Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Let's talk. About this, not about that


Today's helpful tip for getting along in America: Don't say what you really think, if what you really think is what people really don't want to hear.

Conservative writer John Derbyshire was arrogant enough to think the power of his own intellect and the conviction with which he holds to his prejudices could save him from that simple postmodern fact of life. And mere days after he published the white man's version of "The Talk" on the
Taki's Magazine website, Derbyshire has become a former National Review contributor.

"The Talk," of course, is the "cold, hard facts of life" discussion black parents have with their sons as soon as boys get within striking distance of becoming men. It concerns how white folks see black males, and how one stays alive given that unfortunate reality.

Well, as Derbyshire correctly pointed out, white parents have a version of that talk, too. And, as Derbyshire, correctly noted, it goes something like this:

(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.

(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.
I GREW UP in the Deep South. As bad as Derbyshire's version is -- and this wasn't the bad part -- the one I and countless other young Southerners got nearly 40 years ago was a lot worse.

When Derbyshire isn't veering off into the eugenic fever swamps -- studies apparently show the average African-American IQ is some 19 points lower than the average white IQ
(Which we're supposed to address . . . how?) -- or referencing data from a reputedly racist website about blacks' propensity for violence, he occasionally veers into common sense.

In other words, don't go to rap concerts. Stay the hell out of the 'hood, particularly in the middle of the night. If a situation starts to look like trouble, it probably is. No matter how soulful you think you might be, a certain percentage of African-Americans will see it --
and you -- differently, white boy.

All of this is unfortunate. It's also the cold, hard fact of racially divided American life.

Or maybe the cold, hard insanity of eliminating the divide by exterminating white people, as broadcast on
C-SPAN in 2007 via "Kamau Kambon´s most excellent speach."


SLAVERY was America's original sin. Its awful effects persist to this day. No, in too many cases, we can't just get along. And despite all the king's horses and all the king's diversity trainers, we have no clue how to put Humpty Dumpty together again.

Particularly since he was never in one piece to begin with.

Not one of us knows how to undo slavery. Not one of us knows how to undo the horrific lingering effects of Jim Crow. Or the tragedy born of the disintegration of the black family and how that has influenced poverty, violence and -- since Derbyshire brought it up -- the "IQ gap," for whatever that data might be worth.

For that matter, we don't know how to undo the unfolding catastrophe that is the disintegration of the white family, either.
In another 10 years, a large chunk of white America will be right where the black underclass resides.

Of course, many of "the right sort" of white folks are making a killing off of the toxic hip-hop culture that has turned into a loutish glorification of everything that -- if properly adhered to -- likely will leave one f***ed up, knocked up, locked up, dumbed down . . . or dead. But that's not important now,
right?

No, just consider what a bad,
bad racist John Derbyshire is. You know you want to.

Harp on all the cynical, nasty and bigoted things he has to say. Mostly, you would be correct.

But the most offensive thing in play here doesn't involve any of the truths Derbyshire stumbled upon, nor any of his "lies, damned lies and statistics." It's not even in his moral lacuna, which swallowed that place where Christian charity ought to reside.

The most offensive thing in play here is that he got a shiv in the back for being an open book while more than a few of his vocal detractors, I would wager, are
living what Derbyshire merely had the temerity to write.

They are avoiding the 'hood.

They stay the hell away from large groups of black youth with pants on the ground and hoodies over their heads.

They don't go to rap concerts.

They do not settle in municipalities run by black politicians, unless they're really loaded Washingtonians and can afford Georgetown. And a hella home-alarm system.

And they're just fine.

THEY PROBABLY even adhere to the supremely cynical Paragraphs 13, 14 and 15 of Derbyshire's "nonblack version" of The Talk:
(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).
BECAUSE IT'S always easier to indignantly scream "racist" than actually not be one. Take the test Derbyshire mentioned Monday in this Gawker Q and A.

I didn't do so well on the African American-European American Implicit Association Test. The first time I took it today, I scored just like Derbyshire did -- a "strong automatic preference for European American compared to African American."

The second time I took the test, after getting the hang of it, I displayed a "moderate automatic preference" for white like me. Maybe that's just how we're all wired. Or maybe -- as I continue this lifelong mortal struggle against the profoundly racist culture into which I was born, raised and indoctrinated -- the evil within my crooked, hard heart yet exceeds that which, with God's help, I have purged in my 51 years on earth.


As this Trayvon Martin mess drags on, and as black parents have one talk with their kids and white parents have another with theirs, everyone keeps talking about that "national conversation" we're all supposed to have about this stuff. I think "everyone" is full of shit.

That national conversation about race is the last thing we want to have. Not even after 400 years, and almost 150 years after slavery's end.

We want the truth?
We want the truth??? We can't handle the truth.

John Derbyshire -- in his wonkish, tone deaf, elitist, racist kind of way -- almost stumbled right into that dreaded conversation. Maybe his unfortunate spasm of honesty could have dragged the rest of us into an honest airing of what divides us . . . and how we might start fixing what ails us.

That's why all the rest of us racists, the ones not nearly so honest about our multicultural hearts of darkness, had to put a bullet in the man's literary brain.

Now we return you to your previously scheduled TV news coverage of murderous black youth, mau-mauing race baiters and crackers with firearms, pickup trucks and a bad attitude about "f***ing n*****s."

Film at 11.

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