- Defending (indefensible) John Derbyshire

Jonah Goldberg and Rich Lowry have called John Derbyshire's piece, indefensible. I on the other hand, am in the middle of my second day spent defending him. I don't think John deserved to get fired over the article in question. And I was about 5 paragraphs into my own piece (which I'll finish and post later if my anger over the whole thing doesn't abate) when my wife found this from incendiary insight:

The public scolding that National Review and other mainstream conservatives bestowed on John Derbyshire is absolutely despicable. They value the Narrative over honest debate and inquiry into whether or not Derbyshire's article was factually correct or not.

What hundreds of millions of Americans intuitively understand is what they are forbidden from admitting: that blacks and browns commit crime at a disproportionate level relative to their population, that cities and neighborhoods without minorities are safer than those with them, and that it is best to avoid minorities that you don't know personally.

Everybody that has an IQ above freezing does this, whether they admit it or not. The fact that these columnists object to Derbyshire writing about warning your kids about reality is like strapping neon lights to a billboard that says: "We don't care about the truth, we only care about towing the Party line!"

So it turns out that while National Review has deemed him indefensible, there are still quite a few people out there willing to vigorously defend him.

Does that defense make us all racists? Well since self denial of that label counts for nothing with the people who apply it, I'll leave it to you to judge. As for myself, you can find dozens of posts on this blog that I've written which relate to race and that predate the current discussion by months and years. I know the laziest and most common way to address that question is to make the blanket accusation and then force people prove otherwise. So if I'm accused of racism, it won't be the first time, or the last I'd wager.

I think I still have something useful to add to this discussion, so this probably won't be the last you hear form me on it.