You wrote: “...I don’t know enough about Derbyshire to have an intelligent comment on his views. However, I believe Jim Robinson and the community of those of us who post on Free Republic need to make **ABSOLUTELY** clear that Free Republic does **NOT** support racism. ...”
Per your (and others’ comments) here: http://takimag.com/article/the_talk_nonblack_version_john_derbyshire#axzz1rSswjxHR
You wrote:
Darrell Todd Maurina 14 hours ago http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/04/why-john-derbyshire-hasnt-been-fired-yet/50803/#comment-490996065
I’m a Freeper and have been a member of Free Republic since 2006.
I have a real problem with what the Atlantic said here: “Derbyshire doesn’t do the really obvious racist stuff — the stuff that goes up at FreeRepublic.com, for example — like post photos Obama in stereotypical tribal garb with a bone through his nose. Instead, he talks about how his East African parentage means he might be suspect to some black voters, who are more likely to be of West African heritage.” The Atlantic provides numerous links to various things Derbyshire has written, going back at least four years, with links, that don’t sound very good.I don’t know enough about Derbyshire to have an intelligent comment on his views. However, I strongly object to the claim that Free Republic supports racism.Maybe I’ve been lucky but I simply haven’t run into a lot of the “bad blacks” that some people like to talk about. I’ve seen some, but not many, and I know from firsthand experience that even in high-crime areas, most residents are basically decent people who have been intimidated into a code of silence. That’s coming from someone who, back when I was in college and graduate school, was living in the inner city and was attending a church that was in the process of successfully changing from predominantly white to predominantly black. Once my neighbors and fellow church members got to know me, they decided “he’s okay” and I had no more issues.Yes, I take precautions when in an area where I’m one of the few white people, but I’d do the same in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood, and my Italian ancestors would have done the same in a predominantly Irish neighborhood, and a hundred years ago walking into a neighborhood full of “wops” and “dagos” would have scared the living daylights out of many WASPS.It’s not just blacks and Hispanics who get this treatment. When I walk around in Korea, I have to be careful not to hold my wife’s hand, and I always have to wear a suit and tie in public, because otherwise people to look down on her as a “race-mixer” of questionable morality. That’s reality; I don’t like it, but I have to deal with it — there are lots of cultures where white people are looked down on as immoral wicked people whose goal is to “knock up” innocent Asian women.Bottom line: if you act like and dress like a gangbanger, you’ll get treated like one. Act and dress like a professional, and most (not all but most) people will treat you like a decent human being.
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ellid 2 hours agoin reply to Darrell Todd Maurina
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/04/why-john-derbyshire-hasnt-been-fired-yet/50803/#comment-491547911
Given the average level of the comment threads on your fine little website, I find this comment about as believable as the 1938 broadcast about Martians landing in New Jersey.
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Joel Jacobson 14 hours ago in reply to goat10000 http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/04/why-john-derbyshire-hasnt-been-fired-yet/50803/#comment-490952555
I have never posted at FR. But I have heard of people posting race-realist comments at FR and being banned within an hour.
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bttt
I remember when the Ant and the Grasshopper (revised) would get ZOTTED weekly for a while there.
Much of it was probably Democrat sockpuppets trying to smear Free Republic during the impeachment wars.
I guess they pretended it "stuck", much like they're pretending that Trayvon was a 13-year-old boy...
Gotta love The Progressive Narrative.
Racist bigots need to be dealt with within the conservative movement. I've seen things on these two Darbyshire threads this weekend that I have only rarely seen before on Free Republic, and that is not helping Free Republic.
I posted this today on the Atlantic's website, in response to a comment there saying that “Given the average level of the comment threads on your fine little website, I find this comment about as believable as the 1938 broadcast about Martians landing in New Jersey.”
“Greetings, Ellid.
Every high-traffic website that allows comments, no matter what its politics, gets a wide range of people commenting. Some are regular participants, some read often and post rarely, some are drive-by one-time posters. Some are smart, some are stupid, some are extremist “true believers,” some are “trolls” from the other side trying to cause trouble. That's life — and it exists with internet comments on both sides of the political spectrum.
What counts is the official position of Free Republic, which is posted on the form used every time people want to make a comment: “Please: NO profanity, NO personal attacks, NO racism or violence in posts”
I think that pretty much says it all. As a Freeper affirmed yesterday who has been a member much longer than me, going back almost to the founding of Free Republic in its current form in 1997, “racist crap has never been tolerated on Free Republic.”
I'm not very happy with some of my fellow conservatives who are racists, but I don't deny that they exist. Fortunately, that tiny minority is dying out. Most conservatives figured out long ago that anti-Communists from Cuba, Vietnam, and South Korea believe exactly the same thing we believe, and might be a lot angrier about it than those of us whose contact with liberal extremism is limited to university settings. I couldn't care less what somebody’s skin color may be; I care a great deal what they believe.