Posted on February 1, 1997

O Tempora, O Mores! (February, 1997)

American Renaissance, February 1997

What You Say?

Everyone has now heard that the Oakland School Board voted to recognize the fractured English spoken by uneducated blacks — now given the grand name of “Ebonics” — as a legitimate language. This has driven the liberals into a frenzy, not least because the board described Ebonics as “a genetically based language structure.” Even Jesse Jackson at first said the plan was crazy, but has since softened his criticism. What was the school board trying to do? As they pointed out, nothing seems to help black children do better in school. As one member explained, “whatever we are using now is not working.” The theory is that teachers should perhaps be trained to understand “Ebonics” so they can communicate better with students, just as teachers trained in Spanish can better understand immigrant children.The people now harrumphing about how idiotic “Ebonics” is are the very ones who backed all those failed proposals that were just as idiotic: busing, minority role models, self-esteem, Afro-centric curricula, abolition of grades, nutrition programs, Head Start, etc. etc. By refusing to consider the real problem — low IQ — and betting on cosmetic silliness, blacks are doing exactly what white liberals have taught them to do.

More on Prop 209

California’s Proposition 209, which would ban state-sponsored affirmative action, continues to face heavy weather. Now that a black judge has blocked implementation, the University of California system has announced that it will continue to use race and sex as criteria for admitting students. Last year, the university’s Board of Regents ordered it to stop the practice, and it was expected to obey. It is using the current legal maneuvers as an excuse to defy the board.In the meantime, the Clinton Justice Department has sided with Judge Henderson in thinking that Prop 209 is unconstitutional, and has joined the fight to stop it. California Governor, Pete Wilson, describes the move as “a legal challenge that is absolutely Orwellian.” (Reuter, Justice Dept. Opposes Calif. Race Law, December 20, 1996.)

More Army ‘Racism’

Last month we reported that British papers were breaking the news that the recent army sex scandal mostly involved black men molesting white women. The story finally seems to have surfaced in the United States. Of the 12 drill instructors accused of rape and other sex offenses at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md. and Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., 11 are black. For whatever reason, the army is deliberately concealing the races of their accusers. As if on cue, the president of the NAACP chapter closest to Aberdeen Proving Ground has expressed the suspicion that the investigations reflect a pattern of “racism.” (Rowan Scarborough, NAACP Suspects Racial Factor in Army Sex Cases,Washington Times, Dec.11, 1996, p.A1.)

Not-so-special Forces

Meanwhile, the army brass has discovered that its elite, Special Forces units are overwhelmingly white, and has decided to end this scandal. As one inside source puts it:

The first task was to ‘correct’ the special operations recruiting film. During the months of July and August 1996, army film crews spread out around SWCS [Special Warfare Center and School] and the ranger battalions to make a new flick. But they ran into a major problem: the flick was too ‘white.’

The takes were reviewed by Generals Scott, Bowra and Tagney, but when they counted the number of Negro and Caucasian soldiers in each frame the quotas DoA [Department of the Army] told them were acceptable were not present. The solution was easy — shoot the film again to reflect ‘future truth.’

For example: During the filming of mortar drill at Company B, 1st Bn, 1st SWTG(A) [Special Warfare Training Group (Airborne)] in mid July, the politically correct one-to-two quota was staged, but a group of real students were standing in the background. The camera man stopped filming. Addressing the background students, while flagging his arm in the direction he wanted them to move, he said, ‘You white guys need to move out of the shot.’

A related incident occurred while the film crew was shooting rangers in action down in Georgia. Unable to obtain the ‘correct’ quota among available rangers they dragooned the support unit truck drivers, slapped black berets on their heads, and resumed filming . . .

The GT score [General Technical score on the army’s aptitude test] requirement of 110 for special forces candidates is being lowered to 100.

The swimming test will still be given, but will no longer be a must-pass event; in other words, the swimming test will become nothing more than a finger wave.

(From The Resistor, “political warfare journal of the Special Forces Underground,” Vol. III, Nos. 1&2. For a sample issue, send $7.00 to Box 47095, Kansas City, MO 64188.)

Calling all Black Saxons

The Coca-Cola Foundation has established a new, full-tuition scholarship at the University of Arkansas. As a spokesman for the university explains, it is available to “anyone other than white Anglo-Saxons.” “The neat part about this scholarship is that it’s based on merit,” she adds. “We’ve never had a minority scholarship based on merit before. Usually, the scholarships are based only on financial need.” What this means is that the scholarship can be given even to non-whites who don’t need the money. Such scholarships have been established at most universities because there is so much competition for competent non-whites. “Merit” simply means “for reasons of race or diversity, not financial need.” The meritorious non-Anglo-Saxons at Arkansas must maintain a grade-point average of 3.0 in order to get the money. (Tammy Williams, Minority Merit Scholarships Established, Arkansas Traveler (University of Arkansas at Fayetteville), Nov. 15, 1996.)

No Whites (or Asians) Need Apply

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has been seeking applicants for its Minority Medical Faculty Development Program. Candidates must have completed medical training and be black, American Indian, Puerto Rican, or Mexican-American (what about us Haitians?). Winners will get an annual salary of up to $50,000, plus an annual $25,000 research-support grant — a mouth-watering prospect for post-doctoral researchers who are often thankful to get posts that pay $25,000 to $35,000 a year. (Ad in The Scientist, Nov. 25, 1996.)

Sign of Things to Come

One of the common ways to “fight apartheid” in the black townships was to refuse to pay utility bills. The new government has tried to get blacks to pay up, but with only modest success. Now, in Johannesburg, the plan is to increase rates in the white parts of town by as much as 300 percent to subsidize service for blacks. Whites have actually marched in protest over the move and are threatening a rate boycott of their own. (Sudarsan Raghaven, South African Whites Balk at High Utility Bills, San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 24, 1996, p. C2.)

Any Color so Long as It’s Not White

Ford Motor Company wants non-white suppliers to account for five percent of its purchases by the year 2000. In order to help such suppliers financially, it has agreed to pay the interest on some of their loans. This program is not open to white-owned companies. (Ford to Pay Interest for Minority Suppliers, Washington Times, Nov. 8, 1996, p. E12.)

Holding the Bag

A jury in Minneapolis has awarded $400,000 to a black baggage handler for Northwest Airlines because of “racism.” In 1992, after he was involved in an accident, Robert Landon was tested for drugs and was found to have marijuana in his system. He was then fired. It is Northwest policy to test people for drugs after an accident if they appear to be acting abnormal. Witnesses said that Mr. Landon was not acting abnormally, and the jury was persuaded that the decision to test him was based on race. (Jury Awards Bag Handler $400K, Associated Press, Minneapolis, Nov. 28, 1996.)

More Good Democrats

The motor-voter law requires states to let people register to vote when they get a license or to take them to the nearest voter registration office. Across the country, social service agencies are interpreting this to mean that they are required to take mentally retarded inmates of public institutions to registration offices and put them on the rolls. At election time, this often means that the people who tend the inmates trot them down to the polling station and cast their ballots for them. Interestingly, some of the fiercest opposition to this practice comes from the parents of adult inmates. They know very well that their children are incompetent and think it is an outrage to give them the vote. (Christi Parsons, Mentally Disabled Join Voter Ranks, Chicago Tribune, Oct. 17, 1996, p. 1.)

Survival Amidst the Ruins

The University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, is one of the pillars of the East Coast academic establishment and a member of the Ivy League. It is also located in what has become an increasingly black and barbaric part of town. Unlike a household, a university cannot simply uproot acres of facilities and move to the suburbs. It has to stay and fight. The University of Pennsylvania is losing. Penn spends millions of dollars a year on safety and security personnel. It briefs students on elaborate evasive tactics, and urges them never to walk alone at night. Many students report that they often plot their movements with an eye to avoiding assault. Even so, this winter, robberies on and around the campus were running at 20 to 30 a month. Most students do as they have been instructed: they hand over their wallets and are not hurt. However, a graduate student from Russia, inadequately trained in American racial etiquette, tried to fight off a purse snatcher and was stabbed to death. (Thomas Gibbons, A Halloween Homicide Jolts a Reeling Penn, Philadelphia Inquirer, Nov. 2, 1996, p. 1.)Students are demanding quicker police response and better patrols. The university promises to try harder than ever. The real question is whether Western Civilization can be maintained in the face of certain kinds of demographic change.

Commencement Rap

For its winter commencement, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill chose as its speaker black “race relations expert,” Michael Dyson. Prof. Dyson, who teaches communications at the university, decided to introduce “young, black voices often not heard in the lily white halls of academia” because, in his view, the opinions of the young are often wrongly dismissed. His chosen subjects were rap “artists,” whom he quoted verbatim and with enthusiasm. Themes he judged fit for the occasion included fellatio, pimping, prostitution, and various parts of the human anatomy. A number of white graduates had the good taste to throw their caps on the ground and walk out.Prof. Dyson also took the opportunity to criticize one of the university’s most famous graduates, basketball star Michael Jordan. Mr. Jordan recently gave one million dollars to the School of Social Work but declined to give money to a planned Black Cultural Center, saying that the center would benefit only one group. (Jane Stancill, Dyson Speech Draws Criticism, Raleigh News & Observer, Dec. 17, 1996, p. 1B.)

Rapacious Successes

Prof. Dyson’s favored art form is doing extremely well. It is dominated by Death Row Records and its distributor, Interscope. The top “artists” for the label are Tupac Shakur, recently murdered, and Snoop Doggy Dogg, who narrowly escaped conviction on a (different) murder charge. Marion (Suge) Knight, the president of Death Row Records is running the company from a jail cell, where he languishes because of parole violations. In the first week of December recordings by Death Row were in the top four spots on the Billboard 200. Not in the last 20 years has a single company so dominated the charts. (Brent Staples, Dying to Be Black, New York Times, Oct. 9, 1996.)

Black Rule

In 1969, Greene County, Alabama became only the second county in the entire South to vote out white politicians and institute black rule. Martin Luther King’s assistant, Ralph Abernathy, rather nonsensically called the election “the most significant achievement by black men since the Emancipation Proclamation.” Now the county and has filed for bankruptcy — another first for the state.The county has spent foolishly, sometimes illegally, and with few controls. State law requires that certain funds be set aside for specific purposes — gasoline taxes are to pay for roads and bridges — but the county spent the money on salaries. There have been many salaries to pay, since Greene County has a payroll larger than some Alabama counties with three times its population.Sums of money have disappeared in chunks of three and four hundred thousand dollars, and the county now has $3 million in debts — $300 for each of its 10,000 residents. Matt Hart, an assistant Alabama attorney general who is leading the state investigation says, “The unusual thing here is there were no records. They just pass out money without any control.”Booker Cooke, the county chief of staff, explains why some records might be missing:

If I’m going to New York, when I would get back I would have the plane ticket, the hotel — I would lose some of them, I wouldn’t have them all. If I have a plane ticket to New York, obviously I went to New York. I just can’t prove to you that I ate. But obviously I ate. I do eat every day.

For years, state auditors have questioned the county’s books, but have until now been held at bay. John Kennard, who is black and is the county’s tax assessor, explains how they did it: “We call a press conference, call the auditors racist, and the state backs off.” The chairman of the County Commission, Garria Spencer, is still playing the game. “I think it’s racist,” he says of the state investigation.Mr. Spencer has many worries. In the most recent county election, half of his votes were from absentee ballots — an impossibly high proportion. A state investigation has shown that large numbers of absentee ballots were sent to single addresses, some were delivered to county agencies, and others were mailed to addresses outside the district. Both the state and the FBI are very interested. (Adam Nossiter, From Symbol of Pride to an Embarrassment, New York Times, Nov. 29, 1996, p. A1.)

More Black Rule

Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, recently acquired a new wife. At the ceremony, the happy couple received $1,250 in cash gifts. Takaruza Lazarus Marufu, a cousin of the new wife, was given the money for safekeeping during the reception, but decided to make off with it. He has been sentenced to five months in jail. (President’s In-law Steals Wedding Gifts, Tallahassee Democrat, Nov. 16, 1996, p. 7A.)

Hate is a Many-Splendored Things

Last November, in the wake of national hysteria about church burnings in the South, the Boston Piano Co. established a fund to help congregations victimized by “hate crimes.” In December, the trust decided to send $500 to Trinity United Methodist Church in St. Petersburg, Florida. The church, which has a mostly-black congregation, suffered fire damage on October 24th, during riots following the shooting of a black criminal by white police officers. (Florida Church Gets Hate-crime Money, Washington Times, Dec. 8, 1996, p. A2.)To our knowledge, all the rioters were black.

They Meant Well

Two men in Boynton Beach, Florida badly wanted to become police officers, but did not have enough money to enroll in the police instruction course at Palm Beach Community College. Kevin Carter and Michael Harrison, race unspecified, decided to rob a jewelry store to raise the money, and invited a friend to come along. The friend was shot dead in the attempt, and Mr. Carter was wounded in the legs. Mr. Harrison, arrested soon after, is reported to have said, “I guess I can’t become a police officer now.” (Police Hopefuls Charged With Murder, Washington Times, Dec. 8, 1996, p. A2.)

Immigration in the Third World

About one million people are thought to have immigrated illegally to Malaysia from such places as Bangladesh, Pakistan, and South East Asia, and the Malaysians are tired of it. First-time offenders will be deported and repeat offenders will now be flogged. Employers who hire illegals will be fined the first time, flogged the second time, and can go to jail for up to five years for the third offense. (Malaysia Gets Tough on Illegal Immigrants, Atlanta Journal/Constitution, Oct. 19, 1996, p. A4.) The West African country, Ivory Coast, has embarked on an Ivoirite or Ivorian-ness campaign. People who cannot prove that their grandparents were born in what is now Ivory Coast are subject to deportation. (Ben Barber, Ivory Coast Imposes Ethnic-purity Campaign, Washington Times, Oct. 10, 1996, p. A17.)