Jared Taylor’s White Identity

^[1]1,906 words

French version here ^[2]

Jared Taylor
White Identity: Racial Consciousness in the 21st Century ^[3]
Oakton, Va.: New Century Books, 2011

Reading through Jared Taylor’s splendid new book White Identity, I found myself thinking again and again of Allan Bloom’s 1987 book The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students ^[4]. In content, the books could hardly be more different, even though both take aim at reigning liberal illusions. But The Closing of the American Mind surprised everyone by becoming a best-seller, in spite of its intellectually challenging style and serious, politically incorrect message. White Identity is a similarly weighty and sobering book, and if America has any hope of survival, it should enjoy a similar popularity.

The aim of White Identity is to convince intelligent whites that racial “integration” and “diversity” are not sources of strength and enrichment but of inevitable conflict and suffering, because racial consciousness and preferring one’s own race over others are rooted in human nature. Thus they cannot be eradicated, and they can be ignored only at one’s own risk. Whites, however, have made a cult of ignoring and suppressing their racial consciousness, based on the belief that white “racism” (and only white racism) is the source of racial conflict and the suffering and backwardness of other races. Thus the eradication of white racism (and only white racism) will be sufficient to create a society in which all the different races and cultures can mingle in an atmosphere of tolerance and harmony.

Taylor’s audience and source materials are primarily American, but his lessons apply to all white nations where such notions have become prevalent since the Second World War.

The first three chapters of White Identity, “The Failure of Integration,” “The Myth of Diversity—Institutions,” and “The Myth of Diversity—Daily Life” offer an overwhelming factual and logical refutation of the ideas that racial integration, diversity, and multiculturalism are possible to achieve, or good for society even if they could be achieved.

The fourth chapter, “The Science of Human Nature,” offers a masterfully clear and concise summary of the scientific explanation for why racial integration and diversity will inevitably fail. I think that Taylor is wise to focus here entirely on “Genetic Similarity Theory,” which explains the universality of consciousness of genetic similarity and difference (race being one such difference) and preference for those who are genetically similar over those who are genetically different.

In short, Taylor deals with the science of racial difference, not the science of racial inequality. Even if the races were all equal in their genetic capacities, they would still be different, aware of those differences, and inclined to prefer their own over strangers. Taylor thereby sidesteps making invidious comparisons among the races, as well as the dead end of cognitive elitism, which is different from and incompatible with racial nationalism. (Cognitive elitists love intelligence, not their race, which contains dumb as well as smart people.)

Chapters five, six, and seven—“Black Racial Consciousness,” “Hispanic Consciousness,” and “Asian Consciousness”—deal with the robust racial consciousness of America’s three principal non-white groups. Reading these chapters will be a very depressing experience for white liberals, because the inevitable conclusion is that no matter how hard they strive to see the world from a race-blind, universal perspective, non-whites will simply not reciprocate. Thus the white liberal dream of a post-racial world will founder on the rock of non-white racial consciousness, which if anything is only growing stronger as American society becomes more diverse (something that would be predicted by Genetic Similarity Theory). It is another masterstroke to construct an argument for the suicidal futility of multiculturalism on the foundation of reciprocity, a value that deeply resonates with all whites.

Chapter eight, “White Racial Consciousness,” deals with the downfall of white racial consciousness in America. Throughout most of American history, up until the 1950s and 1960s, white racial consciousness was perfectly healthy, meaning that it was in keeping with human nature and the requirements for long-term racial and cultural survival and flourishing. Taylor sums up this consciousness as follows:

White Americans believed race was a fundamental aspect of individual and group identity. They believed people of different races differed in temperament, ability, and the kind of societies they built. They wanted America to be peopled by Europeans, and thought only people of European stock could maintain the civilization they valued. They therefore considered immigration of non-whites a threat to whites and to their civilization. It was common to regard the presence of non-whites as a burden, and to argue that if they could not be removed from the country they should be separated from whites socially and politically. Whites were strongly opposed to miscegenation, which they called “amal­gamation.”

Taylor summarizes the post-World War II consensus about race as follows:

Race is an insignificant matter and not a valid criterion for any purpose—except perhaps for re­dressing wrongs done to non-whites. The races are equal in every respect and are therefore interchangeable. It thus makes no difference if a neigh­borhood or nation becomes non-white or if white children marry outside their race. Whites have no valid group interests, so it is illegitimate for them to attempt to organize as whites. Given the past crimes of whites, any ex­pression of racial pride is wrong. The displacement of whites by non-whites through immigration will strengthen the United States. These are matters on which there is little ground for disagreement; anyone who holds differ­ing views is not merely mistaken but morally suspect.

The fatal flaw of the present consensus is that only white people have become so deracinated, and if abandoning racial consciousness is not reciprocated by other races, then it is akin to unilateral disarmament in the face of hostile, armed enemies. That will not lead to a tolerant, multicultural utopia, but to civil war—hot or cold—in which selfish, race-wise groups out to serve their own interests at the expense of one another and America as a whole will strip whites to the bone. If whites refuse to take our own side in this struggle, we will lose our wealth, our power, our culture, our country, and ultimately our future as we deliver our destiny into the hands of people who hate us for our strengths and despise us for our weakness. It is a path to white dispossession and, ultimately, to white extinction. It is a process that is already well underway, as Taylor demonstrates in his long and depressing final chapter, “The Crisis We Face.”

I have two main criticisms of White Identity.

First, and foremost, although White Identity is beautifully written and constructs a crushing case for its theses through ingenious arguments and a vast array of carefully chosen facts, its conclusions are ultimately rather unambitious. In Taylor’s words:

This book will have been a success if at least a few readers have become open to the possibility that the following statements are true: People of all races generally prefer the company of people like themselves. Racial diversity is a source of conflict, not strength. Non-whites, especially blacks and His­panics, nurture a strong sense of racial pride and solidarity. Whites have little sense of racial solidarity, and most whites strongly condemn any signs of it. Immigration from non-European countries is changing the United States in profound ways, many of which whites find disagreeable. To the extent that these statements are true, they have serious implications both for the country as a whole and for whites as a group.

Taylor succeeds in these aims, but I suspect that for most readers, the overall effect of this book will be despair and inaction. For Taylor offers only the most tepid of practical recommendations: “Clearly our immigration policies should be reexamined.” Or the book’s final words: “Only whites have no racial identity, are constantly on the defensive, and constantly in retreat. They have a choice: regain a sense of identity and the resolve to maintain their numbers, their traditions, and their way of life—or face oblivion.”

The trouble is that Taylor gives no indication of what, precisely, whites need to do to save ourselves, or any indication that it is even possible at this stage. And without a specific and appealing vision of an alternative and some indication of how we might get from here to there, most readers will sensibly conclude that the white race is doomed.

Of course, Taylor may be betting that leaving these matters open will be less discouraging than leveling with people about the harsh and terrible measures necessary to save us. For instance, halting all non-white immigration will slow but not halt our demographic eclipse, since the non-whites who are already here are outbreeding us handily. And do we really want to live in a constant breeding race until the natural world is completely despoiled? The white race has a future in North America only if we can separate ourselves from more than 100 million non-whites, for example through expulsion or territorial partition.

Yes, the book is long enough already, but even a few historical examples of conquered and colonized white peoples who have regained control of their destinies—the Irish, the Spanish, the Russians—would be enough to convince people that all is not lost.

Second, Taylor’s chapter on “White Racial Consciousness” offers nary a clue as to how in the last fifty years or so, healthy white racial consciousness around the globe has become almost completely perverted, setting our race on the path to extinction. But if racial consciousness is so soundly rooted in nature, how can something so contrary to nature even take place? The explanation is to be found in the work of Kevin MacDonald, particularly The Culture of Critique ^[7] and Cultural Insurrections ^[8]: white ethnocentrism, and only white ethnocentrism, has been pathologized by the organized Jewish community as a tool of ethnic warfare against whites. Without the perspective afforded by MacDonald’s work, the shift Taylor chronicles is ultimately mysterious and may give rise to the mistaken view that the white race has essentially been seized by a suicidal impulse.

Still, even with these caveats, White Identity is an important contribution to white survival. It will be particularly effective as a tool for opening the eyes of white liberals and skittish conservatives who can’t yet handle too much truth in one book. But ultimately White Identity is a propaedeutic or introductory book to White Nationalism, which avoids the most uncomfortable yet necessary topics.

Now that White Identity has been launched, I hope Jared Taylor will consider turning his attention to the harder questions, discomfiting though they may be. We certainly need his talents. Jared Taylor turns 60 this year, so surely he has the time. But consider this: Sam Francis was only 57 when he died in 2005. We are in a race against time, all of us.

Sam Francis’ untimely death contains a lesson for us all. Sam knew far more than would say, because he wished to conserve his credibility and audience in anticipation of the day when he would write his magnum opus. But he died before he could spend any of that credibility he saved so carefully.

At a certain point, one has to ask: What are we saving ourselves for? Our race is dying, and those few of us who know this need to stop saving ourselves and start spending ourselves, secure in the knowledge that anything we save will be taken from us by death in the end.

You can buy White Identity here: http://www.amren.com/store/white-identity.htm ^[9]l