Explaining "Replacing Whiteness With Diversity"
Why is the concept of white ethnicity controversial?
Before we get into it. If you think race is a social construct, I’m not sure if there is a point for you to continue reading. I don’t believe race is a social construct. But I also don’t think it is as important as ethno-traditions. Here is what I believe - white people are a race. Many of them are part of majority-populations in western democracies. Those white majorities have an ethno-traditional identity that is blurred into their national identity. Ethno-traditional nationalism’s are the source of the myths and symbols that many citizens (of both the majority and minority populations) will rally around, and exalt, in order to serve their identity needs (which connect them to the land they are living on).
This is about the authentic needs of identity. Not intersectionality identity, or anything coming from CRT. However, when I use the word “whiteness” I use the definition found in CRT, and I make a link between whiteness, white ethnicity, and white identity. All three terms mean practically the same thing. And all three terms do not require white skin.
If I were a white nazi or a white nationalist, I would be worried about the white bloodline. I’m not. I could care less about preserving the white race, I’m all about preserving ethno-traditions that are under attack, especially when they are an important stabilizing and unifying factor (like they are in western democracies with white majorities).
Let’s begin.
The bad guys call it Whiteness. What they mean is enlightenment values and traditions. So eradicating whiteness, actually means eradicating enlightenment values and traditions. Inversely you could say (although I promise I’m not) that “white pride” is simply pride in enlightenment rationality. What I find interesting, is how triggering the previous sentence is, even to the most ardent heterodox critic of Ibram Kendi et al. Why is that?
And why do the woke associate enlightenment values with whiteness? Because they are the values held by white majorities in western democracies. Wokeism is an anti-majority ideology. It seeks to deny the majority a valid connection to the ancestral territory of their homeland.
Replacing whiteness with diversity, means replacing enlightenment rationality with a type of diversity where everyone thinks the same (that enlightenment rationality and everything associated with it is bad), but that offers no alternative narrative promoting the much needed human connection with ancestral homeland.
The enlightenment values of the majority population manifest in national identity. Not ethnic identity. White Canadians see themselves simply as Canadians. Their ethnic identity is blurred into the national identity.
When you ask a white Canadian what their background is - they say, Canadian. But again, that is a national identity. Chinese Canadian, Muslim Canadian, French Canadian - these are all distinct identities. For white Canadians, not in any of the three groups mentioned, is it enough to simply call them Canadians? Do we agree that Canadian refers to a white person unless stated otherwise, because white people make up the majority population?
My ancestors are Canadian going back several generations, before that some of them lived in England and other European countries. There are too many generations removed, from myself to the English settlers, and for that reason I don’t identify as British Canadian. And I feel no ties to the territory of Europe. Canada is my homeland.
The term white Canadian distinguishes white Canadians from others who have different qualifiers (ie. indigenous Canadian). As the white population declines, it will be more necessary to qualify white Canadians, instead of just assuming a Canadian is white. But white Canadians also implies white Canadian identity - the thing that is incomplete when Canadians of the majority population call themselves simply Canadian. When they do, their identity is reduced to a national identity. This isn’t enough for many people, especially those who value tradition, and find the ethno-traditions attached to their homeland appealing.
Eric Kaufmann’s analysis of demographic data led him to the conclusion that identity markers linked to ethnicity and related ancestral territories, have a richer palette of ethno-traditions from which people can selectively “design” their identity. And in doing so connect to the traditions associated with their homeland to whatever degree they feel they require. This includes immigrants moving into a new homeland. For them, the most important aspect in this process is that it is entirely voluntary and self-directed.
The white majority in Canada is an amalgam of people from many different European countries. They naturally form a new ethnic group in Canada with the following shared attributes - they are white, European descent, speak English, practice christianity and/or value liberalism, they feel a connection to Canada, and some even participate in other Canadian specific cultural practices (like hockey). So much so that a sport like hockey is dominated by white people. To deny that white Canadians are not an ethnic group, with cultural practices like any other group, makes little sense when you consider how many white North Americans play and participate in hockey, and represent the vast majority of professional players.
When we do see a non-white hockey player, it is a safe bet he spent a lot of time with white players, who helped him become acculturated into the norms and practices of Canadian hockey. When we recognize white ethnicity, and its cultural practices, it gives the people in this shared situation - white, English speaking, etc etc, - something to relate to, something to celebrate. And it gives non-whites the exact same thing, if they so choose to take up hockey or Christianity, nothing is to stop them from going as far with it as anyone else. Under the framework of white ethno-traditional nationalism, it could be said that this hockey playing Christian immigrant may identify more as white than as his native ethnicity. Identity is important - and ethnicity is a cultural construct. Not all ethnicities and/or their related ethno-traditions are open and inclusive, but white ethno-traditions are (the proof is in hockey, but not just hockey).
More likely, in the case of the hypothetical immigrant Christian hockey star, he will both retain his connection to his native ethno-traditions, while also coming to exalt selectively and voluntarily, many white ethno-traditions . There is no need to connect with one ethnicity, and immigrants coming to Canada are great examples of people who both retain their native traditions, while participating and operating within the norms of Canadian culture. It takes a majority population with a strong unifying identity, to make this process of acculturation for immigrants possible.
This whole concept would be a very racist one, if it were not for its inclusivity. There are no barriers for black or Indigenous hockey players, but in order for any hockey player to go pro, they absolutely must be thoroughly acculturated into practices that are overwhelmingly associated with white Canadians.
For some reason the term white ethnicity offends some people. That is a big problem, and a huge point of contention for me, because I’m not asking for white people to be thought of, or treated as superior, I’m not asking for any special treatment at all. I’m asking for the assault on, and denial of the validity of white identity, to stop. I’m asking that white people be thought of, and spoken of, and categorized into cultural constructs like ethnicity, the same as every other group. Not treated special, but also not treated differently.
If you truly believe there is nothing inherently racist about white people, then there is zero reason to deny the validity of them having ethnic identity and an associated array of fun ethno-traditions involving things like hockey and maple syrup. I have a 4000 plus word essay with tons of citations on this topic coming soon. Stay tuned.
Agreed! Equal treatment of any arbitrarily defined group. To me, woke race obsession or essentialism is stupid mass distraction.
Very interesting!