Davis Campbell describes himself as: “Sort of Chinese. Very Christian. The King’s College ’16. Harvard Law School ’21.”
One of the assumptions of white nationalism, and of white identity politics more generally, is that “white people” are a distinct group united by a common heritage and a common interest in preserving that heritage.
This assumption is false.
A number of ethnicities and cultures have been absorbed under the category of “whiteness,” not because they share a common heritage, but because the members of those ethnic groups have relatively light skin. Yet shared skin color hardly forms a proper basis for a cohesive political community.
Of course, there is at least one people group in America whose members, despite having diverse ethnic backgrounds, have become a discernible ethnic and cultural group with a shared heritage. I refer to African-Americans, particularly those whose ancestors were brought here as slaves. The people who were brought over from Africa long ago belonged to various distinct tribes (seeing themselves as distinct, having different family histories, speaking different languages, etc.), but the shared experience of being forcibly brought to a foreign land as slaves, and the culture that grew out of that experience, was sufficient to provide the basis for a new shared identity. That shared identity was reinforced by generations of Jim Crow, and made possible the self-defensive political cohesion among blacks which, in turn, made possible the civil rights movement.
Nothing comparable exists for white people. There is nothing that makes “whiteness” into a legitimate basis for a shared identity among members of diverse ethnic groups. This is why white nationalists have to make up examples of anti-white oppression and “white genocide”; the threat of violence or oppression against “white people” would give whites a reason to unite in political self-defense. And generally, when white nationalists want whites to act in “self-defense,” they mean writing white supremacy into the law.
The United States historically saw itself as a white nation. That’s why the first immigration law of 1790 restricted citizenship to white people of good character.
I’d love to see Davis Campbell go to China and tell the Chinese that being of Chinese ancestry means nothing for Chinese citizenship. I’d love to see him go to Japan and tell people there that there’s no need for Japanese ancestry for somebody to become Japanese. Obviously, no white person can ever become Chinese or Japanese.
George Hawley wrote in his 2017 book Making Sense of the Alt Right:
* Detailing the history of white nationalism in America is trickier than it first appears. This is because, despite the egalitarian rhetoric of the Declaration of Independence, the United States operated as a de facto white-supremacist nation for most of its history.
* Jefferson was no racial egalitarian—see his “Notes on the State of Virginia,” where he states his belief that blacks “are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind.”13 The case against Jefferson as an egalitarian is even weaker when we note that Jefferson hoped that, after slavery was eventually abolished, freed blacks would be returned to Africa.
Moving forward through history, it is easy to find evidence that Americans continued to view the United States as a “white country,” and policies designed to maintain white demographic dominance were often uncontroversial: the Chinese Exclusionary Act of 1882, the Immigration Act of 1924 (which ushered in a four-decade period of low immigration), and President Eisenhower’s Operation Wetback (which forcibly deported undocumented immigrants), to name just a few. The Progressive movement that thrived in the early twentieth century had a transparent racial and eugenicist element to it. Famous progressive eugenicists such as Madison Grant and Lothrop Stoddard thought the idea of racial equality was absurd.
…white supremacy was formally institutionalized throughout most of American history.
* Jared Taylor, of the “race-realist” realist” group American Renaissance, probably agrees with Senator Bernie Sanders on very little, but his own writings on this subject (“Since early colonial times, and until just a few decades ago, virtually all Whites believed race was a fundamental aspect of individual and group identity”)15 clearly echo Sanders’s claim that the United States was created “on racist principles.”16 Although they reach different conclusions, both men argue that the United States was viewed by its founders as a country for people of European ancestry.
The first statute in the United States to codify naturalization law. Alternately known as the Nationality Act, the Naturalization Act of 1790 restricted citizenship to “any alien, being a free white person” who had been in the U.S. for two years. In effect, it left out indentured servants, slaves, and most women. This implied that black and, later, Asian immigrants were not eligible to be naturalized, but it said nothing about the citizenship status of non-white persons born on American soil. Subsequent nineteenth-century legislation included a racial requirement for citizenship. It was one of several early immigration laws that shaped the framework and outcome of the Ozawa v. United States case in 1922.[1]
Upon declaring independence from Great Britain, the leaders of the new republic aspired to create a distinct American nationality and minimize the risk of another monarchy. When they drafted the 1787 Constitution, they did not define what they meant by “natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States” and said very little about immigration. As historian Rudolph Vecoli notes, “one became an American by choice, not by descent,” through a common commitment to the doctrine of natural rights. Consequently, the only distinction between “natural born” and naturalized citizens it made was that the latter were to be ineligible for the presidency. It did authorize Congress to “establish a uniform Rule of naturalization” and allowed for the “migration or importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit,” resulting in a steady flow of slaves until 1808.[2]
The Naturalization Act of 1790 set the criteria for naturalization to two years of residency, proof of good moral character, and an oath to support the Constitution. It also mandated that one must “absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to every foreign Prince, Potentate, State or Sovereignty.” Despite its generous terms extending citizenship to all children of citizens, it denied the right to naturalize to “persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States.” The law’s use of the phrase, “free white person,” also excluded blacks and immigrants of other races from being eligible for citizenship.[3] In 1795, as anti-immigrant feeling began to grow, the necessary period of residence was increased to five years. Without the right to naturalize, immigrants would not be able to vote and would have no political voice or power.
In 1870, Congress created a second racial category. In keeping with the reforms of the Reconstruction era, the new legislation gave “aliens of African nativity and persons of African descent” access to citizenship. Racial barriers to naturalization remained for Asians, but loopholes in citizenship rules and procedures allowed for successful petitions for naturalization through local courts. The Naturalization Act of 1906 standardized the application process with direct bearing on the Ozawa case. This legislation now regulated nonracial requirements such as filing a declaration of intention and appearing before a judge, but the preceding racial limitations were left intact.
