The Homo and the Negro Paperback – October 22, 2012

“The Homo and the Negro” is a slightly bizarre book, written by James J O'Meara, who describes himself as a Traditionalist, but seems to have created an eclectic philosophy all his own. He should not be confused with Michael O'Meara, another far right writer. At one point, James O'Meara describes his “comprehensive worldview” as a mixture of “wild boys to drugs to pop and Heavy Metal to imaginal realms to Traditionalist metaphysics to the Aryan Männerbund to the New Right”.

O'Meara's main claim to fame is the notion that White homosexual males are the pinnacle of civilization. This has supposedly been suppressed by Judaism and Christianity, and the author is therefore both anti-Semitic and anti-Christian. The antithesis to the “Homo” is the “Negro”, so naturally, O'Meara is a White supremacist, as well. In what sense White homosexuals were really bearers of culture is much less clear. The author does eulogize ancient Athens and Renaissance Florence (where male homosexuality was tolerated), but his real ideal is the ancient Männerbund, a (supposed) Germanic warrior-band of Odin-worshipping berserks. In O'Meara's interpretation, the Männerbund was homoerotic or homosexual. Taking a cue from Baron Evola, O'Meara suggests that the Männerbund was the real authority in Germanic society, an initiatory order representing the inner essence of the warrior caste. Since the state is derived from this caste, the band of beserkers somehow represents the state in its true form. More disturbingly, the Männerbund is said to be needed today to restore order and authority in a world where democracy and the law no longer works… This sounds like a call for vigilantism and the creation of rump militias.

Despite eulogizing the Männerbund, the author also has a soft spot for dandified or decadent homosexuals, and one article deals extensively with Oscar Wilde. While O'Meara claims to support “masculinist” homoeroticism as against the left-wing “gay” identity, some of the homosexual expressions he mentions are androgynous rather than masculine. What is “masculinist” about Wilde, the effeminate aesthete who charms hard boiled miners and cowboys in the Old West, the gender-fluid cowboys themselves, or Hindu boy prostitutes dressed in drag? When describing contemporary American subculture, O'Meara turns out to be fascinated by long-haired men (long hair usually being a female preserve) and various forms of decadence, both “bourgeois” and “working class”, which doesn't exactly suggest a Männerbund. On the religious side, the author mentions Loki more than Odin, Loki of course being the transgressive trickster (who sometimes dresses like a woman). He is also interested in shamanism, but, once again, shamans are shape shifters, not stable masculine types.

“The Homo and the Negro”, apart from being racist and frankly weird, is a very confusingly written and badly edited work. It seems to be based on the author's blog posts. Occasionally, O'Meara does say interesting things (I liked his archetypal reading of “The Untouchables”), and the autobiographical chapters is very forthright, but overall, this is not a book I like or would recommend, unless you are extremely interested in the more exotic spin offs from Traditionalism. I will therefore only give it two stars.

Ironically, Amazon has paired the work with real gay erotica, so perhaps I must point out that this is *not* in any sense a suggestive book…

Here is one of the first books for a coming third position in what has been called the "Man-o-sphere". James O'Meara takes the position that Masculinity is not formed by what Women and Men want from other Men but what Men want from other Men. O'Meara suggests that we should have a society formed around not Male and Female relationships, as we do now but on relationships between Men, what O'Meara calls Mannerbunde. However not one to stick with the crowd, O'Meara suggest that our modern concept of Masculinity is flawed, instead O'Meara suggests that Men should be able to be "flamboyant" and peruse the Arts without being thought of as less Masculine than a star quarterback.

This is not a book for people looking at "The Game" of Pick Up Artists nor is this a Men's Rights Activist book, it is something entirely different, for someone like me, who is not satisfied by either group, this is one of the books you need to pick up.

James O'Meara is an essayist and social critic from the Mid-West and in this book he argues that the political right always loses because they have ignored the creative impulse and civilization sustaining drives of homosexual men. Now, before this idea gets further explored the following needs to be mentioned. The "right" that James O'Meara is supporting is not the "right" of the tax-cuts for the rich, Corporate Welfare supporting Republican Party or Evangelical Protestant groups such as Focus on the Family. His "right" is more akin to traditional Indo-European ideas, beauty, nobility, high traditionalist art such as the Renaissance painters.

Because the right has lost the homosexuals, O'Meara argues that their creative drive has moved on to support the political left, the right thus has taken the "Negro" as their lodestar for behavior. O'Meara describes this "Negro" ideal as something like Sean Hannity's dubious intellectual rants and general tuggishness and Glen Beck's girlish crush on Martin Luther King. This "Negro" ideal turns out to turn off large segments of society.

Key to "the right" getting society back on track is for the right to embrace the Männerbund. This is a group of single men who live outside the norms of family society and carry out great feats. The Männerbund will contain men who are drawn to homosexuality and this should be embraced. A good example of a Männerbund is the Spartans. Other somewhat homosexual types who have advanced society using a Männerbund type of organization is Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scouts.

O'Meara advances repeats his ideas several times and in different ways through a series of chapter-length essays in this book. Unfortunately, he refers to blog postings and bloggists too often. Bloggists are in fact great idea makers, but they are akin to Enlightenment coffee shop broadsides. For his ideas to make a longer impact, O'Meara should have explained the blog post and blogger in terms that can be understood by other generations rather than contemporary internet readers. O'Meara also ignores the fundamental fact that gay men don't breed and therefore are unable advance civilization through the propagation of the people that make the civilization. In other words, gays aren't supporting dad. To make matters worse, O'Meara doesn't take gays to task for aligning themselves with the "Negro," the Third World Immigrant, or those who are fundamentally hostile to Western Civilization.

Despite these flaws, this book is an eye-opening thesis that takes a critical look at society and sexuality.

The author probably does not dare to explain himself more clearly; and this self-limitations do not allow to examane the question more profoundly. The sublime homoeroticism that he defends hardly ever existed in the history, and hardly stands psychologically. Even in the most aristocratic societies and cultures these Mäannerbünder were always somewhat more carnal (see inscriptions left in Crete), then the athor seems suggesting.