O Tempora, O Mores! (February, 2007)

Racist Schools?

Black school children in Britain are three times more likely than whites to be expelled, and five times less likely to be considered “gifted and talented,” and the British government can’t figure out why. In November 2005, it commissioned a study to find out why blacks account for 1,000 expulsions (the British call them exclusions) and 30,000 suspensions every year.

The bureaucrats had to decide whether blacks behave worse than whites or whether teachers are racist. The report at least hinted that you could make an argument that blacks need more discipline: “On the face of it, this view (that blacks are being influenced to behave more aggressively by factors outside school) is supported by statistical evidence that black pupils are most likely to be excluded for ‘violence against a pupil’ and more likely than average to be excluded for ‘violence against a member of staff.’” The poor dears could be victims of media indoctrination: “The portrayal of images heavily dominated by the experience of black Americans has encouraged growing levels of aggression and a view that violence is a product of poverty and disempowerment. Such cultural factors have encouraged young men to posture aggressively as a means of ‘getting respect’ and resolving conflicts.”

But having wrestled with this possibility, the report retreated to implausible but safer ground. It would not be right to suggest blacks behave worse than whites because “this would be regarded by many as a racist viewpoint.” So what’s the explanation? “The exclusion gap is due to institutional racism decisions made by schools and their staff which have the cumulative effect of producing a racist outcome . . . While a compelling case can be made for the existence of institutional racism in schools, there is a comparatively weak basis for arguing that street culture has a more persuasive influence on black young people than it has on other young people.” Put bluntly: “The exclusions gap is caused by largely unwitting, but systematic racial discrimination in the application of disciplinary and exclusion policies.”

Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Labour government had no problem saying the police were racist after the investigation of the Stephen Lawrence murder, but the minister in charge of reviewing the report kept quiet about it. Maybe Labour did not want to call the British school system racist for fear of offending the teacher unions. The report surfaced only after The Independent got hold of a copy. Teachers say they punish only those who deserve it, and race has nothing to do with it. [Ian Griggs, Institutionally Racist: Report Tells How Black Children are Being Discriminated Against in Schools, Independent (London), Dec. 10, 2006.]

Another BNP ‘Exposé’

The race hate charges against British National Party chairman Nick Griffin and activist Mark Collett, on which they were acquitted last November, originally stemmed from a clandestinely filmed documentary called Secret Agent, made by a BBC reporter who sneaked into party meetings. Having reporters “expose” the BNP appears to be a new hobby for the British media. A writer for the Guardian, a left-wing London paper, spent seven months “under cover” as an organizer for the party, and has just emerged to write about it. He could find very little dirt, but did print the names of several prominent BNP members, including a senior healthcare regulator, an associate of Prince Charles, a servant at Buckingham Palace, and Simone Clarke, a principal dancer with the English National Ballet.

Miss Clarke has since had considerable media attention, but is holding her ground. She says immigration has “really got out of hand,” and that “if everyone who thinks like I do joined, it would really make a difference.” She says her boyfriend encouraged her to do something rather than rail at the television news, and she refuses to apologize. “I’ve never been clearer in my head that I’m moving in the right direction and at the right time. I’ve had nearly 300 emails supporting me from all over the UK and from as far away as Australia, America and New Zealand. I don’t regret anything. I will stay a member.” Of the 11 principal dancers in the company, nine are immigrants and only two are British. Miss Clarke’s boyfriend and father of her child is a Chinese-Cuban immigrant — and also a dancer.

The ballet company wishes to distance itself from her views. A spokesman sniffs, “We are an equal opportunities employer. We pride ourselves on the diversity in the company.” Miss Clarke may therefore lose her job. Lee Jasper, equalities director for the mayor of London and chairman of the National Assembly Against Racism, says, “The ENB must seriously consider whether having such a vociferous member of an avowedly racist party in such a prominent role is compatible with the ethics of its organization . . . I think she should be sacked.” A spokesmen for the Commission for Racial Equality says it is monitoring events and “will be interested to see what action the ENB takes given that it has a member expressing such views in public.”

Another prominent Briton named as a BNP member is Annabel Geddes, who once headed the London Tourist Board. According to the Guardian, she says Pakistani immigrants are a “bloody bore” and blacks are “ghastly.” She is quoted as telling the undercover reporter, “I’m a racist. We’ve got to keep little UK basically Anglo-Saxon.”

The Guardian is shocked that the BNP is recruiting affluent, upscale members and that they would associate themselves with a nationalist party. The paper also feigns shock that the BNP encourages its members to practice security (they obviously have good reason to), and to behave in a way that reflects positively on the party. [Ian Cobain, Inside the Secret and Sinister World of the BNP, Guardian (London), Dec. 21, 2006. Jack Malvern, BNP Ballerina Stumbles Into the Spotlight, Times (London), Dec. 22, 2006. High Muir, BNP Ballerina Defies Rising Clamour to Sack Her, Guardian (London), Jan. 1, 2007.]

Too White

Critics are accusing German television of being “too white” because there are hardly any non-white news readers and reporters. They suggest that since 20 percent of the German population are immigrants, television should go multiracial as it has in America and Britain. The critics are finding a sympathetic ear in the “conservative” government of Chancellor Angela Merkel. “We have to make immigrants more present in German television,” says Maria Böhmer, the German minister of integration. “I keep hearing from immigrants that they don’t see themselves represented by the public sector broadcasters . . . For example, having a Turkish anchorwoman needs to become a normal thing. We need more reporters who themselves know the immigrants’ world and can convey it. The media have an obligation here.”

Sociology professor Rainer Geissler says Germany must be “more welcoming” to foreigners to make up for low German birth rates, and putting non-whites on camera will help immigrants integrate. The television networks apparently agree. Two have already promised to recruit non-whites, while two more have hired diversity consultants to help hire non-whites and monitor programming. [German Media Too White, Says Government, Der Speigel, Dec. 20, 2006.]

Reversing the Decline

In 1946, with their country in ruins, German women had 922,000 babies. In 2005, with their country one of the richest in the world, they had just 690,000. The German rate of 8.5 births per 1,000 residents is the lowest in Europe. The government thinks the population will decline from the current figure of 82.4 million to 69 million by 2050, and worries this will hurt the economy and the pension system. To halt the trend, the government is increasing the child benefit it pays parents during the first year of a child’s life — from $400 per month to a maximum of $2,375 per month. This should increase annual payments to parents from the current $1.2 billion to $5 billion a year.

France and Sweden already offer subsidies at around the new German level, but also offer state-sponsored daycare for babies and pre-school children. Britain offers mothers “baby bonds,” or $490 vouchers for starting trust funds. Russia, which faces perhaps the most dire demographic crisis of any white country, offers parents $9,600 for second and subsequent babies. [Stephen Graham, Germans Get Incentives for Having Babies, AP, Jan. 3, 2007.]

Hope Trumps Experience

Since Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe began taking white-owned farms in 2000, the number of white farmers has decreased from 4,500 to 600. As recently as 2005, Mr. Mugabe vowed to keep grabbing land until there was “not a single white on the farms.” Now, with the country — which used to export food — on the brink of starvation, he has changed his mind. He is now offering 99-year leases to white farmers willing to return. Incredibly, 200 have filed applications. “We wanted to come back, because it’s home,” says one. [In Reversal, Mugabe Seeks White Framers, UPI, Dec. 17, 2006.]

More on Michigan

Opponents of Michigan’s affirmative action ban were buoyed in late December when a federal judge delayed implementation of the ban for six months, allowing the state’s three major public universities to continue applying race preferences in admissions for the current academic year. But on Dec. 29, the US Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the lower court, ordering the universities to comply immediately. A spokesman for the University of Michigan says the schools are reviewing the appeals court decision and will soon decide whether to keep fighting or obey the law. [Jennifer Chambers, Mich. Universities Consider Next Step After Prop 2 Ruling, Detroit News, Dec. 30, 2006.]

Sense and Segregation

Segregation in US public schools has been increasing for the past decade, and a new study from Rice University in Houston, Texas, purports to show why. Rice sociologist Michael Emerson believes that better-educated whites, regardless of income, are more likely to remove children from public schools when the number of blacks increases. “We believed from prior studies that education has a significantly positive impact on racial attitudes,” says Prof. Emerson. “We found when studying behaviors, however, that acquiring more education is not a means of combating segregation. Education may broaden an individual’s world, but it also leads to greater negative sensitivity toward blacks’ presence in public schools.” The study also finds that highly-educated whites live in whiter neighborhoods than less-educated whites. Prof. Emerson says the study reached a “sad” and “profound” conclusion: formal education is not a liberal cure-all. He thinks the government needs to impose integration. [Pam Sheridan, Does Education Help Breed Segregation?, Sallyport (Rice University), Fall 2006.]

New York’s Finest?

On Dec. 26, as Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” played in the background at Madison Square Garden, Mayor Michael Bloomberg saluted the latest — and most racially and ethnically diverse — graduating class from New York City’s police academy. About 300 of the 1,359 rookies are foreign born, and from 65 different countries. Twenty-eight percent are Hispanic, 17 percent are black, eight percent are Asian, and only 46 percent are white. Eighteen percent of the new officers are women. City officials are proud of their diverse class, explaining that they tried very hard to hire women and non-whites and people who speak foreign languages. Mayor Bloomberg called the class a “gift to the city.” [Ernie Naspretto, Fine Show of N.Y.C.’s Diversity, New York Daily News, Dec. 27, 2006.]

Muslim GIs

In order to fight the so-called “War on Terror” the Pentagon believes it needs to recruit officers and soldiers who speak Arabic and other Middle Eastern languages, and who are familiar with Islamic countries. It has begun to recruit Muslim immigrants, and is making the US military more Muslim-friendly. West Point and the other service academies already have Muslim prayer rooms, as have most US military bases. Each year, Gordon England, Deputy Defense Secretary, hosts an iftar, a feast that traditionally ends Ramadan, at the Army-Navy Country Club in Arlington, Virginia. “There is a message here,” he says, “and that is that Muslims and the Islamic religion are totally compatible with Western values.” Muslim soldiers get extra time off during Ramadan, and are exempt from physical training during fasts.

The Pentagon doesn’t count soldiers by religion, but estimates that 3,386 Muslims are in the ranks. Other sources put the figure as high as 15,000. [Richard Whittle, Uncle Sam Wants US Muslims to Serve, Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 27, 2006.]

Winning the Lottery

Lionel Jean-Baptiste came as a refugee from Haiti, settled in Miami, and in 1996 became a naturalized US citizen. He was also a drug dealer. Six months after becoming a citizen, he was charged with conspiracy to sell crack cocaine. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to eight years in prison and got out in 2004. Since 2000, Immigration and Customs Enforcement had been working to strip Mr. Jean-Baptiste of citizenship on the grounds that he had been selling crack even before 1996, while he was waiting for citizenship. This meant he was not a person “of good moral character,” as naturalization law requires. Mr. Jean-Baptiste appealed, but to no avail, and in 2006, he was sent to a detention center for deportation. He is the first naturalized citizen in 44 years to lose citizenship because of a drug conviction.

Unfortunately, Mr. Jean-Baptiste is still with us. In September, a federal judge ordered him deported to Haiti, but Haiti refused to take him, insisting that Mr. Jean-Baptiste renounced his Haitian citizenship when he naturalized. The US then tried to send him to France and the Dominican Republic, but they didn’t want him either. Because the US Supreme Court has ruled that foreigners who cannot be deported cannot be detained indefinitely, the government had to let Mr. Jean-Baptiste go. He couldn’t be happier. “God is good,” he says. “I feel like a lottery winner.” [Jacqueline Charles and Larry Lebowitz, Haitian Who Lost US Citizenship is Released, Herald (Miami), Dec. 22, 2006.]

Not Black Enough

US Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) is clearly the media favorite for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. As he tests the presidential waters in early primary states, he is greeted by large, enthusiastic — and overwhelmingly white — audiences. In fact, those most cool to the Obama presidential boomlet are blacks.

Many believe Sen. Obama, whose father was a Kenyan immigrant and whose mother is white, is not authentically black. Stanley Crouch, a black newspaper columnist, says Sen. Obama “does not share a heritage with the majority of black Americans, who are descendants of plantation slaves. While he has experienced some light versions of typical racial stereotypes, he cannot claim those problems as his own — nor has he lived the life of a black American.”

Political analyst Ron Walters believes that what appeals to whites about Sen. Obama — his white mother, growing up in Hawaii and Indonesia, Harvard education — alienates blacks. “For some African-Americans, he has not really affirmed their identity. He has affirmed his own mixed identity, but he has not strongly affirmed the right and the claim of African-Americans in this society to equal treatment,” he says. Black radio host George Wilson agrees: “There’s a feeling that if white folks like him so much he must not be good for us. For some blacks it’s a turn-off.” [Stephanie Griffith, Obama’s Toughest Sell for White House Bid May be to Other Blacks, AFP, Dec. 21, 2006.]

Alien Predators

Two years ago, the Department of Homeland Security went after foreigners who prey on children. “Operation Predator” has so far netted more than 6,000, an average of eight per day. Eighty-five percent are illegals. “We are seeing an alarming number of illegal aliens with criminal records for everything from homicides to rapes of children as young as three years of age,” says Sid Francis, a former New York City detective who investigated sex crimes. Det. Francis accuses politicians, the news media, and pro-illegal immigration activists of covering up for criminal aliens. “If anything, the president and the two houses of Congress are actually helping these fiends enter the US to assault citizens and their children. They appear more intent on locking up border patrol agents than stopping illegal alien thugs.”

Assaults on children are particularly heinous, but represent only a small fraction of the crimes committed by illegal aliens. According to research from the National Association of Police Chiefs, during one recent nine-month period, federal agents arrested more than 100,000 aliens on non-immigration, criminal charges. This figure does not include arrests by state and local police. [Jim Kouri, Thousands of Illegal Aliens Preying on Children, Conservative Voice.com, Jan. 2, 2007.]

Dubious Honor

In 1977, a New Jersey jury convicted Assata Shakur (real name Joanne Deborah Chesimard) of murder for the 1973 killing of state trooper Werner Foerster during a routine traffic stop. Miss Shakur, a member of the Black Liberation Army, was wanted at the time on several felony warrants, including bank robbery. Sentenced to life, Miss Shakur escaped from a prison in Clinton, New Jersey, in November 1979, and the FBI believes she is now living in Cuba. In 2005, the Bureau put her on its list of most-wanted domestic terrorists, and offered a $1 million bounty for her. Miss Shakur keeps a high profile for a fugitive. She runs a web site, www.assatashakur.org, on which she proclaims her innocence: “I have been a political activist most of my life, and although the US government has done everything in its power to criminalize me, I am not a criminal, nor have I ever been one.” Miss Shakur is the godmother of murdered black rapper Tupac Shakur, and is a cult figure to hip-hop “artists” and assorted political radicals.

In 1989, City College of New York let students name a community center room after Miss Shakur and Guillermo Morales, a former member of FALN, the Puerto Rican terrorist group that set off bombs in New York during the 1970s. Like Miss Shakur, Mr. Morales is also believed to be living in Cuba. Apparently, police groups have only now learned of the name, and are outraged. “We use tax dollars to support an institution that indemnifies a cold-blooded terrorist? She’s a cowardly, cold-blooded convicted murderer who’s part of a murdering sect,” says Dave Jones, president of the New Jersey State Troopers Fraternal Association. “She’s no different from those people who flew those planes into those towers and destroyed all those innocent lives.” Mr. Jones’ and other police groups are demanding that City College change the name of the room.

The college has no such plans. “This is not the college or the administration’s idea of a good name for this room, but we believe the university is a place to discuss and argue ideas, some of which are not widely supported,” says spokesman Mary Lou Edmondson. [Sara Bonisteel, Report: Police Groups Angered by ‘Terrorist’ Honor at New York College, Fox News, Dec. 12, 2006.] Would she sing the same tune if a student group named a room after Jefferson Davis?

GOP Hispandering

One of the myths about the 2006 midterm elections is that House Republicans’ opposition to amnesty cost the party Hispanic votes, which paved the way for the Democratic takeover of both chambers. Republicans are so convinced their future lies with Hispanics they are willing to sacrifice the interests of whites — their natural base.

Accordingly, Pres. George W. Bush chose Florida Sen. Mel Martinez to head the Republican party, replacing outgoing chairman Ken Mehlman. (Mr. Mehlman proved he was no stranger to pandering when he ditched the party’s winning Southern strategy, which sought to maximize white votes, in favor of “minority outreach.” The fact that he is former chairman shows how successful that strategy was.) Sen. Martinez would be the first Hispanic to be chairman of the Republican National Committee.

The appointment also signals the GOP’s support of the president’s amnesty plan. “Border security only, enforcement only, harshness only is not the message that I believe America wants to convey. I think we didn’t always strike the right tone on that. And I think it was a mistake,” says Mr. Martinez. [Melissa Drosjack, Mel Martinez Aims to Turn Around Republican Party, Fox News, Dec. 22, 2006.]

“Fool Me Once”

Back in 1997, the FBI recorded a conversation between a Hispanic drug dealer and a black Camden, New Jersey, police officer, Michael Hearne. Mr. Hearne was caught on tape telling the drug dealer how to handle a narcotics investigation. Although the FBI did not have enough evidence to indict Mr. Hearne, in 2000 he was suspended from the force for six months. Mr. Hearne went back to work after his suspension, and in 2006, the 18-year veteran was promoted to head the Camden Police Department’s faith-based outreach effort, organizing church leaders to help fight crime.

On the day of his promotion, a friend asked Mr. Hearne to lend him a gun so he could rob drug dealers. In return, Mr. Hearne would get half the cash. He agreed. Unfortunately for Mr. Hearne, the man was an undercover police informant. Detectives arrested Mr. Hearne — in uniform — as he was delivering a shotgun to the informant. City leaders were dumbfounded. “He was a saint and did the work of 50 persons,” said Mayor Gwendolyn Faison. [Sam Wood and Dwight Ott, Arrest of Police Veteran Shocks Camden, Philadelphia Inquirer, Nov. 26, 2006.]

Fade to Brown

Back in 1980, Hispanics were just 5.3 percent of students in Clark County, Nevada (which includes Las Vegas). By 1990, they were 12.1 percent, and in 2006, 38.8 percent of the district’s 303,000 students. Hispanics now outnumber whites, who are 37.5 percent. “We’re taking over,” says Ron Montoya, principal of Valley High School, where 62 percent of 3,100 students are Hispanic.

The rapid influx of Hispanics “compounds the challenges,” says Superintendent Walt Rulffes. “We not only have the profound challenges of the growing population, but we have to change how we do business because of the change in cultural mix.” Fifty-five percent of Hispanic students are enrolled in the district’s English Language Learners (ELL) program, despite the fact that most were born in the US. The district has even had to give ELL training to 14,000 teachers over the past two years. [Antonio Planas, Hispanic Students Outnumber Whites, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nov. 18, 2006, p. 1A.]

Cracking Down

Thanks in part to economic booms in Charlotte, Raleigh and other cities, the foreign population of North Carolina is surging — up 412 percent in the last 15 years, five times the national rate. By 2005, 560,753 state residents were foreign born. Most are Hispanic and many are illegal; 42.2 percent of the state’s construction workers are now Hispanic. The influx has been expensive for state taxpayers. A 2006 study by the University of North Carolina finds that Hispanics consume $61 million more in services — schools, hospitals, prisons — than they pay in taxes. Immigration boosters say Hispanics keep wages low.

Opposition to illegals in the Charlotte area came to a head in July 2005 when a drunken illegal crashed his car, killing a popular teacher and leaving the teacher’s wife in a coma. Mecklenburg County Sheriff Jim Pendergraph responded to the outrage by signing his agency up for a federal program authorized by the 1996 Immigration and Nationality Act that lets local police act as immigration agents after they get training from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. Twelve of Sheriff Pendergraph’s deputies have received ICE training, and have processed 653 illegal immigrants for deportation since last April.

“This is the hottest issue I’ve ever seen,” says the sheriff. “And it’s going to be the hottest issue, maybe next to Iraq, in the presidential election in two years. Congress has let us down. And a lot of the politicians are doing the three-monkey thing — hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil — because they’re so afraid of political correctness. Political correctness is going to cause us to lose this country.” Sheriff Pendergraph says he is flooded with requests from other law enforcement agencies about the training program. “People see there is something you can do. Every person we remove from the county is one person you and your family won’t meet on the highway.”

The usual people worry that illegals are now afraid to deal with police, but most people agree with county commissioner Bill James, a strong proponent of tougher laws. “My goal is to make being an illegal alien in Mecklenburg County both a dangerous proposition and an uncomfortable one,” he says. [Paul Nussbaum, A Surge in Immigration is Spawning a Backlash, Philadelphia Inquirer, Oct. 15, 2006, p. A1.]

Small Victory

In most American cities, streets named for Martin Luther King are synonymous with crime, poverty and decay. It is not surprising that the people of Portland, a majority-white, historically Irish and German neighborhood of Louisville, Kentucky, opposed a plan by two black city council members to rename one of their streets for King. Nearly 140 people turned out on Dec. 18 for a public meeting to discuss the proposal. Most of the audience was against the plan, some for the usual respectable reasons, such as the confusion the name change might cause, but most seemed to agree with Portland resident Jason Semar, who said: “Dr. King did a lot of great things. However, he is not part of our community. This is about our identity.” He described supporters of the proposal as “troublemakers who knew this would cause a problem.” The meeting became heated, and the two black council members headed for the door, leveling charges of “racism” against the people of Portland, and vowing to “move ahead” with their plan.

Surprisingly, two days later, Barbara Shanklin, the original sponsor, abandoned the proposal. “We don’t want to fight with the people of Portland,” she said, adding that she will try to find some other way to honor King. Louisville already has a Martin Luther King Street: a closed-off, dead-end, one-block stretch of pavement downtown. [Sheldon S. Shafer, Residents Rebuff King Plan, Louisville Courier-Journal, Dec. 19, 2006, p. A1. Sheldon S. Shafer, King Blvd. Backers Rethink Plan, Louisville Courier-Journal, Dec. 21, 2006, p. A1.]

‘White’ Mischief

The Harbor Gateway area of Los Angeles has become a battleground between blacks and Hispanics. Hispanic gang members have established a “forbidden line” at 206th Street, and have warned blacks not to cross it. On Dec. 15, a black eighth-grader named Cheryl Green and a group of friends were standing just on the black side of the line, when two Hispanics walked up, pulled out guns, and started blazing away. Miss Green was killed and three of her friends were wounded. Police have arrested Jonathan Fajardo and Ernesto Alcarez and charged them with murder and hate crimes.

Blacks are in high dudgeon and have organized several marches across the “forbidden line” since the killing. Long-time black residents say they live in fear of Hispanics and avoid patronizing stores that are known as Hispanic gang hangouts. “I don’t go outside past five,” says 19-year-old Ashley Williams. [Marchers Cross Harbor Gateway ‘Forbidden Line,’ Daily Breeze (Torrance), Dec. 31, 2006. Second Arrest Made In Racially Motivated Shooting Of Teen, NBC4TV (Los Angeles), Jan. 5, 2007.]

No news reports have pointed out that Hispanics are a victim category for hate crimes but not a perpetrator category, so that when this murder is entered into the FBI’s annual compilation of hate crimes, it will be recorded as a murder of a black by a white.