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American Renaissance - 1 - December 2010

What to Make of Black Conservatives?

Vol. 21 No. 12

There is not a truth existing which I fear or would wish unknown to the whole world.— Thomas Jefferson

December 2010

American Renaissance

Can they be a gatewaydrug to race realism?

by Thomas Parker

Q: What do you call a black man ata conservative conference?

A: The keynote speaker.

This joke has circulated amongthe more intelligent conservatives forseveral decades. In the age of Obama,however, things are even worse. Withblacks intensely loyal to Mr. Obama,the conservative opposition is whitertoken blacks to speak at Republicangatherings and Tea Parties has becomean even greater priority. What role dothese blacks play, and can they be, inany sense, our allies?

Conservatives like to pretend thatblacks would be natural supporters if

they had not been brainwashed by AlSharpton and his media allies to hate Re-publicans, but it is perfectly logical forblacks to support the Democrats. At ev-ery socio-economic level, blacks dependon government. The black underclassgets its welfare from the government.The much vaunted black middle class ismade up almost entirely of governmentworkers. The black upper class, asidefrom athletes and entertainers, would

Reducing the size of government,which is one of the few consistent goals

of Tea Partiers and other self-styledconservatives, would have an enormous“disparate impact” on blacks, and theyknow it. Furthermore, unlike whites,blacks see politics through a tribal lens.To the extent that they are interestedin politics at all, they have the sameperspective as the Congressional BlackCaucus: what’s in it for blacks? Theleft encourages this tribalism whileconservatives urge everyone to be colorblind.

Some blacks have relatively conser-vative attitudes on social issues such asschool prayer or homosexual marriage,

but they are more concerned with jobsand handouts for the tribe than withthese luxury issues. Now that we havea black president, conservatives andRepublicans feel more compelled thanever to prop up blacks as leaders just toprove they are not racist, and the pick-

ings are slim. What kind of black havethey managed to get to come over totheir side?

I am active in mainstream opposi-tion to affirmative action and otherrace-based giveaways, and in my workI have met a number of prominent blackconservatives. I do not put all my cards

on the table when I talk to them, and itis clear that many of them—J.C. Watts,Michael Steele, Armstrong Williams,

and Ken Blackwell, for example—care about race-blindness; tribal politicscome before equal rights or fair treat-ment. White conservatives overlookthis and embrace them because they aregrateful to have any blacks whom theycan call allies.

Republican National CommitteeChairman Michael Steele is the worstof the lot. Last November, he said that

some white Republicans were afraid of him because he is black. Then he wenton to speak at Al Sharpton’s NationalAction Network Conference. There wasno transcript of the speech but the DailyCaller, a website that generally supportsRepublicans, summarized it:

Civil rights, equality on paper,the familiar story. But, of course,you were growing up, he asks

Continued on page 3

“There are many paths torace realism, and it would

be wrong to block any of them.”




Letters from ReadersSir — In the Galton Report in AR of

November 2010, “Hippocrates” writesthat the average IQ of white Americans

is 100. But when he provides the aver-age IQs of the states with the highestproportion of whites, they are all sig-this paradox may be that “Hippocrates”has fallen into a common error.

When the raw scores (percentage of correct and incorrect answers) on IQtests are converted into reported scores,the conversion is done in such a way thatthe average reported score of the samplegroup is 100.

The most widely used IQ test in theUnited States is the WISC (Wechsler

Intelligence Scale for Children). Theoriginal WISC was standardized ona sample that consisted of only whiteAmericans. The average Americanwhite IQ was therefore 100. When theWISC was revised in 1974, it was stan-dardized on a sample that included allAmerican racial groups. Therefore, theaverage white American IQ was 102.26.The WISC has been revised twice sincethen. I do not know what the averagewhite American IQ is on these revisions.However, since the black and Hispanicproportion of the American population

keeps increasing, the average white IQ(although not, of course, the averagewhite intelligence) increases with eachrevision.

These facts have serious consequenc-es. The difference between the averageAmerican black and white IQ is usuallystated to be 15 points (100 minus 85).In fact, on the 1974 WISC it was 17.26points (102.26 minus 85). For the samereason, the difference in average IQ be-tween American whites and Americans

of North-East Asian origin is less thanis commonly reported.

Steven Farron, Johannesburg, SouthAfrica

Sir — My high school in New Jerseyrecently established an Asian HeritageClub, an African-American HeritageClub, a Muslim Heritage Club, and aHispanic Heritage Club. One of myto set up a European Heritage Club, butwas immediately turned away.

After doing much research, I havethis has happened. In 2003, Lisa Mc-Clelland, a high school student at“Freedom” High School in Oakley,

Oklahoma, tried to start a Club forCaucasians. She had 300 people sign apetition in favor of the club, but it wasstill denied, and the incident gained brief national attention.

It is sad to see whites being cast outof society in their own country due topolitical correctness and the continu-ing feeling of guilt for actions thattook place hundreds of years ago. If something is not done soon, the disap-pearance of white culture will not be aquestion of “if,” but of “when.”

Alexander Redinikov, New York,

N.Y.

Sir — I very much enjoyed Prof.Wolters’s review of Robert Weissberg’s Bad Students Not Bad Schools. How-ever, I fail to understand why teachersrefuse to acknowledge racial differencesin IQ. There must be thousands whoknow better than any of us arm-chairrace realists what causes gaps in per-formance.

Blacks and Hispanics are two yearsbehind by fourth grade, and four yearsbehind by 12th grade. As Prof. Weiss-berg points out, Asian boat people do said to depress black achievement.Teachers see this every day—and areblamed for it . You would think that itwould be teachers, threatened as theyare with sanctions if all racial groups donot make “adequate yearly progress,”who would be the foremost advocatesof race-realist explanations for schoolfailure. Teachers’ unions should be themost enthusiastic promoters of ArthurJensen, Richard Lynn, and PhilippeRushton.

Why aren’t they? The only reasonI can think of is that underperformingblacks and Hispanics are a great excuseto screw more money out of the rest of us. As Prof. Weissberg points out, teach-

ing “consultants” and other frauds aredoing a booming business. But at somepoint there will be no more money forquacks. Unless teachers explain the realreason for school failure, they will getthe blame.

Sarah Wentworth, Richmond, Va.

Sir —November’s “O Tempora”section includes an item (“Time toCelebrate”) explaining the origin of National Hispanic Heritage Month,noting that it was President Reagan who

expanded it from a week to a month backin 1988. It is worth pointing out that in1983, Reagan also set aside a day—athe contributions of what is still the larg-est ethnic group in America: Germans. -tion German-American Day at the WhiteHouse, but Bill Clinton ended that.

October 6, 1983 was the 300th an-niversary of the arrival in Philadelphiafamilies. Today there are more than 60million Americans of German descent,

but they are largely invisible becausethey assimilated and rejected hyphen-ated Americanism.

We are told constantly that theHispanic work ethic is crucial to oureconomy. I wonder if these Hispanicsrealize that it was the mostly Germanwork ethic that built the meat-packingplants, dairies, and other industriesthat give them the opportunity to workhere?

J.C. Moyer, Quakertown, Pa.




the audience, “Did the AmericanDream feel like part of you, like

it was your birthright?” For manyit did, he says. For many more itdid not, “and as you and I know,that dream has often been delayedand sometimes denied—and untilour children are born thinking theAmerican dream is their birthright,it will remain that way.” More-over, he adds, it will remain thatway until the children have accessto fair and affordable housing,access to credit and capital, andvoting machines that work. “Youdidn’t think I knew about that,

huh?” By god, it could be Rever-end Al up there at this point—andthen Steele commits outright GOPtreason and quotes, at length, froma litany of depressing statisticsabout the racial achievement at the end, on June 11, 1963, byJohn F. Kennedy himself. “Notmuch has changed,” he concludes,dropping the words slow and hardas an axe-head, “In forty. Seven.Years.” Don’t even ask about hisfollow-up statement on pervasive

Justice Department bias.Obviously, the Republicans choseMr. Steele to head the party because theDemocrats had a black at the head of their party. It was a transparent attemptnot to appear “racist,” and so of courseowes his job to it. And, as usual, theRepublicans got no credit for racial“tolerance” by appointing him. Insteadthey got a bumbler who sounds, mostof the time, more like a Democrat than

a Republican.There are other blacks whose con-

servatism is rooted in Christianity. This

group includes people like the Rev.Jesse Lee Peterson, Alan Keyes, andMartin Luther King’s niece, AlvedaKing. They like to call the high abor-tion rate among blacks “genocide,” asif white abortionists were going doorto door, forcing loving black couples

to abort their babies. Since support forabortion is strong on the left, calling it“black genocide” is an attempt to pin thedreaded label of “racist” on the Demo-crats. Rev. Peterson writes: “It is timefor America, but especially the blackcommunity, to come out of its state of denial and realize that true racism is theattack on the black unborn baby, startedby Margaret Sanger and carried out by

the liberal elite in this country.” It is truethat Margaret Sanger, who was bornin the 19th century and died in 1966,promoted birth control for the lowerorders—in which she included manyblacks—but the idea of whites somehowtricking blacks into having abortions islunacy. Real conservatives, especiallyserious Christians, would point out thatthe real cause of high black abortionrates is irresponsible sex.

There is another group, now growingquickly, that exists almost solely to reas-sure white conservatives that they arenot racist—or at least that Democratscan be pegged as racists, too. A good ex-ample of the level of their arguments isto point out that during the presidentialelection of 2008, Democratic SenatorHarry Reid said Mr. Obama had a goodchance because he was “light skinned,”and spoke “with no Negro dialect, unless

he wanted to have one.” Another one of their favorite proofs that Republicansare not racist is to point out that it wasSouthern Democrats who were the grandchampions of segregation.

Here is black blogger, John Hawk-ins:

Remember George “segregationnow, segregation tomorrow andsegregation forever” Wallacestanding in the door of an Ala-bama schoolhouse to keep blackchildren from being able to go toschool with whites? George Wal-

lace was a Democrat. RememberBull Connor turning water hosesand dogs on civil rights protestors?Bull Connor was a Democrat. . . .Who’s the only black Americancurrently on the Supreme Court?Secretary of State? Colin Powell.Secretary of State? Condi Rice [allappointed by Republicans].You can imagine how far they get

with arguments like this.Finally, there is a group of genu-

inely intelligent and thoughtful blackconservatives such as Thomas Sowell,Walter Williams, Shelby Steele, WardConnerly, and Elizabeth Wright, whoforcefully oppose race-based prefer-ences. But black conservatives, no mat-ter how intelligent, are not necessarilyour allies.

Although Mr. Sowell acknowledgedthat The Bell Curve’s arguments for agenetic basis for racial differences inintelligence were based on legitimate

Continued from page 1

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scholarship, he tried desperately to refutethem. Nor is Mr. Sowell above makingpolitically correct attacks against fellowconservatives. In 2002, Senator TrentLott caused an outcry when, at the 100thbirthday party for Strom Thurmond, hesaid the country would have been betteroff if Thurmond had won his 1948 bidfor the presidency on the segregationistDixiecrat ticket. Mr. Sowell wrote thatthese remarks meant that “the positionof black Republicans, especially, will beundermined, if not made untenable,” and

that “any blacks considering becomingRepublican candidates, or even Repub-lican voters, will have to have some longsecond thoughts.” He concluded withthe now-standard euthanasia prescrip-tion for Republicans: “The changingdemographics of the country meanthat Republicans over the years willhave to make inroads into the minority

votes that now go automatically to theDemocrats.”Shelby Steele has written very per-

ceptively about how cynically bothblacks and whites play the racial prefer-ences game, but he is no friend. In 2003,when he was running for president,Howard Dean said the Democratic Partyneeded to appeal to guys with Confed-Steele lashed out at the idea of appealingto whites. He acknowledged there wasa “double standard on race,” but said itwas necessary because:

No group in recent history hasmore aggressively seized powerin the name of its racial superior-ity than Western whites. This raceillustrated for all time—throughcolonialism, slavery, white racism,Nazism—the extraordinary humanevil that follows when great poweris joined to an atavistic sense of superiority and destiny. This iswhy today’s whites, the worldover, cannot openly have a racial

identity.In other words, whites are so uniquely

evil that they should be consigned tooblivion. This type of thinking is moredangerous coming from a “conserva-tive” than from a left-wing sociologyprofessor.

The promotion of black conservativesof dubious credentials is nothing new.For example, the John Birch Societypromoted black conservatives such asJulia Brown, Lola Belle Holmes, andGeorge S. Schuyler, all former com-munists or socialists. The message wasthe same: It was the communists andsocialists who were the real racists.

Of this group, Schuyler was the bestknown. He counted H.L. Menckenamong his admirers and took somestrong positions. For example, he op-posed awarding the Nobel Peace Prizeto Martin Luther King. However, he was

married to a white heiress, who believed“the white race . . . is spiritually depletedand America must mate with the Negroto save herself.” He also wrote a pam-phlet called Inter-racial Marriage in theUnited States, which claimed America’srace problems could be solved throughmiscegenation, something that many“conservatives” such as Ben Watten-berg, Douglas Besharov, and Stephenand Abigail Thernstrom now endorse.Some things never change. Promoting afew blacks did not prevent mainstreamconservatives from attacking the Birch-

ers as racists.Today, compared to the better knownblack conservatives, some of theirmore willing to consider our views. In2006, Kevin Martin agreed to debateJared Taylor about race and was quitegenial about it. Jesse Lee Peterson hasinterviewed Mr. Taylor respectfully onhis radio program, as has Ken Hamblin.None of these men made the most articu-late replies to race realist arguments, butit is to their credit that they are willingto give them a hearing—something that

cannot be said of most white conserva-tives.Without a doubt, however, Vanderbilt

University Law Professor Carol Swain isthe black conservative who has done themost to bring some level of acceptabilityto our views. Professor Swain is hard topigeonhole. She is a strong evangelicalChristian and occasionally appears onSean Hannity, sounding like an entirelyconventional conservative. She opposesmass immigration mainly because she

says Third-World immigrants put wageand job pressures on blacks.

However, what makes ProfessorSwain unique is her interest in whiteracial consciousness. She seems to takeseriously the view promoted by theSouthern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)that white consciousness is a seriousthreat to American democracy. How-ever, given that it is a threat, she argueslogically that the best way to defuse itis to remove the real grievances thatgive rise to it: racial preferences andmass immigration. She also suggeststhat bringing white nationalists intomainstream political discourse is betterthan marginalizing them. To deny theirlegitimate complaints only makes themangrier and more dangerous.

Again, this is an entirely logical po-sition—but it infuriates the left. For theSPLC, white nationalism is not really a

threat to democracy; it is an invaluabletool for fundraising and for delegitimiz-ing opposition to mass immigrationand anti-white advocacy. For a black topoint out the logic of white nationalismnot only undercuts their arguments, ithits the SPLC where it hurts most: It

takes the urgency out of their appealsfor money.

Perhaps the only black writing todaywho fully recognizes the legitimacy of white racial consciousness is ElizabethWright, editor of the always-interesting Issues and Viewsregrettable that “the average white isprogrammed to avoid anything thatsmacks of conscious endorsement of his own race,” and she despises blacks

Carol Swain.




who are always looking to whites forhandouts.

She also understands what a non-white America will mean for blacks:

The new dominant ethnics cometo this land with their own sob sto-ries of oppression. Unlike whites,they are hardly likely to fall overone another to apologize for pastwrongs. Nor are they likely tospend their time in Congress con-cocting new laws designed to dis-criminate against their own sonsand daughters in favor of blacks.“Reparations,” did you say? Justto un-name and re-name someof those Martin Luther King, Jr.Boulevards.Needless to say, Miss Wright says too

many shrewdly intelligent things to haveanything like mainstream recognition.

I have had honest conversationsabout race with a few reasonably brightand open-minded blacks who are notinvolved in politics. On one occasion,a light-skinned woman whom I knewthrough mutual acquaintances corneredme at a cocktail party and wanted to talkadvanced degrees in sociology from anIvy League school, and I dreaded theconversation.

Much to my surprise, she vehemently

at the same Ivy League school, where

she clearly saw the biases in favor of blacks and against whites. She was alsoagainst the anti-white posture so manyblack professionals assume. She hadwanted to do legitimate scholarship,but was pressured by her departmentto study the usual claptrap about raceand gender.

One black friend told me he got hisracial views from his grandparents. Theygrew up in the Deep South in the 1930sand 40s, managed to attend an all-blackcollege, and became successful despitesegregation. The man’s parents grew upin the 1960s, embraced black radicalism,and, like many blacks, dumped theirchild on the grandparents. The grandpar-ents could not stand the whining of theirown children, who never faced any real

discrimination, and left my friend witha strong sense that society owed blacksno special favors and that they shouldmake it on their own.

The generation who grew up beforethe civil rights movement is disap-

pearing, however, and I don’t imaginemany of their childrenwill inherit their self-reliance. On the con-trary, many are likelyto conclude that if theirparents were moder-ately successful in the1950s—when racismwas said to run ram-pant in the land—theywould have been mil-lionaires if the systemhad been fair. Indeed,

Benjamin Hooks, whowas executive directorof the NAACP from1977 to 1992, claimed

in 1989 that if it were not for racism,he would have been president of theUnited States.

The “stigma”

Timid white conservatives whocannot bring themselves to say that

hurts whites argue instead that it stig-matizes blacks who have the ability tomake it without preferences. Almostno blacks say this. As black comedianDave Chapelle has said, he would ratherthan be unemployed.

And just who are these prodigies whocan make it to the top on their own? Atleast in education, virtually all blacks

are on the race-preferences escalator.college gets into a good state school.Someone with the brains to go to a stateschool gets a full scholarship to the IvyLeague. At the far, far, far right end

of the black bell curve there are a fewget into the top schools, but even theyare sure to get honors and appointmentsmore easily than whites. And how manyof them resist the easy, grievance routeof “black studies,” and instead learnsomething useful like engineering orbiology? If affirmative action is anunbearable stigma, millions of blacksshould be groaning under the strain. I,for one, don’t hear much groaning.

To put this in perspective, however,how many whites would object if they

moved to Korea, for example, and foundthat Koreans were constantly pressingundeserved advantages and adulationon them? Would they complain that thiswas insulting and unfair, and campaignto get the Koreans to stop? Or wouldthey sit back and enjoy it? A few mightobject out of a European sense of fair-ness, but none would pretend that theywere being insulted or hurt by the ad-vantages they were receiving.

Blacks have to overcome nearly

Lining up for handouts.




insuperable barriers in order to opposepreferences for themselves. It is almosttoo much for even the most level-headed of them to see that “racism”has nothing to do with black misery,especially when so many whites keepapologizing for slavery, Jim Crow,and everlasting “white privilege.” Atthe same time, to accept that blackfailure is the fault of black people is toaccept that they really are, on average,less capable than whites. Finally, evenif blacks understood this, how manywould be principled enough to giveup an advantage that is freely offered?They’re not holding guns to whitey’shead. If whitey insists on lavishingunearned advantages on blacks, whynot cash in?

A totemic belief in “white racism”to argue that race preferences are

wrong because they punish innocentwhites. Ward Connerly, who has run-tive action, and Clarence Thomas,among a tiny, tiny handful—and blackshave seen to it that they are among themost hated men in America.

Black conservatives will never gettheir co-racialists to join the GOP. Idoubt that even the pandering whiteswho invite them to be speakers or whoappoint them to high positions believethey ever will. And the blacks who do

nothing but call Democrats or abortion“racist” are counterproductive becausethey only perpetuate the idea that call-ing someone a “racist” is a knockoutblow.

However, to the extent that black con-servatives make whites more comfort-able with only a few of our ideas—thatwe should abolish racial preferencesor reduce immigration—they serve auseful purpose and we should welcomethem. The presence of token blacks willnever keep liberal commentator KeithOlbermann or the NAACP from calling

the Tea Parties the “Tea Klux Klan,”but they do give weak-minded whitespermission to dislike Obama and opposeillegal immigration.

This said, the behavior of white con-servatives around black allies is a sorrysight. They swarm around the two orthree blacks who decide to attend a teaparty, and literally thank them just forbeing there. Mainstream activists tellme how brilliant certain black conserva-tives are—despite the fact that they are

See any signs of stigma?

obvious mediocrities. I suspect the onlyremotely original idea most of those

blacks ever had was to realize that it ismuch easier to become a Republican ce-lebrity than a Democratic celebrity—thecompetition is thin and Republicans areso desperate they will promote anyonewho owns a suit—and that they cansound almost like a Democrat and stillbe a star.

Their motives aside, these blacks still

serve a purpose. It is easy to dismissaction hires, but race realists need toremember that people do not come toour views overnight. Millions of Ameri-cans have good instincts, but are over-

whelmed by the message that racism isthe worst thing possible. Anything that

helps nudge whites even a few inchesour way is good.

interested in race through a gut reac-tion to Spanish-speaking enclavesin my hometown and to the clearlywho attended my college. I did notthink about racial differences in IQ orthe changing racial demographics of American Renaissance, I thought it went waytoo far. However, the more I thought-gration, the clearer it became thatthey cannot be understood withoutunderstanding racial differences. Myprogress was relatively quick, but ittakes a lot longer for some people.

The point, of course, is to get

whites to act in their own interests inan era in which most conservativesdo not understand that reducing thesize of government and stopping il-

legal immigration are in their interests aswhites. If it takes the approval of blacksfor whites to take these positions—tothe fringes of forbidden territory—thenlet there be black conservatives. If ittakes a boob like Armstrong Williamsto help cure some whites of glassy-eyedmulti-culturalism, lets keep the boobsin business.

Mental habits are like physical habits;they grow stronger through repetition.Eventually they take on a force of theirthe blessing of a black conservative canbecome part of the mental landscape.




Every new step makes further stepsmore likely, and eventually whites learnto follow the logic and morality that lead

to a proper understanding of race.There are many paths that can lead to

race realism, and it would be wrong to

block any of them. Mr. Parker is a DC-based political

analyst.

The truth about our civili-zation and its enemies.

by Steven Farron

Most white people either do notknow or are too intimidatedto say that we have created

the most wonderful civilization in thehistory of the world. So it is fortunatethat a black woman has the courage tosay it for us.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born in Somaliain November 1969. Her father opposedthe brutal Marxist dictatorship of SiadBarre. He was imprisoned but escapedand went into exile, where he workedwith Somali exiles to try to overthrowBarre’s regime. Miss Ali, her mother,brother, and sister went with him toSaudi Arabia in 1978, Ethiopia in 1979,and Kenya in 1980. In July 1992, at theage of 22, she left her family and wentalone to Europe, where she eventuallybecame a Dutch citizen and then a mem-ber of the Dutch parliament. She was

catapulted into international prominencein 2004 by her movie Submission (Islammeans “submission”), which depictedwas shown on Dutch television. Shortlyafterwards, Theo van Gogh, who pro-duced Submission, was murdered by aDutch citizen of Moroccan descent, whostabbed into his chest a letter addressedto Miss Ali, which ended with predic-tions of the destruction of the enemiesof Islam: the United States, Europe, andMiss Ali herself.

Four years later, Miss Ali wrote

her autobiography, . In Part I,“My Childhood,” she describes her lifebefore coming to Europe, and Part II,“My Freedom,” begins with her arrivalin Europe.

Her entire narrative is fascinating.Of special importance in Part I is heraccount, from her own experience, of theimmense appeal to young Muslims of the more pious, devout, and deeply-feltversion of Islam that has been oustingthe older, formalistic, ritualistic Islam in

which she was reared. She summarizesthe difference on pages 87-8 (PocketBooks edition): “A new kind of Islamwas on the march. It was much deeper,much clearer and stronger . . . thanthe old kind of Islam . . . . It was nota passive, mostly ignorant, acceptanceof the rules . . . . It was about studyingthe Quran . . . getting to the heart of the nature of the Prophet’s message.It was . . . backed massively by Saudi

Arabian oil wealth and Iranian martyrpropaganda. It was militant, and it wasgrowing. And I was becoming a verysmall part of it.”

Nevertheless, even before the 1980s,when this new, more potent form of Islam began to become popular, Islamalready imposed sex roles that are un-

paralleled in any other religion. WhenMiss Ali’s family moved to Ethiopia inin a non-Muslim country. She recalls,“You could see the difference in thestreet. Ethiopian women wore skirtsonly to their knees, and even trousers.

They smoked cigarettes and laughedin public and looked men in the face”(p. 56).

I described Western civilization as“wonderful.” Some readers undoubtedlyfound that adjective hyperbolic. Butthat was Miss Ali’s reaction to Westerncivilization. She was full of wonder. Infact, it was more than wonderful to her;it was awe-inspiring.

she arrives at the Frankfurt airport she

says, “I was dazed.” She changed planesfor Dusseldorf, where an uncle lived.When she left the airport in Dussel-“Everything was so clean, it was like amovie. The roads, the pavements, thepeople—nothing in my life had everlooked like this.” On the next page, shedescribes with wonder the hotel roomin which she stayed. The quilt was “anamazing invention.” The bathroom“was another revelation.” In the nextparagraph, she describes what she sawduring a walk: “Men and women were

sitting together . . . with easy familiar-ity.” She adds: “Everything was sowell kept. . . . the street [was] clean.The shopfronts gleamed. I rememberthinking, ‘This is amazing’. . . I felt asif I had been thrown into another world,calm and orderly, as in the novels I hadhad never really believed them before.”When she returned to her hotel, a friendof her uncle, a man named Omar, tookher to a restaurant. “I . . . realized thatall the streets had their names helpfullywritten on signposts. You didn’t have

to stop people constantly and ask themfor directions. . . . I asked Omar whoput them up. He just rolled his eyes andsaid, ‘This is a civilized country.’ ” Withthis sentence, she ends her description

Shortly afterwards, she left for theNetherlands, “It was Friday, July 24,1992, when I stepped on the train. . . .I see it as my real birthday; the birth of me as a person.” In the Netherlands, herwonder and awe did not abate at garbage

Telling It As It IsAyaan Hirsi Ali, , Pocket Books, 2008, 353 pp., $10.80 (soft cover)

‘If you tell a Dutch per-son it’s racist he will giveyou whatever you want.’




Somalia: A long way from Dusseldorf.

being collected from houses once aweek, at a policeman who is “helpful”(her italics); and nearly everything elsethat we in the West take for granted.When she was told she had been given

an A-status as a refugee, which meantfor naturalization and could vote, herreaction was, “I didn’t even know theyhad elections in Holland. What wouldthey vote about? I thought. Everything

seemed to work so perfectly” (p. 199).As time passed, Miss Ali beganto realize that something more basicwas involved: “I was beginning to seethat the Dutch value system was moreconsistent, more honest, and gave morepeople more happiness than the onewith which we had been brought up”(p. 217).

However, she also knew she wasatypical. Most other Somalis in the Neth-erlands “seemed to spend all their timecomplaining . . . . They weren’t working[because they were being supported by

Dutch taxpayers] . . . . [They] sat aroundall night talking about how horribleHolland was” (p. 223). “It irritated menow when Somalis who had lived inHolland for a long time complainedthat they were offered only lowly jobs.They wanted honorable professions:airline pilot, lawyer. When I pointed outwork, their attitude was that everythingwas Holland’s fault. The Europeans hadcolonized Somalia, which was why we

was always that they were held backby racism. Everyone seemed to be ina constant simmer about how we werediscriminated against because we were

black. . . . Yasmin . . . and Hasna [twoSomali acquaintances] told me that theyoften didn’t bother paying for buses . . .ticket they said they were being racist.‘If you tell a Dutch person it’s racist

he will give you whatever you want,’Hasna told me with satisfaction” (p.224).

Miss Ali found that Somaliswere typical of Third-Worldimmigrants in the Netherlands.She became friendly with a Mo-roccan woman named Naima.Naima’s husband, also a Mo-roccan, beat her frequently.“Naima complained constantly,but it was about the Dutch . . . .She never complained aboutthe violence and humiliation

she suffered at home, onlyabout Dutch racism” (p. 232).

Islam

Miss Ali was reared as a Muslim.When she was an adolescent, she be-came fervidly devout, but her fervorhad subsided by the time she arrivedin the Netherlands. She soon stoppedwearing a headscarf. Then she studiedDarwin, Freud, and Spinoza. She found

Western thought vastly superior toanything she had been taught before:“The more I read Western books, themore I wanted to read them. . . . I wasenamored with the idea that you couldthink precisely and question everything”(p. 248). Nevertheless, until 2001 whenshe was 31, she continued to considerherself a Muslim.

Then came the September 11 attackon the Twin Towers. Her immediatereaction was to think, “Oh Allah, pleaselet it not be Muslims who did this.” Thatnight, Dutch television showed Muslimchildren in the Netherlands rejoicing atthe attack. Miss Ali was working at athink-tank of the Labor Party, which hada plurality in the Dutch parliament. Thenext morning, “I found myself walking-man of the Labor Party. . . . He said,‘It’s so weird, isn’t it, all these people

saying that this has to do with Islam?’ Icouldn’t help myself. . . . I blurted out,‘But it is about Islam [her italics] . . . .This is Islam.’ Ruud said . . . ‘[T]hesepeople . . . are a lunatic fringe. We haveextremist Christians, too . . . . MostMuslims do not believe these things. Tosay so is to disparage a faith . . . whichis civilized and peaceful.’ I walked intopeople up.’. . . It was not a lunatic fringewho felt this way about America and theWest. I knew that the vast majority of Muslims would see the attacks as justi-

was the core of Islam” (pp. 268-9).

Miss Ali proceeded to dissect the“infuriatingly stupid” reasons proposedfor the attack: poverty, Western colo-nialism, American support for Israel,arguing that none of these explana-tions can withstand even a moment’sanalysis (pp. 270-72). What Osama Bin

Van Gogh lies dead in the street.




Kenyan school children: They are all ‘abid’to Saudis and Somalis.

Laden and those like him believe comesstraight from the Quran and the hadith.“Every devout Muslim who aspired topractice genuine Islam . . . even if they[sic] did not actively support the attacks,they must at least have approved of them.” Moreover, on the basis of whatthe Quran itself narrates, “[T]he ProphetMuhammad . . . [was] a cruel man whodemanded absolute power and whostunted creativity” (p. 303).

In the last three pages, MissAli concludes: “I moved fromthe world of faith to the worldof reason . . . . Having madethat journey. I know that oneof those worlds is simply betterthan the other. . . . When peo-ple say that the values of Islamare compassion, tolerance andfreedom, I look at reality, atreal cultures and governments,

and I see that it simply isn’t so.People in the West swallowthis sort of thing . . . for fearof being called racist.”

Race

Miss Ali discusses at considerablelength the causes of the extremely highrates of poverty, unemployment, andcrime among Muslims in the Nether-lands, and the backwardness of Muslimcountries. However, she never mentionsthe possibility that racial differences

could be a cause. Obviously, she simplyassumes they are not, and nothing couldmore clearly show how thoroughlyWesternized her thinking has become.The only people in her book who doEuropeans. Everywhere she lived beforecoming to Europe, physical differences

were regarded as crucially important.References to race pop up constantly inher account of her experiences as a childand adolescent, but they are offered onlyas casual details that provide a full por-trayal of her youth. Consequently, fewreaders probably notice that they form

In 1978, when Miss Ali was eight, herfamily moved from Somalia to Saudi

and then in Riyadh. At her school inMecca, “All the girls . . . called Haweya[her sister] and I [sic] Abid, which meantslaves. Being called a slave—the racialprejudice that term conveyed—was a

big part of what I hated in Saudi Ara-bia” (p. 42). (“Abid” is the plural of theArabic word “Abd,” which means bothslave and black person.) At her school inRiyadh, “The teacher was an Egyptianwoman, and she used to beat me. I wassure she picked on me because I wasthe only black child. When she hit me

with a ruler she called me Aswad Abda,black slave-girl. I hated Saudi Arabia”(p. 49).

However, the racial situation reversedwhen her family moved to Kenya, in1980. Somalis’ skin is somewhat lighterthan Kenyans’ skin, and their facial fea-tures are nearly Caucasian. She recallsthat “Kenyans . . . looked different fromus. To my mother, they were barely hu-

man. . . . She called them abid,which means slave . . . [M]ygrandmother said Kenyansstank. Throughout the tenyears they lived in Kenya, thetwo of them treated Kenyansalmost exactly as the Saudishad behaved to us” (p. 61).

Miss Ali attended MuslimGirls’ Secondary School inNairobi, where many of thechildren were from India and

Pakistan: “The Untouchablegirls, both Indian and Paki-stani, were darker-skinned.The others wouldn’t playwith them” (p. 68). She alsorecalls that “on the school

playground. . . [t]he Yemenis, Somalis,Indians, and Pakistanis played with eachother and interacted, but in the hierarchyof Muslim Girls’ Secondary School,the Kenyans were the lowest” (p. 68).It is extremely unusual for natives of a country to be socially inferior to im-migrants. Yet, in her school in Nairobi

all immigrant groups were higher inthe social hierarchy than the Kenyans.Miss Ali seems to have thought that thereason was so obvious she did not haveto state it: the Kenyans were the darkestand the only ones with Negroid features.When Miss Ali was 16, a teacher at herschool, Sister Aziza, a Kenyan of Arabextraction, converted her from ritual-encompassing Islam that was spreadingrapidly. Miss Ali recalls, “Sister Azizawas young and beautiful—light-skinned

After Miss Ali had left for Europe,her sister had an abortion after becomingpregnant by a man from Trinidad whoworked in Nairobi. Miss Ali explainswhat her mother would have thoughtof this man: “Flat-nosed, round-faced,kinky-haired. My mother would haveseen such a man as subhuman, like theKenyans” (page 226).

I will add to Miss Ali’s referencesthe promise that the Saudi Arabiancleric Sheikh Muhammad al-MunajidMuslims worship at the Kaaba.




Amsterdam: It takes a Somali to tell usour civilization is wonderful?

made on Saudi TV on July 25, 2009,that the 72 virgins with which everypious Muslim man will be rewardedin Paradise will be “beautiful whiteyoung women . . . . Theyare like precious gems . . . intheir whiteness” (http://www.strategypage.com/militaryfo-rums/89-76227.aspx).

In fact, with only oneexception, everywhere inthe world, for as far back asrecords go, lighter skin colorhas been regarded as bothmore aesthetically appeal-ing and as an indication of superiority. Color and Race,edited by John Hope Franklin(pages 91-5, 119-20, and 129-85) documents belief in thesuperiority of whiteness among Chinese,Japanese, Mongolians, Black Africans,

American Indians, and Asian Indians;Bernard Lewis does the same for theIslamic world in Race and Color in Is-lam. Ironically, the only people who donot think whiteness indicates superiorityare Europeans and people of European

origin of just the past few decades; eventhough they are the whitest of all racesand the people whose achievementscould entitle them to feel superior.

Miss Ali’s book brings to mind anincident that was reported in the SouthAfrican newspaper Business Day onApril 8, 1993 (“Race Row Flares overWorld Cup Encounter”). In a WorldCup qualifying game, the Egyptians

defeated the Zimbabweans 2-1, but theresult was annulled because a crowd inCairo stoned Zimbabwe’s players and-

zine Al-Ahlawiya wrote aboutZimbabweans, “They haven’tforgotten that they are slaves,and naturally there is a greatdifference between masters andslaves. They look at everythingthat is white with a sore eye, be-hatred.” In response, a Zimba-bwean wrote in the Herald , thelargest circulation newspaper inZimbabwe, “I didn’t know theEgyptians were white, maybebecause they have achievednothing close to what a realwhite man has achieved.”

We have reached the pathetic situ-ation in which we must rely on black

people, like Ayaan Ali and the above-quoted Zimbabwean, to tell us what wehave achieved.

Prof. Farron is the author of T he Af-

The Galton Report

Galen on the Merrimentof Blacks

by Hippocrates

The Greek physician Galen (AD130-201) is remembered forhis discovery of the function of

the pulse and his voluminous writingson medical subjects. The Americanscholar Bernard Lewis has noted thatGalen made some observations on thecharacteristics of different peoples,which were recorded by the Arabicscholar Al-Masudi (d. 956 AD). Ac-cording to this source, Galen described

sub-Saharan Africans as having “blackgreat merriment, weakness of intelli-gence, and a long penis.” Reportedly,“Galen says that merriment dominatesthe black man because of his defectivebrain, whence also the weakness of hisintelligence.”

Galen’s observations were remark-ably accurate. They appear to be the-ligence of blacks, which was likewise

noted by Sir Francis Galton in his book Hereditary Genius (1869), and has beenconfirmed in numerous studies car-

ried out during the last 90 years in the

United States, Europe, the Caribbean,and Africa.

Galen also appears to have been the

by Prof. Phil Rushton, who records thatblacks generally have larger organs than

Europeans and Asians. Race differencesin testosterone and androgen, the malesex hormones, are responsible forpenis size, and also account for thestronger sex drive and greater aggres-siveness of blacks, as well as their highrates of prostate cancer.

Galen’s observation that blacks arecharacterized by great merriment hasreceived less attention, but has beenconfirmed by studies showing thatblacks suffer less from depression thanwhites, but more from mania. Maniais a psychotic condition characterized

by a powerful sense of euphoria, in-cluding cracking jokes and laughinguproariously at them or, as Galen putit, “great merriment.” Depression andmania are opposites, and were concep-tualized by the German psychiatristErnst Kretschmer (1888-1964) as lyingat the opposite poles of a continuously

distributed dimension of personality.The low prevalence of depression andhigher prevalence of mania in Africanswas noted in a 1953 publication for the

Much merriment.




Running Amok?

World Health Organization by Dr. John -tal hospital in Nairobi. He recorded thatamong 1,508 African patients admittedduring the years 1939-48, only 24 suf-fered from depression, amounting to 1.6per cent of admissions. He contrastedthis with the 22 per cent of European

patients admitted to the same hospitalfor depression. He wrote that “there isno doubt that classical psychotic depres-sion of any type is relatively rare in theAfrican.”

Dr Carothers attributed the low rateof depression in Africans to their rela-tively poor “sense of responsibility forone’s past and of retribution that mustfollow for one’s sins.” He cited theexperiences of a number of other Euro-pean physicians who had noted the lowprevalence of depression in Africans.

On the other hand, he noted that “allwriters are agreed that mania, in all itsstandard forms, occurs not uncommonlyin Africans . . . [and] whenever separate

-sive forms of affective psychosis, itseems that the majority are manias.”

A symptom of mania that occurs fromtime to time in Africans is “runningamok,” described by Dr. Carothers as“a man quite suddenly seizing a machete

around slaying all he meets. It wouldappear that running amok is a symptomcommon to acute mania, katatonic [sic]schizophrenia, epilepsy, psychopathicpersonality and possibly other condi-tions such as cerebral malaria.”

The low prevalence of depressionand higher prevalence of maniaamong blacks has been observed inthe United States. In 1991 Drs. LeeRobins and Darrell Regier reported alarge-scale survey that gave life-timeprevalence rates for major depres-sion and mania for blacks, whitesand Hispanics. The life-time preva-lence rates for major depression (6.6 percent) than for blacks (4.5percent), while the rate for Hispan-ics was intermediate at 5.6 percent.The life-time prevalence rates for

mania were significantly higher forblacks at 0.1 percent, compared to 0.08percent for whites, and 0.07 percent forHispanics.

2007 by the American psychiatrist Dr.D. R. Williams and his colleagues in areport of a large-scale survey in whichlife-time major depression prevalence(17.9 percent) than for blacks (10.4percent). They also reported the ratefor Caribbean black immigrants as 12.9percent. Probably the reason that the rate

for Caribbean black immigrants is a littlehigher than the rate for American blacksis that immigrants may experiencegreater stress in adjusting to life in a

new country and this cancause depression. Despite-cantly lower prevalencerate for major depression than American whites,who typically have lessreason to be depressed.

Consistent with blacks’higher prevalence of ma-

nia, they score higherthan whites on the hypo-mania scale of standardpersonality tests, suchas the MMPI (Minne-

sota Multiphasic Personality Inventory).Hypomania is a form of mania, thoughwithout the psychotic elements of delu-sions or hallucinations.

The rarity of depression amongblacks is probably related to their veryhigh levels of self esteem. Compared

to whites, blacks are consistently morelikely to agree with statements such as“I am an important person;” “If giventhe chance I would make a good leaderof people;” and “I am entirely self-

The low prevalence of depressionrates of suicide, compared with Europe-ans and East Asians. Many of those whocommit suicide are severely depressed,so it is not surprising that suicide is“a white thing,” according to blackfolklore. Prof. David Lester has shownthat in the United States the suicide rateof blacks is approximately half that of whites, and this has also been found inBritain and South Africa.

Why should blacks experience lessdepression than whites? Probably thisis a by-product of their higher levels

of testosterone. It has been shown innumerous studies that low testosteronelevels are associated with major depres-sion. This also explains why womenare about twice as prone to depressionas men.

References:John C. Carothers. The African Mind

in Health & Diseases. Geneva: WHO,1953.

David Lester. African AmericanSuicide in Modern Times. New York:Nova Science, 1994.

Bernard Lewis. Race and Color in Is-

lam. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.L.E Robins & D.A. Regier. Psychi-atric Disorders in America. New York:Free Press, 1991.

Williams, D.R., Gonzalez, H.M.,Neighbors, H. et al. (2007). Prevalenceand distribution of major depressivedisorder in African Americans, Carib-bean blacks, and non-Hispanic whites– results from the National Survey of American Life. Archives of GeneralPsychiatry, 64, 305-317.

Women suffer more depression than men.




Washington Supreme Court.

O Tempora, O Mores!

Sense on the Bench

Blacks are 4 percent of the populationof Washington state, but are 20 percentof state prison inmates. At a recentmeeting on the treatment of non-whites

by Washington’s justice system, Shir-ley Bondon of the state Administrativestate supreme court members that shebelieved there was racial “bias in thecriminal-justice system, from the bottomup” and that “barriers” prevented non-whites from getting “fair treatment.”When one of the supreme court justices,

Richard Sanders, doubted her conten-tion, she pointed to the racial disparityin the state’s prisons as evidence. JusticeSanders said the reason more blacks arein prison is because they commit morecrime. Another supreme court justice,James Johnson, agreed, pointing out thatmost of those crimes were committedagainst blacks.

Miss Bondon complained to the press.“I know that people in all walks of lifehold biases, but it was stunning to heara Justice of the Supreme Court makethese outrageous comments in my pres-

ence.” She says she took the “commentspersonally, as though he were sayingthat I and all African Americans had apredisposition for criminality and I wasoffended.” Justice Sanders is standingby the remarks. When asked whether hereally believed more blacks were jailedbecause they commit a disproportionateshare of crime, he said, “That’s right. Ithink that’s obvious.” [Steve Miletich,Two State Supreme Court Justices StunSome Listeners with Race Comments,

Seattle Times, Oct. 21, 2010.]

Naughty Northwestern

In 2007, two PhD students at North-western University dressed up for Hal-

loween in blackface and posted picturesof themselves on the Internet. In 2009,there was panic on the Evanston, Illi-nois, campus (tuition: $40,000 per year)when two students went to a Halloweenparty in blackface and pictures appearedon Facebook. This resulted in the usualpublic forum to discuss campus “rac-ism.”

Determined not to have any “racism”this year, Dean of Students BurgwellHoward sent e-mail to all students theweek before Halloween warning themnot to wear “racially or culturally insen-sitive costumes.” He also urged them notto host “ghetto,” “pimps and hos,” or“gangsta”-themed parties. “Halloweenis unfortunately a time when the normalthoughtfulness and sensitivity of mostNU students can be forgotten and somepoor decisions are made,” he wrote.“In many cases the student wearing thecostume has not intended to offend, but

their actions or lack of forethought havesent a far greater message than any apol-ogy could after the fact.”

The dean also provided a handy listof questions to ask before dressing upfor Halloween: Is the costume based onmaking fun of real people or cultures?Does the costume promote culturalmyths? Could someone take offenseto it? If so, students should “rethinktheir choices.” [Stacy St. Clair, NUto Students: No Offensive Halloween

Costumes, WGN-TV (Chicago), Oct.27, 2010.]

Scouting HispanicsLike the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts

think they need more Hispanic mem-bers. “They’re making up a large per-centage of our population now, and ourto do something about it,” says Liz Far-rell, spokesman for the Chesapeake BayGirl Scout Council. Across the country,Girl Scout volunteers have been goinginto Hispanic schools, Hispanic com-munity centers, and churches to toutthe scouts.

Jessica Carmona, mother of a 14-year-old Girl Scout, says she wishes she hadknown about scouting when she was achild. “Girl Scouts is traditionally anAmerican activity,” she says. “BeingHispanic ourselves, we didn’t growup with an understanding of what GirlScouts was. We just knew they soldcookies and didn’t belong in our neigh-borhood.” According to her daughterFaralynn, who has had trouble gettingher Hispanic friends to join, many still

feel that way. “Some of them think it’schildish,” she says. [Edward L. Kenney,Girl Scouts Go On a Recruiting Push

for Hispanic Members, News-Journal(Wilmington, Del.), Oct. 5, 2010.]

Freudian Slip

Rich Whitney, a “civil rights” lawyerfrom Carbondale, ran for governor of Illinois on the ultra-left Green Partyticket. Already facing an uphill battle,in October when his campaign discov-ered that his name was misspelled on




The welfare life.

touch-screen voting machines in abouttwo dozen wards in Chicago. While hisname appeared correctly on the screenwhere voters made their selections,on subsequent screens, where votersreviewed their choices, it appeared as“Rich Whitey.” Half of the affectedvoting wards were in majority-black

neighborhoods. Jim Allen, a spokesmanfor the Chicago Board of Elections, saidNovember 2 election, but Mr. Whitneywas considering legal action to force aas ‘Whitey’ ” he said. “If this is hap-pening in primarily African-American

wards, that’s an even biggerconcern . . . . This has to bedisconcerting to a voter, andI wonder how this will impactthe vote.” [Dave McKin-ney, Whitney is ‘Whitey’ onSome Ballots, Chicago Sun-Times, Oct. 14, 2010.]

He got 2.7 percent. It musthave been the typo.

Sign of the Times

Lakeside Lutheran Church

in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,was built to seat 520 worship-ers when it opened in 1959.Attendance starting decliningin the 1970s, but Sunday services werestill attracting around 200 people wellinto the 1980s. Today, the church islucky to bring in 30—too few to supportthe cost of maintaining the building—soLakeside Lutheran is being sold. PaulFullmer, chaplain of Lebanon ValleyCollege, says this is an increasingly

common fate for mainline-denominationchurches built in the 1950s. At that time,people wanted to walk to church in theirneighborhoods, but now they like todrive to huge, interdenominational pal-aces with movies and rock bands.

Who is buying the church? TheAhmadiyya Muslim Community, anoff-beat sect of Islam, which claims thatGhulam Ahmad (1835-1908) of Qadianwas the second coming of Jesus Christ.Somehow, the rest of us missed it, butaccording to the sect’s website, Ahmad“recognized the noble teachings of thegreat religious founders and saints,including Zoroaster, Abraham, Moses,Jesus, Krishna, Buddha, Confucius, LaoTzu and Guru Nanak, and explainedhow such teachings converged into theone true Islam.” [Mary Klaus, LakesideLutheran Church in Harrisburg PlansFinal Service After Sale to Muslim

Community, Harrisburg Patriot-News,Oct. 22, 2010.]

Welfare Scam

In October, the re-ported that California welfare recipientswere using state-issued debit cards towithdraw millions of dollars at unlikelylocations all over the country. BetweenJanuary 2007 and May 2010, more than$69 million intended to help poor Cali-fornians pay rent and feed their childrenwas withdrawn in 49 other states, the

US Virgin Islands, and Guam. IndigentCalifornians withdrew more than $11million from ATMs in Las Vegas alone,including $8,968 at the Tropicana casinoand $7,995 at the Venetian. Welfare re-cipients withdrew $16,010 on 14 cruise

ships sailing from as far away as Riode Janeiro and Shanghai, and pocketednearly $400,000 in Hawaii.

However, out-of-state spending wasless than one percent of the $10.8 bil-lion the state splashed out in welfareduring the three-year period. California,which is home to 12 percent of the USpopulation, accounts for 30 percent of welfare spending.

Lizelda Lopez, a spokeswoman forthe Department of Social Services, saysthat to qualify for the card, a single par-ent with two children must earn less than$14,436 a year. Recipients are supposedto stay in California and attend weekly job training, but nobody checks unlessthey go missing for at least three months.After the report in the Times, state of-

Cruise Ships and at All Casinos, LosAngeles Times, Oct. 4, 2010. $69Min Calif. Welfare Money Spent Out of State, AP, Oct. 4, 2010.]

Unsavory Associations

Voters in Detroit, Oregon (popula-tion 300) voted on November 2 whetherto change the name of their town toDetroit Lake. The ballot proposal wasthe brainchild of local builder DougDeGeorge, who said the name invoked“unsavory” images. Others have turned

their backs on Detroit. In1992, voters in East Detroit,Michigan, rechristened theircity “Eastpointe.”

Detroit (Michigan) CityCouncilman Gary Brownsaid he thought it would be amistake to rename the town.“We’re going to be the greatDetroit that we once were.In the future, they’ll be sorrythey did that.” [George Hunterand RoNeisha Mullen, Ore.Town Steers Clear of De-

troit, Detroit News, Oct. 26,2010.]Good news for Council-

man Brown: Residents voted47-37 to keep the name, and Alabama,Texas and Maine still have towns namedDetroit.

Hispanic Family Values

On September 27, more than 150Hispanics gathered at the Eagles Hall in

Rich Whitey, er, Whitney.




Old dead Andrew Jackson.

the Cincinnati suburb of Elmwood Pace,to celebrate a three-year-old’s birthday.The party, well fueled with beer, wenton until one a.m., when the boyfriendof a reveler’s ex-wife exchanged wordswith the former husband. Insults lead toblows, and soon at least 75 celebrantswere mixing it up in full view of at least30 children. Many of the brawlers usedbroken bottles as improvised knives.

from several jurisdictions to restoreorder. “It was an unbelievable scene,the amount of blood and broken glass,”says Elmwood Place Police Chief Wil-liam Peskin. More than 15 party-goerswere hospitalized. One man had eye sur-gery from a broken-bottle stab wound,and doctors fear he may have brain dam-age. Surprisingly, police arrested onlyone man: 26-year-old Ramon Marcelo-

Hernandez, father of the birthday girl,who was booked on charges of disor-derly conduct while intoxicated. Policeexpect more arrests, but, says Chief Peskin, “The whole party was Hispanic,so we’re having language barriers andthey are being very uncooperative.”[Jennifer Baker, Kid’s Birthday PartyTurns Into Brawl, Cincinnati Enquirer,Sept. 28, 2010.]

‘Old Dead White Men’

Oklahoma City schools use a special

curriculum for so-called “at risk”—meaning black—students. It’s called“Flocabulary” and uses “raps, rhythms

and rhymes” to help students remembereverything from vocabulary to math to

social studies. Flocabulary’s US historycourse includes a rap song called “OldDead White Men.”

On James Monroe: “White men get-ting richer than Enron./ They steppingon Indians, women and blacks./ Era of Good Feeling doesn’t come with thefacts.”

On Andrew Jackson: “Andrew Jack-son, thinks he’s a tough guy./ Killingmore Indians than there are stars inthe sky./ Evil wars of Florida killingthe Seminoles./ Saying hello, puttingCreek in the hell holes./ Like Adolf Indians, I don’t want you to live hereanymore.’ ”

Flocabulary CEO and co-founderAlex Rappaport is white. “In general, thepurpose of our program is to motivatestudents, and we often say the enemyhere is student apathy,” he explains.

“We want students to ask questions andchallenge assumptions.” Mr. Rappaportclaims Flocabulary works wonders:“Some students are incredibly motivatedto go on to read their history textbookswith more passion.”

So far, the Oklahoma City school dis-trict has spent $10,000 on Flocabulary,and the school board has authorized upto $97,000 in federal grant funds, butSuperintendent Karl Springer is taking asecond look after complaints about someof the history lessons. [Megan Rolland,Oklahoma City District Pushes Pause on

Hip-Hop Curriculum, The Oklahoman,Oct. 1, 2010.]

Another DeadWhite Man?

In February of this year, a workcrew from the Jer-sey City Board of Education removeda bronze statue of colonial administra-tor Peter Stuyvesant

from its pedestal infront of Martin Lu-ther King Schoolin Jersey City, NewJersey. Known lo-cally as Old Peter,the statue was erect-ed in 1913 and paystribute to the last

Governor-General of the Dutch NewNetherland colony, which includedthe present-day states of New Jersey,

New York, Delaware and Connecticut.School superintendent Charles T. Epps,who is black, ordered the removal—apparently without consulting anyone—and planned to replace it with a statue of Martin Luther King.

The disappearance of Old Peter upsethistorians and preservationists. Theywere outraged when city historian BobLeach unearthed documents provingthat it was the city—not the board of education—that owned the statue,meaning Mr. Epps had no right to takeit down. Supporters of the statue printedup “Bring Him Home” stickers as part

of a campaign to return the statue to itsrightful place, and in October the cityannounced it was restoring the statue.Maryann Kelleher, director of JerseyCity’s Division of Cultural Affairs,called the removal an “honest mistake.”It will cost Jersey City taxpayers $40,000to correct Mr. Epps’s “mistake.” [Agus-tin C. Torres, Old Peter Ripped fromHis Pedestal Outside School 11, JerseyJournal, Feb. 6, 2010. Karina Arrue,Peter Stuyvesant Statue to be Restoredand Returned to Bergen Avenue Post,Jersey Journal, Oct. 18, 2010.]

End of an Era

When he died in October, nonage-narian Ancentus Akuku, Kenya’s mostprominent polygamist, left behind morethan 100 widows and 200 children. Aku-ku, nicknamed “Danger” because hisgood looks supposedly made him irre-in 1939, his last in 1992, and outlived 12of them. He became a polygamist at age




22. He fathered so many children thathe established two elementary schoolsto educate them.

In Kenya, having many wives is asign of wealth and status, and manyKenyans thought Akuku was the “ulti-mate symbol of traditional manhood.” His death was the talk of Kenya, withmany men calling in to radio programsto pay their respects.

The status of women in Kenya haschanged, however, and while manyKenyans had mothers and grandmotherswho were part of polygamous families,

most young women say Akuku couldnot get so many wives today. “We allunderstand that polygamy was allowedback then in some Kenyan communi-ties, but Akuku is something else,” saysLinet Wambui, a Nairobi saleswoman.“Personally, I would never be marriedto a man who has another wife let alonea hundred more. Those women wereclearly different. Try having an Akuku

at this day and age, the women wouldkill one another.”Some men aren’t keen on the idea ei-

ther. “I had heard of Akuku Danger backin the day when I was a teen, and up tonow I still wonder how he did this,” saysJeff Kilumi, a businessman in Nairobi.“Right now, even if I had a lot of money,‘Bill Gates’ rich, I wouldn’t even go fora second wife. The more the women, themore the headache and stress.”

There is still polygamy in Africa,though it is not as common as in the past.South African president Jacob Zuma has

this is part of Zulu culture. Mr. Zumatakes a back seat, however, to KingMswati III of Swaziland, who has 14wives and 23 children. [Dana Hughes,‘Danger’ Akuku Dies and Leaves Be-hind 100 Widows, ABC News, Oct.4, 2010.]

Who Needs Polygamy?

Howard Veal is an unemployed

44-year-old black man from Muskegon,Michigan, who will be spending the nexttwo to fours years in state prison. Hiscrime? Failure to pay childsupport. Most child-supportsix months or less, so whyso long? According to theMichigan attorney general’soffice, he owes more than$533,000 to the 14 moth-ers of his 23 children. KentCounty Circuit Court JudgeDennis Leiber told Mr. Vealat sentencing that he was“stunned and amazed” byhis irresponsibility, adding,“Animals procreate. Humanbeings are supposed to nur-ture their children. You’re an insult toto provide for their children.” Mr. Veal

denies fathering 23 children, and sayshe paid what he could. “I was payingmoney from my unemployment,” he toldthe judge. “I never chose not to pay.”

Sherri Black, the mother of two of Mr. Veal’s children, is happy he is go-ing to prison, but would have preferredto get money, noting that over the pastseven years, he has paid only $87.75 of the $60,000 he owes her. “Now my taxeswill go to support him in prison,” shesays. [Dad of 23 Gets Prison for Non-support, AP, Sept. 24, 2010.]

Dousing for DieselIn 2007, Zimbabwe dictator Robert

Mugabe thought he had found the solu-tion to his country’s chronic fuel short-age when “spirit medium” NomatterTagarira convinced him she could sum-mon diesel fuel from rocks. Of course,Miss Tagarira had run a pipe from a tankof diesel to a rock, and a hidden assistantwho witnessed the stunt—including theministers of state security and defenseand top military commanders—were

astonished. They took off their shoes,sat down on the ground, applauded inunison, and reported to Mr. Mugabe thattheir fuel woes were at an end.

The government rewarded Missher around on air force helicopters, gaveher a farm seized from a white man, andput a 50-vehicle convoy at her disposalso she could travel to perform night-timerituals needed to maintain her powers. Around-the-clock guard kept watch over

the diesel-producing rock. Miss Tagariralived the high life for a year until Mr.Mugabe asked for another demonstra-

tion; perhaps he was wondering what-

ing. This time Miss Tagarira was foundout. She skedaddled, got caught, escapedagain, and managed to stay on the lamfor nearly three years. In late September,a judge sentenced her to 39 months inprison for defrauding the governmentand supplying “false information to thestate.” Magistrate Ignatius Mugova saidMiss Tagarira’s lies “brought despon-dency in the nation.”

Even after her arrest, many Zim-babweans remained convinced of herappearance, she appeared to go into

a trance, growling as if she were pos--room in terror. [Jan Raath, 3 Years’ Jailfor Diesel Diviner Who Took RobertMugabe for a Ride, The Australian,Oct. 2, 2010.]

‘Racist’ Tots

Under Britain’s Race Relations Actof 2000, the government requires all“public authorities,” including schoolsand churches, to “promote good rela-tions between persons of different

racial groups.” Part of promoting goodrelations requires that any “racist”incident be logged into a special data-base. Munira Mirza, a senior advisor toLondon Mayor Boris Johnson, says thishas turned teachers into informants whohave accused more than 250,000 chil-dren—including toddlers—of “racism.”She says this means “a massive increaseof cases reinforcing the perception thatwe need an army of experts to managerace relations from cradle to grave. Does

‘Ultimate symbol of traditional manhood.’

It’s a gusher!



2011 ConferenceLineup

The last two program slots forthe 2011 American Renais-sance conference have been

One is Jonathan Bowden, chairmanof the British political organizationNew Right, and one of the mostspell-binding orators you will everhear. He has a tremendous follow-ing in Britain, but has rarely spoken

in the United States. This will bea rare opportunity to hear a manwhose powerful oratory has beendescribed as “a force of nature.”

The other speaker is a distin-guished American academic who-dential for now. He shatters taboosright and left—and so hilariouslyhe can leave an audience in stitches.A man who would have been asuccess at anything from stand-upcomedian to professional dissident,his subject will be “Helping Blacks

by Lying to Them.”The two will join a remarkable

group that includes Sam Dickson,Raymond Wolters, Dan Roodt,Jared Taylor, David Yeagley, anda mystery guest who represents thevery best of contemporary Europe-an nationalist politics. We urge youto reserve your place in Charlotte,North Carolina, for the weekend of February 4 through 6, 2011.

this heightened awareness of racismhelp to stamp it out? Quite the opposite.It creates a climate of suspicion andanxiety,” she says, concluding, “Themore we seek to measure racism, themore it seems to grow.” [Laura Clark,

Three-Year-Olds Being Labeled Bigots

by Teachers As 250,000 Children Ac-cused of Racism, Daily Mail (London),Sept. 23, 2010.]

Misjudged

Last January, Pittsburgh police ar-rested 24-year-old Jeffery McGowanfor aggravated assault and resistingwho pulled him over during a routineprosecutors offered Mr. McGowan,who is white, a plea deal: three months

probation in exchange for a guilty pleaon disorderly conduct charges.When Mr. McGowan went to court in

-seph K. Williams, who is black, rejectedit. “[The assistant district attorney] forsome reason comes up with I thinkridiculous pleas whenever it’s a youngwhite guy,” he said. “If this had been ablack kid who did the same thing, wewouldn’t be talking about three months’probation.”

“Now that the court has essentiallycalled me a racist, I think that’s unfair,”

said the prosecutor in question, BrianCatanzarite. “I don’t make offers basedon race. I make offers based on facts.”Mr. McGowan’s lawyer Giuseppe Ro-selli then asked Judge Williams whetherhe was rejecting the plea becauseMcGowan is white. “Not because he’swhite, but because it’s a ridiculous pleathat only goes to white boys that comeinto this court for the same facts, and I’mnot going for it,” the judge replied.

Judge Williams recused himself after

when the plane went out of balance.Tim Atkinson, an investigator with

the British Department of Transport,which is looking into the crash, says, “Iwould say it’s extremely unlikely thisstory holds water but I wouldn’t rule itout completely.” [Escaped CrocodileMay Have Caused Congo Plane Crash,Guardian (London), Oct. 22, 2010.]

Maine Chinese

Millinocket, Maine is a former milltown, 200 miles north of Portland. Itspopulation has been declining sincethe last of the pulp and paper mills shutin the 1970s and now stands at 5,000.School enrollment is also dwindling,down 43 percent since 2000, and thereare now just 550 students in the town’sschools. Fewer students mean fewerdollars for school administrators, and

this worries Superintendent KennethSmith.His solution? Bring in scores of stu-

dents from China. Dr. Smith has beenparents that Millinocket would be a greatplace to send the children to preparethem for college in the United States,provided they can pay $27,000 a year intuition, room and board. “They want tolearn English, and they want a collegeeducation. If we can get them into a col-lege here, they will have achieved their

major goal,” he says. When asked whyChinese students would want to come toa depressed town an hour’s drive fromthe nearest mall, Dr. Smith points to thetown’s many assets: “There’s the beauty,number one, and the fresh air. And theroads are good,” he says, adding, “Wehave a tremendous music departmentand small classes with plenty of room.In China, you’re elbow to elbow.”

English teacher Terry Given thinksher neighbors could use some gingeringup. “We’re pretty vanilla,” she says. Noteveryone is eager to hop on the Chinese

bandwagon, however. Seventeen-year-old Matthew Preble says he wouldwelcome the Chinese, but says: “We’reused to Stearns High School being asmall, hometown type of thing. Thefact that suddenly we might have upto hundreds of kids from China mightchange that—in a good way, but we’realso kind of scared to lose our town.”[Abby Goodnough, Needing Students,Maine School Hunts in China, NewYork Times, Oct. 26, 2010.]

Vicious little racist.

complaints from the district attorney’sMr. McGowan’s case to another judge,who is white, who accepted the pleadeal. [Bobby Kerlik, Allegheny CountyJudge: ‘White Boys’ Given Deals, Pitts-burgh Tribune-Review, Oct. 6, 2010.]

What a Croc

Kinshasa to Bandundu in the Demo-cratic Republic of Congo last Augustwhen their plane nosed straight into the sole survivor, trouble started when acrocodile escaped from someone’s car-ry-on bag. He says passengers panickedat the sight of the smuggled reptile andstampeded to the front of the plane, andthe pilots were unable to regain control

Documents

201012 American Renaissance