John Derbyshire has been fired by the National Review for writing a racist screed titled “The Talk: Nonblack Version,” that was published by an online magazine known for its racist writers. After being hounded online, and no doubt, offline as well, NRO editor Rich Lowry parted ways with the 61-year old British American author, stating his article “constitutes a kind of letter of resignation” anyway.
READ:Â What Does Right Wing Intellectual Racism Look Like? Like John Derbyshire
John Derbyshire inflamed the blogosphere Friday and Saturday, but Derbyshire, a decade ago, proudly proclaimed himself both a racist and a homophobe; apparently no one at the National Review noticed — or cared.
READ: John Derbyshire: I’m Even More Of A Homophobe Than I Am A Racist
NRO editor Rich Lowry’s announcement earlier this evening:
Anyone who has read Derb in our pages knows he’s a deeply literate, funny, and incisive writer. I direct anyone who doubts his talents to his delightful first novel, “Seeing Calvin Coolidge in a Dream,†or any one of his “Straggler†columns in the books section of NR. Derb is also maddening, outrageous, cranky, and provocative. His latest provocation, in a webzine, lurches from the politically incorrect to the nasty and indefensible. We never would have published it, but the main reason that people noticed it is that it is by a National Review writer. Derb is effectively using our name to get more oxygen for views with which we’d never associate ourselves otherwise. So there has to be a parting of the ways. Derb has long danced around the line on these issues, but this column is so outlandish it constitutes a kind of letter of resignation. 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.