Contrary to published reports, William F. Buckley is very much alive and well, using as little Arab oil as possible. Among other things I suspect he's packin' a pocket Constitution.
Posted on 04/07/2012 4:24:15 PM PDT by cartan
Anyone who has read Derb in our pages knows he’s a deeply literate, funny, and incisive writer. I direct anyone who doubts his talents to his delightful first novel, “Seeing Calvin Coolidge in a Dream, or any one of his “Straggler” columns in the books section of NR. Derb is also maddening, outrageous, cranky, and provocative. His latest provocation, in a webzine, lurches from the politically incorrect to the nasty and indefensible. We never would have published it, but the main reason that people noticed it is that it is by a National Review writer. Derb is effectively using our name to get more oxygen for views with which we’d never associate ourselves otherwise. So there has to be a parting of the ways. Derb has long danced around the line on these issues, but this column is so outlandish it constitutes a kind of letter of resignation. It’s a free country, and Derb can write whatever he wants, wherever he wants. Just not in the pages of NR or NRO, or as someone associated with NR any longer.
At the risk of name dropping, I knew Buckley reasonably well. More of a “friendly acquaintance” than a friend. What a wonderful individual. I got to see him debate Ramsey Clark back in the day. What a GREAT experience.
I gave a curtailed version of that talk to my daughter when she went off to college in Baltimore, focusing on recent crimes there, and the fact that a third of the young black men are under the supervision of the criminal justice system, and that young black women in that city had also committed race-based crime.
She cut me off; she thought I was racist, but a few months of the local news and older students’ stories showed her that I was on the mark, and she is properly cautious.
I added that she should keep her long hair tied up and not “flip” it.
I told her that when I was in college, too many young black men, including fellow students, were trophy-hunting white girls, and that she should never feel pressured by accusations of racism.
I didn’t say anything about acquiring a well-spoken black friend as a shield against accusations of racism; that IS wrong.
I do not want my sweet, loving, unprejudiced daughter injured or raped or killed because she is naive about the racial realities of big city crime, or for her to suppress her survival instincts and common sense for fear of being “racist.”
For Derbyshire to write this publicly is to get fired from a conservative magazine.
For me to say publicly, that I had advised my daughter this way, would be to find myself ostracized in my town - this upscale exurban high-achieving paradise that all the newcomers picked for its good schools - which is code for what most of them will never say aloud or even let themselves think.
I cant find the article…is there a link to it?It is linked from the Lowry article. Here it is. You may have to hit reload a few times…
NR is dead to me.
Nothing in that article was one bit racist.
The National Review now stands athwart history, yelling,”Please don’t hurt me. I promise to be a good little poodle.”
I didn’t know who John Derbyshire was until NRO did this. Now I’m glad to know who John Derbyshire is. I look forward to more ‘truth-telling’ from John Derbyshire.
I would like Lowry to identify just exactly what did John Derbyshire write that was false or not good advice to give your children.
Let me guess... no comments allowed on the page?
I read the article this morning. All it does is describe
the guidelines most people live by. Guess you just can’t have it in print or say it out loud. I’m sure holder is
ROTFLHBAO. Someone wasn’t a coward to have the conversation.
National Review is like the Weekly Reader we used to get in grade school, Its about 17 pages. Who cares. By the way NR if you’re lurking,quit sending me stuff in the mail.
Now Lowry can get back to his A list Brie and Chablis parties. If an author fell in NR does it make a noise?
Happy Easter
There wasn’t much doubt in my mind that they were going to fire him. NRO can’t take the truth. Heck, the pansies there couldn’t find their own buttholes without both hands and a good map, and even then it would take some luck.
Derbyshire is a sociologist and a prison doctor from what I have read, he would know these things better than anyone, he sees it on a daily basis.
Aside from the article’s subject, I found the article to be written poorly. It was hard to understand.
Contrary to published reports, William F. Buckley is very much alive and well, using as little Arab oil as possible. Among other things I suspect he's packin' a pocket Constitution.
Derbyshire and Steyn were the only reasons I renewed my NR subscription for as long as I did. Both non-Americans, note.
My experiences with my first three black secretaries accords with his article:
I couldn’t tell if they were lazy or stupid, and finally came to the conclusion that they were both lazy and stupid.
He wasn’t being politically correct and neither am I.
As he states, he was almost shot and I am not with that company any longer, so it’s just the naked truth.
“NRO seems to have disabled comments on Lowry’s two posts about Derb.”
You had to know they’d do that.
They are awful with the comments anyway.
I comment there the same way I write here. I strive to be insightful and not stupid. So many times my comment doesn’t get posted at all, or so long after I’ve submitted it that it’s pointless.
I have NO IDEA what their criteria might be.
I don’t like this Derbyshire piece, but I will state for the record that I thought Coulter was right on in what she said after 9/11.
Funnily Glenn Reynolds “the instapundit” remarked the other day regarding a rather despairing column by Victor Davis Hanson on the middle east that: nobody’s tried the Coulter plan yet.
I thought that was pretty amusing.
Sooner or later they will part ways with Mark Steyn because Steyn always writes truth too.
I can’t get the webzine link to work. Anyone know the site name? I’ll take Derb over that pansy Lowry any day.
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