What’s Wrong With The Caucasian Club?
By David Huntwork (09/26/03)
Writing a column on race is the political equivalent of walking through a minefield or playing Russian roulette with your reputation.
It is also a striking reminder of how political correctness, the fascist thought control of the Left, has gained nearly complete mastery over the mindset of the American people. Ideological intolerance has choked off true discussion and intellectual interaction on the troubles that do face various ethnic groups in the United States. But without exploratory discussion and varied viewpoints true solutions and understanding cannot be accomplished.
I would like to introduce you to Lisa McClelland, a current freshman at Freedom High School in Oakley, California. To Lisa the Caucasian Club was just a logical step. If there is a Black Student Union for African Americans, a Latinos Unidos for Latin Americans and an ALOHA Club for Asian Americans, then why can't there be a Caucasian Club at her school? She thought that the Caucasian Club would be a place where students could talk about racial dynamics and how one's ethnic background affects people today. A forum to discuss how her "whiteness” affects those who aren't white. She believes that the racial injustices and prejudices of the past” belong in the past." Hardly sounds like a radical, right wing or racist agenda by any stretch of the imagination.
The East County chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People quickly reacted, saying it was "vehemently opposed" to the name of the club. "It's not culturally sensitive to the community we're addressing, especially in light of what had happened there before," said Darnell Turner, the chapter's vice president. "The club, in name, seems like a backdoor approach to separation. From a historical perspective, this will bring up fears." I personally expected them to seize this opportunity for embracing diversity, but I stand corrected. For the local branch of the NAACP to call the Caucasian Club "racially divisive" is pathetically comical.
Lisa is not wrong for wanting to start a Caucasian club but for buying into the mentality of tribalism promoted by the Left. One would think that high school students should be spending a little more time learning about reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmatic, and a little less time being indoctrinated in Liberal views regarding repression, racism and radicalism. There is nothing wrong with being proud of white heritage, culture, or accomplishments but a race based high school club is a poor way to express it.
An academic support or historical appreciation group is one thing but organizations based on race used as vehicles for ethnic, political or ideological attacks or as a platform to launch attacks against whites is quite another. Undisputedly racist groups like La Raza, MEChA and the Nation of Islam are the new segregationists and racial supremacists of the Left. And though “controversial” they are accepted and even supported by many politicians, churches, and members of polite society.
Frankly, the innocent idiocy of an all inclusive racially based club is not Lisa’s to bear. It is but an indictment of the politics of identity. It is the vast laundry list of cultural and class divisions perpetrated by modern Liberalism. So much for the “melting pot”. Those of European descent are lucky if they will be allowed to share space in the same “salad bowl” of American cultural groups. A racially based group by definition is divisive, exclusionary, and encourages people to identify each other first and foremost by their skin color or racial heritage. I have seen white heritage properly celebrated with a Celtic Festival, the Renaissance festival, various medieval reenactment societies, historical preservation societies and the like. The obvious difference is the benign cultural or historical emphasis and the complete lack of a political or ideological agenda at such gatherings.
That’s the tragedy of the Left’s perpetration of what they define as Multiculturalism and Diversity. The Left in attacking the proposed Caucasian club and other similar harmless organizations reveals what has long been suspected. It is a philosophy of separatism, division and segregationalism. Underneath it all is a deep and underlying hatred of Western Civilization. College kookery is now becoming popular political culture.
The politics of self-segregation and tribalism is sad. Those who so bitterly fought whites only food counters now desperately strive for racially segregated lounges, student unions and campus clubs. How far and yet how little we have traveled. It is the conservative wing of American politics which has embraced the dream of Martin Luther King Jr. for a colorblind society where little black children and little white children would be allowed to play together. It is not those who instill the debilitating virus of victimization into yet another generation of non-whites. If we prioritize race before all others the idea of a strong multi-ethnic society is dead on arrival. Instead we will be faced with the reality that all that has been achieved is a Balkanized America mired in its own web of racial suspicion, hatred, envy and blame.
If you reverse the phenomenon of a racially based culture you get a sense of how far down the wrong path society has really gone. How about the White Entertainment Network, the NAAWP, White Studies, Congressional White Caucus, White History Month, United Caucasian College Fund and Miss White America? The obvious outrage this would cause should also be directed at those who merely inject a different crayola color in front of each of these concepts.
Imagine a society where to have any self worth and any sense of identity one had to join the Celtic club, the Aryan Alliance or People for the Ethical Treatment of Europeans (PETE). The best part about this little incident is that it has exposed the hypocrisy of such race based clubs, organizations and events and the system that has put them into place and practice.
While disguised as support groups, racial advocacy groups inevitably degenerate into studies of primitive tribalism and beliefs, the celebration of pagan gods like Quetzalcoatl and the blood cults of the Aztecs, a rejection of Christianity, political and territorial separatism, radical politics, the philosophy of victimization, support of illegal immigration, fear of the tyrannical dangling chad and increased hatred of Western Civilization in general. Racial harmony or understanding is never the outcome despite the propaganda and rhetoric surrounding them. Instead they fuel suspicion, ideological intolerance, radical indoctrination and hatred.
On my college campus the groups exercising overt racial epitaphs, racial intimidation, hostility and division was not the Klan or the White Aryan Resistance but the Black Student Alliance, MEChA and a catch-all minority and liberal white student group called the Progressive Revolutionary Alliance. As a conservative white male my status as a student organization leader, student senator and collegiate newspaper columnist guaranteed me and my political allies a healthy helping of the brotherly love fostered by such inclusive racial organizations.
In the end America as a nation, culture and society must come to the same conclusions. First and foremost, we should look to the future and not dwell in the past. There should be agreement across all ethnic and racial lines to strengthen our nation while valuing its foundations and traditions. We should seek to improve our civilization, not dismantle it. Common sense dictates that success, hard work and good grades should be encouraged and rewarded, not ridiculed as acting “white”. Pouting in the corner or playing the blame game will not overcome the racism of the past and the prejudices of the present. To succeed in the modern age one must learn the common language, sever ties with the mentality of the welfare state, cast off the oppression of the ideology of victimization, and build upon the fundamental principles of liberty while seizing the opportunities of the American dream.
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