Detached from the mass hysteria over pandemics and confident in his ability to survive COVID-19 should he become infected, Ben Stephens of Nashville, Tennessee, began considering becoming a supremacist of some sort. The only question was, what kind?
“Definitely not white,” said Stephens, who happens to be white. “That’s just a really bad look. It was unquestionably going to have to be something else.”
Noting that many Asian Americans have done well both academically and in their professions, Stephens wondered if his respect for their work ethic and intelligence should translate into his becoming an Asian supremacist. Ultimately, however, he decided that that path was not for him.
“For one, ‘Asian’ is pretty broad," he noted. "I’m not sure how politically correct it would be to lump Indians, Koreans, Filipinos, Chinese, Hawaiians, Native Americans, Japanese, and even some Russians into the same supremacy category. They’re very different cultures.”
The other sticking point with the Asian option, of course, was the fact that Stephens is not, himself, Asian. “I might be able to do an ancestry test and pull out some trace Asian ancestry,” he said. “But that could have been an issue.”
That being said, Stephen did not want to limit himself philosophically regarding supremacy, even if it meant that the cultural identity to which he subscribed was not, in his view, "supreme.” "I only wanted to be a supremacist for a group that really deserved it,” he explained. "To me, it would have been a cop-out to settle for something just because I happen to fit the description."
It occurred to Stephens that, apart from Asians, he also had a great deal of respect for the Swedes, and he is at least 25-percent Swedish, on his mother’s side - meaning that Swedish supremacy was potentially a very viable option. "I felt that that might be pushing uncomfortably close to white supremacy, though. And like I said, I definitely wanted to steer clear of that at all costs."
At the end of the day, said Stephens, the question of what sort of supremacist he might possibly become turned out to be much more complicated than he’d anticipated. “I was naïve in thinking that it would be a simple decision," he said. "There are so many factors to consider, and so many ways to go wrong."
For that reason, Stephens has put on hold the possibility of becoming any sort of supremacist, at least for the time being. "For now I'll just go on being a regular dude, bumbling along like everyone else," he said with a shrug. "No big deal. I've made it this far, right?"
