Wrote for the National Review for 11 years
In 2009, Derbyshire Argued Women Shouldn’t Vote: ‘Women Voting Is Bad For Conservatism’
By Faiz Shakir on Apr 7, 2012 at 5:05 pm
The National Review’s John Derbyshire isn’t just an avowed racist and a homophobe. He’s also a misogynist. In 2009, he authored a book that contained a chapter titled “The Case Against Women’s Suffrage.” In it, he argued the country would be better off if women didn’t have the right to vote. He discussed his views in a Sept. 2009 interview with Alan Colmes:
DERBYSHIRE: Among the hopes that I do not realistically nurse is the hope that female suffrage will be repealed. But I’ll say this – if it were to be, I wouldn’t lose a minute’s sleep.
COLMES: We’d be a better country if women didn’t vote?
DERBYSHIRE: Probably. Don’t you think so?
COLMES: No, I do not think so whatsoever.
DERBYSHIRE: Come on Alan. Come clean here [laughing].
COLMES: We would be a better country? John Derbyshire making the statement, we would be a better country if women did not vote.
DERBYSHIRE: Yeah, probably.
The Talk: Nonblack Version
by John Derbyshire
April 05, 2012
There is much talk about “the talk.”
“Sean O’Reilly was 16 when his mother gave him the talk that most black parents give their teenage sons,” Denisa R. Superville of the Hackensack (NJ) Record tells us. Meanwhile, down in Atlanta: “Her sons were 12 and 8 when Marlyn Tillman realized it was time for her to have the talk,” Gracie Bonds Staples writes in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Leonard Greene talks about the talk in the New York Post. Someone bylined as KJ Dell’Antonia talks about the talk in The New York Times. Darryl Owens talks about the talk in the Orlando Sentinel.
Yes, talk about the talk is all over.
There is a talk that nonblack Americans have with their kids, too. My own kids, now 19 and 16, have had it in bits and pieces as subtopics have arisen. If I were to assemble it into a single talk, it would look something like the following.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
(1) Among your fellow citizens are forty million who identify as black, and whom I shall refer to as black. The cumbersome (and MLK-noncompliant) term “African-American” seems to be in decline, thank goodness. “Colored” and “Negro” are archaisms. What you must call “the ‘N’ word” is used freely among blacks but is taboo to nonblacks.
“There is a talk that nonblack Americans have with their kids, too.”
(2) American blacks are descended from West African populations, with some white and aboriginal-American admixture. The overall average of non-African admixture is 20-25 percent. The admixture distribution is nonlinear, though: “It seems that around 10 percent of the African American population is more than half European in ancestry.” (Same link.)
(3) Your own ancestry is mixed north-European and northeast-Asian, but blacks will take you to be white.
(4) The default principle in everyday personal encounters is, that as a fellow citizen, with the same rights and obligations as yourself, any individual black is entitled to the same courtesies you would extend to a nonblack citizen. That is basic good manners and good citizenship. In some unusual circumstances, however—e.g., paragraph (10h) below—this default principle should be overridden by considerations of personal safety.
(5) As with any population of such a size, there is great variation among blacks in every human trait (except, obviously, the trait of identifying oneself as black). They come fat, thin, tall, short, dumb, smart, introverted, extroverted, honest, crooked, athletic, sedentary, fastidious, sloppy, amiable, and obnoxious. There are black geniuses and black morons. There are black saints and black psychopaths. In a population of forty million, you will find almost any human type. Only at the far, far extremes of certain traits are there absences. There are, for example, no black Fields Medal winners. While this is civilizationally consequential, it will not likely ever be important to you personally. Most people live and die without ever meeting (or wishing to meet) a Fields Medal winner.
(6) As you go through life, however, you will experience an ever larger number of encounters with black Americans. Assuming your encounters are random—for example, not restricted only to black convicted murderers or to black investment bankers—the Law of Large Numbers will inevitably kick in. You will observe that the means—the averages—of many traits are very different for black and white Americans, as has been confirmed by methodical inquiries in the human sciences.
(7) Of most importance to your personal safety are the very different means for antisocial behavior, which you will see reflected in, for instance, school disciplinary measures, political corruption, and criminal convictions.
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(8) These differences are magnified by the hostility many blacks feel toward whites. Thus, while black-on-black behavior is more antisocial in the average than is white-on-white behavior, average black-on-white behavior is a degree more antisocial yet.
(9) A small cohort of blacks—in my experience, around five percent—is ferociously hostile to whites and will go to great lengths to inconvenience or harm us. A much larger cohort of blacks—around half—will go along passively if the five percent take leadership in some event. They will do this out of racial solidarity, the natural willingness of most human beings to be led, and a vague feeling that whites have it coming.
(10) Thus, while always attentive to the particular qualities of individuals, on the many occasions where you have nothing to guide you but knowledge of those mean differences, use statistical common sense:
(10a) Avoid concentrations of blacks not all known to you personally.
(10b) Stay out of heavily black neighborhoods.
(10c) If planning a trip to a beach or amusement park at some date, find out whether it is likely to be swamped with blacks on that date (neglect of that one got me the closest I have ever gotten to death by gunshot).
(10d) Do not attend events likely to draw a lot of blacks.
(10e) If you are at some public event at which the number of blacks suddenly swells, leave as quickly as possible.
(10f) Do not settle in a district or municipality run by black politicians.
(10g) Before voting for a black politician, scrutinize his/her character much more carefully than you would a white.
(10h) Do not act the Good Samaritan to blacks in apparent distress, e.g., on the highway.
(10i) If accosted by a strange black in the street, smile and say something polite but keep moving.
(11) The mean intelligence of blacks is much lower than for whites. The least intelligent ten percent of whites have IQs below 81; forty percent of blacks have IQs that low. Only one black in six is more intelligent than the average white; five whites out of six are more intelligent than the average black. These differences show in every test of general cognitive ability that anyone, of any race or nationality, has yet been able to devise. They are reflected in countless everyday situations. “Life is an IQ test.”
(12) There is a magnifying effect here, too, caused by affirmative action. In a pure meritocracy there would be very low proportions of blacks in cognitively demanding jobs. Because of affirmative action, the proportions are higher. In government work, they are very high. Thus, in those encounters with strangers that involve cognitive engagement, ceteris paribus the black stranger will be less intelligent than the white. In such encounters, therefore—for example, at a government office—you will, on average, be dealt with more competently by a white than by a black. If that hostility-based magnifying effect (paragraphis also in play, you will be dealt with more politely, too. “The DMV lady“ is a statistical truth, not a myth.
(13) In that pool of forty million, there are nonetheless many intelligent and well-socialized blacks. (I’ll use IWSB as an ad hoc abbreviation.) You should consciously seek opportunities to make friends with IWSBs. In addition to the ordinary pleasures of friendship, you will gain an amulet against potentially career-destroying accusations of prejudice.
(14) Be aware, however, that there is an issue of supply and demand here. Demand comes from organizations and businesses keen to display racial propriety by employing IWSBs, especially in positions at the interface with the general public—corporate sales reps, TV news presenters, press officers for government agencies, etc.—with corresponding depletion in less visible positions. There is also strong private demand from middle- and upper-class whites for personal bonds with IWSBs, for reasons given in the previous paragraph and also (next paragraph) as status markers.
(15) Unfortunately the demand is greater than the supply, so IWSBs are something of a luxury good, like antique furniture or corporate jets: boasted of by upper-class whites and wealthy organizations, coveted by the less prosperous. To be an IWSB in present-day US society is a height of felicity rarely before attained by any group of human beings in history. Try to curb your envy: it will be taken as prejudice (see paragraph 13).
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
You don’t have to follow my version of the talk point for point; but if you are white or Asian and have kids, you owe it to them to give them some version of the talk. It will save them a lot of time and trouble spent figuring things out for themselves. It may save their lives.
Racist with an Explanation: Rightbloggers Defend John Derbyshire
By Roy Edroso Mon., Apr. 9 2012 at 12:53 AM Comments (21)
Categories: Exploring the Right Wing Blogosphere, Featured
Last week John Derbyshire, a now-former writer for National Review, published elsewhere an article that was plainly racist -- by which we mean, its racism was not veiled or masked in the manner that has become common among rightbloggers, but overt; it asserted that black people were less intelligent than whites and more prone to violence, and thus should be avoided.
You have probably already guessed what comes next. While a few rightbloggers thought this was a bridge too far, and many ignored it (or, like Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds, pretended they couldn't read it), a depressing number found it a refreshing departure from "political correctness," or just plain agreed with Derbyshire's conclusions.
Derbyshire has a long history of racist statements (including "I am a homophobe... and a racist"), so the only surprise about his alleged advice to his children in Taki's Magazine was that he did not try to sugar up its racism with charm or humor. Among his advisements:
"Avoid concentrations of blacks not all known to you personally."
"Stay out of heavily black neighborhoods."
"If accosted by a strange black in the street, smile and say something polite but keep moving."
"The mean intelligence of blacks is much lower than for whites... There is a magnifying effect here, too, caused by affirmative action... therefore--for example, at a government office--you will, on average, be dealt with more competently by a white than by a black."
Etc. Bloggers and newspaper writers noticed this and denunciations began flowing in; Derbyshire's longtime National Review employers first distanced themselves from, then fired him.
Some rightbloggers, too, denounced Derbyshire's article; "'Indefensible' is an apt description of Derbyshire's controversial race column," said Breitbart's Big Journalism, "which has been getting pilloried in online circles left and right for the last day and a half."
But skimming the right-blogosphere, we find such voices in the minority. The best that could be said about most of the rightbloggers who swarmed to Derbyshire's defense is that their incoherence shows they aren't used to defending these kinds of sentiments. But give them time.
Let's start, though, with the more straightforward reactions from old-fashioned racist types. "Kudos to John Derbyshire for telling the damned truth!" wrote Charles Patrick Adkins ("a proud White, Patriotic, American") at Thoughts and Rantings. "To the liberals giving him grief about it; I got one thing to say --- SCREW YOU!"
In a follow-up, Adkins revealed that "my Cousin Michael Landon Hill was brutally murdered by Black and Latino cops in southwest Detroit's Delray district in 1994," which he offered as justification for his hatred of blacks, among others: "The truth is, I owe Blacks and Latinos and yes --- Jews --- nothing at all."
Same as it ever was.
"Blacks are more violent than any other racial group, a fact supported by decades of crime statistics as well as recent events," gurgled Sabrepoint. "I don't like this terrible truth and would change it if I could," presumably by exterminating them. "Of course," he added, "many blacks are also good, decent people, but you have to play the odds if you are interested in your physical survival."
Barrel Strength said, "I read [the article] yesterday and thought to myself, 'bang on!'" and applauded Derbyshire's "straightforward - and therefore politically dangerous - observations that the people one is talking about have average IQs one full standard distribution lower, on average, than whites." He also asked, "Is it racist? Define race and racism please. I want to know." He might start here.
Vox Day back-patted Derbyshire; he knew what it was like to be misunderstood. "Now, in the past," Day wrote, "I have been urged by some to abandon what they errantly consider to be my 'support for segregation.' What they fail to understand is that I don't support segregation per se... There is nothing to support, there is only an observation to be made: Humanity is intrinsically and naturally self-segregating. It is desegregation that is unnatural, that requires the imposition of force..."
Thus, if whites do hang out with blacks, it is only the imposition of the state that keeps the races miserably together. "MLK's dream is dead," Day asserted, "and more importantly, it was never more than wishful thinking anyhow. Racial equality is the same failed myth as every other aspect of human equality..."
Curt Doolittle ("I am an independent theorist of Political Economy in the Austrian Libertarian tradition") allowed as how "racism is just plain stupidity." Nonetheless he explained that "African Americans FACTUALLY demonstrate African American distributions of IQ are FACTUALLY almost a full standard deviation lower than that of their white counterparts," and that "whites used to be racist but the wars ended their comfort with self confidence. Blacks are racist at the bottom."
Doolittle also noted that black people are disproportionately represented in crime statistics. He did not consider their disproportionate representation in poverty statistics to be connected -- that sort of thinking, we suppose, would conflict with the Austrian Libertarian tradition -- but suggested that "aberrant behavior among minorities" in the U.S. is "tolerated under the principle of diversity and freedom of self expression."
Let us leave these people to their klaverns. Most of the brethren, as we said, took a less direct approach, arguing that just because they agreed with Derbyshire that blacks were inferior, that didn't make them racists.
"John Derbyshire is not a raaaaacist," said The Camp of the Saints, using the traditional rightblogger shorthand for false accusations of racism. "... Don't buy into the Leftist Narrative being crafted to divert your attention away from the Left's vile behavior in the Trayvon Martin shooting and their attempt to bring down another intrepid soul on the Right."
At Protein Wisdom, Jeff Goldstein didn't see what was so racist about the idea that white people should avoid black people out of fear for their lives.
Derbyshire's article was "honest," said Goldstein, "and as such, it was not sufficiently filtered for a media climate where political correctness still provides the parameters for what is and isn't acceptable."
Goldstein did admit that "as a practical rhetorical matter, I think Derbyshire did himself no favors by singling out blacks" -- presumably if he'd added something about his contempt for homosexuals, people might have taken it better -- and that "his article brought out some unsavory types in the comments -- WHY WON'T DERBYSHIRE TAKE ON THE KIKES?" -- though, Goldstein explained, that had "has less to do with his article and more to do with certain people who are always drawn to such pieces" for reasons no one can understand.
Speaking of people who are drawn to such pieces, Goldstein went on to denounce Eric Holder, Spike Lee, Al Sharpton, people putting "bounties on George Zimmerman," people "who yell 'SCIENCE!' and want to put conservatives in re-education camps," and "the left's control over the social narrative" which has so twisted our discourse that people who hate and fear African-Americans are misperceived as racists. ("I already know I'm not a racist," added Goldstein, though we wonder why he bothered.)
Some tried to paint the corners. Tom Maguire, for example, who has devoted the past few weeks to trying to prove that Trayvon Martin had it coming, said, "a friend of mine (AF) commented that Paul Simon fills Central Park and all is well; Diana Ross draws a crowd and there are near-riots. His thought, roughly - 'gee, go figure.'" The Diana Ross riot was in 1983, and many, many black artists have performed in New York since then without incident. (The Black-Eyed Peas played Central Park last summer and no riot ensued; perhaps Maguire, or "AF," attributes this to the calming presence of Fergie.)
Dan Riehl claimed to have a black friend -- well, to have had one, anyway, in sixth grade, and that this black friend told him, during an interracial squabble at their school, "Dan, you know if this gets bigger and we end up getting pulled in, I have to be with my people, right?"
So this alleged remark proved... well, we're not sure what, but it prompted Riehl to ask, "how much of what Derbyshire wrote is mostly true in a still too significant portion of America's population, black, or white?" as if Derbyshire's hatred of blacks had some lessons for black people besides "John Derbyshire hates you."
Riehl added: "The left is always screaming racism, often even when it hasn't been proven to exist -- as in the recent case of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman. Even the media falsely screamed it. So, along comes Derbyshire and, I don't know, confesses it, on his part? And all the left can do is scream, get him!" Plus, "the left should be thanking Derbyshire for being honest - for confirming so much of what they themselves always seem to be saying." What a bunch of ingrates!
"Some of [Derbyshire's column] is stupid. A lot of it is insensitive," said Rick Moran at American Thinker. But, he allowed, "some of it is valuable advice." For example: "Only the most rabid racialist would say something negative about Derbyshire's warning to his kids to avoid heavily black neighborhoods..." Maybe Moran should go to Harlem and warn all the white folks living up there to run for their lives.
On the "Rightblogger will tell you what the real outrage is" front, Robert Stacy McCain denounced "the Left's attempt to bully [Slate writer David] Weigel for failing to denounce Derbyshire in strong enough terms." McCain showed no evidence of this alleged bullying of Weigel -- he later explained, "I noticed people on Twitter giving Dave Weigel grief" -- but attacked this imaginary retributive movement as "a sort of Maoist tactic, the demand for conformity and solidarity," and shook his fist at the Maoist hordes: "And now the Left's trying to get Weigel fired from Slate? Be careful what you wish for, lefties. It could be worse."
(In 2010, Weigel was forced to resign from the Washington Post for saying mean things about conservatives on a private mailing list. Maybe McCain brought him up as an inside joke.)
Some went into deeper, stranger varieties of denial; Breitbart acolyte Lee Stranahan, for example, tweeted that "Derb's views on race & IQ strike me as profoundly ANTI-conservative ; a product of Margret Sanger-like progressive psuedoscience run amok." Derbyshire as liberal -- well, you can't say it isn't original.
Meanwhile, some guy in Tulsa whose father was killed by a black man (or, as the suspect put it at Facebook, "shot by a fucking nigger") in a family dispute two years ago allegedly went on a black-killing rampage to celebrate the anniversary.
It's early yet, but we're already getting some rightblogger reactions:
"40 year old Pernell Jefferson is serving six years in prison for killing Jake England's father, Carl. That's it?" sympathized Scared Monkeys. "Jake England will be serving the rest of his life for the murders he is alleged to have done."
"The Tulsa Killer (Jake England's) Father Was Murdered By A Black Man 2 Years Ago~WHERE WAS THE OUTRAGE?" yelled The Mad Jewess. "...this happened under the Obama watch." "Lo and behold, this was an entirely predictable retaliatory strike against the Black Undertow," said Occidental Dissent.
"IF it comes out that this shooting had anything to do with the Trayvon Martin issue, then I blame the entire thing on Obama and his henchmen," muttered American and Proud through a mouthful of chaw. "IF They had ties to the Aryan Nation in any way it's a direct response to the hype of Black Panthers/Media frenzy and the democrat party faithful who have pushed for it... The 'Occupy' people were way too white in the streets. They needed to capture some 'Black' anger and get involvement. What we have here is the catalyst."
If Derbyshire starts up his own magazine, he won't have any trouble knowing where to look for subscribers -- or columnists.
