Salon's Alex Pareene says that National Review may have fired two bigots, but we shouldn't expect the conservative publication to part with the idea that race determines intelligence.
The National Review this month is having one of its semi-regular βpurges,β in which formerly welcome members of the conservative establishment are declared distasteful and relegated to the βfringes.β It began when self-declared racist and longtime National Review contributor John Derbyshire wrote a piece (not for the NR but for βTakiβs Mag,β an online magazine devoted to lighthearted racism) that went well beyond the bounds of βacceptableβ race-baiting. He was canned. Shortly thereafter, another National Review contributor, Robert Weissberg, was fired for having given a presentation at a conference devoted to white supremacy last month.
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These two were not fired for suddenly revealing some hitherto unknown and successfully buried racist attitude β these were not out-of-left field outbursts, like Michael Richardsβ onstage meltdown β but for beliefs they had always had and had always expressed. This is what makes it a purge β a decision that this sort of modern βracialismβ is no longer considered an acceptable mainstream Conservative attitude.
Thatβs good! Though it took a while. The National Reviewβs rejection of the overt racists is actually a fairly new phenomenon. Joan Walsh recently wrote of how the magazine was a strong supporter of racial segregation in its early days, and while that support didnβt last long, prejudice against black Americans and crank βracialistβ beliefs were welcome in the magazine long after the 1960s ended.
Read Alex Pareene's entire piece at Salon.
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