Controversial CSULB professor MacDonald is director of new political party
By Kevin Butler, Staff Writer
Posted: 01/05/2010 06:50:04 PM PST
LONG BEACH - A Cal State Long Beach professor whose views have been criticized as anti-Semitic and white ethnocentric is the director of a newly formed political party whose mission is "to represent the political interests of White Americans," according to the party's web site.
Psychology Professor Kevin MacDonald told the Press-Telegram that he is director of the American Third Position party. MacDonald's ties to the party - listed on the organization's web site - were first reported by the OC Weekly.
American Third Position's chairman, William D. Johnson, notified California election officials in November that his group is trying to collect enough voter registrations to qualify as a political party under state law.
MacDonald - whose writings have been criticized by CSULB President F. King Alexander and faculty groups - said that he joined the party because he likes its platform.
"I just got started reading what they are up to," he said. "And, again, my view is that white people have a right to organize to advance their interests, like everybody else does and is doing."
MacDonald said that he is unaware of what his exact duties will be as director.
"So far I don't have any duties that I know of," he said. "All I'm doing is endorsing a platform essentially, and saying this is a good idea and something that should be done."
According to the organization's web site, its position on immigration is summarized as "enough is enough."
"If current demographic trends persist, European-Americans will become a minority in America in only a few decades time," the web site reads. "The American Third Position will not allow this to happen.
"To safeguard our identity and culture, and to secure an American future for our people, we will immediately put an indefinite moratorium on all immigration," it continues.
The group also calls for the deportation of all "criminal and illegal aliens."
As director, MacDonald is expected to give "advice and direction" to the organization, such as input on its platform positions, according to Johnson, the party's chairman.
MacDonald's writings on Jews have been called anti-Semitic by the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
His ties to the proposed party "are troubling and I think once again shows (MacDonald) for what he is, which is a bigoted white supremacist," said Kevin O'Grady, director of the ADL's Orange County/Long Beach region.
MacDonald has wrongly tried to compare white supremacists with ethnic minority groups that have advocated for rights amid a history of discrimination, O'Grady said.
"To suggest that people like American white males have been discriminated against is absurd and flies in the face of historical fact," he added.
MacDonald said that establishing American Third Position as a real force in politics represents a "long shot."
"I'll be there to talk to people, to justify what the party believes and that sort of thing," he said. "But I don't see any other role."
MacDonald's work has been criticized by the CSULB Academic Senate, a decision-making body made up of faculty. In 2008, the body approved a resolution disassociating itself from MacDonald's work.
According to the resolution, "MacDonald has advocated for the protection of the interests of `White European' Americans: ideally through the creation of a white ethnostate or failing that, through a return to the racially based restrictions of earlier U.S. immigration policy."
MacDonald has also come under criticism because his research has been cited approvingly by white supremacist David Duke.
When interviewed by the Press-Telegram in 2007, MacDonald said that the interests of the "organized Jewish community" are in conflict with those of other ethnicities and ultimately aim to "lessen the power of the European-derived majority."
kevin.butler@presstelegram.com, 562-499-1308