In the last ezine, I wrote that in any discussion of the coming minority status of whites in the United States, we should dismiss as Panglossian ninnies those proper, polite whites who see no cause for concern in this event. Further, I wrote, "if you are a white person reading this, and if you are the type of white person who is already looking around for someone to point and shriek ‘RACIST!’ in front of, you might as well stop reading now. You don’t matter to the following discussion, and it will be over your head anyway."

Well, it didn’t take long for a reader to prove my point.

I received the following email before the ezine was even finished sending:

SUBJECT: It is not "way over [my] head…

FROM: director_general_emeritus@socialjusticealliance.org

MESSAGE: The Alliance for Social Justice International..[something in Latin] you ARE a blatant racist. Pathetic !

I did a little googling (here’s his user profile on wikipedia) and discovered that the sender is a white guy with lots of diversity cred, including "Native American" diversity associations.

So, I replied with a quote from Chief Sitting Bull as if it were my own, replacing words like "red" and "Sioux" with "white" and "American":

"Is it wrong for me to love my own? Is it evil for me because my skin is white? Because I am a native-born American?"

I received in reply the following under the subject line, "My final response to you, Racist…":

1. First, I did not know you are an albino. Only albino’s have white skin. So must be very difficult for you…pink eyes and all. Which would explain your mental disturbances to a significant degree.

2. Secondly, [some more stuff in Latin]. So I have nothing more to say to you: no need; you are self-condemning.

(send him email: dr_ajb@post.harvard.edu)

This person proves my point: the discussion of what the response should be to the news that whites are about to become the minority in this country is over his head. In that discussion, I wrote, we should "start by assuming that white Americans share with all peoples throughout the world at all times throughout history the characteristic that being disempowered as a group is a negative–like being conquered, or being subjugated. Let’s assume that it is the same disaster for whites that whites consider it to be for everyone else."

The person who sent me the email shrieking racist believes the disempowerment of the Sioux and other Native Americans was a disaster for them, yet he does not seem able to abstract from that and apply objectively the same thinking to the situation whites now face. This, to me, is an intellectual failing. I.e., the discussion is over his head.

The only other explanation I can think of to explain an email like his is a perverse form of racism on the part of the writer–an inverted kind of racism, which I addressed in the rest of the paragraph:

Let’s assume there is nothing magical about being white that permits whites the luxury of indifference to this disempowerment–this permanent disempowerment. Let’s assume whites are not so superior that they can ignore gritty bloody reality–that they can ignore as if he were a precocious child, Willie Brown, the black former speaker of the California Assembly, when he says, "I think most white politicians do not understand that the race pride we all have trumps everything else.” Let’s assume the United States is a nation not so exceptional that Americans of any color can opt out of the destiny that demography is.

This is not to say all Panglossian ninnies possess only modest intelligence or are the perverse products of inverse racism. They may not even be ninnies, though they are certainly unjustifiably and foolishly optimistic.

For example, a reporter at a mainstream daily responded:

To be clear, the central thrust of your concern is that when one group does not represent a majority, they are subjugated. That in years to come, whites will no longer be the majority (leaving aside that we will remain the plurality) and therefor will feel be subjugated and “conquered.” By your definition, other blacks and Hispanics, in minority status are “disempowered,” and whites hold a superior position. Public policy must be prescribed to maintain white superior position based solely on skin color. Dude. I’m not reaching to call that racist. I’m trying to figure out how it in any way, is NOT racist. It is the belief that one race should dominate others and the dangers if that dominant race is no longer white. You’ll note, I’m not calling you a racist but if you don’t want to be considered one, stop sending out e-mails like this.

First, in a democratic republic, or any system involving majority rule, the majority wields the power. If the majority loses majority status, whether it is Republicans in Congress, or whites in the United States, it is disempowered insofar as the system is democratic.

Moreover, losing majority status in any given geographical area is seen by everyone, including white Americans, as a negative regardless of whether the area is under a democracy.

That ethnic Han Chinese are now a majority of the population in Lhasa, Tibet and Inner Mongolia is seen by all except the Han Chinese as a negative for the ethnic Tibetans and ethnic Mongolians. When the European waves rolled across the land of the Sioux, it was, it is widely agreed, from the standpoint of the Sioux, a negative. Thus, in most of the world–in Japan, in Israel, in Saudi Arabia–immigration policy (if immigration is even possible) reflects a desire by the dominant ethnicity to maintain that dominance.

We acknowledge this implicitly by the mechanisms we have in place to ensure minority representation in the power sharing in this country. These very mechanisms, which were instituted under a white majority, are by no means guaranteed forever; consider the rank injustice and racism of the reparations movement.

Perhaps I am wrong to be concerned, but I don’t think in all sincerity that I am. In any case, if it is "racist" for a white person to be concerned, then I share with the rest of humanity the quality of racism, and the word itself loses a workable meaning. Dude.

Read original blog post

Against stupidity (that's you) the gods themselves contend in vain,

We whipped you before and we can do it again.

Sam Abrams

What was the Latin text?

================

The Alliance for Social Justice
International

Veritas nihil veretur nisi abscondi

…you ARE a blatant racist. Pathetic !

==============

2. Secondly, AQUILA NON CAPIT MUSCAS. So I have nothing more to say to you: no need; you are self-condemning.

A racist is one who has a preoccupation with the subject of race.
Congratulations Craig. You're on the level of Jesse Jackson and
Al Sharpton. I hope you three racists will be happy together!

Flint

===============

Oh, so it's the preoccupation that makes it racist, is it? No wonder racism is so widely condemned. The damage humanity has suffered at the hands of the preoccupied! Much better to just keep repeating: This is the best of all possible worlds.

Hi - I think you need to keep talking about it as no one else is. We need to work to get rid of affirmative action and other things that already make us get treated unequally and get rid of all the funding for raced-based group (which is why they are so strong). Of course, white groups would never get funded but other groups get money thrown at them. Unfortuntely, minority groups do not believe in diversity or for equal rights for everyone. They are told and reinforced that they should only be looking out for their own race (however, we are always told we should never look out for whites and that we should look out for minorities because we owe them). This is not going to change and when we are no longer the majority our kids are really going to suffer. Thank you for writing about this and I hope you keep doing it.

Pity those who fail to see the Swiftian point you are making. When one assumes that race matters to one's place in society, your conclusion that whites should be concerned is perfectly logical. Of course the message is that we all need to let go of petty racism (territorialism), but that's really hard for some people - especially those who have come to define themselves by their ancestry instead of their own accomplishments. Perhaps you just respond to the shrieking ninnies with a simple link to “A Modest Proposal” and let them figure it out from there.

Craig,

I'm not so concerned about the possibility that whites will no longer be in the majority as I am with the lack of assimillation and the lack of pride in being an American that is aided and abetted by identity politics. I'm very concerned about Mexico's efforts to try to gain power over what goes on in the US. (See Mark Krikorian's new book if you haven't.) I'm very concerned that Congress doesn't slap them down, as they did in 1936.

I also fear that this angle you're taking is going to alienate a lot of people who might be take interested notice instead if, for example, you were warning them about how America's most deprived workers are getting screwed by the oversupply of cheap labor that is accustomed to third world wages and dragging down our own workers' wages.

And as for the Census, here's what I wrote to the NYT:

Re: In a Generation, Minorities May Be the US Majority (Aug 14): the important story here–the story that will have a profoundly negative effect on life in the US is not that minorities may be the majority, but that the population, now about 303 million, will be 439 million in 2050. That population growth will greatly worsen every environmental problem we face, including water shortages, which you wrote so eloquently about in the October 21, 2007 Magazine (The Future is Drying Up). This level of population growth will make it much harder for the US to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, exacerbating the biggest environmental threat the world faces. The fact that most of that growth will come from immigration doesn't mitigate the greenhouse problem because immigrants in the US produce about four times more CO2 in the US than they would have in their native lands, according to a new study from the Center for Immigration Studies. I don't care what color Americans are in 40 years. I do care about the numbers, and they scare me.

Craig, despite my saying I don't care what color Americans are in this letter, the level of identity politics in this country does scare me some, particularly with respect to Mexico's efforts. But you have to try to speak a language your audience can understand.

Best, –David

I think the audience will understand race; if not, at least they'll pay attention. Race is the one issue sure to get everyone's undivided attention immediately. Which portends something. The identity politics is just going to get worse. Thanks for the note David. Craig

The sad but true fact is that kids are being taught this from first grade on up and if this is the only thing they are taught - that is what they believe and they will attack, as this shreiker has done, anyone who attempts to show them how they have been duped all their lives. It is a very devious although clever plan and it is working. As you see, one of the first things they are taught is to use labels like “Racist!” or “Nazi!” or “anti-Semite” whatever else comes to mind and they have no idea why - they are no better than Dr. Pavlov's dogs. And God forbid you should try to reason with them - they resort to slogans and yelling - it is an easy way to shut their minds.

When my daughter was in middle school,, the history teacher started one day with the same old dogma that Adolf Hitler started World War II because he wanted to kill all the Jews and wanted to be ruler of the world - same old crap. My daughter stood up and said “My Daddy is a world-renowned historian and he says this just isn't true.” So what could the teacher do? My daughter was a straight “A” student and I sat on the board of that school. He did the smart thing and went to a different subject.

There are many trying to do what you are doing, but each time they get an audience the radical left brands them with whatever label suits the moment and if that doesn't work, along comes the ACLU (the former American Communist Party) and/or the SPLC and off to court to ruin them financially. But we continue because it is the right thing to do.

Don't know about the communist part, but do know the ACLU is a pack of phonies. Even proved it in court!

what all of this fails to consider is that by mid century the largest and growing group will no doubt be mixed ethnicities and distinctions become more blurred .

Craig,

The wit and cunning you employed to lay waste to this intellectually stunted individual made my morning! Thank you!