American Renaissance magazine
Vol. 13, No. 1	January 2002

CONTENTS

Who is White?
Multicultural Hell Comes to America
A Libertarian for Our Side
Whites As Kulaks
O Tempora, O Mores!
Letters from Readers

COVER STORY

Who is White?

The U.S. census and the changing definition of race.

by H.A. Scott Trask

Everyone has by now seen the pictures of the September 11 terrorists. They were all swarthy, black-haired Middle Eastern-looking men in their 20s and 30s. Despite this, the FAA refuses to single out such people at airports for special scrutiny. In a letter published in the Wall Street Journal on October 31, 2001, an irate reader asked why airport security guards had hand-searched the purse and carry-on bag of his friend, a 45-year-old white woman. If the FAA would only study the FBI photos of the terrorists, he wrote, they would see “there are no Girl Scouts, no grandmothers, indeed no women. Nor are there any black American men, Hispanic American men, or white American men. They are all obviously Middle Eastern young men.”

This writer makes the mistake of assuming that what is obvious to the average citizen is obvious to the U.S. government. Evidently, he is unaware that his government officially classifies all Middle Eastern people (Arabic, Turkic, Iranian, or Afghan) as white. In other words, according to our government, the terrorists were the same racial and ethnic stock as European Americans. This is part of a government policy of defining whiteness in a way that inflates the number of whites in America and obscures the extent of demographic change.

Many of the criteria by which the U.S. Bureau of the Census defined race for the 2000 census are confusing and suspect. Question 6 on the census form — directed to the census taker rather than the person being counted — asks: “What is this person’s race? Mark one or more races to indicate what this person considers himself/herself to be.” The census taker does not draw his own conclusions but instead records what he is told.

There is a box for White, one for Black, one for American Indian or Alaska Native, six boxes for various kinds of Asians (Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese), plus a box for “Other Asian,” which requires a written entry. There are three boxes for Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (Native Hawaiian, Guamanian or Chamorro, Samoan) and one box for “Other Pacific Islander,” which also requires a written entry. The bureau classifies all who checked one of the four Pacific Islander boxes as “Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander,” and all who checked any of the seven Asian boxes as “Asian.” For the latest census, the bureau created a seventh category for people who chose more than one box: “Two or More Races.” The bureau then put every resident into one of the seven categories, as shown in the table on this page.

These categories raise many questions. For example, why do Pacific Islanders — just 0.1 percent of the population — get their own racial category rather than be grouped with other Asians? Why are Indians from India grouped with East Asians when they are obviously a different racial type from Chinese and Japanese? The most obvious question is: Where are the Hispanics?

Part of the answer to the last question is that 14.9 million of them are “Some Other Race” (fully 97 percent of that category). According to the government, “Hispanics may be of any race,” and “race and Hispanic origin [are] two separate and distinct concepts.” Therefore, question 5 on the census form asks, “Is this person Spanish/Hispanic/Latino?” The answer can be either yes or no. Anyone who says yes is asked whether he is Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, or “Other Hispanic.” Hispanics can then choose their own race, with the results in the table on this page. The ones who end up in the “Some Other Race” category are those who do not consider themselves white, black, Indian or Asian. They might have written in “Cuban” or “Mexican,” but the census bureau cannot, on that basis, call them white, brown or black, so they are “other.”

United States Population, Year 2000
Race	Number	Percent
“White”	211.4 million	75.1
Black	34.6 million	12.3
Indian and Alaskan	2.4 million	0.9
Asian	10.2 million	3.6
Hawaiian and Pacific Islander	0.4 million	0.1
Some Other Race	15.3 million	5.5
Two or More Races	6.8 million	2.4
Total Population	281.4 million	100

Note that almost half of all American Hispanics say they are white. While some — those of pure Spanish descent or South Americans of German or Italian stock — are undoubtedly white, are we to believe that half of all Hispanics living here are white? No one who has lived in or visited an area in which there are many Hispanics can believe that.

Why did so many make this choice? Partly, it is because the Census Bureau doesn’t offer realistic choices. A Mexican peasant is not likely to think of himself as black, Asian or American Indian (although many really are more Amerindian than anything else). At the same time, centuries of interracial mixing in Latin America plus the continuing prestige of whiteness (despite much anti-white propaganda) has led to a very broad definition of whiteness in Hispanic culture. These 2000 census results are remarkably similar to those of the 1996 Brazilian census, which reported that 52 percent of Brazilians think they are white.¹

Although many Hispanics are Mestizo mixtures, only six percent say they are “two or more races.” Only two percent say they are black. Clearly, just as in Brazil, many Hispanics put themselves in the desirable “white” category, but since the bureau says “Hispanic” is not a racial category, they can do this without compromising their legally privileged standing in American law.

Race of Hispanics
	Numbers	Percent of Hispanics	Percent of U.S.
All Hispanics	35.3 million	100	12.5
White Hispanics	16.9 million	47.9	6
Black Hispanic	0.7 million	2	0.3
American Indian	0.4 million	1.2	0.1
Asian Hispanic	0.1 million	0.3	–
Pacific Island	0.04 million	0.1	–
Some Other Race	14.9 million	42.2	5.3
Two or More Races	2.2 million	6.3	0.8

The census bureau takes the equally implausible view that the brown peoples of North Africa, the Middle East, and Southwest Asia are all white, too. It says the white category is for “people having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa. It includes people who indicated their race or races as ‘White’ or wrote in entries such as Irish, German, Italian, Lebanese, Near Easterner, Arab, or Polish” (italics mine). The government also considers people of Turkic, Iranian, and Afghan origin to be white. Pakistanis, on the other hand, are Asian. Thus, according to the U.S. government the frontiers of the white world extend up to Pakistan and black Africa.

As it does with Hispanics, the census bureau lets Middle Easterners choose their own race from among the four options of White, Black, “Some Other Race,” or a combination of these three. If they choose the white box, the bureau calls them white, no questions asked. If they choose the black box, the bureau calls them black. On the other hand, if a Middle Easterner chooses “Some Other Race” (which requires a written entry to explain what the race is) either by itself or in combination with White or Black, the bureau calls that person white. In other words, if an Egyptian checks Black and “Some Other Race” (writing in Egyptian), he is white. If an Iranian checks White and “some other race” (writing in Iranian or Persian), he is also white. If any Middle Easterner, North African, or Southwest Asian checks only “Some Other Race” (writing in his nationality) he is called white. A Middle-Easterner, say an Iranian, could call himself “Other Asian” and write in “Iranian;” the census bureau would still say he was white.

Thus, despite the census bureau’s claim that race is a matter of “self-identification,” it calls a lot of brown people white, even though they clearly think they are not. And given that the census bureau took the trouble to distinguish between Guamanians and Samoans, and break down the Asian category into various groups, why didn’t it establish a category for Middle Eastern peoples?

Calling brown people white is so absurd that even journalists, not known for questioning government statistics, have wondered about it. The census bureau has so far offered no plausible explanation. In the early 1990s, at least one Arab organization formally proposed that the government establish a separate racial category for Middle Easterners and North Africans, but nothing happened.² Jorge Del Pinal of the census bureau recently explained that the bureau “couldn’t get a handle on it.” He said the racial, religious, and language diversity of the area is so great the bureau gave up and decided to call everyone white.³

This is not believable. Perhaps the government is deliberately inflating the number of whites in the hope of calming fears of white dispossession. Another possibility is hesitation to establish a non-white, “Middle Eastern” category that would logically have included at least some Jews, and would raise the question of whether Jews are white. Or perhaps our rulers think that by diluting the definition of whiteness they can prevent the rise of white racial consciousness and solidarity.

Another fishy census category is “white alone or in combination,” which includes whites plus people who are part-white (those who chose one or more other racial boxes as well as white). Reportedly 6.8 million Americans said they belonged to two or more races. Of these, 74.1 percent said they were white and just one other race, and another six percent said they were white and more than one other race. Some people add these hybrids to the “white” population, thereby inflating the number of “whites” to 217 million.

Government officials, politicians, journalists, and ethnic lobbyists can use these various definitions of whiteness not only to misrepresent the actual number of whites in the United States but to cite different figures to suit particular purposes. For example, a recent article in the Christian Science Monitor minimized white dispossession by assuring readers that “if large numbers of them [Hispanics] identify themselves as white, then white society will predominate in the US (albeit with a Latino flavor) for decades to come,” and “throw in the 5.5 million people who describe themselves as white as well as one or more other races, and the [white] share climbs to 77.1 of the US population — a higher proportion than existed in 1830.” This reporter also noted (without indicating which definition of white he was using) that whites, at 63 percent, were still a majority in California.⁴ That figure includes both “white” Hispanics and mixed race “whites.” A more correct figure for whites in California in 2001 was 48 percent, as was noted by more honest reporters.⁵

Census statistics and permeable definitions of whiteness make it easy to minimize or maximize the demographic transformation to suit any purpose. By including Middle Easterners, “white” Hispanics, and “whites alone or in combination,” immigration enthusiasts can claim that nearly 80 percent of the country is still white! At the same time, when Hispanic lobbyists want to exercise power they can point to their growing numbers: 35 million people who are 12.5 percent of the population. Finally, by inflating the number of whites, the government can maintain the fiction of a white majority long after it has ceased to exist, and thus continue to use the majority/minority terminology that undergirds the racial spoils system that benefits non-whites.

How many whites are there in the country? It takes considerable hunting through census publications to find figures for what the bureau calls “non-Hispanic Whites:” 194.5 million, or 69 percent of the total. How many of these are Middle Eastern? There are no official census bureau figures for them, but the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee estimates there are three to four million Arab-Americans. My own conservative estimate of the number of people of Turkic, Armenian, Afghan, and Iranian ancestry (based on 2000 census ancestry reporting as well as immigration figures for these groups since 1965) is three million. Adding the low-end estimate of the Arab population (three million) to this Southwest Asian estimate results in six million. Subtracting that number from the non-Hispanic white base of 194.5 leaves 188.5 million European-Americans, or 67 percent of the US population. This figure still includes the doubtful 17 million or so Hispanics who claim to be white. Ten more years of massive non-white immigration will surely drop even this exaggerated white percentage below 60 percent by 2010 and, if immigration continues, to below 50 percent by 2025, a full 25 years before the census bureau predicts whites will become a minority.

The accompanying table shows year 2000 figures for whites, depending on the definition used.

Different Definitions of White
Total Population (millions)	281.5	100%
White + Hispanic “Whites” + Mixed-Race “Whites”	217	77.10%
White + Hispanic “Whites”	211.5	75.10%
White — Hispanic “Whites”	194.5	69.10%
White — Middle Eastern	188.5	67.00%
White — Jewish	182	64.60%
Nordic White (estimate)	148.5	52.70%

What is to be done about these shifting definitions? The first order of business is to educate the shrinking white majority about the census bureau’s confusing racial categories. We should pressure Congress to change its classifications. In particular, we need a category for North African, Middle Eastern, and Southwest Asian peoples. Even Arab-Americans want their own racial category (though this is partly because they want to benefit from racial preferences, from which they are now, at least officially, excluded). The events of September 11th make this an especially good time to push for such a change.

I would also suggest revamping the racial categories to make them far more complete and accurate. My proposal, outlined in the accompanying table, makes an important distinction between primary and secondary racial identities. Everyone would choose one primary and one secondary category, and no more. This system would also distinguish between people who are Spanish (and hence European) and those who are Hispanic (all or partly non-white). If the government is going to collect information on race, it should illuminate what is happening in our country rather than obscure it.

Trask Classification System
Primary (6)	Secondary (17)
White	1) Nordic (English, Celtic, German, Scandinavian) 2) Slavic (Russian, Baltic, Polish, Czech, Serbian, Croatian) 3) Mediterranean (Spanish, Italian, Greek, Hungarian, Jewish)
Middle Eastern	1) Arabic 2) Turkic 3) Iranian 4) Afghan 5) Pakistani 6) Indian, Bangladeshi
Hispanic	1) Amerindian 2) African 3) Mixed
Asian	1) East Asian (Japanese, Korean, Chinese) 2) Southeast Asian (Vietnamese, Cambodian, Thai, Burmese, Indonesian, Filipino) 3) Pacific Islander 4) Amerindian or Native American
Black	1) African 2) Melanesian 3) Aborigine
Mixed	Pick the two or three races from which you are descended.

¹Glayde Whitney, “The Galton Report,” American Renaissance, December 2000.

²Nicholas Kulish, “Why the Census of 2000 Failed to Count Arabs,” Wall Street Journal, September 26, 2001.

³Eduardo Porter, “Even 126 Sizes Don’t Fit All,” Wall Street Journal, March 2, 2001.

⁴Laurent Belsie, “Scholars Unearth New Field: White Studies,” Christian Science Monitor, August 9, 2001.

⁵Todd S. Purdum, “California Census Confirms Whites Are in Minority,” New York Times, March 30, 2001.

Dr. Trask is a historian who lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

ARTICLE

Multicultural Hell Comes to America

Welcome to the global village.

by Charles A. Roberts

On September 11, 2001, multiculturalism came to America in a firestorm of glass and steel. Air travel shut down, tall buildings were evacuated, the stock market collapsed, and our government briefly went into hiding. Now America is at war. The authorities tell us our enemy Osama bin Laden has terrorist cells in dozens of countries, including the United States. Muslim fanatics plotting the next attack may even be living in your neighborhood right now.

How did this come to pass? When did Americans decide to live in a racial Tower of Babel instead of the House of their Fathers? The beginnings of what we now call multiculturalism go back even before Brown v. Board of Education, but this poisonous thinking took on a particular flavor in the 1990s when the allegedly African proverb “It takes a village to raise a child,” became popular. This was soon shortened to “It takes a village,” not just to raise a child, but presumably to bring about all the other liberal happy endings towards which we are supposed to be working. Most intelligent people thought it a trendy, vacuous expression, and ignored it. But no one understood better than Hillary Clinton that with enough repetition people can be made to take an imbecile idea very seriously indeed.

Mrs. Clinton even wrote a book about the village. Her “village” is the “global village” of the 21st century. It is a happy place, full of mixed religions, mixed races, and mixed cultures. It is a place where everyone belongs to everyone else, and everyone is the same. It is a place where “incorrect thinking” is a psychological disorder or a hate crime, and every Crayola box has only one color: brown. It is a feed-lot vision of humanity, in which the entire human race can be bred, fed, and processed.

The multiculturalist does not see the world as a host of nations, each with its own culture and racial order. He sees it as a sociological problem. Indeed, human reality with all its foibles is abhorrent to the multiculturalist. For the multiculturalist, people are not really equal; they are merely the same. And it is sameness that he seeks to stamp upon the soul of every man. This is why the multiculturalist celebrates the “village” as the highest stage of mankind. Of course, in the real world, the village is filthy, poor and ignorant. It took mankind 10,000 years of tears and sorrow to escape from the village, but Mrs. Clinton wants to send everyone back.

Her approach leads to the disappearance of the white race through amalgamation, a kind of genocide through race immersion, and there is a good chance this will happen. Whites are now perhaps 10 percent of the world’s population, whereas in 1900 they were 40 percent.

Millions of Americans now believe that a multicultural world, full of harmony, euphoria, and brown-skinned dullards is the destiny of mankind — at least for whites. It does not occur to them that black and Asian countries, for example, are not turning brown but staying exactly as they were. This vision of brown-skinned multiculturalism took hold in full force only after the end of the Cold War, when it was widely believed that world conflict had come to an end. A new world order would emerge, in which there would be no more nationalism, racism, or war.

Among the duped were several liberal historians, chief among them Francis Fukuyama. For him, the end of the cold war meant the “end of history.” “We may be witnessing,” he wrote, “the end of history as such: that is, the endpoint of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.” The “end of history” would signal the end of the “war of ideas” particularly those involving race, religion, culture and history. People around the world would no longer care about why they live, but only how well. Prof. Fukuyama, himself, found the prospect of living in such a world rather boring.

But the giddy expectations that followed the collapse of the Berlin Wall were dissipated by the ethnic warfare that erupted all around the world. It was in the post-war period that the now familiar term “ethnic cleansing” was first used, though it described a process as old as tribal warfare. Neo-communist, nationalist, irredentist, fascist, and religious fundamentalist groups began appearing, all apparently bent on keeping history from ending and destroying the new world order that had just been born.

Of particular interest in this regard were the national and religious struggles in the Balkans. Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, Macedonians and Albanians all wanted ethnic purity rather than diversity, and many were prepared to go to war to expand the borders of their ethnic enclaves. NATO and the United Nations were called in to enforce the desired “multicultural paradigm,” but the unsuccessful effort to make disparate peoples live together in harmony grinds on to this day.

Of course, multiculturalism not only raises up murderers abroad; it breeds them at home. Investigators now know that in the weeks preceding the attacks of Sept. 11, four suicide squads crisscrossed the country. They enrolled in flight schools, rented apartments, and bought cars without attracting attention. It appears that none of them feared a “tip-off” to police by any of their accomplices. In a multicultural country, competing loyalties are strong enough to ensure secrecy.

At the same time it is extremely difficult for agents to infiltrate terrorist cells in ethnic enclaves, just as it is difficult to infiltrate Chinese Triads, Jamaican Posses, or Vietnamese “home invasion” gangs. The glaring racial and cultural differences make conventional police work largely ineffective. Suspects often have long, unpronounceable names, and lurk in dense ethnic neighborhoods, where they can mix with large numbers of rootless immigrants like themselves and remain invisible.

Uniquely American racial hysteria adds another obstacle to penetrating ethnic ghettos in search of terrorists. If the police make an arrest, trouble soon follows. Radical civil-liberties lawyers drag entire police departments into court on so-called “profiling” charges. Detaining, questioning, and otherwise “suspecting” people of color is a delicate undertaking in today’s America. Too many law enforcement agencies have already been ravaged by federal lawsuits for so-called “civil rights” violations, so that even in this time of “war,” we must be careful not to hurt the feelings of the communities in which the “enemy” hides. In the current multicultural hell, the police are fighting against almost impossible odds when it comes to crime of this kind.

Apart at the Multicultural Seams

In The Clash of Civilizations, Samuel Huntington concludes that if it does not quickly move to reclaim its Western European (read white, Christian) roots, America will soon become what he calls a “cleft” nation. Cleft nations are riven by chronic internal conflict and disunion. This happens when countries abandon the religious, cultural, racial, and historical structures on which they were founded, and on which their very survival depends.

In the name of multiculturalism, racial minorities and anarcho-liberals have waged war on the historic identity of the United States, and the value of Western culture in general. They have resolutely denied that a common American culture even exists. At the same time they demand a universalist order that would impose their political and racial vision onto the entire world. These groups are supported by other subnational elements that include radical feminists, homosexuals, liberation theologians, and Hispanic groups that are already mapping out large portions of America for annexation. By steadily tearing at the cultural and institutional fabric of the United States, these groups are changing the very moral foundations of the nation. Some of the most obvious examples of decline include:

1. Open racial violence against whites.
2. Rejection of normative sexual and social behaviors.
3. Increased family decay, and the abdication of parental responsibility.
4. Dramatic decline in the willingness of young people to identify with the United States and to defend its political or cultural ideals.
5. Unwillingness to defend America’s borders from millions of immigrants.
6. The increasing division of public choices — whether elections, curriculum choices, budget decisions, jury verdicts, cultural observances — along openly racial lines.

As Prof. Huntington explains, cleft societies lose the power to control their own destinies. They are only as culturally strong as their weakest cultural link. In America, multiculturalism has advanced the power and interests of every subclass — and subrace — over that of the white European, but it is the worst sort of folly to believe that once non-whites have reduced whites to a minority they will usher in the multicultural utopia. Multiculturalism advances always and only at the expense of whites. Non-whites will turn on each other once they have reduced the peoples and culture of the West to the status of one more squabbling minority.

The inauguration of “diversity” as the new doctrine of national conformity was not just a dramatic break with the past; it was a rejection of the past. The Founding Fathers believed diversity lead to faction, disharmony and abuse of the law. Abraham Lincoln hoped to use the occasion of war to persuade all blacks to leave the United States. A half century later, Woodrow Wilson, fearing that too much diversity was arriving on American shores, almost completely shut off immigration. Theodore Roosevelt agreed, saying, “The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing as a nation at all would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities.”

In the 1950s and 1960s, however, the great wisdom evinced by the founders was set aside, and multiculturalism gradually became America’s new guiding principle. Since then it has eaten away at American ideals and replaced common sense with a whole series of contradictions: We worship non-discrimination, and to achieve it we must discriminate against whites. We worship diversity of race, religion, and culture but despise diversity of opinion. We worship freedom of speech but must never hurt the feelings of non-whites. We worship democracy but ignore the majority’s opposition to immigration, homosexuality, racial preferences, foreign aid, etc. We worship freedom and responsibility but believe the failures of non-whites are all caused by whites. We condemn racial stereotyping but assume that all whites are “racists.”

Astonishingly, as whites dismantle their own institutions, they increasingly try to impose an unworkable and uniquely Western concept of pluralism on the rest of the world. The primary tools for this are economic success — and the envy and prestige this brings — and tremendous media power, but the West is also willing to kill people to teach them to live together in harmony.

Regardless of whatever end-of-history illusions whites have crafted for themselves, in the 21st century, race and culture will determine the fate of nations. Ideology will hardly matter. The failed ideologies of the last era — Marxism, socialism, fascism — were all experiments against reality. Although its proponents are willfully blind to the evidence, multiculturalism is a similarly failed experiment. It is only whites who promote their own dispossession, and because it is only whites who refuse to defend themselves against alien people and cultures, it is only whites who face the prospect of oblivion. In the world that is rapidly taking shape, the races and cultures that prevail will be overwhelmingly non-western. Most will be anti-American. The powerhouses of the new century will be racist, xenophobic, and religiously dogmatic. They will not be multicultural.

In America prevailing dogma flies in the face of this reality. Indeed, the events of September 11 are a chilling testament to the fact that history has not ended, that there are still people willing to die for what they believe. Moreover, these events show the awesome power of unity, of homogeneous peoplehood and vivid conviction. Americans speak of the “heroism” in us that the attacks have brought forth, as if it were somehow praiseworthy not to have let a few terrorists reduce the entire country to quivering helplessness. What if we were really tested? We are now a heterogeneous, conflict-ridden people with competing and incompatible loyalties. What could be more ludicrous than the prospect of such a people, smothered in platitudes about “tolerance,” “inclusion,” “sensitivity,” and “diversity,” trying to fight a real war of mass conscription and tens of thousands of casualties? Men fight for blood and soil, for the deepest of shared convictions, for the very opposite of “tolerance” and “diversity.”

Despite the increasingly clear warnings of dangers ahead, the dark night of multiculturalism continues to envelop America. Given enough time, the acids of multiculturalism will burn out the very soul of America. Other nations in the world, friend and foe alike, will take note of this. In their own quiet way, they are already on the move

Charles Roberts is a business owner and free-lance writer. He lives in Austin, Texas.

ARTICLE

A Libertarian for Our Side

Government is the worst enemy of racial sanity.

Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy — The God that Failed: The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy and Natural Order, Transaction Publishers, 2001, $44.95 ($24.95 softcover), 304 pp.

reviewed by Jared Taylor

Libertarians, to the extent they have any influence on American policy, have been bitter opponents of immigration control. From the Cato Institute, to the Libertarian Party, to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, their generally laudable opposition to government control leads them to view border control as just one more intolerable act of government tyranny. A Journal editorial on July 3, 1990 put the matter as bluntly as possible when it proposed an amendment to the Constitution: “There shall be open borders.”

Hans-Hermann Hoppe, professor of economics at University of Nevada Las Vegas, is a different kind of libertarian. He shares — even surpasses — the usual libertarian contempt for government intrusion and compulsion, but recognizes “free immigration” for what it is: forcing strangers into communities of natives who want to be left alone. Prof. Hoppe recognizes that the right to discriminate, to keep out undesirables, is a fundamental freedom that only the servile would ever give up.

This forceful correction of the mistaken view of immigration in what Prof. Hoppe calls “left-liberal libertarianism” — the kind that attracts nudists, homosexuals, dope smokers, and misfits of all kinds — is just one of the excellent points he makes in a book that is as potentially subversive as The Communist Manifesto.

Our Enemy, the Government

The classic, liberal position has been that the only legitimate function of government is to protect property against crime, fraud, and foreign invasion. However, as Prof. Hoppe points out, even when a government is chartered with limited powers, it develops a taste for bossing people around, and expands its reach. In the United States, despite a Constitution that lists federal powers and even states clearly the government has no powers not specifically granted, bureaucrats now run a “protection” racket that goes well beyond property. Prof. Hoppe writes:

In the name of social, public or national security, our caretakers ‘protect’ us from global warming and cooling and the extinction of animals and plants, from husbands and wives, parents and employers, poverty, disease, disaster, ignorance, prejudice, racism, sexism, homophobia, and countless other public enemies and dangers.

Prof. Hoppe argues that it is in the very nature of government — which he defines as “a territorial monopoly of compulsion” — to increase its powers and exploit citizens: “Once the principle of government — judicial monopoly and the power to tax — is incorrectly accepted as just, any notion of restraining government power and safeguarding individual liberty and property is illusory.” In his view, the solution is not to tinker with policy, thereby leaving the monopolist of compulsion in place, but to abolish government entirely and turn over its few useful functions to private, competing organizations. Whether his proposed substitute for government would actually work (more about which below), his critique of public power is relentless and devastating.

All government is bad, but some kinds are worse than others, and Prof. Hoppe argues strongly that democracy is much worse than monarchy. The crux of his argument is that kings behave like owners who want to keep up the value of their property, while democratically elected rulers act like tenants who want to get as much out of their temporary occupancy as possible. A king has a proprietary, long-term interest in his country and wants to pass it on to his heirs in the best possible condition. A president is different: “Instead of maintaining or even enhancing the value of the government estate as a king would do, a president . . . will use up as much of the government resources as quickly as possible, for what he does not consume now, he may never be able to consume.”

Likewise, kings are not in the business of large-scale transfer of wealth from one class of citizens to another. There are limits to what the nobles and the people will tolerate, and it is clear to everyone if a king unfairly takes something from a subject and gives it to another. Prof. Hoppe recognizes that the popular image of monarchy is one of ruthless exploitation, but points out that not even the most powerful kings had anything like the tax-gathering powers common in democratic countries. In no monarchy did taxation even begin to approach levels now universal in Europe and the United States.

Democracy is the perfect system for the tax man. First, it promotes the false idea that people are equal, which leads to indignation over inequality of wealth and income. “There is nothing ethically wrong with inequality,” Prof. Hoppe explains, but politicians win office by promising to reduce it. This means redistribution, or seizing someone’s property and giving it to someone else. Because people have the illusion that it is “their” government that taxes them, and because the money does not go right out of one man’s pockets into another’s — as it would in a straightforward robbery — democratic citizens are much easier to loot than subjects of a king.

Even more important, since democratic government theoretically offers anyone the chance to win office or to persuade the taxing authorities to hand over some of the loot, it fosters a spirit of larceny: “Everyone may openly covet everyone else’s property, as long as he appeals to democracy; and everyone may act on his desire for another man’s property, provided that he finds entrance into government.” Furthermore, since candidates win office by appealing to covetousness, “advocacy and adoption of redistributive policies is predestined to become the very prerequisite for anyone wanting to attain or retain a government caretaker position,” and “prime ministers and presidents are selected for their proven efficiency as morally uninhibited demagogues.” Kings, by contrast, are not necessarily bad men. Some may be harmless dilettantes or even far-sighted patriarchs.

Prof. Hoppe points out that the broader the franchise, the greater the socialist vote. Welfare programs do not arise when only white male property owners can vote, as was originally the case in the United States. However, it is not shiftless dullards who milk democratic systems best; it is clever manipulators who arrange for such things as farm subsidies, protection from imports, arts grants, or free public university education for their children. “Democracy is immoral,” writes Prof. Hoppe, “. . . [because] it allows for A and B to band together to rip off C .”

The combination of egalitarian thinking and government lust for power results in what may be democracy’s worst offense: welfare. Subsidies for single mothers reward reckless procreation. Subsidies for the poor reward laziness. Social Security and Medicare reward heedless consumption rather than saving for retirement. All these programs reduce the need for family loyalty because they make it possible for people to live at public expense rather than count on kinsmen.

What is worse, undermining the family undermines the one social unit government has never before been able to invade. The millions of people dependent on government rather than on family members can be brazenly manipulated by social worker busy-bodies. As Prof. Hoppe puts it: The welfare state “uproot[s] individuals from their families to isolate and atomize them, thereby increasing the state’s power over them . . . From the point of view of the government’s rulers, their ability to interfere in internal family matters must be regarded as the ultimate prize and pinnacle of their own power.” Kings had no interest in transfer payments, much less the money to pay for them.

Immigration policies of democratic governments are also vastly inferior to those of monarchies. Kings want to improve the quality of their kingdoms, encouraging immigration of skilled workers and expelling criminals, losers and incompetents. As Prof. Hoppe explains, democratic governments may want more losers and incompetents:

[B]ums and unproductive people may well be preferred as residents and citizens, because they create more so-called ‘social problems,’ and democratic rulers thrive on the existence of such problems. Moreover, bums and inferior people will likely support egalitarian policies, whereas geniuses and superior people will not. The result of this policy of non-discrimination [in immigration policy] is forced integration: the forcing of masses of inferior immigrants onto domestic property owners who, if the decision were left to them, would have sharply discriminated and chosen very different neighbors for themselves.

As a libertarian, Prof. Hoppe is a strong advocate of free trade, but scorns the idea that it must go hand in hand with “free immigration,” which is conceptually entirely different. Free trade occurs only when there are willing sellers and buyers of goods; imports cross borders only when they are wanted. Immigrants walk across the border whether they are wanted or not. Even if there are employers who want immigrants, it does not follow that other citizens want to share parks, schools, shopping malls, streets, and movie theaters with them. Therefore, if capitalists really want foreign workers, they should keep them in self-sufficient company towns rather than force them on the public.

Prof. Hoppe recognizes that antipathy towards those outside one’s own group is perfectly natural, but it need not interfere with trade:

From the fact that one does not want to associate with or live in the neighborhood of Blacks, Turks, Catholics or Hindus, etc., it does not follow that one does not want to trade with them from a distance. To the contrary, it is precisely the absolute voluntariness of human association and separation — the absence of any form of forced integration — that makes peaceful relationships — free trade — between culturally, racially, ethnically, or religiously distinct people possible.

As Prof. Hoppe explains, whether domestically or internationally, “private property means discrimination.” When people have lost the right to discriminate they have lost the use of their property. Moreover, “a society in which the right to exclusion is fully restored to owners of private property would be profoundly unegalitarian, intolerant, and discriminatory,” which is why democratic societies fear this basic freedom.

Prof. Hoppe argues that the power of exclusion should revert to “states, provinces, cities, towns, villages, residential districts, and ultimately to private property owners and their voluntary associations.” Just as households do, towns or neighborhoods have every right to keep out anyone they don’t like. Restrictive covenants in property agreements should likewise be legal, so people can establish neighborhoods that suit them. Instead, Prof. Hoppe points out, “every nook and cranny of American society is affected by government management and forced integration; accordingly, social strife and racial, ethnic, and moral-cultural tension and hostility have increased dramatically.”

Race is only one of many criteria on which the right to discriminate should be restored:

Not to be able to exclude others means not to be able to protect oneself. The result of this erosion of private property rights under the democratic welfare state is forced integration. Forced integration is ubiquitous. Americans must accept immigrants they do not want. Teachers cannot get rid of lousy or ill-behaved students, employers are stuck with poor or destructive employees, landlords are forced to live with bad renters, banks and insurance companies are not allowed to avoid bad risks, restaurants and bars must accommodate unwelcome customers, and private clubs and covenants are compelled to accept members and actions in violation of their very own rules and restrictions.

And, as government control seeps into every corner of American life, legislation and regulation metastasize. The Code of Federal Regulations now takes up 26 feet of shelf space, “revealing the almost totalitarian power of democratic government.” No king ever dreamed of telling his citizens whom they could or could not hire, how much wheat they could or could not plant, or where they could or could not have a smoke.

Conservatism

Besides being a libertarian, Prof. Hoppe is a conservative who “believes in the existence of a natural order, a natural state of affairs which corresponds to the nature of things: of nature and man.” This “natural state of affairs” is reflected in the traditional morality found in almost every society, and people violate it at their peril. Prof. Hoppe argues that in a democratic welfare society, “most [people who call themselves] conservatives . . . do not recognize that their goal of restoring normalcy requires the most drastic, even revolutionary, antistatist social changes . . .” He says it is impossible to rehabilitate the family and traditional morality without abolishing the welfare state that undermines them. He singles out Patrick Buchanan in particular for the warning that, “combining cultural conservatism and welfare-statism is impossible, and hence, economic nonsense.” Any conservative who wants to restore sane values will have to overthrow or at least eviscerate the state, and is therefore a revolutionary rather than a conservative.

Prof. Hoppe argues very forcefully that the fatal flaw of classic liberalism was the failure to understand that no monopoly power to tax and compel can be satisfactorily contained, even with a written constitution. He points out that once a liberal has conceded the legitimacy of any kind of taxation, he is at the mercy of socialists who want to raise taxes. Any debate over higher taxes is reduced to an argument about costs and benefits rather than a debate about principle, and in a democracy demagogues always win those arguments.

Prof. Hoppe is prepared to tread even on holy ground: “the American Constitution must be recognized for what it is — an error.” This is because “contrary to the original liberal intent of safeguarding liberty and property, every minimal government has the inherent tendency to become a maximal government.” The history of the United States demonstrates this perfectly.

With what, then, should we replace government? Prof. Hoppe thinks private, competing insurance companies could protect against crime and invasion — the only really essential function of government — just as they do against natural disasters. He also thinks that in the absence of government, natural aristocrats would arise to arbitrate contract disputes between citizens. He suggests it might be well to abolish government even if nothing replaced it, noting that although their function is protection, governments in the 20th century caused the deaths of some 170 million people through war and massacre.

Prof. Hoppe is not optimistic government can be abolished soon — indeed, it is expanding relentlessly towards a global government that would be colossally repressive — yet he reminds us that “every government can be brought down by a mere change in public opinion, i.e., by the withdrawal of the public’s consent and cooperation.” He suggests that once a critical mass of opinion were achieved, a few cities might withdraw from the state and form libertarian, no-government societies whose success would prompt imitators.

Short of abolishing government, Prof. Hoppe sees secession and ever-smaller units of limited government as a next-best solution: “[S]ecession always involves the breaking away of smaller from larger populations. It is thus a vote against the principle of democracy and majoritarianism.” A variety of small states is always better than one big state, because any single wicked government action will affect fewer people. Also, where there is freedom of emigration, neighboring governments are in a kind of competition, since productive citizens will move out if there is too much taxation and coercion. Finally, in a big country like the United States, it is easy to loot fellow citizens because there are millions of them and they live far away. People in small communities who know each other hesitate to use the tax system to shake each other down.

It is a mistake, moreover, to assume that national wealth requires bigness. A tiny country can be wealthy so long as it is integrated into the world economy. Switzerland is far richer than Brazil, and Hong Kong (before the Chinese took it back) and Singapore are clear success stories.

Prof. Hoppe acknowledges that ignorance and stupidity are among the built-in obstacles to abolishing democratic government. Most people do not realize that anything the government gives them it first had to take from them or from someone else. Thus, only an elite will spearhead a movement to abolish or drastically curtail government. Prof. Hoppe quotes Wilhelm Röpke: “the ‘revolt of the masses’ must be countered by another revolt, the ‘revolt of the elite.’” Unfortunately, in the United States, “elites” are as likely to figure how best to get on the receiving end of transfer payments as to lead a movement to abolish them.

ARTICLE

Whites As Kulaks

Frank Ellis, The Macpherson Report: ‘Anti-racist’ Hysteria and the Sovietization of the United Kingdom, Right Now Press, 2001, $8.00, 47 pp.

reviewed by Stephen Webster

The 1993 murder of black British teenager Stephen Lawrence, allegedly by a gang of young white men, became a cause celebre for the British left. At various times over the years, police have brought charges against five men, only to see them dismissed because of insufficient evidence. Three white men actually brought to trial were acquitted in April 1996, after a judge ruled that eyewitness testimony against them was unreliable. British anti-racists refused to let the matter drop, and the election of Tony Blair’s leftist Labour Party in 1997 helped them keep it in the public eye.

Shortly after coming to power, the new Home Secretary, Jack Straw, launched a public inquiry into the Lawrence murder and the police investigation. After 69 days of hearings, the chairman of the inquiry, former British High Court judge Sir William Macpherson, issued what became known as the Macpherson Report — an indictment of British society and the London Metropolitan Police as inherently racist. Its goal was nothing less than the total restructuring of British society to eliminate “institutional racism.”

Dr. Frank Ellis of the University of Leeds is an expert on the former Soviet Union and its system of totalitarian control. In this important monograph he draws striking parallels between the rhetoric and tactics the communists used to enslave the Russian people, and those of the modern anti-racists as they seek to impose multiculturalism on the United Kingdom.

The bulk of the booklet answers the charges against British society and institutions made by the Macpherson Report. To Dr. Ellis, the report is little more than a Marxist fraud, the modern version of a Soviet show trial. Its central assumption is that racism is an exclusively white phenomenon, and that all social structures in British society are hopelessly racist. The police investigated the Lawrence murder with insufficient zeal because they suffered from a bewildering variety of ills: “institutional racism,” “unwitting racism,” “unconscious racism,” “collective racism,” and “racist stereotyping.”

The Macpherson Report says the police are racist because they treat blacks differently from whites — although in Britain, as in the United States, blacks commit far more street crime than whites. But the police are also racist when they treat everyone equally. Dr. Ellis quotes from the report:

A colour blind approach fails to take account of the nature and needs of the person or people involved, and of the special features which such crimes and their investigation possess . . . [I]t is no longer enough to believe all that is necessary is to treat everyone the same . . . it might be said it is about treatment according to need. (italics in original)

In other words, the police are damned if they do, damned if they don’t.

For Dr. Ellis, the Macpherson Report is further evidence of the Sovietization of the United Kingdom. Now that the social engineers who admired the Soviet system from afar have gained control of the courts, the schools, and the government bureaucracies — all without having to go before the voters — they can transform the country virtually unchecked. After noting how the Soviet Union experienced a period of violence followed by stifling bureaucratic rule, he wonders whether we are witnessing the process in reverse. Bureaucratic rule is now stifling, and it will be a wonder if it does not lead to violence.

What is at stake, in Britain and elsewhere, is individual freedom. One of the most insidious recommendations of the Macpherson Report is the elimination of the prohibition against double jeopardy, which forbids retrying a suspect for the same crime. British anti-racists are so determined to see Stephen Lawrence’s alleged killers in the dock again they are willing to take ancient rights away from all Britons. A bill to eliminate double jeopardy protection was before Parliament in 2001 and could become law this year. Another recommendation hopes to redefine racism as “any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person,” a definition so broad it can only be the tool of totalitarian oppression.

According to Dr. Ellis, with the collapse of the Soviet Union:

Multi-culturalism has replaced class war as the preferred narcotic of the intellectual adolescent. One thing fanatics of both causes have in common is the desire to enslave us. Whereas the Communist International attempted to foment class war and put us in chains of equality, their successor totalitarians, the multi-culturalists, wish to drug us with the sickly-sweet milk of ‘the Brotherhood of Man’ so that oppressive legislation can be enacted. If we are not careful we shall awaken from our stupor to find that we are free men no more.

The communists brainwashed their subjects to hate the “kulaks.” Modern “race facilitators” use the same tactics to get whites to confess their wickedness. White, heterosexual men are today’s kulaks.

Dr. Ellis has experienced first hand the totalitarian impulses of the anti-racists. In 1999, he was invited to address the 2000 AR Conference. His acceptance nearly cost him his job as a lecturer at the University of Leeds, an experience he describes in an introductory Author’s Note. The book also contains a preface by philosophy professor Anthony Flew, a postscript by the black American conservative Elizabeth Wright, and a short essay by Jared Taylor describing how Arthur Jensen, William Shockley, Michael Levin and others have run afoul of the thought police in America.

Dr. Ellis makes a convincing case that today’s anti-racists and multiculturalists are indeed the ideological offspring of Soviet communist totalitarians. Their methods are the same: indoctrination, distortion of language, public show trials, political correctness; as is their goal: total control of society. As the drive for more hate crime legislation intensifies, Americans who hope to preserve their historic liberties would do well to read this study, and consider the deeper motives of the people pushing for these laws.

North American readers can buy Dr. Ellis’ booklet by sending a check or money order to Right Now, 244 Fifth Avenue, Suite 223A, New York, NY 10001.

IN THE NEWS

O Tempora, O Mores!

Denmark for the Danes!

On Nov. 20, Danish voters threw out the socialists and voted in conservatives for the first time since 1929. The new government was to be formed by the Liberal Party, but of greatest significance was the success of the Danish People’s Party (DPP), which won about 12 percent of the vote to become the third largest party in parliament. Led by Pia Kjaersgaard, the DPP calls for “Denmark for the Danes:” an end to immigration, lower taxes, less foreign aid, but more spending on the poor and elderly. It’s “a powerful cocktail of xenophobia and social awareness,” says Christian Koch, a professor of rhetoric at Copenhagen University. The DPP will not actually be in the cabinet, but the ruling Liberals will have to please it to keep a majority. The Liberals themselves campaigned to reduce immigration but only because, as incoming prime minister Anders Rasmussen explains, “that will give us a breathing space to improve conditions for those already here.”

The proportion of immigrants has doubled since 1980 and is now 7.4 percent of the population. Many of the newcomers are Muslims, and the DPP’s Miss Kjaersgaard has said she crosses the street when she sees one coming. In the past three years she has been roughed up twice by “anti-fascists,” and now uses bodyguards. Her message has been particularly well received by ordinary Danes. “I’m worried we’ll lose our national identity,” says Mogens Jensen, 57, a bricklayer who used to vote for the Social Democrats, but now supports the Danish People’s Party. [Dara Doyle and Heidi Christensen, Love Her or Hate Her, Danes Can’t Ignore DPP’s Kjaersgaard, Bloomberg, Nov. 13, 2001. Per Bech Thomsen, Denmark’s New PM Denies He’s Hostage to Extremism, Reuters, Nov. 21, 2001.]

Reconquista Update

In California, banks will begin accepting Mexican ID cards as proof of identity. The cards, called matricula consular, are supplied by Mexican Consulates to Mexican citizens — legal or illegal — living in the United States, and look like an American driver’s license. In November, Wells Fargo Bank joined U.S. Bancorp and Union Bank of California in accepting the cards for people opening accounts. At a news conference at the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles, John Murillo, a vice president for Wells Fargo Bank, said “We welcome you [immigrants] to come to one of our branches, where our Spanish-speaking staff will help you and where we won’t question your legal status.”

Executives explain that most American banks require a Social Security number in order to open an account, but Union Bank Vice Chairman Rick Hartnack explains that “a bank policy . . . that says you’ve got to have a Social Security number to have an account is not going to fly in the immigrant-laden Southwest.” Gari Helms, California marketing manager for Wells Fargo, says “Wells Fargo does not focus at all on the legal status of our customers.”

Orange County police officers have also decided to accept the Mexican cards as identification for people they stop for minor offenses. Laguna Beach Police Chief Jim Spreine said this policy will also make victims more willing to report crimes. “When a person shows an officer the Mexican ID, that is not evidence that the person is here illegally,” he explained. “It is not cause for an officer to start an investigation into the subject’s immigration status. In this country, it’s inappropriate for our officers to be saying, ‘Oh by the way, are you legal or illegal?’ That’s disrespectful.” Chief Spreine admitted, however, that since police routinely check the immigration status of suspects who cannot produce identification, the policy change is likely to lead to fewer illegals being turned over to the INS.

INS officials are not bothered by any of this. “Our priorities are to go after illegal immigrants involved in committing crimes,” said Tony Lew, a spokesman for the Los Angeles district office. “If they are law-abiding citizens, we don’t have the resources to go looking for them.” [John McDonald, Police to Accept Mexico-Issued IDs, Orange County Register (Santa Ana, CA), Nov. 8, 2001. Sean Scully, Mexican ID Given OK in Orange County, Washington Times, Nov. 12, 2001, p. A6. Lee Romney and Karen Robinson-Jacobs, Wells Fargo to Accept ID Cards Issued by Mexico, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 8, 2001.]

This is no doubt the sort of thing our Clinton-appointed ambassador to Mexico Jeffrey Davidow means when he says the United States and Mexico share an “intermestic” relationship, meaning that the two countries’ international relations are so intertwined they are really domestic policy issues. In a speech delivered in Utah, he said Mexicans think illegal immigrants are “following a natural and understandable path” to higher wages, and that “US laws and policies are seen as unjust and, at the very least, incoherent.” [Glen Warchol, Ties With Mexico ‘Infinitely Complex,’ Salt Lake Tribune (Salt Lake City), Nov. 13, 2001, p. A11.]

Although he had virtually no Hispanic support in his recent election, Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn is truckling anyway. In Mexico City to meet President Fox, Mayor Hahn said, “Our city is a Mexican city, and Mexican Americans have greatly shaped our cultural, political and commercial landscape.” He said he wants to be a strong advocate for immigrant rights, and made sure President Fox knew he supported bills to let illegal immigrants get California driver’s licenses and to let their children pay in-state tuition at California colleges. [Matea Gold, Hahn Makes Bid to Build L.A.’s Ties to Mexico, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 6, 2001.]

In the meantime, the Sept. 11 attacks and the economic downturn have made the United States less attractive to illegals. In mid-November, the National Migration Institute of Mexico reported that during the preceding two months 350,000 Mexicans came home from the United States. The total may reach two million once migrant farm workers, who have decided to work through the winter to avoid crossings at a time of increased border security, finally decide to go back. At the same time, fewer Mexicans are arriving. Arrests of illegals on the Mexican border are down 25 percent from last year, and dropped 54 percent during the period Oct. 1 through Nov. 15. The Mexican economy depends on the $8-10 billion it gets in remittances from Mexicans in America, and this source of money could begin to dry up as more illegals go home. [Joel Millman and Eduardo Porter, Mexicans Rush Across Border, This Time Headed South, Wall Street Journal, Nov. 15, 2001, p. A22.]

The New South Africa

In South Africa, which has the world’s highest rape rate, there is said to be a rape every 26 seconds. Many of the victims are children, with an estimated 58 child-rapes every day. In 1998, the South African National Council for Child and Family Welfare reported that child rape had increased by 78 percent since 1994 (the last year of white rule), and the rate continues to climb. One of the reasons there is so much child rape is that many South Africans think sex with a virgin cures AIDS.

Infants have been the latest victims. In late October six men in Kimberley gang-raped a nine-month old baby, whose 16-year-old mother had gone out to buy food. The rapists, aged 22 to 66, did so much damage to the child she required a full hysterectomy, and will need several more operations to repair her rectum and intestines.

On November 24, someone snatched an eight-month-old Cape Town girl from her parents’ bed while they were sleeping, raped and sodomized her, and left her bleeding on the sidewalk. Passersby found the girl at 3:40 in the morning and took her to a police station. Police believe the perpetrator(s) crept in through the window to take the child. The parents did not realize she was missing until a neighbor woke them up to tell them a baby had been found in the street, and asked if theirs was missing.

Rape of older girls is more or less routine. Three days before the Kimberley rape, a man reportedly raped his three-year-old granddaughter, and about the same time a 14-month-old was raped by two uncles. On Nov. 2, police in the Northern Province reported that a four-year-old girl had died of injuries she sustained four months ago when her 35-year-old father raped her at her home in Tshirolwe.

Although baby-rapes have shocked even South Africans, many men do not think rape is a very serious crime. A judge recently sentenced a rapist to just seven years in prison, saying he was a first-time offender and not likely to be a danger to society. After all, it was only his own 14-year-old daughter that he had raped. [Charmaine Pretorius, Baby Has Hysterectomy After Gang Rape, Independent (London), Nov. 2, 2001. Ann Simmons, Rise in Rapes of Children Outrages South Africans, L.A. Times, Nov. 7, 2001. Sue Thomas, AIDS ‘Virgin’ Myth Drives South Africa’s Hideous Child-Rape Epidemic, Reuters, Nov. 5, 2001. Murray Williams, Sleeping Baby Stolen, Raped and Abandoned, Independent on Line (South Africa), Nov. 24, 2001.]

He Shot the Sheriff

Sidney Dorsey was the first black ever to be elected sheriff of DeKalb County, Georgia, which includes part of Atlanta. He inspired little confidence, and came under investigation for putting on-duty deputy sheriffs to work for his private security company and for letting jail inmates work in a home-repair program run by his wife. In November 2000, he lost reelection to another black, Derwin Brown, who promised to clean up the sheriff’s department. Sheriff-elect Brown even promised to fire 38 of Mr. Dorsey’s corrupt deputy sheriffs, but Mr. Brown never took office. Three days before he was to be sworn in, someone shot him to death in front of his house in South DeKalb. Police have now arrested the defeated Mr. Dorsey along with several former deputy sheriffs, and have charged them with murdering Mr. Brown. Mr. Brown’s widow says she suspected Mr. Dorsey from the moment she found her husband dead in their driveway. [Ben Smith and Don Plummer, Ex-sheriff Charged With Rival’s Death, Washington Times, Dec. 1, 2001, p. A3.]

Black World Not Ours

The State of the Black World Conference, held in Atlanta at the end of October, celebrated the view that blacks are not really part of America. Rev. Al Sharpton was met with a thunderous standing ovation from 700 delegates when he taunted the American military for failing to find Osama bin Laden. “This country can’t find a guy who comes out every two weeks to cut a video, and then you challenge us to stand under one flag?” He urged the crowd to take on the problems of blacks rather than those of the nation.

Cosme Torres, deputy ambassador of Cuba to the United Nations, also got a warm welcome. He said people from 24 different countries attend Cuba’s medical school whereas the United States has “millions of people without health care.” “Cuba is right there, ready to build solidarity for the revolution,” he added. “The Negroes of Cuba day after day make the dream of their ancestors a reality.” [Steve Miller, Black World Conference Loses Its Audience, Washington Times, Dec. 1, 2001, p. A3.]

What the Alamo Meant

A Line in the Sand, a recent book about the battle of the Alamo, describes some of the racial motivations of the leaders of the Texas independence movement:

At a meeting in Texana on January 20, 1836, citizens from the municipality of Jackson resolved that ‘the great mass of . . . [Mexicans are] incapable of appreciating or even comprehending the Blessings of free institutions.’ Another Texan justified independence because ‘we separate from a people one half of whom are the most depraved of the different races of Indians, different in color, pursuits and character.’ David G. Burnet, soon to be Texas’s interim president, would later tell Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky that ‘Texas has pronounced a final separation from the miserable and revolutionary government of Mexico . . . The causes . . . are too numerous to be detailed in a single letter; but one general fact may account for all; the utter dissimilarity of character between the two people, the Texians and the Mexicans. The first are principally Anglo-Americans; the others a mongrel race of degenerate Spaniards and Indians more depraved than they.’

For many Anglo Texans, and perhaps on both sides, the rebellion was assuming the dimensions of a race war — American against Mexican, white against brown . . .

Like so many other Southerners, the Anglo Texans feared that a race war would culminate in sexual apocalypse against white women.

As one Texan reportedly put it:

And will you now as Texian freemen . . . suffer the colored hirelings of a cruel and faithless despot, to feast and revel, in your dearly purchased and cherished homes? . . . Your beloved wives, your mothers, your daughters . . . given up to the dire pollution, the massacre of a band of barbarians? (emphasis in original) [Randy Roberts and James Olson, A Line in the Sand, The Free Press, 2001, pp. 143f.]

The same book describes the historical context in which 19th century Americans viewed the battle:

In the aftermath of the Alamo, journalists repeatedly mentioned the story of Thermopylae, insisting that now Texas had heroes made of the same mettle as the ancient Greeks. The defenders, wrote a resident of Nacogdoches, Texas, ‘died martyrs to liberty; and on the altar of their sacrifice will be made many a vow that shall break the shackles of tyranny. Thermopylae is no longer without a parallel, and when time shall consecrate the dead at the Alamo, Travis and his companions will be named in rivalry with Leonidas and his Spartan band.’

The early Texans, historian Paul Andrew Hutton has pointed out, viewed the battle ‘as a contest of civilizations: freedom vs. tyranny; democracy vs. despotism; Protestantism vs. Catholicism; the New World Culture of the United States vs. the Old World Culture of Mexico; Anglo-Saxons vs. the mongrelized mixture of Indian and Spanish races; and ultimately, the forces of good over evil.’ [Ibid., pp. 172f.]

The ‘Decatur Seven’

Just over two years ago, seven black students got into a brawl at a high school football game in Decatur, Illinois. The school expelled the students, only to have Jesse Jackson descend on the town and bellow about “racism.” School authorities were beginning to wobble, when video clips of the brawl appeared, showing the blacks hammering people in the most vicious way. The hubbub did drag in the Illinois governor, and a two-year suspension was reduced to one year. Rev. Jackson said this was still much too harsh for the little dears. Where are they now?

Bruce Manns was arrested on a mob action and battery charge for jumping someone in a hotel parking lot. Shawn Honorable has been arrested several times on drugs charges and was fined $200 after pleading guilty to resisting an officer. Gregory Howell still owes $406 in fines in connection with the 1999 brawl and could not be located. Terrence Jarrett spent 17 days in the Macon County jail last November in connection with a shooting, but journalists have been unable to reach him since then. Errol Bond graduated from high school and, so far, has had no known brushes with the law. Roosevelt Fuller has since pleaded guilty to aggravated domestic battery, for which he got a year of probation. More recently he was arrested for beating an acquaintance and taking $120. Courtney Carson has been arrested for unlawful possession of a stolen firearm, but is now in college playing basketball. He appears to be the most ambitious of the seven. “I plan on owning at least 20 to 30 barber shops around the world,” he says. [Janet Rausa Fuller, Decatur Seven, 2 Years Later, Chicago Sun-Times, Nov. 30, 2001.]

Bradford Still Simmers

Bradford, England, the scene of spectacular race riots last summer, continues to have race problems. For more than 20 years, Brownies have met in the town’s St. Philip’s Church but have had to go elsewhere after Pakistani and Bangladeshi thugs started intimidating the girls and their parents. Lucy-Jane Marshall, a Brownie leader, says Asians have thrown stones at her and called her a “Christian bitch.” She called the police several times but they did nothing. [Paul Stokes, Brownies Forced to Quit Church After ‘Race Attacks,’ Telegraph (London), Nov. 14, 2001.]

On November 5, shortly after the Brownies moved out, Anglican vicar Tony Tooby noticed people inside his church as he drove by, and stopped to investigate. He found a gang of some 50 masked Asian men about to set the church on fire. They chased and stoned him, shouting “Get the white bastard,” and one threw a rock through his car’s rear window. The thugs fled before police arrived, but not before spreading gasoline all over the church, burning an antique chair and altar cloth, and breaking a 140-year-old stained glass window. If Rev. Tooby had not stopped in, his church would have gone up in flames. [Ian Herbert, Masked Asian Youths Stone Vicar in Attempt to Burn Down His Church, The Independent (London), Nov. 7, 2001. Alexandra Phillips, Mosques Say Sorry to Attack Vicar, Bradford Telegraph, Nov. 7, 2001.]

A report on Bradford by Ramindar Singh, former deputy chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, has tumbled to the obvious. “Bradford is becoming a city of two separate worlds — a world of white people and another of brown and black communities with their own languages, cultures, religious beliefs, dress and food patterns,” it said. “The division between these two worlds is becoming sharper and more visible.” The report even seemed to grasp what the problem might be: “The high visibility of south Asian people, their cultures and institutions, is continuously perpetuating the white population’s fear of being swamped by foreigners and their alien value systems.” Needless to say, the solution is for whites to overcome these silly fears. [Neil Tweedie, Frightened Whites in Bradford’s ‘Two Worlds,’ Telegraph (London), Nov. 2, 2001.]

Meanwhile, racism and xenophobia will become serious crimes in Britain if regulations drafted by the European Union are adopted. The EU decided it didn’t like the hodge podge of anti-“hate” laws in the member nations, so it cooked up a uniform code for the continent based on Germany’s laws, which are the most repressive. Holocaust denial and “trivializing” Nazi atrocities would become crimes, as would “racism” or “xenophobia,” defined as “aversion to individuals based on race, color, descent, religion or belief, national or ethnic origin.” Other crimes could include “public insult” of minority groups, “public condoning of war crimes,” and “public dissemination of tracts, pictures, or other material containing expressions of racism or xenophobia.” In order to become law, the proposal would require unanimous approval of all 15 member states, so there is a chance this foolishness can be averted. [Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, EU Considers Plans to Outlaw Racism, Telegraph (London), Nov. 29, 2001.]

To no one’s surprise, a Sunday Times survey has found that four out of ten British Muslims believe Osama bin Laden is justified in attacking the United States. It is not clear whether openly expressing views of this kind would be a hate crime under the proposed EU laws. [Melanie Phillips, Sunday Times, Nov. 4, 2001.]

‘No Obvious Motive’

Seven black students at George Washington High School in North Philadelphia were arrested on November 14, the day after they beat a white student so severely he needed surgery to treat a blood clot on his brain. Although the assault was the third racial attack at the school in two weeks, the school district’s chief safety executive Dexter Green says “there was no obvious motive.” Kathy Gremo, the victim’s mother, thinks the attack was clearly racial. “He was on his way to the lunch room and eight or so black kids jumped on him and beat him,” she says. [Susan Snyder, Seven Students Held in Beating at High School, Philadelphia Inquirer, Nov. 14, 2001.]

Through the Back Door

In 1996, California approved a voter initiative banning race-based preferences in admissions to the University of California system. As non-achieving blacks and other minorities disappeared from campuses, opponents of the 1996 initiative cast about for ways to circumvent the policy. They may finally have succeeded. On Nov. 14, a key committee of the University of California Board of Regents voted 13-2 to change the admissions policy to allow consideration of non-academic achievements for all freshman applicants. The new policy would include a student’s athletic or artistic ability, or his “struggle against poverty.” Critics of the change say it reinstates racial preferences through the back door, and will only cause more litigation and lower academic standards. [Regents Endorse Shift in Admissions Policy, Miami Herald, Nov. 15, 2001, p. 17A.]

Wrist-slap for Slaver

Evelyn Djoumessi, originally from Cameroon, needed someone to look after her three children and help out around her house in suburban Detroit, so she and her husband Joseph brought 14-year-old Pridine Fru over from Cameroon in 1996. They promised they would provide for her education in exchange for baby-sitting and housework. Instead, the Djoumessis kept Pridine as a slave for three years, beating and raping her.

At trial, Mr. Djoumessi was convicted of child abuse and third-degree criminal sexual conduct, and sentenced to 9 to 15 years in prison. Mrs. Djoumessi was convicted of third-degree child abuse. On November 15, Oakland County Circuit Judge Alice Gilbert sentenced her to three years’ probation and forbade her from hiring a housekeeper or a nanny. “You must do all your own housework cleaning, laundry, everything,” said the judge. Prosecutor Cheryl Matthews, who wanted Mrs. Djoumessi sent to prison, was outraged by the sentence. “I have to do all my own housework and care for my children,” she told the Detroit Free Press. “It’s not a sentence.” [Woman Sentenced For Keeping Girl As Slave, ClickonDetroit. com, Nov. 15, 2001. Housework Part of Sentence for Woman Who Enslaved African Teen-ager, AP, Nov. 16, 2001. Jennifer Chambers, Enslavement Trial Nears Finish, Detroit News, Aug. 30, 2001. Cameroon Couple Lose Rights To Daughter Held As Slave, Clickon Detroit.com, Sept. 22, 2000.]

Bargain Booths

City Clerk Nancy Banks of Southfield, Michigan, thought she was getting a deal when she bought 500 used voting booths from Pasco County, Florida, for $5.00 each. Rather than congratulate her on her thrift, the local NAACP accused Miss Banks of being insensitive to blacks who are upset about their supposed “disenfranchisement” in Florida during the 2000 election. Heaster Wheeler, director of the Detroit chapter, criticized Miss Banks for not understanding what the booths mean to blacks. “You don’t use swastikas or KKK robes for table cloths and then have to explain why ethnic groups are offended,” he said.

Miss Banks, who is white, stood her ground. She said the booths were a bargain, and noted that the voting machines were identical to the 450 used in the city since 1977. “If they are so upset about this equipment, why didn’t they come forward earlier?” she asked. “We’ve been using these machines forever.” She saw the NAACP criticism as an attempt to bolster the campaign of Terry Tyler, a Southfield NAACP commissioner running against her for city clerk. [Daniel Duggan, Voting Booths Purchase is ‘Insulting,’ NAACP Says, Oakland (Michigan) Press, Oct. 26, p. A1.]

It didn’t work. On Nov. 6, Nancy Banks was re-elected Southfield City Clerk, beating Terry Tyler by more than 7,400 votes.

Death Sentence

According to Ronald Taylor, “Jesus Christ made a very big mistake by putting white trash people on the face of the earth.” On March 1, 2000, Mr. Taylor decided to take out the trash. He went on a shooting rampage in the Pittsburgh suburb of Wilkinson, killing three white men. At his trial, prosecutors showed that Mr. Taylor had singled out whites, even telling a black woman she was safe because he was going to shoot only whites. Mr. Taylor’s lawyers argued he was insane and suffered from delusions that whites were persecuting him, but on November 11, after deliberating for two days, a Pittsburgh jury sentenced him to death. [Shooter From Hate Spree Gets Death, AP, Nov. 12, 2001]

The Wisdom of the East

The Japanese government has pledged more than a billion dollars to the United Nations to help Afghan refugees, but it will not grant political asylum to nine Afghans who entered the country illegally. Kensuke Ohnuki, a lawyer representing the would-be asylees says, “High officials and bureaucrats believe that Japanese people harbor racism against foreigners. They think accepting refugees is contrary to the people’s will.” Of 598 requests for asylum between 1994 and 1998, Japan granted only 12.

As a rule, Japan lets in foreigners only if they are ethnic Japanese. This is how former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori became a Japanese citizen earlier this year, despite having been born in Peru. Because Japan does not extradite its citizens to other countries, Mr. Fujimori will not have to face corruption charges in his native country. [Michael Zielenziger, Japan Denies Nine Requests for Asylum, Knight-Ridder News Service, Nov. 8, 2001.]

Black Magic Woman

Willie B. Aldridge, black former principal of Central High School in Pontiac, Michigan, faces eight counts of embezzlement for allegedly spending thousands of school dollars on Neiman Marcus underwear, beauty products and the like. A police search of her home in connection with the investigation turned up something unusual: a jar full of an unknown liquid, in which were floating little strips of paper with the names of her enemies written on them.

According to the police report, “Research shows that writing names on slips of paper and then placing them in vinegar or urine is a common voodoo or black magic practice to place a spell on the individual named.” Among the names in Miss Aldridge’s jar were those of Pontiac’s school superintendent, two Central High employees, three police officers conducting the embezzlement investigation, and retired Pontiac Police Chief Larry Miracle. “Maybe there’s something to it,” said Chief Miracle. “I got gout and my back went out the same week I found out about it.”

Also on the enemies list was a newspaper, the Oakland Press, which Miss Aldridge had tried to sue because it published unflattering articles about her. [John Wisely, Police: Names of Foes Stored in ‘Magic’ Jar, Oakland (Michigan) Press, Nov. 29, 2001, p. A1.]

Signifigance Wright, RIP

Sabrina Wright of New York City was the mother of four-year-old twin girls, Signifigance and Ellagance. The children were originally taken from her by child welfare authorities when Miss Wright tested positive for illegal drugs in the hospital shortly after she gave birth. Miss Wright got them back, but lost them again when a social worker visited her only to find her trying to attack her boyfriend with a knife. Authorities sent the children to live with one of the father’s sisters in Virginia, but the sister already had four children of her own and got tired of Signifigance and Ellagance. The twins recently came back to live with their mother, but on Nov. 12, Miss Wright drowned Signifigance in the bathtub. She says she was convinced her building was possessed by demons, and that she drowned the girl in an attempted exorcism. [William Gorta, Devil Made Her Do It, New York Post, Nov. 16, 2001.]

‘No More Hispanics’

In July 2000, Damon Campbell, who is black, shot to death Carlos Villanueva in an alley east of downtown Las Vegas. Witnesses said he opened fire after saying he did not want any more Hispanics in his neighborhood. In November, 2001, a Nevada jury convicted Mr. Campbell of first-degree murder and sentenced him to life in prison. [No Parole Given in Shooting Death, Las Vegas Sun, Nov. 16, 2001.]

Islam in America

Mohammad Juniad is the child of Pakistani immigrants and a U.S. citizen. His mother was in the World Trade Center at the time of the Sept. 11 attack, but was led to safety by firemen. A week later, Mr. Juniad, 26, bought a one-way ticket to Pakistan, where he planned to volunteer to fight with the Taliban. “I may hold an American passport,” he said, “but I am not an American. I am a Muslim.” He explained further: “I’m willing to kill the Americans. I will kill every American that I see in Afghanistan. And I’ll kill every American soldier that I see in Pakistan.” [Damon Johnston, New York Survivor’s Son Turns Traitor, Courier-Mail (Brisbane, Australia), Nov. 11, 2001.]

Meanwhile, American schools are trying to accommodate Muslims by setting aside school rooms in which they can pray. “My religion is a really big part of my life, and it’s really good I can practice it, even at school,” says 14-year-old Saba Quadri, who is in 9th grade in a Chicago public school. Because Muslim girls are not supposed to bare their arms or legs in the presence of boys, Chicago schools separate the sexes for physical education classes. Schools Chancellor Harold Levy of New York City had also announced he was setting aside prayer rooms for Muslim students, but backed down when he received a flood of complaints. [Carl Limbacher, Chicago Schools Create Prayer Room for Muslims, NewsMax. com, Nov. 29, 2001. Carl Limbacher, NYC Schools Chancellor in Ramadan Prayer About-Face, NewsMax.com, Nov. 16, 2001.]

Common Sense, Finally

The U.S. State Department grants seven million visas each year, more than 250,000 of which go to Middle Easterners. Saudi Arabia, home to 15 of the 19 terrorists who hijacked the planes on Sept. 11, gets 60,000. Because the State Department has only 900 consular officials checking applications, most everyone gets a visa, and since the government does not keep track of foreigners once they arrive, many stay permanently.

For several weeks after Sept. 11, the State Department refused to change the visa-granting policy only for Middle Easterners or Muslims, saying this would be “racial” or “ethnic” profiling. On Nov. 9, the department finally announced that men aged 16 to 45 from 26 Muslim-majority countries will now have to postpone travel for up to four weeks while their names are sent to the FBI for background checks.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department says it wants to question more than 5,000 young, mainly Middle Eastern men, aged 18 to 33, who entered the United States on visitor or student visas since January 2000. The interviews are voluntary, and to be conducted mainly by state and local police. The Justice Department had hardly made the announcement before the acting police chief of Portland, Oregon, a black man, said he would not cooperate with the interviews because they constitute racial profiling. [Martin Gross, Yielding to Common Sense, Washington Times, Nov. 14, 2001, p. A14. Mary Beth Sheridan and Dan Eggen, Arab, Muslim Men to Get Tougher U.S. Visa Screening, Washington Post, Nov. 14, 2001, p. A24.]

LETTERS FROM READERS

Sir — I was fascinated by Gilbert Caldwell’s December cover story about the 1956 Sugar Bowl. Sometimes the milestones on the path to destruction come into focus only in retrospect. At the time, most Southerners no doubt thought nothing of what they were giving up in return for the thrill of big-time football. Still, I was staggered to learn Georgia Tech students rioted for the right to take the field against black athletes. Rioted! I would have thought Southerners in the 1950s at least had a certain self-restraint even if they did not realize where integration would eventually lead. I find myself wondering what outrage could possibly set white students rioting today for a cause that was actually in their racial interests — or are whites so defeated and denatured they will submit cheerfully to any insult or injury?

Fred Hooper, Mussel Shoals, Ala.

Sir — I was thrilled to read the October cover story, “Rearing Honorable White Children,” because it reflects so many of my concerns about rearing my own daughter. While home-schooling may be the best way to ensure that children are educated as their parents wish, this is not an option for all families — especially single parents, and those who cannot afford to have one parent stay at home.

There are alternatives Prof. Griffin failed to mention, and I have found one in the Waldorf schools (a chain of private schools found both here and in the United States). These schools try to shut out the culture of today. They do not allow children to wear clothing depicting pop culture or superheroes, they have no televisions, no plastic or popular toys, and no toys that promote aggressive play. Instead, their toys, furniture, and decorations are made of natural materials that stimulate a child’s imagination, and the staff foster care, concern, growth and intellect. Waldorf teachers are keenly aware of the impact of the marketplace on children, and greatly encourage parental involvement. A parent can be confident his ideals are being represented at these schools.

Though they are not racially selective, I am more comfortable sending my child to a Waldorf school than to a public school. At least non-white children are learning the same things as my child, and not learning how to become the next Britney Spears or Michael Jordan, or a video game addict or Pokemon junkie. Another alternative to home-schooling may be a Montessori school or some other type of private school where at least some displays of pop culture are eliminated.

How then should parents address the racial issues? The same way they would address other issues with their children — educate them at home, and impose controls on whom they associate with and what they do in their spare time. You can count only on yourself to bring up your children responsibly, and to point out things schools do not. Like the parents in Prof. Griffin’s article, I feel that I, too, have “successfully embargoed the mass media” by forbidding activities, toys, and clothing that promote it, by remaining actively involved in my child’s school, by instilling in her a sense of her own heritage, and by being firm but ever so loving.

A Concerned Mother, Ontario, Canada

Sir — With regard to the Rebecca Porcaro story in the December issue, in which a pretty, blond, white girl was enrolled in an overwhelmingly black school and subjected to constant demeaning racial taunts and threats from black students, I think she sued the wrong people. Instead of suing the school, she should have sued her parents for sending her to that school and leaving her there, even though they must have known what was going on. I call this child abuse. They should have moved to another school district or enrolled their daughter in a private school.

Bruce Brown, Las Vegas, Nevada

Sir — The answer to the rhetorical question in the title of Jared Taylor’s November cover story, “Will America Learn its Lessons?” is “No.” To date there has been no serious national discussion of the link between immigration and terrorism. Terrorism experts tell us there could be hundreds, if not thousands, of al Qaeda sleeper agents in this country, and it turns out that all 19 of the Sept. 11 terrorists came here legally on various kinds of visas. Common sense would suggest that unused visas for people in Muslim countries be canceled, and that Middle Easterners in the country now be ordered to leave — as has always been done with enemy aliens in wartime. It is well known that many Middle Eastern illegal immigrants are smuggled across the Mexican border, but the National Guard is being sent to patrol the Canadian border.

Although it is off the front pages, Mexican president Vincente Fox’s Trojan-Horse amnesty plan for millions of illegal aliens is still making progress. Recently, Democratic leaders Daschle and Gephardt were in Mexico City saying amnesty for illegal Mexicans was in our national security interest. And what about those Muslims offered citizenship by Attorney General Ashcroft in exchange for providing information on terrorists? Who is to say these newly-minted citizens won’t turn traitor the first chance they get?

Our government seems far more eager to curtail the rights of citizens than to inconvenience foreigners. What lessons should we learn from that?

Scott Sandridge, Atlanta, Ga.

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