May 21, 2009
When I noticed a book claiming to be a comprehensive history of White Nationalism was due to come out this month, I was immediately interested. Though I didn’t expect the book to be a positive representation of what Jared Taylor calls “race realism,” the sheer size of the volume led me to believe that the treatment of the subject matter might be more serious than your average smear job.
I was wrong. In fact, the nearly 650-page by professional PC policeman Leonard Zeskind is standard fare for our increasingly liberal, multiculturalist landscape.
Of course, this is not surprising. Aside from Carol Swain’s excellent book on the subject, there have been few serious attempts to examine White Nationalism from an independent perspective. No doubt, this has much to do with the controversial nature of the topic, though I do not think that is the only explanation. In fact, I believe a large part of the reason White Nationalism rarely gets treated seriously as an intellectual movement is due to the nature of the movement, which at times appears to be devoid of any serious discussion of long term goals. To be fair, particulars are not totally absent from the White Nats. For example, Mr. Taylor has been explicit in his two pronged approach toward maintaining the ethno-cultural identity of United States – shut down the border and overturn the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Others have advocated a stronger approach, but the general theme of tight border control and doing away with “anti-discrimination” laws is the norm. Though I am not now, and have never considered myself a race realist, these are goals I generally share. In fact, to the extent that these are the desired results of any racialist movement, I find little to disagree with.
But those two policy prescriptions do not explain other trends on the racialist right. To take one example, much of the movement’s literature is focused on the subject of racial disparities in IQ. Whatever one may think of the hard data that exists on this subject, it is unclear to me why this would be the focus of any ideology aiming to do away with Statist handout schemes. As I have noted before, it seems to me that the end result of emphasizing such things is an obsession with the failings of other races, that ultimately leads nowhere.
Similarly certain factions of the White Nationalist movement are all too willing to advocate for an even more draconian police state as a sort of last wall of defense against the hordes of non-white inner city youth that are allegedly running wild. What this has to do with the preservation of a white majority in the United States I am unsure of. How this would work toward dismantling the multiculturalist managerial state is even less clear.
Last year a dialogue of sorts opened on this site over the issue of White Nationalism. Jared Taylor responded on the American Renaissance website with a long essay which I quote from below:
“IQ has nothing to do with the desire to see one’s people survive and flourish. The North American Indians never got out of the Stone Age until the white man came along, but they want their people and traditions to continue. They hope their descendants will dance the snake dance and purify themselves in sweat lodges forever, and God bless them for it. My view is no different. It doesn’t matter if immigrants are smarter, better-behaved, better-looking, and superior to us in every way; I still don’t want to be replaced by them. I love the traditions of the West, not necessarily because they are superior but because they are mine, just as I love my children because they are mine, not because they have high IQs.”
At the time I responded with the following:
“While I am absolutely sure that Mr. Taylor does in fact believe that his culture and race are superior to others, it is certainly admirable for him to admit that the real issue facing society is whether or not cultural secession and self determination is something that ought to be preserved. Debating the relative merits of one race vs. another race in regards to IQ or athletics or anything else for that matter is uninteresting to me because it largely ignores these issues. The bedrock principles of self government and federalism are predicated on the notion that relatively small groups, of a similar cultural background, ought to determine their own fates by their own standards. One may view Mr. Taylor’s language regarding Native Americans as ?bigoted,’ but I do not, nor do I care. The truth is that American Indians DO have the right to have their own social and cultural mores and norms. I imagine in the age of peak oil, industrial decay and resource wars, their lifestyle is much more attractive to a lot of white folks than Taylor may let on, but again the yuppies, working class whites, elites, etc. should all have some say in their own affairs. Of course, paradoxically perhaps, this is precisely why an Americanist ?White Nationalism’ is a non-starter. Such a concept is not going to fly in Harlem or Watts for obvious reasons. We gave away Miami to Cubans in the name of the Cold War. My dad grew up in New Mexico pre-1965, and even then a purely White European culture would have been impossible without a massive suppression of local tradition and customs. A ?sea to shining sea’ White Nation, cannot happen in the States. On the other hand it could happen in a State or a community which is what the ?race realists’ ought to shoot for if they are serious.”
Looking back there is little I would change about that statement. In fact almost a year later, it seems to me that the hopelessness of our great national union is becoming increasingly clear to a wide variety of Americans. When even Fox News begins featuring segments that are at the very least subtly favorable to the issue of secession, perhaps it is time for the White Nats to reevaluate their goals and present an achievable and explicit platform for establishing the sort of state they so obviously desire.
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