Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Herald Sun columnist: time to get rid of white men

The hostile attitude to white men just keeps growing. Here is columnist Susie O'Brien in today's Herald Sun:

THE powerful white man is set to join the powerful white rhino as the world's latest endangered species.

Let's say goodbye to what some have dubbed the "VOMITS" - the Very Old Men In Ties who are running this country.

Thanks to planned changes by the Brumby Government to the state Equal Opportunity Act, it will soon be legal to discriminate against middle-aged white able-bodied men who hold the reins of power.

In fact, it will be actively encouraged.

It's about time too.


Susie O'Brien was commenting on the following changes to the equal opportunity laws here in Victoria:

DISCRIMINATION against dominant white males will soon be encouraged in a bid to boost the status of women, the disabled and cultural and religious minorities.

Such positive discrimination -- treating people differently in order to obtain equality for marginalised groups - is set to be legalised under planned changes to the Equal Opportunity Act foreshadowed last week by state Attorney-General Rob Hulls

... Equal Opportunity Commission CEO Dr Helen Szoke said males had "been the big success story in business and goods and services".

"Clearly, they will have their position changed ..."

... the proposed changes go much further, allowing the commission to inquire into discrimination, seize documents and search and enter premises after attempts to bring about change have failed.

Businesses and individuals would be required to change their ways even if a complaint had not been received.

Action could be taken where an unlawful act was "likely to occur", not just in cases where discrimination has taken place. [Another Orwellian moment in the modern West]


Some of the terminology used here gives the game away. Susie O'Brien sets herself against the "powerful" white man. Discrimination will be allowed against "dominant" white males.

We're dealing here with the belief that if inequality exists it's because white men as a group have unjustly secured an unearned privilege for themselves by discriminating against the oppressed other.

This belief has certain logical consequences. It means that white men are singled out as a kind of "cosmic enemy", standing uniquely in the way of social justice and equality.

It means that the success of white men isn't attributed to hard work, talent or self-sacrifice but to racism or sexism or other forms of discrimination.

It means that the preponderance of white men in professional positions in Western countries isn't attributed to white men being an historic majority in these countries, but to discrimination.

It means that the privilege of other groups in society is overlooked and not attacked by coercive, anti-discrimination laws.

It means that the declining status and position of white males in Western countries isn't recognised, let alone remedied.

Let me give a few examples of the above points. Is it really true that white males are the most privileged group in Western countries? If we take America as an example, then it is Asians who do best in terms of university admissions and income. For example:

Asian Americans, though only 4 percent of the nation's population, account for nearly 20 percent of all medical students.


As for earnings, Asian men are 14% better off than white American men:

An Asian American male with the same level of experience and education as a white American male receives a 4% bonus in earnings - for women the gap rises to 17%.

If mean earnings remain unadjusted for education and experience, then the discrepancy is even more pronounced: in 2000, native-born Asian American men recorded a 14% bonus in mean earnings compared to white American men, and the gap for women was 32%.


It's the same story when membership of the professions is looked at:

In the year 2000, 4.1% of America's population was Asian American, but Asian Americans were 13.6% of doctors and dentists, 13.2% of computer specialists, 9.9% of engineers, 6.1% of accountants, 8.7% of post-secondary teachers (such as uni professors) and 6.9% of architects.


Nor is it only in the US that Asians are doing better. In the UK it is white boys who are least likely to go on to university:

White teenagers are less likely to go to university than school-leavers from other ethnic groups - even with the same A-level results, according to official figures.

... According to a Government report, just over one-in-20 white boys from poor homes goes on to university.

This compares to 66 per cent of Indian girls and 65 per cent of young women from Chinese families.

... Last year the proportion of young men studying for a degree fell to 35 per cent, compared to 47 per cent of women.

... Overall, 58 per cent of men from Indian backgrounds and 66 per cent of women go on to university. Among Chinese families, 60 per cent of boys and 65 per cent of women go to university.


Is the success of Asians generally attributed to unjust discrimination against others? No - it's held to be the result of hard work, talent and strong family support. For instance, Pyong Gap Min, the author of a book on Asian Americans, explains their success at school in terms of the strength of their family life:

high educational attainment amongst Asian American youth reflects in large part the heavy investment of Asian parents in their children.


Robinder Kaur, a Sikh woman living in Britain, has told whites that they cannot escape the guilt of their unearned privilege:

there is no 'safe space', no haven of guiltlessness to retreat to.


But what about successful Sikh women? If they have privilege, is it due to the suspect influence of discrimination? Should successful Sikh women be wracked with guilt?

No, the message is very different. The same Robinder Kaur quoted above edits a magazine for Sikh women which has this mission statement:

The magazine will encourage the Sikh woman to rediscover herself in the light of the glorious heritage and current meritorious achievements of the Sikh community.


And what might explain the meritorious achievements of the Sikh community? Discrimination? Unearned privilege? No, it's this:

Hard work, confidence, dedication and, of course, the blessings of the Almighty are a sure recipe for success.


How should we react to all this? The worst response would be to become demoralised - which is exactly what the modernist liberals behind the anti-white male laws would want.

We should instead inflict a bit of dismay on them.

One thing that every reader of this site has in their power is to make a clean break with liberal politics. If we stop pinning our hopes on liberal politicians, if we stop thinking that what is required is an ever greater dose of liberalism, and if we instead adopt a principled opposition to liberalism itself - then we begin to break free of the grip of those who are hostile to us.

25 comments:

  1. "One thing that every reader of this site has in their power is to make a clean break with liberal politics. If we stop pinning our hopes on liberal politicians, if we stop thinking that what is required is an ever greater dose of liberalism, and if we instead adopt a principled opposition to liberalism itself - then we begin to break free of the grip of those who are hostile to us."

    And here at Lawrence Auster's site is just the place to start:

    http://www.amnation.com/vfr/

    emarel

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  2. Emarel, that is certainly one good option - to begin to read sites like View from the Right.

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  3. Mark Richardson wrote, rightly:

    "One thing that every reader of this site has in their power is to make a clean break with liberal politics. If we stop pinning our hopes on liberal politicians, if we stop thinking that what is required is an ever greater dose of liberalism, and if we instead adopt a principled opposition to liberalism itself - then we begin to break free of the grip of those who are hostile to us."

    Reading suitable websites is valuable and healthy, but it will achieve nothing in itself from a public point of view, unless real Australian conservatives attempt to overcome the grip of the pseudo-conservatives who for years have purported to speak for us. Sheridan, Albrechtsen, Bolt, Blair, Windschuttle et al: globalist New Class soft-totalitarian pagans, every last one of them.

    The Quadrant website states: "Quadrant is uncompromisingly in favour of freedom of thought and expression." It's only 2008, but anyone who has even attempted to get a letter published in that magazine - let alone to buy advertising space in it - may well feel like awarding this statement the coveted prize of Lie of the Century.

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  4. Arnold I. Reeves, you make a valid point.

    If traditionalist conservatives in this country are to, as Mark urges, make a clean break with liberalism, we need more voices to articulate our vision and politics. If we are to differentiate ourselves from the right-liberal charlatans masquerading as "conservatives", it is imperative these we find an appropriate media outlet of our own.

    Working towards the foundation of a traditionalist conservative publication, even one of the non-tree based variety, needs to be a priority over the coming years.

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  5. Thank you, Mr Richardson, for your words.

    I used to think that one could work alongside the right-liberals, despite their unabashed enthusiasm for unlimited immigration, carpetbagging capitalism, and sexual revolution. Now I realise that one can't. The Windschuttles and John Roskams of this world are these days, in practice, well to the left of Lionel Murphy.

    At least we have National Observer and The Independent Australian, though how long they can last until the "hate speech" commissars shut them down is anyone's guess.

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  6. The vitriol is stunning. It reminds me of that Kurt Vonnegut story where they handicap successful people to make everyone equal.

    She really misses the big picture here: businesses exist to make money and only to make money. Usually, people hire whomever they believe will make the most money. Occasionally someone will be racist or sexist in hiring but it would hurt their bottom line in the end - so most just go for the most qualified. Making money seems entirely beside the point in this new legislation. It seems more about controlling businesses than running them well.

    She seems to believe that the business world exist merely to give people some sense of being or worth. Nothing is impeding minorities from starting their own businesses. All of these allegedly underemployed and childless women could have been innovating in their free time and yet they aren't.

    But these are the people that have control of the schools and access to young minds. They are furiously brainwashing this worldview into the children as we type.

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  7. Although it is hard, I think the best option for many white males is voluntary exile.

    As a foreign professional working in Asia or the Middle East, you are respected for the work you do. As a responsible member of society, your conservatism is not just tolerated, but is actually valued as an esteemed contribution. As a temporary foreign resident, while understanding of the local culture is expected, it is also understood that you will maintain an affection for the culture and traditions in which you were raised.

    While international schools are far from perfect, if you pick well you can ensure that your children are well educated outside of the State-controlled brainwashing educational organs of most western nations.

    Go to Cairo, Delhi or Hong Kong, anywhere with a long standing expat population, and you will find a number of truly conservative westerners who find life in voluntary exile easier than seeing the societies they love self-destruct.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous, I've lived overseas myself, so I do know some of the advantages you mention.

    However, I think it's better to stay and work toward salvaging something in the West.

    I think the aim is partly to establish a principled traditionalist politics within the political class - previous commenters spoke of the need to build up some kind of media to do this more effectively.

    The other aim is to organise locally. It's not impossible to think that we could one day have enough people in a location to set up a school or some other community organisations.

    The traditionalist conservative network I've set up is intended to push toward these goals. It's still a little small to really get the ball rolling (35 people to date), but I do encourage interested readers to join the email list (there's a link on the sidebar at this site).

    The faster the network grows, the sooner some ground-level activity and organisation becomes feasible.

    BTW, I'd like to compliment Arnold I Reeves and anonymous (7:49) on their comments regarding right-liberals.

    The right-liberals do make some useful criticisms of the left. They remain, though, liberals and not conservatives (Windschuttle, for instance, describes himself at his site as an Enlightenment liberal).

    ReplyDelete
  9. The Quadrant website states: "Quadrant is uncompromisingly in favour of freedom of thought and expression." It's only 2008, but anyone who has even attempted to get a letter published in that magazine - let alone to buy advertising space in it - may well feel like awarding this statement the coveted prize of Lie of the Century."

    In New Zealand, I've also noticed that the centre-right leaning papers are also very reluctant to publish letters with a populist or traditionalist slant.

    Of the main papers, only the relatively centrist Press is willing to publish letters by readers with old-right views.

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  10. Some strange comments you attract here Mark, eg:

    ... globalist New Class soft-totalitarian pagans, every last one of them.

    Problem something to do with the rather odd way in which you try to limit your audience:

    How should we react to all this? The worst response would be to become demoralised - which is exactly what the modernist liberals behind the anti-white male laws would want.... If we stop pinning our hopes on liberal politicians, if we stop thinking that what is required is an ever greater dose of liberalism, and if we instead adopt a principled opposition to liberalism itself - then we begin to break free of the grip of those who are hostile to us.

    Pretty obvious that the only people with any natural sympathy with that comment would be men of a certain age who self-identify as 'white'. And as identifying labels go, 'white' is pretty dumb.

    Paradoxically, while your arguments rejecting these liberal attitudes leading to 'positive discrimination' are logical and convincing, you unconsciously accept the starting point of all these arguments: ideologically-loaded but fundamentally meaningless term 'white man'.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Couple of typos in that comment but I think the meaning is clear.

    NZConservative, Quadrant's a good mag but just a monthly with limited space, so I wouldn't be too surprised that they're not able to print too many comments. I also wouldn't be too surprised if the ed's were a bit sloppy and hard to get in touch with, it's not the best organised magazine out there.

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  12. Nor is it only in the US that Asians are doing better.

    No, we are seeing the same trend here in Australia, as demonstrated by Dr. Peter Wilkinson in his book The Howard Legacy.

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  13. Tim T, I don't entirely understand your point.

    Why would it only be white men of a certain age who would be concerned about facing discrimination?

    And why do you find "white" a dumb label? How would you prefer to describe the ethnicity of the traditional Australian mainstream?

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  14. If white males created modern Australia and are the backbone of Australian society and are responsible for the vast majority of tax revenue, economic growth and societal stability in this country, then why the heck would you want to destroy that? The elites have gone mad. Perhaps they want a destablised, dysfunctional country in which the most productive members of society are discriminated against?

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  15. Mark, addressing both of your points:

    - it's obviously not only 'white males' who are concerned about discrimination. But it's also obvious that this post is addressed to those people who see themselves as 'white males'. You identify your sympathetic audience in that passage I quoted - the 'we' - and then go on to describe them as the sort of people who would be concerned about 'anti-white male' discrimination. I think it's clear there who this audience does and does not include. In the former category: people who see themselves as 'white males'. In the latter: everyone else, including those who self-identify as 'white women'.

    - I've said before that 'white' is a dud term and I'll say it again. It is vague and unspecific, and does not clearly mean 'anglo-saxon', 'european', 'indo-european descent', 'British', 'American', and indeed does not clearly apply to any one ethnic or religious or national group. And it's not a useful general identification, either, for different groups of people who all share the characteristic of 'whiteness'. There are many, many things of value that the anglo-saxons, or the British, or the Americans, (or any other of those groups I've listed above) have brought to the world: whiteness is not one of them.

    As far as I'm aware, the most obvious use of the term 'white' is in opposition to the term 'black', and is therefore a remnant of a colonial period in the history of Australia (and other countries). It continues to be used as such by left-wingers who think they are justified in foisting guilt upon the majority of Australians because of their own flawed understanding of history.

    The term 'white' is also used by the far-right as an identifying label , more or less in reaction to the narrow left-wing stereotype of history.

    But as I just argued, the label does not describe in any specific or general sense any shared cultural or national or legal or linguistic or ethnic characteristic on the part of Australians. Ergo, the term 'white man' is subject to the shifting sands of ideological rhetoric, and is best done away with.

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  16. Tim, some interesting points.

    I agree with you that the term "white" isn't perfect; the mainstream tradition in Australia is what you might call Anglo or Anglo-Celtic, and this is the specific ethnic tradition that most of us have grown up with and either wish to defend or are content to see overthrown.

    The one advantage to using the term white is that it perhaps indicates a willingness to embrace others who are both willing and able to assimilate meaningfully into the tradition.

    I suppose too that I did use the term white in this article because that is how the press and the government are defining things: it is "white men" who are being targeted in their eyes, rather than Anglo men, or Anglo-Celtic men.

    As for the appeal in the article to white males, it's true that I could have appealed too to others, such as white women, on a number of grounds.

    However, it seems to me that nothing is really likely to change until the men who ought to be doing most to uphold their own tradition actually do begin to recognise the situation and to act.

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  17. "Ergo, the term 'white man' is subject to the shifting sands of ideological rhetoric, and..." so what? There is every reason to utilize generalized terms in a general way. When someone says "He is black" or "the white guy" any but the most obtuse person immediately understands what is being conveyed, unequivocally. Context is often more important than precision in definition, as with thousands of other words in common use. Those would be the sands of everyday language.

    Perhaps the meaning you deny words such as "white" is something that most others do not see or value. Politically you may have a point but socially the critique is unwarranted and probably irrelevant.

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  18. The mistake she makes is focussing on equal outcomes rather than ensuring equal opportunity. One thing that is apparent from IQ testing is that groups have different averages. This doesn't imply anything about particular individuals though, so people should be treated as individuals. But because the group averages differ, there is no way to ensure equal outcomes without individual injustice & sacrificing whatever meritocracy was in place.



    http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/30years/Rushton-Jensen30years.pdf

    http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/2005cognitivediversity.pdf

    http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/10/james-watson-tells-inconvenient-truth_296.php

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  19. TimT,

    I think most people simply use "white" as shorthand for European. It's often much easier to say a "white person" than a "European-descended person."

    I completely understand your criticisms though. The term "white" reduces European-descended people to nothing more than a skin colour, denying them a particular ethnic, cultural and civilisational heritage. Only deracinated individuals would identify solely with the term "white".

    I believe "Anglo-Celtic Australian" or "European Australian" are far more preferable terms to describe this country's history majority.

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  20. Please forgive my above typo. I meant to say "historic majority."

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  21. From the Old Dart. Race still a bar to boardroom, report says:

    "Boardrooms across the public and private sectors remain stubbornly white, says a report, Race to the Top, by the charity Business in the Community (BITC)...

    Kerr said it was time for a "rethink" in the government and in boardrooms. The report was intended "not merely to flag up how terrible the situation is, but to start a process for improving things. Chief executives need to walk into their boardroom, take a look around, and ask themselves: 'Does this represent in any way, shape or form what I see around me when I walk around streets every day?' Then they need to do something about it.""

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  22. Maybe, just maybe, there was some reason Quadrant did not publish Arnold J. Reeves's advertisement or letter. I surmise it may have been about the British Royal Family being reptile aliens from a distant galaxy or something - just the sort of thing an intelligent, sane conservative movement in Australia REALLY needs!

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  23. McAnzac, I don't think there was anything in Arnold Reeves's comments here at this site to justify the claim you make about him. Also, he is not the first person I've heard from who has complained about more traditionalist views being shut out of Quadrant.

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  24. As it happens, and contrary to what "McAnzac" seems to imagine, I myself have never submitted any advertisement to Quadrant which was suppressed. I merely know of others who have attempted to do so. And no, my letter to Q was not about reptile aliens or any such subject.

    Incidentally my middle initial is "I", not "J" as "McAnzac" supposes. "McAnzac" (whose real name is Hal Colebatch, incidentally: why does he not use it?) might conceivably learn to read before he makes false accusations against others.

    ReplyDelete
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