O Tempora, O Mores! (May, 2006)
American Renaissance, May 2006
Chicano Power
The debate over US immigration reform got off to a promising start in December when the House passed HR 4437, a bill that would decrease legal immigration by eliminating the Diversity Lottery, and would cut illegal immigration by building a wall across much of the Mexican border and punishing employers who hire illegals. Now the debate moves to the Senate, which is likely to push amnesties and guest worker programs.
The debate in Congress has prompted massive marches across the country advocating amnesty for illegals and protesting the House bill. On March 10, 100,000 marched in Chicago, and between March 24 and 26, there were demonstrations across the country: 500,000 marched in Los Angeles; 50,000 in Denver; 20,000 in Phoenix; and 10,000 in Milwaukee. Over the next week, tens of thousands of Hispanic high school students in California, Texas, Arizona and Nevada staged walkouts; on March 27, 36,000 students in Los Angeles alone skipped class, and 1,000 demonstrated outside city hall.
Mexican nationalism was much on display at the protests, with observers reporting as many Mexican as American flags. Many banners took a blatantly reconquista tone: “THIS IS STOLEN LAND,” “CHICANO POWER,” “THIS IS OUR CONTINENT NOT YOURS,” and “ALL EUROPEANS ARE ILLEGAL.” Some banners displayed Rep. James Sensenbrenner, author of the House immigration bill, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger dressed up in Nazi uniforms. [Karen Hawkins, Tens of Thousands March in Chicago to Support Immigrant Rights, AP, March 11, 2006. Hundreds of Thousands Rally for Immigrant Rights, AP, March 26, 2006. Student Immigration Protests Continue, AP, March 28, 2006. Michell Malkin, Racism Gets a Whitewash, WorldNetDaily, March 29, 2006. A Photo Summary of the Great March, Mexica-Movement. org.]
These rallies were hardly spontaneous expressions of outrage but were, instead, carefully orchestrated by Spanish-language radio and television. In Milwaukee, Spanish-language radio station WDDW 104.7 FM began promoting the march two weeks in advance. Afterwards, operations manager Armando Ulloa telephoned local businesses, asking them not to punish employees who skipped work. Telemundo Chicago began whooping the march 10 days before it took place. In Los Angeles, illegal immigrant Adrian Velasco says he first heard about the March 25 demonstration more than two weeks beforehand from Que Buena 105.5 FM. “They told all the Hispanic people to go and support these things,” he says. “They explained a lot. They said, ‘Here’s what were going to do.’” He and three friends joined a crowd of 500,000 in downtown Los Angeles.
One of the people telling Hispanics what to do was Eduardo Sotelo, a syndicated morning-show host who goes by the on-air name El Piolin, or “Tweety Bird.” Mr. Sotelo, who came to the US illegally as a teenager and got a green card in 1996, persuaded other Spanish radio stations to promote the event, and says it was his idea to tell protestors to wear white and carry American flags in order to demonstrate “their peaceful intent and love of the United States.” [Spanish Media Organized Nationwide Mass Protest, AP, Mar. 28, 2006.]
Violent race-based gangs are becoming a serious problem in Melbourne, Australia’s second largest city. Once confined to the suburbs where most immigrants live, the gangs, with names like Full-Blooded Islanders, Viets In Defence, and Brothers For Life, are now invading Melbourne’s business and entertainment districts.
During recent months, African gangs armed with knives, machetes, samurai swords, baseball bats and batons attacked pedestrians, stealing their wallets and cell phones, and robbed convenience stores and gas stations. Police say the attacks — they know of at least 20 — are becoming more violent, and that the locals are living in fear.
On January 26 — Australia Day, the country’s national holiday — a gang of about 10 young Asians attacked an Australian teenager near a train station. When 17-year-old Nathanael Raimundo tried to help the victim, the gang turned on him. “I was pretty scared . . . and disappointed. I mean, who could do that to someone else? Ten to one . . . they looked like they were going to kill him,” he says. One gang member hit Mr. Raimundo over the head with a metal pole, putting him in the hospital for five days with a fractured skull.
White guilt in the wake of the recent Australian beach riots is making it hard for police to go after the gangs, and the gangs know it. “Some are becoming more brazen as they realize what they can get away with, and the fact the cops are not allowed to give them a smack over the ear,” complains one police source. Gang members, many of whom are refugees and illegal immigrants, do not fear imprisonment. “Prison would be like Buckingham Palace compared to where they’ve been — refugee camps and the like,” says social worker Les Twentyman. [Paul Anderson, Race Gangs Terrorize Inner City, Herald Sun (Melbourne), Mar. 3, 2006.]
Students at the middle and high schools in Peekskill, New York (40 percent black, 30 percent Hispanic, 30 percent white and Asian), got an interesting lesson during a Black History Month assembly on February 28. Seven-year-old Autum Ashante, the home-schooled daughter of Nation of Islam activist Batin Ashante, recited a poem she claims to have written called “White Nationalism Put U in Bondage.” These are the lyrics:
White nationalism is what put you in bondage
Pirate and vampires like Columbus, Morgan, and Darwin
Drank the blood of the sheep, trampled all over them with
Steel, tricks and deceit.
Nothing has changed take a look in our streets
The mis-education of she and Hegro — leaves you on your knee2grow
Black lands taken from your hands, by vampires with no remorse
They took the gold, the wisdom and all of the storytellers
They took the black women, with the black man weak
Made to watch as they changed the paradigm
Of our village
They killed the blind, they killed the lazy, they went
So far as to kill the unborn baby
Yeah White nationalism is what put you in bondage
Pirates and vampires like Columbus, Morgan, and Darwin
They drank the blood of the sheep, trampled all over them with
Steel laden feet, throw in the tricks alcohol and deceit.
Nothing has changed take a look at our streets
Miss Ashante also asked the students to stand for the Black Panther’s “Black Child’s Pledge,” which reads in part:
I pledge allegiance to my Black People . . . I will learn all that I can in order to give my best to my People in their struggle for liberation. . . . I will train myself never to hurt or allow others to harm my Black brothers and sisters . . . These principles I pledge to practice daily and to teach them to others in order to unite my People.
When white students at Peekskill High School meekly stood up along with black classmates, Miss Ashante told them they could not recite the pledge and to sit down.
Melvin Bolton, a former Black Panther and city councilman who teaches music at Peekskill Middle School and advises the high school’s Black Culture Club, arranged for Miss Ashante’s appearance. Many parents were outraged by the performance. The school district sent a recorded telephone message of apology to the parents of all students in the two schools. Superintendent Judith Johnson says “you can’t do that” in a multicultural school district.
On March 14, Miss Ashante’s supporters rallied on the steps of New York’s city hall. Councilman Charles Barron, a former Black Panther, said the girl was “brave” and “outspoken in telling the truth.” He called the poem a work of “peace, power and pride about her heritage.” Councilwoman Yvette Clark called Miss Ashante “one of the most precious young talents that this world has ever known.” Other supporters are asking New York’s attorney general to investigate whether her free speech rights were violated.
The young poet, who is also an aspiring actress, doesn’t see what the fuss is about. She says her poem is meant to instill pride in blacks and prevent violence. “I was trying to tell them the straight-up truth,” she says. “I’m trying to tell them not to fight because they’re killing my brothers and sisters.” As for offending whites, Miss Ashante says, “I feel bad, but I know it was the right thing to do.” [David Andreatta, Better or Verse, New York Post, Mar. 13, 2006. Marcus Franklin, NYC Leaders Support Black Girl Who Read White Nationalism Poem, AP, Mar. 15, 2006. A Seven-Year-Old Speaks Out, The Afro American Newspaper (www.afro.com), Mar. 22, 2006.]
Coloring the News
Last November race riots shook France for weeks. Some people said part of the problem was that only whites report the news on television and that this “alienates” young blacks and Arabs. Even French president Jacques Chirac called for more non-whites on camera.
France will get its first black TV anchorman in July when Harry Roselmack of Martinique takes over the 8 pm news program on France’s main broadcast channel, TF1, while its regular host goes on vacation. The TF1 program claims to be Europe’s most popular news program, and is the main news source for many Frenchmen. TF1 says Mr. Chirac’s appeal played a part in their decision, but that they hired Mr. Roselmack mainly because “he is a very good journalist.” Mr. Roselmack began as a radio journalist, and has been reading news on cable television for all of six months. One newspaper describes him as “having the good looks of a playboy, smiling and sexy.” Mr. Roselmack is supposed to give up the job when the regular anchor returns from summer vacation, but some of his supporters are already acting as if the switch will be permanent.
Amirouche Laidi, president of Club Averroes, a pressure group for non-whites, says, “Harry Roselmack, a black man, on the TF1 evening news will be a bombshell, a huge advance. It’s also a victory for normality. . . . Pretty soon, no one will see the black man on television, only the journalist.” [John Litchfield, France Gets Its First Black TV Presenter after Chirac Pressure, Independent (London), Mar. 8, 2006.]
On March 6, the Detroit school board voted to hire 40 laid-off Detroit policemen to patrol public schools. Most teachers, like Ruby Johnson, applaud the decision. After she was robbed at gunpoint at Marquette Elementary School last summer, Miss Johnson began taking a hammer to work. “It sits comfortably next to me in my car, it sits on my desk when I get to school,” she says. “If I have to use it, I will.” Armed officers start work in late March. William Coleman, who heads Detroit Public Schools, says he hopes the extra security is only temporary. [Armed Guards to Patrol Detroit Schools, ClickOn Detroit.com, Mar. 7, 2006.]
Harvard University president Lawrence Summers resigned earlier this year, largely because he said he thought innate differences between the sexes may explain why there are fewer women in math and science. USA Today founder Al Neuharth used the occasion of Mr. Summers’s resignation to expound on what he thinks is wrong with the Ivy League: rich, white men.
After noting that Harvard’s only black governing board member resigned, leaving four white men and one white woman in charge, Mr. Neuharth wrote, “Since Harvard was founded back in 1636, it has been a haven for students from rich and/or famous, mostly Northeastern, white families. Fortunately, the Summers fiasco should make Harvard’s bosses realize that no institutions in the USA can any longer be run just by or for rich, powerful white males or their family or friends.” [Al Neuharth, Harvard Mea Culpa by Rich, White Males, USA Today (Arlington, Va.), Feb. 24, 2006, p. 13A.]
‘Snowy Peaks’
Trevor Phillips, the head of the British Commission for Race Equality, believes the top levels of the British civil service are too white. “I want to see the Civil Service start looking like the country it runs,” he says. “Of course we’ve got lots of ethnic minority civil servants but virtually all of them are in the lower grades. We coined the phrase ‘Snowy Peaks’ for the Civil Service because when you get above grade 5 they’re virtually all white. This is a disgrace. It’s not modern — the Civil Service isn’t keeping pace with the country it reckons it runs.”
Only one non-white holds a top-level civil service job, Permanent Secretary at the Department for International Development Suma Chakrabati. [Colin Brown, Civil Service’s ‘Racial Bias’ Attacked, Independent (London), Mar. 14, 2006.]
Nixing the ‘Nicas’
Costa Rica — known as the Switzerland of Central America — is the region’s whitest and most prosperous nation. It offers free medical care, invests heavily in education, and has a thriving technology sector. It also attracts illegal immigrants from neighboring Nicaragua. An estimated 180,000 “Nicas” — 4.5 percent of the population of 4,000,000 — live illegally in Costa Rica (illegals are four percent of the US population). Costa Ricans blame illegals for stealing jobs, sponging on public services, and crime. Unlike in the US, news reports often note the nationality of criminals. Alexandra Martinez, a housewife in San Jose, says, “There are a lot of Nicas here. It’s the biggest problem we face in the country.”
The country’s legislature agrees, and last year passed a new immigration law that goes into effect this August. Because Costa Rica does not have a standing army or the means to secure its 192-mile border with Nicaragua or deport all illegals (it deported only 775 last year), it will instead punish the people who profit from illegal immigration — employers and human smugglers. The new law punishes human trafficking with up to six years in prison, and fines employers of illegals $3,600 per violation (the current fine is $10). Johnny Marin, Costa Rica’s immigration director explains that “if they don’t hire illegals, the people won’t come, they won’t migrate.” [Maria Dickerson and Rebecca Kimitch, Costa Rica Seeks to Shut Its Doors to Illegal Migrants From Nicaragua, Los Angeles Times, Mar. 23, 2006.]
Birth of the Blonde
Until 10,000 to 11,000 years ago, most humans had uniformly dark hair and eyes. Genetic mutation at that time gave northern and eastern Europe the greatest diversity in hair and eye color. There are now at least seven different shades of blonde hair in Europe. Scientists have long wondered how this large variation developed in a relatively short period of time in a single geographic region.
A new study conducted by St. Andrews University in Scotland and published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior concludes that mutation occurred at the end of the Ice Age as a result of a shortage in both food and men, which left a large number of women competing for a smaller pool of mates. The researchers speculate that women in northern Europe evolved to have blonde hair and blue eyes in order to attract male attention away from the more numerous brunettes. Although the mutation was rare, the number of blondes increased rapidly because of greater opportunities to breed.
Peter Frost, a Canadian anthropologist and author of the study, says the rise of the blonde resulted from the “pressures of sexual selection on early European women.” He believes sexual selection is the only possible explanation because light hair and eyes evolved relatively quickly. “Sexual selection is particularly indicated because it is known to favor color traits,” he says.
Although early European men preferred blondes, their modern counterparts reportedly do not. Researchers at City University in London claimed last year that modern men actually respond more favorably to brunettes and redheads than blondes. They argue that the preference shift is explained by the nature of modern relations between the sexes, and that more men are now attracted to intelligent women, which to their minds means brunettes. “As the role of women has evolved, men’s expectations of women have changed,” says City University psychology professor Peter Ayton. “They are looking for more intense, equal partnerships and appearance has a large role to play.” No doubt, blondes will now start dying their hair black. [Arifa Akbar, How Women Evolved Blond Hair to Win Caveman’s Hearts, Independent (London), Feb. 27, 2006.]
Girl Gangs
According to Bridget T. Miller, coordinator of Washington, DC’s Youth Gang Task Force, there are more than 270 girls gangs in the District of Columbia. They are increasing both in numbers and violence. “Nobody wanted to acknowledge it,” she says, “because they thought it was just a short trend, but they failed to realize how dangerous a female can be.”
Pretty dangerous, according to Ronald Moten, founder of an anti-gang violence group called Peacoholics. “Girls are getting beat with crowbars, they’ve got knives, they get stabbed and cut. One girl got killed leaving a club in Southeast [Washington], a female got shot by another female.” Authorities say girl gang members — which can include homosexual boys — prefer knives, bats and stun guns to firearms, at least for now. Coco, a 17-year-old in northeast Washington, explains how girl gang fights start: “One person will bump you, mug you, put their middle finger up to you, then we’ll start fighting. Fistfights, brick fights, bats — whatever they feel like they can whoop you with, they’ll get.”
Girl gangs help explain the jump in court cases involving young women. In 2004, in Washington, DC, the number of girls arraigned for violent offenses was 322, a 43 percent increase over 2003. The overall number of cases involving girls as criminal perpetrators jumped from 445 in 2003 to 571 in 2004. This appears to be a a nationwide trend. From 1995 to 2004, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, the number of women in state and federal prisons grew by five percent per year, while the number of men grew by an average of 3.3 percent. [Gary Emerling, No More Sugar and Spice: Girls Gangs on Rise in D.C., Washington Times, Mar. 30, 2006.]
Detroit’s Long Shadow
Last month, we reported that police in New Castle, Pennsylvania, were struggling to control drug dealers from Detroit. Other Ohio Valley cities, including Huntington, West Virginia, have the same problem.
Huntington was once a way-station along the “Hillbilly Highway” that many Appalachian whites took when they headed north for better jobs in the auto plants of Detroit. These days the traffic has reversed, bringing drug dealers and violence to what were once peaceful communities.
Huntington police are still trying to solve a quadruple murder of four teenagers last year. Drug dealers suspected the intended victim, 19-year-old Donte Ward, of stealing from them, and killed the three others so as to leave no witnesses. “We believe, obviously, that there’s a Detroit connection,” says police Capt. Steve Hall. Huntington police have arrested more than 250 Detroit crack dealers and hardly any locals. “That’s just the adults we’ve caught,” says narcotics detective Paul Hunter. “There are more. Lots more.”
Police say Detroit dealers operate most of the 30 or so crack dens in Huntington. They like the city of 50,000 because there is less competition than in Detroit, which means they can sell drugs at inflated prices. Detroit dealers call Huntington “Moneyton,” and the nearby city of Ashland, Ky., which has similar problems, “Cashland.” [Milan Simonich, Detroit Dealers Invade West Virginia Town, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Mar. 19, 2006.]
