All mankind have a natural longing to understand their identity – particularly their ethnic identity – and feel they have “roots”. It helps us to answer the important question, “Who am I?” Without this sense of heritage and belonging to a race and tribe, we are left with a sense of emptiness, that we are missing something profound in our lives. As Confucious said, “To forget one’s ancestors is to be a brook without a source, a tree without a root.” This was the theme behind the wildly successful novel and miniseries Roots. This is the true story of an African American author, Alex Haley, who spent 12 years searching for “his identity as part of an ethnic group with an identity and culture”. Dr. Howard Stein, professor of Anthropology, explains that all humans have a powerful need for an ethnic identity, which explains the vast number of books that explore the topic. This is supported by a 2006 poll showed that 74 percent of whites thought that racial identity was very important (37 percent) or somewhat important (37 percent). Minorities feel even stronger about racial identity, as the same poll showed that 90 percent of blacks thought that racial identity was very important (72 percent) or somewhat important (18 percent).

Studies have shown that ethnic identity is very beneficial for our mental health. A 2006 study found that “ethnic identity gives teens a daily happiness boost”, and the researchers recommend ” parents and society in general should encourage strong ethnic identity in families”. A 2009 study found that having a strong racial identity is related to a positive sense of self esteem. Psychologist Jelani Mandara, associate professor at Northwestern University explained that “Our findings indicate that…as feelings of ethnic pride go up, mental health tends to increase as well…That suggests that efforts to enhance youngsters’ sense of ethnic pride at home, in the classroom and in mental health settings are not just appropriate but important to their mental health.” Another study found that instilling a sense of ethnic identity was very beneficial for adopted children, increasing their feelings of self-worth.

Almost all ethnic groups around the world have a sense of pride in their special traits, heritage, and culture and the achievements of their ancestors. This holds true for just about every group, from Arabs and Turks to African Bantus and Guatemalans. Ethnic pride helps to give people a sense of their identity and a feeling that they have roots and a connection to the past.

In the in the United States, ethnic pride is encouraged for just about all groups, and is rightly thought of as a good thing for African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, Asian Americans and others. All these groups have special days of celebration for their heritage throughout the year, and ethnic organizations that support their interests. This helps them to build a strong sense of community and solidarity, and surely all those ethnic groups have much in their heritage to be proud of. For example, African Americans have slogans such as “Black is Beautiful” and “Black pride”, which are used to raise awareness of their racial identity and to express solidarity amongst the members of their race.

Most ethnic groups have this sense of community, and celebrate their ethnic pride during nationally recognized holidays such as Black Pride Day, National Black History Month, National Hispanic Heritage Month and American Indian Heritage Month. In the Southwest US, the holiday of Cinco de Mayo has become a major celebration for those of Hispanic descent. There are giant parades where people wave the Mexican flag and wear clothing with Hispanic symbols to demonstrate their ethnic pride. Another ethnic holiday, is Kwanzaa, which consists of “Seven joyful days reaffirming the spiritual values, culture, and community of people of African descent”. During all of these celebrations, children study their heritage in school and learning about the culture, history and famous people of their race.

In each community there are also special events, speeches and parades along with many documentaries, books, movies and art exhibits that promote the heritage of different ethnic groups. There are also special awards for different ethnic groups that celebrate the achievements of their members, such as the Black Movie awards, Hispanic heritage awards and Asian heritage awards. In universities, there are usually departments committed to ethnic studies, such as the Departments for Black studies, Hispanic Studies and Asian Studies. Most universities also have special associations to strengthen the identity of different ethnic groups, such as the National Black Students Union, Hispanic Student Association and Asian Students Association.

Surveys show that this has a powerful effect in developing ethnic pride for members of ethnic groups, which is felt the strongest by leaders of ethnic communities. For example, Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor has often discussed her “Latina soul” and how her ethnic heritage is a crucial part of her own identity.

There are also many ethnic organizations that work to support their members. Some groups help to advance members of a certain race, such as the United Negro College Fund, Asian Leaders Association or Council of Hispanic Law Enforcement, whose mission statement is “to promote ethnic pride and solidarity” for Hispanic officers. There are also Civil Rights organizations that protect members of certain ethnic groups, such as the NAACP and the Urban League for African Americans; the Council of La Raza, MALDEF and LULAC for Hispanics; and the Asian American Institute and Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund for Asians. There are also powerful political groups that work to increase the influence of different ethnic communities.

On the national level, these include the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and the Congressional Black caucus, whose membership is limited to African Americans. There are groups at the state level as well, such as the California Legislative Black Caucus, which “represents and advocates for the interests of Black people throughout California”.

Although almost all ethnic groups are encouraged to have a sense of pride in their ethnicity, there is a conspicuous exception, with one ethnic group left out. And this of course is the European American ethnic group. Like other groups such as African Americans, European Americans are the indigenous people of a continent. They are also a race, no less than Asians or any other ethnic group. They also have a great and worthy heritage, which extends as far back in time as that of any other race.

Yet unmistakably, in today’s America, it is illegitimate for European Americans to have a sense of ethnic pride. There are no nationally recognized holidays, awards, scholarships for European Americans. Nor are there any political groups that support their interests, and very few ethnic organizations where members support each other.

Indeed, the opposite is true. While ethnic pride for African Americans, Hispanics and Asians is seen as good and healthy, ethnic pride for European Americans is seen as hateful and akin to evil. For example, David Roediger, historian at the University of Minnesota writes “Whiteness is empty and therefore terrifying attempt to build an identity on what one isn’t, and on whom one can hold back.” While Black Pride Day is celebrated, a White Pride Day would be seen as an abomination. While the Congressional Black Caucus is revered, a Congressional White Caucus which only allows White members would be roundly condemned. The few existing White university associations are strongly criticized and the idea of a European American activist group is a horror. Any ethnic organization or expression of ethnic pride by Europeans is inevitably targeted with a hail of epithets, such as “racist”, “hater”, “bigot”, “Nazi” and so forth. There would seem to be an obvious double standard here.

However, the situation is even stranger. Not only is European identity discouraged and punished, European American heritage is widely attacked. In Hating Whitey and Other Progressive Causes, Author David Horowitz writes of the prevalent attacks on “whiteness” in the US, where ideological hatred of Whites is a growth industry, boosted by Civil Rights activists and left-wing professors. European American heroes are referred to as “dead white males”, their accomplishments belittled and the civilization that they created is disparaged. Well-known Harvard professor Noel Ignatiev has few kind words for European Americans, writing, “We intend to keep bashing the dead white males, and the live ones, and the females too, until the social construct known as ‘the white race’ is destroyed–not ‘deconstructed’ but destroyed.” Barack Obama’s older half-brother, Abongo Obama, has stated that “the black man must liberate himself from the poisoning influences of European culture.”

Another good example of this cultural attack is the popular textbook “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn. Zinn presents American history as one long series of outrages committed by whites against non-whites and by the rich against the poor. White Americans do not have a single thing to be proud of, as all of our supposed accomplishments turn out to have been mere pretexts for the heartless persecution of the have-nots. He writes of Western Civilization during the Enlightenment, “the frenzy in the early capitalist states of Europe for gold, for slaves, for products of the soil… These were the violent beginnings of an intricate system of technology, business, politics, and culture that would dominate the world for the next five centuries.” Similarly, Zinn’s portrait of race relations in America is one of unremitting persecution and exploitation. Whites are simply incapable of treating blacks generously, or even humanely.

This is a common theme in our society and throughout Academia. Jeff Hitchcock, founder of the Center for the Study of White American Culture writes, “There is plenty to blame whiteness for. There is no crime that whiteness has not committed against people of color.” Chancellor Williams, author of The Destruction of Black Civilization writes, “The necessary re-education of Blacks and a possible solution of the racial crisis can begin … only when Blacks fully realize this central fact to their lives: the white man is their Bitter Enemy.”

However, in spite of this indoctrination, a 2006 poll shows that most Whites believe they do have a worthy heritage: 77 percent believe that we have a culture that should be preserved.

Not only is European culture condemned, but European Americans are taught to feel guilty for being White, as if we are somehow deeply flawed. In White Guilt, author Shelby Steele discusses the collective sense of guilt and shame that are projected onto Whites for their historical mistreatment of other ethnic groups. According to Steele, this sense of guilt acts as a powerful form of leverage when enacting policies such as Affirmative Action. In the process, a terrible stigma has been cast upon an entire group of people regardless of what they have personally done, and nothing they can say or do removes that deep stain. The film director Spike Lee expressed this when he said, “When talking about the history of this great country, one can never forget that America was built upon the genocide of Native Americans and enslavement of African people. To say otherwise is criminal.”

In the media it is almost impossible to find whites portrayed in positive terms as a race. In the past 30 years, probably no mainstream public figure or commentator has expressed pride or satisfaction in being white or urged other whites to do so. On the contrary, in any discussion of race, it is obligatory to write disparagingly about whites, to remind them of past and present crimes, to make them ashamed to be white. For almost all whites, the only time they ever speak as whites is to apologize. President Clinton is typical, who apologized as a white man for slavery as well as the Tuskeegee medical experiment that left black men untreated for syphilis.

There is no shortage of purveyors of White guilt. They include Black race-hustling politicians like Al Sharpton and liberal authors like Tim Wise, who discusses “White Privelege”, meaning the unfair advantages Whites have in society that they should apologize for. The black author James Baldwin once wrote that any white person who wants to have real dialogue about race must start with a confession that is nothing short of “a cry for help and healing.” Teacher training text books are often packed with creative ideas about how to make whites apologize for their race and seemingly for their very existence.

Many Europeans have been instilled with an irrational hatred for their own race, ancestors and heritage. Author Robin Morgan exemplifies this, writing “My white skin disgusts me. My passport disgusts me. They are the marks of an insufferable privilege bought at the price of others’ agony. If I could peel myself inside out I would be glad. If I could become part of the oppressed I would be free.” Columnist Maggie Gallagher wrote that, “I hate the idea of being white…I can think of few things more degrading than being proud to be white.” President Bill Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea, was encouraged by her high school to write an essay called “Why I am Ashamed to be White.”

This unhealthy sentiment is not surprising, given the bombardment of anti-European propaganda White Americans have been subjected to. This is disturbing, because it cannot be beneficial for European American children to be raised without a sense of ethnic pride, when we know this is a significant factor in supporting their mental well-being. And it certainly cannot be healthy for them to be subjected to scapegoating for the ills of the world, with their heritage under continual assault.

The fact is that all children deserve a country in which they can be proud of their heritage, where their culture is taken for granted, where their history is not treated like a criminal record, where they can be confident their own children will walk in the ways of their ancestors.

The anti-White hatred we see in our society, which persists no matter what Europeans do, is an age-old phenomenon. Rudyard Kipling wrote of it in 1899 in “A Song of the White Men”:

Where does this hatred of European Americans, their culture and heritage come from? Columnist Joseph Sobrani writes that “The concept of envy — the hatred of the superior — has dropped out of our moral vocabulary … The idea that white Christian civilization is hated more for its virtues than its sins doesn’t occur to us, because it’s not a nice idea. … Western man towers over the rest of the world in ways so large as to be almost inexpressible. It’s Western exploration, science, and conquest that have revealed the world to itself. Other races feel like subjects of Western power long after colonialism, imperialism, and slavery have disappeared. The charge of racism puzzles whites who feel not hostility, but only baffled good will, because they don’t grasp what it really means: humiliation. The white man presents an image of superiority even when he isn’t conscious of it. And, superiority excites envy. Destroying white civilization is the inmost desire of the league of designated victims we call ‘minorities.’”

It is not just to blame people for historical events they had nothing to do with. And it is certainly unjust to blame an entire race for those things. In fact, all ethnic groups have been involved in historic injustices, and Europeans are no guiltier than any other race. When Europeans arrived in the New World, they found the bloodthirsty Aztec empire, which sacrificed over 20,000 human victims a year. Later Hispanic nations in history have usually had corrupt and oppressive regimes. The Mongols slaughtered the populations of whole cities, leaving gigantic pyramids of skulls as monuments. Between 1950 and 1975, up to 70 million in China were slain by Communists. The Japanese were particularly cruel, massacring hundreds of thousands of innocents during their conquest of China and Korea in the 1930s.

North African Arabs continually raided Europe for slaves, and it is estimated that over one million Europeans were enslaved from 1530 to 1780, as well as millions of Africans exported to other Muslim nations. Africa has always had slavery and has typically been ruled by the most brutal regimes. The Zulus waged bloody campaigns against other Africans, destroying entire tribes. In the 1990s, up to a million Africans died at the hands of other Africans in the genocide of Rwanda. In nations such as Zimbabwe and South Africa, Europeans are being ethnically cleansed and brutalized. Clearly, in comparison to Europeans, the other ethnic groups in the United States have as many or more skeletons in the closet.

If all Europeans are to be blamed for the injustices of the past, then they must also be given credit for the blessings they have bestowed upon mankind through the years. And when balancing injustices with blessings, Europeans have had an overwhelmingly positive impact on the world.

For example, the antibiotics, wonder drugs and other advances in medicine invented by European scientists have saved at least 20 lives for each life lost due to oppression. Likewise, European advances in agriculture have saved the lives of hundreds of millions who would have otherwise starved to death. Other White inventions such as the automobile, airplane and computer have greatly improved the standard of life for billions of people, lifting them up from grinding poverty. It is very ironic that the same individuals in the US that denounce European culture are using the freedom of speech guaranteed them by European sacrifices. Such venomous individuals are quick to criticize everything European but slow to discuss all of the benefits they gain from European democracy, culture, science and technology.

President Obama once said that his grandmother was a “typical White person”, who feared black men on the street. While this is no doubt true, and perhaps well-advised based on crime statistics, most European Americans are law abiding, honest and family-oriented people. Few have ever oppressed anyone purposefully and neither have their parents. Only a tiny minority have ever owned slaves, dispossessed an Indian or forbid an African American to sit at a lunch counter. Throughout our history, the vast majority of European Americans have been normal people going about their business without seeking to harm anyone, concentrating their time earning a livelihood and supporting their families. They have overwhelmingly been firm believers in Christianity, attempting to follow Christ’s teachings of kindness, morality, charity and performing good works.

European Americans since the time of Benjamin Franklin have given great sums to charity, both at home and abroad. It was clearly recognized by America’s founders that a democratic government could only succeed with such a virtuous people. As John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Patrick Henry said, “No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue”. An important reason that our nation has thrived is because our European ancestors were on the whole a thoroughly decent people; faithful husbands and wives, caring fathers and mothers; and dutiful sons and daughters.