Sunday, April 8, 2012

John Derbyshire

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So John Derbyshire got into some hot soup for an article he wrote at Takimag. This caught me by surprise, mostly because I don't usually read his stuff there and I never read NRO so I don't really know what he talks about. I usually read Gavin McInnes, Pat Buchanan, Taki himself, sometimes Jim Goad and maybe other stuff that randomly catches my eye. I think Takimag are onto something and I like their fearlessness and honesty. I don't really care too much about the "Death of the West" stuff their writers are always going on about though. Some of them whine alot too, like liberals.


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I probably wouldn't have read this article. In fact, I think I saw it and didn't. Liberals like to talk about race because their whole movement is simply nostalgia for the 60's and 90's. That's fine but why help them out? It's retro. It doesn't matter. So I was going to visit this site I just basically called obsolete like I do every day but it didn't open. Then I saw the Derbyshire trending on twitter. I didn't think it was for some insightful article he wrote on cultural whatever. Gawker laid into him pretty good. If you haven't read it, the hook of the article is a list of ways white people should avoid black people so they don't end up getting shot or something. To back up his claim that this is good advice he links to instances from the news where not following this type of advice ended badly.

As the late Andrew Breitbart apparently said "So?". This is less racist than Chris Rock saying "Books are like Kryptonite to a nigga". He's looking out for the safety of his children so he wants to avoids situations where they would be in danger. He isn't advocating shooting black people nor does he think that it's genetically impossible for one to not behave in this manner. We'll get into the efficacy of this in a bit but anyway that's what he did.

I confess, I used to be afraid of black people on the street. Then one day my friend calmly sat down next to a bunch of black people and nothing happened. Now I'm not scared of them. (Plus I weigh like 200 pounds now and also don't really care if I live or die). Takimag commenters would probably think this make me some kind of flaming liberal. One of my favorite scenes in Borat was when he is in Detroit or something and he goes "lets go over there" pointing to a poorly lit area where black yutes were hanging out. He goes over there and nothing untoward happens except they make fun of him. What if had gotten killed. Who knows,who cares. and don't freak out about racism either. You want to see some really racist motherfuckers go to Japan or Egypt. They make John Derbyshire look like Jane Fonda.

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Sort of as a corrolary though to my making fun of people who care about civil rights is my belief in "picking your battles". Conservatives who got all upset about Sandra Fluke kind of had a point, but were kind of dumb too. It's not worth pissing off women to support the right of religous institutions to deny contraception. In theory, they are right. In practice, save your ammo for something more important than preventing the horrible result of women who want birth control pills getting them. This could be a whole other column, but I'd go further to just say stay away from womens stuff altogether. Have you every read a romance novel or even watched a soap opera? It's sordid beyond all measure, but you never see anyone trying to ban them or anything, even the fire and brimstone preachers are smart about that. Luke rapes Laura and their wedding is one of the top 3 most watched events in tv history! Don't try to understand women and their weird take on life at all. They are worse than Hezbollah and similarly their worldview will never make sense to the western mind.

So what was John Derbyshire's impeteus for writing this column that was worth stirring a hornet's nest over? To tell scared white people that he is scared too and they are okay? Everyone knows that! More to the point: It's tacky, no pun intended, as hell to be coming off with this stuff in the midst of and in response to what was a tragedy: the shooting of Trayvon Martin. He was there visiting someone, not robbing people and no one disputes that. As Takimag scribe Gavin McInnes has noted there is a thing called decorum. Should he have gotten FIRED over it? National Review stinks who cares. He's been there for 30 years and I doubt they thought 2 seconds about it.

Derbyshires book looks relatively interesting. I think to some extent that was his crime here: not being more boring like the rest of the interchangeable horn rimmed spectacled pundits on twitter and so forth.

John Derbyshire is a lucky bastard: I wish I was famous enough to be blacklisted!

4 comments:

  1. Derb was responding to the litany of "the Talk" being posted by black authors on what black parents tell black children about being black.

    So he posted the non-black version.

    Here's a relevant quote: “There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps... then turn around and see somebody white and feel relieved.” - Jesse Jackson

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  2. "He was there visiting someone, not robbing people and no one disputes that."

    Well, actually, Zimmerman says that Martin assaulted him. I guess Martin didn't get your memo about how peacable yutes are. And Zimmerman didn't get your memo about how it's OK if they kill you.

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  3. Jerome/ anon = The point is this isn't http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernhard_Goetz . If Zimmerman hadn't followed Martin the altercation would never have occured. At any rate, we don't have all the facts.

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  4. DFunny you should say liberals are nostalgic for, or stuck in, the 60s *which to be fair, many of them are) when many of the people you listed are nostalgic for, or stuck in, the 50s...the 1850s.

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