O Tempora, O Mores! (September, 1994)
American Renaissance, September 1994
Human Nature
An experimental program that was supposed to persuade welfare mothers not to have more children has been a complete failure. Participants in the New Chance program had to be 16 to 22 years old, and to have given birth as teenagers. Most were high school dropouts. Two thousand three hundred women in ten different states were stuffed with education, training, counseling, and advice on birth-control. Eighteen months later, half were pregnant again — about the same rate as similar women who did not get the uplift treatment. [Virginia Ellis, Welfare mother plan fails to halt pregnancy trend, LA Times, 6/22/94, A3.]
‘Kids to Feed’
The extended family of a Boston woman named Eulalia Rodriquez and her descendants receive nearly one million dollars each year in government assistance payments. She has been on welfare for 26 years; 14 children, 74 grandchildren, and 15 great-[+]grandchildren are also on welfare. “I’m sick of people acting like I’m some crook,” says Miss Rodriguez. “We’ve got a lot of kids to feed.” [source is February 1994 Boston Globe.]
Living the Black Life
Khalid Abdul Muhammad is the Nation of Islam (NOI) spokesman who gained sudden notoriety for recommending that all white South Africans be exterminated. Should NOI decide to implement a similar policy in the United States, Mr. Muhammad could start with his own neighbors. He lives in a luxury apartment building in Cliffside Park, New Jersey, in which he is perhaps the only black. Of Cliffside Park’s more than 22,500 residents, only 370 are black.
Mr. Muhammad’s building has an olympic-sized swimming pool, tennis courts, and a lobby filled with mirrors and leather sofas. The least expensive apartment rents for $994 a month and the most expensive for $2,000. According to his neighbors, Mr. Muhammad drives a Rolls-Royce. [Chrisena Coleman, Khalid’s fancy digs, NY Daily News, 6/27/94, p. 3.]
Burnishing the Image
Congress established the Martin Luther King holiday in 1984, and set up a federal commission to help organize the celebration. Although several government employees were “loaned” to the commission, no tax money was appropriated for it, and it was supposed to shut down within 20 months.
In 1986, Congress voted to extend the life of the King Commission for another three years so it could “finish its work,” and supporters once again promised never to ask for federal money. However, in 1989, Congress appropriated $1.5 million to help the commission badger the states into observing the King holiday. That mission was accomplished in 1993, when New Hampshire became the last state to enact a King holiday.
By then, devotees had come up with a new reason to spend tax money: They were dissatisfied with the way people spend the King holiday. As Senator Harris Wofford of Pennsylvania explained, “Nothing would have [angered] Martin more than people supposedly honoring him by sitting on their duffs watching the tube or sleeping late.” It is therefore necessary to spend another $2 million tutoring the American people on the proper way to remember King.
We are to spend our day “doing the hard work of citizenship,” that is to say, feeding bums, picking up trash, and tutoring illiterates. The House of Representatives passed this bill without even debating it. The Senate, after some debate, approved it 94 to four. [William Grigg, Honoring “St. Martin,” New American, July 11, 1994, p. 35. Lott angers black leaders with vote on MLK holiday, Commonwealth (Greenwood, Miss) 5/25/94.]
No other federal holiday has ever had a commission to help with its celebration.
Florida Governor Lawton Chiles recently signed a bill requiring that all Florida public schools teach black history, with specific emphasis on slavery, the transport of slaves to America, abolition, and the contributions of blacks. “Knowledge is the antidote to the poison of prejudice,” said the governor, adding that black history must not be confined to a particular month. [New Florida law requires teaching of black history, Jet, June 13, 1994, p. 29.]
More Multi-Culti
In July, a family of Puerto Ricans went swimming in a river near Bloomfield, Connecticut. A 14-year-old girl, Lydia Benitez, was caught in the current, swept away, and drowned. A white man who was fishing nearby, drove into town to get help from the Bloomfield police, who sent divers to the scene. On three separate days, they tried to find the body but could not. Miss Benitez’ family then consulted a priestess of Santeria, a Cuban voodoo-like cult, who advised them to float a candle in the water. Several hours later, the body floated to the surface.
A crowd of more than 100 family members and friends then decided to take the body to a hospital, insisting that it be examined by a doctor. One hospital turned them away, but at another, they forced their way into the emergency room. There the Puerto Ricans started shouting, shoving, and punching hospital personnel. Police eventually broke up the melee, arresting nine people.
What brought this on? “Everyone was going crazy because we believed they [the police] didn’t do enough to find her [the dead girl],” explained family friend Johnny Maldonaldo. “They didn’t try hard enough because she’s a Puerto Rican,” said another friend; “If that were a white person, they would have found her the first day.” The girl’s mother also accused the police of neglecting their duties out of racism. [James Barron, “Relatives of Drowned Girl Charged in Fight at Hospital, NYT, 7/13/94, p. B5.]
Boston Resegregates
1994 is the 20th anniversary of Judge Arthur Garrity’s famous order forcibly to integrate Boston’s public schools by busing. So many whites have either left the city or given their children private educations that Boston’s schools are more segregated than before the order. In 1974, the school system served 85,000 children, 49 percent of whom were white. Today it serves 64,000 children, 19 percent of whom are white.
Judge Garrity has no regrets. “I never have thought of what I would do differently,” he said in a recent interview. [Schools more segregated after 20 years, Commonwealth (Greenwood, Miss), 6/19/94.]
IRS Disciplines Blacks
Bureaucrats are wringing their hands over a study showing that black employees of the Internal Revenue Service are three times more likely to be disciplined than white employees. Regional commissioners will now be evaluated quarterly on whether they have done enough “to address and lessen the potential adverse impact of discipline on minority employees.” Translation: They will be more reluctant than ever to discipline incompetent blacks. The same study finds that Asian employees are disciplined less often than whites, [Frank Greve, IRS finds racial gap in disciplining workers, Sacramento Bee, 6/18/94, p. A11.] but this appears to be of no interest to anyone.
National Council of La Raza is one of the nation’s largest Hispanic organizations. Its efforts are unabashedly devoted to “la raza” or “the race.” In July, 8,000 participants attended its annual conference in Miami Beach. President Bill Clinton was the keynote speaker, and other cabinet members who addressed the group included Donna Shalala (Health and Human Services) and Henry Cisneros (Housing). Even the Commissioner of the IRS, Doris Meissner, addressed “the race.” [Alfonso Chardy, La Raza convention seeks unity, Miami Herald, 7/17/94, p. 1B.]
At the other end of the country, in Sacramento, California, Hispanics were holding the 13th annual Chicano-Latino Youth Leadership Project. In between workshops and seminars, the participants were frequently roused with calls of “Who are you?” to which they were taught to reply, shouting in unison, “California’s future leaders.” [Jeanine DeFao, Latino youth learn value of uniting for better life, Sacramento Bee, 7/28/94, p. B1.]
Tucked away in the back pages of the Miami Herald was a small article that explains what all this Hispanic whooping means. Jorge Mas Canosa is a Miami big-wig and chairman of the influential Cuban American National Foundation. He was recently interviewed for El Pais, one of Spain’s leading newspapers, about post-Castro Cuba. When questioned whether the United States might once again dominate Cuba, he replied:
“That’s bull****. They haven’t even been able to take over Miami! If we have kicked them out of here, how could they possibly take over our own country?” [Alfonso Chardy, Mas Canosa: U.S. won’t be able to run Cuba, Miami Herald, 1994.]
American Malaria
The New England Journal of Medicine reports in its July 7 issue that two New Jersey residents have contracted malaria without leaving the country. In both cases, recent immigrants from malaria-ridden countries were found to be living within short distances of the American sufferers. The authors write that Anopheles quadrimaculatus mosquitoes, which are native to New Jersey, are fully capable of transmitting the disease.
There have been a number of confirmed transmissions of malaria in the United States within the last ten years. In each previous case, illegal Mexican immigrants were found to be the source. The recent New Jersey cases are the first reported in that state in 30 years. [John H. Brook, Et. Al., Brief Report: Malaria Probably Locally Acquired in New jersey, New England Journal of Medicine, July 7, 1994, p. 22.]
More Handouts for Non-whites
Many cities and states write non-white set-asides into their finances. Whenever California, for example, issues bonds, it requires that minority-owned firms get 15 percent of the fees. Woman-owned firms get five percent and those run by disabled veterans [!] get three percent. There are so few firms of these kinds capable of doing the work that white-owned companies may simply find people in the favored categories whom they pay for work not done. “The minority firms will literally get checks in the mail for trades they weren’t aware occurred,” explains one non-white securities executive.
Last December, Merrill Lynch underwrote a $409 million bond issue for Dade County in Florida, which sets aside a certain portion of its underwriting business for non-whites. A co-manager of the deal was AIBC Investment Services, which had six employees and $65,000 in capital. Unlike most co-managers, AIBC did not sell a single bond; it “coordinated” the transaction with nine other non-white firms, and received $350,000 in fees.
Similar schemes are common for the management of public pensions. Many states and cities require that non-whites handle a certain portion of their business, which is sometimes handed off to minority-owned fronts for real companies or to “companies” that simply collect fees. [Affirmative, yes — but is it Fair?, Business Week, July 4, 1994, p. 74.]
Yet More Handouts
The Federal Communications Commission has quietly launched what may be the biggest affirmative action program in the nation’s history. It has set aside radio frequencies for mobile communications purposes to be bid for only by non-whites, women, and small businesses. Approximately half of the 2,000 licenses available in cities will be off limits to most white men. One communications executive calls the program “without a doubt the biggest affirmative action program in history,” and estimates that the frequencies are worth well over half a billion dollars. “This is band-width, you know,” says one astonished securities analyst; “You can’t ever make any more of it.”
The Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously to tilt the bidding against white men, [Edmund Andrews, FCC to reserve licenses in affirmative action move, NYT, 6/30/94, p. D1.] and the decision appears not to have caused the slightest ripple of complaint.
More White Crime
Cecil Calimee is a black man who used to work behind a ticket window in the Chicago subway. Ticket takers are protected from customers by steel bars, and although Mr. Calimee had been held up at gun point three times, he had never been injured. In July, three Hispanics approached his window and asked directions, which Mr. Calimee gave them. The Hispanics started speaking among themselves in Spanish, then doused Mr. Calimee with a flammable fluid and set him on fire. He managed to get out of the ticket booth and rolled on the ground, trying to put out the flames. The Hispanics laughed while he screamed in pain.
Mr. Calimee suffered 2nd and 3rd degree burns and will be in the hospital for a long time. No arrests have yet been reported in this case. Mr. Calimee was not robbed, so the motive for the attack appears to have been pure sadism. [Bonita Brodt, He can still see his attackers — smiling, Chicago Tribune, 7/29/94, p. 1.] Because Hispanics are a victim category but not a perpetrator category, this crime will enter official statistics as one committed by whites against a black.
Chavis Chagrined
The executive director of the NAACP, Ben Chavis, is in trouble. It was recently revealed that he authorized a considerable payment to a former co-worker as an out-of-court settlement in a sexual harassment case. Without seeking approval of the NAACP’s board of directors, he authorized two payments to Mary Stansel of $50,000 each, as well as six monthly installments of $5,400. This much, or $132,400, has already been paid.
Mr. Chavis also agreed to find Miss Stansel a job outside the NAACP that paid at least $80,000 a year and promised to pay her another $250,000 if he was unable to do so. It appears he was unable to do so because, he says, she overstated her qualifications. Since the NAACP did not then come through with the promised $250,000, Miss Stansel has sued for it.
The sexual harassment charges came to light only because of the suit. NAACP board members are displeased that Mr. Chavis authorized six-figure payments without their knowledge or approval, and some believe that he tried to keep them from learning about the suit. Mr. Chavis denies the harassment charges and says that he authorized payments only to avoid public embarrassment. [Director used NAACP funds to settle sex harassment case, Chicago Tribune,July 29, 1994, p. 12.]
Tales of Hoodoo
Two Louisiana women have gouged out their sister’s eyes because they thought she was possessed by a demon. Dorothea Crawford and Beverly Johnson are practitioners of hoodoo, which is a combination of voodoo and Catholicism. They beat their sister and gouged out her eyes with their fingers during a prayer session that was meant to cast out demons. [Women accused of eye-gouging, Sault Ste. Marie Evening News, 7/15/94, p. 3.]
Slavery on the Rise
In the East African nation of Sudan, slavery is increasingly common. It is one of the consequences of a 12-year war waged by Muslim northerners against black, animist southerners. Arab militiamen often raid a village of the Dinka tribe, kill all the men, and enslave the women and children. The price of a woman or child varies with the supply. In 1989, the going rate was about $90, but now that raids are more common the price has fallen to $15.
In Mauritania, to the West, slavery never really ended. It was not even legally abolished until 1980, but the law has little meaning. An estimated 90,000 blacks are still the property of Arabs, and perhaps another 300,000 “freed” slaves continue in servitude because they have nowhere to go. [Charles Jacobs and Mohamed Athie, bought and Sold, NYT, 7/13/94.] So far, neither the NAACP nor the Congressional Black Caucus seems to have taken an interest in this.
Summer Savagery
From coast to coast, beaches and public swimming pools are devising new plans to cope with waves of savage young non-whites. This year, Huntington Beach, California began to enforce a 10:00 p.m. curfew because bathers cannot be trusted to behave themselves at night. In Orange County, Laguna Beach is the only town that does not shut down the beach at night. Some lifeguards now carry guns and wear bullet-proof vests. [Sara Rimer, Beach Curfews Are Clouding California’s Endless Summer, NYT, 7/12/94, p. A1.]
Venice Beach, one of California’s most famously carnavalesque, has been particularly hard hit by feuding black and Hispanic gangs. In the past 14 months there have been 55 drive-by shootings and 17 murders. Blacks recently distributed fliers in the Oakwood neighborhood that read:
STOP SNITCHING. Stop calling the police on our young people . . . When you see black men carrying guns through your yard, support him — Give him a hand full of bullets! Our youths are out there risking their lives to protect you older folks from Mexican bullets.
At a recent community meeting, a black woman explained the killings: “They are using violence, gangs and drugs to get rid of minorities.” [Karen Brandon, Sun, sand and now violence at famous L.A. beachfront, Chi. Tribune, 7/27/94, p. 1.]
In the Watts area of Los Angeles, six lifeguards in Will Rogers Park were beaten up in a period of three days. One was beaten to within an inch of his life. These lifeguards do not yet wear guns and bullet-proof vests.
In New York City, so many girls at public swimming pools have had their bathing suits ripped off them by rampaging boys that the city is considering segregating the pools by sex. Many girls wear oversized T-shirts over their bathing suits to discourage molestation. Whites have long since been driven from the city’s pools, which are used almost exclusively by blacks and Hispanics.
The usual dreamers say that the solution is to give lifeguards “sensitivity training.” The administration of David Dinkins mounted a campaign with the theme “Don’t Dis[respect] Your Sis[ter],” which appears to have had no effect. [Douglas Martin, Segregating by sex at public pools considered, NYT, 7/7/94, p. B1.]
Although pit bulls are no longer the big news they were in the late 1980s, in some places they are more of a problem than ever. They are popular in the black areas of Connecticut cities, where back-yard breeders have produced wildly aggressive strains. Pit bulls are used as watch dogs and in dog fights, but many escape from their owners and roam the streets. In Bridgeport, citizens frequently call the police to report wild pit bulls in their neighborhoods, and the majority of dog bite cases handled by authorities involved pit bulls.
Blacks have also changed the rules of dog fighting. There used to be strict procedures that at least ensured the survival of the looser, but the typical ghetto fight is different. A courtyard or alley is blocked off and the dogs fight to the death. “A lot of the dogs are so torn up that they’re practically unrecognizable as dogs,” says a woman who operates an animal shelter. Gamblers love dogfights and as much as $30,000 may change hands in a single fight. [New horror Tale: Invasion of the discarded pit bulls, NYT, 7/18/94.]
Most people want to live with people like themselves. A study done by the University of California at Los Angeles found that, on average, white Angelenos tell a poll-taker they want neighborhoods that are 76 percent white and 24 percent black, or 79 percent white and 21 percent Hispanic.
Hispanics want a neighborhood that is 88 percent Hispanic and 12 percent black or 62 percent Hispanic and 38 percent white — a clear preference for white neighbors over black. Blacks show the same preference for whites. On average, they want a 50-50 mix if the other race is white, but they want a 62-38 majority if the other race is Hispanic. [AP, People prefer neighbors of the same race, Orange County Register, 11/29/92, p. B8.]
Abandoned at Birth
Every year, about 22,000 mothers abandon their infants in hospitals after they give birth. They show up in labor, give false names and family contacts, and leave as soon as they can. Seventy-four percent of the abandoned infants are black, 12 percent are white, and eight percent are Hispanic. It costs about $600 a day to keep an infant in the hospital, and about a quarter stay for at least three weeks. [John Ritter, “Babies will keep coming,’ USA Today, 12/2/93, p. 1.]
AIDS in Prison
From 1992 to 1993, the number of Illinois prison inmates with AIDS increased seven-fold, from 25 to 177. That year, 23 inmates died of AIDS, putting the disease ahead of cancer and heart attacks as the leading cause of inmate death.
In a study done in 1988 and 1989, a group of 2,392 new inmates in Joliet Prison were tested for AIDS and 95 were found to have the virus. A year later, the same prisoners were tested and seven more were HIV positive, suggesting that they caught the disease in prison. [Jerry Thomas, AIDS is top killer in state prisons, Chi Tribune, 5/2/94.]
Anything the government touches becomes an anti-discrimination nightmare. Fair housing laws were supposed to prevent whites from keeping blacks out of their neighborhoods, but have been hijacked by every conceivable interest group. Realtors now police their ad copy for fear than an offending word might launch a law suit. So far, most speech codes are voluntary and defensive, but formal censorship may not be far behind.
“Master bedrooms” are now off limits since they might remind blacks of slavery. “Spectacular views” might offend the blind. “Quiet neighborhoods” might suggest a prejudice against children. Anything that is “executive” hints of excessive whiteness. One fair-housing official browbeat a company into withdrawing an ad for a Chester, Pennsylvania house described as a “rare find.” Chester is mostly black, and it was reprehensible to suggest that a nice house in a black town might be unusual. [Dale Russakoff, Housing-Ad suits leave agents at a loss for words, Chicago Sun-Times, 6/7/94, p. 22.]
Healthy Instincts
It has now been 30 years since pollsters started asking Americans if they trusted Washington to do what is right all or most of the time. Government got the best review the first year, 1964, with 75 percent of respondents saying “yes.” That number declined steadily to about 25 percent in 1980 but rebounded to about 40 percent from 1982 to 1988 (during Ronald Reagan’s two terms in office). In 1994 the figure hit an all-time low of about 18 percent. [Do We Trust Government?, Readers Digest, May 1994, p. 141.] Actually, it’s astonishing to think that only 30 years ago 75 percent of Americans thought the federal government could be counted on to do what was right all or most of the time.
