The cycle is already repeating itself. Take a look at the Salt Book of Younger Poets. The vast majority of them are from an Oxbridge background. Some will have collections picked up by Faber & Faber, Picador etc, nominated for prizes, teach and the cycle continues.

The Faber New Poets scheme is another example of this sham. Scouts were sent out to find promising poets in the UK. Were any older poets chosen? No. Any poets from low to mid ranked universities? No. Experimental or performance poets? No.

Your idea in this essay to refer to Shute’s On the Beach was very good though. I remember weeping copiously when I read the book as teenager.

Wilson’s ‘opera’ is oddly post-modern, part kitsch, part knowing self-referential irony and Glass’ score with its minimal richness seems to do its own thing (fortunately I thought).

I read Derbyshire’s comments and was not offended in the least. Basically, all he said was that whites and Asians should caution their children to avoid violence from blacks. Did he lie about anything? Distort the truth? No.

Blacks are more violent than any other racial group, a fact supported by decades of crime statistics as well as recent events. I don’t like this terrible truth and would change it if I could; however, reality has a way of ignoring my wishes, even when they spring from enlightenment and tolerance.

What Derbyshire was arguing for was what Dinesh D’Souza once described as “rational discrimination.” If you’re a taxi driver interested in staying alive, you don’t pick up seedy-looking black males in rough sections of town at night. (Black taxi drivers also tend to follow this rule.) If you’re white, you don’t wander through black neighborhoods in the middle of the night. Many blacks hate white people and many blacks are violent.

Of course, many blacks are also good, decent people, but you have to play the odds if you are interested in your physical survival. That’s why Derbyshire advised his kids to avoid large concentrations of blacks that they do not know. I assume the reader has heard of the recent “wildings” of black youths in many places, like the Wisconsin State Fair where mobs of blacks attacked whites for no reason other than their race. Those beaten white kids would have been better off if their parents had warned them as Derbyshire suggests.

It amazes me at how thoroughly brainwashed the American public is on the subject of race, and conservatives are not immune to the social pressures, ostracism, job loss and public condemnation that comes from telling the unvarnished truth. The term “racist” in its current meaning refers to anyone who is unwilling to continue advancing polite fictions about race in America.

I was reading Red State today and was mildly disgusted at the opprobrium that site heaped on Derbyshire. Of course, National Review Online isn’t terribly conservative anymore, preferring to present a socially correct image to the world rather than deal with unpleasant facts.

Black violence is a problem, one that is unlikely to be solved without honest discussion. Now listen to the crickets chirping in the comments section as fellow conservatives run in terror from a topic they have been conditioned to avoid at all costs.