Discussion on Racial Identity and Definition

A common tactic used by those who oppose

the interests of white people is to claim that white can't even be defined.

This objection is rarely offered in good faith.

It is typically deployed as a way to shut down discussion rather than

engage with it. The term white

was understood well enough to be written into American law for over two centuries,

from the first

Naturalization Act in 1790 through the early 20th century.

Many of the same people who insist the category is impossible to

define usually have no difficulty identifying who qualifies as non white when

it suits their political purposes.

Refusing to accept any workable definition is not a serious position.

So what is white? A group that cannot clearly define itself

will eventually be defined by others or dissolve altogether.

When a people loses the ability or the willingness to say who

belongs and who does not,

the boundary becomes porous in the same way national borders do when

they are not defined and defended.

Over time, that

porosity changes the character of the group,

often in ways that can never be undone until the group no longer exists.

Insisting and adhering to a clear definition of your race is not a

neurotic fixation on exclusivity.

It's central to the question of whether a race can maintain its unique character

across generations.

If the definition is too loose, it becomes meaningless.

If it is too rigid in ways that ignore biological and historical reality,

it becomes impractical and self defeating.

The task is then to find a standard that is clear,

defensible, and aligned with the actual goal of long term racial preservation.

For most of American history,

the working definition of white was largely taken for granted.

In 1790, when the Naturalization Act restricted citizenship to free white persons,

what did they mean?

It's fair to assume that the founders operated on the assumption that

the United States was a country whose majority population was of European descent.

This understanding was never perfectly precise, and it was sometimes

applied inconsistently,

but it reflected a basic consensus that the

country was being built by and for a European ancestral group,

and that is what they meant by white.