The election of PresidentBarack Obama has not been the healing balm anticipated.
by Carol Swain
Political Analyst, Professor of Political Science and Law at Vanderbilt University
“Whites are people too” is the title of a YouTube video makingthe rounds on the Internet. A lot of stuff is happening in the world ofrace relations and little of it points towards a post-racial society.
[snip]
Hadassah’s willingness to write me a letter suggests she is willing toengage in some sort of constructive dialogue. She is not the onlyJewish person who identifies as a white nationalist. In the New WhiteNationalism in America, I quote two Jewish nationalist professors whoexpressed sentiments quite similar to Hadassah’s: Michael Levin andMichael Hart. Hart had even gone as far as to develop a plan forpartitioning the United States by race and ethnicity. Both interviewscan be read in their entirety in Swain and Nieli’s Contemporary Voices of White Nationalism.
More white nationalist sentiments can be found on the rather sanitized website Western Voices World News. Downloadable flyers onthe site tell of the group’s concerns about being outnumbered by racialand ethnic minorities. There are no threats or hints of violenceagainst minorities.
Jack Hunter, a conservative commentator from South Carolina, calls himself the Southern Avenger. Through Taki Magazine , Hunter has recently produced the video; Whites are People Too , which condemns racial double-standards by members of the media. The impetus for Hunter’s video was a Maureen Dowd column, “Toilet-paper Barricades,” whichtook a swing at the Town Hall protesters. With her usual wit, Dowdnoted that “Instead of a multicultural tableau of beaming youngidealists on screen, we see ugly scenes of mostly older and whitemalcontents, disrupting forums where others have come to actually learnsomething.” Hunt also cites a Paul Krugman column, “The Town Hall Mob” which suggested that the protesters are really protesting a black president.
Carol Swain
As I have warned repeatedly, I believe America is headed forunprecedented levels of racial turmoil. The election of PresidentBarack Obama has not been the healing balm anticipated. If anythingPresident Obama’s stances have heighten rather than amelioratedexisting racial and ethnic tensions. If we are to make progress, weneed a no-holds-barred racial dialogue during which minorities mustlisten as much as they speak out. We desperately need leaders willingto stand up and defend rather than subvert our Constitutional rights.