VDARE
VDARE is an editorial collective
website which advocates for reduced immigration, including heightened selectivity in legal immigration into the
United States. VDARE was created by former
Forbes editor
Peter Brimelow through his
Center for American Unity. The political viewpoints of the collective range from
paleoconservatism to
isolationism, and from
immigration reduction to
anti-immigration. VDARE is widely supported in the immigration-reduction movement through links and reprints of its articles.
The name
VDARE and the site's
symbol, the head of a white
doe, refer to
Virginia Dare, the first child born to
English immigrants in the
New World. Soon after her birth she disappeared with the rest of an early English settlement, and legend has it that she was transformed into a white doe.
The members of VDARE are:
Peter Brimelow,
Paul Craig Roberts,
Steve Sailer,
Bryanna Bevens,
John Brimelow,
Joseph E. Fallon,
James Fulford,
Joe Guzzardi,
D. A. King,
Juan Mann,
Howard Sutherland,
Brenda Walker,
Allan Wall,
John Wall, and
Chilton Williamson.
Notable VDARE guest contributors include:
Virginia Abernethy,
Kevin Michael Grace,
Kevin B. MacDonald,
Michelle Malkin,
Rob Sanchez and
Jared Taylor.
Sam Francis was also a regular guest contributor until his death in
2005.
Peter Brimelow immigrated to the
United States from
Canada in the late
1970s; he had left his homeland of the
United Kingdom shortly after receiving an
MBA from
Stanford University in 1972. He is a
paleoconservative but states he regards "many of the
neoconservative leaders as personal friends [and] as allies on the immigration issue. [
1].
Critics of VDARE charge that it publishes
racist or
racialist material. The
Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a
nonprofit civil rights organization, claims that VDARE was "once a relatively mainstream anti-immigration page," but by 2003 had "become a meeting place for many on the radical right."[
2] The SPLC criticizes VDARE for publishing articles by
Jared Taylor, head of
American Renaissance, and the late
Sam Francis, former editor of the newsletter of the
Council of Conservative Citizens, both of whom the SPLC considers to be
white supremacist. VDARE is also criticized by the SPLC for publishing articles by authors who deal with
race and intelligence. The SPLC lists "VDARE/
Center for American Unity" on a list of organizations it calls "hate groups." [
3]
VDARE claims to be neutral on all issues save immigration reduction. VDARE columnist
James Fulford has responded to the SPLC's criticisms of racism and hate stating that they're unavoidable for immigration reformers due to that "the majority of Americans are white, and the majority of immigrants are non-white."[
4] Fulford lists a number of individuals and organizations that have variously been called racist, and argues that the SPLC's tactics are hurting anti-racism more than they're hurting genuine racism.
Peter Brimelow stated in his 1996
Alien Nation, a best-selling book, that he regards the term 'racist' to have become a political "smear" (p.10). He states that he considers "the only rational definition of racism [to be] committing and stubbornly persisting in error about people, regardless of evidence."
VDARE contributors have responded to charges of racism by pointing to that VDARE carries original articles by authors of a number of ethnic backgrounds, including Filipina American
Michelle Malkin (national columnist and author), Hispanic
George Borjas (immigration economist and author), Native American
David A. Yeagley (political writer), and Japanese American
Lance T. Izumi (political writer and director of education studies at the
Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy).[
5]
Steve Sailer
Steve Sailer, who often writes on
race and intelligence issues, argued in a VDARE article following
Hurricane Katrina, "Racial Reality And The New Orleans Nightmare," that the lower average
IQ of
African-Americans found in intelligence research correlates with "poorer native judgment than members of better-educated groups [resulting in the need for] stricter moral guidance from society."[
6]
This was followed by some accusations of racism, most notably by
John Podhoretz in the
National Review Online.[
7] Sailer responded by arguing that many of those making the accusations acknowledged a correlation between low IQ and poor judgment by supporting the
Supreme Court's 2002 Atkins v. Virginia decision "that, in effect, banned the death penalty for killers with
IQs under 70."[
8]
John Derbyshire defended Sailer in the
National Review Online by citing large variance in
crime rates by race and birth rates for unmarried women by race.[
9]
According to
Peter Brimelow, Sailer's original article has been emailed out by readers (through the link to "email [this article] to a friend") at among the highest volumes seen by VDARE's articles.[
10]
*
Official website*
"Keeping America White", an article by the SPLC critical of VDARE
*
"VDARE Endorsed by Southern Poverty Law Center! (Well, we regard it as an endorsement.)" James Fulford responds to the SPLC's criticism.
