On European Heritage: A Speech by David Duke

Excerpts from David Duke's Speech At 
State of Washington Populist Party
Nominating Convention
July 23, 1988


Transcript prepared by Political Research Associates 

References to "our people" and "our heritage" refer to persons of European descent in the lexicon of David Duke.

[[Applause & Other voices in double brackets]]

"That's ultimately the issue of this campaign, the issue of the century, the issue of this planet--whether or not our people are going to survive. There is integration in Seattle, there's integration in New Orleans, and Detroit, and New York, and Toronto and Vancouver, Canada and London, England and Brussels, Belgium, and Paris, France. There's no integration in Kampala, Uganda--they're all Black. There's no integration in Beijing--they're all yellow. There is no threat to their people in any of these areas of the globe. There is a threat to our people. And I'm here to say it's not because we hate anybody else. I don't hate Black people or yellow people or any other people on this planet. They've got a right to live. They've got a right to pursue their own dreams, their own destinies. But, ladies and gentlemen, so do we." [[Applause]]


"America is not simply a Constitution and it's not simply a piece of geography. It's far more than that. It's a people. It's a heritage. And our European heritage is what made America possible. And if our European heritage is lost, then we will also lose America."


"The reason why I'm running for president, the reason why I'm here, the reason why you're here is because we truly love America, its traditions, its values, its freedoms, its Constitution, its way of life.  And the message that I have to give forth to you today is that unless we take intelligent, concerted, courageous acts, we're going to lose our heritage and lose our traditions in this country. When I applied to Boeing, I remember they gave an application sheet and they asked on the application sheet what your background was. They didn't ask you your background racially to make sure, you know, that blacks didn't get on, minorities didn't get on, they did this to make sure that all the affirmative action quotas were placed into effect.  In fact, I looked at the sheet, and the first, in fact this same thing happened at LSU when I went to LSU, they gave the first category which you were supposed to sign said Afro-American, the next category said Negro American, the next category said Black American. They gave them three choices for which to sign their background. They didn't want to, they wanted to make sure they didn't offend them. I got down to Native American, Asian American, I got down about to number seven and I found the spot or the application box that I had to check as a member of America's founding element, as a member of America's majority and the box said other. [[Laughter]] And that's precisely what's really happening to our people. We are becoming others in our own society who are meant to pay the bills of America, the taxes of America and who really form the foundation of our industries and our business and our farms and our educational system, and all the rest, but others, that are gradually becoming a second class citizen on their own nation. I want to make it clear I am not in favor of depriving any minority of any rights. I believe in equal rights for everybody, but I insist that that must include white people." [[Applause]]


Politics and Control


"We, the people, have so little input anymore. Today it's government by big business, international finance, and organized minorities. And I'm here to tell you that it's time we joined together and break this control [[Applause]] and give this country back to our people." [[Applause]]


"Now I think everyone here knows that South Africa is the best friend of the United States. [[Applause]] South Africa is a nation that has never done a single thing against this country or against our people. In fact, they have been a bulwark against communism."


"South Africa herself is surrounded by openly Marxist dictatorships and the entire rest of the African continent faces tremendous epidemics of AIDS, faces massive starvation, mass murder, even in Ethiopia. You know our government has no sanctions against Ethiopia and yet the communist, Marxist dictatorship of that country is purposefully starving five to six hundred thousand people right now. So our government has decided that we shall destroy South Africa, our kinsmen, our brothers and sisters in that part of the world."


"And then we saw George Bush two weeks ago and he gave a lecture to that great pro-American organization called the NAACP, an organization founded by 15 communists. He spoke to the NAACP and George Bush, the great conservative candidate for president was proud to proclaim, quotes "I've always been for affirmative action. I am for affirmative action and I always will be for affirmative action."  He said, Don't you worry about the record of the Reagan Administration. I had no control over that. And you know what affirmative action is--it's massive racial discrimination against our people, people who are better qualified or working harder or performing better. Strange, the very people who came in, whose forbears came in and built our country now becoming second class citizens in our own nation. And, ladies and gentlemen, if it is indeed or if it ever was indeed wrong to discriminate against Blacks in the past, my question to these fakers in the media and the major parties is why isn't it just as wrong to discriminate against a young white person coming into the world today in a job or a promotion or a scholarship? Do they not have feelings? Do they not have hopes?  Two-thirds of the poor in America are white, not Black. I didn't say two-thirds of the welfare, but two-thirds of the poor, so what happens. We have a federal government that takes the poorest element, two-thirds of the poor, and has programs that discriminate against them, and these, ladies and gentlemen, these are young people who are working harder, studying harder, performing better, because affirmative action is itself a program to discriminate against people who are better qualified. [[That's right, that's right.]] 
 

"But we have a media and we have a government that is not concerned about our people's welfare, our heritage or our basic rights. They're only concerned about minority rights and minority heritage. And if you look around you in Seattle or other parts of this country, you'll see that unless things change, they are the future. We'll be a minority, our children will walk as strangers in their own land that our fathers fought so hard to clear and build. We have major cities across this country that you--not so much this part of the country but to a degree--forced bussing. The city I come from, in New Orleans, our public schools are 94 percent Black. And the six percent white children, they go through hell. I mean, they are not safe. Not only can they not get a decent education, they are not safe. Their lives. They are abused, attacked, even raped sometimes in the hallways of our schools. And there's a lot of poor white people in the city of New Orleans--a lot--thousands, and many of them will work two jobs to send their child to a private school so they will be safe and sound and get a decent chance in their lives. They're already paying taxes for public education but they can't use public education. In New Orleans, we have the largest public housing in the world. We have over seventy thousand people in public housing. And you can count the white people in those public housing on four or five hands. There are poor white people in that city who need help. Mothers who have been abandoned, people who face sickness, disease, hardship, but in my city you can't get public housing if you're white. Because, ladies and gentlemen, you wouldn't survive. Because if a lady moves into a public housing project, into the Desire housing project, for example, and she moves in with her ten or eleven year old child, this children wouldn't last a week. But nobody, in the Democratic Party, in the Republican Party, will dare raise a voice to what's going on. 

We have a massive welfare system in this country, go right into that. You know, we spend 25 times more on welfare today, 25 times more on welfare today than we spent 25 years ago. All these liberal programs, all the money, all the training and the jobs and all the rest they try to do with all this money, your money, and yet we have 25 times more problems. Our schools are in worse shape than ever. Our streets are not as safe. We have a drug epidemic, especially in the ghettos and poor areas. All this money and all this effort hasn't worked and one of the main reasons that it hasn't--and again it's another issue the other politicians won't talk about, they won't bring it up because they're afraid, again, because the mass media has so much power in this country, everybody's afraid to tell the truth--and the reason why they won't bring it up and what is it they won't bring up, it's the fact that welfare birthrates, the illegitimate birthrate has outstripped the ability of you and I to pay for it. [[That's right.]]  They've had children quicker than we can pay for them. [[Uh huh.]] And I say it's time for the white middle class or any middle class person in this country that's productive and works hard, it's time for us to say, no, we're not going to finance illegitimate welfare birthrates anymore. [[Applause]] 

Something's wrong in America when hard-working, middle-class, productive people can't afford children of their own and much to the extent of the taxes they pay while they're being forced to finance massive welfare illegitimacy. I say, these people want help and welfare, let's give them some help, but when they go in to get it, let's say that you are required--you can either abstain or you can use birth control. One of the two, if you want to receive our tax money.  I don't think they're going to abstain, actually. [[Laughter]] But we've got to start saying look, there's got to be certain responsibilities that you have, you want money from the people who work and produce in America, then you've got to show responsibility on your side. We've got to have responsibility in this country. And we've got to have workfare instead of welfare, If they want to receive welfare benefits, they should agree to do work for the city or state or community to receive those benefits. [[Right.]] And where that's been applied, the welfare rolls have shrank [sic] dramatically because we find out that a lot of these people, they don't want to, they don't want to get welfare anymore if they find out they have to work for it. [[Laughter]] They'd rather go into the private sector where they can get paid at a higher rate."


Nation, Race Heritage and Jews


"The internationalists want to destroy borders. They want to destroy tariffs. They want to destroy the American middle class and they want to destroy our heritage. [[Yes, Amen.]] And they know that they cannot control, fully, control our lives unless they destroy the vitality, the seed, the spirit, the genetic treasure of this society, of our nation. And ladies and gentlemen that's you and I...that's our children, our progeny, and that's ultimately, ultimately what they want to destroy."


"The only reason why the international financial powers can control the way they control, the only reason why they dominate our government the way they do, and the American people the way they do, is because of the control, because of the Zionist control of the American media. [[Applause]] And it must be broken." [[Heavy applause]]


"To me there's no more critical issue than the fact the Zionists control the American media in America. [[Amen]] They're constantly putting down our heritage, trying to destroy our value system, our faith, and the ironic thing is, the same media that tries to break down our traditions and our heritage slavishly supports Israel."


"We have a very similar situation in this country. As you know they kept me out of the debates, yet equal time provisions of the Federal Communications Commission Acts for Congress specifically call for equal time for all candidates. That's why they started that law. Well, I went to federal court--what a joke. [[Laughter]] I had a number of very interesting judges. First judge I had was a Zionist, the second judge I had was a Black woman, the third judge I had was a Mexican woman, the fourth judge I had was a Black Zionist, I think. [[Laughter]] I felt like I was in another country."


QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS


"I must say this: there are Jews that I respect like Alfred Lilienthal who works against Zionism. But, I don't have respect for Zionism, and frankly, I do not have respect for Judaism. Because it's a very vile [[Yes.]] anti-Christian [[Amen.]] faith. And if you are familiar with it, then you'd realize why I feel that way. It doesn't mean all Jews are that way. But I don't respect the Talmud, I think it's a very vicious and vile book and it attacks all Christians and non-Jews in the world. And I don't like it. [[Amen.]] [[Applause]]"


"God created the different races. Why did he create us differently in terms of skin color, facial features, skull formation, body type? He created us different psychologically, psychically, physiologically. We have different blood types. We are afflicted by different diseases. There's no question that God created different races on this planet. There's also no question that God created those races and he separated those races. [[That's right.]]  The white races were European, the yellow races were Asian, the Blacks, of course, were African. Now man has a tendency to come along and say that God's law doesn't really make, isn't very important. This natural law that God created isn't very vital. Well, I think that it is. I'm glad that God created different races. I think it offers greater possibilities for mankind. And I want my grandkids and great grandkids to look something like myself [[Yes.]] and the people that came before me. [[Amen.]] And I'm proud of that fact. [[Applause]]"


"There's one man at the core of all this, a man who will someday be looked at kind of like as a Newton of our age or Galileo of our age. His name is Dr. William Shockley. Shockley developed the transistor which started the whole revolution. He won a Nobel prize for it and later, Shockley started Skockley semiconductors, which started the entire computer industry that we have today. And you know what? This man who will impact everyone of us so much, he started studying the racial issues. And he dropped his computer research and he dropped his transistor research and now he spends all his time trying to wake people up, trying to make people realize that people make nations, societies, technologies, not the other way around. The real value, the real resource of this country is not again our land, it is our blood. And so the man who will change us so much, and give us an opportunity, the man who's giving an opportunity for us to educate each and every one of us and our friends and our relatives and so on and so on is also the person who believes we must preserve our heritage in this country, Dr. William Shockley. I think that can inspire us. I think it's one more little element that we can put in our hearts and to know in our minds, to know that we will prevail. We will prevail. [[Amen.]] [[Applause]]


"Spotlight started Radio Free America and if you have a satellite dish, anyone in this country, in this hemisphere can tune in. I think it's a fantastic project. It's one more chink in the armor of the enemy. I think it will enable us to penetrate and reach more and more people in this country and I think eventually it will probably expand into some sort of a broadcast media, even our own television station where we can meet with, communicate with our comrades, our brothers from anywhere in the western hemisphere and eventually in Europe also. So I think there's a lot of things going in our favor but as always, the real thing that we need isn't so much knowledge, all of us have the knowledge here in this room that we need, it's the courage. The failure of the people in this nation so far has not been our knowledge or our ability, it's been our will and I hope that all of us, I'm sure that all of us, when we leave this room this evening will redouble our efforts, will really make a crusade in what we're doing, not a hobby, not something that we can spend a little bit of time doing, but a real crusade to give our people back our freedom and preserve our heritage."