Hard to believe, he's a person I've held in high regard for a long time. But see for yourself:
https://twitter.com/#!/brennen/status/202756417977978880

The article they're talking about is:
http://takimag.com/article/the_talk_nonblack_version_john_derbyshire#axzz1vAztA2sT

Some quotes, which can't be construed as anything but racism:
"Before voting for a black politician, scrutinize his/her character much more carefully than you would a white."
"Do not settle in a district or municipality run by black politicians."
"Do not act the Good Samaritan to blacks in apparent distress, e.g., on the highway."

Think what you will about the arguments regarding statistics when it comes to large groups of black people. Completely ignore the socio-economic and historical factors if you want. But to suggest not living somewhere that's run by a black politician is plain, blatant racism. To counsel your kids to not help a black person in distress is sick.

When living in a bubble, everything around you may look like a needle.

Seems that someone attributed the wrong article to John, so I completely retract my earlier statement.

He said he didn't find the article "that offensive", not that he condones all of the points therein. Nitpicky, I know, but let's not race to judge someone's character from some out-of-context quote. After all, isn't snap judgment of human character precisely what you'd be vilifying Carmack for?


For the record, I don't find racism very offensive personally. Stupid, regrettable, and totally worth extinguishing, but not offensive per se. Sort of like how I feel about spiders.

Sure, the question mark in the subject is purposeful. I'm not saying he's racist, I'm wondering if he is.

Saying he doesn't find it "that offensive", without any sort of qualification (of the sort you just made) makes you wonder, though. I'd like to hear him speak more to the topic, if for no other reason than that I've considered applying to work at id and wouldn't want to end up in an environment where racism is acceptable.

Fair enough.


From my perspective, though, it'd hardly be the first time that people drew wildly inaccurate conclusions about someone's views based on a tweet. It's hardly an excellent medium for discussing... well, anything ;-)

Agreed. Frankly, my hope is that this thread draws enough attention that Carmack notices and says "Whoa, you took it wrong. What I meant is this." And then I can go back to my lazy hero-worship

He said he didn't find the article "that offensive", not that he condones all of the points therein.

You can't find anything offensive if it's not picking on you. Well, Carmack is white, and article is clearly attacking black. Is it offensive to call gays queers and fags? Kids do it all the time on the intertube, but the ones who get to say if it's offensive or not are the gays.

Oh yeah, I remember this coming down the pipe on the ultra-conservative blogosphere a little while back. Basically it was some guy trying to justify the Trayvon Martin shooting, and wrapped it all up in two pages of "discourse".

Is John Carmack a racist for relaying a link? I agree that there is insufficient evidence to come to a firm conclusion either way. Should he clarify what he meant, because there are probably a bajillion kids who look up to him? Yeah. Maybe he can start by clarifying it all for his own kids.

My major hint was the point 10. The author throws a lot of statistics into it all, to make it look all fancy and adult, but do realize that the final target of the content of this article are kids. Kids are prone to over-generalize things by default because they don't realize how gray the world really is. If you say something to a kid, their imagination often runs wild, and they have next to no real life experience to temper the negative ideas that could result from it. It's basically like conscripting your child into a race war. I kind of have a problem with child soldiers, and I think that sowing the seeds of racism in kids is a racist act. Do realize that what this guy is suggesting that we tell our kids (who often adore us, and look up to us, and look to us for guidance far more than they look to video games or movies for guidance, even if they're loathe to admit it) is already over-generalized as it is. Now magnify that over-generalization by 100x and you basically have kids with heads full of highly distorted images of violent, evil, frothing at the mouth, gun wielding maniacs. That kind of psychological manipulation should be illegal. I certainly don't automatically get that kind of image in my head when I think of the one (or more?) non-Caucasians that I know full-well have written a reply in this specific thread.

I mean, if you often told your own female kid that females are generally stupid (because they score just a bit below the average in terms of math and science exams), then they're likely not really going to give a care about statistics and likely just focus on how much of a piece of s**t they are. Nice parenting skills, preying on your pre-teen / teen's lack of self-esteem. Surely Carmack doesn't teach his kids these things, given that his wife is the co-founder of Armadillo Aeroscape, amongst a bajillion other awesome things, so I have hope for him. I certainly don't tell my kids that they're idiots, and I certainly don't tell them that other races are generally just lying in wait on the beach to shoot them in the head. Yes indeed, "the talk" still goes both ways, and the more of these talks that occur, the more that racism and reverse racism will occur. It's just lunacy. Fortunately this fad has largely died where I'm from, and multicultural cooperation has flourished because of it.

Someone clearly a lot smarter than anyone here once said that 'the world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it'. If you see someone being blatantly racist and you don't have an interest in saying anything against it (keeping in mind that silence due to fear is not the same as a lack of interest), then you're flirting dangerously with being just as guilty as the racist. If you're witnessing your own kids being racists, and you don't say anything to correct them, then I feel so sorry for those kids because you're simply a horrible parent / human being. For those people, I sincerely hope that some day you end up lying on the sidewalk with full-blown heart attack going on, and you're met with the same level of apathy, as you draw your last breath and vainly pray for a Good Samaritan to come to your assistance while everyone just steps over / around you. That would be absolutely epic! Yeah, same goes for people who think that being gay means you have HIV / think that HIV is as contagious as the black plague, and same goes for people who do nothing to prevent anti-gay stereotypes from being propagated in broad daylight. You may not think that words can kill, but they certainly can. So yeah, I actively pray for your lonely death, and I giggle with delight over the non-zero probability of it occurring. Hopefully that doesn't bother you whatsoever, because there's a whole lot more people who are thinking exactly what I'm thinking but simply aren't "evil" enough to say it out loud, and it sure would be a bit of a drag to be bothered by the fact that many people are secretly wishing your lonely death, don't you think? LOL. Epic.

Nice article! - I had my utter bullshit reading for the day.

Honestly, the author is just using a set of unfortunate and troubling statistics to lay out a set of rules that should benefit their children's well being going forward pending the statistics remain the same.

There is a very fine line between being racist and being aware of the current statistical truths. There are a lot of socioeconomic reasons that put African Americans in unfavorable positions more frequently than white Americans, but being aware of the cause does not change the effect. Labeling awareness as prejudice is shortsighted. Burying your head in the sand is not the way forward and solves nothing.