Birth of Tha SYNDICATE
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Posted on 12/16/2002 5:34:44 AM PST by 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.
If you look at the stats, W Virginia has one of the lowest crime rates of any state. So, unlike the urban poor areas, your fears of violent crime in W Virginia are largely unfounded.
Germany, 1932
Liberals spend much of their time doing 2 things: 1) going on endlessly about how america needs frank discussions about race, and 2) having hissy fits when any white person talks to them frankly about race. The reality is that liberals DO NOT WANT and WILL NOT TOLERATE frank discussions about race. What they want are endless loops of themselves droning on and on about all of the PC/evil-white racism BS. I generally tune this out, as I spent many years on college campuses...and got more than my fair share of their tirades.
The problems that she addresses have their origins from the fact that the liberal elites in this country have forced a variety of policies onto the US which have never really been accepted by the vast white middle/working class. Affirmative action is the most obvious example.
Multiculturalism and mass immigration are two more. Back in the civil rights movement, the majority of white americans came to accept the idea that the minorities that were here should be treated as equals and with respect. The elites took this and ran with it in a totally different direction: namely, that this country no longer was a white middle class nation, but now belonged to "the world".
Suddenly, hordes of illegal and legal immigrants started showing up. Suddenly, our kids were no longer allowed to attend Dicken's play "A Christmas Carol" because it was too "religious" for public school (a real example from The Factor tonight). Suddenly, we all had to sit through "diversity seminars" where we were lectured that america no more belongs to us than it does to the illegal from syria.
In a nutshell, what started as a movement to give fair treatment to minorities here in the US became a liberal jihad to overturn the traditions and institutions of the groups that created america. The masses of white middle class/working class america never agreed to this...and I doubt that they ever will.
Americans are generally docile when not directly threatened. Call somebody a racist (or whatever name) and he'll back down, mostly
When you directly threaten their jobs, their ability to make their mortgage payments, you will find it easier to make them mad. But when you make them worried about their kids, and make them dispair that their kids will have a decent future, then I think we will see a level of savagery unleashed that the world has not seen in a long time.
Think of the American middle-class like a large dog, chained to his dog-house. Every once in a while a little yapping mutt will run over and grab a bone out of his dish and scamper off, proud of himself. The little mutt is mostly safe, because the chain that holds the big dog to his house is strong and thick.
But pray for the little mutt on the day the big dog gets ticked off enough that he breaks the chain, for then there will be no place for the little mutt to run to
They should put the Somalis in Detroit's inner city now and see if they're problems are from race or something else.
I can kind of appreciate what you're saying ----but the history of slavery shows that blacks in Africa were just as much a part of it. Slavery isn't really just a white crime against blacks, there were Africans themselves who benefitted financially by the selling of their slaves to whites.
Birth of Tha SYNDICATE
101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that Internet Explorer cannot.
I was looking at it purely from the perspective of the assimilation of different ethnic (essentially all white), not racial racial backgrounds, which was successful in America, and to the extent that a "white nationalist" movement raises it's head (not great), may now be failing.
The issue of black assimilation is far more problematical, I look forward to your input.
The above is inordinately clear, what is disturbing is that most American citizens appear to be enjoying the ever warming water.
Question: How can illegal alien families that make 7 bucks an hour or less, afford to have eight and nine children, or more? How is this possible when most American citizens can barely afford two kids? Who is paying the medical bills? The dentist? The food? Housing? Insurance? Clothing etc etc. Can you explain to me how they can possibly afford these basic, necessary things?
White working class and black underclass birthrates may not decline to the levels of the white upper and middle classes. But in both cases, the frequency of fatherless homes, rampant drug and alcohol addiction, poor public education, and an overall anti-intellectual sentiment will ensure that most of the offspring of the lower classes will become the "proles" of the 21st Century.
The possibility of a Mexican/Atzlan secession is one that's more likely. I have to agree with Huntington on this one. Second and third generation Hispanics have incentives to assimilate (personal note: I'm a second-gen myself, although I'm of Greek descent). The intermarriage trend that you mentioned is one sign of that. Some of the other pressures to assmiliate that existed for my grandparents are still in force today, from the immediate needs of survival in a new land to helping your kids climb higher up the ladder than you.
However, the Mexican/Atzlan situation is different in some respects from the immigration wave of the last century. Resistance to assimilation is high, aided by the ease of travel and communication with a mother country sharing a land border with us (contrast this with the immigration wave at the turn of the 20th century, when travel/communications were more difficult, aiding in severing ties to the mother country). The multicultural fetish exhibited by TPTB doesn't help a whole lot either. History plays in this too, since we did annex a good-sized chunk of their turf that they consider to be theirs. And, the numbers themselves may prove decisive. After all, if your cultural kin are the majority, why bother assimilating in a culture that's in retreat? Especially if you can use your voting power backed by sheer numbers to extract wealth from that structure to tide you over (another key difference between now and a century ago), while clinging on to the culture of the mother country and building an economic base that spans both sides of the border?
As far as leadership for a secession goes, those second and third generation folks with their acquired Protestant work ethic, their wealth, and their cultural ties to their ancestral lands may provide it, especially if the economics are there to support it, and if there's some serious racial animosity built up. Take a look at this article for one possible indicator of this (ie. the renewed interest in Spanish by second/third gen types). The fact that there's a "La Raza" doesn't sound too promising to those that aren't part of it if the militant types come to the fore. As to the timing of this, I think that the 2015-2030 timeframe makes sense (that's when the Boomers die off). The remaining determining factor is whether the US will use force to prevent this from happening or not. A Hispanic Ghandi-type leading a civil disobedience campaign, or a bloody Bosnia complete with ethnic cleansing campaigns? And what happens if Atzlan becomes a reality? I know some neo-Confederate types would be more than happy to use that as a precedent ("If they can do it, why can't we?").
Carol Swain is right when she said that the certainty that whites will be a minority is the biggest card racists of all types have to play. This ties into your comments concerning causes of lower birthrates among whites. I would add to it by saying that another thing that depresses birthrates is whether you have hope in the future or not. For many that are looking ahead, the future looks pretty bleak for them and any children they hope to raise. A lot of factors tie into that (taxes, welfare, jobs, etc.), that tend to stack the deck against whites. Hell, it stacks the deck against anyone that's productive when you have to shoulder the load for everyone else too.
Have you ever read The Coming Anarchy by Kaplan, by any chance? The article’s a bit dated, but one thing I find interesting is his concept of a bi-furicated world, where you have Fukuyama's Last Man safe and secure (a small minority), and Hobbes’ First Man (everyone else) living a life that’s “nasty, brutish, and short”. With that in mind, we may both unfortunately be right. We turn into a mega-Brazil with all the barriers between haves and have-nots. The haves sit behind very well-fortified walls with all the ancient hatreds ironed out by economic prosperity, and Swain’s “white nationalists” get a receptive have-not audience looking for security from the predation of others and scapegoats to retaliate against. Any way you slice it, the prospects for Western Civ look pretty dim to me at the moment.
Well, here's to hoping that my pessimism remains just that. A long post, and I'm a bit tardy with it. Feel free to correct me or rip me to shreds. :)
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