Anti-racist is a code word for anti-white

"Anti-racist is a code word for anti-white" is a straw man phrase used by white nationalists, white separatists, white supremacists, neo-Nazis, alt-righters, and any group of racist people on the defensive for being called out as racists. Individuals who make this claim allege that people who claim to be anti-racist actually have a secret anti-white agenda, and are thus the real bigots. The phrase can be found in any comments section of any website discussing anything related to race or immigration, conveniently always failing to clarify what someone who genuinely is against racism would say or call themselves.

The argument can be seen as an example of psychological projection; a person who sees the world entirely in terms of ethnic conflict may have trouble understanding that people are capable of holding a genuinely different worldview. As a result, white supremacists et al. might believe that those anti-racists who disagree with their pro-racist views actually share these views, just in inverted "anti-white" form. This is much the same as how Christians often see people of different religious persuasions as being "anti-Christian". Ultimately, it seems impossible that even a notable minority of white people who call out racism are themselves anti-white. In reality, people who call out racism are anti-racism, and the people they call racist are probably just pointlessly being racist.

"The mantra"


The original form of this argument, dubbed "the mantra", was written by ex-Reagan appointee Bob Whitaker  (who believed that every single Jew hopes to eliminate white gentiles ). It runs as follows:

Whitaker was also the originator of the term "white genocide". Later versions of the mantra have subtle changes; most notably, the two uses of "everybody says" in the second line are replaced with "they say". This sums up the straw man at the heart of the argument: exactly who is saying this? If the people being described have political power, then what body do they belong to &mdash; one which has control over the immigration policies of both the Netherlands and Japan?

This in turn raises the question: exactly why is this alleged genocide being carried out? Most conspiracy theories have a motive of some kind for the conspiracy to be orchestrated; this one does not. When asked, proponents' reasons tend to boil down to some variant of "Jewsdidit" or "CulturalMarxismDidIt."

Fall of the mantra
ROME FOR THE ROMANS JUTLAND FOR THE JUTES BRITANNIA FOR EVERYONE ANTI RACIST IS A CODE WORD FOR ANTI CELT

Anti-racists need not be anti-white
The argument that "anti-racist is a code word for anti-white" falls to pieces when one considers the existence of individuals and groups who identify themselves as anti-racist and yet have opposed anti-white racism for decades. For example, the Southern Poverty Law Center has a whole section on its website dedicated to documenting black racists such as the Nation of Islam and the New Black Panther Party, and has listed the Jewish Defense League (an anti-Arab/anti-Muslim organization) as a hate group as well. Other anti-racist groups that have countered bigotry and extremism from non-whites include the Anti-Defamation League, Hope not Hate, and Genocide Watch. If anti-racist were a code word for anti-white, then these organizations would not do what they do.

Anti-whites need not be anti-racist
People who make this argument often cite anti-white comments made by certain alleged anti-racists. Among their favorite targets (in an example of nutpicking) are the former crank Harvard professor Noel Ignatiev and his colleagues at Race Traitor. This obscure journal (whose correspondents denied the existence of white anti-racists, a denial with which Ignatiev, who was white, fully agreed ) called for the concept of a white race to be abolished, and printed statements that when taken out of context (of course), appear to be calling for the literal extermination of white people (e.g. "The key to solving the social problems of our age is to abolish the white race"), but in reality it is simply referring to the concept of whiteness being abolished, not whites themselves.

Yet this unorthodox point of view is not confined to the left. John Lovejoy, an ethnic nationalist from England, objects strongly to being called "white" and argues that there are "a good many objective reasons why the White terminology must not be allowed." He writes:

In short, very few people hold "anti-white" views. Those who do tend to be unknown extremists — and may even be pro-racist themselves.

"White" groups facing discrimination in the past
Suggesting that anti-racism is anti-white ignores a long history of White Anglo-Saxon Protestant racism against people, or people now considered white. A pan-European notion of whiteness only emerged after the European wars of religion in the wake of the Protestant Reformation and competing colonial claims by European powers in the Americas. Many who complained of "anti-white" sentiment, however, have not seemed to notice that even individual white groups such as Irish, Italians (particularly southern Italians), Germans, Polish, Armenians, Southern Europeans, and Eastern Europeans have faced racist discrimination and attacks in the past.

Irish Catholics in particular have historically faced discrimination by White Anglo-Saxon Protestants living in places such as America and Britain. Businesses refused to employ them, putting up "Irish Need Not Apply"/"No Irish Need Apply" signs. There were race riots focused around anti-Irish sentiment. The Irish were portrayed in songs, comedy, and even political speeches as violent and drunken. Vestiges of those stereotypes persist today in the ways St. Patrick's Day is celebrated in the United States.

Northern Ireland also experienced The Troubles, an ethno-nationalist conflict fought between Ulster unionists/loyalists, predominantly Ulster Protestants, who wanted Northern Ireland to remain within the United Kingdom, and Irish nationalists/republicans, predominantly Irish Catholics, who wanted Northern Ireland to leave the United Kingdom and join a united Ireland. Among the root causes of The Troubles was the voter suppression, gerrymandering, and discrimination in housing, employment, and policing suffered by the Irish Catholic/nationalist community at the hands of the Ulster Protestant/unionist devolved government of Northern Ireland and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC).

Other people now recognized as white came in for similar treatment. The famed Founding Father Benjamin Franklin expressed hostility to six "white" European groups in a 1751 pamphlet titled "Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind." He was very hostile to Pennsylvania German immigrants in particular and also described Russians, Swedes, Italians, French (ironically, France would later provide Franklin a warm welcome), and Spanish as being "swarthy". The Franklin Prophecy, falsely attributed to Franklin but not appearing until 1934, warns against the supposed dangers of Jewish immigration to the young United States, though the actual Franklin was quite sympathetic to the Jews. When that is said, there are some white racists who believe that "Jews are not white". Italians emigrating to America or other countries also faced discrimination, sometimes with violence — most notable are the 1891 New Orleans lynchings. The 1924 Immigration Act not only barred Jews, Arabs, and Asians, but also limited immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe, which were predominantly Catholic and Eastern Orthodox.

During World War I, there existed a hostility toward Germany and by extension even German immigrants living within the United States, Canada, South Africa, and the United Kingdom (and even people of Swiss German origin, despite Switzerland being historically neutral). These immigrants were forced to assimilate by giving up their culture and language, which sometimes even escalated into riots. A modern-day example would be the Polish British community, which has seen racially motivated attacks against its members.

Logical inconsistency: America for the Americans!
The mantra is a poorly-written Gish Gallop which makes a number of flawed points along its way. It begins by claiming "Asia for the Asians, Africa for the Africans, White countries for everybody!" — creating a false equivalence between ethnic origins (Asia, Africa) and race ("white"). Entire continents are used in conjunction with nationality (and not race) that makes them appear to be a homogeneous blob, and they are compared to "white country", without any acknowledgement that those two continents are also a rich mix of countries with races and ethnicities (Rwandan genocide, anybody?).

It is notable that in the United States, the term "Asian" tends to refer to people from East Asian countries such as China, Japan, and Korea, whereas in the United Kingdom, it tends to refer to people from South Asian countries (i.e. its former colonies), such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, and both of these definitions exclude those from other parts of the Asian continent such as the Middle East and Siberia. The region of East Asia, however, is vast. The definition of what constitutes "Asian" is already extremely flawed and too vague to be any use, even in the region alone, due to the already shaky definition of a race. China, for example, is only one country, yet is still a rich hub of cultural and ethnic diversity. It alone has 56 ethnic groups, around 300 minority languages, and the Chinese language itself comes in so many varieties, with at least 10 dialects and many unclassified, with differences between some of them being greater than differences within the The implication that these countries are culturally homogeneous, and that only America and Europe are diverse, reflects massive ignorance on the part of those making the claim. It is probably no accident these same racists, who have no idea about the basic makeup of regions, believe that they themselves are examples of racial and cultural homogeneity while complaining that Asian people all "look the same".

Apparently those who use the mantra are aware that a (relatively) logically consistent argument claiming, "Asia for the Asians, Africa for the Africans, America for Americans, Europe for everybody!" wouldn't work out so well for white nationalists in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, or the United States. As a result, it seems to classify the United States as a "white country", even though the country has a white rather than a Native American majority due solely to historical colonialism and that the country's largest non-white group throughout its entire independent history — African-Americans — are not the descendants of voluntary migrants, but people who were forcefully brought and held there against their will by white people.

Finally, this argument relies on the assumption that political boundaries are static. How will this argument hold up if, say, the boundaries between African and Asian countries get shifted?

Statistical inaccuracy: Africa for everyone!
The mantra portrays the continent of Africa as a country having an all-black population; even if we leave aside the primarily Arab countries in the north of the continent, this characterization ignores the fact that South Africa, which is 79% black, proportionately has a larger number of ethnic minority people than Australia (92% white ) and the United Kingdom (87% white). If this mantra was written from a different perspective (e.g. "Europe for the Europeans, Asia for the Asians, Africa for everyone!"), then South Africans could rightfully complain that their country has been filled with foreign different-race immigrants. If you were paying attention earlier about the diversity of China, then it should be no surprise that African countries are also a lot more diverse than the argument seems to suggest. for example, has 260 national languages, with some estimates suggesting that there over 600 languages spoken throughout the country.

Ironically, in a way that most racists probably grind their teeth at, Africa is the birthplace of humanity, and everyone's ancestors were ultimately black if you go far back enough.

Decreasing percentage versus decreasing number
Another argument is that the total percentage of the white population has been decreasing since the 1900s. This overlooks the distinction between percentage and population number. Whites made up 75.1% of the total US population in 2000, and 72.4% in 2010; this is not a decrease in population, however, as the overall number of whites actually rose from 211,460,626 to 223,553,265.

"One single drop" and statistics-gathering
Conveniently overlooked is that "white" in the United States is defined as "not non-white", thanks to racist obsession with racial "purity" and inability to think things through, so mixed race people are counted as black/hispanic/other, even if a larger percentage of the genes are "white". Say you have a group of people, equally male/female and white/black. If they pair up randomly, the children will be 1/4 white, 1/4 black, and 1/2 mixed race. But the way statistics are gathered, the population would be "75%" black. Race in the census is self-reported, however, so this has further inaccuracy.

If the black-black pairs produced no children, the next generation would be 1/3 white and 2/3 "black", even though "black genes" went from 1/2 down to 1/3 of the population.

Other rebuttals
YouTube user Joniversity has also made a lengthy take-down of this mantra. Another notable response is by TheTruePooka, who has also given very concise and humorous rebuttals to its many fallacies and deceptions. Coughlan000 has a commentary against this statement, and considers it "The Moron Manifesto." Even RevLeft of all sites has managed a comprehensive, piece-by-piece debunking.

Trivia
The phrase was used as the title of a song by the Australian white nationalist musician Johnny White Rabbit.