O Tempora, O Mores! (October, 2004)
American Renaissance, October 2004
Ninety-two percent of the students of Brentwood Middle School in Charleston, S.C., are black. In the 2002-3 school year, Brentwood suspended 61 percent of its students at least once and expelled 3.4 percent of them. A school nurse says the school was “total chaos” that year. Many of the students loitered around the halls all day rather than go to class. “The decibel level in the halls when there was supposed to be school going on . . . was unbelievable,” she says.
Brentwood performs academically as one would expect. Fifty-two of the school’s 842 students are 15 or older, which means they have been held back at least twice. This year, the district decided to move 11 of the over-age students up to North Charleston High School, despite their failing grades. “If you’re 16 years or older, middle school is not age appropriate,” explained a school official. A teacher at the high school is not pleased: “We’ve got a failing school here. How are we supposed to get any better if they just dump on us every year?” North Charleston High is 81 percent black, and no fewer than 53 percent of its students are also over-age for their grades.
Brentwood also discriminates against whites, according to three white teachers who have filed lawsuits with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) this year. Even the school district admits that when Brentwood hired John Smith, the black principal Wanda Marshall told him “in the eyes of the students, he would have two strikes against him, because he was a white male.” Mr. Smith claims he was “rendered totally ineffective in managing and instructing his classes” because the principal “would not allow students to be disciplined for racial slurs or other disruptive behavior towards white teachers.” On April 13, Miss Marshall told Mr. Smith he could not teach a second year at Brentwood because he didn’t fit in, despite the fact that he had “successfully completed” his first year of teaching. After the school learned that Mr. Smith was going to file with the EEOC, school officials decided his first year was “unsuccessful.” Mr. Smith wants to keep his job. “I want to continue to help these kids,” he explains.
Former Brentwood teacher Elizabeth Kandrac is also suing for racial discrimination. At the beginning of April, she filed with the EEOC claiming the school ignored her complaints about school discipline. Students used foul language, misbehaved, and threatened and assaulted her several times. Once a student threw a desk at her. The administration ignored her complaints about discipline and criticized her for asking for help so often. After she filed with the EEOC, the school responded properly to her discipline referrals, and even kept another adult in all her classes to ensure safety. On April 21, however, the school told her not to come back to Brentwood because of “safety concerns.”
According to the lawyer for Brandy Stokes, another white teacher suing the school, the Principal Marshall “condoned and facilitated a racially hostile environment.” Miss Stokes claims the principal let students harass her, which only made them more aggressive. In her complaint to the EEOC, Miss Stokes says the principal told her to “accept the students’ behavior because it was part of the students’ culture and background.” The principal reportedly explained that “the students did not have parental supervision and that this is the way they were.” The chaos culminated in Nov. 2002, when a student punched her as she tried to break up a fight. The blow broke a tooth, dislocated her jaw, and knocked her back on a chair, injuring her spine. After three months of sick leave, Miss Stokes asked to come back, but Miss Marshall refused.
Miss Stokes is not the only teacher to suffer violence at the hands of Brentwood students. On August 11, two black sisters repeatedly hit white teacher Solange Brewer on the arms and head when she tried to break up a fight between them. The police charged the students with “lynching,” which South Carolina law defines as any act of violence by two or more people against another, regardless of race.
The district has transferred Miss Marshall to a high school, where she is an assistant principal. [Allison Bruce, Teacher Ousted for Own Safety, Post and Courier (Charleston), April 22, 2004. School District Denies Racial Discrimination, AP, July 30, 2004. Third Teacher Files Discrimination Suit, AP, Aug. 28, 2004. Seanna Adcox, One Girl Still Held a Week after School Fight, Post and Courier, Aug. 19, 2004. Seanna Adcox, Over-Age Eighth Graders Moved Up to High School, Post and Courier, Sept. 2, 2004.]
Although it has abandoned its official “White Australia” immigration policy, many Australians, perhaps including present prime minister John Howard (facing reelection this month), still see themselves as a nation of European origin, and want to stay that way. This annoys some Asian neighbors.
Addressing a meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) organization last year, Singapore prime minister Goh Chok Tong told delegates Australia would never really be a part of Asia until its population was majority Asian. “Over time,” he explained, “when there’s more Asians going to Australia and the population tips 50 percent non-whites, and the rest white, they are immediately regarded as Asian.”
Mr. Howard said he would not change immigration policy in favor of Asians, calling the idea “absurd,” and adding that Australia would never surrender its current identity in order to join an Asian free trade area. [Malcolm Farr, Howard Defends National Identity, Courier and Mail (Australia), Oct. 21, 2003.]
Falling for Romeo
Black pimp Woodolph Romeo is facing 25 years in prison on charges that he forced two young white runaways to work as prostitutes in Queens, New York. DA Richard Brown says Mr. Romeo repeatedly beat and raped the 13- and 14-year old girls and forced them to have sex with as many as 15 men a night. He also kept them as virtual slaves from October 2001 until May of this year, and made the 14-year-old girl tattoo his name on her arm. In January 2001, police discovered the body of another white teenage girl, Crystal Jones, suffocated in a Bronx flophouse. Miss Jones had the name “Romeo” tattooed on her back, and police have not ruled out Mr. Romeo as a suspect. Miss Jones was part of a group of 10 runaways from Burlington, Vermont, who were recruited into a prostitution gang operated by Jose “Ritchie” Rodriguez, who is now in prison. Mr. Romeo was one of his lieutenants. [Scott Shifrel, This Romeo’s Called a Pimp, New York Daily News, Aug. 24, 2004.]
Gana la Verde
The reality television show “Gana la Verde,” or “Win the Green,” offers Hispanics the chance to win free legal representation from an immigration lawyer to get a green card. The contestants try to outdo each other at revolting and dangerous stunts, such as eating burritos filled with beetles, fighting off barking dogs, jumping between speeding 18-wheel trucks, washing windows on a skyscraper, lying in a sealed coffin with rats, and eating worms. The show begins with staged shots of each contestant crawling through barbed wire, with simulated US Border Patrol helicopters flying overhead. The program began on July 1 and airs in Los Angeles, San Diego, Houston, and Dallas. It attracts one million viewers.
Although the show casts the contestants as illegal immigrants, Lenard Liberman, of Liberman Broadcasting, which produces the program, says they all sign a waiver claiming they are here legally. (One wonders why they are so desperate for legal advice.)
The show has drawn much criticism from Hispanic and liberal immigration groups. In August, several wrote a letter to KRCA-TV, the Los Angeles station that airs “Gana la Verde,” asking that it drop the program: “This show takes advantage of people’s fears, offers them false promises, functions as a magnet to encourage people to enter this country without documentation, and makes them potential targets of our government’s misguided immigration polices . . . Each day ‘Gana la Verde’ is on the air demonstrates your contempt for immigrants.”
No one has yet criticized it because it trivializes immigration law. “We’re just trying to help people out here,” says Mr. Liberman. “I don’t know what all the controversy’s about. If we gave away breast implants or plastic surgery, no one could care. But try to help Maria go from a nanny to a nurse, and everyone raises an outcry.” [Jerry Seper, Going Extreme to Pursue a Dream? Washington Times, August 18, 2004.]
Miriam Mirabal is a 61-year-old Cuban immigrant and a high priestess in the voodoo-like Palo Mayombe religion, which was introduced to Cuba by West African slaves in the 19th century. Practitioners conduct ceremonies around iron cauldrons containing human bones — which is what led Miss Mirabal afoul of the law. Prosecutors in Newark, New Jersey, say Miss Mirabal ordered her followers to break into a Newark cemetery to dig up bodies. They say she gave the remains to another Palo priest who used them in ceremonies in the basement of a store selling religious items. She has been charged on various counts of burglary, theft and conspiracy. [‘Grave-Rob’ Priestess in N.J. Trial, New York Post, April 16, 2004.]
More Joys of Diversity
Last April 5, a group of black students attacked a Hispanic girl at Maxine O. Bush Elementary School in Phoenix, Arizona. Administrators and black parents dismissed the incident as a lack of discipline or routine bullying. That did not sit well with Hispanic parents, two of whom — Juana Mendoza and Juan Luis Galeno — are suing the Roosevelt School District, principal Walsdorf Jenneford, and several other employees for $25 million, claiming the assault was racial.
“There were 25 kids that jumped (all) over my daughter,” says Miss Mendoza, “and the $25 million was arrived at by our family, and we deserved that for all the damages, stress and that, which started before my daughter was assaulted. It’s something that they need to compensate us for.”
The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) supports the parents. John Ramos, president of the South Phoenix LULAC chapter, denounces “an inability of leadership to control the problem that has been festering for 27 years. I say 27 years because my wife was threatened in the same fashion when she was a student (there).”
The lawsuit also demands that the school board fire the principal, train all employees in diversity, and issue a formal letter of apology in English and Spanish. [Betty Reid, Roosevelt Faces Bullying Claim, Arizona Republic (Phoenix), Aug. 27, 2004, p. 1.]
According to the British Home Office, Britain granted permanent settlement to a record 139,675 people from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) in 2003, 20 percent more than in 2002. (The EEA consists of the nations of the European Union, plus Leichtenstein, Norway, and Iceland.) Those settling in Britain cannot vote or receive full state benefits, but they become eligible for citizenship after five years. The number of non-Europeans granted permanent settlement has more than doubled from 60,000 in 1997. Africans accounted for 32 percent of this year’s total (44,565); immigrants from the Indian sub-continent, for 21 percent (29,995); and other Asians for 18 percent (24,890). Compared to 1999, Africans were up by 65 percent.
More than 300,000 students came to the UK in 2003, 24,500 from Africa, 24,725 from the Indian sub-continent, and 112,380 from the rest of Asia. Britain deported 64,390 people in 2003, almost twice as many as in 1999. This included immigrants refused entry, and those removed from the interior.
Sir Andrew Green, who chairs the restrictionist British think-tank Migration Watch, noted that although Britain rejects six of ten asylum seekers, it manages to expel only one in ten. He also noted Britain issues 1.5 million visas every year, but has no procedure to make sure visitors leave. The British are getting upset about immigration. In the mid-1990s only five to ten percent mentioned immigration as a concern, but a recent poll found that now 56 percent do, making immigration the top concern. [Home Office (London), Control of Immigration: Statistics United Kingdom, 2003, August 24, 2004, Sir Andrew Green, “Let Everyone In” is a Dangerous Policy, The Times (London), Aug. 28, 2004.]
On February 19, three mothers of children in a preschool run by Rhode Island College (RIC) had an angry argument about welfare and race. One of the women condemned interracial relationships and said non-whites have more rights than whites. This offended one of the mothers (races of all the mothers are unspecified, but it is not hard to guess), who ignored attempts to apologize, and left in a rage. On February 27, the offended party asked Prof. Lisa B. Church, coordinator of the preschool, to bring the incident up at a meeting. Prof. Church refused, saying she didn’t think the school should be involved in disputes between private individuals. The offended party then insisted Prof. Church take disciplinary action against the outspoken mother. When Prof. Church again refused, the aggrieved mother accused her of discrimination.
On April 30, Prof. Church learned that the offended party had complained to the university, charging her with discrimination, intimidation, and violating the college’s equal opportunity policy. This policy says the college “recognizes a higher order responsibility to create, promote and ensure a positive climate where individuals may learn, teach and work, free from discrimination.” Prof. Church pointed out she could hardly punish the outspoken mother for exercising her right to free speech, but as the school’s director of affirmative action explained, “[O]n the college campus, certain types of remarks will not be tolerated, no matter what the intent.”
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is representing Prof. Church. It points out that “a formal disciplinary proceeding has a tremendous chilling effect on free speech.” [FIRE Press Release, Rhode Island College to Try Professor for Refusing to Punish Protected Speech, Aug. 24, 2004.]
On April 9, David Williams, a columnist for The Daily Barometer, the student newspaper at Oregon State University, wrote a column called “A Message From a White Male to the African American Community” in which he criticized blacks for supporting black public figures who have behaved badly. He cited R. Kelly, who received musical awards and an NAACP image award despite accusations he made child pornography. Mr. Williams softened his column by conceding that there were “thousands and thousands of successful and upstanding black role models” and admitting that many would question his judgment because he had not experienced “racism,” as blacks had.
Nevertheless, the column provoked angry letters to the editor and a full-fledged rally three days later. “For me it wasn’t as much anger,” said one black. “It was disappointment that someone would have those feelings. That someone would be so ignorant.” One protester held a sign reading, “How far will the Barometer go?”
The newspaper fired Mr. Williams and published an editorial that said: “We apologize to everyone for printing the column. While the opinions expressed in columns are not representative of the staff members of the Barometer, we have a policy never to print material that is discriminatory, racist or sexist.” [David Williams, A Message From a White Male to the African American Community, The Daily Barometer (Corvalis, Ore.), April 9, 2004. Dan Traylor, Barometer Column Focus of Campus Protest, The Daily Barometer, April 13, 2004. Taking the First Step in Apologizing, The Daily Barometer, April 13, 2004.]
The Enemy Within
While most of the civilized world expressed shock and outrage at the September 3 massacre of hundreds of people (including more than 150 children) by Muslim Chechen rebels at a school in Beslan, Russia, Muslims were largely silent — or worse.
Muslim cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed, leader of the British-based sect al-Muhajiroun, says Western mistreatment of Muslims justifies terrorism. “If an Iraqi Muslim carried out an attack like that in Britain, it would be justified because Britain has carried out acts of terrorism in Iraq,” he explained. “As long as the Iraqi did not deliberately kill women and children, and they were killed in the crossfire, that would be okay.” Killing women and children deliberately is forbidden, he adds, blaming the deaths on Russian forces.
Mr. Mohammed, a Syrian native, was deported from Saudi Arabia and made his way to Britain in 1985. While the government reviews his status, it has granted him a five-year stay in Britain. [Rajeev Syal, Cleric Supports Targeting Children, Telegraph (London), Sept. 4, 2004.]
Sad Story
Mainstream reporting on illegal immigration often descends to the maudlin, pitting lovable illegals against heartless immigration bureaucrats. The more heart-breaking the story, the better. Case in point: the Castillo family, formerly of Clarion, Iowa.
In 1995, Mr. Castillo lost his job in Mexico. He smuggled his family — wife Patricia and children Santiago, Veronica, and Alejandra — across the border, where they caught a bus to Clarion, home of Patricia’s sister. Mr. Castillo found work (illegally) at a factory while his wife worked (also illegally) for Electronic Data Systems. The family bought a house, were active in community events, and enrolled their children (at taxpayer expense) in local schools. The law caught up with the Castillos, and they were ordered deported.
The AP reported their preparations for the trip south: “ ‘It is sad. The kids just don’t want to go,’ Patricia Castillo said by telephone as she began to cry. ‘I tell them I would give my life if it is possible, and my husband will do everything he can to try to bring you back again . . . Their friends were with them, hanging around for hours and the whole time they were crying and crying and praying and praying. It’s so emotional.’”
“Santiago, the Clarion-Goldfield junior varsity quarterback, fought back anger and frustration over the legal system that gave his family no other choices. ‘I don’t want to run around like every other family, hide and not be able to do anything,’ he said. ‘That’s not the life that I want and it’s not the life my sisters want.’”
The Castillos are presented as model citizens whom the community is so sorry to see go that it raised money to challenge the court order. “Berta Alberts, an interpreter and family friend who has helped the Castillos since they first arrived in Iowa, said the people of Clarion don’t want to give up. ‘The citizens of this community are trying to do everything that is possible. This is a wonderful family. Everybody’s confused, asking what we can do.’”
Once they are back in Mexico, they might apply for a student visa for Santiago so he can go back to the school where he played football. However, he is such a family-oriented boy, “he’s not sure he would return if it meant leaving his parents and sisters.” [David Pitt, Mexican Family Gives Up Deportation Fight, AP, Sept. 1, 2004.]
Homeward Bound
Millions of blacks fled the South to northern industrial cities during the “great migration” of the first two thirds of the 20th century, but the trend is now the other way. Between 1975 and 2000, more than 600,000 blacks moved south, while the rest of the country saw a decrease in the number of blacks. California, for example, once a prime destination for blacks, lost more during the late 1990s (65,000) than any other state except New York (165,000). The new migration is led by college-educated blacks, who are flocking to cities like Atlanta, Charlotte and Memphis, and to all southern states except Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana. Demographers say the reasons are better job prospects for blacks in the “New South,” an improved racial climate, and strong cultural and family ties. [Go South, Young Man, The Atlantic Monthly, Sept. 2004, p. 48.]
Overreaction
Austin, Texas-based Freescale Semiconductor, Inc., once a part of Motorola, hoped to make a big splash with its inaugural advertising campaign, placing ads in national magazines like Time and Business Week. The ads received a lot of attention, but not the kind the chip maker wanted. The ads, intended to introduce the company to the public, showed a lion hiding under a light-colored sheet with holes cut out for eyes, ears and nose.
The image, which reminded sensitive readers of Klan regalia, “was interpreted differently than we planned,” explains spokesman Scott Stevens. Mr. Stevens says the company pulled the ad, has fired the ad agency, apologizes for insensitivity, ordered diversity training for employees, and formed a diversity panel to review all future advertising. [Jane Larson, Freescale Pulls National Ad Due to Insensitivity, Arizona Republic (Phoenix), Aug. 27, 2004.]
Adopting Blacks
In August, a Texas missionary visiting Nigeria discovered seven black American children, also from Texas, ranging in age from eight to 16-years-old, diseased, malnourished and living in a local orphanage. He recognize them as Americans from their accent. It appears that their adoptive mother, Mercury Liggins, who is black, took them to Africa and dumped them. The State Department has since sent the children back to Texas, where Houston’s Child Protective Services (CPS) is looking after them.
Miss Liggins adopted the four girls in 1996, and the three boys in 2001. CPS began getting complaints about her treatment of the children as early as 1997 — one staffer at a Boys & Girls Club said “the kids were always just telling us they were hungry” — but authorities could find no evidence of abuse. The agency got its last complaint in September 2003, a month before Miss Liggins took the children to Nigeria, where a friend lived. Since their return, the children have told investigators Miss Liggins beat them with switches and a cane, and said that if they told CPS about the beatings she would take them to Africa.
Miss Liggins enrolled the children in a Nigerian school and then went back to the US last December. She continued to bank $3,500 a month from the state ($500 for each child), but payments stopped for only the girls last March, after she told CPS they were going to live with her mother. She claims she sent the friend in Nigeria between $1,500 and $2,000 a month to support the children, but Nigerian child welfare workers found them in a wooden shack and sent them to the orphanage. Authorities are still investigating Miss Liggins and have yet to file charges. [Adoptees Found in Africa Level New Charges, AP, Aug. 19, 2004. 7 Kids Found in Nigeria to Stay in State Custody, AP, Aug. 26, 2004.]
Authorities may not have investigated the Liggins case very carefully because it is so hard to get blacks to adopt the many black children who are available. Adoption agencies are looking for white adoptive families outside the United States, and are keen on Canada. The Open Door Adoption Agency in Augusta, Georgia, has sent black children to 150 white Canadian families since the 1990s and Adoption-Link, Inc., of Chicago has sent 70.
Canadians, says Open Door’s Walter Gilbert, “live in a multicultural society for the most part, and these children blend right in and are wonderfully well accepted.” “The one difference,” explains Margaret Fleming of Adoption-Link, “is that there is not the degree of racism against black people as in the United States. Darker-skinned people are often viewed as unusual or exotic. But they don’t have the same history of slavery and racism we have.”
Many blacks think black children should have black parents, and don’t want whites to adopt them. [Sheila M. Poole, Canadians Adopting Black U.S. Children, Cox News Service, Aug. 28, 2004.]
Black Logic
A black sorority, Zeta Phi Beta, is working with the US Department of Energy to promote the silly idea that the Human Genome Project proves there is no such thing as race. They are sponsoring seminars across the country to get the word out, particularly to non-whites.
The audience at a seminar last year in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, can be forgiven if the discussion left it confused. On the one hand, University of Alabama assistant professor of biology Guy Caldwell explained that the project proved there really is no scientific basis for race. “Our concept of race is a social construct that doesn’t exist in DNA,” he said. “Our DNA says that we are 99.9 percent the same. And as far as DNA is concerned, we’re all one race. When we understand that basic thing, it does away with the stigmatisms (sic).” The professor then went on to say the Human Genome Project would help scientists discover the “racial link” to disease, which would force drug companies to spend a lot of money developing medicines for particular groups. He said some drug companies were otherwise not likely to develop race-specific drugs because there wouldn’t be much profit in them. [Tiffany Lacey, ‘We’re All One Race,’ Says Genome Project Speaker, Tuscaloosa News, Feb. 23, 2004, p. 1B.]
Indian Cuisine
We reprint the following item from the Hindustan Times verbatim and in toto:
A woman was hacked to death allegedly by her husband to propitiate the Goddess Kali to ‘cure’ their son who was said to be under the influence of a ghost in the Rajpur region of Dehra Dun.
Bharat Lal was offering prayers at the Kali temple along with his wife Kamla Devi when he hacked her to death with a sharp-edged weapon last evening as the couple’s three children watched, police said.
Lal also cut off his wife’s tongue and ate it before setting her body on fire.
The gory incident took place in the presence of the couple’s three children. Lal has been arrested and a case of murder has been registered against him.
During interrogation Lal admitted killing his wife.
[Man Sacrifices Wife, Eats Her Tongue, HindustanTimes.com, July 10, 2004.]
A Liberal Opens One Eye
Someone once said the purpose of a college education is to give people the proper attitude towards blacks and the means to live as far away from them as possible. What happens to a person who has the proper attitude but not the means?
Michele Kirsch, a liberal New Yorker living in London, found herself with a low income and a growing family. She moved with her husband and children into a “council estate,” the British equivalent of public housing. Nearly everyone was black, and Miss Kirsch was excited about living in a place where “black guys went with white girls and had beautiful children. It was Benetton on the dole, and I thought it was great.”
Her attitude began to change when her upstairs neighbor, a black woman, began throwing trash into her garden. The woman called her a “white bitch” for telling her and her sons to stop throwing trash. The woman had a boyfriend who would urinate in her garden, holding his organ in one hand while he ate fried chicken with the other. She was so disgusted by this she wrote about it for a British newspaper. A black friend said this was “racist.”
“What was interesting,” Miss Kirsch writes, “was that I hadn’t said he was black. Though he was. It didn’t seem important. It was the stench of his urine, not the color of his skin that upset me . . . I started to ask myself some uncomfortable questions, which reached a frenzied liberal height when my then 4½-year-old daughter announced, after another incident with the . . . woman upstairs, that she didn’t like black people. I grabbed her by the shoulders and shrieked: ‘You don’t mean that! Don’t say that!’” Miss Kirsch made sure to feed her daughter positive images of blacks — she even gave her a black doll.
Later, from her living-room window, she saw one drug-addled black kill another drug-addled black. Miss Kirsch and her family then moved to another housing project, but found the same problems. “It started to get ugly, a couple of years in, when one kid started to call my daughter names, all prefaced by ‘white,’ so it was white witch, white poison, ugly white face. I wanted to kill this kid, who was all of six or seven, but I had learnt my lesson from the last estate. Head down, don’t complain about the kids, don’t make eye contact with the parents.” Her children soon stopped playing outdoors, and once her daughter had to be escorted home by a local shopkeeper because blacks bullied her on the way to the store and she was too scared to leave. A pit bull that roamed the project menaced her and her family as did a gang of young blacks. As soon as they could afford it, Miss Kirsch and her family moved to a white part of London.
“. . . I felt relieved. All of us did . . . My nervous children were replaced by relaxed, happy and confident ones. My daughter started going to the shop on her own again. My husband loved to walk down the road after work and see loads of people coming home from work as well, something he didn’t see so much in the estate.” In other words, escaping from blacks made Miss Kirsch and her family, in her words, “obnoxiously happy.” [Michele Kirsch, How My Multicultural Dream Went Sour, The Times (London), Aug. 5, 2004, p. 4.]
