At a sparsely attended conference at the National Press Club on Halloween, men identifying themselves as “white advocates” or “identitarians” set forth some proposals for improving race relations by separating white people from black people, including creating race-pure states.

According to the Huffington Post, the National Policy Institute held their one day event, “Become Who We Are,” in order to raise consciousness over the plight of white people in America.

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Although the Southern Poverty Law Center has identified the NPI as a white supremacist organization, members prefer to think of themselves as “radicals” setting in motion a white rights movement.

“There’s something radical about actually being public and talking about these views seriously,” said NPI President Richard Spencer. “There’s a tendency in our movement to embrace the fringe, ‘we want to be alienated from society, we want not to be taken seriously.’ We’re trying to make this a sensible position that all white people need to think about.”

Touching on topics including, “The Origins of the White Man,” “The Tragedy of Southern Identity” and “Why We Will Win,” conference attendees likened themselves to gay rights pioneers and Jews who fought for a Jewish state.

“You can’t get away from this general tendency to delegitimize the white man,” Spencer explained. “We totally recognize the fact that our views are considered beyond the pale, or awful — but we’ve got to start this way. The gay movement had to start at some point, Zionism had to start in the 19th century when that was considered a ridiculous, terrible notion.”

Among the suggestions made by the speakers was repopulating states along racial lines.

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Attorney Sam Dickinson suggested that “blacks could be given Manhattan,” as well as Massachusetts, while whites would take possession of states like Iowa.

“White people, as we’ve become a minority, will not be able to live in a state of severe repression and discrimination,” he explained. “Our ethno-state will not be a meeting of the Tea Party; it’s not going to be the Southern Baptist Convention. It’s going to be a genuine ethno-state with Christians, Catholics, alcoholics, tee-totallers, gay people. It’s not going to be a subset of the right.”

Noting the conference only drew a handful of women among the 150 attendees, Spencer admitted the drive for white rights is primarily a male preoccupation.

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“Any radical movement is mostly staffed by males,” Dickson said. “Women are by nature conformist, they give more obedience to authority, they’re more involved with family and children, they have to be more worried than we are about damage to the family. In any movement for reform, whatever it be, men always dominate.”