National Review Sez “Racists? Oh you mean RACISTS! Why we had no idea RACISTS were writing for us!

[paft.livejournal.com]

First it was John Derbyshire who got booted from the National Review for writing a staggeringly offensive piece that included the claim that “The mean intelligence of blacks is much lower than for whites” and advising his children to “not settle in a district or municipality run by black politicians” or “act the Good Samaritan to blacks in apparent distress, e.g., on the highway.” NRO Editor Rick Lowry, in his post announcing the firing of Derbyshire, observed that “Derb has long danced around the line on these issue,” “these issues” apparently being race, and “dancing around” being Derbyshire describing himself as a “mild and tolerant” racist during a 2003 interview.

And lest there be any doubt about what “mild and tolerant” meant, Derbyshire followed this interview up with a 600-word clarification on race and how important it is -- like, for example, Chinese people are a little smarter than white people. And therefore, private discrimination is okay.

In short, anyone willing to just kind of skim Derbyshire’s writing, while deliberately lowering his or her own IQ, could easily miss the fact that the man is a venomous racist.

And now another one bites the dust...



Lowry has fired another NRO writer, Robert Weissberg, because “unbeknownst to us” he recently attended a white supremacist conference and gave a speech on white nationalism.

Professor Weissberg too, has apparently “danced around the issue” of race with, for instance, his 2010 book Bad Students, Not Bad Schools, which maintains that a big problem with American schools is the “fact” that blacks and Hispanics are just inherently dumber than whites and Asians.

But hey, he doesn’t actually wear a bed-sheet on weekends, and he’s Jewish so he can’t possibly be a Nazi, so who knew this guy -- who thinks blacks and Hispanics are inherently less intelligent and less competent than whites and has said so repeatedly in public-- was a racist?

I have always maintained that there are a large number of American right wingers striving for that glorious day when they can take their “Kiss Me I’m a White Supremacist” t-shirts out of the closet without being publicly reviled. Looks like a few of them have been jumping the gun. It’s understandable, of course, what with George Zimmerman being treated as a hero in some quarters, and Rick Santorum’s recent “gaffes.” The racists got all excited and happy, allowed their hearts to lead, and wore their tees to the supermarket. What they forgot is that, while we've made some "progress" from the racist POV, we’re still in the era of “nig-oops…”

We haven’t gotten to the point where a politician can utter the whole word in public without consequences. Not yet, anyway.

Think it'll ever happen? After all, the attitudes and assumptions behind the common usage of the word "nigger," (blacks are inherently less intelligent and competent than whites, and more violent, emotional, and untrustworthy) are re-entering the mainstream and even being touted as NOT racism. Will the N word itself come back? Or will, along with the word "racist," it just be redefined?

Crossposted from Thoughtcrimes
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Comments

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Or will, along with the word "racist," it just be redefined?

Yeah, I found the recent thread about "racialists" (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1414363.html?thread=112978651#t112978651) fascinating and illuminating because until a conservative in the community used that word, I really never encountered it previously. Or if I had, I just glossed over it without getting the real implication.

The term “racialist” has a long history with earlier meanings that have been mostly forgotten because of the general discrediting of “racial science”. But I first heard it about fifteen years ago, as a self-descriptor commonly employed by David-Duke-type overt bigots as a way of avoiding the poisoned word racist: “I'm not a racist, I don't hate Black people. I just recognize that the different races have different natures and are thus best off kept separate from one another, blah blah blah.” Prompted by this usage by mrbogey, I discover that recently movement conservatives have started using “racialist” to refer to the supposed bigotry of anti-racist social justice advocates. Very, very interesting. On the face of it, I suspect that this is at least in part a way to square the circle of conservatives' concern trolling about how we “cry ‘racist’ too often” combined with their desire to claim that “liberals are the real racists”. See, when they accuse anti-racists of being “racialists”, they're not contributing to the problem of unfounded accusations of racism.

So here's a theory. I get a sense that movement conservatism is starting to have dog-whistle trouble. The coalition of the happily bigoted, the semi-consciously bigoted who don't like to be reminded that they're being bigoted, and the not-so-bigoted-but-unreflective-about-bigotry whom they have been able to assemble is under pressure as the symbolism of Obama brings the bigotry of the first and second groups closer to the surface, discomforting that second group and alienating the third. They need a rhetoric that separates them from the David Dukes of the world who are in danger of tarring their whole movement by association. What do do?

Well, I think he'd do a lot of good to the Stock Exchange.

[essentialsaltes.livejournal.com]

I first ran across 'racialist' in the Monty Python sketch about Mr. Hilter (http://www.montypython.net/scripts/minehead.php):

Landlady: Well it's the North Minehead bye-election. Mr Hilter's standing as the National Bocialist candidate. He's got wonderful plans for Minehead!

Johnson: Like what?

Landlady: Well, for a start he wants to annex Poland.

Johnson: Oh, North Minehead's Conservative, isn't it?

Landlady: Well, yes, he gets a lot of people at his rallies.

Johnson: Rallies?
...
Hilter: I am not a racialist, but...and dis is a big but...the National Bocialist party says that das [stream of German].

[paft.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about that too.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

I think it has more to do with the fact that "Racist" has become functionally meaningless.

The term has come to include everything from dyed-in-the-wool Aryan Nationalists to any white person you don't like.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Well there needs to be some way to differentiate the no-shit neo-nazi stormfront types from regular white people. ;)

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

I just ask.

[paft.livejournal.com]

s: Well there needs to be some way to differentiate the no-shit neo-nazi stormfront types from regular white people.

And only the "no-shit neo-nazi stormfront types" are identifiable as racists?

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Derbyshire describing himself as a “mild and tolerant” racist during a 2013 interview.

How do you expect them to know about that yet?

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Time travelling typo. Should be 2003, when he did say:

I am a homophobe, though a mild and tolerant one, and a racist, though an even more mild and tolerant one, and those things are going to be illegal pretty soon, the way we are going. Of course, people will still be that way in their hearts, but they will be afraid to admit it, and will be punished if they do admit it.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Whoops! Thanks for the heads up. I've corrected it.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

I have always maintained that there are a large number of American right wingers striving for that glorious day when they can take their “Kiss Me I’m a White Supremacist” t-shirts out of the closet without being publicly reviled.

Of course you have no basis for this belief.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Actually I do. Years of dealing with racists online have led me to this conclusion.

[paft.livejournal.com]

bs: Simply define "right winger" as "someone who is also probably racist" and voila.

Has somebody done this? Where?

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

We haven’t gotten to the point where a politician can utter the whole word in public without consequences. Not yet, anyway.

What makes me sad is that it seems that we never got to the point where politicians ever STOPPED uttering the word, even in part. At the very least, these slip-ups strongly imply that certain people continue to use this language in private, or in their own thoughts. And with all of the progress we've struggled to make in this country, I would have hoped that by now we would be in a place where the word WASN'T still so obviously in people's forebrains, just waiting for an opportune moment to slip out. But instead, we have verbal gaffes like Santorum's flying by unnoticed by his supporters. And when people bring up his freudian slip, we're treated to bad rationalizations of what he must have ACTUALLY meant. We obviously have a long way to go.

[rowsdowerisms.livejournal.com]

I think Lee Attwater was too successful. Conservatives can prance around talking about 'freedom of association', 'state's rights', etc. and in so doing they avoid the direct irrationality of overt racism while getting to keep all the 'perks' of racism.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

Wait... are you one of those folks who believe the apocryphal attribution about Atwater's Southern Strategy being covert racism?

[rowsdowerisms.livejournal.com]

Huh?

[dwer.livejournal.com]

"covert".

lol

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

Is that anything like being a "mild and tolerant" Klan member: one who wears the bedsheet, but hasn't actually lynched anyone?

[rowsdowerisms.livejournal.com]

They just come for the coffee and donuts they swear!

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

One of my college classmates approached me wondering why I was so down on the Klan. In her hometown, everyone was a member. It was simply the thing to do.

[il-mio-gufo.livejournal.com]

way to go girL! exposing them one miserable sould at a time!

on another note, how saddening * my heart falls low

what can we possibly do to aid the minds of those such as these? how can one undo the years of conditioning (direct and indirect) these minds have undergone?

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Re-Education!

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

The article on the white supremacist conference is interesting. The most vibrant member of the group was someone with a mixed race background. It only goes to confirm the observation that mongrels are smarter than pure breeds.

During my time in Silicon Valley, I worked with a guy who was involved in the Militia movement. He had no idea that the movement was an offshoot of white supremacists. I am not so surprised to learn that there are racists at the National Review. The opposite would have been more surprising.