Let me introduce you to......

….John Tanton. A retired, small town ophthalmologist, John Tanton’s appearance is not particularly extraordinary or noteworthy. His interests include botany, conservationism and environmentalism. No one would guess that he regularly fraternizes with white nativists, neo- Nazis and white supremacists.. Regardless of this innocuousness, John Tanton is an unapologetic white nationalist.

According to Wikipedia-“White nationalism advocates a racial definition of national identity, as opposed to multiculturalism. The contemporary movement is a reaction to a perceived decline in white demographics, politics and culture.” According to Samuel Francis, it is ‘a movement that rejects equality as an ideal and insists on an enduring core of human nature transmitted by heredity.’"

Samuel Huntington elaborates:, “Rather than espouse violence, they use statistics and social science data to argue for a self-conscious white identity.[ They say a natural hierarchy should triumph over the ‘false promise of egalitarianism’- and that the downfall of white dominance spells doom for representative government, the rule of law and freedom of speech.”

“Supporters say they stand for racial self-preservation and claim culture itself is a product of race. As a result, according to Huntington, they say the demographic shift in the U.S. towards non-whites brings a new culture that is intellectually and morally inferior. With it comes affirmative action, immigrant ghettos and declining educational standards. By challenging established policy on immigration, civil rights and racial integration, they seek to build bridges with moderately conservative white citizens.”

Now, I am not going to waste time identifying the inconsistencies, analytical errors and racist ideology of eugenics,” natural” hierarchy, and the illusion of a invariable white identity. Instead, I am concerned with illuminating John Tanton’s influence on anti-immigration rhetoric in this country. He has been an integral force for enacting the harsh and stringent immigration laws of the last fourteen years and has fuelled the conflated moral panic directed against legal and illegal immigrants in this country—and based his conclusions on unsubstantiated statistics.

Additionally, I won’t enlist the contemporary tendency to cloak the ugly face of racism with artificial, cosmetic concealment in order to make it palatable to the general public. Despite rants to the contrary, white nationalists are racist-- in every abhorrent characteristic of the term. A snake is a snake regardless of the semantics he may use to disguise his identity.

As a proponent of white nationalism, John Tanton established the largest and arguably most influential anti-immigrant group in the country called FAIR. The goal of FAIR is to restrict and significantly curtail immigration, particularly from those of the southern hemisphere. While their website seems innocuous enough, the underlying goal of FAIR is the banishment of all supposedly--unassimiable black and brown immigrants from this country, and the subsequent re-establishment of America as a predominately white nation.

In fact, the recently passed Arizona law SB 1070 was formed, written and implemented by John Tanton along with other well known white nationalist: including Arizona senator Russell Pearce and Kris Kobach. John Tanton also had a hand in shaping the Arizona law that prohibits ethnic studies from being taught in public schools.

So, the next time someone asks me if I think the Arizona law SB 1070 is racist, I can unequivocally, confidently and vehemently shout YES………absolutely yes!!