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PDFFrom The Nation:
The Daily Caller’s Matt Lewis wrote that the piece was “indefensible,” yet the same site has been attempting to disparage Trayvon Martin’s character by peddling in race-based victim blaming for weeks.
Before firing Derbyshire, Lowry came out against the piece in a one-sentence disclaimer and other writers and staff tried to distance themselves from his piece. For all the blustering, you would think that this was the first time Derbyshire had written something racist. Far from it. In 2003, he self-identified as a racist. He has defended Mel Gibson’s racist comments. This past summer he said in a National Review podcast that he is “on the same page“ as Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik. Even though National Review has fired Derbyshire, the conservative media outlet can’t outrun its own racism. Lowry himself, for example, has called Hispanic voters “gullible and naïve.”
But this isn’t just about who has written what—it’s about the intensely racist policies that are par for the conservative course. Some people would like to believe that racism is just the explicit, said-out-loud discrimination and hatred that is easily identifiable. It’s not—it’s also pushing xenophobic policies and supporting systemic inequality. After all, what’s more impactful—a singular racist like Derbyshire or Arizona’s immigration law? A column or voter suppression?
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