"John Knight" <jwknight at polbox.com> wrote:
>The purpose is to prevent whites from appreciating and
>absorbing their own culture
There is no "white culture".
There is "Western culture" which excludes the whites of Asia and
includes the non-whites of South America; there might be something
called "European culture" that excludes the Western Hemisphere as well
as Asia, but there really are limits to that which is shared by
Britain and Albania, Spain and Russia.
>To the questions, "who am I, what am I," the white university graduate
>answers: "a racist, sexist, homophobic oppressor."
I'm a white university graduate, and my answer is "a human being" to
both questions. Unlike the nincompoop.
>Neither parents, trustees, alumni, nor the public are aware of the
>anti-white propaganda that masquerades as education. When someone who is
>aware tells them, they think the person is exaggerating in order to make a
>point.
Probably because s/he is.
>Now comes Harvard educated Noel Ignatiev, an academic at Harvard's W.E.B.
>DuBois Institute for African-American Research. Dr. Ignatiev is the founder
>of a journal, Race Traitor, which has as its motto, "treason to whiteness is
>loyalty to humanity."
>>The journal's purpose is "to abolish the white race."
A sound idea. There is no such thing as the "white race" except in
the minds of certain nutcases who seek a racial explanation of
everything.
It appears that Dr. Ignatiev is attempting to provoke controversy and
make a name for himself and his ideas through his provocative
expression.
I can't say that I support him, but I don't think he is "wrong" is the
way the nincompoop is always "wrong".
>At the least, Dr. Ignatiev intends cultural and psychological genocide for
>whites.
You cannot commit cultural genocide when there is no culture. It is
clear that Dr. I has no problem with the preservation of Irish
culture, German culture, Spanish culture, Greek culture.
Dr. I most clearly does NOT intend psychological genocide, whatever
that may be. The poster seems to try to set up a strawman, which
anyone reading Dr. I's site will find is erroneous.
Here is his mission statement:
>What We Believe
>>The white race is a historically constructed social formation. It
> consists of all those who partake of the privileges of the white skin
> in this society. Its most wretched members share a status higher, in
> certain respects, than that of the most exalted persons excluded from
> it, in return for which they give their support to a system that
> degrades them.
>>The key to solving the social problems of our age is to abolish the
^^^^^^^^^^^
> white race, which means no more and no less than abolishing the
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> privileges of the white skin. Until that task is accomplished, even
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> partial reform will prove elusive, because white influence permeates
> every issue, domestic and foreign, in US society.
>>The existence of the white race depends on the willingness of those
> assigned to it to place their racial interests above class, gender,
> or any other interests they hold. The defection of enough of its
> members to make it unreliable as a predictor of behavior will lead to
> its collapse.
>>RACE TRAITOR aims to serve as an intellectual center for those seeking
> to abolish the white race. It will encourage dissent from the
> conformity that maintains it and popularize examples of defection
> from its ranks, analyze the forces that hold it together and those
> that promise to tear it apart. Part of its task will be to promote
> debate among abolitionists. When possible, it will support practical
> measures, guided by the principle, Treason to whiteness is loyalty to
> humanity.
http://racetraitor.org/freetobeme.html
>According to press reports and our own correspondents, the white race
> is showing signs of fracture in the rural midwest. Several female
> students at North Newton Junior-Senior High School near Morocco,
> Indiana, who call themselves the "Free to Be Me" group, recently
> started braiding their hair in dreadlocks and wearing baggy jeans and
> combat boots, a style identified with Hip-Hop culture.
Expressing positive thoughts about a group of students advocating the
concept "free to be me" sounds like the antithesis of "psychological
genocide".
>It is unclear whether physical extermination is part of the program.
Only because the poster is incapable of reading the site. The
following specifically disavows that, though the mission statement
should have made it clear.
http://racetraitor.org/abolish.html
>The white race is a historically constructed social formation -
> historically constructed because (like royalty) it is a product of
> some people's responses to historical circumstances; a social
> formation because it is a fact of society corresponding to no
> classification recognized by natural science.
>>...
>>The white race is a club, which enrolls certain people at birth,
> without their consent, and brings them up according to its rules. For
> the most part the members go through life accepting the benefits of
> membership, without thinking about the costs. When individuals
> question the rules, the officers are quick to remind them of all they
> owe to the club, and warn them of the dangers they will face if they
> leave it.
>>RACE TRAITOR aims to dissolve the club, to break it apart, to explode
> it. Some people who sympathize with our aim have asked us how we
> intend to win over the majority of so-called whites to anti-racism.
> Others, usually less friendly, have asked if we plan to exterminate
> physically millions, perhaps hundreds of millions, of people. Neither
> of these plans is what we have in mind. The weak point of the club is
> its need for unanimity. Just as the South, on launching the Civil
> War, declared that it needed its entire territory and would have it,
> the white race must have the support of all those it has designated
> as its constituency, or it ceases to exist.
>>...
>>RACE TRAITOR exists, not to make converts, but to reach out to those
> who are dissatisfied with the terms of membership in the white club.
> Its primary intended audience will be those people commonly called
> whites who, in one way or another, understand whiteness to be a
> problem that perpetuates injustice and prevents even the
> well-disposed among them from joining unequivocally in the struggle
> for human freedom. By engaging these dissidents in a journey of
> discovery into whiteness and its discontents, we hope to take part,
> together with others, in the process of defining a new human
> community. We wish neither to minimize the complicity of even the
> most downtrodden of whites with the system of white supremacy nor to
> exaggerate the significance of momentary departures from white rules.
Given the above, their applauding of "white" girls wearing dreadlocks
as a form of self-expressing seems quite consistent.
>A statement by the editors on the web site says that the new abolitionists
>>"do not limit themselves to socially acceptable means of protest, but reject
>in advance no means of attaining their goal."
But their goal is not what is implied by the poster. And their
methods are not what is implied either:
http://racetraitor.org/unreasonableact.html
>The way to abolish the white race is to disrupt that conformity. If
> enough people who look white violate the rules of whiteness their
> existence cannot be ignored. If it becomes impossible for the
> upholders of white rules to speak in the name of all who look white,
> the white race will cease to exist. The abolitionists are traitors to
> the white race; by acting boldly they jeopardize their membership in
> the white club and their ability to draw upon its privileges.
...
>Finally, we know how devilishly difficult it is for individuals to
> escape whiteness. The white race does not voluntarily surrender a
> single member, so that even those who step outside of it in one
> situation find it virtually impossible not to step back in later, if
> for no other reason than the assumptions of others. But we also know
> that when there comes into being a critical mass of people who,
> though they look white, have ceased to act white, the white race will
> undergo fission, and former whites will be able to take part,
> together with others, in building a new human community.
>What "social construct" will be left? A black one? An Hispanic one? Muslim?
>Asian? What about Jewish?
I think he would rather that all "social constructs" that define a
person socially by their birth be abolished. He would rather that
people define themselves as individuals. However, he doesn't address
any other social construct besides the white race.
Actually, I'll amend that. In
http://racetraitor.org/otherraces.html
He apparent identifies "whiteness" with the "master" race that he
believes is implicit in a capitalist society wherein some are
"masters" and some are "slaves". In this he seems to adopt some
Marxist concepts, and he is described in one article as being a
onetime Marxist advocate. But I have no trouble keeping his economic
ideas separate from his sociological ones.
>The Washington Times reports that Dr. Ignatiev is himself Jewish.
No. It says his parents were Jewish. Since Ignatiev is reported to
be a Marxist, he may not consider himself to be Jewish.
>If Jewish
>intellectuals and Israeli political leaders can be believed, Jews have a
>cultural and racial consciousness. Israel is the Jewish homeland, and
>Israelis seem determined to keep it that way. Can anyone imagine a gentile
>at an Israeli university founding a magazine devoted to abolishing the
>Jewish race?
I suspect he wouldn't use such words. But he wouldn't need to.
>Yet, Dr. Ignatiev believes that it is self-evident that whites in their
>homelands should be abolished.
No. He believes that it is self-evident that the fact that they are
considered "white" should be abolished; he would rather that they be
considered "human".
>Where did he get this view? His only education was at Harvard where he
>received two graduate degrees.
Anyone who thinks that one's education starts and ends with where they
went to college is a nincompoop. But we already knew that.
>Is Harvard embarrassed? No. Dr. Ignatiev [ignatiev at fas.harvard.edu] is
>showcased in the current issue of Harvard Magazine. Getting rid of whiteness
>is not controversial at Harvard, because it is the business of American
>universities.
Actually, it apparently IS controversial at Harvard. From the
Washington Times:
>His colleagues at Harvard seem not to take his proposal entirely
> seriously. Others cite the article as an example of Harvard's
> institutional racism.
>The privilege of being white is that whites can secretly believe they are
>superior and, as long as they don't mention it, be loyal to the white race.
Indeed. And Dr. I. seems to think that is an ungood thing.
>But Dr. Ignatiev has an idea like Hitler. A race is guilty and must go. The
>communists said it was a guilty class that had to go.
Dr. I's idea is more like the Communists than like Hitler. You can
eliminate a class or a race other than by killing people - you get
them to think of themselves as not being in that class or race.
lojbab
