Luke Ford

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Editor’s Note: The audio recording of this interview is available here.

Alan Colmes:

Hi, I am Alan Colmes. I would like to welcome Jared Taylor, founder and editor of American Renaissance. Mr. Taylor, thank you very much for coming on the program tonight; I appreciate it very much.

Jared Taylor:

It’s my pleasure.

Colmes:

You have been writing a bit about Donald Trump and I know you are someone to promote white interests, which you do withAmerican Renaissance, and why do you say that Donald Trump is the last, best hope for white Americans?

Taylor:

Well, because it is obviously in the interest of whites to maintain a white majority in the United States.

Colmes:

Why is that?

Taylor:

Because as the population changes, everything changes with it. For example, if a neighborhood becomes black or Mexican, white people move out. If you ask a white person to name a majority black or Hispanic or immigrant neighborhood they’d like to live in, they’d probably come up with nothing. Or if you ask someone about a majority Hispanic school that you’d like to send your children to, they can’t come up with one because things change in such a substantive way. So, why on earth, should whites be in favor of an immigration policy that is making more and more schools the kind they wouldn’t want to send their children to, and more and more neighborhoods the kind they wouldn’t want to live in?

Colmes:

Don’t you feel if we had more integration and more diversity, and we accepted that as we become the great melting pot more and more as we were reported to be, that that would all evolve and schools would even out? Separate is not equal, as you know the Supreme Court has said. But, as we evolve and we become more of an amalgam, it all comes out in the wash, does it not?

Taylor:

The melting pot, in fact, worked when all the ingredients were from Europe, but the melting pot ceases to work very well when you have to meld across racial lines. Human beings are, just by nature, tribal, and race is one of the most difficult fault lines to try to bridge of any of the different kinds of social difference.

Colmes:

You don’t believe that blacks can live successfully in a civilized society, is that correct? You’ve questioned that.

Taylor:

I think that the record of blacks is not a very encouraging one. South of the Sahara, before contact with either Arabs or Whites, there was no written language. No one had figured out the wheel, there were no calendars, no mechanical devices, no two-story buildings. No it’s not a very encouraging record and also, wherever you find blacks today, you find the same combination of poverty, high crime rates, and high illegitimacy rates.

Colmes:

Why does skin color have anything to do with that?

Taylor:

It’s not a question of skin color, it’s the way that different human groups have evolved. The evidence is overwhelming that although skin color itself is a minor detail, there are many, many genetic differences between groups that are far more important than skin color. As you probably know, there are some medical discoveries that have found that certain drugs work better with certain races, rather than other races. As science progresses, we will learn more and more about the important genetic differences between the racial groups.

Colmes:

Now I know you have been called a white supremacist, but you actually believe that East Asians are more intelligent that white people. Is that accurate?

Taylor:

I don’t like the term white supremacist for a lot of reasons. That implies that white people want to rule over people of other races. I think most white people today just want to be left alone.

Colmes:

Are you a white separatist?

Taylor:

I believe in complete freedom of association and when people have complete freedom, they tend to end up with people like themselves. And when it comes to the question of immigration, the fact that people have grown up in America and suddenly find themselves living in an outpost of Mexico or Haiti or Guatemala–they never asked for that and they don’t like it and they move out. I think that this is a terrible imposition on Americans, who expected to be living in a country that embraces Western civilization.

Colmes:

My grandparents came from Russia, actually the Ukraine, they didn’t speak English, knew nothing and nobody, they had no money when they came here. They assimilated. Why would we not expect that other people of other races wouldn’t do the same thing?

Taylor:

Because we see the record of this attempt to do so. As I said earlier, assimilation seems to work when the differences are linguistic, for example. It takes a while when there are cultural, even sometimes religious differences. Those things do not get assimilated without hiccups, but race, again, is a very difficult thing. There are two groups who have been in this country or on this continent probably for much longer that your parents or ancestors who came from Eastern Europe, and those are blacks and American Indians. They have not assimilated the way your ancestors did and the basic problem is race. Race is a fundamental, biological fact and every attempt to build a multi-racial society founders on the fact that race is a terribly divisive thing.

Colmes:

You mentioned the American Indians. We, white people, came here and took land and we stole from the Native Americans. We are interlopers in their world, are we not?

Taylor:

Yes, we are. There is no question about that. And if diversity is a great thing, then it should be Christmas year ‘round for the Indians, shouldn’t it?

Colmes:

Well, if we hadn’t stolen from them, maybe it would be. Now, I know you are not a big fan of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Mark Potock and Heidi Beirich say that you are the cultivated cosmopolitan face of white supremacy, the guy providing the intellectual heft, in effect, to modern day clansmen. What’s your reaction to that?

[laughter] You’ve heard that quote before, I’m sure.

Taylor:

You know, the Southern Poverty Law Center really has a sweet deal. They find people with whom they have some sort of political disagreement and then they decide, in their wisdom and their bliss, to pronounce them as hate mongers, as if they can read people’s minds. I think that is a contemptible thing. They’re trying to shut people out of political discourse simply by labeling them something nasty.

Colmes:

Well nobody is stopping you from talking, but if you’re going to say that whites are intellectually superior to blacks, East Asians, intellectually superior to whites, aren’t you not promoting a caste system and a judgment based on race? And can’t that lead to some very dire consequences?

Taylor:

I think that any society has to be built on the truth, and it may be a very agreeable and pleasant illusion to think that all the racial groups are absolutely geometrically and mathematically equal. There is no evidence to suggest that. Instead, we just assume that all the races are equal and then when they don’t turn out equal, we blame white people. That’s the way America works. If blacks or Hispanics aren’t performing at the same level as whites, we blame white people when, in fact, the explanation most probably has to do with genetic difference. That is an utterly unfair and unjust way to build a society.

Colmes:

Let’s talk about Donald Trump. When you say he’s the last hope for a president, and I’m quoting you directly now fromAmerican Renaissance, “who would be good for white people.” You say, “We can be assured that he is not a bait-and-switch politician, who excites supporters with a few sensible ideas and then betrays them.” You go on to talk about how he doesn’t need anyone’s money; he’s already done a bait-and-switch because he is now taking people’s money. Why would you believe he is not going to bait-and-switch on immigration, the key issue in your mind?

Taylor:

Well, I can’t be sure. You’re certainly correct about that. It’s impossible, really, to read someone’s mind and I would be disappointed if he did, but he has based his success and popularity so far, I think, primarily on his position on immigration. I think it would be very, very difficult for him to change that.

Colmes:

You also talk about, the key you say, would be a few well publicized raids on non-criminal illegals. Television images of Mexican families dropped over the border with no more than they could carry would be very powerful. So you support raids on undocumented who are not criminals? You want those images on television?

Taylor:

The best way to get illegal immigrants to deport themselves would be to give them fair notice. You would say, “OK, in x number of months, we will start deporting people and they don’t have to be criminals. You can choose the time to leave yourself or you can wait until we come and make you leave.” Under those circumstances, if that was a credible policy, many would self-deport. Those who wait around to test the policy–If you have the scenario you just described, and people were just uprooted and sent home–that would be a very powerful message and you wouldn’t have to do that very often.

Colmes:

You want to raid factories. You want to raid classrooms. You want to separate families. Right?

Taylor:

No. I’m not insisting on separating families at all. Family unification is one of the principles of our immigration policy on the assumption that families should stay together, but if a family is made up of illegals and legals–and that’s often the case because of this crazy anchor baby system we have in which if an illegal immigrant comes here, has a baby, the baby becomes a U.S. citizen–If we deport the parents, then of course, we deport the American citizens with them too.

Colmes:

And you’re going to deport people who have roots here, in many cases, who have been here for decades, are taxpayers, workers, contributors of society, you’d throw them out too?

Taylor:

You are going to ignore the law. Is that your preference?

Colmes:

Well, the law is one thing. I understand the argument about the law, but this is not murder, this is not criminal law, this is a civil issue in our code, I believe it’s Title 8, as you know, and it’s not even analogous to going through a red light. But to equate this and to call them criminals, when it’s not a criminal act, but rather a civil act, is not accurate.

Taylor:

Deportation is not murder, either.

Colmes:

But you know, we’re not likely to round up and deport eight, 10, 11, whatever the number is, million people. You know that’s not going to happen.

Taylor:

My point is you wouldn’t have to if you had E-verify. That is to say that if you had to verify the legal status of anyone you employ. And look, I’m all for prosecuting the people who employ illegal immigrants. That would send a very strong message, too. There are people who want to hire cheap Mexicans, I’m all for prosecuting them, too.

Colmes:

Mr. Taylor, I’ve got to take a quick break here, but don’t go away. There are one or two more things I’d like to ask you. I appreciate your time tonight, Jared Taylor, founder and editor of American Renaissance, who believes a best America is a white America and that Donald Trump is the person to make it happen. Back in a moment.

[break music]

Colmes:

I’m Alan Colmes and we’re talking to Jared Taylor of American Renaissance who says that Donald Trump is the best thing that can happen to white America. You are quoted as having said, Jared, “I want my grandchildren to look like my grandparents. I don’t want them to look Anwar Sadat or Fu Manchu or Whoopi Goldberg.” But, if they did, would you love them any less?

[laughter]

Taylor:

Oh, I’m sure I would love them just as much, but I’m allowed to have preferences, am I not? Also, I just wanted to make a comment about the way you signed off the earlier segment. You make it sound strange and disturbing that I would prefer that the United States remain majority white. But that is an assumption and a preference that is taken for granted in every non-white country. The Japanese don’t allow any immigration because they have this quaint idea that they’d like to remain Japanese and nobody would ever say that Nigeria or Mexico should ever have an immigration policy that . . . .

Colmes:

Japanese is a nationality, not a race.

Taylor:

Of course. But, Americans, at one point in time, thought they had a nationality too.

Colmes:

Where does it say in our Constitution anything about us being a white country? You think if our forefathers wanted us to be primarily white, it would have been in our founding document.

Taylor:

The very first immigration law passed in the United States, the naturalization law that allowed who was going to become an American citizen, was passed by the first Congress in 1790. It reserved citizenship only to free white persons, and until 1965, we had an immigration policy that was designed to keep the country majority European. There was absolutely nothing wrong with that, and it reflected what everyone took for granted: that the United States was a European country and would remain a European country.

Colmes:

They didn’t put it in the Constitution. Why not, if it is so important?

Taylor:

Because they took it absolutely for granted. They never dreamed–I mean to put in the Constitution that families should love their children more than they would love the children of strangers. This was so obvious there wasn’t any need for it in the Constitution. It is a pity they didn’t put it in.

Colmes:

So you believe that only whites should be citizens of the United States?

Taylor:

No, I’ve never said that. I think it should be a self-consciously majority European country. I’m not talking about . . .

Colmes:

But we’re not European, we’re American. We’re not European.

Taylor:

We are of European origin. We have a European culture, we have European institutions. For example, take the state of Israel. Israel has an immigration policy designed to keep Israel Jewish. I say, absolutely God bless them. That’s because they realize that if it ceases to be Jewish it would change in ways that the Jewish Israelis find unacceptable. The same is true for European Americans, white Americans, for the United States.

Colmes:

I’m Jewish by the way, but I’m not a big Zionist, which may not surprise you. But, that’s partly because Jews have been chased out of every country they have ever been in. Whites have not, right? So you can’t really compare them.

Taylor:

I can compare them in the sense of people wanting to preserve a heritage, wanting to preserve a texture of life, a way of being. I think that is absolutely fundamental. If, for example, people were pouring into Papua New Guinea and changing its culture, people would say that’s a crime. Look at all the Han Chinese pouring into Tibet. Even liberals, like yourself, say that’s not a good thing, but if it happens in white countries, European countries, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, that’s apparently fine.

Colmes:

What do you think it means on the Statue of Liberty where it says, “give us your tired, your poor, your teeming masses burning to be free.”

Taylor:

I don’t want the wretched refuse of anyone’s shore. Why should I want that? Besides, that poem was put up after the erection of the statue. The statue is Liberty Enlightening the World; it was a gift to the United States from France because the United States was considered a beacon of liberty, not a magnet for wretched refuse.

Colmes:

A beacon of liberty for anyone who could come here or wanted to come here. But, let me ask you this . . .

Taylor:

Wrong, wrong, wrong. I keep telling you that until ‘65, we had a very sensible immigration policy that guaranteed a European majority.

Colmes:

You know, Mr. Taylor, by the year 2050 or 2040, it’s been surmised, we will no longer be a white majority country. We’re likely to be non-white Hispanic or certainly whites will not be the majority. Are you fighting a losing battle?

Taylor:

Maybe so, but it’s a battle that I think is worth fighting because it’s something, I think, that every healthy person, every healthy group takes for granted. Every normal, healthy person wants his people, his group, to prosper and survive, and it has nothing to do with disliking other groups. As I said, the Japanese would like to stay Japanese, and it doesn’t mean they hate anyone else, but they have the right to remain Japanese and I think whites have a right to countries where they are the majority, where their culture is taken for granted. Why is that a bad thing?

Colmes:

You say that whites are generally less intelligent than East Asians. Would you be more willing to allow East Asians to settle here than blacks?

Taylor:

Oh, yes, unquestionably. If you had to make a choice between being swapped out by a less intelligent race and being swapped out by a more intelligent race, yes, East Asians will have less crime, less illegitimacy, they will carry forward Western civilization in some respects. They like classical music, they like Western literature, but they are not us.

Colmes:

Do you think it’s fair to stereotype like this?

Taylor:

I mean, we’re talking about averages. All stereotypes are basically true.

Colmes:

[laughter] Well, maybe less and less of them as time goes on. Look, I do appreciate, Mr. Taylor, you being on the program ontonight and spreading your views, or sharing them I should say, with our audience. Thank you very much for your time.