Posted on May 1, 1995

O Tempora, O Mores! (May, 1995)

American Renaissance, May 1995

Was Prof. Levin Wrong?

Some readers have complained that Michael Levin did not supply enough data in his April cover story to substantiate his view that blacks may not have developed the same level of instinctive morality as whites. Several recent developments, though strictly anecdotal, support his position.

Over Mardi Gras weekend in New Orleans, a black woman police officer, Antoinette Frank, killed three people in a hold up of a Vietnamese restaurant where she moonlighted as a security guard. She ate dinner at the restaurant before she killed two people who worked there, both of them children of the owner. Miss Frank and an accomplice also killed a policeman, Ronald Williams, who was on guard that evening. Miss Frank knew Mr. Williams, since they had worked together in the same precinct, and she shot him first. Lieutenant Sam Fradella of the New Orleans police force called the crime “beyond belief.” [Jim Yardley, Mardi Gras week ends in orgy of killings, Atlanta journal-constitution, no date or page, spring 1995.]

In March, a black man named Christopher Green robbed a post office in Montclair, New Jersey, where he had worked as a custodian. He ordered two postal employees and three customers to lie down on the floor, and shot them each several times. One of the employees recognized Mr. Green when he entered the post office and spoke to him by name, but Mr. Green shot him anyway. One of the customers survived with three bullet wounds. Police reported that Mr. Green showed no remorse and explained that he had been suffering under a “mountain of debt.” [Lisa Peterson & P.L. Wyckoff, Ex-post office worker confesses to 4 murders, The Star Ledger (New Jersey), 3/23/95, p. 1.]

Elsewhere, the Philadelphia Inquirer has written about the remorselessness with which some young Philadelphia blacks kill people.

Eighteen-year-old Kenyatta Miles shot a 15-year-old for his sneakers, but does not think he deserves to be in jail. “I killed him, but not in cold blood. I didn’t shoot him two, three, four times, I shot him once . . . I wouldn’t call myself no murderer . . . I look at my right hand ‘cause it pulled the trigger. I blame my right hand.”

Sixteen-year-old Daniel White can’t understand why he has been sentenced to life in prison for killing a stranger in a crack house. He says the victim is responsible because he did not cooperate. “If somebody see you with a gun, they gonna turn the other way — if not, they must want to get shot. I didn’t execute nobody or cut them up. I could see if somebody kill six, seven people — then they deserve life . . . I didn’t kill a lot of people . . . If I really wanted to kill the dude, I would have shot him more than once.”

Seventeen-year-old Richard Caraballo also blames his victim, a taxi driver, for complaining when he got out of the cab without paying. “I’m not a violent person. I didn’t kill nobody. He killed himself.”

Seventeen-year-old Yerodeen Williams pointed a gun at a 27-year-old white man and said, “This is a stickup.” The man hesitated for a moment and Mr. Williams shot him in the back of the head. The killer explains that the man should have obeyed. “He brung this on himself.” When his guilty verdict was announced, he shouted “F**k all of youse,” at the jury. Then he turned to the victim’s family and shouted “I’ll be back.”

Sixteen-year-old Andre Johnson was walking through Clark Park in West Philadelphia when he saw a 25-year-old graduate student coming his way. The student looked him in the eye, so Mr. Johnson felt compelled to beat him to death with a tree branch. “If your eyes meet, the dude’s looking for trouble,” he explains. What does he think about the killing now? “It didn’t benefit me. It didn’t make me feel good. It didn’t put clothes on my back. It was dumb.” [Dianna Marder, The young and the ruthless, The National Times, Feb. 1993, p. 12. (reprinted from the Inquirer)] The Inquirer found no such sentiments among whites.

FedEx Hijacking

The February 1995 “O Tempora” section included an item about a black pilot who tried to hijack a loaded DC-10 and crash it into the headquarters of Federal Express. He badly injured the flight crew, but was overpowered and thwarted. It is extremely difficult to get information on this story, which has received little national attention. However, we have learned that Auburn Calloway was convicted of attempted air piracy in late March. We have also learned that his relatives have reacted in the usual way.

“It’s one big deal of racism,” says his father, Earl Calloway. “Nobody wants to see a black dude that’s educated flying a plane.” His ex-wife, Patricia Calloway agrees. “It’s a white boy story,” she says. “They’re jealous of him. They always have been. They orchestrated this.” [Marc Perrusquia, Calloway family doubts account of FedEx attack, Memphis Commercial Appeal, no date, 1994 or 95.]

Talking on Eggs

During one of its news broadcasts, a Detroit TV station called WDIV ran a preview for a report about “most eligible bachelors,” in which a black woman said she liked “chocolate-skinned” men. This was followed by a report on a birthday party for a 415-pound gorilla at a zoo. During the subsequent on-air banter, a white weather forecaster turned to the other announcers and asked “Does that qualify as chocolate-skinned?” She was immediately fired. “Her comments last night violated our policies and clearly they’re against our beliefs,” explained the station manager. [Detroit TV weekend weathercaster fired after comparing black men to a Gorilla, Jet, 2/20/95.]

Another Casualty

In February, Catherine Webster, a high school student in Bowie, Maryland, saw six black girls beating and kicking a white girl in a school hallway. Miss Webster identified the six blacks and they have been charged with a hate crime. In March, Miss Webster was shot dead by a black man. Police think the crime may have been a failed carjacking, but they do not rule out the possibility that the killing was revenge for identifying the blacks. [Greg Seigle & Mara Stanley, Slain teen had seen assault at school, Wash Times, 3/24/95, p. A1.]

Chicago Police Exam

Last fall the city of Chicago gave an examination for policemen who wanted to become sergeants. It did not adjust the scores for race in any way, and 96 percent of the candidates with passing grades were white. Despite a blizzard of criticism from blacks and Hispanics, the city promoted only on the basis of the test scores (see cover story of October, 1994).

Mayor Richard Daley has since waffled on results of a test given to sergeants for promotion to lieutenant. As with the previous test, whites overwhelmingly outscored non-whites. Just before mayoral elections this spring, Mayor Daley announced that in addition to the 54 top-scoring sergeants (of whom 51 were white) there would be 13 “merit” promotions not based on test scores. Of the 13, six would be black and three would be Hispanic. Some of these sergeants did not even take the exam, but were selected for their “leadership qualities.”

It seems that Mayor Daley felt that just before a close election, he could not risk offending non-whites by making promotions according to test results. Ronald Burris, a former Illinois Attorney General and an independent candidate for mayor, may have got it right when he suggested that the 13 “merit” promotions were a pre-election stunt that would be reversed by court order. In any case, there have been the inevitable lawsuits, both from whites who would have been promoted and from blacks who claim the test is “racist.” [John Kass & Joseph Kirby, city will try to walk narrow line concerning lieutenant promotions, Chicago Tribune, 3/15/95, p. 7. Joseph Kirby, ‘Merit’ promotions challenged, Chicago Tribune, 3/17/95, p. 7. Bernie Mixon, Suit claims consultant bias in cop exams, Chi Trib, 3/29/95, p. 7.] Mayor Daley was re-elected.

No Mob Rule Yet

Last month we reported that several members of Chicago’s Black Gangster Disciples had entered the aldermanic elections and that two had forced runoff elections. They have been defeated. One convicted felon did win a seat on the board of aldermen, but he is not officially affiliated with the Gangster Disciples. Walter Burnett, who spent (only) two years in jail for bank robbery, defeated the incumbent, the sun of a former alderman who is in jail for corruption. [NYT of 4/6/95, don’t have full ref.]

La Raza on the Warpath

On January 13th and 14th, Hispanic activists held a huge conference at the University of California at Riverside to plot strategy in the wake of passage of Proposition 187. This is the California voter initiative that would deny social benefits to illegal immigrants and which is now blocked by a federal judge.

The speakers were a veritable ‘Who’s Who’ of Mexican-American nationalists. The majority were academics who use their positions in Chicano Studies Departments as platforms for irredentist propaganda. There were several public officials — Joe Baca, Assemblyman; Art Torres, former state senator; Cruz Reynoso, former state Supreme Court Justice; Victor Lopez, mayor of Orange Cove — as well as members of Hispanic “civil rights” organizations.

The California Coalition for Immigration Reform has produced a summary of the speakers’ remarks. (They also sell audio tapes of some of the speakers — please send inquiries to CCIR, 5942 Edinger, Suite 113-117, Huntington Beach, CA 92649.) The audience was laced with brown-bereted militants of the Aztlan movement who led cheers for dismembering the United States so that the mythical Amerindian “bronze continent” can be reborn in the Southwest.

Even the speakers who did not openly advocate secession saw the vote for Proposition 187 in explicitly racial terms. Their interests are unapologetically racial, and they take it for granted that the vote was an expression of white hostility towards all Hispanics, legal and illegal.

Former assemblyman Art Torres called the vote “the last gasp of white America.” Other participants urged legal immigrants to take out citizenship, not out of loyalty to the United States, but in order to vote against measures Hispanics may not like. Speakers frequently mentioned differential birth rates, pointing out that they will eventually win through sheer force of numbers.

Gatherings of this kind are clear demonstrations of the suicidal racial double standard whites have imposed upon themselves. Many of the whites who voted for Proposition 187 did have racial reasons; they do not want California to become Hispanic. However, they have convinced themselves that it is somehow wrong to see the problem as one of race. Hispanics recognize that race —  la raza  — is the central question and assume that whites, despite their denials, also think in terms of race. For so long as whites are the only group that piously refuses to think in explicitly racial terms, they will be defeated and displaced by races that know their interests and act upon them.

Lessons for Commuters

Pennsylvania Station in New York City is full of bums and winos whom Amtrak would like to remove. A black judge named Constance Motley has ruled that the railroad must leave the bums where they lie. She wrote in her opinion that Amtrak’s policy of ejecting riff raff was an attempt to spare passengers “the esthetic discomfort of being reminded on a daily basis that many of our fellow citizens are forced to live in abject and degrading poverty.” [Judge Motley’s ‘classroom’, NY Post, 3/5/95, p. 22.]

Beyond the Reach of Law

The state of New Jersey does not consider children under the age of eight capable of crime. Two seven-year-old Jersey City twins, Ali and Alquan, may change this view. One of the twins set a neighbor’s house on fire when he was only five. Since then, the two are known to have broken into and ransacked two churches, burgled a garage, started many fires, heaved a brick through a store window, and committed numerous thefts.

The police have received endless complaints about Ali and Alquan but nothing the twins do will be a crime until they turn eight. Since the mother, a former crack addict, cannot control her children, the police have begged the child welfare authorities to find a foster home. The authorities say it is hard to find foster parents for children who start fires. [Doreen Carvajal, Records as Long as 7-year-old arm, NYT, 3/9/95, p. B1.]

More Mush From Hillary

In February, Hillary Clinton spoke to the students of her former high school in the Chicago Suburb of Park Ridge. She noticed there were many more non-whites among the students than when she was there, 30 years ago.

“We didn’t have the wonderful diversity of people that you have here today,” said Mrs. Clinton. “I’m sad we didn’t have it, because it would have been a great value, as I’m sure you will discover.” [Ray Quintanilla, Chi Trib, 2/16/95, p. 7.]

More Mush From Time

In its Feb. 27 issue, Time magazine published an article about the corruption and incompetence that have been so apparent in the new, black-run South African government. This is the article’s concluding paragraph:

No matter how extensive it is, the fraud in the A.N.C. probably falls short of what was accepted under the whites-only government of the National Party. The difference, of course, is that the old regime was an oppressive, racist state that wasn’t expected to behave morally. For the new South Africa, expectations are higher. [Peter Hawthorne, The Sleaze Factor, Time, 2/27/95, p. 28.]

Hutu and Tutsi

Nine months after the massacres in Rwanda that left an estimated 500,000 dead, the country is having a baby boom. This is because the Hutu militias that did most of the killing raped just about every woman they found. According to Catherine Bonnet, a French doctor who has studied the area, many women were raped before they were killed, many were raped after they were killed, and some were just raped. Now 60 to 70 percent of the women giving birth are rape victims and do not want their children. “I hope it dies,” says one woman of her unborn child. “I don’t want to keep a criminal in my womb.” [AP, Women in Rwanda face baby boom after rapes, 2/11/95, Memphis paper (name unknown).]

What’s Up, Doc?

MGM-UA Home Video has withdrawn a video called Golden Age of Looney Tunes because one of the features is “racist.” In a 1944 short called “Bugs Nips the Nips,” Bugs Bunny goes to war against the Japanese. In one scene he passes out small bombs concealed in ice cream cones, saying “Here you go, bowlegs, here you go, monkey face, here you go, slanty-eyes, everybody gets one.” Someone from the Japanese American Citizens League complained about the video and MGM immediately took it off the market. [Hollywood’s retroactive P.C., NY Post, 3/5/95, p. 22.]

The Racial Divide

In February, the Virginia state legislature passed a strict welfare law that would require recipients to find jobs within 90 days and would cut off benefits after two years. All 13 blacks in the legislature voted against the bill and all but two whites voted for it. [AP, Virginia lawmakers OK welfare reform, don’t know paper, 2/27/95.]

The South Carolina senate has voted for the first time in its history to expel a black member, Theo Mitchell, who is in prison for violating federal tax laws. The vote was 38 to seven. All six black senators were joined by one white in voting against expulsion. [AP, Freshman led effort to turn Mitchell out of the Senate, 1/19/95, no paper name.]

The Racial Divide II

The media have discovered that blacks and whites react differently to the O.J. Simpson murder trial. A typical poll finds that 61 percent of whites but only eight percent of blacks think Mr. Simpson is guilty .

Most blacks appear to see only the racial angle. “You have to be really careful when you say ‘he’s guilty’ around black people,” says Salim Muwakil, a black columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. “I hear a lot of middle-class black folks who usually are skeptical of conspiracy theories willing to entertain the idea of him being framed.”

Laura Washington is the publisher of the Chicago Reporter. “I talk to intelligent, successful black people all the time who sort of wink and say, ‘Well, even if he did it, he must have had a good reason,’ or ‘I don’t care if he’s innocent or guilty, let him go.’” [Kenneth Noble, The Simpson defense: Source of black pride, NYT, 3/6/95, p. A10.]

With so many blacks on the jury, a conviction is out of the question. It is amusing to imagine the tortured editorials liberal newspapers will write to justify black jurors who ignored the evidence. Of course, there will be none of the contempt they heaped upon Southern whites who refused to convict killers of civil rights activists in the 1960s.

The Racial Divide III

The most recent election for governor of Maryland was one of the closest ever. Democrat, Parris Glendenning beat Republican, Ellen Saurbrey, by only 5,993 votes. Mr. Glendennning may have gotten the winning edge because the elections administrator of Baltimore, a black woman named Barbara Jackson, knocked thousands of white voters off the rolls.

Miss Jackson has the job of keeping the rolls current, and is supposed to purge people who move away or who do not vote for five years. Just before the election, she purged 17,295 names, almost all of them in white neighborhoods. Many whites who turned up to vote were unable to do so because their names were no longer on the lists.

Miss Jackson was also in charge of security for voting machines. Records of who had access to the keys to the machines in the crucial hours after the polls closed have mysteriously disappeared. Anyone with keys could have tampered with the results. The state elections board has been unable to agree on whether an investigation should be conducted, but Congress may do its own. [Janet Naylor, Baltimore voter purge draws interest on hill, Wash Times, 3/26/95, p. A1. Janet Naylor, Baltimore voter purge appears aimed at conservatives, Wash Times, 3/25/95, p. A1.] In the mean time, the Democratic governor has proposed that minority set-asides in state contracting be increased by 80 percent. [Tom Stuckey, Glendenning asks for 80% boost in minority set-asides, Wash Times, 3/11/95, p. A11.]

Dream Team

The Immigration and Naturalization Service circulates a recruiting pamphlet called “Join the INS Team!” There are seven photographs in the pamphlet, depicting a total of 19 people. Four are white. The pamphlet notes that people who are fluent in Spanish are more likely to be hired.

Chickens Home to Roost

Madison, Wisconsin, used to be a pleasant, white, mid-western town with good schools and little crime. It was also relentlessly liberal. Since 1980, the non-white population has doubled — though it is still less than 10 percent of the population — partly because welfare payments are much more generous than in neighboring Illinois. Blacks from Chicago moved in, bringing the usual problems. In the last ten years, the number of school children on welfare has quadrupled, crime, teen-age pregnancy and venereal disease are on the rise, and crack cocaine has finally arrived.

“There’s a lot of resentment here,” says Mayor Paul Soglin. “Some of it is racial. Some of it is class. Some of it is just plain, ‘Why the hell do I have to pay for somebody else’s problem, especially when they’re from somewhere else?’” As one of the city’s public health nurses explains, “Madison has been insulated from the African-American community before all this happened. So this was new to most people. Not everyone dealt with it real well.” [Steve Mills, Madison — new promised land, Chi Trib, 3/28/95, p. 1.]

Mongrels to be Eliminated

Borneo and Sumatra have their own sub-species of orangutans, though it is hard to tell them apart. There are not many orangutans left, so zoos have been breeding them, often crossing a Sumatra with a Borneo. DNA analysis now shows that the two breeds probably diverged at least 20,000 years and perhaps as many as hundreds of thousands of years ago, and scientists have decided that they should be kept separate. All hybrids are being sterilized and zoos will breed no more of them. Some scientists call this “racism.” [Natalie Angier, Orangutan Hybrid, bred to save species, now seen as pollutant, NYT, 2/28/95, p. C1.]

Bean Pie Palace

The Nation of Islam has just spent the unheard-of sum of $5 million to build a palatial restaurant in Chicago called Salaam. The 15,000-square-foot building is in the heart of a burnt-out black neighborhood and Louis Farrakhan explains the location this way: “We placed this in the heart of the so-called ghetto to say, ‘Black people, we love you and you are worth every dime that we invest in you. This is your palace. Come here and be treated like the kings and queens that you really are.’”

Islam forbids pork and alcohol, but Salaam offers soul food, North African and Caribbean cuisine. There are actually three restaurants in the building, with the fanciest one decked out in anything but African decor: white table-cloths, marble columns and floor, crystal and brass chandeliers, and a grand piano. The Nation of Islam plans to open five more restaurants — costing as much as $2 million each — in Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles, Houston, and Miami. [Lena Williams, Bean Pies have grand new home, NYT, 3/1/95, p. C1.]

Indian Takers

Of the 95 tribes that have taken advantage of their “sovereign” status and run gambling businesses, none has hit the jackpot quite like the Pequot Indians of Ledyard, Connecticut. The tribe of only 381 members owns the most profitable casino in the United States. It takes in $800 million a year in gross winnings, more than twice as much as numbers two and three — The Taj Mahal in Atlantic City and the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

Foxwoods Casino, built in 1992, has already paid off its $300 million startup costs. It also employs 10,000 workers and the “sovereign” nation is not hampered by EEO laws: an Indian Preference Office ensures that Pequots and other Indians get first choice of the jobs.

Anyone who can prove he is at least one sixteenth Pequot is guaranteed a $50,000 to $60,000-a-year job at the casino, free housing, free medicine, and free tuition up to a PhD degree. Single mothers can collect their $50,000 to $60,000 if they would prefer to stay home and rear children.

During the 1970s, there were so few Pequots that the state of Connecticut nearly declared them extinct. The entire tribe is descended from a single group of five sisters who were, at one time, the sole survivors. The sisters wed men of different races, so current Pequots come in all hues and have rocky race relations.

Although the tribe is not about to fall on hard times, the glory days may soon be over. Foxwoods does a roaring business because it is the only casino in New England. The Mohegans and the Narragansetts have their eye on the swag and will soon open casinos of their own, just ten and 20 miles away. [Kirk Johnson, Tribe’s Promised Land is rich but uneasy, NYT, 2/20/95, p. A1.]

Where Your Taxes Go

Lamar Lewis is a Los Angeles black who has been a gang member since age 13. Now 21, Mr. Lewis has spent half his life in jail for assault, attempted murder, and weapons possession. Since the age of 17, when he was shot by a rival and paralyzed, he has rolled around in a wheel chair.

Mr. Lewis still hangs out with the gang, though he admits that being a cripple is a handicap. It makes it harder to run from the police but Mr. Lewis can hot rod his wheel chair when he has to. “Nobody feels sorry for a person in a wheelchair,” he says; “You’ve got to watch your back more than you do when you’re on your feet.” Rivals don’t feel sorry for him either; Mr. Lewis’ wheel chair was nicked by a near-miss in a recent drive-by shooting. He advocates strong measures against rival gangs. “We’ve got to go over there and shoot everyone up, shoot up their children, shoot up their women . . .”

Since Mr. Lewis is disabled, he receives $604 a month in Supplemental Security Income from the federal government. The acting chairman of the emergency department at Martin Luther King Hospital in Watts estimates that Mr. Lewis will cost about $3 million in medical care and social welfare over the course of his life. [Seth Mydans, Wheelchair offers no respite for gang member, 3/9/95, p. A12.]

Dead Serious

A Fort Worth, Texas, group called Dead Serious offers a $5,000 reward to anyone who kills a criminal in self defense. The offer is open only to members, who pay $10 a year to join. Dead Serious is said to have about 800 members in 13 states. [AP, Self-Defense killings offer $5,000 reward, 2/27/94.]