I find it rather amusing hearing white supremacists like Richard Spencer or David Duke or Jason Kessler talk about how the United States is a white nation and belongs to their people. On occasion, you’ll hear of them saying something to the effect of wanting to kick out all People of Color as part of their dream of a whites only nation. Richard Spencer, for instance, has talked about “peaceful ethnic cleansing” as a way to rid the country of people they find undesirable (i.e. those of us with more melanin than most white folks). He claims it can be done peacefully, but the smarmy asshole isn’t fooling anyone, because you can’t reasonably expect roughly 41% of the population to be cool about uprooting their lives and going to some other country on some other continent all because a racist hatemonger thinks the country is only for white people. But even if it were possible to peacefully kick people out of this country, there would be a fairly immediate problem: the loss of nearly 41% of the population. The idea of white supremacists proudly celebrating their success only to see it undercut by the loss of millions of people in all industries brings a very satisfying smile to my face. Along with that smile comes a good chuckle when I think of how this will no longer be the case:
Foreign-born residents not only expanded the U.S. high-tech workforce but helped start new businesses that have generated billions in revenue and hired tens of thousands of workers. Foreign-born entrepreneurs helped start one-fourth of all new U.S. engineering and technology business established between 1995 and 2005, including Google and eBay. In high-tech Silicon Valley, California, more than one-half of business start-ups over that period involved a foreign-born scientist or engineer; one-fourth included an Indian or Chinese immigrant.
Among those companies that are already established, the loss of much of their foreign-born workforce would hurt. Badly. Come to think of it, the U.S. military would take a hit as well, since they actively recruit from communities of color. Of course, my amusement ends when I think about the number of people who would suffer. It’s likely the U.S. economy would take a nosedive, with everything from agriculture to the service industry to jobs in STEM fields being hard hit. Not to mention the emotional toll on those white people who were friends or loved ones of the forcibly relocated POC. Ultimately, I am not convinced that forcibly relocating all People of Color is feasible.
To be honest, even if it were, I don’t think there would be sufficient support. Yes, the United States is still a country with white folks in control of the wheel, brakes, accelerator, and even the turn signal (the latter can be seen in the 2016 election when the majority of the population was unsuccessful in preventing the nation from driving off a cliff). Yes, the interests of non-whites are only paid lip-service to (and only at convenient times), And yes, there are far too many racial extremists in this country. Despite all of that, and despite the fact that implicit and explicit racial bias is prevalent in white people of all backgrounds, I do not believe most of the white people in the United States want a whites only nation. Heck, even if a Richard Spencer and Pat Robertson ticket won the presidency in 2020, I don’t think any ethnic cleansing–peaceful or otherwise–would receive widespread support.
There is only one hope for those longing for a whites-only nation. It’s a long shot, and one that’s going to take a few steps, a lot more blood, and someone with Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Victor Von Doom level intellect. That last part is essential, because they’ll need a time machine to travel back to the year 1518 to prevent the events that led to the true birth of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade:
Continue reading “Happy 500th Birthday to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade”
