‘It’s OK to be white?’ Give me a break

FAR from a harmless slogan, the words on Lauren Southern’s T-shirt have gained traction among white supremacists. It’s not a “controversial” statement, it’s a dog whistle, writes Seb Starcevic.

NO sooner had she arrived in Australia last week ahead of her national speaking tour than far-right activist Lauren Southern was photographed at the airport wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the message: “It’s OK to be white”.

Some have questioned what makes this statement so controversial. If there’s nothing wrong with being white, why can’t we say so? Long story short, it’s because it plays into the far-right’s persecution complex and the racist myth of a “white genocide”.

On imageboard website 4chan, “It’s OK to be white” started out as an alt-right slogan that quickly gained traction among prominent white supremacists, including David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

It’s only the latest iteration of rhetoric spouted by white supremacist groups such as the KKK, who in 2015 sponsored a billboard in Arkansas that read “It’s not racist to love your people”, complete with the non-threatening image of a caucasian girl cuddling a kitten.

In an interview with Sky News, Southern ― who was refused entry to the UK earlier this year for inciting racial tension and was also banned from speaking at council-owned venues in Auckland ― doubled down on the stunt, saying she feels “zero shame whatsoever for being white.”

Lauren Southern arrived in Australia, wearing a slogan on her T-shirt that has been embraced by white supremacist groups. (Pic: Twitter)

“If I were black I could say I’m proud, if I were Asian I could say I’m proud, if I were any other ethnicity I could say I’m proud because that’s how our culture is, but if I’m white and I say I’m proud the media will go nuts,” the 23-year-old Canadian said.

She’s not wrong on that point. But there’s a reason holidays like Black History Month and NAIDOC (National Aboriginal and Islanders Day Observance Committee) Week exist whereas white pride is rightfully viewed as a racist dog whistle.

While white people are often able to trace their genealogy back to their ancestors’ birthplaces, sometimes even narrowing it down to a specific region or town, for the most part there’s no way for many African-Americans to identify the precise part of Africa their ancestors were human-trafficked from. Such is the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade and centuries of violent subjugation and colonial oppression.

Just as “black” as a catch-all term formed out of necessity, “pride” ― whether preceded by black, gay or indigenous ― is specifically in defiance of deeply entrenched shame, a desperate attempt to course-correct the narrative of self-loathing. Not so for white people.

That doesn’t mean white people aren’t allowed to also celebrate their heritage, as anyone who’s ever put on lederhosen at Oktoberfest or worn green on St Patrick’s Day can attest. Nor does it mean white people can’t experience hardship; it’s just that their skin colour isn’t one of the things causing them hardship.

Lauren Southern in a video where she says segregation is a “potential solution”. (Pic: YouTube)

As Matt Lieb says in his video, “Why ‘It’s OK To Be White’ Is Racist”: “If you have no understanding of history or power and remove all context from pro-white sentiment, then sure, maybe it’s not hateful … devoid of history or context, having white pride is harmless.” But we know that the slogan is never used in this kind of vacuum.

It’s not surprising that the last part is lost on Southern given she’s powwowed with known Neo-Fascists and alt-right conspiracy theorists, including white supremacist Stefan Molyneux (who joins her on her speaking tour) and pro-genocide Russian scholar Aleksandr Dugin.

In 2017, the same year that over 3000 refugees, including small children, drowned crossing the Mediterranean Sea, she was detained by the Italian Coast Guard for despicably trying to sabotage the efforts of migrant search-and-rescue vessels. Her Patreon account was subsequently shut down as it was deemed her actions were “likely to cause loss of life”.

Most recently, she released an hour-long YouTube video, “Farmlands”, about the far-right’s latest obsession: the alleged slaughter of South Africa’s white, rural underclass.

At one point in the low-budget, shakily-shot documentary, she seems to gently encourage white separatism as a “potential solution” to racial tensions, repeatedly describing a town in South Africa that banned black people in a return of apartheid-era policies as “peaceful”.

Like most right-wing figures who claim to be concerned about the plight of South Africa’s white farmers while rallying against the left and multiculturalism, it’s clear Southern’s interest in the Boers is inherently self-serving, a painfully transparent attempt to realise the far-right’s dystopian fantasy of a “white genocide”.

Which brings us back to the “It’s OK to be white” message. It’s idiotic, even offensive, because it implies white people have ever been conditioned to view whiteness as anything but OK. They haven’t, regardless of what the likes of Southern will say.

I’d be happy to put that on a shirt.

Seb Starcevic is a RendezView columnist.

@SebStarcevic