O Tempora, O Mores! (April, 2011)
American Renaissance, April 2011
Ciudad Juarez, just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, used to be a city of 1.4 million people. Now it is dying. During 2010, it had an estimated 3,000 murders, making it one of the most dangerous places on earth. As many as 230,000 people are thought to have fled in fear, as the Juarez and Sinaloa drug cartels battle for control of what was once a bustling border town.
An estimated 6,000 businesses closed that year, and many that remain pay protection money. One wholesaler explained that in September 2009 he got a visit from a group of enforcers from the Juarez Cartel, along with corrupt soldiers and police officers who work with them. They told him he would have to pay 4,000 pesos — about $330 — every week if he wanted to stay in business. “They came to see me in a very friendly way,” he reports. “Everyone is paying. Those who aren’t paying are out of business, even dead.”
Every week, the businessman gets a call in a distorted voice that gives him a bank account number. He takes cash where he is told and makes a deposit. As people cleared out of Juarez and business got worse, the enforcers kindly reduced his weekly payment to about $205. The protection racket is so widespread it now has a name: cobras del piso or “floor charges.”
The Mexican Army has taken to going door to door to see how many people have left the city, but many residents don’t answer the knock. They are afraid soldiers will shake them down, just as criminals do.
In many cases, it is easy to tell who has left town. Once people are gone, vandals strip a house of everything of value — even the light fixtures — and leave the yard filled with garbage. Many closed businesses have been torched.
Not surprisingly, those who can are moving across the river to El Paso, where there were only three violent deaths in 2010 — and a single murder-suicide accounted for two of them. [Will Weissert, Countless Juarez Residents Flee ‘Dying City,’ MSNBC, Dec. 29, 2010.]
In the meantime, the town of Guadalupe, about 40 miles to the southeast, is without a police force, after the last officer, Erika Gandara was kidnapped. Drug criminals burned down her house before they made off with her. Everyone else on the force had either been killed or ran away. Not far off is the hamlet of Praxedis Guadalupe Guerreror, where a 20-year-old college student got the job of police chief because no one else wanted it. [No Police in Mexico Town After Last Officer Kidnapped, BBC News, Dec. 28, 2010.]
Iranian Ire
Major General Hassan Firouzabadi, Chief of Staff of Iran’s military forces, sounds like an Ivy-Leaguer. In an address in late February, he said:
Today, Americans are the symbol of paradox and hypocrisy when it comes to the campaign against racism in the world. They are trying to brand themselves as the flag-bearer of democracy and human rights in the world but . . . Americans are the flag-bearers of modern racism. Although the US claims to be supporting democracy and human rights in the world, they have ignored the inalienable rights of a major segment of the country’s population due to racism. The poor and the black are second-class citizens . . .
He cited the response to Hurricane Katrina as evidence of the US government’s alleged hostility to blacks. [Commander Lambasts Modern Racism in US, FARS News Agency, Feb. 27, 2011.]
In January, security officers denied four Sikhs entry to the Quebec “national” assembly because they were carrying kirpans, six-inch long ceremonial daggers which Sikh men wear at all times and consider an object of faith rather than a weapon. The men were to testify about “reasonable accommodations” for cultural beliefs, including the wearing of veils by Muslim women. To the guards, the knives were weapons, not religious objects, and they kept the Sikhs out.
Sikhs across the country were outraged. Navdeep Bains, a Sikh member of the Canadian parliament from the left-wing Liberal Party denounced the action as “un-Canadian.” “I’ve worn my kirpan to the Supreme Court, I’ve even gone to the U.S. Congress and met with officials there and had no problems,” he says. “So I don’t see what the issue is.” Quebec’s Parti Quebecois, which controls the national assembly, says it’s just a security precaution, and that the federal parliament in Ottawa would be well-advised to adopt the same policy.
In 2006, however, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled 8-0 that a Sikh student in Montreal could carry a kirpan to school, that it was not a weapon, and barring it would violate guarantees of freedom of religion. [Mike de Souza, Bloc Proposal to Ban Sikh Kirpans in Parliament Called ‘Un-Canadian,’ National Post, Jan. 19, 2011.]
Fear or Hope?
British “anti-racists” are fretting over a recent poll that found 48 percent of the population would consider voting for an “anti-immigration English nationalist party” so long as it eschewed “violence and fascist imagery.” Among the positions voters say they would support: taking on Islamic extremism, drastically reducing immigration, and passing laws requiring public buildings to fly the English flag or the Union Jack. The poll suggests that Britain may be even more receptive to nationalism than those European countries where nationalist parties are strongest, including Denmark, Holland and Austria.
The Searchlight Educational Trust, the hard-left “anti-racist” group that commissioned the poll, says that if nationalist movements have not done well in Britain “it is not because British people are more moderate, but simply because their views have not found a political articulation.”
Interestingly enough, 39 percent of “Asian Britons,” 34 percent of “white Britons” and 21 percent of “black Britons” want all immigration into the UK stopped permanently, or at least until the economy improves. Sixty-three percent of British whites, 43 percent of Asians (which in Britain means Indians and Pakistanis), and 17 percent of blacks agree with the statement that “immigration into Britain has been a bad thing for the country.” Just over half of respondents — 52 percent — agree that “Muslims create problems in the UK.”
The poll also has some on the left worried that the country may be seeing a “resurgence of English identity.” The evidence? Thirty-nine percent of respondents prefer to call themselves English rather than British, and just 5 percent call themselves European. Left-wing Labour MP Jon Cruddas, who campaigned against the British National Party in East London, worries that the poll has uncovered a “very real threat of a new potent political constituency built around an assertive English nationalism.” [Mark Townsend, Searchlight Poll Finds Huge Support for Far Right ‘If They Gave Up Violence,’ Guardian (London), Feb. 26, 2011.]
Adios, Texas
Demographer Steve Murdock, former director of the US Census Bureau and current director of the Hobby Center for the Study of Texas at Rice University in Houston, doesn’t see much of a future for white people in Texas. Speaking before the state House Mexican American Legislative Caucus, Mr. Murdock noted that two out of every three Texas children are already non-white and that this trend is accelerating. His conclusion? “It’s basically over for Anglos.”
The population of Texas consists of two groups: a shrinking number of rapidly aging whites and a growing number of young non-whites. Harris County, home to Houston, the fourth-largest city in the US, is shedding whites in droves, and will have half a million fewer in 2040 than it did in 2000. At the same time, its Hispanic population will have increased by 2.5 million. Statewide, the proportion of white school children will continue to decline, and is expected to reach 20 percent by 2040, down from 33.3 percent in 2010. Mr. Murdock projects Hispanic enrollment in Texas public schools to have increased 213 percent between 2000 and 2040. Many of these students will be children of illegal aliens; Mr. Murdock estimates that illegals are six percent of the state’s population.
Mr. Murdock doesn’t seem to see much of a future for Texas, either, given the low education and income levels of Hispanics. Unless trends reverse, he says that 30 percent of the state’s workforce in 2040 will not have finished high school, and that average household income will be $6,500 lower than it was in 2000 — in real 2000 dollars, not inflated 2040 dollars. “It’s a terrible situation that you are in,” he told his Hispanic audience. “I am worried.” [Texas Demographer: ‘It’s Basically Over for Anglos,’ Houston Chronicle, Feb. 24, 2011.]
Colorado, Too
According to new data from the US Census Bureau, Colorado is becoming increasingly “diverse.” In 2000, “non-Hispanic whites” were 75 percent of the state’s population. Ten years later, the figure was 70 percent, while Hispanics went from 17 to 21 percent. The number of blacks and Asians has also increased. Fifty-eight of the state’s 64 counties saw their proportion of white residents fall, meaning “diversity” isn’t coming only to cities.
Three counties, Garfield, Arapahoe, and Adams, saw their white percentages drop by more than 10 percent, and the city of Aurora became the first Colorado city with a minority majority: 53 percent. Denver was expected to join Aurora as a majority non-white city, but whites hung on at 52 percent.
In 2000, 66 percent of Coloradans under 18 were white. In 2010, only 58 percent were white, and their actual numbers declined by 3 percent. [John Ingold, Census: Colorado’s Population Substantially More Diverse, Denver Post, Feb. 24, 2011.]
Good Sense on the Bench
On October 12, 2007, the Carmike Cineplex in Dover, Delaware, was showing a popular “black-themed” movie, “Why Did I Get Married?” on three screens simultaneously. The audiences were large and overwhelmingly black. There were security guards checking ticket stubs. Before the film began, a message appeared on the screens asking patrons to turn off their cell phones, and in the largest of the three theaters, the manager, David Stewart, who is white, made the same announcement in person. Some blacks in the audience thought Mr. Stewart’s tone was “offensive and condescending, as if he were speaking to children,” and, since the crowd was heavily black, they thought he was implying that blacks don’t know how to behave in a theater.
One of the offended happened to be Juana Fuentes-Bowles, then-director of Delaware’s Human Relations Division. She stood up and announced that she was a lawyer and began taking the names of people who said they were offended by Mr. Stewart’s “racism.” She did not identify herself by title. A member of her staff then contacted the 33 offended patrons and drew up a complaint that was filed with the state’s Human Relations Commission — which was part of the division she headed. Miss Fuentes-Bowles name was on the original complaint, but she later took it off so it would not be a “distraction.”
In 2008, a three-member panel of the commission ruled that the announcement violated Delaware’s equal access law, (even though everyone in the theater was able to see the movie), because the “circumstances were hostile and one that any reasonable person would find objectionable.” It awarded each offended patron $1,500, fined the theater $5,000, and ordered it to pay more than $20,000 in attorney’s fees and costs.
The theater appealed, and on February 22 the Delaware Supreme Court threw out the commission’s ruling. The court concluded that the announcement — which was part of a since-discontinued company protocol for sold-out movies — was “reasonable” and “non-racial” in its intent, noting that the manager had made the same announcement to a largely teen-aged audience watching a horror movie the week before. The court also accepted the theater’s explanation that extra security was needed because of a recent robbery, and that staff checked ticket stubs to make sure patrons of three sold-out showings went to the right theater so everyone could have a seat.
Miss Fuentes-Bowles, who has left the Human Rights Division, could not be reached for comment. Christopher R. Portante, a spokesman for the Delaware Department of State, which oversees the Human Relations Commission, said the department “stands behind” the commission’s original ruling. [Sean O’Sullivan, Delaware Supreme Court Overturns Cinema Ruling, News Journal (Wilmington), Feb. 23, 2011.]
Washington’s Legacy
In 2000, the census counted 163,036 people with the surname “Washington,” 90 percent of whom are black. This is the highest black percentage for any common American name. Indeed, most Americans today assume anyone named Washington is probably black, which has led to complaints about “discrimination” from white Washingtons. Many people mistakenly assume that blacks named Washington are descended from George Washington’s slaves. In fact, the first president did not give slaves his own surname, and most freedmen simply chose for themselves.
For example, Booker T. Washington, was not one of Washington’s slaves, nor was he owned by a family named Washington. Born on a Virginia plantation, he had always just been called Booker. He wrote in his autobiography that when he first went to school, he noticed that other black children had last names and chose Washington.
Adam Goodheart, a professor at Washington College, says the choice of Washington reflected pride in American history. He continues: “That they [former slaves] would embrace the name of this person who was an imperfect hero shows there was a certain understanding of this country as an imperfect place, an imperfect experiment, and a willingness to embrace that tradition of liberty with all its contradictions.” (Editors note: This sounds like nonsense. Blacks probably chose the names of people they had heard spoken of admiringly.)
The name Washington has been black for a long time. Censuses conducted between 1880 and 1930 found that the black percentage was between 82 to 94 percent. The 2000 census found that Jefferson is the second-“blackest” name at 70 percent. Fifty-three percent of the people named Jackson are black. The most common name among blacks — 716,704 had this name — was Williams, but it was only the 16th “blackest.” Interestingly, the name Black is 68 percent white, and the name White is 19 percent black. [Jesse Washington, Washington: The ‘Blackest Name’ in America, AP, Feb. 21, 2011.]
According to a study by the Institute of International Education, although whites are just 63 percent of college enrollments they account for 81 percent of the students who study overseas. Blacks, who are 13.5 percent of college students and Hispanics, 12 percent, are just 4.2 percent and 6 percent, respectively. Peggy Blumenthal, executive vice president of the Institute of International Education, wants this to change. “It’s really a matter of persuading young students of color that this is possible for them and this is necessary for them,” she says. The institute also claims that foreign study is “crucial” to student development and even a “key to national security.”
Why don’t non-whites study abroad? Experts say some of the reasons are lack of funds, fear of “racism,” worries about delaying graduation, and the fact that non-whites are less likely to know anyone who has traveled internationally. (Presumably hopping the border does not count.) [Kathy Matheson, Educators Seek Out More Minorities to Study Abroad, AP, Feb. 21, 2011.]
