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Preserving the Ways Of My AncestorsBy Jared Taylor Colbert King has written no fewer than four columns attacking the racial views of the Council of Conservative Citizens, of which I am a member [op-ed, Dec. 19, Dec. 26, Jan. 16, Jan. 23]. He has also attacked me personally, calling me a bigot. Just what are my bigoted views, some of which may even be shared by some members of the council? First of all, race is a significant biological characteristic of our species, and it is foolish to pretend that it can be made not to matter. Despite 40 years of integrationist exhortation from every major American institution, in those areas still free from government compulsion, American life is almost as segregated as it was in the 1950s. When Americans buy a house, choose a school for their children, marry, go to church or have a dinner party, they sort themselves out by race. America shows none of the rainbow harmony so confidently predicted during the civil rights era. I believe that racial identification is an inevitable part of human nature and that we should recognize this rather than deny it. It is natural and moral for people to prefer the society and way of life of people like themselves. Non-whites take this for granted. Blacks do not apologize for forming black caucuses, celebrating the openly racial holiday of Kwanzaa, electing black candidates, wanting black police officers, taking pride in their race and preferring the culture and company of blacks. Many blacks make race the centerpiece of their identities, as do many Hispanics. Blacks want America to be more "black" and Hispanics want it to be more "Hispanic." It is only whites who are forbidden to have an explicitly racial identity, and when they express loyalties non-whites take for granted they are accused, as Colbert King accuses me, of "bigotry." Immigration is central to any debate about race. Every year we accept approximately 800,000 legal immigrants and uncounted numbers of illegals into this country. Ninety percent are non-white. Why should we add yet more racial fault lines to a country whose greatest tragedies have been bound up with race? And why should whites hand over the country to people unlike themselves? If millions of whites were pouring across the border into Mexico, celebrating July 4th rather than Cinco de Mayo, demanding school instruction in English rather than Spanish and pushing the ethnic demands of an organization called the National Council of the Race (La Raza), could Mexicans be tricked into thinking this was "cultural enrichment"? Whites are cheerfully exhorted to "celebrate diversity," but this is only asking them to celebrate their dwindling numbers and influence. Only a people bent on suicide would do this. Non-white organizations and the populations of non-white countries could never be browbeaten into welcoming their own displacement. No one denies that as Miami has become overwhelmingly Hispanic it has lost its Euro-American character. No one denies that those parts of our cities that have become black are alien to most whites. Why should I celebrate this? Miami and Detroit have lost the things I love most: the culture and way of life of my people. That is why whites leave. Although they may mouth praise for "diversity," they don't want it next door. And they are not running away; they are going back to the America they grew up in and in which they hope to rear their own children. President Clinton looks forward to the day when whites become a minority -- but can he name a single majority non-white neighborhood he would like to live in when he leaves the White House? The joys of having Haitian or Guatemalan neighbors are so sublime that Mr. Clinton will nobly forgo them so they can be enjoyed by humbler Americans who cannot send their children to Sidwell Friends School or live in Hyannis Port. He will then join in the shocked condemnation of those humbler Americans when they vote for someone like David Duke. King ridicules me for saying that only whites will carry the civilization of Europe forward in a meaningful way. What would he say if whites were displacing Nigerians, with soothing assurances that the Nigerian way of life was only being "enriched"? Demography is destiny. As those parts of the country with non-white majorities demonstrate, when population changes, everything else changes. Whites have the right -- they have the duty -- to resist unwanted change and to preserve for their children the culture and way of life of their ancestors. Jared Taylor (The writer is editor of American Renaissance and a member of the Board of Directors of the Council of Conservative Citizens.) |