American Renaissance magazine
Vol. 12, No. 6	June 2001

CONTENTS

Arguments for our Side
Rescuing Jefferson
Cincinnati Burning
The Cincinnati Fifteen
O Tempora, O Mores!
Letters from Readers

COVER STORY

Arguments for Our Side

Some ideas on how to debate the race question

by Jared Taylor

For more than ten years I have been an open advocate of racial consciousness for whites. During that period, in hundreds of radio interviews and dozens of television appearances, I have debated people who defend current racial platitudes. In this process, I have come across a number of effective arguments, and several to which there appear to be no effective replies. Readers of AR may find some of these arguments useful.

Our society is filled with debates, whether over the air, in print, in classrooms, or in private conversation. These debates are what establish the “opinions” of the vast majority of Americans who do not have ideas of their own. Most people absorb what they hear around them and are most likely to absorb what they hear most often. Americans encounter dissident views on race so infrequently they will not be persuaded through simple repetition. A defense of white racial consciousness must therefore be clear, even arresting, in order to have an effect.

‘Racism’

Unfortunately, the other side has, until recently, so dominated the debate and so grossly misrepresented our views that anyone who departs from racial orthodoxy will at some point have to contend with the charge of “racism.” “That’s a racist statement,” your opponent will say, in a tone that suggests he has just dropped a nuclear bomb, and for timid people — about 95 percent of whites — that ends the argument. The “racist” apologizes, back-peddles, and shrivels into silence.

You, of course, are not going to do that, but the whole “racism” issue means you must defend against an accusation, and gets in the way of making positive arguments. Some racial advocates try to put opponents on the defensive by asking them to define “racism,” but this is a bad mistake. First, it gives your opponent the floor, whereas you should be using the time to make your own points, not letting him explain why you are a bad person. Second, you will not get a definition. You will get a long list of things like slavery, segregation, apartheid, genocide of the Indians, colonialism, Jim Crow, etc., followed by, “That’s what racism is.” If it is a public debate and your opponent is trying to prove his virtue by being nasty to you, he may add, “and it was racists like you who did those things.”

The fact that the “racism” accusation is usually so effective is actually an advantage for us, because the people who make it have probably never seen it fail. You therefore have an opportunity to shock them by walking away from ground zero without a scratch. If you are in a radio debate, or some other forum in which you need to save time, deflect the “racism” charge in a light-hearted way by saying, “Come on, say something original.” No one ever expects that reply, and during the surprised pause that follows you can make a positive rather than defensive argument.

If the “racism” argument comes up again — and often it won’t — or if you want to go on the attack, you might say: “Don’t you realize that you’re not making an argument any more? When you call me a “racist,’ all you’re doing is calling me names. Of course, when you’re reduced to name-calling it’s the most graceless way of admitting you’ve lost the argument.”

If someone calls you a “racist,” he has completely shifted his ground and isn’t dealing with facts or logic anymore. He is saying “You’re bad!”, which is pure emotion. Prof. Michael Levin, author of Why Race Matters, says this kind of childish outburst makes no more sense than calling someone a “poopoohead.” Grownups do it only because it works, and it works only because so many whites are invertebrates.

The silliness of the “racism” charge is especially clear if you are talking about racial differences in IQ. Just point out that the only legitimate issue is how to interpret the evidence. Your conclusions are either right or wrong. If someone stops trying to explain why you are wrong and instead starts calling you names, it’s a sure sign he can’t explain why you are wrong — which is because you are right.

A somewhat milder way to make the same point is to evoke a more innocuous racial difference, especially one favorable to blacks. Point out that many researchers think blacks have more inherent athletic ability than whites. This is a scientific question of interpreting the evidence, and is just like evaluating the evidence for IQ differences. Is it “racist” to conclude that blacks are better athletes than whites? Once again, anyone who accuses you of racism is no longer thinking logically and is making an emotional, ad hominem appeal out of desperation.

Likewise, in the context of any discussion of race and IQ, it disarms the opposition to point out that the very same evidence for higher white than black IQ suggests north Asians have higher IQs than whites. It is an odd form of “racism” to reach conclusions unfavorable to whites.

Accusations of “white supremacy” are less common than “racism,” but are easy to defeat. There is no harm in becoming indignant. “White supremacy is the desire to be supreme, to rule over others, to oppress them,” you say. “Not a thing I have ever said so much as hints at that. This is nothing more than ignorant name-calling.” Occasionally someone will call you a “white separatist.” This is a somewhat less emotion-laden term, but to many people it still implies forcible separation with fire hoses and snarling police dogs. I find the best reply is, “I believe in complete freedom of association.” This turns an accusation into an opportunity to make a positive point.

The Fairness Doctrine

Undoubtedly the greatest threat to whites today comes from immigration. Racial preferences, guilt-mongering, anti-Western education, even anti-white violence are manageable problems compared to a process that is displacing whites and reducing them to a minority. With a change in thinking at the right levels, anti-white policies and double standards could be done away with practically overnight, but that would still leave us with nearly 100 million non-whites living in the country. Demographic displacement would be difficult to reverse even with a radical change in popular thinking. In their bones, whites know this. They are profoundly disturbed by the thought that their grandchildren could be racial minorities in a largely black-and-Hispanic America. Therefore, I find that one of the most effective and important points we can make is that this is not inevitable, and that we have every right to oppose an immigration policy that hastens this process. What is the best way to approach this?

One of the characteristics of whites is that they must believe their political positions are fair. It is not sufficient justification that something merely be in their interests. I believe this is one of the distinguishing virtues of European peoples, but in the dangerous game of demographic competition, it is a potentially fatal flaw.

People of other races seldom worry about fairness. If something is good for them, they support it, no matter how unfair it may to others. “Affirmative action” is an obvious example. It makes no difference to most blacks or Hispanics that preferences for them require discrimination against whites. Preferences are good for them, so they want them. They don’t care if whites suffer.

The current fuss over the disfranchisement of felons reflects the same thinking. Blacks are much more likely than whites to be felons, so disfranchisement hits them hardest. Blacks don’t even make a pretense of coming up with principled reasons why released prisoners should vote. All they need to know is that changing the rules would mean more black voters, more black elected officials, and more power and benefits for blacks. No further justification is necessary.

In a radio debate about reparations for slavery, my black opponent openly admitted that all he cared about was advantage for blacks. “If we are to pay up for past wrongs,” I asked him, “do we owe reparations to women because they couldn’t vote until 1920? What kind of principle are you establishing here?” “I don’t care about other groups,” he said. “I’m talking about reparations for African-Americans.” A white would not have felt he could completely ignore the notion that there should be consistent rules that apply to all groups.

We find this same lack of concern for principle in virtually every black attitude. Slavery practiced by whites 150 years ago is an abiding evil for which we owe compensation, but slavery practiced in Africa by blacks today is of no interest or significance. The current black obsession with slavery is therefore not principled opposition but a way to hector whites.

Blacks support welfare, the Democrats, abolition of the death penalty, extension of federal power, progressive income taxes, and government set-asides for the same straightforward reasons. They were glad to see O.J. Simpson beat the murder conviction, not because he was innocent but because he is black. Anything good for blacks is good. Many blacks go even further: Anything bad for whites is good. This simple, unprincipled mentality keeps blacks united in support of their own interests.

Whites, to their credit and their hurt, don’t think this way, and this is why every racial argument must be couched in terms of fairness. Whites will not respond to mirror-images of the appeals that work for blacks. Whites are the only people on earth who have to be convinced that it is not unfair for them to survive as a majority race in homelands of their own. This is a terrible sickness, and can be cured only with an appeal to fairness rather than to simple group interests. You should always emphasize that you want nothing for whites you are not happy to grant to all other peoples: The freedom to be left alone to pursue their destinies.

Equal treatment is so basic to the idea of fairness that even children understand it. This is why the arguments for our side that work best are almost invariably of the what-if-the-shoe-were-on-the-other-foot variety. John Ney, in a 1982 pamphlet called “Miami Today — The U.S. Tomorrow,” makes a reciprocity argument I have been using ever since: What if hundreds of thousands of poor, white Americans were pouring illegally across the border into Mexico, demanding school instruction in English, celebrating Fourth of July rather than Cinco de Mayo, turning entire communities into white-American enclaves, demanding open borders, operating criminal gangs, and even talking darkly about breaking off a chunk of northern Mexico and turning it into an all-white republic? Could the Mexicans be tricked into thinking this was a delightful form of cultural enrichment? No. Mexicans would be outraged and would call out the army to stop it.

The same argument works for all non-white countries. Would it be fair to expect Nigerians to accept huge flows of Asians, say, who were going to reduce black Nigerians to a minority in a few decades? Wouldn’t it be right for Nigerians to oppose this? Whites understand this principle perfectly when the victims of displacement are not white. It is even trendy to oppose China’s program of sending Han Chinese into Tibet to obliterate Tibetan culture. Whites recognize that even the most primitive, stone-age people of the Amazon or New Guinea deserve to be left alone and not have their culture swamped by outsiders. It is only when the problem of white dispossession is presented as a clear parallel to the obvious injustice of non-white dispossession that most whites begin to realize they have a moral case for survival. Obvious as this approach really is, most whites have never thought about the problem this way, and it can make a strong impression.

Here is another way to put the case for equal treatment. It is clear that Hispanics (and every other immigrant group in the country) want their numbers to grow. Hispanics want more Hispanics because their interests are different from ours and they want their interests to prevail. They want elected officials, official Spanish, celebration of their holidays and folkways. They want the United States to reflect them. As non-Hispanics, we want the country to reflect us. Entirely aside from the fact that Europeans founded this country and established its institutions, our desires are perfectly symmetrical to those of Hispanics: They want the country more Hispanic; we want it less. Why are their desires legitimate but ours reprehensible? There is no answer to this question. Again, if we imagine the situation reversed — white Americans in Mexico trying to remake the country in their own image — there would be no question about who was right.

A different way of saying the same thing is to ask someone to imagine what the Southwest United States would be like if it were invaded and conquered by Mexico. Americans and their culture and society would be displaced by Mexicans. Americans would become refugees and flee to parts of the country not yet conquered. That, of course, is precisely what is happening to large parts of the Southwest. Mexicans are achieving the effects of conquest — many openly call it reconquista — without firing a shot. Why must we accept and even celebrate the very thing nations send their young men into battle to prevent?

Here is another equal-treatment argument based on white Americans’ love of self-criticism. Years ago, we used to hear the expression “ugly American.” It meant Americans who went to other countries and expected the people to speak English, who wanted to find American food, and who generally expected foreign countries to act American. This, of course, was universally condemned. Why, then, do we invite foreigners in the United States to act like “ugly Mexicans” and “ugly Haitians” who expect us to adapt to their languages, religions, celebrations, and cultural peculiarities? Why was it wrong for us but right for them?

There is another shoe-on-the-other-foot argument that approaches immigration from a different angle. Ask any white American whether he can imagine emigrating to Haiti or Cambodia or India and assimilating. Not even the most empty-headed liberal can honestly say he can. Why, then, do we expect people from Haiti and Cambodia and India to come here and become Americans? If we could never become them, how can they become us? At the very least, this question raises the issue of cultural and national differences. Americans don’t want to become Haitians or Cambodians or anything Third World because those countries are failures. How will people who have built failed societies help us build one that works?

The usual liberal response actually suggests that Americans perhaps could become Haitians after all, because it is pure voodoo. The theory is that although Americans could never assimilate in India or Nigeria, Indians and Nigerians can become good Americans because of American exceptionalism. This is some kind of magic, practiced only in America, that suspends the laws of human nature and makes all people love each other. The basis for this fantasy is that people came from all over Europe, and settled in after only a few hiccups.

You, of course, can point out that this theory completely ignores race. Europeans assimilated because they were white, not because of some exceptionalist voodoo Jefferson and Madison brewed up. We have two sets of non-whites who have been here longer than the Italians and the Irish, and they still don’t fit in. We have given up expecting our own Indians even to live in the same places and under the same rules as whites, but we are supposed to think Mixtics and Nahuatls and Bolivians in bowler hats are going to make great neighbors and PTA members — thanks to the voodoo of American exceptionalism. These days, American exceptionalism is just a fancy way of saying American whites aren’t allowed to have a country of their own.

The multi-cultural propaganda has been so powerful that an astonishing number of people think America was founded with the idea of making it into a multi-racial paradise, nation of immigrants, and haven of diversity. It is always worth pointing out that this is a new-fangled notion completely alien to the traditional conception of America. You should emphasize that up until the 1960s virtually everyone took it for granted that this was a white country (with a few blacks and Indians), and that until 1965 we had an immigration policy specifically designed to keep the country that way. Explain that you are defending the original conception of the country and that your opponent’s idea of aggressive multi-racialism would have shocked and outraged Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Truman, and just about every other prominent American up to and including John Kennedy. Explain that you are defending the view that prevailed from colonial times until just a generation ago, and that your opponent is promoting a revolutionary transformation of a country that was working just fine.

Sometimes people refer to multiculturalism as part of the “American experiment,” implying that Third-World immigration somehow fulfills our destiny. First of all, it is insulting to talk about America as an “experiment,” as if it were boys having fun with a chemistry set, but if the “American experiment” ever meant anything, it was things like federalism, self government, and manhood suffrage. These days, no one who refers to the country as an “experiment” can have much attachment for it, because experiments are deliberate ventures into the unknown that can go horribly wrong.

Entirely apart from nonsense about “experiments,” you can usefully go on the offensive by asking if it is even theoretically possible that multi-racialism will not work. Could the country break up into ethnic enclaves? Could internal disunity make a coherent foreign policy impossible? Could there be race war? Liberals resist admitting even theoretical possibilities of this kind, but they cannot rule them out. You should ask why we must run even a minimal risk of disaster. We know these things don’t happen in homogeneous countries; what are we gaining from multi-racialism, that comes even close to justifying the risk of civil war or Balkanization? This is another question for which there is no answer.

White Hypocrisy

An entirely different tack to take in a debate about race or immigration is to point out the hypocrisy of whites. I like to tell radio audiences that almost all whites think as I do, and that I am unusual only in speaking publicly — and that I can prove this is the way whites think. Actions, I explain, speak louder than words. Whites leave when the neighborhood begins to turn black or Mexican. I emphasize that this is so predictable there is a name for it: white flight. These refugees in their own country may be too browbeaten to admit they are leaving because of race, but when they move out of a neighborhood that is changing, why do they always go to one that is whiter than the one they left?

“Can you name a single majority-non-white neighborhood you’d like to live in?” I like to ask. “Or a majority-non-white school you’d like your children to attend?” If whites refuse to be minorities at the local level, why should they want to be a minority at the national level? Why should they want more and more non-whites coming into the country, turning ever-vaster areas of it into places in which they would refuse to live?

At this point it is easy to mock William Clinton. While he was in office, the Great White Father spoke of the joys of diversity, of looking forward to the time when whites become a minority. And where did he decide to buy houses after leaving the White House? In Chappaqua, New York, which is about as white a place as can be found this side of Iceland, and in Georgetown, the whitest part of Washington, DC.

Senator Edward Kennedy, I like to point out, is just as hypocritical. He was an important backer of the 1965 immigration reform that threw the country open to Third-Worlders. He is always promoting integration, and talks as though living with Mexicans and Guatemalans were a wonderful thing. Yet in his own life, he has steered entirely clear of the benefits of multi-culturalism. His children went to private schools and vacation in Hyannis Port. There aren’t likely to be many Haitians around when Edward Kennedy goes for a swim. He is therefore a great proponent of diversity, but only for people who don’t have the money for private school and vacations on Martha’s Vinyard. You can always add that people like him are good examples of the fact that the purpose of a liberal education is to give people the right attitude towards minorities and the means to live as far away from them as possible.

A similar approach with liberals is to ask them if racial integration is an important national objective. They can hardly say anything but yes. You can then say, “In that case, why don’t you act on your principles and buy a house in a black neighborhood?” I have never heard of even the most deluded white person ever doing this, so you can be sure your opponent hasn’t done it either. If he then says the reasons are not race but crime, bad schools, etc., you have a choice of replies: (1) Your opponent won’t move into a black neighborhood for exactly the same reasons other whites move out of them. It’s therefore hypocritical for him to criticize white flight or to criticize people who want to keep the country white. (2) Crime and bad schools are precisely the social ills integration is supposed to cure, so why won’t your opponent please lead by example? In either case there is no good answer.

In private discussion, you are not likely to be debating a black person, but this happens from time to time on radio or television. Just as African heads of state commonly believe in juju, many middle-class American blacks believe all sorts of preposterous things. It is useful to get them to state these things on the air (or before a white audience) because it emphasizes the chasm of differences that divide the races even after 40 years of “civil rights” and “reaching out.”

Blacks love to rail about the sins of the white man, and even the mildest things you say can set them off. Mention black crime or illegitimacy, suggest blacks are responsible for their own failures, argue that affirmative action is discrimination against whites, and you will get the standard litany. It is entertaining to lead them on: “Is there anything else you can think of whites have done?” Your opponent warms to his task. When you run into a black who clearly hates whites, it can be entertaining to ask if anything bad has ever happened to any black people anywhere in the world that was not the fault of white people. Believe it or not, some blacks will not or cannot answer this question.

When your opponent has finally exhausted his litany of white wickedness it is enlightening to ask, “Do you think whites are a uniquely evil people?” You are likely to get a “yes.’ You can follow with: “Can whites be cured, or are they hopelessly evil?” “If whites are hopeless, shouldn’t you be working for complete separation from them rather than integration?” “Shouldn’t whites just be exterminated?” Whites almost never draw blacks out this way, and the answers will surprise any whites who are listening.

A similar approach with blacks is to ask them whether they believe specific things most whites think are completely wrong: Does the government deliberately supply dope and guns to black neighborhoods so blacks will take drugs and kill each other? Did whites invent AIDS as a way to get rid of blacks? Before the white man arrived, did African blacks have a high level of scientific knowledge? (When you get a “yes,’ ask for specifics and expect to be regaled with stories of airplanes, brain surgery, electricity, communication with other planets, etc.) Were Africans the first people to discover America? (Once again, politely ask for specifics.)

Don’t even try to rebut the fairy tales you will hear. It will have no effect on blacks, whether speaker or audience, and not even the goofiest whites believe African princes were flying airplanes or discovered America. The point is to encourage blacks to say what they really believe about whites and about themselves. Most whites have no idea what fantastic things many blacks believe, or how much they hate whites. It is exceedingly jarring to them to hear these things vigorously expressed by the teachers and community leaders who are likely to be your opponents in a public debate.

Please note that an approach of this kind would not work with whites. Even delusionally liberal whites know they shouldn’t say whites are biologically unique in their evil, and they would never suggest they should be exterminated. Even if you could get a white to say this sort of thing publicly, other whites will either not believe him or dismiss him as a harmless nut. When blacks talk this way, though, it is both believable and frightening.

A surprising number of blacks know about something Andrew Hacker wrote about in his book, Two Nations. Prof. Hacker writes that he asked white students how much money they would have to be paid in order to go through life as a black person. They reportedly said they’d have to be paid millions of dollars, and blacks say this shows how terrible a disadvantage it is to be black. You can then ask, “If being black is so awful and being white is so great, how much would you pay to be white?” Since you are dealing with a white-hater he is likely to reply, “I wouldn’t pay a thing to be white. You couldn’t pay me enough to be white.” You can then point out his attitude is identical to the one he is criticizing in whites.

Something to consider when debating blacks is that arguments based on arithmetic are likely to mean very little to them. I well remember a radio debate with a black about crime, in which I pointed out that blacks are more likely than whites to be charged with hate crimes. He laughed dismissively and, to my surprise, said he had the FBI hate crimes report with him (I was on air by telephone, so could not see the others on the program). He triumphantly read out that blacks committed only 22 percent of hate crimes, while whites committed more than 60 percent. After a few minutes of trying to explain that this figure proved my point — that 22 percent is greater than the proportion of blacks in the population — I gave up. A surprising number of whites have trouble understanding any kind of per capita argument; for most blacks, it might as well be quantum theory.

In any kind of debate there are a number of points to bear in mind. The first is never to raise your voice. It may be hard to avoid this, because the other side is likely to treat you like a degenerate and insult you. This is so unpleasant that many people avoid debates of this kind even when they know they are right. Do not return insult for insult. The purpose of the debate is not to defend your manhood, but to advance calm, reasoned arguments for a point of view many people have been taught to think is shocking. When the other side misbehaves or gets emotional, your reasonable tone — if you can maintain it — only makes you more persuasive. Of course, there are limits beyond which no one should have to go. Several times I have had to threaten to end the interview if I am not allowed to speak or if the host does not restrain a guest who repeatedly insults me. Out of the hundreds of times I have been on the air, only twice have I had to say, “I’m sorry, but I see it’s not possible to have a civilized discussion with you,” and hung up the phone. That is a last and desperate resort, because it is important and useful to make a case for our side whenever possible, even against the heaviest fire and under the most disagreeable circumstances.

The effort may not seem useful at the time. Particularly if you speak before a live audience where questioners must stand up before people who know them, you may face what appears to be an unrelieved wall of opposition. This is only because so many people on our side are frightened and intimidated. Chances are, several people will come up furtively afterwards and tell you how pleased they are at what you said. I thank them, but I also chide them for their silence. I like to remind them that according to our national anthem, this is supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Radio programs, to which people can call anonymously, are a much better indicator of the level of support for our ideas. If the host is a “conservative,” it is not uncommon for virtually every caller to agree with me. Even when the host is a liberal, and he and most callers are hostile, many potential supporters will call the AR office or write to us. Over the years, I have noticed that increasing numbers of callers know who I am, have read my books or take AR, and call to agree with me.

Even supporters, though, sometimes fall into bad habits that reflect our benighted times. Nothing irritates me more than whites whose first words are, “I’m a white male, and . . .” I interrupt them and say, “‘White male’ is for lab rats and crime suspects. You’re a white man.” I’m also sick of whites whose first words are “I’m not racist, but” and who then go on to make some mild, common-sense point about black crime or racial double standards. I like to ask them, “Why’d you think you had to tell us you aren’t a racist?” Often they don’t even remember they said that, and the answer — if you get one — is likely to be pitiable jabber about how many white people really are “racist.” While the caller fumbles, I point out that whites are so terrified of being called “racist” they deny the charge even before they begin to speak, and this terror means they are not likely to talk honestly about race.

To speak honestly often appears to be a lonely task. When the immediate response is hostile, it can seem that very little is being accomplished, but it is likely that seeds are being planted in people’s minds that will germinate later. It is vitally important that sensible views on race and immigration be broadcast to as large an audience as possible. There are now quite a few organizations that consistently promote a fair-minded view of what is at stake, and the more they are able to do so — and the more effectively they do it — the less lonely our work will be.

BOOK REVIEW

Rescuing Jefferson

Setting the record straight on Sally Hemings

The Jefferson-Hemings Myth: An American Travesty, Eyler Coates, Ed., Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society, 2001, $11.95, 208 pp. (softcover)

reviewed by Thomas Jackson

In October 1998, an article entitled “Jefferson Fathered Slave’s Last Child” appeared in the prestigious British science magazine Nature. It reported results of DNA testing meant to determine the truth of the old rumor that Thomas Jefferson kept a black concubine who bore him several children. The results were inconclusive and tended to disprove the traditional concubine story, but the article was deceptively written, and its headline turned a possibility into a certainty. The press enthusiastically reported Jefferson’s miscegenation as fact.

In January 2000 the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, which owns Jefferson’s home Monticello, issued a report concluding that Jefferson fathered at least one, and probably all six of his slave Sally Hemings’ children. About two weeks later, CBS released a mini-series called “Sally Hemings: An American Scandal,” full of steamy scenes of Thomas Jefferson romancing a beautiful young slave girl. Jefferson and Hemings were now as tightly bound in the public mind as Anthony and Cleopatra.

In May 2000 a group of Jefferson admirers established the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society to reassess the evidence for the Hemings affair, and this collection of essays called The Jefferson-Hemings Myth is the result of their work. Taken together they are a careful summation of all we know, as well as an account of the recklessness and deceit of those who promoted the miscegenation story. As this book clearly shows, the DNA testing disproved the oldest and most persistent accusation against Jefferson, and suggested only that some male in the Jefferson line was the father of the last of Sally Hemings’ children. It paints a devastating portrait of an American intellectual class hungering to crucify Jefferson.

The Callender Story

The book tells us that rumors about “dusky Sally” were first circulated in 1802 by a political enemy of Jefferson named James Callender. Callender, an alcoholic and misanthrope, was an Englishman who fled his homeland in 1793 just ahead of the sheriff, and settled in Philadelphia. He had been a notorious political pamphleteer, and became a naturalized American citizen to avoid extradition to England, where he was wanted for sedition. In the ten years until his death, he continued to write unfounded scandal stories, and managed to defame all of the men who had been or were to become the first five American presidents.

At first, his sympathies were with Jefferson’s Republican party, and he wrote slashing slanders against the Federalists, who imprisoned him for sedition. Jefferson came to his defense, not only for partisan reasons but because he despised sedition laws as a threat to free speech. Callender got out of jail at about the time Jefferson took office for his first term as president in 1801, and asked for the patronage job of Postmaster of Richmond, Virginia. Jefferson refused, and Callender added threats of blackmail to his demands. When Jefferson refused again in even stronger terms, Callender switched sides politically, and started attacking Jefferson and the Republicans.

In the Sept. 1, 1802, issue of the Richmond Recorder, he wrote the first of many assaults on the president’s character: “It is well known that the man whom it delighteth the people to honor, keeps and for many years has kept as his concubine, one of his own slaves. Her name is SALLY. The name of her eldest son is TOM. His features are said to bear a striking although sable resemblance to those of the President himself.” [capital letters in the original] He went on to claim that Jefferson first had his way with Sally while he was ambassador to France, and that she had returned pregnant to Monticello.

These charges were repeated by other federalist newspapers, and Callender boasted that he had ended Jefferson’s political career. He was wrong; Jefferson won reelection in 1804, a year after Callender drowned in the James River after an extended drinking binge.

The accusations were not repeated during Jefferson’s second term, and appear to have been forgotten until 1870, when Sally Hemings’ son Madison told a census taker he was Jefferson’s son. This account, complete with elaborations upon Jefferson’s Paris dalliance with Sally, was published in the March 1873 issue of the Pike County Republican, an Ohio newspaper. This story prompted Fawn Brodie’s salacious 1974 best-seller, Thomas Jefferson, An Intimate History.

It has always been theoretically possible that Jefferson slept with his slave. He set out in 1784 at age 41 for a five-year term as ambassador to France. He was single; his wife had died two years previously and Jefferson never remarried. After he arrived in Paris he sent for his daughter Polly to join him. He gave instructions that she be accompanied by an older slave — who was unable to come — and 14-year-old Sally came in her place. Sally had come to Jefferson as part of his wife’s property, and it is possible she was the result of a union between Martha Jefferson’s father and a slave. This would have meant she was Mrs. Jefferson’s half-sister, but this is not confirmed.

Tradition has it that Sally returned from Paris pregnant with her first child, Tom. However, as The Jefferson-Hemings Myth reports, there is some doubt about this child; although Monticello records duly noted the births of Hemings’ six other children they are silent about Tom. Tom is said to have lived at Monticello until age 12, when he left the plantation and took the surname of Woodson. It is his descendants who have always claimed loudest and longest that Thomas Jefferson was his father, and he was the TOM of the Callender account. Hemings herself was never known to claim she was Jefferson’s mistress, and until her son Madison started giving interviews to the Pike County Republican 35 years after her death, no other child of hers is ever known to have made that claim either. The tradition among descendants of her youngest child, Eston, has been that a Jefferson relative — perhaps a brother or nephew — was the father. There has long been reason to think Jefferson’s nephews, Samuel and Peter Carr, fathered at least some of the Hemings children, and until the DNA analysis, the scholarly consensus was that Jefferson was innocent of miscegenation.

The DNA testing was based on the fact that men pass their Y chromosome essentially unchanged to their sons. Jefferson had no sons, so it was not possible to determine his Y chromosome from male descendants, but researchers found male-line descendants of one of Jefferson’s uncles, who would have carried the same chromosome as Thomas. They also tested male-line descendants of Sally Hemings’ last child, Eston Hemings, and of Tom Woodson, as well as male-line descendants of Samuel and Peter Carr.

The results were clear: Tom Woodson’s male descendants carry neither the Jefferson chromosome nor the Carr chromosome. Their Y is more characteristic of Europeans than of Africans, so if Tom really was Sally’s son she probably was impregnated in Paris, but not by Jefferson. If the Woodson men had been found to carry the Jefferson Y chromosome, it would almost certainly mean Thomas was their ancestor, because in Paris there were no other Jefferson men who could have slept with Sally. Callender’s original charge and the most persistent oral claim to Jefferson descent were therefore refuted.

The Eston Hemings male line, however, was found to carry the Jefferson chromosome, and this caused much joy among those determined to slur Jefferson. They ignored the fact that this finding meant only that some Jefferson had fathered Eston, and that there were seven other male Jeffersons of reproductive age, frequently at Monticello, who could easily have had a fling with Sally.

It is worth noting that descendants of only two of Hemings’ six children (or seven, if we include Thomas), had their DNA tested. It would have been pointless to test the descendants of the daughters because they would not carry the Y chromosome of their father. The testing therefore does not let the Carr brothers off the hook. It shows only that they did not father Tom or Eston.

The article in Nature reporting the DNA results had two serious flaws. The first was the title, which falsely suggested the results were decisive. The second was its failure to explain there were other Jefferson men who could have been Eston’s father. The author of the article, Eugene Foster, had acknowledged receiving information about these men but simply left it out. He did not claim the data were conclusive but did write that “the simplest explanation” for the results was that Jefferson was Eston’s father. By offering no other explanation, he clearly suggested the “simplest” explanation was the only one.

Later, perhaps shaken by the headlines his slanted article gave rise to, Dr. Foster wrote a supplement to his Nature article, explaining that other Jeffersons could have fathered Eston. The press, which had leapt upon the first article, ignored the second.

As this book points out, “proof” of a Jefferson-Hemings affair gave the media great joy for several reasons. First, it “confirmed” the oral tradition of slaves in the teeth of prim white denial. (Of course, it did no such thing. It refuted the strongest oral tradition — Tom Woodson’s — and was consistent with the relative-of-Jefferson tradition — Eston Hemings’ — that no one ever had reason to deny.) Second, it could be cast as a dramatic case of Jefferson the freedom lover oppressing a poor black woman who was his property. Furthermore, coming as it did at the height of the William Clinton sex scandals, it implied that presidential dalliance was a long American tradition. Finally, it gave the press an opportunity to indulge in overwrought racial non sequiturs. The Jefferson-Hemings Myth quotes Reuters: “The confirmation of a direct link between one of the country’s founding fathers and generations of black claimants to his name symbolically affirms the central role of African Americans in the making of the modern nation.”

However, it is the actions of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation (TJMF) that most astound the authors of this book. The foundation, which maintains Monticello and is supposed to honor the memory of the third president, was if anything even more eager than the press to condemn Jefferson. Its official report, which appeared a little over a year after the Nature article, simply set aside Tom Woodson, fastened upon the inconclusive Eston evidence, and concluded that Jefferson had fathered all six of Hemings’ children.

One of the members of the committee that drafted the report has contributed a chapter to this book. He writes that very early on he “sensed a strong power play aimed at the TJMF to force them to accept something that was politically correct and not historically accurate.” He wrote a dissenting opinion, which he expected would be attached to the final report but which was never distributed to the press.

The book calls the foundation report “shallow and shoddy scholarship,” that simply ignores evidence that does not suit its accusatory purpose. As another contributor to the book explains, two of the most ardent anti-Jeffersonians on the report committee visited the set of the defamatory CBS mini-series and attended its premier screening. He suspects they deliberately delayed publishing the report for several months so as to coincide with the CBS release and give it publicity. He also notes that Monticello tour guides were instructed to stick to the conclusions in the foundation report, and to refrain from criticizing the CBS travesty.

Exonerating Jefferson

Taken in conjunction with the inconclusive DNA evidence, there are many reasons to believe Jefferson did not father Sally Hemings’ children, and it is unconscionable that the Monticello foundation ignored them. To begin with, Jefferson does not appear to have been a highly-sexed man, and after the death of his wife there is no evidence he had affairs with any women. He would have been 64 years old at the time Sally conceived Eston, the son who carried the Jefferson chromosome.

Furthermore, if he had been carrying on with his slave, it would have been after the original Callender charges — shown by DNA evidence to be false — and during his second term as president. It is hard to believe he would have risked discovery and scandal to carry on an affair with a slave towards whom he afterwards showed no particular attention or affection.

He was, moreover, devoted to his daughters and grandchildren, many of whom lived with him at Monticello. His letters to them are filled with moral instruction that would have seemed impossibly hypocritical if he had been fornicating with a slave, and to do so under their noses would have invited detection. One daughter slept just above his bedroom, and reported hearing him singing Scottish airs in the morning. It would have been impossible to keep the affair secret, and all Jefferson’s family were unanimous in agreeing there was none.

For example, Martha Jefferson Randolph, Jefferson’s daughter, lived for most of her life at Monticello. She was 18 when Sally Hemings’ first child was born and 36 when Sally’s last child was born. On her death bed, she called her sons into her room and told them Jefferson was innocent of the charge of concubinage, and urged them always to defend their grandfather’s reputation. Either she sincerely believed there was no affair or she was lying brazenly just before she died. One of the granddaughters who lived at Monticello wrote that from what she knew of her grandfather, dalliance with a slave was “a moral impossibility.”

There is other evidence. Edmund Bacon was an overseer at Monticello, who kept notes of his observations. He reported that often early in the morning he had seen a man he took to be a lover leaving Sally Hemings’ chambers, and that the man was not Thomas Jefferson. He included the man’s name in his journal but it has been smudged out in the original — probably by someone trying to protect the guilty.

There is also a report by one of Jefferson’s grandchildren who confronted the Carr brothers with the newspaper accounts of Jefferson’s black mistress. He said the Carrs wept with remorse that their misdeeds should be pinned on their illustrious uncle. There is also a separate account of Peter Carr laughing at the fact that Jefferson bore the blame for his and Sam’s copulations.

It has long been claimed that Jefferson never denied the Hemings charge, thereby implicitly accepting it. This is false on two counts. He had a well-known policy of not responding publicly to personal accusations, so his silence means nothing. Furthermore, he denied the charges in private correspondence. There is a letter dated July 1, 1805, in which Jefferson pleads guilty to only one of the Federalists’ accusations, namely, that in his youth he made a pass at a married woman. He does not specifically deny the Hemings charge, but by 1805 it was well known, and his blanket denial can hardly have failed to include it.

So who was Eston Hemings’ father? The most likely candidate is Randolph Jefferson, Thomas’ brother. In 1807, when Eston was conceived, he was a 51-year-old widower. There exists a letter inviting him and his family to visit Monticello at a time precisely nine months before Eston Hemings was born. Randolph was a fun-loving fellow who enjoyed spending time with slaves.

As one of Jefferson’s slaves, Isaac, recalls in his Memoirs of a Monticello Slave: “Old Master’s brother, Mass Randall was a mighty simple man: used to come out among black people, play the fiddle and dance half the night; hadn’t much more sense than Isaac.” It is not difficult to imagine what the widower might have got up to after a night of fiddle-playing. Moreover, it is known that in 1809, the year after Eston was born, Randolph remarried. He had a child by his new wife in 1810, so it is clear he was capable of fathering Eston.

Finally, it should be remembered that Randolph had five sons, all of reproductive age at the time Eston was conceived, and all of whom carried the Jefferson Y chromosome. Any of them could have visited Monticello with their father. Moreover, the unusual name of Eston was a given name in Randolph’s mother’s family, which also suggests parentage from that side of the family rather than from Thomas. Finally, Jefferson had a cousin named George, likewise of reproductive age and known to visit Monticello, so he cannot be ruled out as the father either. And indeed, the Eston family tradition held that a relative, and not Thomas Jefferson himself was the father — although the family is now busily revising the oral tradition to claim Thomas as head of the clan.

One can hardly expect the press to look into details like this, but it was pure partisanship for the Monticello foundation to brush aside family accounts that are perfectly consistent with the evidence, and instead base its position on the claims of blacks and the ambiguous Eston Hemings DNA evidence.

Jefferson’s accusers make much of the fact that Monticello records show Jefferson was at home during the periods when Sally Hemings must have conceived. This means nothing. It was when Jefferson was at Monticello that visitors — including possible fathers of Sally’s children — were most numerous. Also, there are few records of Sally’s movements, and it is possible she conceived her children during visits away from the plantation.

The Monticello foundation also insists that the Hemings children all must have had the same father, and that if even one had a Jefferson for a father, it means all of them did, and that this Jefferson must have been Thomas. There is absolutely no reason to think Sally Hemings was monogamous, except that this assumption may make it easier to pin her pregnancies on Jefferson. In fact, it is known that Sally’s mother and two of her sisters had different children by different fathers.

There is one tantalizing piece of evidence that could be collected but has not been. In October 1999 one of the contributors to this book located the grave of William Hemings, the son of the Madison Hemings who claimed in the 1873 interview to be Jefferson’s son. William died in 1910, so there could well be testable DNA in his grave. Significantly, William Hemings’ descendants refuse to permit their oral tradition to be put to the test. The Monticello foundation and other anti-Jefferson factions likewise show no interest in further DNA testing. The Jefferson-Hemings Myth suspects these people are perfectly content with the state of the scientific evidence as it is, since it has already been so woefully bent to suit their purposes. The authors point out that even if William Hemings carried a Jefferson gene it would only be more circumstantial evidence against Thomas and not conclusive. If, on the other hand, William Hemings carried some other Y chromosome — from a Carr, for example — this would be a strong blow to the theory of Jefferson-as-miscegenist.

The deeper one looks into this case, therefore, the flimsier the indictment and the darker the motives of the prosecution appear to be. Why did so many people ignore the evidence in Jefferson’s favor and delight in describing him as a lecher and hypocrite? This book ascribes it all to “political correctness,” but the problem is deeper. One need only compare the ecstatic denunciations of Jefferson to the outright terror the media had of printing the news that Martin Luther King was a plagiarist. Reporters at major newspapers kept quiet about that story for months, and published it only after a British paper scooped them.

Furthermore, although Hemings’ name is routinely evoked with a smirk along with Jefferson’s, after a brief excuse-making spate of articles about the African-American tradition of “voice-merging,” the word plagiarism — like the word adultery — has been permanently dissevered from the name of King. The mud has been scraped off the saint and he is buffed to as high a gloss as ever.

It would be hard to think of a contrast that better illustrates the anti-white thinking of our rulers, both in government and media: White heroes are fair game for even the most reckless smears while black heroes are untouchable. The so-called founders were debauched hypocrites whose ostensible achievements are largely white self-flattery, while it is to “civil rights” one turns for genuine heroes. This is an integral part of the program to discredit the nation’s founding as a self-consciously European enterprise and replace it with a multi-racial farrago in which the white element is the least praise-worthy.

Although this book is entirely right to point out the preposterous biases in the media’s treatment of the Jefferson-Hemings story, it was an entirely unexceptional performance. This was a story about race, and the media performed no worse than they usually do with this — for them — baffling subject.

ARTICLE

Cincinnati Burning

Whites learn nothing from yet another riot

Cincinnati has just gone through its worst race riots since 1968. Three days of violence came to an end only when Mayor Charles Luken imposed an 8:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. curfew. Police arrested more than 830 people in a week of mayhem during which blacks set fire to more than 100 homes and business, and looted countless others. Arson damage was estimated at more than $200,000; no estimate was yet available for looting losses. Both the national media and local authorities seem to be competing to see who can draw the most stupid conclusions from what happened.

The riots were sparked in the usual way: A white policeman shot a black criminal. Nineteen-year-old Timothy Thomas, who had a juvenile record and was well known to local police, was wanted for 12 traffic-related offenses and two charges of running away from officers trying to arrest him. Police spotted him at 2:00 a.m. April 8, Sunday morning, in the worst part of the worst section of Cincinnati, a black area called Over-the-Rhine. Instead of submitting to arrest, he dashed through alleys, around corners, hopped over two six-foot fences and one 12-foot fence. Stephen Roach, a white officer with five years experience, approached from a different direction as other officers chased Thomas, and surprised him in an alley. He says Thomas reached for his waistband as if to draw a gun (other officers say Thomas may have been trying to hold up his baggy trousers). Officer Roach fired once, killing Thomas, who was found to be unarmed.

Rioting did not break out immediately; that Sunday was quiet. On Monday afternoon, there was a protest at City Hall against the shooting, and much was made of the fact that all 15 people shot and killed by the police in the last six years have been black (see next article). As the protest ended, the crowd grew to about 800, and headed towards the police headquarters of District One, the area where the shooting had taken place. Blacks shouted insults at the police, took down an American flag and ran it back up the pole upside down. Late that night police used tear gas and non-lethal “beanbag” ammunition to disperse the crowd, but there were no serious injuries or damage.

It was not until Tuesday afternoon that a small, peaceful protest downtown grew into a riot, as mobs of blacks started looting, destroying vending stands and newspaper kiosks, and attacking whites. By Wednesday the riot was in high gear, with blacks — many with kerchiefs over their faces — setting fires, looting, destroying parked cars, and beating whites. That night they set fire to a police substation, and a black man shot a white police officer, who escaped injury only because his metal belt buckle deflected the bullet. The most seriously damaged parts of town were heavily black, but it was clear rioters were targeting white-owned businesses. Firemen refused to go to fires without police protection. At one call, a black fired a shot into the air and said he would start shooting firemen next.

On Thursday morning, Mayor Luken declared a state of emergency and announced a curfew to go into effect that evening at 8:00 p.m. He called in 75 State Highway Patrol officers to help the exhausted Cincinnati police. The same day, Kweisi Mfume of the NAACP flew into town to harangue Mr. Luken about police brutality, and comfort Thomas’ mother. There were many arrests for curfew violation that night, but police cruisers and helicopters with floodlights mostly had the streets to themselves. The worst of the riot was over, but the mayor kept the city under curfew three more nights and lifted it the next Monday.

Al Sharpton cut short a trip to Africa to arrive over the weekend, claiming the federal government would have to find solutions. He called on George Bush to get involved, saying, “He has a crisis in his country.” Rev. Sharpton’s presence does not seem to have prolonged the disturbances.

There is no doubt that once the rioting began, it became an excuse for anti-white violence. Blacks surrounded whites unlucky enough to be driving through black parts of town, pulled them from their vehicles and beat them. A white truck driver who was inside a store making a delivery, came out to find blacks trying to steal his truck. The crowd shouted “Kill him! Kill him!” as blacks took turns beating and kicking him. A black mob attacked an albino black woman, Roslyn Jones, throwing bricks at her car and shouting they would “get the white girl.” “The first piece of white skin they saw, they hit it,” says Miss Jones, whose attack did not stop until someone noticed she was black.

As is now often the case, there was considerable television coverage of the rioting, and police subpoenaed the raw footage of four local stations, promising to bring hate-crime charges whenever warranted. “There may have been more incidents of this nature than anybody thinks,” says one officer.

For days, the national media ignored Cincinnati, no doubt unwilling to report news of black misbehavior. When outsiders finally arrived to cover the violence, they clucked about how Cincinnati is the eighth most segregated city in America, implying this was reason enough to riot (the riots only gave whites more reasons to leave). They also brought a curious perspective on the violence. The New York Times could not bring itself to describe what happened as a riot, instead writing of “sporadic protests and vandalism,” and noting that whites were “alarmed.”

National media also decided a little rioting might be therapeutic. A front-page report in the Los Angeles Times informed us that: “[W]hile no one wants to say that the riots were good, there was on Friday an undeniable sense of relief that the mayhem . . . had laid bare Cincinnati’s fissures. Now, perhaps, there could be progress.” On the Sunday television program “This Week,” an ABC correspondent had the same idea: “In a week of uncomfortable truths, none has been more uncomfortable than this: It took riots to make people understand how deep are the racial divisions. And it took rioting for people to feel the urgency required to close those divides.”

Local authorities did everything to encourage this view. Mayor Luken — who is white — kept on about how the city and the police had to “do more.” The April 15 funeral for Thomas drew not only the Kweisi Mfumes and Martin Luther King IIIs one would expect; Ohio Gov. Robert Taft, Mayor Luken, and virtually the entire Cincinnati city council turned out, to call for a new, non-racist, non-violent Cincinnati. “I . . . pledge to you all the city will be better,” said Mayor Luken. Gov. Taft said Thomas’ mother, Angela Leisure, was “brave and courageous” to call on rioters to stop rioting despite her grief. The governor’s wife Hope wiped away a tear. Family members of police officers killed on the job wondered why the governor turns out to bury a criminal but not Cincinnati’s finest.

The spirit of the riots lived on after the looting stopped. Just across the river at Northern Kentucky University, an associate professor of political science originally from Jamaica told a student group that Thomas’ family should deal personally with the officer who shot him. They should “quietly stalk that S.O.B. and take him out,” explained Clinton Hewan.

At a city council meeting on April 17, the day after the curfew was lifted, Mayor Luken and the council submitted to endless abuse from blacks who struck the usual threatening themes. “We’re sick and tired of all the damn talking,” said Rev. Abdul Muhammad Ali to cheers. “You better give us the justice we seek or you have not seen anything yet.” “It’s going to be war,” explained George Weaver. Norma Payne compared the city fathers to slave masters and Nazis: “When I look at you, I think you may be the KKK in disguise.” Blacks shouted and booed when Sapphire Siloam said they were showing too much hate and pointed out that hate would not rebuild the community. Mayor Luken, of course, accepted the blame. “This can’t continue,” he said. “We must do better as a community.” He pronounced himself pleased with the meeting, explaining that “this allows us a chance to connect with our citizens.”

Not all whites were groveling. Keith Fangman, the white president of the Fraternal Order of Police, was furious at the mayor for suggesting the police had done something wrong. He pointed out that police usually have excellent reasons for killing criminals: the criminals are trying to kill them. He also explained that in the last four years four Cincinnati police officers have been killed — all of them by blacks. “The bottom line is there just isn’t a large number of white civilians pointing guns at us,” he said. On another occasion he told a press conference, “We don’t create these situations, folks. We simply react to these incidents. Do people just expect us to allow ourselves to be shot?” Common sense of this kind makes the press and the mayor very uncomfortable.

Another rare white with backbone was city councilman Jim Tarbell, who actually tried to explain why Officer Roach might have had good reason to fear for his life:

Put yourself there [at the corner of Republic and 13 Streets where Timothy Thomas was shot] . . . That’s one of the biggest dope-dealing dens and dysfunctional environments that we have in this city. It’s absolutely the most frightening environment that we have in Cincinnati today. I’ve been there and walked it myself. It’s scary at 3:00 p.m. Transfer that to 3:00 in the morning.

But the official opinion was that whites were to blame, both for Thomas’ death and for the riots. All the talk of reform and “healing” put the burden of change entirely on whites, not blacks. Keith Fangman of the policemen’s union was the only person who even hinted at the real problem: black criminals.

Black criminals bring aggressive police action upon themselves, and it is a betrayal of the police to suggest otherwise. When whites promise rioting blacks that they will “do better” they are only rewarding violence and mayhem.

It is a mistake to assume blacks riot because they have some legitimate grievance. Blacks are likely to riot whenever there is a large number of them together in one place. A rap concert or a basketball game is as good an excuse for a riot as “racial profiling and police brutality.” Just last month we reported that black high-school students at a rally for racial preferences in Berkeley, California, sacked a shoe store and sent a white man to the hospital. The Mardi Gras violence in New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Seattle was yet another example of blacks going on anti-white rampages the moment circumstances made it seem safe to do so.

In Cincinnati, no one seems to have thought through a few exceedingly simple propositions: If Thomas had not insisted on driving without a license the police would not have wanted to get to know him better. If he had not run from police he would have been arrested without incident. If blacks were not so eager to open fire on the police, Officer Roach might not have arrived on the scene with his weapon drawn. If Thomas had reached for the sky rather than for his pants, Officer Roach would not have shot him. None of this matters, of course. White Cincinnati must search its soul, ponder its sins, sensitize its police, reach out to blacks, and apologize to the world.

But at least the authorities appear to be pursuing hate criminals with unusual zeal. On April 23, prosecutors announced their first indictment. Craig Carr a 20-year-old white man has been charged with throwing a brick through the window of a black man’s car and shouting racial slurs at him on April 12, the third day of the riots.

And, of course, Officer Roach has been indicted — dispassionate justice or a sop to violent blacks?

ARTICLE

The Cincinnati Fifteen

From time to time rioters shouted “fifteen” as they went about their business. This referred to the 15 blacks killed by Cincinnati police since 1995. Much was made of the fact that police killed no whites during that period, and many people called the killings murders. Here, in chronological order, are the circumstances under which the other 14 died. Unless otherwise noted, the killings were found to be justified.

People called police when Darryl Price started shouting, and running in and out of traffic. When they arrived, he was jumping on the hood of a car, saying he was going to “shoot someone.” Police sprayed him with chemical irritant, tackled him, and put him in shackles. At one point he hit his head on a metal plate, but coroners ruled his death was not caused by resisting arrest, but by “agitated delirium with restraint,” a form of sudden death usually seen in drug users and mental patients. Price was using cocaine before he died.

Harvey Price killed his girlfriend’s 15-year-old daughter with an ax and partially decapitated her. Police sprayed him, and shocked him twice with a stun gun, but he held them off for four hours with a steak knife. At 4:00 a.m. four SWAT team members entered the house and sprayed him again, but shot him when he attacked them with the knife.

Lorenzo Collins escaped from a psychiatric ward where he was being held at the request of the police. When officers approached him he threatened them with a brick and they shot him. The officers were cleared of wrongdoing, but Collins’ family won $200,000 in a wrongful deal suit.

Officers saw Michael Carpenter acting suspiciously in a convenience store and followed him when he drove off. When they pulled him over for an expired license plate he refused to get out of the car. One officer reached into the car and tried to pull him out, but Carpenter put the car in gear and dragged the officer about 15 feet before he hit a parked car. The other officer saw the backup lights go on, and fired nine times. He received a reprimand for improper use of force and got 40 hours extra training.

James King robbed a bank, threatening to kill people if they did not hand over the money. On his way out he fired a shot at a teller but missed. He drove off, and was cornered by the police. He came out of his car with his weapon in his hand and police shot him when he ignored orders to drop it.

Daniel Williams had convictions for domestic violence and felony assault as well as a history of mental illness. He flagged down a po-licewoman in her patrol car, hit her in the face, and shot her four times. He pushed her into the passenger’s seat, and drove away in the police car. The officer, who had survived the shooting, drew her service revolver and killed Williams.

Jermaine Lowe, a convicted robber wanted for another armed robbery, fled police in a stolen car. His eight-minute escape bid ended when he crashed. He opened fire on approaching officers, who shot and killed him.

Randy Black robbed a credit union. When police cornered him he threw a chunk of concrete at an officer, injuring him in the arm. He then advanced on the officer, swinging a two-by-four with rusty nails in it. The officer shot and killed him.

Police responded to a 911 call in which an operator heard people shouting in the background about a gun. When officers arrived Carey Tompkins opened the door to leave. An officer put out his hand to stop him, and felt a gun in his waistband. Tompkins turned around, started up a flight of stairs, and pulled out the gun. An officer shot him four times.

Career criminal Alfred Pope robbed, pistol-whipped, and shot at three people in the hallway of an apartment building. Police chased Pope, who pulled out a handgun and pointed it at police. Officers opened fire and he was hit with 10 bullets.

Roger Owensby at first cooperated with police when they arrested him on outstanding charges, but he bolted as he was about to be handcuffed. Officers tackled him, sprayed him, handcuffed him, and put him in the back of a cruiser. He was found unconscious shortly afterwards and later died of what the coroner called “mechanical asphyxiation.” Two officers were indicted in the case, which is yet to be resolved.

Wanted on three open felony warrants, Adam Wheeler shouted “You want a war? You got a war!” when police arrived in response to a drugs complaint. He opened fire and died in the ensuing shoot-out, in which an officer was hit in the hand.

Twelve-year-old Courtney Mathis drove to the store in a relative’s car. A police officer asked to see his license and Mathis put the car into reverse. The officer reached into the car to grab the keys and got tangled in the steering wheel. Mathis dragged the officer 800 feet before he could pull out his gun and shoot him. The officer died when his head slammed into another car.

Repeat offender Jeffrey Irons struggled with officers who tried to arrest him for shoplifting. He grabbed one officer’s gun and shot another in the hand. A third officer shot and killed him.

IN THE NEWS

O Tempora, O Mores!

More Echoes of Enoch

Last month we reported on a British Conservative MP John Townend, who caused a huge stink in his party for praising Enoch Powell and saying his constituents are worried that “Commonwealth immigration” is undermining Britain’s “homogenous Anglo-Saxon society.” The MP from Yorkshire East stood firm for several weeks against the blast, even accusing the Labour government of wanting the British to be a “mongrel race,” but in May he was broken to the party line. It appears that it was the threatened defection of the Conservatives’ prize possession — a black peer — that spurred Conservative leader William Hague finally to tell Mr. Townend he must recant or face expulsion.

The party “cannot contain both Mr. Townend and people like me,” intoned John Taylor, a black lawyer who serves in the House of Lords. Mr. Hague, who had said he would not expel Mr. Townend because he was not running for reelection in the June 7 campaign, changed his tune, and on April 30 extracted from Mr. Townend a statement worth quoting in full:

I entirely accept that racism has no place in the Conservative party and am very sorry that ill-chosen words by me may have given a different impression.

Accordingly, I withdraw the recent words which I have issued on the subject of race, apologise for the embarrassment which they have caused the Conservative Party, regret any offense which I have caused to others and undertake not to repeat them under any circumstances.

It is said that Mr. Townend tried to put up a fight, but capitulated in 30 minutes. Lord Taylor, who knows how to press an advantage, said this was “too little, too late,” and criticized Mr. Hague for not bouncing the miscreant.

And yet, on the very same day of Mr. Townend’s humiliation, another Conservative MP, Laurence Robertson of Tewkesbury, endorsed his sin. Mr. Townend’s remarks were “basically true,” he said, adding: “Having too many people in different multiracial groups makes society very difficult to manage, especially in certain parts of the country. It is about how successful can you be in cramming people together from different cultures and expecting them all to get on in a very harmonious way. It is not that easy to manage that kind of society.”

The next day, he too was made to eat crow: “I apologise for saying that John Townend’s comments were right, and I retract my own comments to that effect. I undertake not to cause further embarrassment to the Conservative party, nor to give further offense to others. Nor will I repeat my remarks under any circumstances.”

Mr. Hague was about to pat himself on the back for nipping rebellion in the bud, but rebellion refuses to be nipped. Lord Tebbit, a former Conservative cabinet minister, said it was entirely proper to muzzle Mr. Townend, but then went on virtually to endorse his views, saying he had doubts about the merits of promoting multiculturalism, and adding “I do not know of any happy multicultural society.”

The original miscreants haven’t entirely shut up, either. On May 2, Tory leaders summoned John Townend for yet another frosty meeting to question him on press reports that he regretted apologizing, and that he planned to start talking about race as soon as he leaves office. Mr. Townend appears to have had another funk: “These stories are fiction — Townend will remain shut up,” said a Tory spokesman after the meeting. Newspapermen are not retracting those stories.

Laurence Robertson hasn’t gone away either. Less than 24 hours after he promised to sin no more he wrote in the Gloucestershire Echo that Britain is a “crowded island.” “[I]t is difficult to manage a society when there are great numbers of people belonging to different ethnic groups, all with different cultures, languages and religions, within it,” he wrote. “[I]n order to create good race relations we need to limit the numbers of people coming into this country.”

And finally, Simon Pearce, the Conservative candidate for St. Helens North, sent a letter to the Daily Telegraph supporting Mr. Townend and warning of “the dangers posed by large-scale immigration.” Conservative leader William Hague, already furious over Mr. Robertson’s recidivism, came under great pressure to kick Mr. Pearce off the ballot.

Not surprisingly, all these racial dissidents are doing very well with their constituents. Mr. Robertson has been telling colleagues he has received a great deal of support, and Lord Tebbit has also been flooded with fan mail since he wondered about the success of multicultural societies.

As AR goes to press, the Conservative Party seems to be faced with a virtually unprecedented opportunity to consider doing right. Given the cowardice of its leaders, it is sure to do wrong, but this may be at least the beginning of a long-overdue debate about the future of Great Britain. [Kate Kelland, Racism Row Boils Up Among Britain’s Conservatives, Reuters, April 27, 2001. Hague Fails to End Tories’ Race Row Rift, Guardian, May 3, 2001. Nicholas Watt and Michael White, Race Row MP Denies He Will Speak Out, Guardian, May 3, 2001. Nicholas Watt, MP in New Outburst, a Day After Pledging to Keep Silent on Race, Guardian, May 4, 2001.]

Multi-Cultural Town

A 76-year-old white D-Day veteran is the latest victim of continuing racial violence in the British town of Oldham. Walter Chamberlain, a former bus conductor, was hospitalized with a broken nose and cheekbones after three Asians attacked him saying, “This is our area, get out.” The assault came at the end of a week that saw a group of Asian youths — which in England usually means Pakistanis, Bangladeshis or Indians — declare parts of Oldham “no go” zones for whites, a claim local police are denying. [Cahal Milmo, Extremists Stoke Racial Tensions After Attack, The Independent (London), April 25, 2001.]

Oldham, described by city councilor Abdul Jabbar as “a relatively successful multi-cultural town,” has seen a dramatic increase in racial violence against whites during the past 18 months. Last year alone, there were 572 racial attacks, 62 percent of which were against whites. The most serious assault on a white came in February, when a gang of Asian teenagers attacked Mark Clayton, 23, taunting him with racial abuse before stabbing him and leaving him for dead. His attackers have not been caught.

Unwilling for the moment to admit the existence of “no go” areas for whites, the local police commander, Chief Superintendent Eric Hewitt, concedes that there is a “very real danger” they could become a reality, and adds, “We cannot hide from the fact that the trend of racial crime in Oldham is continuing to rise.” [Nigel Bunyan, Police Fear Asian Gangs May Set Up “No Go’ Areas, Electronic Telegraph (London), Friday 20 April 2001.]

BBC radio quoted an Asian “youth” who claims there are warnings all over parts of Oldham that read, “Whites enter at your own risk.” He says the violence is “. . . a matter of getting revenge, a matter of giving as good as you can take.” [BBC, Police Deny “No-Go Zones’ for Whites, April 19, 2001.]

News from Oldham has reached India, where one paper blames the violence on past indignities. It quotes a young Asian: “There is a strong feeling among a generation physically stronger and cockier than their immigrant parents, that they will not put up with the jibes and ill-treatment their elders suffered . . . Some Asian lads can be quite rough when provoked by racist groups.” Another Asian says, “They still remember from being kids watching their elder brothers or parents getting attacked and that’s stuck in their minds. What they want to do now is turn it totally around.” [Hasan Suroor, The Hindu Online, UK Sees Racism Again . . . by Asians, April 25, 2001.]

Playground Hate Crime

An 11-year-old British schoolboy will go on trial next month for racially aggravated assault. The charges against the boy, known as H in court documents, stem from an incident last September on the playground of the boy’s school in Ipswich. An Asian boy called him a skunk and compared him to a Teletubby. H called the Asian a “Paki bastard” and punched him twice in the back. Although the Asian boy started the fight, his parents complained to police, who arrested the then 10-year-old on charges of racially aggravated assault and common assault. Another 10-year-old faces common assault charges for allegedly tripping the Asian student. Both the police and the judge hearing the case have grave reservations about it, but the Crown Prosecution Service is undaunted. “We considered there was sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction and it would be in the public interest to proceed,” says a spokesman. [David Sapsted, Boy on Race Charge Over “Name-Calling in Playground,’ Electronic Telegraph (London), April 12, 2001.]

Preposterous Priorities

In the May 2000 issue we reported that in Britain undercover police are being dispatched to ethnic restaurants to have a meal and make sure waiters are not insulted by “racists.” Assignments of this kind are very popular. As Detective Chief Inspector Brett Lovegrove, head of a hate crime prevention unit, explains, “Our officers are keen on spending the night in a nice warm restaurant at this time of year with a meal and a soft drink — no alcohol allowed, of course.” On any given night, as many as 20 London officers are sitting down to Indian, Chinese, or Thai meals rather than pounding the streets looking for criminals. [A Curry a Day Keeps Crime at Bay, Reuters, March 27, 2001.]

Tale of the Tape

During the Seattle Mardi Gras riots on which we reported in April, the media and the police tried to deny eyewitness reports that the vast majority of assaults were carried out by blacks. The police did promise to bring as many offenders to book as possible, and have combed through video tape records trying to identify them. The Seattle Times has obligingly posted on its web page 26 images of suspects caught on video tape, with a request to readers that they call police if they can recognize any. The last time we checked there were 24 black faces, one Hispanic, and one white.

Sensible Approach

North Carolina State University in Raleigh has received $472,000 from the U.S. Department of Justice to study whether police stop black drivers more often than whites because they are more likely to speed. In a pilot project, graduate students rode in the back of a van, set the cruise control at the speed limit, and used stopwatches to clock the speeds of cars passing the van. Preliminary findings indicate blacks indeed do drive faster than whites. [Linda Wallace, Is it Race or Pace that Causes Profiling? DiversityInc.com, Feb. 16, 2001.]

Make Him Pay

San Diego County estimates that it spent $50 million in fiscal 1999 to jail, house, and medicate illegal immigrants. In February, the county supervisors voted to send President George Bush a bill for that amount, arguing that the money had to be spent only because the federal government failed to enforce immigration law. Other outraged citizens pointed out the $50 million doesn’t cover education and other services to illegals. County Supervisor Greg Cox says the money comes from the people of the county and should be spent on such things as improving parks and extending library hours. [AP, San Diego to Send Bush $50 million Bill for Illegal Immigration Costs, Feb. 16, 2001.]

Ringing the Changes

High school class rings used to be symbols of school spirit. Now, with many different designs offered to students, they are becoming symbols of ethnic pride. Alice Kim attends Bishop O’Connell High School in Arlington, Virginia, but her parents grew up in Korea. “I just like keeping in touch with my Asian culture,” she says, explaining the dragon engraved on her school ring. Jennifer Nguyen of Falls Church, Virginia, got a dragon too. “Even though I was born here, I’m still Vietnamese,” she says. Vicky Rodriguez of T.C. Williams High School, also in northern Virginia, has parents who were born in El Salvador, so she got a ring emblazoned with her country’s flag. “I’m very proud of where I came from,” she says. [Nancy Trejos, For Students a Ring of Truth, Personalized, Washington Post, Feb. 16, 2001, p. B1.]

Non Sequitur

Jefferson Davis is one of the best-known alumni of Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. One of the residence halls is named in his honor and used to display a portrait of the Confederate president. On March 29, a black resident found what is described as “a racial slur” written on his door. On April first, he found another one. The author has not been found, but no one seems to think it could be the black student himself. Charles Shearer, president of the university, promptly took down the portrait of Davis and put it in storage. “If you have African-American students who live in that hall, and we do . . . I can understand how that [the portrait] would make them feel,” he explained. [Thomas Watson, Jefferson Davis Portrait Draws Fire, AP, April 4, 2001.]

No White Organizations

In 1997, a white employee of the Social Security Administration named Frank Keliher asked permission to form a White Affairs Advisory Council, modeled on the Black Affairs Advisory Council, which was established years ago. He was turned down. When the Washington Times ran a story about this the Social Security Administration grudgingly gave permission to form a white group. When Mr. Keliher put up signs advertising it, blacks tore them down. Although Mr. Keliher named them in a complaint, the administration did not discipline the blacks, and instead said signs angering employees would not be permitted.

Mr. Keliher then asked if he could invite a speaker — AR editor Jared Taylor — to address employees. Patricia Carey, Acting Director of the Office of Management wrote back, explaining the prior decision about posting notices, and also ruling on whether Mr. Keliher could invite a speaker:

“[Y]our prior request was denied, consistent with Agency guidelines on employee communications, because we determined that continued posting of that notice could potentially not be in the best interests of safety and the working environment. [Emphasis added] Based on the information currently available to us, your request to invite this speaker poses similar concerns and therefore must be denied.” In other words, anything that makes blacks angry — whether posting notices or inviting speakers — is a threat to workplace safety and must be forbidden.

Bold Solutions

Gen. Shlomo Gazit was the head of Israeli intelligence during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, and has served in public office ever since. At a March 26 Jewish Agency Zionist Council attended by senior figures from all sectors of Israeli life, he argued that high Arab birth rates within Israel’s borders pose a problem so grave it cannot be countered through democratic means. “The demographic danger is the most serious danger facing Israel today,” he explained. “If we don’t come to our senses on this issue and don’t take proper steps immediately, then within one generation, or at most two, the State of Israel will cease to exist as a Jewish Zionist state.” The solution is to redraw borders: “In order to save the State of Israel and preserve a Jewish majority, a decision must be made to evacuate the settlements en masse . . . so that the permanent borders of the state contain as few Arabs as possible. We erred in establishing these settlements and now we must make the difficult decision to dismantle them.”

Gen. Gazit does not think politicians can do this: “[U]nfortunately, the political system in Israel today, both from an organizational standpoint as well as from the standpoint of political parties, is unable to make decisions on this issue. So, under the prevailing circumstances it seems that only an emergency regime and abandoning the democratic game can perhaps resolve the problem.” [Amir Rappaport, Establish a Dictatorship and Restrict Birth Rate, Yedioth Ahronoth (Israel), March 26, 2001.]

Warrior Respects His Foe

Columnist David Yeagley is professor of humanities and psychology at Oklahoma State University. He’s also a proud member of the Comanche tribe and an American patriot — he doesn’t consider the two mutually exclusive. He defends the use of Indian names for college and professional sports teams. He says this reflects respect for the fighting virtues of Indian tribes, and proudly points out that the US Army uses Indian names like Apache and Comanche for its attack helicopters.

Says Yeagley, “The white man may have taken my land. But he took it like a warrior, fair and square. Yes, he treated my people harshly. But he never denied their bravery, never besmirched their memory as warriors.” He adds, “If my ancestors had been strong enough, they would have taken the white man’s land, instead of the other way around. And they wouldn’t have felt guilty about it afterwards. You wouldn’t have seen any defeated white people getting affirmative action from Comanches.” [David A. Yeagley, It’s a Warrior Thing. You Wouldn’t Understand, FrontPage Magazine.com, March 7, 2001.]

Ritual Gang-Rape

Eleven young North African immigrants are being tried in France on charges of gang-raping a 14-year-old white girl seven years ago. The attack was part of a ritual known as tournante  — take-your-turn — in which a teenage boy seduces a girl, and then offers her to his friends. According to Sylvie Lotteau, a French magistrate, gangs of immigrant teenagers have been performing this ritual since the late 1980s. “Their technique was to pick up a young girl — a white girl — and once she had become the girlfriend of one of the members, he would allow his mates to make use of her,” she said. [Agence France Press, Teenage Gang-Rape Ritual Plagues French Suburbs, April 24, 2001.]

LETTERS FROM READERS

Sir — Ian Heffernan is to be commended for a concise and generally accurate history of the British “right” in the last century. I would, however, submit that his assessment of what the future may would like to play a key role in establishing a new right-wing conservative party in Britain, and he may therefore be ever so slightly biased when it comes to the BNP.

Thus, for example, it is true that the BNP took only a little over one percent of the national vote in the 1999 British European Elections. But this low average masks huge regional variations. In large swathes of white working-class urban areas, the BNP vote was in excess of five per cent. More significantly still, in last year’s Greater London Assembly Elections, the BNP’s mayoral candidate polled a full 10 percent of the winning candidate’s vote across the entire capital. Across the whole East End of London, nearly 15 percent of the white electorate backed the BNP. Last year our average vote in council elections all over the country was 10 percent, with highs of 25 percent in individual wards in London, Birmingham and the North West.

It is now only a matter of time before we start winning seats, something which will have a dramatic effect on our recruitment and ability to move forward. In addition to our steadily improving vote, we are also grudgingly recognized by the media as a serious political force. In the run up to the 2001 general election, BNP spokesmen have been seen and heard by millions of Brits as a result of interviews on all the main TV and radio stations. The old “skinhead’ image is rarely dragged up even by hostile journalists. The party has one of the best political websites in the UK, a glossy color magazine, Identity, and a proper tabloid newspaper, Freedom.

Britain neither needs a new nationalist party, nor is there space for one to develop. Mark my words, your readers will hear plenty more about the British National Party.

Nick Griffin, Chairman, British National Party, Powys, Wales

Sir — As an Englishman, I read with great interest Ian Heffernan’s article on the late Enoch Powell. I would like to take issue with the view that Powell was “the greatest of British opponents to multiracialism, and anyone who speaks out against it stands in his shadow.” Powell was really a British Pat Buchanan, and in some ways did not even go as far.

First, Powell was never racially committed. The British media built him up into something he never was (very much as the American media did with Buchanan). Powell was an old-fashioned British patriot and maybe even a nationalist in a non-racial sense, but he did not understand race. He was interested in culture. If the new black or Asian “Britons” fitted into our way of life, spoke our language and accepted our culture Powell was happy (again very much like Mr. Buchanan and the English Firsters in the USA).

After Powell’s anti-immigration speeches of the 1960s he received tremendous support from ordinary British people, but what did he do? Join the National Front (then Britain’s leading anti-immigration party)? Start his own anti-immigration party? No. He stayed in the pro-immigration Conservative Party, which was a massive letdown to thousands of supporters (and rather like Mr. Buchanan in 1992 and 1996).

In 1974 Powell had another chance, when he decided not to run again for the Conservative Party in England. The National Front was at its peak, and support from Powell might have been enough to win parliamentary seats and gain that first major breakthrough all third parties need. Instead Powell attacked the NF as “racists and fascists,” and advised his supporters to vote Labour.

After Powell won a safe seat with the Ulster Unionist Party, he received many letters from former constituents in Wolverhampton asking if they should vote National Front. Powell again advised them to vote Labour.

In the early 1980s a number of Conservatives including some MPs were concerned with the way Britain was changing, just as Powell claimed he was. They joined with some British racial nationalists to form an organization called WISE (Welsh, Irish, Scottish, English). Among those Conservative MPs were Harvey Proctor and Tony Marlow, who were not afraid to share platforms with NF members or to demand that immigrants be repatriated. Powell refused to help WISE, and even referred to some of its supporters as “racists.”

Powell was a great Parliamentarian and hated being out of office. Some of us believe he sold his soul so he could stay in, rather than fight for what is right from the outside.

As Margaret Thatcher and many other Conservatives have done in the past (and John Townend did recently), Powell played the race card without really understanding it and thereby acted as a safety valve. Ordinary British people who are very worried about the changing face of Britain think there are Conservative MPs who share their concerns. Why should they support “extremist” parties like the BNP, when there are good folks in the Conservative Party who will do something about multiracialism? The British people have been fooled time and again. Whether they will keep being fooled or will turn instead to the BNP only time will tell.

Mark Cotterill, American Friends of the BNP, Falls Church, VA.

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