By Ted Sallis | 19 Comments | 
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A Rational and Fact-Based Argument
From The Occidental Observer, December 1, 2009
Reading Occidental Dissent, I came across a comment by a so-called “White Advocate” making the following common “argument”:
Aside from that, sorry, but if Spaniards, Maltese, Italians, Romanians, Bulgarians, Albanians, Greeks, Georgians and Armenians are considered White, then there is no damn reason why Ashkenazi Jews, or people of European descent with some Ashkenazi blood as well, are not White as well. Nobody can make a RATIONAL and FACTBASED argument why this is not the case.
I will provide some rational and fact-based arguments why it is indeed not the case. The genetic data are fact-based and the ethnic formation/indigenous argument is, in my opinion, rational. The cultural arguments incorporate some degree of subjectivity, but that subjectivity is derived from knowledgeable commentators, both Jewish and non-Jewish, and, most likely, is consistent with objective truth.
First, if by ‘White’ is meant ‘(native) indigenous European,’ many people do not consider Georgians and Armenians in this category. Georgia and Armenia are lands that are biologically and culturally on the border between Occident and Orient, and examples of both Western and Eastern types can be found within these populations. Albanians are (likely) genetically European, but as Islam is culturally outside of the West, those Albanians who practice that faith may be seen by many Westerners as being “them” rather than “us.” The other groups mentioned by “White Advocate” are Europeans of a Western and historically Christian background. It may serve his purposes to cite a constellation of varied and highly distinct Caucasian ethnic groups — some European and some not — to divert attention from the specific question at hand: how should the Ashkenazim be racially and culturally identified?. . . Read the whole article.
Ted Sallis
Ted Sallis is a strong proponent of Frank Salter's concepts of ethnic genetic interests and universal nationalism, as well as many of the ideas of Francis Parker Yockey and Norman Lowell. Mr. Sallis believes there is significant potential in merging Salterian biopolitics with Yockeyian culturalism.
Mr. Sallis,
“Guy White” has responded to your article here:
http://guywhite.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/intellectual-diarrhea-on-genetics/
It would be interesting to hear your response to his response either in another article or in a comment here.
Guy White is an absolute retard. I loved the part in which he argued that “Berbers are white” because “scientists” (who?) say so, and that “the American government says so.” That’s great. The government also considers Arabs and Iranians to be “white.” Certainly if you consider Jews to be white you’ll also agree that Arabs and Iranians are white too. Note that he thinks that a picture drawn by Ancient Egyptians is somehow “proof” of his bizarre racial “theories.”
Once again, he mixes and matches figures from different papers; I’ve already critiqued his stupidity in comparing charts that contain different population groups at different levels of genetic relatedness.
Note as well that he completely ignores the data showing that Jews are Middle-Eastern-European mixes. I guess that’s the 5% of the “truth” he’s leaving out.
More to come….
Guy White claims there is no evidence that Jews would be more distant from groups like Germans than say are Romanians. A detailed analysis of Jews and a variety of European populations *in the same study* has not been done, but I note a preliminary analysis:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2211542/
put the Fst distance of a predominantly Ashkenazi cluster from a predominantly NW European cluster at almost twice the distance of the NW Europeans to a predominanly SE European cluster. (I note that Heath et al puts German-Romanian Fst at less 1/5 of what the Price paper puts Jewish-NW Euro Fst, put not wanting to mix “apples and oranges” I will not make any conclusions from that).
Like I said in my essay, more work needs to be done and, unlike Guy White, I’m not making any hysterical dogmatic conclusions. It is evident – and this is the point of my essay – that the Ashkenazi are not a European ethnic group. They are a Middle-Eastern-European mix, most likely.
With respect to “confusing continents with race,” I’d point to Figure 1 here:
http://hagsc.org/myerslab/papers/LiAbsher-Science-HGDP.pdf
and, ignoring the Adygi, no more European than are the Jews, you see a clear difference in ancestral proportions between European and non-European populations. I can also point to an abstract from the 2008 ASHG from Witherspoon et al, putting European Fst differences as less than that found between Indian caste groups and less than different groups of Japanese samples. By the way, the NW Euro-Jewish Fst in the Price et al study is larger than the Indian caste/Japanese group Fsts from the Witherspoon abstract.
My point is not that “Jews are not white” (define: white), or that the Ashkenazim are not very close to Europeans. Indeed, even the Price Fst is low and if you want to extend “white” to include that level of genetic distance, fine. There is no “textbook definition” of “white Fst.”
But do NOT lie and say that the Ashkenazim are a European ethnic group, like all the gentile groups. It is not so, and the studies I cited in the original essay confirm this to the extent that the available data allow us to make a tentative conclusion.
To summarize: Guy White’s fundamental dishonesty on this topic is evident in that he completely ignores the data showing that the Ashkenazi exhibit significant amounts of modern, Middle Eastern ancestry, and that the genetic distinction between Ashkenazim and Europeans is most likely due to this Middle Eastern heritage. This is supported by the single locus marker work of Hammer, as well as the Blood paper (from which the “Patriarchs” figure was obtained) demonstrating sharing of disease alleles between Askkenazi, Sephardic, and “Oriental” Jews. And if the Ashkenazi are just the same as Europeans, how is it (Need et al), that individuals with even just one Ashkenazi grandparent (much less four!) can be distinguished from Europeans? Where’s the 5% of “missing truth?”
White is also dishonest to ignore the preliminary Fst data that show that White’s comment about Germans, Jews, and Romanians is undoubtedly wrong.
He is merely being silly when he asserts that US government racial definitions, and Ancient Egyptian drawings, are somehow relevant to modern racial science.
He is being obfuscatory when he makes believe that “continental population groups” (which many population geneticists use in lieu of the dreaded word “race”) do not share a degree of genetic commonality.
Since Guy White is free to define “white” as he pleases, and since a plausible argument for Jewish inclusion can be made, the original essay at The Occidental Observer specifically states that the issue is NOT one of inclusion/exclusion.
The issue instead is simply whether the Ashkenazi can be considered a European, western ethnic group similar to the gentile ethnic groups of Europe. As the Ashkenazi can be well distinguished from northern Europeans and from southern Europeans and from eastern Europeans (at least, Russians) (Seldin et al, Price et al, Need et al), it is difficult to understand how they can be European if they are distinct from all types of Europeans (putting aside the cultural arguments made in the original article).
The Ashkenazim are also distinct it seems from Middle Easterners as well, despite the mixed ancestry. I believe that the Ashkenazim can be considered an independent “mini-race” or “mini-subrace,” a stabilized blend of Middle Eastern and European stocks who became modified over the centuries through endogamy, drift, and selection. This may be right or it may be wrong. Let’s see future data instead of the dogmatic hysteria of Guy White and his fellows. If somehow it turns out that he’s correct, we can all admit it – but the way things stand today, with the data we have today, he is simply wrong.
Many Ashkenazi are well pleased with the genetic data, since those data generally support Jewish history, tradition, and identity. Again, I’m not sure why anyone would want to strip from this ancient people their objectively determined lineage.
The truth about race and genetics is being painstakenly built up over the years in the teeth of fierce race-denial from politically motivated “academics.” What we do not need is people allegedly “race realist” distorting these data because they do not like the implications.
The most prudent approach is to judge the current data on its merits and wait to see what the future brings.
You all can safely ignore Guy White and stop wasting your time on him — he has been exposed many times in the past as an inveterate liar…he is an American lawyer, after all.
Ted Sallis,
I just wanted to say that I really appreciated you taking the time to respond. Usually it’s probably better to ignore characters like Guy White. However, every now and then it’s necessary to obliterate their ridiculous arguments. And in refuting Guy White this time you were able to elaborate even further on what you wrote in your article and make some additional points.
But I actually think that I might owe you an apology. It would appear that your second response to Guy White has provoked a hysterical reaction from him.
Guy White (as well as his mixed race fellows “won over” to his blog) are at it again.
First, some minor points.
a. I am not an “AS” (“anti-Semite”). Actually, I believe Guy White to be a vicious, Jew hating anti-Semite since, like “ASs” the world over, he wishes to deny to the Ashkenazim their objectively determined lineage. My own views on the issue is somewhere in between Jared Taylor and, say, Hunter Wallace. However, I’m not going to accept people lying about the science.
b. The issue about the Berbers was simply to demonstrate that Guy White is silly and ignorant. Admittedly, that’s sort of ad hominem but richly deserved.
c. [this also applies to other forums, see below] I’m not interested in debating definitions of “white.” I am interesting in genetic relatedness, race, and the political implications of racial and ethnic genetics. People can define “white” however they wish. That’s not going to change the genetic facts.
d. Guy White claims he never said that Jews were “identical” to Europeans. Yes, indeed, he never used the word “identical.” Instead, he showed global genetic analyses in which the Ashkenazim were “smack dab” in the middle of the European cluster. You figure out what he wanted to suggest with that.
e. Is he going to admit being wrong about the Fst issue? Are Jews as close to Germans as are SE Europeans/Romanians? What about the Middle Eastern mixture issue? If an Iraqi marries a European and has an offspring, is the offspring European?
f. Now to his outright distortions of my views:
The only people whose DNA is identical are identical twins. Even though, my brothers and I have the same parents, we are genetically distinguishable. That doesn’t mean that we belong to different races.
Who said it did? Talk about a strawman. But this argument of Guy White and his hybridized followers can go too far. Gee, your brother and you are not identical and you are not different races. A Dane and a Nigerian are also not identical, so…
See next. It is relative genetic distance.
If you wanted to deal with clusters, my brothers will cluster closer to me than my cousins. Again, this doesn’t mean that we belong to different races.
Did I ever say differently? The issue is of relative distance? As in negro>chinaman>south asian>arab>ASHKENAZIM>ROMANIAN>GERMAN>random englishman>englishman’s (unmixed english) cousin>englishman’s brother
You can draw the line of “white” or “race” where you want there, it doesn’t change the data.
Before we start delving into genetic studies, we must establish what we are talking about here.
We are talking about how you, your mixed race followers, delusional Marxists, and others either do not understand current population genetics data and/or distort those data for their own agendas.
The first level of human division is race. Then ethnicity. And so on until we get to individual differences.
Gee, no kidding. Did you think that all up yourself?
It is obviously false to say, as Ted Sallis alleges, that all people of the same race are the same, and those who aren’t identical are of a different race.
Gee, who is paraphrasing the other person now? At least when I do so, I am honest, unlike the liar Guy White. I invite the reader to go back to my original essay as well as the cuckoldry article at TOO. I openly state that of course different types of Europeans are different from each other. And for godssakes, if I comment on Fst differences within Europe, obviously the peoples are not identical. Where and when did I say all people of the same race are identical?
Note to Guy White: I know more about this than you do.
As regards comments made on this issue at comments threads on other forums, they are not even worth answering.
What I wrote:
No one can deny that different European groups — even closely related and geographically-near ethnies — can be genetically distinguished from each other. Modern genetic analyses can do this, and future, more fine-grained methodologies will perform even better to make these distinctions.
Guy White:
It is obviously false to say, as Ted Sallis alleges, that all people of the same race are the same…
Guy White: Liar or cognitively impaired (or both).
I am also not sure why Guy White is so hysterical on this issue (assuming for the moment that he is pro-Jewish and not a crazed anti-Semite).
With respect to Taylor’s views on the “JQ” as expressed in the Giles interview (and commented on by Mr. Wallace on his own blog) I am agnostic. I certainly do not reject the viewpoint out of hand. Some of it makes sense. However, I do not wholly accept it either; my mind is not made up on the subject.
This is, however, a different issue than “White Advocate’s” insistence – and (his denials to the contrary) Guy White’s agreement – on the proposition that the Ashkenazim are just another European ethnic group.
Are the Ashkenazim European in the same sense European gentile groups are? Current data suggest “no” – but if this changes then my opinion will certainly follow where the findings lead. Are the Ashkenazim – as Guy White justifiably points out – genetically close to Europeans? Yes, there are. Are they “white?” That is a matter of opinion. Whether the Ashkenazim (or any other group) are, or are not, “white” is not something that can be determined solely by rational objectivity. It is to a large extent a matter of opinion, and I see it as a waste of time to debate inclusion/exclusion to vague categories that are defined to a large extent by personal opinion. Other categories of continental identity, genetic distance, ancestry, and – more subjectively I admit – civilizational affiliation (e.g., “western”) are easier to define and discern.
Do I agree with and support the work of Kevin MacDonald? Yes I do; I find it absolutely convincing, with great explanatory power. MacDonald’s work is of fundamental importance in understanding the modern world and the current dire situation of the West.
Can MacDonald’s work be reconciled with Taylor’s view as expressed to Giles? Possibly, dependent upon whether Jews realize that the destruction of the West and of Europeans is not in their interest and whether they are willing to genuinely assimilate into “Euro-America.” These are issues of concern for those who support Jewish inclusion; instead of lying about the opinions of individuals trying to set the record straight on the science, I’d advise the likes of White/Advocate/Jobling et al to try and alter the opinions and viewpoints of Jews toward Europeans, the West, and assimilation (for the latter: Guy White, meet Elliot Abrams).
This would seem to be an excellent topic for Prof. Hart’s next conference.
“if Spaniards, Maltese, Italians, Romanians, Bulgarians, Albanians, Greeks, Georgians and Armenians are considered White”
Of the above I can see how perhaps some Aragonians, Galicians and Lombardians (i.e. northern Spaniards and Italians) may count as White, but the rest !?!?
Perhaps I’m not actually a White Nationalist, as I have thought, but a “Nordic-Germanic Nationalist” (new label for ya) but I don’t see how one can count the above/mentioned groups as White. Of course, some people claim that Russians are White, although as soon as you go east of Novgorod, you see the Asian influence grow exponentially.
Just my 2 roubles…
Another racially ignorant commentator who suffers from the delusion that his incorrect opinions reconstruct reality is “Wikitopian” who claims that “whiteness” is not based on a genetic lineage, but is merely a suite of traits that evolved in unrelated populations, with some irrelevant comments about NRY to “support it.”
That is utter nonsense: even race-denying scientists won’t go that far to claim that Europeans are completely unrelated.
The fact is that Europe is the most genetically homogenous of the continents, and, despite the very real, and important, differences between European subtypes, the genetic distances within Europe (as measured, for example, by Fst) are in the range of those found within *single* ethnic groups from other continents.
I don’t know how many times I need to repeat this (and the comments of Wikitopian seem strangely familiar to that of someone complaining in similar terms about my cuckoldry essays at TOO), one cannot use single locus markers to determine racial/ethnic identity. In fact, one can have two (co-ethnic and unmixed) male cousins of different patrilineages in the family, who have different Y chromosome haplotypes. One can, of course, find different NRY and mtDNA haplotypes within the same ethnic group populations. It means close to nothing.
“Whiteness” exists because related groups (related being a relative term, of course) evolved under similar circumstances.
It would be best if people actually get their facts straight before publishing the delusions as comments on blog threads. A number of recent population genetics papers are free online and as such can be read and understood by anyone with a triple digit IQ.
RE “nordicreb,” I wrote:
c. [this also applies to other forums, see below] I’m not interested in debating definitions of “white.” I am interesting in genetic relatedness, race, and the political implications of racial and ethnic genetics. People can define “white” however they wish. That’s not going to change the genetic facts.
I’m not answering Guy White any more. He is obviously mentally ill. He’s still talking about the “being distinguished doesn’t mean they are different races” after I clearly explained it is the relative distance that is important, not a binary “yes/no.”
He’s still asking for evidence that Jews are more distant after I gave a (free online) citation to that effect.
He’s still posting (in some cases outdated) charts from various studies to confuse the reader.
My advice: don’t listen to him, and do not listen to ME either.
READ the articles I posted links to.
It has come to my attention that this “debate” is being described at other forums as “Are Jews White?” I’ve made it clear here that this is not at all the issue I am discussing. I am concentrating on addressing the shocking distortions of the science of population genetics that are being promoted by the fundamentally dishonest individuals I’ve been debating on the question of Ashkenazi ancestry. It has also come to my attention that a mentally impaired individual mentions my “laughable” justification for Jewish exclusion. I trust that readers with an IQ greater than room temperature have noticed my repeated comments that I am not arguing for or against the exclusion of inclusion of any group. I’m simply explaining why comments made on this issue have been factually wrong and/or dishonest.
But don’t believe me. Unlike the critics, I want you to be skeptical. Reread my essays and comments and judge for yourself if any conclusion with respect to exclusion is made, or whether I expressed my “agnosticism” about it. Also, do read the free online population genetics papers for yourself, and come to your own conclusions on the question of Ashkenazi ancestry. Once again: be skeptical and read the original material for yourself.
However, with respect to “politics,” I am intrigued by some of the sensible comments made by Svigor. He suggests the following thought experiment. Imagine you could press a button which would solve the “JQ” but would entail the complete integration of Jewish (presumably, he means Ashkenazi only) genetics into the European genepool. In other words, complete assimilation.
This is a possible approach at least for the pro-white, white-identified Ashkenazim and part-Ashkenazim (“White Advocate”). The idea would be as follows. They would be accepted as “white” and welcomed if they (1) are sincerely pro-white and not spreading the sort of destructive memes that have been promoted elsewhere (the ideas of a multiracial “white separatist [sic] state” and “surrender to the racial status quo” being among the worst), and (2) complete and sincere assimilation. The latter would entail complete biological and cultural integration and an end to a separate Jewish identity. It would mean no “crypsis” as what happened with the “conversos” in Spain.
There are costs and benefits to the “Svigor Approach.” The costs include the genetic costs of integrating this distinct people. This is real, but likely digestible, given the relative closeness of the genetic distance and the relative small numbers involved (the latter particularly if only a fraction of the Ashenazi population in America and Europe accept the offer). Of course, the Ashkenazim themselves would incur an enormous cost, as a sizable fraction of the population would be lost through assimilation, and the Elliot Abrams types will be unhappy with this. There will be costs of constantly monitoring the process to avoid “cheating” — including “crypsis” and attempts to promote destructive memes. Of course, those who refuse to participate would still require separation, but the onus of the decision will be on them, a benefit described below.
The benefits of the approach is that it can substantially solve the “JQ” in the most non-controversial and humane manner possible. It allows those Ashkenazim and part-Ashkenazim who are sincere in their attitudes and desire for assimilation to be so accepted. It shifts the onus of the “hard decision” from our side to their side. If the offer is: “we will accept you as one of us if you are willing to actually behave like, and become (through assimilation), us” then refusal from their side will focus attention on their racialist refusal to assimilate. They will have to explain why they refuse the offer, they will have to explain that their preservation as a distinct group different from Europeans is more important to them than is acceptance. That being so, if their existence as a distinct group is more important than being part of “white America,” they cannot argue against separation from that America. This goes against what I presume to be the Rabbi Schiller model. If I recall, Schiller supported white separatism and considered Jews to be white, but as an Orthodox rabbi (and, I believe, a convert to Hasidism), Schiller wanted the Jews to continue as a separate and distinct minority group within white America [if I am misrepresenting Schiller's views, I apologize and would like evidence that I am mistaken].
The Svigor approach says, no, you cannot “have your cake and eat it too.” You need to make the choice between acceptance and assimilation vs. biocultural ethnic continuity with separation.
I wonder if the GW/Jobling/WA etc. would view the Svigor approach as reasonable, or would they adopt an Elliot Abramson attitude?
A few postscripts.
My “apologies” – “Guy White” did not use “smack dab.” Instead:
“The Jews (light blue triangles) are smack in the middle of the white clustering…”
Big difference.
The liar continues to misrepresent my views. According to his lies, my argument is:
a) Jews can be distinguished from Europeans, therefore
b) Jews are a different race
While, my real argument is, and has been: Jews can be distinguished from Europeans
You can draw the line on race wherever you wish at this narrower level of distinction.
He also demonstrates his mendacity by continuing to argue that continental groupings are merely political, while I have cited a number of studies showing European distinctiveness from Middle Easterners, and the FREE ONLINE Myers paper clearly shows a variety of European ethnic groups in a branch separate from that of Middle Easterners. Further, the Need et al work clearly shows a separation of Europeans from Middle Easterners, with the admixed Ashkenazim bridging the gap.
Now, citing peer-reviewed papers may be “pseudoscience” (after all, “Iceman” knows better than population geneticists), but I’ll let the reader decide whether they believe published studies with hundreds of thousands of SNP markers, or the opinion of some random person on the Internet.
Advice for Hunter Wallace: read the original papers. This is important. Do not rely on “filters” – whether the filter is me, and certainly not when it is “Guy White” (I won’t mention “Iceman’s” gibbering, as it is not related to any published work at all; he simply invents the most fantastic stories out of a fevered imagination).
Some of the papers and abstracts I mentioned are free online: I linked to several and the others can be found with a few minutes of google searching.
I believe the main points of the papers are accessible to reasonably intelligent “laymen” and I urge people to read the papers, concentrating on the major figures of the papers and the conclusions.
The writer “Wikitopian” is displeased with my “lack of sobriety.” You see, I put up “strawman” parodies of the views of “critics” of my “Racial Cuckoldry” essay.
I do not think so. In fact, the comments forwarded to me re: cuckoldry were in fact similar — almost exactly similar — to the fact-free inventions foubd on Wallace’s blog — the confusion of NRY studies, the total disregard for autosomal gene analyses, the completely false statements, with no foundation in reality whatsoever, that “whiteness” has been “selected” in unrelated populations. Those are the comments that were addressed, and that’s what they were. There’s no misrepresentation.
Or, for the sake of completeness, I can add that writings on race and genetics “scare away” “Wikitopian’s” buddies reading The Occidental Observer. As these “readers” are likely conservative patriotards, onanistically salivating over “sister Sarah,” I think it best that they are “scared away” and leave straight talk on race to the adults. What’s the answer, sir? We should LIE about race and genetics so as not to scare away a bunch of McCain supporters?
This fellow and “Iceman” both suffer from what I’ll call “The Lathe of Heaven syndrome” — but instead of dreams reconstructing reality, they believe that the mere statement of their fantastical and bizarre theories somehow make those theories into reality.
Unfortunately, reality is what it is, and the ramblings of fearful conservatives or of confused hybrids do not alter that reality.
By the way, I don’t recall ever saying that there was a “non-white” group more closely related to Europeans than Jews. Since I’ve never made that claim, one way or the other, I have no obligation to “find” such group.