O Tempora, O Mores! (April, 1997)
American Renaissance, April 1997
Sauce for the Gander
When whites are thought to have committed offenses against blacks but are acquitted of state criminal charges, they may find themselves in federal court on civil rights charges. This was what happened to the officers who arrested Rodney King.
This technique has finally been used against blacks. In 1992, Lemrick Nelson was acquitted of killing Yankel Rosenbaum, a Hasidic Jew, during the 1991 anti-Jewish riots in the Crown Heights section of New York. There was much dissatisfaction among whites when the jury of six blacks, four Hispanics, and two whites not only acquitted Mr. Nelson but then took him to dinner to celebrate the verdict.
Jewish groups put a great deal of pressure on Janet Reno’s Justice Department to retry Mr. Nelson for violation of civil rights. The Administration resisted long past the point of decency, but finally brought charges not only against Mr. Nelson but against another black man, Charles Price, who incited blacks to kill Jews. On February 10th, a jury of three blacks, four Hispanics, and five whites found both men guilty. They are likely to face as many as 20 years in jail. (Joseph Fried, 2 guilty in Fatal Crown Hts. Violence, New York Times, Feb. 11, 1997, p. A1.)
In an amusing footnote, the February 11th New York Times story on the trial changed slightly from its early to late editions. It first quoted Lemrick Nelson’s mother as telling her son, “You ain’t did nothing wrong.” It later repented of this verbatim quotation and simply wrote that she had told him he had done nothing wrong. (Just Ain’t Done, New York Post, Feb. 12, 1997.)
Kennewick Man Stays Above Ground
In January we reported the discovery of a 9,000-year-old skeleton in Oregon of a man thought to be a Caucasian. Indian tribes immediately claimed him as an ancestor, and invoked the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act to have him handed over for reburial. Even the mainstream media wondered whether Indian haste to get their hands on the bones did not indicate fear that further study of the skeleton would demonstrate a white presence on the continent at an awkwardly early time.
Although scientists were frantic for a chance to examine this unusual find, the Army Corps of Engineers, which had custody of the body, knuckled under immediately to the Indians and agreed to give them the bones. However, on Feb. 3, a U.S. District Magistrate permitted scientists and an Odinist group, the Asatru Folk Assembly, to file suits demanding further study. Kennewick man will therefore stay above ground and have his day in court. (Richard Hill, Judge Allows Suits in Kennewick Man Case to Continue, The Oregonian, Feb. 4, 1997, p. 1.)
At the University of Georgia at Athens, the celebration of Martin Luther King’s birthday went on a little longer than usual. There were no less than ten separate, official events, which stretched from Jan. 17 through Feb. 5, including such things as “1997 MLK Art Exhibit,” “1997 MLK GospelFest,” “A King-sized Celebration,” and “1997 MLK Youth Symposium on Nonviolence.” The dates suggest that these are annual observances. There is probably no other person, idea, or historical event that would merit anything like this scale of commemoration.
Blacks Learn Early
A 14-year-old black boy in East Fallowfield Township, Pennsylvania, has already learned that faking a “hate crime” can really make things happen. The boy tied threatening messages to rocks and pitched them through the windows of his own house, prompting the usual uproar. Local police considered posting a “round-the-clock guard on the house. The boy apparently didn’t like the neighborhood, and wanted to persuade his mother to move house. (AP, Cops: Boy Falsified Hate Attacks, Coatesville, PA, Feb. 5, 1997.)
Whites Learn Late
Season ticket holders to the Pasadena Playhouse decided they didn’t want to patronize a series of “black theme” plays. Of the 16,000 subscribers to the Pasadena, California arts organization, about 1,000 decided not to renew. Many said openly that they were not interested in plays about Jackie Robinson fighting “racism” or about black disco groups in the 1970s. “We’re surprised people actually vocalized that,” said a spokesman for the playhouse. Indeed, whites usually keep such views to themselves. (AP, Pasadena, Calif, Feb. 10, 1997.)
Longing for White Rule
Many South Africans have a legitimate fear that their country is sliding into chaos. Government is bloated and ineffectual, crime is increasing spectacularly, and the white-built infrastructure is falling apart. At least some blacks think they know what the problem is. Robert Thornton, an anthropologist at Witwatersrand University, is doing research in Mpumalanga province. “One of the tribal leaders I spoke to said he missed the good old days under apartheid,” he says. (Anton Ferreira, S. Africa’s Mandela Needs Firmer Hand on Tiller, Reuters, Cape Town, Feb. 4.)
Meanwhile, in the United States, one of the first towns founded by blacks is facing bankruptcy and a state takeover. Princeville, North Carolina, was established by freed slaves in 1865. Now, sewers don’t flow, garbage collection is spotty, and the town budget has plunged into the red. Part of the problem is that the town doesn’t have accurate addresses for four fifths of its water and sewer customers — a surprising problem for a community of 1,900. Nor can the town persuade citizens to pay taxes; its collection rate is 52 percent compared to a state average of 97 percent.
Resident, Johnny Clark, is proud of Princeville’s history as a black town, but looks forward to the state running the city: “I believe you would get a fairer deal with the white folks.” (Martha Waggoner, N.C. Town Founded by Freed Slaves Faces Takeover, The Advocate (Baton Rouge), Jan. 31, 1997, p. 6A.)
As the Twig is Bent . . .
The Anti-Defamation League produces a large number of “anti-bias/diversity” books and videos. A selection of these are listed in a “mini-catalog,” which is available, free of charge, for anyone who calls (800) 343-5540. Books include the 380-page Us: A Cultural Mosaic, which will help children “begin to see that differences are positive, and they add interest and richness to life.” Wonderful World of Difference will “provide educators with a starting point for helping their students explore the diversity and richness contained within the human family.”
Then there is Being’ With You This Way: “This award-winning rap-poem with brilliantly colorful, dynamic illustrations is a perfect way to teach young children about the joy of being together — and being different — in a multicultural society.” A children’s reader on immigration is called Who Belongs Here? An American Story. Need a poster to brighten up your child’s room? Try “Diversity is our strength,” which shows a little blond girl with her arm draped over the shoulders of a black boy.
Videos are offered with titles like “Crimes of Hate,” “Beyond Hate,” and “The Longest Hatred.” Customers not obsessed with hate can buy a little drama called “Shadows Between Friends,” about a California white and Hispanic “whose friendship is threatened by, but eventually overcomes, the prejudices and stereotypes of school mates and adult society.”
Many of the ADL’s offerings come with discussion guides and instructions for teachers.
. . . so Grows the Tree
U.S. Government agencies subscribe to a monthly publication called Managing Diversity, which recently published a front-page story by Harris Sussman, Ph.D., called “What are the Values of White People.” It is worth quoting at length:
It turns out that the white people we are talking about have been primarily Christians, often acting in the name of their Christian values. This is puzzling and distressing.
In the name of Christian values, they had the Inquisition. They called native peoples ‘savages’ who did not qualify as human beings. They set up definitions of pagans, heathens, primitives, undeveloped people, which left Christians superior and dominant. They killed Jews and gypsies in the Holocaust.
In our post-modern vocabulary, ‘whites’ or ‘the white man’ is all we need to say to invoke this history and experience of injustice and cruelty. When we say ‘white people,’ we mean the people of greed who valued things over people, who value money over people. We know exactly what their values are and where they lead. We have all paid a terrible price for those values . . .
Many white people are uneasy with their own history. They are having a profound identity crisis . . . This means that many white people do not think of themselves as white people — or at least not the white people that everyone else has in mind when they make those generalizations.
Many people who grew up in the Christian heritage no longer claim that heritage. They have adopted the beliefs and values of other cultures and traditions as well as they can — Buddhist, Baha’i, Islam.
(White People, Washington Times, Feb. 13, 1997, p. A10.)
California Con Game
Now that the campuses of the University of California cannot use race as a criterion for admissions, they are desperately thinking up different criteria that they think will permit them to recruit the same non-whites anyway. UC Assistant Vice President Dennis Galligane puts it this way: “We have two overall goals: to increase the number of whatever word we come up with . . . underserved . . . students, and to increase diversity in UC.” As even the San Francisco Examiner notes, the diversity crew’s goal “remains the same as it’s always been.”
There are now more than 800 UC “outreach” programs operating in primary schools, high schools and community colleges, trying to coax blacks and Hispanics into the system. They cost more than $100 million every year, with three quarters of the money coming from taxes. There appears to be no plan to abolish these programs; they will simply be reoriented toward recruiting the “underserved.” (Carol Ness, UC System Struggles Over Blacks, Latinos, San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 18, 1997.)
Europe is all atwitter over the latest National Front victory, in the mayoral elections for the French town of Vitrolles. Catherine Mégret, whose grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Russia, notes that times have changed.
‘Our voters wanted us to scare people who don’t belong,’ she explains. ‘We will immediately stop all state aid to immigrants and give the money to French people. Our motto is: French first.’
‘You’ll see how quickly they [immigrants] disappear from here,’ she adds. ‘They’re only here for the money.’
Mrs. Mégret also scoffed at the social workers hired by the previous Socialist city government, who tried to “understand” young criminals. “We will abolish these posts completely and hire policemen in their place who, instead of trying to prevent crime, will crack down hard,” she explained. (National Front Aims to Scare Immigrants, Mayor Says, International Herald Tribune, Feb. 25, 1997, p. 5.)
Chicago’s Roberto Clemente High School has an almost entirely Puerto Rican student body. Seventy-five percent of the 2,500 students qualify for special federal funds that are supposed to be used to help educate poor students by, for example, paying for textbooks. The Clemente school has, instead, used the money to promote Puerto Rican nationalism and hatred of America.
Between 1992 and 1995, the school spent at least $150,000 flying in Puerto Rican activists to address students. One school staffer, on condition of anonymity, describes one such ceremony:
One of the first things I saw shortly after I arrived was the American flag being spit on by a speaker hired to talk to the students about Puerto Rican independence. The speaker . . . shouted to the students, ‘This is Americaca. You are living in Americaca.’ Caca is spanish for excrement.
The same staffer said that a teacher had been ordered to take the American flag down from his classroom wall because it was the “flag of the oppressor.” The schools walls sport murals, in Spanish, promoting Puerto Rican nationalism.
Poverty program money has been used to pay for fund-raising events for something called the National Committee to Free Puerto Rican Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War. The objects of the committee’s admiration are more than a dozen Puerto Ricans convicted of killing five people and injuring 70 in a wave of terrorist attacks in 1974. As one student at the school explained, “My teacher said the terrorists only did what they did because we Puerto Ricans were being mistreated by the whites.”
One of the activists flown in to inspire students was sculptor Ramon Moreno. After he addressed a school assembly, students were invited to attend the unveiling of Mr. Moreno’s statue of Puerto Rican independence leader, Pedro Campos, who used to urge his followers to assassinate President Harry Truman. The statue now stands in Chicago’s Humboldt Park.
When newspapers reported these activities, the school board appointed a new principal, Jerry Anderson. After Miss Anderson received threatening notes and at least one telephoned death threat — in Spanish-accented English — she declined the job. (Michelle Campbell & Michael Sneed, School Funds Used to Push Terrorists’ Release, Chicago Sun-Times, Feb. 4, 1997, p. 1.)
The January issue of Spearhead, published in England, includes an item about Islam, of which we here reprint a portion [Note: in Britain, “Asian” usually means Pakistani or Indian]:
Shortly before Christmas, most national newspapers carried reports of the incident in Birmingham’s Washwood Heath Secondary School, when an Asian teacher disrupted a carol service because the choir included members of the school’s Muslim majority. As the choir sang Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, the 27-year-old father-of-two, Israr Khan, leapt to his feet shouting “Why are you saying Jesus and Jesus Christ. God is not your God, it is Allah.” Turning to the audience, he yelled: “Who is your God?”, to which many Asian pupils — who make up 60 percent of the 1,265-strong school roll — replied with chants of “Allah” and enthusiastic applause. “The audience was booing and shouting at us,” said one shocked choir member.
According to the Daily Telegraph of 19th December, “Staff are said to go out of their way to celebrate major religious festivals recognized by its pupils, including the Muslim Ramadan and Hindu Diwali as well as Christmas.” Clearly such equal treatment is no longer enough for many Muslims, who are beginning to exercise their growing power and influence on councils and schools in many British towns and cities.
What was most interesting about this incident was not the sensationalist condemnations of Islamic intolerance, and naive calls for “inter-faith understanding and tolerance’, which appeared in the tabloids. Far more significant was an article in the Daily Telegraph of 19th December by Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo, the Director of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity.
Under the headline: “Prince Charles is wrong: Islam does menace the West” the article warned gravely that the Muslims, who “want to move into the mainstream of British life . . . may seek to change the existing political, legal and educational structures to conform to Islamic norms.”
Warned Dr. Sookhdeo:
Many British Muslims — particularly victims of racial discrimination and economic marginalization within Britain’s affluent society — feel, first members of the world-wide Muslim community and only secondly members of British society . . . A preacher in a European mosque recently reminded his congregation that it was the migration of a Syrian Muslim to Spain which resulted in Spain’s Islamic civilisation and Islamic rule. He challenged his listeners, who had all migrated to Europe, to consider for what purpose Allah had brought them to Europe.
(Spearhead, Box 117, Welling, Kent DA163DW, England)
Liberty and Justice For All
A white man from North Lakeland, Florida, has been sentenced to one year and nine months in jail for persuading a black couple not to move into the house next door. Forty-nine-year-old David Broome was also ordered to pay $9,500 to the couple. “You’re niggers to me,” he reportedly said. “I don’t want you as a neighbor.” Mr. Broome is also said to have “threatened” black FBI agents who later posed as buyers of the same house.
A clandestine FBI video tape caught Mr. Broome displaying a Confederate flag in his front yard and telling the agents: “It means I don’t like black people . . . I ain’t the only redneck in this neighborhood . . . I like to cause trouble.” If this was a threat, it was a mild one.
Mr. Broome complained about the severity of his sentence, saying “I don’t think I should get 21 months in jail just because I shot my mouth off in my front yard. Drug dealers get less time than I did.”
The very same issue of the Lakeland Ledger that reported Mr. Broome’s comments proved him right. On a different page we learn that two middle-class drug dealers from Tampa, who faced a maximum of 20 years in jail and a $1 million fine, were let off virtually scott free. A federal judge sentenced Mary Toothman to three years probation and no jail time. William Evans got three years probation and five months in prison. (Guy McCarthy, Man Sentenced for Racist Acts, Lakeland Ledger, Feb. 1, 1997, p. B1. Eric Pera, Drug Sentences Move Two to Tears, Lakeland Ledger, Feb. 1, 1997, p. B4.)
There have been many news stories about the sharp rise in the number of rapes in South Africa. A recent article in a South African paper discusses a possible reason:
‘Most of the recently reported rapes have been by Black men on White women.’ The article evokes ‘the tendency of politically ascendant groups to have their way with women among those they believe they have conquered.’ ‘Black men have always regarded women as there for the taking. Now they are transferring this attitude, mingled with political triumph and apartheid-hate, to their treatment of White women . . . We may not understand why more White women are being raped by Black men but let’s not pretend it is not happening.’ (Martin Williams, The Citizen, Feb. 8, 1997.)
According to another report, there is a rape in South Africa every 25 seconds: “Rape by a single attacker is the exception. The majority of victims have been gang-raped by at least three attackers, who are usually in their late teens or early twenties.” (Robert Block, Teenage Rape Gangs Roam South Africa, Sunday Times (London), Jan. 19, 1977.)
Dark Continent
We quote the following story, verbatim and in toto:
Abidjan — AFP: Three sorcerers in Ivory Coast have been jailed for three years after they admitted eating 35 people they had first transformed into edible rodents, the Abidjan press reported Monday.
Yaoua Agninoua, her younger sister Kossia Mize and Koffi Mouroufie, a customary chief, told a tribunal in Bondoukou 340 kilometers (210 miles) northeast of Abidjan that they had transformed Marthe Yaoua into a grasscutter, a large rodent much appreciated by gourmets here, as she lay in her hospital bed. They then cooked her in a pot and ate her, according to Soir Info.
The two women told the tribunal they had “transformed themselves into birds on the orders of the chief” so as to enter the room of their victim at night. The pair were then joined by the chief who divided up the victim, giving himself the largest of the three portions, the paper reported. The three told the court some 34 others from the same village had suffered the same culinary fate, all having been transformed into grasscutters first.
Tribunal chairman Souleymane Diabate told AFP the three had admitted ‘practicing sorcery and creating a public nuisance,’ an offense under article 204 of Ivory Coast’s penal code. ‘As soon as they admitted it, it was an element of proof. Furthermore, they were found in possession of magic trinkets’ he said. ‘We did not judge them on the details of the affair, but rather for practicing sorcery, an established offense,’ said the judge who added the convicts had said they were sorry. (Agence France Press, Sorcerers Who Admitted Eating 35 People Jailed for Three Years, Feb. 4, 1997.)
There have been strange doings in Ghana, too. Mobs have beaten to death at least 12 penis snatchers. Victims say witches simply touch them and their organs shrink or vanish. The witch then asks for cash in return for a cure. The entire country is in a panic, and women have also reported people shrinking or stealing their genitals. It is widely believed that the missing organs are used in voodoo rituals.
Armed police are patrolling markets and bus stations to prevent further witch-killings. Doctors have appeared on state television to explain why penises increase and decrease in size. One expert said that fear shrinks penises. (Reuter, “Penis Snatcher” Death Toll Hits 12 in Ghana, Jan. 23, 1997.)
Black Default
In 1992, the most recent year for which figures are available, students at black colleges were three times more likely to default on government-backed student loans than were students at other colleges. Twenty-eight percent tried to stiff their creditors, compared to the national norm of seven percent. Also, the average annual default amount at a black college, $464,209, was nearly four times the amount at other institutions.
The default rate at black colleges is higher than that allowed by law, but Congress has so far granted special exemptions for them. Congress will have to vote another exemption by July next year or the money will stop coming in. (Loan Defaults Higher at Black Colleges, Washington Times, Jan. 22, 1997.)
Hitting Bottom
In Chicago’s heavily black and Hispanic schools, administrators have stopped supplying rest rooms with toilet paper, soap, or paper towels. If they leave paper in the rest rooms, students clog the plumbing by flushing whole rolls down toilets, and plaster the walls and ceilings with wads of wet paper. Many teachers establish official bathroom breaks, when they dispense just enough paper for a single use. Other schools supply paper in the rest rooms but teachers always accompany students to make sure they do not go wild. There is no soap in these rest rooms because students tear the soap dispensers off the walls. There are no doors to the stalls because students destroy them.
Recently the principle of Revere School on the South Side relaxed its no-paper policy, but only for its older students. They immediately reverted to waste and wildness, so the policy was reinstated. (Janita Poe, In School Bathrooms, Tissue is a Privilege, Chicago Tribune, Feb. 4, 1997, p. 1.)
