’d have to waste time evaluating all the alternatives to figure out which one was the best.

  148. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Standing athwart to the side of history yelling meekly asking “stop” “Would you mind very much slowing down? Just a bit?”

  149. OCBill says:

    Well, leigh, the Cherokee may as well be white. After all, it’s not like the Cherokee ever endured any mistreatment at the hands of whites. Oh.

  150. leigh says:

    Yeah, OCBill, what do those Cherokee know about suffering at the hands of whitey? Other than that Trail of Tears thing, being uprooted more than once, forced onto Reservations and other petty stuff?

    If Al thinks he’s going to get “his” people stirred up, he better think twice. Practically everyone around here is Indian. Also Indians made lousy slaves since they were prone to escape and revenge killing. Indians have traditionally viewed blacks as weak sisters and have a lot of ill-concealed contempt for them. It’s awesome to see some old Indian man or woman give a brother the side-eye when he starts in on how he’s part “Native American”. Indians don’t call themselves Native Americans unless they are race hustlers.

  151. DarthLevin says:

    Indians don’t call themselves Native Americans unless they are race hustlers.

    Why on earth not? Aren’t Cherokee, Lakota, Sioux, Shawnee, Osage, Erie, Miami, Mohawk, Chippewa, Pawnee, Potawatomie, Apache, Hopi, Fox, all basically the same?

  152. leigh says:

    Heh.

  153. George Orwell says:

    Had the great and tiny Lowry banned the pre-Romneyite Coulter?

    Ah yes, I remember that now. Anyone know if Coulter has recently had anything published at NRO? Say, a lengthy panegyric on Mitt? Because Lowry would love that.

  154. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Lakota and Sioux are.

  155. mc4ever59 says:

    Although, if push came to shove, I’d be willing to bet that the Indians would side with blacks or anyone else against the whites.
    I served with many Indians of different nations. Without exception, all were fine marines. We got along well, and had a lot in common. But I always suspected deep down they would just as soon kill us as look at us.

  156. George Orwell says:

    St. Hoodie of Sanford. Patron saint of race hustlers and frightened diminutive white editors of tasteful conservative journals.

  157. leigh says:

    We’re mostly Cherokee in this part of the state. They even teach the Cherokee language (the only written Indian language) in the schools and these are public schools, not Indian schools of which there are plenty.

    Tribal cheiftans are very cliquish and most tribes don’t have much use for the others. They’re sort of our version of the Japanese: superior to all.

  158. DarthLevin says:

    P’raps the tiny Mr. Lowry is e’en now lighting a candle and praying that his invitations to the right parties will continue apace.

  159. leigh says:

    mc4ever59, there is a great deal of inter-marriage between whites and Indians. Blacks and Indians, not so much.

  160. George Orwell says:

    Is this really so hard to understand? Do people like Lowry even care about discussion or merely Rooting For Our Team?

    Steyn: “The net result of Derb’s summary execution by NR will be further to shrivel the parameters, and confine debate in this area to ever more unreal fatuities.”

    Lowry loves Unreal Fatuities. They opened for Up With People on the last NR cruise.

  161. LBascom says:

    Mr. gp at this point if Mr. Derb is not of a mind to defend himself it’s hard to expect others to.

    He stands accused of racism, after all.

    What do you make of this, from di’s link :

    Is racism—yours or other people’s—a problem?

    Depends what you mean by a problem. The mild and tolerant racism I’ve owned up to, and which seems (from these Implicit Association studies) to be very common, is not usually a problem in people’s personal social lives.

  162. dicentra says:

    I just Tweeted Jonah:

    There’s a diff between “he’s right” and “there are points here worth discussing, even if they’re wrong or wrong-ish.” No?

    I’ve cancelled my NRO e-mail deliveries and I’ll let my hard-copy subscription lapse. I only read it for the Steyn and Lileks anyway. Not like they’re hard to find elsewhere.

    Derb’s insistence on presenting the lower IQ scores in the way he did was a nasty jab. His advice to avoid all groups of unknown black people was way beyond what prudence would dictate. It’s even possible he’s got an actual bigotry problem with black folks in general but not with other races. (You could make that case from that article.) It might even have been wholly justified for NRO to sever ties with him.

    But the—dare I say it?—tone of the reactions to the article have been pretty hard to accept, too. It’s almost as bad as what you’d expect from the left. All that’s missing is “he’s not even human to me anymore” and someone Tweeting his address (which is actually for a Buddhist Monastery).

    Man. The sphere just gets smaller and smaller, doesn’t it? Like that episode of TNG where Dr. Crusher is the only one who notices that people are going missing.

  163. dicentra says:

    The mild and tolerant racism I’ve owned up to,

    I’d use “racialism” in that context. “Racism” should necessarily contain bigotry, which is based on raw dislike for Those People for the mere fact that they are Those People and not Us.

    He, on the other hand, is identifying a group of people on the basis of skin color, and then making a generalization about that group’s behavior, not to mention betraying his less-than-complimentary opinion of them.

    It’s as racialist as those YouTube videos of “Sh!t [X people] Say.”

  164. JHoward says:

    Is racism—yours or other people’s—a problem?

    Racialism of the kind that redefines classical liberalism completely out of phase with its very truths and legacy and history, that universally frames narratives, that establishes ersatz national priorities and values, that shamelessly blows out associates, and that in these treacherous times of rioting and beatings in the name of race, that nearly completely prevents the ongoing protection and even the reestablishment of the principle of right-ful, originalist free speech — the principle that, in fact, could and would curtail that pernicious racialism if it ever draws another living breath — is a problem.

    Such as:

    [Derbyshire] stands accused of racism, after all.

    Yes, indeed. In other words, full stop. Deal with Derb politically and therefore damn the propriety of what then becomes the whole foolish episode. How conservative.

    Again: A nation so cowed that it spends all its time disclaimering it’s varying degrees of projected, applied, imagined, and politically-centered “racism” cannot have a discussion about the discussion itself. Game over. Race doesn’t really factor, except as a preemptive cudgel. We don’t give a shit about race. We care only about the appearances we or you or they may project so as to own them. As we or you or they define them. So as to own them.

    It’s such a problem that virtually the entire debate on the broad, related topic contains no reference to the essential right to be racist if one so chooses! We’re too busy disclaimering ourselves to have bothered demanding that the racialist define his terms and his conditions.

    Yeah, it’s a problem. But not even remotely as it’s been framed and broadcast and slapped on with big wide brushes as for how it’s all but obliterated the most fundamental right of them all. That is the problem.

    Lowry and any editorial board that somehow misses that truth should be shunned and disdained. This stuff is for all the marbles and he/they just betrayed the cause.

  165. sdferr says:

    It’s as racialist as those YouTube videos of “Sh!t [X people] Say.”

    It’s actually not different in kind from people complaining that George Zimmerman is identified in the media as white. Everyone who follows such “racial” marking is following Derbyshire along the path, though not necessarily with as much serious thought about what these identifications mean, nor how our use of them shapes our behavior as does Derbyshire.

  166. JHoward says:

    It’s even possible [Derbyshire] got an actual bigotry problem with black folks in general but not with other races.

    A condition that should matter not in the least — as a matter of formal American rights and with them honest and open debate — where and when dismantling the abuses of “race” progressivism has officially instituted and statified is a true and real priority. Like, for example, in the critical period after progressivism has openly identified itself as terminally hostile to those rights and has become bent on eliminating them.

    Which betrayal from this point cannot but thoroughly define NRO and the great and tiny Rich Lowry.

  167. Roddy Boyd says:

    I think a lot of people around here are forgetting that NR stopped being a conservative magazine around 198x, when many of its positions and principles stopped being seen as insane and became broadly understood as common sense, or at least tolerable in the mainstream.

    Because the GOP adopted many planks from its platform, NR became a GOP organ and NR gained power and access, something that Buckley had very little of until the late 70s
    .
    They consistently market and appeal to conservatism, and make much of their background as the central clearinghouse for the mainstreaming of conservatism, but in every case, when forced to choose between what’s best for the GOP or conservatism, they pick the GOP.

    Shorter version: They are Republicans, not conservatives. As such, that article was a deadly threat to them.

  168. StrangernFiction says:

    Derbyshire forgot to add that if the blacks are on bikes………

    http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2012/04/10/no-attention-for-daylight-highway-stabbing-in-alabama/

  169. JHoward says:

    On the preemptive nature of the racialist strategy to politicize everything and suck all the air out of the place, at NRO Denis Boyles almost goes where we must go:

    Jason makes an interesting point when he mentions sharing Mark’s “alarm over the manner in which political correctness restricts the bounds of discourse and thought.” Of course, it does more than that. It also makes it extremely difficult to implement actual change. This paralysis is the subject of Harry Stein’s piece today in The Fortnightly Review:

    All thoughtful people want to resolve America’s great historical ailment, racism. But one of the things we’ll have to do if that monumental? enterprise is to have any chance of success is to address honestly the ?desperate condition of the urban underclass — not only because it is ?the right and moral thing to do, but because, as Daniel Patrick? Moynihan so presciently observed, the pathologies that emerge there? eventually take root throughout the rest of society.

    I suspect Harry must know (and if not, he will soon discover) how difficult it is to “address honestly” issues touching on race. His next book, published next week, is called No Matter What . . . They’ll Call This Book Racist: How Our Fear of Talking Honestly about Race Hurts Us All. Does it ever.

    (I wonder how many at NRO now first notice the masthead and then pull themselves up much shorter than this.)

  170. LBascom says:

    Yes, indeed. In other words, full stop. Deal with Derb politically and therefore damn the propriety of what then becomes the whole foolish episode. How conservative.

    It’s not like anyone is saying racism is a crime and he’s threatened with jail. We need to deal with Derb truthfully, full stop.

    That Lowery is a cowardly scold doesn’t make Derby right.

  171. George Orwell says:

    Because the GOP adopted many planks from its platform, NR became a GOP organ and NR gained power and access, something that Buckley had very little of until the late 70s

    I think I understand now. NR stands for Neutered Republicans.

  172. John Bradley says:

    Good. That means they can’t reproduce.

  173. JHoward says:

    It’s not like anyone is saying racism is a crime and he’s threatened with jail.

    Unlike racism — so far — speech is more simultaneously aligned with both the law and private ethics than perhaps any other right.

    You raise the legal tense. Having spoken, Derbyshire was barely confronted by allegation before being summarily terminated. Between weekdays, without comment, and without jury.

    Under that premise debate on the substance of what he said need not occur and so it did not. Speech failed and the journalistic and personal effect were that he was simply convicted by a single juror acting, perhaps, on the mob’s instincts.

  174. dicentra says:

    From the Stein piece:

    AS JOHN DERBYSHIRE, a British conservative author of a now-viral blog piece about talking to your children about race, should have realized, there is a lot of ugly history attached to the subject of racial politics in America. … Still, white racism and black victimhood are stereotypes on which a great deal of political power rests. If real solutions to racial problems are found, that power will evaporate. So those who flourish because of racism will do everything in their power to prevent it from disappearing. Derbyshire should have known that…

    Oh, Derb knows. He knows very well. He’s not at all surprised by the backlash, just saddened by it.

    As am I.

    Even though I don’t agree so much with Derb’s piece.

  175. LBascom says:

    Some of you won’t believe me, but I think black people really do experience racism more than most non-racist white people know.

    Besides the laws that came out of the civil rights movement, racism has been dealt with through shunning. Disassociation from people that are racist. I don’t have any friends, nor will I, that are in the triple k. Of course the shunning is only a white thing. There is very little admission of racism in the black community that needs shunning. In fact, the shunning mostly occurs against those seen as insufficiently racist, otherwise known as Uncle Toms or sellouts, but that’s beside the point.

    The point is, most decent white people don’t see any racism, think it’s confined to militia groups in Idaho or Aryan supremacists in Alabama. The truth is, those types are just the ones that don’t care about the shunning. The ones that do, hide it when around white people not of like mind. Not so much around black people.

    I’m not saying there’s a lot of these types, but just a few can give a whole bunch of black people a racist experience, and make them believe racists are more common than they really are. Not to mention that there’s still many people still alive that actually lived before desegregation, and tell the stories.

    Just something to think about…

  176. LBascom says:

    You raise the legal tense. Having spoken, Derbyshire was barely confronted by allegation before being summarily terminated. Between weekdays, without comment, and without jury.

    Come, come now. If Jeff got pissed-off at something you wrote and said you can’t post here anymore, it might not reflect well on Jeff, but it ain’t a first amendment issue.

  177. Ernst Schreiber says:

    There is very little admission of racism in the black community that needs shunning. In fact, the shunning mostly occurs against those seen as insufficiently racist, otherwise known as Uncle Toms or sellouts[.]

    Isn’t that a form of racism?

  178. sunny-dee says:

    LBascom, that may be true, but it’s a little dog whistley. White people that we don’t see or encounter have negative interactions with black people, which we also don’t see, and that gives all black people valid, active, and contemporary racist opperssive experiences that taint all interactions with white people. What on earth is that supposed to mean to white people? What can we possibly make of that? I don’t want to shut down the debate, but I don’t even know what to make of that. Honestly. If there is absolutely nothing that can be done because the black population is going to look at a handful of douchebags as representative of all white Americans, I’m ready to throw up my hands. I don’t see a resolution.

    I have gotten heckled and jeered by black guys. Am I justified in thinking that all black guys are over-sexed louts who lust after white women? This, despite other experiences I have with completely respectful and friendly black guys? The answer for me is no. So why is the “yes” answer for blacks re: whites one we should nod at with solemnity?

  179. sunny-dee says:

    Isn’t that a form of racism?

    Ernst, not just a form, but the very definition of racism.

  180. Jeff G. says:

    Come, come now. If Jeff got pissed-off at something you wrote and said you can’t post here anymore, it might not reflect well on Jeff, but it ain’t a first amendment issue.

    Not technically. But it sends a message about what kind of speech is fit for public discussion.

    So it is merely a backdoor way toward censorship by those too cowardly to call for it as an official matter.

  181. Ernst Schreiber says:

    I have gotten heckled and jeered by black guys. Am I justified in thinking that all black guys are over-sexed louts who lust after white women? This, despite other experiences I have with completely respectful and friendly black guys? The answer for me is no. So why is the “yes” answer for blacks re: whites one we should nod at with solemnity?

    Answer: what is institutional racism?

    liberal shibboleths’s for $200, Alex.

  182. Pablo says:

    So, Santorum’s out. Damn.

  183. Jeff G. says:

    That Lowery is a cowardly scold doesn’t make Derby right.

    Looks like Lee’s been lost.

  184. geoffb says:

    Better days I guess. 8 years a lifetime it seems.

  185. LBascom says:

    Isn’t that a form of racism?

    Yup.

    Sunny, I didn’t say “the black population is going to look at a handful of douchebags as representative of all white Americans”.

  186. LBascom says:

    Looks like Lee’s been lost.

    What do you mean? I not only have to defend free speech, but I have to agree with it?

  187. Squid says:

    Some of you won’t believe me, but I think black people really do experience racism more than most non-racist white people know.

    The flip side of this is the number of blacks predisposed to see racism in every negative experience in their lives and the lives of their friends. The schoolkids on my bus who insist upon loudly and obscenely describing the events of the day while I’m trying to get home after a trying day at the office are going to get a rather unpleasant, “Keep it down and watch your language!” admonishment from me. The white loudmouths probably don’t flatter me when they tell the story, but I’ve no doubt at all that the black loudmouths describe me as “That MF’n raciss” when they recount the experience later.

    By the way, you should see the little darlings snarl when they are told, “Yes, I am disrespecting you, because you are showing disrespect to everyone on this bus who just wants a quiet ride home. They are nice people, and so they do not confront you. I am not a nice person, so I’m telling you to knock it off!”

    The looks of quiet relief and gratitude from other riders and bus drivers are gratifying in their way, but I really, really wish more people were willing to push back against the budding barbarians, no matter their skin tone. It’s of a piece with what Jeff is preaching here: they win because they’ve set up the battlespace to discourage us from even putting up a fight. Our culture once applied social pressure to enforce standards of behavior; it has been corrupted and perverted to the point where today it enforces meek silence in the face of bad behavior. That has to change.

  188. JHoward says:

    Come, come now. If Jeff got pissed-off at something you wrote and said you can’t post here anymore, it might not reflect well on Jeff, but it ain’t a first amendment issue.

    Of course. Which is why I began my reply with the short paragraph above the one you excerpted:

    Unlike racism — so far — speech is more simultaneously aligned with both the law and private ethics than perhaps any other right.

    Jeff has every legal right to ban me for any reason he chooses or for any he doesn’t.

    If Jeff bans me because online I look like say, a virulent X-hating SOB and he’s the product of an ostensibly Y-defending institution of journalistic compromise that’s actually carefully treading the borders of rank Z-ism for the political gain it gets it, he’d be indefensible.

    He’d be assisting that institute’s preemptive, pre-occurring narrative as it itself either passively or actively served the Z side in its over-arching compromise of the fundamental, essential principles of the Xs it advertised itself as advocating for.

    Such as masquerading as one thing while pandering to another, that being intolerant of the genuine truths free speech gets at. Re: JG and I, that context doesn’t exist. I suspect JG is incapable of thinking that way.

    Derbyshire’s execution may have personally lacked one too. But most importantly, regardless of his position or intent — they being off limits because of appearances — Derb was still a victim of the times. Whether his ouster was legal or intellectual matters little as long as those conditions exist. Speech used to be revered in this land, back when it was virtually interchangeable as a right and as a privilege of birthright and citizenship.

  189. LBascom says:

    The flip side of this is the number of blacks predisposed to see racism in every negative experience in their lives and the lives of their friends.

    Yup.

  190. JHoward says:

    ^ correction: “the fundamental, essential principles of the Ys it advertised itself as advocating for.”

  191. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Think of it this way Lee,

    Why are we supposed to privilege one group’s subjective experience of race relations/racism (“I think black people really do experience racism more than most non-racist white people know”) while expelling another individual from polite society for expressing his subjective opinion about race realations/racism?

  192. LBascom says:

    Speech used to be revered in this land, back when it was virtually interchangeable as a right and as a privilege of birthright and citizenship.

    Yup. And when sufficient offensive speech was given, it was pistols at dawn.

    Then, as now, you can say any old thing, but I don’t think there was ever a time it existed absent consequences.

  193. Jeff G. says:

    Then, as now, you can say any old thing, but I don’t think there was ever a time it existed absent consequences.

    The consequences are that the ostensible right of speech remains but nobody is willing to use it, lest they lose their livelihoods.

    We’re intellectually bankrupt.

    And in my case, DENOUNCED by the Village Voice for my abject racism.

    Funny, like Derbyshire, I too have an Asian wife. Maybe it’s the dirty Asians who are the problem. You think?

  194. sdferr says:

    I look on NR’s behavior in part as an indicator — besides that they don’t want the cooties on them — they’re not prepared to engage the matter in its breadth and depth; to devote their intellectual energy to a meaningful exploration of a still unsettled wounding subject. Or possibly, in the alternative, of a plain old bald-faced cowardice.

    But I suspect Buckley wouldn’t have hesitated a moment to plunge right in. Would he? And of course, been flailed by the left for his trouble, but then, that comes with the territory.

  195. Jeff G. says:

    By the way, here’s what I can tell you about being denounced by the VV: very few people on the right will have my back.

    THAT’S where we are.

  196. JHoward says:

    Yup. And when sufficient offensive speech was given, it was pistols at dawn.

    Then, as now, you can say any old thing, but I don’t think there was ever a time it existed absent consequences.

    You deal in non sequiturs now, Lee. Yes, Derbyshire could have been fired for good intentions for all it matters. Just not by the Editor in Chief of No Repercussions Online.

  197. mt_molehill says:

    <blockquote.Funny, like Derbyshire, I too have an Asian wife. Maybe it’s the dirty Asians who are the problem. You think?

    Heh, me too. It’s obviously the Asian-marrying Jews who need to go. Somewhere.

  198. LBascom says:

    Ernst, I’m not saying “privilege one group’s subjective experience of race relations/racism”

    I think I said this wrong:

    There is very little admission of racism in the black community that needs shunning. In fact, the shunning mostly occurs against those seen as insufficiently racist, otherwise known as Uncle Toms or sellouts, but that’s beside the point.

    I was actually trying to say there is more racism in the black community, because of the myth that only white people can be racist. I was in no way trying to excuse it.

  199. Ernst Schreiber says:

    You callin’ the black community racist, lee? More racist than whites?

    Good thing you don’t work for Rich Lowry. [grin]

  200. leigh says:

    Lee, I fear you have bought the lie.

    You and I are roughly the same age so I’ll speak to my own experience growing up in California in the 60s and 70s. I went to school with black kids, asian kids, mexican kids, jewish kids and Jehovah Witness kids. None of this Institutional Racism crap started until roughly the middle 70s when all of a sudden (not really, but for the sake of discussion) we had a great Consciousness Raising and divided into victim groups.

    Suddenly, Japanese were owed reparations for being interned during WWII. It didn’t matter that many Italians and Germans were also rounded up, the Japanese were more vocal and more organized and not white. Blacks started organizing grievance societies and also demanding reparations for past wrongs. It didn’t matter that they had themselves never been enslaved. We owed them. Colleges began Affirmative Action placement. The La Raza movement got louder.

    Gays leaped out of the closet and the “love that dare not speak its name” became the “love that won’t STFU”.

    White people who questioned the wisdom of any of the above were branded racist. People of faith prayed and were chastized for doing so in the public square. We lost our identity as a melting pot and were celebrated as a salad bowl.

    If we can’t talk about all of these things like adults (and I am not saying you are not) then we may as well be like Marley and continue forging our chains.

  201. mt_molehill says:

    My friend, black, mother of a teenage daughter who likes Jason Mraz and who wears skinny jeans and jack purcells, calls her daughter “white girl.” Once I asked her if that wasn’t racist, to her amusement.

  202. Abe Froman says:

    OT: good news! Trannies can finally compete in the Miss Universe pageant.

  203. leigh says:

    regarding Derb: he has chronic lymphocytic leukemia which has about a 2 year after discovery life expectancy. He’s receiving chemo, but he’s not a young man and in his words, not very fit.

  204. leigh says:

    Which Universe, Abe?

  205. JHoward says:

    Pursuant that, leigh, I’m wagering Lowry cannot be defended for finding Derbyshire definitely racist and acting out of a great personal disgust.

    Lowry cannot be defended for protecting the paying customer base — remarks are running ten to one against his action, even in his own comments threads, the ones that are open. He cannot be defended for upholding WFB’s standards and principles. He cannot be defended for outlining NR’s legacy.

    Lowry cannot be defended for defending conservatism against an onorous offense to its sum and substance.

    Mostly, Lowry cannot be defended for embracing free speech.

    What Lowry can be defended for is an apparent racialism. For embracing the political ploy that institutes a pernicious, envious, juvenile, and unprincipled position of political opportunity and gain ultimately terminal to a far more important and prior right and principle, namely that all are already equal in the eyes of the law and that the eyes of man shall always be what they are.

    Not to mention that a statist religion — which all of this is tantamount to — is cancer to the Free Republic.

  206. cranky-d says:

    Which Universe? The Fabulous Universe, of course.

  207. leigh says:

    Lowry is shrinking, shrinking, shrinking along with his magazine until one day they both go *poof* and disappear.

  208. LBascom says:

    You callin’ the black community racist, lee? More racist than whites?

    Yes, yes I am. Thanks in large part to the Revs Jackson and Sharpton pissing on MLK’s grave dream every chance they get. And getting away with it.

    Can you imagine a white Attorney General letting white supremacists practicing blatant voter intimidation get away with it? He’d be gone faster than Derbyshire, and rightly so.

    I’m just not ready to give up the dream though. I haven’t a clue how to start moving back toward it at this point, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t by pointing out racial differences and stoking fear.

    Lowery is simply a coward. Someone needs to tell him the answer to speech you disagree with is more speech, not running away.

  209. LBascom says:

    Oh, I don’t mean to say the whole black community is racist, just more racist than whites on the whole, IMO. Because of the double standard.

  210. sunny-dee says:

    I am sorry if I misread you, LBascom. I read this…

    I’m not saying there’s a lot of these types, but just a few can give a whole bunch of black people a racist experience, and make them believe racists are more common than they really are.

    … as …
    the black population is going to look at a handful of douchebags as representative of all white Americans

    … with appropriate hyperbole writ in.

    This is my frustration. First, that any douchebaggery can simply be blamed as racism (I mean, if a guy is a douche *and* why, he must be racist, right?), and second that a few malefactors can (justifiably?) perpetuate a stereotype of Heinous White Oppression — despite overt legal and social counter measure to the opposite.

    I simply don’t see a way to deal with a community as intransigent as that. This isn’t 1923. If people really can’t see the different between now and 1923 or 1853, then what can you do? Where is left to go?

  211. cranky-d says:

    The only thing you can do is stop rewarding the race hustlers. That would probably help.

  212. leigh says:

    BBL, h8ters.

  213. jdw says:

    Just for the record, I just walked past the African American Museum (AKA the Betsy Ross Cultural Center) located just off Martin Luther King Blvd, in Chattanooga. And felt no apprehension whatsoever.

    Except when walking past a small crowd of hangers-out gathered near the entrance of the Patten Towers (a notorious den of low-downs, dealers and street-class thugs who live mostly on Government dole) who were engaged in butt-sucking, drawing on their fags liked the living damned.

    You know, apprehensive of being downwind.

  214. gp says:

    Some people above are asking about NR and Coulter. After 9-11, Coulter said “we should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity.” NR tut-tutted her for that, so then she called them “girly-boys” and THAT was the firing offense. This was about the same time Lowry had to apologize for writing “nuke Mecca.”

    “What do you make of this [Derb’s admission of mild racism]? To me, “racism,” the kind that everybody wants to stamp out at every opportunity, is active malevolence towards a race. Derb’s racism consists of noting statistical differences between racial populations, and advocating lifestyle strategies that deal with that reality, without trying to cause harm to a particular racial group. Some call it “race realism.”

    Nordlinger today made the same point I’ve made, that Derb is not a malicious man.

    I will now try to leave the subject, because it winds me up too much. Where’s JG’s tip jar link? I want to pay him for using up his comment thread resources the last four days.

  215. jdw says:

    Erm…Bessie Smith Cultural Center.

    Damned RAAAAACIST! Auto-correct.

  216. LBascom says:

    Sunny, it is very frustrating. One gets the sense nothing will ever be enough. Cranky points the way, but I think the bigger problem is the race issue is a leftist political tool, same as class warfare, the war on women, illegal immigrants, and the rest of the Balkanization that proves so useful in accruing power to the elite political class. Without some one or some event that will serve to break that trend, and bring the country back together as one nation, it looks pretty bleak.

  217. dicentra says:

    Why are we supposed to privilege one group’s subjective experience of race relations/racism

    Why should we privilege ANY group’s subjective or objective experience of ANY kind of dissing?

    Do black folk sometimes get ill treatment from non-blacks for racist reasons?

    Yep.

    Does it suck?

    Yep.

    Are there other people in our society who can expect to get ill treatment from others for reasons beyond their control?

    Yep: short men, fat women, folks in wheelchairs, the deaf, the blind, them with cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, autism, Asperger’s, dwarfism, speech impediments, port-wine stains on their face, chronic dandruff or body odor (that doesn’t go away by conventional means), and any number of conditions that make people “weird” enough to cause discomfort in others.

    Which, that discomfort usually translates into ignoring: a non-hostile “shun” that is hurtful nonetheless.

    And that will sometimes translate into not being hired.

    So why are the disses that blacks experience more shameful than what happens to anyone else? Are we to be held hostage by history forever? If a black guy gets dissed about the same amount as an ugly woman, then why are we to be condemned, harassed, blamed, and attacked more for what happens to the black guy than the woman?

    This isn’t 1953, you know.

    This isn’t even close.

  218. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Without some one or some event that will serve to break that trend, and bring the country back together as one nation, it looks pretty bleak.

    Does shitcanning Derbyshire make that person or event more likely to appear, or less likely? Or is it that we must wait (in joyful expectation, as it were) for the appropriately nuanced messenger to appear?

  219. LBascom says:

    Or is it that we must wait (in joyful expectation, as it were) for the appropriately nuanced messenger to appear?

    Whatever. I’ve been lost, haven’t you heard? My best bet now is to STFU.

  220. Ernst Schreiber says:

    The sarcasm was directed at the idea of matching the appropriate messenger to the message.

    AKA identity politics.

    You can’t have an honest conversation about anything political if you’ve set the boundaries in such a fashion than one side has to choose between lying and silence.

  221. palaeomerus says:

    ” Would it be expedient to begin referring to Trayvon Martin as “Saint Hoodie”? Skip the beatification and move right to canonization?”

    Yeah but it will sound like Saint Rachel Corie/St. Pancake to Charles Johnson and will outrage him. Even though he was the one who came up with it in another less “idiotarian” life.

  222. palaeomerus says:

    ” Whatever. I’ve been lost, haven’t you heard? My best bet now is to STFU.”

    Oh come on. Jeff G disagrees with you and said so. You haven’t been hounded out or ceremonially expelled. There’s not a zero comment thread about how “Lee is lost”.

    Push back if you’ve been wronged. “Always walk with your head held high, and don’t be afraid of the dark!”

    Wait, I $#@$ hate ‘Carousel’. Never mind. (I do like the clambake song a little)

    And I mean the musical. Not the over 30 roasting process from Logan’s Run . Though come to think of it, I hate the idea of that too. “Renew!” BZZAAP!

  223. mojo says:

    Left on Lowry’s Al Sharpton encomium:

    “Suck Up Much?”

  224. palaeomerus says:

    ” Funny, like Derbyshire, I too have an Asian wife. Maybe it’s the dirty Asians who are the problem. You think?”

    Indefinite deportation to the couch recommended.

  225. mojo says:

    “Saint Skittles” is euphonious.

  226. mojo says:

    “DENOUNCED by the Village Voice”

    Kinda like being excoriated by Rolling Stone, isn’t it?

  227. McGehee says:

    It takes a village voice to raze a child.

  228. les nessman says:

    sunny:
    “So why is the “yes” answer for blacks re: whites one we should nod at with solemnity?”

    Because it pays. It pays with all the free shit.
    Free school admissions. Free job-hiring considerations. Free ‘you better not fire me’ job considerations. Free ‘I can scream and yell about anything like a madman and nobody will dare say boo to me’ considerations.

    Being black in America in 2012 is like getting the Willy Wonka golden ticket. All you have to do is be a ‘normal’ decent person and the world is your oyster. All you have to do is not drop out of school, not be a drug addict and just display middle of the road intelligence and middling work ethic – and the world will kiss your ass and act like you’re someone special.

  229. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Being black in America in 2012 is like getting the Willy Wonka golden ticket. All you have to do is be a ‘normal’ decent person and the world is your oyster. All you have to do is not drop out of school, not be a drug addict and just display middle of the road intelligence and middling work ethic – and the world will kiss your ass and act like you’re someone special.

    Is that you Mr. President?

  230. cranky-d says:

    Being black in America in 2012 is like getting the Willy Wonka golden ticket. All you have to do is be a ‘normal’ decent person and the world is your oyster. All you have to do is not drop out of school, not be a drug addict and just display middle of the road intelligence and middling work ethic – and the world will kiss your ass and act like you’re someone special.

    Are you sure that doesn’t fall under “acting white?”

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