0 comment Friday, October 10, 2014 | admin
Tom Sunic, in an Occidental Observer piece called White Identity in Postmodernity, discusses the minefield of "White identity". He writes of how many Whites in the West, wary of expressing a White identity, choose instead a sort of neutral national identity, as with most Republicans whose identity is bound up exclusively with national patriotism and loyalty to 'the American idea'. For many on the left particularly, who have been schooled to regard White identity as not only illegitimate but as prima facie 'racism', their choice is often to identify with some subculture. He cites the examples of Whites who champion the cause of Tibet or, in his words, 'exotic Afro or Asian escapism.' These types are very common among those who are politically leftist. Everything they do and everything they enjoy is meant to express their desired solidarity with some Third World culture or cause. They may wear 'rasta' dreadlocks or tattoo themselves like tribesmen of some sort or wear some kind of Third World ethnic garb, and listen to Third World music and eat exotic foods and worship at the altar of Asian religions or some kind of syncretic faith which involves Third World traditions.
Many less exotically-identified American liberals instead choose to identify with black Americans or Afrocentric culture. Their counterparts back in the 1970s and 80s may have been more likely to pick ''Native Americans'' as their ersatz identity.
What seems to be the important thing in adopting such a false identity is to express solidarity with some 'underdog' or downtrodden group, apparently as a way of assuaging their hyper-developed consciences about history's wrongs. For the last 40 years or so, Whites have been taught at every turn that their identity is in itself a guilt-saturated thing, because their ancestors were the authors of most wrongs in the world.
Sunic mentions that many Europeans or European-descended Americans may not discover any ethnic or racial identity without being threatened by someone else's national identity, and he uses the example of the break-up of Yugoslavia to illustrate his point.
He also emphasizes how victimhood and victimology are at the heart of the many competing minority identities which are proliferating in the West. There is inevitably a hierarchy of victimhood, and in our country blacks and to some extent Jews enjoy primacy in this department, though the exponential increase in the number of Hispanics in our country threatens to topple the current victim-order.
When I was in college in the 70s, as all this victim-veneration was just reaching a new peak, I noticed, to my surprise, that blacks did not like to share the victimhood mantle with other minority groups; there was instead a competition among the minority groups as to whose suffering was most intense or most prolonged. Blacks at that time fell back on frequent references to '400 years of slavery', sometimes extended to '500 years of slavery' or '500 years of slavery and 100 years of Jim Crow' or some such claim. American Indians were enjoying a vogue in the 1970s, and there were many Ward Churchill types running around campuses, their identity being based on having supposedly had a remote ''Native American" ancestor. Asians were also in the victimhood sweepstakes, and their claims centered on past expulsions of Asian immigrants or the internment of Japanese during World War II.
But I noticed that these groups did not work together; they were all intensely ethnocentric, and quite competitive or jealous when it came to sharing the victimhood spotlight. They might put aside their rivalries to participate in some anti-White demonstration on campus but generally they were wary of each other, or outright unfriendly to one another.
As Sunic points out in his piece, when victimhood is claimed, that implies a victimizer, or a 'monster' as he says. It does seem to be an ironclad rule: the common thread in all the victimhood narratives is "Whitey did it." It is Whites who are to blame in every case; there is always a Honky in the woodpile when a cry of victimhood is raised.
And as Sunic says, the victimology leads to conflict not only between the vicitims and the accused (and automatically convicted) White victimizer, but among minority groups scrambling for their place in the hierarchy and their share of the spoils. If 'reparations' for blacks are to be paid, there will be outcries from Hispanics, who will demand payment for the 'theft' of their fictional Aztlan. What happens when the spoils are no longer so plentiful?
And more importantly, what will happen when the goose that laid the golden egg is moribund?
Sunic says that an authoritarian society is necessary to manage all the divisiveness that is inherent in such an unstable system; his words are that 'high levels of social control' are needed. We are seeing that happening. And many of us wonder if that is not one of the reasons why our rulers have purposely introduced so much diversity into Western countries: to break up any natural cohesion and racial integrity, and to produce instability as a prelude to their further plans. Otherwise we can only conclude that our ''leaders'' are utterly incompetent and clueless. Either explanation is sobering to say the least.
Sunic describes the psychological state of Western White people as being overwhelmed by the constant barrage of guilt and the clamoring by the various voices of grievance and discord. I think this is taking a toll, as he implies, and I think it may reach a tipping point before very long, unless the cacophony of complaints and accusations stops. Is this too part of the plan, I wonder?
He says that Whites don't have the option of claiming victimhood themselves, but actually some do just that; for example in our country, those who see their immigrant ancestors as having been victimized by founding-stock Americans a hundred or so years ago are rather good at bringing up their grievances, and these same people all too often side with illegal immigrants and work towards open borders and the third-worldizing of America.
America is perhaps more disunited than other Western countries in that respect; those European countries which are monocultural and monoethnic have a decided advantage over those countries with more than one nationality within their borders. This is illustrated by the comments on this AmRen thread discussing Nick Griffin's remarks about Black and Asian residents of the UK not being Britons. Someone asks whether ethnic Irish in the UK are ethnic foreigners, and several answer 'yes'. A squabble then erupts between posters who appear to be Irish-descended Americans and Anglo-Americans or British posters. It's an interesting but complicated argument, with people citing British celebrities who are supposedly ''really'' Irish. There seems to be some confusion about Irish people of Anglo-Norman descent, or people of mixed English and Irish descent. So even in the United Kingdom there are elements of ethnic conflict, though among closely-related peoples. America is not the only English-speaking nation with internal divisions among close kin.
These are issues that have to be addressed, along with ideological and religious divisions in our country and other Western countries. If we lack the capacity to put aside our other differences in favor of uniting based on our kinship connection, we really don't stand much of a chance.
Many less exotically-identified American liberals instead choose to identify with black Americans or Afrocentric culture. Their counterparts back in the 1970s and 80s may have been more likely to pick ''Native Americans'' as their ersatz identity.
What seems to be the important thing in adopting such a false identity is to express solidarity with some 'underdog' or downtrodden group, apparently as a way of assuaging their hyper-developed consciences about history's wrongs. For the last 40 years or so, Whites have been taught at every turn that their identity is in itself a guilt-saturated thing, because their ancestors were the authors of most wrongs in the world.
Sunic mentions that many Europeans or European-descended Americans may not discover any ethnic or racial identity without being threatened by someone else's national identity, and he uses the example of the break-up of Yugoslavia to illustrate his point.
He also emphasizes how victimhood and victimology are at the heart of the many competing minority identities which are proliferating in the West. There is inevitably a hierarchy of victimhood, and in our country blacks and to some extent Jews enjoy primacy in this department, though the exponential increase in the number of Hispanics in our country threatens to topple the current victim-order.
When I was in college in the 70s, as all this victim-veneration was just reaching a new peak, I noticed, to my surprise, that blacks did not like to share the victimhood mantle with other minority groups; there was instead a competition among the minority groups as to whose suffering was most intense or most prolonged. Blacks at that time fell back on frequent references to '400 years of slavery', sometimes extended to '500 years of slavery' or '500 years of slavery and 100 years of Jim Crow' or some such claim. American Indians were enjoying a vogue in the 1970s, and there were many Ward Churchill types running around campuses, their identity being based on having supposedly had a remote ''Native American" ancestor. Asians were also in the victimhood sweepstakes, and their claims centered on past expulsions of Asian immigrants or the internment of Japanese during World War II.
But I noticed that these groups did not work together; they were all intensely ethnocentric, and quite competitive or jealous when it came to sharing the victimhood spotlight. They might put aside their rivalries to participate in some anti-White demonstration on campus but generally they were wary of each other, or outright unfriendly to one another.
As Sunic points out in his piece, when victimhood is claimed, that implies a victimizer, or a 'monster' as he says. It does seem to be an ironclad rule: the common thread in all the victimhood narratives is "Whitey did it." It is Whites who are to blame in every case; there is always a Honky in the woodpile when a cry of victimhood is raised.
And as Sunic says, the victimology leads to conflict not only between the vicitims and the accused (and automatically convicted) White victimizer, but among minority groups scrambling for their place in the hierarchy and their share of the spoils. If 'reparations' for blacks are to be paid, there will be outcries from Hispanics, who will demand payment for the 'theft' of their fictional Aztlan. What happens when the spoils are no longer so plentiful?
And more importantly, what will happen when the goose that laid the golden egg is moribund?
Sunic says that an authoritarian society is necessary to manage all the divisiveness that is inherent in such an unstable system; his words are that 'high levels of social control' are needed. We are seeing that happening. And many of us wonder if that is not one of the reasons why our rulers have purposely introduced so much diversity into Western countries: to break up any natural cohesion and racial integrity, and to produce instability as a prelude to their further plans. Otherwise we can only conclude that our ''leaders'' are utterly incompetent and clueless. Either explanation is sobering to say the least.
Sunic describes the psychological state of Western White people as being overwhelmed by the constant barrage of guilt and the clamoring by the various voices of grievance and discord. I think this is taking a toll, as he implies, and I think it may reach a tipping point before very long, unless the cacophony of complaints and accusations stops. Is this too part of the plan, I wonder?
He says that Whites don't have the option of claiming victimhood themselves, but actually some do just that; for example in our country, those who see their immigrant ancestors as having been victimized by founding-stock Americans a hundred or so years ago are rather good at bringing up their grievances, and these same people all too often side with illegal immigrants and work towards open borders and the third-worldizing of America.
America is perhaps more disunited than other Western countries in that respect; those European countries which are monocultural and monoethnic have a decided advantage over those countries with more than one nationality within their borders. This is illustrated by the comments on this AmRen thread discussing Nick Griffin's remarks about Black and Asian residents of the UK not being Britons. Someone asks whether ethnic Irish in the UK are ethnic foreigners, and several answer 'yes'. A squabble then erupts between posters who appear to be Irish-descended Americans and Anglo-Americans or British posters. It's an interesting but complicated argument, with people citing British celebrities who are supposedly ''really'' Irish. There seems to be some confusion about Irish people of Anglo-Norman descent, or people of mixed English and Irish descent. So even in the United Kingdom there are elements of ethnic conflict, though among closely-related peoples. America is not the only English-speaking nation with internal divisions among close kin.
These are issues that have to be addressed, along with ideological and religious divisions in our country and other Western countries. If we lack the capacity to put aside our other differences in favor of uniting based on our kinship connection, we really don't stand much of a chance.
Labels: Balkanization, Diversity, Ethnocentrism, Identity Politics, Multiculturalism, National Identity, Political Correctness, Western Decline