White not Racist

“…a notable number of poll participants also bristled at the assertion that white power ideology is a real problem…‘You do realize white nationalists and racists are two totally different types of people?’ wrote another anonymous Air Force staff sergeant.”

Does that seem hard to believe? That is a quote from the United States Military Times. Setting aside questions of the current beliefs of at least some of the United States armed forces for the scope of this article, there’s something in that statement that screams of a deep misunderstanding of what racism actually is. But that isn’t the misunderstanding I want to correct (nor even try, if all of human history and current society cannot).

I often see a deep misunderstanding, or even outright confusion, at the resurgence of white nationalism. The cry of ‘racism’, which has worked in the past to convince people to re-examine their beliefs, no longer seems to work – the claim of ‘We’re not racist, you’re racist for accusing me of racism’ springs up immediately.

White nationalism isn’t racist. In fact, some white nationalists even scorn racists with the same fervor as the Left. Perhaps this is even the birth of a new allyship – the white nationalist who just wants an ethno-state…

It wouldn’t be unfair to say that by most definitions of the term, white nationalism – explicitly exclusionary to non-white populations – is racist. The belief that whites should have their own states (typically in territories already inhabited by not insignificant minority populations), a white ethno-state in other words, has been called racist throughout history. White nationalism being racist wasn’t an especially controversial idea, either – few deny the Nazi program of Lebensraum was racist – but therein lies the rub. For many white nationalists, especially those in the Allied countries, their ideology was never racist, in opposition to the genocidal Nazis.

When South Africa was founded by Dutch colonists under British control, racial segregation was not a formal policy quite yet. It took the election of the National Party to formalize the system we call ‘apartheid’ – and, like the comparable systems of Jim Crow segregation in the US South, was explicitly justified by its adherents not by what we would call racism today, but by their belief of ‘Christian civilization’.

“The separation of races happened long before the Nationalist Government. God separated the races.” – PW Botha

“It is very appropriate that from this cradle of the Confederacy, this very heart of the great Anglo-Saxon Southland, that today we sound the drum for freedom as have our generations of forebears before us time and again down through history. Let us rise to the call for freedom-loving blood that is in us and send our answer to the tyranny that clanks its chains upon the South. In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever.” – George Wallace

The specter of segregation has once again reared its ugly head, after the struggles and sacrifices of the 20^th century to remove it. How? These arguments have been drawn from not only the racist history of the 20^th century, but to justifications for slavery, for colonialism, even as far back as the Catholic Crusades and probably before. Some may point to the tribal nature of the belief, and of the inherent tribal structure of humans – yet the composition of the tribe keeps shifting. First, it was only noble men, or those who were chieftains and warlords of their tribes. Then it was noble Christian men, and later all Christians as the necessity of men for combat widened. And now, it is simply white – after all, as much as ‘Christian civilization’ is invoked by those seeking a white ethno-state, Hitler’s enterprise was intertwined with Nordic mysticism, and many of the extant neo-Nazi groups parrot the worship of Odin and other pagan gods.

But the ‘Christian’ moniker hides the truth, and the distinction, between ‘racism’ and ‘white nationalism’. To be a Christian, in the eyes of its adherents, is to be morally good. That is the true value of this religious belief, or this ethno-religious belief, that to be a Christian is good, and anything else, bad. And, if one proclaims Christ as their lord, they are good.

But racism is bad. People have always realized that to discriminate against someone else based on outward characteristics, unjustified by religion or science, is bad. Thus, they are not racist – that would be bad, evil. They do not hate – that is proscribed by the Christian god. But…of course they do. Can it be said to be anything but cruelty at Abu Ghraib, in the Arizona desert, at segregation rallies and counter-protests in support of police brutality?

To assume that, that those supporters of white nationalism share what you or I may consider a common morality, is to misunderstand their worldview entirety. God made the races, you see. And God ordained differences between them. And God set the white man above the Negro, the Indian, the Chinese, the Slav and the degenerate Jew.

To us, that is a crass justification, a position holding no merit, but again – for those supporters of white nationalism, for the white nationalist, that is the utmost, obvious truth, and they will repeat it to exhaustion, as confused as you are as to why you do not seem to grasp the fact. To be a racist is to be bad, evil, to engage in acts and beliefs counter to a good Christian man. But to be a white nationalist is to be a God-fearing, upstanding member of civilization.

White nationalists do not stand for barbarism and hate. Their reactions, when accused of racism, will always be denial and anger, for in their mind, being accused of racism is the same of being accused of atheism, or Satan worship. Their idea of racism, one of a moral and character failing, is one commonly shared by all groups, non-white nationalists included, and they reject it just as anyone else would.

Thus they are not racist. Racists are bad and evil people who will be punished by God in due time. That is why the blacks are racists, why the Muslims are racist, why everyone but themselves are racist. They simply acknowledge the universal, God-given truth that the White Race is the superior one, and if other races are not in agreement, then the other races must be racist.

Obviously, then, we start to understand the denial of the ‘racist’ moniker by white nationalists, and the confusion and incredulity espoused by that anonymous army sergeant in 2018 by the conflation of the two terms. But how do you explain, then, or even hold a conversation with white nationalists? How do you explain to your MAGA-loving coworker or neighbor that their views are irredeemably racist?

The sad fact of the matter is you will not. Or at least, I have not been able to. My own ethnic background is mixed – Slavic and South Asian – but I had many friends of the MAGA crowd. I was their ‘I have a black friend’ defense. But to them, Western civilization, Christian civilization, is under attack. And if the black, the brown, the Asian, the Jew are not willing to fall in line and accept the Christian, imperial dogma, then the white man has no choice but to separate. What that means for the minority populations living there – well, history has shown us the consequences of such ideology.