O Tempora, O Mores! (April, 1991)

The Truth about Freedom of Speech

A few people in the popular media are finally beginning to complain about how hard it is to express a dissenting view on certain subjects. Richard Cohen of the The Washington Post says this:

I think there are issues the media just can’t discuss. No one knows how to deal with charges that you’re a racist, you’re an anti-Semite. It’s easier not to do these stories than to face the consequences.

Actually, it’s easy to deal with charges of racism or anti-Semitism. Anyone who calls you a racist is calling you names, not attacking your ideas. You need only point this out and observe that name-calling is the most graceless way someone can admit that he has lost an argument.

Here’s a Solution

Jon Carroll has been musing about the end of free speech in the San Francisco Chronicle. “If one wishes to be sensitive’ on racial matters . . . one is required to deny the evidence of one’s sense,” he writes. “I perceive that African American men are different from Caucasian men . . . Can we compare these differences? No, we cannot. We may say for the record that these differences are beautiful, equally beautiful, precisely geometrically equally beautiful, but that’s it.”

Quite so. Mr. Carroll is off to a good start, but where does he finish? Since it is officially impossible to talk about racial differences, he throws up his hands and decides that intermarriage is the only solution. When everyone is the same shade of brown then there will be no racial differences to embarrass us. “Of course, we’d lose a lot of interesting specific cultures that way, but the battle is pretty much over already,” he concludes philosophically.

Sad though it may be that Mr. Carroll proposes to toss the whole race into the stew, it is useful for the mainstream media occasionally to tell us where our racial and immigration policies are leading us.

Student Loan Default

Many student loans are guaranteed by the American government, which means that when a borrower defaults, the taxpayer is stuck with the bill. Lately, students have been welshing on more than $2 billion in loans every year. Congress has decided to reduce this figure by removing from the guarantee program any school with a student default rate of more than 35 percent. So far, so good. If schools want the guarantees, they will have to be more careful choosing their students.

Unfortunately, the 35 percent figure turned out to be politically unacceptable, because it removed from eligibility a number of schools that Congress felt it could not afford to leave on their own. Written into the law is an exemption for 117 black colleges and two dozen Indian colleges. They will continue to get federal loan guarantees no matter how high their default rates.

Hazardous Duty

The 1989-1990 school year was a bad one for New York City public school teachers. Crimes committed against them by students were up 28 percent over the previous year, with serious offenses — assault, robbery, sexual assault — leading the way with a 41 percent jump. This, in spite of the introduction of metal detectors at a number of high schools to keep students from smuggling in weapons.

Conditions in America’s big-city, largely non-white schools are getting so bad that only teachers who are tough and even brutish will be able to work in them. This can only decrease the chances of a decent public education being even theoretically possible in cities like Detroit or New York.

‘Hear the Word’

Last January, the United Church of Christ issued a pastoral letter to be read from every pulpit in the 1.7-million member denomination. Its purpose was to condemn what it calls “the sin of systematic racism.” Here are some excerpts:

We call upon every member . . . to increase our commitment to stem the resurgent tide of racism in our increasingly multiracial and multicultural society.

The letter goes on to pronounce a sweeping diagnosis of just about everything that is wrong with America: “As a result of this systematic racial discrimination, there are quiet riots all across the United States in the form of unemployment, poverty, social disorganization, family disintegration, homelessness, school deterioration and crime.” Well, that about covers it — and it’s all due to “systematic racial discrimination.”

As the clerics note, our country is becoming increasingly multiracial. Some time in the next century whites are projected to become a minority. If prejudiced white people are causing all the problems the churchmen describe — poverty, unemployment, crime — can we expect the problems to diminish as the number of white people declines?

Inquirer Makes Amends

In the February issue of AR we reported on the trouble the Philadelphia Inquirer got into when it very sensibly suggested that the problems of the black underclass would be reduced if welfare mothers were induced to use an implantable contraceptive called Norplant. Blacks claimed that the proposal was tantamount to “genocide,” and the paper took the very unusual step of writing an editorial apology.

Now it is going even further. Editor Maxwell King has announced that henceforth the paper will hire newsroom staff according to a strict racial quota: Half of all new employees will be non-white. Mr. King explains that it was the flap over the Norplant editorial that made him adopt the new plan. He conceded that it would make it harder for whites to get jobs, but says, “the diversity of the staff . . . is of great importance to the paper.” Some white staffers are publicly calling the quotas institutionalized racism.

Mr. King points out that his paper has already hired a great many non-whites, but complains that the paper “seemed to lose a lot of them later to other papers and other opportunities.” Well, yes, when the fashion is to hire because of race rather than ability, the competition for non-whites gets very keen.

Asians Dominate Science Prizes

The Westinghouse Science Talent Search is probably the most prestigious science competition for high school students. When the latest finalists were announced, 12 were from New York City. Of those 12, six were Asian: Sunmee Kim, Jim Cheung, William Ching, Linda Tae-Ryung Kang, Debby Lin, and Tien-An Yang. The other six, Tara Bahna-James, Ani Fleisig, Petal Haynes, Yves Jeanty, Nuri Kodaman, and Ciamac Moallemi, rounded out a list that contained few recognizably European names.

Although Asians are less than four percent of the population of New York, they accounted for half of the finalists. Current racial dogma requires that “culture” explain this dominance, just as it requires that “environment” explain an average black IQ of 85.

Immigration Fraud

Amnesties, special deals, and complicated procedures always invite fraud. The 1986 immigrant amnesty that legalized over one million illegal immigrants is no exception.

The original deadline for filing the amnesty was May 1988, but courts were persuaded to extend the deadline for illegals who had left the country for certain periods and had returned by a certain date. Filing would be tricky enough for native, English speakers; it is a nightmare for illegals, many of whom are illiterate.

Into the breach have stepped a number of immigrants “rights” organizations, which, for a fee, will shepherd the process along. Some have apparently taken the money and done nothing. Last year, the INS investigated the Las Vegas office of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), a prominent, foundation-funded Hispanic organization. The INS charged that LULAC had collected thousands of dollars each from 800 amnesty applicants but had filed only 17 cases, some of which were highly questionable. LULAC is one of the organizations that sued to have the application deadline extended in the first place.

In Los Angeles, the head of a group called Social Outreach Services has pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges. Cesar Condes made false residency claims on behalf of 500 illegals, most of whom were Filipinos. Mr. Condes’ group collected $1.5 million in fees from the illegals, some of whom did not know that they were ineligible for amnesty.

Corrupt INS Agent

An Immigration and Naturalization Service agent has been charged with taking more than $100,000 in bribes. In return, he reportedly gave permanent residency (green) cards to Colombian drug smugglers. The agent, Christopher Matos, was a customs inspector at JFK International Airport from 1985 until 1987. His latest position was head of the INS’s Hispanic employment program at INS headquarters in Washington (DC).

Like all branches of the federal government, the INS has a full-blown affirmative action program designed to bring non-whites into the service. INS field offices in California and Texas are under particular pressure to hire Hispanics, since there are so many in the local population. Is it unreasonable to wonder whether some Hispanic agents really put their hearts into a job that often involves the apprehension and deportation of other Hispanics?

Corrupt Society

It is easy to complain about how non-white immigrants are turning the United Stated into a third-world country, but the fault is clearly our own. What happens to America is the responsibility of Americans.

Last year, the federal government officially declared a labor shortage in cowboys — a profession that virtually symbolizes America. Apparently, there aren’t enough natives willing to work on a ranch, even at $800 a month plus room and board. The official shortage cleared the way for cattlemen to hire Mexican vaqueros to do the work. Some ranchers expect to bring in sheepherders from Mongolia.

Most of the time, cowboys don’t even have to ride a horse. They fix fences, clean corrals, feed cattle, and help with calving. It’s hard, physical labor. One imported Mexican, asked why there weren’t Americans doing the job, explained, “They don’t have the balls.”

He’s right. Welcome to the new America. Millions on welfare and no cowboys.

Enlightenment at University of Michigan

The University of Michigan has become the first college in the country to require that all students take a course in racial discrimination in order to graduate. The requirement will become official this fall. Other colleges make students take courses in non-white cultures, but Michigan is the first to insist that they study “racism” itself. It is difficult to imagine that the course will be anything but officially sanctioned white bashing.

Other campuses may soon follow. The University of Washington in Seattle is considering a proposal to set up a similar undergraduate requirement. The move was spurred by a $343,000 grant from the Ford Foundation to encourage the development of new ethnic studies courses.

Yahweh Update

The trial of Hulon Mitchell, head of the black, Miami-based Yahweh cult has brought to light some details about the cult’s educational practices that may not have been mentioned in your local newspaper.

One of Mr. Mitchell’s favorite subjects of instruction was “The White Woman As She-Devil.” He liked to demonstrate this theory by showing his congregation — men, women, and children alike — the crudest possible pornographic videos. These were of a white women having sex with a dog or a snake or even a black man. He would call the woman “Miss Ann,” and call attention to her she-devil degradation.

Another of Mr. Mitchell’s favorite themes was hammered home in what came to be known as the Killing Class. “How many of you would bring back a white head?” he would ask, and everyone would raise his hand. He would then shout, “One day, Yahweh is going to kill the white devil off the planet. We’re going to catch him and we’re going to kill him wherever we find him. All over America, white heads are going to roll!” On at least one occasion, Mr. Mitchell broke down and wept, so powerful was his desire to kill white men.

Mr. Mitchell is accused of masterminding at least 14 murders. Several of these were of whites, whose ears were brought back as proof of work well done. The national media continue to ignore the trial.

Black Racism Triumphs

Joseph Montuoro is a white man who was narrowly elected to the Essex County College Board of Trustees. The college serves a largely black student body in 58 percent-black Newark (NJ). Mr. Montuoro defeated an incumbent black woman, Clara Dasher, who had chaired the board for 11 years.

At his first board meeting in January, Mr. Montuoro discovered how important race is at Essex County College. A mob of black students poured into the meeting hall, chanting “traitor, traitor,” and demanded his removal. Zachary Yamba, the black president of the college, took the microphone and agreed that the problem was a “black and white matter.” Mr. Montuoro, who had naively assumed that election results rather than race determined who got the job, was shocked by attitudes he calls “clearly racist.”

These and other pressures have been so great that Mr. Montuoro has resigned. In a letter to the president he wrote, “I don’t think I could function effectively in an atmosphere in which racism (some would say “reverse discrimination’) is paramount in setting college policy.” President Yamba denies reverse discrimination but says that it is important as a “symbol” that a black person chair the board of trustees.

This is probably a good example of what whites can look forward to as they become a minority.