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American Renaissance - 1 - March 2008

Integration Has Failed (Part II)

Vol. 19 No. 3

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

March 2008

American Renaissance

Separation is everywhere—because all races want it.

by Jared Taylor

Promoters of “contact theory” be-lieved that through forcible schoolintegration, children of all races would

discover their common humanity, and racial prejudice would disappear. Thiswould lead to integrated housing and large-scale intermarriage. Instead,whites abandoned many schools, and even at integrated schools, studentsseldom mixed. Now that forced integra-tion is coming to an end, neighborhood schools re fl ect segregated housing pat-terns that have changed little in the last half a century. Integrationists now arguethat there must be housing integration inorder to promote school integration.

Theoretically, integration couldhave been promoted on twofronts, with forcible integration

of both schools and housing. Manyintellectuals claimed they knew betterthan parents how to regulate a child’scontact with other races. The samearguments could have justified forcingfamilies to choose housing in ways thatincreased integration. No one seriouslyconsidered this, partly because therewould have been furious resistance, andpartly because integrationists believedresidential integration would naturally

follow school integration. It did not.The reason it did not is that the basicassumption of “contact theory” waswrong. Racial mixing does not usu-ally improve race relations, as GunnarMyrdal believed, and as his current dayfollowers still seem to believe. For 20years, during the busing era, millions of American students were forced togetherwith people of other races, but this didnot necessarily mean they made friendsor became neighbors. There are no

signs that busing led either to improvedattitudes about race or to increased resi-dential integration. Most Americans stilllive in neighborhoods that are sharplydefined by race.

One large-scale study carried out bythe State University of New York atAlbany measured integration by meansof a “segregation index,” which runsfrom zero to 100. Zero would meancompletely random housing patterns,

or complete integration, while 100would be complete separation. Anynumber over 60 is considered “highlysegregated.” According to this analy-sis of 2000 census data, the nationalsegregation index dropped during the1990s from 69.4 to 65.1. However, the

segregation index for children rose from65.5 to 68.3. As the researchers noted,single people are more willing to livein mixed neighborhoods, while parentswant a more homogeneous environment

for child-rearing.A different census data study, car-

ried out by the Lewis Mumford Centerfor Comparative Urban and RegionalResearch, concluded that segregationincreased during the 1990s. “We’renot more integrated—that’s the bot-tom line,” explained John Logan of thecenter. He argued that in cities like New

York and Chicago, black-white housingpatterns have not changed since the1920s. “You might have thought theblack civil-rights movement or the riseof the black middle class or changingracial attitudes surely by now wouldhave made a difference,” he said, butthey have not. The Christian Science Monitor concluded from this study that“children of the early 21st century willlikely grow up isolated from people of

Continued on page 3

‘I became excruciatingly

aware of my skin color,and my heart poundedwith social anxiety.’

Everyday scene in your local supermarket.




Letters from ReadersSir — “Integration Has Failed” in the

February issue demonstrates that theharder social engineers try, the worse

they fail. The Legal Times

recently pub-lished an instructive story about MintzLevin Cohn Ferris Glovsky & Popeo,a law firm that tried, in the summer of 2005, to “enhance the firm’s ethnic di-versity” by hiring 12 minority lawyersall at once. Two and a half years later,every one of them had left (amusingly,their practice was to have been “corpo-rate diversity”). The reporter suggestsone reason they left was that they wereall grouped together on one floor, awayfrom the partners (Attila Berry, “MintzLevin Diversity Bid Falls Apart,” Legal

Times, Dec. 10, 2007). But one could just as easily imagine blaming the firmfor “breaking up” the group. As is sooften the case with the racial eggshell-walking we do in America, it’s damnedif you do, damned if you don’t.

John Ingram, Fairfax, Va.

Sir — I look forward to Part II of “Integration Has Failed,” but in themeantime, I am again struck by theinability of racial egalitarians to drawobvious conclusions. Integration was

supposed to go smoothly because whitesand blacks would discover they were just like each other, and all prejudiceswould drop away.

Integration has not gone smoothly,despite more than 50 years of trying. If anything, more blacks and whites (andnow Hispanics and Asians) are conclud-ing that separation is better.

Why do liberals never reexaminetheir premises in light of the facts?

Sarah Wentworth, Richmond, Va.

Sir — Professor Farron’s criticismof Peter Wilkinson’s book The Howard Legacy (see review, January issue; let-ter, February issue) contains severalerroneous assertions. He says white

Australians should not complain aboutthe presence of an Asian professionalelite because that elite will raise thestandard of living for all Australians.However, in a nation with an af fluentand powerful minority, it is not abstractnotions such as contribution to standardof living that the majority notices but thepresence of an alien population that haseconomic power and political influencebeyond its numbers. Prof. Farron maythink them foolishly ungrateful, butblack South Africans do not seem toappreciate their white minority, despite

the economic benefi

ts they bring.I am prepared to accept that Chineseinfluence in Australia may not be sogreat as in Southeast Asia because thereis a smaller difference in average Chi-nese and white IQs compared to Chineseand Southeast Asians. However, theselection process ensures that it is notaverage Chinese who are entering Aus-tralia but a cognitive elite. China has apool of 1.3 billion people from which tochoose its elite; Australia has 20 million.One need only visit a university to seethe effect of this difference.

Professor Farron suggests furtherthat because of their distinctive IQprofile, Chinese will not be overrep-resented in fields like journalism andlaw, which influence policy and publicopinion. In fact, Mr. Wilkinson pointsout in his book that Asians are indeedover-represented in law—he does notmention journalism—and wildly over-represented in medicine, dentistry,commerce, information technology, andengineering. If Professor Farron thinks

these professions do not provide accessto political influence, we live in differ-ent worlds.

Finally, I might add that white SouthAfrican immigrants are not always heldin high esteem here. Professor Farron’sanecdotal and unwarranted commentabout the stupidity and laziness of Aus-tralians may suggest why.

Christopher Down, Sydney, Aus-tralia

Sir — In his February letter aboutthe review of Peter Wilkinson’s book,I note that Professor Steven Farronclaims that success is not a zero sumgame, and cites examples of Europeanpeoples raising black standards of liv-ing in various areas. Very well, but anabsolute measure like “standard of liv-ing” is not the same as a relative measure

like “success,” which is part of statuscompetition.The situation in Australia is that of

intelligent, collectivist, and ethnocentricAsians outcompeting intelligent, aracial,individualist whites for limited numbersof positions in the professions and inpolitics. That is a zero sum game, quiteapart from whatever economic effectsmay ensue. The demographic displace-ment of whites by Asians is another, andeven more serious, matter.

I think the point of people like PeterWilkinson and Drew Fraser is not that

Asians are so much more intelligentthan whites—although Australian-Asianmigrants may be a high-IQ subset—butthat their ethnocentrism and alien naturewill displace whites from positions of status and influence, and lead the coun-try in unwelcome directions.

Finally, I take issue with the Got-tfried-Taylor assertion in the reviewof Prof. Gottfried’s Understanding American Conservatism that there areno fascists among modern day racerealists, and that we are all, or mostly,paleo-libertarians. Apart from the pejo-

rative meanings neo-conservatives andleftists give it, fascism is palingenetic(hoping to recapitulate past societies inthe present), populist nationalism. Whilethere may be more race realists whoconsider themselves “conservative” thanfascist, the latter should not be ignored,particularly if their influence outweighstheir numbers. And this need not be seenas a bad thing. In radical circumstances,radicalism is rational.

Ted Sallis, Tampa, Fla.




other ethnic groups—much as the chil-dren of the early 20th century did.”

Research that covered 240 metropoli-tan areas during the 20-year period from1980 to 2000 found that black/white seg-regation, already high, increased in just15 areas. Hispanic/white segregation,however, increased in 124 and declinedin 86, and Asian/white segregation in-creased in 69 metropolitan areas anddeclined in 47. The study’s author, Bri-an Stults of the University of Florida atGainesville, found that although blacksmade considerable economic gains incomparison to whites during the 1990s,“it was particularly surprising that we

saw no [neighborhood integration]effect from the growing convergenceof black and white incomes.”

As with schools, housing integra-tion can mean physical proximity with-out contact. The Mount Pleasant areaof Washington, DC, has been home tomany Hispanic immigrants who live soclose to blacks they can often hear eachothers’ voices through thin apartmentwalls, but the two communities haveessentially ignored each other. OmarZavala is a Latino activist who has triedfor years to build bridges between the

two groups. “There’s minimal contact,”he says. “The dialogue is nonexistent.”One town famous for bucking this

trend is Shaker Heights, Ohio, whichcontinues its unparalleled, decades-longcommitment to integration. Since the1960s, it has fought white flight withtask forces, oversight committees, com-munity associations, social events, andstudent groups, all designed to monitorand maintain integration. The town of 30,000 has even been known to check on

block parties to make sure they are suit-ably integrated. In 1985, corporationsand philanthropists established the Fund

for the Future of Shaker Heights, whichoffers subsidized loans and down pay-ments for home purchases that will mixthe races. Judy Rawson, who was mayorof Shaker Heights in 2002, said her job was a constant balancing act. “It’ssomething you have to be sensitive to,

and this community talks constantlyabout race,” she explained.

With its well-established reputation,Shaker Heights has attracted people whovery much want integration to work,but success is never assured. The black population is rising—from 24 percentin 1980 to 34 percent in 2000—and in

2000 the high school was 50 percentblack. The part of town bordering onCleveland has become heavily black,and demographers see trouble. “The big-gest threat to an integrated communityis resegregation,” said Chip Bromley,a fair housing advocate and executivedirector for the Metro Strategy Group inCleveland Heights. “There’s a sense of fatigue of it all and a sense that whiteswill give up on it . . . that they’ll escape.”Even in Shaker Heights.

Most whites live far from the constantvigilance of Shaker Heights, and rarelythink about how segregated their livesare. Emily Hauser described what it waslike to walk into a black neighborhood just a few blocks from her upper-middle-class Chicago suburb of Oak Park:

“[A]s I stepped over the curb, I be-came excruciatingly aware of my skincolor, and my heart pounded with socialanxiety. In going around a single block,I got stares. Mine was the only whiteface around, and for five minutes, fiveblocks from my home, I was a strangerin a strange land. . . . .

“The stares I got were from a womanin a high-end SUV and a man on a high-end motorcycle. No matter our classstatus, I was out of place. We’re notintegrated. We’re strangers.”

Most whites would never express thedesire to live away from non-whites, and

they attribute their housing patterns—if they ever think about them—to classdifferences. There is considerable hy-pocrisy in this. Probably not one white journalist in the country would say hechose his house because it was in a whiteneighborhood, but that, in effect, is what

they do. Peter Brown of the OrlandoSentinel looked up the zip codes of 3,400 journalists, and found that theycluster in upscale neighborhoods, farfrom inner cities. More than one-thirdof Washington Post reporters live in just four fancy DC. suburbs. Television

personality Chris Matthews routinelypromotes integration, and Ted Koppelhas hectored whites who live apartfrom blacks. Where do they live? Mr.Matthews in 95-percent white Chevy

Case, and Mr. Koppel in 99-percentwhite Potomac, both in Maryland.

Perhaps these men thought theylived in TV-land. Sociologist CharlesGallagher of Georgia State Universityhas noted that television advertising isa “carefully manufactured racial utopia. . . that is far afield of reality,” whereeveryone has black and Hispanic neigh-

bors with whom they discuss whichbrand of toothpaste is best. Jerome D.Williams, a professor of advertising andAfrican American studies at the Univer-sity of Texas at Austin also laughs atadvertisers’ depictions of American life.“If you look at the United States in termsof where we live and who our friends areand where we go to church,” he says,“we live in different worlds.”

The public pretence, of course, isotherwise, and there is considerable

Continued from page 1

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pressure to deny reality. ABC Televi-sion had to drop a reality program thatlet a white family outside of Austin,Texas, decide which of seven competingfamilies would get to move into a free,four-bedroom, 2-1/2-bath house nextdoor. Through interviews, competitions,and contact of various kinds, the whitefamily had eliminated all the “diverse”options—blacks, Asians, Hispanics,and a homosexual couple—and was go-ing to choose the white family as theirnew neighbors. When word leaked outabout this entirely realistic ending, “fairhousing” activists badgered ABC intocanceling the program.

Regional Segregation

The impulse to separate has notchanged from the white flight days of the 1960s, but the shifting population

of the United States means it happensdifferently. Whites are steadily beingoutnumbered, and to get white neighborsit often takes more than a move acrosstown. William Frey, a demographer atthe Brookings Institution, is perhapsthe leading expert on the increasinglyregional nature of residential segrega-tion. “In the past, people could move

to a community five minutes away,” heexplained. “Now, those communitiesaren’t very different from the places theyare trying to get away from. So they have

to move a much longer distance, even toanother state.”If California is the future of the

United States, Los Angeles may offera lesson. In 1960, it was 72 percentwhite, but in just ten years that figuredropped to 59 percent, and by 2000 thecity was only 33 percent white. Duringthe 1980s, while every other racial groupwas gaining in numbers, Los AngelesCounty lost 330,000 whites, and a star-tling 570,000 during the 1990s. Where

did they all go?Beginning in the 1980s, California

saw a major shift of population fromsouthern, immigrant-heavy regions tothe white north. Many moved to NevadaCounty, which Mel Mouser, the policechief of the town of Grass Valley, called“the largest concentration of Cauca-sians in the state of California.” In the15 years ending in 1995, the county’spopulation grew by no less than 65percent and remained 93 percent white.The newcomers were looking for thekind of homogeneity they grew up withbut had lost to immigrants. As Chief Mouser explained, “Those people thatdo come from all these other jurisdic-tions and areas, cities and communitiesfrom throughout the state and even otherstates, they bring with them the commonstrain of thought: Don’t let it be likewhere I came from.”

Many ex-Los Angelenos were candidabout what drove them away. As one1990s transplant to Nevada Countyexplained, “People come here for atimeout, to go some place where racialproblems don’t exist. . . . And when theyfind it here, they’re pathetically grate-ful. They want to protect it.” Anotherexplained: “I’d look at my daughter’s

classroom and seetwo blondes. Therewere a lot of Vietnam-ese and Asians com-ing in. That’s one of

the reasons we movedout. It seemed likethere was more of everything else butwhites.”

When whites didnot get out of South-ern California entire-ly, they increasingly

locked themselves in private, walled-off communities. During the early 1990s, anestimated one third of all new real estatedevelopments in the area were gated,self-policing enclaves.

Many Californians left the stateentirely. “This used to be a white,middle-class, bedroom community,”Cloyd Moody said of his native SanGabriel in Southern California. “Now,you go down the main street and virtu-ally every store sign is written in thatOriental chicken scratching.” In 1996he moved 1,000 miles to a town outsideSeattle. “I’m livid that I had to leavethe place where I was born and raised,”he added.

California used to be a magnet forAmericans from other states, but nomore. Even as immigrants poured induring the 1990s, the state lost morenative-born Americans than it gained.Seventy percent of the people who leftthe state were white.

The same process is at work else-where. From the 1940s to the 1980s,rural America lost population, 1.4million in the 1980s alone. Now it isgaining population. Between 1990 and1995, there was net migration of morethan 1.6 million people to rural areasand small towns. Most came from citiesand suburbs, and almost all were white.John Kasarda of the University of NorthCarolina says, “It is a move to remove as

far as possible from the inner-city poorareas. It’s both avoidance and flight.”Herbert Johnson sells real estate in

the small Alabama town of Bayou LaBatre to newcomers to the area. “Peopledon’t put up a billboard and announcethat they are leaving because of immi-grants,” he said, “but you can tell what’son their mind.”

From 1990 to 1996 3.3 millionnew immigrants streamed into just 10metropolitan areas. During the sameperiod, 3.6 million people, most of themnative-born, moved out to other states.

Demographer William Frey called thisthe “push factor.”Many of the natives who left these

areas were seeking white majorities.Journalist Jonathan Tilove notes that of the 157 counties that grew by 40 percentor more in the 1990s, more than two-thirds were at least 80 percent white, andmore than a third were at least 90 percentwhite. Mr. Tilove writes that these places“could be called white meccas.”

Robert Bullard is a sociologist at

Where the white Californians live.




the Environmental Justice ResourceCenter at Clark Atlanta University.He says the white exodus is simple toexplain: “It’s driven by the same things

that led whites to leave the central city.Now they are moving farther and far-ther out, and the counties that are nowthe growth machines are the ones thatpeople know: ‘That’s not where peopleof color are.’ ”

Calvin Beale, a Department of Agri-culture demographer, noted that whitesare not always candid about why theyare moving: “They talk about getting

away from urban crime, drugs, conges-tion and school problems. But it alsomeans getting away from areas thathave significant percentages of blacks,Hispanics and Asians.”

It would be wrong, however, to as-sume that everyone displaced by immi-gration is white. Aldra Henry-Allison,who is black, spent her whole life inSouth Central Los Angeles. In 1998she moved to the suburbs, complainingthat the neighborhood had completelychanged. “The only people left are el-derly blacks my parents’ age and young

Hispanic immigrants,” she explained. “Ifeel out of sync here.”Rebecca Watkins is of American In-

dian heritage, but moved out of a smalltown near Yakima, Washington, whenshe had a violent encounter with Mexi-can immigrants. Her mother expectedto follow her to Idaho. “We lost ourcountry once because of immigrants,”she said. “And now I feel like we’relosing our country again.”

In the Washington, DC, area, whites

have continued a long march to increas-ingly distant suburbs. As the WashingtonPost explained:

“The demographic shift is transform-

ing the map of the Washington regioninto something like a misshapen pizza,with counties such as Calvert, AnneArundel and St. Mary’s in Maryland andFauquier and Culpeper in Virginia form-ing an increasingly white crust aroundthe region’s multicolored inner counties.In each of those five majority-whiteouter counties, the proportion of whiteresidents has increased at least slightly

in recent years.“ ‘There is this kind of hopscotcheffect where people keep moving out,’noted William Frey of the BrookingsInstitution.”

Who Wants Segregation?

It is conventional to assume thatsegregation is caused by the refusal of whites to live with non-whites, and bymalign forces that confine minoritiesin enclaves. But how realistic is it tothink that all blacks want white neigh-

bors, or that Asians want to live withHispanics?When asked point-blank, ordinary

Americans do not show much rever-ence for integration. A statewide surveyof California conducted by Berkeley’sInstitute of Governmental Studies in late1997 found that a majority of whites,Hispanics, blacks and Asians agreedwith the statement that “people are hap-pier when segregated.”

When the NAACP and Hamilton

College commissioned a poll of “Gen-eration X” opinions on race, they foundthat about half of 18- to 29-year-olds (52percent of whites, 40 percent of blacks)agreed with the statement that “it’s OKif the races are basically separate fromone another as long as everyone hasequal opportunity.”

Scholars are finally beginning to un-derstand this. A study by the Metropoli-tan Milwaukee Fair Housing Councilreported in 2004 that “choice plays animportant role in persistent boundariesof segregation,” adding that peoplecommonly seek “cultural af finity” whenthey look for a place to live. WilliamTisdale, president of the council warnedthat researchers should not overlook the fact that some people—and not justwhites—prefer segregation.

Once blacks succeeded in eliminat-ing legal segregation, the question of

racial mixing took on a new dimension.Blacks fought for integration whensegregation meant washrooms, lunchcounters, hotels, and swimming poolswere closed in their faces, and whenrestrictive covenants kept them out of entire neighborhoods. Now that blackscan eat, sleep, live, or be entertainedwherever they can afford it, most wantracial mixing on their terms, not thoseset by whites. This means blacks wantentrée into white institutions and whitesociety, but insist on the right to with-draw into black enclaves if they prefer.

Many middle-class blacks haveenough money to live in white neigh-borhoods but prefer to live amongblacks. In the Atlanta area, blacks areself-segregating in suburbs southwestof the city in DeKalb County. “It’s not aseparatist thing,” says sociologist RobertBullard of Clark Atlanta University. “It’sa choice to be whole.” He says manyblacks “lost some of their identity”through integration, and now “want tobuild something on their own terms.”

An analysis of Northern New Jerseyby the Newark Star-Ledger found a sim-

ilar trend. Of the 13,000 black familiesin the area making more than $114,000per year—which put them in the topfifth on the state’s income scale—twothirds chose to live in mostly black neighborhoods. “This is surprising topeople,” said sociologist John Logan of Brown University, “because we’d like tobelieve that (neighborhood) differencesare mostly based on market capacity andwhether you can afford to live here, andit’s hard to accept that race is still a very

White Meccas: ‘That’s not where people of color are.’




important barrier.” Professor Logan gotit wrong. Race is not a barrier to theseblack professionals. It is a choice, justas it is for whites.

Azurest is a seaside community of 119 families near Sag Harbor, NewYork. It was established in 1947 as avacation retreat for blacks who were not

welcome at white resorts. It is now thepreferred summering spot for wealthyblacks who can afford to go anywherebut prefer to vacation with other blacks.Among those who have owned propertyin Azurest are Earl G. Graves, publisherof Black Enterprise magazine and AlmaBrown, widow of Ron Brown, who

was commerce secretary in the Clintonadministration. Helen Marshall, Queensborough president, and Cecil Broderick,the deputy mayor of Sag Harbor havealso been owners. The New York Times quoted one resident on the psychologicalpeace he found in Azurest. “When va-cationing among our own, in places thathave been embraced by us for so long,there is a comfort—and a sanctity—thatmakes it possible to forget that there is awhite power structure touching our livesat all.” “This is a historically black com-munity,” said Lynn Hendy, president of

the property owners association. “I’dlike it to stay that way.”Blacks in other enclaves feel the

same way. A black journalist wroteabout a backyard gathering in an af flu-ent, all-black Atlanta suburb. The partysuddenly went silent when a realtor’scar, bearing a white couple, cruisedslowly down the street. “I hope theydon’t find anything they like,” said oneof the guests; “otherwise, there goes theneighborhood.”

In southern California it is Hispanicswhom blacks want to keep out. They donot like Ranchera music or neighborswho keep chickens, or who park theircars on the front lawn. They resent soc-cer players taking over public parks. Asone president of a black homeownersassociation in South Central Los Ange-les described the influx, “It’s a differentculture, a different breed of people. Theydon’t have the same values. You can’tget together with them. It’s like mixingoil and water.”

Most black neighborhoods grew outof segregation or developed haphaz-ardly, but some have been designed tobe black from the start. A brand new,up-scale St. Petersburg subdivisioncalled Ahali (the Swahili word for fam-ily) filled up immediately with the black elite: the head of the NAACP chapter,school principals, doctors and lawyers.

As each new home sold, residents gath-ered for an impromptu celebration of their growing “family.”

One argument blacks give for livingin black areas is that this guaranteesblack political representation. MichaelBennett, an associate professor of soci-ology at DePaul University, explainedthe risks of living with whites: “You’renot going to have the same kind of politi-

cal clout to elect reps or run for of ficein [largely white] Barrington as youwould in the south suburbs [of Chicago],where you can elect a Jesse Jackson, Jr.That could be interpreted as a deficit tointegration.”

Ultimately, blacks simply want to be

around other blacks. As one reader wroteto the Philadelphia Inquirer :

“There is nothing wrong with segre-gation. Most African Americans withgood sense want the same social rela-tions that most whites want. We don’twant them living in our neighborhoods.We don’t want our children going toschool with theirs. We don’t want ourdaughters and sons marrying their sonsand daughters. No thanks . . . we don’twant or need social integration. Wewant economic and political integra-tion . . . .

“We don’t need tea and cookies andfireside chats with white people. Wedon’t have to pretend we like one an-other to have good relations.”

Separatism has come full circle, andblacks are now its most vocal spokes-men. In the past, many blacks wereconvinced that in order to get a fair

share of the money spent on publiceducation—or even a proper educationat all—their children had to go to schoolwith whites. Now, with many statesensuring equal funding for all schools,and with many blacks in controllingpositions on school boards, this is nolonger so great a concern. By the 1990s,many blacks were openly critical of in-tegration. If the funding and educational

opportunities for blacks that were to beachieved through integration could beachieved without it, increasing numbersof blacks saw no inherent value in racialmixing per se.

In 1997, Amos Quick, a member of acitizens committee appointed to redraw

Many blacks now understand why they felt that way.




school districts in the Greensboro, NorthCarolina, area, expressed an increas-ingly typical view: “Separate but trulyequal would not be so bad.” In 1995,Edward Newsome, a black member of the Kansas City, Missouri, school boardwent further: “Ithink desegrega-tion is dead andshould have dieda long time ago,if the focus is ontrying to have aphysical mix of the races.”

Likewise in 1995, a black law profes-sor, Alex Johnson of the University of Virginia, went so far as to say “ Brown [the 1954 Supreme Court desegrega-tion ruling] was a mistake.” He arguedthat school integration “fails to respectboth the African-American community

as a distinct cultural community andthe concomitant plans made by indi-vidual African-Americans to protect thatunique community.”

Harry Edwards, a black sociologyprofessor at the University of Califor-nia at Berkeley, put the case as bluntlyas anyone. Integration, he explained,“has not been approached or achievedbecause nobody wants it. Blacks havealways wanted to associate with them-selves.”

This sentiment is on the increase.Doris Wilkinson was the first black to

enter the University of Kentucky afterthe 1954 Brown decision, but lost faithin integration, which she calls an “abso-

lute, abysmal failure.” Now a sociologistat the University of Kentucky, she saidshe looked forward to neighborhoodschools that reflect the racial patterns bywhich people live. “I hope we get thoseschools with all deliberate speed,” shesaid, quoting the Brown ruling.

Leslie Innis, on the faculty at Florida

A&M, was one of the first blacks to in-tegrate New Orleans’ Catholic schools,but now thinks the struggle was mis-guided. She believes that so long asit is voluntary there is nothing wrongwith segregation. “What I have young

people telling me is the whole thingabout a comfort zone,” she said. “Thatthey prefer to be around people they feelmore comfortable with.”

Even the NAACP, which was theplaintiff in hundreds of school integra-tion cases, no longer has its heart in the

struggle. At its 1997 national conven-tion, the NAACP questioned the goal of school integration for the first time. Al-though the group decided not to changeits of ficial position, it is significant thata heretofore sacred goal of the civilrights movement could even be debated.In other respects as well, the NAACPis vastly different from the early dayswhen blacks and whites worked togetherfor equal rights. Many local chapters arenow 100 percent black, and by 1995,the number of whites on the 64-memberboard had dwindled to three. In 2007

there were still three.Many blacks think the NAACP ishopelessly stodgy and out of touch.There are, for example, many privateblack-run schools that are aggressivelyAfrocentric and would not welcomewhite students, and there is also agrowing movement to set up all-black,Afrocentric public schools. The wayto get them past white liberals who arenervous about black segregation hasbeen to start charter schools. They aresupposed to improve education by giv-ing schools greater independence, and

letting students profit from the varietythat results. For many black administra-tors, a charter is a license to separate.Seventy percent of blacks who attendcharter schools are in student bodies thatare “intensely segregated,” compared to34 percent of the blacks at non-charterpublic schools.

By 2007 there were 3,500 charterschools, but many were struggling be-cause their innovations had failed. Notthe black charters, said Michael Piscal,

whose Inner City Foundation operatesschools in Los Angeles. “The momen-tum we’re building is tremendous,” hesaid, noting that there were thousandsof names on the waiting lists of black schools. Urban Prep Charter Academy

for Young Men onthe South Side of Chicago is typical.It opened its doorsin the fall of 2006to a student bodythat was 100 per-cent black.

Roland G. Fryer, a black who teachesat Harvard, has what may be a soundeducational reason to separate the races.He thinks the stigma against blackswho get good grades—they are tauntedfor “acting white”—is absent in black schools. According to his research, in

integrated schools, above a 2.5 gradepoint average, the popularity of whitestudents rises with their grades, whilethat of blacks and Hispanics drops. Prof.Fryer did notfind this popularity declinein heavily non-white schools, and thinksthe “acting white” stigma is an importantreason for lagging black and Hispanicperformance.

Many blacks like segregated schoolsbecause they can control them. As the

sole black man in the Nebraska statehouse, Ernie Chambers spent yearssupporting busing and school integra-tion. In 2006, however, he was thedriving force behind a bill that brokeup the Omaha school district into threeracially identifiable zones for blacks,whites, and Hispanics. He explainedthat his constituents were for “carvingour area out of Omaha Public Schoolsand establishing a district over whichwe would have control.”

Many blacks are tired of this . . .

. . . and want this instead.

Hopelessly stodgy.




Blacks in other countries want sepa-ration, too. Wade Smith, vice principalof St. Patrick’s High School in Halifax,Canada, said in 2006 that blacks wereisolated in the school system, and wouldbe better served by a separate, all-black school. Likewise, George Dei, whoteaches at the University of Toronto, hasproposed alternative schools for blacks,with black teachers, black counselors,and an “Africa-centered” curriculum.The chairman of Britain’s Commissionfor Racial Equality, Trevor Phillips, an-nounced in 2005 that racial problems inintegrated schools were so bad that thetime had come to “embrace some new if unpalatable ideas,” in particular, settingup separate schools for black boys.

Churches

During the civil rights era, churches

made a passionately moral case forintegration, but they have not practicedwhat they preached. Unlike schools orbusinesses, which must follow civilrights laws, congregations gather vol-untarily, entirely free of governmentcontrol. As a result, churches are someof the most racially exclusive institu-tions in the country. According to onestudy, nearly 95 percent of Americanchurches have congregations that are atleast 80 percent one race or ethnic group.A different study found this to be true of 96.5 percent of congregations.

Churches have tried tofi

ght this ten-dency, mostly without success. In 1965,New Covenant Presbyterian Church wasthe first church in Miami establishedspecifically to encourage integration. Itprompted glowing news stories about itsintegrated congregation, choir, and ad-ministration. By 2006, all but one whitemember had died or moved away.

Fred Caldwell, bishop of GreenwoodAcres Full Gospel Baptist Church inShreveport, Louisiana, got so tired of seeing only black faces in his congre-gation of 5,000 that he started paying

whites out of his own pocket to showup for services: $5.00 a hour on Sun-days and $10.00 on Thursday evenings.“God wants a rainbow in his church,”explained the bishop.

God seldom gets one. There arenow nearly 4,000 Asian congregationsin the United States (3,000 Korean,700 Chinese, 200 Japanese). Most areheavily segregated—often because theyconduct services in an Asian language—but even the English-speaking ones are

segregated. Victor Kim, pastor of themostly-Korean congregation at Rem-nant Presbyterian Church in New York City did everything he could think of tochange that. He barred Korean food atchurch functions, and refused to makeannouncements for Asian events. Heeven discouraged members from goingto nearby Koreatown for lunch. Six

years later, his church still had only ahandful of blacks or whites. “I just never

reallyfi

t in,” explained Kyle Allen, whoattended for a while and dropped out.Stacy Heisey-Terrell, a white woman

married to a man who is half-black andhalf-Hispanic, says racial reconciliationis a big part of her Christianity. She andher husband drove half an hour everySunday to attend Evergreen BaptistChurch in Rosemead, California, an-other Korean congregation that wastrying hard to integrate. It didn’t work out. “I can’t take this anymore,” shesaid, of being the only white woman.“There’s no one like me.” She was

mortified when she organized a churchpicnic, and the Koreans would not touchher bean salad.

People don’t want diversity at churchany more than they do at school or wherethey live. Northwoods United MethodistChurch was a staid, white congrega-tion north of Atlanta until immigrantsbegan to move in. Members professedthemselves delighted until some of theyoung arrivals wanted to sing the Lord’sPrayer to a calypso beat. “I don’t like

all this jumping around,” said MargieSchwab, a long-time member. “I likeformality.” Jamaican-born Joy Magnuslikes to jump. “It makes the service morelively,” she said. “It doesn’t take awayfrom the reverence.”

Many Christians simply acceptseparation. In Beaumont, Texas, twoUnited Methodist congregations—one

white, the other black—merged becauseboth had declining memberships. Most

members of both congregations stayeddespite the merger, because the newly-united church held two separate services,one for whites and one for blacks.

Some blacks view churches as theydo schools: They want control. “It’s anissue of power, to be very honest,” saidRev. T. Vaughn Walker, professor of black church studies at Southern BaptistTheological Seminary in Louisville,Kentucky. “If that [the segregated black church] was lost somewhere in theblending of congregations, the African-American community is concerned

that its last, viable, free voice wouldbe lost.”Ultimately, however, it is a matter of

pure preference. Rev. John Crittenden,Jr. of Forest Missionary Baptist Church,also of Louisville, explained that he wascomfortable with segregated churchservices because “it’s not a mandatorything, it’s a choice thing.”

Many Asians feel the same way.David Ahn is a Korean who grew up inAmerica and attended a white church in

A liberal fantasy that will not die.




San Francisco before ending up in a Ko-rean congregation. “In general, Koreanpeople and white people just act verydifferently,” he said. “I don’t necessarilysee them as good or bad, just very differ-ent than I am.” David Kang, is anotherKorean who does not apologize for his

preferences. “Where else can I go to feelKorean, or feel Asian?” he asked.

There is self-segregation in manyother areas of American life. Bereave-ment is traumatic, and people needsolace when they face it. Funeralhomes, therefore, are often even moresegregated than church congregations.Segregation is so taken for grantedthat black and white undertakers haveseparate professional organizations.Over the years, mobility has made the

profession even more segregated. In asmall town that could support only onefuneral home, all races had to use thesame establishment. Now people candrive to a neighboring town and grievewith people of their own race.

Blacks are particularly loyal to funeralhomes, and may not want their remainshandled by a white-owned firm. Themere rumor that a black funeral homehas been bought by white interests canwreck the business. When there weresuch rumors about the Angelus FuneralHome in Los Angeles, it bought ads in

newspapers and church publications,offering one million dollars to anyonewho could prove that the establishmenthad been sold.

There is a tendency to separationin retirement homes as well. CharleneWell, assistant administrator at Glen El-ston Nursing and Rehabilitation Centerin Chicago, explained that she groupsHispanic and Polish residents separatelybecause “you have to create an environ-ment they’re used to living in.”

President Clinton probably workedharder than any American president tomake racially diverse appointments that,as he put it, “look like America.” By hislast year in of fice, of the 29 people in theWhite House who had the title “assistantto the president,” eight were women and

seven were minorities.This diversity was re-flected at lower levelsof staf fing as well, butvoluntary segregationcontinued even in thisdeliberately multi-racial environment.According to onenews article, “AfricanAmerican staff mem-bers tend to associatewith one another, bothin and out of the WhiteHouse, as do whites,

creating cliques and afeeling of division, of ficials said.”Homosexuals are commonly thought

to be free spirits, unburdened by conven-tional prejudices. Nevertheless, in 2005,a city commission in San Franciscofound that Badlands, a popular Castro-neighborhood homosexual nightclub,discriminated against black patrons byrequiring several forms of ID and en-forcing a stricter dress code. The club’sowner, Les Natali, referred to blacks as“non-Badlands customers,” and wantedthem kept out. White customers report-

edly preferred it that way.Pop Warner football is a league forseven- to 14-year-olds. In 1993, thefirst black inner-city team joined thethen all-suburban Bay State Conference.By 2005, there was only one suburbanteam left in the nine-team conference,and it appeared to be on its way out,too. Suburban teams were quitting enmasse, citing “intimidating” rap musicat games, unnecessary violence on thefield, and questionable safety at somecity-center playing fields. One black inner-city coach reportedly urged play-

ers to “go get some white [expletive]!”and another called a black on a suburbanteam a “traitor.” Black coaches said themass defections to a reconstituted whiteleague were “racism.”

Americans even have racial prefer-ences when they buy cars. A 2004 pollfound that the following percentages of the following groups would rather dealwith a salesman of their own race or eth-nicity: blacks: 46 percent, Hispanics: 38percent, Middle-Easterners: 65 percent,

Northern Europeans: 62 percent, EastEuropeans: 42 percent.

Beauty pageants—except for thosethat accept whites—have become seg-regated ethnic celebrations. By 2005,there was a Miss Vietnam USA, a MissEthiopia North America, a Miss IndiaUSA, a Miss Asian America, a MissLatina, U.S., and a Miss Haiti in NewYork City. “It’s just as important asMiss America, if not more” said ReshooPande, 22, Miss India USA 2004, whowon by dancing like a Bollywood filmidol. “This is not our homeland,” sheadded. From just 2001 to 2004 about1,000 women competed for Miss Viet-nam USA. The first prize was $10,000and a Mercedes Benz worth more than$35,000. There has been a Miss Black America pageant since 1968.

Verizon Communications has begunoffering segregated telephone direc-

tories. In 2004, it debuted itsfi

rst list-ing for minority- and women-ownedbusinesses for the Richmond, Virginiamarket. Gov. Mark Warner was on handto applaud what Verizon called “a greatopportunity for extra exposure.” Thecompany promised similar directoriesfor Baltimore, Washington, and othercities.

Entertainment is often segregated.Comedy clubs routinely book perform-ers of different races for different daysof the week, so as to appeal to different

audiences. Many offer “Latino Night,”“the Asian Invasion,” and events suchas “Mo Betta Mundays” or “ChocolateSundaes” for blacks. As Will Durst, aSan Francisco comic explains, comedyis increasingly “tribal,” and “now all thetribes get to elect their own jester.”

As one Hispanic comedian crackedat a Hispanic night in a Los Angelesclub called Laugh Factory, “Any whitepeople here? What? You guys make awrong turn? We got White Wednesdays.

Pop Warner, the way it used to be.




The state of California kept prisonersseparated by race under limited circum-stances, arguing that mixing can bringviolence. In 2005, the US SupremeCourt ordered the state to integrate allcells at all times.

No one seems to have studied thequestion of ficially, but there is probablyabout as much racial mixing at socialgatherings as there is at churches: 95

percent are at least 80 percent one race.Dinner parties, barbecues, campingtrips, or bowling parties are rarely in-tegrated. At work, Americans deal withpeople of other races because employersmust have mixed workforces, but when

they are entirely free to choose, Ameri-cans segregate.It would be dif ficult to think of a

greater contradiction in American life.Our laws and ideals are based on theassumption that race is trivial, evenmeaningless. Our daily lives constantlyviolate our ideals. At the same time, theof ficial, race-doesn’t-matter ideologyis so powerful that most whites rarelyadmit how many of their decisions re-flect race.

The regnant racial ideology is clearlya misreading of human nature. Like

language, religion, and nationality, raceis one of the great fault lines that dividehuman societies. There has never beena multi-racial society without eitherchronic racial friction or complete domi-nance of one group by the other. If thegoal of transcending race is in conflictwith the imperatives of human nature,it is a goal we cannot achieve. In the Epistles, Horace wrote, “Though youdrive Nature out with a pitchfork, shewill ever find her way back.”

Come back then.”On screen there is, of course, Black

Entertainment Television, and there isa host of black-specialty Internet siteslike BlackPlanet.com. The giant serviceprovider America Online has almost aparallel universe of black-oriented newsand information as part of its “black focus,” and has equally rich offeringsfor Hispanics at “AOL Latino.”

Social networking websites drawhuge numbers of young people, and theirpersonal networks tend to be raciallyhomogeneous. Even the sites themselveshave established racial personalities.Whites congregate at Facebook whileHispanics prefer MySpace. Asianssocialize at Xanga and Friendster, andare reported to be almost completelyabsent from MySpace. Eszter Hargittaiat Northwestern University in Illinois

says her research “suggests there’s lessintermingling of users from varyingbackgrounds on these sites than previ-ously believed.”

Perhaps the most explicit expressionof segregationist sentiment is opposi-tion to intermarriage, which has a longhistory in the United States. In 1967,when the US Supreme Court found them

unconstitutional, there were still laws in16 states banning marriage across raciallines. In the South, bans on miscegena-tion were sometimes written into stateconstitutions.

In 1998 and 2000 respectively,South Carolina and Alabama expungedthese passages from their constitu-tions through a process that involved apopular ballot. In both states observerswere disconcerted to find that about 40percent of voters opposed removing the

unenforceable bans.Although interracial marriage is legal

everywhere, and media depictions of itare invariably positive, such marriagesare still rare, especially for whites. AHarvard study of 2000 census datafound that although 5 percent of black and 14 percent of Asian marriages crossracial lines, only 1 percent of whitemarriages do. Just 0.4 percent of whitemarriages—one in 250—are to blacks.Whites are slightly more likely to marryAsians than blacks, despite the fact thatthere are far fewer Asians than blacks inAmerica. The white intermarriage rate isstill a considerable gain over 1880, whenonly one in 1,000 white marriages wasto a non-white.

Because the races tend to go theirseparate ways, there have been manyinnocent attempts to accommodatethem. They are usually welcomed by

everyone involved, but when they arediscovered the authorities quash them.For example, until 1997, the AlabamaDepartment of Transportation made upall-black and all-white road work crews,at the request of the men. The depart-ment forced no one into or out of suchgroups; it simply respected the wishesof its workers. A federal judge orderedthis practice stopped as soon as it cameto light.

Politicians have discovered thatwhen they operate telephone banks toget supporters to go to the polls, black

callers get a better response from black voters and whites do better with whites.The Parker Group, an Alabama politicalconsulting company, obligingly set upsegregated calling banks at the requestof both black and white politicians,sometimes with different politicalpitches for blacks and whites. Again, afederal judge promptly ended what hadbeen an effective approach.

In Cincinnati, the city council andcity manager were dismayed to learnthat the city’s firehouses were driftinginto segregation: Three were all-white,

six were mostly black, and only aboutone third were what anyone would havecalled racially balanced. Firefighterspreferred to work close to home andwith colleagues they found compat-ible. Over the opposition of both black and white firefighters, the city councilunanimously voted in a new assignmentsystem to integrate the firehouses.

In prisons in every state there is rigidracial self-segregation, and prisoners saythey would prefer of ficial segregation.

Just not a big seller

Different jokes for different folks.




Three Horsemen of the ApocalypsePatrick J. Buchanan, Day of Reckoning: How Hubris, Ideology, and Greed are Tearing America Apart ,

Thomas Dunne Books, 2007, 294 pp., $25.95.

How ideology is destroyingthe West.

reviewed by Stephen Webster

The United States, warns Patrick Buchanan, is on a collision coursewith history. Each of three major

policies—trade, immigration, strate-gy—is unsustainable, and together theyimperil the continued existence of theUnited States. Such is the grim messageof Mr. Buchanan’s latest book, Day of Reckoning.

Why do our leaders fail to recog-nize the risks they are running? Mr.Buchanan believes they are blinded byideology; they want the world to con-form to their vision, and are preparedto use force to make it conform. In Mr.Buchanan’s view, real conservatism isthe absence of ideology, the willingnessto take the world and human nature asthey are rather than impose impossible

ambitions.Mr. Buchanan writes that ideol-ogy drives all of our most catastrophicpolicies. Multi-culturalism sees mas-sive Third-World immigration as agreat benefit rather than the disaster itobviously is, and faith in free trade isdestroying our industrial infrastructureand beggaring the middle class. But inMr. Buchanan’s view, the most harm-ful of the regnant ideologies is what hecalls “democratism,” the neoconserva-

tive doctrine of imposing democracy onthe world by force. It is this compulsion toremake the world that has drawn us into theIraq war, which Mr. Buchanan calls the worststrategic blunder in American history.

“Democratism” would never havebeen a temptation to our rulers were itnot for another related American defect:hubris. Even before the younger Bushbecame president, George H. W. Bushand Bill Clinton acted as if there wasno limit to America’s ability to force itswill upon the world. The end of the ColdWar should have been an opportunity tobring our troops home, to cut back our

commitments, to become, in the wordsof the late Gene Kirkpatrick, a “normalnation” for which foreign policy is asecondary concern. (Mr. Buchananreminds us that from the Revolution tothe end of the Second World War, wehad no peacetime alliances.) Insteadof scrapping NATO, we expanded it toinclude former Warsaw Pact nations andeven parts of the former Soviet Union.

Instead of dismantling our foreign baseswe have built scores more, and now havehundreds of thousands of soldiers in nofewer than 135 of the world’s 192 coun-tries. This has produced a potentiallydangerous confrontation with VladimirPutin’s Russia and has encircled China,recreating Cold War-style containmentagainst a country whose trade, accord-ing to our elites, is essential to ourprosperity.

Despite the collapse of the Soviet

Union we are still committed to defend-ing Canada, Europe, Australia, Japan,South Korea, Thailand, the Philippines,Latin America and Taiwan. Worse still,we have added Eastern Europe, the Bal-kans, Central Asia and the Middle Eastto our security burdens. We are commit-ted to defending most of the countriesof the world against attack—some witheconomies stronger than ours—yet aftersix years of fighting we cannot evenpacify Afghanistan.

In Mr. Buchanan’s view, the mostdangerous and reprehensible combina-tion of hubris and “democratism” hasbeen President George W. Bush. As a

candidate, Mr. Bush preached a morehumble foreign policy than that of BillClinton, who made war in the Balkanson people who did not threaten us.After the September 11 terrorist attacks(which Mr. Buchanan believes were aconsequence of our Middle East poli-cies), neocons “seduced” Mr. Bush totheir vision of spreading democracyby force. Mr. Bush has since become auniquely reckless and ignorant stewardof American power, blind to the tragedyhis policies have left behind, and oblivi-ous to the hatred for America he has

stirred up around the world.

Free Trade

It may be just as well, then, that theUnited States is broke and has noth-ing like the resources for the neocons’fantastic military program to remakethe entire Middle East. And why is theworld’s richest country broke? Becauseit has sacrificed its workers and its in-dustrial might to the false lure of freetrade. CEOs who ship American jobsoverseas in order to cut costs grow

wealthy while the middle class shrinks.Mr. Buchanan reports that because ourmarkets are open to the world while somany are closed to us, we had a 2006trade deficit of $764 billion, with a defi-cit in manufactured goods alone of $536billion. We have not run a trade surplussince the early 1970s.

We had a $233 billion trade deficitwith China; $88 billion with Japan, and$60 billion with Mexico. Economically,China treats us like a colonial province:

Building the American empire.




It had surpluses with us in computers,electrical machinery, vehicles, opticaland photographic equipment, furniture,plastics, and iron and steel products. Wehad surpluses with China in soybeans,corn, wheat, animal feed, meat, cotton,ores, scrap, hides, pulp, wastepaper,cigarettes, coal, rice, tobacco, fertilizersand glass.

Mr. Buchanan sees free trade as anideological cult, just like democratism.He argues that it was the economicnationalism preached by AlexanderHamilton—and now practiced by theChinese—that made the Americaneconomy the greatest in the world, whilefree trade destroyed Britain’s early pre-eminence. “Free trade puts the claimsof consumers ahead of the duties of citizens,” he writes, adding that “historyhas proven free trade to be . . . a serialkiller of manufacturing.” The world

economy now looks to the United Statesmainly as a market; we are consumersrather than producers.

Mr. Buchanan also calls free trade the“Trojan horse of transnational govern-ment,” noting that it is the favored ideol-ogy of those calling for North American

union and an end to the nation state.Its combined economic and politicaleffect therefore makes it just as perni-cious as crusading democratism and thethird ideology Mr. Buchanan examines,multi-culturalism.

“Deconstructing America” is thetitle of Mr. Buchanan’s chapter onmulti-culturalism, a slashing critiquethat could have been written by thelate Sam Francis himself. “Since thecultural revolution of the 1960s and theImmigration Act of 1965,” writes Mr.Buchanan, “the ethnocultural core has

begun to dissolve. . . . [T]he Europeanethnic core is shrinking. From nearly 90percent in 1960, it is down to 67 percenttoday, and will be less than 50 percentby 2040. Here we come to the heart of the matter. Quo Vadis, America? Whereare you going?” Wherever it is going, hebelieves it can never return.

Mr. Buchanan blames the neocon-servatives and the race-denying left fordissolving what he calls the essentialconstituents of nation: “blood and soil,

tradition and faith, history and heroes.”Deconstructionists have replaced theseancient bonds with a new civic religion,based on the “new trinity” of “diversity,democracy, and equality.” The result isan artificial shell, what enthusiasts calla “creedal” nation. Millions of Third-

Worlders have but to mouth the creed inorder to become authentic Americans oreven Europeans. Neocons have such acontemptuous view of nation, and such alust for cannon fodder for their imperialwars that they want guaranteed citizen-ship for anyone who joins Uncle Sam’slegions. Recruiting centers could be setup all over the Third World.

As Mr. Buchanan notes, the “creed,”whatever it is alleged to include, cannever take the place of blood and soil.“It has no roots and does not touch theheart,” he writes. “Americans will not

send their sons tofi

ght and die for . . .watery abstractions.”

Before it is Too Late

Those who have read Mr. Buchanan’searlier books—The Great Betrayal; A Republic, Not an Empire; State of Emer-gency; and The Death of the West —willbe familiar with many of his arguments. Day of Reckoning refines these argu-ments and brings the facts entirely up todate. Like his previous titles, this book glows with passion for its subject: the

United States of America.Mr. Buchanan warns that disastercan take many forms, but the resultwould be the end of what we know asthe United States. It could, for example,break apart like Yugoslavia or Czecho-slovakia. The Southwest is becoming aprovince of Mexico, and the country isdescending into what Teddy Rooseveltwarned against: a “tangle of squabblingnationalities.”

Alternatively, like the Soviet Union,

the United States could expire fromsheer exhaustion and imperial over-reach. We are already selling what is leftof our economic infrastructure to payfor imports. As whole industries leaveour shores, the dollar could collapse andlose its role as a reserve currency, leav-

ing us at the mercy of foreigners whohold our debts.If we do the neocons’ bidding and add

to our roster of disastrous wars, the endcould come quickly. The United Statescould find itself having to choose be-

tween Taipei and Seattle in a showdownwith China. We would face such a crisisimpoverished and with few friends,since our hubris has already cost us the

goodwill of Russia and much of Europe.Outright, humiliating defeat is not outof the question. And as Mr. Buchananreminds us, empires do not usuallysurvive defeat.

Mr. Buchanan believes all thesedisasters can be avoided if our leadersregain their senses. His advice is simple:Come home, America. Lay down thebanner of empire. Put Americans andAmerican jobs first. Control the border.Before it is too late.

There goes your job.

Free trade is the “Trojanhorse of transnational

government.”




O Tempora, O Mores!

Bryant Purvis (left) and Carwin Jones at theBET awards.

No One Wants It

Americans think immigration threat-ens their culture. According to a studypublished by the Pew Research Center,people everywhere feel the same way.After polling 45,000 people in 47 coun-tries, Pew researchers found that in 44of the 47, majorities wanted less immi-gration. Only South Koreans, Japanese,and Palestinians favored current levelsof immigration—which are essentiallyzero. Seventy-five percent of Americanswanted fewer immigrants, as did similarproportions of Russians, Spaniards, andBritons.

The survey finds that natives think

immigrants are a threat: “In today’srapidly changing world, people fromnations rich and poor worry about losingtheir traditional culture. In 46 out of 47countries, majorities say their traditionalway of life is getting lost.”

Some people are more worriedthan others. Seventy-three percent of Americans, 74 percent of Germans,77 percent of Britons, and 75 percentof the French feared a loss of tradi-tions, but the figure for South Koreaand Bangladesh was 92 percent. Onlyin Sweden were fewer than half—49

percent—worried about cultural loss.Majorities in 46 of 47 countries saidgovernment should protect the nationalculture. The majorities were small inGermany, France, and Britain, but wereover 90 percent in India, Indonesia,and Egypt. In America, the belief thatgovernment should protect the culturewas more common among Republicans(71 percent) than among Democrats (60percent). [Immigration, Loss of Culture,Worry Nations, Jennifer Harper, Wash-ington Times, Oct. 5, 2007.]

‘Jena 6’ UpdateSupporters of the so-called “Jena 6,”

the young Louisiana blacks who beat awhite classmate in Dec. 2006, claimedthey were good boys targeted by a rac-ist prosecutor. The truth is somewhatdifferent. Ringleader Mychal Bell hada long juvenile record, and was on pro-bation at the time of the attack. Nowco-defendant Bryant Purvis, 19, facesmisdemeanor assault charges after he

beat up a schoolmate in Carrollton,Texas. His mother sent Mr. Purvis toTexas to live with an uncle so he couldstay “out of trouble and out of the lime-light.” If convicted, Mr. Purvis could befined up to $4,000 and spend a year in

jail. He is still charged with aggravated

second-degree battery and conspiracyback in Jena, where he goes on trial onMarch 24.

Along with fellow Jena Sixer CarwinJones, Mr. Purvis got a standing ovationat Black Entertainment Television’sHip-Hop Awards last October, whenthe two helped present the award forbest video. [‘Jena 6’ Defendant FacingNew Assault Charge in Texas, AP, Feb.7. 2008.]

Lowering the Bar

Richard Sander is a law profes-sor at UCLA who suspects that whenlaw schools practice race preferencesthey admit non-whites who are poorlyqualified. He thinks this is why theyare less likely than whites to graduate,and almost twice as likely to fail the barexam. He thinks blacks would do betterif they were admitted to less prestigiouslaw schools, where their abilities bettermatched the demands. In order to provewhat he calls his “mismatch theory,”

he wants the California State Bar As-sociation to release racial breakdownsof Law School Admission Test scores,law school and undergraduate grades,and bar exam results.

California law students and recentlawyers opposed this, claiming that theinformation was private. In November2007, the bar association’s Commit-tee on Regulations, Admissions, andDiscipline voted 7-0 to keep the dataunder wraps, and the governing boardof the association has since upheld thecommittee’s decision.

Non-whites are pleased, arguing thatsince there were so few of them in thedatabase they could be easily identified.

Alina Ball, the only black woman inUCLA’s law school class of 2008, alsoexpressed doubts about the legitimacy of research into racial preferences.

Prof. Sander says accounts of hiswork have been misleading, and thatworries about privacy are a “red her-ring.” He says he would be unable toidentify individuals, and that even if hecould, he would keep that informationprivate.

Gerald Reynolds, a black who servesas chairman of the US Commission onCivil Rights, supports Prof. Sander’s

study. He thinks that if the “mismatchtheory” is right, minorities are beinghurt, and corrective action could raisetheir pass rates. “We should not be in aposition where we’re scared of the data,”says Mr. Reynolds. “We should have thecourage to allow the researchers to takea look.” [Race Data for Bar AdmissionsStays Under Wraps, California Bar Jour-nal, December 2007.]

Too White

Walworth County, Wisconsin, 45

miles southwest of Milwaukee, had apopulation of 94,000 people in 2000,95 percent of whom were white. Sixyears later, the population had grownto 100,000 and was ten percent non-white. The newcomers are virtuallyall Hispanic. Most residents may notknow it, but their leaders have decidedWalworth County is in a terrible crisis:Every single one of the county’s 150elected of ficials is white.

The fact that most Hispanics are




not citizens and cannot vote is not asuf ficient explanation for this agoniz-ing excess of whiteness, so local sages

have been consulted. Charles Franklin,a political science professor at theUniversity of Wisconsin at Madison,says the Hispanic community is justtoo new. “It’s not unusual for new andgrowing populations to lag behind inrunning candidates for of fice. . . . It’ssimply the way the political and socialprocess works.” Prof. Franklin thinksHispanics are too busy just trying to get

by to worry about politics. He thinks itwill take a “mobilizing factor” to getMexicans to run for of fice. “That givesthem a base to capitalize on—unsatisfiedconstituents—and it gives them a reasonto run.”

Fortunately, the federal governmentmay be stirring up just the dissatisfac-tion Hispanics needs. In August 2006Immigration and Customs Enforcementagents raided Star Packaging in thetown of Whitewater, arresting 25 illegalaliens along with the company’s owner.Hispanics paraded their outrage, and

of fi

cials in the left-leaning town (hometo the University of Wisconsin-White-water) promptly started an “outreach”campaign. UW-Whitewater politicalscience professor Susan Johnson is de-lighted. She wants “outreach” to “all dif-ferent groups in your community.” “It’sa communitarian idea,” she explains.[Mike Heine, Why Won’t They Run?,Janesville Gazette, Jan. 25, 2008.]

Talking Back

People who don’t want refugees in

their communities are complainingabout it. Anne Curtis, director of BridgeRefugees Services of Chattanooga,which helps settle refugees, says, “Inthe 10 years since we opened our of-fice, I had never experienced any threatsuntil last year,” when her agency begangetting phone calls, letters, and e-mail.She says she felt so threatened that shecalled the police twice. “I feel sad thatpeople forget all of our families wereimmigrants at one point,” she says.

America Gruner, president of theCoalition of Latino Leaders in Dalton,Georgia, and Jerry Gonzalez, executive

director of the Georgia Associationof Latino Elected Officials, saidthey too have seen a rise in angrye-mail and phone calls. Miss Grunersays people want Hispanics to goback where they came from. “Lastyear,” she addds, “when we starteda campaign to encourage Hispanicsto vote, we received several calls

telling us we were breaking the law byregistering illegals.”

Prof. Douglas Bachtel of the Uni-versity of Georgia says the weakeningeconomy and last summer’s debate onimmigration have raised nativist an-ger. “As the economy starts to tightenup they’ll see them [immigrants] as athreat taking scarce resources,” he said.“But it’s also a form of racism and total

ignorance.”Catalina Nieto, of something calledthe Tennessee Immigrants and RefugeesRights Coalition, says people need toget past the “myths.” “I’ve noticed thatevery time people interact with refugeesor immigrants, they begin to understandtheir situation better,” she says.

Chattanooga resident Rick Pinsonspeaks for the opponents: “Americansoldiers who fought and died for thiscountry did not do it so it could be givenaway to people from other countries,and that taxpayers be required to pay

for their welfare.” [Perla Trevizo, Im-migrant Agencies Feel Rise in Harass-ment, Chattanooga Times Free Press,Feb. 4, 2008.]

Propaganda Works

A recent study conducted by SamWineburg of Stanford University andChauncey Monte-Sano of the Univer-sity of Maryland asked 2,000 “diverse”high school juniors and seniors to pick the most famous Americans who werenot presidents or first ladies. Martin

Luther King topped the list, followedby Rosa Parks and Harriet Tubman.Four of the top ten were black, and sixwere women.

Prof. Wineburg says the prominenceof blacks on the list demonstrates “theprofound change” in how Americansview their history. “Over the course of about 44 years, we’ve had a revolutionin the people who we come to think about to represent the American story.There’s a kind of shift going on, from

the narrative of the founders, which isthe national mythic narrative, to the nar-rative of expanding rights.”

Historian Dennis Derenberg, says it’snot surprising “civil rights” leaders headthe list. “Since it so redefined Americapost-World War II, I think educatorsfeel it’s truly a story young peopleneed to know about because we’re stillstruggling with it. The Cold War is overand gone. The civil rights movement is

ongoing.”Here are the top 10, with the percent-

ages who chose each:1. Martin Luther King, Jr.: 67%2. Rosa Parks: 60%3. Harriet Tubman: 44%4. Susan B. Anthony: 34%5. Benjamin Franklin: 29%6. Amelia Earhart: 25%7. Oprah Winfrey: 22%8. Marilyn Monroe: 19%9. Thomas Edison: 18%

10. Albert Einstein: 16%[Greg Toppo, High Schoolers Name

Women, Black Americans ‘Most Fa-mous,’ USA Today, Feb. 5, 2008.]

Mandatory Spanish

In 2001, a third of the students atTimberline Elementary in Grapevine,Texas, were Hispanic. Now they aremore than half, while white enrollmenthas dropped to 36 percent. The schoolused to post announcements and writeletters to parents in both English andSpanish, but the school now requires allEnglish-speakers to learn Spanish.

Harriet Tubman is more famous thanBen Franklin.




Many whites are outraged. “Theyshould not be forced to take Spanish,”says Patrick Swartz, whose daughterKaitlyn may fail fifth grade for refusingto take the course. Even some Hispanicparents agree that English, not Spanish,should be the focus of the curriculum.Dora Deleon, whose grandchildren at-tend the school, says, “This is a country,America, with English. So we supposedto learn to speak English.”

Some white parents like mandatorySpanish. “It develops our kids,” says TiaGreen. [Nerissa Knight, GCISD ParentsSay Students Forced To Learn Spanish,CBS-TV 11 (Dallas/Fort Worth), Feb.1, 2008.]

‘Hate’ Must be Stopped

A student group has invited AR editorJared Taylor to speak at Michigan State

University in Lansing on March 19.Lefties have organized a group called“Michigan Against White Supremacy”to pressure the university to cancel thetalk. They are urging people to e-mail aform letter to university president LouAnna Simon explaining why Mr. Taylormust not be allowed to speak. Amongtheir arguments:

“[I]t is an issue of hate speech ratherthan that of free speech. Jared Taylorattempts to justify racism through em-pirical thought and asserts that there isa natural racial hierarchy. He utilizes

the guise of intellectual discourse toproselytize hate. Taylor uses scientificultrarationality . . . to defend his preju-dice against non-white races.

“There is a distinct difference betweenfree speech and hate speech . . . .

“Taylor will not bring about any in-tellectual discussion or analysis of raceissues and his lecture can only serve tofurther divide people of different racesand cultures.”

America’s Heart and Soul

Thanks to a $3 million donation fromthe Kellogg Foundation, constructionof the Martin Luther King Memorial,should begin on the National Mall inWashington, DC, this spring. The KingMemorial Foundation now has $90 mil-lion, just $10 million short of its goalof $100 million, and expects the giantstatue to open to visitors on schedulein 2009. The National Capital PlanningCommission must approve the memorialbut that is expected to be a formality.

Kellogg Foundation chief executiveSterling Speirn explains the donation:“The Martin Luther King, Jr. NationalMemorial is about much more thanbricks and mortar and stone. It is about

the heart and soul of the American expe-rience.” That must be why the memorialfoundation chose a Chinese sculptorwho made his name in giant statues of Mao Tse Tung to design the memorial.[Gerry Shih, Kellogg Donates $3M toMLK Memorial, Cox News Service,Jan. 31, 2008.]

More ‘Hate’

On January 31, president JanetMurguia of the National Council of La Raza—which mean “the race” inSpanish—announced plans to pressuretelevision networks and presidentialcandidates to clamp down on “hatespeech,” meaning any criticism of im-migration. “Hate groups and extremistshave taken over the immigration debatein an unprecedented wave of hate,” sheexplains. Freedom of speech has limits,she adds, because “there is a line thatsometimes can be crossed.”

So what offends The Race? Callingimmigrants an “army of invaders” or an“invading force,” pointing out that im-migrants bring crime and diseases, andwarning about “Reconquista,” which LaRaza calls a “conspiracy theory.”

Who are the biggest offenders?MSNBC’s Pat Buchanan (see reviewof his latest book, p. 11), CNN’s LouDobbs, and radio talk show host GlennBeck. Of Mr. Beck, Miss Murguia says,“He read a proposed ad for a giant refin-

ery that produces Mexinol, a fuel madefrom the bodies of illegal immigrantscoming here from Mexico tofind work.”She also singled out Jim Gilchrist of theMinuteman, who describes La Raza as a“racial supremacy group” that “dwarfsthe combination of Black Panthers,KKK, American Indian Movement andAsian gangs.”

Mr. Gilchrist replies: “My son-in-lawis Mexican and two of my three grand-children are half Mexican. The Minute-man Project is comprised of every race

color and creed . . . . She has a right to

her opinion, but she’s wrong.”La Raza’s senior vice president saysCNN has agreed to meet with the group,but a CNN spokesman declined to con-firm this. [Hate Speech Cited in Immi-gration Debate, AP, Jan. 31, 2008.]

Not Fit to Print

On Feb. 8, a woman armed with aknife burst into the cockpit of a com-mercial flight headed from Blenheim,New Zealand, to Christchurch, stabbedboth pilots and demanded to be flown to

Australia. She claimed to have a bomband threatened to blow up the plane. Thepilots suffered only minor injuries, man-aged to subdue the woman, and landedthe plane safely in Christchurch, wherepolice arrested her.

The woman was a Somali Muslim,but a Canadian report referred to hersimply as “a woman.” CNN called her“a New Zealand woman” who “wasbelieved to be from Blenheim.” [FlyMe to Australia: Plane ‘Hijacker,’ Daily

Prominent hate-monger, Glenn Beck.

The Great Helmsman.



Here come the brides.

Telegraph (Australia), Feb. 8, 2008.Pilots Attacked on NZ Flight, CNN,Feb. 7, 2008. Tim Blair, Flight Fight,TimBlair.net, Feb. 8, 2008.]

Polygamy Good

Having multiple wives is a crime inBritain, punishable by up to seven yearsin prison—except for Muslims whomarry in a country where polygamy islegal. In that case, Britain recognizesmultiple marriages, and pays welfarebenefits for all wives and children. If thehusband wants, he can have the welfarechecks for all his wives deposited intohis account. A man with more than onewife may also be eligible for extra hous-

ing and tax benefits. No one knows howmuch this costs taxpayers because noone knows how many “Britons” haveharems. [Britain Gives Formal Recogni-tion to Polygamy, Times of India, Feb.4, 2008.]

At least in Toronto, polygamousCanadians get similar benefits. MumtazAli, president of the Canadian Societyof Muslims, estimates that “severalhundred” Muslims in the Toronto areaare collecting on multiple wives. Thepreamble to the Ontario Family Law Act

states: “In the definition of ‘spouse,’ areference to marriage includes a mar-riage that is actually or potentially po-lygamous, if it was celebrated in a juris-diction whose system of law recognizesit as valid.” “This is a law and there’snothing wrong with it,” says Mr. Ali.“Canada is a very liberal-minded coun-try; way ahead of Britain in this respect,”he added, though he conceded that evenBritain has recently recognized Muslimpolygamy. [Tom Godfrey, Harems Pay

Off For Muslims, Sun (Toronto), Feb.8, 2008.]

Patriotism Bad

The Institute of Education, a think tank af filiated with the University of London, conducted a survey askingstudents and teachers across Britain howthe history curriculum should handlepatriotism. Its conclusion? Patriotismis a very doubtful virtue because “it ishard to think of a national history freefrom the blights of warmongering, im-perialism, tyranny, injustice, slavery andsubjugation, or a national identity forgedwithout recourse to exclusionary andxenophobic stereotypes.” Teachers musttherefore be careful not to encouragepatriotism, especiallywhen they cover therise of the empire or

the British role in theSecond World War.The study’s author, Mi-

chael Hand, explains why hisfindings are important. “[PrimeMinister] Gordon Brown and[opposition leader] David Cam-eron have both called for ahistory curriculum that fostersattachment and loyalty to Brit-ain, but the case for promotingpatriotism in schools is weak.Are countries really appropri-ate objects of love? Loving

things can be bad for us, forexample when the thingswe love are morallycorrupt. Since allnational his-tories areat bestm o r -a l l yambig-uous, it’san openq u e s -t i o n

whether citizens should love theircountries.”

Historian Tristram Hunt of the Uni-versity of London calls this view “veryimmature.” “The real problem isn’t that

our children are being indoctrinatedwith patriotism,” he says, “but thatthey don’t know enough British his-tory.” [Nicola Woolcock, ‘Don’t TeachChildren Patriotism,’ Times (London),Feb. 1, 2008.]

Browning of Oz

Two leading Australian academicsclaim that unless the country opens thefloodgates to immigrants, it will notbe able to sustain its economy. In theirrecent report, Population and Australia’sFuture Labour Force, demographerPeter McDonald and economist GlennWithers argue that demand for skilled la-

bor in min-ing, trans-p o r t a n dcommuni-cations will

increase asbaby boom-ers retire andA u s t r a l i a nfertility rates

drop. A record177,600 immi-

grants settled inAustralia in 2007,

but the authorsclaim that in

order tok e e p

pace, the country will need at least227,000 immigrants every year start-ing in 2021. [Sarah Smile, Workforce‘Needs More Migrants,’ The Age (Mel-bourne), Feb. 6, 2008.]

200803 American Renaissance

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