My mom’s family came from Ireland. They eventually made it to the Deep South where they’d become a mixture of sharecroppers, Baptist ministers, carnie folk and train robbers. To be fair, there were more who fell into the first two professions than the latter two.

My dad’s family came from Germany and Hungary. I know very little about that side of the family but like every other family, my dad’s family is a mixed bag of successes and disappointments.

All the different branches of my family came to America at different times and eventually replaced their European cultures with something a bit more Americana.

To my knowledge, my family has no generations-old German recipes, no Irish lullabies or Hungarian heirlooms that connect us to our native European heritages.

Even my Armenian stepfather didn’t have much that connected him to Armenia, and his family made their way to America during the Armenian genocide which wasn’t that long ago.

They were old-school immigrants who changed their last name to make it easier for Americans to pronounce. My stepdad’s father didn’t even teach his kids Armenian because “they’re Americans now.”

Growing up as a white guy in Michigan, with a bunch of friends whose families recently immigrated to America and still had secondary cultures, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of jealousy that I didn’t have that.

I was a little jealous when their phone rang and they’d answer in another language. I thought it was cool that they were part of two different cultures and moved in and out of both seamlessly.

I liked the idea of having some sort of tie to the old country and celebrating that heritage as well as my American heritage. But, at some point, all of my family gave up those cultural practices that connected them to the “motherland.”

What I’m getting at is that I kind of understand why there’s some draw for white folks when they hear Richard Spencer, Ayla Stewart and their ilk talk about “preserving white culture.”

When your country’s culture is one that uses what they think works, and throws out the rest, by definition you don’t have a culture. You just adapt the parts of other cultures you like to make a hybrid that’s hopefully improved upon over time.

I understand why white people have a desire to lay claim to values, rituals and other societal qualities and says, “This is ours and this is what makes us who we are.”

That being said, these white culture snake-oil salesmen are dangerous and there is no good reason why they should have as much power and influence as they currently have.

In fact, there are multiple reasons why we should stand up against these supposed culture preservationists.

Reason No. 1: white culture doesn’t exist. Irish culture exists, German culture exists, Italian culture exists, but white culture does not.

That should be obvious just by looking at how the Irish were treated when they first came to America.

Whiteness didn’t save Mormons either. in the early days of Mormon history, people would call members of the LDS Church “black Mormons” because they thought that Mormonism was so disgusting that those who joined the church essentially gave up being white.

And let’s not pretend like we haven’t all heard at least one Polish joke.

History is replete with examples of different white people treating other white people as lesser.

To say one is trying to preserve white culture is nothing more than a weak attempt to seem reasonable in one’s racism.

It’s cultural essential oils.

Reason No. 2 why we should be wary of these alt-right culture warriors is that what they’re really talking about is supremacy, not preservation.

My heritage is a mix of multiple European cultures. The fact that I have German ancestry doesn’t water down my Irish heritage nor do either of those lessen my Hungarian heritage.

I could celebrate and respect all three without having to give up anything.

When these tiki-torch waving neo-Nazis and Klansmen, who marched in the Charlottesville Unite The Right rally, chant things like, “You will not replace us,” and “Jews will not replace us,” and “Blood and soil,” they are not looking to preserve their culture, but they’re looking to destroy the cultures of others.

Their Nazi badges and pro-Confederacy rhetoric serve only to highlight this fact.

Although most reasonable people would agree that certain cultural practices cannot and should not be permitted in the U.S., we should all still agree that every culture has something to offer.

These supremacists are not talking about individual practices, but about the annihilation of every culture that doesn’t burn crosses and hang people of color.

I could go on but word counts are finite. If you’re not convinced that supremacists are dangerous than I’m not sure what could convince you.

I’ve spent the last week going back and forth, mostly with conservatives, about the events in Charlottesville.

I would have assumed in 2017, if I were to say, “The KKK and neo-Nazis suck,” that statement would only be met with responses such as, “Yeah, they really do.”

Instead, every time I’ve said something about these racists who’re still sore about losing the Civil War and World War II, it’s met with one of two knee-jerk responses. People either say, “Yeah but they do have the right to free speech,” or “But Black Lives Matter and Antifa are just as bad.”

And that’s ridiculous.

Sure, you have the right to free speech, but it seems like any good American is borderline duty bound to speak out against Klan and Nazi sympathizers right?

Sure, members of BLM and Antifa have questionable methods, but that doesn’t negate the fact that the Anti-Defamation League reported that right-wing groups committed 74 percent of the US’s politically motivated murders since 2007 while leftist groups committed about 2 percent.

When President Trump, or anyone else, says BLM and Antifa are just as bad as the Klan or Nazis, not only is that morally untrue, but it’s factually and mathematically untrue too.

As far as I’m concerned, people making these arguments are looking for a sneaky way to say “I prefer the Klan and neo-Nazis to BLM and Antifa.” And when you consider the murder statistics reported by the ADL, that’s a pretty damning statement to make.

It’s absolutely shameful that we can’t simply condemn white supremacists without finding a liberal group to compare them to. That should make everyone feel disgusted.

There’s nothing wrong with celebrating your ancestor’s culture. There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging that not all cultural practices are created equal. There’s nothing wrong with freedom of speech and there’s certainly nothing wrong with pointing out bad behavior in groups with which you disagree.

But, when you’re making these arguments and, directly or indirectly, supporting the Klan and neo-Nazis, you really need to reevaluate both your argument and your values.

I like what the LDS Church said about these white culture defenders.

“White supremacist attitudes are morally wrong and sinful, and we condemn them,” wrote the LDS Church in a recent statement. “Church members who promote or pursue a ‘white culture’ or white supremacy agenda are not in harmony with the teachings of the Church.”

I hope that when we Utahns hear statements like that, our first reaction isn’t to say, “Yeah that groups is bad but group X is just as bad,” instead, we should just say, “Yeah, white supremacists suck.”

Because they do.

I hope that Utahns, Americans, Mormons and any other demographic I can reach with my words will start to take this problem seriously because it deserves to be treated seriously.

With just a little luck, we can finally get President Trump to say the words, “Radical White Supremacists.”