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O Tempora, O Mores! (December, 2001)

Cincinnati Smoldering

On September 26, Cincinnati police officer Stephen Roach was found innocent of negligent homicide and obstructing official business, in connection with the shooting death of Timothy Thomas. The shooting prompted three days of rioting, and Officer Roach became the first Cincinnati police officer ever to be prosecuted for fatally shooting a suspect. Hamilton County Municipal Judge Ralph E. Winkler said Officer Roach shot Thomas in a “split-second reaction to a very dangerous situation that was created by Mr. Thomas,” and that Officer Roach believed he must either shoot or be shot by a suspect who fled from police and acted suspiciously in a dark alley in a high-crime neighborhood at two in the morning.

The judge’s decision angered blacks. Rev. Damon Lynch, III complained, “The officer clearly took a man’s life unjustifiably, and now he walks.” Ronald Dixon predicted more violence: “It’s about to be round two up here,” he said. “I wish there was a better way. But people are mad.” Sporadic violence did break out in Cincinnati’s black Over-the-Rhine-neighborhood, but city officials contained further outbreaks by ordering a city-wide curfew for the two nights following the verdict.

The verdict has by no means brought to an end the U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation of the Cincinnati police department for civil rights violations. Despite a $17 million budget deficit, the city agreed to pay black (alleged) super-lawyer Billy Martin $195,000 to help fight the case. This turned out to be just a downpayment. His firm has already billed the city more than $300,000, and no end is in sight.

At an NAACP fund-raiser on Oct. 5, black Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree described the rioters not as thugs, but revolutionaries, and said the riots reflected legitimate frustration with the police and courts. [Jane Prendergast, Roach Not Guilty; City Under Curfew, Cincinnati Enquirer, Sept. 27, 2001. Kevin Aldridge, City Race Issues Analyzed, Cincinnati Enquirer, Oct. 6, 2001, p. B5. Robert Anglen, Cincinnati’s Bill for Lawyer Over Limit, Cincinnati Enquirer, Oct. 6, 2001, p. B7.]

Keeping Terrorists Out

The United States has finally changed its visa-granting procedures in light of the September terrorist attacks. Members of 74 terrorist groups and people who have contributed money to them will not be admitted into the country. Most of the groups are Middle-Eastern, but some have made trouble in places like Rwanda and Ireland. People who use positions of prominence — imams, college professors, journalists, etc. — to advocate terror will also be refused admittance. The Department of Justice says a computerized system to keep tabs on all foreign students could be operating by next summer. [Mary Sheridan, Immigration Rules Tightened, Washington Post, Nov. 1, 2001, p. A3.]

The FBI is slowly taking the gloves off when it comes to investigating religious leaders for potential terrorism. Muslim clerics have been bellowing hatred of the United States for years, but authorities have been shy about going after them. An FBI official reports that even after the events of Sept. 11, “the veil of religion that has been draped over mosques . . . will be tough to move off. The Arab-American community,” he adds “can become enraged and beat on the FBI.”

The classic case of FBI restraint was its unwillingness to look into the activities of Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian radical who was finally convicted of planning the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. Mr. Rahman arrived in the United States in 1990 despite years under suspicion in Egypt. For a time he had been held under house arrest for alleged support of the group that assassinated Egyptian president Anwar Sadat. He was released and then charged again by Egyptian police, but by that time he was in the United States. The FBI knew about his suspicious past and was aware of his harshly anti-American sermons, but hesitated to move against a religious figure. Mr. Rahman is now serving a life sentence for his part in the World Trade Center bomb attack. [Walter Pincus, FBI Wary of Investigating Extremist Muslim Leaders, Washington Post, Oct. 29, 2001, p. A4.]

Needless to say, the FBI’s job has been complicated by loose immigration policies that let people like Mr. Rahman into the country in the first place. The country is now likely to limit free speech and increase covert surveillance because it has foolishly let so many America-haters into the country.

The Chinese have a much more straightforward way of fighting terrorism. Some of their ticket agents have simply stopped selling airline tickets to people from Afghanistan, Israel, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait, Sudan, Libya, Algeria, and Pakistan. People with Palestinian passports can’t buy tickets either. [Helen Luk, Middle East Nationals Kept Off China Flights, Washington Times, Oct. 3, 2001, p. A5.]

Keeping it in the Family

Robert Johnson, chairman of Black Entertainment Television (BET), is a billionaire. Recently The New Republic looked into how he got that way. In 1979, Mr. Johnson hit upon the idea of starting a cable television station for black viewers. At that time, cities were the only untapped markets left for cable, which had already wired up the lucrative suburbs, and cable companies that could claim they were purveying black culture had a big political advantage. A Denver-based cable giant called TCI decided to put up $500,000 for a minority share in a joint venture for which Mr. Johnson put up only $15,000. TCI could then tell mayors and city councils then awarding cable deals that it could offer a black-owned, black entertainment channel. It got a lot of business. Ten years later, TCI admitted it never made much money on this lop-sided investment, but it made Mr. Johnson rich.

For broadcast content, BET has relied on the cheapest footage it can get its hands on, mainly music videos that record companies distribute as free promotion. These are mostly sex-and-swagger rap clips that give BET its characteristic feel. In 1996, one BET executive admitted she never let her daughter watch the channel.

Over the years, Mr. Johnson has given a lot of money to Democrats, but with George W. Bush in office, he has found new political allies. Back when Mr. Bush had other things on his mind besides Osama bin Laden, he was trying to eliminate the estate tax. To his dismay, a splashy group of white millionaires led by William Gates opposed abolition of the tax, arguing that the rich had an obligation to give wealth back to the community rather than to their children. It looked like the tax would stay.

Into the breach stepped Robert Johnson, arguing that the inheritance tax was racist and penalized blacks. He and some rich black friends took out newspaper ads claiming whites had inherited their money but blacks came into wealth by “a different way” (which, incoherently, meant their children should inherit money). The ad said abolishing the tax would let blacks keep their hard-earned wealth and “will help close the wealth gap in this nation between African American families and White families.” This was a curious argument, in that although blacks are 12 percent of the population, there are so few with large estates that they account for only one half of one percent of the people who pay the tax. Needless to say, Mr. Johnson would be among them, and dumping the tax would save his children a lot of money.

Simple-minded George let himself be played like a flute, and started acting as if lifting the tax were a “civil rights” issue. “As Robert Johnson of Black Entertainment Television argues,” he said, “the death tax and double taxation weighs heavily on minorities.” He was thick enough to add that abolition would allow people to transfer wealth “from one generation to the next, regardless of a person’s race.” Mr. Bush got rid of the tax and the Johnson family will keep its millions. [Jonathan Chait, Robert Johnson, W’s Favorite Race Baiter, New Republic, Aug. 27, 2001.]

‘White Slut’

When Rebecca Porcaro entered Seattle’s Rainier Beach High School in 1995, she was part of a white student minority of only 18 percent. The largest group was blacks, who taunted and harassed her virtually from the day she arrived. Almost daily she would hear: “White slut.” “Stupid white girl.” “White bitch, go back to Bellevue.” “This is our school.” She faced constant threats of violence and endless lewd propositions, and started skipping class. She also took as many off-campus classes as possible so as to get away from other students. She and her parents repeatedly tried to get help from school authorities (race unspecified), but were ignored. Miss Porcaro’s mother thinks Rebecca was singled out for particularly harsh treatment because she is blonde and dresses stylishly, which made her appear “super-white.” She is also convinced the school would have stopped the mistreatment if the victim had not been white. Last year, only eight percent of the school’s 683 students were white, 52 percent were black, 30 percent Asian, eight percent Hispanic and two percent were American Indian.

Miss Porcaro graduated in 1999 and eventually filed suit against the school district. She has now won an apology, a $40,000 settlement, and a promise that all high school teachers and staff will get race and sensitivity training — training that presumably includes the startling news that whites, too, can be victims of racial abuse. [Rebekah Denn, White Woman Settles School Reverse-bias Suit, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Aug. 14, 2001.]

Loss of Diversity Brings Boom

The city of Hoboken, New Jersey, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, is enjoying a revival. After decades of slump, its sidewalks are clean, its shiny storefronts bursting with everything from gourmet coffee beans to windsurfing equipment. The city is full of young professionals, attracted by rents that are lower than in Manhattan. Since 1990, the town has added 2,500 new housing units to accommodate the newcomers — who are mostly white. In the last decade, 22 percent of the city’s Hispanics — 2,253 people — cleared out, while 4,804 whites moved in. Hoboken is now 81 percent white, which makes it the whitest town in all of Hudson County.

Needless to say, this is cause for much mourning. Ruben Ramos, a City Councilman of Puerto Rican extraction says the city used to be “an ideal melting pot,” but now, “you walk down Washington Street and most of the faces you see are white . . . It just doesn’t have that neighborhood feeling anymore.” What drove out all the wonderful diversity? Mr. Ramos says the authorities haven’t done “anything to try to save affordable housing stock in Hoboken, and that’s what really hurt Latinos.”

Whites are probably delighted by the change — otherwise, why are they coming? — but apparently feel compelled to regret it. Francisca Alexander, 32, moved from Richmond, Virginia, five years ago, and has witnessed the change. “I can tell the ethnicity balance just isn’t the same,” she says. “I wish it was different, more diverse. I think that’s really healthy for any community.” Abbie Rivers, who owns Empire Coffee & Tea Co, says “A community where everyone is the same just isn’t interesting.” [Karen Mahabir, Loss of Diversity as Hoboken Booms, Journal (Hoboken), Aug. 7, 2001.] Apparently it hasn’t occurred to either of these ladies that “healthy,” “interesting” communities of the kind they claim to want are very easy to find — and probably charge lower rents.

Brain Waves

When a person looks at the faces of people, his brain reacts differently according to whether he is looking at someone of his own race or a different race. A test conducted at Stanford University used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to detect brain activity when whites and blacks were shown pictures of faces. There was a lot of activity in the subjects’ brains’ fusiform regions, an area associated with expert appraisal. The fusiform regions of bird-watchers, for example, light up when they look at birds, and all people have a certain expertise in recognizing human faces. However, there was significantly more fusiform activity when people looked at faces of people of their own race.

In a variation of the test, subjects were shown a set of pictures of black and white faces, and were then shown the set again, with additional black and white faces mixed in. When testers asked which faces they had seen before, whites were better able to remember the white faces, and blacks were better able to remember the black faces. It appears that people have a more advanced ability to appraise and remember faces of people of their own race. [Emma Hitt, Brain Reacts Differently to Faces Based on Race, Reuters, July 27, 2001.]

Seeing the Darkness

Adriana Stuijt, a Dutch journalist, used to be a fervent anti-apartheid crusader. After several years of covering the new South Africa, she is not nearly as happy with it as she expected to be. “I used to work as a medical journalist in South Africa for many years and have covered a large variety of epidemics in those years,” she explains. “Nothing I have seen compares to the current slaughter inside the country today: More than 200,000 people have already been murdered in crime-related violence . . . South Africa’s small number of remaining commercial farmers are indeed the world’s most endangered profession.”

Miss Stuijt notes that public health has collapsed under black rule. Not only is AIDS out of control, but 100 people have died of cholera in the last few months. Millions of children suffer from malnutrition, and the country is now going through the worst tuberculosis epidemic in its history. Malaria and sleeping sickness, which whites brought under control are making a comeback.

The country’s health authorities have taken one important precaution against AIDS. They have issued condoms to South African census takers for their protection, should they be “led into temptation” as they make their rounds. One opposition member of parliament worried that census takers “may be encouraged to forget that their task is to accumulate statistics to help good government.” [Christopher Munnion, Condoms Given to Census Staff, Telegraph (London), Oct. 8, 2001.]

Miss Stuijt has also noticed another casualty of black rule: freedom of the press. Although the evidence of decline is everywhere, it is not permitted to write about it. “Self-censorship inside South African news media is now greater than ever,” she says. [Anthony LoBaido, South Africa Deteriorates Under ANC Rule, WorldNetDaily.com, Sept. 16, 2001.]

Miserable as South Africa is, the legacy of white rule continues to make it attractive to other Africans. A South African unemployment rate of 30 percent is no deterrent to Zimbabweans, who have seen Robert Mugabe drive their own unemployment rate to 60 percent. Thousands of Zimbabweans have been living in squatter camps, causing resentment by underbidding South Africans for jobs. Recently rumors swept a settlement west of Johannesburg that Zimbabweans had killed a woman, and mobs started burning the squatters out of their shacks. Thousands were left homeless as hundreds of shacks went up in flames. “The Zimbabweans are all gone now. Hopefully they will go back to Zimbabwe,” says one contented rioter. [Ed Stoddard, S. African Settlement Tense After Zimbabweans Flee, Reuters, Oct. 23, 2001.]

Land of Despair and Shame

The Schools Prom is an annual musical celebration for British students sponsored by the National Union of Teachers. Traditionally, it is a patriotic event at which children wear Union Jack hats and sing the “Land of Hope and Glory” lyrics to Edward Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance.” This year, says the appropriately acronymed NUT, what with the Afghan war and all, there must be nothing “triumphalist” about the prom. Instead of wearing Union Jack hats, children will wave the flags of all countries. The NUT has also changed the words to “Land of Hope and Glory” as follows:

NUT General Secretary Doug McAvoy explains that the old words could be “seen today as something that might be jingoistic, that might be triumphalist,” and adds: “[Children] will come from schools with mixed groups, different faiths and in the present circumstances it is totally inappropriate to end on that note.” [Prom Anthem ‘Too Jingoistic,’ BBC News, Oct. 12, 2001.]

Rape the White Girls

Last spring, police in Denmark reported that 68 percent of the country’s rapes were perpetrated by the Muslim minority. Danish women have been demonstrating against what they believe is the Islamic view that any woman who exposes her face and legs is a whore, and deserves whatever treatment she gets. “I am convinced that we can build a large network to nip the development of this unpleasant and tragic situation in the bud,” says Aase Clausen Bjerg, who is a leader of the anti-rape movement. She seems to have overlooked the fact that most of the perpetrators are second- and third-generation immigrants, who can hardly claim to be in the thrall of ancient ancestral customs. [Muslim Rape Concern, Copenhagen Post, Sept. 18, 2001. Erling Andersen, Danish Girls are not Sluts, BT Online (Copenhagen), April 27, 2001.]

Comes Another Rapist

According to the popular Danish gossip magazine Se & Hoer (See & Hear), Mike Tyson, convicted rapist, ex-con, and ear-biting boxer, has decided to move to Denmark. The magazine says Mr. Tyson “wants to continue his explorations into ‘beautiful blonde Danish girls’.” The former world heavyweight champion, who has already signed a contract to buy a house in a leafy Copenhagen suburb, reportedly feels safer living in Denmark after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. [Mike Tyson Reportedly Moving to Denmark, Reuters, Oct. 25, 2001.]

Wicked Yanquis

Ever since the events of Sept. 11, the United States is actually taking a good look at what comes across the Mexican border. Scrutiny is so intense that many cocaine smugglers have given up trying to get drugs into the United States and are selling them in Mexico. According to Crime Prevention Director Pedro Jose Penaloza, traffickers are so eager to unload their cocaine in Mexico it is now even cheaper than marijuana and likely to lead to serious addiction problems. [Official Blames Fortified U.S. Border for Rise in Mexican Cocaine Use, AP, Oct. 17, 2001.]

Multiculturalism

Muti, or African black magic, may be finding its way to Europe. African witchdoctors like to use human body parts in charms and potions, and it is estimated that hundreds of children are chopped up for parts every year in South Africa alone. Recently, the body of a black boy, about five years old, was spotted floating down the Thames River near Tower Bridge in London. It was missing its arms, legs, and head. Scotland Yard suspects muti, but it is not ruling out an attack by pedophiles. Earlier this year, a white girl was cut up in a similar manner in Holland, with various parts of her body recovered in widely scattered places. [Witchdoctor Killing Feared in Thames Torso Murder, Ananova, Oct. 16, 2001.]

Who Guards the Guards?

Anthony Tang, a Chinese Brit, who used to work for the Birmingham Partnership Against Racial Harassment, was recently awarded the equivalent of nearly $300,000 for racial harassment — by his former bosses. They kept taunting him about being a Chinaman, and wanted him to cook the statistics to make it appear racial attacks in Birmingham were worse than they actually are. They wanted to announce a 150 percent increase, so they could justify a big spending program to fight “racism.” A tribunal singled out Mary Mallet (race unspecified) and Haroon Saad (unlikely to be white) as having particularly mistreated Mr. Tang. [Andy Wilks, Anti-Racism Chiefs Fined, The Sun (London) Oct. 7, 2001.]

Progress in Norway

The Progress Party of Norway, led by Carl Hagen, wants to bring immigration down to no more than 1,000 people a year. It opposes foreign aid on the grounds that poor countries are poor because they can’t get organized. In September, it won 26 seats in the 165-member Storting or Parliament, and now holds the balance of power. By pledging its support to the Christian Democrats, it forced out the Labor Party. Although Progress does not hold any cabinet positions, the Christian Democrats will need its support to get a majority and pass legislation. This is the first time since the Second World War that the far right has had real political influence in Norway. [Andrew Osborn, Far Right to Share Power in Norway, Guardian (Britain), Oct. 18, 2001.]

Come One, Come All

Britain has such a loose asylum policy that it now harbors plenty of radical Muslims wanted for terrorism in their home countries. Abu Hamza al-Masri fought in Afghanistan and Bosnia, and displays his war wounds as if they were medals. In Yemen, he is wanted in connection with several bombings, including one that killed three people, and a kidnapping that ended in a rescue attempt that left four hostages dead. A British citizen since 1985, the 43-year-old imam is protected from extradition, and spends his time preaching the destruction of Britain and the United States. “It’s now the time for martyrdom — the end game for all those who bear animosity toward Islam,” he says. Imam al-Masri says he also runs “self-defense” camps for young British Muslims who want to fight infidels in Chechnya or Kashmir.

Yasser al-Sirri has lived in Britain since 1984, and runs a Muslim “human rights” monitoring group in London. He has been sentenced to death in Egypt, where police say he was in the military wing of Islamic Jihad, the terrorist group blamed for the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat and a series of assassination attempts in the 1990s.

Authorities think Europe harbors hundreds of men like these, who have fled insufficiently radical Arab countries. Many have been members of the roving Islamic brigades that have fought in Chechnya, the Balkans or Afghanistan, or have thrown bombs at their own governments. France, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia are among the countries that have long complained of easy British asylum for accused terrorists.

Britain is also the favorite hiding place for members of the Armed Islamic Group, an Algerian terror gang blamed for a wave of bombings in France in the 1990s. Muslim militants linked to armed groups fighting Indian rule in the Himalayan province of Kashmir are also on the loose in Britain.

At least a few Brits have begun to wonder if something shouldn’t be done about these fruits of diversity. MP Andrew Dismore of the Labour Party says laws should be changed to permit the expulsion of those “who abuse our democratic system and actively seek to destroy the society that protects them from the regimes that they would themselves impose on others.” [Hamza Hendawi, British Mullah Has Anti-U.S. Message, AP, Oct. 21, 2001.]

Greasering the Ways

A reader reports that Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado recently recounted some immigration horror stories on C-Span. A young Hispanic who was caught mugging an elderly woman told police he was a Mexican illegal. They turned him over to the INS, which gave him a choice of jail or deportation. He chose deportation. He was not, however, an illegal alien but an American-born citizen. From Mexico he telephoned his mother, who came down with his papers and brought him back to the United States — with no criminal record. Rep. Tancredo says this is a trick well known to Hispanic criminals.

Invitation to Your Own Funeral

A reader in Columbus, Nebraska, has sent us an invitation he received to attend a “Faces of Columbus” meeting sponsored by a local United Way agency called the Columbus Collaborative Team. Dr. Sue Schlightemeier-Nutzman, a specialist in community development and cultural diversity, was to speak on the need to “address challenges by building on strengths.” Participants could also look forward to “a full ethnic meal.”

Celebrating the Decline

In 1955 the now-famous Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in the white section of a Birmingham, Alabama, bus. This led to a 381-day boycott, and the eventual integration of the bus system. Twenty-five years later, when the bus system was getting rid of extra inventory, what is alleged to be Miss Parks’ bus was sold to a private owner who used it for, among other things, storage. Now the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, has bought the bus over an Internet auction for $492,000, and will emphasize “the important role it has in American history.” [Bus in Landmark U.S. Civil Rights Event Sold, Reuters, Oct. 26, 2001.]

Strike Three

Serial criminal Rodney King was arrested for the third time in six weeks on Oct. 13, once again for allegedly being under the influence of the drug PCP. Pomona, California, police arrested Mr. King after a traffic stop, and released him from jail after he posted $2,500 bail. In September, Mr. King pleaded not guilty to a charge of being under the influence of PCP following his Aug. 28 arrest. Shortly before his court date on that charge, he was arrested on Sept. 29 for suspected PCP use and exposing himself at a public park. During the past few years Mr. King has been to jail twice for various convictions, and remains on probation for abusing the mother of his daughter. [Rodney King Arrested in California, AP, Oct. 14, 2001.]

Hip-Hop Rip-Off

Stanford University offers a course called “The Language of Hip-Hop Culture,” in which students study rap “lyrics.” Instructor Samy Alim says: “Hip-hop is the next chapter of African-American folklore. Street cred is huge, it’s number one. Now we’re developing academic credibility as well.” A typical discussion might be about the meaning of the rapper Killarmy’s line, “Lyrical poems cock back with sharp tacks laced with Ajax.” Stanford is not alone. At the University of California at Berkeley students can take a course on the “poetry” and “history” of rapper Tupac Shakur, and Harvard plans to establish a rap “archive” next year. [Stanford Students Earn Credit for Studying Hip-Hop Lingo, AP, Oct. 26, 2001.]

Cheering Chinese

A reader with State Department contacts reports an incident that has not appeared in American newspapers. The department has a Visitors’ Program, which brings prominent people from other countries to see the American way of life. Usually they come in twos or threes, but this fall State decided to bring over more than a dozen Chinese newspaper editors. These were big bugs — editors of major dailies. The final number was 14, and the Chinese were on their way to America when they heard news of the Sept. 11 attacks. Reportedly “three or four” of the 14 got up and cheered. Some of those who did not cheer were displeased and a discussion broke out in Chinese. The cheering episode was reported up the State Department chain of command, and — whether they were sent home or decided on their own to turn back — the Chinese never made their visit.

Disarming Students

Los Angeles students like to come to school with weapons. Police caught 510 armed students last year and have no idea how many more were walking around with knives and guns. Whenever there are large gatherings like dances or sports events, police randomly pat down students, but this is time-consuming and obtrusive. “What we don’t want to do is make our schools look like jails,” says one school official. In order to camouflage reality, school police are looking into using digital scanning equipment that works better than standard metal detectors. People must still walk through a frame, but instead of just making a noise when there is enough metal present — which could be pocket change or a belt buckle — the new machines have monitors that show where on his body someone may be carrying a lump of metal. Guards need stop only those people who have substantial metal objects in unusual places. School officials are considering buying two of the $40,000 machines. [Daniel Yi, Schools Testing Weapon Detector, Los Angeles Times, Sept. 21, 2001.]

Mexican Miscreance

In 1944 the United States signed a treaty with Mexico under which the US would send one million acre-feet of water to Mexico from the Colorado River, and Mexico would send over 350,000 acre-feet from the Rio Grande. The US delivers as promised, but every year since 1993 Mexico has failed to do so. American farmers who count on this water are furious. In March, Mexico agreed to release 600,000 acre-feet from Mexican tributaries to the Rio Grande, with delivery no later than July 31. Many Texas farmers, assured of this water, planted at least a portion of their usual acreage only to be left with failed crops when the Mexicans reneged again. “It’s unbelievable that our own government would allow this situation,” says Gordon Hill of Bayview Irrigation District 11 in Texas, but President Bush does not want to embarrass his amigo Vicente Fox. [Hugh Aynesworth, Border Good Will Evaporates in Water Dispute, Washington Times, Oct. 15, 2001, p. A3.]

You’ve Been ‘Niggerized’

On Oct. 10, black Harvard professor Cornel West used a lecture on “hip hop culture” to explain how the Sept. 11 attacks have changed America. After comparing current national anxieties to what he called black America’s long history of coping with terror, death, and “institutional forms of terrorism” such as slavery, Prof. West concluded that “America has been ‘niggerized’ by the terrorist attacks.” [Phillip M. Chan, West Shifts Hip Hop Talk’s Focus to Attacks, Harvard Crimson (Cambridge, Mass.), Oct. 11, 2001.]

No Sex Please, We’re Black

AIDS cases among blacks are skyrocketing in Minnesota. Although they are less than three percent of the state’s population, blacks accounted for 44 percent of new cases last year. The infection rate among black women is a staggering 90 times higher than that for white women. James McHie, who works for the African-American AIDS Task Force, says the problem with educating blacks about AIDS is that “when it comes to sex, they don’t talk about it.” Lorraine Teel, executive director of the Minnesota AIDS Project, agrees that education efforts have failed “because we don’t like to talk about sex and drugs.” [Mike Zacharias, Minnesota HIV Cases Increasing Mainly Among Blacks, Minnesota Daily (Minneapolis), Oct. 19, 2001.] These people have apparently never listened to a black comedian or watched the Black Entertainment Television channel.

Winnie Loses

Winnie Madikezela-Mandela, ex-wife of former South African president Nelson Mandela, earned $1,888 a month as president of the African National Congress Women’s League. That wasn’t enough. On Oct. 18, Mrs. Madikezela-Mandela, who is also a member of South Africa’s parliament, was arrested and charged with 85 counts of fraud, and theft of more than $100,000.

Along with an accomplice, Addy Moolman, Mrs. Madikezela-Mandela persuaded banks to make loans to non-existent employees of the women’s league. She signed letters falsely confirming employment for 60 borrowers, and diverted $61,000 to her own accounts. Mrs. Madikezela-Mandela is also charged with stealing $1,040 that was to have gone into a funeral insurance plan. [Winnie Mandela Accused of Fraud, AP, Oct. 19, 2001.]

Commuting While White

Kenneth Jones, a white man in his late 30s, was looking for a seat on a Metro subway train in Washington, D.C., on the morning of Sept. 24. He asked Clarenton Barker, who is black, if he could sit in the empty seat next to him. When Mr. Barker didn’t respond, he asked again, and then sat down. Mr. Barker then attacked Mr. Jones, hitting him repeatedly in the face. Panicked passengers called the train operator on the intercom, and the train stopped. The operator and another Metro employee entered the car to reset the emergency handle, but did not check on Mr. Jones or detain Mr. Barker. At the next station, police arrested Mr. Barker on charges of aggravated assault. Mr. Jones was taken to George Washington University Hospital where he received treatment for facial lacerations and knocked out teeth. There was a brief press account of the attack that did not mention the races of criminal or victim. [Metro Rider Accused of Onboard Assault, Washington Post, Sept. 25, 2001.]

According to an AR reader who attended court hearings on the case, Mr. Jones’ injuries were more serious than reported. Witnesses said he “bled profusely,” was “covered in blood,” and was on oxygen support when he reached the hospital. Mr. Barker will not be facing justice anytime soon. It could be nine months before the Washington grand jury indicts him for felony assault. Prosecutors are not charging him with a hate crime.

Counting Illegals

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of illegal aliens living in the United States has doubled since 1990 to at least seven million. There are also a record 31 million foreign-born, who make up more than 10 percent of the population. The new study was prompted by the discrepancy between the Census Bureau forecast of the 2000 U.S. population and the actual count. As reported by AR in August, instead of the 275 million the Census Bureau expected, it was shocked to find more than 281 million. The six million extra were illegals, and the new study shows even that figure was an undercount.

Cecilia Munoz, vice president of National Council of La Raza, says these results show the need to revive Mexican president Vicente Fox’s amnesty scheme. Amnesty would tell us who is here, she says, adding, “We are much more likely to advance the cause of security in this country if we have a better sense of who is coming into the United States.”

Tougher enforcement at the border will help keep more illegals from coming in, but will encourage the ones who are here to stay, because if they go home they could have a hard time getting back in. [D’Vera Cohn, Illegal Immigrant Total is Rising, Washington Post, Oct. 25, 2001, p. A24.]

Keep Greed Alive

Even a few blacks have begun to notice that Jesse Jackson is a holdup man rather than a “civil rights” champion. Harold Doley is one of the 100 richest black men in America, and was the first black to buy a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. For a while he was enthusiastic about Rev. Jackson’s Wall Street Project because he thought it would bring more blacks into the securities business. He quickly cooled on the reverend’s methods. “What worried me was the way he operated, dealing with these veiled threats,” he says. “What he was doing was a kind of RICO operation, both criminal and civil,” he adds. “It was racketeering.” And once he had put the screws on pension funds to send some of their business to black companies it went only to Rev. Jackson’s cronies — “roughly ten firms that qualify,” he says. Rev. Jackson and his organizations get a rakeoff that Mr. Doley estimates at $17 million a year. “He’s done better than any goddamn dot-com stock that I am aware of,” says Mr. Doley. His advice for any black who wants to go into business with a Jackson organization? “I tell them they could go in the hood and go into a partnership with a crack dealer if all they are interested in is the money.”

Frederick Jones is another black businessman who is sick of Jesse Jackson. He approached Rainbow PUSH with a complete business plan for real estate development, hoping to get help and advice. He got nothing. He soon found out no one without connections with the Jackson inner circle could get his calls returned. He said instead that Rainbow PUSH tried to extract “registration” fees and “small business” fees from him. During one call, a woman who would not identify herself asked if he was a member of Rainbow PUSH. “Is it necessary?” he asked. “It helps if you are a member of the organization, to get help from them,” she explained. Mr. Jones finally gave up on the Jackson empire. “It’s a boys club to me, an inner circle,” he says.

Eddie Edwards, one of the most successful black broadcasters, is the founder of something called the Black Broadcasting Alliance (BBA), which he started in competition with the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters (NABOB). He says that NABOB, which is very friendly to Rev. Jackson, controls broadcasters too tightly. Now, he says, NABOB and the Jackson combine are doing everything they can to wreck his business. “You, in short, play by our rules and deal with us or we will get you,” is how he sums up the message he got from Rainbow PUSH.

In particular, Mr. Edwards is trying to sell off 19 television stations for $1.5 billion, but Mr. Jackson has interceded with the FCC to stop the deal, leaving it in legal limbo since May, 1998. “The influence that Jesse Jackson has in Washington, there are people genuinely afraid of this man,” says Mr. Edwards, explaining why the FCC had held up the deal. He says he could play the reverend’s game and get the sale unblocked, but he refuses. “I am not giving in to him, I won’t give in to his pressure tactics,” he says. “I am the first black or white person to step up and to speak out,” he says. [Marc Morano, Jesse Jackson Accused of ‘Racketeering’ by Top Black Businessman, CNSNews.com, Oct. 22, 2001.]

Spineless NewsMax

AR has been placing advertising for the next AR conference, to be held next February 23-24. The NewsMax.com web page takes ads, and we proposed the following text message, with a link to an electronic registration form on the AR web page:

Must Whites Become a Minority? Join us for a conference “In Defense of Western Man.”

There ensued the following e-mail exchange with Jim Whelan of News Max.com:

‘Sorry we cannot post your ad.’

‘Why not?’

‘The answer to that is in the content of your message.’

Learning to Die

AIDS is the leading cause of death among teachers in the Central African Republic. According to UNICEF, of the 300 teachers who died there last year, 85 percent died of AIDS, and by 2005, between 25 percent and 50 percent of all teachers will have died of the disease. Because it is customary for teachers to have sex with students, they are helping spread the disease. “The average age of female sexual activity is 15, and their first partner is often their teacher,” says Adjibad Karimou of the UNICEF office in Bangui, the capital. “The very people upon whom we rely to teach pupils how to protect themselves against AIDS are often the ones passing on the virus.” Françoise Nboma, head of the English department at Miskine High School in Bangui, says poor girls are most at risk. “They see their teacher as someone to help them. Many parents want their daughters to marry teachers, so they encourage their children to have relationships with them, and the staff don’t refuse.”

“Lots of girls sleep with their teachers. They do it to pass exams,” says Nadine Igala, a student at Miskine. Five girls at Miskine, which has 4,000 students, died of AIDS last year. Teacher-student sex is not only limited to high schools. Grade school children are also being infected by their teachers, and at the University of Bangui, a number of female undergraduates have contracted the virus from instructors. “In certain courses, if a female student is beautiful, she won’t stand a chance of graduating unless she sleeps with her professor,” says literature student Oliver Nyirabugara. Male students bribe their teachers with beer and cigarettes in order to pass exams. [Lucy Jones, African Students Get Lesson in Death by Contracting AIDS From Teachers, Washington Times, Aug. 16, 2001.]

OldNew
Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the Free,

How shall we extol thee,

Who are born of thee?

Wider still and wider

Shall thy bounds be set,

God who made thee mighty,

Make thee mightier yet!

Music and our voices, Unite us all as one,

Let our sound be mighty,

Sung by everyone.

Deeper and still deeper

Shall our bounds be set

Bring our world together

Make us closer yet.