O Tempora, O Mores! (September, 2001)

Cincinnati Still Burning

Ever since the riots of early April, Cincinnati police have held back in their enforcement efforts in black parts of town for fear of being accused of “racism” or “racial profiling.” Compared to previous years, arrests are down 50 percent and traffic stops are down 55 percent. Crime, of course, has gone up. As of July 26, there had been 73 shootings since the riots. These had left 85 people killed or wounded, compared to nine shootings and 11 victims in the same period last year. This is an 800 percent increase, and every perpetrator, and all but one victim have been black. One night in July there were six separate shootings, an unprecedented number for Cincinnati. Police say they still respond to every police call, but often give blacks warnings rather than attempt an arrest, and have stopped aggressive enforcement. They must now report on the race of everyone they stop, so no longer stop blacks they would have routinely questioned before the riots.

The crime wave seems to be both a continuation of the spirit of the riots and a recognition that police have pulled back. “It’s like the Wild West down here,” says Hamilton County Prosecutor Mike Allen. “There is still the same lawlessness that went on during the riots. And the criminals know that police are now reluctant to take action.” Officer Adam Hennie, who is white, says he doesn’t get out of his patrol car very often these days: “It’s pretty much not safe for me to get out of the car if there’s 10 guys on a street corner who don’t like me and tell me so. There’s a severe difference in the past three months. There’s a complete lack of respect for police authority.”

Keith Fangman, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, understands that anyone who blamed police for the riots was really blaming them for doing their job. As he explained in a recent issue of the FOP newsletter, “If you want to make 20 traffic stops a shift and chase every dope dealer you see, you go right ahead. Just remember that if something goes wrong, or you make the slightest mistake in that split second, it could result in having your worst nightmare come true for you and your family, and City Hall will sell you out.”

Mr. Fangman points out that Cincinnati is part of a national trend, joining Seattle and Los Angeles as places where police no longer enforce the law in black neighborhoods for fear of being sued or accused of racism. The result, he says, is “an epidemic of crime.” He points out that in terms of the number of dead and wounded, “the aftermath of the riots has actually been more harmful to the city than the riots themselves.” He says the situation will not improve until the press and the politicians get over their “lynch-mob mentality” and accept that good police work will inevitably fall more heavily on blacks.

Blacks refuse to see the obvious. Rev. Clarence Wallace of the Carmel Presbyterian Church says the crime wave only reflects poverty, and will subside when blacks get financial help. Rev. Damon Lynch, chairman of the city’s Black United Front, accuses police of a deliberate slow-down to punish blacks. He says there is more crime because the attention blacks got after the riots has faded. Young blacks are “falling back into a sense of hopelessness” and have “turned on themselves.”

Meanwhile, on July 27, a white police officer shot and killed a 21-year-old black man. Officer Thomas Haas held his fire while Ricky Moore blasted away twice with a sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun, before responding his own weapons. There were no riots or other disturbances. [Stephanie Simon, Cincinnati Police Holding Back After Riots, Chicago Tribune, July 16, 2001. Steve Miller, Cincinnati in Grip of a Crime Wave Months After Riots, Washington Times, July 18, 2001. Terry Kinney, Tensions in Cincinnati Still High, AP, July 20, 2001. Cincinnati Cop Kills Black Man, AP, July 27, 2001. Francis Clines, Police in Cincinnati Pull Back in Wake of Riots, New York Times, July 19, 2001.]

Chicago Still Stewing

The Chicago city council is in a stew about race. For two terms during the 1990s, to the consternation of black politicians, white alderman Thomas Murphy represented the majority-black 18th ward. Blacks thought they were finished with him after 1998, when redistricting gave the 18th ward an 85 percent black “super-majority,” and drew Mr. Murphy’s house right out of the district. Mr. Murphy himself gave a tearful City Hall speech that sounded like a final farewell. However, in 1999 he won 57 percent of the vote in a nine-candidate race, moved back into the 18th ward, and kept his place on the city council.

Now, as alderman for a nearly all-black ward, he has set the political establishment on its ear by asking to join the city council’s black caucus. The blacks say no. “I don’t think Ald. Murphy can look out of the same eyes we do as African-Americans,” says Alderman Carrie Austin. Mr. Murphy points out that he represents more blacks — 47,000 — than some of the blacks on the caucus who won’t let him in. “The purpose of the caucus is to represent the interests of black residents of the city,” he says. “Apparently they think it’s some other purpose — their own personal interests.” Mayor Richard Daley agrees, saying it is not the race of the alderman but the race of the constituents that matters. “This idea that you can only represent a racial and ethnic group by yourself is not what America stands for,” he explained.

One black alderwoman Dorothy Tillman, has been particularly outspoken about not wanting a white man in the caucus. She is Chicago’s most prominent promoter of reparations, and claims that “post traumatic slavery syndrome” continues to impede black progress. She says the caucus is “where our group gets together and discusses our interests.” She doesn’t want Mr. Murphy on the city council, much less in the caucus. “We want that seat to belong to an African American,” she says. “We want to make sure to take that seat.”

Miss Tillman has had other recent dust-ups over race. Last year, at a fund-raising event at the tony Palmer House, one of her staffers asked hotel management to make sure all the waiters were black. The hotel obligingly asked a white, an Arab, and a Hispanic to serve at a different function that night. Now the white and the Arab have sued the Palmer House for $100,000 to make up for the “emotional stress, humiliation and other damages” they suffered. Mayor Daley once again decided to tell us what America is about: “You can’t go into a restaurant and say, “Who’s in the kitchen and who’s serving me?’” he said. “That’s not what we stand for.”

Miss Tillman says her staff asked only for more blacks, not only blacks. “I make no apology for asking that black people get some benefit from the money we spend with any business or organization,” she says. Miss Tillman adds it would be perfectly fine for a white customer to book events at black-owned establishments and ask for white waiters — so long as there were at least a few blacks. “I would get upset if you said all of us had to leave,” she explains. Miss Tillman insists she doesn’t dislike whites. “I’m just pro-my people,” she says. Her chief of staff reports that she has had many calls from “people in the hospitality industry” who say there is “nothing unusual about making those kinds of requests.” [Mary Mitchell, Black Aldermen Discover Race Issue Double-edged, Chicago Sun-Times, July 17, 2001. Fran Spielman, Daley: Let Murphy in Black Caucus, Chicago Sun-Times, July 17, 2001. Rick Hepp, Tillman: “No Apology’ for Requesting Black Waiters at Hilton Event, Chicago Sun-Times, July 16, 2001.]

St. Louis Still Suffering

Irene Smith is a black member of the St. Louis, Missouri, Board of Aldermen. On July 17, she was filibustering the board, trying to prevent a redistricting plan blacks think will dilute their power. At one point she asked the presiding alderman, James Shrewsbury — who is white — if she could take a bathroom break without giving up the floor. He said no. About 40 minutes later, Miss Smith’s aide’s walked up to where she was standing and surrounded her with a sheet, quilt, and a tablecloth. The board was then treated to the sound of Miss Smith urinating into a wastebasket. Later, the board adjourned without voting on the measure Miss Smith opposed.

St. Louis blacks virtually all support Miss Smith, and many say Mr. Shrewsbury was “racist” not to let her use the rest room. Whites disagree, and say the incident has made St. Louis the butt of jokes. On July 23, police filed a citation against Miss Smith for violating a city code barring lewd conduct, which includes public urination. City Counselor Patti Hageman said her office was considering filing misdemeanor charges, which could result in a fine of up to $500, and 90 days jail time. Miss Smith says she is innocent. “What I did behind that tablecloth is my business,” she says. [Embarrassment, Bitterness After Alderman Expresses Herself in Novel Way, Fox News, July 19, 2001. Police File Citation Against St. Louis Alderman Over Alleged Urination During Meeting, AP, July 25, 2001.]

Malay Malaise

Malaysia is a nation of 23 million people, of whom 65 percent are native Malays, 25 percent are Chinese, and about 10 percent are Indians. Malays, or “bumiputras” (sons of the soil) as they are called, cannot compete with Chinese or Indians and have benefited from 30 years of extensive “affirmative action” in education, business opportunities, and land ownership. Prime Minister Mahatir Mohammad, who has run the country for 20 years, is deeply frustrated by how poorly his people do in comparison with the Chinese.

“Why can’t the Malays be like them?” he wants to know. “Those with AIDS are Malays, drugs also involve the Malays, rape and murders . . . You name anything that is bad, the majority are Malays,” he says. “Why does it only involve the Malays? Why not the Chinese?” He adds that if it were not for persistent preference programs Malays would “fail totally.” He says that if he were granted one wish it would be that “the Malays would change” and be more like Chinese.

Lately, Mr. Mahatir has been particularly annoyed with Malay students, who have guaranteed access to a generous quota of university places even when Chinese or Indians get better grades. He is considering making students sign an agreement promising to attend lectures, take notes, and ask questions. He says too many Malays either goof off or join anti-Mahatir political movements: “Only those interested in study should join the university.”

In other developments, it was recently reported that three Malays have been arrested for sacrificing a Minnesota woman to spirits who were supposed to tell them the winning number of a popular lottery. In 1999, the three reportedly lured Carolyn Jamica Noraini Ahmad (née Bushell) to an oil palm plantation, where they told her she could meet a priest who would help her with personal problems. The 35-year-old mother of four disappeared, and her car was later found with bloodstains on the seat. One of the suspects has now led police to her body, which was found with head and ankles severed. Her husband, Roslan Ahmad, was able to identify the remains from pieces of clothing. Belief in black magic is still fairly common among Malays, and there are occasional reports of human sacrifice, usually in connection with attempts to learn winning lottery numbers. [Mahatir Asks Why Malays Can’t be Like Chinese, Reuters, July 22, 2001. Mahatir Warns Malays About Study Privileges — Paper, Reuters, July 28, 2001. Trio Charged with Lottery Murder, Reuters, July 27, 2001. Officials in Malaysia Say Minnesotan Died in Ritual Killing, AP, July 1, 2001.]

African Angst

Many Nigerians believe in magic, too. Recently a 13-year-old girl confessed to killing 48 people over the last seven years and using their organs for black magic rituals. She was being interrogated about the disappearance of a two-year-old boy in the northeastern town of Maiduguri, and confessed to killing scores of others. She explained that she removed the boy’s heart after killing him. The girl says she was initiated into the black-magic cult by a government employee whom police have since arrested. [Teenager Kills 48 for Rituals? Reuters, July 27, 2001.]

But it is the Congo — former Zaire — that appears to be having the worst time with black magic these days. Civil war has been raging for three years in the northeastern part of the country, and Western drugs have not been available for some time. Endemic diseases once under control — including plague — have returned, and local people think the problem is witchcraft. As part of a campaign to rid the world of non-witches by 2006, sorcerers are said to have concocted a poison that has only to be rubbed on the outside of a building to kill the people inside.

Bush trials have been set up to put a stop to this sort of thing. Several weeks of rough justice that began in late June have resulted in the slaughter of a confirmed 843 witches, though the death toll could be has high as 4,000. Some witches are easy to spot. “We knew who the witches were because at night a fire would come from the sky and engulf the witch’s house, but it would not burn it because the fire came from hell,” one local woman explained. One type of witch, known as “night dancers,” cavorts naked around the houses of their victims before they steal the blood of children and store it in underground tanks. When cagey witches refuse to identify themselves by dancing naked or surviving fire balls, it suffices to catch one and torture him until he identifies others. Troops from neighboring Uganda have been called in to stop the killing. [Henry Wasswa, 200 Suspected Witches Slain, AP, July 6, 2001. Adrian Blomfield, Massacre by the Jungle Witch-Hunters, Electronic Telegraph (London), July 28, 2001.]

Let ’em All In

President George Bush has been touting a plan that would grant legal status of some kind to illegal immigrants from Mexico, of which there are an estimated three million. Lately, this plan has come under fire — not from people who are opposed to legalization but from those who think it would be “discriminatory” to legalize only Mexicans. Africans, Koreans, and Central Americans insist such a plan must not exclude them. Steve Ladi, a Dallas immigration lawyer and director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association agrees, saying a Mexicans-only plan would be “un-American.”

Mr. Bush doesn’t want to be un-American. “Obviously, the Mexican issue is at the forefront because we’re preparing for my first state visit with my friend [Mexican President] Vicente Fox,” he says. “But I’m open-minded. I’ll listen to all proposals that people have in mind.” Mr. Bush is to meet Mr. Fox in September and hoped to be able to offer the Mexicans some kind of legalization plan at that time. Legalization would require congressional action. [Karen Brooks and Diane Smith, Bush Plan May Cover All Immigrants in U.S., Star-Telegram (Dallas), July 27, 2001, p. 1.]

Congress could well comply. On July 29, Senator Robert Graham of Florida said on ABC’s “This Week” that he favors “earned legalization.” He referred to the “humanitarian tradition of the United States to periodically allow those persons who have been here for a period of time — and have demonstrated their good behavior — to become citizens.” Tradition? It happened once, in 1986, and was supposed to be a “one-time” amnesty.

Keep ’em All Out

The “peace process” in the Middle East has been based on the theory that some kind of agreement could be reached with Palestinians that would permit cross-border cooperation. Now there is increasing support in Israel for unilateral separation and walling off the Palestinians. Local councils along the Green Line — the pre-1967 border between Israel and the West Bank — have been building what they call “agricultural security fences” to keep out infiltrators. In the longer term, these fences could run along the entire 200-mile border and freeze out Palestinians completely. The Israeli government has not taken a position on the construction of a border wall, but local officials say they have the quiet financial support of the Defense Ministry.

More academics now support unilateral separation. Shlomo Avineri, a scholar and former director general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, says Jews should pull out of Gaza entirely and wall it off. They should also give 90 percent of the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority as well as the outer suburbs of Jerusalem. The Palestinians who used to cross into Israel to work will just have to stay put. Mr. Avineri says foreign aid — not, needless to say, from Israel — could be used to create jobs for them. [Gil Sedan, Israeli-Palestinian Separation Becoming Reality, Jewish Week, July 13, 2001.]

Many Israelis would be happy to turn their backs on Arabs but some prefer more active engagement. The Shas party holds 17 of 120 seats in the Israeli Knesset, and its founder and leader Rabbi Ovadia Yossef minces no words: “In the old city of Jerusalem they [Arabs] are swarming like ants,” he said in a July 27 sermon broadcast on army radio. “They should go to hell — and the Messiah will speed them on their way.” Mr. Yossef has also referred to Arabs as “snakes” and “vipers.” He thinks Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has been too restrained with the Palestinians, and should not worry about international criticism. “Who are these nations of the world?” he asked in his sermon. “The Messiah will come and scorn them, will condemn them and with a single breath will scatter them.” [Israeli Rabbi Says “Swarming” Arabs Should “Go to Hell,” Agence France Press, July 27, 2001.]

A(w)rap it Up

In order to slow the spread of AIDS, Kenyan president Daniel Arap Moi has called on his people to stop having sex for two years. Just in case Kenyans fail to heed the call, the government also plans to import 300 million condoms. Health officials estimate that 2.2 million people out of a total population of 30 million are infected with the HIV virus, and 700 die of AIDS every day.

Religious leaders oppose importing condoms, saying they will increase promiscuity. Sheikh Mohamed Dor, the secretary-general of the Council of Imams and Preachers, says young Kenyans will be encouraged to experiment with sex and then stop using condoms. “This will just increase the number of cases of AIDS,” says Sheikh Dor.

Taxi driver James Karijoki said he will continue to have sex and not use condoms. “It’s like eating a sweet with a wrapper, you cannot do that,” he said. “You have to have sex, those who will die will die, and whoever does not get AIDS, then good for him.” [Simon Denyer, No Sex for Two Years, Moi Urges Kenyan People, Reuters, July 12, 2001.]

‘A Real Shootout’

“Greekfest” used to be an annual New Jersey gathering of members of black college fraternities, but now attracts young blacks of all sorts. This year’s Greekfest, held in the beach town of Asbury Park, New Jersey, on July 15th, attracted 5,000 people. Only 50 police were on hand when 3,000 blacks decided to march from the boardwalk into town, throwing rocks and bottles. Before the night was through, festival-goers shot three people, robbed at least five more at gunpoint, hijacked several cars, groped and molested women, and stripped the clothes off a 13-year-old girl. The next day, police collected hundreds of spent shell casings strewn across several city blocks.

“There were reported gunshots all over, and apparently, there were some running gunbattles,” said Monmouth County Prosecutor John Kaye. At one point men hijacked a vehicle but could not get away because of gridlock. Instead, says Prosecutor Kaye, they roared around a parking lot causing “mass hysteria.” Mr. Kaye says there was a report of a black sport-utility vehicle with its windows shot out returning fire with a “fully automatic weapon.”

“It was a real shootout, no doubt,” says Deputy Mayor James G. Bruno. “I expect arrests to continue for weeks after this,” adds Mr. Kaye. [Peter Eichenbaum and James W. Prado Roberts, Mayhem Follows Festival in Asbury Park, Asbury Park Press, July 17, 2001.]

Another Hoax

On May 10, 2000, someone set fire to Mrs. Jaelynn Sealey’s 1999 Chevrolet Cavalier and painted “Go Home Nigger” on the garage door of her Huntersville, North Carolina, home. The police considered it a possible hate crime. More than 400 people attended an anti-hate rally a few days later, and the town gave the Sealeys $2,255 it raised in donations. On July 10, 2001, Mrs. Sealey was in federal court in Charlotte, facing charges that she burned the car herself to collect insurance money so she could pay off debts.

At the time of the incident, police looked for a white man with whom Mrs. Sealey claimed to have exchanged words on the day of the fire. They also investigated and cleared a group of high schools students who were reportedly involved. Police then asked the Sealeys to take a lie-detector test; they refused. In Mrs. Sealey’s garage the police found a can of the same kind of paint that had been used to paint the slur on the door. Just hours before the fire, Mrs. Sealey bought a new minivan, and called her insurance company to ask if the Cavalier was still insured.

Whites don’t regret their initial support for Mrs. Sealey but admit their feelings have changed. “Given what we knew at the time, we’d do it again,” says Cindy Dorman, vice president of the Wyndfield Homeowners Association, but she adds, “there’s a tremendous sense of betrayal for the whole town.” [Robert F. Moore, Woman Charged With Faking Hate Crime, Charlotte Observer, July 11, 2001, p. 1.]

Uncivil Wrongs

Mary Frances Berry is the chairman of the supposedly non-partisan U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. She is also a partisan Democratic black. Since the November election, she has used her office to undermine the legitimacy of the Bush presidency by issuing a fanciful “report” claiming blacks were deliberately disfranchised in Florida. She also suppressed a dissenting report written by the Commission’s two Republicans.

In a speech at the NAACP convention in New Orleans in July, Miss Berry crowed over the fact the Democrats had regained control of the U.S. Senate. As she explained, before the defection of Sen. James Jeffords “I was just wondering when Strom Thurmond was gonna die.” The audience laughed and applauded, and gave Miss Berry a standing ovation after her talk. Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-SC), is 98 and in poor health. It is easy to imagine the outcry that would have greeted a similar remark by a white government official about a black. [Peter Roff, Going Negative, UPI, July 12, 2001.]

Raping White Girls

On July 7, a dozen Middle Eastern men repeatedly raped a white Australian teenager in a suburban Sydney schoolyard. After they had finished with her, they scrawled degrading slogans on her body. She was just the latest victim in an ongoing campaign by Middle Eastern men to rape white women. Over the past two years, at least 70 white Australian girls between the ages of 13 and 18 have been raped, beaten and humiliated in attacks police fear have become “culturally institutionalized” among Middle Easterners. The attacks are continuing at a rate of at least one per month, despite a special police task force set up to stop them.

Police say the rapists approach girls with flattery, by claiming to be friends of a friend, or by offering to buy drinks. Before the assaults begin, the rapists taunt the women about being white or about their attackers’ sexual prowess. Police have charged 15 Middle Eastern men with more than 300 offenses. Investigations have been difficult because many of the girls are too embarrassed to come forward or fear reprisals. [John Kidman, 70 Girls Attacked by Rape Gangs, Sydney Morning Herald, July 29, 2001.]

Hereditary Victims

The Clinton administration give-away to black farmers about which we reported has finally begun to break the surface. Fox news has tumbled to the fact that although there are only 18,000 black farmers in the United States 40,000 blacks claim to have been victims of U.S. Department of Agriculture racism.

Fox reports that employees of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) claim the settlement was nothing more than an attempt by the Clinton-Gore administration to buy votes. “They needed this election,” said Tom Kalil, a USDA loan official and member of Executives Committed to an Honorable Organization (ECHO), a group of USDA employees who have raised questions about the settlement. “I would suggest hundreds of thousands of votes were influenced in this election as a result of what I consider to be a huge violation of justice and abuse of power and abuse of the system and abuse of the American taxpayer.”

As reported in AR, the terms of the $50,000-per-farmer offer are so vague they invite fraudulent claims. “You didn’t even have to live in the rural community,” Mr. Kalil says. “Heck, somebody from here in the Washington area could have been passing through a rural community and decided that they would have liked to farm and put in an application.”

Blacks insist they deserve the money anyway. “This suit is about the fact that [federal officials] practice racial discrimination, that they have terrorized black people, black farmers in this country, and that they have stolen from us what was rightfully ours,” said Gary Grant, a black farmer. “We’re talking about people who lost land, who lost hundreds, who lost thousands of acres of land.” Farmer Grant says blacks deserve the money even if they were never farmers. “If you are an African-American, you deserve $50,000 because your roots are in farming and your folk have already been cheated. You are collecting what your grandparents didn’t have the opportunity to.” [Steve Brown, Settlement Is a Crass Action, USDA Employees Say, FoxNews.com, July 14, 2001.]

Segregation for Prisoners

In a remarkable May 7 decision that went almost completely unreported, the federal Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that prison guards may sometimes have a duty to segregate prisoners. A black plaintiff claimed guards mixed blacks and Mexicans in an exercise yard even though they knew there was so much racial hostility it could lead to attacks. Judge Harry Pregerson agreed, saying prison officials must take reasonable measures to protect inmates from violence at the hands of other prisoners. When it is known that racial tensions are high, segregation is a reasonable measure.

This ruling is now law in the states of California, Nevada, Arizona, Washington, and Oregon. It means that if prison officials know their institutions are racial powder kegs but fail to segregate them and violence erupts, they may be held personally liable. At least in prisons, racial reality is beginning to undermine integrationist dogma. [Prisons and Jails — Civil Right Actions — Racially Integrated Exercise Yards, Criminal Law Reporter, May 23, 2001, p. 215.]

There is some irony in that the plaintiff in this case is black, because it is white prisoners who are in greatest danger of racial attack. Human Rights Watch has just published a book about rape in American prisons called No Escape: Male Rape in U.S. Prisons. Their research confirms that the most likely rape victims are young, slightly-built whites. Unless they are prepared to fight to the death, they almost invariably become the “property” of blacks, who rent them out for oral or anal copulation. The study finds that men of all races are raped, but that blacks and Hispanics protect their own “women.” That is to say, a black may rape another black, but blacks will kill or maim a Hispanic or white who buggers a black. Hispanics likewise do not let prisoners of other races rape Hispanics. It is only whites who are not defended by men of their own race, and are fair game to be sodomized by all comers. The book can be read online.

Yahweh on the Loose

Hulon Mitchell was the leader of a 1980s all-black, anti-white “religion” called the Nation of Yahweh. Using the name Yahweh Ben Yahweh, he required candidates for membership in his Miami cult to kill at least one white person and bring back a piece of the body as proof. At first he insisted on the head, but this was a lot of trouble, so he later settled for a finger or an ear. At least seven whites died at the hands of Yahweh followers. He also showed his flock pornographic videos of black men having sex with white women, and told them this was proof that whites were degraded. Former pro football player Robert Rozier was a member of the cult, and was a star witness against Mr. Mitchell at his 1992 trial.

Mr. Mitchell was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, and will soon be eligible for parole. The parole board has ordered him not to associate with any former members of the cult, but Mr. Mitchell has sued, claiming this violates his First Amendment rights. His lawyer Jon May says “these are extraordinary types of restrictions and patently unconstitutional.” Mr. Mitchell plans to return to Miami upon his release. [Jay Weaver, Yahweh on Verge of Getting Out of Prison, Herald (Miami), July 10, 2001.]

A California white racial activist named Alex Curtis was recently put on probation with similar restrictions on the people with whom he may associate. There are no reports of First Amendment suits on his behalf.