O Tempora, O Mores! (August, 2000)

‘Elections’ in Zimbabwe

Zimbabweans voted over the weekend of June 24-26, giving the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) 57 of 120 contested seats in parliament. This knocked no fewer than seven of President Robert Mugabe’s cabinet ministers out of office, but the MDC thinks it is entitled to even more seats. It is considering lodging formal fraud charges in the case of 28 of the seats won by the ruling ZANU-PF Party. Since President Mugabe had the right to appoint 30 MPs of his choice to the 150-member house, the ZANU-PF’s majority remains intact.

The final run-up to the elections was not quite as violent as previous months, and blacks killed no more whites: the death total remains at an estimated 26 black MDC supporters and five white farmers. Under some international scrutiny — at least by Britain if not the United States — and with hundreds of election monitors keeping watch for obvious election-rigging, the polling went off with only scattered reports of violence.

ZANU activists blocked access to voting booths in some areas and chased away suspected MDC supporters. In a few cases, Mr. Mugabe’s men pulled whites out of line at polling stations and prevented them from voting. One MDC candidate in the province of Mashona-land West escaped from a ZANU mob and spent seven hours hiding in a police station before 100 of his own supporters armed themselves with ax handles and rescued him. To the surprise of no one, Pierre Schori, who headed the 150-member European Union monitoring team, concluded that “the term ‘free and fair elections’ is not applicable in the elections.” Election policing was not as extensive as planned because the government refused entry to 40 monitors from the United States and hundreds of others from Britain, Kenya, and Nigeria.

Since well before the election, Mr. Mugabe had made his views clear. He supported invasions by blacks of more than 1,000 white farms, and threatened to take over white-owned mines as well. He put whites on notice that they are second-class citizens. “Zimbabwe is a black man’s land, and a black man will determine who gets it,” he said, adding that “whites can be citizens in our country, or residents, but not our cousins. They are the greatest racists in the world.”

After the elections, it was dangerous to celebrate MDC victories. Some 30 policemen in two armored cars arrived at a victory party for newly-elected MP, Edwin Mushoriwa, and beat him up along with his supporters. Police and soldiers scoured the bars of Harare, the capital city, beating up people who appeared to be celebrating.

Still, there are signs that some of the anti-MDC chaos is being reined in. On June 30, Big Chitoro became the first ZANU militant to be charged with murder in connection with attacks on MDC supporters. Mr. Chitoro is said to have kidnapped two opposition campaign workers and held them for three days while they were beaten and burned with cigarettes. One died of his injuries and the other was hospitalized.

The MDC sometimes went African, too. At a number of big election rallies its supporters rounded up alleged ZANU partisans and beat them bloody. Also, after the election, a newly-minted MDC MP turned himself in to the police to face charges of attempted murder for having attacked ZANU supporters during the campaign.

Of course, for whites the situation remains extremely dangerous. ZANU’s electoral setbacks have not put an end to the farm invasions, and beatings, thefts, and intimidation are worsening. Some of the squatters, for example, have demanded that farmers pay them rent for the use of their own farms. Others insist that whites sign over title to the farms. The farmers’ union officially advises its members not to submit to these demands and not to vacate their houses. “If you get out of your house, you have lost it,” says the union’s deputy director Jerry Grant, but he acknowledges that following this advice could be dangerous: “What do you say when a widow tells you later it’s your fault for giving that advice?”

Mr. Mugabe vows that all farms will eventually end up in the hands of blacks. In the meantime, farming has been so badly disrupted that Zimbabwe, which normally exports agricultural products, could need food aid in several months.

The U.S. reaction has been nearly inaudible. Late on June 19, with fewer than five minutes of debate and no roll call, the House passed a non-binding resolution condemning violence in Zimbabwe and calling for the rule of law. The Senate has done nothing. The Black Congressional Caucus, usually so quick to find racism, has detected none in Zimbabwe. Jesse Jackson, Jr. explains that if things have gone wrong in Africa it is our fault: “We provided them no Marshall Plan at the end of the Cold war. We provided them no means for basically providing education for their people, providing health care for the people, or ensuring the quality of life in sub-Saharan Africa would grow.”

Austria Loses Patience

Austria is heading for a showdown with the European Union over the sanctions the EU imposed after Jörg Haider’s Freedom Party entered the government in February. Claiming that the party is xenophobic because it opposes immigration, Austria’s 14 EU partners have maintained necessary contacts but refuse to deal bilaterally with Austrian ministers. This has offered many opportunities for all manner of snubbing and self-righteousness.

After more than four months of this, the Austrians have had enough. Mr. Haider, who has resigned as leader of the Freedom Patty but continues to wield great influence within it, has suggested Austria should consider leaving the EU if sanctions are not lifted. Wolfgang Schuessel, leader of the People’s Party and chancellor of the coalition government with the Freedom Party, has hinted Austria might withhold payments to the EU or block other initiatives that require unanimous consent. The EU, which is showing signs of embarrassment at having sanctioned a democratically-elected government, suggested that the European Court of Human Rights appoint a committee of “wise men” to study the current situation in Austria and propose lifting sanctions if it finds no violations of democratic and human rights. Chancellor Schuessel refused the offer, saying that any conditional lifting of sanctions is an insult.

Now Austria has upped the ante by scheduling a referendum. If sanctions have not been ended by mid-October, Austrians will answer six questions, the most important of which is: “Should the government, as part of the impending reform of the EU Treaty, ensure with all suitable means that the sanctions unjustly imposed on Austria by the other member states of the European Union are immediately lifted?” The phrase “all suitable means” is widely interpreted to mean using Austria’s veto power to block EU expansion and other important business.

France and Belgium, who have led the sanctions campaign, claim this is blackmail. Even some of Austria’s foreign supporters — conservative politicians in Germany, for example — are worried that Austria has made it harder for the EU to find a face-saving way to lift sanctions. The Austrians are holding firm. Vice-Chancellor Susanne Riess-Passer, Jörg Haider’s successor as head of the Freedom Party, says the sanctions were wrong from the start and probably violate EU treaties. As for submitting to an investigation in order for the sanctions to be lifted, she says “We will not accept any conditions.”

More Fakery in the UK

Britain is making the same racial mistakes as the United States and some people have learned there is so much mileage in being a victim of a “hate crime” that they can’t be bothered to wait for the “racists” to strike.

In Birmingham, a 24-year-old black man claimed he was attacked by white racists and set on fire. Ashley Cane did, indeed, have serious burns to his face and arms, and the incident became so notorious it came up during debate in the House of Commons. Now it appears Mr. Cane burned himself while setting fire to a stolen car. Police have charged him and two accomplices with wasting police time and conspiracy to defraud. News that the “racist” attack was a hoax appears not to have been debated in Parliament. (Maurice Weaver, Race Hate Victim ‘Made Up Attack,’ Daily Telegraph (London), May 18, 2000.)

Chris Cotter, a white man also from Birmingham, is the ex-boyfriend of black female track star Ashia Hansen. In March he was allegedly stabbed in the back and slashed across the forehead by white thugs who told him, “We warned you not to mix with niggers.” Miss Hansen got hate mail and went into hiding, while the country wailed about racism. Police warned other black athletes to look out for thugs. Now it turns out Mr. Cotter and two accomplices staged the knife attack and mailed the hate letters themselves. In Britain it is common to charge large sums to grant exclusive interviews, and Mr. Cotter hoped to make a bundle telling his story to the papers. Miss Hansen, the black athlete, is now worried there could be “a danger of distracting attention from the legitimate racist issues we have in society.” (Nick Hopkins, Black Athlete’s Partner Attacked, London Guardian, March 25, 2000. Richard Ellis, Race Hate in Britain is Rife — Just Ask My Wife, London Guardian, March 26, 2000. Paul Kelso, Ex-Lover of Black Athlete Charged, London Guardian, May 23, 2000.)

In London, non-white police officers started getting messages saying, “Not wanted. Keep the police force white. Leave now or else.” After the usual hand-wringing the sender turned out to be Gurpal Virdi, a Sikh police sergeant who had been denied a promotion. Mr. Virdi has been dropped from the force. (Sikh Seeks Sneaky Solution, London Guardian, March 4, 2000.)

In Byker, near Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, Asian shopkeeper Mohammed Bashir made headlines when he complained of harassment and intimidation at the hands of whites. Soon afterwards someone bombed his shop, and Mr. Bashir immediately blamed racists. A police investigation found that Mr. Bashir, his two sons and a neighbor planted the bomb and set fire to the shop. According to Chief Inspector Gary Shaw, “the motive for this crime was money. Mohammed Bashir had taken out an insurance policy on the shop shortly before it was destroyed.” (Paul Wilkinson, ‘Racist’ Attack Set Up to Claim Insurance, The Times (London), June 13, 2000.)

Guilty Until Proven Innocent

European MPs have approved new regulations that will force employers to prove their innocence in court when accused of racial discrimination. This reverses the burden of proof, which used to be placed on plaintiffs. Third party lobbies and “victims” organizations can file suit on behalf of claimants. The European Commission justified the legislation on the grounds that it is often difficult for plaintiffs to obtain the sort of evidence required to prove “racism” in court, so it will be up to employers to prove their “non-racism.” The new law requires complaints to be handled by an independent body rather than the courts. In England, this will probably mean the far-left Commission for Racial Equality. Labor MP Richard Hewitt welcomed the law, saying: “This is the biggest breakthrough in British race relations for a quarter of a century. Right-wing extremism is on the rise, not just in Austria but throughout Europe. This sends the signal to Jörg Haider, David Irving and every thug who commits a racist crime on Britain’s streets.” (Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Firms Forced to Prove They Are Not Racist, The Daily Telegraph (London), May 19, 2000, p. 1.)

Supreme Error

Things are not quite so bad in the United States, but they are getting worse. On June 12, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that someone accusing his employer of discrimination, racial or otherwise, need no longer prove discrimination. It is enough to show that the employer’s stated reasons for a job rejection or firing were false. A jury can then decide whether the real reason was discrimination. Although the burden of proof will still be on employees to prove the employer’s explanation false, it will become more difficult for employers to win dismissals. This is a reversal for the Fourth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals, which had required employees to prove that the real reason for an employ-er’s adverse action was discrimination. Job discrimination lawyers are delighted with the new ruling. (Edward Walsh, Court Lowers Bar for Job Bias Suits, Washington Post, June 13, 2000, p. A26.)

Poverty Crimes?

According to a new study released by the University of Hawaii, Hispanic gangs are the main perpetrators of hate crimes in Los Angeles County. One hundred sixty-four Hispanics committed hate crimes in 1997 compared to 119 whites, and most of the victims were blacks. Hispanics don’t like to think of themselves as hate criminals and are casting about for excuses. Roberto Lovato, president of the county Human Relations Commission, points out that rich whites are rarely accused of hate crimes and adds: “Maybe we should stop calling them hate crimes and start calling them class crimes or poverty crimes. It’s have-nots attacking have-nots.” (Gangs Commit Many of L.A.’s Crimes of Hate, San Diego Union-Tribune, May 8, 2000.)

Hispanics vs. Armenians

There is much racial tension between Hispanics and Armenians at Hoover High School in Glendale, California. In a recent fight just outside the school, 17-year-old Raul Aguirre came to the aid of a fellow Hispanic when two Armenians attacked him. The Armenians stabbed Mr. Aguirre twice in the heart, twice in the head and beat his head in with a tire iron. Two Armenian boys, aged 17 and 15, and a 14-year-old Armenian girl have been booked in connection with the killing. (Glendale Killing Highlights Racial Tension, www. channel2000.com (CBS), May 7, 2000.)

Hispanics got revenge a few days later. Just minutes after a community meeting held to promote ethnic harmony, three Hispanics in a car shot at a group of Armenians standing on a street corner. An 18-year-old Armenian went to the hospital with a bullet in his knee. (John Francis, Armenian Teen Injured in Drive-by Shooting, Los Angeles Times, May 12, 2000.)

In an unrelated attack, three Hispanic gang members approached Armen Petrosyan, an Armenian, outside a Hollywood restaurant. They asked him “Where you from?” then shot him repeatedly, killing him. (Peter Hong, Latino Gang Killed Armenian Man, Police Say, Los Angeles Times, May 24, 2000.)

Hispanics vs. Blacks

Harbor Gateway is a Hispanic neighborhood in Los Angeles. For the last year or so, blacks have been moving into the neighborhood despite open opposition from residents. In the most recent incident, Federico Estrada saw Danny Dwayne Warren walking past his house, came up with some friends behind Mr. Warren, and shot him several times, killing him. Homicide Detective Sam Snyder says, “It’s going to be a hate crime. They are Hispanic and they shot a black. He was just walking down the street coming from the liquor store. No words or anything were exchanged.”

In nearby San Pedro, the day before the attack, black and Hispanic gangs traded gunfire. When the smoke cleared one black man lay brain dead and another was shot in the abdomen. (Larry Altman, Area Race Killing Suspect Sought, Daily Breeze (Torrance, Cal.) June 5, 2000.) Readers will recall that when Hispanics — or Armenians — commit “hate” or any other kinds of crime they are classified as whites.

Liberal Hypocrites

Peter Brown of the Orlando Sentinel decided to survey the zip codes of 3,400 journalists to see where they lived. Not surprisingly, he found that most cluster in upscale neighborhoods, far from inner cities. More than one-third of Washington Post reporters live in just four fancy D.C. suburbs.

Paul Sperry, Washington Bureau Chief of WorldNetDaily.com, looked up two of the biggest journalistic promoters of racial diversity, Chris Matthews and Ted Koppel. Mr. Matthews, who recently intoned that segregation still exists because the country is “run by white guys,” lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland, which is five percent black.

Mr. Koppel has completed a series on Nightline called “America in Black and White.” He started off by hectoring some whites who live in a mostly-white area in Philadelphia. When they said they have some blacks in the neighborhood he responded, “Six or seven out of 6,000. I mean, it’s a 99-percent white neighborhood.” Mr. Koppel would probably feel at home there, since his own neighborhood in Potomac, Maryland, is five percent black. (Paul Sperry, Desegregate the Media Elite, Frontpage Magazine (online), March 31, 2000.)

Campus Life

Students at the University of Albany, New York, planned a picnic in April to celebrate the anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in baseball, and they distributed fliers throughout the campus to advertise it. Within days, the affirmative action director stopped further distribution of the fliers after getting 40 complaints from students about the word “picnic.” They seem to think it originated in the South, where whites would pick (pic) a Negro (nic) to lynch. The word actually comes from the 17th century French, pique-nique. No matter. The university reissued the fliers minus the offending word. (This Week, National Review, May 22, 2000, p. 14.)

The End of White Russia?

Whites around the world are failing to have enough children to replace themselves, and Russia is no exception. In March, the Russian State Statistics Committee reported that in January 2000, there were 195,000 deaths and 93,900 births. In January 1999, there were 178,200 deaths and 94,500 births. This was an 11 percent growth in mortality in just one year and a six percent decrease in births. The number of marriages declined by five percent and the number of divorces grew by 23 percent. Life expectancy for Russian men has dipped below 60, and alcoholism and drug abuse are widespread. The army is having problems filling units, and casualties are mounting in Chechnya.

Russian observer Dennis Petrov writes, “Russia, to make a long story short, looks like an exhausted, aging, sick country, a country which borders both the Muslim world (where birthrates are much higher) and a China of over a billion people, which is just beginning to flex its economic, political, and military muscles. Demographically speaking, Russia is a country in decline, and it appears unlikely, if not impossible, that any leader can hope to man Russian industry (or the Russian army) and realize the “rebirth” of a country whose people are not reproducing themselves. Meanwhile, Russia’s porous borders are being violated daily by Islamic holy warriors in the south and Chinese migrants in Siberia, as well as hosts of Third World migrants who use Russia as a transit point to the West. All have brought more crime, disease, and instability with them. Without a spiritual and moral reawakening . . . to renew Russian confidence, there will not be any kind of social, much less economic or military, rebirth in Russia. The decadent West, troubled by many of the same problems, should take note.” (Dennis Petrov, Cultural Revolutions, Chronicles, June 2000, p. 7.)

Tolerance Training

Rashard Casey was the star quarterback of the Penn State football team. In May, he and another black visited a Hoboken, New Jersey, nightclub and were disappointed to see a black woman with a white man. “What are you doing with him?” they asked her. “You should be with us; you’re one of us.” When the white man, Patrick Fitzsimmons, left the bar, the two blacks knocked him down and nearly kicked him to death. A security camera mounted across the street recorded the crime. Mr. Fitzsimmons, it appears, had professional reasons for escorting a black lady. He is a tolerance training instructor for the Hoboken Police Department. (John Rock-er’s Latest Punishment, The Weekly Standard, June 19, 2000, p. 2. David Steele, San Francisco Chronicle, May 17, 2000, p.13. Rashard Casey Pleads Innocent to Assault, ESPN.com, May 15, 2000.)

Go to the Ant, Thou Liberal

The Linepithema humile species of ants may have lessons for humans. The tiny creatures originated in Argentina and lost much of their genetic diversity as they traveled to America. Contrary to expectations, this loss of diversity has resulted in unprecedented success in the ants’ competition with native American species. They are much more competitive than they were in Argentina, where their populations were diverse, and tended to quarrel. In America, the ants have a high level of amity within their homogeneous communities, and cooperate well with each other, building nests quickly and linking them together to overwhelm competitors. “In the war against invasive species, introducing genetic diversity might sow discord and slow supercolonies,” researchers from the University of California at San Diego conclude in the May 23 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (Science News, Biology, Vol. 157, p. 346)

Missing the Obvious

The 11th annual U.N. Development Program report recently ranked 174 countries according to their levels of “basic human development.” The top 21 were all white, with the exception of Japan at number nine. The bottom 24 countries are all black. The UN somehow seems to have missed this pattern. Noting that the top countries are democratic, it concludes that democracy is the key to advancement and prosperity. (Betsy Pisik, Study Ties Affluence, Quality of Life, Washington Times, July 3, 2000, p. A12.)

What Blacks Think

Robert C. Smith and Richard Seltzer have written a book, Contemporary Controversies and the American Racial Divide, which describes how black and white opinions differ. The differences on many issues dwarf sex differences between respondents of the same race, which tend to range from 10 to 15 percent. For example, when asked if they believe the CIA imported cocaine to distribute in black neighborhoods, only 16 percent of whites said yes, compared to 73 percent of blacks. In another study, 62 percent of blacks said they believe AIDS is part of a plot to kill them. Surprisingly, 21 percent of whites believed this, too. Other big differences:

. . . believe O.J. Simpson was ‘probably guilty.’ Blacks: 13 percent, Whites: 65 percent . . . voted for William Clinton in 1996. Blacks: 84 percent, Whites: 43 percent.

. . . believe it’s the government’s responsibility to ‘assure the availability of jobs.’ Blacks: 74 percent, Whites: 33 percent. (America: The Biggest Contrasts in Black and White, Washington Post, June 25, 2000, p. B5.)

Racism Everywhere

On June 22, a black man named Frederick Finley went to a Lord & Taylor store in Dearborn, Michigan, with his family. His 11-year-old daughter took a $4.00 bracelet from a counter and left the store without paying. Five security guards followed the Finleys to the parking lot, where Mr. Finley got frisky. One of the security guards, Dennis Richardson, restrained Mr. Finley with a choke hold, causing his death. Mr. Richardson has been charged with involuntary manslaughter. Al Sharpton responded by staging a rally against institutional racism, and an estimated 5-10 thousand protesters showed up at the store, waving signs that said things like, “Racism is alive and well. We kill for $4 in Michigan.” Mr. Sharpton and his protesters are undaunted by the fact that Mr. Richardson is black, as are three of the other four guards. They say Lord & Taylor hires black security guards to harass minority shoppers to avoid accusations of racial profiling. (Guard Charged in Death at Store, Washington Post, July 7, 2000, p. A3.)

Another Racist Lynching

Gary Graham, the murderer who cost taxpayers millions of dollars while his case was reviewed 20 times, was finally put to death on June 22. Mr. Graham was convicted of killing 53-year-old Bobby Lambert in a Houston parking lot 19 years ago. He proclaimed innocence to the end, saying he was the victim of a racist “lynching,” which “must be avenged . . . by any means necessary.” Indeed, in his final statement, Graham encouraged blacks to “continue this revolution . . . We will prevail. Keep marching black power, keep marching black power . . . I was chosen for this genocide. This is part of the genocide we as black people have endured in America.” (Hugh Aynesworth and Steve Miller, Texas Executes Man After Top Court Rejects Appeal, Washington Times, June 23, 2000, p. A1.)

Domestic Tranquility

During the last 20 years there have been interesting changes in the rates at which Americans kill their spouses and live-ins. Killings of black men by their “partners” have fallen 74 percent from 1976 to 1998, while killings of black women have fallen 45 percent. White men are 44 percent less likely to be killed, but white women are three percent more likely to be murdered by a spouse or live-in boyfriend. Even so, black women are still more than twice as likely as white women to be killed by “partners,” with rates of 4.5 per 100,000 as opposed to 1.75 per 100,000.

The experts are trying to figure out what accounts for these changes. One reason for the decline in blacks killing each other is undoubtedly the fact that the black incarceration rate is four times higher than it was 20 years ago. With fewer violent blacks on the loose there is less domestic murder. Women of all races are probably less likely to be killing “partners” because of the new, well-publicized legal services for battered women. They now have other ways to get out of a bad situation and don’t have to kill the man. (Fox Butterfield, Study Shows a Racial Divide in Domestic Violence Cases, New York Times, May 18, 2000.)

Experts are baffled as to why there has been no decline in the number of white women killed by partners, but several unfashionable explanations spring to mind. First, “white” here includes Hispanics and the number of Hispanics in the population has grown greatly over the last 20 years. Hispanics are about three times more violent than whites, and a good number of the dead “white” women are probably Hispanic. Second, white women are increasingly more likely to marry or live with blacks and other non-whites, meaning they are more likely to be murdered.

More Test Bias

You have to pass a civil service test in order to be a school janitor in New York City. Whites have an awkward habit of outscoring blacks and Hispanics, so in 1996 the U.S. Department of Justice said the test was racially biased. The Giuliani administration and the Board of Education want to solve the problem by dropping the passing grade from 70 percent to 60 percent, and treating everyone who passes as equally qualified rather than hiring the top scorers.

Tough luck for white man Michael Reilly. He got 95 on the test and was originally ranked 34th out of 544. According to the new scheme he was bumped to 345th on the hiring list. “What’s the sense of studying for the exam?” he wants to know, especially at a time when the city pretends to be wracking its brains for ways to improve student performance in school. As usual, some judge will decide what’s fair and what’s not. (Carl Campanile, Bias Flap Over City Custodian Test, New York Post, April 18, 2000, p. 17.)

A Race Killing After All

On April 19th, in an attack that shocked a quiet, residential neighborhood in Alexandria, Virginia, a black man walked up to an 8-year-old white boy, Kevin Shifflett, and slit his throat. He also stabbed two whites who tried to come to the boy’s rescue, and a witness heard him say he hated white people. Police at the time downplayed the racial angle, but they mounted an extensive search for the killer. Now it appears that the murderer — whose name has not been released because he is not yet an official suspect — may well be a parolee who was let out of jail just 12 days before the killing. The man was serving time on a malicious wounding charge for attacking a white man without provocation, calling him “whitey,” and beating him with a hammer.

Just two days before the murder, this man was staying in a hotel near Alexandria, where he left a burning cigarette on the bed and set the room on fire. He was in the shower when firemen came, and shouted obscenities rather than evacuate. Police discovered drugs in the room, hauled him off, and the hotel locked up his belongings. He was released for a court date on the drugs charge and for refusing to evacuate. Now that he has been linked by DNA evidence to the Shifflett murder, police have gone through his things at the hotel and found a note that says, among other things, “Kill them raceess whiate kidd’s anyway.” Police are finally conceding they may have a racial killing on their hands after all. (Josh White, Racial Note Found in Suspect’s Hotel Room, Washington Post, July 7, 2000, p. A1.)

Freedom of Association

Rose Hills Cemetery in Whittier, California, is believed to be the largest in the country. Lots are expensive, and Rev. Daniel Williams of the nearby black congregation, Baptist Church of the New Covenant, wanted something cheaper for his flock. He persuaded Rose Hills to develop four acres of what is now weeds and wildflowers into an inexpensive section that would, as he put it, “honor the presence of blacks who have uplifted the community.” Rev. Williams printed up brochures to publicize Ebony Land, but his idea did not meet with the approval he expected. After much whooping about the evils of “segregation” — mainly from whites, it seems — the name was quickly changed to Glory Lawn. Lots will still be bargain priced, but Brother Williams and the cemetery are now emphasizing that people of any race may be buried there. (Cadonna Peyton, Black Cemetery Section Sparks Debate, AP, May 25, 2000.)