Putting some suit-and-tie racists in perspective
HERNDON, VA--If white supremacists want to have a margin of legitimacy, they will hide their hatemongering under the conservative banner. That is what American Renaissance did for years until folks started to take a closer look at them. Nowadays, where once they were able to get CSPAN to cover their conferences, they only get brief mention if any among mainstream outlets--conservative ones notwithstanding. It seems the Washington Times and National Review still can't get enough of them, as they covered glowingly their conference on Feb 22-24, 2002. The National Review even regarded the head man Jared Taylor as a "sane, thoughtful, erudite and humorous person, with the flawless manners of a true American gentleman," and his newsletter as "a useful corrective to the distortions, evasions and downright lies of the mainstream media on matters of race." Actually this strikes funny those who are familiar with Taylor, as his correctives are often distortions, evasions and downright lies on matters of race.
This was evident at the conference and Taylor had friends to assist him in his "Defense of Western Man," which was this year's theme. American Renaissance reported 250 persons in attendance, which was the approximate number of those who attended the 2000 conference. Virtually all the people this year were the same ones who came out two years ago, which suggests that the group has become stagnant since the drop-off that began in 1998 when Trent Lott and Bob Barr were called to task for speaking at the conference of a group AR is closely associated with, the Council of Conservative Citizens. The difference from 1998 and now is that they have not tried to hide their hatemongering.
C of CC, was quite visible during the conference, and the group's members spent the event rubbing elbows with the Don Black of the Stormfront website, Ron Dogget who runs the Virginia Chapter of EURO, the organization started two years ago by David Duke (who was here last time, but could not make it since he was in Russia as he has been for months now, and may possibly stay there as long as the IRS is trying to get him), and reportedly Gerald James McManus, who marched with Richard Barrett in Morristown, NJ last fourth of July.
American Renaissance has a bit of a problem. They are not your typical racist organization. Most white supremacist organizations hate everybody but the white race. American Renaissance lets their supporters hate selectively! This caused a number of contentions among the crowd, including regarding those racists, who, apparently still longing for that past conservative glory, would say that they are not racist. Glen Spencer is one of them. He will never say he is a racist, and in fact said that being a racialist may "not be the way to go." This does not keep him from hating Hispanics, and promoting the white supremacist propaganda of a Reconquista--the idea that Mexicans are trying to return the Southwest US through immigration--and predicted a second Mexican-American War in 2003. There was also the guy who was booed for extending support to American Indians, saying they deserved to have the terms of their treaties offered. And the C of CC members who got into it with British National Party head Nick Griffin who criticized their contention that the assembled must support the Republican Party.
Another aspect of selective hate is the embrace of the Jewish community. Although Sam Francis dislikes people of color and even referred to conservative columnist Linda Chavez (who has expressed racist sentiments toward blacks in the past) as the "Chiquita banana" of the Republican Party, He has supported and defended Jews and used his presentation to slander the Muslim community, calling it a threat to be allowed to immigrate. It is actually an extension of a broken record of anti-nonwhite immigration he has been on for years that he simply changed to reflect the times. In fact this is the reason why he dislikes Chavez in particular, as the one area where she has wavered from the rightist position has been immigration. Regardless the anti-Muslim stance gets rave reviews from the Jewish participants of this conference such as Michael Levin, the pro-eugenics professor of City College in New York who is a regular speaker. Speaking of eugenics and reaching out to the Jewish community, if there was no telling sign as to how the "findings" of this throng is politically skewed as opposed to scientifically, it was when Profs. Philippe Ruston and Dick Lynn lectured about IQ differences, and noted how Jewish IQ is one sigma above white IQ and that Jews and Asians are smarter than whites. This "finding" was echoed by a number of participants. This crew has always based their IQ studies on genetics. Now they have to explain how one's religious beliefs can alter one's genetic makeup!
Now it is nice to see white supremacists practice diversity, but again there were contentions, notably the Jewish embrace. Not all of it was coming from attendee Bill White, whose own accounts of the conference on his website was one slam after another against Jewish persons. The National Alliance seems to be an integral part of the attendance of these conferences, and they have been asserting themselves more these days. That means they have issues with AR's approach to what they have termed the "Jewish Question." Two NA members called Taylor to task on this after his speech and it was so heated that Taylor finally told them, "If you wish to discuss the 'Jewish Question,' then put on your own conference." That apparently did not sit too well with the Neo-Nazis, as this excerpt of an account from the White Supremacist Vanguard News Network would suggest:
We must not allow outfits such as American Renaissance to become the new "neo-cons" of the White Nationalist movement, in which Jews hijack the Movement and render it inert in the same way they stole conservatism in the 1970s. White Nationalism five, ten, or fifteen years from now must not degenerate into another fake opposition to the multiracial Left, in the manner that the current Republican Party lulls Middle Americans to sleep.
The National Alliance made their presence known in another way this weekend. There were reports of their flyers littering Herndon. Although the town has seen their flyers for over a year, the week leading up to the conference was seen as a stepping up or sorts. There were no new reports of flyering after the conference, however.
Pat Buchanan's new book, The Death of the West, was also the topic of a panel discussion, and it was interesting to hear his good friend Sam Francis reveal that the original manuscript was much more explicitly racist but was toned down. According to Francis, the original title was "The Death of Whitey", but Francis, who proofread the book had objected because "whitey" is a racial slur (apparently one should only slur Hispanics like Linda Chavez). Second, after the insistence of the publisher, the final publication of the book had either changed or taken out many of Buchanan's references to race.
Buchanan ran 50-50 with this crowd, basically because he is probably the most mainstream representation of their views that they have seen in recent years, but still will do things that run counter to those racist beliefs, like choose black schoolteacher Ezola Foster as his running mate in the 2000 presidential race. Sam Dickson was on this panel and he regarded Buchanan as a race traitor who had done more damage to white racists than anyone else, noting that Foster nomination in particular. The irony of this is the fact that if one did not know Foster's race, and only knew her from her activities and writings, they would think she was someone straight out of the white supremacist scene.
In fact there was a black presence. According to a news account a professor from Vanderbilt University (the same university that gives us C of CC mainstay Virginia Abernethy) named Carol M. Swain, had remarked here that she saw a optimism among the attendees and feels that this may be warranted, that they may not be on the fringe forever and that the broader public ignores them at its peril. Then the other shoe dropped. Swain, who has a new book coming out this summer on White Nationalism has written books and essays in the past that have lent themselves to the conservative stances on race and politics. She blamed black leaders and the multicultural left bear some for creating the conditions that these elements thrive on, and said that those groups need to abandon the support for affirmative action and immigration as groups like American Renaissance, can address the concerns of racists more effectively "Maybe we have reached the point in history where there are legitimate white interests and maybe more and more whites are going to see that."
That is not going to happen. Swain missed the one thing that makes the difference. American Renaissance had their shot. People did hear what they had to say, and supported them until they realized they were not what they wanted representing their society. Regardless, they do stand as a reminder that these things cannot go unnoticed or unchallenged. Don't worry though. They won't be.