Where are the English-Americans?
Good question, and one which I periodically write about here. Henderson says:
Let us imagine a United States in which every citizen was hyphenated, one in which no group was without of a sense of victimhood. All that would be left was racial and ethnic competition. There would be no stability or sense of social cohesion. The English-descended and English-assimilated part of the population that sees itself as simply American is the ballast that holds their society upright. It is the group with no grievances, with no ethnic axe to grind, and that endlessly submits to discrimination and dispossession. That will eventually change, as whites see their most basic interests threatened, but it is the forbearance of American-Americans that allows the United States to continue to function.
[...]
Unhyphenated Americans, whether of English descent or not, must defend the way of life that starts with English roots. They should reflect on how American society was created and by whom, and consider what it would mean if the customs and institutions of its founding culture are thrown over.''
The rest of the article is at the link, and well worth reading, if you haven't yet done so.
Henderson is right about the role and place of English-descended Americans in this country. And I agree that 'unhyphenated Americans', the only real Americans in my opinion, must defend the English-derived way of life that first formed what we know as American society.
But how is this to happen if the majority of Americans of English ancestry do not even know their genealogy or origins? This is the case now. Most people, despite a recent surge in the popularity of genealogy, do not know their roots past their grandparents. Most Americans do not know their great-grandparents' names or birthplaces. Many people know only vaguely what their origins are; I've talked to so many, mostly in the Northern states, who say they are 'mutts' or that they don't know their ancestry for certain. They will say 'I'm German and maybe part Irish and part Cherokee.' Or something along those lines. Those of more 'ethnic' origins usually know their family roots. But it is true, as Henderson says, that most of those with colonial English roots have lost any sense of their origins, and therefore can't claim them. Some know that they are of English ancestry but feel no connection, because for generations their families have identified as simply 'American', unhyphenated 'American Americans.'
Some who are of English ancestry scorn that side of their ancestry because of the popular idea of Anglo-Saxons as bland, lacking any real 'culture', or as oppressors of everybody. The arch-Whites, as I've said. Then there's the rich, evil WASP who controls everything, so beloved of Hollywood scriptwriters and others with an axe to grind.
So how can English-descended Americans or American-Americans be mobilized or motivated to defend our common American heritage?
Many in the pro-White movement scorn the idea of any common American heritage, increasingly coming to see America as a sham, or as an Illuminati plot, a mistake, a failed experiment that is better left to perish, and to be forgotten. And I suppose this does not help the cause of the English-descended American; after all, if we were the ones who started this whole 'failed experiment' then it must be largely our fault. Or so I've been reading lately.
So Henderson's proposals are problematic, given the current troubled situation in our country, and the fact that we are increasingly divided along ethnic lines. Everybody claims his ethnicity proudly except for English-Americans, as a rule.
America is approaching the phase Henderson predicts, wherein there is only ethnic competition and rivalry, with everybody claiming to have been the biggest victim, and with no cohesion and no common bonds to hold the atomized ethnic groups together.
The answer? I don't have one, but it seems that we are hurtling toward disintegration, and that 'the center cannot hold.' Perhaps that is for the best, if it can occur with a minimum of turmoil, as with the old Eastern bloc countries. But the outcome could be rendered less chaotic if only the unhyphenated Americans who still have a feeling of kinship with their fellows could pragmatically work together as allies instead of dredging up past grievances and stoking ethnic rivalries amongst ourselves.
Speaking of ethnic rivalries, the comments that are posted on the article at AmRen so far are not as bad as I expected, with only a few critical comments. I expected more of the ''WASPs persecuted my immigrant ancestors'' complaints, but they haven't shown up just yet. But it's still early.
And lately I've been reading extravagant claims about how the American Revolution was won by the Scots-Irish who made up the bulk of the troops. I'd like some concrete proof of that, please. There's no need to resort to that kind of hyperbole in the name of ethnic pride or centuries-long grudges against the 'Sassenachs.'
The Henderson article links to a website about Presidential ancestry. When it comes to the great number of American presidents who are said to be Irish or Ulster Scots -- well, I won't dispute Woodrow Wilson; you can have him. I also disagree with the linked website claiming Scots ancestry for Thomas Jefferson. As a Jefferson descendant, I know the family tree, and English ancestry predominates by far, with some Welsh and one Scots line that I know of.
One quibble: in the article, a picture of a number of Confederate generals is posted, with the question "How many non-English names can you find in this picture?" Firstly, the names are not legible, though I recognize a number of the men by their faces. But of course someone protests that many of the names are Scottish or Welsh, which in some cases is debatable. Lately it seems that many of these men are claimed as Scots-Irish/Ulster Scots, when they were in reality English. In fact, the great Christian gentleman whose birthday we just noted, Robert E. Lee, is claimed as 'Scots-Irish' by anonymous comments on the Internet. I've corrected this, noting that he was of English ancestry, and I know this to be a fact. But those who want to believe otherwise will continue to believe as it suits them.
The South is probably the home of most of the English-descended Americans in this country, and since the South was not affected as much by mass immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries, such people were more likely to remain somewhat unmixed, unlike any remaining Anglo-Americans in New England or the Northern states generally. But since being Anglo-Saxon has gone out of fashion, few people will still claim it.
Henderson's article is one that needed to be written; English-Americans are the real 'vanishing Americans' of today, and although everybody else's ethnicity is honored and trumpeted proudly, and everybody else's group is accounted for, where, indeed, are the English-descended Americans?
