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Let the kids start white student unions

Jill

Students want to start white supremacist groups on campus? Let ’em (although I’m heartened to hear that they’re having trouble finding a faculty adviser). Encourage them to put that on their resumes. List the group membership on the campus website so that future employers know the kind of liability they’re opening themselves up to when they hire these little jerks in the future.

135 thoughts on Let the kids start white student unions

  2. Yes! I fully support this endeavor! It reminds me how on wikipedia we have an essay called “Don’t be a dick” but then another one called, “Please be a giant dick, so we can ban you”

    1. Are university freshman-level Gov classes even a thing?

      I imagine this would be a mess, although IMO a non-self-critical Libertarian (the ultimate privilege denier) would likely be much more annoying in that specific context.

      Oh, I know! A racistly resentful uncritical Libertarian!

  4. Yes. I wonder if Heimbach has considered what his future prospective employers will find when googling his name.

      1. It just really, really bothers me when I see white people say “let’s let the racists be racist so we can tell the good ones from the bad ones” but they’re not the ones who are going to have to deal with it.

        1. And some of the most frustrating racists are those who cloak themselves in well-practiced “progressive” rhetoric, using the “extreme” ones as a kind of ward, “See, that’s what *real* racism looks like!”

      2. They may or not be able to bar them.. but they don’t have to provide resources and sure as hell no one, but NO one should be encouraging this kind of bullshit.

        1. Well, being a recognized club means that they can apply for campus resources. Whether or not they get them is another story, of course.

        2. but they don’t have to provide resources

          That’s not at all clear. With very few exceptions, the administration has to be viewpoint-neutral in distributing funds.

        3. I’m not sure about that. First of all, they have a duty not to make their campus hostile to non-white students, which would preclude funding hate-based activities. And second of all, it depends on how resources are allocated, which depends on who’s advocating for a particular group, and since this group is having trouble finding a faculty advisor already…meh.

        4. I’m not sure about that. First of all, they have a duty not to make their campus hostile to non-white students, which would preclude funding hate-based activities.

          I’m not quite clear what area of law we’re talking about- it by hostile you’re referencing civil harrassment law, I think you’re misapplying the tort- but in general even groups which have openly racist or otherwise hateful agendas are not exempt from protection under the 1st Amendment, as of Southworth v. The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System.

          And second of all, it depends on how resources are allocated, which depends on who’s advocating for a particular group, and since this group is having trouble finding a faculty advisor already…meh.

          Yeah, and I’m really not rooting for these guys. I’m just saying the University will most likely run into legal trouble if they try to treat these guys differently from any other student group.

    2. I’m with you. No fucking way this should be permitted. White supremacist groups have a history of violent, threatening and harassing behavior. Its very existence is a type if hate speech, telling POC “Wait…just in case you forgot about the white supremacist culture we live in for 2 minutes, we have one of those hate groups right here on campus.”

      They may not be able to do anything about it, but it sure as hell shouldn’t be permitted to exist on a public campus.

      1. I think I agree with you. If a white kids wants to start a heritage group–Irish, Polish, Portuguese–there’s nothing stopping them and plenty such clubs exist. Whiteness isn’t a heritage.

        1. I completely agree. Fairness doesn’t matter when you’re dealing with the monolith that is white supremacy. The very existence of a group like that on Uni grounds is an insult to every oppressed person that is a part of said campus.

        2. By the same logic, then there shouldn’t be a Black Society or an Asian Union since Blackness and Asian-ness aren’t heritages.

        3. By the same logic, then there shouldn’t be a Black Society or an Asian Union since Blackness and Asian-ness aren’t heritages.

          There was some argument on my campus between African-American students and black students from other countries, who felt that the Black Student Union didn’t represent black students so much as culturally African-American students. The debate never really resolved, but I don’t think it’s a bad point to bring up. That said, it should be obvious why- even given the above- a ‘black student union’ isn’t nearly as offensive as a ‘white student union.’

          They may not be able to do anything about it, but it sure as hell shouldn’t be permitted to exist on a public campus.

          I’m not sure what this means; they can’t do anything about it, but they shouldn’t permit it to exist? The 1st Amendment is pretty clear on the government preventing people from associating based on their beliefs, which I actually think is- on the balance- a good thing, because I don’t particularly trust the government to decide what sets of political ideologies should be able to organize.

        4. Blackness in the US usually but not always refers to people who are descendents of slaves brought here from various nations in the west of Africa. Black people have indeed developed a common and varied cultural heritage. You’ll note that there is also often a separate Caribbean Students Association, which is composed of black students of Caribbean heritage, and usually more recent family immigration history.

          Both Black and Asian students’ associations are about the advocacy for students of usually marginalized identities. Since white students need no such advocacy, not having a marginalized identity, the only other reason for such an association would be about heritage.

        5. @EG,

          Yes, exactly.

          @amblingalong,

          It means I disagree with our current interpretation of the 1st Amendment.

        6. Both Black and Asian students’ associations are about the advocacy for students of usually marginalized identities. Since white students need no such advocacy, not having a marginalized identity, the only other reason for such an association would be about heritage.

          Exactly.

          It means I disagree with our current interpretation of the 1st Amendment.

          Oh, ok; sorry, I misunderstood the grounds of the debate. I’ll avoid starting another thread-eating-free-speech-argument-monster, then 🙂

    3. I’m white and I’m not even American, but I would lean towards this position.

      These people will identify themselves as racists to their colleagues soon enough anyway, even without a membership card. As far as further employment goes, membership in this club will be known to future employers only if these people share it in their CVs. Since they are loud enough complaining about how non-white people are stealing their jobs, most will probably realize that putting their racism blatantly onto their job application won’t be a good idea. So really, how much does this reveal about them that they wouldn’t at some point reveal about themselves anyway?

      On the other hand, you will have black students seeing a white supremacist group have equal status to, for example, an African-American heritage group. Wouldn’t this make the campus look pretty unwelcoming to black students?

      1. Right on.

        I think the corporate world only finds racism to be a problem if one doesn’t have the ‘good sense’ to be subtle about it.

        I’m inclined to believe the concern doesn’t tend to be ‘I’m not going to hire this guy because he’s clearly a racist asshole’. In all likelihood it’s probably more ‘This guy doesn’t know how to properly camoflage and/or spin his racism and as such could prove to be an embarassment’

        1. i think you are silly idea of racism. people not racist in expliciticy like such. in current times, people have racism in brain subtle. mild but permeate culture so have negative effect. but not explicit such as you say.

        2. in current times, people have racism in brain subtle.

          As a person who has watched the US practically shit itself over a black president, I have to disagree. People are out-and-out racist and pretty much never lose a job over it.

      2. When reading this article, I got this mental image of a white, male CEO sitting behind his desk and looking at this student’s application. He was gleefully tenting his fingers and saying, “Yes! YES!”

      3. Meh, I don’t know. Anyone who hired someone who was openly affiliated with white supremacist organizations would be basically inviting lawsuits when the avowed racist on their staff eventually acted like an avowed racist. There would be major, self-serving disincentives to hiring that person.

        1. Like when the Cardinals selected a former Hitler Youth as the next Pope? Or when West Virginia kept re-electing Robert Byrd, who was in the KKK?

          Both those guys renounced the organizations in their political careers, but I frankly think that’s kind of bullshit. I guess I’m skeptical because I can’t think of someone who was ever harmed by their association with a hate group. Granted, I kind of cut super bigots out of my life, so I don’t have a great sample set.

        2. *Quick acknowledgment that Hitler Youth was, of course, compulsory for German kids, but it still makes me uncomfortable.

        3. @PrettyAmiable

          Civil elections and clergy selection are different than ordinary secular employment, in terms of what the employers are liable for. An ordinary company whose racist employee harasses fellow employees or treats clients differently based on race leaves the secular employer open to discrimination and harassment lawsuits (and could also lose them business).

          But you can’t sue a state or a legislative district for electing a racist fuckwit, and the Vatican is technically a foreign power, so suing them gets complicated.

        4. Agreed, PrettyAmiable. Yeah, yeah, it was compulsory, but since the Catholic Church pretty much did jack shit itself during the Holocaust despite numerous pleas to at least condemn the atrocities, I don’t precisely feel like I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.

        5. @PrettyAmiable:

          It doesn’t seem a little telling to you that your two examples were 1) a dead former Klansman who was elected as a senator from a party full of segregationists and their sympathizers a half-century ago, who offered up the obligatory denunciations of his former membership, and who is now dead and 2) a person who you admit was compelled to serve in the Hitler Youth when he was 14?

          Come on. If you’re trying to make the argument that being a card-carrying, public member of a supremacist organization in 2012 doesn’t result in professional marginalization, then you still need to make that argument.

          1. Come on, fam. In 2012?

            Duke was a one-term member of Congress more than two decades ago, won that spot in low-turnout special election in which the most powerful national Republicans — Presidents Bush and Reagan among them — endorsed his opponent. Then he got to Congress and other lawmakers promptly killed all of the bills he offered up. He was pretty clearly marginalized in the House.

            Fine, if we’re going to play this game, can we should acknowledge that electoral politics functions differently than private enterprise? Kesha Rogers has twice won the Democratic nomination for her House district in Texas, despite the party’s opposition to her and her wishing Obama dead. What exactly does her nomination prove about how mainstream and acceptable her views are? Nothing, unless you think her largely-black district agrees with her and actually wants the president dead. Flukes happen in electoral politics, and victories have as much to do with the particular circumstances of a given race than they do with a candidate’s strengths and weaknesses.

        8. I have mixed feelings about this argument. On the one hand, I’ve dealt with enough openly racist companies and institutions that I’m skeptical that racism is a de facto impediment to being hired. At the same time, I basically agree that having a white supremacist or other open hate group on your resume is a great way not to get hired, in general, both because that type of open and documented racism really does- as GD said- set up all kinds of potential legal troubles.

          The difference between all our perspective may also be where we work and the types of firms we interact with, but while most of the places I’ve worked don’t have an unusually commitment to social justice, I can’t imagine any of their HR departments wouldn’t raise all kinds of red flags over a resume like that.

        9. Maybe you have faith that twenty years has made a big difference. I don’t. I remember 1992. It didn’t look that different from 2012. In some ways, it was more progressive.

          1. Duke won in 1990, but that’s hair-splitting. You’re really arguing that in 1992, a time at which movement conservatism had won the day so thoroughly that the Democratic presidential nominee actively campaigned on dismantling racialized liberal sacred cows — and won the White House — was a more progressive time than in 2012?

            Come on, fam. You need to come better than this.

            If being an avowed member of a white supremacist organization was not a hindrance to political and professional success, you can surely rattle off the names of other great examples besides a fluke win nearly a generation ago by a widely despised, marginalized one-term backbencher from a tiny Congressional district.

        11. If Chris Brown can beat up his equally-famous girlfriend and still have a successful career, if Jovan Belcher can murder the mother of his child and still be lauded as “A good, loving father, a family man”, if Roman Polanski is still considered by many to be one of the greatest directors of all time, why is it so hard to believe that someone would give a pass to outwardly racist behavior? Especially when they don’t even consider themselves racist:

          Heimbach, who denied being racist, does, however, rail against what he calls the dangers of Marxism and a multicultural society, and warns of a coming “genocide” when minority groups overtake whites in the US population.

        13. I guess this explains why all the members of the local Aryan Brotherhood are all out of work. Oh wait, they aren’t. Granted they aren’t fancy pants attorneys or politicians, but they still get jobs and work their way into positions of authority.

          It’s amazing what you hear from white people who think you’re white too. Like the supervisor in the records department for the Police letting me know she’d prefer hiring me over this other woman because too many Mexicans working causes drama.

          My husbands boss makes racist jokes all the time, and he’s the owner of the company so you laugh along if you want to continue working there. If it offends you, then you’re taking a joke too seriously, too sensitive and need to man up. Good luck getting another job too, he’s a very popular man in this town and the business he’s in, they all know each other. You won’t get hired in that field, by anyone ever again. And if you’re not educated, this is the only business you can get in that will earn you 100,000 + a year.

          None of the racist people I encountered while near the rez were harmed by their racism, either. From grocery store clerks making racist remarks to my face, to cops making racist remarks to my family. Their outward racism didn’t seem to cause them any harm job wise, either.

          So no, I really don’t see this guy having a problem getting a job. Especially considering many white people don’t see a white student union as racist but instead see it as ANTI racist. They see not being allowed to have one as reverse racism. In their eyes, this guy isn’t a racist, he’s a hero standing up against it.

        14. Denny’s was able to exist as a racist corporation throughout the US for years before anything was done about it (and you can still find stories of their employees doing shit even now). Think about that. Their chains nationwide, not in just one state or two, discriminated against blacks. That means they were actively picking out and keeping only racist employees as a corporation.

          To back up pheenobarbidoll (not that she needs it), small communities can be the worst. Our high school just put on a play that contained black face, and no one said a thing about it. I’m currently working with a local newspaper as their school reporter. I felt like crying because I had to choose between my job and my beliefs; if I said anything, even made a quiet complaint to the superintendent (who would then have gossiped about it), I would be shunned by about half the schools who wouldn’t want someone coming in and “creating drama” for them.

          So, yes, I picked the job. I was able tell my boss my issue and that I was not going to report on the play, but I feel like it’s a sham to even be grateful for that much when it’s not even the bare minimum of decency.

        15. Yeah, I’m not buying it. There are a number of people in my office that are unabashed racists. Telling HR, even having others attest to the racist shit they say does absolutely nothing.

        16. 1) a dead former Klansman who was elected as a senator from a party full of segregationists and their sympathizers a half-century ago, who offered up the obligatory denunciations of his former membership, and who is now dead

          A dead former Klansman who is now dead, you say?

          He was in office in 2010, bro. This is some serious banker math, but since it’s not 2012, my calculator tells me we employed him until just over two years ago. And as YOU note, his denunciations were obligatory. Glad we agree he was probably a racist doucheface until his last breath.

        18. I think that everybody here is assuming that the whole US is like the part they live in. I’m not sure whether the truth is better, or worse.

        19. I think you’re so full of white fucking privilege that you really need to shut your fucking mouth when the subject of race comes up.

          Most of your posts are >< this close to being full on racist.

          Shut it and fucking listen.

  6. I thought before reading the article that this was just going to be some normally racist idiot making a super-clever “point” about how marginalized people get to celebrate their heritage and cultural connections in a somewhat socially-sanctioned way, so why can’t poor privileged white people. Kind of like how you hear assholes griping every February about how there’s no White History Month.

    But no, this guy’s just a genuine white supremacist who thinks in terms of race wars and protecting white, “Western” heritage from unspecified threats. Scary! But I doubt he’ll get a faculty sponsor to help him obtain official recognition.

      1. If white people can’t celebrate their culture, why can’t I leave my house on March 17?

        Because March 16th is National Glue-Your-Neighbor-To-The-Floor Day…

        2. THere is plenty of kind of awesome stuff if you look back where we came from in the first place. The Lord Of Misrule would certainly make things funnier.

      1. Not Funny! Especially because at least at my university, there are only three kinds of Frats: Drunken Dudebros Who Don’t Dance Worth A Damn (Significantly whiter than my campus, where whites are a minority), That Christian Greek House That Has Fifty Clones, and Chemistry Service Honor Co-Ed Professional Pre-Med Society. And allegedly the people in the former kind of frat have more fun than I. But I for one must insist on *intelligent* partying.

      1. Sororities, too. Can AKA be included in this, for blackballing my college roommate because she was a maid’s daughter born out of wedlock? That’s as white a standard as you would find in any boardroom.

        3. please tell me you see the problem with equating that stuff with whiteness and not class.

          and obviously, AKA’s history as a black organization with its vital social networks for educated Negroes in pre-Civil Rights America complicates this argument you’re trying to make.

        4. Really? I’m an AKA, and that sounds… weird. Not saying it’s not true, but is she sure that’s the reason? I know a lot of AKA’s, and the idea that we’re all wealthy and upper class is laughable. My parents were never married and I grew up pretty poor. If that’s really the reason she didn’t make it in, that’s sad.

          And, like Angel said, that’s classist, not racist.

  8. Wow, that picture in the article needs to become a meme. His shirt, his smug expression; all you need is to read the headline and look at the picture to realize that that guy is “that guy.”

    1. He also has that air of, but I’m a Nice Guy, why do you keep turning me down when I ask you out on a date? written all over him.

      Smug and clueless, a non-winning combination.

  9. He claims he has 30 people in this group, but I would not be at all surprised if it’s actually just him.

    2. More likely, all his members will flee once his group is attacked. I wouldn’t be surprised if he downplayed the racism.

  10. White supremacists can go to hell. But your post reminded be of UK MP, David Davies, who was slated for asking why we can’t have a white police association, given that we have black, Sikh, Muslim etc etc police associations. I felt it was a valid question.

    1. Sikhs and Muslims are religious groups, not racial groups. I’m sure there would be no problem forming an Anglican police association. Given that as recently as 2007, ethnic/racial minorities made up a whopping 3.9% of the police force, white British cops can rest assured that they do have a white police association. It’s called the police department.

    2. But your post reminded be of UK MP, David Davies, who was slated for asking why we can’t have a white police association, given that we have black, Sikh, Muslim etc etc police associations. I felt it was a valid question.

      Nah, it’s not a valid question. People with marginalized identities form groups or association based on those identities in order to overcome (or at least talk about) shared oppression. People with privileged identities don’t need equivalent associations, because their interests are already over-represented in supposedly neutral and universal forums (so, in your example, among the leadership of police forces). And since there’s no positive goal for these associations of people with privileged identity characteristics to work towards, they inevitably tend towards reinforcing existing oppression.

    3. My view on it: First, are those groups strictly for anti-oppression? They presumably take an interest whenever oppression does happen, but these groups often have other purposes such as simply creating a community rather than totally assimilating. Not all minority groups are necessarily marginalized (although I think that realistically in the US most are at least a little) or oppressed.

      I think the point might be to get rid of the over-representation of the majority and treatment of the majority as default in the universal forum, while giving it a specific forum. Whether this would actually work is another question.

  11. From the comments: “The only people who worry about “white culture dying” are those people who’s list of accomplishments drops off sharply after being born white.”

    Nailed it.

    1. First, I’m not sure what you are saying: people only need to worry about white culture dying if white people individually fail to have culture?

      I think (charitably, the uncharitable view would be that cultural dominance is dying but I don’t actually think that is their view) that they are frustrated by the the way that the European dominant-default culture is loosing its individuality as everything blends together in a multicultural world, meanwhile people of other races are applauded for being cultural preservationists. People assume that since the culture is dominant it is invincible, but it is default so nobody notices that it’s there. Of course, these bigots cannot hope to reach my level of analysis, and instead choose to blame people who don’t need to be blamed for more stuff than they already are.

  12. There is some appeal in the spirit of such views being on the record early, but I suspect it will play out like the ending of Clue in which Miss Scarlet tells Professor Plum his involvement in six murders won’t help his reputation at the United Nations and he says he might go up in their estimation.

  13. I was having an internet “discussion” with a bunch of epic heterosexists a few weeks ago and one of them totally asked why there weren’t any White Pride parades she could go to. Which, apart from my laughing my arse off that she consider “white” to be an antonym of “gay”, just lead to my linking a google image search. She was less than impressed.

    On a more relevant note: No, no, there does not need to be more sanctioned racism on campuses.

    1. Ku Klux Klan meets openly in the town square of Fairmount, GA. If she really wants to be redneck trash, opportunities are available, but they aren’t packaged with an employment base. IQ testing not needed, since only a total damned fool would wear a robe and hood in a Southern summer.

      1. Li and I are in Australia, so maybe the clueless person was also in Oz. She could have gone to Cronulla a couple of years back and joined a white race riot, though. Fun times.

    2. It’s too bad you have bunches of epic heterosexists in Australia; I was hoping Margaret Court was the only one. (More seriously, though, at least her homophobia is getting no support in the international tennis community, though unfortunately the sexist quibble over equal prize money at majors has come up again.)

      1. … what? What are you even trying to say?

        I say this having learnt about sex positivityfirst at a queer conference.

      2. I said closest, not identical, and I think that there is a fair amount of heterosexuality-centered sex-positive stuff in the world.

  14. “White culture is dying,”

    “Every other single group has a union — Jewish, black. Why don’t white students get equal treatment?”

    “we live on a campus where there is discrimination against whites,”

    Heimbach, who denied being racist, does, however, rail against what he calls the dangers of Marxism and a multicultural society, and warns of a coming “genocide” when minority groups overtake whites in the US population.

    I’ve been wanting to bust out this gif for a month.

      2. [walks up dressed like a mid-1800s European aristocrat and orders henchmen to seize Heimbach]

        I will.

        Now, what did we tell you fools about arguing against a version of Marxism that you do not understand and that is not even popular?

  15. Jill, are you being sarcastic, or do you really think they should be allowed to form a white supremacist group on campus because they’ll be ‘outing’ themselves as racists and may lose out on future job opportunities?

    1. Well, I think that the school probably has fairly few options here — I would imagine that they can’t actually ban the white student union, so long as it is technically open to all students. What they can do is (a) have every faculty member refuse to be an adviser, which will in effect make the group impossible, and (b) essentially institute a name-and-shame campaign, which I suggest in the post, which will attach student names to the group forever. Are lots of employers racist shitbags too? Yes. But are lots of employers hesitant to open themselves up to the liability of hiring openly racist employees? Yes, definitely. And if the school can do nothing to stop this group from being formed, they can at least make sure that membership is public and these racist kids can’t operate under the cover of anonymity.

      1. Maybe where you’re at, Jill. But there are plenty of places in the U.S where nobody would bat an eye at a student being a member of such a group, and would laugh anyone out of the building if they suggested such a group was a racist thing. Ditto for a judge holding them liable for such a thing. I’m with PrettyAmiable on this one; where has having a history of being associated with racist groups actually resulted in any kind of liability for the employers?

    2. I’m kind of on Jill’s side on this. I doubt there are very many kids who would join this group or those like it, as doing so would come with some serious long-term consequences.

      There’s probably an argument that college kids won’t grasp those consequences until too late, but my hunch is that kids who join these kinds of orgs have already resigned themselves to the fact that they won’t be working for reputable, major employers.

  16. This is so surreal. This kid went to my high school. It’s so strange to see what people do with themselves once they get into college.

  17. Since when is white=supremacist? He doesn’t want to start a white supremacist group, he wants to start a White Students Union, and personally, I see nothing wrong with that.

        1. He’s like a little kitten with a head injury that keeps scratching you, but sometimes does something adorable!

    3. Annie, if you read the article, not only did this crew try and start a racist group, they also hijacked the Western Cultures group and made its faculty adviser leave. There’s a difference between a cultural group and a group devoted to preventing the “take over of America” by nonwhites just like there’s a difference between a 1930s German heritage group and a 1930s group devoted to preventing non-Germans from “taking over Germany”.

      1. Hm, I think you can perhaps celebrate/discuss Western culture (although I’m a little hard pressed to understand how it works…if you want to talk about Western Art, wouldn’t you call yourself European Club or North American Art Club? All clubs I know are sorted by country at most).

        But in my opinion, any Western Culture group that doesn’t devote at least 50% of their discussions to the terrible things Western Culture did/does is still failing hard.

        1. Yeah, but does that mean that any of X group should talk about the shitty stuff they did/do 50% of their time? I can’t think of any group of humans that hasn’t got a few problems in their past. Like, how far back in history would you have to go?

    4. As other people have said, this guys a racist. His plan is to start a white supremacist group, but not call it that.

    5. Since when is white=supremacist?

      This isn’t racefail, these are Stormfront talking points. Racefail presumes someone is trying to talk about race without being racist and fucks up. The passage the quote above is openly racist.

      Let me see, where have I heard this particular formulation of aggrieved “since when does white=racist?” before?

      Everybody says there is this RACE problem. Everybody says this RACE problem will be solved when the third world pours into EVERY white country and ONLY into white countries. The Netherlands and Belgium are just as crowded as Japan or Taiwan, but nobody says Japan or Taiwan will solve this RACE problem by bringing in millions of third worlders and quote assimilating unquote with them. Everybody says the final solution to this RACE problem is for EVERY white country and ONLY white countries to “assimilate,” i.e., intermarry, with all those non-whites. What if I said there was this RACE problem and this RACE problem would be solved only if hundreds of millions of non-blacks were brought into EVERY black country and ONLY into black countries? How long would it take anyone to realize I’m not talking about a RACE problem. I am talking about the final solution to the BLACK problem? And how long would it take any sane black man to notice this and what kind of psycho black man wouldn’t object to this? But if I tell that obvious truth about the ongoing program of genocide against my race, the white race, Liberals and respectable conservatives agree that I am a racist. They say they are anti-racist. What they are is anti-white. Anti-racist is a code word for anti-white.

      Oh, right.

  18. i would say free association of people is an incredibly important thing in schools but the problem is allowing that to only effect school work and not cause racial classist or genderist<– dont know if thats the right word for it) tension there need to be as many institutions where you interact with different races classes and genders as the same i would say that the idea that this is a problem is saying we have a problem with peer networking in schools the idea that a campus should have a white,black,jewish culture based on the institutions
    need to preserve it and not on the students desire is neurotic at best

  19. If black people can form black people groups, white people can form white people groups. The real question is to see what their policies will consist of. I bet its going to be all caprice and no content, like I am gonna form a white people group, because minorities form their own group, but with no activity whatsoever.

    1. There are some things that I would do with one.
      – Attack the chauvinists who shame my race while destroying others.
      – Point out the diversity of the subsections of ‘White’. I guess that me and more than half of the other Euro-Americans don’t figure in Romney’s Anglo-Saxon thing.
      – Revive valuable European and White American cultures, and update them with (for example) LGBT inclusivity. I think that some cultural appropriation happens because the relevant European traditions have disappeared, been destroyed by conflicts internal to Old Europe, been overly sex-negative, sexist, or Christianity-bound, or fallen victim to the Great Fake Anglo-Saxon Melting Pot. People substitute them with appropriations, both betraying their own race and insulting others. I consider the updating and mass re-popularization of European ballroom dancing; the composition of at least one popular opera with LGBT characters that is not about oppression or activism; and putting together some freaking actually nice, non-revolutionary, *enduring* clothing styles for men and women to be of high priorities.

      2. if you are for serious. your view of the white culture seem to be very limit. ball room dancing opera ‘non revoltary’ clothing style? ‘white culture’ of far diverse than this. i am white of europe and i see reflected in this none of my heritage. this is white upper class culture of england only. not white european culture

      3. First, I am not doing satire.

        Second, I seem to have forgotten to speak the Incantation Of Not Claiming To Speak For Every Member Of My Demographic.

        Third, IT. IS. NOT. ALWAYS. ABOUT. THE. ANGLO. SAXONS.

        Fouth. I guess that I am more or less trying to create a new culture. Controlled, aware evolution. But explaining would take forever.

  20. White people have been forming white people groups in this country for a very long time indeed. The governments, for instance.

    The track record of such groups is not such that I am thrilled at the possibility of more of them.

    1. I think it’s significant that, in part due to the success of anti-racism, people tend to only form white groups a)implicitly or b) for the specific purpose of being racist.

      1. I find it hard to believe that it’s in part due to the success of anti-racism, when white people have been forming such groups long before the great successes of anti-racism.

        1. Nonetheless, it undoes your causality argument if the thing you are claiming is an effect has a history that long predates the thing you are claiming is the cause.

      3. Ok. I must have missed something. Personally, I just want to go somewhere else where I can choose what I want to do without hurting people.

  21. This is actually a non-simple issue. Unfortunately it appears that this ‘white student’s union’ is merely a more-or-less racist excercise in resenting minority group pride and affirmative action. If I were to start a White Student’s Union (it would NOT be called that) a significant part of it’s purpose would be to fight these resentful acts that shame my race. Only when racism is ended will the children of Europe be unconstrained.

    However, hear me out.
    I am EXTREMELY frustrated that whenever Euro-Americans try to have group identity pride, they end up having it AT other groups. This results in less trust of Euro-Americans who have strong European culture or group identity and in stereotype threat.

    The ‘White History Month Is All The Other Months’ meme is in my opinion self-fulfilling. It results in people not really investigating what it means to be white other than racism and the consequences thereof. Black people think about the dignities and the indignities of blackness, but for white people to think about the dignities and the indignities of whiteness has become taboo, not least because of miserable bigots like these supremacists. It results in the suppression of deconstructed-reconstructed European identities. I think it even is somewhat self-fulfilling as to the perception of white as default.

    I consider the idea of being told to spend 50 percent of my time beating my breast over my injustices to be very insulting and useless; the *biggest* difference between Europe and everybody else is that Europe acquired good military technology first, before imperialism was percieved to be bad. I haven’t forgotten how desperate Eastern Europe was at times before the Near East, and the results of Moorish cultural imperialism during the occupation of Spain. (not grudge-holding, just remembering).

    On the matter of White as a bogus identity made up of multiple ethnicities some of which have been and a few of which still are oppressed by an Anglo-Saxon minority: That is strictly true, but I doubt that many college students whose whiteness is not in question really are conscious of their specific European (or some-parts-of-the-Arab-World-ian) heritage. I take a certain pride in being only 1 for three on WASP (yay Austria!) but that is three generations back and I think I am much more aware than is common. Meanwhile, I think that there is a distinguishable ‘White’ identity (which could stand to stop pretending not to have any outgroups at all, it’s not a bad thing) and I think there are some very clear common themes to European culture, and to the culture of White/European ancestry Americans. (although due to assimilation and cultural exchange that would be harder to distinguish from the culture of American in general.)

    Just because they are the dominant culture does not mean that they would not benefit from a non-defaulted look at themself, and some non-default pride. Being the dominant default in a multi-cultural society is a deal with the devil, and I for one NEVER WANTED this *ridiculous* task.

  22. I have never seen a white anti racist group that was any good at all. I have never cared for break out models where people separate by race. I have seen white people dedicated to fighting racism but they were always part of a multiracial group. In regards to what Im said about the diversity within being European American, I am Romani or Gypsy which is European but not white per se, then start a club dedicated to the culture of a particular ethnicity, or even start a club dedicated to practicing the culture of all of its members.

    1. A secondary point: Some fighting racism might look different from what you expect…

      Or consist of trying to modify the world such that the race problem is changed, without anything involving a fight.
      I used to believe that most anti-racism efforts were a waste of time compared to ‘ethnoclasm’ in which mass interbreeding would be used to blend the races together enough that there would be no more differences to judge on.

      Recently somebody clued me into the fact that that might be a *very bad* idea or just not work at all, not to mention it would take generations.

      Today, I’ve been wondering if it is possible for white people to position themselves such that their words and actions don’t hurt anybody of other races.

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