I get a form of this spam letter every other week and have ignored the contents. Just the other day, however, I heard someone refer to an argument that it contains, take that argument seriously, and so now seemed like a good time to respond to “David.”
Dear David,
I have taught honors college students for twenty years and am working with a great team to start a new college program. The last school where I worked had one of the most diverse student bodies in the United States and my present employer, The Saint Constantine School, has a student body that looks like Houston, Texas: the most diverse city in the United States.
This has been joyful. Why? Real education is full of wonder and wondering requires good questions. We can look decent answers up using Google, but asking the right questions is much harder. Having a diversity of voices, vantage points, and ideas is helpful, because it keeps us from becoming insular. Diversity is not the only good, but diversity is good.
With this in mind, let me respond to each claim in your email. I will keep your bits in block quote and I will respond beneath.
Hi, everyone. I’m a 19 years old, in college, and am active in the College Republicans and YAF.
Where do you go? Being a traditional Republican on campus can be hard, so it would help to know the context. Are you at a school with strong freedom of speech protections? If not, be careful. Some conservatives made the mistake of fighting the Red Shirts (Communists) by voting for the Brown Shirts (Fascists). “Nobody could be worse than the Communists, atheists who murdered millions!” they thought. This was wrong. There was something worse.
Don’t get pulled to extremes.
Like all my friends my age, I’m completely sick of political correctness. You should sit in on my classes for a day and listen to the shrill anti-white hatred that takes place on American campuses.
Let me assume you do hear shrill anti-white hatred daily. I have former students who got a big dose of this from some grad school teachers. Think. There are many professors at your school. You might take the class with someone else, but here is a better idea. Use this moment of hearing bad ideas (and hatred is always bad) to think. Why does this smart person believe this?
Before you dismiss an idea, any idea, figure out why a smart person holds that idea!
It is in this vein that I would like to launch some groups for pro-white activism.
At this point, I am at a loss how you will define “white.” Does this include my Cuban friends who have pale skin, but think of themselves as Latino or Latina? Are Northern Italians “white,” but Southern Italians not White? What about my church? We are mostly Arab. Unless you can define your terms isn’t there the risk that you will be the “not them” group?
What makes a person “white?” Is it passing as white in a racist culture? Nobody, certainly no Christian, would want to start a group to defend that kind of classification.
I know what you’re going to say: “Oh, no, that’s wrong.”
Actually, the first thing I thought was: “What is it to be white? What do you mean?” My second thought is this: “Is the amount of power in the USA that “white” Americans hold in line with the percentage of the population or the contributions made?” These are complicated questions, but I do not feel threatened. My family is almost entirely Anglo-Saxon and we came to this country in the 1630’s. I am guessing we would fit any definition of white.
But listen. Blacks have the NAACP. Mestizos have La Raza. Asians have the 80-20 Initiative. Indians have the USINPAC.
African-Americans were enslaved for centuries. Hispanic Americans come from nations that have a variety of experiences with America. They are a minority that has been exploited for labor in many industries. Asian-Americans have had diverse experiences, but Chinese Americans were used for dangerous labor early in our history and then banned by law. Japanese-Americans were sent to internment camps. Whatever it is to be a “white” American, there is no comparable history.
It’s about time we whites have our own advocacy groups.
Why? What is at risk? I do not think that some bad professors are a good enough reason for identity politics for the American majority.
And before you say, “we don’t need any groups,” remember that blacks, mestizos, asians, etc. are not going to “disarm” and do away with their advocacy groups, because it’s in their interest to have them.
“White” Americans are at least 63% of the population and many Latino and Latina Americans identify as “white.” There has never been and is not about to be no widespread oppression of “white” people in the USA. Where are such laws?
I’m only asking the same for whites.
Justice demands equals be treated equally. A minority is not “equal” to a majority. As a result, the minority will need to do things to protect their rights the majority does not need to do. That is just. The USA has little or no history of enslaving “white” persons, so we do not need such groups for “white” persons.
And no hate. I do not want to see any hate directed at other races.
This is an excellent goal. We agree. However, I still do not see a bad college class or two (the only evidence you have discussed) as meriting a white advocacy group.. I am sure you know the history of these groups is bad. None have managed to avoid hate. Most have been involved in terrorism and murder. Shouldn’t you be more careful than you are being?
No, this is about love — whites loving and supporting our own.
What does it mean to love “our own?” Do I have a special love for Anglo-Saxons? I do not. Why do I care? My children have married and will marry a variety of national groups. Good. Who cares? Why are “white” people “my own?” I can see why a group that was enslaved and is presently the subject of widespread discrimination would develop group solidarity, but I see no reason I need to do so.
In fact, given the history of groups proclaiming “white” solidarity, I would rather not.
So, what do you say?
No.
Will you join me and thousands of other college students fed up with anti-white political correctness?
No. I will not fight “political correctness” by becoming politically correct in my own enclave. I will listen, learn, repent, and lvoe my neighbor as myself God helping me.
Don’t you think that whites have the right to continue to exist?
Does anyone doubt this? Assuming there is such a thing as “white,” then as souls created in God’s image, they have the right to exist. I have yet to meet anyone who denies this truth.
White people exist.
Maybe, though you have not defined what it is to be white.
White people have the right to exist.
All people have a limited, though not absolute right to exist. People I suspect you call “white” are fading out, because we have chosen not to make babies. So? I doubt a single person ever used birth control to avoid children, because a prof at college taught a PC class.
White people have the right to exist as white people.
I am not sure of this statement. I see no right in the Bible, the Constitution, or natural law to be “white.”
In short, this does not seem well thought out. Here is an idea; join Christians in a universal family of God. Decide to end the oppression of people of color and be jolly about whatever your cultural heritage is.
This is hard, but it is our task.
Under the Mercy,
JMN Reynolds
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