“There is no way to justify smothering one group’s diversity while celebrating other groups’ diversity.”
From http://www.resistingdefamation.org
There are four principal negative stereotypes that are used to demean and degrade European Americans. These negative stereotypes are persistently incorporated by publishers in America’s school texts, by the dominant media culture in articles and editorials, and by the corporate entertainment culture in films and videos, to the great harm of every European-origin man, woman, and child in North America.
These negative stereotypes are buttressed and reinforced by the slurs, hate caricatures, and white-bashing canards that are also discussed in this syllabus. Resisting Defamation believes that young European Americans should live their lives free from these hate stereotypes.
“Homogeneous Whites” Stereotype
The first negative stereotype in the campaign of defamation is that Americans of European origin are not a diverse ethnic group. This is the “homogeneous whites” stereotype.The most recent diaspora of indigenous Europeans to North America began in A.D.1492. (http://www.centerfirstamericans.com/mt.php?a=46.) Since A.D.1492, millions of Europeans have migrated here and now tens of millions of diverse European Americans live in the United States.
European Americans are diverse in religion. Some follow no religion at all.
European Americans are diverse in country of origin. They come from Iceland, Hungary, England, Spain, Bavaria, Portugal, Serbia, Italy, Ireland, Belarus, Greece, Slovakia, Ukraine, France, Germany, Scotland, Isle of Man, Saxony, Belgium, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Brittany, Prussia, Cornwall, Wales, Croatia, Russia, Norway, and other European countries and principalities.
European Americans are diverse in ethnicity. Some of these ethnic categories are Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Gallic, Iberian, Italic, Greek, Germanic, Basque, Scandinavian, and Slavic.
European Americans are diverse in home country language. There are over fifty indigenous languages and dialects in Europe. Only a relatively few Europeans speak English as a native language.
European Americans are diverse in how long they or their families have lived in North America. Some families have been here for hundreds of years, but at least a third of all European American families have either a grandparent or parent who immigrated here.
European Americans are diverse in wealth. Over half of all the people in the United States who live below the poverty line are European Americans. In fact, more European Americans in the USA live below the poverty line than the total number of African Americans living in the US.
The homogeneous whites stereotype is a powerful weapon in the campaign of defamation because it denies knowledge of diverse European American cultures and histories to European American children, thus rendering them unable to participate effectively in our multicultural world.
The diversity of European Americans is uniformly smothered by print and electronic media. Writers and newscasters suppress all mention of European American ethnic and cultural diversity by using terms like “WASP,” “white boy,” “anglo,” “white privilege,” “acting white,” and other terms that describe all European Americans as identical clones of one another. The philosophical names for this practice are foundationalism, essentialism, and reductionism. The practical terms for this practice of smothering European American diversities are racism, hate speech, and bigotry.
[In this syllabus, “anglo” in italics always refers to the Spanish language epithet applied to European Americans by South and Central Americans as a way to smother European American diversity and to claim a supremacist position, and does not refer to the “Anglo” that is properly part of the English language ethnic name, Anglo-Saxon.
The dominant media culture stridently opposes recognition of European American diversity, and maligns those who insist on public recognition of this diversity.
On the other hand, the same dominant media and corporate entertainment cultures demand that European Americans recognize and respect the diversity within the African American, Latin American, Asian American, and American Indian communities.
There is no way to justify smothering one group’s diversity while celebrating other groups’ diversity.
“White Racism” Stereotype
The second negative stereotype in the campaign of defamation is that European Americans are somehow more racist, or especially racist, when compared with members of other ethnic groups. This is the white racism stereotype.
A northern California example of this stereotype was voiced in public discourse in A.D.1991 and A.D.1992 by Anastasia Steinberg who was Hate Crimes Coordinator for Santa Clara County and, at the same time, on the local governing board of the http://wvwnews.net/story.php?id=413. Ms. Steinberg stated the stereotype as follows:
“The profile of the hate criminal is the white male between 19 and 26.”
Her profile statement has become known to hate speech experts as http://resistingdefamation.org/sub/g20.htm. It was publicly discredited by a Japanese American Deputy Police Chief of San Jose in September 1992 when he disclosed the actual 1991 statistics for local hate crime suspects: there were 85 hate crimes in San Jose with a total of 91 suspects in 1991. Contradicting Steinberg’s Lie, only 22 of the suspects were European Americans for a share of only 24% overall. This contrasts strongly with the fact that European Americans made up about 45% of San Jose’s population at that time.
All national, statewide, county, and city statistics about the commission of http://resistingdefamation.org/sub/g7.htm (as opposed to prosecution of hate crimes and publicity about hate crimes) conclusively demonstrate that European Americans perpetrate a smaller share of hate crimes than their share of the population.
Fundamentally, the white racism stereotype is a way to slander European Americans as a shameful and debased people in order to silence them.
“Victimless Majority” Stereotype
The third negative stereotype in the campaign of defamation is that European Americans are never victims of hate speech or hate crimes. This is the victimless majority stereotype.
This hurtful stereotype is promoted by malicious people who argue, directly or indirectly, that members of European American ethnic or kinship groups are not victimized by hate speech or hate crimes.
However, the San Jose Police Department reported that there were 27 European American victims out of the total 90 hate crime victims in San Jose in A.D.1991. That is, European Americans provided 30% of all hate crime victims in San Jose in A.D.1991.
At least four young ordinary European or European American men were murdered in A.D.1990 in the San Francisco Bay Area in racially-motivated murders: Larry O. Brown in San Jose, Paul O’Meara in San Francisco, Scott Quackenbush in Daly City, and John Sheehy in Berkeley. Successive years have seen neither a diminution in numbers of European American murders nor an increase in willingness by media to report these shocking hate crimes.
One version of this stereotype is known as http://resistingdefamation.org/sub/g18.htm. Bay Area ADL leader Barbara H. Bergen expressed this stereotype by letter to the San Francisco Chronicle printed on 3/18/98, a portion of which follows:
“Clearly, every minority group which has felt the pain and outrage of bias-motivated violence needs to speak out to demand better attention to and education about the problem of intolerance in our city and our society.”
Her limitation of pain and outrage to members of minority group members is an incitement of hatred toward European Americans as well as a mean-spirited restatement of the victimless majority stereotype.
Even though Barbara H. Bergen denies that European Americans are victims of hate crimes, the http://caag.state.ca.us/cjsc/pubs.htm tells another story. His “Hate Crime In California 1999” report shows that no fewer than 834 European American residents in California have been victims of serious hate crimes from A.D.1995 through A.D.1999.
The argument that European Americans are not victimized by hate speech and hate crimes is pathological. European American children and adults are frequently victimized by hate speech and hate crimes.
European Americans have a duty to speak out to demand that European American victims of bias-motivated violence are recognized and respected.
“Passive Ethnicity” Stereotype
The fourth negative stereotype in the campaign of defamation is that European Americans lack the right of self-designation and the right to a continental-origin or ethnic voice. This is the passive ethnicity stereotype.
Americans of diverse European origins do have the right to decide what label will be applied to them. Newspapers and members of other continental-origin groups often seek to name, label, and describe European Americans, resulting in confusing and demeaning descriptions that smother European American diversity like anglo, caucasian, and non-Hispanic white.
Ordinary European Americans do have the right to speak out of their continental-origin voice, just like members of all other groups. European Americans are rarely allowed to be heard as European Americans by the dominant media culture, but it is an established right inherent in every ethnic group.
European Americans have at least three levels of voices.
First, they have their American voice with which they can talk about matters of nation- or community-wide concern. European Americans are usually comfortable with this voice and, in fact, many confuse this voice with their European American voice, causing confusion about the European American movement.
Second, they have their European American voice with which they can talk about matters of special concern on the multicultural level like voting rights, college admissions, hate crimes, redistricting, the US census, and health care issues.
Most European Americans do not use their European American voice confidently, but it is a necessary voice in the public arena. In fact, European Americans have the duty to speak out as European Americans when European Americans suffer from racially-motivated murder, malicious prosecution, hate speech, defamation, or discrimination.
Third, they have their religious, cultural, ethnic, and national origin voices with which they can talk about matters of concern in those areas of discourse. For example, they could talk about matters of concern to Catholics or Protestants, or about matters affecting Irish Americans or Greek Americans. Most European Americans understand this voice, but they rarely use it.