Extracting the Poison From White Racism: How to defuse white nationalism's growing appeal

New York Times ^ | 12-14-02 | Felecia R. Lee

[SJackson]

Carol M. Swain, a professor of both political science and law at Vanderbilt University, has studied racial attitudes for more than a decade. Her latest book, "The New White Nationalism in America: Its Challenge to Integration" (Cambridge University Press, 2002), argues that white nationalism is on the rise. To defuse its appeal, she counsels African-Americans to stop supporting affirmative action and reparations. Felicia R. Lee spoke with her.

You argue that an energized white separatist movement exists, despite polls that show more racial tolerance and an increasingly diverse popular culture. Why?

A lot of white people feel that diversity is being forced on them and it comes at their expense.

For example, in one of my focus groups with whites from the New York area — men and women of different ages — they were very angry. One person said employers will not take white males when they have to take blacks, Hispanics and Chinese; that there were quotas; that blacks could go to schools like Yale before whites; that blacks were lazy.

Blacks saw quotas as a ceiling and were angry about affirmative action, too. They said affirmative action was the receptionist out front and the guy who fixes the copy machine.

Racial extremists have a long history in this country. Why sound alarm bells now?

A constellation of forces are coming together at this point in time that we've never had before. There is the projection that non-Hispanic whites will be the minority around the year 2050. There's economic uncertainty, with a recession and globalization and loss of jobs. An immigration policy that means that some immigrants do compete with Americans for jobs. Racial preferences, a policy never accepted by the majority of whites. Continued white fear of black crime. And the ability of the Internet to reach people who want information about white nationalism.

Historically, rapid demographic changes and economic uncertainty put people on a collision course and lead to social ills.

Senator Trent Lott is under fire for saying that the United States would be better off if Strom Thurmond had won the presidency on the segregationist platform in 1948. Should he resign?

I think Trent Lott should lead the national debate on race. If we're going to have a serious discussion, we need people to say what's on their minds. I don't think he should step down. If we attack these people when they put their feet in their mouths, we can never get to the root of the problem.

Is the specter of whites as a minority the biggest race card the racists play?

Yes. They say that your children and grandchildren will be submerged in these teeming masses of people that don't share your values, don't share your culture. It's very dangerous that white nationalists are the only ones talking in open forums about what it might mean for white people being a minority in America.

You yourself overcame the disadvantages of being black, poor, a high-school dropout. And now you advocate restrictions on immigration and the end of race-based affirmative action as big steps toward creating a better racial climate.

We can neutralize white nationalists by taking away two of their best issues. One is affirmative action as racial preferences and another is liberal immigration policies. One of the concerns that many people have about immigration is that new immigrants, who don't have a shared history of discrimination in the same way as African-Americans, can be eligible for racial preferences; it works against the interests of African-Americans and other people who have a history in this country. Some of them are illegal immigrants, who tend to depress the wages of native workers.

We need to move toward race-neutral affirmative-action policies and guarantee people a working wage. I believe that affirmative action never reached down to the people who were most disadvantaged.

What do you think of the current national black leadership?

The house is on fire for African-Americans, but the black leadership is more focused on the easier, symbolic issues. Some of those issues that the black leaders champion push some white people into the neo-conservative movement as a reaction. Like the focus on slave reparations at this time in history — the timing could not be worse. If whites don't support affirmative action, why would they support reparations? I think it comes at an enormous cost of resentments being stirred.

Black leadership needs to focus still on issues like black crime. Even though crime has dropped nationwide, it's still a pattern that separates African-Americans from other groups. There are cultural things that need to be addressed, like the high rate of illegitimacy. Close to 70 percent of black children are born illegitimate. AIDS is the leading cause of death of African-Americans under the age of 55, and that is not really being discussed by the leading black spokespeople.

Liberals, you say, are not any better in turning back white nationalists because they have no new ideas about race, immigration, poverty.

I think the left is very much focused on maintaining and defending the status quo of things put into place 30 years ago. They're not strategic at all.

How in the world is the average white person, who maybe doesn't like affirmative action, turned into a white nationalist?

To reach the mainstream white population, the group they'd like to politicize, white nationalists have very skillfully adopted the language of multiculturalism and the language of civil rights. The language of multiculturalism says it's O.K. for groups to organize for self-determination and self-pride. The white nationalists say if it's O.K. for blacks and Hispanics, then why not whites? And they say that white Americans are the group that is most discriminated against in America and that there's no one protecting their interests. They are talking about racial preferences, immigration, job loss. The K.K.K. is a dying organization, not because its views and hatred are not out there, but because people have other avenues, and white intellectuals, people who are well educated, are not going to be in any of those organizations.

[sauropod]

Well, it certainly isn't going to happen with the likes of Cynthia Tucker around.

I don't like the author's slant on "White Nationalism" being equated with white supremacy. The two are distinct.

Is the authoress saying that one cannot have pride in his ethnicity if he is a white European?

[sauropod]

I looked over the article again. The authoress refuses to acknowledge some pertinent data that exists. Where does crime occur and who are the perps?

I'd like to take the authoress down to some areas of Baltimore or DC and let her walk home to see if it is only whites that are afraid of blacks.

Jesse Jackson was at least honest enough to admit his fear. This broad isn't.

BTW, Mike I mean absolutely no offense to you. I consider you a friend and I respect your intellect immensely.

There are some areas of W.Va and other rural areas that I have been where I would be afraid of whites perpetrating muggings, etc. as well.

[HELLRAISER II]

She's 100% right, as a White man I feel that I/we are alway's under attack for something. We try to treat everybody equally but it is not reciprocated towards us and then we have to hear the whining about Slave Reparations & so forth. It really get's old people.

[A_perfect_lady]

Actually, I was just looking through her book yesterday in Barnes & Noble. This limited interview doesn't show it, but she does say that on college campuses, etc, whites should indeed be allowed to have white pride groups and be treated just like any other group. She says that unfortunately, few professors will act as advisors and they need to, in order to steer these groups into healthier ways of celebrating white history and culture.

As for crime, she's very aware of Jared Taylor's work and she gives it several pages of coverage, none of it claiming he's wrong. She knows it's true and that it needs to stop. She's a liberal, but she's at least aware and trying to be fair-minded, IMO.

[LibertarianInExile]

Worst of all, the author concludes by tarring all groups that disagree with affirmative action and open borders by saying that racist groups, NOT like the KKK, but all those OTHER racist groups, are "talking about racial preferences, immigration, job loss."

As if just TALKING about these things is racist.

"Eek! Discussion! A racist!"

[sauropod]

Then perhaps she is worthy of more respect than i gave her. Sometimes it is kinda hard to tell from one article about the extent of the authoress's knowledge.

I am not particularly in favor of "white groups" but I am of Scottish descent and would love to belong to a group that celebrates my clan. 'Pod

[facedown]

From a PR site:

"In her book, The New White Nationalism in America: Its Challenge to Integration, (Cambridge University Press, July 2002), Professor Carol M. Swain of Vanderbilt University Law School writes about the new white nationalism movement. It is not the older racist right of the Ku Klux Klan or the American Nazi Party. The new white nationalists have jettisoned the tactics of those organizations and are smarter, more sophisticated, and more politically adroit. Their members are not blue-collar rednecks but are likely to be college-educated, financially secure, middle-class Americans. With slick, packaged politics, they have concealed the radicalism of their views and are gaining ground in mainstream America."

Talk about guilt by association!

[MigrantOkie]

"There is the projection that non-Hispanic whites will be the minority around the year 2050"

This angers me the most. It is the span of my lifetime. It reminds me of the Biblical story of Esau selling his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of Pottage.

[jsraggmann]

White males have been beaten down and disgraced for many years. We are told that we are responsible for all of the evil in the world and that we are racists. There certainly have been some very bad white men(Hitler, Stalin, Castro, &tc) that murdered millions of innocent people. However, these evil ones are the exception. White men are responsible for almost every invention, medical advancement, and scientific breakthrough in human history. And much to the distain of the Jew-Haters(Calypso Louie, Jackson, &tc), many of these advancements came from the minds of White, Jewish men. I too am sick of the whining, sniveling attitude that many of the so-called minorities seem to have. This country offers opportunities that exist nowhere else on earth. Minorities need to stop the bitching, go to school and make something out of themselves. But it's a whole lot easier to complain that "the White Devils are holding me back" or "you owe me" for something that happened 140yrs ago.

[joesnuffy]

Yes. They say that your children and grandchildren will be submerged in these teeming masses of people that don't share your values, don't share your culture.

Must be talking about "liberal socialists"

[CatoRenasci]

I haven't read the book, but the woman sounds quite reasonable for a black liberal. On a certain level, she definitely "gets it": most whites are probably not overtly racist, but they're tired of the affirmative action game and massive immigration of peoples who are not seriously interested in assimilation into the prevailing European Judeo-Christian culture.

For myself, I'm perfectly happy to compete, and have my kids compete, on a level playing field on merit. In my academic and business career over the past 36 years, I've seen minorities who obtained educations and degrees before affirmative action and those who have come later. The former were uniformily talented, and in the pre affirmative action days, no one, I mean no one, doubted they had earned their degrees and positions the hard way.

The tranformation with affirmative action has been stark: as many college and university students saw less qualified minorities admitted and -- after ethnic studies programs were instituted -- graduated for elite schools, they resented it. When those marginally qualified minorities were hired and promoted ahead of ordinary majority workers, those workers, and the minorities' subordinates, saw what was going on, and resented it. Now, the children of the first generation or two of parents who saw affirmative action at work, in school and the workplace, are going to college and to work. The parents are not happy about this happening to their kids. What a parent will tolerate for him or herself, he or she may not be willing to allow to happen to their children. This phenomenon seems to be little noted, or at least little remarked. Someone should pay attention to this.

I think we have perhaps opened our gates too wide over the past 35 years, and that we need to emphasize assimilation, perhaps through revised tests and education progams for potential citizens. We should also prohibit dual citizenship and decline to allow those who seem to have strong dual loyalties from becoming citizens, or perhaps even permanent residents, unless married to a citizen.

[cynicom]

Guess I should be ashamed of myself for being white, redneck trash. Just being alive as such is offensive to the minorities. What is one to do?

[ckilmer]

In the 19th century the only manifest destiny was that white men would settle the whole continent. The ruling
sentiment towards indians was that the only good indian was a dead indian.

Today the only manifest destiny around is that non whites will dominate the country someday by dint of numbers. and the only good white man is a dead one.

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

[junta]

Her book is a polemic written to further the agenda of one group and one group only, hers. It is less a book on "White Nationalism" than on one on how to keep the gravy train running on time and in her group' direction. She even says that Hispanics should be grouped with whites when it comes to government intervention.

[pollwatcher]

"the guy who fixes the copy machine..."

Some of those "poor fellows" only make $75/hr.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

That pretty aptly summarizes the thoughts of nearly every white I know who isn't a brain dead liberal or a committed to a mixed race relation.

It wouldn't be hard to energize 75% of the white populace on these issues.

[sauropod]

"we need to emphasize assimilation... "

If we do not do this, we will most assuredly lose our country, just as the sun rises in the east every morning. 'Pod

[liberallarry]

It should be noted that this book is featured in the New York Times. That tells me that political correctness and all its policies are under serious attack. Good.

Social change comes slowly, unfortunately...and we all may have to pay a heavy price for past mistakes. But the direction is good.