O Tempora, O Mores! (May, 2002)

Slaves in America

In January, we reported that a couple from the Cameroon living in suburban Detroit were sentenced for keeping a teenage girl, also from the Cameroon, as a slave in their house for three years. Evelyn and Joseph Djoumessi brought Pridine Fru over from Africa when she was 14, and Mr. Djoumessi liked to rape her when she wasn’t doing forced labor around the house.

It appears that slavery of this kind is fairly common in the United States, and it almost always involves enslavement of foreigners by foreigners. A case almost identical to that of the Djoumessis has come to light in Silver Spring, Maryland. In March, a federal judge sentenced Louisa Satia, 36, and Kevin Nanji, 41, to nine years in prison for holding a Cameroonian teenager, now 19, for three years as a slave. The girl worked ‘round the clock, cooking and cleaning and looking after the couple’s three children. Mrs. Satia beat the girl regularly and sometimes sprayed cleaning liquid in her eyes. Her name was not released because Mr. Nanji also liked to rape his slave. The girl confessed she had entered the United States illegally on a false passport, and testified she and her family thought she would get an American education in return for housework. In addition to prison time, US District Judge Alexander Williams, Jr. ordered the couple to pay the girl $105,306, which would work out to about $12.00 per hour for the time she is estimated to have worked.

Neither adult took the stand at the trial, but they got several people to testify the girl was treated like a family member rather than a slave. Judge Williams dismissed this as put-up perjury, and increased their sentences accordingly. He also found the woman guilty of passport and marriage fraud, noting that she had arranged fake marriages for Cameroonian women with American men. The girl is now in foster care and has applied for legal residency.

When police arrested Mrs. Satia and her husband in December, they also picked up Mrs. Satia’s sister Vivian and her husband, Etiondem Achamorfaw, of Germantown, Maryland. This couple had also brought a teenager from Cameroon and forced her to work without pay. They pleaded guilty to harboring an illegal alien and were ordered to pay $150,000 in restitution. [Phuong Ly, Pair Convicted of Enslaving Housekeeper, Washington Post, Dec. 21, 2001, p. B1. Ruben Castaneda, Couple Sentenced For Enslaving Illegal Immigrant, Washington Post, March 27, 2002.]

As it happens, just two years earlier, the same federal court sentenced a Brazilian man living in Gaithersburg, Maryland, for keeping an illiterate Brazilian woman captive in his house for nearly 20 years. Rene Bonetti and his wife brought Hilda Dos Santos to America in 1979 on a domestic-worker visa and since the INS pays hardly any attention to visa overstays, no one came looking for her. The Bonettis took her passport, and kept her in a windowless basement room. They would not let her use the shower, and made her carry water to the basement where she washed in a tin tub. They beat her frequently and would not give her medical treatment. Neighbors finally took her to the hospital when she developed a cantaloupe-sized tumor in her stomach.

Mrs. Bonetti fled to Brazil, where she remains on the loose, but Mr. Bonetti was sentenced to 61/2 years in prison and ordered to pay Miss Dos Santos $210,000. An appeals court upheld Mr. Bonetti’s sentence early this year. [Candia Dames, Court Orders Back Pay for Domestic Kept in ‘Slavery-Like’ Conditions by Couple, Capital News Service, Jan. 11, 2002.]

This sort of thing is so common that in 1998 the US Attorney General established something called the Trafficking in Persons and Worker Exploitation Task Force, which has no fewer than 15 regional task forces. The task force has a toll-free number (888) 428-7581 that offers translation service in just about every language. The Justice Department has designed a poster to promote the number, though there are not likely to be many posted in places domestic slaves can see them. In 2000, Congress passed new laws to make it easier to enforce laws prohibiting involuntary servitude and peonage, and established the principle of restitution to victims. The guilty can be forced to forfeit assets to pay judgments.

It is impossible to know how many cases of domestic slavery go unreported, but during the 1990s, the INS issued more than 30,000 special visas to let foreign embassy staff and officials at international organizations bring live-in domestic workers to the United States. They are supposed to follow American employment laws but it is an open secret that many do not. An unknown number of foreigners are smuggled in illegally for domestic work and prostitution. [Stephanie Armour, Going Backwards, USA Today, Nov. 20, 2001.]

Looking for Mr. Right

Winnfred Wright is a 45-year-old California black man who came up with an unusual way to make a living: He persuaded white women that the only way they could work off the “bad karma” of being white was to support him and have sex with him. He has been doing this successfully since the mid-1980s, and is not content to sponge off white women one at a time. One of his early successes, 44-year-old Carol Bremner, recruited new additions to the harem by hanging around San Francisco street corners, inviting women to be photographed for an imaginary feminist mural. Once she got them home, a combination of drugs and Mr. Wright’s charm appears to have done the trick — sometimes. One failed recruit told police she smoked a cigarette that made her pass out. When she woke up, she was surrounded by women, who told her she was Eve and Mr. Wright was Adam. She ran away when he tried to have sex with her.

Mr. Wright had children with his harem, and this brought him to the attention of the police. In 1992 the group was living in San Francisco. A three-month-old daughter named ‘She’ died, and Mr. Wright kept her in a swinging hammock for three days to let her spirit depart in peace. Young She was eventually determined to have died of natural causes, but her mother, who cleared out shortly afterward, reported Mr. Wright had five women living with him at the time. She said he preached a weird, Rastafarian religion that included preparations for the end of the world: Mr. Wright would send the women into the streets of San Francisco for target practice with water pistols so they would be ready for “the fall of Babylon.”

Mr. Wright later moved his women to San Rafael in Marin County, and lived in a quiet neighborhood of $600,000 houses. Mr. Wright continued to help white women with their bad karma until last year, when his unusual child-rearing practices attracted attention. At that time, the harem was down to four, but there were 13 children. Nineteen-month-old Ndigo Wright was on a diet of tea and food supplements, and not doing well. One evening he had trouble breathing, so his parents put him in front of the television to stimulate his brain. This appears not to have worked, so they took Ndigo to the hospital where he promptly died of malnutrition.

When police called at San Rafael, they discovered that the children were home schooled, and rarely left the house. They had to live by a Book of Rules that required they be more or less starved, and included such punishments as ceremonial whippings, force-feeding of hot peppers, and taping their mouths shut. One girl was tied to a playpen every night for two weeks because she stole food. The other 12 children, ages eight months to 16 years, were all in various stages of malnutrition, and some were “obviously deformed.”

Surprisingly, Mr. Wright’s women were not all losers or obviously deranged. His faithful Carol Bremner, had been an anti-apartheid activist, whom her friends used to call “Saint Carol.” His latest acquisition, 20-year-old Kali Polk-Matthews, organized food and clothing drives for battered women. One of the women was the granddaughter of the founder of the Xerox company. Except for the 20-year-old, who is out on bail, they are now all in jail on charges of second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter. [John Johnson, Tragedy Leaves Troubling Questions, LA Times, March 17, 2002.]

Too Dangerous for Gringos

Speedy Gonzales is a cartoon-character mouse who was a Warner Brothers favorite for nearly 50 years. He wore a sombrero, spoke in a heavy Mexican accent, and outwitted foes like Sylvester, “the Greengo Pussygato.” He sometimes got help from his friends: his lazy cousin Slowpoke Rodriguez and a band of drunken Mexican mice. Speedy was highly acclaimed in his day. The 1955 animated short “Speedy Gonzales” won an Academy Award, and two other Speedy cartoons, “Tabasco Road” and “The Pied Piper of Guadalupe,” were nominated for Oscars in 1957 and 1961.

However, in 1999, when the Cartoon Network became the sole broadcaster of old Warner Brothers material the Speedy character disappeared. “It hasn’t been on the air for years because of its ethnic stereotypes,” explains network spokesman Laurie Goldberg. Speedy has joined the “Censored 11,” which are old Warner Brothers shorts that depict blacks as fat-lipped boobs or savage cannibals. Despite a campaign from die-hard cartoon fans — many of them Hispanic — Speedy is not likely to reappear, at least not in the United States. Ironically, Miss Goldberg concedes that the mouse is “hugely popular” on The Cartoon Network Latin America, whose viewers are presumably superior to Americans and immune to stereotypes. [Michael Y. Park, Speedy Gonzales Caged by Cartoon Network, AP, March 28, 2002.]

Zim Over the Edge

The March elections in Zimbabwe produced their inevitable result, and Robert Mugabe has been sworn in for another six-year term as president of his battered country. His governing ZANU-PF party called the elections “a triumph over imperialist forces led by Britain.”

Africans rushed to congratulate Mr. Mugabe. South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma, for example, flew to Harare to embrace Mr. Mugabe, and pronounce the election free and fair. It was, after all, unobjectionable by African standards, and current office-holders on the continent would not care to have to hold real elections of their own. White countries unanimously denounced the ballot for the fraud that it was. After a rancorous debate that split starkly on racial lines, the Commonwealth suspended Zimbabwe from some of its activities. Switzerland and Japan announced they would review their aid programs, Denmark closed its embassy, and Switzerland imposed travel restrictions on Zimbabwean government officials.

Until 1979, when whites ran the place and it was called Rhodesia, the country exported food. Now, even the authorities admit half a million people need food aid, and relief organizations warn that the real number is many times higher. Despite bluster in Europe and the United States about possible economic sanctions, there will soon be free food to distribute, which will give Mr. Mugabe and his pals another opportunity for profiteering.

Shortly after the election, Mr. Mugabe issued a new decree to prevent foreign newspapers from stationing correspondents in the country, and to require government accreditation for local newsmen. Police even locked up a 57-year-old woman, Peta Thornycroft, who is a correspondent for the British Daily Telegraph, but released her after a few days.

The dispossession of whites continues. In the immediate aftermath of the election, blacks rampaged through a dozen commercial farms, smashing and looting. They also killed their tenth white farmer. On March 18, Terry Ford found his homestead surrounded by hostiles, and telephoned police for help which, of course, never came. He tried to drive through a fence to get away, but could not break through. Blacks dragged him from his vehicle, tied him to a tree, and beat him mercilessly. When they got tired of that they shot him in the head.

The unpunished expulsion and murder of whites is, of course, the real story in Zimbabwe, even if Europeans and Americans are either too stupid to notice or too afraid to say so. Africans understand exactly what is happening. As a Namibian is reported to have said of the election: “This is a great victory against the white colonialists. Soon we will cleanse Namibia and then South Africa of all Europeans and whites.” [Nicholas Kotch, Commonwealth Blasts Mugabe but Africans Back Him, Reuters, March 14, 2002. Cris Chinaka and Emelia Sithole, West Piles Pressure on Africa over Mugabe, Reuters, March 15, 2002. Emilia Sithole, White Farmer Killed as Leaders, Mugabe Start Talks, Reuters, March 18, 2002. Anthony LoBaido, Zimbabwe Falls Further Into Anarchy, WorldNetDaily.com, March 30, 2002.]

Lovers’ Quarrel

Connie Leung, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, was 17 when she started an affair with Eric Louissaint, a 20-year-old black with neither home nor job. When Miss Leung’s parents objected to the romance, the lovers strangled them. Mr. Louissaint alone went to jail for the crime, but about a year later, as part of a plea bargain to avoid a life sentence, he told prosecutors Miss Leung was in on the killings too. He will serve at least 30 years in jail, and she has yet to decide whether to cop a plea or face trial. [Laura Italiano, Lover: Teen & I Killed Her Folks, New York Post, March 19, 2002.]

Maintaining Tradition

Whites who work at “traditionally black” universities say they face discrimination. No one systematically tracks the problem, but discrimination suits appear to be on the rise.

Consider Delaware State University, which was established in 1891 as State College for Colored Students. In the past year, it has settled two discrimination suits for undisclosed sums, brought by women who said they were mistreated because they are white. Kathleen Carter, a white who chaired the education department, says blacks told her she was usurping their right to govern themselves, and that whites in the department were trying to make blacks look bad. She says one colleague called her a “white bitch.”

Another woman, Jane Buck, who used to teach psychology at the school, has described the tremendous pressure she was under to hire blacks. A search committee once got 100 applications for a position but did not fill it because none of the candidates was black. When the search was reopened, the lone black applicant got the job.

At Livingstone College in Salisbury, NC, one of three white plaintiffs in a case that should go to trial this fall says, “It’s the white professors who can’t get tenure for hook or crook, but the black professors get hired as full professors with tenure.” Bob Russ adds that Livingstone has set out systematically to remove whites from positions of responsibility. He says an internal review carried out in the early 1990s urged the college to hire more blacks and replace several white department heads. Notations in the margins said “bring in black Ph.D chair,” “hire black chemist” and “build up science and math (black).” These notations were reportedly made by Barbara Brown, a black woman who was vice president for academic affairs at the time and is now at “historically black” Albany State University in Georgia. During the 1980s and 1990s, whites sued Albany State more than 20 times for discrimination.

Some whites have fared well from adversity. In 1998, a federal jury awarded $2.2 million to two tenured whites who were forced out of Cheyney University in Pennsylvania for opposing appointments for blacks they thought were unqualified. Others have fared worse. In 1997, blacks attacked the white dean of Albany State’s business school and sent him to the hospital for complaining on television about racial discrimination. [White Professors Say Black Universities Discriminate in Advancement, Fox News, March 22, 2002.]

No one should be surprised by this. When US Supreme Court Justice William Douglas once asked black justice Thurgood Marshall how he could defend racial preferences for blacks, Marshall replied, “You guys have been practicing discrimination for years. Now it is our turn.”

Stop ‘Stop the Violence’

The Port Arthur, Texas, school district has celebrated something called Peace Week ever since 1996, when a teacher had to break up a fight in a parking lot. Peace Week is supposed to teach students how to work out disagreements, but it doesn’t always have the desired effect. Part of this year’s program was a play called “Stop the Violence,” put on by students of Thomas Jefferson High School, that was performed before an audience of 500 schoolmates. The play included a reenactment of the Columbine High School shooting in Colorado, and at that point students began to get excited. One young man punched another, and then a series of fights broke out, which resulted in no arrests, but had to be broken up by police. The school district has cancelled plans to stage “Stop the Violence” at other schools in the area. [Diana Reinhart, Violence Stops PA ‘Stop the Violence’ Program, Beaumont (Texas) Enterprise, March 7, 2002.]

Camp of the Saints

Italy is going through one of its periodic crises over immigration. In March, a decrepit ship carrying 928 Iraqi Kurds staggered into Italian waters and was met by the Italian navy. As is now the custom, when the Italians approached to turn the ship away, adults threatened to throw children overboard. The navy let the ship dock in Sicily, where it disgorged the largest number of illegals to arrive in Italy in five years. They were transferred to a refugee camp on the mainland, where they are expected to apply for political asylum.

Government reactions were mixed. Interior Minister Claudio Scajola asked for the emergency release of funds for more shelters for illegals, saying more ships were likely to follow. He says tensions in the Middle East mean “more people will decide to set off in search of a better life” and “Italy is the natural entry point for the West.” The Italian president Carlo Ciampi agreed, saying “the human spirit should prevail” in welcoming immigrants.

Umberto Bossi, the head of the Northern League, retorted that Mr. Ciami’s words “continue to give messages that we are accepting the problem when what’s needed is stopping it.” Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi also understands: “In no time we’ll be thrown out of our own country by masses of immigrants,” he said. “It will be a dramatic situation, with a pressure that will lead to war and September 11-type situations with the re-emergence of terrorism. Italy can’t accept entire masses of immigrants, thousands at a time. It is not in a position to receive them.”

He urged the Italian parliament to pass new legislation that would jail illegals without giving them a chance to apply for asylum. [Sheila Pierce, Italy Admits Shipload of Iraqi Kurds, Washington Post, March 20, 2002, p. A20. Immigrants Threaten to ‘Outnumber Italians,’ Daily Telegraph (London), March 28, 2002.]

Too Sensible to Last

Like all schools, T.R. Smedberg Middle School in Sacramento, California, must deal with the persistent problem of Asians and whites doing better than blacks and Hispanics. The principal, Philip Moore, has decided the best way to encourage parents to help their children is to meet with them in racially segregated groups. This way, parents can be comfortable with each other, and discuss common ways to improve performance.

Mary Perry of EdSource, a nonprofit group that studies education issues in California, explains it is not uncommon for schools to invite parents of low-achieving minority students to school to talk about school work, and it is helpful to segregate them. “Sometimes it’s more difficult to have a productive discussion when people’s perspectives are so far apart,” she explains. Mr. Moore says he talked with parents of various races before deciding on the segregated sessions, and decided they would be best. He says he will not shirk from talking about racial differences in grades, test scores, and expulsion rates. “They need to know the information and what the data looks like,” he says, and explains sessions will be more productive if they are segregated. [Sandy Louey, Test Forums Divided by Ethnicity, Bee (Sacramento), April 2, 2002.]

What Do You Expect?

Students at largely-black Southside High School in Selma, Alabama, must pass an examination in order to graduate, but about half fail. The black principal, James Parker, explains why this happens: “I think there are two major problems. The first is basically that students forget what they have learned the previous semester when they take the exam.” He says the other problem is that students take each course for only one semester, and that may not be enough time to absorb the material. [Sajit Abraham, Parker, May Optimistic Seniors Will Pass Exam, Times Herald (Selma), March 10, 2002, p. 8A.]

Brits Go Barmy

British police will henceforth have to give written explanations to every suspect they they stop and search. Home Secretary David Blunkett explained that the new rules were proposed in the “MacPherson Report” on institutional racism among the police [see “Whites as Kulaks,” AR, Jan. 2002], and will help counter accusations that officers target non-whites unfairly. There will also be “community panels” that will monitor police actions and make sure all races are treated fairly. [British Police to Explain Searches, AP, March 12, 2002.]

Deep Voodoo

We reproduce the following item, verbatim and in toto, from the March 26, 2002, Santa Barbara News-Press:

MIAMI — Workers at Mount Sinai-St. Francis Nursing and Rehabilitation Center asked that a union vote be thrown out Monday, saying a series of voodoo signs may have spooked the facility’s large Haitian-American workforce into voting to organize. Workers testified they saw lines of pennies, half-empty water cups and a union supporter twisting black beads in her hands before the Feb. 28 vote.

‘If there was a group of people afraid of voodoo, your mind could be swayed,’ dietary aide Barbra White Bynum testified during the National Labor Relations Board hearing. [Voodoo Blamed in Vote to Unionize, News-Press (Santa Barbara, Calif.), March 26, 2002.]

The Cruelest Cut

A recent survey found widespread domestic violence against women in Uganda. In mid-March, the country’s vice president Specioza Kazibwe ended her 23-year marriage because her husband continued to beat her even after she took office. He says he beat her only twice. The vice president’s husband should consider himself lucky. On March 20, Ugandan police arrested 30-year-old Annet Minduru, charging her with causing grievous bodily harm to her husband after he slapped her during an argument. “Because I was so drunk,” explained John Ndekeezi, “she overpowered me and by the time my neighbor came to my rescue, she had bitten off both my testicles and the penis.” Just a few days earlier, another Ugandan man died after his wife cut off his testicles. She thought he was doing a poor job caring for her and their two children. [Woman Bites Off Husband’s Genitals, Reuters, March 20, 2002.]

It’s a Shame, Mon

Many television viewers have seen Miss Cleo’s commercials for psychic readings on her 900 number. Sporting colorful island garb and speaking Caribbean patois, Miss Cleo, who claims to be a Jamaican shaman, has become something of pop culture icon. The Florida Attorney General’s office and the Federal Trade Commission are suing Miss Cleo and the company she works for, Access Resource Services, for fraud, saying her real name is Youree Dell Harris, and that she was born in Los Angeles to American parents in 1962. A psychic should have seen it coming. [State: Miss Cleo is from California, not Jamaica, AP, March 13, 2002.]

The Death of the East

In The Death of the West, Patrick Buchanan argues that declining birthrates and immigration may spell the end of the nations of the West. Mr. Buchanan points out that Japan does not have an immigration problem, but it does have a low birthrate and aging population. Japan will “die” first because it has more old people than any other nation (about 17.7 percent of Japanese are 65 or older, compared to 12.6 percent in the United States) and one of the lowest birthrates — 1.35 births per woman. According to current projections its population will peak in 2005 and then decline.

On March 26, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s office issued a “Lifestyle White Paper” that discusses the problem. It says 52 percent of young Japanese women and 40 percent of young Japanese men do not consider marriage and child-rearing to be sources of fulfillment. With the economy in a decade-long recession, young people want money and careers, and an increasing number see marriage as “limiting their freedom” and children as a “burden.” Between 1980 and 2000, the percentage of Japanese women who are full-time housewives declined from 37 to 26 percent.

The report says Japan’s corporate culture, with its 16-hour days and mandatory after-hours drinks with the boss, must change. It recommends fewer working hours, more free time for the family, and more child care. [Hans Griemel, ‘Work Less, Have More Babies,’ Japanese Government Says, AP, March 26, 2002.]

Vasectomy, Anyone?

Luther Crawford is blind in one eye, nearly blind in the other and takes medication for a heart problem and high blood pressure, none of which keeps the 49-year-old black Louisvillian from charming the ladies. Over the years, he has fathered a dozen children by 11 different women. Mr. Crawford is now in trouble for failing to support them. He owes $33,000 in child-support for two of his children, and is in jail waiting trial in another case in which he owes $21,000. On March 12, Mr. Crawford signed a plea bargain in which he pleaded guilty to two counts of flagrant nonsupport, and got one year in prison instead of a possible five years. He also agreed never to have sex again.

Mr. Crawford now says he thought the abstinence clause was a joke and is asking a judge to throw it out. His lawyer says it violates Mr. Crawford’s constitutional rights and is impossible to enforce. Prosecutor Allan Cobb says Mr. Crawford acknowledged the no-sex clause when he signed it, and notes that similar plea conditions have been upheld in two cases in other states. A judge will render a ruling in May. [Man Accused of Being Deadbeat Dad Challenges Required Celibacy in Plea Agreement, AP, March 26, 2002.]

Limits of Diversity

On March 14, Virginia’s new governor, Democrat Mark Warner, refused a request by the Sons of Confederate Veterans to sign a proclamation declaring April Confederate History Month. “Over the past few years,” he said, “the issuance of a Confederate history month proclamation has been a lightning rod. My belief is that signing such a proclamation would not advance the healing process.”

Curtis Milteer, the black mayor of Suffolk, Virginia, and the great-grandson of slaves, thinks otherwise. On March 25, he proclaimed April Confederate History Month. “We have rendered proclamations for other groups,” he says. “It’s a matter of recognizing and respecting everyone’s heritage, even if it is not the same as our own.” Suffolk is one of only nine Virginia towns or counties to sign the proclamation this year.

The NAACP is outraged. Charles Christian, president of the local chapter hints at reprisals but adds, “Right now, I can’t say what they will be.” Two black Suffolk city councilmen are looking into whether they can rescind the mayor’s proclamation. [Black Mayor OKs Confederate History, AP, March 31, 2002.]

Special Forces Too White

The usual people are upset because so many of the special forces soldiers fighting in Afghanistan are white. Although blacks are 20 percent of the military, they are fewer than four percent of special forces — and only 2.5 percent of Navy SEALs.

Jake Zweig, a black former SEAL officer, says the real problem is the attitude of the whites. “It was like being the only black in a Harley Davidson gang, as out of place as you can be,” he says. He adds that when he suggested recruiting more non-white sailors, a white officer asked him “What . . . do you want us to do, lower the standards, so more of y’all can make it in?”

Special Operations Command has hoisted the white flag. It is sending “motivator” teams of black and Hispanic special forces men into minority neighborhoods, and is printing recruiting pamphlets that prominently feature non-whites. Rear Adm. Eric Olson, top SEAL commander, has hired a diversity consultant, Warren Lockette, who has the authority to veto any SEAL candidate he thinks might be prejudiced. Recruiting non-whites is not enough; whites must make them feel welcome.

The Navy insists it won’t lower standards. Nevertheless, the SEALs now accept as provisional candidates men who have failed a requirement and would ordinarily be washed out. For example, SEAL candidates must swim 500 yards in 121/2 minutes. Since some blacks have trouble doing this, they will get extra training if the Navy decides they would otherwise qualify.

This doesn’t sit well with retired Army Green Beret Major Andy Messing. “I wouldn’t want to be next to a guy who’s ‘not sure’ he knows how to swim across a flowing jungle river,” he says. Maj. Messing actually says homogeneity is good for special forces units. He says differences — being black, Hispanic, Jewish or even overtly religious — add to the tensions in the grinding training regimen. [Ron Kampeas, Special Forces Lack Diversity, AP, April 1, 2002.]

Cincinnati Simmers

As we reported last month, black groups in Cincinnati are still protesting the police shooting of black criminal Timothy Thomas on April 7 last year. Protests have now taken the form of persuading blacks to boycott the city. “Police are killing, raping, planting false evidence, and along with the prosecutor and courts are destroying the general sense of self-respect for black citizens,” reads one of the appeals. This sort of thing has been enough to persuade such performers as Bill Cosby, Whoopi Goldberg, Wynton Marsalis, the Temptations, the O’Jays, and Smokey Robinson to cancel appearances. The purpose of the boycotts is to cause so much hardship for the city it will give in to demands for handouts to blacks and amnesty for the criminals who rioted after last year’s shooting.

The boycotters latest success has been to keep out the national convention of a black denomination, the Progressive National Baptist Convention. The denomination, founded in Cincinnati in 1961, had booked space four years ago in the city’s Millennium Hotel, and its 8,000 conventioners were expected to bring the hotel $750,000 worth of business. Now, some of its many black employees will be laid off.

The boycotters have their sights on preacher Billy Graham. Rev. Al Sharpton was in town recently, urging his fellow minister to stay away. “He can see what kind of controversy is going on here,” he says. A local black divine, Rev. Clarence Wallace said that if Rev. Graham comes, he must “make a statement on the issues here.” Rev. Graham says he will come, and duly agreed to “address” the racial climate.

One city group is fighting back against the boycotts. The Cincinnati Arts Association, which had been angling for big-name black performers for some of its programs only to see them scared away by the boycott, has sued boycott organizers for $600,000 for interfering with its business. [Steve Miller, Cincinnati Boycotters Target Billy Graham, Washington Times, March 19, 2002, p. A1. Robert Pierre, Racial Strife Flares in Cincinnati Over Downtown Business Boycott, Washington Post, April 2, 2002, p. A3.]

‘What You White Bitches Need’

On March 20, 2001, a Chattanooga, Tenn., woman pulled into the drive-thru lane of a local Krystal fast food restaurant to order a Coke. A black man, Ralph Williams, jumped into the car, and beat her and strangled her until she lost consciousness. He drove off with her, and when she came to, Mr. Williams was standing over her, ordering her to take off her clothes.

“I was shocked,” she says. “It was like waking up in a dream. I realized he was going to rape me.” The woman said Mr. Williams, who raped and beat her for 13 hours, took frequent breaks to smoke crack. “He enjoyed the thought of the pain,” she says. “Every time I would scream, he would hit me again. But I couldn’t keep from screaming.”

The woman tried to fight back with a box-cutter in her purse, and tried to stab Mr. Williams in the eyes with her car keys. He only beat and stomped her the more. When she heard Mr. Williams handling a wire, she thought he was going to strangle her with it. Instead, he took the cardboard off of a wire coat hanger and rammed it into her repeatedly, shouting “This is what you white bitches need.” The victim twice tried to escape, and once managed to get outside the house before Mr. Williams dragged her back by the hair. Police later found a clump of her hair at the scene. Mr. Williams eventually passed out, and the woman got away. Mr. Williams had fled by the time police arrived, but she picked him out of a police lineup.

At trial, Mr. Williams got two consecutive life sentences without possibility of parole. Mr. Williams had committed a similar rape in December 2000, but the victim disappeared before police finished their investigation. He had also served eight years in prison for rape. District Attorney Bill Cox says “Our community will be a lot safer because he will never see the light of day again.” [Repeat Rapist Gets Life without Parole, Chattanoogan.com, March 21, 2002.]

TB in VA

In 1993, the World Health Organization declared tuberculosis an international emergency. Worldwide, eight million people get the disease, and two million die. TB is coming to America, thanks to Third-World immigration. The state of Virginia saw a five percent increase in new cases from 2000-2001, with 57 percent of the total — 174 of 306 — occurring in the Washington suburbs of Northern Virginia. The region as a whole has seen a 22 percent increase in TB cases since 1999. State health officials admit that immigrants bring the disease, and two-thirds of the TB cases come from just three countries: Mexico, the Philippines and Vietnam. People who apply for asylum or proper immigration visas are tested for TB, so the culprits are illegal immigrants. [Leef Smith, TB Still on Rise in N. Va., Washington Post, March 18, 2002, p. A1.]

Costly Federal Failure

Some of the poorest counties in the country have stiff expenses because of illegal immigration. Imperial County, California, which has the highest unemployment and lowest per capita income in the state, spent $5.4 million out of a tight 1999 budget on law enforcement and emergency medical treatment for illegals. Pima County, Arizona, has had to build more jail cells because of illegals. “Because we’ve had to keep up with jails, we don’t have enough left over for transportation,” says a county spokesman. All told, during 1999, counties along the Mexico border spent $108 million on law enforcement and medical treatment for illegals. Counties get a little federal money to cover the costs of incarcerating illegals. The ones along the border got $12.4 million in 1999, or less than one eighth of the amount they spent on illegals. [Ken Ellingwood, Study Tallies Cost of Illegal Immigration, Los Angeles Times, Feb. 6, 2001.]

Mexicans Want Amnesty

Although the idea was pushed off the national agenda by the Sept. 11 attacks, Mexicans are back baying for amnesty. The 1.5 million-member Service Employees International Union, which represents janitors, orderlies, home care help, and other unskilled workers, has started a post-card campaign for amnesty, free passage across the Mexican border, and eventual citizenship for illegals. The union, which has many Mexican members, says it is only reminding the country of goals President George Bush set forth before he was distracted by terrorism. [August Gribbin, Alien Amnesty Urged But Unlikely, Washington Post, March 11, 2002, p. A8.]

Mr. Bush, who has learned nothing from the events of Sept. 11, managed to push an amnesty bill through the House, but wiser heads prevailed in the Senate, and passage now looks uncertain.