This is a very interesting article and I have very mixed feelings on it. On one hand, I think it is very fair of CNN to ask the question; on the other, I am very highly disappointed that they went to some very, shall we say, nasty people for their answers.
Via CNN:
(CNN) — They marched on Washington to reclaim civil rights.
They complained of voter intimidation at the polls.
They called for ethnic studies programs to promote racial pride.
They are, some say, the new face of racial oppression in this nation — and their faces are white.
“We went from being a privileged group to all of a sudden becoming whites, the new victims,” says Charles Gallagher, a sociologist at La Salle University in Pennsylvania who researches white racial attitudes and was baffled to find that whites see themselves as a minority.
“You have this perception out there that whites are no longer in control or the majority. Whites are the new minority group.”
Call it racial jujitsu: A growing number of white Americans are acting like a racially oppressed majority. They are adopting the language and protest tactics of an embattled minority group, scholars and commentators say.
The legitimate reasoning:
- A recent Public Religion Research Institute poll found 44% of Americans surveyed identify discrimination against whites as being just as big as bigotry aimed at blacks and other minorities. The poll found 61% of those identifying with the Tea Party held that view, as did 56% of Republicans and 57% of white evangelicals.
- More colleges are offering courses in “Whiteness Studies” as white Americans cope with becoming what one commentator calls a “dispossessed majority group.”
- A Texas group recently formed the “Former Majority Association for Equality” to offer college scholarships to needy white men. Colby Bohannan, the group’s president, says white men don’t have scholarship options available to minorities. “White males are definitely not a majority” anymore, he says.
- U.S. Census Bureau projections that whites will become a minority by 2050 are fueling fears that whiteness no longer represents the norm. This fear has been compounded by the recent recession, which hit whites hard.
- You have this perception out there that whites are no longer in control or the majority. –Charles Gallagher, sociologist
- Conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh argued in a radio show that Republicans are an “oppressed minority” in need of a “civil rights movement” because its members willingly sit in the “back of the bus” and “are afraid of the fire hoses and the dogs.”
- Fox talk-show host Glenn Beck led a march on Washington (attended primarily by white people) to “restore honor,” and once called President Obama a racist with a “deep-seated hatred for white people and white culture.” He later said he regretted making that comment.
- Conservative news outlets ran a number of stories last summer highlighting an incident from the 2008 elections, in which activists from the New Black Panther Party appeared to be intimidating voters at a polling place. Those claims were never proven.
All of that stuff is very much legitimate, and I am fine with CNN reporting the story; because, quite frankly, I am one of these people. However, here is my issue with this story:
Some white commentators are unapologetic about this racial anxiety.
Peter Brimelow, author of “Alien Nation: Common Sense About America’s Immigration Disaster,” asserts that much of white America’s anxiety derives from living under a black president and changing demographics.
Diversity, he says, “is not strength.”
Brimelow’s website, VDARE.COM, has been described as a hate site by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a group that tracks extremist groups in the U.S.
Some may see him as extreme, but Brimelow argues in his columns that more white Americans are moving toward his stance on immigration and other issues.
He cites as proof the rise of the Tea Party movement and the racial makeup of Beck’s march on Washington. He says more whites recognize, even if it’s only on a subliminal level, that they have common interests to defend.
“Of course, they would deny this, quite sincerely, if you put it to them because the idea of whites defending their interests as whites is quite new,” he says. “Americans are trained to think that any explicit defense of white interests is ‘racist.’ “
Sociologist Charles Gallagher says more whites regard themselves as an embattled minority group.James Edwards, host of the “Political Cesspool” radio show, isn’t shy about naming those interests. He says white Americans have become the “dispossessed majority” and that coming demographic changes may turn the United States into a “Third-World flop-house.”
Edwards, who is considered a white nationalist by the Southern Poverty Law Center, says whites must organize like other stigmatized groups.
“There is nothing wrong for Jewish organizations to promote the self-interest of Jews or black organizations to promote the interest of blacks,” he says. “There is no organization to stand up to advance the interests of the dispossessed majority.”
Those white interests have been compromised by what he sees as the “preferential treatment” blacks have received in the job market to compensate for slavery, Edwards says.
“Whatever mistakes might have been made in our pasts, they have not only been corrected, but they’ve been overcompensated for,” he says.
Now whites are victims of pervasive racism, Edwards says.
“They’re the victims of it every day. Anything a white conservative does that a liberal doesn’t like is called racism.”
Both Brimelow and Edwards reject outright the Southern Poverty Law Center’s description of their organizations as extremist.
Okay, here is my issue with this part. Firstly, I do not believe that Peter Brimelow is a racist. But I know damned well that James Edwards is a racist and very much a bigot. I have listened to that “Political Cesspool” and I can tell you firsthand; that the political cesspool is nothing more than high-brow White Nationalism and Klanman mentality. Here is a few select quotes from this guy:
Among the things Edwards has written:
* August 11, 2008: “For blacks in the Americas, slavery is the greatest thing that ever happened to them. Unfortunately, it’s the worst thing that ever happened to white Americans.”
* In an August 6, 2008, post headlined “Jewish media reaches new heights,” discussing a Slate.com article by “Jew Timothy Noah,” Edwards wrote that the piece would “make sense once you understand that Jews are the ones who are always speaking in code; when they use words like ‘racists’, ‘bigots’, ‘anti-semites’, they simply mean white people.”
* In a July 9, 2008, post headlined “Great moments in Jewish journalism,” Edwards referred to a column by The Washington Post’s David S. Broder about former Sen. Jesse Helms as “another hatefilled Jewish attack piece.”
* In a July 30, 2008, post, Edwards asked: “If the WNBA [Women’s National Basketball Association] is so hell bent on diversity, why don’t they hire a couple of heterosexual players or coaches?”
* In a June 6, 2008, post headlined “Does she hate Whitey?” Edwards wrote: “Michelle Obama, that is. Uh, yeah, I’m pretty sure she does. Just like her husband. Just like about 90% of blacks.”
Yeah, I know where I got the quotes from, but when you’re rounding up the truth, you do what you gotta do; there is also this: (H/T Myself!)
Oh, man…if only they had read my book! Racism, Schmacism. All of this unpleasantness could’ve been avoided. This thing is such a mess I don’t even know where to start, and it’s pathetic and hilarious at the same time. I wanted to write about it last week, but I was just swamped, and now things have gotten even crazier with the whole NAACP/Tea Party brouhaha, so I might as well go for it.
Well, let’s just start at the beginning. Last week, the NAACP passed a resolution condemning the “racism” of the Tea Party movement, and demanding that the movement purge itself of those hideous “racists” in their grass roots movement. Yes, the very same mental midgets who just a few weeks ago were condemning a Hallmark greeting card with an outer space theme because they think “black holes” means “black hos”, an organization which is explicitly organized for the exclusive benefit of one race of people, and whose name contains the words “Colored People”, actually had the gall to pass this resolution.
This was a great opportunity for the Tea Party movement to show some backbone by laughing in the face of the imbeciles at the NAACP. But did they? Of course not. Predictably, they responded in the same tired, pusillanimous manner with which they always respond to these never ending accusations. Instead of replying with a loud BWAHAHAHA! or a “Yeah? What’s your point?” or “So what?” or “Of course we’re racists -we’re white people.
That’s what “racist” means or “Can any of you race hustlers even spell “racist”?”, they predictably went into their usual bend over and grab their ankles mode. They protested that oh no, we’re not racists at all, we don’t tolerate racists at our rallies which are really huge rainbow coalitions, and it’s the NAACP and the liberals who are the real racists, etc., etc. You know, the lame “Bull Connor was a Democrat!” defense. It never works, but they just keep trotting it out like some lucky charm in the vain hope that this time it will work.
Racist means white person. Period. Until the Tea Partiers get that through their heads, nothing’s going to change, and they’re never going to be an effective political force. They really, really need to read Racism, Schmacism.
No, what you need to do asshole, is to disappear or die of a massive heart attack. James Edwards motivation is one thing and one thing only; hatred of blacks, Jews, and any other minority that is not “Aryan” white. In this man’s case, is one instance when the Southern Poverty Law Center, as much as I dislike that organization; is absolutely correct. For the record, the man’s mentality is not that of a Republican; that damned mentality was cultivated by the Democrats of the south. After all, the Democrats are the one’s who created the original Klu Klux Klan of the 1800’s to harass and intimidate those blacks who tried to vote Republican.
James Edwards, is one of those people.
So, my point here is this; I do not mind CNN “Going There” as they say nowadays. But I would have much preferred if they would have used someone of a more legitimate status. Possibly someone like Pat Buchanan or someone like him. Instead of a third-rate, modern day Klansman like Edwards. Because really, the article sort of looks like it is trying to paint white people in a negative light.
Unless, maybe that was the intent in the first place.
Other Bloggers Covering this, mostly liberal, mileage may very, as well truthfulness: Zandar Versus The Stupid, American Prospect, Runnin’ Scared, The Awl, Shakesville and Wonkette
