{"id":93399,"date":"2016-04-15T07:10:55","date_gmt":"2016-04-15T15:10:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=93399"},"modified":"2023-09-04T08:58:04","modified_gmt":"2023-09-04T16:58:04","slug":"you-cant-whitewash-the-alt-rights-bigotry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=93399","title":{"rendered":"You Can\u2019t Whitewash The Alt-Right\u2019s Bigotry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cathy Young writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Who\u2019d have thought that in 2016, we would be discussing whether mainstream Republicans and conservatives should be nicer to white nationalists? Yet here we are.<\/p>\n

The debate is, of course, about the \u201calternative right,\u201d suddenly propelled into visibility by its fervent embrace of Donald Trump\u2019s presidential candidacy. Recently, it was the subject of a long, sympathetic article<\/a> by Allum Bokhari and Milo Yiannopoulos at Breitbart.com, the Trump-loving site that some, including ex-Breitbart writer Brian Cates, have long accused<\/a> of courting the alt-right. (For the record, I have had a cordial professional relationship with both authors, have been on a panel with both of them and have appeared twice on Yiannopoulos\u2019s webcast.)<\/p>\n

In a nutshell, the article argues that, while the alt-right does have some actual\u2014but, worry not, utterly irrelevant!\u2014white supremacists and neo-Nazis in its ranks, it is mostly a loose alliance of maverick intellectuals, traditionalists who feel unrepresented in the mainstream political establishment, and cheeky young rebels who post racist slurs and memes just to annoy the pearl-clutching guardians of political correctness.<\/p>\n

While this taxonomy of the alt-right is interesting, it is ultimately\u2014as it were\u2014a whitewash, full of far-fetched arguments and misleading claims that consistently downplay this movement\u2019s ugly bigotry.<\/p>\n

Take the article\u2019s section on the \u201cintellectuals\u201d behind the alt-right, which offers a respectful account of the movement\u2019s online hubs such as Richard Spencer\u2019s AlternativeRight.com and Steve Sailer\u2019s VDARE. Sailer is credited with having \u201chelped spark the \u2018human biodiversity\u2019 movement, a group of bloggers and researchers who strode eagerly into the minefield of scientific race differences\u2014in a much less measured tone than former New York Times science editor Nicholas Wade.\u201d<\/p>\n

A caption also notes that \u201cRazib Khan, who lost an opportunity at the New York Times over his views on human biodiversity, now writes for the alt-right Unz Review.\u201d We are clearly meant to get the impression that the alt-right web is a refuge for, as the authors put it, \u201cdangerously bright\u201d people unafraid of taboo topics. While Bokhari and Yiannopoulos acknowledge that \u201call of these websites have been accused of racism,\u201d the unmistakable implication is that such accusations stem from P.C. hypersensitivity\u2014and probably fear of the alt-right gurus\u2019 outstanding intelligence.<\/p>\n

Are there political taboos surrounding race-related genetic cognitive and behavioral differences? Of course (and for very understandable reasons, given historical experience). The controversy around Wade\u2019s 2014 book, \u201cA Troublesome Inheritance,\u201d demonstrates how sensitive the subject is. It is very likely this sensitivity has deterred legitimate inquiry. Some people who have waded into this minefield have also been, in my view, unfairly tarred as racists\u2014such as Charles Murray, with whom I disagree on a number of things but whom I am honored to know.<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s be clear: the authors populating the alt-right\u2019s webzines are not just Wades and Murrays with less tone policing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cathy Young writes: Who\u2019d have thought that in 2016, we would be discussing whether mainstream Republicans and conservatives should be nicer to white nationalists? Yet here we are. The debate is, of course, about the \u201calternative right,\u201d suddenly propelled into … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42720],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alt-right"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=93399"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":150973,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93399\/revisions\/150973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}