(Credit: National Review, screenshot)
Conservative political magazine National Review has fired two employees in the past week because of “racially-inflammatory” comments.
On April 7, the magazine fired John Derbyshire for his April 5 Taki Mag article that called for “parents to give their children a ‘talk’ about black people,” Mediaite reported. Taki Mag identifies itself as a “libertarian webzine.”
In a separate article, Mediaite called the article “shockingly racist” and reported that the “Internet responds…with universal disgust” to the piece.
The Daily Caller summarized the article as such:
“a list of fifteen points that, he wrote, non-black parents should teach their children about black people. Some of the advice was instantly controversial, including the warning to “[a]void concentrations of blacks not all known to you personally.”
On that firing, National Review editor Rich Lowry wrote in a statement on the magazine’s website that Derbyshire is “deeply literate, funny and incisive” but also “maddening, outrageous, cranky and provocative.”
Lowry noted that National Review “never would have published” the article in question, which he called “outlandish.” Further, Lowry wrote that because of Derbyshire’s affiliation with National Review the article was getting “more oxygen for views,” hence the “parting ways.” He added:
“It’s a free country, and Derb can write whatever he wants, wherever he wants. Just not in the pages of NR or NRO, or as someone associated with NR any longer,” he wrote.
However, the Daily Caller reported that Derbyshire said in an interview about National Review and his firing: “I didn’t think they cared about my Takimag columns, which contain no references to National Review.”
Further, the Daily Caller noted that Derbyshire said nine years ago “I am a homophobe, though a mild and tolerant one, and a racist, though an even more mild and tolerant one.” The quote (and full interview) is published on CollectedMiscellany.com. Surely, then, Derbyshire’s intolerance in these matters was known to National Review before they hired him.
The New York Observer reported that Taki Mag founder Taki Theodoracopulos said of the firing that the National Review was “in such a hurry to toe the PC line that I don’t think they read the piece.”
On April 11, POLITICO reported that the National Review had fired University of Illinois professor emeritus Robert Weissberg for his speech at “an American Renaissance conference” about white nationalism in March.
Concerning Weissberg, National Review’s Lowry on the magazine’s website:
“Unbeknowst to us, occasional Phi Beta Cons contributor Robert Weissberg (whose book was published a few years ago by Transaction) participated in an American Renaissance conference where he delivered a noxious talk about the future of white nationalism. He will no longer be posting here. Thanks to those who brought it to our attention.”
National Review publisher Jack Fowler told iMediaEthics that the magazine’s “statements speak for themselves” and that he has no further comment concerning Mr. Theodoracopulos’s comments.
