American Renaissance magazine
Vol.10, No. 6	June 1999

 

CONTENTS

The Seeds of Conflict
“White Australia” Gets Jaundice
The Fight Against Racial Preferences
O Tempora, O Mores!
Letters from Readers

COVER STORY

The Seeds of Conflict

Genetic Similarity Theory explains the conflicts that baffle statesmen.

by Jared Taylor

Why are bombs falling in Yugoslavia? Why do the Hutu and Tutsi keep slaughtering each other? Why can’t people in Los Angeles take Rodney King’s advice and “just get along”? Since the end of the Cold War, there has been a remarkable upsurge in ethnic, national, racial, and other sectarian conflicts that has baffled liberal policymakers who predicted “the end of history.” To the contrary, a UN study found that if a war were defined as armed conflict that produced more than 1,000 deaths, there have been 82 wars in a recent three-year period, and 79 of them were sectarian bloodlettings that took place within recognized national borders. The current NATO action against Yugoslavia has something of the look of the traditional war that pits belligerent governments against each other, but the real cause, of course, was civil disorder between ethnic Serbs and ethnic Albanians.

The explanations most commonly given for the persistence of this kind of fighting are almost always implausible. Colonialism does not explain why Hutu and Tutsi hate each other any more than slavery explains why blacks rioted in Los Angeles. Liberal sociologists come up with strained, ad hoc explanations of this kind because they refuse to accept the deeper, biological origins of conflict. In explaining why NATO had decided to kill Serbs, William Clinton did mention “nationalism” as one of the causes, but clearly thinks of it as a primitive, even embarrassing sentiment.

J. Philippe Rushton of the University of Western Ontario has offered an analysis of conflict of this kind that links it to the basic biological mechanisms that govern how people — and other organisms — choose their associates. His analysis, known as Genetic Similarity Theory, is an extension of the sociobiological work of E.O. Wilson, William Hamilton, and others into the ethnic/national sphere. GST is firmly rooted in evolution, but its perspective and insights can be appreciated by people with other views as well.

Ever since Darwin, the willingness of some individuals to sacrifice themselves for others has been a riddle for evolutionists. If only the fittest survive, the genes for altruistic behavior should have been weeded out long ago. Any man or animal so foolish as to lay down his life for his fellows stops the genes for altruistic behavior dead in their tracks. Self-sacrifice should disappear, and evolution should have bred pure selfishness into people rather than mixing it with a dose of altruism.

Animals show altruism too. When a worker bee stings something trying to get into the hive, the stinger tears out of its abdomen and it dies — to protect other bees. If a small mammal notices a hawk or fox nearby and gives a warning cry so that others of its species can run for cover, it calls attention to itself and is more likely to be attacked. The animal’s own chances of survival would be best if it quietly ran into a hole and left the rest of the pack to the fox. Animals share food, rescue each other, and fight as a group rather than run away as individuals. But the most widespread and important kind of altruism is care of the young — and this suggests the evolutionary explanation for altruism.

For parents, children are packets of their own genes, and evolutionary theory has an obvious explanation for parental altruism: At least among the higher animals, parents that look after their young are much more likely to pass along their genes to succeeding generations than parents that do not. The genes that cause child-rearing and child protection are therefore very firmly built into all higher species. But altruism for close relatives serves the same purpose. Brothers and sisters share 50 percent of their genes and cousins share about 12 percent. Crucial human traits were formed when men operated in small, extended-family bands, and in this context it made good genetic sense for a warrior to fight for the tribe, since he was fighting for his kinfolk. When the famous British geneticist J.B.S. Haldane was asked for whom he would sacrifice his life, he replied only half-facetiously, “for three brothers or nine cousins.” Either combination adds up to more than 100 percent of one’s own genes, and from an evolutionary point of view it makes more sense to die if that means the others can live.

This explanation for altruism is called kin selection theory, and there is evidence for it in the animal kingdom. A female squirrel can mate with several males and give birth to a litter that contains the children of more than one male. This mixture of full- and half-siblings shares the same womb and grows up in the same nest but each can tell the others apart. They are more likely to come to the aid of full siblings and more likely to fight and quarrel with half-siblings. Another squirrel study likewise found that females give food to sisters but not to strangers. Similar relations are found in lion prides, where all the females are likely to be closely related to each other, and therefore cooperate to kill game. Chimpanzees occasionally kill other chimpanzees, but the victims are almost always isolated males from other bands.

It is not known how animals tell they are related, but even insects are capable of amazingly fine distinctions. When guard bees at a hive encountered intruder bees of 14 different degrees of kinship to them, the guardians let in those that were closely related and drove off the others. In another experiment, when frog eggs from several litters were put into a single tank, after they hatched, the tadpoles that were siblings congregated together.

Humans show similar behavior. The immediate family is obviously the focus of intense loyalty and sacrifice, but every family reunion ever held is a tribute to the importance of kinship ties that go well beyond the nuclear family. The very idea of relatedness, the building of family trees, the search for ancestors — all these things reflect the importance of blood ties.

Recent research has uncovered less-well-known examples of the importance of kinship. Children who live in a household with a man who is not their father are many times more likely to be beaten or killed by him than by their biological fathers. Men are violent, but they rarely kill their own children. Identical twins, who have exactly the same genes, are willing to sacrifice more for each other than non-identical twins (who share only about 50 percent of their genes). Identical twins also show greater affection and physical attachment to each other, and suffer greater loss when their identical co-twin dies. Parents grieve more for children who appear to share more of their own traits than those of their spouses.

Prof. Rushton and others have shown that unconscious preferences for genetic similarity appear to be at work in human beings all the time. When people choose mates, colleagues, and close friends, they not only show cultural preferences, but genetic preferences within the same culture. Friends and spouses resemble each other in many ways, from their social attitudes to IQ scores to physical appearance. According to one study that determined similarity according to blood tests, couples who produce a child are 52 percent similar whereas couples chosen at random in a population are only 43 percent similar. In another study, best friends were found to be 54 percent similar, whereas random pairs of people were 48 percent similar.

Prof. Rushton offers even more surprising evidence for the power of genetic similarity to draw people together: Often what people have in common are the most heritable rather than the most obvious traits. For example, biceps size is only about 50 percent heritable because exercise can change it, whereas finger length is 80 percent heritable. People may well look into each other’s exercise habits, but probably no one measures the lengths of a potential mate’s fingers. Still, when spouses and close friends are compared on the basis of such measures, they resemble each other more on the traits that are the most heritable.

Twin and other studies show that some personality traits are under greater genetic control than others, and spouses resemble each other most on those very traits. Likewise, when IQ scores are divided into subtests, spouses have the closest scores on the most heritable subtests.

There seems to be a limit to the attraction of the similar, however; the taboo against incest is a near-universal protection against inbreeding. The most attractive match appears to be someone genetically similar but not a close relative.

Genetic Similarity Theory greatly confounds those who believe in the supreme power of social and economic environment. They would expect people to choose friends and spouses for those traits that are most influenced by environment. Body-builders should seek out body-builders and stamp collectors should fall in love with other stamp collectors. Instead, without even being aware of it, human beings gravitate towards others who resemble them in countless subtle genetic ways. Genetic similarity is the glue that binds individuals together as much as it binds nations together. Like gravity, we have felt it since the beginning of time, but we are only beginning to understand it.

Seeds of Conflict

Genetic Similarity Theory has important implications for the larger questions of peoplehood and nationality, and Prof. Rushton has not been afraid to take them up. If people make frequent, unconscious decisions on the basis of genetics when they choose associates from within their own ethnic group, it is impossible for them to ignore the even greater genetic distance that separates them from other ethnic groups.

In 1997, in the face of persistent late-20th century sectarian bloodlettings, the American and Canadian Psychological Associations undertook an “Initiative on Ethnopolitical Warfare” in the hope of understanding the psychology of these conflicts. This is a step forward compared to the purely historical or political-science approach that has dominated analysis so far, and may yield useful insights. In Prof. Rushton’s view, however, the problem lies in the very nature of man, and his biological inclination to identify with the carriers of his own genes.

During the long period of evolution that took place in nomadic, extended-family bands — and during which altruism was a particularly effective mechanism for group evolution — humans and proto-humans might sometimes come upon unknown groups of potential adversaries. It was important to be able quickly to tell if a stranger were one of “our people,” and humans have developed a great many different outward signs of what is, ultimately, genetic similarity. Evolutionists would argue they were developed for the very purpose of magnifying the underlying biological differences. Customs, dress, language, manners, and religion are therefore not acquired directly through the genes but for most people they might as well be. They are passed on almost exclusively from parent to child; someone who does not speak your language is not likely to be a relative. People who are not relatives are potential enemies.

Young children learn very quickly which groups with which to identify. By age four most Americans know what race they are and know that race continues from parent to child. By kindergarten or first grade, children are aware of many of the less obvious social and ethnic differences. They naturally identify with their own group; they do not have to be taught. Children are also famously cruel to outsiders, but in this they are only a little more unrestrained than their parents.

After all, it was not only because there were wild animals that it was evolutionarily useful for people to be willing to sacrifice themselves for the group. Carnivores might make off with a child or two, but the greatest threat was always bands of strangers who might exterminate the whole tribe. What gave birth to altruism, therefore, were the wars and conflicts that are its very opposites. For this reason all peoples practice a morality of loyalty to their own people and a morality of suspicion or even hostility for outsiders. Prof. Rushton calls this suspicion of out-groups the “dark side” of altruism, and sees in it the roots of ethnic conflict.

Political scientist Walker Connor, who has written frequently on nationalism, defines a nation as “the largest group that commands a person’s loyalty because of felt kinship ties . . . the fully extended family.” It is no accident that people speak of the “motherland” or “fatherland,” and why patriotism is often seen as an extension of family loyalty. It is ties of blood that make fellow nationals precious and worth dying for. At the same time, it becomes easy to see the aliens who are threatening our precious nationals not just as strangers but as sub-humans. War brings out the best and the worst; when groups set about killing each other they often try to make it as painful, agonizing, and humiliating for the enemy as possible. At the same time, soldiers in combat sacrifice more willingly and more deeply than at any other time in their lives, and the love they may form for comrades-in-arms often lasts a life-time. Nations always promote patriotism because they know how powerful a force it can be.

(The official exceptions to this rule were the Communist countries, which were supposed to be building proletarian loyalties rather than national ties. However, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union the Communists quickly started encouraging deeply nationalist loyalties to Mother Russia, and officially named the conflict the Great Patriotic War.)

Culture Wars

Prof. Rushton argues that there are many forms of ethnic competition short of bloodshed. He says that what we call “culture wars” can also be seen as “gene wars,” since different genes find different environments more or less favorable. People seldom see conflicts in these terms, but the United States is a perfect demonstration of what is at stake. A culture that glorifies sex and rewards unwed motherhood with food stamps and welfare benefits is a very favorable environment for certain kinds of genes, and those have proliferated prodigiously over the last 30 years. A culture that views crime as a societal failing for which individuals cannot be held responsible is one that has also made choices about which genes to favor. Likewise, there are very substantial reproductive consequences when America glorifies non-whites, reviles whites, and encourages miscegenation.

The debate over immigration is nothing less than a debate over the genetic future of the country. To let in people who are wholly unlike the natives is to accept the genetic equivalent of defeat in war and occupation by aliens. This is why no one has ever done it before and why, now that white nations are doing it, it arouses such heated opposition.

Genetic change brings an infinite number of other changes. In virtually every multi-ethnic society group membership is the key element of individual identity and cultural interests. In America, the audiences for many cultural events are almost completely segregated. In their leisure time, Americans of different races rarely watch the same television programs. Ethnic newspapers write about political events thousands of miles away from America. Housing patterns and school attendance show a very clear form of clustering by genetic similarity.

Prof. Rushton thinks of cultural markers like language, folkways, etc. as providing a “home” for certain genes that find such an environment favorable. In this sense, virtually all cultural and political decisions have genetic consequences — whose group is being favored and whose is not? Most groups view policies almost exclusively from their own point of view and support or fight them on this basis alone.

If follows from Prof. Rushton’s theory that it is folly for any group to cease to act in its own genetic interests on the assumption that other groups will do the same. All around the world, whites are welcoming non-whites into their countries with the implied understanding that because whites have decided ethnic nationalism is bad and diversity is good, everyone else will soon think so, too. By now it is entirely clear that non-whites support diversity only when it can be used to increase their own numbers and power. Once they are numerous enough to remake a locality or institution in their own image, any interest they once professed for “diversity” disappears.

The post–Cold War period had been a showcase for the renunciation of “diversity.” The constituent parts of the Soviet Union decided to become homogeneous units rather than parts of a diverse empire. The Czechs and the Slovaks decided the same thing. A number of peoples — the Kurds, Chechens, and Tibetans, for example — would certainly break away except that their rulers are prepared to kill tens of thousands of them to prevent it.

Yugoslavia has broken up quite spectacularly into ethnic states, and has even drawn the United States into a war that could produce a few more. The usual American policy of promoting “diversity” at all costs is completely at odds with what is gradually becoming the objective of NATO’s war: establishment of an ethnically pure and essentially independent Kosovo. Having gone to war to stop the removal of Albanians from that province, it now feels it can win only if it removes Serbians.

NATO’s early miscalculations about the ease with which the Serbians could be made to do its bidding showed an unwillingness to accept the importance of genes, nationality, and ethnic loyalty. In Western countries, where patriotism is thought a little passé because it might interfere with the higher demands of diversity, it is easy to forget just how passionately a healthy people clings to its land and its heritage.

John Stuart Mill once wrote: “Where the sentiment of nationality exists in any force, there is a prima facie case for uniting all the members of the nationality under the same government, and a government to themselves apart. . . .” Prof. Rushton shows why this has always been true. Unfortunately, most Western politicians act as if it were not.

A Rushton bibliography on genetic similarity theory:

Gene-culture, co-evolution and genetic similarity theory: Implications for ideology, ethnic nepotism, and geopolitics. Politics and the Life Sciences, 4, 1986, 144 148.

Genetic similarity, human altruism, and group selection. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 12, 1989, 503 559.

Genetic similarity in male friendships. Ethology and Sociobiology, 10, 1989, 361 373.

Race, Evolution, and Behavior. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1995.

Rushton, J. P., & Nicholson, I. R., Genetic similarity theory, intelligence, and human mate choice. Ethology and Sociobiology, 9, 1988, 45-57.

ARTICLE

‘White Australia’ Gets Jaundice

The traditional Australian policy of welcoming immigrants is in the process of being turned back, if not entirely to the principles of 1901 [year of the Immigration Restriction Bill, which was in force until 1954 and set very strict limits on immigration]. First offered to anti-communist boat people from South East Asia, the helping hand began to hesitate when, as a result of the financial turbulence of the 1990s, more little yellow people became economic rather than political refugees. The hand shut tight like a fist when Australians saw the entire Western portion of the Gold Coast become a colony of Hong Kong speculators, who had already bought up most of what lies between Brisbane and Surfers Paradise — dragging along with them a doubtful band in which it was not hard to pick out the traveling coolies of the Chinese Triads.

The little village of Byron Bay (in New South Wales near the Queensland Gold Coast) was once a pleasantly little-known paradise for picturesque hitchhikers, divers, and mad sailboarders. In just two years it has become a ghetto for the Sons of Heaven, some rich some poor, with its share of drug trafficking, violence, and revenge killings, its stories of police on the take, and its Asian scum. Although Brisbane is quite conservative, it has its own Chinatown as does Melbourne and of course Sydney, where its famous Kings Cross (the red light district) and Oxford Street (the homosexual quarter) are mostly frequented with slant-eyed prostitutes of both sexes. Although it is on the West coast and separated from the Pacific by thousand of miles, Perth has its own case of jaundice. Of the big cities only the administrative capital of Canberra and the very restrained and very pommy Adelaide do not yet give the traveler the feeling he has arrived at the Summer Palace or the Forbidden City.

Which explains why all the anti-Hanson hammering sounds the alarmist theme: “If One Nation takes power today, tomorrow all of Asia will boycott Australia.” The Aussies plan to be the enchanted capital of the 21st-Century-in-the-Pacific, and their rotted elites, preaching full-tilt intermarriage and globalism at all costs, do not seem to have noticed that despite the youthful errors of One Nation, an entire people is rising up in anger over the abuses of its hospitality . . .

[Translated from Rivarol, April 2, 1999, p. 12. Rivarol is a French tabloid that calls itself “the weekly of the national and European opposition.” The article begins with an account of the recent activities of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party.]

BOOK REVIEW

The Fight Against Racial Preferences

A ‘defense’ of the Reagan strategy.

The Reagan Presidency and the Politics of Race: In Pursuit of Colorblind Justice and Limited Government, by Nicholas Laham, Praeger Publishers, 1998, $59.95, 240 pp.

reviewed by Robert Detlefsen

Few public issues have been the subject of as much study and debate as that which for the last thirty years has gone by the name of “affirmative action.” And yet it is indicative of just how futile this exercise has been that today there is still no general agreement as to what the term even means — witness, for example, the tendency of many conservatives to speak forcefully against racial “quotas” and “preferences” while still supporting “affirmative action.” Florida Governor Jeb Bush recently dismissed anti-preference crusader Ward Connerly by insisting that affirmative-action efforts in his state in no way discriminate against whites. When Mr. Connerly offered proof to the contrary, Gov. Bush accused him of trying to “start a war.”

All of which shows that public discussion of affirmative action is no more elevated today than it was in 1981 when Ronald Reagan became the first president to criticize the slide of civil rights policy into mandatory discrimination in favor of government-designated minorities. As Nicholas Laham reminds us in The Reagan Presidency and the Politics of Race, Pres. Reagan was castigated by liberal elites for supposedly practicing “the politics of racial division” in order to attract the votes of working-class whites — the so-called Reagan Democrats — who thought affirmative action was a “threat to their socioeconomic position.” Mr. Laham sets out to absolve Pres. Reagan of this charge, but his strategy for doing so is baffling.

The problem is that, despite acknowledging that the affirmative-action policies that Pres. Reagan inherited frequently entailed direct, intentional discrimination against whites, Mr. Laham does not seem to grasp that because of this, affirmative action was itself at odds with federal civil rights laws — especially the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbade racial discrimination. What is more, the civil rights movement had successfully imparted to an entire generation of whites the lesson that racial discrimination is unjust. It is thus churlish to suggest that working-class whites object to affirmative action only because it threatens their socioeconomic status. Presumably they object to racial discrimination for the same reason blacks and other groups do. Instead of making this point, however, Mr. Laham sets out to exonerate Pres. Reagan by distinguishing his motives from those of the venal white working class.

This book’s main arguments can be gleaned from the following representative passages:

There is no question that Pres. Reagan’s efforts to curtail federal enforcement of civil rights laws, especially affirmative action, yielded him enormous political dividends, allowing him to gain the support of millions of working-class whites who had previously voted Democratic in presidential as well as congressional elections.

Political considerations — specifically the need to attract working class whites — may have dictated that Pres. Reagan make reforms in affirmative action; however, other political considerations, especially the need to preserve the unity of the Republican Party, also dictated that he refrain from making any reforms in affirmative action.

Ultimately, Pres. Reagan’s civil rights policy was shaped more by the moderate Republican elites than by the conservative, often racist, perspective of working-class whites.

Laham’s conclusion that Pres. Reagan’s civil rights policy was shaped by moderate Republican elites is only partly correct. In fact, the administration’s approach to civil rights policy was chronically inconsistent. On the one hand, “moderates” like Labor Secretary Bill Brock and Secretary of State George Schultz opposed any effort to curtail racial preferences. On the other hand, the Justice Department under Attorney General Edwin Meese and Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights William Bradford Reynolds mounted an aggressive legal assault on so-called “reverse discrimination” — which meant, in effect, suing to dismantle hundreds of long-standing affirmative action programs.

Mr. Laham largely ignores the latter aspect of the Reagan civil rights record, concentrating instead on the role played by the moderates in obstructing attempts to eliminate some government-mandated racial preferences. The moderates succeeded, we learn, in scuttling efforts to revise an LBJ-era executive order that had led to the establishment of a system of minority set-asides in federal contracting. And they strongly objected to Pres. Reagan’s decision to veto the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1988.

These matters, though important, were not nearly as important a part of the Reagan record on civil rights as were the briefs the administration filed in several landmark federal court cases. One need only peruse contemporaneous press accounts, along with the hysterics of columnists such as Anthony Lewis and Tom Wicker, to appreciate the significance of this civil rights litigation. To the extent that the administration deviated from its predecessors on racial preferences, Mr. Meese and Mr. Reynolds led the way. Often facing stiff resistance from career staff attorneys within their ranks, they tried to restore the civil rights of white and male plaintiffs who had been victims of unlawful discrimination. Liberals were incensed.

In cases such as Williams v. New Orleans (1984), Firefighters v. Stotts (1984), Wygant v. Jackson Board of Education (1986) and Local 93, International Assoc. of Firefighters v. City of Cleveland (1986), the Justice Department under Pres. Reagan did something unprecedented: it invoked federal civil rights statutes to protect all Americans, including whites and men. Since in all of these cases the alleged discrimination was carried out in the name of “affirmative action,” the Reagan administration was rightly seen as attacking it.

Attention to these cases and the issues they raised might have prevented such conceptual blunders as Mr. Laham’s repeated references to “Reagan’s efforts to curtail federal enforcement of civil rights laws, especially affirmative action . . .” As it is, the odd notion that enforcing civil rights laws means defending racial preferences informs the entire book. To be sure, that is the orthodox view among contemporary liberals and “civil rights advocates.” But it is perversely out of place coming from an author whose stated purpose is to debunk “the stereotypical view of Reagan as a cynical and manipulative, though outwardly pleasant and likable, president, who shamelessly played the race card for his own political gain . . .” Rather, according to Mr. Laham, all the documented evidence currently available suggests that Reagan’s civil rights policy was motivated by his sincere and genuine desire to achieve colorblind justice and limited government, which served as the two core principles of his conservative agenda.”

True enough. But to imply, as Mr. Laham does, that the elevation of those objectives led necessarily to a devaluation of civil rights law betrays a lack of familiarity with the laws in question. Far from “curtailing” civil rights enforcement, it would be more accurate to say that the Reagan Justice Department tried to rehabilitate civil rights policy by introducing race- and sex-neutrality to the enforcement process. As for affirmative action “laws,” they did not exist. Instead, what we had in the 1980s — and still have to a considerable extent today — is a patchwork of pro-affirmative action judicial rulings and bureaucratically-administered programs that violate both the letter and spirit of the civil rights statutes. Mr. Laham’s failure even to mention any of the Reagan-era reverse-discrimination cases, much less to examine the jurisprudence behind them, blinds him to the fact that affirmative action as practiced in the United States for at least the last 25 years is unlawful.

Mr. Laham is partly correct in attributing Pres. Reagan’s ultimate failure to reform civil rights policy to divisions within his cabinet and, more generally, within the Republican Party. But he is naïve to characterize the opposing factions as “moderates” on the one hand, and “conservative working-class whites” on the other. His assertion that the latter were “often racist” is a gratuitous slur. Had he acknowledged the untenable legal status of affirmative action, Mr. Laham might have understood that by opposing it, Pres. Reagan was simply doing his constitutional duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” If Mr. Laham wished to explore motives, it would have been more appropriate to speculate about the intentions of those who wanted to preserve a policy that was at war with the law. Reading Mr. Laham, one would think that affirmative action supporters were beyond reproach; it is only Pres. Reagan who has something to answer for.

How sad that Mr. Laham’s defense of Pres. Reagan consists mainly in exonerating the former president of the racism and selfishness that he ascribes to working-class whites. Like them, Mr. Laham would have us believe Pres. Reagan regarded “civil rights” as an impediment to the realization of larger goals. But unlike them, his goals were the high-minded ones of limited government and colorblind justice. Thus Mr. Laham is able to conclude:

One can legitimately argue that Reagan’s commitment to colorblind justice and limited government often led him to compromise the cause of civil rights; but such compromises were motivated by his genuine political conservatism, not by any political desire he may have had to play the race card.

This is troubling for two reasons. First, one cannot in fact “legitimately argue” such a thing unless one believes that “civil rights” are nothing more than a grab bag of special privileges and group entitlements. Pres. Reagan, and most especially Mr. Meese and Mr. Reynolds, refused to accept that proposition.

Second, Mr. Laham uncritically accepts (and repeatedly uses) the hackneyed “race card” metaphor. To accuse someone of “playing the race card” has become a potent way to stop any attempt to discuss issues in which race may be a factor, no matter how remote or tangential. Thus, to talk honestly about crime, urban decay, welfare, immigration, or affirmative action is automatically to be accused of playing the race card. No wonder Mr. Laham cannot bring himself to realize that civil rights, properly understood, are antithetical to racial preferences. That would be playing the race card.

Robert Detlefsen is the author of Civil Rights Under Reagan. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

IN THE NEWS

O Tempora, O Mores!

Nazis at Columbine?

In April, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 people and then shot themselves at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Early reports gave the impression the two boys targeted non-whites, and there are still implications that the shootings were “racist” or “neo-Nazi.” People who knew the boys think otherwise. One student named “Meg,” says this:

I am black/white mixed. And when the media is coming up with this thing that Dylan and Eric were racist, they weren’t. They were my friends. They were very nice to me, both of them. I don’t get this whole racial thing that people are coming up with.

When asked about their interest in Nazism, she replied:

That is the biggest load of [expletive] I’ve ever heard. They never wore swastikas around their arm. Never. Not in this entire year that I’ve known them. No.

One boy who knew the two adds:

They’re not Nazis. They didn’t worship Nazis. Some kids said ‘Oh I saw them reading a book on Nazis.’ They read a books on Nazis because, guess what they were learning about in World History? They were learning about the Nazis.

Other students flatly denied reports that when Mr. Harris and Mr. Klebold went bowling they celebrated strikes with a Nazi salute. As one boy put it rather sensibly, ‘I don’t think that it was a big racial thing. I mean, you see who they shot at.’ (Columbine Students Talk of the Disaster and Life, New York Times, April 30, 1999, p. A27.)

Much has also been made of the rantings found on Eric Harris’ web page. He does seem to have professed hatred for many people: Star Wars fans, smokers, people who mispronounce words, people who oppose the death penalty, and people who disagree with him. Never did he denounce non-whites. In fact, in answer to his own question, “You know what I hate?” he wrote “RACISM!” adding that people who are biased against “blacks, Asians, Mexicans or people from any other country or race besides white-American” should “have their arms ripped off” and be burned. (James Barron, Warnings From a Student Turned Killer, New York Times, May 1, 1999)

Tempest in Tallahassee

Glayde Whitney is a psychology professor at Florida State University who has written frequently for AR. His carefully-reasoned views on race and IQ attracted little attention until he wrote the forward for My Awakening, a 1998 book by David Duke. The press have fallen upon this story with the unity and creativity of lemmings, and local and national media has been abuzz with reports about the “racist” professor.

There has also been much roaring at the university, where blacks now complain Prof. Whitney’s presence creates an “intimidating learning environment” and that he must be fired. University president “Sandy” D’Alemberte has disavowed Prof. Whitney’s views but says that a tenured professor cannot be dismissed for his opinions. There was a brief hope Prof. Whitney could be booted for biased grading but, for years, he has been careful to give only objective tests.

Hundreds of students attended a public meeting on campus to rail against the professor; he declined to come and be hooted at.

The Florida Senate has now joined the attack, with half its members co-sponsoring a resolution calling his views “abhorrent.” Pushed through by a coalition of non-whites, the resolution says Prof. Whitney “promulgates dogma that supports white supremacy and anti-Semitism” and says he has “affiliations with known supremacist and separatist groups.” The resolution concludes by grandly calling itself an “instrument of truth.” Sen. John McKay of the rules committee says the resolution cannot be an official act of the Florida Senate because it is based on hearsay and Prof. Whitney has had no opportunity to defend himself.

After raging for several weeks, the controversy appears to be dying down. Prof. Whitney has maintained a quiet dignity throughout, retracting nothing, apologizing for nothing, and explaining the scientific basis of his views. Once again the country has thrown a tantrum rather than face the facts about race and IQ, but every tantrum leaves a few more doubters in its wake.

Fat Lady Stings

Aretha Franklin has won more Grammies than any other woman, and is worth millions from records, concerts, films, and books — but she stiffs tradesmen. Since 1988 creditors have filed more than 30 suits against her. These are people like her dentist, limo drivers, accountants, lawyers, plumber, florist, dress-maker, song arranger, landscaper, etc. Sometimes Miss Franklin does not pay even when there is a judgment against her, and creditors have to seize assets. Many simply give up in disgust.

‘That was her style,’ says David Greenbaum, who was her accountant until his firm sued her in 1992. ‘She was above all the mundane activity of paying bills. She was an artist.’

Many creditors are blacks who offered low rates and rush service because they were glad to do business with a black celebrity. Now, her reputation is well known in the Detroit area, where she owns posh houses, and creditors have even started a support group to console each other. (David Zeman Et. Al., Why Doesn’t Aretha Pay Her Bills? Detroit Free Press, Feb. 15, 1999, p. A1.)

Color Conscious

The Crayola company has been in business for 96 years and is about to change the name of a color for only the third time. “Indian red” is now an embarrassment, and the company is taking suggestions for alternate names. As it happens, the name is not a commentary on the skin tones of Indians. The color comes from earth of a yellowish-red color found especially in the Persian Gulf not far from the subcontinent of India. Still, the company cannot bear to think it is poisoning the minds of children. (Seeing Red, Forward, March 26, 1999, p. 12.)

Money Wasted

The federal government’s largest education program is called Title I, and was set up in the 1960s to help boost the school performance of poor children. It pays $7.4 billion a year for tutors, teachers, computers, extra supplies, etc. Over the years it has splashed out no less than $118 billion and has touched one in five American public school students. To what effect? The U.S. Department of Education itself concedes that Title I has been “insufficient to close the gap” between poor and not poor. Independent evaluators say it hasn’t even narrowed the gap. Maris Vilnovskis of the University of Michigan says Title I has been “a failure up to now.” The bad marks don’t seem to discourage Congress, which appears determined to keep spending the money. (Ralph Fammolino, U.S. Project Fails to Close Education Gap Between Rich and Poor, Studies Show, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Jan. 17, 1999.)

Gypped Again

The lowdown on certain groups turns up in the oddest places. Rip-Off is a 1998 reference book about con games and con artists, for fiction writers who want their bad guys to be believable. The author, Fay Faron, has a particular interest in American Gypsies, about whom she writes with knowledge and authority:

Unbelievably, most Americans aren’t even aware we have a Gypsy population . . . Victims describe perps as being Greek, Hispanic, even Indian, a phenomenon that dates back centuries.

How many Gypsies are there in America? Since the Rom [as they call themselves] rarely identify themselves as such, nobody really knows. Estimates of 1.5 million have been bantered about . . .

So are all Gypsies and Travelers tramps and thieves? To a man, cops who work this detail will, out of earshot of the media, say . . . yes. Sergeant Roy House of the Houston PD (retired) says of the hundreds he has met, ‘There are none whose families have not engaged in scams in the past . . .’

. . . their touchstone legend dates back to 0 B.C. and is a tale that, ironically, explains why Gypsies steal. As the story goes, a Gypsy blacksmith was summoned to make four nails for Christ’s crucifixion. When the tooler awoke a day later, he found one nail glowing . . .

[A]long came an angel who explained that the spike was meant to be driven through the heart of Jesus and so instructed him to steal it, thus saving Jesus this additional agony. As a result of this kind act, God decreed the entire clan could wander the earth, stealing whatever they liked.

Miss Faron says Gypsies travel in caravans and stay in cheap motels. One of their favorite crimes is “store diversion” at large establishments like Home Depot. One group of Gypsies makes a ruckus while others hit the safe. They deliberately leave some money behind, so the theft will not be obvious.

Gypsies still tell fortunes, but the advertised price is just an appetizer. The objective is to convince a customer he (or most likely she) is under a spell, which will require a lot of expensive hocus pocus to remove. Miss Faron says that virtually all telephone psychics are Gypsies.

Another common Gypsy con game is for a young woman to “befriend” an older man and then fleece him. Most victims don’t know they have been literally “gypped,” because Gypsies almost never tell strangers who they really are.

GOP Woos Non-whites

One of the chief Republican strategists in California has announced that his political action committee will no longer give money to white men running in party primaries. State senator Jim Brulte heads a PAC that gave $600,000 to Republican candidates in last year’s campaign. Next election cycle, the money will go only to non-whites or women. “I’m not anti-Anglo Republican male,” explains Mr. Brulte, “In fact I am one. But I want my actions to set the tone, and I hope that people of like mind will move in the same direction.” Mr. Brulte thinks the reason his party is doing poorly is that it does not do enough to attract non-whites, who now make up over half of the state population. He thinks the answer is more dark faces: “Our problem is more our messenger than our message.” Other Republican strategists apparently agree. “Jim Brulte is making a good point and is saying what needs to be said,” says Ray McNally, a Republican consultant from Sacramento. Tony Quinn, a GOP analyst, says, “[The party] needs candidates that can appeal to the Latino vote and get a decent share of it . . . Brulte understands this.” (Dennis Love, Brulte: Diversity GOP Key, Sacramento Bee, April 22, 1999.)

Details in Passing

Columnist Joe Sobran notes that the killing of a black man in Jasper, Texas, has generally been treated as another sign of persistent racism and white wickedness. As he points out, there may be a little more to the story:

King [the killer, who has now been condemned to death] served a two-year prison sentence for burglary, which suggests a predisposition to violate other people’s rights. While in prison, he joined a white supremacist group and covered his body with Nazi and Klan tattoos. One psychiatrist at his trial suggested that this may have been a way to deter attacks by black inmates. Time magazine quotes another witness as saying King became part of a group known as ‘peckerwoods,’ described as ‘whites who would not yield money or sexual favors to blacks.’

Just a few details mentioned in passing. But they are worth dwelling on. White convicts complain, unavailingly, of a particularly ugly fact of life in prisons: racial attacks on whites by non-whites. Assault, robbery and homosexual rape are commonplace. The fact that there was a special slang term among inmates in King’s prison for ‘whites who would not yield money or sexual favors to blacks,’ is grim evidence of this condition. Apparently there was no need for a term for blacks who wouldn’t yield money or sexual favors to whites.

There could hardly be a better recipe for racial hatred. Young whites like King, a minority in prison, are thrown to the wolves, and they know they can expect no protection or sympathy from prison officials, liberal opinion or society in general when they are bullied and raped. The fear and humiliation they suffer is almost unimaginable, and it goes unreported.

In such snake pits, their only safety may lie in joining racial gangs. It should be no surprise when they emerge from prison not only hating blacks, but despising all conventional standards of morality. (Joseph Sobran, Becoming A Devil, March 22, 1999.)

No Confederates Allowed

A teacher at a private Christian school in South Carolina has been fired because he refused to take down a Confederate flag he displayed in his classroom. Winston McCuen, who taught history, government, and Latin at St. Joseph’s High School in Greenville, also refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance at assembly. Mr. McCuen, whose ancestors fought for the Confederacy, thought his views would be accepted at a conservative, Christian school in a state that still flies the battle flag over its capitol. Though he has a wife and a baby on the way he won’t knuckle under: “I would rather keep my soul than keep my job,” he says. The Southern Legal Resource Center (SLRC) run by Kirk Lyons is preparing a lawsuit on his behalf. (Private School Fires Teacher in Flag Flap, The Washington Times, April 6, 1999, p. A3.)

Stand and Reconsider

Jaime Escalante is probably the most famous high school teacher in American history. He became the nation’s darling for reportedly teaching calculus to poor, East Los Angeles Hispanics. In Garfield High School, where the miracles were wrought, the school district turned a huge room into a classroom just for Mr. Escalante, and equipped it with observation booths so that visitors could watch the legend at work through one-way mirrors. The teacher’s exploits were made into the move Stand and Deliver.

For some reason, the miracles soon stopped. Mr. Escalante now teaches at Hiram Johnson High School in Sacramento, but has a hard time getting students to learn algebra, much less calculus. He thinks it may be because his classes used to be all-Hispanic and could be browbeaten. Nowadays he must teach whites and blacks, and can’t bellow at them in Spanish the way he used to. (Amy Pyle, Escalante’s Formula Not Always the Answer, Los Angeles Times, March 12, 1999, p. R4.)

Immigration Initiative

A new California ballot initiative would provide for police and highway patrol officers to be trained in the duties of immigration agents. A similar provision was part of Prop. 187, which was passed by voters in 1994 but is now tied up in federal court. Presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan and Rick Oltman of Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) announced the initiative, to be known as the Local Immigration Officer Training Act. Mr. Buchanan is so far the only presidential candidate to endorse the measure, which is expected to be on the ballot for the California primary of March 7, 2000. “All it does is empower all law enforcement officials to fight against the invasion of our borders by illegal aliens who are breaking into our country and breaking our laws,” said Mr. Buchanan. Mr. Oltman is handling signature collection for the initiative, which will force the state to reimburse local police departments that seek training and certification by the INS. (Press Release, California Citizens Committee for Immigration Law Enforcement, April 20, 1999.)

Happy Campers

Almost all visitors to national parks are white, and the U.S. Park Service has been fretting about this for years. Bob Stanton, the first black to head the service, has announced new ways to get non-whites to visit. First, there will be more blacks in the storytelling that goes on in parks. For example, at Georgia’s Andersonville National Historical Site rangers will highlight minority and female prisoners [finding any must have taken prodigious research]. Rangers will also be told to put more “untold stories” about civil rights into their talks and displays.

The service will also try to divert more whites to “black” parks. It has a new diversity web site to steer vacationers to such places as Atlanta’s Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site and the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site in Washington, D. C. The service also has a new web page in Spanish. Needless to say, there will be a lot of preferential hiring. Mr. Stanton wants to increase summer minority hiring 25 percent over last year, which was up 39 percent over the year before. Park service employees are now evaluated according to how many non-whites they hire and promote, and the service recruits at black colleges.

Congress keeps cranking out new non-white parks. The two latest are Alabama’s Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site and Arkansas’ Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site. But not even places like these bring in many blacks. During a survey of Booker T. Washington National Historic Site, only 17 percent of tour groups included any blacks at all. (Gene Sloan, Park Service Adopts Aggressive Plans For Diversity, USA Today, March 26, 1999.)

Radical Chic

Ever since the shooting by New York City police of the African immigrant Amadou Diallo, the chic black thing is to get arrested protesting police violence. Former mayor David Dinkins, Congressman Charles Rangel, and State Comptroller Carl McCall have all worn the cuffs for Amadou. Some busy celebrities are said to have called ahead to make sure martyrdom won’t be too inconvenient. Jesse Jackson’s people reportedly asked the police beforehand to “make it quick’ because the great man had an airplane to catch. A spokesman for the entourage denies this. The police department says there has been no special treatment for celebrities, except that actors Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee were kept together, at their own request, during processing. (New York Post, How to Get Busted Celeb-Style, April 9, 1999.)

Rosa Parks Honored

In December, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in the white section of a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. This has been described as a solitary act of inspiration, but she had been carefully selected and trained to be a pretext for a bus boycott by blacks. The boycott was led by Martin Luther King, Jr., and lasted for a year, until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregated buses were unconstitutional.

Miss Parks is now 86 years old and lectures frequently on “civil rights.” In April, Congress voted almost unanimously to award her the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest honor a civilian can receive from the American government. The only dissenting vote was that of Republican Congressman Ron Paul of Texas.

The medal was first established only for military leaders, and the first recipient was George Washington for “wise and spirited conduct” in the Revolutionary War. In the 20th century, Congress started giving it to civilians, including Frank Sinatra, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, and the “Little Rock Nine,” who integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957. (Darlene Superville, Congress Wants to Honor Rosa Parks, AP, April 20, 1999.)

No Progress

Union College in Schenectady, N.Y. has 188 professors, only four of whom are black, seven Hispanic, and seven Asian. In the view of president Roger Hull, this is an intolerable state of whiteness, to be corrected at all costs. He proposed — and the faculty approved by a two to one margin — that the next four jobs be filled only by blacks and Hispanics. Union never advertised the openings; instead, it scoured the country for promising non-whites. The four positions have now been filled and Union is pleased — though it is a little concerned about law suits. President Hull is aware of damages being paid to whites at other universities but says Union is safe because it is a private school and should be able to do as it likes. (Alison Schneider, Union College Limits Search for 4 New Faculty Slots to Black and Hispanic Scholars, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 16, 1999.)

Borzellieri Laughs Last

Frank Borzellieri, frequent contributor to AR, serves on School Board 24 in Queens, New York. In June, 1997, Perry Buckley, the only black ever elected to the board, was arrested for murdering his white girlfriend. Mr. Buckley, a married man in his late forties and a Boy Scout leader, apparently killed 30-year-old Iris Faulk in a drug-induced rage, stuffed her body under a pile of clothes in a Boy Scout meeting room, and had the locks changed so the building superintendent could not get in and find the body. The odor of decomposition eventually led to discovery, and Mr. Buckley confessed to the murder while police were questioning him about beating his wife. He plea-bargained to second degree manslaughter, and is now serving five to fifteen years.

After the arrest, Schools Chancellor Rudy Crew, who is black, shocked even liberals by refusing to remove Buckley from the board, although he had removed other board members for much less serious offenses. It is likely that Mr. Crew meant to avoid having to replace Mr. Buckley with someone aligned with Mr. Borzellieri. Mr. Crew had established a precedent whereby any vacancy was filled by the candidate in the previous election who had gotten the next-highest vote total. In this case, the next person in line was James Noviello, a Borzellieri ally, so the chancellor allowed the vacancy to stand for eight months. Amidst mounting pressure on Mr. Crew to act, he finally filled the position in February 1998 with Sharon Geremia, a sworn enemy of Mr. Borzellieri. Even the New York Times pointed out the chancellor’s hypocrisy.

With school board elections approaching, Miss Geremia had a chance to win the seat on her own. However, Mr. Borzellieri found extensive fraud in the signature petitions she had gathered in order to qualify to run. The fraud was so great she did not even bother to defend herself, and withdrew from the race. “She was never entitled to the position,” says Mr. Borzellieri. “She came in a loser, and she’s going out a loser.”

Wise Beyond Their Years

On June 2, South Africa will hold its second all-race election, and some young blacks plan to vote for whites. Nicholas Ngoma (17) says: “I believe whites have more knowledge on almost everything than blacks. Look at countries governed by whites and contrast them with African countries. I believe that African countries were better run under colonialism.

Tribalism and nepotism are the norm today in South Africa, but during white governance qualification was the norm. Whites think for the interests of everybody, whereas we blacks think for our families.

Besides educational qualifications, I think that whites are more brainy than us . . .

Look at the things that are produced by whites, such as cellphones and computers. We blacks always follow whites. Even the Bible is written by whites and we blacks just follow. You will never see a white person following our culture and traditions.

Bennet Mpehle (19), a business management student, says that since South Africa has had a black president, crime has become “horrible”.

I think whites are sort of strict. Our teachers are whites and students respect them. Whites like order and know how to rule and lead. I will be very happy if we have a white president. People tend to respect the white colour. Not to say blacks cannot lead, but we take advantage of blacks.

Whites keep promises. Do you think this school will be like this if we had a black principal? . . . Go to a black school with a black principal and you will see the difference. (Cheche Selepe, The Black Youths Who Want a White President, Mail & Guardian (London), April 16, 1999.)

‘Beachhead in a War’

Whenever the U.S. Border Patrol tightens up enforcement in one sector, the human flood moves somewhere else. Recently, Douglas, Arizona, has been a popular crossing point for Mexican illegals. In March, more than 27,000 illegals were caught slipping through this town of only 15,000 people. No one knows how many make it through, and the town is considering filing suit against the federal government for failing to protect it. Illegals tear down fences, trample crops, steal things, and camp in people’s back yards. The mayor of Douglas, Ray Borane, recently wrote to President Clinton to say that “The city of Douglas, this entire area, has become a beachhead in a war . . . We’re being invaded.” Robert Marrufo, a city councilman, says that all night long, dogs in his neighborhood bark at illegals headed north. “We need help,” he says. “We’ve talked to people [the INS] till we’re blue in the face.”

Some private citizens have taken things into their own hands. On April 4, rancher Roger Barnett and his brothers caught 27 illegal aliens on his property and turned them over to the INS. Needless to say, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Phoenix has started an “investigation.” Isabel Garcia of the Coalicion de Derechos Humanos says “We believe there may be a conspiracy here to violate civil rights.” She thinks Mr. Barnett is guilty of kidnapping and false imprisonment. The rancher says the government can investigate all it wants, but points out that he was on his own property and that the illegals were trespassing. “My rights were violated, too,” he says; “I get ‘em violated every day.” “It seems like the government’s protecting everyone else’s rights but the American citizen’s,” he adds. (Ignacio Ibarra, Douglas May Sue U.S. Over Costs of Illegal Immigration, Arizona Daily Star, April 16, 1999. Tim Steller, Ranch Capture of 27 Illegals is Target of Inquiry, Arizona Daily Star, April 15, 1999.)

Democrats Truckle

Former professional basketball player Bill Bradley is Vice President Al Gore’s only current challenger for the Democratic presidential nomination. Mr. Bradley recently announced that “racial harmony” will be the central theme of his administration. “If I’m president, I want one thing to be known: If you want to please the boss, one of the things you’d better show is how your department or agency has furthered tolerance and racial understanding,” he explained during a recent speech in New York. “For me,” he says, “the quest for racial unity remains the defining moral issue of our time.” (Laurence Arnold, Bradley Pushes Racial Unity, AP, April 20, 1999.)

Not to be outdone, five days later Al Gore announced that America’s future depends on its ability to enforce civil rights and preserve affirmative action. Speaking to the Detroit chapter of the NAACP, he said that the key to the nation’s success is “recognizing and accepting our diversity and harmony as the greatest strength we have.” He promised to put pressure on Congress to make it easier for the federal government to prosecute “hate” criminals. (Jim Suhr, Gore Calls for Racial Justice, AP, April 26, 1999.)

Getting out the Word The last month has seen a number of public appearances by AR staff. In March, assistant editor James Lubinskas was on the Ken Hamblin radio program to discuss an AR cover story he wrote about how talk radio covers racial issues. In April, Jared Taylor was invited to Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington, where he debated an anthropology professor about race and IQ, and a history professor about the legitimacy of white consciousness. Later that month, Mr. Taylor took part in a televised debate at Howard University about the appropriateness of reparations to blacks for slavery. Mr. Taylor was also on several radio and television programs as a spokesman for Prof. Glayde Whitney, during the period when he was under the most intense fire for his views on race (see Tempest in Tallahassee ).

Honoring Garvey

On April 26, black congressman Charles Rangel offered a resolution to honor Marcus Garvey and declare him innocent of the mail fraud charges on which he was convicted in 1925 (President Coolidge pardoned him in 1927 and had him deported). The resolution calls Garvey “a national hero in his native Jamaica, and . . . a towering figure in nations around the world,” and concludes: “(1) Marcus Garvey was innocent of the charges brought against him by the United States Government, (2) Marcus Garvey is and should be recognized internationally as a leader and thinker in the struggle for human rights, and (3) the President should take appropriate measures within his power to clear Marcus Garvey’s good name.”

Congressman Rangel is urging the Congress to recognize a man who believed blacks and whites could not live together and who wanted the entire black population of the Western Hemisphere to move to Africa.

‘The Big Payback’

The following are excerpts from the CD Beaner Go Home by the Mexican rap group Aztlan Nation:

It all started out as a fight for the land. They took away Texas, and began to expand. Still punk rednecks say: remember the Alamo. They don’t want to know who I am, but let them know I’m the M.E.X.I.C.A.N. So hit the ground and prepare for sprayin’ [automatic weapons fire].

The only immigrant is the Atlantic Ocean wetbacks. Step back. We say in Aztlan, there are no fronteros, no borders . . .

By the year 2,000 Jack, we’re gonna see who is the real wetback.

In two-triple-O, we take it back.

Brewed in Aztlan by home-boys who know how to make a dead gringo.

So get blasted like a Smith & Wesson. Learn a lesson. Share the oppression.

. . . I wanna take a nine [9 mm pistol] and make their brains hang out.

Bloodthirsty Bishop

Stanley Magoba, the leader of South Africa’s Pan Africanist Congress, is also a Methodist bishop. He has a plan for stopping the post-apartheid crime wave. In a letter to newspapers he wrote: “We must knock them on the head, cut off their ears, legs or whatever is the offending part of the body. The ugly truth is the future of South Africans depends on ruthlessly crushing criminals.” (Mutilate Criminals, Says South African Bishop, Telegraph (London), Feb. 10, 1999.)

LETTERS FROM READERS

Sir — The last part of Jared Taylor’s article on the “Racial Revolution” confirmed something I have long believed: that “conservatives” are more dangerous to us than liberals. Liberals are openly and obviously anti-white while “conservatives” seem more sympathetic — but in the end they turn out to be traitors and frauds. Also, the pro-diversity views of today’s “conservatives” create a monolithic integrationist culture, similar to the segregationist culture Mr. Taylor describes as having been the norm in the old America.

Most disturbing are “conservative” calls for “solving” the race problem through large-scale amalgamation. This is similar to a doctor prescribing a lethal dose of cyanide for a difficult but treatable case of cancer. Those who promote this remedy are a questionable bunch. Ben Wattenberg has long been identified with an avidly pro-immigration, pro-miscegenation agenda in the service of his vision of the United States as a “universal nation.” Strangely, he wrote an editorial some years ago that discussed Jewish-gentile inter-marriage as a problem rather than a solution.

Steven and Abigail Thernstrom, portrayed as the “conservative” opposition to Bill Clifton’s race policy, have shown themselves to differ with the President only on the question of affirmative action. This lap-dog opposition will accomplish nothing.

Mr. Taylor ends his article on a positive note, predicting a reversal of the “racial revolution” through an awakening of white racial consciousness. Perhaps he is right, but this will not happen by itself. It will take an enormous amount of hard work from dedicated and serious American patriots — and the sooner the better.

Ted Sallis, Tampa, Fl.

Sir — I suppose that as long as there are unattractive white women desperate for companionship and weak-willed white “men” devoid of racial pride — as well as minorities eager to improve their social status — the vile practice of miscegenation will continue. Perhaps if whites were better aware of the very high rates of sexually transmitted disease among minorities — as much as 50 times higher than in whites — this form of genetic corruption could be curbed.

Alex McKenzie, Charlotte, N.C.

Sir — I seldom disagree with Samuel Francis, but I believe he is wrong, in his article on the origins of “racism,” to reject the term. He writes that anyone who uses the term racist or racialist (they mean the same thing) to describe himself has “lost the debate,” and that “as a term useful for communicating ideas that the serious supporters of white consciousness wish to communicate, the term is useless . . .” I have studied this question for 50 years, but no one has come up with a better word to describe who we are. Let us turn the tables on our enemies and define racialism on our terms, as loyalty and devotion to our race. We are racialists, and should not be afraid to say so. If, as Jared Taylor writes, we are the victims of a revolution, let the counter-revolution begin!

Herbert Mertz, North Palm Beach, Fl.

Sir — A number of AR articles have mentioned the American Colonization Society; the May issue lists the names of a number of officers. However, you leave out one very prominent person who was the society’s president. My ancestor, John Tyler, became president of the society on January 10, 1838. As you know, he later became the 10th President of the United States.

John Stober, California, Md.

Sir — The AR web site is a great idea. People who are teetering on the liberal/conservative line, may wish to read your material but are afraid to subscribe for fear they would end up on some “government list” (maybe not an unreasonable fear these days).

I work for the government, and for the most part we can use the Internet freely for work or, during lunch and after hours, for personal use. Personal use is actually encouraged so that we develop Internet experience that can help us with our jobs. I have suggested that “teetering liberal/conservative” colleagues should read the American Renaissance web page during lunch hour.

Unfortunately, our office recently installed commercial “nanny” software called “CyberPatrol” to censor and monitor our Internet use. I just tried to reach your web page and here is the message I got: “Access to the site you have selected is restricted.” The “nanny” software blocked it. I tried the web address for the Nation of Islam and Louis Farrakhan’s publication, The Final Call, and got through just fine.

Since “CyberPatrol” keeps a record of attempts to reach forbidden pages, I may have a battle on my hands when the in-house “cyber patrol” comes to ask why I was accessing a “restricted site.” I will challenge them to find anything “hateful” in your publication.

Brian Wayne, Bethesda, Md.

[Editor’s note: The AR list is very carefully maintained and is never in unauthorized hands.]