2,000 words
“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” — L. P. Hartley
There’s an old time capsule video from 1987 titled “2:30am at a 7-11 near Disney World” that has made its way around the Internet over the years and has been viewed millions of times. Time capsule videos from the 1980s and early 1990s are often a bit grainy, depicting rather ordinary occurrences and interactions. They often depict completely ordinary events like kids buying snacks and talking to strangers in a 7-11, and yet they frequently get thousands to millions of views. These videos give a fleeting glimpse into how our nations once were, effectively depicting countries that no longer exist. They show younger people how safe, clean, friendly, and white our nations once were. Videos like this one leave some in awe at how happy and carefree people could once be in their local convenience store.
The corner store experience and 7-11 Nationalism is a sharp metaphor for the gradual decline of the West and the slow march of diversity that encroaches upon every facet of our lives.
I remember going to gas stations late at night with my dad when I was a kid, when I couldn’t sleep. We would get snacks. He knew the names of everybody who worked the late shift. They always seemed to play cool ‘80s music. That’s the America we were supposed to have.
As I grew up, I kept going to convenience stores often. I always enjoyed the experience and would take my time: grab a soda, chat with the clerk, maybe talk with a friend in the parking lot. But just in the course of my own short life thus far, there are places I went not all that long ago that were awesome, fun, clean, and safe that are now infested with aspiring rappers and welfare tourists – and nobody speaks English.
Not that long ago, I stopped at a convenience store in one of the most “diverse” parts of the city to buy a soda as I was driving through. The experience was “enriching,” you might say, in that I did learn something new about how non-whites live. The establishment’s front door was chained shut and locked. The windows were all barred. The clerk asked what I wanted through a microphone, and I had to put my money in a bulletproof box from outside. The clerk then closed the window on the box, got my soda and change, and then put it back in the box and closed it on his side so that I could receive it. The way that low-trust, low-impulse control populations live is wild. When my dad was growing up, the neighborhood I stopped in was nearly entirely white. Now, it’s a ghetto. There was once a gas station on the corner where I stopped, and it had no bars or chains or bulletproof glass. But then the blacks and Hispanics started moving in, and the whites moved away. Not even blacks want to live around other blacks; that’s why they move to white neighborhoods in the first place, perhaps not realizing that wherever they go, they bring crime and dysfunction with them.
The chill vibe that once existed in places like your neighborhood 7-11 has been shattered as a result of non-white migration and forced racial integration. Meandering through the aisles looking for snacks to eat during a movie with your friends or girlfriend is part of a bygone era, and we know who is responsible. Today is the age of looking over your shoulder, wondering if the group of loud urban youths gathering outside are about to commit their next felony, and being gawked at menacingly by a car full of dirty cholos, as if you’re the one in the wrong country.
We no longer have a nice, white country. We are forced to live in a sort of open-air prison camp, being endlessly terrorized in ways that are increasingly being normalized. We should not have to deal with gangs going on 7-11 robbing sprees.
There are two types of civilizations.
In one such instance, while robbing a white female convenience store clerk, a black criminal took the time to drag another white woman into the store, tie her up with duct tape, pour lighter fluid on both of them, and set them on fire. The video of the attack is reminiscent of a necklacing scene from South Africa.
This woman was working her honest job at a gas station and ended up being set on fire by diversity. Corner stores are now war zones where you see all the same depravity as in the streets of the Congo. We didn’t choose this. If you take the time to light somebody on fire after you’ve already tied her up and you have the money, you’re doing it out of pure hatred. So it’s not about the money any longer. Rather, this is an example of an actual hate crime that will never get mentioned in the mainstream outside of the local news.
Another recent video shows two blacks pistol-whipping a pregnant white woman during a convenience store robbery. A person trying to make an honest living shouldn’t have to fear for his or her safety just to make it through a shift. We shouldn’t have to live this way.
What 7-11 Nationalism represents is all of the minor things that we once took for granted, that have been ripped away.
If you can’t walk into a convenience store at 2:30 AM to get a snack on a Friday night while leaving your car running and unlocked with your girlfriend waiting in it, you don’t live in a free country. People used to do that kind of thing. I’ve heard the stories. This was once a nice country.
Worthless libertarians and “conservatives,” who in fact conserve nothing at all, talk an awful lot about freedom and tyranny. Yet they are utterly blind to the everyday tyranny of not being able to live in a safe neighborhood. They never mention the tyranny of being forced to move every few years to a “better school district.”
What about the freedom to walk home safely? What about the freedom to sit in a parking lot with a friend, drinking a Big Gulp while listening to The Cars without having to worry about being harassed by diversity?
They make no mention of how you can no longer allow your children to ride their bicycles to the gas station. Nor do they admit why we are now forced to prepay for gas, and why we now have to have our receipts checked by security when leaving a store even when you’re white, even though everyone knows full well that it’s not whites who are doing much of the shoplifting. Nobody talks about the constant low-grade anxiety that comes with living among these people who belong in human zoos — always having to double-check that your doors are locked, and not being able to take your eyes off your loved ones for a second without having to worry about their safety.
Ebba Åkerlund was an 11-year-old Swedish girl who was run over by an Arab terrorist as she was walking home. She was partially deaf, and likely did not even hear death coming for her. It wasn’t even world news when it happened.
Likewise, Pat Mahaney, a 46-year-old white man in Ohio, was walking home when six black teens pummeled him into a coma, “because they were bored.” Pat never recovered from his injuries and died eleven months later. Our people cannot even walk home without fear anymore. What good is “freedom” when you can’t enjoy the nation your ancestors built for you and the freedoms that they established?
Everything has been taken from us; perhaps most notably, our peace of mind.
7-11 Nationalism is about all the little things and day-to-day experiences that matter to our quality of life. The GDP can be at an all-time high, but if you can’t safely go to buy a soda, are you really any better off? Sure, your TV is bigger and crisper than ever, but do you know the first name of the guy who works at your grocery store? Do you even want to know his name? One of the more unfortunate aspects of ethnic diversity is that as social cohesion and trust break down, in-group trust also declines. Not only are we alienated by the presence of racial outsiders, but they cause us to be less trusting and sociable with those of our own kin as well. Even when the clerk is white, you are less likely to know his name in a diverse country, which robs us of the relationships we could have cultivated under different circumstances, leading to a more enriched society.
The experience at your local convenience store is, arguably, a more relevant indicator of the quality of life and social health in your nation than economic factors. When you pull into the parking lot, get harassed for money by some aspiring rappers, are nearly run over by a hijab-wearing woman in a new SUV as you cross the parking lot, and are unable to communicate with the Indian clerk while you’re being given the eye by urban youths, you come out of the experience feeling annoyed and angry. This is diversity fatigue: the result of the constant low-grade harassment and alienation we experience just by living among these vile racial aliens.
Diversity fatigue and psychological terrorism are the norm in today’s multicultural polyglot. Seeing a Mexican woman use her EBT card to buy snacks for her six children who will soon be outvoting and replacing you is a form of psychological terror. Seeing people in hijabs in a Western setting is jarring and unnatural. You know none of this is “normal,” but you’re forced to accept it all the same.
Mass migration and the fruits of “civil rights” legislation are coalescing to create an environment that is utterly inhospitable for us. Whites are being forced to live among a violent, impulsive, high-time preference scourge, with no way to legally segregate ourselves from them. It’s a form of anarcho-tyranny: the criminals are allowed to commit crimes and operate rather freely in society while the innocent are forced to live among them, while the law does little to protect them. The authorities allow criminal aliens to enter the country and will enforce the law against a white person who tries to escape forced integration. By making it impossible for whites to choose who they live with, we have been forced to abandon the cities we built and the towns we grew up in for the next suburb.
As this plague advances further among white communities, so too will the level of crime and its depravity. No aspect of our lives will be the same. As diversity increases and the proportion of whites falls, societal dysfunction will continue to rise. The entire country will end up consisting of nothing but caged-in stores manned by staffers behind bulletproof glass. Nowhere is safe and nothing is sacred as the march of diversity continues onward.
7-11 Nationalism isn’t simply about the fact that you must pre-pay for your gasoline, or that the clerk is an Indian who speaks little English. It’s not about the everyday things that generally go unnoticed that have been taken from us. Rather, 7-11 Nationalism is a state of mind, one in which we make the choice to retake the city instead of fleeing it. It is acting on that inner voice that tells us, “These cities are ours. We built them. And we will take them back.”
We’re going to take back all the corner stores. I want the very worst neighborhood in America to have a nice, safe 7-11 that women and children can safely visit at night. That’s my dream.
It’s part nostalgia, part lamenting a future that was stolen from us, part retaking our cities, and part mending what was broken. This is 7-11 Nationalism.
* * *
Counter-Currents has extended special privileges to those who donate $120 or more per year.
- First, donor comments will appear immediately instead of waiting in a moderation queue. (People who abuse this privilege will lose it.)
- Second, donors will have immediate access to all Counter-Currents posts. Non-donors will find that one post a day, five posts a week will be behind a “Paywall” and will be available to the general public after 30 days.
- Third, Paywall members have the ability to edit their comments.
- Fourth, Paywall members can “commission” a yearly article from Counter-Currents. Just send a question that you’d like to have discussed to [email protected]. (Obviously, the topics must be suitable to Counter-Currents and its broader project, as well as the interests and expertise of our writers.)
To get full access to all content behind the paywall, sign up here:
Paywall Gift Subscriptions
If you are already behind the paywall and want to share the benefits, Counter-Currents also offers paywall gift subscriptions. We need just five things from you:
- your payment
- the recipient’s name
- the recipient’s email address
- your name
- your email address
To register, just fill out this form and we will walk you through the payment and registration process. There are a number of different payment options.
Enjoyed this article?
Be the first to leave a tip in the jar!
29 comments
Great essay, Richard. It brought back a fond memory, I remember in the late 70’s when spring would arrive and as a 10 year old riding my Honda Z-50 2 miles each way on a 2 lane road to go to the corner store to pick up a pack of the new seasons baseball cards, a Yoo-hoo and a Charleston Chew and put it on my parents house account. Now I would either get arrested for driving on a road as a 10 year old, get run over by a Mexican drunk driver or get bike jacked. Anybody from the northeast remember Charles Chips? Home delivery of caramel popcorn, potato chips, sourdough pretzels etc., the original Amazon.
“you meet the nicest people on a Honda.”
Sounds very nice. I remember riding bicycles with my best friend to the mall in the summers as kids. There are fewer and fewer places you can still do that sort of thing.
And we are certainly now being over-policed as a result of bringing in more criminal populations here. All those little things add up.
I remember Charles Chips they came in a can right? We had Terrells too. Charleston Chew strawberry was best. This overall idea though is so off I don’t even know where to start. An ethnostate is all we can hope to obtain at this point. Which we will have to fight for. Though a full flee to Europe to defend the homeland and return to our Ancestors is also a real proposal. Anything else is pure fantasy.
In my small Connecticut town in the early 1980s it was “Cumberland Farms” instead of 7-11. They had a few video games in the store. I spent many fun hours in middle school there with my friends. There was a high school kid who worked there named Billy. He was a tough kid and we were all kind of afraid of him. But I’d much rather deal with Billy than the gangs of blacks who are likely to rob, rape or murder white people.
Convenience Store Nationalism is a scene I can get behind. No lie, my second place pie in the sky dream business to start (first place is a decently affordable “real” gym) is the cool, clean, well-stocked gas station/convenience store in a small town where people just tend to want to hang out. I enjoyed many an hour hanging out with friends in high school and college in just such a place. All the guys would bring their souped up cars and we would sit on the hoods and show off, BS the night away, maybe go out of town for a drag race or two. What a time it was. Do people even care about this kind of experience anymore in an age when Walmart and Amazon will deliver your groceries to you?
Teenagers and 20-somethings still hang out in the parking lots of convenience store gas station hybrids out in the rural areas near where I live. It’s not merely a thing of the past
Nationalism is a state of mind, one in which we make the choice to retake the city instead of fleeing it. It is acting on that inner voice that tells us, “These cities are ours. We built them. And we will take them back.”
To accomplish this mission, You will need to find a hero, a man with an iron will and a heart of stone.
The Russian Tsar Ivan the Terrible was one such hero. Ivan the Terrible broke the power of the Mongul, Tartar and Turkish invaders who had occupied and tyrannised Russia for centuries. At huge personal cost Ivan broke their power and freed, liberated the Russian people from an alien subjugation a hundred times worse than what we are currently experiencing.
Richard can you please recommend a concise, gripping history of this great man and his liberation of his people? Thank you
Wikipedia gives a concise, gripping history of Ivan the Terrible. Read the account and you will see that this Tsar lived up to his description of “terrible”. But then again, he put an end to Russia’s abasement.
Thanks.
The mongols exterminated 10% of all living humans in their day. Gotta fight fire w fire I guess.
Great article. Unfortunately, for most people under 40, the “enriching” and “vibrant” 7-11 is all they’ve ever known.
Experienced this firsthand recently while on a date in Las Vegas w an “intelligent” but hopelessly liberal girl. She wanted an energy drink so badly that she Insisted on stopping the cab to go to a 7-11 with nearly a dozen aspiring rappers out front.
I told her dont go its dangerous.
She said I’m not afraid dont be racist. (Shes 5’3″ 100 lbs w porcelain pale skin. Looks like .morticia addams)
I should have let her go alone. But that would have been cowardly. I should have told her I’m leaving without her if she leaves the cab. That would have appeared cowardly.
Instead I accompanied her inside.
It STANK inside. There were actual flies buzzing. The line was 10 deep because a person of vibrant descent couldn’t stop arguing with cashier about why her EBT card wouldn’t work.
With time dragging on and my fear of our sub-co continental cabbie getting “spooked” (heh) and leaving, I looked at my date and commanded “we’re leaving” she obeyed immediately.
Never again.
I grew up in a massively Mestizo gang Infested part of so-cal and I never ONCE felt this kind of anxiety. I was the only gringo on the block and I was left alone by the skinheads. Now as a fully grown man I felt actual fear.
The darker the berry, the sweeter the juice I guess.
PS: she left her wallet inside the damn store as we escaped.
PPS: we went back. Friendly vibrant clerk had it waiting for us
Unreal.
Ever since I heard Mr. Houck speak about 7-11 nationalism on the Jefferson Lee show, I’ve been noticing just how much store clerks trust me to do the right thing, even here in paranoid Southeastern Europe. Just today it occurred to me that I could take whatever I wanted from a fridge and bolt before the clerk could even see me. It’s amazing that the US, a country we think of as advanced around here would have it so bad.
“We’re going to take back all the corner stores…”
Fine goal, excellent argument.
Take a page from my old breakfast partner Karl Hess (I paid, he was always broke) and go just one step farther.
It was Hess’ contention that the chain store mentality was part of the problem. Locally owned food and gas hops started a tradition when old national routes served truckers at all hours. All over the nation, Karl told me, there was a motley archipelago of family-owned family-run truck stops and eateries that ran the gamut from fake Western posh to Hicksville and Proud of It. For guys of his generation, old routes were an adventure into a riot of real diverse USA and it all disappeared around the I Love Ike era. give or take depending on where y0u were.
With the rise of the chain stores, corporate functionaries took what mom & pop really should have proper rights to. We’ll have a job getting that back… but it’s possible. If it’s possible to get Juarez and Somalia in Iowa, so’s anything.
Mmm I know this feeling well even as a 90s-00s kid.
School finally lets out and you got a big smile on your face happy because you’re finally free. As you’re leaving that cute girl 3 desks down runs over and ask to walk home together.
Holding hands you slowly stroll past the football field when you see your idiot friends running by laughing making kissy faces at you both. You both just look away and blush. Almost a block away one of them yells to come over later because he just got the new Mario Party.
You both keep walking and stop at the gas station to share a pack of starburst with her because that’s just the kind of gentleman you are. The old lady behind the counter acts just like your dumbass friends “Oh so who’s your girlfriend?” she asks playfully enjoying watching you both blush.
You get to the girl’s house say your goodbyes awkwardly then head over to your friends to play some games. Playing with your friends as they tease you, you can’t help but look forward to tomorrow.
Now children get home as fast as they can and hate school for entirely different reasons. The neighborhood is dangerous so the kids whose parents are both busy working can’t pick them up so they have to risk walking home. That’s where you see a lot of the videos of white kids getting beaten up. While in school is no better; they’re taught to hate themselves, have trouble fitting in and being open with that obnoxious black kid acting like the head of the class, and of course racial bullying (common in diverse schools). And when the kids get home they hole up in their room and play video games all day desperately trying to escape.
It’s tragic to think white kids won’t get to experience what I did as a child. And it’s funny, even in this Capitalist shithole there’s still an underlying culture. Your 7-11 was my Texaco. And after writing this story from my youth I realize diversity likely causes a lot of friction just for romance. I wouldn’t have had what I did if not for the white community around me.
Thank you for a great read, I really enjoyed it.
I grew up in Australia in the 1970’s and 80’s, but now live in the US. We also had these detrimental demographic changes in our cities and towns, thanks to the lies about multiculturalism we were coerced into believing and adopting. Like everywhere else though, it has pretty much been a disaster. (although I think even in Australia there is a growing ‘push-back’ to the above policies)
On the one hand, I really didn’t know how bad it was on the Pacific North West of America, (where I live) until I visited both Seattle and Portland. The former for a vacation, and the latter to renew my passport. On both occasions, I was harassed by drug addicts and pan-handlers, and even shoved aside while waiting in a supermarket queue by a young black man who said to me ” … get outta my way cracker ” (as I looked at my wife in astonishment).
On the bright side, however, I have now lived in Boise, Idaho for about 7 years, and I can see not only what we have lost, but how we can get that back in other parts of the country. My mother who is almost 80 years old came to visit my wife and me last Summer in Idaho. She could not believe how friendly the locals were, how graffiti was almost non-existent, and how crime was very low for the population. It reminded her of growing up in Australia in the 1950’s. As someone who grew up under the policies of mass third world immigration by selfish, self-interested governments, this has made me appreciate even more the polite white society of my parents, which I believe we can get back.
Currently, I am optimistic for the future and I can feel positive change in the air. I like to think of our current rude, liberal multicultural postmodern society as an overgrown garden. With effort an will, we can replace the weeds and let the flowers bloom once again; and who knows, perhaps we can also visit the 7-11 at 2:30 am sometime in the near future.
I’m old enough to remember a much better world in the West, before Diversity wreaked havoc. My heart breaks when I think of what was lost. So much has been lost. People now in their 30’s or 20’s or younger didn’t see it, but it existed. I’m glad that, for now, videos like that 7-11 one can be seen and shared, and offer a little taste of what once was.
And my heart is stabbed again when I look at the pictures of Pat Mahaney and Ebba Akerlund. We need to always remember those pictures.
These comments called to mind the (Sammy Hagar) Van Halen song “Summer Nights.” “Just hangin’ round in the local parking lots” and all the rest, you all know the lyrics, very appropriate for this post.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPUb4Wsi9kI
I was born in Czechoslovakia and moved to the USA in the late 1980’s.
I received a glimpse of this type of America that is shown in this video. What a nice, friendly well run country. I visited my homeland only once until I turned 30, as we were immigrants and did not have a lot of money. I was struck by the atmosphere in what is now the Czech Republic and it is same as in this video. We are still one people, worship the same heroes and have the same sense of our history and that our destiny is in our hands.
I now live in the Czech Republic and am never going back west. I invite you to join me.
A considerable strength of this essay is making the case, and driving home the point(s), without language that would cause a normie to be leery of what animates you. (“Is this guy a *racist*?!) A highly sharable coax post. Thanks for a good read. Nicely done.
I’m an immigrant to Canada from south American. I came here 30 year ago as a kid and I became Canadian. I’m also white which I never thought meant anything other than “hey my skins nice and get ice freckles in the sun”. Today, I understand way more about my whiteness than I ever did even though my parents acted somewhat “racist “. I never understood why oh why my parents were so protective living here in Canada. I grew up living in this 7-11 nation. I remember the countless nights going to get slushies and sitting on the curb…..is this what my parents were scared of? I didnt realize that my parents being new immigrants came to Canada already traumatized by the diversity enrichment of our home nation. They weren’t crazy, they just knew and had seen too much already that a stranglehold had been placed on their trust for others. Unaware me, i loved.my 7-11. I loved knowing I could walk at night and not have this fear my parents had already grown to have. But I remember when this changed. I remember seeing the bars go up at the store at night and having to talk through a speaker. At the time I was too young and stupid and we were just looking to get snacks after smoking a joint, we didnt have the internet access to know why the gas attendant was being such a pussy.
Today, as I read this, I’m a parent of white children who will never know the meaning of 7-11. They have been robbed of the simplest joy a kid could have of going to the store to get a slushy.
Touching article. This really is what we are fighting for. I’m a European and grew up in a village in the 90s. Life was and still is pretty good there. Cycling with your friends through the streets, roaming the woods… Just a nice, safe, friendly, high-trust community.
Now I live in the city for work, where today another article appears about illegal Afghan drug dealers stabbing a homeless guy in his guts. And my city is supposed to be one of the “nice” cities. No place to raise a family. I’ll have to move back to the Hinterland perhaps…
When people lose things collectively and gradually it’s more difficult for them to properly defend them than if they lose them immediately and individually. The tragedy of the commons and the frog failing to leave out of water heating up slowly are the proper analogies.
For what people lose collectively and gradually, you’ve got to use analogies that frame things as having been lost individually and immediately but have the same effect. Somebody should do a cartoon of a (((wizard))) who waves a magic wand and transforms the kindly lady who remembers you into a fortified pajeet who can’t understand you– ghost of Christmas future style. The character would ask Where’s Wendy? What happened to her?” “She’s on disability, goy, for diversity-induced loneliness, which resulted in mental illness.”
We need a white nationalist Dickens.
“It’s A Wonderful Life”…
This is the best article I’ve read all year. It really encapsulates the state of Western civilisation in 2019. Bravo. I’ll make sure to share this article with others.
I’ll give you a remedy to this disease, this infection that we currently have to experience. Conceal carry.
Whenever I hear about these stories of 6 low life, low IQ thugs beating someone into another life all because they were bored….I can’t help but think how none of this would’ve happened had the innocent victim been carrying a Glock. I have sympathy for these victims of diversity but at the same time, they don’t exercise common sense. They put themselves in harms way.
Sure, it shouldn’t be that way but it is. If we (the decent civilized society) all carried a firearm, we could cut all these third world behaviors out. No low life thug would have the gall to walk up in a convenience store and act a fool because he just heard about his cousin Tyrone just died at the hands of a shotgun wielding clerk just last week.
We bring back consequences, we bring back civilization.
The 7/11 is not as wholesome as it would seem. For as clearly as it shows a nation with community trust still in place, it also shows the beginnings of cultural degradation. It shows a community whose night-culture is centered around the grocery store, where entertainment is embedded mostly in curiosity about the products people buy. The narrator notices the price disparity in Slurpee cup sizes, knows he’s being tricked into buying more, but he already bought a Slurpee. We notice Colgate across from the candy aisle. The only presence of hierarchy is in the person of the night-manager with no power.
It’s a culture already strung together by consumption. Youth that connects with the world this way, and no other. Already we see an emptiness that will soon be filled only by a more ravenous belly.
I am probably exactly the same age as the guys filming the video. I remember Friday and Saturday nights like this goofing around and interacting with people. Not necessarily in the 7-11, but sometimes. It didn’t matter where, it was the attitude that was so different. Yeah there was the occasional asshole, but 99% of the people were friendly and goofy back. I can distinctly remember the couple of girls who worked the closing shift (1am) at the local video store, they were a few years older than I was (16/17), and I spent an awful lot of extra time chatting them up from midnight until closing time. Besides the fact that we’ve completely lost the whole video store concept to streaming tech, as the article points out, we have become a less friendly, less trusting society where you don’t just hang around in a store talking to the bored clerk and making her laugh a few times. The video made me very nostalgic for what I think was a much better time.
If you have Paywall access,
simply login first to see your comment auto-approved.
Note on comments privacy & moderation
Your email is never published nor shared.
Comments are moderated. If you don't see your comment, please be patient. If approved, it will appear here soon. Do not post your comment a second time.