This is the third installment of a series examining views of white supremacy. The first two articles ran Sept. 17 and Oct. 15, 2009.

The National Alliance – a neo-Nazi political group that promotes racism, segregation and natural eugenics under the guise of white pride – is attempting to push the goal of segregation into society.

Don Smith, a member of the National Alliance, said people are naturally separated and do not voluntarily interact with one another.

“I think everyone will be happier if we go with our own cultures,” Smith said.

The National Alliance joins in necessary activities with other races, he said, but do not participate in an abundance of interaction.

Smith said the National Alliance is not a hate group.

The group is concerned with the white race and not ceasing to exist as a minority in the world, he said.

Smith said he thinks the Museum of Oppression encourages whites to perform self-flagellation.

In the Feb. 7 article titled, “Museum of Oppression Returns to EIU,” Erich Gliebe, chairman of The National Alliance, criticized the event as being subversive propaganda to disregard the white race.

However, Dr. Craig Eckert, chair of the sociology department, questions this notion. He thinks the Museum of Oppression is an academic exercise, not an attack on whites.

“When scholars and thinkers do an assessment of the minority experience in the United States, can’t one do an honest assessment of the way non-whites have been treated historically in the United States?” Eckert asked. “Why can’t there be good, academic scholarship? Why can’t there be a real search for the reality of a minority? Can’t you be seriously interested in what people are feeling without it being self-flagellation?”

Eckert said segregation is a backward thought.

He said sociological studies show the positive aspects of racial integration.

“People that tend to live in more integrated neighborhoods tend to be more open to and seek out diversity,” he said.

Eckert said Smith’s claim of keeping the white race pure was hard to comprehend.

“I don’t know what the concept of race is anymore,” he said.

Eckert said due to intermarriage, travel and conquest invasion around the world pure race is not going to found anywhere.

Bob Bajek can be reached at 581-7942 or rtbajek@eiu.edu.