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In most states, it is legal for a 30 year old man to marry a 16 year old girl. Not only that, such marriages were pretty common 150+ years ago, and no one thought anything much about it. Here’s the thing: while I in theory have no problem with a 30 year old marrying a 16 year old, I can’t help but notice that most 30 year olds who are interested in marrying 16 year olds today are creeps. That age gap has become so uncommon and socially frowned upon, that almost the only guys who pursue it are antisocial weirdos that I don’t really want to hang out with.
Likewise, I don’t have a problem with the existence of private, monoracial clubs. In some ways, I can even see the appeal. But whites-only clubs are even more frowned upon than 30/16 marriages, so any such club is going to pretty much exclusively attract an audience of schizophrenics, neo-Nazis, feds, and other undesirables who I don’t particularly want to spend time around.
I don’t think most people have thought about it in quite the same terms that I have, but I think most people have arrived at the same conclusion. Until that changes, whites-only clubs are going to be pretty thin on the ground, even if they remain technically legal, because schizos, neo-Nazis, and feds tend not to build durable, attractive organizations.
I don't think there exists a single state in the US which allows a 16 year old to marry without parental or court consent and even then many of the states which do require special circumstances like pregnancy. So it's not really true a 16 year old can marry a 30 year old in most US states. It's only true in very specific circumstances.
But anyway, I'm not really sure what you're arguing or what you think I am arguing.
I don't particularly care about whether or not whites-only clubs exist, but let's not lie to each other about them existing and how they got that way. There are plenty of mono-racial clubs, but not whites-only men's clubs. Once upon a time, there were many whites-only men's clubs, but they were repeatedly attacked by state power and social power for various reasons.
How many 30/16 marriages have resulted in ongoing lawfare campaigns over the last 100 years at the local, state, and federal level?
I've never heard of a 30/16 marriage resulting in the inability to open a bank account, but maybe you have.
And so it's a pretty goofy analogy. Whites-only men's clubs attract only criminals and others because that's the only space they're allowed to marginally exist by the state. They are just plain illegal except for particular circumstances. And in the remaining places they're not explicitly illegal, they are de facto illegal anyway in the US.
Are there actually plenty of mono-racial clubs? Even groups like the NAACP have white members, despite names that might indicate otherwise.
Ethel’s Club, a private club for people of color in NYC.
The Links, a nationwide private organization for black women.
The Wilfandel Club, Los Angeles's first private club for Black women
Those took me 1 minute of googling.
Open to “"people of color and allies.”
Includes white members.
This one does appear to be a genuinely all-black organization, though it operates as an exclusive private club, with hefty annual dues, invitation-only membership, and a competitive process to even be considered. As such, it meets the requirements of a private club that is exempt from the Civil Rights Act. It would be perfectly legal for white men to start the same type of club. Indeed, a number of whites-only country clubs famously continued to exist into the 1990s, and it was only social opprobrium, not legal threats, that led them to change their policies.
1990 was 36 years ago
"famously"; some scumbag journalist implied the club president said it was whites only, which he disputed, and they inducted a black guy within months
are you claiming a golf club in 2026, 36 years after 1990, wouldn't face legal threats after being "famously" whites-only? otherwise, what's the point here?
what's your actual argument?
Okay, here you go: a couple of bona fide whites-only organizations still active at least within the past few years.
My actual argument is that whites-only private clubs are exactly as legal as black-only, Indian-only, Latino-only, etc., private clubs. They are practically non-existent for reasons of social censure, not due to legal threats (if you can find recent examples of truly private whites-only or white male-only clubs that integrated or disbanded due to a court decision, I’d welcome such examples). Additionally, truly black-only clubs are also fairly rare on the ground, albeit more common than whites-only clubs, as most clubs and organizations that seem at first blush to be black-only are technically open to others as well (and in fact many do have non-black members). They face less social scrutiny, but they operate under the exact same legal framework that a whites-only club would operate under.
Finally, though this hasn’t come up because I don’t think it’s in dispute, it’s worth noting that plenty of all-white, all-black, all-Indian, etc., organizations still exist, even though they don’t have any explicit racial rules around joining. I can think of several gun clubs, Lions Heritage groups, scouting organizations, lodges, American Legion posts, churches, and a few other non-profits in my area (some of which I’ve been a part of) that have exclusively white membership, even in areas that are not exclusively white. For that matter, I know of a number of small businesses that have only white male employees.
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sure, there was a dorm at my college which only allowed non-whites to live there
do you not recognize whites-only and men's-only is a special category treated different than others? if so, what's the actual point of all these attempted equivocations?
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I think you're right, and it reminds me of something similar Scott Alexander said a decade ago (!) in his piece Neutral Vs. Conservative: The Eternal Struggle
This sort of social taboo has such a weight that it is almost impossible to break, no matter how justified or not the taboo is.
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