August 2008

American Renaissance magazine
Vol. 19, No. 8 August 2008

CONTENTS

What Can I Do?
Irrefutable Arguments
Why Obama Will Win
O Tempora, O Mores!
Letters

COVER STORY

What Can I Do?

Advice for activists.

When Jared Taylor invited me to speak at the 2008 American Renaissance conference, he asked that I offer an update to a talk I gave on European nationalist movements at an AR conference 10 years ago. Instead, I proposed a talk with the title “What Can I Do?” which he bravely accepted, noting that it was “the most difficult subject of all.”

British National Party Activist

Credit Image: © National News/ZUMApress.com

During the 10 years since I spoke to an AR audience, I have come to feel that a deep interest in the comings and goings — alas as much going as coming — of diverse nationalist movements, interesting and entertaining though they are, has something of the voyeur about it. So many years have passed, so many false dawns have come, that it is time to look closely at our dilemma. It is time not merely to look closer to home, not just to look at them or even at us, but to look at me.

I assume this audience shares with me the three following assumptions: (1) that whatever else we believe we all agree that the culture and influence of the white man are in rapid decline, (2) that this fact is to be deplored, and (3) that over the last 50 years more could and should have been done to prevent that decline.

Other speakers are more able than I to offer analyses and accounts of our situation. Instead, I shall throw off some ideas about how each of us might be more effective. If I give some of you a few ideas this talk will not have been in vain.

My first point is that you must know what you believe. Does this sound obvious? Groups and individuals often seem to be reactive, not clearly stating what they believe. They form groups that sweep far too many difficult subjects under the carpet. If you don’t know what you believe you will have trouble explaining yourself to anyone, let alone convincing him. If you cannot explain what you want, you are on a long trip to nowhere. This is as true in politics as it is in business or private life.

If we know what we believe we come to the next thing we can do and that is stop apologizing. It’s easy not to be apologetic about our beliefs at an AR meeting. I mean stop apologizing in your daily lives. When we apologize we are on the defensive. For example, I never apologize for the British Empire. And as for the subject of reparations for slavery, I believe in reparations the black man owes the white man, if only for the fact that so many black people are alive today and thriving thanks to white hygiene and technical efficiency. That is reason enough for compensation and gratitude.

Here are two different conversations on the same subject that show what I mean about apologizing:

Dialogue One

Alan: How can you defend a massive wall between the US and Mexico? It reminds me of Germany. We need Mexicans because they do the jobs we won’t do.

Michael: We need to put up that wall to stop illegal immigrants

Alan: That’s just so negative. This country was built by immigrants anyway.

Michael: We can’t take so many millions at one go, since the country can’t absorb them.

Dialogue Two

Alan: How can you defend a massive wall between the US and Mexico? It reminds me of Germany. We need Mexicans because they do the jobs we won’t do.

Michael: Is that so? How many of these illegal immigrants do you want? How many would you let in? If it doesn’t matter then say directly that you don’t believe in national boundaries at all. How high should taxes go to support them? How much extra income tax are you willing to pay?

Alan: We have to look at income tax later . . .

I hope you notice that in the second dialogue Michael is not apologizing. Apologizing sounds like weakness, and an impression of weakness is never good in politics.

My next point is about optimists and pessimists. I have often been asked if I am optimistic about these matters, but I have never understood the question. It’s irrelevant. If we believe, we believe, and it is our duty to act on what we believe.

Now it is true that for some, especially for a second generation of supporters of any movement, the chance of success plays a crucial role in their decision to join. For the first generation — the true believers as it were — it is a fatal mistake to make the “chances of success” a gauge of whether to act or not.

Propagandists and leaders of movements tend to be optimists while the members and followers are often pessimists. The pessimists first: we all know them — the doom and gloom merchants. They paint such a negative picture they give the impression nothing is worth trying.

A long time ago there was in the USA a pro-white racially conscious publication that was notorious for its pessimism and downbeat reporting. If you saw someone brooding like Hamlet and asked “What’s up with him?” the answer would be that he had been reading the latest issue. This magazine had an annual series in which the white person whom the editor thought had done the most damage to the white race would be depicted on the front cover, looking healthy and confident, and be awarded the honor of “Majority Renegade of the Year.” I wrote to this publication suggesting a series called “Majority Hero of the Year.” I got a letter back rejecting my proposal on the grounds that there are no majority heroes.

There is another kind of pessimist — perhaps we should call him a misanthrope — who can only see the worst in people with whom he disagrees, instead of trying to work together on the basis of what they hold in common. A well-known British nationalist magazine that is also out of print took the misanthropic view of Harold Wilson, former Labour prime minister of Britain. He was well known for his opposition to Ian Smith’s unilateral declaration of independence in Rhodesia, and was a confirmed internationalist on all major issues. The magazine often ran a not-very-good photograph of Wilson’s owlish face with the caption “No change.”

So far as I know, the nationalist press never conceded anything good about Wilson. It never mentioned the remarkable fact that despite great pressure from Washington, he refused to commit Britain to engagement in Vietnam. He had also surprised many with his unexpected and stubborn resistance to metric measure when Britain joined the Common Market, demanding, for example, that we keep the pint as our measurement for beer. So far as I know, Wilson’s insistence on the pint was unplanned, unpredicted, and based on some instinctive attachment to a cultural memory or tradition. Why couldn’t the nationalist press recognize what was good in this instinct, and argue from it that Wilson should extend his firm positions to other areas? It is wrong always to see only the bad and never the good.

Optimists can do great harm as well. This is especially so when they make rosy, confident predictions about successes that are not achieved. In the past, British nationalists have boasted about how they would perform in elections only to leave their supporters dejected and mistrustful when the miserable results came in.

Optimists are often unable to say they were wrong. A political leader who has misjudged the electorate should be able to admit he made a mistake, but it seems that those who oppose the decline of the white man can never admit they were wrong.

The next point I would like to make is about cranks and historians. I put them together, but I don’t want to imply that all historians are cranks or vice versa. Also, historians are not to be despised and one must be careful whom one calls a crank because many who point out unwelcome truths are called cranks. My definition of a crank is someone whose views are either so persistent, so emphatic, or so extreme as to cause embarrassment in “normal” company. If you feel you might be embarrassed by, say, having someone to dinner with friends or relatives — especially relatives — then he is likely to be a crank.

Women have a better nose than men for cranks and are less afraid to call a spade a spade. Some years ago I went with my wife to a meeting in Germany organized by a man who edited a publication I read regularly and enjoyed. When we arrived a little late he was in the middle of addressing a meeting in exactly the terms one might expect of someone who had just achieved supreme power. In fact he had reached about paragraph 20 of what he called the “Constitution of the Fourth Reich.” My wife was pitiless: “Quite definitely a nutter,” she told me.

What about historians? Bizarre as it may seem, historical controversy often causes more acrimony than does debate about pressing subjects of the present. As a foreigner addressing an American audience, I might assume I could speak respectfully of Abraham Lincoln, but I might be wrong. By speaking of Lincoln I evoke what is to many a bitter past and create unnecessary controversy.

Nationalist parties can create emotional and romantic appeal by evoking history, but they also make enemies. The National Front in France uses the tricolor, the French national flag, as part of its appeal to voters. That flag diminishes my enthusiasm for their cause because it is the flag of the French Revolution, which I despise. What, moreover, might a Breton nationalist who otherwise supports the front think of that flag? At the very least, when we make historical references and appeals to symbols, we should be very aware that they are divisive, and should be very sure of where we stand as to their meaning and legacy. Any political movement that ties its appeal to particular historical figures or movements risks alienating people who would otherwise support it.

It is important to remember that the general public is not greatly interested in history. For Joe Six-Pack, history is a yawn. He is not interested in ideologies or great men, but in what the British socialist politician Tony Benn called “security, peace, and prosperity.” These may seem tame to some of us, but we should not lose sight of their importance. Just see how quickly a festive atmosphere in a non-political setting will sour if you point out that Enoch Powell was right. A few men will think this is an interesting way to start a conversation; almost no women will.

And this brings me to another point: women. I cast my eye around this room and there aren’t enough of them. Nor are there enough of them making the arguments we consider vital. We may not like it but we live in a society dominated by female values. This is not the time and place to look at the whys and wherefores of that or to consider whether it is desirable, but it is so. We need to be realistic — that’s what politics is about, not pious dreams.

What does that mean in practice? Among other things, it means there is even less interest in history and even less susceptibility to historical romanticism than there might otherwise be. It also means that although facts are undoubtedly important, facts alone cannot persuade rationally. Women on the whole are not much interested in comparative IQ statistics. Men may be, but not women. Women are interested in knowing if they or their children can wander the streets without fear of harm or unwelcome attention. That interests women very much and that is where our politics and thoughts should be.

What if you had a group of people who got together to, say, clean the streets in some area because the municipality wasn’t doing its job, or that traveled together on public transport late at night to make sure everyone felt safe? If American Renaissance did this, there would hardly be a woman out there — not even a committed leftist — who would find it in her heart to denounce you.

Some years ago I suggested to the British National Party that it collect trash because it puts your opponents in an awkward position. How do you denounce people for collecting trash? I thought my advice had gone unheeded, but I was very pleased to read recently in an “anti-fascist” posting on the Internet that the BNP was doing just that. “The BNP should know,” the anti-fascists sniffed, “that collecting rubbish is the responsibility of the local council.” That’s not a very effective criticism.

Women are a magnet for any movement; they attract money and men. I’ll give you both a negative and a positive example. About 30 years ago I was at a National Front meeting in central London. I had been told that the new organizer was efficient and ambitious, and it was true. He chaired the meeting in an effective, dynamic way, but there was another person at the meeting, who gave the opposite impression: a young woman making no effort to hide her boredom. “Who is that woman?” I asked, and was told she was the organizer’s girlfriend. “Well,” I said, “either he will lose her or the front will lose him.” Within a month, he had resigned and neither he nor his girlfriend were seen or heard of again.

I can cite a positive example from here in the USA. Some years ago a Briton of my acquaintance organized a group called “American Friends of the BNP,” the purpose of which seemed to be to raise money for the BNP. This person would invite speakers or organize events, at the end of which he would take up a collection. At one of these events he invited two British girls on a visit to America to come to the monthly meeting and help take up the collection. It seems that they were not political in any way and did not really understand what the meeting was about, but they were willing to oblige. They were even willing to oblige when the organizer asked them to wear Union Jack T-shirts. Now if Jared Taylor or I wear Union Jack T-shirts we are just two men wearing T-shirts. Union Jack T-shirts have another quality when worn by young ladies. The takings were reportedly a good 20 percent above the usual figure.

My next point is about networking and socializing. Let us concede that rationally speaking, there is no need for any of you to make the effort of physically attending this conference. DVDs will undoubtedly be made of all the speeches, which can be watched in the comfort of your home. In a sense, our speeches here are just a pretext, in the same way as coffee is only a pretext for conversation when you say to someone, “Let’s have coffee.” What is especially important is that we meet, socialize, get together, make new contacts, renew old ones, and exchange ideas and addresses with a willingness which is never the same when we only see names or faces on a screen.

Some years ago, at about the time the British National Front badly lost an election, it suffered what I thought was an even more serious loss: it lost “Excalibur House,” its social venue where members would meet for a drink or to play billiards. This was, in my opinion, a much more serious setback than a disappointing election result. That many people did not see it that way suggests to me that they do not understand the importance of social cohesion, association, and solidarity as a prerequisite of any political advance or influence. I must first effect change in my own life and the way I interact with others before I can change what is going on in the world at large. This is something women grasp instinctively, and when movements are dominated by men, they suffer from failing to grasp it.

Alliances are my next point; people need to have a better understanding of what an alliance is. In one sense we in this room are an alliance. Mr. Taylor has not made us sign 39 articles of faith before attending this conference. All he needs to do is restrain cranks and historians. I have no doubt that what others here may think about hunting, for example, is quite likely to be different from what I think, but we set those differences aside.

A late political leader noted that “one should be prepared to work with people next to whom one is obliged to hold one’s nose.” He himself was unable to do this, and failed to build bridges that could have been very useful to his organization.

The fact remains that political movements that try to discuss race are always in a ghetto and seem friendless. I wonder how seriously they try to make friends. The best way to make friends is to support other groups out of friendship and conviction without expecting any immediate reward, and to praise, where possible, more readily than to condemn. If we praise a prime minister who defends the British pint we indirectly condemn those who do not. Being constantly negative encourages the “ghetto feeling” and makes one an easier target for attack. This does not mean that one should not attack where attack is justified, but an attack is more effective the more incisive it is, the more it appeals to general justice, and the more it is made in the knowledge of having at least the tacit support of friends.

Schuster bleibt bei Deiner Leistung is a German saying that means each of us should have talents on which we should concentrate. People are for the most part vain and need to be flattered. We need to be better at appreciating what each of us is good at and concentrate on encouraging that talent to flourish. People must be rewarded for what they do. Reward is not the reason we act on our beliefs, but with no reward at all — not even thanks or recognition — it is difficult for any of us to make a full commitment to anything. That is nothing to be ashamed of; it is human nature.

Coming together on the basis of what we believe — and I mean the three points I made at the beginning of my talk — we become a lobby and a force that grows in influence. We are an alliance of people who have come together united in one specific belief. We need to be able to join other social clubs and meeting houses and we need to have a more even balance of men and women than I see here today. These things come before political success.

In France the French New Right understood that, but unfortunately fell into a kind of Parisian intellectual ghetto of its own. Still, the French were right to stress what they called the metapolitical, that which precedes the purely political.

The size of a nation also matters. I think it is no coincidence that, generally speaking, it is among small groups and in small nations that white resistance to multi-racialism is strongest. In small nations, fewer resources are needed to maintain a political party or movement that can have a national impact. At the same time, in a large country there is likely to be more geographical movement, which breaks up the closely knit groups that are the basis for an identity that opposes the one the national government promotes. For these reasons, oppositional movements are easier to start in the smaller European countries.

We should also, as Lenin said, know the enemy. At the present time, the great mass of people are not historical movers and are not going to try to act to change history. They take things as they come, unless provoked by extreme physical duress, and even then they follow committed persons who can offer solutions.

In my opinion the enemies of white survival or separation can be divided broadly into three groups. At the top is a small group of manipulators and propagandists who will never change their views and who are committed to the destruction of all movements similar to AR. All that can be done with them is to beat them. A second, larger group is composed of committed, active opponents, many of whom aspire or feel solidarity with the first group and are politically committed to it. This group includes those who believe they are opposing something truly evil and who draw that belief from distorted or false information. I believe that a large number of these people are women and their numbers and hostility will diminish greatly if we speak rationally and banish crankiness and provocation. The hostile media understand this. That is why they go to considerable lengths to depict racially conscious whites as evil and deceitful, and to portray their efforts as weak and small.

The third group — the largest and the least politically committed — must be made to understand that its interests coincide with ours. Our interests are theirs but they do not yet understand that.

In order to counter the three groups that oppose us, therefore, I need to have the strength to fight the leadership of my opponents directly, to convince some opposing activists that they are misinformed, and to appeal to a larger mass of people by an appeal to facts, strength, and shared interests. Clearly, none of these things can be achieved effectively by an individual alone, so we should certainly be joining groups and engaging in dialogue with the world around us. At the same time, arguing personally with individuals is often more important than spreading propaganda anonymously, and is certainly more important than telling those who already agree with me what they want to hear.

We need to present ourselves well on every occasion, private and public. Media savvy is something that can be learned, but again, it is important not to be defensive or apologetic — nor to be superior or condescending. I recall a British political leader of a white nationalist party being interviewed by a black journalist who made the entirely reasonable point that many colored immigrants were fearful of the suffering that would be caused by any scheme of enforced repatriation. The politician could not hide his condescension for the journalist or his disdain for the question. He insisted that people would simply have to follow the law as it then would be. There was even the suggestion of a smirk on the man’s face.

This left an unpleasant impression on me, even though I was broadly sympathetic to the scheme. One can imagine what kind of impression it must have made on the great majority of people watching the interview. We must, of course, advance our own interests, but it is wrong to be callous about the interests of others.

Another point to bear in mind is that although elitists often forget the people and their importance, populists can make a different mistake. They often miscalculate the effect of robust views expressed by the poorly educated. Those who express robust views are not usually any braver than those who speak more circumspectly; often they simply have less to lose. Rough talk about foreigners or scroungers is no substitute for a strong and well-based conviction that can be translated into deeds and commitment. Talk is cheap and easy, and it is easy to value it too highly. Commitment is quieter and more self-effacing. It is often undervalued and its importance overlooked.

Finally, it is often said that people are “asleep,” or they do not hear the call, or that they are unable to act in what is obviously their own interests. You know the kind of language I mean. I hope I have already replied to that objection. People will join us if they are drawn by the presence of women, the assurance of power, and the pursuit of their own interests.

In this context I should like to see more direct, non-ideological involvement in the day-to-day. A specific example from current American politics would be this: The southern border with Mexico is essentially unguarded, whereas American troops make sure “insurgents” do not cross into Iraq or Afghanistan. How can guarding the borders of those countries be more important than guarding America’s own borders?

Americans will, of course, have many other facts and parallels on which to base trenchant arguments. AR is good at this. Arm yourselves with facts and use them. People are also very inclined to listen to arguments based on fairness. This was what propelled the big advance in civil rights in the 1960s — an appeal to fairness.

At the same time, we must be able to make different arguments at different times. We can, for example, criticize the American government because it is prepared to enforce a bloody peace in Iraq but is not willing to ensure that the streets of Detroit are safe. This is a scandal that the great majority of Americans can surely understand. It is hard to criticize a position taken on these lines. It is easier to criticize one based on historical grievances or truthful but spiteful-sounding statistics about black crime. Some people must come to their own realizations of things in their own way. It is true that black crime rates are substantially higher than white crime rates, but it may not be useful to insist on saying so. It may be enough repeatedly to raise the issue of crime in Detroit and demand solutions rather than explanations from politicians. Some people will find their way to a more realistic understanding of the world when they are confronted with the issues in such a way.

Then again, other people may be impressed by statistics, at least statistics relevant to them. These would be contemporary statistics, not historical ones. Let the dead bury their dead — we are in the business of here and now.

Legitimacy is an important but elusive quality, and it often comes from strength or the appearance of strength. Strength comes above all from social acceptance, and social acceptance works in mysterious ways that are certainly not altogether rational. It has to do with what people think other people are thinking.

Acceptance often comes from activities that are not obviously political. In countries such as Belgium or Denmark or Switzerland where white identity movements are strong, it is possible to organize people unofficially and discretely to offer security on public transport late at night, to help older people, and do other things that receive favorable attention but are not political. Too often, among people who support any minority position, there is an obsession with parties and elections. It must be stressed that electoral success not built on solid social alliances and support will not last. Movements with sure foundations are those that have deep roots as a social and socializing movement, and are recognized and appreciated by people who are not politically engaged. In this respect, political movements are like religions: They are strong if they have healthy social and cultural roots and weak if they do not. I am not saying that one has to belong to a large organization, but three or four people together can achieve more than three or four times what one individual can achieve.

American Renaissance has got some but not all of these things right. On the whole, it avoids cranks and historians. It is difficult to steer between the Scylla of over-respectability by taking bland positions that betray our work, and the Charybdis of ghetto-building extremism. I believe AR also avoids the issues of pessimism and optimism. As far as women are concerned I cannot award AR high marks; if I were Jared Taylor’s headmaster I would say, “Room for improvement here, boy.”

What about in the area of being sure of what we believe? AR does not have a clear political platform, but there may be good reasons for this. Whether AR should in the long term be mainly a magazine or an activist movement is something AR will have to define for itself in the years to come. As for providing an opportunity for networking, AR is to be congratulated. It is hard enough to put on a major conference without having to face scurrilous attempts to undermine you along the way.

As for alliances, anyone is free to disagree with AR’s approach. Even if you agree with the three main assumptions with which I began this talk — about the importance of preserving and strengthening our culture — there may be those who do not wish to work within the same group. In that case, create a new group but not a hostile group. At this stage, there is nothing wrong with having many groups that cooperate loosely, tightly, or not at all, but they should share one fundamental operating principle: They should save their ammunition for those who oppose the very notion of a white future. There may be groups who share your general vision but with whom, for whatever reasons, you cannot work. Do not attack them. Just ignore them and work separately in your own way. Let us be ready to attack, and attack with conviction where and when we are sure of our ground, but nothing is gained by attacking groups with whom we have much in common.

Let me sum up the points I have made: There should more networking, more socializing, and more imaginative initiatives. We should make alliances, be realistic, and ensure that women are not hostile, disgruntled, or simply absent. To slightly misquote what one famous American president said, I should not first be asking what movements or organizations or individuals can do for me, but what I can do for them. It is very hard to answer the question “What can I do?” However, I hope these ideas may help some of you in finding answers to that most difficult question.

This article is adapted from Michael Walker’s speech at the 2008 AR conference. Mr. Walker is a freelance writer and commentator based in Europe.

• • • BACK TO TOP • • •

BOOK REVIEW

Irrefutable Arguments

The perfect book for waverers.

Heather Mac Donald, et. al., The Immigration Solution: A Better Plan Than Today’s, Ivan R. Dee, 2007, 197 pp. $24.95.

Heather Mac Donald is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute whose articles in the institute’s City Journal are always worth reading. Her main subjects — black crime, false accusations of “racism,” immigration policy, and the growing Hispanic underclass — could have been taken straight out of AR. Her writing is always supple, undeceived, and well researched (see review of her Are Cops Racist? in AR, Feb. 2004). She stops short of drawing racial conclusions, but she almost doesn’t have to; her portraits of black and especially Hispanic behavior are so vivid they speak for themselves.

The Immigration Solution A Better Plan Than Today's - Heather Mac Donald Victor Davis Hanson

The Immigration Solution is a collection of five of Miss Mac Donald’s City Journal articles together with a few pieces by Steven Malanga and Victor Davis Hanson that also appeared in City Journal. The entire collection, which is introduced by Myron Magnet, is readable and, except for some fluff by Mr. Hanson, free of the evasions and moonshine that usually come out of Manhattan.

From the start, Miss Mac Donald rejects the bogus distinction between legal and illegal immigrants: “[T]he public dislikes the effect on local communities of large numbers of poor Mexicans and their progeny, legal or not,” she writes, adding that “many of the costs imposed by Mexican immigrants are a function of their lack of education, their low incomes, and their own and their children’s behavior, not their legal status.” There is hardly any legal immigration from Mexico anyway; 80 percent of the Mexicans who came in the last decade were illegals, and as Miss Mac Donald points out, if there is another amnesty our immigration laws will be laughed at for generations.

In some respects they are already a joke. Miss Mac Donald notes that in 2001 there were only 124 agents in the entire country trying to catch the tens of thousands of people who were hiring illegal immigrants. She suggests, however, that even this small number could have an impact if they made more high-profile sweeps. After the September 11 attacks the Department of Homeland Security deported 1,500 illegal Pakistanis — whereupon 15,000 more left voluntarily.

Fear of deportation is exactly what Miss Mac Donald wants an illegal to live with, yet, as she observes, the common liberal view is that “simply creating in his mind the teeniest thought that he may be penalized for his violation of American sovereignty is itself a callous abuse.” The Mexican government certainly encourages us to think that once someone sneaks past the border patrol, enforcement of immigration laws is a human-rights violation.

Miss Mac Donald notes that in the face of the spectacular failure by the federal government to enforce its laws, states and cities are passing their own. This is exactly the purpose of federalism — people who are close to a problem are supposed to have a free hand in solving it — but as she notes, local attempts to make up for federal failure are invariably dismissed as xenophobia.

Miss Mac Donald has made a well-deserved name for herself as an authority on immigrant crime and the police response to it. It was she who first publicized the fact that in 2004 illegals accounted for 95 percent of the outstanding warrants for murder in Los Angeles. She has also pointed out that in many cities it would be easy to clean out the worst Hispanic gang members if the hands of the police were not tied. Anyone in the country illegally can be deported, and illegal status is easier to prove than drug running or assault. Known malefactors could be kicked out of the country on immigration charges, but in “sanctuary” cities such as New York, San Diego, Chicago, Austin, and Houston, police are under orders to ignore status. Anyone who has been deported and then comes back is guilty of felonious reentry, and can be jailed. That would be an easy way to get thugs off the streets, but it is forbidden in sanctuary cities.

As Miss Mac Donald explains, the theory behind not asking illegals to show their papers is that they will be afraid to cooperate with the police or report crime. She points out that we don’t fail to enforce drug laws for fear druggies won’t cooperate with the police, so what’s the real reason cities have “sanctuary” laws? As she explains, “The immigrant population has grown so large that public officials are terrified of alienating it, even at the expense of ignoring the law and tolerating violence.” This reinforces the idea that America doesn’t take its laws seriously, and if Mexicans can ignore immigration laws, why not property, littering, or any other law? When we actually do enforce laws, the presence of Mexicans makes it more expensive: California alone spends $87 million a year on criminal-court interpreters.

Unfortunately, any deportable criminal who can afford a lawyer can count on our byzantine appeals system to keep the feds off his back for years. Miss Mac Donald quotes a probation officer: “A regular immigration attorney can keep you in the country for three years, a high-priced one for ten.”

Crime and gangs followed Mexicans as they spread throughout the country. Ernesto Vega, a 19-year-old illegal who grew up in New York City, told Miss Mac Donald that most 12- to 14-year-old Mexicans in the city have to be in gangs for their own protection — from each other. “If you’re Mexican you can’t go to parties by yourself . . . But if it’s 20 of you and 20 of them then it’s OK.”

Miss Mac Donald scoffs at the vaunted “family values” of Hispanics. In 2005, 48 percent of Hispanic babies were illegitimate, and Hispanic teenagers had babies at three times the white rate. Nor can Hispanics blame illegitimacy rates on loose American morals. Forty percent of foreign-born Hispanics are illegitimate, and bastardy rates are 38 percent in Mexico and 72 percent in El Salvador.

Hispanic immigrants bring their quaint customs with them: “Social workers report that the impregnators of the younger Hispanic women are with some regularity their uncles, not necessarily seen as a bad thing by the mother’s family. Alternatively, the father may be the boyfriend of the girl’s mother, who then continues to stay with the grandmother. Older men seek out young girls in the belief that a virgin cannot get pregnant during first intercourse, and to avoid sexually transmitted diseases.”

American-born Hispanics get welfare at twice the rate of American-born whites, and foreign-born Hispanics at three times that rate. Once Mexicans are here, welfare use rises from the second to the third generation — to 31 percent. We now have a Hispanic hereditary welfare class just like the black one.

Miss Mac Donald writes that according to some reports, Hispanics are even more hostile than blacks to education. In the Los Angeles school district, which is 73 percent Hispanic, only 40 percent of the students who enter the ninth grade graduate. Only 15 percent graduate with the credits needed for college work.

Miss Mac Donald also covers the shameless way Mexico interferes in our affairs. In 2004, the Ministry of Foreign Relations made a massive, free distribution of a comic book called “Guide to the Mexican Migrant,” which was full of tips on how to sneak into the United States and live here undetected. Mexican consulates in America kept a stock on hand. As Miss Mac Donald notes drily, “Disseminating information about how to evade a host country’s laws is not typical consular activity.” As she also points out, the Mexicans published the guide as a comic book because they know that many people heading north can barely read.

Another blatant act of disregard for our laws is the matricula consular, or identity card that consulates hand out to Mexicans living here. As Miss Mac Donald explains, the only people who could possibly need this kind of ID are illegals. Although many banks and some local governments have been browbeaten into accepting the matricula, the FBI warns that consulates do not check applicants carefully, so many matriculas cannot be trusted.

Probably no other country is as active in our affairs as Mexico. In April 2005, the police in New Ipswich, New Hampshire, arrested a Mexican on novel grounds: that he was in the country illegally so was, by definition, guilty of trespass. The Mexican government went into a fury and — contrary to usual diplomatic rules — even paid for his appeal (a state court found that the arrest was not valid). In August 2005, New Mexico governor Bill Richardson declared a state of emergency in four border counties that were “devastated” by drug and people smuggling. The city council in Ciudad Juarez, across the border, declared that this was interference in Mexico’s domestic affairs.

Mexico’s main diplomatic objective is to eliminate the border and win amnesty for illegals. In July 2005, former foreign minister Jorge Castaneda told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Mexico would cooperate in fighting terrorism only if the US amnestied all Mexican illegals.

A second and easier goal — at least so far — is to keep Mexican nationalism alive among Mexican-Americans. Torres Sarmiento is a community affairs coordinator in the Santa Ana, California consulate. She visits Orange County schools to promote a Mexican government-sponsored drawing contest called Este Es Mi Mexico (This is My Mexico). Children draw a picture that illustrates the “history, culture, natural resources, people, or traditional holidays [of] our beloved and beautiful country.” Winners get a trip to Mexico City paid for by the Mexican government.

Mexican consulates also have a budget for textbooks that they donate to American schools with large numbers of Mexican students. The idea is to teach as many subjects as possible — especially history — from a Mexican perspective.

This kind of overt boosting is probably not necessary. As Efrian Jimenez, an official with the Federation of Zacatecan Clubs of Southern California, explained to Miss Mac Donald, “The dream that most of us hold on to is the Mexican dream. . . . Four-fifths of Mexicans here would say that if they had a job in Mexico, they’d go back right away.” And as Kevin Ruiz, a Santa Ana, California, cop who harks back to an older, pro-American tradition, reported, “I don’t see assimilation. They want to hold on [to a Mexican identity].” He says today’s Mexican immigrant is a “totally different kind of person” from the past.

Myron Magnet, also of the Manhattan Institute, adds a few interesting observations, mainly about the economics of immigration. He points out that because of all the services they consume, each immigrant household in California costs California natives $1,200 per year, and that the average high-school-dropout immigrant — this includes two-thirds of our Mexicans — will cost taxpayers $85,000 over his lifetime.

Mr. Magnet makes the point that the immigrants of the turn of the 20th century whom we romanticize came at a time when there were no government handouts, and that many who could not make it went home. Now they can go on welfare. He, too, emphasizes that unskilled Hispanics are “becoming a new underclass, living in ethnic enclaves that are ridden with crime, violent gangs, drug dealing, illegitimacy, school failure, welfare dependency, and poverty.” He even asks what amounts to a revolutionary question: “Surely it is right to ask what immigrants can do for our country, not what our country can do for them?”

Steven Malanga, also affiliated with the Manhattan Institute, makes other economic arguments. He points out that the availability of cheap, Third-World labor means that we do not invest in mechanization. If we really worry that without Mexican stoop labor tomatoes and lettuce would be priced out of reach, we should mechanize the harvest. He points out that not to do so is to repeat the errors of others: “Like Germany, France thought it was importing a labor force, but it wound up introducing a new underclass.” He also warns that “guest workers inevitably become permanent residents.” As it is, these new, permanent residents are willing to work for wages so low that they have cut the annual earnings of native-born high-school dropouts by 8 percent, or about $1,200.

Mr. Malanga reinforces some of Mr. Magnet’s points, noting that during the Depression about 60 percent of recent arrivals went home. In the 1930s, immigrants were expected to support themselves, but things are different now: “The modern welfare state has turned the self-selection process upside down, offering immigrants from very poor countries incentives to come to America and sponge off the taxpayer.” He notes that most developed countries do not let immigrants — not even legal ones — go on welfare, and that to do so is to invite endless exploitation. He argues that Australia and Canada have far more intelligent policies. In theory, they admit only skilled immigrants and their immediate families. He says we could cut the number of family visas in half if we kept out immigrants’ parents, siblings, et cetera.

Victor Davis Hanson, who has popularized the term “Mexifornia,” makes a few good points about Mexican immigrants: “The second generation has learned how to live, spend, and consume as Americans, but not, like their fathers, to work and save as Mexicans.” Further he writes, “Mexico’s policy for a half-century has been the deliberate and illegal export of millions of its poorest citizens to the United States, which is expected to educate, employ, and protect them in ways not possible at home.” The result, he says, is to create California shantytowns with plumbing, sewerage, and living conditions as bad as anything from the 1950s.

Mr. Hanson, however, is a hopeless liberal on race. What are we to make of this passage on the importance of keeping Americans focused on common culture so they will not split by race?

[The] subjugation of race to culture is forever a fragile creation, not a natural entity. Each day it can erode. A single fool can undo the work of decades and so allow small people to feel one with those of like tongue or skin color; not united by shared ideals and values. Thus, each time a university president, a politician on the make, or a would-be muckraking journalist chooses the easy path of separatism, he, like the white chauvinists of the past, does his own little part in turning us into Rwanda or Kosovo.

Virtually every word in this paragraph is stupid or wrong or both. One obvious point to make in reply is that if “the work of decades” can be destroyed by “a single fool,” that work is futile and should never have been attempted. Mr. Hanson as much as admits that the United States is trying to repeal the laws of human nature. Every generation of Americans up until a half century or so ago would have recognized this for the grotesque folly it is, but racial orthodoxy blinds even “conservatives” to the obvious.

This is very little of this kind of guff, however. For the most part, this is a concise, hard-hitting, easily digested account of what is wrong with our immigration policies. The points it makes and the facts it offers are so striking that it is just the thing to drive ordinary Americans into action. The gift of a fat book is an imposition on someone’s time. The Immigration Solution is the perfect summer-reading present for waverers.

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ARTICLE

Why Obama Will Win

Whites jump at any chance to feel virtuous.

It is time to get used to the idea that the next president of the United States will be black. Why will a nation we are so often assured is “racist” elect a black president? And will it make a difference?

Obama

Ever since Hillary Clinton dropped out of the race, the polls have reported consistently that Barack Obama will beat John McCain. The media love to tell us that whites say they support the black candidate and then vote for the white, but there is no reason for whites to lie in this campaign. Mr. Obama will not get a majority of the white vote but he will get enough to beat Mr. McCain. Why will so many whites vote for Mr. Obama?

First, some support his policies. They want to end the war in Iraq, and they want the standard liberal program of socialized medicine, higher taxes, more handouts, and more government. There has always been a substantial minority of whites who vote this way, and they have a clear favorite in Mr. Obama.

Second, as many people have pointed out, an enormous number of whites think it is deeply virtuous to vote for a black — not for an out-and-out race man such as Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, but for an unthreatening, well-scrubbed black who speaks standard English and promises to “bring us together.” Even if they live sharply segregated lives, whites thrill to the language of “coming together,” and they adore blacks who don’t act or sound black.

For many whites, voting for Mr. Obama will be an act of high patriotism. Electing him will prove America is not “racist,” and many whites believe that rising above “racism” is America’s sacred calling. One must never underestimate the importance to whites of feeling virtuous. Most would rather lose a leg than be thought a “bigot,” and a vote for Obama is a painless way to burnish anti-racist credentials.

Third, young whites will line up for Mr. Obama. They have been swallowing anti-white, multi-culti propaganda all their lives and have not knocked around enough to discover it is false. Some who know their parents will vote for Mr. McCain will make a special point of voting for Mr. Obama. Every new generation thinks it is cooler, hipper, and wiser than any generation that ever lived, and what could be cooler, hipper, or wiser than putting a black man in the White House? For many young whites, a vote for Mr. Obama will be a denial of every uncool, unhip, and especially every even faintly race-realist thing their parents ever said or did.

Fourth, although the country seems to have a collective memory of no more than two weeks, Americans think everything is “historic.” Whenever someone breaks an obscure record in professional baseball we are told history was made. If you ask someone why he waited in line all night to buy the first Apple iPhone he will tell you it’s a “historic” product. Americans love anything that is “historic,” and for people who think a few more stolen bases are “history” right up there with the Battle of Lepanto, putting a black man in the White House will be the discovery of America, Pearl Harbor, and the Second Coming all rolled into one. Many whites will vote for Mr. Obama because they want to think they helped “make history.”

The media, which has its own grim reasons for supporting Mr. Obama, is mesmerized by the same prospect. Editors salivate at the thought of writing headlines like “History is Made” the day after the election, and some will lose all self-control and add an exclamation mark. The emphasis, of course, will be on Mr. Obama as the first black president, implying more to come. The media, which always subtly boost the Democrat, will be even more blatantly partisan this time, downplaying every blunder Mr. Obama makes and highlighting Mr. McCain’s.

Fifth, many whites will vote for Mr. Obama — or at least not vote for Mr. McCain — because the Republicans have nominated the most stunningly unattractive candidate in years. Old and pock-marked, Mr. McCain is thoroughly disliked in the Senate for arrogance that he cannot even hide from voters when he is not speaking from notes. He has dismayed Republicans by promoting amnesty for illegals, and dismayed everyone else by saying America should stay in Iraq for 100 years if it takes that long to “win.” Mr. Obama therefore has the enormous advantage of running against an opponent that not even Republicans like.

Mr. Obama will also crush Mr. McCain in face-to-face debates. Mr. McCain cannot put an unscripted sentence together any better than George W. Bush can, and will come across as a thick-witted geezer. Mr. Obama, who is as glib as any politician, gives credence to H.L. Mencken’s definition of democracy as “rule by orators.”

But what about America’s storied “racism”? Isn’t America brimming with people who can’t bear the thought of a black president? Americans have been numbed for decades by attractive television-blacks who read the news, forecast the weather, and tell us which brand of toothpaste to buy. Americans get a steady diet of heroic movie-blacks who outsmart and beat up white brutes, solve baffling technical problems, dispense sage advice, and save the world. Even the current Miss USA is black. There are millions of whites who do not want to live with blacks or have much to do with them, but would a black president be much different from nearly eight years of black secretaries of state? The march of blackness may be vaguely worrying to whites but they think there is nothing they can do about it and that they shouldn’t even if they could.

The final reason why whites will vote for Mr. Obama is that the Republicans do not have the backbone to attack him in the only way that would work. If they were serious, they would fill the airways with Jeremiah Wright prancing and raving, along with the message: “This is the man who married Mr. and Mrs. Obama, baptized their children, and whom Mr. Obama calls a ‘family member’.” They would buy radio ads quoting Michelle Obama’s thesis in which she says she will always be black first and American second. Mr. McCain has nothing like the stomach for a campaign like this.

Many blacks probably think he has the stomach for considerably worse: 57 percent think Mr. Obama is in greater physical danger than any white politician, and many say they would have warned him not to run, for fear he would be killed. An assassination would certainly be a shattering event. There is no telling how many cities would go up in flames, and Third-World countries, which have followed the Obama nomination with unprecedented interest, would help make it the most widely reported killing in history. (I have just returned from a Muslim country in which everyone has heard of Mr. Obama and likes him, but most have never heard of John McCain.) Whatever gruesome fantasies blacks may be spinning, however, assassination has gone out of style in America, and white resistance — such as it is — is dependably nonviolent. Mr. Obama will be perfectly safe.

In any case, Mr. Obama will win far more white votes than he will lose because he is black. Whites who don’t want a black president would not vote for a Democrat anyway. As for black voters, even nominal Republicans are said to be running for the doors, but strictly racial voting has always been fine for blacks. Not so for whites, of course. Just try telling your co-workers that you disagree with Mr. McCain but are voting for him because he is white.

Racially conscious whites will be in a quandary in November. Even if Mr. McCain’s policies are worse than Mr. Obama’s should they vote for the white man — one with an adopted Bangladeshi daughter and who long ago betrayed white interests? Even after years of being softened up with black heroes and figureheads, a black in the White House is a powerful symbol of white dispossession. A mulatto president is an almost explicit endorsement of miscegenation. This is bitter medicine.

Some whites have argued that a black president would undercut the charges of “racism” whites are forever facing, but they are dreaming. The entire government could look like a meeting of the Mystic Knights of the Sea, but as long as blacks are worse off than whites we will be blamed for it. Sensible whites cannot cheerfully vote for either man; I suspect most will stay home or vote for a minor candidate.

Aside from the symbolic impact, which cannot be calculated, will President Obama be much different from a President Hillary Clinton? She would lard her cabinet with blacks and Hispanics, nominate ultra-liberal judges, push for amnesty, grovel before non-whites everywhere, and load up the “civil rights” division of the Justice Department with anti-white sharks. She would certainly make a bigger fool of herself over Hispanics and Asians (see “Turning Up the Pressure,” AR, May 2008). Our choice, therefore, could not be more disagreeable. On balance, we get to decide which is the more degrading spectacle: deluded white people giving their country away or clear-eyed blacks helping themselves to it.

President Obama will, however, face special pressures. He can’t let the pushier brothers walk all over him, but he will have to throw them enough bones to keep them off his back. It will be a tricky balance. Mr. Obama’s first annual address to the NAACP will be a love feast, but every year after that it will be harder to explain why black unemployment, poverty, and incarceration rates haven’t changed at all.

Even Mr. Obama’s star-struck white supporters will eventually wonder what happened to all that “change” he promised. There is not going to be change. The system is far too stuck in its self-serving ways for that. With the help of an enlarged Democratic majority in Congress, Mr. Obama may set up some wheezing, byzantine form of socialized medicine, but no one will be happy with it. If Mr. Obama inherits a sick economy, a weak dollar, expensive oil, and shrinking revenues, Americans will not at all like the change they get.

On the bright side, with Mr. Obama we have a good chance of piquant First-Lady behavior. What will the White House be like with Michelle in charge? Will she want a new exterior paint job? How and whom will she entertain? Will the Big Man’s guest bedrooms — in the African tradition — be turned over to third cousins from Kenya and the South Side of Chicago? There is no telling with what improprieties large and small Mrs. Obama will entertain us as she makes up her mind whether she is an American.

It will be an edifying presidency; and whites may be a little less deluded in 2012.

• • • BACK TO TOP • • •

IN THE NEWS

O Tempora, O Mores!

County 1, UN 0

Last month we reported that Doudou Diene, a UN “human rights investigator,” is in the US hunting for “racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance.” The UN also had plans to send a “special rapporteur on migrants’ rights” to Prince William County, Virginia (a DC suburb), to make sure its well-publicized crackdown on illegal immigration didn’t hurt anyone’s feelings. The “special rapporteur” is Jorge Bustamante, who teaches sociology at Notre Dame. He is a native Mexican, so can be trusted to be objective. The US Civil Right Commission is interested in the county, too. Last December it sent a panel to sniff around but has yet to report findings.

What are the county’s suspected crimes? Nothing more than having police look into legal status whenever they stop someone, and requiring them to turn illegals over to the feds. Many illegals have cleared out even without a conversation with the police, much to the county’s benefit. A study released in June found the crime rate had decreased 19.6 percent from 2006 to 2007. Homicides were down 43.8 percent, robberies 22.5 percent, and aggravated assaults 18.2 percent. County Chairman Corey Stewart explains that “as illegal immigrants are leaving, our crime rates are decreasing.” He might have added that violent crime in particular is way down.

Nancy Lyall of the illegal immigrant support group Mexicans Without Borders says there has been a drop only in reported crime, not actual crime. “There are a lot of crimes unreported [now] because immigrants are afraid of going to the police,” she insists. If that were true, it would be another argument for the county’s policy. Legal county residents are not likely to be attacking and killing illegals; other illegals are, and the sooner they leave the quicker things will improve. Neighboring Fairfax County, by contrast, which is a “sanctuary” in which the police do not enforce immigration laws, saw its crime rate rise by 6 percent during the same period. This is all too much for the Virginia branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, whose executive director calls Prince William’s policy “a model of what not to do when it comes to addressing immigrant issues at a local level.”

So what about special rapporteur Bustamente? County Chairman Stewart says he’s willing to talk to him even though he is not a fan of the UN: “They’ve got a history of trying to embarrass the United States while turning a blind eye to the regimes that are actually not just committing human-rights abuses, but engaged in genocide.”

It looks as though Mr. Stewart will not have the pleasure. About a week after announcing his visit, Mr. Bustamante suddenly canceled it, saying only that “something unexpected of extreme gravity” had come up, and that he hoped to come later. It seems likely that senior UN officials pulled the plug, and that Virginia Congressman Frank Wolf had something to do with it. He threatened to cut off US aid to the UN, and warned the secretary general, “Do not send somebody from the United Nations here.” [Dan Genz, UN Official to Visit Prince William to Study Illegal-immigration Policy, Washington Examiner, June 5, 2008. Dan Genz, UN Human Rights Official Cancels Pr. William Visit, Washington Examiner, June 11, 2003. David Sherfinski, Pr. William Officials Say Crackdown on Illegals Reason for Crime Decline, Washington Examiner, June 30, 2008.]

Constructing Diversity

Philadelphia has been trying to expand its convention center for years, but the project is mired in two kinds of politics: Race and unions. Unions are strong in Philadelphia, and the city government wants to use union labor, but the unions are virtually all white while the city is majority black. The city council demanded that the unions give 35 percent of the construction jobs to non-whites, and threatened to open the project to non-union bids if they would not. The unions refused, and the standoff has delayed the project for two years and driven up costs by $20 million.

In June, unions and city reached a compromise. The 35 percent target became a non-binding “aspirational” goal, and the mayor will establish a commission to study the “challenges and barriers” faced by non-white and women contractors. [Jane M. Von Bergen, Topic: Construction Diversity, Philadelphia Inquirer, June 25, 2008.]

Licensing Pride

Florida offers drivers more than 100 specialty license plates. They express support for such things as the boy scouts, tennis, soccer, or efforts to preserve lighthouses or the manatee. Others promote colleges or sports teams. A few are controversial, like the one that says “Choose Life.” Blacks have a plate that honors Martin Luther King, and there is one that boosts American Indians. The Sons of Confederate Veterans are trying to get a plate that promotes “Confederate Heritage.”

If the National Hispanic Corporate Achievers — a group that organizes job fairs for Hispanics — has its way, there will be soon one more. They want an image of a Spanish galleon along with the words “Hispanics discovered Florida.” [Victor Manuel Ramos, Proposed License Plate states ‘Hispanics Discovered Florida,’ Orlando Sentinel, June 26, 2008.]

Conquistadors are not what most people associate with the word “Hispanic.” We suspect white Spaniards might not even be welcome at the group’s job fairs for “Hispanics,” but even whites can be honorary Hispanics if it boosts brown pride.

Happy ‘Juneteenth’

Blacks celebrate Juneteenth as a holiday in commemoration of Union General Gordon Granger’s arrival on June 19, 1865 in Galveston, where he announced the abolition of slavery in Texas. The day has become increasingly popular among blacks, some of whom call it Emancipation Day. Twenty-nine states recognize it as an official but not a legal holiday, which means they do not shut down the government. Efforts are underway to make Juneteenth a federal holiday.

The Juneteenth frolics that are spreading across the country have taken on a certain character. In Minneapolis, for example, the backer says Juneteenth is all about “healing,” and that seems to be exactly what is needed. Violence during the 2006 party left one 18-year-old man shot to death. This year’s party was more successful: No one was killed, and only three people were wounded — none seriously — when the shooting stopped. [3 Injured in Shooting at Juneteenth Festival, AP, June 22, 2008.]

Then and Now

In 1958, Time magazine ran an article about black crime that is a little franker than anything it would publish today, but the reality it describes is unchanged:

They are afraid to say so in public, but many of the North’s big-city mayors groan in private that their biggest and most worrisome problem is the crime rate among Negroes.

In 1,551 U.S. cities, according to the FBI tally for 1956, Negroes, making up 10% of the U.S. population, accounted for about 30% of all arrests, and 60% of the arrests for crimes involving violence or threat of bodily harm — murder, non-negligent manslaughter, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. In one city after another, the figures — where they are not hidden or suppressed by politicians — reveal a shocking pattern. . . .

The article goes on to report crime statistics for Detroit, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, but notes the existence of what it calls a “conspiracy of concealment:” “In many cities, Negro leaders and organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People put pressure on politicians, city officials and newspapers to play down the subject. Fearing loss of Negro votes, few elected officials dare to resist the pressures.”

The article then adds something that sounds entirely up to date: “The number of Negroes [arrested] is at least partially indicative of subconscious if not conscious racial persecution on the part of police officers,” said Charles Wartman, editor of the black weekly Michigan Chronicle.

Time’s conclusion shows that in 50 years liberals have learned nothing: “Negroes are more prone than whites to break the laws, rules and customs of society because they are excluded from full membership in it. In gross and subtle ways, from unwritten bans on employing Negroes to the faintly patronizing tone that even liberal-hearted whites take toward them, Negroes are made to feel alien and inferior.” [The Negro Crime Rate: A Failure of Integration, Time, April 21, 1958.]

The Law is an Ass

American law schools are accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA), which uses this power to advance pet projects. One of its favorites is “diversity;” it insists law schools should produce more non-white lawyers. Schools with too many white students therefore risk having their accreditation pulled, which means students would not qualify for federal financial aid and, in many jurisdictions, would not even be allowed to take the bar exam.

In 2000, an ABA reaccreditation inspection uncovered a scandal at George Mason University Law School in northern Virginia: 93.5 percent of first-year students were white. The ABA conceded that GMU had made a “very active effort to recruit minorities,” but that was insufficient because the school was unwilling “to engage in any significant preferential affirmative action admissions program.” In other words, GMU would not bend the admissions rules for non-whites. With its accreditation at stake, GMU relaxed standards and admitted more non-whites: 10.98 percent in 2001 and 16.16 percent in 2002. That wasn’t good enough for the ABA. In 2003 it summoned GMU’s president and law school dean and threatened them personally with disaccreditation. GMU slashed standards even further, and managed to raise its non-white admissions to 17.3 percent in 2003, and 19 percent in 2004. Still not good enough. “Of the 99 minority students in 2003,” the ABA complained, “only 23 were African American; of 111 minority students in 2004, the number of African Americans held at 23.” Hispanics and Asians aren’t good enough for the ABA. It wants blacks.

And what of the blacks GMU did admit? From 2003 to 2005, fully 45 percent had grade-point averages below 2.15, which is defined as “academic failure.” For non-blacks, the figure was 4 percent. GMU officials point out that the ABA’s own Standard 501(b) says that “a law school shall not admit applicants who do not appear capable of satisfactorily completing its educational program and being admitted to the bar.” As the law school’s dean Dan Polsby explains, “Adhering to this principle is the greatest obstacle to our efforts to increase the diversity of the George Mason student body.” [Andy Guess, Diversity Meets Data at George Mason Law, Inside Higher Ed, June 26, 2008. Gail Heriot, The ABA’s ‘Diversity ‘ Diktat, Wall Street Journal, April 28, 2008.]

A Story Worth Following

Dallas Cowboy linebacker DeMarcus Ware and his wife Taniqua have adopted a baby girl, whom they have named Marley, after the Jamaican reggae singer Bob Marley. The Wares are black but Marley is white. How did they end up with a white baby? The father of one of Mr. Ware’s acquaintances runs a ministry for women, one of whom wanted to put her baby up for adoption. These days it would impolite for a journalist to ask why Mr. Ware, who could have had his pick of black babies, chose a white, so that question remains unanswered. It will be interesting to see how baby Marley fares with her new family. [Greg Bishop, Cowboys’ Ware Fulfills a Challenge for Fatherhood, New York Times, June 15, 2008.]

Japan to Capitulate?

For years, demographers have been telling the Japanese that declining birthrates will drive them extinct, and that they need immigrants. The Japanese don’t like immigrants, and the government has respected their wishes, but this may change.

A panel put together by the ruling party has recommended to Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda that Japan take in more immigrants and refugees. “We think it would be appropriate for Japan to accept immigrants to make up 10 percent of the population over the next 50 years,” the report says. “Japan is an island country situated in the Far East, and seen as having a relatively homogeneous population, so some say it is not suited to accepting immigrants, It is a fact that we have less experience of immigration than do Europe and America. But we are facing harsh times.”

Japan is already bringing in foreigners to care for old people. It recently signed an Economic Partnership Agreement with Indonesia that will let in hundreds of nurses and nursing home attendants. [Japan Must Boost Immigration — Ruling Party Panel, Reuters, June 13, 2008.]

Black vs. Brown

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca makes no bones about it: “We have a serious interracial violence problem in this county involving blacks and Latinos.” He is taking direct aim at Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton when he says, “Some people deny it. . . . [T]he problem, they say, is not one of blacks versus Latinos and Latinos versus blacks but merely one of gang members killing other gang members. But they’re wrong. The truth is that, in many cases, race is at the heart of the problem. Latino gang members shoot blacks not because they’re members of a rival gang but because of their skin color. Likewise, black gang members shoot Latinos because they are brown.”

Chief Bratton and his deputies claim that gangs — which they only grudgingly concede are race-based — are just fighting over turf and drugs. LAPD Deputy Chief Charlie Beck says Sheriff Baca’s views are warped because he runs Los Angeles County’s lockups, where racial violence is widespread. “I think you have to look at violence on several different levels,” he says. “In the world of serious gang crime in the city — which accounts for the vast majority of gang activity in the county — race is not the primary factor. Are there isolated instances? Yes. But are gang members commonly going around to kill and harm people because they are another race? Absolutely not.”

A recent federal prosecution of Hispanic gang members supports the sheriff’s view. In 2007, members of Florencia 13 were convicted of using violence to drive blacks out of the Florence-Firestone section of Los Angeles.

Black lawyer and activist Connie Rice explains the sheriff’s thinking. “We need to examine this issue in the light of day to keep it from spreading because we won’t be able to address or reverse it, if we deny it,” she says. And why does Chief Bratton play down race? “Chief Bratton [fears that] . . . if you overemphasize race, you may be pouring jet fuel on the fire.” [Andrew Blankstein and Joel Rubin, Bratton and Baca Disagree on Role of Race in Gang Violence, Los Angeles Times, June 13, 2008. Lee Baca, In LA, Race Kills, Los Angeles Times, June 12, 2008.]

Honesty from the Bench

Judge Bob Moon is a criminal court judge in Chattanooga, Tennessee. On June 27, he told a woman who had been assaulted that crime in Chattanooga “has become so rampant that it is no longer possible for the police department to protect our citizens,” and advised her to “purchase a weapon, obtain a gun permit and learn to protect yourself.” [Judge Advises Crime Victim to Arm Herself after Attack, Chattanoogan.com, June 27, 2008.]

Obamania in Italy

Fashion impresario Franca Sozzani, editor of the Italian version of Vogue, has decided to feature only black models in the July 2008 issue. Much of the inspiration for the issue came from being in the US during the Super Tuesday Democratic primary in February, when Barack Obama took the momentum from Hillary Clinton. “We saw something was changing, so we said, ‘why don’t we try to do the same?’” She also says she was getting tired of models with “blonde hair and long legs” who “all look alike,” adding that she wanted to “offer space to another type of beauty.”

Black models are not usually on the covers of fashion magazines in Italy or anywhere else, since publishers don’t want to scare off white subscribers, but Miss Sozzani thinks the senator from Illinois may have changed this. “A precise choice like this one always has its risks,” she says. “People can like it or they can hate it. I personally think they will like it . . . Obama’s ‘wave’ has also been felt over here.” [Vogue Italy Launches All-Black Issue, National Nine News (Australia), June 29, 2008.]

• • • BACK TO TOP • • •

Letters from readers
LETTERS FROM READERS

Sir — I wonder if Wikipedia’s devotion to racial orthodoxy is not a sign of hope. It is frustrating that the race-deniers who edit Wikipedia suppress evidence for race realism, but why are they so ruthless about it? Are they afraid of us, and of what we say? Because we’re right?

Curtis McAllen, Jessup, Georgia

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Sir — The Scotsman newspaper recently described what it called false and/or deliberately misleading information in Wikipedia. It seems the Scottish Parent Teacher Council (SPTC) is blaming the online encyclopedia for the increase in the number of students failing exams. A spokeswoman for the SPTC says, “It’s dangerous when the Internet is littered with opinion and inaccurate information which could be taken as fact,” and warns students not to believe everything they read online. The author of the article wrote that when his son was researching the US civil rights movement for a school project, he found that Wikipedia was obviously biased and written by people with “vested interests.”

Charles Westin, Bangor, Maine

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Sir — I was particularly pleased with the subhead you chose for “European Nationalism on the March” in the July issue. “Lessons for Americans” is spot on. The Europeans have the Vlaams Belang, the British National Party, the French National Front, the Swiss People’s Party, the Danish People’s Party, and the Lega Nord. And we have . . . nothing. We need an American National Party, or an American People’s Party — a party to represent middle and working class whites who’ve been abandoned by both the Democrat Quislings and Vichy Republicans.

William Eckart, Denver, Colo.

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Sir — Mr. Hood’s account of his adventures among the Flemings was the most inspiring thing I have read in a long time. It is wonderful to learn about whites who love their heritage and will fight to defend it.

Your magazine describes Mr. Hood as having been active in American youth movements. Let us hope he is still active, and will inspire young Americans with the spirit of the NSV.

Bill Anderson, Birmingham, Ala.

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Sir — I appreciate your desire to inform AR readers about the BNP’s success in getting Richard Barnbrook elected to the London Assembly, but to call this a “breakthrough” that “shows the party is credible political force” is laying it on a bit thick. Yes, he won a seat on the assembly — barely. The cutoff was 5 percent of the vote, and he got 5.33 percent. It was the bright spot in what can only be seen as a disappointing performance by the BNP, given the expectations they had raised. The BNP forecast an increase of 40 local council seats and three seats on the London Assembly. In fact, they picked up only one spot on the assembly and 10 local council seats. This was a modest success. It will not be a breakthrough until the BNP wins a seat in Parliament.

R. L. Kendle, Vancouver, B. C., Canada

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Sir — How discouraging to learn in your July ‘O Tempora’ section that James Watson has been going from bad to worse. You would think the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA — and a man old enough no longer to have career ambitions — would be able to speak his mind. He clearly knows the truth, because he blurted it out once. But now he claims that blacks are just as smart as whites because he has met some “bright” Ethiopians?!

Dr. Watson is a scientist. He knows that a few Ethiopians he may have met, even if they really were “bright,” cannot be assumed to be a proper sample of black Africans. It is embarrassing to see a man sink so low to seek the approval of people he knows are wrong.

Garrett Stone, Rockford, Ill.

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Sir — I appreciated Thomas Jackson’s review of Debating Immigration in the June issue. I was especially struck by the contempt Yale professor Peter Schuck and Georgetown professor Marc Howard seem to have for democracy. Mr. Shuck believes the public is stupid, while Mr. Howard thinks it is racist and xenophobic. Will the Third-Worlders they want to replace us with be smarter and less “xenophobic,” or do our elites simply think they would be less troublesome?

I was also amused by Prof. Stephen Macedo’s agony over whether we should care more about the poor of our own country than about poor foreigners. He finally concludes that we should, but only because there is no world government. Since we can’t tell starving Somalis how to live, their clam on our charity comes after we have looked after America’s own poor. Poor Prof. Macedo. The reason we put our own people first is because we are related to them, not because we legislate for them. In a healthy, homogenous nation the poor are our cousins and have a cousin’s claim on us.

Skip Fields, New Castle, Ind.

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