Samuel Jared Taylor (born September 15, 1951) is an American
white supremacist
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White su ...
and editor of
''American Renaissance'', an online magazine espousing such opinions, which was founded by Taylor in 1990.
He is also the president of ''American Renaissance''s parent organization,
New Century Foundation
The New Century Foundation is a white supremacist organization founded in 1994 by Jared Taylor known primarily for publishing a magazine, '' American Renaissance'', which promotes white supremacy. From 1994 to 1999, its activities received consi ...
, through which many of his books have been published. He is a former member of the advisory board of ''
The Occidental Quarterly'' and a former director of the
National Policy Institute, a Virginia-based white nationalist think tank.
He is also a board member and spokesperson of the
Council of Conservative Citizens
The Council of Conservative Citizens (CofCC or CCC) is an American white supremacist organization. Founded in 1985, it advocates white nationalism, and supports some paleoconservative causes. In the organization's statement of principles, it st ...
.
Taylor and many of his affiliated organizations are accused of promoting
racist
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonis ...
ideologies by civil rights groups, news media, and academics studying racism in the United States.
[American Renaissance](_blank)
Southern Poverty Law Center
Early life and education
Taylor was born on September 15, 1951, to Christian
missionary
A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...
parents from
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the East Coast of the United States, Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography an ...
in
Kobe
Kobe ( , ; officially , ) is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture Japan. With a population around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Tokyo and Yokohama. It is located in Kansai region, w ...
, Japan.
He lived in Japan until he was 16 years old and attended Japanese schools up to the age of 12, becoming fluent in
Japanese.
He attended
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...
, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy in 1973. Taylor then spent three years in France and received a Master of Arts degree in international economics at
Sciences Po
, motto_lang = fr
, mottoeng = Roots of the Future
, type = Public research university''Grande école''
, established =
, founder = Émile Boutmy
, accreditation ...
in 1978. During a period that interrupted his undergraduate and later graduate college years, he worked and traveled extensively in
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mau ...
, improving his French in the
Francophone regions of the continent.
Taylor is fluent in French, Japanese, and English.
Career
Taylor worked as an international lending officer for the
Manufacturers Hanover Corporation from 1978 to 1981, and as West Coast editor of ''
PC Magazine'' from 1983 to 1988.
He has also taught Japanese at the
Harvard Summer School, and worked as a courtroom translator.
In the 1980s, at the time of the country's strong economic growth, Taylor was viewed as a "Japan expert" in the mainstream media. In 1983 he published a well-received book on Japanese culture and business customs entitled ''Shadows of the Rising Sun: A Critical View of the Japanese Miracle''. While critical of certain aspects of Japanese culture, Taylor argued that Japanese society was more successful in solving social issues than the West, with lower crime rates and a similar or higher standard of living.
Sometime in his early thirties, Taylor reassessed the
liberal and
cosmopolitan viewpoint commonly professed in his working environment, which he had himself shared until then. He became deeply convinced that human beings are tribal in nature and feelings, and that they differ in talent, temperament and capacity. In the mid-1980s, he developed an interest in the emerging fields of
evolutionary biology
Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes (natural selection, common descent, speciation) that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life fo ...
and
evolutionary psychology
Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach in psychology that examines cognition and behavior from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify human psychological adaptations with regards to the ancestral problems they evol ...
, especially in the controversial works of
Richard Lynn
Richard Lynn (born 20 February 1930) is a controversial English psychologist and author. He is a former professor emeritus of psychology at Ulster University, having had the title withdrawn by the university in 2018. He is former assistant edit ...
,
J. Philippe Rushton and
Helmuth Nyborg, and came to believe that differences between human beings are largely of genetic origin, and therefore quasi-immutable. All the social miracles of Japan, Taylor averred by 1991 under the
pen name
A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name.
A pen na ...
Steven Howell, were at least partly a result of Japan's racial and cultural homogeneity.
In November 1990, he founded and published the first issue of ''
American Renaissance
The American Renaissance was a period of American architecture and the arts from 1876 to 1917, characterized by renewed national self-confidence and a feeling that the United States was the heir to Greek democracy, Roman law, and Renaissance h ...
'', a
white supremacist
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White su ...
subscription-based monthly newsletter. He created the
New Century Foundation
The New Century Foundation is a white supremacist organization founded in 1994 by Jared Taylor known primarily for publishing a magazine, '' American Renaissance'', which promotes white supremacy. From 1994 to 1999, its activities received consi ...
in 1994 to assist with the running of ''American Renaissance''.
Many of the early articles were written by Taylor himself and were intended to put white racial advocacy on a higher intellectual level than the traditional
Klansman's or white
skinhead
A skinhead is a member of a subculture which originated among working class youths in London, England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its nor ...
's discourse that dominated the media at that time. The journal ceased its print publication in 2012 to focus on a daily
webzine
An online magazine is a magazine published on the Internet, through bulletin board systems and other forms of public computer networks. One of the first magazines to convert from a print magazine format to being online only was the computer maga ...
format.
In 1992, Taylor published a book titled ''Paved with Good Intentions'' in which he criticizes what he deems the unwise welfare politics that contributed to the economic situation of the African-American underclass. Unlike many of his ''American Renaissance'' articles, the work avoids genetic-based reasoning due to fears of not being able to get it published had he talked about IQ differences. In 1994, he was called by the defense team in a
Fort Worth,
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
black-on-black murder trial, to give expert testimony on the race-related aspects of the case. Prior to testifying in the trial, Taylor, presented as a "
race-relations expert and author" by the ''
Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large na ...
'', called young black men "the most dangerous people in America" and added "This must be taken into consideration in judging whether or not it was realistic for
he defendantto think this was a kill-or-be-killed situation."
Views
Taylor has been described as a
white nationalist,
white supremacist
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White su ...
, and
racist
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonis ...
by civil rights groups, news media, academics studying racism in the US, and others.
Taylor has "strenuously rejected"
being called a racist, and maintains that he is instead a "racialist who believes in race-realism." He has also disputed the white supremacist label, preferring to describe himself as a "white advocate",
and contends that his views on nationality and race are "moderate, commonsensical, and fully consistent with the views of most of the great statesmen and presidents of America's past".
News coverage of Taylor has associated him with the
alt-right
The alt-right, an abbreviation of alternative right, is a far-right, white nationalist movement. A largely online phenomenon, the alt-right originated in the United States during the late 2000s before increasing in popularity during the mid-2 ...
.
Race

Taylor is a proponent of
scientific racism
Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism ( racial discrimination), racial inferiority, or racial superiority.. "Few tragedies can be more ...
and voluntary
racial segregation
Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crime against humanity under the Statute of the Intern ...
.
Taylor also asserts that there are
racial differences in intelligence
Discussions of race and intelligence – specifically, claims of differences in intelligence along racial lines – have appeared in both popular science and academic research since the modern concept of race was first introduced. With the inc ...
among the various ethno-racial groups across the world.
Taylor argues that Blacks are generally less intelligent than Hispanics, while Hispanics are generally less intelligent than whites, and whites are generally less intelligent than East Asians: "I think Asians are objectively superior to Whites by just about any measure that you can come up with in terms of what are the ingredients for a successful society. This doesn't mean that I want America to become Asian. I think every people has a right to be itself, and this becomes clear whether we're talking about
Irian Jaya
New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torres ...
or
Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...
, for that matter".
Taylor describes himself as an advocate for white interests. He states that his publication, ''American Renaissance'', was founded to provide a voice for such concerns, and argues that its work is analogous to other groups that advocate for ethnic or racial interests. ''American Renaissance'', however, has been described as a white supremacist publication and a "forum for writers disparaging the abilities of minorities". In the journal in 2005, he stated, "Blacks and whites are different. When blacks are left entirely to their own devices, Western civilization any kind of civilization disappears." A 2005 feature in the ''
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The ''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'', also known simply as the PG, is the largest newspaper serving metropolitan Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Descended from the ''Pittsburgh Gazette'', established in 1786 as the first newspaper published west of the All ...
'' described Taylor as "a racist in the guise of expert".
[Jared Taylor, a Racist in the Guise of 'Expert']
. Dennis Roddy. ''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette''. January 23, 2005.
Taylor presents his
segregationist
Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crime against humanity under the Statute of the Interna ...
project as based on
civil liberties and
freedom of association
Freedom of association encompasses both an individual's right to join or leave groups voluntarily, the right of the group to take collective action to pursue the interests of its members, and the right of an association to accept or decline mem ...
, and has described
government-mandated segregation as morally unjust. He believes that all
anti-discrimination law
Anti-discrimination law or non-discrimination law refers to legislation designed to prevent discrimination against particular groups of people; these groups are often referred to as protected groups or protected classes. Anti-discrimination laws ...
s "from the
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 () is a landmark civil rights and labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. It prohibits unequal application of voter registration req ...
onward" are an unacceptable expansion of federal power. Taylor also opposes
anti-miscegenation laws
Anti-miscegenation laws or miscegenation laws are laws that enforce racial segregation at the level of marriage and intimate relationships by criminalizing interracial marriage and sometimes also sex between members of different races. Anti-misc ...
as impinging on the freedom of association of private citizens.
Taylor believes that the multi-racial American society is "doomed to failure", and that non-white groups should not constitute a significant part of the American population, especially Hispanics, Africans, Afro-Caribbeans and Middle Easterners, although he also includes Northern Asians, whom he holds in high regard. He thus supports immigration policies that would favor white immigrants over other groups. Taylor has said: "Whites deserve a homeland," and when questioned about the US immigration laws passed in 1965, under the
Hart-Celler Act
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart–Celler Act and more recently as the 1965 Immigration Act, is a federal law passed by the 89th United States Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The l ...
, said that "Whites are making a terrible mistake by setting in motion forces that will reduce them to a minority."
Taylor supports the
white genocide conspiracy theory
The white genocide, white extinction, or white replacement conspiracy theory is a White supremacy, white supremacist conspiracy theory which states that there is a deliberate plot, often Antisemitic canard, blamed on Jews, to promote miscegenat ...
, and has hosted the
Suidlanders on his AmRen podcast to discuss the topic, while encouraging donations to the South African organization. He has recommended
Jean Raspail
Jean Raspail (, 5 July 1925 – 13 June 2020) was a French author, traveler, and explorer. Many of his books are about historical figures, exploration and indigenous peoples. He was a recipient of the prestigious French literary awards Grand Prix ...
's ''
The Camp of the Saints'' to his followers.
Attitude towards anti-Semitism
Taylor welcomes Jews to his organization and views
American Jews
American Jews or Jewish Americans are American citizens who are Jewish, whether by religion, ethnicity, culture, or nationality. Today the Jewish community in the United States consists primarily of Ashkenazi Jews, who descend from diaspora J ...
as potential powerful allies. While several speakers of Jewish descent have participated in ''American Renaissance'' conventions, he has never sought to either welcome or expel anti-Semitic voices. This position has sparked tensions with far-right anti-Semitic organizations claiming that Jews are infiltrating their movements. In 2006, a clash erupted at one convention between anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist
David Duke and
Michael H. Hart, a Jewish astrophysicist sharing many of Taylor's ideas. ''
The Forward
''The Forward'' ( yi, פֿאָרווערטס, Forverts), formerly known as ''The Jewish Daily Forward'', is an American news media organization for a Jewish American audience. Founded in 1897 as a Yiddish-language daily socialist newspaper, ...
'' reported that Taylor "has been trying to de-Nazify the movement and draw the white nationalist circle wider to include Jews of European descent. But to many on the far right, taking the Jew-hatred out of white nationalism is like taking the Christ out of Christmas — a sacrilege."
The
Southern Poverty Law Center
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, it is known for its legal cases against white su ...
(SPLC) comments that Taylor is unusual among the radical right in "his lack of anti-Semitism."
Scholar Elizabeth Bryant Morgenstern states that "unlike many other white supremacists, Taylor is not
anti-Semitic
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
, and in fact encourages Jews to join his fight. . . . however many within the white supremacist/
anti-immigration movement disagree with Taylor . . . and he has been under tremendous pressure to break ties with the Jewish community."
Donald Trump
Taylor supported
Donald Trump's presidential campaign, and recorded
robocalls to support Trump before the
Iowa caucus
The Iowa caucuses are biennial electoral events for members of the Democratic and Republican parties in the U.S. state of Iowa. Unlike primary elections in most other U.S. states, where registered voters go to polling places to cast ballo ...
and
New Hampshire primary
The New Hampshire presidential primary is the first in a series of nationwide party primary elections and the second party contest (the first being the Iowa caucuses) held in the United States every four years as part of the process of choo ...
.
Taylor attended Trump's inauguration with front-row VIP tickets,
and he described the event as "a sign of rising white consciousness".
A spokesperson told
CNN that the candidate "disavows all super PACs offering their support and continues to do so."
When asked about the robocalls in an interview with CNN, Trump responded "I would disavow that, but I will tell you people are extremely angry."
Influence
Madison Grant, the author of ''
The Passing of the Great Race'' (1916), and
Lothrop Stoddard
Theodore Lothrop Stoddard (June 29, 1883 – May 1, 1950) was an American historian, journalist, political scientist, conspiracy theorist, white supremacist, and white nationalist. Stoddard wrote several books which advocated eugenics and sci ...
, the author of ''
The Rising Tide of Color'' (1920), each the object of celebratory articles in ''American Renaissance'', seem to have influenced or reinforced Taylor's belief in separate racial homelands. Southern conservatives
Samuel Francis and Sam Dickson, who have been regular speakers at ''American Renaissance'' conferences, are also cited as influential on Taylor's views. According to scholar Russell Nieli, "the combination of southern regional conservatism and Taylor's experience of living in . . . Japan has undoubtedly had a formative effect on his thinking about race."
Hoping his ethnonationalist project will go global, Taylor has sought in recent years to establish relations with populist radical right parties in Europe such as France's
National Rally
The National Rally (french: Rassemblement National, ; RN), until 2018 known as the National Front (french: link=no, Front National, ; FN), is a far-rightAbridged list of reliable sources that refer to National Rally as far-right:
Academic:
* ...
, Britain's
UKIP
The UK Independence Party (UKIP; ) is a Eurosceptic, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. The party reached its greatest level of success in the mid-2010s, when it gained two members of Parliament and was the largest ...
, Austria's
Freedom Party, Germany's
Alternative für Deutschland, and Flanders's
Vlaams Belang. Nieli notes that Taylor appears to have a special intellectual affinity for the
French New Right author
Guillaume Faye, whose books were favorably reviewed by Taylor in ''American Renaissance''; both of them believe that white people need to join in a worldwide fight for their racial, cultural, and demographic survival.
According to Nieli, Taylor "may well have been as central to structuring the fledgling
America's radical Right">Radical right (United States)">America's radical Rightin the 1990s as the late
William F. Buckley Jr.
William Frank Buckley Jr. (born William Francis Buckley; November 24, 1925 – February 27, 2008) was an American public intellectual, conservative author and political commentator. In 1955, he founded ''National Review'', the magazine that stim ...
was in the 1950s and 1960s in structuring post-World War II American conservatism. The growing
Alt Right movement in America today owes a great deal to Taylor's past efforts."
Reception
The
Southern Poverty Law Center
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, it is known for its legal cases against white su ...
describes Taylor as "a courtly presenter of ideas that most would describe as crudely white supremacist—a kind of modern-day version of the refined but racist colonialist of old."
Mark Potok and Heidi Beirich, writers for the ''Intelligence Report'' (a publication of the SPLC), have written that "Jared Taylor is the cultivated, cosmopolitan face of white supremacy. He is the guy who is providing the intellectual heft, in effect, to modern-day Klansmen." They have also stated that "''American Renaissance'' has become increasingly important over the years, bringing a measure of intellectualism and seriousness to the typically thug-dominated world of white supremacy".
On December 18, 2017, his account (as well as the account for ''American Renaissance'') was
suspended by Twitter, after Twitter adopted new rules prohibiting accounts affiliated with the promotion of violence. In February 2018, Taylor filed a lawsuit against Twitter, claiming that the suspension violated his right to free speech. Taylor's lawsuit was dismissed, and an appeals court upheld the dismissal, agreeing that services can control what is published on their sites.
In March 2019, Taylor said on his website that he had been banned from the
Schengen Area
The Schengen Area ( , ) is an area comprising 27 European countries that have officially abolished all passport and all other types of border control at their mutual borders. Being an element within the wider area of freedom, security and ...
for two years on the instigation of Poland.
References
External links
*
Bibliography
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, Jared
1951 births
Living people
Alt-right writers
American chief executives in the media industry
American expatriates in Japan
American magazine editors
American magazine publishers (people)
American mass media company founders
American media executives
American nonprofit chief executives
American political commentators
American political writers
American white supremacists
Council of Conservative Citizens
Critics of multiculturalism
Editors of Virginia newspapers
Race and intelligence controversy
People from Oakton, Virginia
People from Kobe
Sciences Po alumni
Proponents of scientific racism
Writers from Virginia
Yale University alumni
White separatists