White Pride

Adrian Neely
3 min readJul 22, 2020

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My friend added me to a group called White Lives Matter on Facebook. Get it? It’s funny because I’m black. She’s black too. Apparently, the group’s admins weren’t smart enough to close the group, and black people overran it in short order. The comments in several of the posts were funny as hell. My peek into the world of white people who felt the need to remind the rest of us that they matter sparked two questions.

Why did they feel the need to start White Lives Matter? Isn’t white lives mattering tacit? In the U.S., they’ve mattered since, at least, 1619. They got to be counted as whole people (at least the men), stay free, and have been pretty successful at getting loans. My second question has confused me for years. How come white lives mattering, means others don’t? The majority of the posts had nothing to do with how awesome whiteness is because we know it is, but how much other races suck. White people ask why there is the need for an NAACP or black pride groups, but people get up in arms over the idea of a white pride group. Honestly, I don’t think black people (I can only speak for the ones I’ve discussed this with, and myself) care about “white pride.” However, it seems that white pride can solely be expressed through hate and the subjugation of others; at least that’s what I’ve seen displayed throughout history.

When I entered the group, I didn’t see any posts about great white inventors, entertainers, or athletes — no memes about the contributions to society made by white forefathers. After scrolling for a few minutes (which was, honestly, all I could take), every single post, meme, and article was anti another group. A lot of it was anti-black, but LatinX folks caught some hell as well. Even more troubling was the metric ton of long disproven tropes surrounding the black community. How did a community on whose backs most of the country was built end up being stereotyped as lazy? How come a desire for equal footing is classified as victimhood, or “bitching?” How many times do black people have to state that, “More white people are on welfare”? Several in the group got a kick out of black fatherlessness jokes. Racists need better joke writers. I searched for as long as I could stand (Racism can be fatiguing), but I couldn’t find any real white pride.

The vision statement of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is “ to ensure a society in which all individuals have equal rights without discrimination based on race.” The mission of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) is “to advance the economic condition, educational attainment, political influence, housing, health and civil rights of the Hispanic population of the United States.” I’ve also searched websites of “white pride” organizations. One, the now-defunct (maybe) Stormfront, states that its mission is “to provide information not available in the controlled news media and to build a community of White activists working for the survival of our people.” According to census information, white people make up 76.3 percent of the U.S. population. That seems like, not only surviving but thriving. In a forum, they referred to black people as “muds” and “yard apes.” The Klu Klux Klan has always presented itself as a fraternal order. A fraternity is defined as “a group of people sharing a common profession or interests.” I guess, if people can share a common interest in Star Trek, sports, or reading, hate classifies as an interest because…’Murica.

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Adrian Neely
Adrian Neely

Written by Adrian Neely

I’m a son, husband, father, and educator. Whatever I say here is something I’d also say out loud.