It’s about etiquette and kindness, really.

I had tweeted out the American Renaissance interview with a young black man, the point being to note how he was “ostracized as an Uncle Tom for being a bookish, high-achiever, high IQ individual, who spoke standard English.”

On the Facebook thread, our reader made this point:

Paul Bustion: “I find articles like this distasteful. I find it distasteful to emphasize the racial differences in intelligence. Its probably true that Europeans, Northeast Asians and Ashkenazi Jews on average are more intelligent than Africans, but I think its distasteful to make a point of emphasizing the fact.”

My reply:

Ilana Mercer, Author: “Perfectly put. My sentiment exactly. The lady in me recoils from such cruelty. I could never. I’m an individualist. While I recognize reality about everything—cleave to it in writing, closely deduce from it—I find no redeeming personal virtue in [rubbing-in the point on inter-racial, aggregate differences in IQ scores]. I do, and will, fight tooth-and-nail when I am called a racist because of the intellectual and moral shortfalls of others.”

“Kudos [to our reader] for making this point! “

This quagmire is touched on in my “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa.”

UPDATED: FACEBOOK THREAD:

Ilana Mercer, Author Agreed, John Cronk. It’s just something I find tacky. What am I confronting a nice black man about? I’ll confront him if he dare to accuse me of racism b/c not as smart as I, or blame me for his lower inhibitions. I will not tell a perfectly good individual he is inferior. For one, maybe he isn’t? You interact with individuals based on their individual characteristics, not on an aggregate character of a group, valid though it is.

Ilana Mercer, Author: Kerry, I don’t ignore the rule for the exception. You treat each individual as an individual. I write copiously about race and aggregate racial differences. People here are obviously not keeping up with this work. Other than Steve Sailer, Peter Brimelow, Jared Taylor, I don’t know who has incorporated the topic more into analysis than this writer. (Colin Flaherty wisely sticks to chronicling and providing us with an enormous reservoir of data. But he’s a sweet man. I think he might agree with me about personal interactions. Ditto Jack Kerwick.) The point I am making is one of manners and courtesy to a fellow human being. ‘Tis all. We need to be virtuous, too. And anyone who suggests I am not a fierce writer, aggressive too, on the topic, hasn’t been reading. Search under Racial Issues: http://www.ilanamercer.com/…/public_article_list_list.php

A Glorified Lap Dancer Is Not a Musician

Art, Music, Sex

Gorgeous, entertainer, great dancer, great beauty, well-coordinated, fabulous at twerking, a glorified lap dance: Beyoncé is all those. A musician she is not.

At last, someone who is a musician calls it as it is. Carlos Santana stands firm (no apology tour, maestro), insisting that Beyoncé is no musician:

“With all respect to our sister Beyoncé,” he said, “Beyoncé is very beautiful to look at and it’s more like modeling kind of music—music to model a dress—she’s not a singer, singer, with all respect to her.”

What a lovely analogy! The girl models a song. All the video vixens act and model their “numbers.” Without the indispensable aid of the almighty Auto-Tune, Katy Perry would sound even more like a chipmunk. That’s fine. There’s a market for this. But please don’t call it music.

Santana stands against decades of pop-porn marketed as “music.” He knows that definitions matter. We need to know the difference between Santana’s playing and the two-chord wonders in most bands today.

And Santana’s not the best. This unknown neoclassical guitarist isn’t famous, but he’s far and away the superior player: exquisite compositions, stunning virtuosity (not sure Santana could play “Mushrooms of Fire.” It’s effing impossible. My fav. The short samples don’t upload in the Fire Fox browser. Try Microsoft Edge.)

“Dealer” from my favorite Album, “Inner Secrets”:

“Well All Right”:

UPDATED: Coequal in Tyranny: The Ninth Circuit’s Rules for Radicals

Constitution, Critique, Donald Trump, Homeland Security, IMMIGRATION, Iran, Justice, Law, Neoconservatism

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“Coequal in Tyranny: The Ninth Circuit’s Rules for Radicals” is the current column, now on Townhall.com. An excerpt:

Read the judicial rules for radicals issued by the United States Court Of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in affirmation of the ban on The Ban. It follows the Executive Order issued by President Donald Trump, with the imprimatur of 62 million voters, to protect the nation from foreign terrorists entering into the United States. Two states objected to the president’s undeniably badly written Order, which, while upholding negative rights—and neither denying natural rights nor minting positive ones—was nevertheless replete with administrative errors.

Acting as coequal partners in the administrative tyranny the president is trying to break, the two states issued a temporary restraining order against “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States.” (I can already hear the election midterm ads.)

In the corner for the Deplorables was a government lawyer. August Flentje Esq. had “argued” (if you can call it that) for an emergency stay of the Washington State district court’s temporary restraining order against the president. The three Ninth Circuit jurists who heard the case said no.

CAREER GOVERNMENT LAWYERS. If you’re good at what you do, you look to make it in the private sector (as our president did, before he did us a favor). If not, you seek sheltered employment (as President Trump’s predecessor did). Clearly, clerking for the Supreme Court, as August Flentje had done, doesn’t mean a whole lot.

In presenting the oral arguments for the president and the people, Flentje evinced a level of incompetence that spurred the Bench to the heights of usurpation. For example, when The Court caviled about an alleged lack of evidence for the necessity of the “travel ban,” not only did Flentje fail to provide it, but he failed to question the need for this evidence based on the scope of the president’s constitutional, executive power in matters of nation security.

Mr. President: You promised to hire the best. Alan Dershowitz is champing at the bit. Kris Kobach would kill it in any court. (Jonathan Turley is soft. Don’t touch Fox News’ tele-judges.)

Helped by the poor job stumblebum Flentje did in arguing the president’s prerogative and position, the Ninth Circuit judges usurped President Trump’s constitutional authority, substituting their own judgment for his. The three refused to lift the ban on the ban and reinstate an Executive Order that was never meant to be subjected to judicial review, in the first place.

GEORGE W. BUSH’S LAWYER. Those on the Right who opposed George Bush during his presidency (check) were vindicated yet again. In the nooks-and-crannies of our command-and-control judiciary, Bush had squirreled away a jurist as bad as John G. Roberts Jr.

Recall, Roberts, chief of the country’s legal politburo of proctologists, rewrote Obama’s Affordable Care Act. He then proceeded to provide the fifth vote to uphold the individual mandate undergirding the law, thereby undeniably and obscenely extending Congress’s taxing power. (Lazy government worker Paul Ryan still hasn’t come up with an alternative to ObamaCare, one that’ll prevent the Left from torching the country. Patience. It’s only been eight years.)

The unelected Bush appointee under discussion is from my State of Washington. District Judge James L. Robart, like Bush, would wrestle a crocodile for an illegal immigrant. Or, for potential immigrants, preferably from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, and Sudan.

Having been granted standing by the Ninth Circuit to appeal President Trump’s Executive Order, Robart, as explained by a Daily Caller contributor, “hinged his entire ruling on a concept called parens patriae, …

… READ THE REST. “Coequal in Tyranny: The Ninth Circuit’s Rules for Radicals” is the current column, now on Townhall.com.

Best tweet:

Best retort to #9thCircuit nutters: US can bomb the 7 Muslim countries. That's constitutional. It can't peacefully disassociate from them. https://t.co/c1JG0qdhgl

Posted by Ilana Mercer, Author on Thursday, February 9, 2017

FACEBOOK:

Noah Purcell, you don’t represent Washington State. You, the tech execs and social justice clientele are having a ‘moment.’ Enjoy! It won’t last! You didn’t even have standing to bring the case. You’re asserting the rights of people who are not even Americans. You’re a joke. The 9th circuit is a joke.

UPDATED (2/14): Heavenly Al Jarreau, Rest In Peace And Rock The Heavens

America, Art, Human Accomplishment, Music

Al Jarreau retired from performing last week. And then he died. Poetic.

Al Jarreau was perfection. A giant of music, in general, and of the soul-jazz genre, in particular.

By comparison, Gaga (who is indubitably the best in a bad bunch), Beyonce and Madonna are circus animals—nothing more than crass entertainers, who more often than not assault the ear.

You realize how rotten popular music is when you listen to this man.

Young in Spain:

Older in Spain. Al Jarreau is still perfection, as is Steve Gadd, both are sublime, better than anything that ululates and twerks on stage these days, and is nothing without the almighty Auto-Tune.

What a sweet sweet soul.

UPDATE (2/14): Facebook thread.