O Tempora, O Mores! (May, 2011)
American Renaissance, May 2011
Life Sentence
A twenty-something Chinese woman living in Brooklyn was “Juror No. 799” in the jury pool for the murder trial of reputed mob boss Vincent “Vinny Gorgeous” Basciano. When she filled out her juror questionnaire, the woman was either very honest, or very foolish. In response to a question asking her to name three people she least admired, she wrote, “African-Americans, Hispanics and Haitians.” When federal judge Nicholas Garaufis asked her why she answered that way, the woman replied, “You always hear about them in the news doing something.” The judge pointed out that in her questionnaire she had mentioned an uncle who was a member of a Chinese gang and was serving a life sentence for murder. He asked why she didn’t therefore include Asians on her list of least-liked people. “Maybe I should have,” she replied. The woman also said New York City police officers were “lazy,” and use their sirens to avoid traffic jams. “This is an outrage, and so are you!” declared Judge Garaufis.
If the woman wrote “racist” comments to avoid being selected for jury duty, her plan backfired. The judge ordered her to report for jury duty each day “until the future, when I am ready to dismiss her.” [John Marzulli, Judge Gives ‘Juror No. 799’ Indefinite Jury Duty after She Makes Racist Remarks on Questionnaire, New York Daily News, April 6, 2011.]
Immigrant Welfare Use
A recent report by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) using 2010 census data found that immigrant households with children are using more welfare than US natives. Fifty-seven percent of illegal immigrant households with children and 56 percent of legal immigrant households with children use at least one welfare program while only 39 percent of US natives with children do. The highest rates of immigrant welfare use are in Arizona (62 percent); Texas, California, and New York (61 percent); Pennsylvania (59 percent); Minnesota and Oregon (56 percent); and Colorado (55 percent). CIS also noted that the biggest spongers are from the Dominican Republic (82 percent) and Mexico and Guatemala (75 percent) while those least likely to have a foot in the public trough are from the United Kingdom (7 percent), India (19 percent), Canada (23 percent), and Korea (25 percent).
While many new legal immigrants cannot use welfare for the first five years, CIS found that many immigrants receive benefits because they have either been in the country more than five years, use programs the ban does not apply to, or get welfare through their US-born children. [Steven A. Camarota, Welfare Use by Immigrant Households with Children: A Look at Cash, Medicaid, Housing, and Food Programs, Center for Immigration Studies: Backgrounders and Reports, April 2011.]
Kansas Immigration Bill
Kansas State Representative Lance Kinzer (R-Olathe) proposed an Arizona-style immigration bill in March that would require citizenship checks on new employees, anyone seeking public aid, and anyone the police think may be an illegal. When the bill went before the Kansas House Judiciary Committee, Lana Reed, a former bilingual specialist at the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, testified that illegal immigrants used false documents when applying for welfare benefits and that her employers told employees to “turn a blind eye” to fraud.
Opponents argued that the bill would stretch police departments too thin, make it hard for businesses to hire workers, and be a headache for providers of medical services. Although Secretary of State Kris Kobach insisted that the bill would save the state millions of dollars, it was defeated by a Republican-majority house. [Steve Kraske, Former Kansas Welfare Worker say Illegal Immigrants Abused the System, Kansas City Star, March 10, 2011.]
According to new census data, the white population of the San Francisco Bay-area declined by 185,000 between 2000 and 2010, while the population of Asian and Hispanics rose. “I’m not surprised,” says Michelle McGurk, spokesman for San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed. “When I go to a third-grade classroom what I see is totally different than in 1995 or 2000.” There are 150,000 fewer white children living in the Bay area than ten years ago — and 34,000 fewer black children. At the same time, there are 100,000 more Hispanic children, and 50,000 more Asian children.
The number of white children declined in all but two of California’s 58 counties, and not just because whites have few children. Many white families left the state. Why? Dowell Myers, a demographer at the University of Southern California, blames the high cost of housing. He says whites want to own a single-family home by the time they are 30 whereas Hispanics and Asians are willing to cram more people into a house and share expenses. [Aaron Glantz, Census: Whites Leaving Bay Area, Bay Citizen (San Francisco), March 30, 2011.]
White Noise
Music may soothe the savage breast, but if it doesn’t, Portland, Oregon police hope it will at least get the savages to move along. Since November, the transit department has been playing classical music at train stations as a way to stop undesirables from loitering and prevent crimes that occur “when people just hang around.” Portland police lieutenant John Scruggs had heard of the effects of classical music in other cities and thought it might work.
Lt. Scruggs says it’s too early to be sure, but the music appears to be doing its job. Oregon legislators are pushing a bill through the state house that would pipe classical music into other crime-plagued transit stops in the greater Portland area.
The effect of classical music can be defeated. Police in West Palm Beach, Florida, tried to keep people from loitering in front of an abandoned downtown building but gave up on the “Bach, Beethoven-type of stuff” after a just a few weeks. Criminals destroyed the speakers.
In Britain, police chase away trouble with a device called the Mosquito, which emits a high-frequency sound that adults can’t hear because of age-related hearing loss but hurts the ears of young people. [Nigel Duara, Oregon Cops Hope Classical Music Deters Loiterers, AP, April 2, 2011.]
All black-themed television, including Black Entertainment Television, requires a cable subscription. A new network, Atlanta-based Bounce TV, hopes to change that by offering over-the-airwaves broadcasts aimed at black audiences. “We are basically targeting the rabbit-ear consumer,” says Ryan Glover, formerly with Turner Broadcasting. He wants to “fill the void for people who are hungry for more African-American related programming, stories, characters, sports and events.”
Bounce TV, which plans to start broadcasting in the fall, will target blacks aged 25 to 54 with syndicated shows and movies and, of course, sports. Bounce has signed a deal to air football and basketball games from the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association, the country’s largest black athletic conference. As it grows, it hopes to add original content and eventually reach half the nation’s 100 million households.
Bounce founders include Martin Luther King III and former Atlanta mayor and UN ambassador Andrew Young. [Errin Haines, Network Aimed at Black Audience Announced for Fall, AP, April 6, 2011.]
Yellow-on-Yellow
On February 6, in eastern Los Angeles County, a Chinese man walked into a Korean restaurant to order take-out food. Seven Korean men were eating there and one approached him, asking if he was Korean. The man said he was Chinese, picked up his order, and left. The Koreans followed him outside where they beat and kicked him, leaving him with cuts and bruises all over his body and a large cut on the top of his head that required medical staples. The Koreans, who the police say attacked “for no apparent reason,” also damaged the victim’s car and stole his wallet and GPS device. Police later arrested four men who say they are members of the Korean street gang, Asian Mafia Assassins. The DA charged them with robbery, assault, and hate crimes. [Chinese American Man Beaten by Korean Americans in Alleged Hate-Crime Attack, Authorities Say, Los Angeles Times, Feb. 24, 2011.]
Pirate Proposal
Back in February, Somali pirates seized the yacht of the Johansen family of Copenhagen, Denmark, as it sailed through the Gulf of Aden. Father Jans, mother Birgit, sons Rune and Hjalte, and 13-year-old daughter Naja now share quarters with other hostages on board another seized vessel, the Panamanian-flagged cargo ship Dover. The pirates are demanding a $5 million ransom in exchange for the Johansens, but their chief told Danish reporter Kristian Kornoe he would let the family go free if they let him marry 13-year-old Naja. Mr. Kornoe was unable to speak to the Johansens, but he did see them. “The family is tired and angry,” he said. “The smell is unbearable . . . it is hot, the water is filthy.”
“The offer of marriage was simply a way of applying psychological pressure, a show of force,” says Danish psychologist Henrik Ljung. “It’s an extremely effective tool if you want to raise money.” [Somali Pirate Offers to Release Danish Family in Exchange For Hand of Daughter, 13, Daily Mail (London), March 28, 2011.]
Inundated
Thanks to its open-door immigration policy, the British Labour Party, which governed from 1997 to 2010, presided over the largest population explosion in Britain since the Saxon invasions during the Dark Ages. The British think tank MigrationWatch has found that 3.2 million foreigners — about one a minute — immigrated to Britain under Labour. That figure does not even include illegals, one million of whom are suspected to be in the UK.
Sir Andrew Green, chairman of MigrationWatch, says, “This has been a clear failure of democracy due in large part to the Left’s deliberate tactic of stifling reasoned debate with accusations of racism. In the years to come, immigration will be seen as Labour’s great betrayal,” adding, “The sheer scale of what has occurred is changing Britain fundamentally and irrevocably and in ways the majority of the population did not ask for, were not consulted about and did not wish to see.”
Labour calls the report “unbalanced, misleading and highly political” and says there was a lot of immigration because Labour strengthened the British economy. Labour’s own think tank report from last year contradicts this, acknowledging that “immigration under New Labour has changed the face of the country.”
Of the 3.2 million foreigners, 80 percent are from outside the EU, and most are non-white. [James Slack, How Three Million Migrants Came to UK Under Labour in Biggest Population Growth Since Saxon Times, Daily Mail (London), Feb. 22, 2011.]
