Posted on October 1, 2015

Open Letter to Frank Gaffney

Jared Taylor, American Renaissance, October 1, 2015

Dear Mr. Gaffney,

On September 29, I was a guest on your radio program to talk about an article I had written called “Is This the Death of Europe?” It was a cordial conversation, in which you and I agreed that the sudden arrival of hundreds of thousands of young Muslim men was a serious threat to Europe. You posted the recording of the interview on your website.

The next day, I was surprised to learn that you had taken down the interview and that your website had posted a notice retracting the cordiality of the day before:

The host was unfamiliar with Mr. Taylor’s views on other matters and did not discuss or endorse them.

Subsequently, Mr. Gaffney had a chance to examine those views and the American Renaissance website on which they appear. There is much there with which he strongly disagrees. Had due diligence been done beforehand, such disagreements would have resulted in Mr. Taylor not being invited on the show, routine compliments to such guests not made and an offer to appear again not extended.

I do not claim to know why you changed your opinions about me, but I suspect the Southern Poverty Law Center had something to do with it. It had posted an article claiming that my appearance on your program was “a new low” for you. Another lefty organization, Media Matters, attacked you. It denounced your “noxious theories” and “long history of extremism,” and smirked that “the former Reagan official can now add praising a notorious leader of the white nationalist movement to his resume.” Yet another lefty website, Right Wing Watch, added that you have a “long track record of pushing outrageous conspiracy theories,” and that your interview with me adds to your “already lengthy record of extremism.”

I note that there has been no criticism of you from any conservative source.

The SPLC has a permanent profile page on you as part of its collection of “extremists.” It is in a section of its website called “Fighting Hate.” It says you are “one of America’s most notorious Islamophobes,” are “gripped by paranoid fantasies,” and level “wild-eyed accusations.”

Mr. Gaffney, these people are not your friends. They hate you. They want to silence you and drive you out of respectable society. Why do you let them decide whom you may invite on your program? Why do you let them set the bounds of legitimate discussion? This is the great and perhaps fatal weakness of “conservatives”–to have conceded some strange moral power to people who hate them.

The statement on your website says you weren’t aware of all of my views when you invited me on your program, and that you now find you disagree with some of them. I believe you. But you were aware of some of my views, and found them insightful. I’m sure you don’t insist on complete agreement with all your guests. Why does disagreeing with me on some matters make me a pariah? Because the SPLC says so?

Removing our interview from your website does not mean it never happened. We will be posting a transcript shortly. What is much more dismaying is what removing the interview says about you. If you wanted to make a record of our disagreements, the manly thing would be to invite me back on your program and explain to me why I am wrong.

To your credit, you did call me personally to tell me that you were taking down the interview. I salute you for that. But your reasons made no sense. You said you were opposed to all forms for supremacy: white, black, or Hispanic. I tried to explain that wanting to live in a majority-white society is no more “supremacist” than Japanese wanting to live in a majority-Japanese society or Israelis wanting to live in a majority-Jewish society. In fact, my basic views on race should have been clear in the article “Is This the Death of Europe?” that you admired.

It is a great pity that your name and mine have been linked in yet another success by people who despise you–and me–to stamp out the public exchange of views they don’t like. You care deeply about the preservation of certain values; so do I. But we must never trim our sails for fear of what our detractors might say. We will never succeed if we let our enemies set the boundaries of how we should act.

Sincerely yours,

Jared Taylor Signature

 

 

 

 

 

Jared Taylor