Flyers reading “Is it okay to be white? Have an open conversation about race. Join the Carolina Nationalist Discord.” were posted at several locations around campus last week. They advertised a chat room for students to discuss sensitive racial topics.
One flyer advertising the group was posted in Ehringhaus Residence Hall, and was taken down shortly after.
“The flyers in question were not approved prior to being posted,” said Allan Blattner, director of housing and residential education in a statement regarding the flyer. “Additionally, only officially recognized groups and organizations, which this group is not, are permitted to post flyers or other materials within the residential communities.”
The flyers included tear-off sections of a link, which directed viewers to download the Discord app, a text chat app designed for communication between gamers. Once the app is opened, the user is immediately granted access to the “CarolinaNationalists” group chat, which included 29 members as of Tuesday evening.
A Daily Tar Heel reporter joined the Discord in order to learn about the nature of the group chat and the subjects being discussed in it. The quotes are taken from conversations between members.
The purpose of the group chat is “discussing race realism and other dissident topics you can’t discuss in your anthropology class,” to quote one of the group’s members. Members of the group are anonymous, and send messages using a self-assigned username.
“We discuss di(s)sident intellectual subjects that are beyond the overton window in universities. Race realism, identitarianism, white advocacy, and the Jewish question,” one user messaged.
“Race realism,” in the context of the group message is likely synonymous with scientific racism. Scientific racism is the belief that empirical evidence exists to support the biological categorization of human beings into racial groups. According to Urban Dictionary, to be a race realist is “to be realistic & understand that stereotypes within each race exist for a reason and are usually backed by hard data.”
The “identitarianism” that this user also mentioned is likely related to a European and North American white nationalist movement that originated in France, called the “Génération Identitaire.” The movement has been described by the International Business Times as far-right and an advocate of white supremacy.
