Do I believe in racial separatism?

Undercover Black Man writes:

I have a question, Mr. Auster. You’ve taken offense at Robert Spencer’s use of the words “racist” and “white supremacism” to characterize some of your ideas. Your supporter Stephen describes Mr. Spencer’s characterization as “pretty low,” not to mention “inaccurate.” Which means the nature and scope of your racialism is directly at issue. Especially since four days ago you approvingly cited the Western Survival blog by a guy known as Mark. And Mark’s dream vision of America includes this: “Carve off portions of the United States for non-whites to live in, and require them to move out of the remaining white portion.”

There’s confusion afoot, so perhaps you need to speak more specifically. Here’s my question, as Louis Jordan might’ve phrased it: Is you is or is you ain’t a white separatist? You told me in an email last week, “I don’t have a separationist program.” But that’s not my question. Do you believe that the survival of white people in America might one day require a “separation between the races”?

LA replies:

First, the statement by Mark that UBM quotes was not in the blog entry I said I agreed with. UBM, as he has done in the past, is being excessively prosecutorial, implying that I am associated with views that I never even read or said anything about. I also said that I disagreed with Mark’s embrace of “racism.” Second, I’ve never wanted or advocated racial separatism, meaning the division of the U.S. into racially designated regions (though I have nothing against normal racial self-segregation on the local scale, and I certainly think it would be better for whites and blacks if, at least in some cases, we went back to racially separate schools). Of course I’ve followed the debates about separatism. There was a very interesting debate between Sam Francis and Rabbi Mayer Schiller years ago in which, as I remember, Schiller said that whites should pull into white enclaves, and Francis said that that was surrender and that whites could take back America. I agreed with Francis. I want America to continue being a country, a single country. But it can only continue being a country if its historic Anglo-European majority remains the majority and recovers its former identity as a people which it had up to the 1960s. (See my infamous “evilcon” article, “What is European America?”)

But of course, that may not happen. Many people on the right think some kind of civil war is inevitable, and if that happens, then obviously all bets, all our preferred scenarios, are off. So I don’t favor separatism, but if the country does find itself in a racial (or rather multi-racial) civil war, where life becomes very dangerous, then, the answer to your question, “Do you believe that the survival of white people in America might one day require a ‘separation between the races’?” would be yes. But at that point it would be a matter of sheer survival, not something I thought was desirable in itself.

By the way, in an earlier exchange at VFR with Undercover Black Man, when he kept repeating baseless charges against me that I had already fully replied to, I got annoyed and said something to him I should not have said. I have subsequently apologized to him.

- end of initial entry -

James N. writes:

So why do I not live in the New York City of my forebears? Why do I live in the woods, in an exclusively white town in one of the whitest states in the Union?

Did I move here because it was so white? Certainly not. Did I move here because everyone is friendly, there’s no crime, and life is sweet? Certainly yes.

Tens of millions of white Americans have migrated from mixed areas to predominantly white areas since 1965. If you count their children, there may be a hundred million. The electoral map has changed accordingly. Seen for what it is, it’s one of the largest mass migrations in history, and certainly the largest voluntary one (if you regard it as voluntary).

Are they all white separatists? Is it treason to answer,”perhaps”?

LA replies:

James writes: “Did I move here because it was so white? Certainly not. Did I move here because everyone is friendly, there’s no crime, and life is sweet? Certainly yes.”

Years ago I went with a friend to Jones Beach. It was very non-white, very crowded, and there were loud radios playing everywhere. We were told there was one section of the beach where radio playing was not allowed. We moved our stuff there. All the people in that section were white. We weren’t seeking a “white” section of the beach, just a place without radios playing, but by looking for a radio-free area we got a whites-only area as well.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 08, 2006 11:06 PM | Send