John Derbyshire on Fathers, Daughters—and Uncle Reality: What the Next Generation Doesn’t Know Might Hurt It
3rd June 2012
John Derbyshire, Patron Saint of Dyspepsia, speaks the truth that everyone knows but most won’t admit.
Yes, I was a youthful idealist. We all were—including, by his own testimony, VDARE.com’s resident “white nationalist,” American Renaissance Editor Jared Taylor.
So what happened? Whence the “pessimism and cynicism” about race?
Fifty years happened—that’s what happened. Fifty years that thoughtful, observant people of my generation lived through at the regulation speed of one day per day.
We watched the trillions of dollars being spent on social programs—watched the actual dollars disappearing out of our own paychecks. We saw the vast apparatus of make-work government jobs being assembled. We were there, observing, day by day, when the preferences and favoritism and set-asides were being implemented. We watched as jurisprudence was twisted into pretzel shapes in the name of a bogus “fairness.” We saw the independent black nations of Africa and the Caribbean implode into ruin, chaos and beggary.
We lived through it; we saw it all.
And fifty years on, we see the results. Yes, some real gains in equity, though offset by some losses; but also intractable black poverty, intractable gaps in academic achievement, intractable, stupendous differentials in crime rates.
Pessimism and cynicism? Is someone surprised?