White pride

It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with White supremacy. (Discuss)

Aryan Guard members protest against an anti-racism rally in Calgary, Alberta, Canada on March 21, 2009.^[1][2]

White pride is a slogan used primarily in the United States and Canada to agitate for a white European racial identity. The slogan is widely used by white nationalists, white separatists and white supremacist.^[3] White pride activists argue that white pride is equivalent to black pride and similar terms that express ethnic self-affirmation.

Carol M. Swain and Russell Nieli state that the white pride movement is a relatively new phenomenon in the United States, arguing that over the course of the 1990s, "a new white pride, white protest, and white consciousness movement has developed in America".^[4] They identify three contributing factors: an immigrant influx during the 1980s and 1990s, resentment over affirmative action policies, and the growth of the Internet as a tool for the expression and mobilization of grievances.^[4]

Beliefs

A white pride T-shirt

Defenders of the term claim that white pride is equivalent to black pride and similar terms that express ethnic self-affirmation. According to an American Renaissance writer, "the United States government is biased against white people" because it views phrases such as "white pride" as offensive, but not "black pride".^[5] White pride advocates argue that there is a cultural double standard in which only certain ethnic groups are permitted to openly express pride in their heritage, and that white pride is not inherently racist, being roughly analogous to positions such as black pride or gay pride.^[6]

Advocates of white pride argue that white people should be recognized as a cohesive and legitimate cultural group, with the right to promote their sociopolitical interests. According to a University of Minnesota study, 77% of white Americans believe "their race has a distinct culture that should be preserved."^[7]

White pride activists argue that white people will become a minority group in historically white countries. They note that non-Hispanic whites comprise less than half the population of California and Texas, the states with the largest economies outside of New York, and that some models predict that white people will become a numerical minority in the United Kingdom by 2100.^[8]

Usage

The term white pride is widely used by groups that are sometimes called white separatist, white nationalist or white supremacist. Sociologists Betty A. Dobratz and Stephanie L Shanks-Meile state that the slogan "White Power! White Pride!" is "a much-used chant of white separatist movement supporters".^[9] The slogan "White Pride, World Wide" appears in the logo of Stormfront, a website owned and operated by Don Black, who was formerly a Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.^[10] The North Georgia White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan describe themselves as "a patriotic, White Christian revival movement dedicated to preserving the maintenance of White Pride and the rights of the White Race".^[11]

Criticism

Philosopher David Ingram argues that "affirming 'black pride' is not equivalent to affirming 'white pride,' since the former—unlike the latter—is a defensive strategy aimed at rectifying a negative stereotype".^[12] By contrast, then, "affirmations of white pride—however thinly cloaked as affirmations of ethnic pride—serve to mask and perpetuate white privilege".^[12] According to Joseph T. Roy of the Southern Poverty Law Center, white supremacists often circulate material on the Internet and elsewhere that "portrays the groups not as haters, but as simple white pride civic groups concerned with social ills".^[13]

See also

• Anti-racism
• Black pride
• Black supremacy
• Double standard
• La Raza
• Racialism
• White nationalism
• White separatism
• White supremacy

Footnotes

Bibliography

• Dobratz, Betty A.; Shanks-Meile, Stephanie L. (2001), The White Separatist Movement in the United States: White Power, White Pride, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, ISBN 0801865379 .
• Faulk, Kent (October 19, 1997), "White Supremacist Spreads Views over the Internet", The Birmingham News .
• Hilliard, Robert L.; Keith, Michael C. (1999), Waves of Rancor: Tuning in the Radical Right, Amonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, ISBN 978-0765601315 .
• Ingram, David (2004), Rights, Democracy, and Fulfillment in the Era of Identity Politics: Principled Compromises in a Compromised World, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, ISBN 0742533484 .
• Swain, Carol M.; Nieli, Russell (2003), Contemporary Voices of White Nationalism in America, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521016932 .

External links

• White Pride World Wide Day
• Convocation of Bigots: The 1998 American Renaissance Conference - from The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education
• Membership Has Its Disadvantages: Whiteness and the Social Entropy of Privilege - an Interview with Tim Wise
• The Last Days of a White World - from The Observer/The Guardian
• The Meaning of White from Time magazine
• Feds Rule “White Pride” is “Offensive” and “Immoral” from American Renaissance