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Joshua Allen Michael's avatar

After shuffling around the United States for the first 7 years of my life(mostly in Northern California), my mother settled my brother and I down in Lowell, MA, by then an economically depressed backwater of a town(population around 100,000) which had once been a lynchpin in America's industrial revolution of the mid-to-late 19th century. While the cotton mills were still in full production, Lowell imported legions of foreigners s to perform the gruesome work within these death houses. Those workers were drawn largely from Greece, Ireland, Quebec, and Portugal. All white. By the time I arrived the mills had long since shut down, but the descendants of these ethnic enclaves had largely remained. Greek and Irish Heritage fests were more than excuses to sell some t-shirts or baklava from chintzy roadside carts. These people were expressing the passion they still experienced for the connection they felt with their ancestral traditions, as well as enthusiasm for exhibiting these traditions before their fellow Americans of different ethnic identities. It was an example of the sort of courteous cosmopolitanism which is possible in an experimental country such as the U.S.

The adults I spent time around as a kid(this was the early 80s to mid-90s, when the cynicism in this country hadn't reached the level of insanity now prevalent, so a kid could hang out with an adult in preparation of becoming one themself and n one attributed anything weird or creepy to the association) indoctrinated me into race realism, which we simply called straight racism, back then. The message was simple, "Stick to your own kind." and that kind meant white, as Lowell was overwhelming white back in the early 80s. We had just a handful of blacks, thankfully, but a significant Puerto Rican population, and they were a scourge. The language employed when discussing these "other" groups was frank: niggers, spics, gooks(for the Cambodians who were to show up en masse starting in 1986). It was just a part of our lingo. I These lessons had their intended effect upon me. At a young age, I was a race realist. I understood my best chance in the Wild Wild West that is America was to stick with my own.

Then came the 90s, and puberty, and more and more cable TV shows extolling the virtues of "color blindness". Long story short: I abandoned my white identity and became an unctuous lefty liberal, always crying and apologizing for the sins of my forefathers. It was sickening. I was sickening. And I remained in that state for the better part of 30 critical years of my life, up until just last year, when I became a CO at a large state prison in Ohio with a predominately black inmate population.

No one is perfect. White folks can still act a straight damn fool. But Mr. Kipling's words are infinitely more eloquent than mine will ever be, and he had spoken the truth.

Brilliant ending, Rolo. Important reporting you are doing. If I knew more people whom I thought could actually sit with the information and gleam some pertinent lessons from the knowledge, I wouldn't hesitate to share it with them. Some day, perhaps

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RonaldB's avatar

Very nice posting. Although I myself might be considered an outsider. But, I support ethnic identity, homogeneous neighborhoods and schools (except for those who voluntarily want a heterogeneous environment). It's telling, is it not, that US Attorney General Garland said the greatest threat to the US was white nationalism. What? The obvious implication is that any ethnic or nationalist identity stands in the way of the state leviathan. Segregated black schools in the US used to be quite successful, and segregated black neighborhoods were actually quite livable. All people can get more accomplished in a homogeneous setting. In fact, the book "Bowling Alone" by Putnam detailed the empirical findings of this talented sociologist: people were happier, safer, more productive in a homogeneous environment. The legend was that Putnam was so disturbed by his findings that he had his work published only posthumously. But in fact, Putnam presented his research while he was very much alive: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-diversity-create-distrust/

There is a group of Americans who are looking to move to Russia, but I fear they are moving from the frying pan into the fire. And thanks very much to Rurik, who is the only voice I know of that deviates from the Duran-Ritter view of Russia as a mecca of sanity and efficiency. In fact, I looked for a higher-paying membership because Rurik's information is so valuable (didn't find it).

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