American Renaissance magazine
Vol 11, No. 5	May 2000

 

CONTENTS

Record Turnout for 2000 AR Conference
Book Review: Never-Ending Guilt
Book Review: What Makes a Nazi?
The Galton Report
O Tempora, O Mores!
Letters from Readers

COVER STORY

Record Turnout for 2000 AR Conference

Speakers ponder the future of whites.

by James Lubinskas

More than 200 people from all around the country gathered in northern Virginia over the weekend of March 31-April 2nd for the fourth American Renaissance conference. The mostly-American audience was joined by participants from Canada, England and France. A small protest by a far-left student group provided added entertainment to what all participants agreed was an entirely successful conference.

The meeting was held at the Sheraton Hotel in Reston, Virginia, and began with a Friday evening cocktail reception. The general session on Saturday opened with Richard Lynn of the Ulster Institute for Social Research, who discussed the history and impact of Third-World immigration on Britain. He noted that despite Enoch Powell’s famous warning that “we are building our own funeral pyre,” non-white immigration continues in the face of popular opposition. Arranged marriages, false documents, chain migration, and haphazard enforcement of immigration laws have resulted in an increase of non-whites from 300,000 to three million from 1961 to 1991 — a ten-fold increase.

Prof. Lynn says there is so much black-on-white violence and anti-police rioting in Britain that it can be likened to a low-level civil war. Blacks in England — particularly Caribbean blacks — resemble American blacks, with problems of unemployment, crime, illegitimacy, and low IQ, while Indians and Chinese are generally better adapted. He warned that unless current trends were reversed whites could become a minority in Europe by 2100.

Syndicated columnist Samuel Francis followed with a lecture on “Race and the American Right.” He agreed with a recent assertion by Weekly Standard editor William Kristol that “the conservative movement is finished.” In fact, said Dr. Francis, it has been finished ever since Republicans and conservatives refused “to stress issues such as immigration, affirmative action, multiculturalism and anti-white attacks.” While National Review was never centered around race, in the 1950s and 1960s it took positions similar to those of AR. Republican politicians right up to George Bush won elections by appealing, at least subliminally, to white interests.

Conservatives no longer do this, said Dr. Francis, and are even on the wrong side of some issues like immigration. He predicted that George W. Bush will not mention race at all in the 2000 campaign because the GOP has already ceded moral legitimacy and cultural domination to the left in the hope of gaining respectability. He said its hopes could be paraphrased as, “Maybe if we don’t talk about race, immigration or IQ, they will think we are O.K,” and urged the right to reclaim the moral authority to talk about race in realistic terms.

In a discussion of his latest research on race, Philippe Rushton spoke of a recent trip to South Africa. He tested the IQs of university blacks in the expectation that they would be approximately one standard deviation above the general population, as is the case with European students. The average score he found of 84 for African university students suggests a devastatingly low average of 70 for the population as a whole. If this figure is accurate, it would mean half the African population is retarded by European standards. Perhaps it is more fruitful to think of African IQs at this level as indicators of mental age rather than evidence of retardation.

In support of the view that racial differences in IQ have genetic origins, Prof. Rushton showed slides demonstrating that whites have brains six percent larger, and Asians eight percent larger than those of blacks. He also explained that brain size has a cascading effect on the body, influencing everything from the width of the birth canal to jaw structure and pelvis size. Biological differences affect many kinds of behavior, and world AIDS rates show a clear racial pattern. Over eight percent of black African adults have HIV compared to 0.2 percent of Europeans and 0.05 percent of Asians.

In the question-and-answer period Prof. Rushton discussed reasons why Asians appear to be less dynamic and creative than whites despite higher IQs. He mentioned several theories, including differences in temperament, a larger standard deviation in the distribution of white IQs, and the possibility that higher achievement by Westerners over Asians “may be only a temporary blip in history.”

After lunch, Jared Taylor discussed the prospects for whites in the coming century. Noting that “the twentieth century has been a disaster,” he pointed out that only 100 years ago whites had unchallenged global influence. Since then, two world wars, non-white immigration, and a dramatic loss of confidence have made whites unable to defend their own interests. Whites are now, he said, almost at the point of “reconciling themselves to oblivion.”

Mr. Taylor noted we have essentially made a “state religion” out of diversity and egalitarianism, and that no white can rise in the media, academia or politics without professing allegiance to this cult. Like communism, few people really believe the cult’s absurd dogmas, but most are afraid to speak out. Still, he saw evidence that more and more people are challenging orthodoxy and are starting to say publicly what most believe privately. He concluded that history, science, and ordinary Americans all give reason to expect a regeneration of white racial consciousness.

Bruno Gollnisch, a member of the European Parliament and the second-ranking officer in the French Front National, explained the nature and objectives of his political movement. He defined its members as patriots who are trying to preserve “Western civilization and French civilization.” The FN values historical tradition and is composed of “peaceful, civilized French people who do not want to be foreigners in their own land.” Nevertheless, front officials are routinely slandered by the media, and public debates about the FN are generally held without representatives from the party. As the left-wing press explains, there is “no freedom for the enemies of freedom.”

Dr. Gollnisch argued that the idea of nation, far from going out of fashion or losing its strength, is as vigorous as ever. Pointing out that the Soviet Union split into 15 different nations, he asked: “If so many people have dreamed to become nations, there must be something in human nature that makes it natural.”

Even so, the West faces a grave challenge. “Civilizations are mortal,” said Dr. Gollnisch, noting the possibility that ours may be beyond salvation. He urged the audience to consider it its duty either to keep it alive or to at least save as much of it as possible. Even if Western ideals are eventually replaced by something else, they might still offer an indispensable basis on which to build.

In brief remarks, Gordon Baum of the Council of Conservative Citizens described the successful activist work of his group and how it has attracted new members by standing up for European-Americans. With his usual good humor, Frank Borzellieri discussed his fight against the diversity cult as member of a New York City school board, columnist for a Queens newspaper chain, and host of a cable television program.

The after-dinner speaker was Frank Ellis who defied warnings from his university not to attend the conference. Prof. Ellis caused a controversy in England when the Guardian and other newspapers reported he was to speak to the AR conference on race relations in Britain. His employer Leeds University ordered Prof. Ellis to change his plans and travel only on Saturday and Sunday, thinking this would stop him from coming. They misread their man. He flew in on Saturday afternoon, delivered his speech that evening and flew back again early Sunday morning to be back in time for his Monday-morning classes — after a stay in the United States of a little over 12 hours.

Prof. Ellis, an expert on the Soviet Union, noted how today’s political correctness shows signs of the same intellectual tyranny that characterized Communism. He cited as an excellent example of this the recent “MacPherson Report” on alleged police mishandling of the 1993 murder of a black teenager in Britain. The report savaged the police as “institutionally racist” and insisted that the case was bungled because of “bigotry.” The report also took it for granted that whites killed the young man out of pure racial hatred. Prof. Ellis pointed out that this was by no means established, yet the government and media never wavered in their certainty.

He argued that the media rarely show an interest in possible racial motivation when blacks kill whites — something considerably more common than the reverse. Prof. Ellis argued that hysteria of the kind displayed by the MacPherson Report and the fantastic invasions of privacy it advocates in the name of anti-racism are natural outgrowths of multiculturalism. “The record of multicultural societies,” he said, “is not a good one but if you point this out you are a racist.” He sees signs that the British are fed up with racial orthodoxy and says the practice of multiculturalism in Britain is “shamelessly hypocritical.”

The conference resumed on Sunday with a speech by Robert Weissberg on the relationship between blacks and Jews. He said that despite their private fear and dislike of blacks, Jews have loyally supported black causes. He noted that Jews created the NAACP, provided lawyers to fight civil rights cases, and supplied more than half of the “Freedom Riders.” “Perhaps only Israel has drawn more fervent support in the pantheon of Jewish causes,” he remarked. The unsettling result has been an increase in sometimes violent black anti-Semitism, and unceasing attacks on Jews by black leaders.

Prof. Weissberg argued that despite public professions of solidarity, Jews fear black crime and violence, and loathe black ineptitude and sloth. Jewish academics resent the price they pay for affirmative action and are repelled by the Afrocentric “scholars” who are now their colleagues. Jews are the first to move away when a neighborhood changes, and do not socialize or intermarry with blacks.

Prof. Weissberg said this apparent schizophrenia is explained by the Jewish desire to use blacks as a potential ally against white gentile anti-Semitism. He said Jews fear the potential anti-Semitism of white gentiles far more than the day-to-day criminality of blacks, and that this fear is deeply ingrained. At the same time, he predicted a growing number of Jews will adopt a white nationalist view. Jews under the age of 40 remember the 1991 Crown Heights riots, not the 1960s “Freedom Marches.” Today’s “politically homeless” Jews are increasingly disenchanted with both liberalism and neutered conservatism, and are increasingly open to racial appeals so long as they are free of anti-Semitism.

Roger McGrath spoke about the reconquista or “reconquering” of California by Mexicans, a goal openly endorsed by Mexican and Mexican-American officials. He noted that 70 percent of the students in Los Angeles County public schools are Hispanic, and half of them are illegal. The county spends $10,500 per student — well above the national average of $6,000 — with most of the difference due to the expense of teaching children who cannot speak English. Even so more than half of the students cannot meet the requirements to proceed to the next grade, though any attempt to maintain standards is met with shouts of “racism.” The reconquista is claiming northern California as well. In 1965, 95 percent of the students in San Francisco were white. Now, only 12 percent are white.

California’s generous welfare attracts immigrants. Over 60 percent of births in Los Angeles County are to illegal aliens, because they can get free, First-World medical care and U.S. citizenship for their babies. Immigration also brings crime, with Mexican gangs now committing more murders in California than black gangs. Illegal gang members are rarely deported; instead they spend years in jail at public expense. Between the costs of crime, education, and social services, illegal immigrants cost the average California family about $1,200 a year.

It is not only whites who are bitter. Blacks in South-Central Los Angeles complain about ethnic cleansing and the loss to illegals of entry-level jobs. The reconquista is also responsible for overpopulation and the ensuing environmental degradation. Prof. McGrath noted that during his lifetime the population of California has gone from 7 million to 33 million.

Addressing his fourth AR conference, Sam Dickson discussed the demonization of whites who want to preserve their race and civilization. Because we do not have a voice in the media we are easily labeled as “racist,” and blamed for violence committed by whites in the past. Mr. Dickson noted that “lefties and anti-racists are never found ‘guilty-by-association’ the way we are.” He proposed that we call egalitarians “levelers” and tie them to the violence done by all levelers from the French Revolution to Stalin and Mao.

Mr. Dickson also decried the “tolerance” double standard, pointing out that it is contemptibly hypocritical of those who would banish any dissent from their program of egalitarianism and “diversity” to call us “intolerant.”

Jared Taylor closed the conference with the wish that “the spirit of the West” might go with the conferees as they returned to their homes.

There was reasonably good media attendance, with reporters from the Washington Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Newhouse News Service, and Gannett News Service. Several lengthy articles have already appeared. A New Jersey cable station taped parts of the conference, but C-Span, which has covered AR conferences in the past, did not appear.

As it has done before, a group calling itself “Anti-Racist Action,” demonstrated against “Nazism” outside the hotel on Friday evening. The nearly 20 scruffy youngsters — all white — were invisible and inaudible from the hotel, and had no effect on the conference, as they shouted and waved signs at passing cars. Several had hair dyed in neon colors and others wore safety pins in their earlobes. Passers-by were sure to conclude that anything this lot were protesting had to be very worthy indeed.

With yet another very successful conference behind it, the American Renaissance staff is already looking ahead to the next one, likely to be held in the spring of 2002.

BOOK REVIEW

Never-Ending Guilt

An incoherent argument for “reparations.”

The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks, Randall Robinson, Dutton, 2000, 262 pp., $23.95

reviewed by Michael Levin

The great virtue of a book like The Debt, by black “activist” Randall Robinson, is that you don’t have to read it to know what it says. You can be sure it will blame all black problems on whites, living or long dead, and demand unlimited reparations. In addition — despite Ivy League credentials the author brags of — the writing will be wretched: disorganized, prolix, shot through with garbled metaphors and big words wrongly used. Indeed, The Debt is a sadly representative sample of the thought processes of the black intellectual elite.

Robinson starts with the obvious: “African Americans lag the American mainstream in virtually every area of statistical measure.” The reason for this, of course, is “American slavery and the vicious climate that followed it.” And because of “the staggering breadth of America’s crime against us . . . a fortune is owed.”

Robinson particularly emphasizes “the cost of [an] obstructed view of ourselves.” “We hate ourselves. [W]e don’t know what has happened to us and no one will tell us. Thus we have concluded that the fault must be ours.” Ignorance of their glorious African ancestors holds back black children: “[A]chievement gaps cannot be fully closed until Americans —  all Americans  — are repaired in their views of Africa’s role in history . . . blacks need to know the land of their forebears when its civilizations were verifiably equal to any in the world” — as if American children were not already overburdened with exaggerations and lies about black achievement.

Mr. Robinson’s main argument for reparations is therefore psychological. As he explains, reparations would tell blacks: “You are owed. You were caused to endure terrible things. The fault is not yours. There is nothing wrong with you.” Reparations will “heal our psyches.” Not that Mr. Robinson would turn his back on tangible compensation. He admits, as if conceding nothing: “Oh, we often like its [America’s] wealth, its abundance of commodities, its markets of endless stuff,” and insists that blacks be made whole economically. Although he coyly declines to name a sum, he asks whites to fork over the riches unjustly extracted from black labor, not only from slavery but sharecropping and capitalism itself, which “starts each child where its parents left off.” He claims that the mean net worth of college-educated whites exceeds that of college-educated blacks by $50,000, and puts the difference for blue-collar blacks and whites at $12,000. He also claims discrimination in mortgage lending costs each generation of blacks $93 billion in lost equity (The Debt has a few pages of “sources” but no footnotes, so there is no telling where these figures come from).

Because he insists that “achievement differences that correlate with race must never be tolerated,” it would cost trillions of dollars to close the gaps he complains about. On top of that, Robinson wants special (white) taxpayer-funded schools for black children and free college tuition for all poor blacks “for at least two generations.” Finally, America “must dramatically reconfigure its symbolized picture of itself, to itself. Its national parks, museums, monuments, statues, artworks must be recast in a way to include . . . African Americans.” The US must also cancel all debts to African countries and offer “significant monetary compensation” for having stolen “tens of millions” of their young men.

When will white liability end? Never. “Social rights, wrongs, obligations, and responsibilities flow eternal.” And what will happen if whites don’t come across? “Those others, who fifty years from now will form the majority of America’s citizens, will be inspired to punish them for it.”

As in many similar tirades, a striking feature of The Debt is Holocaust envy. Robinson is bursting with resentment that Germany compensated Jews for a mere twelve years of suffering, while blacks endured 246 years (sometimes he says 234 years) of slavery without a penny to show for it. And Jews got to keep their culture, while blacks “had never been allowed to glimpse the complex whole of the ancient self.” Lucky, lucky Jews. He apes Jewish grievances so far as to demand the return of “Africa’s looted art treasures” — an irony, given the huge but so far unsuccessful effort by American cultural institutions to interest whites in African art.

The weaknesses of Mr. Robinson’s case are obvious. Even if whites had caused black failure, they are already paying restitution in the form of racial preferences. For 35 years blacks have gotten jobs, scholarships and college admissions they did not deserve, but Mr. Robinson hurries past affirmative action in a few sentences and then pretends it does not exist. Nor does he acknowledge the enormous transfer of resources from whites to blacks through welfare and public education — nor the white wealth destroyed by black crime. A proper balancing of the books would have blacks owing whites.

In any case, blacks do poorly economically and academically because of their impulsiveness, low IQ and high illegitimacy rates, traits almost certainly due to genetic factors, not white misdeeds. At one point Mr. Robinson himself has a glimpse of this hard truth. Recounting a trip to Cuba — he greatly admires Fidel Castro — he notes: “White Cubans still appear very much to have the better of things. They dominate political power. They are generally better off economically.” Robinson explains the persistence of inequality despite 40 years of totalitarian efforts to end it as “a bequest of the Moors,” whatever that may mean. A simpler answer is that not even dictators can suppress nature.

Mr. Robinson’s nervy demands should not goad us to the other extreme of absolving whites completely. Slavery was wrong, and while blacks may have fared better as slaves in America than as slaves in Africa, a wrong that accidentally helps its victim is still a wrong. Slave owners did owe something. Still, slavery was legal in its day, and compensation could only have been extracted by unjust, ex post facto laws. Moreover, there was slavery in Africa long before it came to America, and virtually every black who crossed the Atlantic was captured and sold to whites by fellow blacks. Why not send their descendants a bill, too? However unjust slavery may have been, it ended a century and a half ago and has no current significance. It is time to bury the past.

It is worth emphasizing the full awfulness of Mr. Robinson’s writing. On poverty: “We are virtually numb now to our global position of economic bottomness. In the refuge of our subculture, we have disguised enfeebled self-images in the escapist behaviors of people who would angrily deny the massive loss of self-confidence.” On politics: “The intramural tango of bitsy Democratic palliatives and itsy-bitsy Republican palliatives does little more than divert attention and siphon energy as a recondite rot steals up inexorably from the underside, narrowing our practical freedoms and troubling our tenuous contentment. A tangle of nameless, nebulous thoughts clamor for description, while I struggle even to hear myself think in the face of the public career types with their heads vised in a thoroughly disproved orthodoxy, their voices claiming variety but in fact chiming in a tedium of pointless concern, their eyes all blinkered, and their feet long set upon the easy path.”

There are a few excellent black writers, but jumbles like this are all too typical of black intellectuals. What sort of disordered mind produces them? More urgently, how can whites — accustomed to language that communicates rather than wears down — deal with such minds? At the very least, whites must recognize that they face something fundamentally alien.

Michael Levin is Professor of Philosophy at City College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

BOOK REVIEW

What Makes a Nazi?

An American racialist meets the Nazis.

Into the Darkness, Lothrop Stoddard, Noontide Press, 2000, 311 pp., $13.95

reviewed by Thomas Jackson

Today it is impossible to dissent openly from racial orthodoxy without sooner or later being called a “Nazi.” Despite (or perhaps because of) the stupidity of doing so, egalitarians are quick to equate with Hitler anyone who endorses American racial views that antedate Hitler by centuries. Most liberals are not so silly as to call Lincoln a Nazi, but if he were to rise from the grave and restate his views from the debates with Douglas that is just one of many things they would call him.

The idea of a racial nation was National Socialism’s point of departure, but from the outset it was a comprehensive theory of applied government designed to funnel the energies of every German into collective goals. It was similar to Communism in this respect, and similar also in the sweeping institutional changes it imposed. In its historical period, however, racial policy was not the most striking aspect of Nazism. In the 1930s, the view that race was an essential element of the nation was no more foreign to Americans than to Germans — indeed, no more foreign than it is to virtually every non-white living today. It was hardly the distinctive characteristic of the regime.

What was distinctive? What, in fact, did racially aware Americans of the period — people whose ideas would, today, be called “Nazi” — think of the Third Reich? We have a fascinating answer in Into the Darkness, the last book by one of the most influential American champions of racial consciousness, Lothrop Stoddard.

Stoddard wrote this book — recently reissued as a trade paperback — after spending four months in Germany as a reporter during the “phony war” of 1939-40. A Harvard Ph.D. and foreign affairs specialist, Stoddard was particularly keen on understanding how war and Nazism had changed everyday life in Germany, and his account has a frank, contemporaneous quality untouched by the acrimony that became common after the United States went to war.

Many of Stoddard’s strongest impressions were colored as much by war as by the politics of the new regime. The title, for example, does not refer to a nation plunging into barbarism but to the rigorous blackout all Germans maintained against the possibility of night bombardment by the British. Darkness was, in fact, Stoddard’s first experience of Germany. Even the train by which he entered from Italy had to douse its lights at the border, and passengers crept about by the light of tiny blue bulbs. Stoddard couldn’t see the slightest glimmer from his train window, not even as he glided through Munich: “Passing through this great darkened city, the sense of unnatural silence and emptiness became positively oppressive.”

In Berlin, where he spent most of his four months, headlights of cars were heavily hooded, making it impossible to drive at night at speeds greater than a crawl. Pedestrians carried pocket flashlights to see where they were going, but were forbidden to shine them upwards to read street signs, since even a flashlight might catch the eye of a British bombardier. Stoddard hated the blackout, complaining that it had a “depressing, almost paralyzing effect. It must be lived to be understood.”

Another war-time measure Stoddard described in detail was the rationing regimen according to which everything including food and clothing was doled out with typically German efficiency. The government issued everyone — including travelers — monthly food coupons that had to be exchanged even for a restaurant meal. Coupons restricted quantity, not quality, so the rich ate better than the poor but not more. Stoddard found that when wealthy friends invited him to restaurants and paid for his meals, he still had to turn over coupons to the waiters because not even the rich had coupons to spare. Clothing and other goods were rationed the same way, in a system designed to “assure to the poorest German the basic necessities of life, while the richest cannot get much more than his share.”

Stoddard complained bitterly about the poor quality and limited variety of the food — Germans drank roasted barley rather than coffee because of the British naval blockade — but confessed there was enough starch in a German ration for him to put on 12 pounds in four months.

If even the privileged position of a foreign correspondent seemed grim to Stoddard, it is not surprising that he found no enthusiasm for the war: “The Germans detest this war . . . This attitude is shared by Nazis and non-Nazis. On this point there is no difference between them.” He wrote that most Germans never believed France and England would declare war over Poland but that even ardent Nazis were willing to criticize Hitler for taking the risk. Stoddard noted that memories of “the Great War” were still fresh enough to keep any hint of romance or overconfidence out of this one. But Stoddard found as much resolution as privation:

No intelligent foreigner can be in Germany a week without asking himself: ‘How do these people stand it?’ When he has been there a month, he says: ‘How long can they stand it?’ After three months, his verdict will probably be: ‘I guess they’ll stand it a long time.’

The reason, concluded Stoddard, was that Germans were convinced defeat would mean extinction for Germany, and that even if the war had been a great blunder, it was a crisis of titanic proportions that called for heroism.

‘An absolute dictatorship’

And what of Nazism itself? What most struck Stoddard was its revolutionary, authoritarian nature. “The National Socialist upheaval that has created the Third Reich,” he wrote “goes far deeper than the Fascist regime in Italy, and is perhaps a more defiant breach with the historic past than even the Communism of Soviet Russia.” “[I]ts leaders,” he added, “are revolutionists from the ground up.”

Many of the Nazi policies seemed similar to Communism: “Agriculture has basically been socialized,” he wrote, adding that the Nazis “co-ordinated everybody connected with industry into a huge vertical trust.” He wondered whether Hitler Youth programs and National Labor Service did not turn the lives of young people into one long Nazi summer camp. He complained about “the liquidation not only of the Catholic youth organizations but of most of the parochial schools as well.” He shuddered at the words of Bernhard Rust, Reich Minister of Education: “All forms of instruction have oneaim — the shaping of the National Socialist human.” (emphasis in the original)

Stoddard was bemused by Strength Through Joy, or workplace-based leisure: “This is the most gigantic scheme of organized, state-directed entertainment that the world has ever seen. It includes a wide variety of activities, from ‘highbrow’ art and music to popular amusement, travel, and sport.” Germans seemed to enjoy it, but he added that “to the individualist Anglo-Saxon, all this regimented ‘leisure to order’ may not sound particularly attractive.”

By the end of his stay, Stoddard believed he had found the answer to riddles that baffled experts: “Nazi achievements in finance and industry are generally regarded as deep, dark mysteries abroad. To me, the answer is very simple: An absolute dictatorship over an industrious, resourceful people.” (emphasis in the original)

What about racial policies? As Rachel Dixon points out in a useful new introduction to this edition, Stoddard had been cool towards the Nazis from the beginning. In 1935 he wrote:

These [racial] ideas, however, are so mixed up with an ulcerated nationalism and are so surcharged with mere emotion that the resulting compound is hard to evaluate. Ever since the [First World] war, Germay has been highly abnormal in almost every respect.

One of the final passages of Into the Darkness suggests that four months of direct observation did not greatly change his views. When he finally found himself back among Americans on a steamship bound for home, he was delighted by creature comforts but by something else, too: “Even more deeply satisfying is the sense that you are among your own kind who are not worried and harassed and ulcerated by nationalistic hatreds.”

Stoddard writes surprisingly little about Jews, perhaps because he had little material:

The average German seems disinclined to talk much to the foreign visitor about this oppressed minority. However, I gathered that the general public does not approve of the violence and cruelty which Jews have suffered. But I also got the impression that, while the average German condemned such methods, he was not unwilling to see the Jews go and would not wish them back again.

Stoddard spoke good German, had lived in Austria, and generally liked Germans, but was not often impressed by Nazis. He concluded that polished and capable party members gravitated to Berlin but the provincial leavings were a sorry lot. He described officials he met in Weimar:

Few of them could have amounted to much before they landed a Party job. Even more revealing were their womenfolk . . . Most of them were pretentiously dowdy. They exemplified better than anything I had yet seen the fact that National Socialism is not merely a political and economic upheaval but a social revolution as well. To a very large extent it has brought the lower middle class to power.

Stoddard took an immediate dislike to a Gauleiter he met in Deusseldorf: “He was a distinctly sinister-looking type; hard-faced, with a cruel eye and a still crueler mouth. A sadist, if I ever saw one. I imagine how unpopular he must be among the good-natured, kindly Duesseldorfers.”

Stoddard managed to interview several top Nazis, including Hitler — who seems to have disappointed him by being insufficiently mesmerizing. He contrasted the Führer to Mussolini:

[Mussolini] uses his big, compelling eyes; thrusts out his chin; aims to semi-hypnotize you. It’s all very intriguing. Perhaps, to an Anglo-Saxon, it’s a bit too obvious. But it flatters your ego, just the same.

Nothing like that with Hitler. Though always pleasant and courteous, he makes no obvious attempt to impress or win you.

Of the top Nazis, Goebbels seems to cut the most distinctive figure: “This lithe, brunet Rhinelander, with his agile mind, cynical humor, and telling gestures, is an excellent person to interview. He is mentally on his toes every instant, and he is full of what the journalist calls ‘good lines.’”

Stoddard notes the Nazi’s accomplishments — resurrection of an inert economy, a clampdown on crime, full employment — but bestows little unqualified praise. The closest he comes to enthusiasm is his report on the proceedings of a eugenics court. The law provided for mandatory sterilization of people with certain hereditary disabilities, but sterilization decisions could be appealed. Stoddard spent a day at the appeals court and was impressed:

The thing that struck me most was the meticulous care with which these cases had already been considered by the lower tribunals. The dossier of each case was voluminous, containing a complete life-history of the subject, reports of specialists and clinics, and also exhaustive researches into the subject’s family history.

The “subject,” of course, was the candidate for sterilization who was, in every case, present at the appeal and questioned once more by officials. Stoddard thought that, if anything, the courts were overly hesitant to order sterilization for “subjects” who appeared to him obviously defective, but he gave the process high marks: “On the evidence of that one visit, at least, the Sterilization Law is weeding out the worst strains in the German stock in a scientific and truly humanitarian way.”

Although the United States was not at war with Germany and Stoddard did not hope for war, he was continually sizing up Germany as a potential opponent. He speculated on how long its food-stocks would last, whether Buna would work as a rubber substitute, and tried to keep his fingers on the pulse of civilian morale. At the end of the book he wrote:

Most Germans are unwilling to admit even the possibility of defeat. Those who do, couple it with remarks which amount to some such phrase as: ‘If we don’t win, there will be no victor.’ What that means is about as follows: ‘If this war is fought to the bitter end, all Europe will be plunged into chaotic ruin. Then, with everybody down in the ditch together, we Germans, with our innate sense of organization and discipline, willingness to work hard, and knack of pulling together, can lift ourselves out of the ditch quicker than anyone else.

The poignant accuracy of this passage is not surprising, coming from a man who so clearly foretold the consequences of policy choices in the United States. Stoddard was a keen observer whether at home or abroad.

SPECIAL REPORT

The Galton Report

A sampling of recent scientific literature.

by Glayde Whitney

Wanderlust Gene

Charles Davenport (1866-1944), an early American geneticist and founder in 1910 of the Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor, NY, has often been ridiculed by the politically correct for suggesting that a wide variety of human traits — degeneracy, feeblemindedness, criminality, and “wanderlust” — have genetic origins. In fact, wanderlust genes have recently been reported. The gene in question, called DRD4, encodes one type of receptor for dopamine, an important neurotransmitter in the brain. The long form of the DRD4 gene has previously been linked to personality traits such as novelty-seeking, risk-taking, and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Now a new study suggests that long versions of DRD4 are more common among populations that have engaged in long distance migrations. Novelty-seeking, risk-taking, hyperactivity, and quick boredom with sedentary activities may all contribute to a tendency to travel and explore — or what commonly used to be called “wanderlust.”

East Asians are historically famous for not being exploratory: China quit exploring the world in the 15th century, and in the 19th century Commodore Matthew Perry had to sail a fleet into Tokyo Bay to break the isolation of Japan. A long form of DRD4 has a frequency of one percent or less among East Asians.

Interestingly, American Indians are thought to be descended from East Asians who crossed into the Americas. Among those who traveled farthest — South American Indians — the frequency of a long DRD4 reaches 78 percent. (Perhaps this explains some of the high incidence of ADHD and educational difficulties among Central American and South American Indian and Mestizo immigrants to the U.S.)

In a comparison of six different prehistoric and historic migration routes, the study found that in each case, “the populations that remained near their origins showed a lower proportion of long alleles of DRD4 than those that migrated farther away. This finding was consistent across all six migration routes.”

Besides the Asian/American Indian contrast, there is a similar contrast between Asians and Pacific Islanders, with Pacific Islanders more likely to have the “wanderlust” gene. Also, Jews who migrated as far as Rome and Germany have a higher proportion of long DRD4 than do Jews who stayed in Yemen, closer to their origin. Bantus who migrated all the way to South Africa have a higher proportion of long DRD4 than those who stayed in Cameroon.

Among Indo-Europeans the study finds that “the Sardinians, who live geographically closer to the origin of their language family, had 0% long alleles . . . whereas the average for other European groups was 20%.” Although the difference is not statistically significant, there was even a difference between Europeans in Europe and Europeans in the U.S. for the long forms (15.75 percent vs. 22 percent).

When the data were analyzed across 39 different groups, the correlation between long-range migration and long DRD4s was a remarkable r = .85! The authors estimated that every 4.3 percent increase in long DRD4 represents an additional 1,000 miles of migration.

The authors speculate that among migratory groups the “exploratory aspect of human nature” (novelty seeking personality, risk taking behavior, hyperactivity) would be favored by natural selection, while these same behavioral tendencies would be maladaptive, and hence selected against, in more sedentary groups.

[Chuansheng Chen & 3 co-authors, “Population migration and the variation of dopamine D4 receptor (DRD4) allele frequencies around the globe.” Evolution and Human Behavior, Vol. 20, #5, 1999, pp. 309-324.]

No African Eve?

“Out of Africa,” the theory that modern humans evolved relatively recently in Africa and then spread to the rest of the world, has been popular in many quarters. Anti-racists like the theory because they claim it suggests there has not been enough time for the evolution of racial differences. The Out-of-Africa scenario led to the theory of an “African Eve,” a woman in Africa who was mother to us all.

This theory is based on analysis of mitochondrial DNA, or mtDNA. The mitochondria are small inclusions in the cells that provide power for cell functions, and they have their own DNA that is separate from the chromosomal DNA in the cell nucleus. The theory has been that mtDNA is transmitted only from mother-to-offspring via the cytoplasm of the egg.

As it happens, sperm also have mitochondria; they power the flailing tail that drives a sperm to its target. But the theory has been that only the chromosomal DNA from the sperm nucleus is incorporated into the fertilized egg, which rejects the male mtDNA. Recent research casts doubt on this theory. mtDNA from the sperm may sometimes recombine with that from the mother. If so, the whole edifice of mtDNA-based theory, the African Eve, and also much Out-of-Africa speculation collapses.

[B. Fowler, “A genetic tool to track evolution. Or is it?” New York Times, 25 Jan. 2000]

Psychopathy Research

New findings are highlighting the biological bases of criminality. Low psychological arousal, poor conditioning against fear, lack of a conscience, lack of foresight, and poor decision-making characterize the antisocial, psychopathic traits that define Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD).

Intelligent, so-called “well compensated” psychopaths with APD can be very successful. Probable examples include Winston Churchill, Lyndon Johnson, and of course the classic, who also displays Narcissistic Personality Disorder traits: William Clinton. Recent research has examined the brain by means of structural magnetic resonance imaging to search for characteristics of APD.

The prefrontal area of the brain is known to be involved in social sensitivity, rule following and foresight, and people with antisocial personality disorder have 11 percent less prefrontal gray matter (nerve cells) than normal people. This brain deficit predicts psychopathy independently of psychosocial risk factors such as income, education, marital status of parents, etc.

The authors conclude: “To our knowledge, these findings provide the first evidence for a structural brain deficit in APD. This prefrontal structural deficit may underlie [the symptoms of psychopathy].”

Another approach has been to study children with severe conduct disorder, defined by such things as stealing, fighting, and sexual aggressiveness. Boys who are diagnosed as having this disorder at ages seven to 12 are at greatly increased risk for becoming aggressive felons when they grow up. Low levels of the stress hormone cortisol have been found in some persistently aggressive boys with conduct disorder.

Scientists say low stress hormone levels mean the boys need to go to extremes to achieve stimulation, and that they don’t experience normal feelings of inhibition about giving in to destructive impulses. The author concludes: “The really bad actors and those who started misbehaving earliest, it turned out, also had the lowest cortisol levels.”

No one is yet talking about racial differences in pre-frontal brain matter or cortisol levels, but such research is sure to follow.

[Adrian Raine, and four co-authors, “Reduced Prefrontal Gray Matter Volume and Reduced Autonomic Activity in Antisocial Personality Disorder,” Arch. Gen. Psychiatry. Vol. 57, pp. 119-127. Also, Constance Holden, “Spotting Bad Seeds.” Science, Vol. 287 (21 Jan. 2000), p. 423.]

Contributing editor Glayde Whitney is professor of psychology, psychobiology and neuroscience at Florida State University.

IN THE NEWS

O Tempora, O Mores!

Austrian Update

Europe is still in a funk over the participation of Jörg Haider’s Freedom Party in Austria’s coalition government. Most of the European Union is still hostile to the new government, but there are a few signs of good sense.

The Belgians have kept up their nasty sniping. They boycotted the world military skiing championships in March because they were held in Austria. They also said that unless the Freedom Party leaves the government Austria’s military orienteering team will not be allowed to compete in the European military championships to be held in Belgium in July.

At a March 17 concert in Paris, the Vienna Philharmonic distributed leaflets distancing itself from “racism.” That didn’t stop someone from calling in a bomb threat, which caused a 30-minute interruption in the program, while police searched the theater.

Later that month, European “conservative” parties could not agree on whether to invite Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Scheussel (leader of the Freedom Party’s coalition partner, the People’s Party) to a meeting of party leaders. They finally called off the meeting.

Amnesty International has suddenly decided Austria has a serious police brutality problem, largely driven by “racism.” “People with black or yellow skin are quite definitely seen as second-class citizens,” explained Heinz Patzelt, head of the Austrian arm of Amnesty International.

The European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) — recently set up by the European Union in Vienna — is also very worried. “Europe is going through a dangerous phase,” explained director Beate Winkler. “There is an increasing move away from centrist positions, and right-wing — even far-right positions — are losing their taboos.” Miss Winkler fears the worst: “It starts with discrimination, then comes exclusion and it can go as far as the Holocaust.” The EUMC had planned to invite European heads of government to its official opening on April 7 but changed its plans so as not to have to rub shoulders with Mr. Scheussel.

On April 8, Austrian Finance Minister and Freedom Party member Karl-Heinz Grasser participated for the first time in a meeting of EU finance ministers. Observers thought for a moment that hostility was cooling when the French minister Laurent Fabius was seen shaking his hand. He later told reporters he had not recognized Mr. Grasser and would snub him in the future. The traditional group photograph was canceled because the French and Belgian ministers refused to take part — although the official reason was that the ministers did not have time. Mr. Grasser noted continuing insults of this kind were making ordinary Austrians begin to rethink EU membership.

Ever quick off the mark, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution condemning the Austrian government two months after it was sworn in. The voice vote denounced former Freedom Party leader Jörg Haider’s “anti-democratic, racist and xenophobic views,” and expressed “profound regret and dismay” that his party was let into government.

There were cracks in the wall of hostility. Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja is tired of French and Belgian self-righteousness and says it is time to cool down: “The [Austrian] government [was] formed entirely democratically, and if it is not possible to show it has committed any wrongdoings then after a sufficient observation period the actions [of the EU against Austria] will have to be reconsidered.”

At the end of March the Swiss continued their tradition as the first nation to receive a new Austrian head of government. “Anti-fascists” had promised thousands of demonstrators in Berne but only a few hundred showed up, as Mr. Scheussel got the full red-carpet treatment. The Neue Zuercher Zeitung refused to accept an ad from the European Jewish Congress criticizing the Swiss for letting Mr. Scheussel visit. Headlined “Danger of Contamination,” the ad warned Switzerland not to “become an accomplice . . . when questions of racism, anti-Semitism and extremism are concerned.” The paper said the ad was “too aggressive.” Many Swiss think the EU’s treatment of Austria is an outrageous attempt to influence internal policy, and this incident has strengthened opposition to EU membership.

Sounds Like BS to Us

Cows and cow dung are important business in the African country of Swaziland. The dung produced by the king’s cows, at any rate, has special powers and is not to be meddled with. Thus it is that the country has been thrown into a political crisis after Mgabhi Dlamini, the speaker of parliament, stole a piece of royal cow dung right out of the royal cattle enclosure. Mr. Dlamini’s opponents in parliament say he wanted to use the stuff in a ritual that would improve his standing with the king, one of the few remaining absolute monarchs in the world and therefore worth cultivating. They say the theft was detected by witch doctors, who had foreseen it in a vision. Mr. Dlamini says he had his own vision in which God told him to take the manure and use it in a ritual that would prevent catastrophe befalling the king. He admits to having taken a handful of dung but insists he did not intend to use it for personal profit or advancement. Opposition members tried to expel the speaker from parliament but just failed to muster the necessary two-thirds majority. Mr. Dlamini says things have gotten so hot for him since the theft that he is considering leaving the country and seeking asylum. (Anton La Guardia, The King’s Missing Cow Dung Sparks Crisis in Swaziland, Telegraph (London), March 15, 2000.)

No Racism Here

Twelve million of Turkey’s 65 million people are Kurds. It is against the law to teach or broadcast in Kurdish, and until 1991 it was against the law even to speak Kurdish. For 15 years Kurdish guerrillas have fought for independence from what they see as a repressive regime, and the death toll is over 30,000. Now that Turkey is a candidate for membership in the European Union, liberals are tut-tutting about government repression.

Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit thinks they should shut up. When asked on state television if Europeans misunderstand Turkey’s relationship with the Kurds, Mr. Ecevit said:

“Yes, they do have difficulty. In Western Europe and partly in Eastern Europe, there is a serious tradition of racism.” “There has never been any racism in Turkish society,” he added. “There is no racial discrimination, it is not possible.” He went on to say that European critics were “racist” to suggest ethnic rivalry had anything to do with the guerrilla war. He explained that the shooting was about “the structure of society” in the Southwest of Turkey and that outsiders, including Europeans, were meddling in Turkish affairs. Europeans, he said, were wrong even to talk about “the Kurdish problem.” (Turk PM Ecevit Says Europe “Racist” on Kurd Issue, Reuters, March 12, 2000)

Law of the Jungle

Moropia Silkapi and Yakamup Mak-atu, both villagers in Papua New Guinea, got into an argument one day, with the result that Mr. Silkapi burned Mr. Makatu’s house to the ground. They then got into a fight in which Mr. Silkapi smashed Mr. Makatu in the head with a rock, killing him. He then proceeded to gouge out the dead man’s eyes and heart, tear off his testicles, and eat the lot. Villagers then chased Mr. Silkapi into the jungle and tied him to a tree so police could come arrest him. The dead man’s relatives found him first and dispatched him. Cannibalism was widespread in New Guinea until it was suppressed by European colonists. (Papua Village Dispute Ends in Murder, Cannibalism, Reuters, Feb. 8, 2000.)

Uncle Sugar Can’t Say No

Every year, the U.S. government loses millions of dollars because deadbeats default on student loans. In 1992, Congress passed a law that would end federal student aid to any college with a default rate higher than 25 percent — but it exempted the 105 “historically black” colleges and universities, where default rates were often even higher. In 1998, Congress lifted the exemption, and even after considerable wheedling and fudging 13 of the colleges were still delinquent. The feds, who cannot bring themselves to cut off the miscreants, have worked out a plan to justify continued lending. Greg Woods of the Education Department, apparently with no sense of irony, says the plan will involve trying to make it clear to students they have a duty to repay their loans.

About one quarter of all black students attend black colleges. These colleges have an average default rate of 21 percent, as opposed to an average rate of seven percent at majority-white institutions. It was not reported how much of that seven percent is accounted for by black students. (Arlene Levinson, Black Schools Kept in Loan Program, AP, March 15, 2000.)

‘Marshmallow Roast’

In Jeffersonville, Indiana, black teenager Shawn Bald got into a racially charged argument with a white couple in his neighborhood, James and Karen Moore. The exchange escalated into a fight involving a baseball bat and a metal chair. Both men were injured, and Mr. Bald told Mr. Moore, “You have to go to sleep sometime, and you all will burn.” Two weeks later the Moore’s apartment building caught fire. A marshal determined that someone had poured a fire accelerant on the stairway. The Moores escaped but three people did not: A man, his girlfriend, and their four-month-old baby died in the fire. Mr. Bald, who called the fire a “marshmallow roast” because only white people lived in the building, is being tried for murder. (Eric Weslander, Police Say Racial Fight Led to Indiana Fire, Louisville Courier-Journal, January 27, 2000.)

Emilia Raras, 63, was born in the Philippines and now lives in Howard County, Maryland. In 1994, her son Lorenzo married a white woman named Sara and they had a son. When the two later divorced, Mrs. Raras thought that her white daughter-in-law was not showing her a proper Filipino level of respect, and was not letting her see her grandson often enough. She is now on trial for paying a 20-year-old black man, Ardale Tickles, $3,000 to kill Sara Raras. In a taped prison conversation, Mr. Tickles told another inmate about the murder. He didn’t remember her name, (“it was a white girl’s name”), and he called her a “devil” as he slit her throat, wrists and neck with an army knife. Then he stomped on her in his Timberland boots and considered raping her while he watched her beg to be put out of her misery. “Blood was everywhere. [She] was just chopped up . . . I ain’t have no mercy,” he explained, saying that an “Asiatic black sister,” had paid him to do the killing. Detectives say Mr. Tickles “holds hostile views of white society,” but the murder is not being treated as a hate crime. (Raja Mishra, On Trial, a Matter of Respect, Washington Post, January 24, 2000, p. B1.)

Somewhat less seriously, in San Francisco, a 16-year-old black on a city bus decided a 47-year-old white man was having too friendly a conversation with a black female passenger. He pulled out a gun and said, “You can’t be with a black woman because you enslaved my people. You have to die.” The bus driver flagged down a policeman who arrested the attacker as he tried to crawl out a bus window. Police found the gun unloaded. (Youth in Custody for Alleged Hate Crime, San Francisco Examiner, February 7, 2000.)

Boston public housing has been plagued with racial strife ever since the housing authority began integrating formerly all-black and all-white buildings ten years ago. Recently a “large group” of black teenagers attacked a white woman and her two children, aged eight and nine, hitting the mother in the head as they “made racial remarks.” The woman escaped with her children to her apartment. Police would not release her name for fear of retaliation by other housing-project blacks, and report she has put in an urgent request for a transfer to another building. (Karen Eschbacher, Race is Weighed in Tenant Beating, Boston Globe, March 30, 2000.)

Racist Milk

People with lactose intolerance have a hard time digesting milk, which can give them gas, diarrhea, and cramps. Researchers estimate that some degree of lactose intolerance affects 90 percent of Asian-Americans, 70 percent of blacks and American Indians, 50 percent of Hispanics, but only 15 percent of whites. Something called the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has filed a suit against the federal government’s school lunch and breakfast program because under its guidelines all students who do not have a doctor’s note are to get milk. The suit says the guidelines are racially biased and that milk should be optional. The Congressional Black Caucus and the League of United Latin American Citizens are among dozens of minority organizations that support the suit. Milk’s defenders say it is an excellent source of calcium and protein and that even most lactose-intolerant people can digest a glass of milk with a meal. (Adrienne Coles, Milk Lawsuit Leaving Some With Bad Taste, Education Week, February 9, 2000, p.1.)

Good Sense

Sandra Seegars is a black woman who serves on the Washington, DC, Taxicab Commission. Noting that three drivers have been killed in the last three months, she says that if cabbies fear violence they should avoid picking up suspicious-looking black men. Despite the outcry she is not backing down. “If you don’t talk about it how can you get anything done?” she asks. “Until the crime really goes down East of the river, our cabdrivers aren’t going to come over here too much.” (Clarence Williams, Race Issue Splits Panel Over Cabdrivers’ Safety, Washington Times, February 2, 2000, p. C1.)

On the other side of the world, the governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara told Japanese soldiers in a recent address that if there is ever a serious earthquake in Japan they should keep an eye on resident Third-Worlders. “We can expect them to riot in the event of a disastrous earthquake,” he explained. (Troops Told ‘Foreigners’ Likely to Loot, Riot, Reuters, April 10, 2000.)

White Farmers Under Attack

Although whites are only two percent of the population of Zimbabwe, they own about one-third of the farm land. They grow most of the food and supply virtually all the exports, but president Robert Mugabe has called for confiscation of white farms. In February the government lost a referendum that would have revised the nation’s constitution to extend Mr. Mugabe’s powers and legalize expropriations. Mr. Mugabe encouraged blacks to take the land anyway.

Former black terrorists and rural blacks promptly occupied more than 500 white-owned farms. Squatters armed with clubs, spears, axes and a few guns broke down fences and gates and occupied homesteads. The Zimbabwe supreme court has ruled the occupations illegal but police commissioner Augustine Chihuri says they are “a political issue” and therefore “above the police.” He says he does not have the resources to expel squatters. White farmers say there have been no killings so far, but one elderly couple was assaulted and held prisoner in their home for five hours.

Many Zimbabweans, both black and white, think Mr. Mugabe is encouraging the takeovers as a distraction from the terrible mess he has made of the country since he took office 20 years ago. The economy is in a shambles, one quarter of the population has AIDS, and corruption is rampant. The country can barely pay for the 11,000 soldiers it has sent to help prop up the Congo government against insurgents in a war that is deeply unpopular with Zimbabweans.

Earlier in the Mugabe administration the government paid for 2,000 farms but the redistribution program has been mired in mismanagement and corruption, with most of the land going to Mugabe cronies. The president now says white owners must simply walk away from their land since it was originally stolen from Africans by British colonists. (White Farms in Zimbabwe Attacked, Las Vegas Sun, February 29, 2000. Zimbabwe Veterans Seize White Farms, Las Vegas Sun, March 6, 2000. Chris Chinaka, Zimbabwe’s Mugabe Risks Squandering Goodwill, Reuters, April 9, 2000.)

Diversity in the Golden State

Black/Hispanic riots are becoming more frequent and more violent in California prisons. On February 23, 200 inmates of Pelican Bay State Prison attacked each other with home-made weapons. The fighting was so fierce guards could not stop it with tear gas or pepper spray and had to open fire. They shot 16 inmates before the riot was over, killing one and critically wounding another. At least 32 other prisoners were stabbed or slashed by fellow inmates. About a week later, 10 to 15 blacks and Hispanics started fighting at the Victor Valley Community Correctional Facility outside Los Angeles. One inmate was in critical condition after being hit repeatedly in the head with a lock stuffed into a sock and five others were hospitalized. (Inmate Killed in California Prison Riot, AP, February 23, 2000. 6 Inmates Hospitalized After Fight, Washington Post, March 2, 2000.)

Breeding Better Africans

A Ugandan writer thinks genetic engineering may end poverty, corruption and misery in Africa. Since it has done wonders for crops and farm animals, it should do the same for people, too. He has an idea who needs it most:

[T]here is no doubt that Europeans have been the best breed of human species, followed by Asians.

At the bottom of the list are black Africans. The African morphology, dark colouration, greed, lack of intellect, failure to internalize theories and lack of interest in preserving the best things clearly show that we are an inferior people.

It is universally accepted that any specie [sic] that practices cannibalism against members of its own kind is primitive. Look at African politicians, butchering whole ethnic groups, starving whole populations.

Since it is beyond doubt that almost all Africans in positions of power tend to misuse it, it is logical to conclude that there is a problem with the stock from which our leaders come.

Even our intellectuals, public servants and business people are of poor stock. (Ssekitooleko Deo, Africa Has to Get A New Breed of Humans, The Monitor (Kampala), January 4, 2000.)

Groveling Fails Again

In 1994 the Denny’s restaurant chain paid more than $54 million in damages and legal fees to 4,300 blacks who said they got bad service. The chain also promised the NAACP it would spend $1 billion on non-white contractors and would award more franchises to minorities. In 1995 it hired a new CEO, James Adamson, to help the company turn over a new leaf. Mr. Adamson, who is white, promised to make the company minority-friendly top to bottom. In 1998-99 he even commissioned a series of feel-good television commercials about diversity that did not even advertise the restaurants.

Results have not been good. Advantica Restaurant Group, which owns Denny’s, lost $388.8 million in 1999. It is deep in debt and is selling other restaurants to try to revitalize Denny’s. Groveling has not paid off either. The word has gotten out that the company is an easy target for discrimination claims, and hardly a month goes by without another “racism” suit. Mr. Adamson says he is giving up. “It has been exhausting . . . [Y]ou start doing the right things. You know they’re the right things and you still get punched in the face.” He says he would like to teach business ethics at a university after he steps down. (CEO of Denny’s Owner Says He Will Step Down Within Two Years, AP, Feb. 25, 2000. Issues & Views, Is Denny’s an Eternal Milk Cow?, Summer/Fall 1999, p. 17.)

Gone Daft

Coca-Cola does not seem to have been paying attention. Its chief executive Doug Daft has just announced that “diversity” is going to become one of the company’s top priorities and that top managers’ pay — including his own — will be tied to how few white men they can manage to hire or promote. “What gets measured gets done,” says Mr. Daft. He also announced he will establish a new office of diversity, to be run by a vice president who will report directly to him. Mr. Daft insists that these moves reflect only his “firm and sincere” commitment to “diversity” and have nothing to do with a high-profile law suit recently brought by black employees who claim they were insufficiently appreciated by the company. (Coke to Link Exec Pay to Diversity, AP, March 10, 2000.)

More Mush From the Wimp

For the third time, William Clinton has met at the White House with representatives of a sector of society in order to promote “diversity.” Last July, he got lawyers to promise more pro bono work in the name of “racial justice,” and in March he persuaded religious leaders to teach that “racism” is a sin. This time, it was businessmen who got a “diversity” pep talk, as part of the president’s One America initiative. The gathering of dozens of chief executives produced a commitment by 25 companies to spend $1 million every year over the next ten years to help women and non-whites into high-tech jobs.

Mr. Clinton was in typical form: “In my lifetime, I think we’ll have a woman president and certainly an African-American or Hispanic or an Asian-American president, maybe all three.” He went to explain that “the point is, it won’t diminish white guys. It’ll make life more interesting.” He also looked around at the two whites and one black with whom he shared the stage and said that in a decade it would be unusual to host a presidential event where all four speakers were “middle-aged, gray-haired guys,” three of them white.

He did concede that some white men might be suspicious of all this emphasis on people unlike themselves, but urged them to see things the right way. “It’s a matter of celebrating, relishing our differences,” he explained. The companies that agreed systematically to favor women and non-whites were Adobe Systems, America Online, American Express, Anderson Consulting, AT&T, BP Amoco, BellSouth, Boeing, Chevron, Consolidated Edison, DuPont, Eastman Kodak, Exxon, Ford Motor Co., General Electric, GTE, IBM, Intel, Lucent Technologies, MCI Worldcom, Siemens Corporation, Sun Microsystems, TRW, United Technologies Corporation, and Xerox. (Sonya Ross, Clinton Preaches Diversity, Bergen Record (New Jersey), April 7, 2000.)

St. Louis Blues

East St. Louis, Illinois, is one of the most notorious all-black failures in America. Its school district is now so pitiful the state has begun the process of taking it over from local blacks. In addition to the usual ghetto woes — cockroaches in the lunch room, roofs that leak, toilets that overflow, millions of dollars that go missing — the district seems to suffer from a near-total lack of any desire to educate.

One mother who frequently visited her daughter’s sixth-grade class room often found the teacher polishing her nails, eating, and completely ignoring her students. When the mother went to the black board and took over the class, the teacher hardly noticed. Another mother found the teacher asleep at his desk when she visited her son’s class. One student says her junior high teacher never asked students to do anything; they played cards and did crossword puzzles. At one school, textbooks for the “contemporary American problems class” are 20 years old.

The school board is locally elected, and ever since the 1970s when all but one member went to jail for corruption, candidates have claimed to be running on a platform of “reform.” “Reform” has not come easy. The school district spends $5,921 a year on each student (average for Illinois), and 90 percent of the money comes from outside the district. Schools are some of the biggest employers in this clapped out town, and jobs invariably go to well-connected incompetents. No one holds anyone accountable, and the schools are invariably among the worst in the state.

Many in the city have swallowed their pride and decided the district cannot be saved. “There is no alternative but to have the state take over our education here,” says Johnny Scott, head of the city’s NAACP branch. Even the ACLU has decided the district is violating the state’s constitutional promise to provide an education to all children, and has urged that the district be merged with its neighbors. (Michael Sorkin and Bill Smith, Report From Class: Sleeping Teachers, Card-Playing Students, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 25, 2000.)

Teaching the Teachers

Since 1983, California teachers must pass the California Basic Educational Skills Test (CBEST) in order to teach or work as counselors. Needless to say, there is a racial gap in pass rates for first-time test-takers: 80 percent for whites, 60 percent for Asians, 47 percent for Hispanics, and 37 percent for blacks. Non-whites have been screaming “racism” for years. In 1996, U.S. District Judge William Orrick of San Francisco declared CBEST legal. He said it had an adverse impact on minorities but measured essential job skills better than other alternatives. Now a federal appeals court has decided to take up the question again in a new hearing to be held before an 11-judge panel.

CBEST consists of multiple-choice questions in reading comprehension and mathematics, and two essays that test writing skills. Teachers who flunk can take it over and over again until they pass. The state says the test is set at an eighth- to tenth-grade level and screens out only the unqualified. (Court to Reconsider Claim That Teacher Skills Test is Biased, Los Angeles Times, March 29, 2000.)

‘Kill d’White People’

The web page “Intro to the Grammys” contains a remarkable collection of violent, anti-white rap “lyrics.” As the compiler S. Smith notes, rap is big business, and people who urge the extermination of whites are honored members of the industry. Here is just a sample of some of the charming sentiments now throbbing through the black community. The Nation of Islam term “devil,” is understood by all blacks to mean white people.

These devils make me sick; I love to fill them full of holes; kill them all in the daytime, broad motherf***ing daylight; 12 o’clock, grab the Glock; why wait for night?

— ‘Sweatin Bullets,’ Brand Nubian, Everything Is Everything, 1994.

Kill the white people; we gonna make them hurt; kill the white people; but buy my record first; ha, ha, ha.

— ‘Kill d’White People,’ Apache, Apache Ain’t S**t, 1993.

Who you gonna run to when we get to mobbing . . . filling his body up with lead, yah; cracker in my way; slitting, slit his throat; watch his body shake; watch his body shake; that’s how we do it in the motherf***ing [San Francisco] Bay . . .

— ‘Heat — Featuring Jet and Spice 1,’ Paris, Unleashed, 1998.

A fight, a fight, a nigger and a white, if the nigger don’t win then we all jump in . . . smoking all [of] America’s white boys.

— ‘A Fight,’ Apache, Apache Ain’t S**t, 1993.

I kill a devil right now . . . I say kill whitey all nightey long . . . I stabbed a f***ing Jew with a steeple . . . I would kill a cracker for nothing, just for the f*** of it . . . Menace Clan kill a cracker; jack ‘em even quicker . . . catch that devil slipping; blow his f***ing brains out.

— ‘F*** a Record Deal,’ Menace Clan, Da Hood, 1995.

.44 ways to get paid . . . I’m through with talking to these devils; now I’m ready to blast.

— ’44 Way — featuring Mystic,’ Paris, Unleashed, 1998.

He prays on old white ladies [who] drive the Mercedes with the windows cracked . . . you should’ve heard the bitch screaming . . . sticking guns in crackers’ mouths . . . the cops can’t stop it . . . remember 4-29-92, come on; Florence and Normandy coming to a corner near you, cracker; we’ve been through your area, mass hysteria; led by your motherf***ing Menace Clan. [April 29, 1992 was the outbreak of the Los Angeles riots, which erupted at the corner of Florence and Normandy Streets.]

— ‘Mad Nigga,’ Menace Clan, Da Hood, 1995.

Listen to this black visionary, bringing war like a revolutionary . . . go on a killing spree, putting devils out their misery; hearing screams, sounds of agony; my hostility takes over me . . .

— ‘Under Siege,’ Killarmy, Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars, 1997.

[W]hat do blacks do; they just keep on blowing devils away . . . evil f***ing cracker . . . I’m tightening up the laces to my steel-toed boots, so I can walk, stomp; we stomp this devil down in the park.

— ‘Planet of da Apes,’ Da Lench Mob, Planet of da Apes, 1994.

We’re having thoughts of overthrowing the government . . . the brothers and sisters threw their fists in the air . . . it’s open season on crackers, you know; the morgue will be full of Caucasian John Doe’s . . . I make the Riot s**t look like a fairy tale . . . I’m killing them devils because they’re not worthy to walk the earth with the original black man; they must be forgetting; it’s time for Armageddon, and I won’t rest until they’re all dead . . .

— ‘Goin Bananas,’ Da Lench Mob, Planet of da Apes, 1994.

Actual fact you need to be black . . . everyday I fight a devil . . . I grab a shovel to bury a devil . . . the battle with the beast, Mr. 666 . . . my mind rolled to a 7th level; grab my bazooka and nuke a devil . . . with black I build; for black, I kill.

— ‘Fightin the Devil,’ RBX, The RBX Files, 1995.

I pledge allegiance to only the black . . . black, you had best prepare for the coming of war . . . look at you devil; now you’re sweating; I’m telling you: you can’t run from the hand of Armageddon.

— ‘No Time,’ RBX, The RBX Files, 1995.

[A]n original black man with a plan to run these devils off our motherf***ing land . . . the Sunz of Man war track . . . kept gun in hand, stalking the land.

— ‘Can I See You,’ Sunz of Man, Sunz of Man: The Last Shall Be First, 1998.

I love black women and I hate f***ing crackers . . . devils choke from the gunsmoke . . .

— ‘Graveyard Chamber,’ Gravediggaz, 6 Feet Deep, 1997.

I’m black with a bat, swinging at the head of a honky . . . The Terrorists about to murder your ass,

— ‘Blow Dem Hoes Up,’ The Terrorists, Terror Strikes: Always Bizness Never Personal, 1991.

[T]hey got us brainwashed to be the minority, but when we kill them off we gonna be the majority . . . if the whites speak up, then I’ll lead my people, because two wrongs don’t make it right but it damn sure make us equal; I’m inciting riots, so let’s start the looting . . . in this revolution I loathe my enemy . . .

— ‘2 Wrongs,’ Onyx, All We Got Iz Us, 1995.

The web page notes that one of the best-known and fawned upon rap “artists” is Ice Cube. His sentiments are typical of the genre. The title track from his 1992 The Predator album contains the following “lyrics:”

Riots ain’t nothing but diets for the system. Fighting with the Beast, ‘no justice, no peace’ . . . Niggas are sick of your white man tricks, with no treating us right. Now it’s on, on sight . . . Farrakhan for president of white America . . . Put my chrome [pistol] to your dome [head], watch it bust like a cantaloupe . . . So who’s Ice Cube? I’m a rapper, actor, macker. Got a little problem with the redneck cracker.

The CD contains a friendly little pamphlet that says, in part, “Ice Cube wishes to acknowledge white America’s continued commitment to the silence and oppression of black men . . . White America needs to thank black people for still talkin’ to them ‘cause you know what happens when we stop.”

In a 1993 recording Mr. Cube advises his black friends to get up close to whites before they “bust,” or open fire: “don’t bust ‘till you see the whites of his eyes, the whites of his skin, the whites of his lies.” In a 1991 recording called “The Wrong Nigga To F*** Wit,” he says he will shoot off the head of former Los Angeles police chief Darryl Gates if he gets the chance. In “Cave Bitch” Mr. Cube heaps scorn on white women and suggests that blacks should kidnap them and hold them for ransom.

Following Instructions

In the early 1980s a serial killing spree terrorized the city of Toledo, Ohio. Someone killed nine people in a series of attacks that targeted young couples in parked cars. The attackers would kill the men, rape the women, and then kill them too. Now, nearly twenty years later, the killers have finally been caught. Anthony Cook, 51, and his brother Nathaniel Cook, 42, have admitted to the murders after DNA evidence linked them to at least one of the crimes. The elder brother is already serving a life term for another murder. Retired police detective Tom Ross says the murders were racially motivated, noting that the Cook brothers are black and all nine victims were white. (John Seewer, 2 Admit 9 Toledo Slayings in ’80s, Cincinnati Enquirer, April 7, 2000.)

Race and Sport

South Africa is unable to balance race and ability in deciding whom to send to the Sydney Olympics. Although the men’s field hockey team has won repeated African championships, it is too white and may not compete. The equestrian team has not even asked to represent the country, because it knows government officials will turn it down. Curiously, an all-white swimming team has gotten the nod, as has the women’s hockey team, even though it has fewer “previously disadvantaged” players than the men’s team. A spokesman for the white-led opposition Democratic Party says these capricious decisions are “nothing short of racism.” (Anton La Guardia, Telegraph (London), March 18, 2000.)

1984

The police of Gloucester, England, have started an undercover operation to make sure people don’t make “racist” comments in ethnic restaurants. Plain clothes officers conduct “Operation Napkin” by eating in pairs in Indian and Chinese restaurants, carefully listening to whether people say anything “insensitive.” Chief Inspector Dean Walker says, “Our aim is to act in the interests of the restaurants and of other diners who are offended by racist behaviour but feel reluctant to intervene.” “We want to encourage the reporting of racial crimes,” he explains.

One man was caught mimicking an Indian accent but police decided this did not warrant arrest. (Simon de Bruxelles, Distasteful Views Policed, Times (London), March 15, 2000.)

One Nation, Indivisible

Some New Jersey state senators have proposed a law requiring school children to recite two sentences from the Declaration of Independence, including the statement, “all men are created equal.” All four black senators say the proposal is an insult because blacks were slaves in 1776 and the phrase did not include them. “It’s another way of being exclusionary and insensitive,” says Senator Wayne Bryant. “You have nerve to ask my grand children to recite [the Declaration]. How dare you. You are now on notice that this is offensive to my community.” White politicians almost always run for cover at the sound of this sort of talk. The bill lost some of its support and was tabled. (Nancy Parello, Racial Issues Heat Up Debate Over Reciting Declaration of Independence, AP, Jan. 31, 2000.)

Bibles of Color

“Specialty Bibles,” are a hot seller in the publishing industry. Aimed at people who feel “excluded” from the traditional bible, the newest entry is called the “Women of Color Study Bible.” It is being touted as the first Bible created by and for black women. Among other things, readers learn that Esther, Ruth and Martha were probably dark-skinned women of African descent. The book also includes essays from 200 female pastors who use Scripture to throw light on domestic abuse, single motherhood and sexism. “It’s a knockout,” said Phyllis Tickle, religion editor of Publishers Weekly.“The female market in religion is huge right now. And the African-American market in religion is growing.” (New Bible For Black Wo-men Thrives in 2 Major Markets, Washington Times, April 3, 2000, p. A2.)

Presidential Leadership

South Africa has one of the world’s highest AIDS rates, with ten percent of the population — around 4 million people — thought to have the disease, but attempts to fight AIDS are frustrated by the country’s president, Thabo Mbeki. He opposes giving anti-AIDS drugs to pregnant women, which could save thousands of lives, and he recently baffled AIDS experts by declaring that the anti-AIDS drug AZT is dangerous. Mr. Mbeki isn’t even sure the HIV virus causes AIDS, and has convened a panel to find out. Mr. Mbeki’s spokesman, Parks Mankahlana, wrote that the panel would, “attempt to unravel the ‘mysteries’ of the HIV/AIDS virus, including, and more especially, what the profit-takers cannot tell us.” He accuses Western drug companies of profiting from an African AIDS epidemic that may be exaggerated. (S. African Leader’s Words, Deeds on AIDS Alarm Experts, Washington Times, March 21, 2000, p. A15.)

Come and be Healed

The following announcement, which we reproduce in its entirety, appeared in the Lowell (Massachusetts) Sun on March 23, 2000:

An anti-racism discussion group is scheduled to meet on March 29 at 7:30 p.m. at the First Parish Unitarian Church.

‘Our objective at this meeting is to have white people talk about racism with white people,’ said Anne Donahue, who founded the group with Colleen Sullivan. ‘What we really need is to get in touch with our own issues of racism.’

The group is working under the premise that racism is perpetuated by white people not blacks or other minorities, Donahue said.

It’s an organization that believes racism is a white problem not a black problem.

The meeting is open to the public, and is not intended to exclude anybody.

The group is not affiliated with the church, according to Donahue. The first meeting was held March 15 at All Saints Episcopal Church. For more information call 256-5558. (Anti-Racism Group Meets March 29, Lowell Sun (Mass.), March 23, 2000.)

Try Anything

Black homosexuals are notoriously resistant to warnings about AIDS, and Alameda County, California, is trying to get through to them with shock ads. One shows a naked black man lying on top of another naked black man, with an unused condom next to them. It reads: “Been there. Done that. Get HIV tested. It could save your life.” The ads are posted on billboards in areas known to be frequented by black homosexuals and are also on postcards, condom packages, plastic cards, and matchbooks. Some Californians worry about being asked by their children about the ads, which are funded by a $300,000 grant from the state Department of Health.

In Alameda County, blacks are five times more likely to get the disease than whites, and AIDS is now the number one killer of black men between the ages of 25 and 44. (Thomas Elias, California County Tries Shock Ads, Washington Times, April 3, 2000, p. A5.)

Slanting the Deck

An anonymous source at the U.S. Naval Academy has spilled the beans on a new “diversity” policy that appears likely to replace merit with sex- and race-quotas. Senior-level leaders among the midshipmen — called “stripers” because of the increased numbers of stripes on their uniforms — have always been selected on the basis of grades and a series of tests. The source says Academy brass “felt that the midshipmen who wanted the jobs did not adequately represent the Academy in terms of race and gender.” The source says the new policy means “many [midshipmen] who applied for the leadership striper positions will not be considered while many who did not want to be high-level stripers will be forced into those positions.” The academy denies everything, but a directive from the deputy commandant has surfaced in which he says he wants stripers who are “representative of the entire Brigade,” and wants “a broader spectrum of candidates.” The anonymous source, which contacted WorldNetDaily.com, said he didn’t want to hurt the 155-year-old academy: “[I]t is just that I think the public that pays for our education has a right to know what is happening here.” (Jon E. Dougherty, Diversity Bug Bites Naval Academy? WorldNetDaily.com, April 10, 2000.)

AR is Hiring! We are looking for an assistant editor to work in our Virginia office. The ideal candidate writes well, has a strong commitment to what we stand for, understands computers, and knows something about running an office. Please send your resume to: PO Box 527 Oakton, VA 22124

LETTERS FROM READERS

Sir — I have just received the April issue of American Renaissance. Your lead article, “Don’t Write Off the Liberals,” was so stunning I assumed it must be an April Fools’ Day joke. The double talk presented by the supposed author Melinda Jelliby can only remind one of Orwell’s 1984. If this was a joke, ha ha funny, let’s not do it again. If it was for real and you are going to allow this type of silliness to appear in your publication, then I am canceling my subscription. Please tell me this was supposed to be a joke.

Name Withheld, Richmond, Va.

Sir — In her note on homosexuals Melinda Jelliby says she is “opposed to glorification of homosexuals and special laws to protect them.” She also says “they are potential allies” because of their fondness for “trim houses, well-kept lawns and social climbing tastes.” If this highly selective characterization were true, Miss Jelliby would have a point. But it is not the occasional pair of dignified, middle-aged men quietly running a floral or antique shop that troubles “straight” conservatives. The problem is the majority of homosexuals with political power and visibility who demand precisely the “glorification and special laws” Miss Jelliby opposes.

As for the author’s assertion that homosexuality is innate rather than acquired, it is just that, an assertion. It is not a fact, as shown by the vast number of homosexuals who have left “the life” and remain straight.

O.M. Ostlund, State College, Pa.

Sir — I have been subscribing to AR for several years, but Melinda Jelliby’s article is the worst thing that has yet to appear. While a few points may be mildly interesting the gist of it is insane. Anyone who thinks there is hope for liberals needs to be educated out of his naiveté.

One example of the mis- and dis-information is the sidebar on homosexuals. The statement that “the best current evidence suggests that homosexuals cannot help the desires they feel,” is wrong. A group called P-FLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), in a booklet entitled Why Ask Why . . . reports: “To date, no researcher has claimed that genes can determine sexual orientation. At best, researchers believe that there may be a genetic component. No human behavior, let alone sexual behavior, has been connected to genetic markers to date.”

If this article starts a trend it looks like AR has begun (either wittingly or unwittingly) to be co-opted into the fringes of the liberal mainstream.

Name Withheld

Sir — Thanks for publishing Melinda Jelliby’s insightful cover article which is an excellent corrective to Shawn Mercer’s pro-George W. Bush piece. I’ve always tried to explain to people that I’m against the present liberal agenda, not all liberal thinking per se. I am also in favor of conservative principles such as preservation of tradition, culture and nature. These conservative principles are not those of the Republican party and its pro-big business allies. I do not have any liking for men like Ronald Reagan whom Republicans list among their heroes.

Among the reasons we would not want to live in any non-white country are repugnant illiberal practices such as barbaric punishments, virtual slavery for women, indifference to vast poverty, and free use of the outdoors as a waste site. We should cultivate the best in our own tradition, from liberal compassion to conservative respect for limits

Paul Neff, Cambridge, Mass.

Sir — Let’s have more of “Melinda Jelliby”. I think she/he is on to something. Now if only more liberals can be got out of the closet.

R. Travis Osborne, Athens, Ga.

Sir — Your cover story was one of the most thought-provoking pieces I have read in a long time. It awoke the suspicion in my mind that I may not be a “conservative” in the current sense of the term. The “political” question about which I care most is the preservation of our European people and heritage in the broadest sense. I do not profess fidelity to a particular ideological corner of that heritage.

In fact, I am essentially uninterested in what passes for politics — social security reform, NATO expansion, campaign finance, raising the minimum wage, term limits, etc. I am astonished at people who can actually work up a passion for such things (or are they just pretending?) I agree with Miss Jelliby: At this point, the only thing that separates friend from foe is whether someone is with us on the race question. Any other differences (or similarities, for that matter) do not matter.

I have far too many genuinely rewarding interests to want to spend time on the dull-as-dust business of politics. I suspect I would ignore politics entirely if I were confident that the people who govern us were committed to our race and culture. I find myself drawn into politics only to the extent that government helps or harms our people. I doubt I am unusual in this — only more honest than most — when I confess to being profoundly bored by virtually every debate that takes place in Congress.

So long as European people put their interests first, they will muddle through just fine no matter what their politics.

Fred Hooper, Mussel Shoals, Ala.