Posted on October 15, 2018

Yes, Churchill Was ‘Racist’

Gregory Hood, American Renaissance, October 15, 2018

Every white hero eventually becomes a racist.

Astronaut Scott Kelly recently tweeted a Winston Churchill quote in reaction to Republican gloating over the confirmation of Justice Kavanaugh.

The result was a flood of comments criticizing Churchill for being a “racist” and “imperialist” and even responsible for the Bengali famine. Mr. Kelly apologized and promised to “educate” himself.

Conservatives immediately attacked Captain Kelly for his retraction. One objection was tactical. Douglas Murray at National Review observed, accurately, that there is never any gain in apologizing: “Never apologize, never concede, only surge inhumanly forward.” True; if only National Review had taken this advice when it purged Joe Sobran, Ann Coulter, John Derbyshire, Peter Brimelow, Jared Taylor and so many others!

A more troubling objection was philosophical. Donald Trump Jr. stated that no one should apologize for Churchill because he was “the original antifa” and that today’s black-masked radicals resemble fascism more than they oppose it.

This is a variation on “Democrats are the Real Racists” — the idea that the Democratic Party was the party of segregation, secession, and white supremacy. The Republicans, founded to oppose the expansion of slavery, are thus the logical home for black voters. When it comes to Churchill, conservatives are the real antifa, while anti-fascists are the real fascists.

This is all rubbish. The American Founding Fathers would, by today’s standards, be white advocates if not outright white nationalists. They often wrote about racial differences. As for the Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln believed it was impractical for whites and blacks to live together under the same government, as did Thomas Jefferson. In August 1862, Lincoln asked black leaders to the White House to ask them to persuade their people to emigrate. Every American president, of either party, was a “racist” by today’s standards until at least John F. Kennedy — and even Jackie Kennedy said of Martin Luther King Jr., “The man’s terrible.”

Most Americans until the very recent past believed America was a white nation created by white people “for ourselves and for our posterity.” It is far easier to make the case that America has always been “racist” than to claim America’s founding ideals lead inevitably to racial egalitarianism. Similarly, the conservative attempt to claim blacks such as Martin Luther King Jr. is foolishness. Even Steve Bannon claims King would support President Donald Trump, but the real King wanted anti-white discrimination, reparations, and democratic socialism.

Mr. Trump Jr.’s attempt to claim the “antifa” label for Churchill also fails. Antifa is essentially a communist front group. Its symbols, the “flags within flags” and the three arrows, are taken from German leftist movements. Historically, “fascism” arose as a response to communist revolution in Russia and attempted revolutions in Hungary, Slovakia, and parts of Germany; communist street violence preceded “fascism” itself. “Anti-fascism” is simply a brand deriving from the communist practice of characterizing all opponents, even those on the left, as “fascist” and therefore to be destroyed. The tactic of calling all enemies “fascist” is still common; journalists use as their favorite slur for President Trump. Conservatives will not gain anything by imitating this silliness. Today’s antifa, be they communist or anarchist, know their ideological roots better than conservatives who believe there is a direct line from Mussolini to the Democratic Socialists of America.

Unfortunately for conservatives, leftists may also know Winston Churchill better than they do. Churchill was, by modern standards, unquestionably a “racist.” In 1937, he endorsed the American conquest of North America and the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Australia because a “stronger race, a higher-grade race” had prevailed. In 1954, he told a Cabinet meeting he did not want a “parti-coloured UK” nor to “saddle ourselves with colour problems.” Historian Peter Hennessy writes in The Prime Minister: The Office And Its Holders Since 1945 that Churchill told the Cabinet that “Keep England White” was a good slogan. Churchill was also reluctant to abandon the empire, famously declaring that he had “not become the King’s first minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.”

Sir Winston Churchill (Credit Image: © PA Wire via ZUMA Press)

Ben Shapiro, trying to defend Churchill in National Review, says admiration for Sir Winston and his defeat of Nazi Germany must be a bulwark for those who believe in America and the West: “There can be no politically unifying moments with history-twisting harpies — harpies who would be speaking German without Churchill.” This itself is truly “twisting” history; German occupiers didn’t force the French, Dutch, or other Western Europeans to speak German. It’s doubtful they would have even if the Third Reich had survived. Mass Third World immigration is changing the population and culture of the United Kingdom far more than a defeat in World War II would have. While the British people won’t be speaking German anytime soon, many of their neighbors are already speaking Urdu, Punajbi, or Arabic.

Edward Gibbon once said that had the Franks lost the Battle of Tours, “Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet.” In the long run, that may happen precisely because the British did win World War II. Churchill himself may have had second thoughts about his career, as he witnessed the dismemberment of the Empire, America pushing Britain aside as the leader of the West, the beginning of the Cold War, the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe, the growth of the British welfare state, and the beginnings of multi-racialism in his country. “Yes, I worked very hard all my life, and I have achieved a great deal — in the end to achieve nothing,” he said to his secretary in 1956.

Whatever Churchill’s thoughts, regrets, or hopes, the modern multiracial United Kingdom increasingly has no place for him. In response to the Scott Kelly fracas, black studies professor Kehinde Andrews lectured the British people on Good Morning Britain that Churchill “was someone who believed the white race was superior, the natives didn’t have any right to their lands in the Americas, the Indians were a ghastly people, and [he] was just a general imperialist bigot.” In comments familiar to Americans who know critical race theory, he added: “The history of this country is built on racism. And therefore everybody involved in it probably has a really racist place.”

Professor Andrews is right, though not in the way he thinks. Winston Churchill fought his whole life for what he saw as the interests of his country and his people. Professor Andrews, of course, is not English. Why should he care about Churchill or, for that matter, any English hero? Professor Andrews has a position of status precisely because — contrary to Churchill’s wishes — the United Kingdom imported a “colour problem,” a problem that can never truly be “solved.”

Since non-whites can never see British history as “their” history, the past must be reinterpreted to make them feel welcome. There are demands that Nelson’s Column be demolished and even for the English flag to be taken down lest it offend Muslims. If the feelings and racial pride of non-whites are the highest priority, it necessarily follows that every white hero must be toppled, especially if that hero ever ruled over non-whites. Removing the statue of Cecil Rhodes in South Africa is just a preview of what will come to once-Great Britain if demographic changes continue. It is logical for Professor Andrews to say that British athletes should protest the British anthem because the country will not deal “with the realities of its racism.” “Dealing” with racism means dispossessing whites and destroying their identity.

The response to Scott Kelly’s tweet shows that no white hero, even those who fought National Socialism, is acceptable in an age of racial liberalism. The misguided attempts to defend Churchill by Ben Shapiro, Donald Trump Jr., and others are doomed to fail because Churchill opposed racial egalitarianism, and anyone who “educates” himself will see that. Claiming Churchill is “antifa” is as stupid as claiming Martin Luther King Jr. would be wearing a MAGA hat. Churchill can be defended only if English people say he was a patriot, and that no other group has the right to choose English heroes. It takes a different kind of courage to say that than it does to travel to outer space, as Captain Kelly did. Yet if Western Civilization is to survive, that kind of courage is even more necessary.