This Week’s Show

Contents

• 01m29s The decline of Jim Snow
• 12m40s Somalis all over
• 18m29s Habemus Papam
• 28m20s Lock ’em up!
• 31m15s Not a penny for Columbia
• 34m25s Yet another Indo-Pak War
• 36m04s Signoff with Tom Lehrer

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Transcript

01 — Intro.     And Radio Derb is on the air! Welcome, listeners and readers. I am your impressively genial host John Derbyshire, here with commentary on the week’s events.

In commemorations, the highlight of the week was Thursday, May 8th, the eightieth anniversary of V-E Day. I can’t think of anything original to post about the anniversary. However, anyone who was of enlistment age in 1945 is aged today in the upper nineties, so there must be many veterans still among us. I offer my thanks and respect for the victory they won, and for the sacrifices they and their comrades and their families made.

Now to lesser matters. First, the decline of Jim Snow.

02 — The decline of Jim Snow.     So how are we doing with the black-white business? What is the state of race relations in the 2025 U.S.A.? We’ve been vouchsafed a glimpse of the answer this past few days.

Thursday last week, May 1st, a 49-second video was posted on X of a young white woman carrying a small diaper-age white child on her hip in a children’s play park in Rochester, Minnesota, about ninety minutes south of Minneapolis. The voice of an unseen man was behind the camera; the video recorded a heated conversation between him and the young woman.

We’ve since learned their names: the young woman is Shiloh Hendrix, the man recording is Sharmake Omar. We’ve also learned that Omar is Somali. He’s in charge of another child, also Somali, and like Omar also out of sight behind the camera. This child is not Omar’s; the child’s Somali parents were supervising their three other children elsewhere on the playground.

The age of this unseen child in Omar’s custody is much disputed, with estimates up to ten years old. He seems to have tried to plunder the diaper bag that Shiloh Hendrix was carrying for her child. The lady was of course angry about this. Those 49 seconds of heated exchanges with Omar then followed.

A key element of the exchanges was a word that Hendrix had apparently used when abusing the unseen child, and which she repeated loud and clear in her videoed exchanges with Omar. I was going to say “a taboo word,” but this word is only semi-taboo. It’s taboo for white people, but blacks use it freely.

Am I going to utter the offending word in violation of taboo? No, I’m not. I don’t need the aggravation. I went through that aggravation thirteen years ago, after posting some true but unwelcome facts about black-white race relations.

That post, which did not even include the semi-taboo word, got me cancelled from my writing gig at a respectable magazine; that cancellation in turn made me the subject of news stories in mainstream media; and those stories brought in abusive email, mail, and phone calls, and possibly other cancellations. Where loyalty to truth in racial matters is concerned, I’ve paid my dues.

Along with all the abuse back then I also got plenty of support, although most of it insisted on privacy. It’s possible that, had I kept up-to-date with trends online, I could have parlayed my temporary notoriety into a nice bundle of money: GoFundMe had launched two years previously. Coulda, shoulda, woulda, …

I only said “it’s possible” I could have cashed in, though. The possibility has become reality for Shiloh Hendrix. After Sharmake Omar posted that 49-second video of his exchanges with her, she got reactions similar to those I received back in 2012. Encouraged by those that were supportive, she signed up with crowdfunding website GiveSendGo. As I record this on Friday afternoon her donations have reached $759,786.

Might I have done that well? I actually doubt it. For one thing there are key differences between our two cases. Shiloh Hendrix is an attractive young woman defending her infant child; I was a nondescript sixty-something blowhard just sounding off. She uttered that semi-taboo word, repeatedly; I didn’t use it.

And 2025 is not 2012. Fashions in social dogma are not static, any more than fashions in footwear, hair styles, or home decoration. The social dogma on race that has prevailed since the 1960s is the one often called Jim Snow, characterized by white guilt and favoritism towards blacks (a/k/a “affirmative action”) and by deference to what I have called “the romance of American blackness” — narratives about cruel leering white people beating up on helpless pleading blacks.

The condition of that particular dogma, of Jim Snow, is not today what it was in 2012. If you mentioned Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion back then, people bowed their heads reverently; today they more often just roll their eyes. DEI reigned supreme then; today it is being dismantled all over.

Some of this dogma decline has been accelerated in short bursts by antiwhite outrages like the George Floyd riots and the witch-burnings of the Brunswick Three.

Some other of it is just natural decay. We are thirteen years further away from the earnest hopes of the Civil Rights era, hopes that with sufficient investment of money and effort, black rates of criminality and corruption would dwindle down to white levels while black scores on standardized academic tests would rise to equality with white scores. Neither thing has happened; the hopes were futile.

So the Jim Snow social dogma, with its strictures and taboos, has lost force. White people are more willing to say what was once unsayable, and to support others who do so.

Setting aside those differences between Derbyshire 2012 and Hendrix 2025, Ms Hendrix’s crowdfunding has also surely benefited from the precedent set by 17-year-old Karmelo Anthony, who is black.

On April 2nd Anthony fatally stabbed Austin Metcalf, who was also 17 years old, but white and unarmed. This was at a high school track meet in Frisco, Texas. Anthony has been charged with murder.

Anthony’s family quickly established a GiveSendGo fund for him. This was declared to be for the boy’s legal defenses, although … there have been questions …

As I speak, donations to Karmelo Anthony’s GiveSendGo fund have reached $526,514. They were well on the way there, and extensively publicized, last week when Shiloh Hendrix’s encounter with Sharmake Omar occurred. When Hendrix announced her fund, people outraged by the Anthony case saw it as a suitable way to vent their feelings.

Before there was Jim Snow there was Jim Crow. That dogma began to decline in the 1950s, with feelings of national solidarity lingering from World War Two, desegregation of the military, and migration of blacks out of the South, all combining to generate the rise of a sturdy black middle class. The mid-1960s Civil Rights movement was kicking at a rotting door.

Now the wheel has turned and Jim Snow itself is in decline. Shall we at last attain true equality: the colorblind meritocracy so many of us yearn for? I guess we can dream.

03 — Somalis all over.     Just a footnote to that. I mentioned that Sharmake Omar, the fellow who filmed his exchange with Shiloh Hendrix, is from Somalia. So is the child he was minding; so are that child’s parents and their other three children.

There’s nothing surprising about that in southern Minnesota. According to Wikipedia, 94,000 residents of Minneapolis-Saint Paul spoke Somali at home in the year 2018.

The best-known Somali-American is of course Representative Ilhan Omar, champion of antiwhite, anti-American, low-IQ Progressivism. I am sure that among those 94,000 in the Twin Cities there are Somalis more worthy of respect than Representative Omar. It’s hard to imagine anyone less worthy. Reports are not encouraging, though.

Some years ago I wrote a column about the general awfulness of Somalis, title: “Somalis All Over.” I took my reader on a tour of the Anglosphere to check what Somali immigrants were contributing to Britain, the U.S.A., Canada, Australia, even New Zealand. My conclusion was, quote:

[A]ny population has a lot of variation, and I have no doubt there are many law-abiding and industrious Somalis. When you take in 4,000, or 16,000, or 100,000, though, the law of averages is going to kick in — as of course it kicks in unmistakeably in Somalia itself. Human-capital-wise, the Somali averages are simply terrible.

Things are rough in Somalia: chronic civil war, recurrent famine, disease, piracy. Private persons who are distressed by the plight of the Somalis should by no means be discouraged from doing anything they can think of to relieve the distress over there.

The reason nations have governments, though, is to protect and advance the interests of their own citizens. How the interests of Americans, Britons, Canadians, Australians, and New Zealanders have been advanced by having thousands of Somalis settled among them, is not clear to me. Perhaps the State Department could send someone round to explain.

End quote.

That was me back in 2011. Pundit Matt Walsh has just this week caught up with me. Wednesday he posted the following thing on X. Quote:

The real conversation that should come out of this week is why places like Minnesota are importing Somalians en masse. Somalia is one of the most impoverished and dysfunctional countries in the history of the planet. Somalian immigrants bring poverty and dysfunction everywhere they go. Nobody can explain how this country is improved or enriched in any way through mass Somalian migration. Nobody wants to live in a community that’s predominantly Somalian. Nobody can factually dispute any of the things I’ve just said, though they can act offended by it. So why are we doing this?

End quote.

Why indeed? I guess it’s been something to do with Minnesota Nice.

Last time I looked that post of Matt’s had 2,500 comments, a high proportion from people with personal experience of Minnesota’s Somalis. Check them out for yourself.

Here’s my suggestion for President Trump’s next Executive Order: ban the entry of Somalis into the U.S.A. I’d even extend the ban to diplomatic representatives. Private charity aside, why should we, as a nation, have anything to do with Somalia at all? Let the stinking barbarous crap-hole go to hell.

04 — Habemus Papam.     The Roman Catholic Church has a new Pope, and he’s an American, a native of Chicago. Robert Prevost is the first American Pope ever.

I’m not a Roman Catholic. My family weren’t churchgoers; but I was educated by Anglicans, in schools that conducted a daily act of worship — prayers, hymns, Bible-reading — and a weekly lesson of Religious Instruction, all as required by law in mid-20th-century England (and still today, although the law is now widely ignored).

Anglicans are also called “Anglo-Catholics”; there’s not a whole lot of difference with the Roman variety. Anglicans actually recite the Nicene Creed, including the line, quote: “We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church,” end quote.

So the Anglo-Catholics I was educated by and the Roman Catholics who just got themselves a new Pope are cousins in religion. And the Baptist Church I now belong to is of course also Christian; so Baptists are cousins to Roman Catholics too, just more distantly related.

In that spirit of family connection, I offer my sincere congratulations to Roman Catholics everywhere on this week’s election.

That said, I’ll raise again the issue I raised two weeks ago: Can Christian universalism — all men are brothers! — survive in Western countries subjected to mass Third World settlement, especially when the settlers are militant Muslims, as a great many are?

It may indeed be the case that all men are brothers in some deep spiritual sense. It does not follow — it obviously does not follow: use your eyes — that big numbers of people from widely different cultures can live together in harmony under the same laws and customs.

To put it another way, and mildly: universalism and nationalism don’t mix well.

This will be a problem for the new Pope. Journalists have of course been trawling through his recorded opinions to see where he stands. Executive summary:

• Strongly against abortion, assisted suicide, and the death penalty.
• Definitely “green”:  quote: “The faithful have a responsibility to take care of the planet,” end quote.
• Against homosexuality and, quote: “practices that are at odds with the gospel.” End quote.
• For stronger gun control.
• Universalist? Oh yeah. Longish quote from the London Daily Telegraph, quote: “It appears he was directly critical of Vance’s insistence that Christians should put people of their own country first, apparently tweeting: [inner quote] ‘JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.’ [End inner quote.] ” End quote. (Vice President Vance is a convert to Roman Catholicism.)

The Pope gets to choose his own Papal name. This new pontiff has chosen “Leo,” and commentators have been reading signs in that.

Of the thirteen previous Leos, the last one — in office 1878-1903 — was somewhat of a social justice warrior, although in the thoughtful 19th-century style, not the nutty shrieking 21st-century one.

The best-known encyclical of that last Leo, Leo XIII,issued in 1891, opens with the Latin words Rerum novarum semel excitata cupidine, variously translated as either, quote, “The burning desire for change,” end quote, or, quote, “The spirit of revolutionary change,” end quote. Leo expressed sympathy with that desire or spirit. Presumably this new Pope Leo shares that sympathy.

If so, that could be bad news for his church. The great issue in the Western world today, the issue casting its shadow on all other issues, is the mass settlement here of people from poorer, more backward parts of the world, most especially of militant Muslims. Christian universalism crashes right up against this, making a huge problem for any figure of religious authority.

Religious people are more conservative than the average. Twenty-first century conservatism in the West has swung away strongly from globalism to nationalism. Universalism is of course close kin to globalism. If the Roman Catholic Church takes a stong universalist line it may lose a lot of adherents, as the Anglican Church already has.

Will the new Pope be able to solve that problem? I seriously doubt it.

For myself, I’m with J.D. Vance. The idea that all men are brothers may have some truth in it at a high metaphorical level, but it doesn’t mean I should treat every guy in the world the same way I treat my brother.

Our affections and our human ties are organized in concentric circles. The innermost circle with the strongest loyalties is family; then friends, colleagues, neighbors; then outwards, with decreasing intensity, to larger organizations — our church, friendly societies, political parties.

A little way out beyond those is our nation, which we should cherish and try to keep stable and harmonious. Bullseye quote from the late Alexander Solzhenitsyn (concerning whom there is a long, eloquent commentary in the May 2025 issue of Chronicles magazine), quote:

Nations are the wealth of mankind, its generalized personalities; the least among them has its own unique coloration and harbors within itself a unique facet of God’s design.

End quote.

The universal brotherhood of man is out beyond that — way out beyond. Whatever this new Pope thinks Jesus taught, we always have, we everywhere do, and I hope we always will “rank our love for others.” It’s our nature to do so: deep, deep in our human nature.

05 — Miscellany.     And now, our closing miscellany of brief items.

Imprimis:  Sunday President Trump told us he wants to restore Alcatraz, on that rocky little island in San Francisco Bay, as a modern maximum-security prison. Alcatraz hasn’t functioned as a prison since 1963. Nowadays it’s just a tourist spot.

The President’s intention has been pooh-poohed by public figures all over. Nancy Pelosi sneered at it as, quote, “not serious,” end quote. People outside the political realm have noted that to get the place back up to standard as a secure lock-up would cost a ton of money. Sixty-plus years of salt air corrosion has done a lot of damage, and some structures have fallen into ruin.

I don’t have a strong opinion about Alcatraz, but I would like to see the Feds take the lead in building more big, secure prisons. I say “take the lead” because imprisoning criminals is more a state than a federal issue.

The CECOT prison built by President Bukele of El Salvador should be an inspiration. If they can do it, why can’t we — we, our nation, and we, our states? We put up with way too much crime, and our courts let loose way too many criminals to prey on us.

As with prisons, so with asylums. Dangerously crazy people should be kept apart from us normies. We don’t have to be cruel about it — and shouldn’t be, either for criminals or lunatics. The object should just be the safety of normal law-abiding citizens. Give them private cells, TV sets, soft mattresses and fluffy pillows, personalized meals, I don’t care. Just keep them away from the rest of us.

Let’s build these places, and let’s recruit and train up capable, disciplined personnel to man them, firmly but humanely. Why don’t we do this?

Item:  Up there in Morningside Heights in northern Manhattan Island is Columbia University, the fifth-oldest institution of higher education in the U.S.A.

I never attended Columbia but I have fond memories of the place none the less. It has a splendid math library. Twenty-some years ago, writing my books about the history of math, I spent many happy, productive hours in that library, walking to it across the university’s serene, well-tended campus.

Nowadays I wouldn’t go near the place. It’s a hell-hole of leftist agitation — even the libraries. Wednesday one of those libraries, the Butler, was stormed by an antisemitic mob — this, while serious students, of whom there still are a few, are trying to prep for their final exams.

And the news about Columbia keeps getting worse. I didn’t know, until I read my New York Post this morning, that the famous Pulitzer Prize for journalism and other serious writing is administered and awarded by Columbia.

Writing in this morning’s Post, columnist David Harsanyi notes that the 2025 Pulitzer for Commentary went to Hamas Supporter Mosab Abu Toha, who has mocked victims and hostages of the October 7th raid in his articles for The New Yorker magazine.

That award was, says Harsanyi, par for the Pulitzer course. Last year’s Pulitzer for “public service” writing went to a lefty outfit called ProPublica for a series of articles claiming to expose misbehavior by Supreme Court justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. Other Pulitzer Prizes for journalism last year went to The New York Times and The Washington Post. Uh-huh. ProPublica scored again this year for some pro-abortion reporting.

I don’t know how Columbia has fared in Trump’s campaign to cut back on federal funding for well-endowed Ivy League universities, but if the stinking place is getting any of my tax money, I strongly resent every damn penny.

Item:  Abroad, India and Pakistan have been fighting over Kashmir again — a disputed territory on their border. They’ve been fighting over the place since they separated following Britain’s withdrawal from her Indian Empire 78 years ago.

Both countries have nuclear weapons: 170 or 180 warheads each is the usual guess. Pundits have been prophesying for years that the first nuclear war will be Indo-Paki, but Mutual Assured Destruction seems to be working as well over there as it did in the U.S.A.-U.S.S.R. Cold War.

The two countries have fought three actual wars, the last one in 1999, just after they had acquired nukes. Now we’re 26 years further on. They’re fully nuked up, and there have been major advances in military technology — drones, satellite guidance, et cetera. Will the pundits be proved right?

My guess is, anything could happen here. For sure this is not a smart time to book a vacation in either country.

06 — Signoff.     That’s it, ladies and gents. Thanks yet again for your time and attention; and to mothers everywhere, including the mother of my own children, a very happy Mother’s Day.

Please let me remind you again that the VDARE Foundation, which is down but by no means out, would greatly appreciate your support in the causes of free speech and patriotic immigration reform. Subscribe to Peter Brimelow’s Substack account, or send a check to the Foundation itself at P.O. Box 211, Litchfield-with-a-“t”, CT 06759. You can support me personally by earmarking that check with my name, or by any of the other options spelled out on my personal website. You can also support me indirectly by subscribing to Chronicles magazine, who publish my ramblings. Thank you!

For signoff, I’m in the mood for something silly. Bearing in mind this week’s Papal election, silly songs about the Roman Catholic church came to mind.

The best of this genre, in my opinion, is Tom Lehrer’s “Vatican Rag.” I was surprised to find, in a gathering of middle-aged Americans the other day, that none of them had heard it. Were the 1960s really that long ago? Yes, I guess they were.

I was surprised all over again when, looking up Lehrer’s Wikipedia page, I learned that he is still among us, having turned 97 last month. Happy belated birthday, Sir, and many more.

I was not surprised to be reminded that he was an academic mathematician as well as a writer of silly songs. I also knew that he was a lefty. So was I, back in the sixties.

I of course intend no offense to anyone, least of all the new Pope, by playing “The Vatican Rag.” It’s too silly to be offensive. Just enjoy the clever rhymes and vigorous ragtime piano.

There will be more from Radio Derb next week.