Jared Taylor

File:Jared Taylor.jpg

Jared Taylor

Samuel Jared Taylor (b. 1951) of Oakton, Virginia, is an American journalist and an advocate of racialist theories to explain the sociological and economic problems associated with non-whites, particularly blacks, in Western countries. Taylor is the editor of American Renaissance, a journal that addresses issues of race, immigration and their impact on societies in which whites co-exist with non-whites. He is the president of the parent organization, New Century Foundation, and a former director of the National Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank. He is a former member of the advisory board of Occidental Quarterly.

Born to missionary parents in Japan, Taylor lived in that country until he was 16 years old. He graduated from Yale University in 1973 with a BA in Philosophy, and graduated from Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) in 1978 with a MA in International economics. Taylor speaks fluent English, Japanese and French. In the 1980s, Taylor was West Coast editor of PC Magazine and a consultant before founding the American Renaissance periodical in 1990. Taylor has taught Japanese to summer school students at Harvard University.

Works and views

He is the author of Shadows of the Rising Sun: A Critical View of the Japanese Miracle (1983),in which he wrote that Japan was not an appropriate economic or social model for the United States, and criticized the Japanese for excessive preoccupation with their own uniqueness.

In Paved With Good Intentions: The Failure of Race Relations in Contemporary America (1993), Taylor argued that racism is no longer a convincing excuse for high black rates of crime, poverty, and school failure. He also edited The Real American Dilemma: Race, Immigration, and the Future of America. (1998)

Taylor supervised preparation of the New Century Foundation monograph, The Color of Crime (1998, 2005), which cites government statistics showing that blacks and Hispanics commit violent crimes at considerably higher rates than whites and Asians at lower rates than whites. He is the main contributor to a collection of articles from American Renaissance magazine called A Race Against Time: Racial Heresies for the 21st Century.

Taylor argues that a preference for people like oneself is natural and even healthy, and that attempts to encourage or force racial integration are misguided. He believes it is impossible to build a society in which race can be made not to matter. He claims it is a dangerous double standard to encourage non-whites to show racial solidarity and to work openly for group interests while condemning whites who do the same thing.

Taylor believes there is convincing evidence for a substantial genetic contribution to average racial differences in intelligence and possibly other behavior. He has also published strong arguments supporting the view that backs have a genetic superiority to other races in certain athletic endeavors.

In response to charges of “white supremacy,” Taylor has written: “There is no scale on which racial differences can all be ranked so as to draw across-the-board conclusions about racial ‘superiority’ or ‘inferiority’ . . . . It is certainly true that in some important traits—intelligence, law-abidingness, sexual restraint, academic performance, resistance to disease—whites can be considered ‘superior’ to blacks. At the same time, in exactly these same traits, North Asians appear to be ‘superior’ to whites.”

Taylor has been called a “self-described white separatist” but he does not characterize himself this way. Instead, he advocates compete freedom of association., arguing that when people are free to choose, they almost invariably segregate voluntarily. Taylor describes his positions and those of his publications as “race realist.”

Taylor sees Jews as full participants in the work of “race realism:” “It should be clear to anyone that Jews have, from the outset, been welcome and equal participants in our efforts.”

Views on the Holocaust

In April 2007, a correspondent asked Taylor, "the myth of the holocaust is a millstone around the neck of any nascent white nationalist movement. Where do you stand on this? Did the Nazis genocidally wipe out 6 million jews or did they not?" Taylor's one line reply: "I’m not an expert on the subject, and it is not one into which I have looked." Subsequent to this, the well-known paleoconservative Lawrence Auster learned of Taylor's statement on the issue and an Internet debate ensued. Taylor further posted on the Internet that he did not have an opinion on the six million figure, in the same way that he did not know how many people died in the Armenian massacres or how many American soldiers died during World War II. Auster (who has spoken at an American Renaissance conference sponsored by Taylor) and his supporters argued that such a stance was akin to Holocaust denial, and that this was not surprising given Taylor's close and longstanding friendship with Mark Weber, editor of the Holocaust-denial publication Journal of Historical Review and former editor of the neo-Nazi publication National Vanguard.

American Renaissance posted a response on the matter, with Taylor stating, "I understand that estimates of the death toll range from four to six million", and "to imply that I somehow doubted the Holocaust itself, is not only absurd but malicious."

Praise and Criticism

David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, has described Taylor as a "a man of immense ability and the courage commensurate and necessary for telling the long-suppressed truths of race."

In his July 15, 2002 blog entry, David Horowitz defended his decision to run an article from Taylor's American Renaissance magazine on his own website; praising Taylor as "a very smart and gutsy individualist" and "a very intelligent and principled man." He wrote: "There are many who would call Jared Taylor and his American Renaissance movement 'racist.' If the term is modified to 'racialist,' there is truth in the charge. But Taylor and his Renaissance movement are no more racist in this sense than Reverend Jesse Jackson and the NAACP." However, Horowitz criticized Taylor in his August 27, 2002 commentary, in which he refers to Taylor as advocating "Euro-racialism," which is "a fringe prejudice among conservatives", and argues that such racialism "would mean the death of the conservative movement."

Other critics have described Taylor as a racist and an advocate of white supremacy, and have accused him of sympathy to Holocaust denial. Mark Potok, editor of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Report, said "Jared Taylor is the cultivated, cosmopolitan face of white supremacy. He is the guy who is providing the intellectual heft, in effect, to modern-day Klansmen." Potok pointed to Taylor's close association with the Council of Conservative Citizens, which he labels as racist.

Incident in Halifax, Canada

Taylor was assaulted, and otherwise prevented from delivering a speech on January 16, 2007 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He had expected to give his speech to a group of journalists and others at the Lord Nelson Hotel, after his invitation to participate in a debate over race relations at Dalhousie University was retracted when the university claimed that it had further investigated Taylor's works. After destroying Taylor's pamphlets and confronting him, a small crowd of masked demonstrators (publicly wearing a mask under such circumstances is illegal in Canada) pushed Taylor out of the hotel room. Further violence against Taylor was averted due to the intervention of Jon Goldberg, director of the Atlantic Jewish Council in Halifax. Although notified about the violent crowd, police officers and private security guards refused to protect Taylor, or arrest or stop the crowd.

Shortly after the attack, people claiming to have participated in it bragged about it at Web sites. Shortly thereafter, members of the white nationalist Internet forum, Stormfront, posted photos and personal information about several of the attackers.

Taylor returned to Halifax on March 6, 2007 to engage in a debate with St. Mary's University professor Peter March on the CJCH radio station. The debate was again cancelled, this time due to alleged security concerns and rumors of violent protest. Following the cancellation, the debate was moved to and took place at an undisclosed location.

Views on interracial relationships

In a speech delivered on 28 May 2005, to a British far right group, Taylor made clear his feelings on the offspring of interracial marriages when he said "I want my grandchildren to look like my grandparents. I don't want them to look like Anwar Sadat or Foo Man Chu or Whoopi Goldberg."

On March 8, 2007, Taylor was asked by a Canadian journalist whether he had ever been involved in an interracial relationship. Peter Duffy of the Halifax Chronicle Herald described Taylor's reaction: "That was the only time I saw you rattled; when that TV reporter asked you whether you’d ever had gone out with a person of colour, you were rattled." Taylor said he was merely "annoyed", because he felt that questions about his personal life were beyond the pale. .

External links

• American Renaissance Jared Taylor's website
• The Color of Crime by Taylor's New Century Foundation
• The Myth of Diversity an article by Taylor
• Jared Taylor, a Racist in the Guise of "Expert". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette by Dennis Roddy
• Profile on the Anti-Defamation League website