I am not a white nationalist. You may wonder what would have brought on such a declaration, or if you have been reading me for a while, you may have simply grown used to my uncanny ability to flit from one unrelated subject to the next. Bear with me here, but it really is all connected, intricately woven together.
I suppose I am a “white people” or rather a latte colored one. My Father was off the boat from Italy and my mother is Indian and Irish. My family didn’t know whether they were fleeing communism, escaping the Rez, or drinking heavily to blight out the potato famine. We are an odd collection of “poor white trash” and the rigidity of the old country. Long line of Catholics on both sides of the family, but they all lost their faith, every last one of them.
I’ve given a great deal of thought about what it means to be a “white people” and all in good humor here, but I doubt they’d let me in their “tribe.” It’s all good, because how does “white” even begin to tell the tale of what it truly means to be a latte colored American? “White” reminds me of Minute Rice, the kind you put in the microwave, something lacking nutrients, all it’s depth extruded from this freeze dried package. I think that label is too small to hold the history of who and what we are and where we came from.
So politics, especially the rise of the Alt-Right and internet culture. The Alt Right can have a very heavy white “Christian” nationalistic flavor to it. I put “Christian” in quotes because my personal feelings on the matter are that phrase is a complete oxymoron. “White, Christian, and nationalist” are 3 separate identities, all in conflict with one another.
Especially oxy-moronic if your “white Christian nationalist” is a hispanic/Native American guy who doesn’t believe in the Trinity and actually lives in Europe. That would be Vox Day who recently wrote a piece called, The Alt Right is not Freddy Krueger.
Sorry, but I’m afraid the Alt-Right really is Freddy Krueger and whenever you are confronted by some dark, ugly, demon-like Hollywood invention, the only proper response is to metaphorically hit it upside the head with a shovel and set it on fire. The Alt Right needs to circle the drain of stupidity and be flushed away with other foolish things.
Or at least that is true of the part of the Alt-Right that is founded on hatred and hostility.
My official stand on racism, including rabid anti-Semitism, is that it is blasphemous. We are all created in God’s image and He says we were worth dying for. So for someone to come along and dehumanize certain groups of people, is blasphemous, it is contradicting God’s word. None of this mediated reality racism either, none of this pseudo, suddenly “everything is racist” nonsense either. That is not what I am talking about. I read the Alt right, there is a whole lot of flat-out hatred for people, dehumanization that leaves nothing to the imagination. Outright blasphemy.
America is not a white nationalist country, either. We are a melting pot or a salad bowl or soup or what ever analogy you wish to use, but that is what we are. Out of many, one. E Pluribus Unum, our national motto.
There’s another motto that often rests right below E Pluribus Unum, Annuit Coeptis, which basically means, “He approves.” Or as the song goes, God shed His grace on thee…
But the real reason I am not a white nationalist, nor will I ever tolerate such nonsense, is much simpler and has to do with tacos. Tacos once made with diced up fried bologna, tomatillos, and Thai rice. That’s America, that is the flavor of who and what we are. It’s written all over the foods we eat and the ingenuity of those on the bottom coming together to share with one another.
Freddy Krueger himself couldn’t take that away, nor could he ever erase the memory of those tacos and the 3 girls who once got together to make them so long ago, each of us bringing what we had. That’s the America I know, one built on fried bologna tacos and people dreaming of a better life.
The alleged “alt-right” is more like a revivalist Tea Party movement which certainly included racists and while being very anti-Islam had a lot of reasons as terrorists in the times of its formation back in 2012 (and led by Ron Paul) were generally Islamic. Clearly, more terrorist attacks since then by Muslims have only fueled this suspicion.
It should be noted though that Islam is no less violent than Christianity. At their high points in the Middle Ages, the violence was more centered around just war ideology than anything else. Islamic terrorist groups take the violence to an extreme level. Most Islamic forms of capital punishment though backward for westerners follows a strict line of due-process.
So the Tea Party is correct to state that Muslims and Christians are hostile toward each other and it would be best for us to examine the history as to why going as far back as Muhammad (PBUH–out of respect for Muslims) if we have to.
And confession: I am a Tea Party fanatic.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hmm, a Tea Party fanatic, like the conservatives who peacefully gathered, protested, and backed some political candidates? I’m all for that kind of thing.
I also hate to paint the whole alt right with the same brush, I mean they have some good ideas and they make some much needed points. Some of it is hyperbole and bluster,men venting their anger, but quite a bit of it is simply not okay.
LikeLike
Yeah. Pretty much. I find myself swinging toward a Trump presidency lately mostly because what he holds are Tea Party ideas. Actually, Mike Pence was a Tea Party member as well when the Tea Party formed and then died out being absorbed back into the Republican Party again.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I have a very good impression of Mike Pence. I can never in good conscience vote for Trump. But I won’t speak against Pence.
LikeLiked by 3 people
The one thing that bothers me about Pence is that he caved in on the homo marriage issue. Trump has waffled on that issue, but he seems generally OK with the homosexual agenda. too. That’s the other thing about the Alt-Right that really came out (no pun intended) when it was down to Trump and Cruz in the primary: the Alt-Right was very vocal about abandoning cultural issues. And a lot of their pundits too even complained about Conservatives’ standing for the Constitution and Reaganomics.
LikeLike
IB, except for my sunspotted forearms I’m basically paste-y white. But honestly, who really cares? When you speak of what is real about humanity I am right there with you. I’m made in his image. Jesus died for me. No one with a prettier complexion can take that away from me even if I do have enough vanity to sometimes lament mine.
(BTW, The tea-party rallies and events I went to were outstanding and lively and lovely with no racism in evidence. At one I was listening to a lovely black woman who was running for a local public office give a really good speech as a car full of race-baiter a who could not see her through the crowd drove by hollering very loudly that we were all racists. It’s the ironic moment that sticks in my mind to this day that defines the racial issues of our times.)
LikeLiked by 3 people
LOL! Don’t lament your complexion. One thing worse than sun spots is never having gotten any sun. The days are getting shorter here and I’m missing the sun already.
The Tea Partiers we had locally were actually organized by a couple of black women and often had a surprisingly diverse group of people involved. The Alt Right is something entirely different and they tend to hate the Tea Party and most conservatives.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yeah…racism is in fact blasphemy.
Might as well waggle your finger in God’s face and say…”Hey, you did okay for the most part, but really blew it then you created THOSE PEOPLE.”
LikeLiked by 6 people
Multicultural metaphors do become odd and unwieldy. The USA is a salad bowl, I’m ranch dressing, my ex is iceberg lettuce, and IB is… uh… a crouton?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Oh, a crouton, I like that! You’re quite right, all these multicultural metaphors and labels really are unwieldly.
LikeLike
I love fried bologna – my Dad and I used to eat it regularly. He would rather bologna than a steak – or so he said. When I trucked the only place I could buy it in a restaurant was Newfoundland – an east coast island province in Canada. I still eat it regularly and have a pack in the fridge right now. I sometimes eat it with Lebanese flat bread. P.S. I hate the Kruger franchise. 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sliced real thick, fried with some tomato and lettuce.
Well said Paul on the fried bologna.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Ha! Indeed – memories – Dad would buy it at the butcher shop and have it sliced thick.It had a wax coating on the outside of the roll. Yum!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I found a new meat market a few weeks ago..new to me that is. Been buying some steaks there. Now you have me thinking I need to go see about some thick sliced bologna!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Ha! I’m so glad you two understand. I mention fried bologna in this neck of the woods and people just look at me funny.
LikeLike
Quite right…in Nfld they call bologna “Newfie steak”. They eat weird stuff out there
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ha…I have heard it called poor man’s steak, or even redneck ribeye!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Newfies love their bologna the way Hawaiians love their Spam.
I quite like it too. Around here, it is known as “Lyoner sausage” – basically the German version of bologna.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I remember Lyoner from Germany. If I remember right they also sold it in a tube that was smaller and more sausage like.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I just realized we’re discussing bologna and lold
LikeLike
I know right? Deep stuff on this post and we are all talking about lunchmeat!
LikeLiked by 1 person
When the Alt-Right generously wants to give North America to the Whites, I always wonder what they want to about the Indians? It seems like they might have better claim to America if we’re building racial homelands for everybody.
I read on someone else’s blog lately that this White Nationalism is just Left-Wing multiculturalism repackaged. Really, that makes sense because all I really hear from the Alt-Right sounds like Affirmative-Action and race quotas for White people.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It really is, it is “Left-Wing multiculturalism repackaged.”
LikeLike
Good post sister. I personally have a hard time seeing Christian white nationalism junk on the internet…for more than reason. By the way, I don’t think I would ever see you as a white nationalists from what I see on your blog thus far…
LikeLiked by 1 person
The white nationalism business is frighteningly familiar–the stuff Adolph Hitler appealed to. How scare is that? One of the worst genocides committed on this planet was perpetrated in the name of white nationalism.
Becky
LikeLiked by 1 person
Really good point, Becky. It is scary and when I read some of these words all I can think is no way, not in my country. We are fortunate in a way, we have history, we know where this all leads, and I think enough of us still get it, still understand how quickly things can get ugly.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I hope so. Sadly, I think Donald Trump has given legitimacy to this kind of thinking. I don’t for a minute think he’s a Hitler, with a philosophy centered on establishing a “pure race,” but he’s an opportunist who’s said what he thinks others want to hear. And when it comes out in a major party candidate’s speech, it looks less dangerous, more benign, when in actuality, it’s just the opposite.
Such times we live in!
Becky
LikeLiked by 1 person
Grew up eating bologna, both fried and cold. It never occurred to me that there was anything strange about frying it. But no fried bologna for me anymore.
😦
Gout.
LikeLike
Sorry Tom, gout is painful. It’s probably caused by fried bologna, too.
I once offered to make someone with gout some fried soy bologna, but he started begging me to just shoot him, so I aborted the whole idea. 🙂
LikeLike
I had some episodes some years back. The big toe on my right foot flared up. Read up on the things that “cause” gout, and I decided it was my healthy diet. I like soup, and the makers put chicken broth in most types.
I actually was not eating much bologna (wife is a nurse
😀 ). Now I don’t dare. Sausage, shell fish, and certain types of fish seem to be among the biggest culprits, and I certainly like all that.
Gout is called the disease of kings. Now I have to eat like a peasant.
Comes from being of Irish descent, I suppose.
😉
LikeLiked by 1 person