January 1993

American Renaissance magazine
Vol 4, No. 1 January 1993

 

CONTENTS

Racial Differences — Why They Matter
William Shockley in His Own Words
O Tempora, O Mores!
Letters from Readers

COVER STORY

Racial Differences — Why They Matter

To refuse to acknowledge racial differences is to court disaster.

by William Robertson Boggs

The previous two issues of American Renaissance have taken up what is probably the most forbidden subject in America today: racial differences. The subject is forbidden for good reason. A frank acknowledgement of racial differences destroys the basis for policies that are central to American society. It may even destroy the basis for thinking that a multi-racial society is desirable or even possible. The reasons for which racial differences are suppressed are therefore precisely the ones for which they must be recognized, for America’s collective position on these questions affects the nation’s very soul.

Who Promotes Equality?

The idea of racial equality — even of racial equivalence — now dominates public discourse in America, but who promotes it and why? The most ruthless egalitarians are Marxists. They stand for an almost nihilistic rejection of every distinction among people: rich and poor, stupid and smart, male and female, ugly and beautiful, healthy and perverse. Despite Marxism’s collapse in the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe, there is still a small but influential contingent of American intellectuals who believe that wealth is illegitimate, nationality is spurious, intelligence is an accident of environment, and race is meaningless.

These ideas are now part of the air Americans breathe. They have enormous built-in momentum and for most people it is easier to believe an old lie than to understand a new truth.

However, an increasing number of Americans oppose the investigation of racial differences because they are afraid of where it might lead. Herbert Spencer wrote that the greatest of infidelities was the fear that the truth may be bad; today one of the most common reasons for opposing discussion of racial differences is the fear that the truth may be very bad indeed.

The most simple and common form this infidelity takes is the view that the subject of inherent racial differences is so disagreeable and sordid that decent people should leave it alone. Today it is probably the people who think this — the well — intentioned obscurantists — who are the greatest obstacle to free discussion.

Nevertheless, in a society that prides itself on the First Amendment, there should be a presumption at all times in favor of the truth. Democracy is said to require the truth. Therefore, the questions that must be answered are: What is the cost of concealing the truth, and what would be the cost of revealing it? The price paid for the truth must be enormous in order to justify ignorance and lies.

The Price of Ignorance

What is the price of refusing to acknowledge racial differences? It is as simple and as staggering as this: America will never solve its racial problems.

The most immediate problem is that blacks and, to a lesser extent, Hispanics are failing in disproportionate numbers. If we are to believe that all races are equally talented and hard-working then the failures of blacks and Hispanics cannot be their own fault. They can only be the fault of white people. Therefore every time a non-white takes drugs, goes on welfare or commits a crime it is a silent indictment of “racist” white people, past and present. It cannot be otherwise if all races have the same natural potential.

Because our society has turned its back on the real causes of black failure, it must devote itself to searching for and “eliminating” spurious causes. If the theory is that blacks fail because they do not have proper “role models” we hire unqualified blacks and put them in positions of authority. If white society has destroyed black self-esteem we promote grandiose fantasies about African history. If segregated schooling is bad for blacks we send them to white schools. If we then find that black children get the worst grades, we devalue the curriculum so everyone can get “A”s. If standardized tests discriminate against blacks we do away with them. If “racist” employers prefer not to hire blacks, we force employers to hire them. If a “racist” society still manages to impoverish blacks we give them welfare and food stamps.

When one grand project to lift up the black man mysteriously fails, America embarks on yet another, but each successive failure is taken only to confirm the terrible truth: Whites must be even more viciously racist than anyone had thought possible. Therefore, each new experiment is launched with more denunciations of white wickedness and appeals to white guilt. No opportunity is lost to invoke the memory of slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, and the lynch mob.

The effect on some whites of these constant denunciations of “racism” is an exaggerated eagerness to submit to every black demand. At the least threat of violence, college presidents promise to build blacks-only dormitories and hire more black professors. Race riots are solemnly searched for “root causes.” Every silly version of African history and every improbable theory of “black genocide” gets a respectful hearing. The media’s willingness to bow to film-maker Spike Lee’s demand that he speak only to black reporters is only the latest capitulation.

The other direct effect on whites is that they suffer the very racial discrimination that civil rights laws were supposed to prohibit. The injustices of affirmative action are visited on every new generation of white Americans that applies to college or needs a job. The burden falls on young whites who have grown up since the abolition of legal discrimination against blacks and who by no moral legerdemain can be held responsible for whatever wrongs may have been done to blacks in the past. The meekness with which young whites accept discrimination and the diligence with which their elders mete it out to them are among the wonders of our era.

Clearly, if it were recognized that inherent limitations rather than white “racism” were the cause of black failure, young whites would not be saddled with hereditary guilt. Today’s orthodoxies require that they be sacrificed to the dogma of equality, while the nation suffers from wasting thousands of university places on blacks who will drop out and from hiring untold numbers of blacks for jobs for which they are not qualified.

Finally, recognition of racial differences would be a vital first step toward removing the debilitating burden of guilt that so many whites appear to carry. Today’s whites need feel no collective guilt because of the status of blacks. Never in the history of the world has a group of blacks enjoyed as high a level of material prosperity as do American blacks. It is a level they would certainly never have achieved on their own.

As research by Linda Gottfredson at the University of Delaware suggests, affirmative action may have pushed black Americans into even higher incomes than would have been possible on ability alone. To blame whites for not promoting blacks even further beyond their natural capacities is ridiculous.

The Effect on Blacks

And how does constant tub thumping about “racism” affect blacks? Naturally, they begin to believe what they are told about white wickedness. Blacks might have hated whites for their successes even if they were not always told that whites are conspiring to oppress them; fulminations about imaginary “racism” only make their hatred burn hotter.

The black rap singer Sister Souljah recently told blacks that they should leave off killing each other and kill white people instead. She need not have bothered. When blacks commit crimes of violence they already target whites more than half the time (while whites choose black victims only 2.5 percent of the time). A black man is several hundred times more likely to rape a white woman than a white man is to rape a black woman. According to the statistics that are beginning to trickle in, more whites than blacks are victims of “hate crimes.”

Black hatred has even reached the following incongruous climax: One third of all blacks think that the government — the same government that devises one minority preference program after another — has invented AIDS as part of an attempt to exterminate them. If ten million blacks actually think that the government is trying to kill them, how are they likely to feel about individual whites?

This march of folly cannot go on much longer. Even the white man has a limited capacity for excusing the failures, hatreds, and delusions of blacks. Even the most mulish liberals are beginning to realize two things: First, no matter how many schemes they try, the racial achievement gap only widens. Second, whites who tell blacks how evil whites are are not repaid with the love and gratitude they expected. They feel the sting of black venom along with everyone else.

Eventually, the dogma of racial equality will founder on the facts. But until it does, our country will waste its wealth and its moral energy on “solutions” to imaginary problems. Blacks will continue to blame their failings on whites and to vent their hatred in increasingly terrible ways. Whites will try to convince themselves that mounting black mayhem is “legitimate rage” in the face of entrenched white racism. There can be no end to this madness as long as our nation refuses to recognize the inherent, genetic factors that limit black success.

Other Costs

Although a continuation of the vicious cycle in black-white relations is the single most obvious cost of suppressing the truth about race, there are other costs that may be even more important in the long term. Our current welfare policies ensure that the unintelligent and irresponsible have more children than the intelligent and responsible. This means that the average intelligence of the American population — of all races — is falling, by about one IQ point per generation, according to a very conservative estimate by Prof. Richard Herrnstein of Harvard.

The way to stop the genetic decline is to reduce the number of births to the unintelligent and incompetent. Any plan to do so would run headlong into the fact that blacks are vastly overrepresented in the ranks of such people (see book review, page 6). Racial differences are a serious obstacle even to the study of the extent to which intelligence is inherited. It stops any talk of eugenics dead in its tracks. If America is not to sink slowly into genetic mediocrity, it will some day institute eugenic — or at least anti-dysgenic-policies. This will not be possible until racial differences in intelligence are understood and accepted.

Immigration policy is another area in which willful ignorance exacts a high long-term cost. Although there are other decisive reasons to manage immigration so as to ensure homogeneity rather than diversity, when the United States accepts immigrants from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, it is likely to be lowering the genetic quality of its population rather than improving it.

Americans are notorious for short-term thinking. Our budget deficit — a crushing financial burden that we seem happy to pass on to our children — is an example of inexcusable irresponsibility. Current immigration and demographic policies ensure even worse horrors. How long will it take before an increasingly non-white, genetically disadvantaged population pushes its way into every corner of the country? Do we not already glimpse the future in the unspeakable practices that flourish among the underclasses? As the ghetto and the barrio expand, they will cease to be unfortunate enclaves; they will become the United States.

The price we pay for dismissing genetic and racial differences is therefore immense. In the short-term, whites are punished by affirmative action policies because of imaginary “racism,” while black hatred grows with every year. In the long term, we have set a course towards decline and barbarism.

‘Racism’ and Wounded Feelings

What, on the other hand, are the costs of recognizing racial differences? Obscurantists generally cite two. The first is that public acknowledgement that blacks are, on average, less intelligent than whites would justify “racism.” Since there is no telling where “racism” might lead-slavery? genocide? Nazism? — society must be willing to lie in order to combat these evils. The other is that public acceptance of racial differences would be an intolerable psychological burden to blacks who are already burdened by failure, “racism,” and the legacy of slavery.

The “racism” argument is usually made by people who seem to think that whites are only waiting for a pretext to wreak anti-black terror. History suggests otherwise. For most of the period during which blacks and whites have been in contact, whites have thought that blacks were inferior. This never led to genocide. Nor does the belief that blacks are less intelligent than whites necessarily lead to slavery. Slavery was abolished both in the United States and in the British Empire by people who were convinced that blacks were less intelligent than whites. There would be consequences to the public acknowledgement of racial differences, but not the orgiastic blood-letting that obscurantists predict.

Some misguided whites might use public recognition of racial differences as a pretext to vent prejudices and hatreds of their own. However, would they not be the same people who do so today? The tiny number of whites who commit irrational acts of violence — and a great many other people as well — are already convinced that blacks are, on average, less intelligent than whites. People are driven to violence in part by the profound frustration of believing that their nation is deliberately ignoring crucially important facts about race. Public acceptance of these facts and sensible policies based on them would relieve much of that frustration.

What might these policies be? First of all, quotas and set-asides would not be defensible in a nation that accepted black limitations rather than insisting on white wickedness. The immediate cost to blacks would therefore be the end of unearned benefits. Theoretically, the abolition of affirmative action might be the sole change in policy. The nation might reconcile itself to the inevitability of a black/white performance gap and otherwise continue as before.

However, it is likely that an acknowledgement of racial differences and the genetic laws that underlie them would lead to a revision of immigration, welfare, and even population policies. The consequences of dysgenics are so stark that their public recognition would probably lead to some call for action.

Immigrants would therefore be turned back. Babies likely to be public charges would not be born. Would this be so horrible? In both cases, the “victims” would be denied something to which they had no right. Society would benefit immeasurably, and the United States could once more look forward to progress rather than decline.

Blows to Self-Esteem

The other cost of recognizing racial differences is said to be the psychological damage it would do to blacks, and to a lesser extent, to Hispanics. Strictly speaking, that is their own concern. However, there is reason to think that the truth would hardly be devastating. Each of us, for example, knows people more competent and intelligent than himself. Are we “devastated” by this? More to the point, there is evidence that the average North Asian is more intelligent than the average Caucasian. If this were formally demonstrated to be true, would white people be “devastated”?

It is gratifying to think that one’s group is best in everything but this is hardly necessary for mental health. When they are not starving or slaughtering each other, even Somalis and Ethiopians have managed to rub along without obvious signs of pathology.

If anything, an acceptance of racial differences might be good for blacks. The nineteenth century free person of color was certainly not “devastated” by general assumptions about black inferiority. Not even slaves showed signs of the degeneracy that freedom subsequently brought to some of their descendants.

Surely, the assumption of inferiority made it easier to accept meager circumstances. Surely, a great deal of today’s black hatred stems from the belief that blacks are being cheated out of success that should by rights be theirs. This is a dangerous, embittering state of mind. In all of life’s competitions, peace comes only with the maturity to recognize that one has not been cheated by an inferior but bested by a superior. It is therefore a terrible disservice to blacks to tell them that they are the white man’s equal. This only sets up expectations that are sure to be disappointed and the resulting hatred could well be much more damaging than would be the acceptance of genetic differences.

Moreover, unlike the search for imaginary “racism,” which solves nothing, there actually is a long-term solution for genetic deficiency. If they wished, blacks could embark on an aggressive, sustained eugenics program to narrow the intelligence gap with whites. It is frequently said that the first step towards reform that an alcoholic must take is to recognize his condition. If blacks are to improve, they too must recognize their condition.

But what if blacks refused to accept the verdict of biology? What if they found it impossible to live side by side with a race that was superior both in numbers and in ability? Race is, after all, more than differences in average intelligence. Like all other human groupings, races have many deep-seated reasons to be conscious of how they differ from each other and to wish to preserve those differences. Sometimes separation is best for everyone. There is no theoretical or moral obstacle to separation, and many a marriage has broken up over differences less remarkable than those that distinguish the races.

These, then, are the choices we face with respect to racial differences. We can continue to build our nation upon a biological falsehood and condemn future generations to permanent racial conflict and to the dysgenic consequences of that falsehood. Or we can accept that the laws of heredity that we so profitably apply to animals apply equally to ourselves. Only then will we be able to look forward to progress rather than to retrogression.

Whatever we choose, the laws of nature will not change. Eventually, our perverse decision to reverse the course of evolution will again be reversed. A society that forces the competent to support a growing army of incompetents will some day come crashing down, and in the ensuing chaos it will be the fit who once again survive. “Drive out nature with a pitchfork,” wrote the Roman satirist Juvenal, “and it will nevertheless return.”

SIDEBAR

The Price of Ignorance

The San Bruno jail, in San Mateo County just south of San Francisco, is the oldest operating jail in the state of California. It is also vastly overcrowded, so county authorities plan to expand and modernize it. A prison reform group called the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice has just released a report in which it claims to show that greater prison capacity is not the right solution to the crime problem.

The group’s prize fact is that in San Francisco, blacks are 16 times more likely than whites to be imprisoned, and that though they are only 11 percent of the city’s population, they make up 50 percent of the prisoners. This apparently “proves” that the criminal justice system is at fault and that prison expansion will only make things worse. The solution, says the protest group, is to solve “underlying social problems” rather than arrest malefactors. [Yumi Wilson, Protest Over S.F. Jail Expansion, SF Chron, Oct. 14, 1992.]

Misguided thinking of this kind is inevitable as long as our society refuses to accept racial differences. If the races are equal, disproportionate arrest rates can only reflect social ills. The search for imaginary evils must go on.

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BOOK REVIEW

William Shockley in His Own Words

The collected papers of a warrior against dogma.

reviewed by Thomas Jackson

William B. Shockley

William B. Shockley

William Bradford Shockley was, at the time of his death in 1989, perhaps the most reviled man in America. His public image, created by a relentlessly hostile press, was that of a mad scientist, firmly in the service of evil. His crime was not merely to have publicized unacceptable views on race, intelligence, and genetics, but to have lent them the prestige of a Nobel laureate in physics.

Shockley on Eugenics and Race, edited by Dr. Roger Pearson, is a collection of Dr. Shockley’s papers written from 1965 to 1975. This was the very decade during which leftist-egalitarian thinking was tightening its grip on the country. It is hazardous enough today to preach heresy on the subject of race and intelligence, but to have done so when Dr. Shockley was most active was to court assassination.

It was only due to Dr. Shockley’s prominence as a scientist that he was able to get a hearing at all. After receiving his Nobel prize in 1956 for leading the team that invented the transistor, Dr. Shockley founded one of the first high-technology companies in Silicon Valley and was appointed a professor at Stanford University. When, in 1965, he began to preach eugenic heresies, his views hit the country like a bomb.

The Future of Man

Dr. Shockley’s main concerns can be quickly summarized. The best available evidence suggested to him that mankind faced a serious dysgenic threat. The least intelligent were reproducing much more quickly than the most intelligent, and this backward evolution threatened the very basis of civilization. Even more provocative was his view that blacks were devolving more rapidly than whites, since low-IQ blacks were outbreeding high-IQ blacks more rapidly than low-IQ whites were outbreeding high-IQ whites. Furthermore, since blacks were devolving from a lower average IQ to begin with, they faced the prospect of serious, permanent degeneration.

It is important to note that Dr. Shockley never claimed that he had proven that any of this was happening. All he asked was that the nation seriously investigate questions of heredity, intelligence and demographic trends. If Dr. Shockley were proven right then the nation could decide what should be done. If he were shown to be wrong, he would offer a graceful retraction.

The forum in which Dr. Shockley most vigorously pressed his case for research was the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). As a member of the Academy he had the right to propose research projects and he did so every year from 1967 to 1972. Some of the most interesting papers in this collection are proposals to the NAS.

It is not hard to imagine the reception they received. As Prof. Arthur Jensen of the University of California at Berkeley points out in his preface to this book, Dr. Shockley was not a diplomat. Both in speech and in writing his aim was precision, rather than what we today call “sensitivity.”

In his second research proposal to the Academy he urged it to “inquire into ways to determine how many probable misfits regardless of race will be born into our potentially great society as a result of present population patterns.” In the same proposal he tackled the race question head-on, pointing out that to blame all the failures of black people on racism was a misdiagnosis of the problem. “I sincerely and thoughtfully believe,” he wrote, “that my current attempts to demonstrate that American Negro shortcomings are preponderantly hereditary is the action most likely to reduce Negro agony in the future.” In other words, if dysgenics were the problem, it could be solved through eugenics.

This sort of thing was much too racy for the NAS and it turned down Dr. Shockley’s proposals year after year. Eventually, the great physicist lost patience. He had repeatedly warned the Academy that if differential birth rates really had thrown evolution into reverse, it was a catastrophe that required immediate attention. In his last proposal to the NAS in 1972, he called the Academy’s inaction “the most serious and obvious dereliction of intellectual responsibility in the history of science.”

It is clear from his papers that for Dr. Shockley, it was the sacred duty of scientists to search for the truth no matter how painful the truth might be. He often told his fellow scientists that “the courage to doubt in the face of the desire to believe is the true mark of the scientist” and reminded them of the moral obligation to think. Many of Dr. Shockley’s colleagues did think, and privately encouraged him, but only a few were willing to lend him public support.

As Dr. Pearson points out in his introduction to this collection, Dr. Shockley knew that research of the kind he thought vital to the nation’s future would never be possible if the media persisted in calling it “fascist” and “Nazi.” As he found himself spending more and more time fending off charges of “racism,” he began blaming “inverted liberals” who supported “unsearch” rather than research. He feared that those who thought they were helping blacks by opposing race-related research were the worst culprits. “If such effects [dysgenic trends among blacks] are occurring and if entrenched dogmatism is blocking their discovery,” he wrote, “then the consequence may be a cruel form of genetic enslavement . . .”

Thought Experiments

Dr. Shockley never made formal policy proposals, but some of the “thought experiments” he suggested in his papers come very close. The best known was the $1,000 Bonus Proposal. Anyone of childbearing age would be offered $1,000 for every IQ point under 100 if he agreed to be sterilized. Dr. Shockley even suggested that for people too stupid to learn about the bonus, “bounty hunters” could be rewarded for calling it to their attention.

The Deci-Child Certificate Plan is less well known. First, all women would be made sterile at an early age by contraceptive implant. At the same time, each woman would be issued a number of deci-child certificates, according to the average number of children society had determined would be best for the country. If that number were 2.2 per woman, then all women would be issued 22 deci-child certificates.

A married woman would be able to turn in ten certificates to have the implant removed for long enough to have one child. She could turn in ten more if she wanted another child. Women who did not want to have children could sell their certificates on the open market, so if a woman wanted five children she would have to buy extra certificates. If a woman were sure she was going to be a nun she could sell her certificates as soon as they were issued. Dr. Shockley thought that under such a plan only people who wanted and could afford them would have children.

The Scientific Mind

The papers in this book were not written for publication in a single volume so they sometimes cover the same ground. This can be irritating, but it does highlight the ideas that Dr. Shockley himself thought vital.

At the same time, one of the most edifying aspects of reading these papers is to see how a man with a rigorously scientific mind approached subjects that are usually governed by pure emotion. Often he stated the reasons for his views as a series of postulates, and whenever he took a position he gave clear reasons for it. But even when he was not being explicitly scientific, his formulations were often much more provocative than anything ordinarily found in the social sciences.

“Nature,” he wrote, “has color-coded groups of individuals so that statistically reliable predictions of their adaptability to intellectually rewarding and effective lives can easily be made and profitably be used by the pragmatic man-in-the-street.” In other words, judgments based on race are meaningful, and it would be foolish not to make them.

On eugenics, he wrote: “To me, it seems immoral not to view with concern, and perhaps not to try to prevent the birth of human beings . . . forced by the improvidence of their mothers and the obtuseness of society to emerge into the world . . . so disadvantaged by an unfair shake from a badly loaded parental genetic dice cup.”

Shockley IQ

Finally, even though he was an atheist, Dr. Shockley had a conception of the purpose of life that he recommended to believers and agnostics as well: “During the last rational five minutes of my life . . . . I hope to consider that by demanding objective inquiry and open discussion of human quality problems I have used my capacities in keeping with the objective . . . of conferring greatest benefit on humanity.”

Dr. Shockley believed that his eugenics work was much more important than the discovery of the transistor. As he explained, without a certain level of human intelligence, there could be no transistors or much else, for that matter. This collection of Dr. Shockley’s papers gives us more than enough to conclude that his last five rational minutes were probably just as he had hoped they would be.

Shockley on Eugenics and Race is available to readers of American Renaissance at a special offer of $14.50 plus $1.50 for postage. Please write to Scott-Townsend Publishers, Box 34070, N.W., Washington, DC 20043. Telephone orders: (703) 442-8010.

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IN THE NEWS

O Tempora, O Mores!

What is This?

third congressional district of Florida

This is the shape of the third congressional district of Florida. Why does it make the original gerrymander look neat and compact? Because it was the only way to draw a district that would give non-whites a secure majority so that they could elect a non-white Congressman.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was originally written to forbid local practices that were thought to prevent non-whites from voting. Now it has been reinterpreted to require crazy-quilt districts that will ensure that more blacks and Hispanics go to Congress. There are now districts all over the country that are as misshapen as this one. All the old, meaningful borders like county, city, and school district lines are ignored. Voters have race in common and not much else.

This is a curious system for a country that is supposed to be trying to make race irrelevant. The next logical step would be to do away with districts entirely and simply set aside 12 percent of the seats in Congress for blacks, eight percent for Hispanics, etc. Of course, if the theory is that blacks can be properly represented only by blacks, and Hispanics by Hispanics, perhaps they should be governed, taught, and policed only by people of their own race as well. Maybe they would even prefer that their neighbors be the same race as themselves. The new voting districts are a virtual admission that race is a category that matters. It is a pity that this sort of enlightenment is so rare in government.

Hated for their Virtues

Paraguay is one of the poorest countries in South America, and its poorest region is called the Chaco. It is a great plain of scrub forest that takes up more than half of the country’s area but contains only two percent of its population. No one seems to be able to make anything of the Chaco — no one, that is, except twelve thousand Mennonites descended from small groups that first immigrated in 1927 and 1930.

The Mennonites trace their religious roots to the early 16th century in Switzerland and today’s Paraguay Mennonites still speak a Low German dialect called Plattdeutsch. In the Chaco, Mennonites maintain their own roads, electric power system, schools, hospital, and telephone system. They even issue their own traffic tickets and run a small jail. They do all this because the corrupt, ineffective government of Paraguay is incapable of doing it for them. As one Mennonite explains, “If we waited for the Paraguayan government, poor things, we’d be dead.”

At the same time, the Mennonites have thrived on unproductive land that no one else could cultivate. They produce half the country’s milk and nearly all of its peanuts. Thousands of Indians have come to work for the Mennonites, who have taught them carpentry and farming, and given them houses with running water and electricity.

Since the Mennonites are white, their prosperity is said to be due to “exploitation.” In Asuncion, the capital, officials threaten to crack down on their “state within a state.” The Indians who work for Mennonites, and who live far better than they could if there had been no Mennonites, complain that they do not live well enough. [Sandra Dibble, “Paraguay: Plotting a New Course,” National Geographic, Aug, 1992.]

This is a particularly clear examples of something that happens all over the world. An unproductive group benefits enormously from the presence of a productive group. The unproductive then complain that differences in achievement are due to “exploitation.”

Detroit on Drugs

The Detroit Urban League has just completed a survey of Detroit boys and girls between the ages of 11 and 18. It found that 30 percent have a family member who sells drugs, and 41 percent know someone at school who sells drugs. Fifty-one percent said it would take less than five minutes to find someone from whom to buy drugs, and 70 percent said it would take less than 15 minutes.

Despite the fact that virtually everyone these young people knew in the drug business is black, nearly half said they thought drugs were part of a white plot to exterminate blacks. [Patricia Chargot, Survey finds some youths see drugs as plot, Detroit Free Press, 9/29/92, p. 3A.]

Kicking the Corpse

Sir Cyril Burt (1883-1971) was a pioneering student of the heritability of intelligence. He did some of the first studies of the intelligence of twins, and concluded that about 70 percent of the differences between individual IQ scores are due to heredity. Burt was one of the most admired psychologists of his day, but his reputation has since suffered greatly.

Shortly after his death, Burt’s integrity was attacked by scientists who promoted the view that intelligence is influenced much more by environment than by genes. They claimed that Burt faked his twin data and that two assistants whom he had said helped him gather data never existed. The media, always eager to discredit hereditarian views, gave these accusations banner headlines. In 1980, the British Psychological Society endorsed the charges and formally denounced one of its most distinguished members. Today, most people who know Burt’s name at all know only that he was a “fraud.”

In fact, in the last several years, Burt has been vindicated. The two assistants have been found, and the “faked” data were perfectly good. Had he been alive when the accusations were made, he could have easily refuted them. The smear campaign got as far as it did because Burt was a prickly man who worked alone. No other scientists knew his habits well enough to defend him. It is only now, after careful investigation, that the attacks against him have been shown to be reckless and ideological. Two books, The Burt Affair (1989) and Science, Ideology and the Media (1991) show that if there was fraud, it was on the part of Burt’s accusers. In fact it appears that one of his most vociferous accusers may have destroyed some of Burt’s unpublished work.

The media have, of course, been quiet about the new findings. However, it is the British Psychological Society that has perhaps behaved most disgracefully. In 1980, it happily kicked the corpse and pronounced Burt a fraud. This year, in response to a petition from members that it acknowledge its error of 12 years ago, it announced primly that it should not “attempt to pass corporate judgment on the alleged misconduct of any member now deceased.” [Robert Joynson, “The Burt Business,” Times Literary Supplement, 9/4/92.]

Mexico Beyond Reproach

Although the American media make an enormous fuss every time the Immigration and Naturalization Service mistreats an illegal immigrant, they have very little to say about the mistreatment of Americans at the hands of Mexicans. For example, the State Department says it knows of 27 cases in 1991 of torture or other mistreatment of U.S. citizens by Mexican officials, but practically no one has heard of this.

Recently there has also been a spate of mysterious “suicides” by Americans in Mexican jails. In August, William Yost is said to have shot himself in the head after 36 hours of Mexican police custody. No one seems to be able to explain how he got his hands on a gun.

Another U.S. citizen, Mario Amada, is said to have hanged himself in jail. Mr. Amado’s brother hired a pathologist to examine the corpse and learned that Mr. Amado appears to have been beaten so severely just before he died that he would have been incapable of hanging himself.

In the most gruesome case of all, the body of a man who appears to have been a U.S. citizen was found in July tied to a tree by his neck and hands, with one leg amputated and his intestines torn out of his body. Mexican police gamely called this a suicide as well and would have closed the case if a group called the Minnesota Lawyers Human Rights Committee had not protested. This incident, too, has been scarcely reported in America, though it is easy to imagine how the press would roar if American police found a dead Mexican in such a state and called it a suicide.

The U.S. government appears to be particularly reluctant to criticize Mexico at this time because it does not want to jeopardize progress on the free-trade agreement. [Katherine Ellison, “Mysterious ‘Suicides’” Houston Chronicle, 9/2/92.]

A Nation of Catechumens

For the first time since the Council of Trent in 1566, the Catholic Church has undertaken a thorough revision of its catechism. The 676-page document outlines Church policy on everything from the Trinity to drug trafficking. Most of the Church’s well-known stands on such things as divorce, abortion and homosexuality are unchanged. However, the Church now directs its members to take the following position on an issue about which previous catechisms have been silent:

Better-off nations are obliged to welcome, within their capacities, the foreigner in search of security and vital resources that he cannot find in his country of origin. Public authorities will ensure respect of the natural law that places the guest under the protection of those who receive him.

[“Revising Catholicism became a matter of faith, Toronto Globe and Mail, 11/17/92, p. 1.]

In an unrelated development, in late October, Pope John Paul II asked American Indians to forgive white people for the 500 years of injustices that followed the arrival of Columbus. He said that whites must never stop asking forgiveness from blacks and Indians for the sins of the white man.

Brain Size and Intelligence

J. Philippe Rushton of the University of Ontario is back in the news on account of his race-related research. In his latest paper, he analyzes the head sizes of 6,325 U.S. soldiers whose crania were measured so they could be fitted with helmets. The data accord with Prof. Rushton’s findings to date: Asians have larger heads in relation to body size than whites do, and whites have larger heads than blacks. He also found that officers have larger heads (and therefore larger brains) than enlisted men and that men have proportionately larger brains than women.

Last summer, the prestigious British journal, Nature, not only rejected Prof. Rushton’s findings but published an article by its editor saying that “unpalatable” and “politically incorrect” research must meet higher standards than usual. It is remarkable that Nature should admit that political considerations influence what it publishes. It has since received a flood of letters in support of Prof. Rushton, some of which it has grudgingly published. “I’m getting an incredible amount of support,” says the professor, who has in the past had to wage his intellectual battles virtually unaided. [Shelley Page, “Race and Intelligence: the debate rages,” Vancouver Sun, 11/18/92, p. A9.]

Black Acquitted

Last summer in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, blacks rioted because a Hasidic Jew killed a seven-year-old black boy in a traffic accident. As part of the anti-Jewish violence, a gang of a dozen or so young blacks surrounded Yankel Rosenbaum and beat and stabbed him to death. Lemrick Nelson, age 17, was charged with the murder after police found him with a bloody knife. He admitted to the killing, and Mr. Rosenbaum identified him as his attacker before he died. DNA tests showed that the blood on the knife was probably Mr. Rosenbaum’s.

At the trial, Mr. Nelson’s lawyer argued that his client had been framed by corrupt police. The jury of six blacks, four Hispanics and two whites appear to have believed him. On October 29th, Lemrick Nelson was found innocent and set free. [Oakland Tribune, Black teenager acquitted in death of Jewish student, 10/30/92, p. A15.] Following his acquittal, Mr. Nelson was feted by jurors at a dinner hosted by the defense lawyer. [Eric Briendel, Race and Riots in New York, WSJ, 11/18/92.]

More Money for Minorities

The Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) has announced a new plan to help non-whites buy houses. The program, called FannieNeighbors, will allow applicants to make down payments as small as five percent, will reduce closing costs, and will waive a number of standard credit requirements. These benefits will be available to first-time home buyers who live in Census Bureau districts that are at least 50 percent non-white. [New Fannie Mae program to boost minority loans, Houston Chronicle, Oct. 20, 1992, p. 1C.]

Sensitivity at GWU

On November second, classes were canceled at George Washington University so thousands of students and faculty could attend a discussion on campus racism. They heard the university’s president, Stephen Trachtenberg, explain that the children’s rhyme, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” is wrong. “The truth,” said Mr. Trachtenberg, “is really the opposite. A broken bone, however painful, can mend and be over and done with . . . A really ugly word . . . leaves a wound and then a scar that endures for years and even decades.” (Was Mr. Trachtenberg really saying that name calling was worse than physical assault?)

Finally, the culprit himself, a senior named Michael Musante, was brought out for an auto-da-fe. “I feel more ashamed than I ever have in my brief life,” he said; “[H]elp me to learn to grow.” Mr. Musante’s crime? Someone reported that he had once, in private, referred to another student as “that nigger.” [Brooks Masters, “GWU seeks unity in wake of racist remark,” Wash Post, Nov. 3, 1992, p. B1.]

Miami Vice

Although the city does not like to publicize the fact for fear of frightening away tourists, Miami has the highest crime rate in the country. It has become increasingly common for robbers to attack motorists, either when they are stopped at traffic lights or when they are getting in or out of their cars.

Late in October, Miami had just the sort of crime the tourism industry most dreads. Renate Morlock, a German tourist, had just gotten into her car after a meal at McDonald’s when robbers grabbed her purse. Although she did not resist, one of the robbers shot her and she is paralyzed from the waist down. This sort of thing does not happen in Europe, and Mrs. Morlock’s story was big news in Germany.

One aspect of how the story was covered was probably not reported in Germany. Mrs. Morlock’s husband and two daughters witnessed the attack and got a good look at the robbers and the car they were driving. This is how the newspapers described the car: “a run-down 1978-1979 cream or white station wagon with wood paneling, damage to the left rear door and a hubcap missing on the left side.” The suspects? As has become common in Miami, because any description of the perpetrators would have to include race, the newspapers did not describe them at all. [Gail Epstein, “Thief’s shot paralyzes tourist,” Miami Herald, 10/28/92, p. 1B.]

The White Man’s Burden

Germans protesting against immigrants are ordinarily portrayed in the American press as bigoted boors. Only rarely do we learn just what they are opposing. Under current immigration rules, anyone who shows up in Germany can claim to be a political refugee. Though fewer than five percent of people who make the claim are eventually found to be refugees, all are entitled to a hearing process that can last as long as three years. During that period, claimants get free housing, education, and health benefits. On top of that, a family of four gets a stipend of about $10,000 a year. By contrast, the average eastern German, where the unemployment rate is 17 percent, makes $7,000 a year, out of which he must pay for his own housing.

Vijay, a newcomer from Sri Lanka, represents everything that the Germans find intolerable. In Sri Lanka, the average annual income is equal to what “refugees” to Germany are paid every two weeks. Vijay figures he has it made. “If I come to Germany and save just half of the money refugees receive, even if I am forced to go back I will return to Sri Lanka a rich man.” [Frank Viviano, “Why German Resentment of Refugees is So High,” Oct. 20, 1992.]

Spike Lee on AIDS

Film director Spike Lee has joined Bill Cosby among the ranks of prominent blacks who think that whites developed AIDS in order to exterminate blacks. This is what he wrote in the Nov. 1992 issue of Rolling Stone:

I’m convinced AIDS is a government-engineered disease. They got one thing wrong, they never realized it couldn’t just be contained to the groups it was intended to wipe out. So, now it’s a national priority. Exactly like drugs when they escaped the urban centers into white suburbia.

[Janet Braunstein, “Spike’s Message Obscured,” Detroit Free Press, Nov. 9, 1992, p. 4F.]

Genes and Crime

The National Research Council has just released a report, “Understanding and Preventing Violence,” in which it recommends investigation into the genetic causes of violence. It points out that many future criminals are already markedly anti-social by age eight.

The Dread Hand of Racism

A recent report has found that many things are getting worse for children in the state of Michigan. In just ten years all the following indices of youthful misery have gone up: the teen-age birth rate by 22.5 percent, the teen-age violent death rate by 27.6 percent, and the child poverty rate by 36.7 percent. In the past decade, the number of children on food stamps has risen by an astonishing 56 percent.

Richard Lerner, the director of the Institute for Children, Youth and Families at Michigan State University, was involved in conducting the study. He points out that blacks suffer from all these ailments more than whites. A black child is nearly four times more likely to be in poverty than a white, for example, though he did not elaborate on how much likely a black teen-ager was to have a baby or to be murdered.

“And why don’t kids have equal life chances?” asks Mr. Lerner. He supplies the answer in one word: “Racism.” [Kenneth Cole, “Report: Minority Kids Shortchanged,” Detroit News, Nov. 18, 1992, p. B1.]

Devaluing America’s Heritage

Robert Adams has been Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution since 1984, and has been unflagging in his attempts to correct “Eurocentric bias.” He has shut down several exhibits at the Museum of Natural History on the advice of Helen Maddox, “Queen Mother” of Tu-Wa-Moja, an afrocentric study group. The Queen Mother explained to him that displays of the primitive practices of non-whites were “racist.” The museum now has “dilemma labels” on many of the exhibits that are still open, which apologize for biases and prejudices.

Under Mr. Adams, American Indians are likely to get their own museum. According to the Smithsonian, the museum’s theme will be that Indian cultures have “intrinsic validity and equality with other cultural experiences.” Mr. Adams has also launched plans to dismantle the Arts and Industries Museum which, in 1881, was the first museum to be founded by the Smithsonian. If plans go through, the building will be turned into the National African-American Museum.

Mr. Adams even has designs on the National Air and Space Museum, which gets more visitors than virtually any other museum in the world and is considered one of the Smithsonian’s greatest successes. Apparently its sin is that it is a tribute to American bravery and ingenuity. Henceforth, the Smithsonian will take “less of a celebratory approach.” Mr. Adams prefers to examine airplanes as “instruments of destruction,” and has planned an exhibit entitled “From Guernica to Hiroshima.” [Matthew Hoffman, “Smithsonian caretaker a fox guarding the hen house,” Detroit News, Oct. 16, 1992, p. 10A.]

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LETTERS FROM READERS

Sir — I was worry to learn of the boy in Brooklyn who got tapeworm because a Hispanic nanny’s personal hygiene was so bad she could not keep traces of her own feces out of the boy’s food. All I can say is “Welcome to the wonderful world of cultural enrichment.”

California has already been well enriched in this way. We have had hundreds of cases of tapeworms attacking the brain and there have even been a few deaths. In almost all instances the victims have been recent immigrants from tapeworm infested Latin American countries. Three years ago, California formally classified tapeworm as a public health threat, and now follows a strict reporting procedure for all cases.

Leon Hunsinger, Santa Babara, Cal.

Sir — Does AR take a particular pride in knocking the props out from under every single liberal belief? Although I had never thought about it very carefully, I had always believed that Head Start did some lasting good. After all, the media generally refer to it as a “proven program” that has been starved of funds by mean-spirited Republicans. In fact, until reading your article, I had never heard the view that Head Start has no lasting effect, but the studies you mentioned in the November issue sound convincing.

Is Head Start just one more graven image with feet of clay? I am saddened by the thought, and perhaps in my sadness lies a clue as to why the myth will not die. People so badly want to be able to help others that they ignore evidence that suggests some people cannot be helped.

Susan Grimes, Latrobe, Penn.

Sir — I would like you to know that I very much appreciate American Renaissance. However, it is all very well to write about what is happening to our race, but what about doing something for it? In 1900, 30 percent of the world’s population was white, and now the number is 15 percent. Fewer than 10 percent of the babies born in the world are now white. If this keeps up, we will lose by default.

I know many people who “can’t afford” to have more than one or two children. They plan to send them to the best colleges so they can become the best doctors, lawyers, or accountants. But for whom will they be the best doctors and lawyers, or accountants? Mexicans and Haitians are not going to pay $100 an hour to have an accountant figure their tax returns.

I am not just speaking idly. My wife and I are expecting our seventh child within the next few weeks. We teach our children at home , so we can be sure of what they are being taught. If any of your readers have questions about looking after large families (it’s a lot easier than you think) we would be glad to help.

Remember, even if immigration were stopped tomorrow (and we know that will not happen) there will be little progress unless we have more children and rear them to think like the Americans of yesteryear.

Marc Mabrito, Spring Branch, Tex.

Sir — On the strength of Thomas Jackson’s review in the December issue, I have brought and read Tomislav Sunic’s Against Democracy and Equality. It is just as fascinating as Mr. Jackson suggests.

According to Dr. Sunic, the works of the New Right’s most important spokesman, Alain de Benoist, have been translated into German, Dutch, Italian, and Spanish — but not English. Surely, if there are enough interested readers in Holland to justify translation, there are enough in Britain and the United States. Perhaps AR could arrange for translations of at least some of Mr. de Benoist’s articles.

Name withheld, Arlington, Va.

Sir — The federal Office of Civil Rights has cleared our school district (East Allen County Schools) of “racism” charges brought last year by a group of black parents. The blacks claimed that when district lines were redrawn in 1987 it increased segregation. The feds found no evidence for that. Blacks also claimed that schools with large numbers of blacks were deliberately left in poor repair. The feds found that those schools had the most repair money spent on them.

Other accusations were that black students were disciplined more often than whites and that not enough college-prep courses were offered at schools with large numbers of blacks. The feds found that, yes, blacks were more likely to be disciplined than whites, but a careful study of each case found that punishment was fair, appropriate and deserved. Nor were blacks offered fewer college-prep courses. In short, even the people from the Office of Civil Rights, who are likely to find “racism” just about anywhere, decided that every one of the charges was unfounded.

The investigation was embarrassing for our schools, and teachers and administrators spent a lot of unpaid time answering questions and gathering records. What has our school superintendent decided to do now that the charges are shown to be false? He says the accusations show we need to “improve our image”! He has approved multicultural education and has started holding cultural diversity workshops!

Florence Haines, For Wayne, Ind.

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