An article in the Mexican newspaper El Economista addresses the deveopment of a new form of racism in the United. After years of melting together, as immigrants came in from the south to join those already there from Europe, Africa and Asia, the European group now finds itself rapidly approaching a minority after having previously dominated. A portion of that group is becoming ever more vociferous, as reflected in the recent natonal election. Evelyn Waugh is cited to help explain this phenomenon:
There is a large group that is considered the whitest of all and sees with disgust, and now with irritation, the growing number of people of another color. As explained by Londoner Evelyn Waugh in Remote People: “… the northern races, facing the danger of [domination or] infection by [a coloured race, tend to go a little mad on the subject.] The fear of Indians, [Negroes], Japanese or Chinese obsesses [one or other of all the branches of the Nordic race] … Anglo-Saxons are perhaps [worse than any].”
Waugh was at this point contrasting the attitudes of Northern Europeans with those of “Mediterranean peoples [who] have been at war with the infidel for so many generations that they have learned to accept race antagonism calmly as a normal thing and therefore seem often to be immune from it, as Turks are said at advanced age to become immune from syphilis.” Translation is by Google. The quoted material has been edited to conform to the original. (Remote People, Penguin, 2011, pp 234-35)
