An Open Letter to Mr. Lawrence Auster

Mr. Lawrence Auster publishes the blog View From the Right.  Recently, he stated his basic credo in an article entitled “Why the Truth About Black Dysfunction is So Important.”  As he has many followers, I think it important that I challenge his racist position with a culturist one.  While I applaud his dedication, his racist suppositions set back our shared desire to defeat multiculturalism.

Mr. Auster's writing focuses on the out of proportion level of violent crimes committed by Black people.  And, he documents the double standard in reporting such crimes well.  He argues that the Western belief in racial equality, leads us to conclude that all differences in attainment and violence must reflect white racism.  This guilt over inequality leads us to “denial of the truth of Black anti-White violence, denial of the tyrannical murderous reality of Islam, and unquestioning acceptance of the mass Third-World immigration” destroying our nation.

As a culturist I agree with many of his premises and goals.  Blaming all inequality on the West has caused our guilt and embrace of multiculturalism.  Multiculturalism does cause us to ignore the perils of Islamic immigration and take the blame for the educational and economic achievement gaps between Whites and Asians and other minorities.  But Auster’s racist premise destroys his usefulness.

By replacing his racist view with a culturist view – by swapping out genetic determinism for a cultural explanation – he can actually help right out nation.  His view offends nearly everyone who reads them and exasperates social divides.

Mr. Auster wonders why people chaffe at his “endlessly repeated stories” of “black criminality and failure.”  It is because the vast majority of Black people are wonderful law abiding and productive citizens.  I am certainly not alone in having many Black colleagues with fabulous work ethics whom I respect and Black friends who I love.  As such, his constant smear can only infuriate and alienate the majority of us who have such relationships.

The dysfunction in Black culture, that which leads to crime, is cultural.  It only occurs in certain pockets of the population.  The Black population was not as violent in the 1950s or before that.  In fact, the Black marriage rate was higher than the current rate for Whites in the 1950s.  Crime and divorce are not genetic.  These changes since the 1950s were not caused by genetic mutations.

As people cannot change their genetic make-up, Mr. Auster's racial lens cannot effect any good policy outcomes.  On the other hand, a culturist lens can allow us to have necessary discussions about the cultural roots of social maladies.  The problem now is that our society calls all judgmental distinctions between ethnic groups "racist."  Therefore, as Mr. Auster is, all who discuss such disparities are immediately and completely marginalized.

From a cultural vantage point, we can discuss the dangers of Islam.  With this vantage point we can work to strengthen both Black and White cultures (the falling off of White culture is missed nearly all of Auster's analyses).  And, the overt cultural reference of the word culturist, can help distinguish this hopeful and helpful analysis from the futile and divisive racist one.  Furthermore, the ubiquity of the word multiculturalism can help its opposite, culturism, spread quickly.  I am culturist, not racist.  And, while I appreciate his goal of defeating multiculturalism, Mr. Auster's racist analysis undermines our progress.

 www.culturism.us