Conservative writer Kevin D. Williamson defended a passage he wrote in a recent issue of National Review in which he described a young African-American boy he estimated to be about 9 years old making the “gesture of primate territorial challenge.”
In a piece that is otherwise about the decrepit nature of Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn’s (D) hometown, East St. Louis, Ill., Williamson opens with some local color:
‘Hey, hey craaaaaacka! Cracka!White devil! F*** you, white devil!” The guy looks remarkably like Snoop Dogg: skinny enough for a Vogue advertisement, lean-faced with a wry expression, long braids. He glances slyly from side to side, making sure his audience is taking all this in, before raising his palms to his clavicles, elbows akimbo, in the universal gesture of primate territorial challenge. Luckily for me, he’s more like a three-fifths-scale Snoop Dogg, a few inches shy of four feet high, probably about nine years old, and his mom — I assume she’s his mom — is looking at me with an expression that is a complex blend of embarrassment, pity, and amusement, as though to say: “Kids say the darnedest things, do they not, white devil?”
Williamson’s piece received a great deal of blowback, including from New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait and Slate’s Jamelle Bouie. Williamson defended his piece, arguing that humans are “primates” so the reference wasn’t offensive.
I want to hear how it’s cool to compare little black kids to primates, but my hunch is I’ll get lame insults. https://t.co/YFYy7MGA6B
— Jamelle Bouie (@jbouie) August 11, 2014
I am kindof stunned to read Kevin Williamson’s @NRO piece from East St. Louis. https://t.co/D5bBTGkjbi It’s astonishingly offensive.
— Harold Pollack (@haroldpollack) August 13, 2014
Wow 3/5 shoutout RT @jbouie: I want you to read this lede and rate it on a scale of racist, from 1 to 10 Bull Connors pic.twitter.com/PJMtQUpmjS
— Elias Isquith (@eliasisquith) August 11, 2014
I am kindof stunned to read Kevin Williamson’s @NRO piece from East St. Louis. https://t.co/D5bBTGkjbi It’s astonishingly offensive.
— Harold Pollack (@haroldpollack) August 13, 2014
@jonathanchait Funny, I didn’t write anything about monkeys. Interesting where your mind goes.
— Kevin D. Williamson (@KevinNR) August 13, 2014
Race-relations is something that National Review has had trouble grappling with at times. In July, the magazine’s John Fund devoted a piece to highlighting the Democratic Party’s history of supporting Jim Crow. But the column did not acknowledge that National Review also supported segregation.
Williamson was also the author of a long feature piece in the magazine that argued that women should support Mitt Romney over President Barack Obama because of how much money he had in his bank account and how many male offspring he’s had.
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