Posted on December 1, 2003

O Tempora, O Mores! (December, 2003)

American Renaissance, December 2003

Liver of Darkness

An estimated three million people have died in Congo’s four years of civil war. At various times, five neighboring countries have sent in armies to fight over land and natural resources. In the chaos, tribes have vented ancient hatreds against each other, and revived an ancient form of dominion over one’s enemies — cannibalism. Most Congolese appear to believe that eating a man’s heart, liver, or genitals adds that man’s strength to one’s own. They despise Pygmies as sub-human, but believe that their organs, too, give special powers for hunting and surviving in the forest.

A reporter who recently traveled to the Congo listened to first-hand accounts of cannibalism. One pygmy, for example, told of coming back to his village and finding soldiers butchering and eating his family. Another man, named Kakule, was rich enough to have a chain saw, and was cutting trees with two assistants. Soldiers appeared and held the three at gun point. Their chief ordered Kakule and one assistant to hold the other down on the ground. The chief then:

. . . yanked a knife across the throat of Kakule’s assistant. He cut the tongue from below and pulled it out through the throat; he cut the belly down the middle and claimed the liver; he stripped off the trousers so he could slice off the testicles and penis. One of his squad hacked up the body. The commander gave Kakule his knife, told him to pare the skin from an arm, a leg. He told Kakule and his other assistant to build a fire. From their satchels, the soldiers brought cassava bread. They sat in a circle. The commander placed the dead man’s head at the center. He forced the two loggers to sit with them, to eat with them the pieces of boiled limb. The grilled liver, tongue and genitals had already been parceled out among the commander and his troops.

Many Congolese believe that if they eat the organs of enough people they will be able to deflect bullets, but there are other ways to do that. The same reporter watched as the men fighting under a warlord named Vita Kitambala demonstrated their leader’s powers. They believe he can fly, make himself invisible, and work some kind of mumbo jumbo with water so that it wards off bullets. The demonstration was as follows:

At last a camouflage-patterned hat was drenched . . . I focused carefully on the gunman, on whether he aimed downward precisely at the target. He didn’t. He lifted the barrel several inches as he fired. Dirt spattered up three feet from the hat. His move seemed so awkward, so obvious, that for a moment I believed I felt everyone’s embarrassment.

But the general didn’t look embarrassed at all. The spiritual force of the water bent the barrel, he explained matter-of-factly, causing the bullet to veer off target. He showed me the rifle, whose tip did look a bit battered from years of use but hardly bent.

There is widespread belief in magic throughout black Africa, and cannibalism for the purpose of absorbing a man’s strength has been reported in Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Sierra Leone, and the Central African Republic. In the Congo, where non-African influences have largely disappeared, this form of fetishism has certainly become more common, but cannibalism appears to have acquired another purpose.

“Fetishism can’t explain why, according to testimony given to U.N. investigators, M.L.C. [Movement for the Liberation of Congo] troops forced one woman to eat from her husband’s corpse. It can’t explain why some victims were ordered to swallow their own ears or toes, why Kakule had to eat the less desirable parts of his assistant’s body alongside his captors or why, after the butchering of a Protestant priest, others were forced to pay money or eat his flesh — or be butchered themselves. The inflicting of vengeance and spreading of terror — aspects of war that are as modern as they are ancient — have played a part in Congo’s cannibalism. A Human Rights Watch report released in July suggests that ‘perpetrators have found that fear of cannibalism terrorizes victims more effectively into compliance with their orders than does the simple fear of death, so frequently faced in daily life.’” [Daniel Bergner, The Most Unconventional Weapon, Sunday New York Times Magazine, Oct. 26, 2003.]

The Tragic Mulatto

A recent study of 90,000 middle school and high school students has found that mixed-race children have more health and psychological problems than children who are not mixed. For example, children who consider themselves both black and white are more likely than black or white children to be depressed, sleep badly, skip school, smoke, drink, and have sex. They are also more likely to suffer from stress-related health problems, get hold of guns, consider suicide, and suffer various aches and pains. White-Asian hybrids also show the same symptoms. The principal author of the study, J. Richard Udry of the University of North Carolina, says, “The most common explanation for the high-risk status is the struggle with identity formation, leading to lack of self-esteem, social isolation and problems of family dynamics in biracial households.” The study appeared in the Oct. 30, 2003, issue of the American Journal of Public Health. [Connie Cass, Study: Mixed-Race Youth Have Health Woes, AP, Oct. 30, 2003.]

Diversity Begets Violence

In late October two prisoners died in a race riot that pitted blacks against Hispanics. Violence at the Eagle Mountain prison about 60 miles east of Palm Springs, California, involved an estimated 150 inmates and raged for 90 minutes. Fighting broke out in a recreation room, where prisoners were watching the World Series, and spread throughout the prison. Four badly injured inmates had to be helicoptered out to hospitals, and another 50 were treated by prison medical staff.

Prisoners also broke windows and smashed furniture. “I walked onto the yard when it was over, and it looked like Beirut,” says Lt. Warren Montgomery, who traveled from a different prison to help put down the riot. He says prisoners attacked each other with knives and meat cleavers from the kitchen, as well as table and chair legs and mop handles — “anything they could get their hands on.”

Eagle Mountain is a low-risk prison for non-violent prisoners. [Jenifer Warren, Inmates are Moved After Riot Kills 2, LA Times, Oct. 29, 2003.]

Earlier that same month, what could be thought of as a training session took place at Compton High School in Compton, California, where a black/Hispanic riot resulted in several arrests. Jimmy Perry of the Compton School Police reported that the violence began with a fight between two Hispanic girls but then became a racial battle mostly involving boys. Although the school district officially said only 50 to 60 students were involved, Mr. Perry thought there were about 400 combatants. The school was put under “code yellow” lockdown for two hours and the children were released early. [50-60 People Involved in School Melee, KABC-TV (Los Angeles), Oct. 10, 2003.]

Mexico Creeps North

In the early 1970s, whites outnumbered Hispanics six to one in the public schools of San Diego County, California. Last year, for the first time, Hispanics, at 39.83 percent of the school population just nosed out whites, at 39.82 percent. There are 67.6 percent more Hispanics in local public schools than there were just 11 years ago, a figure that mirrors the 67.7 percent increase in non-English-speaking students during the same period.

Academic achievement has, of course, plummeted. Last year, 74 percent of whites in tenth grade passed the math exam necessary for high school graduation, while only 40 percent of Hispanics did. Whites are three times more likely than Hispanics to pass advance placement tests or to be admitted to gifted programs. The performance gap is increasing: Ten years ago the white-Hispanic difference in average SAT verbal scores was 82; now it is 93.

“It’s no longer Latinos or Hispanics entering the mainstream,” says Ed Brand, superintendent of one of the county’s school districts and head of a committee that is supposed to boost Hispanic performance. “They are the mainstream.” [Chris Moran, Latino Students Now Outnumber Whites in County Classrooms, San Diego Union Tribune, Oct. 10, 2003.]

The Great Black Hope

Largo, Florida, is 93 percent white and apparently rather self-conscious about it. Last year, the city fired a lieutenant in the fire department for unbosoming a “racial slur,” and resolved to put more non-whites on the force. It was therefore with much happy anticipation that the department prepared for the first day on the job for Nolan Avery, who is gratifyingly black. When he failed to show up without so much as a telephone call, firemen made a few calls of their own and discovered that their investment in diversity had spent the last five nights in jail. Last summer, he and a friend robbed a Burger King — Mr. Avery forced a woman to the floor and tied her up before they made off with $300 — and the law had finally caught up with him.

The Largo authorities investigated Mr. Avery as part of the hiring process, but found no criminal record. The city manager concedes that the candidate’s answers on a routine polygraph test were cause for concern, but the department hired him anyway. “I’m just devastated,” says Deputy Fire Chief Jeff Bullock, who visited Mr. Avery in jail and accepted his resignation. [Shannon Tan, One of Two Firefighters Hired in Largo this Summer is Charged With Armed Robbery, Kidnapping and False Imprisonment, St. Petersburg Times, Oct. 2, 2003.]

Admitting the Obvious

A recent article in The Atlantic has stumbled onto something. It starts like this:

Maybe it’s time to admit the obvious. We don’t really care about diversity all that much in America, even though we talk about it a great deal. Maybe somewhere in this country there is a truly diverse neighborhood in which a black Pentecostal minister lives next to a white anti-globalization activist, who lives next to an Asian short-order cook, who lives next to a professional golfer, who lives next to a postmodern-literature professor and a cardiovascular surgeon. But I have never been to or heard of that neighborhood. Instead, what I have seen all around the country is people making strenuous efforts to group themselves with people who are basically like themselves.

Later the author observes:

New suburbs in Arizona and Nevada, for example, start out reasonably well integrated. These neighborhoods don’t yet have reputations, so people choose their houses for other, mostly economic reasons. But as neighborhoods age, they develop personalities (that’s where the Asians live, and that’s where the Hispanics live), and segmentation occurs. It could be that in a few years the new suburbs in the Southwest will be nearly as segregated as the established ones in the Northeast and the Midwest.

The author says all this is rather a pity but, needless to say, resolutely refuses to draw conclusions about immigration policy, forced integration, or anti-discrimination law. [David Brooks, People Like US, The Atlantic, Sept. 2003.]

Down the Rat Hole

In the last ten years, politicians have poured more than $70 million in taxpayer money into the black part of Miami but have so little to show for it the FBI is investigating. The idea was to build “affordable housing” for Overtown, but the number of derelicts is rising even though the population is declining. In 1990, the population was 11,350 with 52 people on the streets. In 2000 the population was down 14 percent to 9,755, but there were 170 bums on the street. This means one out of every 55 Overtonians has no place to live, perhaps the highest rate in the country. Half the population is below the poverty line.

It is not clear what happened to the $70 million, but do-gooders knocked down slums without replacing them. In the past decade, Overtown lost 150 buildings — many of them inhabited — with the result that 1,000 people were turned out. “Investors” got 20 cheap loans from the government to build houses, but most of them say they couldn’t rent what they built. Seventeen of the 20 are in default. Some of the “investors” spent less money on construction than they borrowed, and the difference has gone missing. On at least two occasions, the city sank hundreds of thousands of dollars into patching up buildings that were then torn down at taxpayer expense because they were declared unfit for habitation. Miami’s Community Redevelopment Agency swallowed up no less than $35 million, but has practically nothing to show for it. [Oscar Corral, Urban Renewal Millions Yield Little, Herald (Miami), Oct. 12, 2003.]

Press accounts do not say so, but given the demographics of Overtown and of Miami in general, the people and agencies that pocketed the money are not likely to be white.

Not the Usual Mug Shots

American software companies would have us believe foreign programmers, particularly Indians, are among the best in the world, and that companies will go broke unless the government lets them bring in foreigners with H1B visas. Displaced American programmers insist the foreign workers aren’t better — just cheaper. If by “foreign” they mean non-white, they could well be right.

A software training company called TopCoder, Inc. (TopCoder.com) runs an online competition in which contestants solve complex programming problems. It is open to anyone worldwide, costs nothing to enter, and offers a $100,000 purse, $50,000 of which goes to the first-place winner. Despite all the hoopla about subcontinental high-tech workers, the overwhelming majority of top programmers — 9 of the top ten and probably 23 of the top 25 (three have no picture) — are white. The only non-whites appear to be East Asians. If American companies want the best programmers, India and Pakistan could be the wrong places to go. According to TopCoder’s results, the best programmers are from Sweden, followed by Poland, Ukraine and Germany. China, the only non-white country in the top ten, comes in fifth, and India is 15th.

Moreover, programming is not simply a matter of getting the job done one way or another. It is a false argument to say that even if an Indian programmer is only half as productive as a Swede, you are better off if you can hire him at one quarter the price. The significant breakthroughs come from people who can, as they say in the business, make their colleagues say “wow.” No high-tech company without such programmers will stay on top for long. [Online Competition, Rankings and Results, TopCoder.com]

Our Muslim Military

There are an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 Muslims in the US armed services. Are they loyal? Some obviously are not. Last March, as his unit was getting ready to move into Iraq from Kuwait, Sgt. Hasan Akbar killed two of his commanding officers with a grenade while they slept. Relatives said he felt “persecution” as a Muslim, and had refused to fight in the Gulf War because it went against his faith. Another out-and-out traitor is Jeffrey Leon Battle, who enlisted in the army to, as he put it “receive military training to use against America.” In October, in a little-remarked deal, he pleaded guilty to conspiring to levy war against the United States, after he tried to enter Afghanistan, where he wanted to kill Americans.

Both these men are black Muslims, who may have traditional racial reasons to hate America. What about Middle Easterners? In 2000, Ali Mohamed pleaded guilty to charges in connection with the 1998 attacks on the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. He was a high-ranking Al Qaeda member who got the best military training in the world — in the US special forces, where be became a sergeant.

Senior Airman Ahmad Halabi and Army Captain James Yee are two of the three men recently arrested for disloyalty and possible espionage at Guantanamo. Mr. Yee, who is of Chinese origin and a convert to Islam who became a Muslim chaplain, says he identifies with the captives. Mr. Halabi, a Muslim of Middle Eastern origin, opposes the detentions at Guantanamo, and thinks American foreign policy is wrong. Finally, there was Ahmed Mehalba, a civilian Arabic translator, who had classified documents with him when he was arrested after returning from a trip to Egypt. The army concedes it needs Arabic translators so badly it has rushed some into jobs without checking their backgrounds. Thor Ronay, a terrorism expert at the Center for Security Policy, probably got it right when he said that the army has not been on the lookout for disloyalty because “The military has a style of political correctness that says, ‘We’re not in the business of judging anyone’s religion.’”

Marine Sgt. Jamal Baadani says Muslims are loyal Americans, and has even started something called the Association of Patriotic Arab Americans in the Military to prove it. However, his own statements give him away: “I’ve been called a traitor and an Uncle Tom by fellow Muslims” for serving in the military. Precisely. [John Mintz and Gregory Vistica, Muslim Troops’ Loyalty a Delicate Question, Washington Post, Nov. 2, 2003.]

Stiff Penalties

We reprint the following news item:

BANJUL, Gambia — A 28-year-old man accused of stealing a man’s penis through sorcery was beaten to death in the West African country of Gambia, police said.

A police spokesman told Reuters that Baba Jallow was killed Thursday by about 10 people in the town of Serekunda, nine miles from the capital Banjul.

Reports of penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, with purported victims claiming that alleged sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear in order to extort cash in the promise of a cure.

The police spokesman said many men in Serekunda were now afraid to shake hands, and he urged people not to believe reports of “vanishing” genitals. Belief in sorcery is widespread in West Africa.

Seven alleged penis snatchers were beaten to death by angry mobs in Ghana in 1997.

[Suspected Penis Snatcher Beaten to Death, Reuters, Oct. 12, 2003.]

13 Years for ‘40 Acres’

Last July, Robert Foster and his daughter Crystal were convicted of conspiracy to defraud the government by filing 2001 tax returns claiming a fictitious slavery tax credit (see AR, July 2003). Miss Foster bilked the government out of more than $500,000, which she spent in just eight days. Government prosecutors say Mr. Foster also prepared tax returns for other blacks, claiming a total of $3.6 million in reparations, or about $500,000 per person.

On Oct. 23, a federal judge sent Mr. Foster to prison for 13 years — one of the harshest sentences ever handed down for slavery reparations fraud, for which the typical sentence is two to five years. His daughter got three years, and must pay back the money.

Mr. Foster says he’s innocent: “This was not an effort to defraud the US government. This was purely a protest against the US government. Black people are not treated as humans, but as things by the US government. We were used as resources to enrich this country and we get no inheritance from the wealth we brought.”

In prison, Mr. Foster renounced US citizenship and claimed to be a member of the Moab Tiara Cherokee Kituwah Nation, a black group in Charlotte, NC, whose members believe they are descendants of African Moors who discovered America before Columbus. Mr. Foster filed a motion to get his conviction overturned, saying the US no longer had jurisdiction over him. The judge, whom he called a “white devil,” denied the motion.

The IRS says blacks got the idea of filing for slavery reparations from a 1993 Essence magazine editorial that urged them to seek refunds of $43,206 per household as a “delinquent tax rebate.” Essence said the figure was the modern-day equivalent of the “40 acres and a mule” blacks hoped for at the end of the Civil War. Mr. Foster says he adjusted the figure upward for inflation.

In 2001, 80,000 blacks filed returns claiming the slavery tax credit, for a total of $2.7 billion. In 2000 and 2001, the government actually paid out $30 million in “reparations credits.” [Justin Bergman, Woman, Father Sentenced in Slave Claims, AP, Oct. 23, 2003. Justin Bergman, 2 Face Penalty in Slave Reparations Case, Oct. 23, 2003.]

Child Soldier

The November 2003 issue of America’s 1st Freedom, the official journal of the National Rifle Association, published an article about the post-Civil War black US Cavalry units known as “Buffalo Soldiers.” Advertised on the front cover as “Memories of the Last of the Buffalo Soldiers,” the article is just politically-correct filler to put between gun ads. It very briefly highlights the military service of one Mark Matthews, a 109-year-old cavalry veteran, but does not record a single “memory.” It then goes on to tell how black troopers won the West for ungrateful whites.

Of Mr. Matthews, the author writes: “Born in 1894, this old soldier was 16 when he joined the Army. Matthews served as a sergeant with the 10th Cavalry, rode with Apache scouts, fought in the Spanish-American War, in border skirmishes against the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, and saw action in both World Wars.” [Gary Lantz, Buffalo Soldiers, America’s 1st Freedom, Nov. 2003, pp. 44-49.]

We hope the author knows more about firearms than history. Mr. Matthews was born in 1894. The Spanish-American War took place in 1898, when he was four years old.

Above the Law

In 2001, black rioters in Cincinnati attacked whites, pulling motorists from their cars and beating them. There is still plenty of anti-white hatred in Cincinnati, where black teenagers often throw stones at cars driven by whites — or worse. On Oct. 10, a 14-year-old black girl punched a white woman in the eye as she left a downtown restaurant. She didn’t bother to run away, and appears not to fear the police. A nearby security camera recorded the girl and her friends re-enacting the attack and laughing about it. This is only the latest version of her trademark crime. “She just walks up to [white] people in the middle of the street and socks them in the eye,” says Cincinnati police officer Alex Hasse, who patrols the area. She has been arrested six times, and faces a felony charge for the Oct. 10 attack, but is still on the streets. Cincinnati police and judges fear more riots if they crack down on blacks. [Girl, 14, Serial Attacker, Cincinnati Enquirer, Oct. 18, 2003, p. B14.]

Land of the Free?

Lovell A. Wheeler is a 61-year-old white man who lives in a Baltimore row house with his wife, Elizabeth. He works for a plastics company, and makes and sells guns as a hobby. He is also a white nationalist. His wife joined the National Alliance several years ago after being robbed by a black man, and hosts an Internet radio program called “Grandmother Elizabeth’s Reading Hour for White Children.”

Last summer, Baltimore police received an anonymous tip that Mr. Wheeler was making weapons in his basement. On June 28, two officers talked to Mr. Wheeler at his home. One was wearing a German-American lapel pin, and Mr. Wheeler praised him as a “good white officer.” He also allegedly said that “the [race] war is going to start in the city, and I am ready and need more troops to help in the fight.” He also gave the men National Alliance literature.

Baltimore police contacted the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, which told them the National Alliance “poses a risk” for domestic terrorism. Two days later, the Baltimore SWAT team, operating under a “no-knock” search warrant, chopped down Mr. Wheeler’s front door with an ax and seized 80 lbs. of smokeless gunpowder, 16,000 rounds of ammunition, 22 firearms, body armor, thousands of gun parts, and National Alliance literature. They arrested Mr. Wheeler at his work.

Prosecutors claimed Mr. Wheeler’s arsenal and ties to the National Alliance “created a substantial risk of death or serious physical injury to the citizens of Baltimore,” but charged him with three relatively minor misdemeanors: reckless endangerment, possession of smokeless powder without a license, and improper storage of smokeless powder. They did not allege a single firearms violation. Although Mr. Wheeler had no criminal record and hadn’t harmed anyone, the judge set bail at an astonishing $2 million and then denied it altogether — in a city where multiple murderers get bail.

Although prosecutors deny it, many lawyers say Mr. Wheeler is being punished for his views. “It is unusual,” says Baltimore defense lawyer Warren A. Brown of the decision to deny bail, “and to that extent, he is damn near a political prisoner. If he was an ordinary dope dealer with guns in his house, he would have bail, but because he is a white supremacist, they stick it to him.”

University of Maryland law professor Douglas L. Colbert cannot recall a similar case in which bail was denied. “A general statement of ‘I expect there to be a race war, and I am prepared for it’ falls far short of direct and imminent violence that could result in bail being denied someone.”

“I think it smacks at his First Amendment rights,” says black Baltimore attorney A. Dwight Pettit. “I think a lot of judges are more sensitive to the racial aspect of it than they are to the constitutional aspect.”

The Anti-Defamation League disagrees. “The combination of extremist ideology and weapons is something that law enforcement has an obligation to make sure that the person is just not wandering the streets [sic],” says David Friedman.

On Oct. 29, after nearly four months of jail, Mr. Wheeler, who is in failing health, pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charges. In exchange, he got a suspended five-year sentence and three years’ probation — and also got to go home. He may own no firearms during his probation. [Tim Craig, Supremacist Case Unites Improbable Contingent, Washington Post, Oct. 26, 2003, p. C1. Allison Klein, Wheeler Due to be Released Today, Sun (Baltimore), Oct. 29, 2003.]

Good Ideas

The US military has been using pilotless aircraft known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or drones for aerial reconnaissance and spy missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The CIA is said to have used a bomb-laden UAV to kill suspected terrorists in Yemen in 2002. The US Department of Homeland Security is testing UAVs along the Mexican border, with the idea of using them to find drug traffickers and illegal immigrants. The drones have sophisticated satellite tracking equipment, infrared sensors and night-vision cameras, and are now patrolling areas frequented by alien- and drug-smugglers. Border patrol agents recently adopted another idea from the army. They have set up military-style camps in the desert where they live for 30-day periods, conducting long-range patrols on foot and horseback. [Drones Tested to Patrol US-Mexico Border, Reuters, Oct. 10, 2003.]

Birka Barbie

The Saudi Arabian religious police recently declared Barbie dolls immoral and a threat to Islam; the buxom blonde in revealing outfits isn’t popular among American Muslims either. Enter Ammar Saadeh, a Livonia, Michigan-based businessman whose company, NoorArt, created a doll specifically for Muslim girls. Called Razanne, the less-well endowed doll comes in a long-sleeved dress and headscarf (hijab). Mr. Saadeh offers Razanne in three skin tones: black with black hair, olive with black hair — and white with blond hair.

The company sells a Teacher Razanne, an In-Out Razanne (who wears a slightly less-modest dress of the type Muslim women can wear at home with male family members), and a Praying Razanne, who comes with a prayer gown and a long hijab. It will soon introduce a line of Razannes that “reflect the aspirations” of the modern Muslim woman, including Doctor Razanne and Astronaut Razanne. The company has sold more than 30,000 dolls in the US, Canada, Singapore and Germany, and hopes to start sales in several Middle Eastern countries.

Mattel, which makes Barbie, does offer two Muslim dolls — a veiled Moroccan Barbie, and a collector’s doll named Leyla, who comes in a harem girl’s outfit. “It’s no surprise that they’d try to portray a Middle Eastern Barbie either as a belly dancer or a concubine,” says Mr. Saadeh, adding that one of the main reasons he created Razanne was to counter stereotypes. [Muslim Doll Offers Image of Modesty and Self-esteem, AP, Oct. 8, 2003.]

Behind Bars

At the end of 2001, 5.6 million Americans, or one in every 37 adults, either were in or had been in prison. Almost five percent of men had “prison experience,” but only one percent of women. The racial breakdown for men was blacks: 17 percent, Hispanics: 7.7 percent, whites: 2.6 percent. Blacks were therefore 6.5 times more likely, and Hispanics three times more likely than whites to have served time. For women, the black rate of 1.7 percent is not quite twice the rate for whites and Hispanics, for whom the figure is less than one percent. Rates for Asians were not reported. [5.6M Americans Have ‘Prison Experience,’ AP, Aug. 17, 2003.]