by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0National Review Online<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n It is rare to read an essay in which almost every statement is wrong, but that is the case with \u201cA Sermon on Race from\u00a0National Review<\/em>\u201d by one Kelefa Sanneh, appearing on\u00a0The New Yorker<\/em>\u2019s website \u2014 little more than McCarthyite character assassination in the form of a reply to\u00a0my column<\/a>\u00a0this week on the president\u2019s and the attorney general\u2019s reactions to the verdict in the Trayvon Martin case.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Here we go:<\/p>\n 1) Sanneh writes, \u201cEvidently this [Hanson\u2019s] advice, the wisdom of generations, can be summarized in a single sentence: \u2018When you go to San Francisco, be careful if a group of black youths approaches you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n That is entirely untrue, and the disingenuous Sanneh knows it. His phrase \u201csummarized in a single sentence\u201d does not characterize what I wrote, which was as follows: \u201cIn my case, the sermon \u2014 aside from constant reminders to judge a man on his merits, not on his class or race \u2014 was very precise. . . . Note what he didnot<\/em>\u00a0say to me. He did not employ language like \u2018typical black person.\u2019 He did not advise extra caution about black women, the elderly, or the very young \u2014 or about young Asian, Punjabi, or Native American males. In other words, the advice was not about race per se, but instead about the tendency of males of one particular age and race to commit an inordinate amount of violent crime.\u201d<\/p>\n All that is a single sentence?<\/p>\n 2)\u00a0Pace<\/em>\u00a0Sanneh, I did not have to mention John Derbyshire\u2019s essay on race, because long ago\u00a0I had already objected to it<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n Any sober reader can see why I did, and why Derbyshire\u2019s essay was far different from my own: I do not share, inter alia, his thoughts on the relationships between race and IQ and the suggestions of genetic inferiority, and on more than one occasion I objected to his blanket generalizing about all African-Americans. As I wrote of Derbyshire\u2019s essay: \u201cAs for Mr. Derbyshire, he surely must have known that what he wrote was way over the line, and, besides, did not follow his own usually rigorous standards of statistical logic. He knows that purported IQ\u00a0per se<\/em>\u00a0is not necessarily proof of competency; if it were, the stellar Steven Chu would be a great cabinet secretary rather than on his way to be the James Watt or Earl Butz of our age. And if crime rates for young, black urban males prove disproportionately high, why would one use them as probable cause not to lend assistance to blacks in general when stuck on the side of the road? That it is statistically iffy to walk alone in downtown Detroit at night is certainly no reason to pass by a black person on the road in dire need of assistance, given the vast majority of blacks are not urban\/young\/male\/with criminal records, and to treat them as if they all were by virtue of their shared race seems not merely wrong and racist, but, to someone of Mr. Derbyshire\u2019s intellect, statistically illogical.\u201d<\/p>\n Again, Sanneh should know all this, but the truth is again at odds with his preconceived purposes.<\/p>\n 3) Sanneh is almost comical when he writes that my parents \u201cmight have had a chance to drive away\u201d \u2014 as if a middle-aged man and his wife, when surrounded by criminals, had the ability to do so, or might be somehow at fault for not being able to do so.<\/p>\n He adds that my father would have been wiser to have told me, \u201cWhen you go to the big city, bring a gun.\u201d<\/p>\n What sage post\u00a0facto advice in the post-Zimmerman-trial era!<\/p>\n 4) As a good McCarthyite, Sanneh apparently hopes he can assist in some way in having me fired: \u201cAnd as of Wednesday afternoon, thirty-six hours after publication, Hanson still seems to be employed at\u00a0National Review<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n In a classic use of guilt by association, he believes that the reader should be outraged that those at VDARE.com and John Derbyshire nodded in approval at something I wrote.<\/p>\n But, of course, the sloppy Sanneh always gets it wrong: They did not really write that they agreed with the essay, only that there were elements, in their view, of irony in it \u2014 the use of statistics, for example, to draw practical conclusions on how to navigate in the inner city, which, they believe, gets some fired at\u00a0National Review\u00a0and some not. When John Derbyshire writes that, in comparison to himself, I am one of the \u201cwise and good,\u201d I didn\u2019t think even Sanneh could take that sarcasm at face value.<\/p>\n Both VDARE and Derbyshire conveniently omitted the latter\u2019s IQ arguments and his advice to avoid\u00a0all<\/em>\u00a0blacks, even when in need of help. And if Sanneh had done any research at all, he would have quickly discovered that VDARE has been critical of much of what I have written, especially the melting-pot arguments of intermarriage, assimilation, and integration in relation to problems posed by illegal immigration.<\/p>\n 5) Sanneh writes, \u201cHanson also adds a story from his own life: \u2018When I was a graduate student living in East Palo Alto, two adult black males once tried to break through the door of my apartment \u2014 while I was in it.\u2019 This sounds terrifying, but it doesn\u2019t really speak to the wisdom of Hanson\u2019s \u2018sermon\u2019: if two men are trying to break down your apartment door, you are probably well past the point of social precaution.\u201d<\/p>\n Should we laugh or cry? Sanneh, of course, omits that I mentioned several other similar instances, in addition to that attempted break-in, which formed a basis for reasonable precautions. And what does he mean by the inane \u201cpast the point of social precaution\u201d?<\/p>\n Are we not to draw lessons about who assaulted or attempted to assault us, and are we not to use those lessons to avoid future confrontations, because, well, it is already too late when the assailant is breaking down your door?<\/p>\n Of course, there was a reason why I had three locks on the door after the assault, whereas I had had two before, and why I moved from the East Palo Alto neighborhood after the next two attempted muggings. In the world of Sanneh, victims of assaults are, well, sort of culpable: When surrounded by robbers, they can merely \u201cdrive away\u201d; when their doors are being broken down, the fools blew it \u2014 since it is already \u201cpast the point of social precaution.\u201d<\/p>\n