The pseudonym "Philo Vaihinger" has been abandoned. All posts have been and are written by me, Joseph Auclair.

Monday, August 5, 2019

A good editorial in the NYT

We Have a White Nationalist Terrorist Problem

If any white person in any degree concerned by the sorpasso is a white nationalist then there are a lot more white nationalists than realize it, and by far not every white nationalist is a terrorist or criminal of any sort, no more than every pro-lifer is a terrorist.

Come to that, there are a whole lot of white nationalists, in that case, who don't have and wouldn't support a white nationalist agenda of any kind.

And nobody has any business suppressing free speech.

Once and for all (I hope, but know better. So, no, I guess I despair), white supremacy is political rule of nonwhites by whites involving special and repressive measures such as exclusion from office, exclusion from the franchise, or other such measures.

The cultural or political predominance associated with being a demographic majority is not "supremacy", even if the majority is white, though some people seem to use the expression as though it covered that case - obviously a tendentious usage.

[Update. O and others persist in using "white supremacy" as a labor for the mere fact that whites are a demographic majority in the US, and he writes of the concern of white nationalists at losing this status as a fear of loss of white supremacy.

But if majority status is "white supremacy" in the US - and Canada, and many states in Latin America, and all states in Europe - then majority status in every state in sub-Saharan Africa is black supremacy, and majority status in China is Han supremacy, and elsewhere we have Korean supremacy, Japanese supremacy, and so on.

White supremacy bad, other supremacy good?

Tendentious usage is such a bore.]

White supremacy, as a fact or a goal, may, but need not, be associated with or motivated by ideas of racial superiority or other manifestations or varieties of racism.

On the other hand, if we learned that an organization of ethnic Estonians sought to keep ethnic Estonians a demographic majority in Estonia we would have no qualms about calling it a nationalist group or about calling their goal a nationalist one.

So we should have no hesitation applying the label "white nationalist" to any group or person seeking to preserve the majority status of American whites, or to delay its loss, on account of that goal.

Update, 1221 EDT 08062019.

Fears or concerns associated with the sorpasso, by the way, ought not to drive policy or in any way determine an agenda.

Not in the least.

In my opinion, anyway.

So if merely being concerned makes you a white nationalist, your white nationalism ought to be politically irrelevant and empty.

And perhaps it is worth pointing out that though whites are going to cease to be America's majority that does not mean any other race or ethnic group is going to become America's majority.

The nonwhites of America who are going to be the majority are not one race or ethnic group but many, quite distinct from one another.

And American whites will continue to be the largest single racial or ethnic group in America for a long time to come.

The situation of whites in America is not going to parallel the situation of whites in South Africa, or of Chinese in Malaysia, the Ainu or Koreans of Japan, or the Uyghur in China.

In a very real and important sense, white Americans are not going to be suddenly living in a country where somebody else is in the majority.

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