White nationalism

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White nationalism claims that white people constitute a race and seeks to develop a "national identity" based on that race. They seek to ensure the survival of (what they see as) the white race and its putative culture, usually in opposition to a supposed globalist threat or Zionist conspiracy.

White separatism and white supremacy are subgroups of white nationalism, but in practice, the term is basically a code word for white supremacy that fools no one. Another new euphemism is identitarianism.[1] Originally (2003) a European movement based in France, identitarianism has since spread to America with ardent followers such as Richard Spencer and Identity Evropa, but it's effectively the same stuff. Another movement that overlaps with White nationalism is the Neo-Confederate movement (a.k.a. Southern nationalism). Ditto the alt-right, which is now more or less the far end of the neoreactionary movement. The term "White nationalism" is actually a misnomer because it is not a nationalist movement, is not patriotic (anti-government), and is trans-national in its goals for white supremacy.[2]:260

Most self-described "white nationalist" activists also just happen to take the side of Nazi Germany against the United Kingdom, the United States, and the USSR (all mostly-white nations themselves, supposedly part of their greater Europa), in discussions of World War II. Holocaust denialism and sympathizing with Nazis (if they don't outright support them directly) is a common thread among "white nationalists".

But let's pretend[edit]

See the main article on this topic: Anti-racist is a code word for anti-white

White nationalists, insofar as they try to define the concept, usually will claim that whites around the world should all see themselves as part of the same nation on the grounds that "your race is your nation." Thus, people from Britain to Russia, Armenia to Australia, France to Finland, all of the nations of the former Yugoslavia, both sides of the Troubles in Ireland, and whites living in the United States, South Africa, South America and elsewhere, even extending to lighter-skinned peoples of Iran and India, are all supposed to be viewed as being the same people and show racial solidarity with each other. Even the French and Germans. Oh, and they probably think Japan, South Korea, North Korea, and China are all best chums with each other.

For instance, a common copied-and-pasted screed commonly seen on message boards and Twitler comment sections reads:

“”Africa for the Africans, Asia for the Asians, White countries for everyone?[3]

This concept is hilariously absurd; all continents listed, including Europe, have a long history of wars and longstanding ethnic feuds both with each other and within themselves, not to mention numerous languages, at least, in Europe, three alphabets (Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek), splits over religion (Orthodox-Catholic, Catholic-Protestant, and (in the Balkans) Christian-Muslim being the three major ones), and numerous other differences (and this is just Europe; China alone has at least 56 ethnic groups and around 300 minority languages, and the Chinese language comes in a rich variety of dialects). White nationalists ignore that groups in Europe such as the Irish, Slavs, Jews and Italians were not considered "white" until the last hundred years, with Anglo-Saxons even going as far as to pay "naturalists" to "prove" that the Irish were actually not white.[4][5] Even today, anti-immigration activists in the UK can rant about "job-thieving" Polish immigrants almost as easily as Middle Eastern, Indian and Caribbean immigrants. Virtually all committed white nationalists also regard Jews as nonwhite—indeed, most white nationalist conspiracy theories involve Jews acting as moles seeking to destroy the white race from the inside. Caucasian sub-groups like Hispanics,[note 1] Arabs and Iranians are also often excluded from the "white" label by many white nationalists, although some may make exceptions for non-Muslim Arab subgroups[6]: French neo-Nazi Serge AyoubWikipedia, for example, is of Lebanese Christian descent.

There is no evidence for there ever having been a single white ethnicity, culture, or language, just as there is no distinctly African or Asian one. White nationalists will often try making a claim for this in the form of an origin in the Caucasus region and the proto-Indo-European language (never mind that countries, and even parts of countries, within the Caucusus are constantly at war each other or other white countries around them, or that white peoples such as the Finns, Hungarians, and Basques who speak non-PIE languages) tying it to a belief that their descendants today form a "greater Europe". (Christian Identity, which is also a form of white nationalism, claims a different origin of white peoples in ancient biblical Israel, notwithstanding the non-white ancient Christian churches in Ethiopia, India, etc.) Often, white nationalists speak in terms of a group of "white homelands," consisting of all of Europe plus the United States (guess they forgot the Native Americans), Canada (where there are still a lot of indigenous First Nations), Australia (which has long been inhabited by Aboriginal people), New Zealand (the indigenous Māori still exist), and (even though it was never more than 25% white) South Africa; some also include the mostly-white southern South American countries like Argentina and Uruguay. (Note that this would include (a) Indo-Iranians, who white nationalists don't count as white (b) many folks actually descended from the Caucasus area, some of whom have historically been considered Slavic Untermenschen by white nationalists.)

Since white nationalists are almost always antisemitic, Israel is usually not considered a "white homeland." Indeed, one of this movement's few consistent points is that Jews, and other Semitic peoples, are excluded from the imagined "white nation."

It is also fascinating to note that most "white nationalists" oppose the integration of the nations of Europe into the European Union.

In Black and White[edit]

It puzzles some people how people that they perceive as 'not white' can actually be white nationalists. This occurs for three main reasons

  1. The concept of whiteness and other racial categories, being unscientific, has evolved over time in the United States and elsewhere.[7]
  2. Different demographic groups view racial categorizations differently. Generally, Hispanic people view race differently than other people in the United States. For example, among Hispanic people with the darkest perceived skin color 32% called themselves white.[8][9]
  3. Puerto Ricans have historically been encouraged to identify as white if they have any European ancestry.[10]

The Proud Boys are a prime example of this phenomenon. The organization has never excluded membership based on race, but has used the motto of 'Western chauvinist' as a code word for 'white nationalism'. It has included prominent African Americans in leadership roles: Enrique TarrioWikipedia (of Afro-Cuban ancestry) who succeeded Gavin McInnes as leader, and Dante Nero who was 'pope' from 2016-2017.[11] Tellingly, Tarrio was convicted of, among other things, stealing and burning a Black Lives Matter banner from a church in 2021.[12]

Hostility to reproductive rights for White People[edit]

Whites who want reproductive rights are usually at odds with White Nationalists. For example, in 1905 Teddy Roosevelt said that it was "race suicide" for white Americans if educated white women continued to have fewer children.[13] Look no farther than comment sections on conservative media outlets such as the Daily Wire for people saying that whites shouldn't have access to reproductive rights and should be forced to have children and families to combat "white genocide".

Organizations[edit]

Individuals[edit]

Media[edit]

Key concepts[edit]

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ↑ Hispanics are considered a sub-race of white at least for US Census standards (not that the white nationalists agree). It should not be confused with the term Latino that, although related, is not the same as it's more of a cultural term that encompasses many races. And yes, white Latino is a thing, just as there are Black and Asian Latinos, although the term is more commonly associated with the mestizo population.

References[edit]

  1. ↑ See the Wikipedia article on Identitarianism.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Insurrection" by Kathleen Belew. In: Myth America: Historians Take On the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past, edited by Kevin M. Kruse & Julian E. Zelizer (2022) Basic Books. ISBN 1541601394. Pages 251-265.
  3. ↑ Africa for the Africans, Asia for the Asians, White countries for everyone? by )))HelicopterRide((( @freehee3 (1:29 PM · Jul 12, 2016) Twitter (archived from March 23, 2023).
  4. ↑ "Racism and Anti-Irish Prejudice in Victorian England" by Anthony S. Wohl - the Irish were described by some commentators as having descended from Cro-Magnon Man, thus being more closely related to the "Africanoid."
  5. ↑ The Irish are actually closely related to the French, both being descended from Celtic tribes.
  6. ↑ NB: Members of some Arabic-speaking Christian minorities sometimes reject the “Arab” label for themselves, not that your average white nationalist would care all that much.
  7. ↑ How the U.S. census has measured race over 230 years: The 2020 census faces the same challenges as previous counts by Betsy Ladyzhets (March 12, 2020 at 11:00 am) Science News.
  8. ↑ Latino Racial Choices: The Effects of Skin Colour and Discrimination on Latinos’ and Latinas’ Racial Self-Identifications by Tanya Golash-Boza & William Darity (2008) Ethnic and Racial Studies 31(5):899-934. doi:10.1080/01419870701568858.
  9. ↑ Why non-White people might advocate white supremacy by Philip Bump (May 8, 2023 at 2:48 p.m. EDT) The Washington Post.
  10. ↑ Why Some Black Puerto Ricans Choose ‘White’ on the Census: The island has a long history of encouraging residents to identify as white, but there are growing efforts to raise awareness about racism. by Natasha S. Alford (Feb. 9, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ET) The New York Times.
  11. ↑ 626: White Haze by Zoe Chase (September 22, 2017) This American Life.
  12. ↑ Proud Boys leader Henry ‘Enrique’ Tarrio sentenced to five months in jail by Paul Duggan (August 23, 2021 at 6:57 p.m. EDT) The Washington Post.
  13. ↑ https://www.politicalresearch.org/2010/04/29/abortion-as-black-genocide-an-old-scare-tactic-re-emerges/
  14. ↑ "Council of Conservative Citizens". Anti-Defamation League. 2005. 
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