A Foot (in mouth) Race

Good Reads

Obama’s Preacher is foaming at the mouth again, and we are cursed with an overabundance of people gleefully fanning the flames of racial strife. Black panthers and white supremacists are racing down to Florida (may God grant them a clear field free of innocent citizens where they can slaughter one another). I understand why so many ordinary blacks are upset at the perceived special treatment police gave George Zimmerman, but the rest of it is a circus.

Amidst the racial turmoil, conservative writer John Derbyshire, since fired from National Review, wrote a racist article advising young people to treat black people differently and to look upon them more critically than white people.

"An out-of-tune racist marching band"

Mark Adomanis, writing in Forbes Magazine, hit the nail on the head:

No, what made Derbyshire’s piece so unusual, and what resulted in his summary dismissal, was not the fact that it dealt with race but that it did so in a uniquely bullheaded and crass way: it wasn’t a racist dog whistle so much as it was an out-of-tune racist marching band. (Mark Adomanis – Forbes)

Lefty publications just called it racist and left it at that. Adomanis explains why it is racist:

Derbyshire is literally suggesting that people use one, exacting and demanding, standard when judging the acceptability of black politicians and that they use another, far less exacting, standard when judging white politicians.

That is we should use different, and racially-determined, standards to judge the behavior of blacks and whites. That is, basically, the dictionary definition of racism or as least close to it as you’re ever likely to see in print.

Pot, Kettle...

After handily blasting Derbyshire for broadbrusing an entire group of people, the liberal author immediately broad brushes us unwashed conservatives out in the hinterlands clinging to our guns and bibles, imagining that we are all steaming mad at Derbyshire's firing and just one trigger pull away from teaching the "RINOs" a lesson...

These people are angry beyond belief that fearless writers like Derbyshire are being unfairly marginalized by “wimps” like Rich Lowry (one of the most constant insults you will see hurled at establishment conservatives is “girly man”) and regard any attempts to police conservative discourse as revolting attempts to “appease” liberals.

I guess I don't get out enough, because the fellow rednecks I encounter don't fit his profile. Derbyshire's article was spilling over with links to statistics and anecdotal data to bolster his point, but I still agree with the liberal that it was crass and racist.  

World Nut Daily published something similar.  It was not so much blatantly racist as merely intellectually sloppy and casually bigoted:

The melting pot concept was always nine-tenths myth, and the historical pattern clearly shows that distinct groups of immigrants generally do not assimilate over several generations, but rather form tribal factions that work to further the interests of the group at the expense of other tribal factions in the state.

Yeah, we've got all these German, Italian, Russian and hundreds of other polyglot tribes carving their own enclaves here in America, driving around Mad Max-like and creating havoc...

This is nonsense. Look around you. Look in a phone book. How many people do we have in this country with Dutch, Scandinavian, Spanish, Italian, Russian, etc surnames who speak not one word of their ancestors' language, and who know very little of the old country's culture? If he has particular people in mind he should mention them instead of smearing everyone but his own stupid white ass.

For those about to mention Mexican gang members, we have thousands of law-abiding, assimilated Hispanics for each criminal, and if we had no white or indigenous gang bangers, you might have a point.  But we do, so you don't.

This part is racist:

... even after 150 years, despite the intentional destruction of their languages, religions and tribal identities that they suffered at the hands of those who enslaved them, African-Americans have still not collectively assimilated into the greater American culture.

While many blacks and whites alike would prefer to believe this is solely the result of white racism, racism has only been one factor contributing to the development that the historical pattern clearly indicates; over the course of seven or eight generations, African-Americans have managed to create, largely ex nihilo, their own distinct cultural identity in preference to the adoption of the European civilization that forcibly imported their ancestors.

Borders, Language, Culture

This is a clumsy, chauvinistic anti-immigrant, anti-black bash, nothing more. I agree with Michael Savage that Borders, Language and Culture are critical. We need to preserve them, but simplistic articles like this are not helpful.  Not only that, they are not even accurate and they fail to identify the root of whatever problem it is they are ranting against.

Which immigrants was he talking about? I agree that those whose culture is incompatible with Western Civilization should not be allowed in, but using the generic “immigrant” stupidly impugns them all, including presumably my Eastern European mom, aunts and uncles and grandparents. And  treating black Americans as a homogeneous underclass group is a bald-faced, bigoted insult, not to mention factually incorrect. 

I’m again reminded why I avoid World Nut Daily. Such sensationalist founts of stupidity do more harm than good to the conservative cause.  We have isolated instances of unassimilated immigrants (blessedly rare), and if someone wants to address the topic, specific facts would advance the dialog.  

We also have a criminal underclass in this country, but it is a diverse, multi-color population, and it needs to be addressed as such.  Not only out of respect for the facts, but most of all out of respect for the overwhelming majority of black Americans who love this country and go to work everyday to take care of their families and pay the bills.

There are ways to talk about America's problems, and I've just featured two examples of how not to do it, and it has nothing to do with political correctness, and everything to do with intellectual honesty and respect for others.

As a bonus, here is how you humorously and frankly address politically incorrect topics without descending into chauvinistic bigotry :  Ten HateFacts