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WRITINGSThree parts in this section, and I’ll add entries as time goes on:
Books
I had published two previous
books on education, but this one was the beginning of things for me,
where I found my voice and approach. This sports book—or at least
nominally it is a sports book, the publisher considered it a parenting
book and I saw it as being basically about growing up--was directed at
a general readership rather than the academic audience I had written to
up until that time (I’m a professor of education), and it had a broader
focus than the field of education. It was also the beginning of
integrating my personal story into my writing, a pattern I have
continued. I was immersed in sports as a kid and into my twenties
and this book was an occasion for making sense of the effect that
activity and preoccupation had on me. I think this book is still
worthwhile reading a decade after its publication, and I see it as
linked to my later writing. It is only available from the
publisher in a very expensive hard copy edition. The best way to
obtain it is to get it from a library. If it is not in the
library’s collection, a reference librarian can order it through
interlibrary loan.
This book has a 2005 copyright,
but it was written in the late 1990s concurrently with the sports book,
so I’m listing it here. It outlines my views on education, but as
with all my writing beginning with the sports book it has a broader
focus than its nominal topic. It outlines a philosophical
perspective I apply to making sense of everything in American life and
my own life. I’m not sure how to label this outlook, but it is an
interplay of libertarianism and cultural conservatism. It
is available at Amazon and the Xlibris site.
William Pierce, who died in 2002,
was the chairman of the National Alliance, a white advocacy
organization he founded. The book recounts Pierce’s personal
story from childhood on, identifies what shaped his thinking and
actions, outlines his perspective on the issues of the day, and
describes his day-to-day routine. The Fame book kept my frame of
reference broad as I recounted Pierce’s views on history, philosophy,
race, politics, economics, international relations, the media,
education, men-women identities and relations, childrearing practices,
and approaches to leisure. I found Pierce to be a person of
remarkable capability, decency, integrity, courage, and dedication. As
impressed as I was with Pierce, however, I tried to be as objective and
complete as I could in portraying him, and that included dealing with
his limitations. I was particularly struck by the contrast
between the man I came to know and the demonic, sinister picture of him
I had gotten from the mass media. I hit me how much of what I
know, or think I know, comes from mediated rather than direct
experience. That is to say, someone—a teacher, a media
figure, a politician, an advocate for a cause--tells me and shows me
what something is like. If Pierce isn’t as he has been depicted,
I asked myself, what else isn’t as it has been presented to me?
Who are these mediators of reality? What are their interests,
what are they selling? This book changed my life forever. I
came away from my encounter with Pierce far more conscious of race from
a white perspective and of myself as a white man and of my European
cultural and historical roots. You can get this at Amazon, and Pierce’s
organization, the National Alliance, sells copies—check its web
site—and you can get it directly from the publisher’s web
site.
While writing the Pierce book, I
encountered several hundred racially conscious white people.
Predominantly, they do not conform to the image of them the media has
created: neo-Nazi bigots, menacing skinheads, ignorant thugs who commit
hate crimes, and so on. The seventeen white Americans, from
across the country, both men and women, young and old, who offer their
personal statements about race in this book aren’t public figures or
leaders of organizations. They aren’t on television and they
don’t publish books or make movies. Politicians don’t articulate
their perspective or advocate their positions. Journalists and
intellectuals don’t write about them unless it is to belittle
them. Schools make no attempt to deal with them
objectively. In this book, you hear from them. I didn’t
alter, soften, or censor what they said or tell the reader what to
think about them. More than coming to know their thoughts
on race, you’ll meet these people as human beings. Two of them
are no longer alive. Democracy depends on the free exchange of
ideas. There are individuals and organizations that want to
silence people of this sort, as well as punish anyone who tries to give
them voice. Available from the same sources as The Fame of a Dead
Man’s Deeds.
This book is made up of my
writings on race through 2005. Included are excerpts of my books
and, in total or in large part, my short writings, as well as three
unpublished articles and a speech. The writings are ordered
chronologically for the most part, and I provide commentaries to
accompany them. This gives the book a narrative line and lends an
autobiographical quality to it. In large part, Living White is my
own story over the past seven years as it relates to race. The
book’s focus is on the personal, in contrast to the public, dimensions
of the racial challenges that whites confront at this time. The
book is directed at a white audience and I hope it supports readers in
living more honorable lives as white men and women.
Available from the same sources as The Fame of a Dead Man’s
Deeds.
If you want to get my view of American life and our individual lives, you could read the books in the order I have listed them here, beginning with Sports in the Lives of Children and Adolescence. Add to that the short writings since the publication of my last book, Living White--they are listed in the "Recent Short Writings" section below--and then the material in the “Thoughts” section of this site. If you only have the time or interest to read just one book, I suggest The Fame of a Dead Man’s Deeds. If you want the latest and/or a sense of who I am, read the thoughts in the order they are listed in the Thoughts section of this site, beginning with "On Foucault"--and you can read them in any order, they are self-contained. Recent Short Writings• Robert S. Griffin, Gay Artists in Modern American Culture : An Imagined Conspiracy, by Michael S. Sherry,essay/review, 11pp. 2008. An essay/review that considers gay artists' impact on American culture and the implications of their lives and creations for the white racialist movement. It was submitted to The Occidental Quarterly, but the editor and I couldn't agree on revisions. For better or worse, this is the form I think it should be in. Read the full essay/review here. • Robert S. Griffin, An Undergraduate Educational Studies Program, 12 pp., 2008 This is directed at university faculty in the field of education. It is an outline of an undergraduate bachelor’s degree program with a major concentration in educational studies that I put together—it is not in place anywhere. This program is not professional training nor is it designed to lead to licensure; rather, it is academic study, a scholarly exploration of the field of education that parallels those in other fields, say, sociology or mathematics or literature. My assumption is that this would be a program offered by a college of education and that it would lead to a B.S. degree granted by that college. Read the full program here. •”When They Attack,” essay, 4 pp., 2008 Suggestions to white people whose racial identity and interests might bring them under attack. This is directed to racially conscious white people of whatever stripe: white analysts, white advocates, white activists, white separatists, and white supremacists. While the focus in this writing is on racially-grounded assaults, it may apply to aggressions against those who don’t defer to the ideologies and agendas of those currently in power in any area, diversity, gender, politics, whatever it is. Read the full essay here. •Robert Henri on Education, unpublished paper, 4pp., 2008 Robert Henri (1865-1929) was an American painter. Not long before his death, the Arts Council of New York designated him one of the top three living American artists. Henri was also a popular and influential teacher of art. Henri’s ideas on art and life, including education, were collected by a former student and published in a book entitled The Art Spirit. This writing is made up of statements by Henri dealing with education from this book. Read the full paper here. •Traditionalist Education: A Needed Emphasis, article, 2008. This is about a course I teach at the university, but I think a general reader will be able to find things to pick up on in this piece. It deals with what I see is as the predominance of left-of-center, collectivist perspcctives in the field of education to the virtual exclusion of other outlooks. Read the full article here. • Ken Burns’ Show Business, unpublished article, 2007. This is an analysis of Ken Burns' seven-part documentary on World War II, "The War," shown on PBS in late September and early October, 2007. I critique the Burns documentary from the perspective of what I call the four rules of successful show business. This article will only be available on this site. Read the full article here.
In 1956, twenty-six year-old John
Kasper traveled to Clinton, Tennessee, which is just outside Knoxville,
to combat school integration. His exploits in Clinton received
international media attention. Rallies of whites in Knoxville
in May and June of 2007 protesting the media’s underreporting of the
rape, mutilation, and murder of two young white people by blacks took
place while I was researching and writing about Kasper, and I brought
them into the telling of Kasper’s story. This article and picture will not be
published and will only be available on this site. Read the full article here.
This is a fleshed-out and,
frankly, more honest response to this book than what I believe is going
to be published in a Charles Martel Society newsletter, which is
entirely favorable. When I wrote the newsletter review, I decided
I should hold back on negative comments because Kirkland is going to
get enough static for writing a politically incorrect book and he
didn’t need me piling on. I may well have been right in thinking
that, but there is something about me that can’t hold back in telling
the truth in my writing—this newsletter review is the first time I have
ever done that, and it will be the last--so the
complete review is
available here.
This review gave me a chance to
think more about whether the pre-Christian, nature-centered religions
of northern Europe are more valid religious expressions of European
heritage people than Christianity. This consideration began in
the Fame book and has shown up in several of my writings, including the
review of The Conservative Bookshelf listed below. This is
a good book; I recommend it. Check The Occidental Quarterly's web
site for the review's availability.
Adapted from Living White.
A recounting of my first experience of having the light shine on me for
breaking ranks with accepted thinking on the race issue. Check
American Renaissance’s web page to obtain it.
This gets into how university
academics propagandize about race and make themselves look like
scholars and princes of morality in the process. You’ll pick up
an edge from me in this one; the Loewens of the world grate on
me. Check The Occidental Quarterly’s web site for
availability.
Sam Francis died in February of
2005—this was his last book. Sam was a leading traditionalist
conservative thinker and an exemplary human being. I’ve been
inspired and gained direction from Sam. Note the discussion of
how those who control the public
discourse marginalize people like Sam. And note too the Bret
Easton Ellis and Michel Houllebecq quotes and the meaning I gave them.
They reflect the nihilistic impulse I’ll talk about in the “Thoughts”
section of this site.
This is a fine book. Note
my discussions of Christianity, individuality, and contemporary artists
in light of conservatism. Check The Occidental Quarterly’s web
page for availability.
Short Writings, 2001-2005
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