Conservative columnist fired for article giving 'white version' of 'the talk'

TheGrio REPORT -- The _National Review_ has fired longtime columnist John Derbyshire after the conservative columnist wrote a blog post calling blacks genetically less intelligent and more violent than whites, and urging white and Asian parents to avoid them.

TheGrio Staff

Apr 8, 2012

The National Review has fired longtime contributor John Derbyshire after the conservative columnist revealed a blog post calling blacks genetically less intelligent and more violent than whites, and urging white and Asian parents to avoid them.

Derbyshire’s post on Taki’s Mag, an online magazine run by Taki Theodoracopulos, a co-founder of American Conservative magazine, was written in response to a number of articles in which black writers discussed “the talk” given by African-American parents to their sons, warning them of the racial stereotyping they may be subject to. Those articles were written in the wake of the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, who was shot to death by a neighborhood watch captain in Sanford, Florida as he walked home in the rain, wearing a hoodie and holding Skittles candy and iced tea that he had purchased for the son of his father’s girlfriend.

Derbyshire’s version of “the talk” included offensive references to supposed studies claiming, “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.” His “advice” to white (and Asian) Ameicans included:

(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.

He also tells his readers that if they are at a public event and notice that the number of blacks “suddenly swells,” they should “leave as quickly as possible,” and should also scrutinize black politicians more closely than they would white ones, and avoid living in cities or districts run by black politicians. And he says that if a white person is approached by a black person on the street, they should “smile and say something polite” and then “move on as quickly as possible.”

Derbyshire also counsels his readers they should seek out opportunities to befriend what he called the small number of “intelligent and well-socialized blacks,” saying that doing so will help whites avoid accusations of racism.

The post prompted widespread condemnation of Derbyshire, including from fellow conservatives.

In parting ways with Derbyshire, a British-American writer living in New York, who has in the past stated that he is a homophobe and a racist, National Review editor Rich Lowry wrote:

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.