Post Racial

The debate about Derbyshire has now, it seems to me, descended into a parody in which conservatives insist that we are all racists because all Derbyshire did was tell a few home truths. My claim is that WFB laid the ground work for the generally incoherent conservative case in this debate with James Baldwin. Baldwin argues that racism harms black Americans and destroys the moral, let's say, fiber of white Americans. Buckley argues, if it can be called that, that black Americans need to prove their fitness for citizenship and that if push comes to shove white Americans will fight to maintain white supremacy.  It is a shining example of the moral and intellectual emptiness of white supremacists and their signal failure to construct a compelling argument for white supremacy. They stink in the nostrils of decent people and, to blunt, they project on to the rest of us their baseless fears and general terror.