O Tempora, O Mores! (May, 1991)
American Renaissance, May 1991
Voluntary Segregation for Blacks
The latest theory about how to teach refractory black boys is that they should be segregated from other students and taught by black men. This September, two “Afrocentric” schools will open in Milwaukee as part of the public school system, where fewer than 20 percent of the black boys in high school have a C average or better. New York City, where black boys are also doing very badly, is likewise considering setting up a separate high school for them.
The purpose of these special schools would be two-fold. First, the teachers will be strong “role models” who will presumably guide the boys to success. Second, they will boost the boys’ “self-esteem” by offering an African curriculum.
Some of the features of this proposed curriculum are beginning to surface. The schools are expected to promote the “Seven Principles” distilled from traditional African values, such as unity, collective responsibility, and faith. Faith, according to the proposal for the New York school, is defined thus: “To believe with all our heart in our parents, our teachers, our leaders, our people and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.” Against whom are these black boys supposed to be struggling? White society?
Ancient Egyptians would be claimed as black and would be credited with establishing the bases of Western civilization. American history would be taught “from an African-American frame of reference,” and Swahili and Yoruba would be taught as foreign languages. Biology, likewise, would concentrate on the contributions of such Africans as the Egyptian pharaoh Imhotep. Other, more practical concerns would be a study of the effects of crack cocaine on the human body and the inadequacy of a diet of Pepsi and potato chips during pregnancy.
The current push for segregation is coming from blacks. If whites were to propose it they would be called bigots. These schools appear to be a tacit admission that for some blacks integration is not working. And if black role models and separate schools are vital for black self-esteem, why not a separate black society? Why not an entirely separate black nation?
It may well be that the students who attend these separate schools will feel better about themselves than those who are made to learn about George Washington and Franklin Roosevelt. All children are heartened to learn about the accomplishments of their people. However, their education will have prepared them, not for life in the United States, but in Africa or in a black separatist nation in North America.
Test Results Trashed
New York City has just settled a discrimination suit by deciding to promote 120 black and Hispanic garbage workers. They will be promoted over the heads of whites who scored higher on a civil service exam.
The suit was filed by the Hispanic Society and the Negro Benevolent Association of the Sanitation Department because of 1985 exam results. Of the more than 4,000 garbage workers who took the test, 22 percent were non-white but only seven percent of them scored high enough to be promoted. All the rest who scored high enough for a promotion were white.
The city administration of Mayor David Dinkins decided that the only fair solution was to promote another 90 black and 30 Hispanic workers, even if it meant ignoring the test results of whites who scored higher.
Today, when whites and non-whites often go to the same schools and study the same curriculum, differing test results are often thrown out because of “cultural bias.” What will become of standard testing once blacks start going to Afro-centric schools (see previous story), where they are deliberately taught a separate culture?
‘Minister of Information’
Public Enemy is the name of the most successful rap group in the country. It is also counted as a powerful political force among young blacks. Harry Allen is Public Enemy’s “Minister of Information” and also an occasional contributor to the (Village) Voice, Essence, Black Collegian, and the (Chicago) City Sun.
Mr. Allen has a great deal to say about white people, most of it so scurrilous that a few intrepid journalists have actually accused him of racism. His reply? “It’s impossible. Only white people can be racist, and I am not white. The only form of racism is white supremacy.”
Mr. Allen suggests a few steps towards reform. He urges non-whites to abandon the term “racism” and use “white supremacy” instead, since the two are equivalent and the latter is more specific. He also has the following advice for non-whites:
Here comes a white person. What is he going to do? Well, based on history, he’s going to lie. If non-white people adopted that idea as fundamental to their interaction with white people — to check for deceit — this would be . . . [a] change for the better.
Though not quite so successful as Public Enemy, the Geto Boys are Houston’s biggest rap group. Considered the “cutting edge” of rap, their records are replete with the barbaric horrors their audience appears to enjoy hearing about.
One recent cut is a first-person account of a peeping Tom who sees a woman through a window. He goes inside, cuts her throat, rapes the corpse, and then points out that this is what she deserved for not keeping her curtains closed.
The student association at Vassar has voted to recognize a breakaway Black Commencement Committee that will plan graduation activities appropriate for blacks. Blacks had complained that the senior class activities planned by the largely white Class Commencement Committee did not meet their social and cultural needs. Now that the black committee has been recognized, it will have the right to seek school financing and hold its own events.
Of the 641-member student body, 51 are black, and some students wondered what sort of precedent was being set by the breakaway committee. Andrew Blechman, a senior from New Jersey, suggested that “consistency demands that we later approve a Hispanic commencement committee, a Jewish commencement committee and an Asian commencement committee, etc.”
Gulf Casualties by Race
When it began to look as though America might fight a war in the Gulf, black leaders suddenly woke up to the fact that although the American population is 12 percent black, the army is 29 percent black. No one had complained about this before, but as soon as it began to look as though there might be shooting, many black leaders urged other blacks not to support the war, because blacks might die in disproportionate numbers. By this reasoning, of course, so long as blacks continue to be three times more likely than whites to join the all-volunteer army, American forces should never be used in combat.
In fact, the brevity and nature of the war against Iraq ensured a disproportionate number of white casualties. Of the 182 soldiers who had died by March 8, only 15 percent were black. Though whites made up 66 percent of the forces in the theater, they accounted for 78 percent of the deaths. This is because the air war went on for weeks, whereas the ground war lasted only about 100 hours. Airmen, who accounted for a large proportion of the casualties, are mostly white.
The United States, with its porous borders, has become a choice destination for illegal immigrants from mainland China. Arrests of Chinese aliens have more than quadrupled in just two years, from 288 in 1988 to 1,353 in 1990.
Most Chinese illegals make the trip with the help of professional immigrant smugglers. The standard fee for transportation and phony documents is $20,000 to $30,000, which most Chinese do not have. Some pay the tariff by bringing in Asian heroin. Others become indentured servants, and agree to work for their masters for a certain period almost as slaves.
Another payment method is to put new arrivals to work for relatives who are already in America, with the understanding that they will pay over time. Recently, the New York police have been called in on a number of cases in which the illegal got behind on his payments and was kidnapped by the body smugglers. The smugglers were charging a stiff ransom to the relatives, often more than the original price of the trip.
In the past, incidents like this have usually been settled without appeal to the police. Lately, the kidnapped Chinese have been treated so badly — burned with cigarette butts and beaten — that the relatives have overcome their reluctance to go to the authorities.
Killing Ignored
At the time they took place, it was impossible not to hear about the attacks by white gangs that resulted in the deaths of black men in Howard Beach and Bensonhurst (both are neighborhoods in the New York City). The attacks were covered in great detail, and are still evoked as symbols of white viciousness. But when blacks kill whites for racial reasons there is silence.
Last January, a black man named Robert Herbert killed a white man named Mark Belmore. Earlier, Mr. Herbert and three other blacks agreed among themselves that they would kill the first white person they saw. Mr. Belmore, a student at Northeastern University in Boston, was unlucky enough to be the first, and was stabbed to death. The media and government bodies have maintained their usual embarrassed silence about this murder.
Too Many White Faces
The U.S. Second Circuit Court has decided that the New York Times may be sued because it ran real estate ads that didn’t depict enough non-whites. A black couple, along with a Manhattan fair housing organization, has charged that since the Times so rarely featured black models in its real estate ads, it was violating the Fair Housing Act of 1968 that prohibits discriminatory advertising. The Cincinnati Inquirer has a similar case on appeal in the Sixth Circuit Court.
The Washington Post has already capitulated. It settled a 1986 law suit by promising to use black models 25 percent of the time in real estate ads. Soon thereafter, 22 Washington-area real estate developers, sales companies, and ad agencies agreed to use black models 33 percent of the time.
At the same time, decisions like this raise questions about other advertising. Will newspapers and magazines be forced to establish racial quotas in ads for department stores, automobiles, and clothing? Will Hispanics and Asians and everyone else start demanding quotas? After all, quotas are a hidden subsidy to ethnic models and modeling agencies. Once a nation starts counting by race, there is no end to it.
Part of the difficulty for newspapers and magazines is that it is the advertisers who choose the models and lay out the ads. To make editors count faces and police quotas is to make them responsible for something over which they have very little control.
The 1990 census has confirmed a significant displacement of whites by Hispanics and blacks in the Miami area. In the city itself, the number of whites has dropped by a precipitous 47 percent since 1980, bringing the number down to a mere ten percent of the total. Hispanics are now 62.5 percent of the city’s population and blacks are 27.4 percent. There is probably no other major American city with so small a white population.
Dade County, of which Miami is the leading city, saw a similar trend over the decade. The number of whites dropped 24.4 percent to 30.2 percent. Hispanics increased 64.4 percent and are now 49.2 percent of the population. Blacks increased by 46.8 percent over the decade and are now 20.5 percent of the county population.
Many whites who move out of Dade Country go to the “white suburbs” of neighboring Broward County. Over the decade, the white population of the county increased by 60,000. Nevertheless, the increase did not keep pace with that of blacks and Hispanics, who added 82,000 and 70,000, respectively, to their numbers. The “white suburbs” are therefore ceasing to be white, as the majority proportion of the population fell from 85 percent to 76 percent.
The striking population changes in Miami and Dade County show how everyday white people react to the “diversity” and “cultural enrichment” that we are all supposed to be celebrating. They move out.
The increase in non-whites is attributed to higher fertility rates and well-publicized waves of Hispanic immigration. Less well known is the significant increase in blacks due to immigration, mainly from Haiti, but also from Jamaica and Trinidad.
Last year (11/7/90), USA Today published a graph showing population trends in South Florida over the last decade. The line with the steepest growth was labeled “Hispanics.” The line showing somewhat less growth was labeled “Blacks.” The line that showed a sharp drop was labeled . . . “Other.”
Mounties in Braids
Last year there was a debate in Canada over whether to let Sikh mounties wear their traditional turbans on the job. The broad-brimmed hat and red jacket of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are almost symbols of the nation itself, but Sikhs were finally allowed to wear turbans instead of the hat. Canadians who opposed the change were called racists and Nazis.
Now, native Indian mounties will get special permission to wear their hair in braids. No one else will have that right. Although it is not clear whether braids are a religious obligation — as the Sikh turban is — the government relaxed the rules out of respect for Indian culture and in the hope that more Indians would apply to become mounties.
