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61 " Serving officers dare not criticize diversity for fear it will kill their careers. Only after he retired did Army Green Beret Major Andy Messing say that Special Forces units should be homogeneous because this promotes cohesion. He said differences of race or religion add to the tensions of a grinding training regimen and perilous combat missions.A recent book-length study of cohesion in Civil War units found that soldiers were less likely to desert if they were fighting alongside men who resembled them in ethnicity, religion, and occupation, and who came from the same part of the country. Authors Dora Costa and Matthew Kahn concluded that men were most likely to risk their lives for men who were most like themselves. They also found that Union veterans’ health was worse in old age if they had seen a lot of combat but were surprised to discover that this effect disappeared for soldiers who had fought in very homogeneous units. Fighting alongside close comrades immunized them against battle trauma. "
― Jared Taylor , White Identity: Racial Consciousness in the 21st Century
62 " Research shows the negative effects of diversity on the United States. Robert Putnam of Harvard studied 41 different American communities that ranged from the extreme homogeneity of rural South Dakota to the very mixed populations of Los Angeles. He found a strong correlation between homogeneity and levels of trust, with the greatest distrust in the most diverse areas. He was unhappy with these results, and checked his findings by controlling for any other variable that might affect trust, such as poverty, age, crime rates, population densities, education, commuting time, home ownership, etc. These played some role but he was forced to conclude that “diversity per se has a major effect.”Prof. Putnam listed the following consequences of diversity:'Lower confidence in local government, local leaders and the local news media. Lower political efficacy—that is, confidence in their own influence. Lower frequency of registering to vote, but more interest and knowledge about politics and more participation in protest marches and social reform groups. Less expectation that others will cooperate to solve dilemmas of collective action (e.g., voluntary conservation to ease a water or energy shortage). Less likelihood of working on a community project. Lower likelihood of giving to charity or volunteering. Fewer close friends and confidants. Less happiness and lower perceived quality of life. More time spent watching television and more agreement that “television is my most important form of entertainment.”'Other research confirms that people in “diverse” workgroups—not only of race but also age and professional background—are less loyal to the group, more likely to resign, and generally less satisfied than people who work with people like themselves. Carpooling is less common in racially mixed neighborhoods because it means counting on your neighbors, and people trust people who are like themselves. "
63 " There is a field of study called “happiness research,” which tries to analyze what makes people happy. Prof. Michael Hagerty of the University of California at Davis surveyed decades of international happiness research and found that “for the most part, the top-rated countries are small and homogeneous.” As he explained, such countries “have a similar world view and a similar religion, so that it’s easier for them to communicate and to understand each other’s motives.” He also noted that “they don’t have race problems.”In the conclusion of his 148-country diversity survey Tatu Vanhanen wrote, “It is easier to establish harmonious social relations in ethnically homogeneous societies than in ethnically divided ones because people are more helpful towards each other in ethnically homogeneous societies.”There can, of course, be many different kinds of division in a country: language, religion, race, class, etc. However, of all these, race seems to be the most difficult to bridge. "
64 " It would be logical for any group whose only sense of identity is the negative one of wickedness and oppression to dilute its wickedness by mixing with more virtuous groups. This is, upon reflection, exactly what celebrating diversity implies. James Carignan, a city councilor in Lewiston, Maine, encouraged the city to welcome refugees from the West African country of Togo, writing, “We are too homogeneous at present. We desperately need diversity.” He said the Togolese—of whom it was not known whether they were literate, spoke English, or were employable—“will bring us the diversity that is essential to our quest for excellence.”Likewise in Maine, long-serving state’s attorney James Tierney wrote of racial diversity in the state: “This is not a burden. This is essential.” An overly white population is a handicap.Gwynne Dyer, a London-based Canadian journalist, also believes whites must be leavened with non-whites in a process he calls “ethnic diversification.” He noted, however, that when Canada and Australia opened their borders to non-white immigration, they had to “do good by stealth” and not explain openly that the process would reduce whites to a minority: “Let the magic do its work, but don’t talk about it in front of the children. They’ll just get cross and spoil it all.” Mr. Dyer looked forward to the day when politicians could be more open about their intentions of thinning out whites. President Bill Clinton was open about it. In his 2000 State of the Union speech, he welcomed predictions that whites would become a minority by mid-century, saying, “this diversity can be our greatest strength.”In 2009, before a gathering of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, he again brought up forecasts that whites will become a minority, adding that “this is a very positive thing.”[...]Harvard University professor Robert Putnam says immigrants should not assimilate. “What we shouldn’t do is to say that they should be more like us,” he says. “We should construct a new us.”When Marty Markowitz became the new Brooklyn borough president in 2002, he took down the portrait of George Washington that had hung in the president’s office for many years. He said he would hang a picture of a black or a woman because Washington was an “old white man.”[...]In 2000, John Sharp, a former Texas comptroller and senator told the state Democratic Hispanic Caucus that whites must step aside and let Hispanics govern, “and if that means that some of us gringos are going to have to give up some life-long dreams, then we’ve got to do that.”When Robert Dornan of California was still in Congress, he welcomed the changing demographics of his Orange County district. “I want to see America stay a nation of immigrants,” he said. “And if we lose our Northern European stock—your coloring and mine, blue eyes and fair hair—tough!”Frank Rich, columnist for the New York Times, appears happy to become a minority. He wrote this about Sonya Sotomayor’s Senate confirmation hearings: “[T]his particular wise Latina, with the richness of her experiences, would far more often than not reach a better [judicial] conclusion than the individual white males she faced in that Senate hearing room. Even those viewers who watched the Sotomayor show for only a few minutes could see that her America is our future and theirs is the rapidly receding past.”It is impossible to imagine people of any other race speaking of themselves this way. "
65 " Clearly, our immigration policies should be reexamined. A convincing case can be made on environmental grounds alone that a nation of 300,000,000 needs no more people, especially since it would enjoy natural growth if the borders were closed tomorrow. How can we possibly claim to be fighting environmental degradation or hope for energy independence when we import a million or more people every year? How can we claim to be fighting poverty, crime, school failure, or disease when we import people who are more likely than natives to be poor, criminals, school failures, and to suffer from strange diseases? Immigration is even harder to justify when many newcomers speak no English, maintain foreign loyalties, or practice disconcerting religions. It is profoundly unwise to add yet more disparate elements to a population already divided by diversity.[D]emographers and economists are making dire projections based on the lower likelihood of blacks and Hispanics to become productive workers. These people go on to insist that the solution is to improve education for blacks and Hispanics, but the United States has already made enormous efforts to that end. There is no reason to think some kind of breakthrough is imminent.Clearly, the solution to the problems posed by an increasing Hispanic population is to stop Hispanic immigration. However, [...], our policy-makers are too afraid of accusations of racism to draw such an obvious conclusion. Americans must open their eyes to the fact that a changing population could change everything in America. The United States could come to resemble the developing world rather than Europe—in some places it already does. One recent book on immigration to Europe sounded a similar alarm when the author asked: “Can you have the same Europe with different people?” His answer was a forthright “no.”It should be clear from the changes that have already taken place in the United States that we cannot have the same America with different people, either. Different populations build different societies. The principles of European and European-derived societies—freedom of speech, the rule of law, respect for women, representative government, low levels of corruption—do not easily take root elsewhere. They were born out of centuries of struggle, false starts, and setbacks, and cannot be taken for granted. A poorer, more desperate America, one riven with racial rivalries, one increasingly populated by people who come from non-Western traditions could turn its back on those principles.Many people assert that all people can understand and assimilate Western thinking—and yet cultures are very different. Can you, the reader, imagine emigrating to Cambodia or Saudi Arabia or Tanzania and assimilating perfectly? Probably not; yet everyone in the world is thought to be a potential American. Even if there is only a small chance that non-Western immigrants will establish alien and unsettling practices, why take this risk? Immigration to the United States, like immigration to any nation, is a favor granted by citizens to foreigners. It is not a right.Immigration advocates often point to the objections Anglo-Americans made to turn-of-the-century immigrants from Italy, Ireland, Hungary, and other “non-Nordic” countries. They point out that these immigrants assimilated, and insist that Mexicans and Haitians will do the same. Those advocates overlook the fundamental importance of race. They forget that the United States already had two ill assimilated racial groups long before the arrival of European ethnics—blacks and American Indians—and that those groups are still uncomfortably distinct elements in American society. Different European groups assimilated across ethnic lines after a few generations because they were of the same race. There are many societal fault lines in “diverse” societies—language, religion, ethnicity—but the fault line of race is deepest. "
66 " Prosperous non-white nations such as Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea would be very desirable destinations for Third-World immigrants, and if those countries opened their borders, they would quickly be filled with foreigners. They keep their borders closed because they know they cannot have the same Japan or Taiwan with different people. Israel, likewise, is determined to remain a Jewish state because Israelis know they cannot have the same Israel with different people. In 2010, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved tough measures to deport illegal immigrants, calling them a “threat to the character of the country.”Linguistically, culturally, and racially, Japan is homogeneous. This means Japanese never even think about a host of problems that torment Americans. Since Japan has only one race, no one worries about racism. There was no civil rights movement, no integration struggle, and no court-ordered busing. There is no bilingual education, and no affirmative action. There is no tyranny of “political correctness,” and no one is clamoring for a “multi-cultural curriculum.” When a company needs to hire someone, it doesn’t give a thought to “ethnic balance;” it just hires the best person. No Japanese are sent to reeducation seminars because of “insensitivity.”Japan has no Civil Rights Commission or Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. It has no Equal Housing Act or Voting Rights Act. No one worries about drawing up voting districts to make sure minorities are elected. There are no noisy ethnic groups trying to influence foreign policy. Japanese do not know what a “hate crime” would be. And they know that an American-style immigration policy would change everything. They want Japan to remain Japanese. This is a universal view among non-whites. Those countries that send the largest numbers of emigrants to the United States—Mexico, India, China—permit essentially no immigration at all. For them, their nations are exclusive homelands for their own people.Most people refuse to share their homelands. Robert Pape, a leading expert on suicide bombing, explains that its motive is almost always nationalism, not religious fanaticism. Whether in Sri Lanka, Lebanon, Chechnya, Kashmir, the West Bank, Iraq, or Afghanistan, its main objective is to drive out occupying aliens.It is only Western nations—and only within the last few decades—that have ever voluntarily accepted large-scale immigration that could reduce the inhabitants to a racial minority. What the United States and other European-derived nations are doing is without historical precedent. "
67 " Under the current rules of American society, whites have no moral grounds to preserve racial majorities in any context, whether in a club, neighborhood, school, region, the nation as a whole, or even in their own families. Somewhere, deep in their bones, whites yearn for the comfort, the ease, the joy of living among their own people in societies that reflect the values of their ancestors. They answer this yearning whenever they move from Southern California to the North, from the city to the suburbs, from diversity to homogeneity. But according to today’s racial dogma, this yearning is evil.There will always be “white Meccas,” enclaves for wealthy whites who can afford them, but with no moral, legal, or practical way to preserve majorities, most whites will eventually come to the end of the road. They will find that the America for which they yearn has disappeared.At what point would it be legitimate for whites to act in their own group interests? When they become a minority? When they are no more than 30 percent of the population? Ten percent? Or must they never be allowed to take any action to ensure that the land in which they live reflects their values, their culture, their manners, their traditions, and honors the achievements of their ancestors? If whites do not cherish and defend these things, no one else will do it for them. If whites do not rekindle some sense of their collective interests they will be pushed aside by people who have a very clear sense of their interests. Eventually, whites will come to understand that to dismantle and even demonize white racial consciousness while other races cultivate racial consciousness is a fatal form of unilateral disarmament.For their very survival as a distinct people with a distinct culture, whites must recognize something all others take for granted: that race is a fundamental part of individual and group identity. Any society based on the assumption that race can be wished or legislated away ensures for itself an endless agony of pretense, conflict, and failure. For 60 years, we have wished and legislated in vain. In so doing, by opening the United States to peoples from every corner of the world, we have created agonizing problems for future generations. As surely as the Communists were mistaken in their hopes of remaking human nature, so have been the proponents of diversity and multi-culturalism.What goals might whites pursue if they had a racial identity like that of other groups? Clearly, they would end immigration; it is not in the interests of whites to be displaced by others. They would also recognize that when whites prefer to live, work, and go to school with people of their own race, that is no different from anyone else wanting to do these things. Whites—and others—should have legal means to preserve local majorities if that is their preference. That preference should not be imposed on anyone who wishes to live in a more Bohemian manner, but it is wrong to condemn whites—and only whites—for instincts science suggests are part of human nature.Another goal of whites would be to end the current propaganda about the advantages of diversity, for it only justifies their dispossession. Whites should also be free—again, like all other groups—to express pride in the accomplishments of their people. "
68 " There was a flap in Fremont, California, about how to celebrate the Fourth. The city put up American flags, to be sure, but vice mayor Steven Cho thought this was not inclusive enough, so the American flag shared honors with flags from 25 other countries, including Qatar and Mongolia.San Francisco celebrates diversity with cash. In 1999, the Cinco de Mayo Carnival and Parade got $162,500, the Japanese Cherry Blossom Parade got $40,000, the American Indian Festival got $27,000, Martin Luther King Day got $21,000, Juneteenth got $13,000, Samoan Flag Day got $12,000, and the Min Sok Korean Festival got $7,500. Veterans were angry to be fobbed off with only $1,000 for Veterans Day. "
69 " The conclusion that race is a serious and durable social fault line is not a popular one in the social sciences. Many scholars have downplayed its importance, and have insisted that class differences are the real cause of social conflict. Political scientist Walker Connor, who has taught at Harvard, Dartmouth, and Cambridge, has sharply criticized his colleagues for ignoring ethnic loyalty, which he calls ethnonationalism. He wrote of “the school of thought called ‘nation-building’ that dominated the literature on political development, particularly in the United States after the Second World War:”'The near total disregard of ethnonationalism that characterized the school, which numbered so many leading political scientists of the time, still astonishes. Again we encounter that divorce between intellectual theory and the real world.'He explained further:'To the degree that ethnic identity is given recognition, it is apt to be as a somewhat unimportant and ephemeral nuisance that will unquestionably give way to a common identity . . . as modern communication and transportation networks link the state’s various parts more closely.'However: “There is little evidence of modern communications destroying ethnic consciousness, and much evidence of their augmenting it.”Prof. Connor came close to saying that any scholar who ignores ethnic loyalty is dishonest:'[H]e perceives those trends that he deems desirable as actually occurring, regardless of the factual situation. If the fact of ethnic nationalism is not compatible with his vision, it can thus be willed away. . . . [T]he treatment calls for total disregard or cavalier dismissal of the undesired facts.'This harsh judgment may not be unwarranted. Robert Putnam, mentioned above for his research on how racial diversity decreases trust in American neighborhoods, waited five years to publish his data. He was displeased with his findings, and worked very hard to find something other than racial diversity to explain why people in Maine and North Dakota trusted each other more than people in Los Angeles.Setting aside the reluctance academics may have for publishing data that conflict with current political ideals, Prof. Connor wrote that scholars discount racial or ethnic loyalty because of “the inherent limitations of rational inquiry into the realm of group identity.”Social scientists like to analyze political and economic interests because they are clear and rational, whereas Prof. Connor argues that rational calculations “hint not at all at the passions that motivate Kurdish, Tamil, and Tigre guerrillas or Basque, Corsican, Irish, and Palestinian terrorists.” As Chateaubriand noted in the 18th century: “Men don’t allow themselves to be killed for their interests; they allow themselves to be killed for their passions.” Prof. Connor adds that group loyalty is evoked “not through appeals to reason but through appeals to the emotions (appeals not to the mind but to the blood).”Academics do not like the unquantifiable, the emotional, the primitive—even if these things drive men harder than the practical and the rational—and are therefore inclined to downplay or even disregard them. "
70 " A 2008 Wall Street Journal article entitled “America’s Universities are Living a Diversity Lie” summed up findings in this area:'To this day, few colleges have even tried to establish that their race-conscious admissions policies yield broad educational benefits. The research is so fuzzy and methodologically weak that some strident proponents of affirmative action admit that social science is not on their side. In reality, colleges profess a deep belief in the educational benefits of their affirmative-action policies mainly to save their necks. They know that, if the truth came out, courts could find them guilty of illegal discrimination against white and Asian Americans.'The New York Times agrees, noting that decades of promoting diversity have not succeeded in getting students to mix. The article concludes:'No one has a formula for success; there is not even a consensus about what success would look like. Experts say that diversity programs on college campuses amount to a constantly evolving experiment, which in some cases in the past may have done more harm than good. "
71 " Most whites in America have a consciousness of race that is very different from that of minorities. They do not attach much importance to the fact that they are white, and they view race as an illegitimate reason for decision-making of any kind. Many whites have made a genuine effort to transcend race and to see people as individuals. They often fail, but their professed goal is color-blindness. Some whites have gone well beyond color-blindness and see their race as uniquely guilty and without moral standing. Neither the goal of color-blindness nor a negative view of their own race has any parallel in the thinking of non-whites.Most whites also believe that racial equality, integration, and “diversity” flow naturally from the republican, anti-monarchical principles of the American Revolution. They may know that Thomas Jefferson owned slaves but they believe that the man who wrote “all men are created equal” had a vision of the egalitarian, heterogeneous society in which we now live. They are wrong. Earlier generations of white Americans had a strong racial consciousness. Current assumptions about race are a dramatic reversal of the views not only of the Founding Fathers but of the great majority of Americans up until the 1950s and 1960s. Change on this scale is rare in any society, and the past views of whites are worth investigating for the perspective they provide on current views.It is possible to summarize the racial views that prevailed in this country until a few decades ago as follows: White Americans believed race was a fundamental aspect of individual and group identity. They believed people of different races differed in temperament, ability, and the kind of societies they built. They wanted America to be peopled by Europeans, and thought only people of European stock could maintain the civilization they valued. They therefore considered immigration of non-whites a threat to whites and to their civilization. It was common to regard the presence of non-whites as a burden, and to argue that if they could not be removed from the country they should be separated from whites socially and politically. Whites were strongly opposed to miscegenation, which they called “amalgamation.”Many injustices were committed in defense of these views, and many of the things prominent Americans of the past said ring harshly on contemporary ears. And yet the sentiment behind them—a sense of racial solidarity—is not very different from the sentiments we find among many non-whites today. "
72 " It is common to assume that multi-racialism is inevitable, and that racial identity will disappear as races mix. Americans prefer to think that the “tragic mulatto,” welcome in neither community, was either a myth or a reflection of outmoded racist thinking. Research suggests things may not be so simple.A 2003 study of 90,000 middle-school and high-school students found that black/white mixed-race children had more health and psychological problems than children who were either black or white. They were more likely to be depressed, sleep badly, skip school, smoke, drink, consider suicide, and have sex. White/Asian children showed similar symptoms. The principal author concluded that the cause was “the struggle with identity formation, leading to lack of self-esteem, social isolation and problems of family dynamics in biracial households.”The authors of a 2008 study reached the same conclusion: “When it comes to engaging in risky/anti-social adolescent behavior, however, mixed race adolescents are stark outliers compared to both blacks and whites. . . . Mixed race adolescents—not having a natural peer group—need to engage in more risky behaviors to be accepted.”A study of white/Asian children found that they were twice as likely as mono-racial children—34 percent vs. 17 percent—to suffer from psychological disorders such as anxiety, depression or drug abuse.Yoonsun Choi of the University of Chicago found that in Seattle middle schools, a clear racial identity seemed to protect against certain problems. Bi-racial children were the group most likely to smoke, take drugs, have been in fights, hurt someone badly, or carry a gun. Prof. Choi believes mixed-race children suffer because no racial group accepts them. “There is some indication that a strong ethnic identity helps protect kids from these [undesirable] behaviors,” she said. "
73 " In 2000, interior minister [of France] Jean-Pierre Chevenement said Europe should become a place of race-mixing (métissage) and that governments should make efforts to persuade Europeans to accept this.In 2007, both candidates in the French presidential election took the same view. Socialist Ségolène Royale, said that “miscegenation is an opportunity for France,” adding that she would encourage immigration and would be “president of a France that is mixed-race and proud of it.” Nicolas Sarkozy, the conservative candidate who won the election, said he was proud of “a France that understands that creation comes from mixing, from openness, and from coming together—I’m not afraid of the word—from miscegenation.”It is common to project contemporary views upon the past. George Washington University professor Amitai Etzioni has written that people who marry across racial lines are “accepting the core American value of openness and living up to its tenets.”Andrew Sullivan, former editor of The New Republic has written that “miscegenation has always been the ultimate solution to America’s racial divisions.”These two got it wrong. For most of American history, miscegenation was the ultimate nightmare for whites. That whites should now see it as the ultimate solution to racial conflict is a sign not only of how radically our thinking has changed but also of how stubborn racial conflict turned out to be. Civil rights laws were supposed to usher in a new era of racial harmony. To propose now that the only solution to racial enmity is to eliminate race itself through intermarriage is to admit that different races cannot live together in peace.Of course, widespread miscegenation would not eliminate race; it would eliminate whites. Whites are no more than 17 percent of the world’s population and are having perhaps seven percent of the world’s children. No one is proposing large-scale intermarriage for Africa or Asia. Nor would mixing eliminate discrimination. Blacks, South Americans, and Asians discriminate among themselves on the basis of skin tone even when they are the same race.Thomas Jefferson looked forward to the day when whites would people the Americas from north to south. Today such a view would be universally scorned because it would mean the displacement of other populations, but the revolution in thinking among today’s whites leaves no grounds to argue against their own displacement through immigration or disappearance through intermarriage. Whites may have a sentimental attachment to the notion of a white America, but if races are interchangeable that attachment is irrational. If the only legitimate group sentiment for whites is guilt, perhaps it is only right that they should retreat gracefully before the advances of peoples they have wronged.There could hardly be more striking proof not only of how the thinking of whites has changed but how different it is from that of every other racial group. All non-whites celebrate their growing numbers and influence—just as whites once did. Whites—not only in America but around the world—cheerfully contemplate their disappearance as a distinct people. "
74 " Although political representation by racial quota is the effect of government policy, it is not yet respectable to call for it explicitly. When President Bill Clinton tried to appoint Lani Guinier as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights her appointment failed, in part because of Miss Guinier’s advocacy of representation by race. In her view, if blacks were 13 percent of the US population, 13 percent of seats in Congress should be set aside for them.It does not cause much comment, however, when the Democratic Party applies this thinking to its selection of delegates to presidential conventions. Each state party files an affirmative action plan with the national party, and many states set quotas. For the 2008 Democratic Convention, California mandated an over-representation of non-white delegates. Blacks, Asians, and Hispanics were only 4.6, 5.2, and 21.1 percent, respectively, of the Democratic electorate, but had to be 16, 9, and 26 percent of the delegates. Other states had similar quotas.Procedures of this kind do lead to diversity of delegates but suggest that race is more important than policy. Perhaps it is. In Cincinnati, where blacks are 40 to 45 percent of the population, Mayor Charlie Luken complained that the interests of blacks and whites seemed so permanently in conflict that “race gets injected into every discussion as a result.”In other words, any issue can become racial. In 2004, the Georgia legislature passed a bill to stop fraud by requiring voters to show a state-issued ID at the polls. People without drivers’ licenses could apply for an ID for a nominal fee. Black legislators felt so strongly that this was an attempt to limit the black vote that they did not merely vote against the law; practically the entire black delegation stormed out of the Capitol when the measure passed over their objections.In 2009, when Congress voted a stimulus bill to get the economy out of recession, some governors considered refusing some federal funds because there were too many strings attached. Jim Clyburn, a black South Carolina congressman and House Majority Whip, complained that rejecting any funding would be a “slap in the face of African-Americans.”Race divides Cook County, Illinois, which contains Chicago. In 2007, when the black president of the county board, Todd Stroger, could not get his budget passed, his floor leader William Beavers-also black—complained that it was “because he’s black.” He said there was only one real question: 'Who’s gonna control the county—white or black—that’s all this is. "
75 " The Nation of Islam is the best known Black Muslim group, though its actual numbers may be no more than 100,000. However, many blacks who are not, themselves, Muslims have great respect for the group’s leader, Louis Farrakhan. Users of the Internet arm of Black Entertainment Television, BET.com, chose him as the black “person of the year” for 2005. Mr. Farrakhan was elected over Oprah Winfrey, then-Senator Barack Obama, Robert L. Johnson, who started BET, and the victims of Hurricane Katrina. “An overwhelming percentage of our users agreed that Minister Farrakhan made the most positive impact on the Black community over the past year,” explained a BET spokesman.What did Mr. Farrakhan do to deserve that honor? He received heavy news coverage twice that year. Once was when he promoted the theory that whites blew up the New Orleans levees to destroy black neighborhoods. The other was when he organized a “Millions More Movement” on the National Mall to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Million Man March. On that occasion, Michael Muhammad, National Youth Minister for the Nation of Islam declaimed: “We want to say to our young brothers of the Crips and the Bloods that we are one family. The real enemy doesn’t wear blue, but white, even when he’s butt naked.”Ayinde Baptiste of the Nation of Islam added: “We are at war here in America. . . . We need soldiers now. We need black male soldiers, we need black feminist soldiers, we need Crips and Bloods soldiers . . . soldiers in the prisons, soldiers in the streets.” The Congressional Black Caucus endorsed the event, and five black congressmen attended it. "
76 " Even if there is no connection between diversity and international influence, some people would argue that immigration brings cultural enrichment. This may seem to be an attractive argument, but the culture of Americans remains almost completely untouched by millions of Hispanic and Asian immigrants. They may have heard of Cinco de Mayo or Chinese New Year, but unless they have lived abroad or have studied foreign affairs, the white inhabitants of Los Angeles are likely to have only the most superficial knowledge of Mexico or China despite the presence of many foreigners.Nor is it immigrants who introduce us to Cervantes, Puccini, Alexander Dumas, or Octavio Paz. Real high culture crosses borders by itself, not in the back pockets of tomato pickers, refugees, or even the most accomplished immigrants. What has Yo-Yo Ma taught Americans about China? What have we learned from Seiji Ozawa or Ichiro about Japan? Immigration and the transmission of culture are hardly the same thing. Nearly every good-sized American city has an opera company, but that does not require Italian immigrants.Miami is now nearly 70 percent Hispanic, but what, in the way of authentic culture enrichment, has this brought the city? Are the art galleries, concerts, museums, and literature of Los Angeles improved by diversity? Has the culture of Detroit benefited from a majority-black population? If immigration and diversity bring cultural enrichment, why do whites move out of those very parts of the country that are being “enriched”?It is true that Latin American immigration has inspired more American school children to study Spanish, but fewer now study French, German, or Latin. If anything, Hispanic immigration reduces what little linguistic diversity is to be found among native-born Americans. [...] [M]any people study Spanish, not because they love Hispanic culture or Spanish literature but for fear they may not be able to work in America unless they speak the language of Mexico.Another argument in favor of diversity is that it is good for people—especially young people —to come into contact with people unlike themselves because they will come to understand and appreciate each other. Stereotyped and uncomplimentary views about other races or cultures are supposed to crumble upon contact. This, of course, is just another version of the “contact theory” that was supposed to justify school integration. Do ex-cons and the graduates—and numerous dropouts—of Los Angeles high schools come away with a deep appreciation of people of other races? More than half a century ago, George Orwell noted that:'During the war of 1914-18 the English working class were in contact with foreigners to an extent that is rarely possible. The sole result was that they brought back a hatred of all Europeans, except the Germans, whose courage they admired. "
77 " Contact theory was wrong--integration does not result in yet more integration--but we never abandoned it. The result is one of the greatest contradictions in American life. Our laws and ideals assume that race is such a trivial matter we can easily ignore it, and yet our daily lives violate those ideals. Despite pro-integration campaigns by schools, the media, churches, and government, every new generation baffles the social engineers by behaving like earlier generations.In a speech in Peoria in October 1854, Lincoln spoke of the tendency of whites to separate from blacks, but he could have been speaking of any group: 'A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, cannot be safely disregarded. "
78 " In 1998, Anthony Williams was elected mayor of Washington, DC. Mr. Williams had attended Harvard and Yale, clearly wanted to run an efficient city government, and had considerable white support. Although he was black, Mr. Williams left many blacks wondering if he was “black enough.” A black writer for the Washington Post raised “the question of whether whites, assuming they care one way or the other, even understand the concept of ‘How black is a black person?’ ” He went on to say that Mayor Williams had fired incompetents, but that “the firings hurt black workers most of all, creating the impression—fairly or unfairly—that he has little or no special concern for people who look like him.” A black politician who is more concerned about efficiency than about jobs for blacks may not be black enough. The writer concluded:“Blackness . . . is a state of common spiritual idealism that serves to unite the group for the purpose of survival. . . . [T]here is not one person of color who can separate himself or herself from the rest of the people of color.”The mayoral election in Washington 12 years later raised exactly the same question. Incumbent Adrian Fenty was black, but not black enough. Like Mr. Williams before him, he hired people for their ability, and not one of his top three appointments in public education was black, nor were the police chief, fire chief, or attorney general. “How can there not be one African-American leader in that cluster?” asked his 2010 challenger, Vincent Gray, also black, in a question that resonated with black voters.Mr. Gray went on to win with 80 percent of the black vote. A columnist who is himself black explained Mr. Fenty’s loss: “In short, the mayor appointed the best people he could find, instead of running a racial patronage system, as a black mayor of a city with a black majority is apparently expected to. "
79 " race is a proxy for politics: Blacks are liberal and whites are conservative. It found that overwhelmingly white Provo, Utah, is the most conservative city in America. The most liberal city, Detroit, is overwhelmingly black. "
80 " [L]et us imagine a mirror image of what is happening today. What if millions of white Americans were pouring across the border into Mexico, taking over parts of cities, speaking English rather than Spanish, celebrating the Fourth of July rather than Cinco de Mayo, sleeping 20 to a house, demanding bilingual instruction and welfare for immigrants, opposing border control, and demanding ballots in English? What if, besides this, they had high rates of crime, poverty, and illegitimacy? Can we imagine the Mexicans rejoicing in their newfound diversity?And yet, that is what Americans are asked to do. For whites to celebrate diversity is to celebrate their own declining numbers and influence, and the transformation of their society. For every other group, to celebrate diversity is to celebrate increasing numbers and influence. Which is a real celebration and which is self-deception?Whites—but only whites—must never take pride in their own people. Only whites must pretend they do not prefer to associate with people like themselves. Only whites must pretend to be happy to give up their neighborhoods, their institutions, and their country to people unlike themselves. Only whites must always act as individuals and never as members of a group that promotes shared interests.Racial identity comes naturally to all non-white groups. It comes naturally because it is good, normal, and healthy to feel kinship for people like oneself. Despite the fashionable view that race is a socially created illusion, race is a biological reality. All people of the same race are more closely related genetically than they are to anyone of a different race, and this helps explain racial solidarity.Families are close for the same reason. Parents love their children, not because they are the smartest, best-looking, most talented children on earth. They love them because they are genetically close to them. They love them because they are a family.Most people have similar feelings about race. Their race is the largest extended family to which they feel an instinctive kinship. Like members of a family, members of a race do not need objective reasons to prefer their own group; they prefer it because it is theirs (though they may well imagine themselves as having many fine, partly imaginary qualities). These mystic preferences need not imply hostility towards others. Parents may have great affection for the children of others, but their own children come first. Likewise, affection often crosses racial lines, but the deeper loyalties of most people are to their own group—their extended family. "
