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.
That's human nature. To deny otherwise is to deny reality.
that we will NOT allow.
free dixie,sw
Same goes with employment.
There are great historical forces at work here
How do you reverse them - especially when they are fuelled by demographics and spreading technology? By the way, no one on this thread has related these forces to environmental limits. If they exist, the resulting collisions won't be pleasant.
For people with involvement, I haven't the slightest concern with expressions of heritage or pride in tradition.
For people who want to restore their national traditions within the framework of American society, i haven't a gripe either.
However, I do have a problem with a guy with a German last name but no German tradition in his family, nor any knowledge of German life expressing "pride" at the expense of other national groups.
Due to multiculturalism and bias against white European culture, this is no longer true. This has created an environment in which non-assimilation has a much greater chance of success than it used to.
If this is not addressed, and soon, we will balkanize.
Eventually, they grow up and learn to broaden their horizons and circles of friends.
Much of what passes as "white nationalism" is the adult equivalent of immature high schoolers forming cliques. It is not fun, cute or a manifestation of tradition and heritage.
A group of middle Europeans having a festival, dance, music and eating traditional desserts is a manifestation of heritage, culture and tradition. A bunch of people sitting around whining about being supplanted by other ethnicities isn't, and in reality is just a bunch of loser wannabe thugs.
Think about it - it could only happen in a tiny minority of households, especially back then. Think about it, if you are much out of your 20s - could you travel to a foreign land with a completely different language, yet be able to speak it on a daily basis at home, on all topics? I can tell you I can't do that.
just reading Florence King's hilarious "WASP, where is thy sting?" and seeing her description of the cultural differences between varying kinds of white American protestants
WASP, Where is Thy Sting? is one of my all time favorite books! A pity it's out of print. As a multicultural person (1/2 WASP, 1/2 other European), I found it hilarious and, more to the point, remarkably insightful. Almost every one of her character sketch WASP personalities (and those in Southern Ladies and Gentlemen) resembled some current family member or ancestor! My arch-WASP Mother was in stitches and gave at least 20 copies to relatives and friends before it because unavailable. I've probably given half a dozen copies as gifts.
One of the most socially accurate and psychologically astute parts of WASP is her topology of Protestantism, from 'piscops and congregationalists (in New England) through Baptodistarians on down through Brother Boscomb of the Holier than Thou (Reformed) Church of WASP Crossroad, Mississippi. I grew up in Northern California, in a town originally settled by New Englanders, and the social hierarchy in town was strictly: congregational, episcopal, presbyterian, lutheran (normal), methodist, lutheran (missouri synod), baptist, southern baptist and other (e.g. JWs, pentacostals). The differences in mentality King described and the practices were so spot on!
For balkanization, you can blame the Clintons. Eight years of hearing those two rattle off a laundry-list of the different "communities" they were hoping to impress in EVERY SINGLE SPEECH have had their effect. You know what I mean.
"We want to control empower ALL communities---the African-American community, the Latino community, the immigrant community, the Native American community, the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community, single mothers, working families, the disabled, the elderly, the left-handed, the cross-eyed, the tattoed, and the pierced---yes, all of you, get into your assigned group so we can better keep you divided and keep an eye on you serve your needs. And we'll serve your needs by taxing the asses off those walking anachronisms who think of themselves as individuals instead of part of a particular collective."
A child who was ten years old in 1992 probably thought that was the proper role of a President by the time he was old enough to vote...
It doesn't take much to make Mrs. Jonesborough feel good about herself. Dumping a quivering can-shaped blob into her skillet means that she is adding something special to what would have been ordinary fare were it not for her culinary talents. Dumping is what invariably occurs. When the directions say "add gradually and stir," she dumps. Listen my children and you shall hear the gluck-blick-gloosh-plop as yet another tubular mess gathers air, slides out of the can, and hits the pan.
I swear, I was dumping a can of cream of mushrooms over chicken in a crock pot when I read it. I haven't been so mortified since reading Jeff Foxworthy's "if your coffee table is a cable spool, you might be a redneck" while my feet rested on my cable spool coffee table.
And Myrtle Bailey the baptodisterian was my Aunt Pat to a tee! I was raised in close proximity to plastic-covered furniture and bathrooms where the toilet paper was hidden under a doll's dress and every bar of soap rested obediently in its covered box.
All this depends on future demographic trends - and assumes huge population growth is possible. It may not be. We may run out of available water, or energy, or some other necessary resource. What then?
Wow, they were so typical! I have been to a number of 'ethnic' weddings and celebrations over the years, and I have yet not to come away feeling a little like those parents must have. I wonder how much the issue really comes down to class, though, rather than ethnicity. I mean, would a lower class English wedding differ (except in the inedible food and the popular music) from one in France, Germany, Italy or even Spain? I think we have our notion of English behavior (we don't hug, dear, we're British) from the upper class. Other European aristocracies behave in quite similar manners. When my parents eloped, much to the mutual consternation of their families, my grandmother's reaction to meeting my father and his parents was "But, X (my mother), why didn't you tell us he was a gentleman? We were so worried..."
I didn’t get that message. I think she’s talking about the governments institutionalization of “acceptable” racism (affirmative action) over the last four decades which if not stopped bill give rise to a balkanized America. Many whites, perceiving themselves as a discriminated against minority, may be essentially adopting the “affirmative action” version of their ethnicity, rather than their European heritage.
Coupled with liberal (and illegal) immigration policies, this threatens the assimilation of immigrants into American culture, a large component of which, imo, is grounded in personal achievement.
I think the concept of a “white European minority” presents an opportunity for supremacists, but that’s about all. I don’t think she’s equating ethnic pride with supremacists.
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