O Tempora, O Mores! (March, 1995)

Separation for Israel

After a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 19 Israelis in January, the call went out for a new solution to the Middle-East problem: separation. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir himself has proposed that the time has come for Arabs and Israelis to go their separate ways and to live apart from each other. To that end he has proposed construction of a wall that would separate Israel from the West Bank. Other government officials would like to see armed guards and patrol dogs in addition to a wall. Israel already has walls along its borders with Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt, and is finishing one on the border with Gaza. [Clyde Haberman, A Wall Around Israel, NYT, Jan. 25, 1995, p. A1.]

Dying for the Flag

On January 14th, a 19-year-old Kentucky man named Michael Westerman was shot dead by black juveniles because he was flying a Confederate battle flag from the back of his pickup truck. The blacks have been arrested and will probably be tried as adults. The press, though regretting the killing, has taken its usual position that the battle flag is an “insensitive” symbol, which should not be displayed in public.

Local whites are tired of exhortations to “sensitivity” that run only one way, and have decided that blacks should start being “sensitive” too. Mr. Westerman’s funeral motorcade was bedecked with battle flags. A coalition of Southern groups has also planned a memorial gathering in tribute to Mr. Westerman, to be held on Confederate Flag Day, March 4, 1995. Those seeking information can call Bill Rolen at (901) 767-6699.

Michael Westerman leaves a young wife and twins who are only two months old. Gifts to the family can be made payable to Hannah Westerman and sent c/o Brenda Arms, 3387 Sugar Creek Rd., Woodlawn TN 37191.

Tales From the Multicultural Underground

Mr. and Mrs. Long Liu Lee, immigrants from China, have been living for 17 years in a house in Queens, New York. For over a year, the Lees kept meter readers from the gas company out of the house, but in Dec. 1994 an official showed up with a locksmith and a city marshal and announced that, like it or not, he would read the meter. Ignoring Mrs. Lee’s attempts to keep him out of the basement, the meter reader pushed through a thick growth of cobwebs and discovered a fully-clothed skeleton sitting in a chair. The skull had dropped from the shoulders onto the floor and had rolled under the chair. The skeleton, dressed in a sweater, beige slacks, and black slippers, still had a wallet in its pocket, and has been identified as that of Mr. Lee.

Police report that Mrs. Lee speaks little English and appeared confused. She said that she had not seen her husband for two months, though neighbors claim to have seen him as recently as a month ago. So far, the police have no reason to suspect foul play. Forensic experts explain that in the Lee’s overheated basement, the flesh could rot completely off a corpse in a matter of weeks (New York Times, Dec. 3, 1994). [Ronald Sullivan, Meter reader discovers human skeleton in Queens Basement, NYT, 12/3/94, p. 26.]

Who Needs White People?

Keith Hamilton Cobb is a light-skinned black who plays in a television program called “All My Children.” He recently told Soap Opera Weekly what he would want if he had one wish: “I’d wish that everyone in the world were an indistinguishable shade of brown.”

Truth or Consequences

In January, the city of St. Louis was shocked to learn that a white high school student was raped and beaten to death by a black student. The assault took place during school hours in a girls’ restroom. The black had been transferred to the school only the day before, but had been suspended from his previous school for lurking in girls’ restrooms. Over the Christmas holidays he was questioned by police for an alleged burglary. He is known to be deranged, and parents want to know why he was not in a special school.

This crime finally prompted a local television personality, Bruce Bradley, to unburden himself on the air. On January 26 he announced that he was going to talk about something “no one discusses: that black young men commit most of the violent crime in this city and in this country.” He went on to say that “if we refuse to believe this is happening, if we refuse to discuss this, we might as well turn the country over to them.”

Mr. Bradley was promptly fired, but there has been a huge groundswell of public support for him. His case became even stronger when another crime made the front page of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch just two days after he was fired. A white woman was stabbed to death in her apartment by a young black man whom she had met at work. [Michael Sorkin, Immigrant’s dreams died with daughter, St. Lou Post Dis, 1/29/95, p. 1., Gail Pennington, KETC fires show host who linked race, crime, St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 1/28/95, Virginia Baldwin Hick, Behavior-Disordered students pose dilemma, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 1/29/95, p. D1.]

Opportunity for a Brother

On Sept. 6, 1972, five black men armed with machine guns descended on the Fountain Valley Golf Course in St. Croix, American Virgin Islands. After robbing a number of golfers, they lined up eight of them and calmly shot them to death. All five killers were arrested and sentenced to life in prison. Late last year, just before his term as governor of the Virgin Islands expired, Alexander Farrelly pardoned one of the gunmen along with four other convicted murderers. He said he wanted “to give some of our brothers and sisters who have strayed a second opportunity.” Federal prosecutors are furious, but can think of no way to countermand the now ex-governor’s order. The freed man, Raphael Joseph, says he plans to enroll at the University of California at Santa Cruz. [Paul Rogers, Pardoned killer plans new life at UCSC, San Jose Mercury News, 12/31/94, p. 1A.]

African Gratitude

The United States has promised to give South Africa $600 million in aid over the next three years. This makes South Africa the largest sub-Saharan recipient of foreign aid by far, and makes the United States its single largest donor. Nelson Mandela’s reaction? “It’s peanuts,” he said; “We would have expected from the United States far more than that.” [John Daniszewski, Associated Press, Jan. 6, 1995.]

Sharing the Bed

Ralph Abernathy was a colleague of Martin Luther King during the 1960s. Five years ago, he was much criticized by “civil rights” leaders when he disclosed in his memoirs that not only was King a womanizer but that he had committed adultery the night before he was murdered. King’s partner has now identified herself. Georgia Powers, a black woman who was a Kentucky state legislator for many years, tells the story in her own memoirs, Sharing the Dream. [Rita Delfiner, Author: I shared king’s dream — and his bed, NY Post, 1/26/95, p. 9.]

Fiddling While America Burns

It has dawned on a few in the chattering classes that classical music is in headlong decline, and some have even begun to murmur about the causes. Cities, they note, are where the great orchestras are to be found, but increasingly that is where nonwhites are also to be found. Nonwhites think classical music is for sissies, that is to say, whites. Also, America’s love-suicide pact with multiculturalism ensures that no one dares suggest that immigrants should abandon reggae or lambada and listen to Bach. Finally, public schools used to have bands, orchestras, and music classes, which introduced many students to real music. Music classes are the first to go when school districts have to scrape for money to pay for busing and metal detectors.

The great philanthropies should be the natural allies of Western art, but they are its enemies. The Rockefeller Foundation, which used to give lavishly to ballets and orchestras, now funds only those art programs that “can advance international and intercultural understanding.” This is foundation-speak for grants to blacks and Hispanics. At the Ford Foundation, money for the arts is meant to “enlarge opportunities for minority artists and to strengthen minority arts institutions.”

Likewise, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, known for its “genius” awards, has turned its back on Western Civilization. Of the four performing arts “geniuses” it found in 1994, only one was white. He is a “theater arts educator,” whose qualification for genius is having founded “a theater company for inner-city children of Manhattan’s Clinton Neighborhood [formerly known as Hell’s Kitchen] and the Times Square welfare hotels.” No doubt, it will be mounting epic productions.

Even corporate sponsors, slavish followers of art-set fashions, have changed their thinking. One contributions manager says, “We no longer support the arts. We use the arts in innovative ways to support the social causes chosen by our company.” [Robert Brustein, The Cost of Culture by Coercion, NYT large Type Weekly, 12/5/94, p. 20.]

The Demography of AIDS

In San Francisco, the number of people getting AIDS has been decreasing while the number of people dying from it is at record levels. This is because it usually takes AIDS about ten years to kill its victims, and the highest infection rates were between 1981 and 1984. At that time about 8,000 San Franciscans a year were getting AIDS; today about 8,000 a year are dying from it. Because white homosexuals have become much more careful about AIDS, there were only 2,264 new cases in 1993. However that number is likely to start climbing again, as the disease spreads among nonwhites and drug users.

San Francisco is the only city in the country in which AIDS has outstripped heart disease, and is the leading killer of men. Some populations have been particularly hard-hit. The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus has had 115 casualties since 1989; only seven original members are left. [Dara Akiko Tom, AIDS tops heart disease as No. 1 killer of men, Detroit News, 11/20/94, p. 5A.]

The Geography of AIDS

Things are worse in Haiti. AIDS is so common that police put on rubber gloves before they frisk suspects. Occupying U.S. soldiers have been ordered not to have sex with Haitians, and in some cases have been ordered to spend their free time in camp rather than mix with the locals at all.

Sixty percent of city hospital beds are occupied by AIDS patients, and the U.S. government estimates that by 2010 the disease will have reduced life expectancy by 15 years to 44. In Haiti, as in many African countries, AIDS appears to be spread heterosexually, and about 70 percent of the prostitutes are infected. It is well known in Haiti that condoms can prevent AIDS infection, but the market price of a condom is often more than a prostitute earns from a customer. The United Nations has therefore been selling condoms at a subsidized rate of three for the equivalent of seven cents. [Rogers Worthington, Proliferation of AIDS casts a cloud over Haiti’s Future, Chi Trib, 11/20/94, p. 6.]

Grants for the Deserving

Last winter, the Borough of Manhattan Community College held competitions for scholarships. The application form for the Ho Chi Minh Scholarship explains the purposes of the grant:

1) Honoring and promoting the legacy of the Vietnamese freedom fighter, Ho Chi Minh; 2) Promoting awareness about the global history and struggle of people of non-white Color . . .

The application notes that Ho Chi Minh “supported efforts to overthrow South Vietnam’s government and to unite the nation under a communist regime.”

Applicants were to have a 2.0 grade point average and submit a two-page essay. One suggested topic was “World Leader Ho Chi Minh: His Life and Struggle.” Twenty-five students were to be awarded $500 each.

Students could also apply for the Assata Shakur Scholarship, named for a woman who called herself Joanne Chesimard before she joined the Black Panthers. The biography of Miss Shakur included in the application concludes on this inspiring note:

Long a target of J. Edgar Hoover’s campaign to defame, infiltrate and minimilize Black nationalist organizations and their leaders, Assata was incarcerated for four years prior to her conviction on flimsy charges in 1977, as an accomplice to murder. Two years after her fraudulent conviction, Assata escaped from prison. She was given political asylum in Cuba, where she now resides.

The purpose of this scholarship was to encourage students to take ethnic studies courses, and applicants must have taken at least one. It was also meant to promote “awareness around the struggles of People of non-white Color.” Applicants were to write a 300- to 500-word essay entitled “A Heroine/Hero Personality of Color who Fought for the Liberation of People of Color,” or “How my Education can Contribute to the Well Being of My Community.” Twenty-five winners were to receive $500 each. [From copies of actual applications.]

Shades of Shay’s Rebellion

Hatred of the federal government is increasing, especially in the West. Something called the “county movement” is a new attempt by local people to fight what they see as intolerable federal intrusion. Already, over 100 counties (and 16 out of Nevada’s 17) have passed ordinances making it illegal for the federal government to regulate use of public land.

In Catron County, New Mexico, where the movement began, the sheriff has threatened to arrest the head of the local Forest Service office, and the U.S. attorney has threatened to arrest the sheriff. Catron County has passed a resolution predicting “much physical violence” if the federal government tries to restrict grazing rights on public land, and it now requires heads of households to own weapons to “protect citizens rights.”

When Forest Service officials tried to inspect a Catron County mine they thought was spilling toxic waste into a watercourse, the owner refused to let them on the property. He is reported to have said that if the feds ever showed up again, they would be met by “100 men with rifles.” So far, the county movement appears not to have spilled any blood, but federal agents are fearful. [Charles McCoy, Catron County, N.M. leads a nasty revolt over eco-protection, WSJ, 1/3/95, p. 1.]

The militia movement is another sign of unprecedentedly deep resentment against federal authority. Militias have sprung up in the wake of BATF actions against white separatist, Randy Weaver, and cult leader, David Koresh. Members state frankly that their main potential enemy is tyrannical government. There are militias in 30 states, with an estimated membership of 10,000. Press reports have noted ominously that almost all members are white. [Christopher John Farley, Patriot Games, Newsweek (?), Dec. 1994.]

Jewelry to Die For

For Christmas, Wanda Matthews of New York City gave her 17-year-old son $600-worth of decorative gold and diamond bridge work. Glamorous teeth are a fashion statement in certain circles. Early in the new year, Adonis Matthews was shot to death on a subway platform.

“I know they must have wanted his gold teeth with the little band of diamonds in them,” said Miss Matthews. She says she repeatedly told him “Keep your mouth closed at night and hide your gold chains in your clothes.” Adonis Matthews died in surgery with his mother at his side. [AP, Teen with jeweled teeth killed, early 1995, no paper or date.]

More Imaginary Racism

It is frequently charged that American governments deliberately locate dangerous dumps and disposal sites in nonwhite neighborhoods. Study after study has shown that this is not true, but the accusation is too tempting to resist.

The latest investigation was in Chicago, where it was found that the racial mix of the people living around 122 polluted sites was exactly the same as that of the city as a whole. [Race not a factor in siting of dumps, researchers say, Chicago Tribune, 10/18/94, p. 8 Sec. 2.]

Federal Fine Tuning

Moffett is a tumbledown village of 340 people in Oklahoma. Under the latest federal crime bill, it has been offered $106,000 to make its dirt streets safer. The only catch is that it would have to come up with a nine percent match, or about $11,600. That is $1,000 more than the entire town’s annual budget. Moffett’s former part-time policeman applied for the grant after a squabble with the mayor over how well he was doing his $120-a-week job. Mayor David Carolina, a 78-year-old who collects aluminum cans for extra money, says the biggest crime problem in that outsiders drive too fast through the seven-block-long town. [AP, Small town gets crime grant — whether it needs it or not, Post and Courier, 10/22/94, p. 9A.]

Rage On, Carl Rowan

Last year, Californians voted to strip illegal immigrants of public benefits. In 1996, they are likely to have a chance to vote on another initiative, which would forbid the state and its agencies from practicing racial and sexual discrimination in employment and college admission. Plenty of laws already forbid this, but they are not applied to white men. The initiative would eliminate preferences, once and for all.

Carl Rowan, a black columnist, does not like the initiative. “There seems to be no way to stop the internal destruction of America by people driven to madness over such issues as illegal immigration and affirmative action . . . .” he writes; “California is determined to drag us all into a new civil war fired up by insane emotions over ‘reverse discrimination,’ [and] the rights of ‘angry white men’ . . . [The initiative’s supporters] “exploit shrewdly every bit of white male paranoia, every notion of white superiority, every greed ever embraced by the privileged classes . . .” [Carl T. Rowan, Embers of new civil war are smoldering, Chicago Sun Times, 12/28/94.] It would be hard to find a clearer expression of how deeply the supporters of affirmative action manage to delude themselves.

Free Speech

Johnny Lee Barnes is a black man, now on trial for murder in Alameda County, California, and faces the death penalty. Recently, Mr. Barnes got lucky. Ted Landswick, a white assistant prosecutor who is handling the case, complained about two blacks who had assaulted the 84-year-old mother of one of his colleagues. Mr. Barnes’ public defender, also white, overheard Mr. Landswick describe the assailants as “two niggers.” The defender objected to this language, and Mr. Landswick replied, “I don’t care. That’s what they are: niggers.”

Mr. Landswick is, of course, off the case. He got a “severe reprimand,” and was suspended for two weeks. The usual people are insisting that he be fired. But Mr. Barnes’ lawyers had another idea: They argued that their client should no longer face the death penalty. They filed a motion, arguing that “Given Landswick’s seniority, his substantial input into charging decisions and his broad discretion, it seems likely that his hate-filled attitude to African-Americans tainted the decision to seek death in this case.”

Mr. Barnes is accused of a double murder. In 1989, he wanted money to buy crack cocaine, but his parents would not give him any. He then allegedly shot his 84-year-old father three times, stabbed him, and then beat him over the head with two cast iron skillets, one of which broke. He then strangled his 75-year-old stepmother, stole $100, and went on a crack binge. [Raoul Mowatt, Racial slur roils court officials, San Jose Merc News, 12/8/94, p. 1B.]

Facts to the Rescue

Blacks and liberals have complained for years that bankers discriminate against blacks. Just why bankers, who can make money only if they make loans, would wish to deprive themselves of income from blacks has never been explained. Furthermore, if blacks are being held to higher credit standards than whites, their default and repossession rates should be unusually low.

The Federal Reserve Board has just released a study of default rates. In an examination of 220,000 mortgage loans made by the Federal Housing Administration from 1987 to 1989, blacks were twice as likely to default as whites. Hispanics defaulted at a rate somewhere in between. [Albert Karr, Fed Study Challenges Notion of Bias against minorities in mortgage lending, WSJ, 1/26/95.] Far from being held to higher credit standards, blacks are held to lower standards.

Convert to Conservatism

Star Parker is a black woman who used to be on welfare. In the 1980s she had a religious experience and went “cold turkey” on her government check. She is now an ardent campaigner for the abolition of welfare.

“I quit my job to go on welfare” says Miss Parker; “I did it because I didn’t want to go to work. It was easier.” She now says that welfare encourages single motherhood and irresponsibility of the worst kind.

Miss Parker has made enemies because of her views. On at least one occasion, she has required an armed escort for public appearances. [Julia Malone, Black conservatives initiate movement to abolish welfare, Albany Times Union, 12/9/94.]