by John Young
It means to be heir to incomparable greatness but to also bear the responsibility to be worthy of that inheritance.
For most of human history, transportation was limited for most people. Those who traveled far were the exceptions. Those who died within a few miles of their birthplace were the rule. This isolation meant that populations separated by comparatively small distances developed differences not merely in language, but in genetics.
Likewise, for most of the history of the European peoples, with some exceptions, most of us lived our entire lives without ever seeing anyone of a different race. Because we weren’t exposed to racial differences, our sense of distinction was honed instead to ethnicity.
Because most of our resource competition was between people of the same race, these differences of ethnicity were foremost in our minds and served as a basis for wars lasting generations. And who can forget that in the days before multiculturalism, jokes based on stereotypes about British, Poles, Irish, Germans, Italians, and even Swedes were widespread?
The introduction of different races leads to the concept of “White.” This is because of the difference in genetic distance. In the absence of Pygmies, Germans and Swiss may consider each other quite different. But once Pygmies have entered the population, two things happen. First, since people’s ability to distinguish differences is more finely honed to people of their own race than another, from the Pygmy’s perspective, a Swiss and a German are indistinguishable. Second, in the presence of the Pygmy, those Swiss and Germans start seeing their commonalities more than their differences, because the difference from the Pygmy is so stark.
“White” has been part of the American lexicon since the beginning, both because of our clear difference from American Indians, and because African slaves were brought here in service to ever-present forces seeking cheap labor. In America, our first immigration laws defined us as a White country by limiting immigration explicitly to free White men of good character. In the United States with a common language among all who came here, intermarriage between White people of different European origins became widespread. The popularity of genetic tests breaking down one’s countries of origin attests to this phenomenon. Although there may well be exceptions, most Americans cannot trace their origin to just one European country.
Through this process, Europeans in America have created a new and unique ethnicity – a new nation. This is a group of people more closely related to each other than to other populations, sharing commonalities of language, values, history, founding myths, and destiny. I call this the European-American nation, though most people refer to it simply as “White” because our government redefined “American” to be based on ideas instead of biology.
This is not a new phenomenon. Britain was once the home of as many as 13 Celtic tribes, including Pictish tribes conquered by the Irish who spoke Gaelic. The very word “Briton” derives from a Brythonic Celtic word meaning “Any of us who aren’t Angles.” Because Angles, Saxons and Franks likewise came. Together, these thirteen Celtic and three Germanic tribes plus remnants from the Roman legions are what we call “British.”
But increasingly across Europe, as their countries redefine their nationalities to include people of other races, EU border crossings have been made easy, and people of foreign races have become ubiquitous, our European brethren are likewise referring to themselves as “White.” A sense of shared White identity is likewise being forged across the European diaspora as a result of shared risk and systematic discrimination. Checking the “White/Caucasian” box on an employment or college application leads to legally enforced exclusion. Even public figures have become outspoken in public Tweets and statements advocating for our outright genocide – as White people – with such statements being protected, and any defense prohibited. Here, the attackers with state and corporate support draw no fine ethnic distinctions: if you are White, you should not exist. We are all in this together.
So what does it mean to be White? It means to have a position in the sacred chain that connects our past to our future. It means to have a responsibility to assure such a future exists in the face of clear and systematic ambitions for our extinction. It means to be heir to incomparable greatness but to also bear the responsibility to be worthy of that inheritance. It means to be different from others in important ways: physically, intellectually, temperamentally, and our character traits. To be white is to replace mud huts with soaring cathedrals, replace naked cavorting to drums with the Strauss waltz, to develop aseptic surgery, and to put man on the moon. It means to have a level of introspection and self-critique unique to us, from which we learn and grow. Ultimately, to be White means to strive, to overcome, to achieve: to connect Stonehenge to the stars.
Article originally published on pendulum.online, a joint project of numerous pro-European-American authors.