SHADES OF PALE: Those white authors who’ve unilaterally declared racism to be “over” aren’t living on any planet near mine. Witness David Stennett and Eric Remington, founders of something called the “Euro-American Students Union.” They’re trying to organize at Tacoma’s Univ. of Puget Sound (and are talking about taking their cause to other campuses), under the official guise of cultural awareness and “ethnic pride.” Thus far, Stennett and Remington have met with widespread opposition and controversy. They’ve yet to find a willing faculty advisor, a requirement for officially-recognized student clubs at UPS. The campus paper, the Trail,has run several angry letters denouncing the club as a front for white supremacist organizing. UW Daily writer Kerri DeVault has written a column asking UW students how they’d react if a Euro-pride contingent tried to organize up here.
So far, Stennett and Remington seem to have done nothing to effectively allay these fears. Indeed, they flirt around the edges of the intolerant image they purport to denounce. Stennett told the Trail that the club would attract “mostly white conservative students… since most liberal students don’t believe in cultural heritage stuff and have been brainwashed by the white stereotype.”
The group’s literature and its website are full of barbed-wire imagery and rants against affirmative action, along with euphemistic preachments about a proud, righteous white race persecuted by ashamed-of-their-heritage white liberals and double-standard-bearing minorities. It’s all seemingly designed to appeal to the topsy-turvy ideology of hate radio (where some of academe’s crudest bullies and bigots regularly turn around and whine about being the pitiful victims of the mean ol’ PC thought police).
And Stennett and Remington’s own literature is tame compared to some of the “recommended resources” linked from their website–more extreme writings from guys with Idaho P.O. boxes encouraging folks to support “white preservation” by moving to the “New Plymouth Rock” (the Rocky Mountain states, where they’ve got “the best gun laws”).
How do I count the stupidities in all this? First, “White” is a singular population entity only in terms of a heritage of priviliges and in the delusional theories of demagogues. North American caucasians are a beyond-muttness amalgam of dozens of ethnic, tribal, and national root groups, many of which have fought bitter wars with one another over the past few centuries. (The biggest of those wars were started by jerks like Napoleon and Hitler who foolishly sought to impose a singular nationhood on all Euros.) “White” isn’t an ethnicity; it’s the absence of ethnicity. You can have whole or partial ancestry from England, France, Germany, Spain, Norway, Latvia, Greece, Italy, and/or a hundred other lands or sub-lands, but there’s no Nation of White. What I and other writers have referred to as “whitebread culture” is a complex set of beliefs, styles, fashions, foods, aesthetics, and attitudes rooted in concerted attempts by business and government earlier in this century to forge a common “American” culture from all these diverse ethnic and immigrant groups. That’s not really “white culture”; that’s mainstream American culture, something adhered to in varying degrees by citizens of varying ethnicities.
(Besides, pure breeding is for primping show dogs, not for healthy work dogs and especially not for humans. Interaction and interbreeding makes us stronger, not weaker.)
Of course, some whites are more privileged than others; class and race were never uniformly synonymous. Demagogues here, in Europe, and in Africa have long exploited racial/ national/ color “identity” to get the relatively underprivileged to support programs and wars that mainly benefitted the overprivileged of similar ethnicity or skin hue.
And it doesn’t help that certain demographically-obsessed leftists help the demagogues by ranting against “White Male Society” as if everyone who was white and/or male was equally rich and/or powerful. Most rich people are white, but most white people aren’t rich. I belileve most people regardless of complexion would be better off in a more progressive, more diverse, and more equitable society than in what we’ve presently got. A left wing that really worked would reach out to these people, and not abandon them to the “Euro-Americans” or other such nonsense.
(Coming Sun., June 2: The big Misc. 10th Anniversary blowout at the Metropolis Gallery, across from SAM on University St. Details forthcoming.)
Response to the Above
Subject: ESU?
Date: Sat, 23 Dec 1995 00:44:50 -0800
From: “David J. Stennett” (Dstennett@ups.edu)
Organization: Euro-American Students’ Union
DEAR BIRBONE:
Hey there buddy O’l pal. This is David J. Stennett of the ESU at UPS.
I wanted to help you with some corrections. First… Eric Remington was only the Vice-President of the ESU chapter at UPS–while I am a CO-FOUNDER of the NATIONAL ESU which is now responsible for 34 chapters at University’s throughtout this great country (and growing into Canada and even Europe). Remington was a mere helper at the UPS chapter, along with the final 64 members. Ooo, yeah, we did get an Advisor. He was one Henry Johnson, the BLACK ASST. DEAN OF STUDENTS. In fact, ESU’s are everywhere. I thank you for the FREE PUBLICITY. Please make corrections where nessessary.
Alea Jacta Est!
David J. Stennett
P.S. Have a Great YUL
