Can or must?

I've heard, on several podcasts over the last few months, a discussion on the fact that whites in general, white men specifically, are starting to adopt the tactics of identity group politics.  All commenters have acknowledged that it is in response to the ongoing and increasing use of the strategy by other groups, whether by race or by special protected class.  What they often conclude, however, and wrongly in my opinion, is the why.

Sample quote that illustrates the gist of the explanation was "It is natural that whites would adopt identity group politics, because if everyone else is doing it, eventually whites will realize that they can do it to."

I have an issue with this explanation due to one single word.  "Can".

I suspect that the truth lies closer to "must".  For over fifty years the Progressive left has pushed the idea that various identity groups are deserving of some extra measure of consideration.  The initial argument that started the trend was that due to slavery and Jim Crow laws, blacks must be given special consideration such as affirmative action, racial set asides, and (in extreme cases) reparations.  This was a reasonable sounding argument and was generally accepted based on the assumption that it would be a temporary thing to "level the playing field".  Once American blacks had been given an opportunity to get better education and prospects, the considerations would be gradually eliminated and society would be generally better off.  I also think that this is a reasonable argument and a rational policy proposal.

Instead of gradually scaling back the considerations, however, the next step was to create more groups that needed them.  The homosexual community came next; illegal immigrants from Hispanic countries; and so on.

As whites start to adopt the tactics of recognizing themselves as a specific identity group, what is really happening is that whites are starting to realize that they have been paying for these considerations, whether they contributed to or benefited from the problem or not.  For over fifty years whites, specifically those descended from European cultures who settled North America have been vilified, demonized, and forced to pay increasing levels of compensation to every interest group that could capture the public imagination.  Whites have been called a cancer on the earth; they have been accused of racism and homophobia for any suggestion that perhaps the accommodation game was being over-utilized or could be scaled back; and there have been significant attacks on the ability of Christian whites to freely exercise their religious beliefs.  Examples are numerous and I won't list them all here.

The Progressive left wishes to import millions of people from the third world into Western countries, people who don't have our culture, our education, our upbringing, or our belief in representative democracy and freedom.  Whites are expected to pay for all these people based on the accusation that "everything whites have was stolen from minorities".  Never mind how ridiculous a charge that is considering that the scientific and cultural advances of Western Europe came from the minds of its thinkers: Martin Luther, Isaac Newton, Adam Smith, et al.  Or that its wealth came from the introduction of new systems of trade and property rights.  That the companies, the wealth, and the ships that allowed the British to expand their empire throughout the world were created before that expansion, or they would not have had the resources to expand.

Were there injustices?  Certainly.  Slavery was and continues to be, a blight on humanity.  But Western civilization did not invent slavery and they are, to date, one of the few if only civilizations to prohibit it, even at the cost of civil war.  Slavery, meanwhile, continues in many parts of the world and Western Europeans spend their treasure and blood to attempt to stop it, even while they continue to be blamed for that and other problems.

So what should white people do?  For fifty years the strategy was to preach against identity politics and try to point out that freedom for everyone was a better way.  What success did that strategy have?  Fifty years later only whites are denied the ability to have a country where they are the racial and cultural majority.  Only whites are required to work to support other interest groups.  Only whites are attacked for being religious when they seek public office.  Only whites are hounded from their jobs for supporting policies opposed by the Progressive left.  White people are, to the Progressives, the underclass.  Meanwhile many whites, racked by a sense of guilt that has been hammered into them over the course of their whole lives, feel that only the destruction of European culture can remedy the problem.  Never mind that the advances in medicine, information technology, etc have come from the Western world and its culture, that culture is racist, homophobic, Islamophobic, etc.  If Western European culture is as destructive as the Progressive left claims, there is no option but to destroy it.  Where, however, does that leave Western Europeans?  That road doesn't look particularly good for the people who created the freest and richest culture in the history of the world, benefiting not only themselves but millions around the world who gained access to all the benefits of modern technology and medicine.  Everyone wants to come to the "white" countries, no one wants to recognize what made them worth coming to. The absorption of anyone who was willing to work hard and contribute to the cultural experience wasn't enough

Preaching equality didn't work.  Instead it has led to the slow demonization and destruction of the culture that created such opportunity.  I still prefer the original strategy.  I don't want to participate in identity politics.  I want to work hard and keep what I create.  I want to be left alone to succeed or fail.  I want to be able to defend my family and my loved ones against attack.  I want to participate or not participate, as I choose, in the religion of my choice.  What I don't want is to be accused of racism, homophobia, Islamophobia merely for pointing out facts about races, homosexuality, or Islam, to name a few topics at the forefront of public consciousness.  I still believe that a limited number of immigrants, chosen to benefit the country and the people of the country, who choose to come here in order to assimilate into the existing culture, can be beneficial and should be encouraged.  I don't believe that waves of immigrants who come to take the benefits of the society we have built, whether jobs or government handouts, with no intention of becoming a part of the existing culture, is a good thing for our culture and country.  For this I will be called racist.  I don't believe that a religion which preaches that there can be no state outside of its religious tenets and which advocates violent struggle to convert the world to its tenets is a good thing for our culture and country.  For this I will be called Islamophobic.  I am still willing to preach the benefits of inclusion for all who wish to support our culture and way of life, a culture and way of life that has brought uncounted billions out of poverty.

I find it hard to blame people, however, who look at what has happened over the past fifty plus years in the United States, Canada, and Europe, and conclude that the only recourse left to them is to join the game and play by those rules.