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Defensible Racism
by Michael Polignano
25 January 2004
There has been a lot of discussion in White Nationalist circles about how to respond to being called a "racist." Does one admit the charge? Deny it? Admit it with qualifications? When our enemies get to define the term to suit their needs, none of the options are very appealing. "Racist" is an indictment, trial, conviction, and sentence - all in one word.
Edgar Steele's Defensive Racism deserve praise for offering a new and more palatable definition of racism that may very well gain currency among White Nationalists. According to Steele, "Defensive Racism" is racism practiced for the love of one's people, in order to assure their safety, survival, and self-determination. Examples of Defensive Racism include opposing Affirmative Action, practicing self-segregation, and opposing illegal immigration.
Defensive Racism is contrasted with "offensive racism," which is practiced due to feelings of hatred or superiority towards other races. Politically-correct Leftists see no difference between "defensive" and "offensive" racism, but thinking Americans do, and aversion to the label of "racist" keeps many quality individuals from joining the White Nationalist movement.
Defensive Racism is a consolidated list of symptoms, a diagnosis, a prognosis, and a prescription for White America. As such, it covers a tremendous amount of ground, and a comprehensive review would be impossible in a single article. I will thus focus on the book's strongest and weakest points.
Steele's concise first-person writing style and his lavish use of wry humor and rhetorical questions give the book a very personal feel. Steele doesn't talk down to or over the head of the reader, but instead engages him in a one-on-one fashion. This style is easy to digest, making the book a quick read, and there is sufficient redundancy to ensure the reader doesn't miss any important points.
That said, the book could have been better organized (the issue of Jewish Supremacism, for instance, is dealt with in Chapters 6, 10, 12, 14, 16, and 17, but not in 7, 8, 9, and only very briefly in 11, 13, and 15.) The book also would have been better had it been indexed and annotated (references are included, but lack full bibliographic information and only appear in the body of the text).
The book's primary audience is the uninitiated independent thinker: the person who has "racist" thoughts from time-to-time but isn't entirely comfortable with those thoughts or with radical politics. It's for those who know they've been betrayed by the Republican Party, but who aren't quite ready for David Duke's My Awakening.
As someone who was "awakened" back in 1999, I was very familiar with the content matter of most of the book. I was therefore most interested in Steele's unique personal experiences as a lawyer, a father, and a racial activist. In Chapter 11, Steele shares an excellent letter he wrote to a liberal friend who had rebuked him after he represented the Aryan Nations in a lawsuit brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center. In Chapter 12, Steele recounts the experiences of Lonny Rae, a client of his who faced five years in a state penitentiary under Idaho's felony "malicious harassment" statute, merely for calling a Black man a "nigger" after he injured his wife. Incredibly, Rae was convicted of assault after a jury trial (isn't this the sort of insanity jury trials are supposed to protect against?), and the DA never even filed charges against the Black man. And in Chapter 17, Steele uses his background as a financial analyst to examine the causes of the next major Depression, which Steele believes is unavoidable and imminent (I'm inclined to agree), and to make a case for acquiring gold and silver as an economic "escape pod."
Even though it is no news to me, racial disparities in crime and immigration statistics never cease to amaze me. According to Jared Taylor's Paved With Good Intentions: The Failure of Race Relations in Contemporary America, as quoted by Steele, 60% of all Blacks are armed with a weapon at all times. Paraphrasing Australian journalist Paul Sheehan, Steele also writes that, "Blacks are raping or attempting to rape one-half million White American women each year." If these statistics shock me, I can imagine their effect on a newcomer to our ideas.
I congratulate Steele for his vigorous and uncompromising stance on the Jewish question. He relates some of his personal experiences that hardened him on the issue: "trigger events," as he calls them. One was having the law firm he started from scratch nearly stolen from him by a Jew he hired. The Jew acted "so naturally, so matter of course, without a shred of remorsejust like he was entitled to the fruits of my life's hard work." The second was having his kids' lives threatened by a Jewish telephone caller, and having his daughter tell him, between sobs, about the woman who was going to kill her.
The newcomer to the movement will likely immediately view Steele's later statements about the Jews with suspicion, as any intelligent person would question the objectivity of someone whose personal life has been so deeply affected. But Steele does not confound facts with personal animosities. Notwithstanding remarks such as "seems like every time I turn over a rock in America these days, there is a Jew beneath it," Steele does a good job of telling it as it is, though as noted above, footnotes or endnotes would be a nice addition and would help alleviate the reader's potential suspicions.
Steele unflinchingly states that being anti-Zionist isn't enough. The neoconservative Zionist hawks who hurl the charge of "anti-Semitism" at anyone who questions America's unconditional support of Israel are just part of the problem. The bigger problem is the Jewish community that nurtures the accusers, protects them, and fails to denounce their behavior (usually because they see nothing wrong with their behavior). Just as one is called "racist" for opposing Affirmative Action, one is now called "anti-Semitic" for opposing Israel. (The term "Defensive Anti-Semitism" comes to mind, though it's not used in the book. Jews, however, seem to be the chief practitioners of "offensive racism" as Steele defines it.)
Steele concludes the book with a chapter that depicts one possible scenario for the balkanization of America after an economic and social collapse. His vision includes a period of anarchy and tumultuous racial strife, followed by the formation of several new self-determined nation-states: "New America," "Aztlan," "New Africa," and, amazingly, "New Israel." I found his speculations interesting and occasionally amusing, though they have some flaws. For one, I don't foresee a "New Israel" forming anywhere on the North American continent after America's downfall. Another problem is that Steele fails to address the fate of America's vast military arsenal. I think he is nave if he believes "New America," "Aztlan," and "New Africa" could remain at peace with one another for any length of time.
He then goes on to propose a form of government for "New America." New America will be a constitutional parliamentary republic with three branches of government. The parliament would be comprised of a Senate, consisting solely of men, two from each state; and a House of Representatives, comprised solely of women, having the same number as the Senate and its membership elected by districts consisting of equal population. The chief executive's powers would be strictly administrative and procedural, with no ability to negotiate with foreign entities or to originate or suggest legislation. The judicial system would be essentially the same as today's, with the exception that juries would be able to rule on matters of law as well as fact. In staffing the system, however, Steele would start over from scratch: all current lawyers and judges would be disbarred, and all existing case law would be rescinded.
I do not have the space for an extended commentary on Steele's proposals, but I do appreciate his thinking ahead and proposing something. He correctly states that we should consider ourselves dual citizens of "New America" and contemporary America. The day will come when we will need to form a new government, and it's good to think a bit about its structure.
Overall, Defensive Racism is an excellent introduction for the newcomer to the realities of race, immigration, and Jewish supremacism in America. It is compulsively readable, incisive in its analysis, and deft in its marshalling of factual evidence. But Defensive Racism communicates more than just facts. It also communicates a sense of urgency and the necessity to do something to prepare for America's now-inescapable fate. Defensive Racism is so good, I would recommend it to my own mother.
To borrow some of Steele's own words, "Defensive Racism a book whose time has come."
MICHAEL POLIGNANO
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Visit Mr. Polignano's home page here.
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