200205 American Renaissance

American Renaissance - 1 - May 2002

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

Vol. 13 No. 5 May 2002

The Case Against Reparations

American Renaissance

The demands are comingand must be refused.

by Michael Levin

The events of Sept. 11 tempo-rarily pushed reparations forslavery back from their posi-

tion halfway into the mainstream. Ata time of national crisis it would haveseemed piggish to demand even jus-tified entitlements. Still, reparationswere hardly gone for good, andas normalcy returns, blacks andtheir allies are renewing their de-mands for vast sums to compen-sate for misdeeds real and imagi-nary. In March, chairman of theUS Commission on Civil Rights,Mary Francis Berry, said repara-tions are the “unfinished businessof the civil rights movement,” andeven the New York City Councilrecently voted to “study” the repa-rations question. Blacks will soon beback demanding payment, and whitesmust be prepared to respond.

To be sure, to judge from polls, mostwhites oppose reparations. But theymust oppose them for the right reasons,not because they are inopportune oroverblown, but because they are an out-rageous expression of ingratitude andgall. Unless whites can articulate theright case against reparations, they willend up watching in bewildered impo-tence the adoption of measures theyknow to be wrong, just as they did inthe case of affirmative action.

Replies to the demand for reparationsmay be graded by their power to shock.Some might be heard on 60 Minutes,some would raise eyebrows, and otherswould call down execration as racist.Unfortunately, all the publicly permit-ted arguments concede too much, whichmeans only the forbidden ones are worthraising.

Let us divide objections into the po-lite, the impolite, the rude and the shock-ing. The commonest polite argument isthat reparations would cost too much—a sound enough point as far as it goes,given the rapacity of the civil rights

lobby. Some claimants put the debt toAmerican and African blacks at severaltrillion dollars. One ever-handy yard-stick that yields these remarkable fig-ures are race differences in economicoutcomes—there are many—which areautomatically ascribed to “discrimina-tion” rather than differences in ability.

Thus Ebony bases reparations on “Astudy out of the University of Califor-nia at Berkeley [that] showed that thevalue of the income lost as a conse-quence of racial discrimination between1929 and 1969 alone comes to about$1.6 trillion.” (Whites of course beg forsuch finger-pointing by obsessively re-

hearsing their past sins.) A second typeof estimate looks to precedents, notablythe $20,000 paid by the US governmentto each Japanese relocated during theSecond World War. That amount paidto 40 million blacks—and they would

certainly want far more—wouldcome to $800 billion. Similar calcu-lations cite German payments to Jew-ish Holocaust survivors, whose domi-nance in the victim sweepstakes irksmany blacks greatly.

A third formula treats the averageprice of a slave 200 years ago—about$14,000 in current dollars—as stolenhuman capital on which interest hassteadily been compounding. Givena modest three percent average an-nual interest rate corresponding toeconomic growth—in this onecase reparationists will doubtlessbe generous in their estimates of theproductive capacity of capitalism—each slave’s estate is $2.8 millionshort. For every million Africans en-slaved, their current descendents are

thereby collectively owed $2.8 trillion.The alleged debt to the continent of

Africa runs higher still, and must covernot only the labor of an estimated fif-teen to a wildly exaggerated one hun-dred million abductees, but the removalof natural resources. People making thiscalculation never mention the involve-ment of Africans in the slave trade who,to be consistent, should also be asked topay, or the fact that natural resources likeoil and diamonds were of no use to Af-ricans and could not be extracted bytechnology indigenous to Africa. Not-withstanding these objections, whitedepredations are said to have cost Af-rica $7 trillion, for a total bill typicallygreater than $10 trillion.

Bear in mind that all the goods pro-duced in the US last year were worthroughly $9 trillion, which in turn repre-sented nearly one fourth of total world

Perhaps each white couldwork for blacks two

weeks annually for 25years, in shifts.


Letters from ReadersSir —Twenty years ago I was in the

Virginia prison system, for two years,at four different prisons. The terminol-ogy of rape apparently has changed, butit sounds basically as it was then.

Honestly, though, I have some differ-ences with the story. It’s not true, forexample, that whites never stick up foreach other, except for the Aryan Broth-erhood. A lot of us made deals to watcheach other’s backs, and it worked. Thepoint is not to fight blacks alone. If twoof you agree to look out for each otheryour chances of not being raped increase100 fold. If there are three of you to-gether, even against 20 blacks, you’ll getbusted up—but only once—and notraped. You just can’t pretend to beRambo.

It really wasn’t difficult to avoid be-coming a “boy.” My first day in oneprison, about eight blacks had a mind tocome after me, but all I had to do wasshow I was ready to fight, and theybacked down. I weighed only about 160.

A lot of the “boys” were faggots tobegin with. Others were drug addicts,and went along willingly for the drugsthey received. To be honest, I saw moreblacks who were “boys” than whites.

Of course, that was my experience inVirginia, twenty years ago, ending in1982. Some states may be worse. In Vir-ginia, I keep tabs on what is going on,and things seem tighter, more secure,less dangerous than they were.

One thing I found out toward the endof my term was that in a minimum se-curity place there is much less violence.You can call a black a “nigger” to hisface and if he hits you both of you willbe “busted back” to high security, andthey dread that more than anything.

Blacks would glare a lot but never triedto retaliate.

Tim Minium, Norfolk, Va.

Sir — I read with interest your re-view of the book about prison rape. OnHBO there is a series called OZ whichis about a fictional prison. In the pro-gram, the Aryan Brotherhood are theonly people who practice sex slavery ofwhites. They are also the most despi-cable people in the prison. The onlyother rapist in the program is a blackwho raped a white after the black wasattacked—a rape committed in self-de-fense. The most honorable people in thisfictional prison are, of course, the blackMuslims.

Frank Davie, Florida

Sir — You describe Human RightsWatch, the organization that sponsoredthe study on prison rape as “a lefty or-ganization.” Your readers should knowthat Human Rights Watch was estab-lished and funded by George Soros, oneof the most unhelpful people on theplanet. He became a billionaire, in partby massive speculation in the currencymarkets, in which he enriched himselfas governments spent money trying todefend their currencies. He is an out-and-out one-worlder, and sworn enemyof every kind of national and ethnic dif-ference—with one exception. He is a bigsupporter of ethno-state Israel.

Fred Hooper, Mussel Shoals, Ala.

Sir — When the Enron Corporationdeclared bankruptcy, it was a good ex-ample of what happens when corporategreed gets out of control. Now the na-

tion is faced with an example of politi-cal greed—the recent amnesty vote inthe House of Representatives—by Re-publicans who want to legalize millionsof illegal Mexicans in the (probablyvain) hope of getting their votes. Howmuch longer will voters put up with thestupidity and cupidity of “leaders”whose only interest is themselves. Willthe insanity ever end?

Harlan Hamilton, New York City

Sir — Last week, I started a new jobat a book store. It is downtown, heavilytrafficked by blacks, and has a largeAfrican-American section. The otherday, a black man and woman came inwith their daughter. The girl, no olderthan four, walked straight to a book witha cover picture of Martin Luther Kingon it, and asked her father, “Who wasthe white man who shot him?”

Name Withheld, Buffalo, N. Y.

Sir — In the April issue, in the itemcalled “Bill Clinton—Black Superstar,”you write that the National Guard “en-forced integration” at Central HighSchool in the 1950s.

In 1957, Arkansas Governor OrvalFaubus mobilized the state’s NationalGuard to help resist a federal judge’sorder to integrate public schools in LittleRock. President Eisenhower not onlyfederalized the Arkansas National Guardbut sent in 1,000 paratroopers from the101st Airborne Division to make surenine black children could attend Cen-tral High School. To have deployed anelite airborne unit to enforce Wash-ington’s control over a municipal schoolsystem is one of the most absurd epi-sodes in American history.

Name Withheld, Washington, D.C.

Sir — I was glad to see the report onthe AR conference in the last issue. Iwas even more pleased to see a reason-ably balanced Newhouse News storyabout the conference in my local paper!

Your organization must do more out-reach. Subscribers already know whatis happening; it is the millions who don’tread AR who must have their eyesopened. Any conference you put on thatgets press coverage is invaluable in thatit lets others know about the work youare doing.

Burt Schrag, Louisiville, Ky.


American Renaissance is published monthly by theNew Century Foundation. NCF is governed by section501 (c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code; contributionsto it are tax deductible.

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Continued from page 1

American RenaissanceJared Taylor, Editor

Stephen Webster, Assistant EditorJames P. Lubinskas, Contributing Editor

George McDaniel, Web Page Editor

output. Reparationists thus in effect de-mand that American whites work solelyfor blacks for a year or more, or that thewhole white race carry that burden for agood part of a year. My wife once pro-posed this bargain: Whites should giveblacks a large lump sum in exchange fora promise never to ask for more or sayone more word about whites, racism,slavery or all the rest. I explain belowwhy the black end of this deal would behard to keep, and anyway no societycould survive the diversion of so muchenergy at one go.

Of course, to object to reparationsonly because of the cost prompts an ob-vious question: What if whites could af-ford it? If whites insist on citing pov-erty as their excuse, then if future pro-ductivity some day makes it possible topay, pay they must. To plead only pov-erty admits the debt, and once the repa-rations principle is granted, all that re-mains to be discussed is the paymentschedule. Perhaps each white couldwork for blacks two weeks annually for25 years, in shifts so as to minimize theeconomic shock. Perhaps blacks couldbe exempted from taxation for a fewcenturies. Clearly, whites simply disarmthemselves by whining that they areshort on cash, although respectablewhite opinion may be counted on to fallinto this trap, for fear of saying anythingmore offensive. We had better turn toless polite objections.

Under this heading fall requests forspecifics where reparationists arevague—chiefly about who is going topay, and for what. Is it to be the federalgovernment, state governments, corpo-rations, individuals, or someone else?There are vast problems with assessing

individuals, particularly those whoseancestors owned no slaves. How haveblacks been harmed by a New Englanderwhose family had always promoted“civil rights,” or by anyone whosegrandparents didn’t come to Americauntil 1930?

It is impossible to calculate the gainseven of indirect beneficiaries of slavery.Take a man whose great-grandfatherclerked in a store that sold shirts madewith cotton harvested by slaves; surelyhe owes less than descendents of thepeople who owned the slaves, but howmuch less? Suppose it were somehowdetermined that half of great-grandpa’ssalary was tainted by slavery, but thatwise investments increased his wealthtwenty-fold. Do his heirs owe half theirholdings to blacks, or just one-fortieth?

Reparationists must answer these dif-ficult questions because the damagesthey demand are compensatory, not pu-nitive. Slaveholders and other wrong-doers are no longer alive to be punished;a present-day white, having harmed noone, owes at most what he has gainedfrom wrongs done by others, so tallyinghis debt demands detailed knowledge ofwhat he actually gained. No one has thisinformation, and the further in the pastthe wrongs were done, the less acces-sible it becomes.

Because individual fault is incalcu-lable, reparationists tend to look to “gov-ernment” to pay. But which govern-ment(s)? The states seem the natural tar-gets, since their laws regulated slaveryand, subsequently, segregation. Indeed,the federal government ended slavery,overrode state segregation, and eventu-ally came to require favoritism forblacks, so it hardly seems fair to foist abill for damages on the party that tried

hardest to stop them. To be sure therewere federal fugitive slave laws, and thefederal judiciary upheld slavery in DredScott. Still, on balance, the national gov-ernment was instrumental in relievingthe conditions reparationists decry. Butif the states are to pay, then which states?Surely not those that banned slavery orentered the Union after it ended. (Fur-ther complications are raised by territo-ries that became states: Are states re-sponsible for their territorial history, orare they new entities? Reparationistsmust make this clear.) The best candi-dates are the members of the old Con-federacy, but, apart from the shallow-ness of their pockets, once again, manyof their current residents—the taxpay-ers who would foot the bill—have noconnection to past wrongs. For thesereasons, one may expect the claimantsto discover sooner or later that the debtis a “national” problem, which “allAmericans” have to solve together.

But however the scope issue is re-solved, there is a second: Is a govern-ment—local, state or federal—respon-

sible only for what it does, or also forwhat it merely permits by failing to out-law? The distinction is important be-cause most of the practices for whichrepayment is demanded, particularly sla-very and discrimination in jobs andhousing, were private. Antebellum gov-ernments neither owned slaves norforced anyone to buy them; they simplyallowed ownership. Likewise, whilesome states did segregate some of theirown institutions (schools, for example)and require some private segregation (ontrains, for example) much of the dis-crimination reparationists complain ofwas undertaken by private individualsusing their property in ways consistentwith but not required by law.

One might defend a wider view ofgovernment responsibility on thegrounds that government must protectrights actively, not only by respectingthem itself but by preventing others frombreaching them. There is something tothe idea that permitting great wrongs is

Black slums receive a“Marshal Plan” about

once every three years, arate that every few de-

cades amounts to anothertrillion dollars.


state negligence, but it can be taken toofar.

To begin with, there is a general pre-sumption against post facto judgment.Normally, no entity is held to accountfor something that was legal when it wasdone, as were slavery and discrimina-tion. What would reparationists say ifstates a century from now were finedfor once having allowed private corpo-rations to discriminate against whites viaquotas? Likewise, if blacks are entitledto post facto compensation for acts thatwere legal when committed, why noteveryone else? Should women sue be-cause, in the past, they could not vote?Should workers sue because their ances-tors had to work more than 40 hours aweek and did not get maternity leave?

Even waiving the general case againstpost facto guilt, not every private mis-deed can be laid at the feet of govern-ment: Vandals, not the city, are respon-

sible for defacing a neighbor’s wall, al-though stationing police on every cor-ner would have stopped them. A linemust be drawn somewhere, beyondwhich governments are innocent of theabuses of the freedoms they allow.

Finally, even if states are held to ab-surdly strict standards today for whathappened in the past, they may still beinnocent of many acts for which theyare retrospectively scolded, becausethese acts themselves were innocent.Slavery, discrimination in jobs, housingand service, and social stigma are usu-ally lumped together in one ugly pile towhich “government” turned a blind eye,but they are quite different. Slavery doesinfringe rights that any governmentshould protect (although, to repeat, backpay for manumitted slaves would beowed only by former owners). But it ishard to see the right violated by, say,refusing to hire blacks. An employer’s

hiring choices are covered by his rightto free association. The blacks he refusesto hire are no worse off than they wouldhave been had he never existed, so howdoes he harm them? Since laws againstprivate discrimination may well them-selves be wrong, governments werehardly to blame for not passing themsooner.

Still another precept reparationistsignore is that not every beneficiary of

an injury must help repair the victim.Let us grant for now—lest we be rude—that today’s whites are richer thantoday’s blacks because of slavery. It stilldoes not follow that all of today’s whitesowe today’s blacks anything. SupposeSmith and Jones own the only two res-taurants in town; a firebug burns downSmith’s place, causing Jones’s businessto improve. So long as Jones had nohand in the arson, he owes Smith noth-ing. The recent terrorist attack on NewYork prompted some businesses to moveto New Jersey, yet no one thinks NewJersey owes New York reparations eventhough New Jersey is now richer. As faras Jones is concerned, Smith’s fire mightas well have been a kitchen accident.Note that the arsonist’s motives do notmatter: Whether he did it from psycho-sis, a desire for gain, admiration ofJones, hatred of Smith, or hatred ofSmith’s race, Jones is not guilty. Assum-ing that contemporary whites have ben-efited from racial wrongs, white benefi-ciaries, to be liable, must have abettedthese wrongs, failed to stop them, or atleast culpably ignored them. It is impos-sible to show this since the disputedwrongs, particularly slavery, took placebefore any whites living today wereborn.

A propos whites’ supposed enjoy-ment of the un- or undercompensatedfruits of black labor, reparationists fre-quently claim that “blacks builtAmerica.” This is patently untrue. At notime have blacks been a substantial partof the US population, and until the Sec-ond World War they lived largely in therural South; they were a part of south-ern agriculture but played virtually no

Blacks have thought of a new ap-proach to reparations, and aresuing companies that did not

even own slaves but may have profitedin some way from the existence of sla-very. In March, black activist DeadriaFarmer-Paellmann brought a class ac-tion suit in a Brooklyn federal courtnaming three defendants—Aetna Inc.,CSX Corp. and FleetBoston Finan-cial—and promises to go after manymore in the future.

Miss Farmer-Paellmann charges thatone of the predecessorcompanies of Aetna, thelargest insurer in thecountry, wrote policieson slaves against acci-dental death, just as itwrote policies on freemen. She says theprofits from this business were im-moral, and the successor company mustpay punitive damages. The claimsagainst the other companies are simi-lar. FleetBoston is the successor toProvidence Bank, founded by a RhodeIsland businessman who reportedlytrafficked in slaves. Providence Bankfinanced the slave-trading business andpresumably profited from it. CSX, arailroad conglomerate that was estab-lished in 1980, had a predecessor com-pany that reportedly used slaves to helpbuild and perhaps run one of its raillines. The company itself probably

never owned slaves; it rented them fromowners.

Although all the companies say thealleged wrongs took place so long agothey cannot be settled in court, Aetnaannounced in early March that it wasconsidering making a public apologyfor insuring slaves, and might make res-titution payments from the profits. Ofall the reparationist charges, thoseagainst Aetna would appear to be themost preposterous. Slave owners tookout insurance policies on people and

property they valued:houses, cargo ships, andloved ones. Aetna wasdoing business withowners who were un-likely to mistreat the

property whose value they clearly rec-ognized.

If the three companies Miss Farmer-Paellmann has sued “profited from sla-very,” it would probably be hard to findmany that did not. Any company thatmanufactured anything used or con-sumed by slaves—clothes, tools, food,etc.—“profited from slavery.” Printerswho printed handbills for slave auc-tions, companies that provided trans-portation for slaves, doctors whotreated them, publishers that printedbooks about slaves—all are guilty ofthe crime that actually motivates thesesuits: the crime of being white.

New Wrinkle to the Shakedown

If blacks are entitled topost facto compensationfor acts that were legal

when committed, why noteveryone else?

ΩΩΩΩΩ


role in the development of the large cit-ies, industrial complexes, universitiesand public projects that support Ameri-can prosperity. In fact, it is preciselythose parts of the country with the larg-est proportion of blacks that have tradi-tionally been the poorest, which is thereverse of what we would expect ifblacks were the source of Americanprosperity. Canada, Australia, and NewZealand were English colonies that de-veloped during the same period as theUnited States. If slavery was the basisof American prosperity, how did thesecountries achieve comparable levels ofprosperity without it? Blacks did notcontribute significantly to science,medicine or technology. America wouldhave been different without blacks, butnot poorer.

There is a final point about compen-satory justice that sounds abstruse butis worth mentioning. If not for slavery,blacks living in America today, the oneswho supposedly deserve reparations,would not exist. Their great-great-grandparents would never have met, andthey would never have been born. It isobvious that a person cannot be harmedby an action that accounts for his exist-ence. You harm Smith by making himworse off than he would have been had

you not done whatever you did; if whatyou did helped bring Smith into exist-ence (for instance if it involved intro-ducing his parents to each other), he canhardly say he would have been betteroff if you had not done it, since in thatcase there would have been no Smith atall. (This is why “wrongful birth” suitsbrought by unhappy children againsttheir parents seem ludicrous.) A com-mitted black reparationist might say hislife in America is so dreadful he wouldprefer never to have been born at all,but otherwise he has no reply.

Aside from these historical and philo-sophical points, the demand for pay-ments to blacks calls to mind a larger

issue that arose about quotas: It seemedunfair to pass over young whites in fa-vor of less-qualified blacks who alleg-edly would have been more qualified ina just world, when the whites were notthemselves to blame for the black’s sub-standard abilities. Indeed the wholereparations debate recapitulates the af-firmative action debate. And this leadsto rude questions: Weren’t quotas sup-posed to be reparations? Didn’t JimmyCarter call affirmative action “compen-satory discrimination” back in 1975?Wasn’t that what quotas were all about?Didn’t we have this conversation almostforty years ago?

Reparationists suffer from convenienthistorical myopia. Compare these wordsof Lyndon Johnson in 1964:

“You do not take a person who hasbeen hobbled by chains and liberate him,bring him to the starting line of a raceand then say: ‘You are free to competewith all the others,’ ” with these ofRandall Robinson in 2000:

“No nation can enslave a group ofpeople for hundreds of years, set themfree—bedraggled and penniless—pitthem, without assistance, in a hostileenvironment against privileged victim-izers, and then reasonably expect the gapbetween the heirs of the two groups tonarrow.”

Verbosity aside, Mr. Robinson’smetaphor is the same. Affirmative ac-tion was to make blacks whole by re-storing the position they should have hadat life’s starting line—just what repara-tions are supposed to do now.

Because quotas became the order ofthe day, blacks have largely gotten what-ever compensation they might have beenowed. Peter Brimelow, writing in Forbeson Feb. 15, 1993, estimated that by theearly 1990s racial preferences cost $350billion a year, and they have no doubtbecome more expensive with furtherentrenchment. Some portion of this costis the sheer inefficiency of finding, train-ing and tolerating the errors of ineptblacks, but much income is transferred.For instance, there are more than onemillion blacks enrolled in Americancolleges, and to judge by data that haveemerged from reverse discriminationcases at the University of Texas, theUniversity of Michigan, and elsewhere,virtually all black students hold placesthat were denied to abler whites. In thisway, the life prospects of whites forcedto attend inferior institutions have beenexchanged for those of the blacks ad-

mitted ahead of them (although one mustadjust for the probable failure of blacksto exploit these opportunities as well asthe abler whites would have). Giving ablack a better job than any equally-quali-fied white could obtain has a similareffect. Reasonable assumptions aboutthe value of a college degree and therelative value of degrees from more andless prestigious institutions suggest thatquotas could be transferring as much as

billions of dollars annually. There havebeen quotas for more than thirty years,so if estimates of the cost of affirmativeaction are correct, it has already ac-counted for a good chunk of any repa-rations that might be owed.

Growing ruder still, one may alsosubtract from any debt the cost to whitesof black crime. Blacks commit abouttwo thirds of all robberies in the US—half of which, or about 300,000 at cur-rent rates—victimize whites (white-on-black crime is rare). These crimes giveblacks resources properly belonging towhites. Blacks commit felonies of allkinds at three to ten times the white rate,and even when their victims are notwhite, their crimes are a burden thatwould be considerably lighter in an all-white society.

Public relief or “welfare” can be seenin the same light. Blacks fall below thethreshold that triggers it three to fourtimes more often than whites. White tax-payers therefore give blacks tens of bil-lions of dollars every year; in my bookWhy Race Matters I note that blackslums receive a “Marshal Plan” aboutonce every three years, a rate that everyfew decades amounts to another trilliondollars. For reasons explained below,however, the case for counting this ex-penditure as paying off “debt” is morecomplex than I earlier thought.

First, though, we should deal with abad reason for arguing that welfare androbbery are not forms of redress, namely

Reparationists willpresent whites with a

stark choice: Agree thatblack poverty is caused

by white sin (and pay up),or find a better explana-tion. Biology is the betterexplanation that whites

must learn to deploy.


that they were never intended as such.This is true, but insofar as they shrinkthe gap between whatever blacks pre-sumably deserve and what they actuallyhave, they tend to balance the scales ofjustice. Suppose I smash your Mingvase. Soon after, but out of generosityrather than a desire to make you whole,I give you an equally valuable Ming vasefor your birthday. Surely you could notdemand another one, on the grounds thatI still hadn’t paid for the one I broke.This resolution of my debt may be emo-tionally unsatisfying, since the thoughtcounts in personal relations, and youwould like an admission of fault; none-theless, I owe you nothing more. Youare as you were at the outset, and I amrelieved of any debt.

There is a difficulty, however, in de-scribing welfare as compensation. Onemight argue, for example, that once so-ciety decides (perhaps unwisely) thateveryone deserves an education, andthereupon creates public schools, edu-cation ceases to be a gift to those whocould not otherwise afford it. Given aright to education, American blacks de-serve it independently of any debt or ofthe fact that they come from societiesunable to provide public education.

Likewise for welfare: By promising(perhaps unwisely) to help any citizenin danger of starving, our largely whitesociety obligates itself to help blacksdisproportionately if disproportionatelymore blacks need help. On the otherhand, white society is certainly notobliged to create a legal right to welfarefor anybody so the creation of universallegal welfare entitlements may still bethought of as indirect debt-cancelinggifts to blacks. And whatever the rightsof the case, reparationists should havethe decency to acknowledge the greatluck of American blacks to be livingamong inventive, productive whites. Atthe least, it is incumbent on repa-rationists to make the case that welfareisn’t a counterweight to slavery, and thisthey have never done.

Although rude, these reminders of theobscurity of who did what to whom, thedifference between good luck and com-pensatory liability, and the flow ofwealth from whites to blacks—even thefact that today’s blacks wouldn’t existbut for slavery, a fact somebody is sureto find “insensitive”—are likely to fallon deaf ears. Reparations, as noted,cover the same ground as quotas andracial preferences, and none of the ar-

guments so far raised, apt though theywere and remain, has had the appropri-ate impact. Why? Because they seemmere quibbles in the face of stark, over-whelming race difference in wealth.Blacks here and in Africa are so thor-oughly behind whites anywhere thatthere must be a reason, and what canthat reason be but white theft? So manypeople find this inference obvious—orsay they do—that the fact of white guiltusually goes without saying. And oncewhite guilt is assumed, the only openquestion is how whites should expungeit—via quotas, monetary payments orboth.

The Essential Question of IQ

The issue of black poverty must befaced squarely, for given whites’ strongsense of duty, no subtleties about faultor responsibility will save whites fromthemselves if they believe themselvesto be in the wrong. Hence the need toshock, by bringing up the race differ-ences that were likewise verboten in thequota debate. We must make it clear thatblacks are known to be on average lessintelligent than whites, and that this al-most certainly explains why they are onaverage poorer. As Richard Lynn hasrecently documented in IQ and TheWealth of Nations, national wealth tracksnational IQ just as individual wealthtracks individual IQ. There is no mys-tery here. Things people want some-times occur naturally, but most wealthis created by transforming nature. Theability to transform nature requires in-sight into how it works, and a higher IQaffords greater insight. That is whywhites’ higher IQs allow them to pro-duce a greater quantity and variety ofmore desirable things.

As all AR readers know, the evidenceis now overwhelming that racial IQ dif-ferences are primarily genetic in origin.Even people who don’t read AR havean uneasy sense of this. The key pointis to bring this fact to bear on the repa-rations debate. This is why DavidHorowitz’ celebrated anti-reparationsad, trenchant enough to rouse the lefton campuses everywhere, did not go farenough because it failed to mention bio-logical race differences. Reparationistswill continue to wave the bloody shirtof poverty, presenting whites with astark intellectual choice: Agree thatblack poverty is caused by white sin (andpay up), or find a better explanation.

Biology is the better explanation, andwhites must learn to deploy it withouthesitation.

That whites will do anything to denyhome truths about race is not news. ButI believe that a desire to avoid these

same truths about race difference alsoplays an important but ill-understoodrole in the minds of reparationists them-selves, who will be misunderstood ifglibly dismissed as mere “racial rack-eteers.”

I suspect reparationists and other ra-cial partisans invert the order of injuryand compensation so as to avoid accept-ing responsibility for their own failings.In the real world injury is the basis, thecause, of liability. B hurts A; as a con-sequence B owes A compensation. Nowimagine long-suffering Jones in an am-biguous situation. He is not doing well.He is not sure why, but he fears the causemay be an intrinsic defect. In this stateof mind he may try to shift the blame,and claim someone owes him repara-tions as evidence that he was harmed,and therefore not defective. He reasons:“I’m owed compensation, so someonemust have hurt me; my sorry state issomeone else’s fault, so I’m OK.” I sug-gest this may be the mechanism behindthe odd intensification of blacks de-mands in the face of constant white con-cessions. To avoid the unpleasant con-clusion that there is something wrongwith them, blacks keep convincingthemselves their failures are someoneelse’s fault; and to convince themselvestheir failures are someone else’s fault,they convince themselves that someoneowes them compensation for pastwrongs.

This is why concessions are neverenough. If every racial claim were metand every grievance were satisfied, what


excuse would black apologists have forthe fact that blacks still did not do aswas well as whites? Unpleasant conclu-sions about inferior abilities would beunavoidable. To allay this fearful possi-bility, racial apologists invent ever-newgrievances, ever-new unmet claims,whose existence proves that the plightof blacks is due to the wickedness ofothers and cannot be due to internal de-fects.

This is why the facts about race andIQ must be part of the reparations de-bate. Until whites are prepared to maketough arguments about IQ, they will notfully convince either themselves or thereparationists that blacks have no claimon them. Ironically, an open airing ofthe IQ question would be an essentialpart of any decision to pay reparations,

because no level of payments will elimi-nate black/white differences in out-

comes. Even if whites handed over tril-lions of dollars in the name of compen-sation, the mechanism I have de-scribed—the need to blame whites forblack failure—would bring blacks backto the table with yet more unmet griev-ances and unpaid debts. This processwill not end until enough people of bothraces recognize the biological basis forracial differences in achievement.

The demand for reparations is onlythe latest hedge. Opposition to it will beineffective unless it takes into accountthe powerful symbolic and rationalizingpurpose of all black demands on whitesociety.

Prof. Levin teaches philosophy at theCity University of New York. This ar-ticle is adapted from his speech at the2002 AR conference.

Reparations and the LawIt will not be easy to win incourt.

by Stephen Kershnar

Claims for reparations raise sev-eral legal issues. Given that sla-very ended in 1865, there is

some question as to whether such claimsare allowed by the statute of limitations,which limits the period during which asuit may be brought. In New York,where activists recently filed a class-action suit against companies that alleg-edly profited from slavery, the statuteof limitations depends on the type ofsuit. In this case, the plaintiffs allege thatthe defendants’ predecessor companiesmisappropriated the value of slave la-bor and the profits that resulted from it.Any reparations suit is also likely toclaim that forced labor, torture, rape,starvation, etc. were part of a systemfrom which whites knowingly benefited.

If a suit is for replevin (the return ofpersonal property wrongfully taken)then New York has a three-year statuteof limitations that begins when theowner demands that the property be re-turned. If a suit is for wrongful deaththe statute of limitations is generally twoyears from the date of death. If the suitis brought for an intentional tort, suchas assault, battery, or false imprison-ment, the statute of limitations is oneyear. The statute of limitations would

appear to have expired on reparationsclaims of this kind, though a plaintiffmay appeal for suspension of the stat-ute, claiming that time was needed toresearch family or corporate records.

As Prof. Levin has pointed out in themain article, today’s blacks do not havestanding to sue for compensation be-cause they were not, themselves, harmedby slavery. A person has a compensa-tory-justice claim only if he has beenunjustly harmed. The notion of harminvolves a comparison of the claimant’scondition in the actual world in whichthe injustice occurred, with what hiscondition would have been had the in-justice not occurred. No such compari-son can be made in the case of the de-scendants of slaves, because if there hadnever been slavery, the reproductionpattern among blacks would have beenfar different, and today’s descendantswould not exist. They can hardly claimto be harmed by slavery, since it causedthem to exist.

There is another obstacle to repara-tions suits, in that redress is sought notfor slaves themselves but for descen-dants many generations removed. Thedescendants might claim to have inher-ited slaves’ claims to compensation, butclaims do not automatically pass fromone generation to another. They have tobe recognized to exist, and must be for-mally passed on just like an uncollecteddebt. If slaves or their children thoughtthey had a valid claim for compensa-

tion they could have sold it at a discountlike a bond in default, donated it to theBaptist Church, or used it to pay rent.The current descendants have no sub-stantiated claims in a legal sense, so in-heritance is a weak basis on which toask for compensation years later. In anycase, while these inherited claims couldconceivably give rise to a moral obliga-tion to pay damages, it is doubtful theycould be a legal obligation. This is whyclaims of this kind should be thrown outof court and handled—if at all—in thepolitical arena.

These legal claims are likely to fail.They probably run afoul of statute-of-limitations requirements. More impor-tant, the descendents lack standing bywhich to bring suit since they were notharmed by slavery, and were probablynot denied their inheritance. Their caseought to fare no better in the politicalarena, but given the widespread blacksupport for reparations (55 percent sup-port it according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll taken in February) and theimportance of blacks to the DemocraticParty, reparations proposals are likelyto reappear in Congress and state legis-latures.

Stephen Kershnar is a philosophyprofessor at SUNY-Fredonia and an at-torney.

Michael Levin.

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A combat report from thefront line.

by James Lubinskas

David Horowitz, the former-Marxist-turned-neoconser-vative, has emerged as one of

the leading critics of political correct-ness and left-wing dominance in aca-demia. He is probably best known fortaking unfashionable positions on race.Books like The Race Card and HatingWhitey focused on racial double stan-dards and persistent black hatred ofwhites. In Uncivil Wars, Mr. Horowitzdescribes what happened when he triedto place an advertisement in collegenewspapers listing ten reasons whyblacks do not deserve reparations forslavery. This book actually deals withtwo subjects—the reparations issue it-self and left-wing censorship of racialdissent on campus.

Mr. Horowitz decided to buy the adsin response to the growing momentumof the movement to have the US gov-ernment pay damages to the descendentsof black slaves—137 years after aboli-tion. While many whites dismiss thedemand for reparations as a fringemovement, Mr. Horowitz points to signsof growing support. In 2000, the Chi-cago City Council voted 46-1 in favorof a resolution calling for reparations,and after the vote Chicago Mayor Rich-ard Daley publicly apologized for sla-very. In 2001, the University of Chicagohosted a pro-reparations conference.Also in 2001 the University of Califor-nia, Northridge, and other campusesheld reparations rallies. The Congres-sional Black Caucus supports repara-tions and (though Mr. Horowitz does notmention it) before the September 11 at-tacks, Jesse Jackson planned to makereparations the number-one issue forblack activists. By June, 2001, RandallRobinson, the guru of the reparationsmovement, could plausibly claim, “thereis no major black organization that doesnot support reparations.”

Mr. Horowitz’s ad was officiallytitled “Ten Reasons Why Reparations

for Slavery is a Bad Idea—and RacistToo.” Most of the reasons are simplestatements of fact. Slavery was a uni-

versal institution ended by whites.Blacks who came to America were al-ready slaves of Arabs or other blacks,and most Americans have no connec-tion to slavery. He also pointed out thatblacks today have benefited from sla-very, to the extent that they live betterin the United States than anywhere inAfrica, and that reparations have alreadybeen paid in the form of transfers fromwhites to blacks through welfare, spe-cial programs, and affirmative actionpreferences.

In February and March of 2001, Mr.Horowitz sent the ad to 71 college pa-pers of which 43 rejected it outright.Those that did print it often came underintense pressure from blacks and left-wingers. Uncivil Wars focuses on threeschools—the University of California atBerkeley, the University of Wisconsin,and Brown—to illustrate the contro-versy.

Reaction on Campus

Berkeley is the author’s alma materand the home of the so-called “FreeSpeech” movement of the 1960s. Inchoosing what is perhaps the most lib-eral campus in America, Mr. Horowitztried to highlight leftist intolerance ofdissenting views. The students swal-lowed the bait. The day the ad appearedin The Daily Californian, a mob of overforty black students led by a professorof African-American studies stormedthe office of student editor DanielHernandez. They bullied Mr. Hernan-dez, tore up copies of the newspaper, anddemanded a printed apology in the nextissue. A terrified Mr. Hernandez did ashe was told, and even wrote he was sorryhis paper had become “an inadvertentvehicle for bigotry.”

The University of Wisconsin’s news-paper, The Badger Herald also ran thead and faced similar harassment. TshakaBarrows, son of the university’s vicechancellor for student affairs and leaderof the Multicultural Student Coalition,led over 100 screaming protesters in arally outside the paper’s offices. Theydemanded that the chancellor’s officebar the paper from campus newsstandsand that it publish a statement by theMulticultural Student Coalition, de-nouncing the paper as a “perpetrator ofracist propaganda.” When asked if hisposition wasn’t against the principles offree speech Mr. Barrows explained:“Free speech has been used against Af-rican-Americans for a long time. Freespeech has meant freedom for whitefolks to say pretty much whatever theywant about African Americans . . . . Freespeech does not exist for everybody.”Another protester, junior Becky Wasser-man, agreed: “Freedom of speech doesnot mean you can infringe on otherpeople’s freedom, right? We’re dealingwith hate speech, and that doesn’t fallunder freedom.”

Unlike her counterpart at Berkeley,Badger Herald editor Julie Bosman re-fused to grovel. The editors even wrotea stiff response to the protesters saying:“…we only regret that the editors of theDaily Californian allowed themselves

The Reparations BattleDavid Horowitz, Uncivil Wars: The Controversy Over Reparations for Slavery

Encounter Books, 2002, $21.95, 147 pp.

The Berkeley campusnewspaper apologized

for becoming“an inadvertent vehicle

for bigotry.”


to give in to pressure in a manner thatunfortunately violated their professionalintegrity and journalistic duty to protectspeech with which they disagree.”

The Brown campus newspaper, theBrown Daily Herald, also ran the ad, andits editors came under heavy fire. Theleaders of the Brown mob were a Nige-rian immigrant named Asmara Ghebre-michael, and a black professor namedLewis Gordon, head of Brown’s Afro-American studies department. MissGhebremichael promptly organized a“Coalition of Concerned Brown Stu-dents,” which included the Black Stu-dent Union, Third World Action, theYoung Communist League, and the In-ternational Socialist Organization. Thecoalition demanded that the Daily Her-ald give the money from the ad to theschool’s Third World Center, and thatthe paper give the coalition a free page“for the purpose of educating the greaterBrown community on related issues andother issues important in the minoritycommunity in order to protect ourselves

in the future from irrational publicationslike this one authored by David Horo-witz.”

The editors refused Miss Ghebre-michael’s demands but did print an op-ed piece by her called “Free Speech IsOnly for Those Who Can Afford toPay.” Despite the fact that Brown is con-sidered to be a selective university, thearticle contained sentences like this:“Dare us to even ask ourselves to dis-tinguish between right and wrong. Naw,you all like to hide behind the codewords like ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’and the most nefarious of all, ‘paid ad-vertisement.’ ” She concluded by de-manding, “we want one free page ofadvertisement space to print whateverthe hell we want to print.”

The Daily Herald refused this de-mand, so students stole the entire run—4,000 copies—of the next issue. Coali-tion members admitted to the theft butBrown administrators did nothing topunish them. Prof. Gordon defended thethieves saying, “If something is free, youcan take as many copies as you like. Thisis not a free speech issue. It is a hate

speech issue.” It was apparently also amedical concern. Another member ofthe Afro-American studies departmentdeclared, “I have talked to students whotold me that they can’t perform basicfunctions like walking or sleeping be-cause of this ad.” Because of threats ofviolence, the Brown College Republi-cans were forced to cancel a speech byMr. Horowitz. The university did, how-ever, sponsor an anti-reparations rallythat featured members of the Nation ofIslam, former Black Panthers, and mem-bers of the Afro-American studies de-partment.

Lost in all the commotion over theads was the fact that almost none of theprotesters attempted to refute their ar-guments. The radicals did nothing butaccuse Mr. Horowitz—and anyone whodefended his right to express hisviews—of “racism.” A few older blacksdid write confused replies. One was JohnHope Franklin, a Duke professor whomformer President Clinton chose to leadhis “Dialogue on Race” in 1997. Prof.Franklin started by proclaiming, “allwhites and no slaves benefited fromAmerican slavery,” and went on to ac-cuse Mr. Horowitz of being “pro-sla-very.” Another response, by the editorof The Black Scholar, argued that lead-ers of slave rebellions such as DenmarkVesey and Nat Turner were the real forcebehind the abolition movement.

All the major media picked up thestory about the reparations ad, and theirslant was generally favorable to Mr.Horowitz—on the free speech issue. Atthe same time, most reporters scornedhis arguments against reparations.Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter, forexample, wrote, “. . . the ad reminds meof one of those tiresome rants support-ing a NAAWP (National Association forthe Advancement of White People).”

The Reparations Claim

The last part of the book contains adetailed look at reparations claims andthe men who peddle them. Chief amongthem is black activist Randall Robinson,whose 2000 book, The Debt, (see ARMay, 2000) galvanized the pro-repara-tions crowd. His point of view is clearlyexplained in his 1998 autobiography,Defending the Spirit, in which he writes,“I am obsessively black . . . race is anoverarching aspect of my identity.” Healso wrote: “In the autumn of my life, Iam left regarding white people, before

knowing them individually, with irre-ducible mistrust and dull dislike.” Hesays his dying father slapped a whitenurse, telling her not “to put her whitehands on him.” “His illness had affordedhim a final brief honesty,” writes Mr.Robinson. “I was perversely pleasedwhen told the story.” Not surprisingly,Mr. Robinson’s work was praised byreviewers as “gasp-out-loud frank,”“brutally frank,” and—by the Washing-ton Post—as “an unfiltered, uncensored,smart black voice in your ear.”

Mr. Robinson and the reparationistsclaim African slavery was benign com-pared to American slavery, which wasthe “greatest crime against humanity inthe last 500 years.” Mr. Horowitz re-plies:

“In fact Africa’s internal slave trade,which did not involve the United States

or any European power, not only ex-tended over the entire 500 years men-tioned by Robinson, but also precededit by nearly 1,000 years. In the periodbetween 650 and 1600, before any West-ern involvement, somewhere between 3million and 10 million Africans werebought by Muslim slavers for use inSaharan societies and in the trade in theIndian Ocean and Red Sea. By contrast,the enslavement of blacks in the UnitedStates lasted 89 years, from 1776 until1865. The combined slave trade to theBritish colonies in North America andlater to the United States accounted forless than 3 percent of the global trade inAfrican slaves. The total number ofslaves imported to North America was800,000, less than the slave trade to theisland of Cuba alone. If the internal Af-rican slave trade—which began in the

“Students . . . can’t per-form basic functions likewalking or sleeping be-

cause of this ad.”

Randall Robinson: dislikes you andwants your money.


seventh century and persists to this dayin the Sudan, Mauritania and other sub-Saharan states—is taken into account,the responsibility of American tradersshrinks to a fraction of 1 percent of theslavery problem.”

Another central reparationist tenet isthat all whites benefited from unpaidblack labor and thus accumulated thematerial advantages they now enjoyover blacks. Mr. Horowitz notes thatmost whites who owned slaves lost ev-erything in the Civil War, and adds thatblack labor was hardly free:

“During the nineteenth century, mostwork—even of the labor force that wasfree—was subsistence labor. Almost theentire income of a nineteenth centuryworker was spent on keeping himselfand his family sheltered and alive.Slaves were housed, clothed and fed bytheir owners. Since owners viewed theirslaves as capital, they had a vested in-terest in their health and well-being, andnot in keeping them in the concentra-tion camps fantasized by reparationsadvocates.”

Ultimately, Mr. Horowitz recognizesthe claim for reparations as the racialshakedown that it is:

“The racial perspective of the repa-rations movement can be seen evenmore clearly in the claims advanced byAfrican nations themselves. Theseclaims are supported by the reparationsmovement in the United States. WhileAfrican nations clamor for reparationsfrom the western nations, which abol-ished slavery more than a century ago,there are still tens and perhaps hundredsof thousands of slaves in African na-

tions—the Sudan, Ghana, Mauritania,Benin, Gabon, Mali and the Ivory Coast.By making no claims against Africangovernments that participated in theslave trade (and still do) reparations pro-ponents make clear that their grievanceis not against an institution—slavery—and those that benefited from it; but thatslavery is a means for them to formu-late an indictment against Europeansand their descendents—in a word,against whites.”

Solutions

Mr. Horowitz deserves credit for al-most single-handedly trying to nip thereparations movement in the bud. Giventhe leftist domination of our educationalinstitutions, there is no telling how manypeople do not know that slavery was auniversal institution stopped by whitesand still practiced by Africans. Fewprobably think of welfare and affirma-tive action as de facto reparations.

The historical facts about slaveryneed to be spread to as wide an audi-ence as possible. Still, Mr. Horowitz isshort on solutions. He closes the bookby endorsing the “American ideal” ofcolorblind justice and equal opportunity.He cites black conservatives such asThomas Sowell, Ward Connerly andShelby Steele as proof that this ideal canappeal to American blacks. Still, thereare far more Randall Robinsons thanThomas Sowells, and they are unlikelyto stop blaming whites for their prob-lems—especially if they are rewardedand praised for this by a weak and pa-thetic white establishment.

Indeed, the whole question of repa-rations has revolved around the allegedsufferings of American blacks. Blackstake it for granted that whites have ben-efited tremendously from their presence.In fact, many of America’s foundersthought blacks were a tremendous bur-den, and worried about placing this bur-den on their posterity. It was none otherthan Abraham Lincoln who referred toblacks as “a troublesome presence.” TheAmerican Colonization Society, whichsought to persuade free blacks to go backto Africa claimed some of America’sleading minds as members: James Madi-son, Andrew Jackson, Daniel Webster,James Monroe, Stephen Douglas, JohnRandolph, William Seward, FrancisScott Key, Winfield Scott, John Mar-shall and Roger Taney. It is significantthat even during the slavery era very fewfree blacks wanted to leave the UnitedStates.

The founders’ foreboding about thepresence of blacks was fully justified.Today, whites are burdened by affirma-tive action, income redistributionthrough welfare and other programs forblacks, black crime, pervasive black-on-white violence, the destruction of ourinner cities, and the distortion of history.Blacks should be deeply grateful for thehistorical circumstances that permitthem to live in America rather than Af-rica. To ask whites to pay reparations toblacks is insulting. Indeed, as Prof.Michael Levin has written, “a properbalancing of the books would haveblacks owing whites.”

James Lubinskas is a former assis-tant editor of American Renaissance.

O Tempora, O Mores!Slaves in America

In January, we reported that a couplefrom the Cameroon living in suburbanDetroit were sentenced for keeping ateenage girl, also from the Cameroon,as a slave in their house for three years.Evelyn and Joseph Djoumessi broughtPridine Fru over from Africa when shewas 14, and Mr. Djoumessi liked to rapeher when she wasn’t doing forced laboraround the house.

It appears that slavery of this kind isfairly common in the United States, andit almost always involves enslavementof foreigners by foreigners. A case al-

most identical to that of the Djoumessishas come to light in Silver Spring, Mary-land. In March, a federal judge sen-tenced Louisa Satia, 36, and KevinNanji, 41, to nine years in prison forholding a Cameroonian teenager, now19, for three years as a slave. The girlworked ’round the clock, cooking andcleaning and looking after the couple’sthree children. Mrs. Satia beat the girlregularly and sometimes sprayed clean-ing liquid in her eyes. Her name was notreleased because Mr. Nanji also liked torape his slave. The girl confessed shehad entered the United States illegallyon a false passport, and testified she and

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her family thought she would get anAmerican education in return for house-work. In addition to prison time, USDistrict Judge Alexander Williams, Jr.ordered the couple to pay the girl$105,306, which would work out toabout $12.00 per hour for the time sheis estimated to have worked.

Neither adult took the stand at thetrial, but they got several people to tes-tify the girl was treated like a familymember rather than a slave. Judge Wil-liams dismissed this as put-up perjury,and increased their sentences accord-ingly. He also found the woman guiltyof passport and marriage fraud, notingthat she had arranged fake marriages forCameroonian women with Americanmen. The girl is now in foster care andhas applied for legal residency.

When police arrested Mrs. Satia andher husband in December, they alsopicked up Mrs. Satia’s sister Vivian andher husband, Etiondem Achamorfaw, ofGermantown, Maryland. This couplehad also brought a teenager fromCameroon and forced her to work with-out pay. They pleaded guilty to harbor-ing an illegal alien and were ordered topay $150,000 in restitution. [Phuong Ly,Pair Convicted of Enslaving House-keeper, Washington Post, Dec. 21, 2001,p. B1. Ruben Castaneda, Couple Sen-tenced For Enslaving Illegal Immigrant,Washington Post, March 27, 2002.]

As it happens, just two years earlier,the same federal court sentenced a Bra-zilian man living in Gaithersburg, Mary-land, for keeping an illiterate Brazilianwoman captive in his house for nearly20 years. Rene Bonetti and his wifebrought Hilda Dos Santos to Americain 1979 on a domestic-worker visa andsince the INS pays hardly any attentionto visa overstays, no one came lookingfor her. The Bonettis took her passport,and kept her in a windowless basementroom. They would not let her use theshower, and made her carry water to thebasement where she washed in a tin tub.They beat her frequently and would notgive her medical treatment. Neighborsfinally took her to the hospital when shedeveloped a cantaloupe-sized tumor inher stomach.

Mrs. Bonetti fled to Brazil, where sheremains on the loose, but Mr. Bonettiwas sentenced to 6½ years in prison andordered to pay Miss Dos Santos$210,000. An appeals court upheld Mr.Bonetti’s sentence early this year.[Candia Dames, Court Orders Back Pay

for Domestic Kept in ‘Slavery-Like’Conditions by Couple, Capital NewsService, Jan. 11, 2002.]

This sort of thing is so common thatin 1998 the US Attorney General estab-lished something called the Traffickingin Persons and Worker Exploitation TaskForce, which has no fewer than 15 re-gional task forces. The task force has atoll-free number (888) 428-7581 thatoffers translation service in just aboutevery language. The Justice Departmenthas designed a poster to promote thenumber, though there are not likely tobe many posted in places domesticslaves can see them. In 2000, Congresspassed new laws to make it easier toenforce laws prohibiting involuntaryservitude and peonage, and establishedthe principle of restitution to victims.The guilty can be forced to forfeit as-sets to pay judgments.

It is impossible to know how manycases of domestic slavery go unreported,but during the 1990s, the INS issuedmore than 30,000 special visas to letforeign embassy staff and officials atinternational organizations bring live-indomestic workers to the United States.They are supposed to follow Americanemployment laws but it is an open se-cret that many do not. An unknownnumber of foreigners are smuggled inillegally for domestic work and prosti-tution. [Stephanie Armour, Going Back-wards, USA Today, Nov. 20, 2001.]

Looking for Mr. RightWinnfred Wright is a 45-year-old

California black man who came up withan unusual way to make a living: He per-

suaded white women that the only waythey could work off the “bad karma” ofbeing white was to support him and have

sex with him. He has been doing thissuccessfully since the mid-1980s, andis not content to sponge off white

women one at a time. One of his earlysuccesses, 44-year-old Carol Bremner,recruited new additions to the harem byhanging around San Francisco streetcorners, inviting women to be photo-graphed for an imaginary feminist mu-ral. Once she got them home, a combi-nation of drugs and Mr. Wright’s charmappears to have done the trick—some-times. One failed recruit told police shesmoked a cigarette that made her passout. When she woke up, she was sur-rounded by women, who told her shewas Eve and Mr. Wright was Adam. Sheran away when he tried to have sex withher.

Mr. Wright had children with hisharem, and this brought him to the at-tention of the police. In 1992 the groupwas living in San Francisco. A three-month-old daughter named ‘She’ died,and Mr. Wright kept her in a swinginghammock for three days to let her spiritdepart in peace. Young She was even-tually determined to have died of natu-ral causes, but her mother, who clearedout shortly afterward, reported Mr.Wright had five women living with himat the time. She said he preached a weird,Rastafarian religion that included prepa-rations for the end of the world: Mr.Wright would send the women into thestreets of San Francisco for target prac-tice with water pistols so they would beready for “the fall of Babylon.”

Mr. Wright later moved his womento San Rafael in Marin County, and livedin a quiet neighborhood of $600,000houses. Mr. Wright continued to helpwhite women with their bad karma un-til last year, when his unusual child-rear-ing practices attracted attention. At that

Winnfred Wright.

Carol Bremner.


time, the harem was down to four, butthere were 13 children. Nineteen-month-old Ndigo Wright was on a diet of teaand food supplements, and not doingwell. One evening he had trouble breath-ing, so his parents put him in front ofthe television to stimulate his brain. Thisappears not to have worked, so they tookNdigo to the hospital where he promptlydied of malnutrition.

When police called at San Rafael,they discovered that the children werehome schooled, and rarely left the house.They had to live by a Book of Rules thatrequired they be more or less starved,and included such punishments as cer-emonial whippings, force-feeding of hotpeppers, and taping their mouths shut.One girl was tied to a playpen everynight for two weeks because she stolefood. The other 12 children, ages eightmonths to 16 years, were all in variousstages of malnutrition, and some were“obviously deformed.”

Surprisingly, Mr. Wright’s womenwere not all losers or obviously de-ranged. His faithful Carol Bremner, hadbeen an anti-apartheid activist, whomher friends used to call “Saint Carol.”His latest acquisition, 20-year-old KaliPolk-Matthews, organized food andclothing drives for battered women. Oneof the women was the granddaughter ofthe founder of the Xerox company. Ex-cept for the 20-year-old, who is out onbail, they are now all in jail on chargesof second-degree murder and involun-tary manslaughter. [John Johnson, Trag-edy Leaves Troubling Questions, LATimes, March 17, 2002.]

Too Dangerous for GringosSpeedy Gonzales is a cartoon-char-

acter mouse who was a Warner Broth-ers favorite for nearly 50 years. He worea sombrero, spoke in a heavy Mexicanaccent, and outwitted foes like Sylvester,“the Greengo Pussygato.” He sometimesgot help from his friends: his lazy cousinSlowpoke Rodriguez and a band ofdrunken Mexican mice. Speedy washighly acclaimed in his day. The 1955animated short “Speedy Gonzales” wonan Academy Award, and two otherSpeedy cartoons, “Tabasco Road” and“The Pied Piper of Guadalupe,” werenominated for Oscars in 1957 and 1961.

However, in 1999, when the CartoonNetwork became the sole broadcaster ofold Warner Brothers material the Speedycharacter disappeared. “It hasn’t been on

the air for years because of its ethnicstereotypes,” explains network spokes-man Laurie Goldberg. Speedy hasjoined the “Censored 11,” which are oldWarner Brothers shorts that depictblacks as fat-lipped boobs or savage

cannibals. Despite a campaign from die-hard cartoon fans—many of them His-panic—Speedy is not likely to reappear,at least not in the United States. Ironi-cally, Miss Goldberg concedes that themouse is “hugely popular” on The Car-toon Network Latin America, whoseviewers are presumably superior toAmericans and immune to stereotypes.[Michael Y. Park, Speedy GonzalesCaged by Cartoon Network, AP, March28, 2002.]

Zim Over the EdgeThe March elections in Zimbabwe

produced their inevitable result, andRobert Mugabe has been sworn in foranother six-year term as president of hisbattered country. His governing ZANU-PF party called the elections “a triumphover imperialist forces led by Britain.”

Africans rushed to congratulate Mr.Mugabe. South African Deputy Presi-dent Jacob Zuma, for example, flew toHarare to embrace Mr. Mugabe, andpronounce the election free and fair. Itwas, after all, unobjectionable by Afri-can standards, and current office-hold-ers on the continent would not care tohave to hold real elections of their own.White countries unanimously de-nounced the ballot for the fraud that itwas. After a rancorous debate that splitstarkly on racial lines, the Common-wealth suspended Zimbabwe from someof its activities. Switzerland and Japanannounced they would review their aid

programs, Denmark closed its embassy,and Switzerland imposed travel restric-tions on Zimbabwean government offi-cials.

Until 1979, when whites ran the placeand it was called Rhodesia, the countryexported food. Now, even the authori-ties admit half a million people needfood aid, and relief organizations warnthat the real number is many timeshigher. Despite bluster in Europe and theUnited States about possible economicsanctions, there will soon be free foodto distribute, which will give Mr.Mugabe and his pals another opportu-nity for profiteering.

Shortly after the election, Mr. Muga-be issued a new decree to prevent for-eign newspapers from stationing corre-spondents in the country, and to requiregovernment accreditation for localnewsmen. Police even locked up a 57-year-old woman, Peta Thornycroft, whois a correspondent for the British DailyTelegraph, but released her after a fewdays.

The dispossession of whites contin-ues. In the immediate aftermath of theelection, blacks rampaged through adozen commercial farms, smashing andlooting. They also killed their tenthwhite farmer. On March 18, Terry Fordfound his homestead surrounded by hos-tiles, and telephoned police for helpwhich, of course, never came. He triedto drive through a fence to get away, butcould not break through. Blacks draggedhim from his vehicle, tied him to a tree,and beat him mercilessly. When they gottired of that they shot him in the head.

The unpunished expulsion and mur-der of whites is, of course, the real storyin Zimbabwe, even if Europeans andAmericans are either too stupid to no-tice or too afriad to say so. Africans un-derstand exactly what is happening. Asa Namibian is reported to have said ofthe election: “This is a great victoryagainst the white colonialists. Soon wewill cleanse Namibia and then SouthAfrica of all Europeans and whites.”[Nicholas Kotch, Commonwealth BlastsMugabe but Africans Back Him, Reu-ters, March 14, 2002. Cris Chinaka andEmelia Sithole, West Piles Pressure onAfrica over Mugabe, Reuters, March 15,2002. Emilia Sithole, White FarmerKilled as Leaders, Mugabe Start Talks,Reuters, March 18, 2002. AnthonyLoBaido, Zimbabwe Falls Further IntoAnarchy, WorldNetDaily.com, March30, 2002.]


Lovers’ QuarrelConnie Leung, the daughter of Chi-

nese immigrants, was 17 when shestarted an affair with Eric Louissaint, a20-year-old black with neither home norjob. When Miss Leung’s parents ob-jected to the romance, the loversstrangled them. Mr. Louissaint alonewent to jail for the crime, but about ayear later, as part of a plea bargain toavoid a life sentence, he told prosecu-tors Miss Leung was in on the killingstoo. He will serve at least 30 years injail, and she has yet to decide whetherto cop a plea or face trial. [LauraItaliano, Lover: Teen & I Killed HerFolks, New York Post, March 19, 2002.]

Maintaining TraditionWhites who work at “traditionally

black” universities say they face dis-crimination. No one systematicallytracks the problem, but discriminationsuits appear to be on the rise.

Consider Delaware State University,which was established in 1891 as StateCollege for Colored Students. In the pastyear, it has settled two discriminationsuits for undisclosed sums, brought bywomen who said they were mistreatedbecause they are white. Kathleen Carter,a white who chaired the education de-partment, says blacks told her she wasusurping their right to govern them-selves, and that whites in the departmentwere trying to make blacks look bad.She says one colleague called her a“white bitch.”

Another woman, Jane Buck, whoused to teach psychology at the school,has described the tremendous pressureshe was under to hire blacks. A searchcommittee once got 100 applications fora position but did not fill it because noneof the candidates was black. When thesearch was reopened, the lone black ap-plicant got the job.

At Livingstone College in Salisbury,NC, one of three white plaintiffs in acase that should go to trial this fall says,“It’s the white professors who can’t gettenure for hook or crook, but the blackprofessors get hired as full professorswith tenure.” Bob Russ adds thatLivingstone has set out systematicallyto remove whites from positions of re-sponsibility. He says an internal reviewcarried out in the early 1990s urged thecollege to hire more blacks and replaceseveral white department heads. Nota-

tions in the margins said “bring in blackPh.D chair,” “hire black chemist” and“build up science and math (black).”These notations were reportedly made

by Barbara Brown, a black woman whowas vice president for academic affairsat the time and is now at “historicallyblack” Albany State University in Geor-gia. During the 1980s and 1990s, whitessued Albany State more than 20 timesfor discrimination.

Some whites have fared well fromadversity. In 1998, a federal juryawarded $2.2 million to two tenuredwhites who were forced out of CheyneyUniversity in Pennsylvania for oppos-ing appointments for blacks theythought were unqualified. Others havefared worse. In 1997, blacks attacked thewhite dean of Albany State’s businessschool and sent him to the hospital forcomplaining on television about racialdiscrimination. [White Professors SayBlack Universities Discriminate in Ad-vancement, Fox News, March 22, 2002.]

No one should be surprised by this.When US Supreme Court Justice Will-iam Douglas once asked black justiceThurgood Marshall how he could defendracial preferences for blacks, Marshallreplied, “You guys have been practic-ing discrimination for years. Now it isour turn.”

Stop ‘Stop the Violence’The Port Arthur, Texas, school dis-

trict has celebrated something calledPeace Week ever since 1996, when ateacher had to break up a fight in a park-ing lot. Peace Week is supposed to teachstudents how to work out disagreements,but it doesn’t always have the desiredeffect. Part of this year’s program was aplay called “Stop the Violence,” put onby students of Thomas Jefferson HighSchool, that was performed before anaudience of 500 schoolmates. The playincluded a reenactment of the Colum-bine High School shooting in Colorado,and at that point students began to getexcited. One young man punched an-

other, and then a series of fights brokeout, which resulted in no arrests, but hadto be broken up by police. The schooldistrict has cancelled plans to stage“Stop the Violence” at other schools inthe area. [Diana Reinhart, ViolenceStops PA ‘Stop the Violence’ Program,Beaumont (Texas) Enterprise, March 7,2002.]

Camp of the SaintsItaly is going through one of its peri-

odic crises over immigration. In March,a decrepit ship carrying 928 Iraqi Kurdsstaggered into Italian waters and wasmet by the Italian navy. As is now thecustom, when the Italians approachedto turn the ship away, adults threatenedto throw children overboard. The navylet the ship dock in Sicily, where it dis-gorged the largest number of illegals toarrive in Italy in five years. They weretransferred to a refugee camp on themainland, where they are expected toapply for political asylum.

Government reactions were mixed.Interior Minister Claudio Scajola askedfor the emergency release of funds formore shelters for illegals, saying moreships were likely to follow. He says ten-sions in the Middle East mean “morepeople will decide to set off in search ofa better life” and “Italy is the naturalentry point for the West.” The Italianpresident Carlo Ciampi agreed, saying“the human spirit should prevail” inwelcoming immigrants.

Umberto Bossi, the head of theNorthern League, retorted that Mr.Ciami’s words “continue to give mes-sages that we are accepting the problemwhen what’s needed is stopping it.”Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi alsounderstands: “In no time we’ll be thrownout of our own country by masses of im-migrants,” he said. “It will be a dramaticsituation, with a pressure that will leadto war and September 11-type situationswith the re-emergence of terrorism. Italycan’t accept entire masses of immi-grants, thousands at a time. It is not in aposition to receive them.”

He urged the Italian parliament topass new legislation that would jailillegals without giving them a chanceto apply for asylum. [Sheila Pierce, ItalyAdmits Shipload of Iraqi Kurds, Wash-ington Post, March 20, 2002, p. A20.Immigrants Threaten to ‘OutnumberItalians,’ Daily Telegraph (London),March 28, 2002.]

Stung by hornets.


Too Sensible to LastLike all schools, T.R. Smedberg

Middle School in Sacramento, Califor-nia, must deal with the persistent prob-lem of Asians and whites doing betterthan blacks and Hispanics. The princi-pal, Philip Moore, has decided the bestway to encourage parents to help theirchildren is to meet with them in raciallysegregated groups. This way, parentscan be comfortable with each other, anddiscuss common ways to improve per-formance.

Mary Perry of EdSource, a nonprofitgroup that studies education issues inCalifornia, explains it is not uncommonfor schools to invite parents of low-achieving minority students to school totalk about school work, and it is helpfulto segregate them. “Sometimes it’s moredifficult to have a productive discussionwhen people’s perspectives are so farapart,” she explains. Mr. Moore says hetalked with parents of various races be-fore deciding on the segregated sessions,and decided they would be best. He sayshe will not shirk from talking about ra-cial differences in grades, test scores,and expulsion rates. “They need to knowthe information and what the data lookslike,” he says, and explains sessions willbe more productive if they are segre-gated. [Sandy Louey, Test Forums Di-vided by Ethnicity, Bee (Sacramento),April 2, 2002.]

What Do You Expect?Students at largely-black Southside

High School in Selma, Alabama, mustpass an examination in order to gradu-ate, but about half fail. The black prin-cipal, James Parker, explains why thishappens: “I think there are two majorproblems. The first is basically that stu-dents forget what they have learned theprevious semester when they take theexam.” He says the other problem is thatstudents take each course for only onesemester, and that may not be enoughtime to absorb the material. [SajitAbraham, Parker, May Optimistic Se-niors Will Pass Exam, Times Herald(Selma), March 10, 2002, p. 8A.]

Brits Go BarmyBritish police will henceforth have to

give written explanations to every sus-pect they they stop and search. HomeSecretary David Blunkett explained that

the new rules were proposed in the“McPherson Report” on institutionalracism among the police [see “Whitesas Kulaks,” AR, Jan. 2002], and willhelp counter accusations that officerstarget non-whites unfairly. There willalso be “community panels” that willmonitor police actions and make sureall races are treated fairly. [British Po-lice to Explain Searches, AP, March 12,2002.]

Deep VoodooWe reproduce the following item,

verbatim and in toto, from the March26, 2002, Santa Barbara News-Press:

MIAMI—Workers at Mount Sinai-St. Francis Nursing and RehabilitationCenter asked that a union vote be thrownout Monday, saying a series of voodoosigns may have spooked the facility’slarge Haitian-American workforce intovoting to organize. Workers testifiedthey saw lines of pennies, half-emptywater cups and a union supporter twist-ing black beads in her hands before theFeb. 28 vote.

“If there was a group of people afraidof voodoo, your mind could be swayed,”dietary aide Barbra White Bynum testi-fied during the National Labor RelationsBoard hearing. [Voodoo Blamed in Voteto Unionize, News-Press (Santa Bar-bara, Calif.), March 26, 2002.]

The Cruelest CutA recent survey found widespread

domestic violence against women inUganda. In mid-March, the country’svice president Specioza Kazibwe endedher 23-year marriage because her hus-band continued to beat her even aftershe took office. He says he beat her onlytwice. The vice president’s husbandshould consider himself lucky. OnMarch 20, Ugandan police arrested 30-year-old Annet Minduru, charging herwith causing grievous bodily harm to herhusband after he slapped her during anargument. “Because I was so drunk,”explained John Ndekeezi, “she over-powered me and by the time my neigh-bor came to my rescue, she had bittenoff both my testicles and the penis.” Justa few days earlier, another Ugandan mandied after his wife cut off his testicles.She thought he was doing a poor jobcaring for her and their two children.[Woman Bites Off Husband’s Genitals,Reuters, March 20, 2002.]

It’s a Shame, MonMany television viewers have seen

Miss Cleo’s commercials for psychicreadings on her 900 number. Sportingcolorful island garb and speaking Car-ibbean patois, Miss Cleo, who claims

to be a Jamaican shaman, has becomesomething of pop culture icon. TheFlorida Attorney General’s office andthe Federal Trade Commission are su-ing Miss Cleo and the company sheworks for, Access Resource Services,for fraud, saying her real name is YoureeDell Harris, and that she was born in LosAngeles to American parents in 1962.A psychic should have seen it coming.[State: Miss Cleo is from California, notJamaica, AP, March 13, 2002.]

The Death of the EastIn The Death of the West (reviewed

in AR, March 2002), Patrick Buchananargues that declining birthrates and im-migration may spell the end of thenations of the West. Mr. Buchananpoints out that Japan does not have animmigration problem, but it does havea low birthrate and aging population.Japan will “die” first because it has moreold people than any other nation (about17.7 percent of Japanese are 65 or older,compared to 12.6 percent in the UnitedStates) and one of the lowest birth-rates—1.35 births per woman. Accord-ing to current projections its populationwill peak in 2005 and then decline.

On March 26, Japanese Prime Min-ister Junichiro Koizumi’s office issueda “Lifestyle White Paper” that discussesthe problem. It says 52 percent of youngJapanese women and 40 percent ofyoung Japanese men do not considermarriage and child-rearing to be sourcesof fulfillment. With the economy in adecade-long recession, young people


want money and careers, and an increas-ing number see marriage as “limitingtheir freedom” and children as a “bur-den.” Between 1980 and 2000, the per-centage of Japanese women who are

full-time housewives declined from 37to 26 percent.

The report says Japan’s corporate cul-ture, with its 16-hour days and manda-tory after-hours drinks with the boss,must change. It recommends fewerworking hours, more free time for thefamily, and more child care. [HansGriemel, ‘Work Less, Have More Ba-bies,’ Japanese Government Says, AP,March 26, 2002.]

Vasectomy, Anyone?Luther Crawford is blind in one eye,

nearly blind in the other and takes medi-cation for a heart problem and highblood pressure, none of which keeps the49-year-old black Louisvillian fromcharming the ladies. Over the years, hehas fathered a dozen children by 11 dif-ferent women. Mr. Crawford is now introuble for failing to support them. Heowes $33,000 in child-support for twoof his children, and is in jail waiting trialin another case in which he owes$21,000. On March 12, Mr. Crawfordsigned a plea bargain in which hepleaded guilty to two counts of flagrantnonsupport, and got one year in prisoninstead of a possible five years. He alsoagreed never to have sex again.

Mr. Crawford now says he thoughtthe abstinence clause was a joke and isasking a judge to throw it out. His law-yer says it violates Mr. Crawford’s con-

stitutional rights and is impossible toenforce. Prosecutor Allan Cobb says Mr.Crawford acknowledged the no-sexclause when he signed it, and notes thatsimilar plea conditions have been up-held in two cases in other states. A judgewill render a ruling in May. [Man Ac-cused of Being Deadbeat Dad Chal-lenges Required Celibacy in Plea Agree-ment, AP, March 26, 2002.]

Limits of DiversityOn March 14, Virginia’s new gover-

nor, Democrat Mark Warner, refused arequest by the Sons of Confederate Vet-erans to sign a proclamation declaringApril Confederate History Month.“Over the past few years,” he said, “theissuance of a Confederate history monthproclamation has been a lightning rod.My belief is that signing such a procla-mation would not advance the healingprocess.”

Curtis Milteer, the black mayor ofSuffolk, Virginia, and the great-grand-son of slaves, thinks otherwise. OnMarch 25, he proclaimed April Confed-erate History Month. “We have renderedproclamations for other groups,” hesays. “It’s a matter of recognizing andrespecting everyone’s heritage, even ifit is not the same as our own.” Suffolkis one of only nine Virginia towns orcounties to sign the proclamation thisyear.

The NAACP is outraged. CharlesChristian, president of the local chapterhints at reprisals but adds, “Right now,I can’t say what they will be.” Two blackSuffolk city councilmen are looking intowhether they can rescind the mayor’sproclamation. [Black Mayor OKs Con-federate History, AP, March 31, 2002.]

Special Forces Too WhiteThe usual people are upset because

so many of the special forces soldiersfighting in Afghanistan are white. Al-though blacks are 20 percent of the mili-tary, they are fewer than four percent ofspecial forces—and only 2.5 percent ofNavy SEALs.

Jake Zweig, a black former SEALofficer, says the real problem is the atti-tude of the whites. “It was like beingthe only black in a Harley Davidsongang, as out of place as you can be,” hesays. He adds that when he suggestedrecruiting more non-white sailors, awhite officer asked him “What . . . do

you want us to do, lower the standards,so more of y’all can make it in?”

Special Operations Command hashoisted the white flag. It is sending “mo-tivator” teams of black and Hispanicspecial forces men into minority neigh-borhoods, and is printing recruitingpamphlets that prominently feature non-whites. Rear Adm. Eric Olson, topSEAL commander, has hired a diversityconsultant, Warren Lockette, who hasthe authority to veto any SEAL candi-date he thinks might be prejudiced. Re-cruiting non-whites is not enough;whites must make them feel welcome.

The Navy insists it won’t lower stan-dards. Nevertheless, the SEALs nowaccept as provisional candidates menwho have failed a requirement andwould ordinarily be washed out. Forexample, SEAL candidates must swim500 yards in 12½ minutes. Since someblacks have trouble doing this, they willget extra training if the Navy decidesthey would otherwise qualify.

This doesn’t sit well with retiredArmy Green Beret Major Andy Mess-ing. “I wouldn’t want to be next to a guywho’s ‘not sure’ he knows how to swimacross a flowing jungle river,” he says.Maj. Messing actually says homogene-ity is good for special forces units. Hesays differences—being black, His-panic, Jewish or even overtly reli-gious—add to the tensions in the grind-ing training regimen. [Ron Kampeas,Special Forces Lack Diversity, AP, April1, 2002.]

Cincinnati SimmersAs we reported last month, black

groups in Cincinnati are still protestingthe police shooting of black criminalTimothy Thomas on April 7 last year.Protests have now taken the form ofpersuading blacks to boycott the city.“Police are killing, raping, planting falseevidence, and along with the prosecu-tor and courts are destroying the gen-eral sense of self-respect for black citi-zens,” reads one of the appeals. This sortof thing has been enough to persuadesuch performers as Bill Cosby, WhoopiGoldberg, Wynton Marsalis, the Temp-tations, the O’Jays, and Smokey Robin-son to cancel appearances. The purposeof the boycotts is to cause so much hard-ship for the city it will give in to de-mands for handouts to blacks and am-nesty for the criminals who rioted afterlast year’s shooting.

Not many left.


The boycotters latest success has beento keep out the national convention of ablack denomination, the ProgressiveNational Baptist Convention. The de-nomination, founded in Cincinnati in1961, had booked space four years agoin the city’s Millennium Hotel, and its8,000 conventioners were expected tobring the hotel $750,000 worth of busi-ness. Now, some of its many black em-ployees will be laid off.

The boycotters have their sights onpreacher Billy Graham. Rev. Al Sharp-ton was in town recently, urging his fel-low minister to stay away. “He can seewhat kind of controversy is going onhere,” he says. A local black divine, Rev.Clarence Wallace said that if Rev. Gra-ham comes, he must “make a statementon the issues here.” Rev. Graham sayshe will come, and duly agreed to “ad-dress” the racial climate.

One city group is fighting backagainst the boycotts. The Cincinnati ArtsAssociation, which had been angling forbig-name black performers for some ofits programs only to see them scaredaway by the boycott, has sued boycottorganizers for $600,000 for interferingwith its business. [Steve Miller, Cincin-nati Boycotters Target Billy Graham,Washington Times, March, 19, 2002, p.A1. Robert Pierre, Racial Strife Flaresin Cincinnati Over Downtown BusinessBoycott, Washington Post, April 2,2002, p. A3.]

‘What You White BitchesNeed’

On March 20, 2001, a Chattanooga,Tenn., woman pulled into the drive-thrulane of a local Krystal fast food restau-rant to order a Coke. A black man, Ralph

Williams, jumped into the car, and beather and strangled her until she lost con-sciousness. He drove off with her, andwhen she came to, Mr. Williams wasstanding over her, ordering her to takeoff her clothes.

“I was shocked,” she says. “It waslike waking up in a dream. I realized hewas going to rape me.” The woman saidMr. Williams, who raped and beat herfor 13 hours, took frequent breaks tosmoke crack. “He enjoyed the thoughtof the pain,” she says. “Every time Iwould scream, he would hit me again.But I couldn’t keep from screaming.”

The woman tried to fight back with abox-cutter in her purse, and tried to stabMr. Williams in the eyes with her carkeys. He only beat and stomped her themore. When she heard Mr. Williamshandling a wire, she thought he wasgoing to strangle her with it. Instead, hetook the cardboard off of a wire coathanger and rammed it into her repeat-edly, shouting “This is what you whitebitches need.” The victim twice tried toescape, and once managed to get out-side the house before Mr. Williamsdragged her back by the hair. Police laterfound a clump of her hair at the scene.Mr. Williams eventually passed out, andthe woman got away. Mr. Williams hadfled by the time police arrived, but shepicked him out of a police lineup.

At trial, Mr. Williams got two con-secutive life sentences without possibil-ity of parole. Mr. Williams had commit-ted a similar rape in December 2000, butthe victim disappeared before police fin-ished their investigation. He had alsoserved eight years in prison for rape.District Attorney Bill Cox says “Ourcommunity will be a lot safer becausehe will never see the light of day again.”[Repeat Rapist Gets Life without Parole,Chattanoogan.com, March 21, 2002.]

TB in VAIn 1993, the World Health Organiza-

tion declared tuberculosis an interna-tional emergency. Worldwide, eight mil-lion people get the disease, and two mil-lion die. TB is coming to America,thanks to Third-World immigration. Thestate of Virginia saw a five percent in-crease in new cases from 2000-2001,with 57 percent of the total—174 of306—occurring in the Washington sub-urbs of Northern Virginia. The regionas a whole has seen a 22 percent increasein TB cases since 1999. State health of-

ficials admit that immigrants bring thedisease, and two-thirds of the TB casescome from just three countries: Mexico,the Philippines and Vietnam. Peoplewho apply for asylum or proper immi-gration visas are tested for TB, so theculprits are illegal immigrants. [LeefSmith, TB Still on Rise in N. Va., Wash-ington Post, March 18, 2002, p. A1.]

Costly Federal FailureSome of the poorest counties in the

country have stiff expenses because ofillegal immigration. Imperial County,California, which has the highest unem-ployment and lowest per capita incomein the state, spent $5.4 million out of atight 1999 budget on law enforcementand emergency medical treatment forillegals. Pima County, Arizona, has hadto build more jail cells because ofillegals. “Because we’ve had to keep upwith jails, we don’t have enough leftover for transportation,” says a countyspokesman. All told, during 1999, coun-ties along the Mexico border spent $108million on law enforcement and medi-cal treatment for illegals. Counties geta little federal money to cover the costsof incarcerating illegals. The ones alongthe border got $12.4 million in 1999, orless than one eighth of the amount theyspent on illegals. [Ken Ellingwood,Study Tallies Cost of Illegal Immigra-tion, Los Angeles Times, Feb. 6, 2001.]

Mexicans Want AmnestyAlthough the idea was pushed off the

national agenda by the Sept. 11 attacks,Mexicans are back baying for amnesty.The 1.5 million-member Service Em-ployees International Union, which rep-resents janitors, orderlies, home carehelp, and other unskilled workers, hasstarted a post-card campaign for am-nesty, free passage across the Mexicanborder, and eventual citizenship forillegals. The union, which has manyMexican members, says it is only re-minding the country of goals PresidentGeorge Bush set forth before he wasdistracted by terrorism. [August Grib-bin, Alien Amnesty Urged But Unlikely,Washington Post, March 11, 2002, p.A8.]

Mr. Bush, who has learned nothingfrom the events of Sept. 11, managed topush an amnesty bill through the House,but wiser heads prevailed in the Senate,and passage now looks uncertain.

Billy Graham.

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