Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Identity, Ethnicity, and Race.

The following post is part of an ongoing discussion at CUANAS. As it happens, during the composition of my reply I found that there is a good addition to this discussion at IBA from Michelle Malkin, included below.

Multi-culti phantasy is a social disaster that is destroying our world as a functional experience. The communitarian and determinists view of Humanity, one that informs our age as dominant, raises some unpleasant problems for those of us who object to it. Racism is bad, leading as it does to murder at worst, but to lesser evils we still shouldn't accept. But racism is something historically definite rather than a slur to be hurled at anyone we might not like. Racism, the social Darwinist pseudo-science from the 19th and early 20th centuries, isn't today the same thing it was then. But where do we draw the line between the provable evils of real racism and the bizarre and disgusting phantasies of destructive multi-culti relativism?

My concerns with ethnicity and culture stem from my concerns with individuality and personal privacy, privacy being the personal ownership of the private individual's existence. "I own my own life."

What can one say to a Muslim who says he is the slave of Allah? And what does one say to anyone who claims prior affiliation with a group based on accident? If one freely chooses to become a Muslim, I say too bad but it's not my business. If one is born into Islam and is not allowed to consider it objectively or personally, subjectively, then it is a slavery of the person, and outside ownership of the person's life, and an outrage against Humanity.

That leads me to some problems: one is of family membership and rights. When does the civil society have the right and the duty to intervene in the family's right to raise children as they see fit? I might have problems with people raising their children to be, for example, Catholic. Does the state have a right and a duty to intervene in that upbringing? What about Jehovah Witnesses who refuse their children blood transfusions? What of Islamic FGM rituals? And what of vegan families who won't provide their children with a decent meal? Where do we draw the line in personal families as they relate to the health, welfare, and safety of kids?

Where do we draw the line between a person as person and his identity as member of a culture and tradition? I might be born into a culture that tells me I am part of it by accident of birth and accident of properties not of my choosing or liking. I might be, for example, a potter's son born into my link in the Great Chain of Being, not allowed to ever be anything other than a potter lest I break the Great Chain of Being. Or I might be a Negro, born to slavery on a plantation in Haiti. My culture might demand of me certain behaviors and modes of thought that if I offend against I will not be like my own and will be exiled. But I do not choose accidents. How valid are they if not my choice? Anything I do will be automatic and programmed, not freely willed, and to my mind, not valid morally. To live without rational choice and free volition is to live the life of my cat.

I look too at von Herder and Fichte and Hegel: what am I if I have no boundaries against which I know that I am because I am not. To be everything is to be nothing. I am somethings by virtue of accident, predetermined and flawlessly so: I cannot choose to be Ukrainian even if I live there and speak the language and do as others Ukrainian do. But is that a point of importance in the world of life? Obviously so. There is a deep intuitive bond between me and my ethnic group that I cannot break if I wished to do so. Even if I were the product of a mish-mash of ethnicities, which the Scots are, I have a longing to be at the call of the Gaels. If not Scottish, then I would be at the call of the mixed, and I don't think I'd resist at all. The pull of the atavistic is strong regardless, even when I see in print or in the face of a man on the street a fellow I don't know, I know he is me and mine. I look, when I'm on the road, for those who most closely resemble me, Europeans first, then Westerners, then those who live as I do, Chinese, Hindus, or Christians from any possible place. I have for example, a greater affinity with Indonesian Christian girls a greater affinity than I do with Chinese Buddhists of any kind. And with Chinese girls a greater affinity than with a Muslim from nearly anywhere. It's not a conscious choice. It's instinctive. If from a distance, I simply choose those who look most like me. That in spite of not bothering with my own family members who totally piss me off.

I choose my friends. I don't choose them on the basis of them looking like me. I choose them on individual characteristics. They can be and are of such a range that there's nothing ethnic in common with any of them. But I am attracted to certain people from ethnic groups over others, even when those same ethnic groups piss me off, such as the Irish and the French. Those who are likely closer to me, the English, for example, don't appeal much. They don't appeal at a visceral level that I find irrational and embarrassing. And so too is my liking of the worthless French and the horrible Irish. It's not sensible. It transcends my intelligence and leaves me with the fact that I am bounded regardless. There is no hope of a multi-culti social programme demanding that I like the English on the grounds of non-racism and brotherly love.

I don't love the English. I'm not sure how much choice I have in that matter. I am sure that social engineering isn't going to persuade me to like them any better than I do now. Nor can I pretend successfully that there is no such thing as English. There is something between them, particularly those from the south and me that is real. I look at people as individuals, and then I am confronted by those individuals who are English. I know that I am me and an individual, and then I know that I am not English. That makes me something other than English. It makes me Scottish. But I'm only Scottish by accident and default. What loyalty do I owe people I have little or nothing to do with? Seemingly everything in spite of myself. In that sense I am a first-rate racist. Except that I don't have any Scottish friends and don't see any around me. My loyalties are to my friends, many of whom are from scattered places they have no ties to. They though are also ethnic, and they have vestiges of ethnic loyalties that determine them and give them identity beyond themselves. They are members of a limited identity group. It is meaningful.

The question of ethnicity and group identity for the individual is how far one takes it. I am part of an extended family group, and though others might be adopted into that group they are adopted, not of the blood. It is irrational and it is real. It leads to Judenrein and it leads to Israel.

What is it to be an ethnic individual? It is the freedom of being bounded. I am because I am not. My ethnicity is objective but it is not determinative beyond my will. I am a group member by default and perhaps I can choose to ignore it if I will. It is a necessary but not sufficient aspect of identity. My being is objective and accidental, and within that confine I am as I can choose. If life were fair I would have been born into the family of Leonopold Blooum.
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In the course of the last few days as I've been writing on this theme at http://CUANAS.blogspot.com/ I've covered a lot of ground. In the middle of writing the copy above it comes to my attention that there is more on this topic at http://ibloga.blogspot.com/ :

7 Year Old Racist Poet Is A-Ok With The Media


Because she's black I guess, and our Politically correct establishment love to play the S&M drill of whipping the white man's ass. And, oh how we white people love to be whipped.

Yes, Massa. I's sorry I's white.

Fuck that.

Anyway, check out Michelle Malkin's column about this little, hate-filled, girl :


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March 15, 2006 / 15 Adar, 5766

7-year-old poisonous 'poet' is in demand

By Michelle Malkin

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |

One of the nation's fastest-rising poetry prodigies is a 7-year-old New York girl whose poisonous demagogic advocacy of black separatism makes Al Sharpton look like Mr. Rogers.


Autum Ashante' of Mount Vernon, N.Y., has performed at HBO's Def Poetry Jam, The Cotton Club in L.A., The Apollo Theater in Harlem, the African Street Festival, Caroline's on Broadway, the Russell Simmons Phat Farm Fashion Show, Steve Harvey's "Big Time," a prestigious Grammy Foundation event, and at universities and other venues across the country. She recites her verses not only in English, but also in fluent Swahiili and Arabic (she attended the Islamic Darul Arkam School in Mount Vernon).


Autum has appeared at a tribute to black nationalist Marcus Garvey, America-bashing 9/11 conspiracy-monger Amiri Baraka's annual family cookout, and the extremist New Black Panther Party's Million Youth March. The city of New York honored her with a proclamation for inspiring "her peers, as well as adults, while also demonstrating the power of a father's love, the importance of education and the limitless boundaries of the human mind." New York City councilwoman Yvette Clark called her "one of the most precious young talents that this world has ever known."


Most recently, as New York Post education reporter David Andreatta reported this weekend, she was invited to perform at public middle and high schools in Peekskill, N.Y., for Black History Month.

Here, in full, is what precious little Autum — groomed by her single father, Ashante, a Nation of Islam poet/activist — spewed:

White Nationalism Put U In Bondage

White nationalism is what put you in bondage

Pirate and vampires like Columbus, Morgan, and Darwin

Drank the blood of the sheep, trampled all over them with

Steel, tricks and deceit.

Nothing has changed take a look in our streets

The mis-education of she and Hegro — leaves you on your knee2grow

Black lands taken from your hands, by vampires with no remorse

They took the gold, the wisdom and all of the storytellers

They took the black women, with the black man weak

Made to watch as they changed the paradigm

Of our village

They killed the blind, they killed the lazy, they went

So far as to kill the unborn baby

Yeah White nationalism is what put you in bondage

Pirates and vampires like Columbus, Morgan, and Darwin

They drank the blood of the sheep, trampled all over them with

Steel laden feet, throw in the tricks alcohol and deceit.

Nothing has changed take a look at our streets.


Autum's performance also included commanding white students to remain seated as she led black students in a recitation of the "Black Child's Pledge," which reads in part:

I pledge allegiance to my Black People.

I pledge to develop my mind and body to the greatest extent possible.

I will learn all that I can in order to give my best to my People in their struggle for liberation.

…I will discipline myself to direct my energies thoughtfully and constructively rather than wasting them in idle hatred…

I will train myself never to hurt or allow others to harm my Black brothers and sisters…

These principles I pledge to practice daily and to teach them to others in order to unite my People.

Complaints from shocked students and parents led to a tape-recorded apology sent to all parents apologizing for the performance. Autum's father condemned white district officials as "racist crackers." Autum defended her poem by explaining to the Westchester Journal News that white people are "devils and they should be gone. We should be away from them and still be in Africa.
"

And make note of this: The official who invited Autum to speak, Melvin Bolden, is a public school music teacher, Peekskill councilman, and producer of her first spoken word album.

Who is surprised? If you set aside a separate holiday for Black History Month in the public schools, if you set aside separate graduation ceremonies, college dorms, academic departments, recruiting programs, and government contracts and subcontracts by race, you send a message that hardcore racial separatism is not only acceptable — but desired.

Autum Ashante' is the natural offspring of militant multiculturalism and government-sanctioned identity politics. We reap what we sow.
http://jewishworldreview.com/michelle/malkin031506.php3
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This post needs more thought, and that requires more time. Given the nature of identity politics in our time we'll return to it over and over. I welcome your insights and comments, as always.

4 comments:

truepeers said...

Dag, when you're referring to posts at CUANAS and IBLOGA, please don't just link to the home page, but help us lost souls find the posts in question :)

kevin said...

I posted this story as well, the poem is hardly artful, so it's safe to assume it's laudable because of the politics.
Yep, it's the typical Nation of Islam drivel masquerading as child's art. MM is right to compare Autum to those blonde nazi twins.

Dag said...

Truepeers is giving me some good advice about making links. I'll have to find out how to reference the page rather than the site. I can't figure it out for this blog either, so far.

There are other things as well that I want to do: an rss feed, being one. I want to take some time to figure out how to add to the sidebars. All of this requires that I get one of my mates at the fortress here to spend the time showing my how. If they'll stop going on about the end of the world and Geo. W. Bush I have a good chance ot making some improvements here.

On th topic of twisting children's minds like the one above, I can't add to that. We have to work as a society to make it intolerable. It should be so shameful that peole wil be calling for the father to be hanged. Some things are wrong, and we must say so in public. When we don't we are complicit.

Dag said...

Anon, you put in a great deal of effort to link the site above.

You'll find me as a contributor there if you do a search of "dag" and perhaps "william walker".

Beyond that, I'm sorry to inform you that I have no interest in the site you reference due to it's anti-Semitism, a postion I find so revolting that I will have nothing to do with it.

However, I do not out-of-hand dismiss the contributors that the above site. I read many of them over a long period of time and have some respect for their intelligence and critical abilities. I would be very much pleased to have a number of them as allies in our struggle against Islamic and Left dhimmi fascism. That might come to pass, but the leadership at the blog, on top on censoring my material, is anathmema to me personally, particularly due to the anti-Jewish stance they promote.

If you can get over that, I might be happy to welcome you to the right side of the fight. Regardless, I do acknowledge the efforts you put in here to link our readers to your site.