O Tempora, O Mores! (August, 2008)
American Renaissance, August 2008
County 1, UN 0
Last month we reported that Doudou Diene, a UN “human rights investigator,” is in the US hunting for “racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance.” The UN also had plans to send a “special rapporteur on migrants’ rights” to Prince William County, Virginia (a DC suburb), to make sure its well-publicized crackdown on illegal immigration didn’t hurt anyone’s feelings. The “special rapporteur” is Jorge Bustamante, who teaches sociology at Notre Dame. He is a native Mexican, so can be trusted to be objective. The US Civil Right Commission is interested in the county, too. Last December it sent a panel to sniff around but has yet to report findings.
What are the county’s suspected crimes? Nothing more than having police look into legal status whenever they stop someone, and requiring them to turn illegals over to the feds. Many illegals have cleared out even without a conversation with the police, much to the county’s benefit. A study released in June found the crime rate had decreased 19.6 percent from 2006 to 2007. Homicides were down 43.8 percent, robberies 22.5 percent, and aggravated assaults 18.2 percent. County Chairman Corey Stewart explains that “as illegal immigrants are leaving, our crime rates are decreasing.” He might have added that violent crime in particular is way down.
Nancy Lyall of the illegal immigrant support group Mexicans Without Borders says there has been a drop only in reported crime, not actual crime. “There are a lot of crimes unreported [now] because immigrants are afraid of going to the police,” she insists. If that were true, it would be another argument for the county’s policy. Legal county residents are not likely to be attacking and killing illegals; other illegals are, and the sooner they leave the quicker things will improve. Neighboring Fairfax County, by contrast, which is a “sanctuary” in which the police do not enforce immigration laws, saw its crime rate rise by 6 percent during the same period. This is all too much for the Virginia branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, whose executive director calls Prince William’s policy “a model of what not to do when it comes to addressing immigrant issues at a local level.”
So what about special rapporteur Bustamente? County Chairman Stewart says he’s willing to talk to him even though he is not a fan of the UN: “They’ve got a history of trying to embarrass the United States while turning a blind eye to the regimes that are actually not just committing human-rights abuses, but engaged in genocide.”
It looks as though Mr. Stewart will not have the pleasure. About a week after announcing his visit, Mr. Bustamante suddenly canceled it, saying only that “something unexpected of extreme gravity” had come up, and that he hoped to come later. It seems likely that senior UN officials pulled the plug, and that Virginia Congressman Frank Wolf had something to do with it. He threatened to cut off US aid to the UN, and warned the secretary general, “Do not send somebody from the United Nations here.” [Dan Genz, UN Official to Visit Prince William to Study Illegal-immigration Policy, Washington Examiner, June 5, 2008. Dan Genz, UN Human Rights Official Cancels Pr. William Visit, Washington Examiner, June 11, 2003. David Sherfinski, Pr. William Officials Say Crackdown on Illegals Reason for Crime Decline, Washington Examiner, June 30, 2008.]
Constructing Diversity
Philadelphia has been trying to expand its convention center for years, but the project is mired in two kinds of politics: Race and unions. Unions are strong in Philadelphia, and the city government wants to use union labor, but the unions are virtually all white while the city is majority black. The city council demanded that the unions give 35 percent of the construction jobs to non-whites, and threatened to open the project to non-union bids if they would not. The unions refused, and the standoff has delayed the project for two years and driven up costs by $20 million.
In June, unions and city reached a compromise. The 35 percent target became a non-binding “aspirational” goal, and the mayor will establish a commission to study the “challenges and barriers” faced by non-white and women contractors. [Jane M. Von Bergen, Topic: Construction Diversity, Philadelphia Inquirer, June 25, 2008.]
Licensing Pride
Florida offers drivers more than 100 specialty license plates. They express support for such things as the boy scouts, tennis, soccer, or efforts to preserve lighthouses or the manatee. Others promote colleges or sports teams. A few are controversial, like the one that says “Choose Life.” Blacks have a plate that honors Martin Luther King, and there is one that boosts American Indians. The Sons of Confederate Veterans are trying to get a plate that promotes “Confederate Heritage.”
If the National Hispanic Corporate Achievers — a group that organizes job fairs for Hispanics — has its way, there will be soon one more. They want an image of a Spanish galleon along with the words “Hispanics discovered Florida.” [Victor Manuel Ramos, Proposed License Plate states ‘Hispanics Discovered Florida,’ Orlando Sentinel, June 26, 2008.]
Conquistadors are not what most people associate with the word “Hispanic.” We suspect white Spaniards might not even be welcome at the group’s job fairs for “Hispanics,” but even whites can be honorary Hispanics if it boosts brown pride.
Blacks celebrate Juneteenth as a holiday in commemoration of Union General Gordon Granger’s arrival on June 19, 1865 in Galveston, where he announced the abolition of slavery in Texas. The day has become increasingly popular among blacks, some of whom call it Emancipation Day. Twenty-nine states recognize it as an official but not a legal holiday, which means they do not shut down the government. Efforts are underway to make Juneteenth a federal holiday.
The Juneteenth frolics that are spreading across the country have taken on a certain character. In Minneapolis, for example, the backer says Juneteenth is all about “healing,” and that seems to be exactly what is needed. Violence during the 2006 party left one 18-year-old man shot to death. This year’s party was more successful: No one was killed, and only three people were wounded — none seriously — when the shooting stopped. [3 Injured in Shooting at Juneteenth Festival, AP, June 22, 2008.]
Then and Now
In 1958, Time magazine ran an article about black crime that is a little franker than anything it would publish today, but the reality it describes is unchanged:
They are afraid to say so in public, but many of the North’s big-city mayors groan in private that their biggest and most worrisome problem is the crime rate among Negroes.
In 1,551 U.S. cities, according to the FBI tally for 1956, Negroes, making up 10% of the U.S. population, accounted for about 30% of all arrests, and 60% of the arrests for crimes involving violence or threat of bodily harm — murder, non-negligent manslaughter, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. In one city after another, the figures — where they are not hidden or suppressed by politicians — reveal a shocking pattern. . . .
The article goes on to report crime statistics for Detroit, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, but notes the existence of what it calls a “conspiracy of concealment:” “In many cities, Negro leaders and organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People put pressure on politicians, city officials and newspapers to play down the subject. Fearing loss of Negro votes, few elected officials dare to resist the pressures.”
The article then adds something that sounds entirely up to date: “The number of Negroes [arrested] is at least partially indicative of subconscious if not conscious racial persecution on the part of police officers,” said Charles Wartman, editor of the black weekly Michigan Chronicle.
Time’s conclusion shows that in 50 years liberals have learned nothing: “Negroes are more prone than whites to break the laws, rules and customs of society because they are excluded from full membership in it. In gross and subtle ways, from unwritten bans on employing Negroes to the faintly patronizing tone that even liberal-hearted whites take toward them, Negroes are made to feel alien and inferior.” [The Negro Crime Rate: A Failure of Integration, Time, April 21, 1958.]
The Law is an Ass
American law schools are accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA), which uses this power to advance pet projects. One of its favorites is “diversity;” it insists law schools should produce more non-white lawyers. Schools with too many white students therefore risk having their accreditation pulled, which means students would not qualify for federal financial aid and, in many jurisdictions, would not even be allowed to take the bar exam.
In 2000, an ABA reaccreditation inspection uncovered a scandal at George Mason University Law School in northern Virginia: 93.5 percent of first-year students were white. The ABA conceded that GMU had made a “very active effort to recruit minorities,” but that was insufficient because the school was unwilling “to engage in any significant preferential affirmative action admissions program.” In other words, GMU would not bend the admissions rules for non-whites. With its accreditation at stake, GMU relaxed standards and admitted more non-whites: 10.98 percent in 2001 and 16.16 percent in 2002. That wasn’t good enough for the ABA. In 2003 it summoned GMU’s president and law school dean and threatened them personally with disaccreditation. GMU slashed standards even further, and managed to raise its non-white admissions to 17.3 percent in 2003, and 19 percent in 2004. Still not good enough. “Of the 99 minority students in 2003,” the ABA complained, “only 23 were African American; of 111 minority students in 2004, the number of African Americans held at 23.” Hispanics and Asians aren’t good enough for the ABA. It wants blacks.
And what of the blacks GMU did admit? From 2003 to 2005, fully 45 percent had grade-point averages below 2.15, which is defined as “academic failure.” For non-blacks, the figure was 4 percent. GMU officials point out that the ABA’s own Standard 501(b) says that “a law school shall not admit applicants who do not appear capable of satisfactorily completing its educational program and being admitted to the bar.” As the law school’s dean Dan Polsby explains, “Adhering to this principle is the greatest obstacle to our efforts to increase the diversity of the George Mason student body.” [Andy Guess, Diversity Meets Data at George Mason Law, Inside Higher Ed, June 26, 2008. Gail Heriot, The ABA’s ‘Diversity ‘ Diktat, Wall Street Journal, April 28, 2008.]
A Story Worth Following
Dallas Cowboy linebacker DeMarcus Ware and his wife Taniqua have adopted a baby girl, whom they have named Marley, after the Jamaican reggae singer Bob Marley. The Wares are black but Marley is white. How did they end up with a white baby? The father of one of Mr. Ware’s acquaintances runs a ministry for women, one of whom wanted to put her baby up for adoption. These days it would impolite for a journalist to ask why Mr. Ware, who could have had his pick of black babies, chose a white, so that question remains unanswered. It will be interesting to see how baby Marley fares with her new family. [Greg Bishop, Cowboys’ Ware Fulfills a Challenge for Fatherhood, New York Times, June 15, 2008.]
For years, demographers have been telling the Japanese that declining birthrates will drive them extinct, and that they need immigrants. The Japanese don’t like immigrants, and the government has respected their wishes, but this may change.
A panel put together by the ruling party has recommended to Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda that Japan take in more immigrants and refugees. “We think it would be appropriate for Japan to accept immigrants to make up 10 percent of the population over the next 50 years,” the report says. “Japan is an island country situated in the Far East, and seen as having a relatively homogeneous population, so some say it is not suited to accepting immigrants, It is a fact that we have less experience of immigration than do Europe and America. But we are facing harsh times.”
Japan is already bringing in foreigners to care for old people. It recently signed an Economic Partnership Agreement with Indonesia that will let in hundreds of nurses and nursing home attendants. [Japan Must Boost Immigration — Ruling Party Panel, Reuters, June 13, 2008.]
Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca makes no bones about it: “We have a serious interracial violence problem in this county involving blacks and Latinos.” He is taking direct aim at Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton when he says, “Some people deny it. . . . [T]he problem, they say, is not one of blacks versus Latinos and Latinos versus blacks but merely one of gang members killing other gang members. But they’re wrong. The truth is that, in many cases, race is at the heart of the problem. Latino gang members shoot blacks not because they’re members of a rival gang but because of their skin color. Likewise, black gang members shoot Latinos because they are brown.”
Chief Bratton and his deputies claim that gangs — which they only grudgingly concede are race-based — are just fighting over turf and drugs. LAPD Deputy Chief Charlie Beck says Sheriff Baca’s views are warped because he runs Los Angeles County’s lockups, where racial violence is widespread. “I think you have to look at violence on several different levels,” he says. “In the world of serious gang crime in the city — which accounts for the vast majority of gang activity in the county — race is not the primary factor. Are there isolated instances? Yes. But are gang members commonly going around to kill and harm people because they are another race? Absolutely not.”
A recent federal prosecution of Hispanic gang members supports the sheriff’s view. In 2007, members of Florencia 13 were convicted of using violence to drive blacks out of the Florence-Firestone section of Los Angeles.
Black lawyer and activist Connie Rice explains the sheriff’s thinking. “We need to examine this issue in the light of day to keep it from spreading because we won’t be able to address or reverse it, if we deny it,” she says. And why does Chief Bratton play down race? “Chief Bratton [fears that] . . . if you overemphasize race, you may be pouring jet fuel on the fire.” [Andrew Blankstein and Joel Rubin, Bratton and Baca Disagree on Role of Race in Gang Violence, Los Angeles Times, June 13, 2008. Lee Baca, In LA, Race Kills, Los Angeles Times, June 12, 2008.]
Honesty from the Bench
Judge Bob Moon is a criminal court judge in Chattanooga, Tennessee. On June 27, he told a woman who had been assaulted that crime in Chattanooga “has become so rampant that it is no longer possible for the police department to protect our citizens,” and advised her to “purchase a weapon, obtain a gun permit and learn to protect yourself.” [Judge Advises Crime Victim to Arm Herself after Attack, Chattanoogan.com, June 27, 2008.]
Fashion impresario Franca Sozzani, editor of the Italian version of Vogue, has decided to feature only black models in the July 2008 issue. Much of the inspiration for the issue came from being in the US during the Super Tuesday Democratic primary in February, when Barack Obama took the momentum from Hillary Clinton. “We saw something was changing, so we said, ‘why don’t we try to do the same?’” She also says she was getting tired of models with “blonde hair and long legs” who “all look alike,” adding that she wanted to “offer space to another type of beauty.”
Black models are not usually on the covers of fashion magazines in Italy or anywhere else, since publishers don’t want to scare off white subscribers, but Miss Sozzani thinks the senator from Illinois may have changed this. “A precise choice like this one always has its risks,” she says. “People can like it or they can hate it. I personally think they will like it . . . Obama’s ‘wave’ has also been felt over here.” [Vogue Italy Launches All-Black Issue, National Nine News (Australia), June 29, 2008.]
