March 1999

American Renaissance magazine
Vol. 10, No. 3 March 1999

 

CONTENTS

In Defense of the Racial Spoils System
A Reply to Prof. Weissberg
Cherchez le Juif
O Tempora, O Mores!
Letters from Readers

COVER STORY

In Defense of the Racial Spoils System

Today’s corrupt racial system may be the best we can expect.

I would like to advance a thesis that all AR readers — myself included — will find loathsome: Namely, that the existing racial spoils system (affirmative action, the double standard in crime, “sensitivity” towards black deficiencies, and everything else) is the best possible deal we can get under today’s deplorable circumstances. Perhaps “real-politik” more accurately describes my argument. Black-white co-existence is a little like having an incurable medical condition. Nothing even faintly resembling a commendable fix is on the horizon, and present corruptions are the best obtainable. This is a truly disturbing view but, alas, harshly realistic.

Let me state the argument starkly. I suspect few readers will challenge the facts except for point 6.

1. The black-white difference in cognitive ability is, at least for the foreseeable future, both large and intractable. The gap’s source — whether genetic or environmental — is irrelevant for present purposes. Remaining differences in accomplishment cannot be eliminated by combating discrimination, racism or any other nefarious white scheme, regardless of what blacks and their white allies contend. Top-down, hugely expensive remedial efforts to equalize intelligence have failed, and effective eugenic solutions are not possible in today’s political and moral climate.

2. Economic rewards generally follow the contours of intelligence, regardless of race. This has been established empirically and is obvious in daily life. Moreover, unless there is an egalitarian revolution, this intelligence-income nexus will probably grow closer. Blacks themselves may be making matters worse by promoting Afrocentric education and insisting on lower competency standards. The tenacious attachment of most blacks to preferential treatment is a tacit admission of their inability to compete. Without government intervention blacks will secure substantially less wealth than whites.

3. Blacks want the material rewards of modern society, especially what can be consumed personally (clothing, electronic appliances, cars), as much as anyone. Without white generosity, blacks cannot satisfy this material quest, so, predictably, it now defines the black political agenda in the form of so-called “economic justice.”

4. Blacks generally have a well-deserved reputation for hair-triggered collective violence. Such mayhem is easily but unpredictably provoked — a routine traffic stop can destroy an entire neighborhood. While the actual turmoil may involve depraved underclass blacks, it is usually defended by middle-class black politicians and academics.

5. The racial payoff flows from white fears of massive civil disorder, and takes two forms. First, supply talented blacks with “manufactured” middle class jobs or, occasionally, court-ordered settlements for alleged harm. At the same time, give those at the bottom government entitlements, selective law-enforcement exemption, or flattering symbolic rewards. Most whites, even those dispensing the benefits, understand that this is little more than extortion but they say nothing. Blacks, by contrast, see it all as legitimate “racial fairness.”

6. Judged in the context of all politically feasible alternatives in a capitalist, democratic society, this solution works reasonably well. Compared with the egalitarian crusades in India or Malaysia, it is relatively benign. Most important, it has largely kept domestic peace. We have witnessed a great triumph of social engineering though it is seldom recognized: Black violence has turned inward, and the prudent can avoid it. The 1960s revolutionary rhetoric has disappeared, and has been replaced by crass though nonviolent opportunism.

Is this analysis accurate? I believe it is, and much recommends this corrupt accomplishment. Nor is this solution unique. Cowardly appeasement is not as un-American as it may appear. Is the forced hiring of a semi-literate secretary unlike bribing building inspectors or paying mob tribute? Americans have habitually bought off potential troublemakers, so what’s new? Think of affirmative action as personalized, in-your-face tax wastefulness, another item on a long list of government boondoggles that are usually hidden from view. Peter Brimelow once figured that affirmative action costs about three percent of GNP — a vast sum, but comparable to a high-risk neighborhood insurance premium. One could even argue that this overstates the cost because many of the benefits actually accrue to whites (affirmative action administrators, lawyers, etc.).

This view of the spoils system as “taxation” or insurance explains its hold on corporate executives (and university administrators). Indeed, the system draws its most heartfelt support from the wealthy business “establishment,” not Main Street. Since it is imposed universally, compliance causes no competitive disadvantage. If Ford and GM both embrace “diversity” it is no different from costly but industry-wide safety or pollution regulations. Only if foreign competitors enjoyed a sizable price advantage would the spoils system be challenged. In fact, I would estimate that health care expenses far exceed diversity costs, so political strategies prudently focus on them.

Equally critical, political stability far outweighs costs or inconvenience. Given a choice between slightly higher product prices resulting from settling bogus discrimination lawsuits versus the prospect of disruptive domestic upheaval, “social responsibility” is far preferable. This “sensitivity” also reduces interest costs since upheaval means “instability” and instability makes the US less attractive for foreign capital. Again, it is a matter of hardheaded costs and benefits.

With time the spoils system grows more bearable. To return to the medical analogy, it is as if a person with a heart condition improved his diet, exercised regularly, and lost weight as an alternative to risky, expensive surgery. Eventually, this regimen becomes agreeable. The system has brought about increasing sophistication. The Japanese are blatant about locating factories in rural white areas, but invisible, ostensibly race-neutral tactics are more common. Black “autonomous homeland” academic departments and make-work administrative positions are university favorites — and they are much cheaper than anti-terrorism measures. Smaller businesses could migrate to Utah or overseas. If outlays associated with a troubled diverse workforce soar, a company can embrace technology (Mc-Donald’s is supposedly automating hamburger production). Companies may well hire a black Human Resources Director but let competent whites make the key decisions. The list is virtually endless and, no doubt, these below-the-radar adjustments grow more adroit with time. The upshot is that blacks are given substantial if undeserved anger-reducing benefits but are hardly given the actual levers of industry.

Individuals can make similar adjustments. On matters of real impact — medicine, legal advice — the spoils system is escapable. What airline proudly boasts of diversity among its pilots? If “diversity” intrudes into personal life it is seldom consequential over the long haul. For example, when my son was assigned a semi-literate black “English teacher,” he was allowed to change classes and the teacher’s ineptitude encouraged a lively parent-child discussion. Attacks on “dangerous ideas” about race are more nuisances than grim censorship — messages get out despite hecklers, and we learn from past mistakes.

At the same time, we must exercise ample consumer choice and prudence. As a citizen I elude “dangerous stereotypes” by staying away from places made uninhabitable by our double standard in public order. Residential “white flight” is commonplace. Again, as is true in the corporate world, the ease with which the problem can be avoided helps explain the lack of widespread resistance.

What about the moral dimension? Surely some principles, such as the rule of law, transcend costs and benefits? Injustice, after all, is injustice and it is our obligation to resist it. This may be true, but to be realistic, there are limits to moral outrage and consequent behavior. This is not a nascent Holocaust. Just as one must necessarily tolerate distant Third-World savagery, one must periodically avert one’s glance from corruptions suffered in the name of “fairness.” When all is said and done, other than a transient self-satisfaction, what is to be gained by showing that black “scholarship” is incoherent political babble?

This embarrassing fact has been obvious from day one, but so what? What good does it do to explain to blacks that subverting the rule of law hinders and does not promote black progress? Eventually, even a deeply moral person must say, “I have tried to offer wise counsel, and I myself have behaved morally, but a righteous person in a deficient society can preach to the deaf for only so long.” Let us not lose sight of the proportions: a grand crusade is not obligatory.

Indeed, a moral life remains possible, inasmuch as self-corrupting deceit is not yet required. No racial thought police makes sure we spy on dissidents or think only “pure” thoughts. Resistance is still possible though hardly cost-free. As a university teacher, I refuse to assign noxious racial propaganda or award undeserved grades. Despite occasional warnings, I speak my mind on controversial subjects. To be sure, such honesty is not always possible. Necessity does force many — for example, high school teachers and those in the mass media — to submit to the deceitful civic orthodoxy, and this is no trivial matter. Yet, I personally do not feel ashamed of my behavior and others can also make honorable choices.

What about financial costs imposed on innocent whites? Surely this is a problem, but the robustness of our economy suggests no large, undiscovered pool of unemployed, talented whites. Yes, some whites (and Asians) lose their Harvard slots to less qualified blacks, but these victims enroll at other good universities and receive a far more valuable education than the struggling non-whites who took their places. Displaced white government workers sacrificed to diversity must number in the tens of thousands but, after a point, savvy whites adjust and seek rewards elsewhere. Justifiable resentment at economic unfairness is not tantamount to a life of poverty. Perhaps things would be different in rockier economic times, and a deep downturn may well instigate a counter-revolution.

What about social costs? There is no evidence of a sizable calamity. Ersatz black engineers are wisely assigned to foolproof tasks (“community relations” or recruiting other blacks) or are monitored by supervisors. A recent Wall Street Journal story tells of the FAA’s attempt to hire more black air traffic controllers. The problem was eventually managed by assigning shaky black recruits to harmless, permanent training assignments. American business, despite its public cowardliness, dares not risk dangerous shoddiness. Even the US military, which has vigorously sought “diversity,” draws the line at intellectually demanding positions. This “whitening” of the modern technologically-driven military has gone generally unnoticed.

Having defended the loathsome, let me challenge the skeptics: what superior political alternatives are there? A world-wide canvas, I believe, reveals worse. Hostile ethnic groups often co-exist peacefully only when there is the threat of brutal force hanging over their heads (as was true in the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia) or through physical separation (as in Lebanon or Cyprus). When these heavy-handed restraints vanish, violence erupts. To be sure, fantasy solutions abound, and the perfect always trumps the merely good. Why not take a cue from William Shockley and bribe less capable blacks not to have children? But how are we to convince thousands of blacks that they do not deserve all the wondrous trinkets relentlessly hawked directly to them? In short, undoing the spoils system is like putting the toothpaste back in the tube.

It is said that you do not value what you have until you lose it. As monstrous and distasteful as the present system may be, worse is possible. This depressing assessment need not counsel against resistance. Yet, to offer another homily, you can’t beat something with nothing. The task before us in the racial policy battle is to invent feasible political alternatives.

Professor Weissberg is in the Department of Political Science at the University of Illinois-Urbana.

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ARTICLE

A Reply to Prof. Weissberg

A grand crusade is exactly what we need.

Most readers of AR will agree with Prof. Weissberg’s first four numbered points. Blacks do not have the same average level of abilities as whites, and therefore do not reap the same rewards. Society has discovered no effective way to improve black abilities, and blacks have a well-deserved reputation for violence. Here, however, I part company with an analysis that I think both misinterprets the causes of black violence and is inadequate from a nation-building and perhaps even moral perspective.

As a factual matter, I believe Prof. Weissberg is mistaken about the likelihood that blacks would react violently to changes in public policy. Even if racial differences were publicly accepted and the goal of equal outcomes officially abandoned, there would not be widespread rioting. This false fear should be set aside.

From a nation-building perspective Prof. Weissberg’s argument is defeatist in the short term and suicidal in the long term. He suggests that we have to resign ourselves to a United States that officially proclaims false, egalitarian principles that few people believe. This not only sets in motion a large and increasingly cynical “civil rights” industry, but it also makes it difficult to oppose Third-World immigration. And although as Prof. Weissberg points out, honorable choices still remain open to individual whites, those choices will be swept away if the United States becomes a Third World country.

From this perspective, therefore, Prof. Weissberg’s counsels would be unwise even if he were right about the fury and intensity of a black reaction to changes in policy. If the result of making war on today’s corrupting lies is riots — even on an unprecedented scale — that is the price we must pay to restore the truths without which our civilization cannot survive. Finally, Prof. Weissberg’s faith in private resistance seems too individualistic. As he points out, many of us can avoid the violence and incompetence of our increasingly multi-racial society but do we have no responsibility to those who cannot?

Violence

There is no doubt that blacks and sometimes Hispanics are prone to rioting. However, they riot because of specific, concrete events and not to protest public policy. Police action is by far the most common cause of riots and has produced mayhem in Miami, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Detroit, and countless other places. It was the acquittal of the officers who beat Rodney King — a specific, easily-understood event — that provoked the most serious race riots of recent times. The assassination of Martin Luther King — yet another specific event — also provoked riots.

Blacks simply do not riot for reasons so abstract as a change in policy. This is partly because the rioters are not the people who profit from myths and preferences. As Prof. Weissberg suggests, the rabble that burn buildings and drag whites out of their cars and beat them are criminals who happen to be out of jail at the time. They are untouched by “affirmative action,” do not vote or read newspapers, and have no idea what the Supreme Court does. The blacks who benefit from preferences and who understand the importance of legislation and court cases, that is to say the people who might have reason to riot, do not. However, they are not above predicting riots when they want to scare whites.

All this has been amply demonstrated by the entirely peaceful reactions to recent well-publicized changes in public policy that have badly damaged the racial preference system. In the last year or so, California and the state of Washington voted to abolish racial preferences. A judge threw out the preference programs in the city of Houston, Texas. Courts have forbidden discrimination at the University of Texas, and the California university system abandoned it even before the state-wide ballot. In the same period, the Supreme Court outlawed racially gerrymandered districts designed to vote non-whites into office. Not one of these changes — all of which have dismantled policies Prof. Weissberg says we must maintain if we are to keep the peace — provoked violence.

Indeed, the Supreme Court has clearly reversed course on racial preferences, and seems so eager to abolish them entirely that “civil rights” groups are afraid to bring a case before it. Jesse Jackson, who understands that court decisions are much more important than police shootings, has tried to mount protests in front of the Supreme Court but he cannot get many blacks to shout “No justice, no peace!” over something as abstract as a court case.

Another very important policy change that did not cause riots was welfare reform. It is now much harder to stay on the dole for life, and when Congress was debating reform, black “spokesmen” denounced the changes as “racist,” hinting broadly that cities would burn if blacks didn’t get checks. Now, hundreds of thousands of welfare cases have been bounced from the rolls — without even a hint of riot. Once again, this was predictable: It is men who riot but it is women who get the checks.

There is simply no evidence that blacks react violently to a change in the law, a redefinition of welfare eligibility, or academic debates about what causes the IQ gap. Whites mistakenly assume that blacks behave more or less as whites would, that if blacks riot it is for clearly-understood reasons. Whites have been making this mistake for a long time. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 partly for fear that if segregation were not outlawed there would be violence. In fact, by far the worst riots of the 1960s occurred after the Civil Rights Act passed. Congress was wrong then and Prof. Weissberg is wrong today. Chicago blacks will go on the rampage to celebrate a Bulls victory in a basketball championship but they will not riot for more places at Harvard or even for more welfare. Blacks are violent, to be sure, but not for the reasons whites think.

Dishonesty

In my view, it is constant dishonesty about racial equality — dishonesty Prof. Weissberg seems to think we must learn to live with — that makes blacks and, now, Hispanics more likely to riot. The current obligatory myth is that blacks are exactly, mathematically, geometrically equal to whites (except perhaps in sports, though it opens the door to other, less favorable, comparisons to admit this). Therefore if, as Prof. Weissberg points out, they are not reaping the same economic rewards as whites it can only be because whites are oppressing them. And, indeed, white society must be harboring prodigious amounts of racism if that is what is keeping blacks at the low levels at which we find them. Since every difference in achievement must be due to “racism,” virtually every white person must be part of a grand plot to keep blacks down.

Of course the only thing accomplished by telling blacks that whites cause all their problems is to make blacks hate whites. Why shouldn’t they? It is hard to get through the day without reading some sinister account about racist policemen or bankers or teachers or insurance agents or corporate executives beavering away at the great national project of black oppression. It is this hatred of whites — born of the egalitarian lie — that works out its ugly course in the terrible statistics on interracial violence. Since blacks hear over and over that whites are responsible for everything that goes wrong for them, just about any act of hatred can be justified as “payback.” Perpetuating the egalitarian myth only justifies — and invites — “payback.”

Many whites think the egalitarian myth keeps the peace, and that blacks would react violently to hard discussions about race and IQ. Once again, this is a groundless fear. The leaders of demonstrations against Arthur Jensen, William Shockley, Philippe Rushton, and Michael Levin have almost always been whites. My own experience in speaking about race and IQ at universities has been similar. There are usually a few militants who make a fuss, but most blacks are fascinated by straight talk about race, and many are genuinely pleased to meet a white man with whom they can have a completely honest conversation.

Race relations in the United States were better, not worse, when everyone took it for granted that the races were different. This is not surprising, since societies always work better when they are based on fact rather than fantasy. Although today’s myth requires us to believe that blacks were constantly chafing under the restrictions of pre-1960s “racism,” the “civil rights” movement was largely manufactured by whites. Especially in the south, many blacks were not at all unhappy with secure, comfortable and, yes, subordinate relations with whites whom they liked and respected. Relations would only improve if blacks learned that whites are not trying to harm them, and that differences in achievement are not the work of malicious “racists.” Hatred of whites — inevitable in any society that preaches egalitarian dogma — is far more likely to be an ingredient in rioting than are the details of government policy.

For all these reasons, Professor Weissberg’s main argument for suggesting we must tolerate the status quo does not hold up. Indeed, false egalitarian doctrine does not curb black violence; it stimulates it. It may therefore be unnecessary to address Professor Weissberg’s other points, but thoughtful opinions deserve thoughtful replies.

Professor Weissberg seems to think the country can go on for a long time mouthing egalitarian platitudes while most people quietly avoid their consequences. I believe it is fatal for a country to try to build a society on lies, especially if no one believes them. We must not reconcile ourselves to the deeply corrupting equivalent of the old Soviet joke: “We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.” A nation dedicated to principles that virtually no one bothers to believe breeds cynicism so deep that it corrodes the very basis of nationhood.

We are not yet at this point. I disagree with Professor Weissberg — perhaps naïvely — in that I suspect many of the uplift specialists who operate the preference system really do think utopia will be upon us when white people are finally cleansed of sin. These people must be persuaded of their error, and if that is impossible they must be removed from positions of authority. The alternative is an endless deepening of the psychological and intellectual rot that pervades every area of national discourse.

And the logic of that rot means that non-white engineers and executives cannot forever be given fancy titles but no responsibility. If we take Prof. Weissberg’s advice, eventually an affirmative-action surgeon will kill your daughter, or an incompetent pilot will fly your family into the ground.

As a strictly economic matter, Prof. Weissberg is right to point out that the United States does not have an army of unemployed whites pushed into the poorhouse by the preference system. However, aside from the very real individual casualties of that system — people turned away from college or a job — the egalitarian myth has worked untold damage on untold numbers of people. The myth has made it impossible for whites to draw the line and maintain their neighborhoods and institutions — and who can measure the tragedy of the millions of Americans who have seen their schools and cities turn into outposts of Mexico or Liberia? Every once-happy street that is now desolate, every flight to the suburbs, every working-class family that must scrimp to pay for private school is a tragedy. And greater still is the tragedy of those who cannot flee and who cannot pay. Prof. Weissberg got his son transferred out of a class taught by an affirmative-action incompetent. Not all of us can do that.

The greatest victims of egalitarianism, however, are the whites who are killed, raped, or robbed by people with whom they would have never come into contact — or with whom their contacts would have been very different — in a society that recognized the importance of race. For a few whites, the forced integration that egalitarian doctrine requires is nothing short of a death sentence.

Still, the worst long-term consequence of egalitarian doctrine is to make it much more difficult to oppose Third-World immigration. Americans who know in their bones that their country is being given away to aliens dare not say so, and they watch in silent horror as non-whites shove aside their culture and way of life. For this reason alone, whatever the costs may be, whites must either challenge the dominant racial myths or watch their nation subside into Third-World squalor. Prof. Weissberg writes that we must keep things in proportion, and that because most of us, most of the time, can pick a path through the hazards of present-day multiracialism, “a grand crusade is not obligatory.” A grand crusade may seem disproportionate to those who can avoid the worst. With a little money, anyone can spend his life quite agreeably in the receding but still ample civilized zones. But as the members of any healthy people know instinctively, our lives do not begin and end with ourselves alone. No nation was ever built by atomized individuals and no nation can long survive if its citizens cease to see any further than the boundaries of their own restricted lives.

We are the heirs to a civilization that is thousands of years old. It is ours to cherish and defend. It could not have been built by men who were content to manage decline and let their children manage yet more decline. We have a purpose and a cause that go well beyond calculations of which truths might cause a riot and which might not. Our survival depends on our willingness to speak the truth no matter what the cost, and on our unwavering pursuit of the justice and wisdom that can come only from the truth.

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BOOK REVIEW

Cherchez le Juif

A provocative analysis of the causes of white decline.

The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements, Kevin MacDonald, Praeger, 1998, $65.00, 379 pp.

IThe Culture of Critique, Kevin MacDonald advances a carefully researched but extremely controversial thesis: that certain 20th century intellectual movements — largely established and led by Jews — have changed European societies in fundamental ways and destroyed the confidence of Western man. He claims that these movements were designed, consciously or unconsciously, to advance Jewish interests even though they were presented to non-Jews as universalistic and even utopian. He concludes that the increasing dominance of these ideas has had profound political and social consequences that benefited Jews but caused great harm to gentile societies. This analysis, which he makes with considerable force, is an unusual indictment of a people generally thought to be more sinned against than sinning.

The Culture of Critique is the final title in Prof. MacDonald’s massive, three-volume study of Jews and their role in history. The two previous volumes are A People That Shall Dwell Alone andSeparation and its Discontents, published by Praeger in 1994 and 1998. The series is written from a sociobiological perspective that views Judaism as a unique survival strategy that helps Jews compete with other ethnic groups. Prof. MacDonald, who is a psychologist at the University of California at Long Beach, explains this perspective in the first volume, which describes Jews as having a very powerful sense of uniqueness that has kept them socially and genetically separate from other peoples. The second volume traces the history of Jewish-gentile relations, and finds the causes of anti-Semitism primarily in the almost invariable commercial and intellectual dominance of gentile societies by Jews and in their refusal to assimilate. The Culture of Critique brings his analysis into the present century, with an account of the Jewish role in the radical critique of traditional culture.

The intellectual movements Prof. MacDonald discusses in this volume are Marxism, Freudian psychoanalysis, the Frankfurt school of sociology, and Boasian anthropology. Perhaps most relevant from a racial perspective, he also traces the role of Jews in promoting multiculturalism and Third World immigration. Throughout his analysis Prof. MacDonald reiterates his view that Jews have promoted these movements as Jews and in the interests of Jews, though they have often tried to give the impression that they had no distinctive interests of their own. Therefore Prof. MacDonald’s most profound charge against Jews is not ethnocentrism but dishonesty — that while claiming to be working for the good of mankind they have often worked for their own good and to the detriment of others. While attempting to promote the brotherhood of man by dissolving the ethnic identification of gentiles, Jews have maintained precisely the kind of intense group solidarity they decry as immoral among others.

Celebrating Diversity

Prof. MacDonald claims that one of the most consistent ways in which Jews have advanced their interests has been to promote pluralism and diversity — but only for others. Ever since the 19th century, they have led movements that tried to discredit the traditional foundations of gentile society: patriotism, racial loyalty, the Christian basis for morality, social homogeneity, and sexual restraint. At the same time, within their own communities and with regard to the state of Israel, they have often supported the very institutions they attack in gentile society.

Why is this in the interest of Jews? Because the parochial group loyalty characteristic of Jews attracts far less attention in a society that does not have a cohesive racial and cultural core. The Jewish determination not to assimilate fully, which accounts for their survival as a people for thousands of years — even without a country — has invariably attracted unpleasant and even murderous scrutiny in nations with well-defined national identities. In Prof. MacDonald’s view it is therefore in the interest of Jews to dilute and weaken the identity of any people among whom they live. Jewish identity can flower in safety only when gentile identity is weak.

Prof. MacDonald quotes a remarkable passage from Charles Silberman:

American Jews are committed to cultural tolerance because of their belief — one firmly rooted in history — that Jews are safe only in a society acceptant of a wide range of attitudes and behaviors, as well as a diversity of religious and ethnic groups. It is this belief, for example, not approval of homosexuality, that leads an overwhelming majority of American Jews to endorse ‘gay rights’ and to take a liberal stance on most other so-called ‘social’ issues.

He is saying, in effect, that when Jews make the diversity-is-our-strength argument it is in support of their real goal of diluting a society’s homogeneity so that Jews will feel safe. They are couching a Jewish agenda in terms they think gentiles will accept. Likewise, as the second part of the Silberman quotation suggests, Jews may support deviant movements, not because they think it is good for the country but because they think it is good for Jews.

Prof. Silberman also provides an illuminating quote from a Jewish economist who thought that Republicans had more sensible economic policies but who voted for the Democratic presidential candidate anyway. His reason? “I’d rather live in a country governed by the faces I saw at the Democratic convention than by those I saw at the Republican convention.” This man apparently distrusts white gentiles and voted for a racially mixed party even if its economic policies were wrong. What is good for Jews appears to come before what is good for the country.

Earl Raab, former president of heavily Jewish Brandeis University makes the diversity argument in a slightly different way. Expressing his satisfaction with the prediction that by the middle of the next century whites will become a minority, he writes,”We have tipped beyond the point where a Nazi-Aryan party will be able to prevail in this country.” He is apparently prepared to displace the people and culture of the founding stock in order to prevent the theoretical rise of an anti-Jewish regime. Prof. Raab appears to see whites mainly as potential Nazis, and is willing to sacrifice their cultural and national continuity in order to defuse an imagined threat to Jews. This passage takes for granted the continued future existence of Jews as a distinct community even as gentile whites decline in numbers and influence.

In the same passage, Prof. Raab continues by noting that, “[w]e [Jews] have been nourishing the American climate of opposition to bigotry for about half a century. That climate has not yet been perfected, but the heterogeneous nature of our population tends to make it irreversible . . .” — just as it tends to make the ultimate displacement of European culture also irreversible.

Prof. MacDonald traces the development of this diversity strategy to several sources. It is widely recognized that the German-Jewish immigrant Franz Boas (1858-1942) almost single-handedly established the current contours of anthropology, ridding it of all biological explanations for differences in human culture or behavior. Prof. MacDonald reports that he and his followers — with the notable exceptions of Margaret Meade and Ruth Benedict — were all Jews with strong Jewish identities: “Jewish identification and the pursuit of perceived Jewish interests, particularly in advocating an ideology of cultural pluralism as a model for Western societies, has been the ‘invisible subject’ of American anthropology.”

By 1915, Boas and his students controlled the American Anthropological Association and by 1926 they headed every major American university anthropology department. From this position of dominance they promoted the idea that race and biology are trivial matters, and that environment counts for everything. They completely recast anthropology so as to provide intellectual support for open immigration, integration, and miscegenation. They also laid the foundation for the idea that because all races have the same potential, the failures of non-whites must be blamed exclusively on white oppression. The ultimate conclusion of Boasian anthropology was that since environment accounts for all human differences, every inequality in achievement can be eliminated by changing the environment. This has been the justification for enormous and wasteful government intervention programs.

The entire “civil rights” movement can be seen as a natural consequence of the triumph of Boasian thinking. Since all races were equivalent, separation was immoral. The color line also sharpened white self-consciousness in ways that might make whites more aware of Jewish parochialism. Thus it was, according to Prof. MacDonald, that Jews almost single-handedly launched the desegregation movement. Without the leadership of Jews, the NAACP might never have been established, and until 1975 every one of its presidents was a Jew. Prof. MacDonald reports that in 1917, when the black separatist Marcus Garvey visited NAACP headquarters, he saw so many white faces that he stormed out, complaining that it was a white organization.

Prof. MacDonald concludes that the efforts of Jews were crucial to the “civil rights” transformation of America. He quotes a lawyer for the American Jewish Congress who claims that “many of these [civil rights] laws were actually written in the offices of Jewish agencies by Jewish staff people, introduced by Jewish legislators and pressured into being by Jewish voters.”

While the Boas school was promoting integration and racial equivalence, it was also critical of, in Prof. Mac-Donald’s words, “American culture as overly homogeneous, hypocritical, emotionally and esthetically repressive (especially with regard to sexuality). Central to this program was creating ethnographies of idyllic [Third-World] cultures that were free of the negatively perceived traits that were attributed to Western culture.”

The role of the anthropologist became one of criticizing everything about Western society while glorifying everything primitive. Prof. MacDonald notes that Boasian portrayals of non-Western peoples deliberately ignored barbarism and cruelty or simply attributed it to contamination from the West. He sees this as a deliberate attempt to undermine the confidence of Western societies and to make them permeable to Third World influences and people. Today, this view is enshrined in the dogma that America must remain open to immigration because immigrants bring a spirit and energy that natives somehow lack.

Authoritarian Personalities

In order to open European-derived societies to the immigration that would transform them, it was necessary to discredit racial solidarity and commitment to tradition. Prof. MacDonald argues that this was the basic purpose of a group of intellectuals known as the Frankfurt School. What is properly known as the Institute of Social Research was founded in Frankfurt, Germany, during the Weimar period by a Jewish millionaire but was closed down by the Nazis shortly after they took power. Most of its staff emigrated to the United States and the institute reconstituted itself at UC Berkeley. The organization was headed by Max Horkheimer, and its most influential members were T.W. Adorno, Erich Fromm, and Herbert Marcuse, all of whom had strong Jewish identities. Horkheimer made no secret of the partisan nature of the institute’s activities: “Research would be able here to transform itself directly into propaganda,” he wrote. (Italics in the original)

Prof. MacDonald devotes many pages to an analysis of The Authoritarian Personality, which was written by Adorno and appeared in 1950. It was part of a series called Studies in Prejudice, produced by the Frankfurt school, which included titles like Anti-Semitism and Emotional Disorder. The Authoritarian Personality was particularly influential because, according to Prof. MacDonald, the American Jewish Committee heavily funded its promotion and because Jewish academics took up its message so enthusiastically.

The book’s purpose is to make every group affiliation sound as if it were a sign of mental disorder. Everything from patriotism to religion to family- and race-loyalty are signs of a dangerous and defective “authoritarian personality.” Because drawing distinctions between different groups is illegitimate, all group loyalties — even close family ties! — are “prejudice.” As Christopher Lasch has written, the book leads to the conclusion that prejudice “could be eradicated only by subjecting the American people to what amounted to collective psychotherapy — by treating them as inmates of an insane asylum.”

But according to Prof. MacDonald, it is precisely the kind of group loyalty, respect for tradition, and consciousness of differences central to Jewish identity that Horkheimer and Adorno described as mental illness in gentiles. These writers adopted what eventually became a favorite Soviet tactic against dissidents: Anyone whose political views were different from theirs was insane. As Prof. MacDonald explains, the Frankfurt school never criticized or even described Jewish group identity — only that of gentiles: “behavior that is critical to Judaism as a successful group evolutionary strategy is conceptualized as pathological in gentiles.”

For these Jewish intellectuals, anti-Semitism was also a sign of mental illness: They concluded that Christian self-denial and especially sexual repression caused hatred of Jews. The Frankfurt school was enthusiastic about psychoanalysis, according to which “Oedipal ambivalence toward the father and anal-sadistic relations in early childhood are the anti-Semite’s irrevocable inheritance.”

In addition to ridiculing patriotism and racial identity, the Frankfurt school glorified promiscuity and Bohemian poverty. Prof. MacDonald sees the school as a seminal influence: “Certainly many of the central attitudes of the largely successful 1960s countercultural revolution find expression in The Authoritarian Personality, including idealizing rebellion against parents, low-investment sexual relationships, and scorn for upward social mobility, social status, family pride, the Christian religion, and patriotism.”

Of greatest interest here, however, is the movement’s success in branding ancient loyalties to nation and race as mental illnesses. Although he came later, the French-Jewish “deconstructionist” Jacques Derrida was in the same tradition when he wrote:

The idea behind deconstruction is to deconstruct the workings of strong nation-states with powerful immigration polices, to deconstruct the rhetoric of nationalism, the politics of place, the metaphysics of native land and native tongue . . . The idea is to disarm the bombs . . . of identity that nation-states build to defend themselves against the stranger, against Jews and Arabs and immigrants . . .

As Prof. MacDonald puts it, “Viewed at its most abstract level, a fundamental agenda is thus to influence the European-derived peoples of the United States to view concern about their own demographic and cultural eclipse as irrational and as an indication of psychopathology.” Needless to say, this project has been successful; anyone opposed to the displacement of whites is routinely treated as a mentally unhinged “hate-monger,” and whenever whites defend their group interests they are described as psychologically inadequate. The irony has not escaped Prof. MacDonald: “The ideology that ethnocentrism was a form of psychopathology was promulgated by a group that over its long history had arguably been the most ethnocentric group among all the cultures of the world.”

Immigration

Prof. MacDonald argues that it is entirely natural for Jews to promote open immigration. It brings about the “diversity” Jews find comforting and it keeps America open to persecuted co-religionists throughout the world. He says Jews are the only group that has always fought for mass immigration; a few European ethnic organizations have made sporadic efforts to make it easier for their own people to come, but only Jews have consistently promoted open borders for all comers. Moreover, whatever disagreements they may have had on other issues, Jews of every political persuasion have favored high immigration.

This, too, goes back many years, and Prof. MacDonald traces in considerable detail the sustained Jewish pro-immigration effort. Israel Zangwill, author of the eponymous 1908 play The Melting Pot,was of the view that “[t]here is only one way to World Peace, and that is the absolute abolition of passports, visas, frontiers, custom houses . . .” He was nevertheless an ardent Zionist and disapproved of Jewish intermarriage.

Although the statue of liberty, properly known as Liberty Enlightening the World, was a gift to the United States from France as a tribute to American political traditions, the sonnet by the Jewish Emma Lazarus helped change it into a symbol of immigration. Affixed to the base of the statue several decades after its construction, the poem welcomes to America “huddled masses yearning to breath free /The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.”

Prof. MacDonald has discovered that implausible arguments about diversity being a quintessentially American strength have been made by Jews for a long time. He reports that in 1948 the American Jewish Committee was urging Congress to believe that “Americanism is the spirit behind the welcome that America has traditionally extended to people of all races, all religions, all nationalities.” Of course, there had never been such a tradition. In 1952, the American Jewish Congress argued in hearings on immigration that “our national experience has confirmed beyond a doubt that our very strength lies in the diversity of our peoples.” This, too, was at a time when U.S. immigration law was still explicitly designed to maintain a white majority.

It has often been said that when the old immigration policy was scrapped in 1965, scarcely anyone knew, and no one predicted, that the new law would change the racial makeup of the country. Prof. MacDonald disputes this, arguing that this had been the objective of Jewish groups from the beginning.

Prof. MacDonald finds that Jews have been the foremost advocates of immigration in England, France, and Canada, and that Jewish groups were the most vocal opponents of independence for Quebec. Australian Jews led the effort to dismantle the “white Australia” policy, one reason for which was cited in an editorial in the Australian Jewish Democrat: “The strengthening of multi-cultural or diverse Australia is also our most effective insurance policy against anti-Semitism. The day Australia has a Chinese Australian Governor General I would feel more confident of my freedom to live as a Jewish Australian.” Like Earl Raab writing about the United States, this Australian Jew is prepared to sacrifice the traditional culture, people, and identity of Australia to specifically Jewish interests. It would not be surprising if such an openly expressed objective did not have the opposite effect from that intended, and increase anti-Jewish sentiment.

Jews and the Left

It is well known that Jews have been traditionally associated with the left, and Prof. MacDonald investigates this connection in some detail. Historically it was understandable that Jews should support movements that advocated overthrowing the existing order. After emancipation, Jews met resistance from gentile elites who did not want to lose ground to competitors, and outsiders easily become revolutionaries. However, in Prof. MacDonald’s view, Jewish commitment to leftist causes has often been motivated by the hope that Communism, especially, would be a tool for combating anti-Semitism, and by the expectation that universalist social solutions would be yet another way to dissolve gentile loyalties that might exclude Jews. The appeal of universalist ideologies is tied to the implicit understanding that Jewish particularism will be exempt: “At the extreme, acceptance of a universalist ideology by gentiles would result in gentiles not perceiving Jews as in a different social category at all, while nonetheless Jews would be able to maintain a strong personal identity as Jews.”

Prof. MacDonald argues that Jews had specifically Jewish reasons for supporting the Bolshevik revolution. Czarist Russia was notorious for its anti-Semitic policies and, during its early years, the Soviet Union seemed to be the promised land for Jews: it ended state anti-Semitism, tried to eradicate Christianity, opened opportunities to individual Jews, and preached a “classless” society in which Jewishness would presumably attract no negative attention. Moreover, since Marxism taught that all conflict was economic rather than ethnic, many Jews believed it heralded the end of anti-Semitism.

Prof. MacDonald emphasizes that although Jewish Communists preached both atheism and the solidarity of the world’s working people, they took pains to preserve a distinct, secular Jewish identity. He reports that Lenin himself (who had one Jewish grandparent) approved the continuation of an explicitly Jewish identity under Communism, and in 1946 the Communist Party of the United States voted a resolution also supporting Jewish peoplehood in Communist countries. Thus, although Communism was supposed to be without borders or religion, Jews were confident that it would make a place for their own group identity. He writes that despite the official view that all men were to be brothers, “very few Jews lost their Jewish identity during the entire Soviet era.”

Jewish Communists sometimes betrayed remarkable particularism. Prof. MacDonald quotes Charles Rappoport, the French Communist leader: “The Jewish people [are] the bearer of all the great ideas of unity and human community in history . . . The disappearance of the Jewish people would signify the death of humankind, the final transformation of man into a wild beast.” This seems to attribute to Jews an elite position incompatible with “unity and human community.”

Prof. MacDonald argues that many Jews began to fall away from Communism only after Stalin showed himself to be anti-Semitic. And just as Jews had been the leading revolutionaries in anti-Semitic pre-Revolutionary Russia, Jews became the leading dissidents in an anti-Semitic Soviet Union. A similar pattern can be found in the imposed Communist governments of Eastern Europe, which were largely dominated by Jews. The majority of the leaders of the Polish Communist Party, for example, spoke better Yiddish than Polish, and they too maintained a strong Jewish identity. After the fall of Communism many stopped being Polish and emigrated to Israel.

Prof. MacDonald writes that in Bela Kun’s short-lived 1919 Communist government of Hungary, 95 percent of the leaders were Jews, and that at the time of the 1956 uprising Communism was so closely associated with Jews that the rioting had almost the flavor of a pogrom. He argues that in the United States as well, the hard core among Communists and members of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was mainly Jewish. Here, too, a revolutionary, atheist, and universalist world-view was fully compatible with strong identification as Jews. Prof. MacDonald quotes from a study of American leftists:

Many Communists, for example, state that they could never have married a spouse who was not a leftist. When Jews were asked if they could have married Gentiles, many hesitated, surprised by the question, and found it difficult to answer. Upon reflection, many concluded that they had always taken marriage to someone Jewish for granted. Their commitment as Jews was even more fundamental and unexamined than their commitment to the left.

Prof. MacDonald reports that many American Jews also abandoned Communism as it became increasingly anti-Semitic. For a large number, the Soviet Union’s severing of diplomatic ties with Israel during the 1967 war was the last straw. A former SDS activist no doubt spoke for many when he explained, “If I must choose between the Jewish cause and a “progressive’ anti-Israel SDS, I shall choose the Jewish cause. If barricades are erected, I will fight as a Jew.” According to Prof. MacDonald, American neoconservatism can also be described as a surface shift in external politics that leaves the more fundamental commitment to Jewish identity unchanged. Thus, former leftists abandoned an ideology that had turned against Israel and refashioned American conservatism into a different movement, the one unshakable theme of which was support for Israel. Neoconservatives also support high levels of immigration and were active in excluding white racial identification from the “respectable” right.

Objections

There are many possible objections to Prof. MacDonald’s thesis. The first is that it is largely built on the assumption that Jews are dishonest. It is always risky to assume one understands the motives of others better than they do themselves. Jews have traditionally thought of themselves as a benevolent presence, even as a “light unto the nations” or a “chosen people.” This is echoed today in the Jewish self image as champions of the excluded and the oppressed. Most of the time what passes for “social justice” has the effect of undermining the traditions and loyalties of gentile society, but are Jews deliberately undermining these things rather than righting what they perceive to be wrongs?

Prof. MacDonald concedes that many Jews are sincere in their support for liberal causes, but then escalates his indictment by arguing that “the best deceivers are those who deceive themselves.” In other words, many Jews who are actually working for Jewish interests have first convinced themselves otherwise. A Jew who mainly wants America to become less white may also have convinced himself that America benefits from a multitude of cultures. Having convinced himself he can more effectively convince others.

Many Jews, Prof. MacDonald argues, are not even conscious of the extent to which their Jewishness is central to their identities or their political views. He quotes Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel on his surprise at how passionately he embraced the Israeli side during the 1967 war: “I had not known how Jewish I was.” This is an arresting statement from a man who was thought to be perhaps the greatest Jewish spiritual leader of his time. And whether or not it affects their politics, Jews certainly appear to have a very vivid sense of peoplehood. Prof. MacDonald quotes theologian Eugene Borowitz as saying, “most Jews claim to be equipped with an interpersonal friend-or-foe sensing device that enables them to detect the presence of another Jew, despite heavy camouflage.” Always to think in terms of “friend or foe” is no insignificant matter.

Prof. MacDonald is therefore skeptical of Jewish disavowals: “Surface declarations of a lack of Jewish identity may be highly misleading.” He notes that Jewish publications write about the power and influence of American Jews in language Jews would immediately denounce as “anti-Semitic” if used by gentiles. He agrees with Joseph Sobran, who has said “they want to be Jews among themselves but resent being seen as Jews by Gentiles. They want to pursue their own distinct interests while pretending that they have no such interests . . .”

Prof. MacDonald argues that the success of Jewish-led intellectual movements has been possible only because their Jewish character was hidden. If multiculturalism or mass immigration or The Authoritarian Personality had been promoted by Orthodox Jews in black coats the Jewish element would have been clear. Prof. MacDonald writes that in fact, “the Jewish political agenda was not an aspect of the theory and the theories themselves had no overt Jewish content. Gentile intellectuals approaching these theories were therefore unlikely to view them as aspects of Jewish-gentile cultural competition or as an aspect of a specifically Jewish political agenda.” Prof. MacDonald also claims that Jews have often tried to conceal the Jewish character of an intellectual movement by recruiting token gentiles for visible positions as spokesmen. He writes that this tactic was so common in the American Communist Party that gentiles often saw through it and resigned.

But how can motives ever be completely known? Prof. MacDonald sets a difficult test: “The best evidence that individuals have really ceased to have a Jewish identity is if they choose a political option that they perceive as clearly not in the interests of Jews as a group. In the absence of a clearly perceived conflict with Jewish interests, it remains possible that different political choices among ethnic Jews are only differences in tactics for how best to achieve Jewish interests.”

This standard may seem unduly harsh — until it is applied to white gentiles. Third-World immigration, affirmative action, anti-discrimination laws, and forced integration are clearly not in the interests of whites, yet many whites embrace them, thus demonstrating how completely they have abandoned their racial identity.

Finally, Prof. MacDonald raises the disturbing possibility that some Jews, because of centuries of conflict with gentiles, actively hate gentile society and consciously wish to destroy it: “a fundamental motivation of Jewish intellectuals involved in social criticism has simply been hatred of the gentile-dominated power structure perceived as anti-Semitic.” He describes the 19th century German-Jewish poet Heinrich Heine as “using his skill, reputation and popularity to undermine the intellectual confidence of the established order.”

In defense of this highly provocative view, Prof. MacDonald quotes Benjamin Disraeli on the effects of centuries of Jewish-gentile relations on Jews: “They may have become so odious and so hostile to mankind as to merit for their present conduct, no matter how occasioned, the obloquy and ill-treatment of the communities in which they dwell and with which they are scarcely permitted to mingle.”

Apart from any question of motives, however, is the question of numbers. Jews are a tiny minority in the United States and within that minority there is disagreement even on matters that clearly affect Jews. How can Jews possibly be responsible for dramatic changes in the intellectual landscape? In Prof. MacDonald’s view, the explanation lies in the intelligence, energy, dedication, and cohesiveness of Jews. He attributes a great deal to the average IQ of Jews — at 115, a full standard deviation above the white gentile average — and to “their hard work and dedication, their desire to make a mark on the world, and their desire to rise in the world, engage in personal promotion, and achieve public acclaim . . .” He also believes Jews have worked together unfailingly on any question they considered necessary for survival: “Intellectual activity is like any other human endeavor: Cohesive groups outcompete individualist strategies.” He notes that there has never been a time when large numbers of white Americans favored non-white immigration; it was a cohesive, determined minority that beat down the disorganized resistance of the majority.

Prof. MacDonald believes that because of the effectiveness of some Jews, it was not even necessary that most Jews actively support anti-majoritarian movements, but that Jewish activity was still decisive. As he puts it, “Jewish-dominated intellectual movements were a critical factor (necessary condition) for the triumph of the intellectual left in late twentieth-century Western societies.” This, of course, can never be tested, but there can be no doubt that American Jews have had a disproportionate effect on the American intellect. Prof. MacDonald quotes Walter Kerr, writing in 1968, to the effect that “what has happened since World War II is that the American sensibility has become part Jewish, perhaps as much Jewish as it is anything else . . . The literate American mind has come in some measure to think Jewishly.”

Aside from the question of whether Prof. MacDonald is right is the further question of what difference it makes if he is right. If correct, his thesis certainly sheds light on the rapidity with which whites lost their will. Just a few decades ago whites were a confident race, proud of their achievements, convinced of their fitness to dominate the globe. Today they are a declining, apologetic people, ashamed of their history and not sure even of their claim to lands they have occupied for centuries. It is very rare for fundamental concepts to be stood on their heads in the course of just a generation or two, as has happened with thinking about race. Such speed suggests there has been something more than natural change.

And yet, as is clear just from the articles that appear in American Renaissance, Jewish intellectuals are by no means unanimous in denying the importance of race. Jews are present in the foremost ranks of those who would reintegrate biology into the social sciences, stop Third-World immigration, and halt government interference in race relations. If Jews have undermined the traditions on which Western Civilization depends, so are they now undermining the liberal orthodoxy that continues to threaten those traditions.

There can be no doubting the energy and influence of this remarkable people. It would be foolish and ungrateful not to recognize that this energy and influence can help save what is left of a beleaguered civilization.

Stanley Hornbeck is the pen name of a Washington, DC businessman.

• • • BACK TO TOP • • •

IN THE NEWS

O Tempora, O Mores!

Saints or Suckers?

Five years ago, blacks brought a class-action discrimination suit against the fast-food chain Denny’s. The chain’s parent, Flagstar Corporation, eventually paid $45.7 million to black customers who claimed they got bad service. The chain also entered into agreements with the NAACP and the Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility to increase the number of minority-owned restaurants. In 1993, it had only one black franchisee but it now has 123. The parent company renamed itself Advantica, and now 48 percent of its employees and 33 percent of its managers are non-white. All employees get anti-discrimination sensitivity training. In 1997, the NAACP gave Advantica its annual minority business development award.

The company recently announced it will spend $2 million on anti-racism television ads. One ad stars a black youngster who unbosoms the following silliness: “There are some people who never notice another person’s color, but most of us do. And that’s O.K. Don’t feel guilty. Noticing a person’s color doesn’t make you racist. Acting like it matters does.” Just what does Advantica expect to accomplish with this sort of thing? “What we’re trying to do through all the lessons we have learned — obviously difficult lessons — is to get people to talk about race,” says (white) chief executive Jim Adamson.

The company’s well-publicized desire to bend over backwards for non-whites may be inviting a different kind of attention. The very day Mr. Adamson announced the television campaign, Hispanics in San Jose, California, filed a discrimination suit. A group of 17 claim they had to wait while other patrons were seated, and that management eventually called police to throw them out.

Two Muslims are now claiming that a Denny’s in Montana tried to “poison their souls” by sneaking pork into their food. They said they made it clear they could eat no pork but found bits of bacon hidden in their eggs. One man said he had to purge himself by vomiting the meal and that he was unable to pray or read the Koran for 40 days. The two want a million dollars. (Bruce Smith, Denny’s to Televise Anti-Racism Ads, AP, Jan. 12, 1999. Denny’s Sued for Discrimination, AP, Jan. 13, 1999. Alissa Rossman, Denny’s Accused of Discrimination, AP, Jan. 20, 1999.)

Tempest in a Melting Pot

In June, 1996, Khaled Abu Hamdeh of Miami shot Charles Nelson five times in the back and once in the head. He then put a gun in the dead man’s hand to make it look as though Mr. Nelson had been threatening him. Mr. Hamdeh is a Palestinian convenience store owner and Charles Nelson is black. After the shooting, blacks looted thousands of dollars worth of merchandise from the store.

Last November, a jury returned a verdict in Mr. Hamdeh’s murder trial. Mr. Hamdeh said he shot Mr. Nelson, whom he had hired as a security guard, in self-defense. Witnesses testified that Mr. Nelson had been terrorizing Mr. Hamdeh and other employees, and that he had once splashed gasoline around the store, lit matches and threatened to burn the building down. He was a pistol-packing ex-con who smoked drugs every day. The jury decided that none of this mattered, and that Mr. Hamdeh was guilty of second-degree murder.

The case came to symbolize bad relations in Miami between Arabs and blacks. The verdict was sealed overnight to give police a chance to prepare for street violence, and reactions to it were varied. After she heard the verdict, Mr. Abu Hamdeh’s wife cried out, “What kind of justice system is this? This is not justice!” She pointed to Mr. Nelson’s family and said, “Their son was a drug dealer! He was a killer! And my husband goes to jail?” Outside the courthouse a group of Mr. Hamdeh’s supporters were outraged. “It’s because he is Palestinian,” said one; “That’s why they convicted him.” Blacks saw things differently. One man said, “If you would have seen a lesser verdict, you would have seen outrage. There wouldn’t be any store.” A woman speculated on what the sentence should be: “Life? The chair? They should kill his behind.” (Amy Driscoll and Bruce Seeman, Convenience Store Owner Convicted in Racially Charged Shooting Case, Miami Herald, November 21, 1998, p. 1A.)

¿Como se Llama?

Information from 1998 birth certificates shows that the most popular boy’s name in Texas and California is José. This is the first time that a Hispanic name has been number one in either state. In the previous year Daniel had been the top boy’s name in California and Christopher was number one in Texas. Previous waves of immigrants gave their children names that would fit in with the majority culture. Today’s immigrants often do not. As the mother of a José born in San Antonio in January explained, “I’m Mexican, and for me it’s better to have a José than a Joe.” (Thaddeus Herrick, Jose, not Joe, Leads 2 States’ Name Lists, Washington Times, January 18, 1999, p. A11.)

Singing a Different Tune

Last October, several people slipped into the Center for Black Culture and Learning on the campus of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. They left photocopies of a crude drawing of a black being hanged, and installed computer screen savers with anti-black messages. There was the usual hullabaloo, with black demonstrators stopping traffic, public agonizing about “racism,” and the university president James Garland promising to recruit more non-white teachers and students. Blacks wallowed in self-pity, with one telling reporters, “It’s been a very rough four years here. Every day, you are reminded of the color of your skin. It’s horrible.” Now police have fingerprint evidence that Nathaniel Snow, president of the Black Student Action Association, and his black sidekick Brad Allen were the perpetrators. They were, of course, in the thick of the demonstrations — so much so that Mr. Allen was arrested for disorderly conduct — and Mr. Snow had an hour-long meeting with president Garland.

Was the university delighted to discover that it is not a cauldron of racism after all? Somehow, it was not. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, “the arrests of the two men shocked and disappointed school officials and students.” President Garland now says “it’s important to realize this was an isolated incident and we should not generalize from it” — quite the reverse of his earlier view. One black academic advisor, in what was no doubt also a complete turnaround, cautioned students not to have “knee-jerk” reactions. Apparently he needn’t worry. The white student reaction the Enquirer printed as representative was that of a junior who asked “Why would anybody want to do something like this . . . ?” (Randy McNutt, State Investigators Enter Miami, Cincinnati Enquirer, November 14, 1999. Saundra Amrhein and Kevin Aldridge, Two Charged in Racial Vandalism, Cincinnati Enquirer, January 22, 1999, p. A4. Mark Ferenchik, Police: Students Faked Slurs, The Columbus Dispatch, January 22, 1999, p. 1D.)

Foreign Adoptions

Last year Americans adopted 13,621 foreign children. The largest number was from Russia but China, in second place, is moving up quickly. It is followed by Korea, Guatemala and Romania. Last November, China passed new laws to make it easier for foreigners to adopt abandoned babies. It now gives children to people who are single, in their 40s or older, and who already have children. China is also popular because it offers healthy babies whereas some Eastern European countries offer only children with mental or physical problems. Almost all Chinese babies adopted by Americans are girls because China discourages large families and most people want boys. It takes about eight months to adopt a Chinese baby and costs about $12,000. This includes a trip to China and a donation of about $3,000 to the orphanage the baby came from.

Foreign adoption can be a brush with corruption. Guatemalans, for example, soon discovered how eager Americans are to adopt, and started kidnapping children to add to the supply. Now the United States and Canada both use DNA tests to be sure that a woman who shows up with a baby is actually giving up her own child. (Renee Schoof, More U.S. Couples Adopting Abroad, AP, Jan. 9, 1999.)

Backpedaling on Jefferson

Last November, the British journal Nature reported that DNA evidence implicated Thomas Jefferson as the father of his slave Sally Hemmings’ youngest child. Black columnist Clarence Page went on to call Jefferson a “deadbeat dad,” and black Baltimore Sun columnist Gregory Kane called him a “horny hypocrite” who betrayed his opposition to miscegenation. Now Nature is backing away from its claims. The chief author of the article, Eugene A. Foster says, “We never proved it. We never can. We never will.” Although the article was titled “Jefferson Fathered Slave’s Last Child,” the authors admit that the evidence shows only that someone in the Jefferson line was the child’s father. The president’s younger brother Randolph or any of Randolph’s five sons could have been the father. Jefferson would have been 65 years old when the child was born.

Jefferson’s defenders note that in a letter written on July 1, 1805, he claimed to have had only one “indiscretion” in his life. As a single man of 25, he made advances to Mrs. John Walker, the wife of a friend. Though rumors were already circulating that he was having an affair with Hemmings, he wrote of his flirtation with Mrs. Walker that “it is the only one [of the rumors] founded in truth among all their allegations against me.” (Andrew Cain, Journal Backs Off on Jefferson Report, Washington Times, January 7, 1999, p. A1.)

Great White Hope

David Meriwether, 17, is one of four white students at Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles. Eighty-one percent of the school’s 2,733 students are black and the rest are Hispanic. Mr. Meriwether, who is a basketball player, decided to transfer to Crenshaw because it has one of the best high school teams in the country. He is the first white player in the school’s 30-year history.

Mr. Meriwether has earned the nickname of “Milk.” On the court he says, “the guys played me harder. Everybody called me “white boy,’ and I took a lot of elbows.” There have been other adventures: “Walking the halls can be a little uneasy. People say things testing you.” Mr. Meriwether says one teacher blamed slavery on “white devils,” and all the other students in class turned and stared at him. “I can understand why people come out of here angry if that’s how they’re taught,” he says. (Dan Cray, White Men Can Jump, Time, December 7, 1998.)

Bush For Preferences

Ward Connerly, the black businessman who has led anti-affirmative action initiatives in California and Washington, traveled to Florida in January to gain support for a similar initiative there. While he was in Florida, he met Jeb Bush, the new Republican governor. Mr. Bush listened to Mr. Connerly’s plans but told him he would not support the initiative. “I can’t imagine doing what he’s talking about,” said Mr. Bush, and worried that the initiative would be “divisive.” “He want’s a war,” said the governor; “I’m a lover.” Mr. Connerly will continue to work for a voter referendum but will do so without the governor’s help. He also announced plans for a similar vote on affirmative action in Michigan next year. (Greg Pierce, Connerly and Jeb Bush, Washington Times, January 25, 1999, p. A8.)

Fighting Back

The Center for Individual Rights (CIR) is a libertarian group that has sued universities over racial preferences. Now it is encouraging students and trustees to look into whether their schools violate the law by giving preferences to minorities. CIR began running full-page ads in college newspapers in January that read “Guilty by Admission: Nearly Every Elite College in America Violates the Law. Does Yours?” The ad offers a free handbook on how to file a Freedom of Information Act request, how to recognize illegal recruitment practices, and where to find a lawyer to fight discrimination.

Terrence Pell, who is senior counsel to CIR, says “evidence abounds” that many colleges in America — especially the elite ones — discriminate against whites. At the University of Virginia, for example, the odds against a white applicant getting the nod over an equally qualified black candidate are 45-to-1. (Kim Asch, Group Asks Students to Fight Racial Quotas, Washington Times, January 27, 1999, p. A18.)

Fighting Immigration

The Commerce, Interior, and Agriculture departments plan to establish a new interagency task force to combat “invasive species.” These are species not native to the United States that migrate here and wreak havoc. As the Washington Post explains, “When an invasive species enters a new habitat, negative repercussions often follow. The newcomer usually takes over an area that belongs to a native species and disrupts such things as food chains and food sources.” The Post quotes a Commerce Department spokesman: “They are very threatening to existing species. They completely change the biology of the ecosystem.” (Chris Carr, War on “Invasive Species’ is Joined, Washington Post, Feb. 3, 1999, p. A15.)

Joys of Diversity

Burton Street Elementary School in Panorama City, California, is 90 percent Hispanic, and the white principal, Norman Bernstein, has had trouble with parents ever since the passage of last June’s Proposition 227, which requires that most California school children be taught in English. Opposition to Mr. Bernstein’s attempts to phase out bilingual education have been so strong that in January he called the Anti-Defamation League for advice about what seemed to him to be anti-white sentiment. A few days after that he says two Hispanic men caught him just as he arrived at school and beat him unconscious. He says they told him, “We don’t want you here, white principal.”

There is no doubt that Mr. Bernstein was injured but parents who have called for his dismissal doubt his account, saying that any Hispanic would have called him “gringo” or “guero” rather than white. Los Angeles School Board president Victoria Castro seemed to justify the beating by explaining, “Any time there is a community that feels they are in a conflict and they are primarily Spanish-speaking, they’ll ask for a Spanish-speaking principal and preferably a Latino.” She added, “I don’t think this is an unreasonable request.” Mr. Bernstein vowed to go back to work after he recovers from his injuries. (Michael Luo and Andrew Blankstein, Principal Sought Help as Hostility Grew, LA Times, Feb. 4, 1999.)

Last Supper

The following is the complete description from a cable television guide of a movie called “The Last Supper:” “Five politically liberal college students decide that the best way to protect freedom of speech is to hold a series of weekly dinner parties in which the guests, a parade of right-wing conservatives, are poisoned. Cameron Diaz, Ron Eldard, Annabeth Gish and Courtney B. Vance star in this scathing satire.” (Fairfax County TV Guide: Media General Cable Edition, December 1998, p. 154.)

Marianne Gets a Tan

Since revolutionary times the symbol of the French republic has been a woman (the word république is feminine). In 1848 she was recognized officially and was given the name Marianne. She is almost always depicted as a blond, blue-eyed, and bare-chested, and in recent years Brigitte Bardot and Catherine Deneuve have been models for representations of Marianne. The village of Fremainville, not far from Paris, has decided on a different model. The bust of Marianne in the Fremainville town hall is still bare-chested but it is black, and originally had the title “Zumba the Somalian.” Fremainville’s mayor explains that the town wants to recognize “that the French people are a mixture, that there’s no such thing as a French race, that we accept strangers, that we accept differences.” (Charles Trueheart, The New Face of France, Washington Post, Jan. 16, 1999, p. A17.) Since Brigitte Bardot began to support the Front National and oppose immigration, a number of French towns have smashed busts of Marianne for which she was the model.

Black and White

Many blacks are so preoccupied with race — and think whites are so preoccupied — that they believe President Clinton was impeached because he is too friendly to blacks. According to an Atlanta business owner, Armon Henry, “Everybody that I know that is black thinks that if he wouldn’t have employed so many black folks and passed so many laws that benefited them, this wouldn’t be much of an issue. Clinton really is the first black president we’ve had.” In Portland, Maine, the vice president of the local NAACP expressed a similar view: “My question is, are they really hounding him for his personal transgressions, or (to punish) him for making his administration the most diverse that the country’s ever known?”

Mikel Holt, editor of the black Milwaukee Community Journal, explains that “If Clinton is removed from office, that’s a slap in the face for black America. That’s in essence, derailing the civil rights freedom train.” A common theme among blacks is that since the house impeachment managers are all white their motives are clear. According to Jesse Jackson, “Dr. [Martin Luther] King would be suspect of the impeachment process because he would be suspect of the impeachers.” (Michelle Boorstein, Blacks Have Stake in Clinton Trial, AP, Jan. 19, 1999.)

Spooks in the Fire House

The fire station at San Francisco International Airport is one of the quietest in the city. The airport is very safe and firemen have relatively little to do, so the station is usually considered a plum job for men near the end of 30-year careers. However, because so many recent affirmative-action “firefighters” cannot handle the work at a regular station, the San Francisco Fire Department has taken to dumping incompetents at the airport.

Recently, one of these firefighting failures, a black woman, was posted at the airport and, like everyone else, had to take her turn at night watch. Night watch is “stood” alone, in a rollaway bed, near the telephones and the computer, away from the dormitory and the rest of the crew. After her first night watch, the woman said she saw ghosts. Her captain insisted that she take her turn at night anyway, so she went over his head to be relieved of this frightening duty. The department has a black chief, appointed by a black mayor, so she has been officially excused from night duty. (The Smoke Eaters’ Gazette, Dec., 1998. [Underground department newsletter])

French Split is Official

The Mégret faction of the Front National has held its breakaway congress and has now officially established a separate party called the Front National-National Movement. Bruno Mégret was elected president by an 86-percent vote of the 2,162 delegates. The new party will pursue the same nationalist policies as the Le Pen party but without, as Mr. Mégret put it, “the excesses, the blunders, the provocations.” The party recognized the important patriotic contributions of Jean-Marie Le Pen by naming him honorary president. Mr. Le Pen declined the honor, calling the election “a crime against the Front National.”

As a single party the front generally got 15 percent of the national vote, but polls suggest that the split has greatly weakened the movement. Current estimates are that it could lose as much as half its support in the June elections for the European parliament. (Denis Boulard, National Front Split Now Official, AP, Jan. 24, 1999.)

AR in the News

The Council of Conservative Citizens, a patriotic organization with which AR has friendly ties, has recently received a great deal of national publicity, mainly because Senator Trent Lott and congressman Bob Barr have spoken at its meetings. The Washington Post has run half a dozen articles about the group, including a front-page Style section profile of its CEO, Gordon Baum. One Post columnist, Colbert King, wrote no fewer than three columns blasting the C of CC, and Jared Taylor published a letter in the Post replying to some of his charges. Mr. King, who is black, countered with a column entitled “White Chauvinism for the ’90s,” in which he called Mr. Taylor a “bigot,” and said AR is a “white supremacist publication.” On Feb. 6, the Post published a reply from Mr. Taylor.

More Money for Illegals

California’s new Democratic Governor Gray Davis is wasting little time pushing liberal policies opposed by former governor Pete Wilson. His most recent budget proposal allocates $60 million for prenatal care for illegal aliens. The funding was ordered by state courts but the Wilson administration refused to pay for the program and was battling the order in court. Each year as many as 70,000 illegal immigrant women get state-funded prenatal services at a cost of about $1,000 each.

Republican Assembly leader Rod Pacheco, who is trying to get more Hispanics into his party, says he will support Gov. Davis. “The overarching facet for me is the humanitarian side of it. Why would we not help a woman who is with child and that child is about to become a U.S. citizen?” Other Republicans have vowed to fight the plan but since Democrats have strong majorities in both houses they are not likely to prevail. Gov. Davis also wants an additional $14.4 million for long-term aid to disabled people who are in California illegally. (Dan Morain, Prenatal Care for Immigrants in Davis Budget, Los Angeles Times, January 14, 1999.)

‘Jackrolling’

Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city and industrial hub, is now known as the “rape capital” of the world. A recent poll of 4,000 Johannesburg women found that an astonishing one in three had been raped in the preceding year. In a related survey, a quarter of a sample of 1,500 Soweto school boys said “jackrolling” — the South African term for recreational gang rape — is “fun.” The vast majority were unaware that condoms help protect against AIDS.

Occasionally rapists are caught and prosecuted. In January, the first black to play on South Africa’s national cricket team, Makhaya Ntini, appeared in court on rape charges — to the dismay of those who have been touting him as a role model. (South Africa’s Rape Shock, BBC News, Jan. 19, 1999.)

Discrimination Lottery

The 2.7 million people who work for the federal government are seven times more likely to beef about “discrimination” than are private sector employees. In 1997 they filed 29,000 “civil rights” cases, meaning that every year more than one out of a hundred federal bureaucrats file a claim. From 1990 to 1997, the government spent $378 million just on counselors, judges and investigators to handle complaints. Another $488 million went to employees who won damages ranging from a few thousand dollars to millions for class-action cases. Some awards are confidential and not reported, so the seven-year bill for federal “civil rights” cases may have been more than one billion dollars — and is rising. Although the bureaucracy is shrinking slightly, the annual number of “civil rights” complaints rose 70 percent from 1990 to 1997. Also, twice as many employees appealed decisions in 1997 as in 1991. Yelling about discrimination is popular in the government because it is so easy — every agency has anti-discrimination squads waiting to spring into action — and there is always a chance of hitting the jackpot. A small chance. Only four percent of the people who had their cases decided in 1997 got money, but there is no punishment for filing a case that doesn’t pay. The majority of the cases resulted in “corrective action,” whatever that means.

In 1997, only one fifth of complaints were about race. The rest were about sex, age, disability, etc. Blacks filed most of the race complaints but whites filed a quarter of them. Some got money. Ed Drury of the Federal Aviation Administration won $300,000 and a job supervising an air traffic control center in the Virgin Islands. (Karen Gullo, Complaints by Federal Workers Swell, AP, Jan. 18, 1999.)

Parks Too White

The National Park Service is beating its breast because not enough non-whites come to the parks. The service now has a black director, Robert Stanton, who is determined to do better. In January, he presided over a three-day conference called “American Parks, American People,” which agonized over what to do. One of the sites for the conference was in Marin County, California, where a black man explained, “When I go to the national parks I never see anyone of color. Often, I am the only person of color when I walk out at Fort Cronkhite [on the Pacific shore]. It makes you feel uncomfortable.” The parks are clearly failing in an important part of their mission. Mr. Stanton promised to hire more rangers “of color” but whether this will coax more blacks into the wilderness remains to be seen. (Officials Say Parks Fail to Attract Minorities, Marin (California) Independent Journal, Jan. 16, 1999.)

Here They Come

The number of immigrants living in the United States has tripled since 1970, rising from 9.6 million to 26.3 million. Immigrants now account for nearly ten percent of the population — the highest proportion in 70 years. If the children of first-generation immigrants are included, the percentage is far higher. Half of all immigrants speak Spanish, and 27 percent come from just one country: Mexico. Immigrant households are 30 to 50 percent more likely than native households (including blacks) to be on welfare. Immigration and births to immigrants accounted for 70 percent of the American population increase since 1970. Eighty-five to 90 percent of immi-grants are non-white. (Gabriel Escobar, Immigrants’ Ranks Tripled in 29 Years, Washington Post, Jan. 9, 1999, p. A1.)

 

Books of Interest

Two speakers at last year’s AR conference have just published noteworthy books.

Frank Borzellieri’s The Unspoken Truth: Race, Culture and Other Taboos is a series of essays on race relations, political correctness and conservative politics. Mr. Borzellieri, an occasional contributor to AR, is a columnist for the Ledger-Observer newspaper chain in New York and an elected school board member in Queens. Jared Taylor, who wrote the forward for the book, says “Frank Borzellieri and untruth are incompatible.” Samuel Francis has called Mr. Borzellieri “a one man revolution against the powers that are destroying America’s people and their heritage.” The Unspoken Truth is published by New Century Books.

Paul Gottfried’s latest book, After Liberalism: Mass Democracy in the Managerial State, is a critique of the current regime that focuses on how liberal elites are reconstructing American society to fit their ideological ends. In a review for Chronicles, Samuel Francis writes, “Gottfried’s book is probably destined to become a classic of contemporary conservative thought and to endure long after the tracts and pamphlets of neoconservative sloganeers are forgotten.”

No Quotas, No Meeting

An association of black doctors has decided not to hold its 2001 convention in Seattle because the state of Washington has outlawed racial preferences. The National Medical Association claims 8,000 to 10,000 people usually attend. Last November, 60 percent of Washington voters approved Initiative 200, which forbids state and local governments from practicing racial preferences in contracts, jobs and education. A majority within the city of Seattle, however, voted against the measure. (Black MDs Won’t Meet in Seattle, Las Vegas Sun, February 2, 1999.)

Befuddled Britain

The British army is only about one percent non-white, so has come up with a two-page newspaper advertisement that it hopes will cure this defect. On the first page, the words “In today’s Army blacks and Asians get called all sorts of things” are superimposed like a Hitler moustache on a white soldier’s face. On the next page are the words “Lieutenant, Captain, Major, Colonel,” and the white soldier is saluting. At the bottom of the page are the words, “We now have more ethnic minorities in positions of real power than ever before. So nowadays, there’s only one group of people being held back. Racists.”

The account director for Saatchi & Saatchi, which produced the ad, explains that the Hitler moustache was included “for impact.” “Hitler was a very familiar icon to grab people’s attention and make them look closer,” she explained. Saatchi & Saatchi was also behind a recruiting poster in which a black face replaces Lord Kitchener in the famous First World War poster with the words “Your Country Needs You.” (Tom Leonard, Army Uses Hitler to Recruit Black and Asian Officers, Telegraph (London), Oct. 27, 1998.)

In the meantime, the London police are proud to say that they spend more time trying to solve murders when the victim is black than when he is white. In a letter to the London Evening Standard of Oct. 28, 1998, Home Office Minister Kate Hoey explained: “On average, the Metropolitan Police invests 64 per cent more in overall resources and utilises 35 per cent more in officer days where the victim is black.”

She adds that “the Met has solved proportionately more crimes where the victims were black than where they were white. In 1997/98, overall clear-up rates were at 24.9 per cent, but where the victims were black the figures improved to 41.4 per cent.” Londoners are no doubt very pleased.

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Letters from readers
LETTERS FROM READERS

Sir — In his February article, “Is There a Superior Race?” Michael Levin is defeated by his own premises. Prof. Levin starts with atheism and evolution and ends up with nihilism and amorality. This, incidentally, is the common trajectory for all the modernist ideologies: Liberalism, Communism, Socialism, Nazism — and American Renaissance. Only the belief that God made us and loves us can give any people their dignity back.

Andrew Roesell, Springfield, Va.

Sir — Because he holds that no one objective reality exists, Michael Levin believes it is impossible to determine what is right and wrong; all values are determined only by majority agreement. Furthermore, man, according to him, has no free will by which to choose his values — they are determined by his racial biology. That a telephone is better than smoke signals, that freedom is right while dictatorship is wrong, that productivity is good while sloth is bad, are not, he believes, objective facts based on the objective standard of man’s life and survival, but are regarded as such only by group consensus. With this anti-reality, anti-reason philosophy at its base, it is no wonder American Renaissance believes amity between people of different races is impossible.

Joseph Kellard, Rockville Centre, N.Y.

Sir — I am disheartened by the postage stamp honoring Malcolm X. On June 3, 1962, in a speech in Los Angeles, when informed that 130 civilians had died in a plane crash, he stated that the death of “over 120 white people,” was “a very beautiful thing.” He also told syndicated columnist Dorothy Kilgallen that “there ought to be a Mau Mau in the U.S.” The Mau Mau butchered innocent blacks and whites in Kenya to further a Marxist takeover in that nation. Honoring Malcolm X is like honoring Adolf Hitler. Our government shames itself by this action.

David Hammer, Bronx, N.Y.

Sir — I’m puzzled by the editorial judgment of AR in running a series of articles on the inner workings of French politics. One can’t blame Jared Taylor for his deep interest in that fine country and his concern about it’s being torn apart by the cancer of multiculturalism. I simply question whether we need so much detail on the subject given AR’s strict limits on space. Let’s give Messrs. Le Pen and Mégret a rest for a spell and turn our attention closer to home.

O.M. Ostlund, State College, Pa.

Sir — As the executive director of two organizations actively campaigning against the dispossession of Americans from their ancestral home, I am somewhat concerned by the large amount of space AR has given to the French and their problems. It is beyond me what we can do about their situation, and the more space given to them, the less space there is for us. I feel what is needed is a more defined, energized focus on what is most important; namely, taking care of our own country first.

Robert Simmons, San Rafael, Ca.

Sir — “Name Withheld, Roanoke” (February “Letters”) makes an interesting point about American egalitarianism, but some correction is called for. While Lincoln himself was not an egalitarian, his rhetoric about slavery certainly abetted the advance of egalitarianism, as was soon manifested, for instance, in the progressivism of Herbert Croly and Teddy Roosevelt. This amounted to a gradual transformation of our heritage of constitutional freedoms into one of statism, equality, and democracy. This culminated in Wilson’s administration with the 17th, 18th, and 19th Amendments. That this same misguided trend continued to “progress” through FDR, the 1960s, and up to our own time does not make it an “historical sleight of hand of current apologists of equality.” Liberals, Progressives, and Emersonian relativists have been “dressing up the pedigree by tracing it back to Lincoln” and beyond for over 130 years. It has been a long, gradual process. Since, as he acknowledged, he was only borne along by events, Lincoln probably did not intend to encourage such doings. However, it is another aspect of the Lincoln irony that this is exactly what his rhetoric has done.

W. Edward Chynoweth, Sanger, Ca.

Sir — I have never been able to understand why Europeans are as vulnerable as we are to the old racial shakedown. After all, we are at a threefold disadvantage: We recently took our country from Indians (and Mexicans), we practiced race slavery, and we have a tradition of immigration. Europeans have none of those psychological handicaps, yet the two February articles about Britain suggest that our cousins are just as accomplished at self-loathing as we are. I suppose this says something about the immutable characteristics of race. Even without slavery thrown in their faces they are just as easy to con as we are — and even without “400 years of oppression,” their blacks are just as degenerate as ours are.

I don’t think this consistency is necessarily all bad. I suspect that just as all whites have fallen into the pit at about the same time, if one group succeeds in dragging itself out the others will follow. The divisions within the French right are heart-breaking, but I would bet the Europeans will show us the way.

Alan Kerbs, Paintsville, Ky.

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