Bronze-level article

Youth for Western Civilization

From RationalWiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
The logo for YWC, eerily resembling a fasces — the symbol of fascism. Probably just a coincidence.
The colorful pseudoscience
Race & Racialism
Icon race.svg
Hating thy neighbour
Divide and conquer
Dog-whistlers

Youth for "Western" Civilization (YWC) was a white supremacist youth movement founded in 2006[1] that aims to form chapters on college campuses and organize students to give them smelly Mexicans the boot return America to that golden age before all those stinking multiculturalists decided to infiltrate all levels of society. Its intentions are to "educate, organize and train activists on campuses across the nation to create a culture that will promote the survival of Western civilization and pride in Western heritage."[2] (Because the Age of Enlightenment so promoted racial purity!)

One of their heroes is the noted racist Tom Tancredo,[3] former Republican Congresscritter from Colorado.

These racists made their debut at the CPAC on February 26, 2009.[4][5] Since then, at least one chapter of their organization has been suspended from its campus (at Towson University) for advertising with the slogan "white pride."[6]

Ideology[edit]

An image of Charles Martel from the YWC blog. This Frankish Duke is most notable in these circles for his victory at the Battle of Tours, where he killed many Muslims and supposedly stopped the Umayyad advance into Europe.[note 1] But the YWC doesn't want to exterminate Muslims. (Coincidence, is all.)

The organization positions itself as a defender of values it believes are under attack. Claiming to stand for "Western history, identity, high culture, and pride and opposition to radical multiculturalism, political correctness, racial preferences, mass immigration, and socialism,"[2] it can portray itself and its members as noble defenders, as opposed to the prima facie conclusion that they are simply advocates and recruiters for a particularly nasty brand of xenophobic conservatism. Similar groups often use this clever psychological tactic, such as the modern Ku Klux Klan.[7]

YWC claims that university education in the United States has been thoroughly corrupted by claims that important historical discoveries and/or events occurred outside a select group of European countries. Thus, they advocate for local groups to petition their institutions to remove courses focusing on non-Western European history from the curriculum.[note 2]

Blog[edit]

While much of their discourse appears, at first sight, to be relatively benign, a close reading of the postings on their official blog ("The Hammer") indicates troubling views on race. Examples:

Prominent members[edit]

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the founding members of YWC have had ties to Christian white nationalist organizations. In 2005, co-founder Kevin DeAnna, the registered contact person for the group's domain name, proclaimed in a blog comment that "all Christians, and white Christians in particular, don't owe any deference to the self-defined racial separatist customs of other people."[14] He also complained that Kwanzaa was "designed to lead black Americans from traditional Christian holidays like Christmas and replace [Christianity] with paganism." He broke another irony meter when, having apparently listened to too much heavy metal music, he converted to Asatru.[4]

In a third display of irony, the half-Jewish, half-Korean Marcus Epstein (who at one point claimed to be a group co-founder but now denies that he was[4]) has written a series of anti-immigrant screeds on the white nationalist website VDARE.com.[15] Epstein is also the head of the Robert Taft Club (a conservative Washington club and brainchild of Patrick Buchanan, who must have forgotten that Robert Taft despised the Ku Klux Klan) and has a history of inviting some dubious characters to speak; for instance, in 2007, he hosted a talk by members of the Belgian political party Vlaams Belang to speak about their advocacy of a blanket ban on Muslim immigration into Europe.[16] Also at Epstein's behest, Jared Taylor, proud advocate of purging the "mud races" [citation needed] and editor of the white supremacist journal American Renaissance, was featured in a 2006 Taft Club debate on "Race and Conservatism."[17]

In 2007, a drunken Epstein was apprehended by the Secret Service after hurling punches and racial epithets at a passing black woman:[18]

On July 7, 2007, at approximately 7:15 p.m. at Jefferson and M Street, Northwest, in Washington, D.C., defendant was walking down the street making offensive remarks when he encountered the complainant, Ms. [REDACTED], who is African-American. The defendant uttered, "nigger," as he delivered a karate chop to Ms. [REDACTED]'s head.

He was charged with a hate crime but cut a deal and was only convicted of simple assault. In addition to facing a possible six months in jail, the court ruled that Epstein must donate $1000 to the United Negro College Fund.[18]

See also[edit]

External links[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. Actually, the Battle of ToursWikipedia is remarkably poorly documented, leaving it consequences open to interpretation. However, the depiction of it as the crucial defeat of Islam is pretty much a tenet of faith among scholars like Victor Davis Hanson and can ultimately be traced to the influence of Edward Gibbon'sWikipedia The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,Wikipedia drawing on Christian chroniclers writing a century after the battle.
  2. Seriously. See their Facebook page.

References[edit]

  1. Kevin DeAnna
  2. 2.0 2.1 http://www.westernyouth.org/About/index.htm
  3. Who they describe as a "moderate former Congressman"
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2009/02/26/white-nationalist-linked-right-wing-youth-group-debuts-at-cpac/
  5. http://www.commondreams.org/further/2009/03/02-1
  6. "Campus Conservative Group Disbanded Over ‘White Pride’ Graffiti", ThinkProgress
  7. http://www.newsweek.com/id/195085/
  8. http://youthforwesterncivilization.blogspot.com/2009/04/left-wing-tolerance-jews-whites-need.html
  9. "Racial Preference Case Reaches Supreme Court"
  10. http://youthforwesterncivilization.blogspot.com/2009/03/larry-pratt-at-american-university.html
  11. http://youthforwesterncivilization.blogspot.com/2009/04/obama-to-push-for-amnesty.html
  12. http://youthforwesterncivilization.blogspot.com/2009/03/islamization-source-of-national-pride.html
  13. "Wal-Mart Promotes Hispanic Separatism"
  14. http://yafwatch.blogspot.com/2007/07/yafs-anti-african-american-ideology_26.html
  15. http://www.vdare.com/epstein/index.htm
  16. http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2007/10/08/extremist-group-announces-speech-by-congressman/
  17. http://web.archive.org/web/20080124004346/http://www.amren.com/media/Race-Cons/Race-Cons.htm
  18. 18.0 18.1 http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/146405/index.php
  19. Hannah Gais (March 18, 2021). "White Nationalist Who Met With Peter Thiel Admired Terroristic Literature". Hatewatch (Southern Poverty Law Center).
  20. Blake Montgomery (September 11, 2020). "Peter Thiel Hosted a White Nationalist During 2016 Trump Campaign: Report". The Daily Beast.