Mark Adomanis on John Derbyshire

I've kept quiet about the The Talk--and John Derbyshire's blacklisting--in no small part due to laziness. The greater part, though, is due to an apathy inside me that has seen this before. James D. Watson was met with a similar backlash after a similar comment on the hereditary nature of IQ, which I talk about in (a little) more detail here. Setting aside direct discussion about The Talk, I'd like to put part of an article from Forbes contributor Mark Adomanis on the table:

"It utterly baffles me how, in this day and age, anyone, even the most obtuse or egotistical, could possibly think that you would not be put out to pasture for authoring such a humorless, ill-informed, poorly written, and sophomoric screed about the mortal peril that white and Asian children face from African Americans."

I would disagree with the notion of Derbyshire's being ill-informed, but I'm sure that his time at Harvard/Oxford left Mark with a much more intimate understanding of Black Americans than mine. The poor writing accusation won't stand as well, considering just how fresh-out-of-college and overly-horny-for-a-big-article his own writing is. Yes, Adomanis knows how the game is played, as is demonstrated by the article in three major ways:

1) The most integral part of any left-leaning article is to make your opponent's political incorrectness known as often and as pompously as possible. Your opponent is a dim-witted, evil dickface. Mark follows the formula to a tee, using the words "racism" and "racist" a collective thirty times in-between dropping loads of shit much like the one in quotes above. 

2) Ignore the big, ugly truth about Blacks in the US, and reiterate that your opponent is a racist--therefore stupid, therefore a liar. Be sure to leave it at this, because delving into statistical detail will only encourage your opponents and may confuse your audience. Mark wrote an article about how Conservatism is hurt by racist assholes like Derbyshire rather than one on whether or not The Talk could actually save lives. 

3) Use words that will make people think you're smart. Like "screed." Screed, screed, screed.

I also really liked this:

"** I am not (let me repeat not) arguing that the conservative base is uniformly racist. Far from it. But the conservative base does have a much higher tolerance for harsh rhetoric provided that that rhetoric comes from other conservatives. This “us versus them” mentality is very much a basic part of human psychology, but does seem to be particularly well developed among contemporary American conservatives who will countenance almost any sort of conduct provided the person is part of their team."

Translation:

"I'm not saying that all Conservatives are racist--it's just that, on average, they're more likely to be racists. "