Indian Takers
Back in March, the US Department of Agriculture tried to bully the West Virginia 4-H into dropping all Indian references in its programs for children. It said it was investigating whether using Indian names constituted racial discrimination that barred the West Virginia program from receiving is annual $4.5 million in federal support. The department kindly produced two Indian activists to explain just how awful it was to divide children into “tribes” and to call their meetings “powwows.” On March 22, West Virginia’s local 4-H chapter leaders announced they would do away with all Indian names and traditions. People who had been in 4-H as children were outraged, and President David Hardesty of West Virginia University, who has official authority over the program, overruled them. For the time being, 4-H in his state will remain unchanged, but Mr. Hardesty could well overrule himself if the federal investigation eventually concludes that tribes and powwows are “racist.”
In the meantime, the threat has worked elsewhere. 4-H representatives from Virginia sat in on the brow-beating in West Virginia and decided they didn’t want to wait for the results of a federal investigation. Now children who used to be divided into tribes of Mattaponi, Monacan, Pamunkey and Cherokee-all Indians native to Virginia-will be Eagles, Snakes, Deer, Bobcats, and Owls. Powwows for the nine — to 13-year-olds are now “cave meetings,” the “great chief” is now the “great bear,” and the campfire, which used to be the “great light,” is now the “sacred light.” An important 4-H camp in Front Royal, Virginia, still has a large, white teepee standing behind the administration building, and 4-H has decided to risk continuing to use it as the classroom for Native American Arts and Traditions. [Jon War, Virginia 4-H Yields, Washington Times, June 28, 2002, p. B1.]
The usual argument is that Indian names and mascots demean Indians. Oddly, when Southern schools use Confederate mascots, that glorifies the rebels, so that, too, must be banned. If mascots are demeaning and America is hopelessly “racist,” why do no schools ever call their teams “the Darkies” or “the Nig-nogs,” and no youth camps ever divide children into tribes of Hottentots and Ubangis?
Zim Going Dark
At midnight, June 24, about 3,000 white farmers in Zimbabwe officially became criminals if they continued to work their land. This was the deadline Robert Mugabe’s government gave them to stop work, in preparation for complete evacuation of their farms by August eighth. If the government enforces the evacuation, about 95 percent of the country’s white farmers will have been thrown off their land.
Many farmers started packing up , but others kept working. Dairymen pointed out that cows had to be milked or would sicken and die. Even in the face of threats of a two-year prison sentence for continued farm work they refuse to neglect their animals — even though they will lose them when they leave the land. Other farmers continued working because they would not let food rot in the fields in a country facing famine. The UN estimates half the country’s 12.5 million people face starvation because of bad weather and the land seizures. Zimbabwe used to be a major food exporter but will subsist next year on food aid, much of it from the United States.
There are shortages of many staples. Mr. Mugabe routinely accuses Britain, white farmers, and multinationals of deliberately trying to starve the country. In a speech on June 30, he said Zimbabwe’s largest food production company was keeping salt off the market: “I want to say this to National Foods. We want them to come out in the open and tell this nation why they have been hoarding salt . . . If not we will take over their enterprises.” A National Food spokesman said the company has 2,000 tons of salt in storage, which would last the country two weeks. It is all imported, and the government has ordered it to sell at a price that is half what the company paid for it. The spokesman explained that National Food, which is in deep trouble along with the rest of the food sector, cannot afford to sell at a loss.
Zimbabwe’s Agriculture Minister Joseph Made says the food crisis has nothing to do with putting commercial farmers out of business. He says whites, who make up one percent of the population, have fomented a crisis in an attempt to take power. Meanwhile, the European Union has expressed concern-though not about ethnic cleansing. The “haphazard redistribution of property,” it observed, “could worsen the impending [food] crisis.” [Michael Hartnack, Zimbabwe Emphasizes Farm Order, AP, June 27, 2002. White Zimbabwean Farmers Protest Order to Stop Working, New York Times, June 26, 2002. Angus Shaw, Zimbabwe White Farmers Stop Working, AP, June 25, 2002.]
English Idiocy
Third-World asylum seekers in Britain have found a new loophole that lets them stay in the country. If they have a disease that cannot be adequately treated in their own countries the European Convention on Human Rights says they must stay. Such diseases include tuberculoses, Ebola, and, of course, AIDS.
Hindu Mwakitosi, a Tanzanian who has the AIDS virus, was the first test case. She was about to be deported when someone tried the trick and it worked. “I am HIV-positive, I am HIV-positive, yes I am, most definitely!” she rejoices. “I have a certificate to prove it, and I now have the right to stay in this country.”
Retroviral drug treatments for HIV carriers in Britain cost close to $20,000 a year. When the disease advances to full-blown AIDS it can cost many times that. Heterosexual AIDS is on the rise in Britain, with 1,819 cases diagnosed last year. People like Miss Mwakitosi are the main cause; 71 percent of the cases were found in Africans.
Those with a black sense of humor have pointed out that there are more AIDS carriers in Africa than the entire population of Britain. If they can make it into the country they now have the right to stay. [Paul McMullen, Got Aids? Welcome to Britain, Sunday Express, April 7, 2002, p. 10.]
In the first quarter of 1992, the 15 most common surnames of people buying houses in the nine-county San Francisco Bay area were, in the following order: Wong, Lee, Smith, Nguyen, Chan, Johnson, Chen, Miller, Brown, Tran, Anderson, Davis, Williams, Jones, and Martin. That was six Asian names and nine “Anglo” names, though the top two were Asian (a few of the Lees may have been white).
By the first quarter of 2002, the top 15 names were, in the following order: Nguyen, Lee, Garcia, Tran, Smith, Gonzalez, Wong, Johnson, Martinez, Rodriguez, Lopez, Hernandez, Sanchez, Brown, and Chen. Asians were down to five out of the top 15, though they still held the top two slots. The number of “Anglo” names had dropped from nine to just three, and there were now seven Hispanic names in the top 15. A large number of mortgage lenders now offer soup-to-nuts service entirely in Spanish. [Ethnic Shift in Bay Area Home Buyers, San Francisco Chronicle, May 19, 2002.]
Which Were the Animals?
The zoo in Buffalo, New York, has a tradition of sponsor-subsidized free admission on major holidays. On Memorial Day, a drug store chain and a medical insurance company gave out free passes, and 15,000 people came for free. Many of the blacks misbehaved. A large number smuggled in beer and malt liquor despite a ban on alcohol, and littered the grounds with trash. People urinated in public, trampled flower beds, tried to feed the animals, and deliberately plugged toilets. Parents dangled small children over the railings around the bear and lion pens despite clearly posted danger warnings. People threw garbage and even a baseball bat into the enclosures of the large animals, and someone started a grass fire in front of the outdoor lion and tiger exhibit. In a special enclosure where visitors can walk among uncaged birds, people bent down the branches and let them fly up, throwing the birds off their perches. Some people tried to steal birds. There were several fights, including one in which women maced each other. Zoo staff and private security were out in force, but it was impossible to maintain order. The zoo may discontinue its tradition of free admission on holidays. [Tom Buckham, Mass Misbehavior Leaves Zoo a Mess, Buffalo News, May 29, 2002.]
Business As Usual
On May 30th, 23-year-old Pablo Lopez Jarquin went to Rosy’s Market & Taqueria in Santa Cruz, California. According to surveillance tapes, two men cornered Mr. Jarquin, and a third shot him in the back of the head, in what police think was a gang-related slaying. The tape then shows people (race unspecified) calmly stepping over the body to take their purchases to the counter. [Customers Continue Business Despite Dying Man on Store Floor, AP, May 31, 2002.]
Smiling at the Verdict
On August 30, 2000, group of Lebanese men approached a white 18-year-old Australian girl on a train, and offered her marijuana. She accepted and got off with them. The men then spent six hours raping her, passing her around among at least 14 friends. One called the girl “an Aussie pig,” and another told her, “I’m going to fuck you Leb-style.” Four of the assailants went on trial this year, and were convicted on June eighth. They grinned and waved as the jury delivered its verdict, and two got into a scuffle that stopped only when a court officer put one in a headlock. All four mugged and carried on throughout the trial. Two of the Lebanese have already been convicted in a similar gang rape of two white girls.
Last year, gang rapes of white girls by Middle-Eastern men became something of a scandal in Australia. When Judge Michael Finnane sent the case to the jury he warned against racial considerations of any kind: “You have to put aside any view that you might have . . . about Muslims, either favorable or unfavorable,” he said. The jury, he said, was “not trying a class of persons or a race.” [Sarah Crichton, Gang Rapists Smile as Guilty Verdict Delivered, The Age (Sydney, Australia), June 8, 2002.]
Maine Too White
The people of Maine have long worried that the state is losing population and that young people go out of state to college and never come back. Jim Tierney, who was the state’s attorney general for 10 years, thinks he knows what the problem is: The state is too white. “Many of our best Maine kids move away-perhaps for education or perhaps for work-and find a level of energy and excitement in places where diversity is the rule and not the exception,” he says. “And they like it.” He thinks the diversity of non-white immigration will save the state:
“Both liberals and conservatives view diversity the same way. Liberals see it as, ‘We have to help these people.’ Conservatives see it as ‘We can’t afford to help these people.’ What I’m saying is, guys, you’re looking at it the wrong way. This is not a burden. This is essential. This is an opportunity. In fact, maybe it’s more than just an opportunity.” [Bill Nemitz, State’s Future Looks Brighter With More Color, Portland (Maine) Press Herald, May 12, 2002.]
Polling Mexicans
According to a Zogby poll taken in Mexico and released June 11, 58 percent of Mexicans believe the southwestern United States rightfully belongs to them, and 57 percent believe they have the right to cross the border without US government permission. In a poll taken in the United States, Zogby found that 68 percent of Americans think the US military should patrol the border. Sixty-five percent oppose amnesty for illegal aliens, and 58 percent believe the US should cut back the number of legal immigrants. Americans for Immigration Control Inc. commissioned the poll, which was conducted in Mexico and the US in late May. [Poll: US-Mexico Border Opinions Differ, UPI, June 12, 2002]
Send in the Troops
Despite the poll numbers cited above, President Bush and Homeland Security Director Ridge refuse to consider using troops to guard the borders. In early June, Gov. Ridge told lawmakers the White House opposed this for “cultural and historical” reasons. “I want an explanation of these ‘cultural and historical’ reasons why we can’t protect our nation’s borders,” says Rep. Tom Tancredo, Colorado Republican and chairman of the congressional immigration reform caucus. Rep. Tancredo angered the White House when he criticized the president’s “open door” immigration policy last April. Presidential advisor Karl Rove told Rep. Tancredo never to “darken the door” of the White House again.
Lawmakers who want troops on the border cite a report by the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington that says more than 481,000 immigrants have entered the United States illegally since September 11. A spokesman for Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Tex.) says proposed reforms of the INS and border patrol “will give agents the tools they need” to improve border security. Not so, says William King, a retired Border Patrol chief agent. Mr. King believes it will take at least 20,000 soldiers to secure the borders. “What’s mind-blowing to me,” he says, “is that many of our troops are currently guarding borders and protecting the sovereignty of other nations while our own borders are incredibly in total disarray, wide open to any criminal activity imaginable,” [Dave Boyer, Troops for Border Sought, Washington Times, June 19, 2002.]
Oops
Odeline Caroline Monestime, a 21-year-old black woman was struggling to come up with the $700 a month she needed to make the car and insurance payments on her 1997 Toyota Camry. A man who helped her fix a flat tire suggested she just burn the car, so early in the morning of May 6, Miss Monestime poured gasoline over the interior. She tried to light matches, but couldn’t get one to strike. She then went back to her house to get a piece of paper to burn. In the meantime, fumes built up inside the car. As she came back to the car, the fumes ignited and the car exploded. Fire destroyed the Camry and two other nearby cars, and Miss Monestime was burned over 60 percent of her body.
From her hospital bed, Miss Monestime told the police that two men had tried to rob her, then put her in the car and set it on fire. When investigators determined that the evidence did not match her story, she admitted the arson. Police say they will not file charges against her. [Luisa Yanez, Cops: Woman Lied, Set Self Afire, Herald (Miami), June 5, 2002.]
Quis Custodiet
The INS has something called the Transit Without Visa program, which allows foreigners to enter without a visa if they are flying on to third countries. Airport security is supposed to make sure they do not leave the airport. On June 10, federal authorities filed charges against an INS inspector, two airport security personnel, and two others for smuggling illegal Filipinos in through Los Angeles Airport. Maximiano Ramos, 53, an INS shift supervisor, and the other four arranged to meet the Filipinos on arriving flights and escorted them past airport security. [Kate Berry, Airport Worker Arrested for Smuggling, AP, June 12, 2002]