O Tempora, O Mores! (January, 1991)

Hazel Dukes It Out

Hazel Dukes is the president of the New York State NAACP. She was recently named as the $110,000-a-year head of the New York City Off Track Betting Board, largely because she is black and is a friend of New York’s black mayor, David Dinkins.

Last fall, she complained in a radio interview about waiters, “who not only aren’t black, but can’t even speak English.” When it was suggested to her that this sounded anti-Latino, Miss Dukes replied that she wasn’t referring to Latinos. “I’m talking about another nationality,” she said. “Latinos can speak English.” Asked what nationality she had in mind, Miss Dukes thought for a moment and said, “Ecuadorans. I don’t know what they are [but] I know they’re not Hispanic.”

There was considerable hooting from New York’s Hispanics, but Miss Dukes remains securely in her job, thanks to protective coloring. Any white city official who said anything so “insensitive” on the radio, and then replied to questions with such colossal ignorance would be very quickly gone. Mayor Dinkins concluded that Miss Dukes’ remarks must have been inaccurately reported.

An instructive comparison with the Dukes case is that of Dan Landes, a bureau chief in the New York City DA’s office, who lost his job last spring because of a single word. He once complained to colleagues that his office was swamped with work because of a large number of “schvartze burglaries and robberies.” “Schvartze,” which is Yiddish for black, is thought by some to be derogatory. It is, of course, infra dig to refer at all to New York’s black crime wave, but Mr. Landes would probably still have his job if he had spoken of “African-American larcenies.”

Blame It on Whitey

A recent New York Times poll reports that 29% of all blacks think that the US government may have developed the AIDS virus in a laboratory and is deliberately using it to infect black people. Sixty percent of all blacks think that the government could be deliberately ensuring a supply of drugs to blacks.

In the face of massive education campaigns about both drugs and AIDS, much of it directed at blacks, it is pitiful that so many believe their government is trying to kill them. One wonders how they explain affirmative action, set aside contracting, minorities-only scholarships, tax-breaks for minority broadcasters, and all the rest of the preference industry.

Any black who believes that the United States government is deliberately supplying drugs to blacks and trying to infect them with AIDS will believe any anti-white theory. It would be hard to find a more vivid demonstration of how determined blacks can be to blame all their failings on white people.

Arizona Speaks

The people of Arizona recently voted down a proposal that the state declare a holiday on Martin Luther King’s birthday. This, despite the fact that the pro-holiday forces had the support of virtually every official, newspaper, and commentator in the state. The defeat of the holiday shows, once again, how radically different public opinion is from published opinion.

We suspect that the people of most states would vote the same way if they had the chance. Ever since Washington’s and Lincoln’s birthdays were lumped together to make “Presidents Day,” there is not a single other American whose birthday is marked by a national holiday. That Dr. King should have been a womanizer, a plagiarizer, and perhaps a communist sympathizer gives some Americans doubts about the holiday.

Nevertheless, groups all over the country are thinking of ways to punish the people of Arizona for their decision. Although “tolerance” is the national watchword, those who yell about it the loudest are the last to practice it. About 40 convention groups have canceled their plans to meet in Arizona, at an estimated loss to the state of $30 million. NFL Commissioner, Paul Tagliabue, says he will recommend that the 1993 Super Bowl not be played in Phoenix, as now planned, because of the vote. Student activists are agitating to get their football teams to boycott the Copper Bowl and the Fiesta Bowl, both held in Arizona.

When colleges participating in the Fiesta Bowl were each offered a peace offering of $100,000 to be used for scholarships for non-whites only, it at least sparked debate on the subject of race-based financial aid. Now that it has been officially established by the Department of Education that private scholarship money can be set aside for blacks only, we presume it is legal to set aside money for whites, too . . .

Ethnic Purity Panel

Hispanic firemen in San Francisco claim that it is unfair for people of Spanish descent to be getting affirmative action and racial promotion benefits. They think that benefits should go only to New World Hispanics, and have proposed an Ethnic Purity Panel to make sure that no Spaniards enjoy racial preferences. “I don’t know what their culture is, other than what I read in National Geographic,” complained one of the advocates of ethnic purity. “They live a totally white life.”

Black Pharaohs

As has now been widely reported, black education “experts” have been mounting an increasingly strident campaign for an “Afro-Centric” school curriculum. The theory is that learning about Europeans breaks the spirit of black children, and that they should be taught about their own ancestors.

There has been some creativity in the choice of ancestors. For example, it is now gospel among Afro-Centricists that the Egyptian pharaohs were black, and that whites have deliberately spread the lie that they were not. It would be hard to think of an ancient people that can be more easily shown not to have been black. Some Egyptian mummies are so well preserved that it is possible to count their eye lashes.

John Leo writes in the Nov. 12, 1990 issue of U.S. News and World Report that he recently phoned up seven different Egyptologists, all of whom assured him that the Pharaohs were certainly not black. All seven then refused to let Mr. Leo use their names as sources. One explained that the subject was “politically too hot.”

We have known for some time that we live in an era in which even experts are so terrified they dare not say something that is not only true, but that everyone knows to be true. It is gratifying to see their pathetic cowardice dragged into the light by Mr. Leo. It is precisely on subjects that are “politically hot” that the truth must be spoken bravely and freely. We hardly recognize the nation someone once called The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

Suing the Schools

Six black families have sued the New York City school system, claiming that the minds of black children are damaged by a curriculum that fails to recognize the achievements of Africans. They charge that the schools have ignored the “participation of African Americans in the various aspects of world and American culture, sciences, history, arts and other areas of human endeavor.” As evidence of the harm done to blacks, a lawyer for the plaintiffs points to all the well-known aspects of black failure: crime, low grades, illiteracy, and unemployment.

Back in 1954, the idea was that blacks were disadvantaged because they weren’t getting the same education as whites. Now the theory is that it is having to learn the same stuff taught to white folks that makes blacks drug themselves, have illegitimate children, and shoot each other.

Who knows; the six black families may win their case. It may not be possible to find an Egyptologist willing to testify in open court that the Pharaohs weren’t black. It may not be possible to find anyone willing to testify that George Washington and Thomas Edison weren’t Ubangi princes traveling in disguise. Once a few pro-white misconceptions are cleared up, New York’s black school children are likely to start doing much better.

Syphilis Up . . . and Down

According to a study by the Centers for Disease Control, rates of syphilis infection have leapt since 1986, and are now higher than at any time since the introduction of penicillin. The increase, however, is due exclusively to more frequent infection among non-whites. In the last four years, the white infection rate dropped to 2.6 per 100,000, while the black infection rate shot up 132% to 121 per 100,000. Blacks are thus 46 times more likely than whites to have syphilis.

The study notes that various African cities have infection rates of 100 to 200 per 100,000 inhabitants. With a rate of 158.4 per 100,000, Washington (DC) would be right at home.

The Price of Purity

In 1989, the city of Austin decided to practice anti-apartheid by refusing to let its public libraries buy a single book from publishing companies that do business with South Africa. A year later, the city discovered that this paroxysm of virtue had had a price: Its libraries could no longer buy the world’s leading encyclopedias — the Britannica, the Americana, and Colliers — as well as loads of other standard library fare.

Late last year, the city council reversed itself, and decided to let the public libraries resume business with racist oppressors.

Expensive Illegals

California passed a law in 1989 to provide medical coverage for illegal aliens who live there permanently. Just how to figure out which illegals are permanent and which are just passing through is a bit of trick, but the state had to pass the law in order to stay in compliance with federal regulations.

In its first year, the law cost California taxpayers $300 million — triple the amount originally projected. Theoretically, the benefits aren’t supposed to go to illegals whose permanent residence is some other country, but thousands of sick Mexicans have been slipping across the border, showing up at hospitals, and claiming to be Californians. Doctors have had to cook up elaborate ways to figure out who is permanent and who isn’t. “We’re overwhelmed with fraud . . . .” says Jim Mayfield, benefits investigator for Imperial and San Diego counties.

The very notion that Americans must pay the medical expenses of illegal aliens is an absurdity. That any should be “permanent” is an outrage. That doctors must distinguish between the “permanent” and the “impermanent” is a farce.

African Adventures

Several people have been killed in Nigeria, recently, in riots that were set off when people started screaming that their sex organs had been stolen. In October of last year, fear swept the country when reports began to circulate of witch doctors who could steal penises and breasts by means of a simple hand shake. Many Nigerians believe that such organs are used in charms and potions.

The witch doctors seem better able to remove good sense than sex organs. According to a Nigerian police officer, examinations of purported victims showed that the “organs were in their natural place[s] and functioning.”

Meanwhile, in September, a Zimbabwean witch doctor disappointed his followers by failing to stay under water for 48 hours. Lovemore Mpofu plunged beneath the surface during a tribal cleansing ceremony, with a promise that he would come up again two days later. His followers, who were in training to become witch doctors themselves, danced and sang for the next two days, and were crestfallen when the body was discovered.

American Adventures

Three years ago, a Zairian woman by the name of Jeanette Kayulu brought her mother and her six children — ages 6 to 16 — to New York. They all moved in with Miss Kayulu’s sister, who was married to a Canadian diplomat stationed in New York City. Perhaps he got a little tired of his in-laws, but after a year and a half, the diplomat vanished. A month after that, his wife went home to Canada, leaving Miss Kayulu and her crew high and dry.

Before long, Miss Kayulu followed her sister to Canada, but the Canadians deported her to Zaire. That left the Kayulu children and their grandmother even higher and drier. Grandma was no help at all, since the only language she speaks is Lingala. In a month or two, all seven were evicted and were walking the streets. Nevertheless, as state law requires, they soon got free lodging at the expense of Westchester County. The county offered them all one-way tickets to Zaire, but, according to newspaper reports, they declined “politely.”

County welfare agents spent the next few months tracking down all the relevant relatives, but none agreed to take responsibility. The mother, contacted back in Zaire, sweetly asked the Americans to keep her children and give them a good education. It then dawned on county officials that these seven Africans were illegal aliens, and they stopped writing public assistance checks. A legal services lawyer then flew to their assistance and won restoration of benefits, but not before the Kayulus had been evicted again.

This time, the Kayulu family was put into two rooms at a Hilton Hotel that cost $9,000 a month. Westchester officials explained that according to state guidelines, homeless children must be housed as close to school as possible.

According to news reports, the children are now busily immersing themselves in American culture. They enjoy watching the Cosby Show, swimming in the Hilton swimming pool, and love pizza and vanilla ice cream.

Proud Parents or Child Abusers?

Americans are on the lookout for child abuse as never before, and the zealousness of the search has turned up a few false alarms. A rash of cases in multicultural California have got even the tolerance experts scratching their heads.

It seems that many Asian men are so proud of their young sons that at the slightest provocation they will whip off the little boy’s pants and display his wee penis. According to one survey, more than half of the Koreans, Cambodians, and Vietnamese living in California are likely to say that it is perfectly all right for parents and grandparents not only to exhibit the penis but to tickle or tweak it affectionately.

Since school children are now under strict orders to tell their teachers about anyone who tweaks their genitals, this curious Asian custom has led to frantic charges of child abuse. The people who specialize in general uplift are perplexed: Should they smile sweetly on this colorful example of “cultural diversity” or should they move to save the children from irreparable harm?

‘God Bless America’

In September of last year, a Bronx jury awarded a man $9.3 million for falling onto the tracks of the New York City subway and letting a train cut his arm off. Francisco Marino, a Mexican dishwasher, was drunk. He reeled off the edge of the platform at the 183rd Street station at just the wrong time. The jury reasoned that New York City should pay, because a transit clerk neglected to hustle the obviously soused Mr. Marino off the platform.

The jury made a particularly large award, since it reasoned that there was little demand for one-armed dishwashers and that Mr. Marino’s income might be affected. When the verdict was announced, the Mexican citizen reportedly shouted “God bless America.”

Berkeley Balkanizes

In 1989, the University of California at Berkeley became the first major university in the country at which whites are not a majority. Like the state in which it is located, Berkeley is supposed to be a harbinger of the new America. This experimental entity is supposed to be a “world-nation,” in which all peoples will mingle in mutual respect.

If the Berkeley campus is any indication of what is in store for the country, the “world-nation” is set to be a bust. A 16-month study called the Diversity Project sadly reports that the campus is thoroughly Balkanized. Professional associations, study sessions, and socializing all splinter along racial lines. There are explicit, non-white groupings, like the Black Sociology Student Association, and all-Asian dances. Though whites are not permitted to form analogous exclusive groups, they also drift naturally into association with each other.

The Berkeley campus is thoroughly typical. At the other end of the country, at Syracuse University, the dean of admissions and financial aid observes that “whites don’t much want to associate with blacks and blacks don’t much want to associate with whites, either.” He conducted an informal experiment in one of the college dining rooms by counting the number of times whites and blacks ate together. It took him 11 consecutive lunch hours finally to find a black and a white eating together.

Thanks to school busing and obligatory integration of all aspects of life, today’s college students have lived in far closer contact with people of other races than their parents ever did. That they should still self-segregate so rigidly gives the lie to the dogma that it is only out of ignorance that people prefer the company of their own kind. Every day life on campuses all across the country suggests that such a preference stems from knowledge and experience rather than ignorance.