"Whites are people too" is the title of a YouTube video making the rounds on the Internet. A lot of stuff is happening in the world of race relations and little of it points towards a post-racial society. Fox commentator Glenn Beck has been targeted by groups demanding his removal for having had the gall to call President Obama a racist who hates white people. Beck is steadily losing advertisers, but his viewers seem to be sticking with him. Undoubtedly, there are white Americans who agree with Beck and will cite as evidence Obama's long-term membership in Reverend Jeremiah Wright's ethnocentric Church, his Administration dropping charges against members of the New Black Panther Party suspected of intimidating white Philadelphia voters, and his nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court.
White desperation is manifesting itself in various forms. Last week I received an e-mail from a Jewish woman whom I shall call Hadassah who described herself as being frustrated by racial preferences and racial double standards. After reading my book, The New White Nationalism in America, and my blog criticizing the Southern Poverty Law Center, Hadassah wrote to inquire whether I would be willing to serve as an interpreter between the races. She thought the book gave a fair treatment of white nationalism and felt that perhaps I might be the one person who could help improve the situation. This blog represents my first attempt at being a cross-racial interpreter.
I found in Hadassah's request both sincerity and quiet desperation. Hers is one of many such e-mails I have received over the years from whites who confess to having been raised in liberal democratic- homes, but who are now flirting with white nationalism. These whites express frustration with immigration, black crime rates, racial preferences, and demographic changes reducing the percentage of non-Hispanic whites in the population. They see themselves as the "real" victims of racial discrimination, who have no recourse left other than to organize themselves for self-preservation. Many people believe that these concerns and attitudes belong to a radical fringe. I disagree.
Hadassah wrote:
I myself never harbored any racialist or racist attitudes until the advent of the playing of the race card, affirmative action, reverse racism against White people, and the myriad attempts by liberals in government to make life unbearable for those of the White Race, such as forced integration, forced busing, and the ruination of White neighborhoods. I have met many Asian people who share these exact concerns as well.Because of the many efforts by professional race mongers such as the SPLC, the NAACP, and the like, hatred against your people has heightened to a level I have never before seen in my half-century of life on this earth. It terrifies me, and I wonder if perhaps fair-minded persons like yourself could help ameliorate this in some way? It seems you have indeed been trying; I try to do the same within the Jewish community, to make Jewish liberals understand that many of their actions only harm the Jewish people in the eyes of the Gentile community.
Hadassah's willingness to write me a letter suggests she is willing to engage in some sort of constructive dialogue. She is not the only Jewish person who identifies as a white nationalist. In the New White Nationalism in America, I quote two Jewish nationalist professors who expressed sentiments quite similar to Hadassah's: Michael Levin and Michael Hart. Hart had even gone as far as to develop a plan for partitioning the United States by race and ethnicity. Both interviews can be read in their entirety in Swain and Nieli's Contemporary Voices of White Nationalism.
More white nationalist sentiments can be found on the rather sanitized website Western Voices World Needs Downloadable flyers on the site tell of the group's concerns about being outnumbered by racial and ethnic minorities. There are no threats or hints of violence against minorities.
Jack Hunter, a conservative commentator from South Carolina, calls himself the Southern Avenger. Through Taki Magazine , Hunter has recently produced the video; Whites are People Too , which condemns racial double-standards by members of the media. The impetus for Hunter's video was a Maureen Dowd column, "Toilet-paper Barricades," which took a swing at the Town Hall protesters. With her usual wit, Dowd noted that "Instead of a multicultural tableau of beaming young idealists on screen, we see ugly scenes of mostly older and white malcontents, disrupting forums where others have come to actually learn something." Hunt also cites a Paul Krugman column, "The Town Hall Mob" which suggested that the protesters are really protesting a black president.
As I have warned repeatedly, I believe America is headed for unprecedented levels of racial turmoil. The election of President Barack Obama has not been the healing balm anticipated. If anything President Obama's stances have heighten rather than ameliorated existing racial and ethnic tensions. If we are to make progress, we need a no-holds-barred racial dialogue during which minorities must listen as much as they speak out. We desperately need leaders willing to stand up and defend rather than subvert our Constitutional rights.
Carol M. Swain is a Professor of Political Science and Professor of Law at Vanderbilt University. A frequent commentator on race relations, immigration, black leadership, and evangelical politics, Swain is also an accomplished author of several popular books, including The New White Nationalism in America: Its Challenge to Integration (Cambridge University Press, 2002), Contemporary Voices of White Nationalism (Cambridge University Press, 2003) Black Face, Black Interests: The Representation of African American in Congress (Harvard University Press, 1993), and her most recent book Debating Immigration (Cambridge University Press, 2007).
1. Immigration and demographic changes
2. Black crime rates
3. Racial preferences
Unfortunately, these are all rational, especially the latter two. The latter two also result from a restriction of rights, and could be ended instantly. In the case of crime rates, check out this DOJ article (just the first few paragraphs) on the nature of gangs:
http://www.ncjrs.gov/html/bja/gang/pfv.html
Drug Prohibition creates crime in two ways: selling drugs is itself a crime, simply because it is criminalized, and the black market produces violence. Drug Prohibition is clearly the linchpin in solving several of the nation's problems.
http://www.csdp.org/edcs/page24.htm
End Drug Prohibition, and you will reduce crime dramatically, reduce the prison population, make the inner cities more viable for business and investment, and reduce the perceived need for racial preferences. Latin America's cartels and corruption will be greatly reduced. Resources will be freed up for education and health programs.
Europe is way ahead of us here, most recently Portugal.
If you look at this trend objectively you can see why some Whites in the USA, the UK, Australia, Russia, Italy, and elsewhere are starting to become concerned about all of these issues related to race, mass-immigration, 'White nationalism,' and so on. Think about this in more global terms and you may begin to realize the type of demographic panic that many Whites in the USA, Europe, Canada, Russia, Australia, Argentina, and so on are beginning to feel as more and more millions of (non-White) immigrants just keep immigrating in to many White-majority nations often unchecked and illegally.
Knowing all that, can you fault White people for being a bit concerned at the population trends as they now exist? If things stay as they currently are, in another 150-200 years or whatever some historians at that time might be writing books about how the White/European race went almost totally extinct in the year 2161 or whatever....just think about that scenario!
As Carl Cohen wrote:
Whatever compensatory advantage may be given, in employment or elsewhere, it must be given to all and only those who have suffered like injury, without regard to their race. What we may not do, constitutionally or morally, is announce in effect: "No matter that you, X, were innocent and gained no advantage; you are white and therefore lose points. No matter whether you, Z, were damaged or not; you are black and therefore gain points." If the moral ground for compensatory affirmative action is the redress of injury, the uninjured have no claim to it, and all those individuals of whatever ethnic group who have suffered the injury in question have an equal claim to it.
Racially based numerical instruments have this grave and unavoidable defect: they cannot make the morally crucial distinctions between the blameworthy and the blameless, between the deserving and the undeserving.
Also, Satoshi Kanazawa has written about some of the myths of pay discrimination.
Kanazawa, Satoshi (2005) The myth of racial discrimination in pay in the United States. Managerial and decision economics, 26 (5).
Also, editors need to explain how that last paragraph got by them. You present an idea, you must support it.
The only thing Swain is right about is that "these people" are not part of a "radical fringe." That doesn't validate their opinions, it just means that many hold them. Swain conflates the two, that their opinions are valid because they are building public mass.
McDonald just came out with a new website only for Black people - is this not segregation? That's not equal - what would you think about a website celebrating the white man?
365black.com
The best solution is to create a society with more haves and fewer have-nots. We should be on the same side in the current debates. If working class wages are stagnant while living costs rise and if the wealthy and powerful of any race continue to grab whatever they can from those with less power and widen the divide between socioeconomic levels, we all suffer from fewer opportunities and resources. We should be fighting that system rather than letting them get away with it while we are distracted fighting each other over the fewer and fewer resource and opportunity crumbs they deign to toss our way. Right, left, black, white... we are all fighting for survival because of the same small group that wrecked our economy and continues to laugh all the way to the bank. Fighting their entrenched power is hard enough as it is, dividing ourselves will only make it that much harder. And this is why lobbyists are tapping into the fear and anger and doing whatever they can to foment it. We aren't talking about AIG bonuses any more, are
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/21/jim-webb-speaks-out-on-ra_n_102915.html
Funny. That's how these racial and ethnic minorities have gone through most of their lives generation after generation. Instead of a realization of the stresses and trauma these people must have lived with, and instead of a resulting empathy that most "rational" people would end up feeling, these selfish and self-centered individuals make it all about them.
They would rather let fear overrun their lives, than face their fear and actually learn something about other people besides themselves. The problem with "Whites are people, too"? It acts like whites are becoming second class citizens, when the reality is we're just pissed off that we're not running the show anymore.
Otherwise, please explain two things:
Why have white countries BEEN white for thousands of years, up until the 1950s? Why weren't those white people desperate to allow in millions of third worlders? Why did millions of white people die fighting off millions of third world invaders, throughout the history of our countries.
Secondly: please explain how concentrations of non-whites form in certain areas in previously all white countries, at a ratio higher than the national average of non-whites.
The ONLY explanation is that MOST whites (more than 95%) deliberately choose NOT to buy houses in areas with even a small percentage of non-whites, and MOST whites who can afford to, MOVE OUT when non-whites move IN.
Do you have a better explanation?
Now, I here some ignorant whites saying really racist things, and some whites carping a bit but being much less racist, and some whites being pretty anti-racist.
Anyone who says that they were not racist until forced integration is just nuts.
Regarding the hatred of white people I would advise promulgation of the following simple truth. The ruling class is white but the white race is not the ruling class. Or. Learn the difference between white people and rich white people.
Bigotry is bigotry no matter how you try to pretty it up or justify it. Nobody has a right to decide for anyone else in any way based on the colour of their skin.
When these people grow up and/or smarten up they will see that they are going to have to adapt and get used to it. The world is made of all manner of people and they have the right to live where they want and a lot want to come to the land of freedom and opportunity.
As far as I'm concerned this matter should be treated with as little attention as possible so as to not be an instrument of furthering the agenda of any form of racial hatred.
If anything, the only attention it deserves is ridicule and derision for being what it is. Hate.
Don't like that the people around you are of a specific colour or nationality? Too bad. Move, like they all must have done to get there.
How very understanding of you, non-white person...
So you are happily admitting that you non-whites are INVADERS and are clearly only coming to WHITE countries to TAKE what you can't MAKE in your OWN countries - a functioning, successful civilisation...
Of course, your lack of IQ prevents you from working out what is going to happen to you and your 'wonderful' brothers, once sufficient white people have MOVED THE HELL AWAY from you... you will be living in exactly the same third world conditions that your intellectually challenged ancestors lived in, in their own third world hellhole.
The usual black sense of entitlement throughout your pathetic post:
"When these people grow up and/or smarten up they will see that they are going to have to adapt and get used to it. The world is made of all manner of people and they have the right to live where they want and a lot want to come to the land of freedom and opportunity."
How kind of you. When WE whites "grow up and/or smarten up"?? I don't think so. YOU are the ones who embarrasingly have LEFT your own countries to come and TAKE from white people what you obviously can't create.
It may be my misunderstanding, but once you're outnumbered, then doesn't the "minority" become the "majority" and vice versa? I've long disliked the term "minority" to describe people of non-white/European descent. Words can be very powerful, and in a democracy in which the majority rule, what better message to send to a group -- or groups -- of people who don't look like the ones in power: Despite the breadth of their numbers throughout the global population, they still have less of a say? Not only is it logically incorrect to say that minorities outnumber anybody (a phrase commonly used in California's media outlets is "Latinos outnumber whites"), it's offensive because it implies that regardless how much you contribute to society, as long as you're not white you'll never have equity.
Racism is a fundamental aspect of American history -- and we're still very young in comparison to Germany, Japan, the U.K. We certainly can start this dialogue, but until we address the language whose subtext condones inequality among races, that dialogue's going to last much longer than the lives of the ones who start it.