O Tempora, O Mores! (July, 1996)
American Renaissance, July 1996
Victims All
Col. Frank Scotti, a 52-year-old white man, is an ROTC instructor at Roosevelt High School in the District of Columbia. On Jan. 30, he heard a commotion in the hall outside his classroom. When he went to investigate, he smelled marijuana and told three blacks who were not even students — one was 20 years old and the others were 19 — to stop smoking and go away. A short time later, they attacked him, beating him bloody and unconscious, while a group of students laughed and cheered. Col. Scotti suffered a broken eye socket, a concussion, and permanent sensory loss in his face. The three blacks were convicted of aggravated assault.
At a recent sentencing hearing, D.C. Superior Court Judge Harriet Taylor could have sent the three criminals to jail for 10 years. Instead, she sentenced them to five years each in Youth Rehabilitation Center, and suspended all but 16 months of the sentence for two of the criminals and all but 24 months for the third. Judge Taylor [race unspecified] remarked that the three defendants “need a great deal of help,” adding, “there are more victims than Colonel Scotti in this case.” (Amy Korval, Judge Decides Against Regular Jail for Attackers, Washington Times, May 25, 1996, p. A1.)
In May, a black Dayton man shot and killed a white delivery man in an unprovoked attack and then opened fire on a group of white policemen, killing one officer before he was shot and killed. Twenty-four-year-old Maurice Fareed had long had a grudge against whites. As his mother explained to reporters, “The last couple of days he said there wasn’t no hope and white people were going to keep black people in slavery.” (Reuter, Dayton, Ohio, May 24, 1996.)
In April, another black, Michael Whitener, was sentenced to concurrent 60- and 45-year sentences in Goshen, Indiana for killing one white and attempting to kill another. Mr. Whitener admitted that he had simply killed the first whites who came along. He was angry because earlier that day a white detective in Elkhart, Indiana had shot and killed a black man. (105 Years Imposed in Murder, The Elkhart Truth (Indiana), April 18, 1996.)
In Sacramento, California, two blacks have pleaded guilty to kidnapping a white woman from an apartment complex, terrorizing her, and forcing her to drive them around town while they looked for people to rob. The men said they had put the woman through the eight-hour ordeal as revenge for 400 years of slavery. (Roland Sweet, News Quirks, Northern Express (Traverse City, MI), May 1, 1996, p. 26.)
African Law-making
The West African nation of Benin has recognized voodoo as an official religion along with Christianity and Islam. In the past, Marxist leaders tried to suppress voodoo, but contemporary reports indicate that 60 percent of the population are believers. President Nicephoro Soglo has acknowledged the “injustice” of the old Marxist government and declared a paid national holiday for voodoo observances. (Voodoo Reborn as an Official Religion in Benin, Chicago Tribune, Jan. 11, 1996.)
The Ivory Coast has proposed a law that would give a man the right to divorce his wife for adultery should he catch her so much as having an intimate conversation with another man. For a woman to get a divorce for adultery, she must catch her husband having sex in their house with the same woman at least twice. (Howard W. French, For Ivory Coast Women New Battle For Equality, New York Times, April 6, 1996.)
That Old Black Magic
In April, the son of Joshua Nkomo, vice president of Zimbabwe, died of AIDS. In his funeral address, Mr. Nkomo said that AIDS had been brought to his country by whites in order to depopulate it. He added that whites know the cure for AIDS but refuse to share it with blacks. (Reuter, Nkomo Accuses Whites of Bringing AIDS to Zimbabwe, April 6, 1996.)
In South Africa, the government recently released a report on witchcraft, which finds that the practice is gaining adherents and is moving from the country into the cities. The report focused on the use of human ingredients in potions. In order to work, parts must be taken from live victims; the louder they scream the more potent the magic. Potions containing pieces of people are thought to cure disease, increase crop yields, and ensure misfortune for one’s enemies. A human head may be embedded in a building’s foundation to guarantee success in business.
The report, published by the Commission of Inquiry into Witchcraft Violence and Ritual Murders, warns that whites are increasingly likely to be killed for parts. Many blacks think that whites have special powers that account for their wealth, and believe that whites therefore provide the most potent human ingredients. (Inigo Gilmore, Human Parts Sold In South African Witchcraft Killings, Times (London), May 4, 1996.)
Justice in Chicago
Judges for the Cook County Circuit in Illinois used to be elected at large, but this did not produce enough non-white judges. Recently the system was changed to allow voting by district, which has increased the number of non-whites but has also produced some very inexperienced candidates — one had been a lawyer for less than two years. With the support of the Chicago Bar Association, the City Council Finance Committee has proposed a resolution requiring that candidates have at least 10 years experience. Black Alderman Robert Shaw denounced the measure as “back door” racism intended to limit the number of black judges. He also described the Chicago Bar Association as “nothing more than the Ku Klux Klan.” (Jacquelyn Heard, Council Panel Backs Prerequisite for Judges, Chicago Tribune, April 13, 1996, p. 5.)
In 1992, one largely black district voted in a black woman named Llwellyn Greene-Thapedi who has not been a model of probity. She has been sued 18 times in the past 16 years, four times since her election to the bench. Plaintiffs include General Motors Acceptance Corp, which had to repossess her car for non-payment; First National Bank of Chicago, which accuses her of cashing in the same $6,600 certificate of deposit twice; a linen supply company that says she bounced a $347 check; and the board of her cooperative apartment, which says she owes thousands of dollars on monthly payments.
Lawyers do not like to argue cases before her. After she made a ruling with which he disagreed, one attorney persistently tried to state his objection for the record. Judge Greene-Thapedi had a bailiff handcuff him to a bench outside her courtroom for an hour and a half. Three law firms stopped trying cases before her, saying she was unfair. One firm appealed to her presiding judge, who gave them permission to remove all cases from her jurisdiction — a virtually unprecedented expression of non-confidence. Through it all, Judge Greene-Thapedi appears to enjoy unflagging support in the black community. (Abdon Pallasch, Thapedi Gets Her day(s) in Court: as a Judge, Defendant and Plaintiff, Chicago Lawyer, June, 1996, p. 4.)
In the meantime, Chicago courts are having a hard time getting blacks to serve on juries. Some defense lawyers have even begun to appeal convictions of black defendants on the grounds that there were no blacks on the jury. A recent study by the U.S. District Court of Northern Illinois study shows that slackers are a big part of the problem: 40.1 percent of blacks fail to respond to jury summonses, while the figure for whites is 7.9 percent. (Mary Mitchell, Blacks Less Likely to Show Up for Juries, Chicago Sun-Times, May 28, 1996.)
Out of the Blue
Donnie Cochran is the first black man to fly with the Navy’s Blue Angels flying team. Until May, when he resigned from the team, he was also the commander of the unit. There was apparently no pressure on him to step down, and he resigned with considerable dignity, citing concern about his own flying mistakes and the threat they could pose to safety. During a recent show at Virginia Beach, the team had to scuttle a maneuver because Mr. Cochran made an error. A spokesman for the Blue Angels explained that the commander made “what aviators refer to as head mistakes.” The real question, which remains unasked, is why Mr. Cochran was put into this position. (Basil Talbott, Jolt for Blue Angels, Chicago Sun-Times, May 29, 1996.)
Citizen Patrols
A private group called U.S. Citizens Patrol, has been barred from looking for illegal immigrants in San Diego airport. Its members did not speak to suspected illegals; they simply asked airline employees to check the identification of all passengers as required by law. No one complained of harassment, and the FBI found no violation of law. But when Hispanic groups started whooping about the patrols, a county judge ordered them out of the airport. (San Diego Judge Bars Group From Anti-Immigration Patrols, New York Times, May 26, 1996, p. 16.)
Difference of Opinion
Rwanda is the small, central African nation where tribal massacres took the lives of an estimated half million people in 1994. In April, the last of several thousand U.N. peace-keeping troops withdrew from the now-calmer country, and offered to leave behind $8.5 million worth of vehicles, computers, tents, and prefabricated houses. The Rwandan government said no. “The U.N. wants to leave us junk worth zero and we are going to refuse,” explained a spokesman. The Rwandans are angry that the U.N. did not prevent the massacres and that a special U.N. tribunal has indicted only 11 ringleaders of the killing. “Those people [the U.N.] came here to steal, and you can quote me on that,” says a political advisor to the Defense Minister. The U.N. mission estimates it put more than $100 million into the Rwandan economy in the 18 months ending in April of this year. (Rwanda Spurns U.N. Donation of Used Goods, Washington Times, April 18, 1996, p. A12.)
Rewriting History
In 1951, during the Korean War, the Army disbanded its last black combat regiment when many of the 24th Infantry’s 3,600 soldiers reportedly deserted their posts. According to the official regimental history, published in 1961, many men defied orders to stand and fight, deliberately wounded themselves to avoid combat, or abandoned rifles and other equipment so they could run faster. This account has angered black veterans and prompted calls for a new, revised history.
After nine years of preparation, a more sensitive history is ready for release, but critics are still so upset they are threatening a defamation suit. They object to passages like: “The 24th’s record in Korea reveals an undue number of military failures, particularly during the early months of the war.” “Some units became so accustomed to withdrawals that their men began to abandon their positions at only the sound of firing . . .” The fact that all this is now blamed on white “racial prejudice and the poor leadership it engendered” does not satisfy the partisans, who claim the 24th performed as well as any other U.S. regiment.
One 73-year-old black veteran does not dispute official accounts. He says that when “racist” white officers gave orders, “you just didn’t go all out. You would minimize your effort and do more hiding than you did charging.” (Philip Sheldon, Veterans of Black Unit Threaten Suit Over Army’s Account of Their Service, New York Times, May 7, 1996, p. A16. Suzanne Siegel, History Proves Color-Blind, Detroit Free Press, May 28, 1996, p. 1A. Art Pine, Army Revises History of Black Troops, San Francisco Chronicle, April 29, 1996, p. A2.)
Non Compos Mentis
The idea that psychiatric patients should be treated by race is growing in popularity. According to some studies, fully half of all counseling programs now require students to take classes in multicultural therapy. Some people argue that only minorities have enough sensitivity to counsel each other, since whites are, by nature, racist and insensitive to minorities.
One textbook, Counseling the Culturally Different, notes that “without a strong antiracism training component, trainees (especially Whites) will continue to deny responsibility for the racist system that oppresses their minority clients.” The same book asks its white readers: “As a member of the White group, what responsibility do you hold for the racist, oppressive, and discriminating manner by which you personally and professionally deal with minorities?” The American Counseling Association directs “counselors, especially whites, to understand how they have benefited from individual and institutional racism.”
Multicultural psychiatry has been instituted at San Francisco General Hospital, with treatment “teams” specializing in blacks, Asians, Hispanics, women, homosexuals, and the HIV-positive. Heterosexual white men are assigned wherever there is a vacancy. One of the “educational objectives” for the staff is to “break down denial of one’s own participation in racism,” and psychiatric residents note an increasingly “anti-white atmosphere.” (Sally Satel, Psychiatric Apartheid, Wall Street Journal, May 8, 1996.)
The U.S. Census Bureau reports that, for the first time since the 18th century, whites are no longer adding more people to the population than any other racial group. During the 1993-94 fiscal year the number of Hispanics grew by 902,000 while non-Hispanic whites increased by 883,000. The difference is not an increase in the number of Hispanics entering the U.S. but a rapid decline in the white birthrate. According to the bureau, white population growth has fallen from approximately 1,200,000 during the 1991-92 fiscal year to 789,000 during 1994-95 — a decrease of 34 percent in just three years. At present rates, Hispanics will outnumber whites sometime in the 21st century. In California whites are expected to become a minority within seven years. (Ramon G. McLeod, Census Shows a Turning Point — Hispanics Increasing the Fastest, San Francisco Chronicle, March 27, 1996.)
White Men Can’t Jump
In 1950, 1.7 percent of NBA basketball players were black. During the 1970s whites became a minority in the league, and today 82 percent of the players are black. Racial taunting of whites is common. Steve Kerr, a white player for the Chicago Bulls says that white players occasionally are called honkies and derided for being slow. Mr. Kerr thinks this is funny. “[I]t’s fun,” he says. “[W]e all end up laughing.” (Lacy J. Banks, Bulls’ Success Colorblind, Chicago Sun-Times, March 26, 1996, pp. 84, 99.)
Against Nature
In 1989, a group of liberal whites in Jackson, Mississippi decided to send their children to the public schools, which were 79 percent black and getting blacker. Thus began an organization called Parents for Public Schools, which tries to persuade whites to send their children to school with blacks. The organization now has branches in 22 states and 41 cities. A recent newspaper account writes admiringly of “the importance of children learning in real-world classrooms — black and white, rich and poor, struggling and studious — society’s true mix, not a sheltered refuge of privilege.” Only near the end of a long article does the writer concede that Jackson’s public schools are now 87 percent black. (Donna St. George, Parents Trying to Reverse Flight to Private Schools, Lexington (Kentucky) Herald-Leader, May 26, 1996, p. 1.)
Wretched Refuse
The Immigration and Naturalization Service has just broken up an immigrant smuggling ring that netted its leader, Gladys Garza Cantu, more than one million dollars every year. Most of her customers were Chinese, Indians, and Pakistanis, who paid up to $28,000 per person for an arduous trip to the United States via Mexico.
Miss Garza is a 51-year-old naturalized U. S. citizen born in Honduras. She posted recruiters in Asia, and worked closely with the corrupt Mexican police. Many of her customers were ferried through Moscow and then to Guatemala. At the Guatemalan border, they were packed into a specially converted tractor trailer that could carry as many as 100 people across Mexico to the United States. They got no food on the trip. Customers were then floated across the Rio Grande in inner tubes to McAllen, Texas, where they were to fend for themselves.
Miss Garza’s empire began to unravel when a Mexican policeman who thought he had been cheated out of a bribe, started giving information to American authorities. (Sam Dillon, Immigrant-Smuggling Ring Routes Asians Through Mexico, The Herald (Miami), June 1, 1996, p. 16A.)
Long Live the Republic
There is a growing secessionist movement in Texas among people who have declared themselves citizens of the Republic of Texas. More than 10,000 people have paid $25 for citizenship papers, and hundreds of people attend monthly recruiting meetings held all around the state, Armed militia men guard the meetings. More and more Texans are furious about increasing federal intrusion in their lives. “It’s a revolution,” explains a spokesman; “I certainly want it to be a bloodless one if possible.” (Julia Prodis, Separatists Want to Take Texas Out of the Union, Detroit News, May 27, 1996, p. 3A.)
Promise Keepers
Promise Keepers is a men’s Christian movement founded in 1990 by Bill McCartney, a former football coach. It holds mass-meetings in athletic stadiums, where tens of thousands of men commit themselves to God, to other men, to moral purity, to good marriages, to supporting churches, and to “reaching beyond race.” Under the slogan “Break Down Walls,” combating racism is this year’s major theme. According to Mr. McCartney, racism is so embedded in society that whites do not realize they are “depriving blacks of dignity.”
Promise Keepers works hard to find blacks with whom to break down barriers. For a rally in Washington, DC that filled the 55,000-seat RFK football stadium, publicity was sent in advance to black churches. Scholarships were set aside exclusively for blacks, and white churches offered to buy tickets for black congregations. Even so, few blacks attended.
Promise Keepers is gaining a huge following. A plan to bring one million Christian men to Washington this year was put off until next year, because the organizers did not want to appear to be making a political statement during an election year. (David Crumm, Detroit Free Press, May 11, 1996, p. 11A. Larry Witham, At RFK, Christian Men Rally for Reconciliation, May 25, 1996, p. A1.)
Asian Influx
The towns of Fresno, Merced and Stockton in the San Joaquin Valley of California are bracing for another wave of Hmong “refugees.” Seventy percent of the households of the 65,000 Hmong who are already there are on welfare, and the average Hmong family has ten children. This summer another 3,000 Hmong are to be released from camps in Thailand for “family reunification” in California. Many have lived in camps all their lives. As the head of Fresno County Social Services explains, “They think rice comes from bags . . . We’re going to have a very tough time providing services to them.” (New Wave of Hmong Refugees Worries Fresno, The Arizona Republic, May 27, 1996, p. A18.)
Meanwhile, in Melbourne, Australia, the name Nguyen is now the sixth most common name in the telephone directory. The name it knocked into seventh place is Taylor. (Samantha Wood, Nguyen Topples Taylor, Herald Sun (Australia), May 9, 1996.)
L.A. Stays Burned
Four years after the Los Angeles riots, only half of the 500 or so commercial buildings that were destroyed are back in operation. Despite much brave talk about reconstruction, private money has stayed away from South Central Los Angeles. There is no mystery as to why. The federal government made about 5,000 disaster loans after the riots, for a total of more than $300 million. About 1,900 of those loans, representing about $100 million, are delinquent or have been written off. (John Emshwiller, Empty Stores Still Dot the Riot-Torn Areas of L.A., Wall Street Journal, May 22, 1996, p. B1)
AIDS Cases
The U.S. Center for Disease Control reports that there were 74,180 cases of AIDS in the United States in 1995, or 27.8 per 100,000 residents. Blacks, with 92.6 cases per 100,000 are six times more likely to have the disease than whites and Hispanics are three times as likely to have it as whites. Asians, with a disease rate of 6.2 per 100,000, are less than half as likely as whites to have AIDS.
The cities with the highest AIDS rates are Washington, DC — 186 (per 100,000), Jersey City — 138, San Francisco — 130, New York — 123, Miami — 117, and Newark — 87. North Dakota had an AIDS infection rate of 0.8 per 100,000. (D.C. Has the Highest Rate of AIDS, The Herald (Miami), April 19, 1996.)
Floating Assets
Developing countries need power plants to generate electricity, but they frequently default on payments for the facilitates that cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Until now, manufacturers could not take direct action against deadbeats, but American engineering companies have found a solution. They now build power plants on huge barges, tow them to a foreign coast, and operate them in harbors. If the country defaults, they can clip the power lines, repossess the plant, and tow it home. (William Bulkeley, Building Power Plants That Can Float, Wall Street Journal, May 22, 1996, p. B1.)
This is Diversity?
The people who prate about diversity are, of course, politically monolithic. The conservative Cornell Review recently found out the political affiliations of the faculty in humanities and social sciences at Cornell University. In all, there were 171 Democrats and seven Republicans, or four percent. In the history, sociology, and women’s studies departments, there were no Republicans at all. There were one each in psychology, government, and anthropology.
Cornell is not unique. A similar study found almost exactly the same situation at Stanford University, and the dean of the law school at the State University of New York at Buffalo once said, “As far as I know, there is not one conservative on the law school faculty.”
A recent Roper poll of reporters who cover Congress and of Washington bureau chiefs found that only four percent were registered Republicans. Eighty-nine percent had voted for Bill Clinton in 1992, and only seven percent for George Bush. (Francis Mancini, Where Are the Conservatives in Academia, the Media? The Herald (Miami), June 3, 1996.)
White Smokers
Although more black adults smoke cigarettes than whites (39 percent of black men v. 30 percent for white men; 27 percent for both black and white women), considerably fewer black than white teen-agers smoke. In 1977 the percentages of white, black, and Hispanics high school-age smokers were, respectively, 28.9 percent, 24.9 percent, and 22.8 percent. By 1993, the white percentage had declined to 21.4 percent, but the figure for blacks had dropped to 4.2 percent and that of Hispanics to 11.8 percent. No one seems to know why young whites are five times more likely to smoke than blacks. (Carol Stevens, Cigarettes Are Less Popular Among African American — But Experts Can’t Explain Why, Detroit News, December 11, 1995, p. 6A.)
