John Derbyshire – Bang Out Of Order

[Update at end of post]

Many in the UK will not have heard of John Derbyshire. Quite a few will also be unfamiliar with Taki Theodoracopulos, founder of the online Taki’s Magazine, unless they go back several years with Private Eye. The Eye briefly used Taki’s services as successor to Nigel Dempster to write the Grovel column, before the former started dropping them in it with several pieces of dubious veracity.

The split between Taki and the Eye was less than amicable: he is characterised by the magazine nowadays as “Taki Takealotofcokeupthenos” (work that one out for yourselves). He now mainly works out of New York, where he founded his online mag. And that mag has itself now achieved notoriety as the vehicle which delivered a disgustingly racist piece by Derbyshire.

John Derbyshire is British by birth, but has resided in the USA for many years. He wrote for publications like the National Review, a deeply conservative magazine. He has previously asserted that women’s suffrage should be repealed, has talked of restricting immigration to maintain “ethnic balance”, and has said that modern Western civilisation is “dying”.

It does not take a genius to figure out that a combination of Derbyshire and Taki – the latter being banned from writing about Israel or Jewish affairs by the Spectator, where he contributes the “High Life” column, due to his known anti-Semitism – and any subject concerning race could produce incendiary results. So it proved when the former penned a piece called “The Talk: Nonblack Version”.

Derbyshire takes a few paragraphs to warm up, but he soon reaches “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”.

And then he’s off and running: “Avoid concentrations of blacks not known to you personally ... if you are at some public event at which the number of blacks suddenly swells, leave as quickly as possible ... before voting for a black politician, scrutinize his/her character much more carefully than you would a white ... the mean intelligence of blacks is much lower than for whites”.

Then, just to make sure that readers got the message, came “you will, on average, be dealt with more competently by a white than by a black”. Even the National Review saw this as beyond the pale: they have since sacked Derbyshire. But Taki doesn’t seem to have a problem with him.

So is Fraser Nelson still comfortable with his “High Life” contributor?

[UPDATE 11 April 1645 hours: the National Review has now dispensed with the services of another author, Robert Weissberg, who has not only been linked to the white nationalist group American Renaissance, but has also spoken at their recent conference. The report on his speech, now no longer available on the group's website, contains the following:

'Prof. Weissberg argued that an “80 percent solution” would be one that enforced the “First-World” standards of excellence and hard work that attract and reward whites. He pointed out that there are still many “Whitopias” in America and that there are many ways to keep them white, such as zoning that requires large houses, and a cultural ambiance or classical music and refined demeanor that repels undesirables. This approach to maintaining whiteness has the advantage that people can make a living catering to whites in their enclaves.'

Yes, there are still those who talk in such terms, even in the 21st Century. And Robert Weissberg is a Professor at the University of Illinois at Champagne. Worrying]