From EastBayRI.com:

Meg Natale, owner of the House of Little People on Maple Avenue, didn't mind that an agent from the Rhode Island Department of Children, Youth & Families visited her childcare center last month to investigate a complaint made against one of her employees.

What infuriated her was that it seemed as though the only thing the employee was guilty of was being black.

"I wouldn't have a problem if they had a good reason," she said. "But it was because he was African that they were concerned."

Mr. Saine has been living in America for 12 years, and has long held American citizenship.

This is not the first time Mr. Saine has been victimized by racism:

Though Mr. Saine said that he has had a "very nice experience" overall in Barrington, he is not unfamiliar with prejudice.

While working at a bank prior to joining the House of Little People this summer, Mr. Saine recalled the time a southern white man questioned how he had even gotten his position as a black man.

"Right to my face," he said. "It offends me, but I try to seize to the opportunity to educate more people."

Mr. Saine said he made it a point to treat the customer nicely despite the insult, but even then the man would only concede that "he had more respect for people" because he was an African.

And of course, Mr. Saine was "respectful" because he's African...as opposed to African-American. (The sad thing is, were a pollster to ask this man after his exchange with Mr. Saine, "are you a racist?", his answer would probably be a resounding "no".)

One would be well-served to bear in mind that the entire "immigration debate" is not going on in a vacuum: the far majority of these self-styled good Samaritans (watching out for the "poor American worker") are not raising the banners of nativism over the heads of Russians, Germans, or Canadians -- but rather over the heads of non-white people with accents.

Posted by Y-Love at 02:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

David Frum of the horribly right-wing National Review lamented this week about "kids" and the Republican Party. Apparently the right isn't doing so well with those of us who are under-30: Democrats have a full 19-percentage point lead among young voters, and this is even more sharply pronounced when broken down by race and ethnicity.

David Frum suggests that this explains the whole Democratic lead:

Maybe you've heard about the recent polls showing a huge Democratic advantage among young voters. The latest , conducted by Stanley Greenberg for the Democracy Project, shows (among other dismal tidings) a 19-point party identification lead for Democrats among voters younger than 30...

Read the report in full, however, and you come across an interesting nugget on page 6: White young people continue to favor Republicans by a thin but real margin of 2 points. The Democrats owe their advantage among youth to a huge lead among young African-Americans (78 points) - and a very large lead (43 points) among Hispanics.

In the past, Republicans could win elections despite their unpopularity among ethnic minorities. But with the huge surge of immigration since 1980 - and especially since 2000 - the voting map of the United States has been redrawn in ways inherently deeply unfavorable to the GOP...

Frum says explicitly, "[the] legacy that will damage [Bush's] party is the legacy of immigration non-enforcement." As Frum says, the growing Latino population is being enlarged by "[a] large new community of people who are both economically struggling...but who lack deep attachment to the American nation." (As Rick Perlstein notes, once upon a time, this exact same thing would have been said about Jews.)

Not to mention, as Digby's Hullabaloo points out, this was a partisan voter survey. Illegal immigrants can't vote and therefore were not surveyed. So the whole "immigration non-enforcement" line is really a moot point, this survey only surveyed people who could vote. However they got here, they're here legally now with voting rights (after a median wait of eight years from immigration to citizenship).

This is not about immigration or even psychographics per se. This is no more than yet another cloaking of the same old racism. Indeed, as Digby continues:

The sheer numbers of non-whites are changing things, and that has the rightwingers working themselves into a full blown panic. The Bushies were right on this one. They needed to cool the racist ardor of their base, but they couldn't get it done. And now you see neocons like Frum trying to join the wingnut populist bandwagon with thinly veiled racist appeals to solidarity...

(His conflation of "illegal immigrants" who allegedly have no stake in the country with the large numbers of young Hispanic Americans who were born here gives the game away.)

AGS [Alesina, Glazear and Sacerdote] report, using the World Values Survey, that "opinions and beliefs about the poor differ sharply between the United States and Europe. In Europe the poor are generally thought to be unfortunate, but not personally responsible for their own condition. For example, according to the World Values Survey, whereas 70 % of West Germans express the belief that people are poor because of imperfections in society, not their own laziness, 70 % of Americans hold the opposite view.... 71 % of Americans but only 40% of Europeans said ...poor people could work their way out of poverty."

Our bottom line is that Americans redistribute less than Europeans for three reasons:
[1] because the majority of Americans believe that redistribution favors racial minorities,
[2] because Americans believe that they live in an open and fair society, and that if someone is poor it is his or her own fault, and
[3] because the political system is geared toward preventing redistribution.

Posted by Y-Love at 03:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

"I lie on the beach with Hillary-Ann, a chatty, scatty 35-year-old Californian designer. As she explains the perils of Republican dating, my mind drifts, watching the gentle tide. When I hear her say, " Of course, we need to execute some of these people," I wake up. Who do we need to execute? She runs her fingers through the sand lazily. "A few of these prominent liberals who are trying to demoralise the country," she says. "Just take a couple of these anti-war people off to the gas chamber for treason to show, if you try to bring down America at a time of war, that's what you'll get." -- from "Ship of Fools" by Johann Hari

Johann Hari, writing for The Independent (UK) gives us a startling insight into many of the neocon minds which are lamentably in vogue in the Capitol Hill circuit these days. Mr. Hari went aboard the National Review cruise, and the conversations he was unfortunate/fortunate enough to overhear were brimming with racism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia so virulent that it should make any progressive person shudder.

I am travelling on a bright white cruise ship with two restaurants, five bars, a casino – and 500 readers of the National Review. Here, the Iraq war has been "an amazing success". Global warming is not happening. The solitary black person claims, "If the Ku Klux Klan supports equal rights, then God bless them." And I have nowhere to run.

From time to time, National Review – the bible of American conservatism – organises a cruise for its readers. I paid $1,200 to join them. The rules I imposed on myself were simple: If any of the conservative cruisers asked who I was, I answered honestly, telling them I was a journalist. Mostly, I just tried to blend in – and find out what American conservatives say when they think the rest of us aren't listening....

I would be remiss if I didn't quote the following:

Ward Connerly is the only black person in the National Review posse, a 67-year-old Louisiana-born businessman, best known for leading conservative campaigns against affirmative action for black people. Earlier, I heard him saying the Republican Party has been "too preoccupied with... not ticking off the blacks", and a cooing white couple wandered away smiling, "If he can say it, we can say it." What must it be like to be a black man shilling for a magazine that declared at the height of the civil rights movement that black people "tend to revert to savagery", and should be given the vote only "when they stop eating each other"?

I drag him into the bar, where he declines alcohol. He tells me plainly about his childhood – his mother died when he was four, and he was raised by his grandparents – but he never really becomes animated until I ask him if it is true he once said, "If the KKK supports equal rights, then God bless them." He leans forward, his palms open. There are, he says, " those who condemn the Klan based on their past without seeing the human side of it, because they don't want to be in the wrong, politically correct camp, you know... Members of the Ku Klux Klan are human beings, American citizens – they go to a place to eat, nobody asks them 'Are you a Klansmember?', before we serve you here. They go to buy groceries, nobody asks, 'Are you a Klansmember?' They go to vote for Governor, nobody asks 'Do you know that that person is a Klansmember?' Only in the context of race do they ask that. And I'm supposed to instantly say, 'Oh my God, they are Klansmen? Geez, I don't want their support.'"

This empathy for Klansmen first bubbled into the public domain this year when Connerly was leading an anti-affirmative action campaign in Michigan. The KKK came out in support of him – and he didn't decline it. I ask if he really thinks it is possible the KKK made this move because they have become converted to the cause of racial equality. "I think that the reasoning that a Klan member goes through is – blacks are getting benefits that I'm not getting. It's reverse discrimination. To me it's all discrimination. But the Klansmen is going through the reasoning that this is benefiting blacks, they are getting things that I don't get... A white man doesn't have a chance in this country."

He becomes incredibly impassioned imagining how they feel, ventriloquising them with a shaking fist – "The Mexicans are getting these benefits, the coloureds or niggers, whatever they are saying, are getting these benefits, and I as a white man am losing my country."

But when I ask him to empathise with the black victims of Hurricane Katrina, he offers none of this vim. No, all Katrina showed was "the dysfunctionality that is evident in many black neighbourhoods," he says flatly, and that has to be "tackled by black people, not the government. " Ward, do you ever worry you are siding with people who would have denied you a vote – or would hang you by a rope from a tree?

Posted by Y-Love at 05:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We've got racist hate speech par excellence coming out of this Central European republic.

Senator Liana Janackova from Ostrava (Northern Moravia, Czech Republic) is causing a ruckus with her openly anti-Roma (who we unfortunately still refer to as "Gypsy") sentiments, as filmmaker Zuzana Brejcha quotes:

"I don´t have space for them. I know it's unjust towards you, but I would just have to take dynamite and shoot them..."

"I don´t agree with any integration of the Gypsies in the district, sorry, I am a racist. We have chosen (the part of) Bedriska, so they will be there, from my point with a high fence, (under) electricity, I don't care..."

Janackova conceded, however, that she did say that she had no place to move Romanies so she would rather take dynamite and blow them away.

Disgusting.

Posted by Y-Love at 11:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Sometimes I feel like a lone voice denouncing racism in the charedi world. Many of the same households in which people are ejected from Shabbos tables or have their conversations quickly cut short at even the mention of a non-Jewish song lyric or mythological deity will pooh-pooh some of the most virulent racist language.

And, when derogatory terms for non-Jews like "shaiggitz" and "shiksa" began to fall out of vogue, "shvartzer" remained and still is acceptable language in some circles.

Indeed, I even have myself witness words like "shvartzer" (or "spic") nonchalantly "just slip out" of the mouths of even people close to me derogatorily -- something which would never happen with, say, the F word.

So a post as brilliant as Chabakuk Elisha's on A Simple Jew stands out among its peers in the JBlogosphere. In a place where there are no leaders, Mr. Elisha is trying to lead.

His six paragraphs give us an insight into his feelings about this overlooked problem:

Disdain for people and belief systems that oppose Yiddishkeit (Judaism) I can understand, but the old-fashioned, peasant-like, uncivilized and coarse commonly accepted hatred and speech regarding other races can be more than just disgusting.

Obviously, not everyone is this way, but it is prevalent enough that it is tolerated by even those that do not share the view. I've heard the ugliest terms and opinions about other races in all kinds of places, and 99% of the time nobody objects...

I have had the sit-down meeting with each of my older children when they have uttered a disgustingly racist word or idea – heard in school from classmates or even teachers or faculty members; they didn't even realize there was anything wrong with it. I sit down with them and we discuss it...

Mr. Elisha's post concludes with his hopeful attitude and realism:

I must clarify that "heimishe" racism isn't about violence; I've never heard someone express a desire to take up any action, even if they themselves were materially damaged in some way. And other than the occasional individual caught in the commission a crime (in which case, Hashem yerachem), it's not common to hear anyone express a desire that any violent action be taken up – nevertheless, the hatred is there.

So, while I know I can't change the guy that told me he wouldn't call them "nig..rs" if they didn't act like it," and I can't change the guy that told me he wishes, "they were wiped of the face of the Earth" – I have wasted enough time debating these morons – and I realize that the 20 year old Klausenberger camp counselor that teaches the bunk a song with the line about slapping the goy in the face...isn't going to change into a better person, I can continue to speak with my children and complain to administrators, and maybe sometimes it'll make a difference.

I can't change the overall attitudes; I know, but in my area of influence, I can still try.

The latter is building our exile.

Posted by Y-Love at 03:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

From the LA Times, a hate crime from an LA-area Starbucks:

A man was charged with a hate crime Tuesday for allegedly taunting and pulling a knife on a customer speaking Arabic at a Starbucks coffeehouse.

Anthony Tabarsi, 41, mocked three men who were speaking Arabic at the shop in the 2700 block of Harbor Boulevard, saying that all Arabs are terrorists and that he hates them, according to prosecutors.

After one of the men followed him outside, they said, Tabarsi lunged at him with a knife before fleeing from the parking lot.

Because of previous convictions, prosecutors said, Tabarsi could face life in prison if found guilty

Posted by Y-Love at 04:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

If there's anyone that I could imagine Jean-Marie Le Pen supporters revering, I can't say Muhammad pops into my mind. But that's precisely what's happening, according to the Washington Times. French Muslims are apparently rallying behind Monsieur Xenophobe in increasing numbers:

A small but significant minority of French Muslims intend to vote for Jean-Marie Le Pen, the far-right National Front leader in this month's presidential elections -- a remarkable achievement for the politician known for his anti-immigrant stance.

Some of the country's 5 million Muslims do not want a new wave of immigrants to arrive. They also support Mr. Le Pen's anti-American rhetoric and his publicized "friendship" with the people of Iraq. Others are attracted by his traditional stand on moral issues such as abortion, family and the death penalty.

If Le Pen thought the World Cup soccer team had "too many colored players", I hardly see how -- his moral stands aside -- he can be trusted to provide equal services and opportunities to "colored" families and neighborhoods.

Posted by Y-Love at 03:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

The Los Angeles Jewish Journal today reviewed a new book, "Black Jews, Jews, and Other Heroes", by Howard M. Lenhoff, former president of the American Association of Ethiopian Jews (AAEJ). Mr. Lenhoff's book explores the Ethiopian Jews, "from the perspective of an advocate who helped forge a consensus behind the mass aliyah in the 1970s and 1980s":

Roughly 20 years ago, Sudan, whose western Darfur region has been engulfed in genocide for four years, watched another other tragedy unfold -- the deaths of thousands of Ethiopian Jews trying to escape to Israel via Operation Moses.

Nearly one-fifth of the fleeing Falashas perished on their journey due to murder, famine, drought and various illnesses. But tens of thousands reached the Holy Land; and the ancient Jewish community (known to themselves as Beta Yisrael), which had an almost invisible presence in Israel until the late 1970s, now numbers more than 100,000 people.

Former activist Howard Lenhoff, author of "Black Jews, Jews, and Other Heroes," might not consider himself one of his book's eponymous heroes. He never traveled to Ethiopia, never risked his life, never engaged in the kind of swashbuckling derring-do of some of his colleagues.

Yet he played a critical role as president of the American Association of Ethiopian Jews (AAEJ) in negotiating with and, in some cases, applying pressure to the Israeli government and the Jewish Agency to change policy on Ethiopian Jews.

Typical of the response of the Jewish establishment in the 1970s was this remark by one American Jewish woman: "These blacks are not Jews."

And today, black Jews are much more visible, the Ethiopian Jewish community in Israel numbers 100,000.

Only by condemning past mistakes can we hope to make future progress. Baruch Hashem so much progress has been made and may it be G-d's Will that one day, all Jews will feel themselves equal beneficiaries of all the Divine gifts inherent in the Holy Land.

Posted by Y-Love at 03:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

She's got the whole bit.

American flag, (mostly) missing teeth, and loud country twang -- and referring to her black neighbors as trash, to the point that she has "black male" written on her trash bag. (Black females are better?)

Now the sad thing about this is that she's "not moving" and that makes me think that her black neighbor, and his child, have not heard the last of her.

I think that eventually, the country should progress towards an "Amber Alert" program or some sort of registry for these type of hate crime offenders.

I wouldn't put much faith in someone who would throw boric acid on a child for being of minority descent.

Posted by Y-Love at 08:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

From the Kiwi TVNZ:

Russian police have detained a group of youths suspected of killing an Uzbek migrant worker while filming the attack on a mobile telephone.

The four are supporters of far-right extremist groups and are suspected of inflicting fatal stab wounds on the victim out of racial hatred, the agency said, citing prosecutors in the southern Russian region of Orenburg.

Russia has seen a spate of violent racist attacks that tap into widespread resentment against immigrants - many dark-skinned Muslims from ex-Soviet states - coming to Russia in large numbers to work in the booming economy.

Posted by Y-Love at 05:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Imagine there were a group of Arab-Americans who numbered around 400 officially, but had hundreds of "secret ranks". Imagine that they were dealing in drugs, and stealing people's identities -- even getting their wives to take jobs at state DMVs to get access to information on police officers and their families.

How quick do you think the planes would be flying to Gitmo or Hashem-only-knows where?

ABC News today gives us a glimpse into "Public Enemy No. 1", a white supremacist gang operating throughout the Western United States. And what it shows just accents the discrepancy in what's called terrorism.

The white supremacist gang Public Enemy No. 1 began two decades ago as a group of teenage punk-rock fans from upper-middle class bedroom communities in Southern California.

Now, the violent gang that deals in drugs, guns and identity theft is gaining clout across the West after forging an alliance with the notorious Aryan Brotherhood, authorities say. Police say the gang has compiled a "hit list" targeting five officers and a gang prosecutor a sign of just how brazen Public Enemy has become.

"They make police officers very, very nervous," said Cpl. Nate Booth, a gang detective with the Buena Park Police Department in Orange County... In the past three years, its ranks have doubled to at least 400, but authorities suspect there could be hundreds of other members operating under the radar. They said heavy recruiting is taking place throughout California and Arizona, and members have been picked up by police in Nevada and Idaho.

"They move around. We find them everywhere," said Lowell Smith of the Orange County Probation Department.

Posted by Y-Love at 02:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As if the 500 anti-Semitic incidents in 2001 weren't enough. As if the rise in anti-Semitic incidents in Israel in 2003 wasn't enough of a travesty.

Haaretz reports:

Haaretz has uncovered Internet sites put up by Israelis in their 30s who immigrated from the CIS that supply Nazi and Russian nationalist content.

In 2003 a Web site operated by Ilia Zolotov, an Israel Defense Forces soldier who called himself a "Russian patriot," was exposed. The Web site, whose name translates to the White Israeli Union, was housed on an Israeli server. Its content included Nazi and Holocaust-denial materials. It was eventually closed down by the police. Zolotov was sentenced to community service and sent on a tour of death camps in Poland.

Since the closure of Zolotov's Web site, his successors have gotten more sophisticated. Now they use servers based abroad, usually in Russia, to evade the authorities. One such site operator is Alex [a pseudonym], who is in his 30s and holds a security-related job. His site, www.rusnatcentre.tk, is hosted by a Russian server.

Alex refers to himself on the site as "the Russian tank operator" or "the fighter from Jerusalem," a tribute to his service in the Armored Corps. In a conversation with Haaretz, he denied that his site carries anti-Semitic messages, asserting that it is pro-Russian only.

"The Russian National Center is a Russian nationalist association that lives in Israel," Alex explains. "The main mission of our organization is nationalist propaganda among ethnic Russians residing in Israel, encouraging their return to Russia, opposing the return of Jews from Israel to Russia, and opposing conversion to Judaism," Alex said.

Continue reading "And Now For Even More Israeli Nazis" »

Posted by Y-Love at 03:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

...now that a journalist from Newsweek has been assaulted?

Let's hope so.

Posted by Y-Love at 01:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The newest imported delicacy in Israel: anti-Semitism!

YNet reports:

Here is a phenomenon that none of the authorities in Israel want to deal with: Anti-Semitism by people who have come from the Soviet Union, and who use the word 'Jew' as a legitimate curse. Number of incidents is on the rise

“I was walking my dog in Tel Aviv. When I went to cross the street there was a drunk- looking man standing next to me. My dog got scared and started to bark at him. I apologized and continued walking. I suddenly felt someone push me and I fell on the floor. The drunken man pushed me to the ground, took the leash and started to choke the dog. He was screaming at me “Stinking Zhidovka! (A derogatory name for a Jew in Russian). You Jews destroyed Russia and disturb all the normal people living here”. (Ella Shapira, a Russian immigrant)

“Everyone sweeps the issue of anti-Semitism in Israel under the rug” says Zalman Glichevsky, the president of the organization. “There is a leading skinhead website, and I discovered that they have a discussion group which includes Russian speakers from Israel”. Glichevsky, who immigrated to Israel in the early nineties, began to investigate the matter. He put an ad in a newspaper for Russian speakers and appealed to anyone who had ever experienced anti-Semitism in Israel.

Russian immigrants beating Jewish immigrants

“To my surprise”, he tells, “I received hundreds of responses and I continue to receive them today....Shapira is angered by the comprehensive disregard of the problem. “This is a subject that no one likes or is afraid to speak of. For the workers in the Jewish Agency, bringing new immigrants to Israel is a good business, many people profit from it. But they are bringing people who have no connection to Judaism, and some who have been brought up to hate it. I often encounter these situations...a few weeks ago I went into a clothing store and the two saleswomen began to talk about me in Russian: 'Here is a dirty Jew, she is going to touch everything and make it dirty.' They were shocked when I answered them in Russian and explained to them that it is forbidden to speak that way”.

Observant Ethiopian Jews who came to Israel -- who by any other standards in Edut ha'Mizrach would be charedi -- were told flatly that their lineage was not provably Jewish and that they would have to convert. Yet members of Nazi organizations are allowed to operate with no question in their status as Jews? Officials talk seriously about barring Ethiopian immigrants from even entering one town, but immigrants from Europe are given carte blanche? This can happen?

I can't help but fault, at least partially, if not by commission then by omission, Tzafon Tel Aviv Ashkenazi elitism and ethnocentricity for allowing this to happen. I'm not generalizing -- the majority of the perpetrators of anti-Semitic incidents within Israeli borders are "Russian-speaking youth", some the "descendents of Jews" -- were there an influx of "descendents of Jews" (70% of whom do not qualify as Jews under Jewish Law) from Arabic-speaking countries bringing with them Hamas mindsets, I highly doubt it would be tolerated to this point.

500 incidents in 2001? An increase in 2003? Authentic Jews have to go around gathering signatures of rabbis and re-converting (or re-marrying, or re-divorcing) -- and there's this?

I'm pissed off and this can not be tolerated in any capacity. There has yet to be any serious talk of reducing the unchecked immigration from Eastern Europe -- in anywhere near the same capacity as it's been spoken of for their Ethiopian or Indian counterparts. Other than racism, I fail to see why. I fail to see any more of a detrimental element the Jewish state could possibly contain. Nazi activity? Even if there's "no chance" of them "gaining any power."

If there's any pressing issue that calls for the revamping of the Law of Return, it for damn sure is not some underpaid Thai worker.

It's ha'Reich ha'Shlishi.

(Crossposted to Jewschool.com)

Posted by Y-Love at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The controversial Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, of TLC "Shalom In The Home" fame (as well as from works like Kosher Sex, his magnum opus on Jewish love and marriage) wrote an article in the Jewish Press last week which could not possibly be more relevant.

His article, "The 'S' Word Has No Place in a Religious Jew's Vocabulary" is perhaps one of the most powerful condemnations of the word 'shvartzer' that I have seen to date:

Last week I delivered a sermon based on the Torah portion of the week and which compared Moses, the great Jewish redeemer, with Abraham Lincoln, the martyred American emancipator. When I finished, I was approached by an acquaintance who happens to be an Orthodox Jewish engineer. He seemed, up until that time, to be devout, educated, and sophisticated. But what he told me was sacrilegious, ignorant, and primitive.

This gentleman maintained that Lincoln was no hero, seeing as he had freed a people who were the descendants of Ham, the son of Noah, who was cursed for humiliating his father. “Ham’s children are black, and are condemned by God to eternal slavery,” he said. “There was even a rebbe in Poland who predicted that Abraham Lincoln would be shot for liberating a people against God’s wishes.”

I looked this man in the eye and said to him, “I’m confused. Judaism believes that every man is judged according to his actions. Now you are telling me that every black person in the world is cursed for something an ancestor did millennia ago. We Jews don’t believe in Original Sin, and we don’t believe in vertical accountability. So how can you tell me something so abominably racist like the fact that blacks are cursed?”

He responded that I was denying scripture. I told him that his views were repugnant to everything Judaism stood for in terms of the equality of all mankind. And on an angry note, our mini-debate ended.

I would not even mention this unhappy episode if I had not, at times, heard similar sentiments expressed by others purporting to be religious.

Rabbi Boteach -- whose views on all issues I can not say I uniformly agree with -- continues:

Continue reading "Rabbi Calls To Stop Using Racist Term "Shvartzer", Calls Term "Heretical", "Reprehensible"" »

Posted by Y-Love at 05:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

From Yahoo!News this past Monday:

Seventy-nine percent (79%) of American voters say they're willing to vote for an African-American presidential candidate. However, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 55% believe their family, friends, and co-workers are willing to do the same.

...Seventy-eight percent (78%) say they'd vote for a woman but just 51% said their peer group would do the same.

These questions assume a special relevance in Election 2008 as the top two candidates for the Democratic Presidential nomination are Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama ...Clinton has consistently led the competition, but Obama is viewed more favorably by American voters.

As with the question about women, younger Americans are more likely to vote for an African-American President than their elders. While 73% of voters under 30 say that their family, friends, and co-workers would vote for an African-American, just 35% of those over 65 say the same.

Eighty-two percent (82%) of American voters believe it is at least somewhat likely that an African-Americans will be elected president in the next 25 years. For women, that figure is 79%.

Thirty-nine percent (39%) believe a woman will be elected President before an African-American. Thirty-eight percent (38%) take the opposite view, while 23% are not sure.

Seventy-one percent (71%) of African-American voters say their family, friends, and co-workers would vote for an African-American President. Just 51% of White Americans say the same.

Posted by Y-Love at 02:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Let me introduce you to Hatchet Jack.

Hatchet Jack is an "Alaskan fisherman and outdoorsman" with links to anti-Semitic sites such as "Jew Watch" on the front page of his blog. While there is quite a bit of White Nationalist filth scattered throughout the site, this particular article (with a hat tip to the Anarchist Rabbi) caught my interest because it illustrates a Jewish ethical teaching beautifully.

Izzy is his slang for Israel.

Only racial (not converted) jews allowed in Izzy

Hatchet jack:

The Israeli law of return has always been aimed at keeping Israel a "jewish" state. A former member of the Israeli Supreme Court, Haim Cohen, described the system that applies to Jews and Palestinians in Israel as similar to the Nuremberg laws of Nazi Germany: "...the bitter irony of fate, which has led the same biological and racist laws propagated by the Nazis and which inspired the infamous Nuremberg laws, serves as a basis for the definition of Judaism within the State of Israel." Badi, J. (1960). Fundamental Laws Of The State Of Israel. New York. p.156....

Now Israeli jews don't have to worry about shunning goy converts. The law of return has excluded Gentile converts, closing the loophole which threatened Israel's apartheid objectives.

Who can blame Israel? I cannot. I would like to see mother Europe and her colonies, including North America, preserved as an homeland exclusively for White people. That means people of wholely European descent. Thus, this doesn't bother me.

What does disturb me are the jews who advocate open borders in America, and interracial marriage. Quite often they preach one thing for Israel, and something entirely different in the United States.

The Nation of Israel is given the Divine charge in the Torah to be a nation set apart from the other nations of the world, distinct "b'shmam, b'malbusham u'v'lshonam", in their names, their style of dress and in their language. We are supposed to -- and if we choose not to, G-d forces us to -- be different in the way we call ourselves, the way others see us, and the way we communicate.

The commentator Rash"i in Daniel 11 tells us that Antiochus, the Greek king of Chanukah infamy, would kill anyone who called themselves a Jew. The end of the Book of Esther tells us that many people called themselves Jews following the Purim incident. Never do we find that the word "Jew" was tied to familial lineage -- as it is written in the Torah, "There shall be one Torah for the convert and for the native-born."

When a convert is not given said status, by default, one is establishing a de facto anti-halachic genetic premise for who can be called a "Jew." If this is to be codified in Israeli legislation by the Rabbinate, this will be not only a slap in the face to the Divine Law which says otherwise, but it will also give creedence to the Neo-Nazi racialist philosophy.

That Jew is a race, and that lands are set up for races of people.

Instead of the pan-racial, international identity of "Jew", Israel, through this legislation, if it passes (Rahmana litzlan) , will have chosen to define itself by the racial identity of "Semite" or perhaps "Israelite". A secular Israel defined by Hitler, which defines Jews contrary to the way the Torah does.

The Talmud tells us in Tractate Bava Metzia that converts' insult is prohibited up to 36 times by G-d in the Torah, yet somehow a labor issue makes all of these Divine exhortations play second-fiddle.

Conversion to Judaism is a unique process -- conversion to Islam does not make one an "Arab", conversion to Hinduism does not give one a similar link to the Vedas. But conversion to Judaism, in every classical text, in effect changes one's very DNA: the DNA in the cells of the convert has become "Jewish DNA" and they are now a "Jew", affected by anti-Semitism and only differing from their co-religionists by an ethnic prefix ("black Jew", "Asian Jew"). One has their own personal portion of Torah (cheilek ba'Torah) which was predestined for them from time immemorial. The convert to Judaism becomes part of the Jewish people, a child of Abraham -- literally.

Instead of sticking with the Torah definitions of our ancestors, the Israeli Rabbinate would instead choose to utilize a non-Torah mindset utilized by Nazis?

Israel is the only "Jewish state" -- but can it please start acting more like a goy echad ba'aretz, a unique nation? Importing American and European fashion is enough -- don't import the racism, racialism, and elitism.

Posted by Y-Love at 01:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

An article I picked up from Stratfor.com (from Strategic Forecasting, Inc):

U.S.: The White Supremacist Movement's Metamorphosis

Since Dec. 22, 2006, three white supremacist leaders have been arrested on sex-related charges. Two of them -- Matthew Downing, National Vanguard's Boston unit leader, and Gordon Young, former leader of the World Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and current member of the National Socialist Movement -- have been charged with sexually assaulting minors. The third, Kevin Alfred Strom, founder of the National Vanguard organization, has been charged with possession of child pornography and witness tampering.

It has clearly been a hard month for the self-appointed defenders of white virtue...

Since the 9/11 attacks, the white supremacist movement in the United States has undergone a huge change. One of the factors driving this change has been the generational transition that resulted from the deaths of older white supremacist leaders respected within the movement, such as William Pierce and Richard Butler. Their deaths left a leadership vacuum, and with no clear emerging leader to replace them, the movement has seen much infighting and splintering, as seemingly everyone in the movement seeks to be "the fuhrer."...

The leadership vacuum within the white nationalist movement has created a need, an to fill this need, the movement has had to reinvent itself. And the new monster is much more insidious, and I fail to see the inherent distinction between them and al-Qaeda.

Continue reading "White Supremacist Terrorist Cells On The Horizon?" »

Posted by Y-Love at 03:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is just disgusting.

A hat tip to my boy, from the usually putrid FOX News:

RICHMOND, Va. — A state legislator said black people "should get over" slavery and questioned whether Jews should apologize "for killing Christ," drawing denunciations Tuesday from stunned colleagues.

Del. Frank D. Hargrove, 79, made his remarks in opposition to a measure that would apologize on the state's behalf to the descendants of slaves.

In an interview published Tuesday in The Daily Progress of Charlottesville, Hargrove said slavery ended nearly 140 years ago with the Civil War and added that "our black citizens should get over it."

The newspaper also quoted him as saying, "are we going to force the Jews to apologize for killing Christ?"

Black lawmakers swiftly denounced Hargrove's comments. "When somebody tells me I should just get over slavery, I can only express my emotion by projecting that I am appalled, absolutely appalled," said Del. Dwight C. Jones, head of the Legislative Black Caucus.

Del. David L. Englin also criticized Hargrove's remarks, recalling that his grandparents were driven from their homes in Poland "by people who believed that as Jews, we killed Christ."

Really, he is:

Hargrove tried to explain his comments, saying nobody respected slavery or would ever advocate its return.

"On the other hand, not a soul in this legislature had anything to do with slavery," he said, adding that he thinks it is "harmful to society in general to keep recycling this thing which we all know and all despise and all have no respect for."

In yesterday's Daily Progress, Hargrove was quoted as wondering how far such apologies should go, saying, "Are we going to force the Jews to apologize for killing Christ? Nobody living today had anything to do with it. It would be far more appropriate in my view to apologize to the Upper Mattaponi and the Pamunkey" Indians for the loss of their lands in eastern Virginia.

He told Jewish delegate Englin that his skin was "too thin" and:

When Englin sat, Hargrove reached over and softly patted Englin on the arm. Then, Hargrove rose to speak and, looking down at his seatmate, said, "I didn't even know you were Jewish, I had no idea of what your religion, (and) I don't care what your religion is. I don't care."

Is it really like Doug Thompson says over at Capitol Hill Blue? Is Virginia really "overrun by racists, bigots, homophobes and knee-jerk conservatives who want to drag the Commonwealth back into the era when white men ruled everything and blacks and women knew their place"?

People really need to be conscious of who they vote for -- on all levels of legislature.

Posted by Y-Love at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

92% of Canadians -- over 9 in 10 -- claim to have witnessed an act of overt racism, according to a recent survey printed in the Calgary Sun. However, a plurality of Canadians, 56 percent, turn a blind eye and prefer to "mind their own business".

The Calgary Sun reports:

OTTAWA -- Lashing out at minorities is commonplace in Canada, but most turn a blind eye to ugly acts of overt racism.

A Sun Media poll conducted by Leger Marketing reveals 92% of Canadians have witnessed a bigoted remark or behaviour. Yet just one-third actually took action to intervene or inform authorities, while another 56% chose to look the other way.

"This is evidence that we're discounting it -- or trying to avoid it," said Leger VP Dave Scholz....

Yet despite these alarming statistics, almost half the population -- 47% -- doesn't see racism as a problem in Canada.

The Sun Media survey also shows that while most Canadians refrain from uttering racial slurs, they often crack derogatory ethnic jokes. More than a fifth admit they've lobbed a slur, compared to 66% who claim to have done it in jest.

"I think people forget that an ethnic joke is a potential racial slur," Scholz said. "We're not giving the same importance to it."

I asked the rhetorical question once on MySpace -- there is an assumption that everyone should be "able to take a joke", but why should anyone have to? Why should there be an intrinsic license given to all of humanity to offend anyone we want?

And it's not just ethnic minorities, almost a third of whites say they, too, have been victims of bigotry.

So 92% of Canadians watched someone get offended, but it's not really a problem -- 66% of the time, it was just a joke.

Posted by Y-Love at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Get a load of this little piece of news I found from Charlottesville, Virginia's Read The Hook.com:

Indecent future: White supremacist charged with kiddie porn
Published January 11, 2007 in issue 0602 of the HooK.

By LISA PROVENCE [LISA@READTHEHOOK.COM]

The message on the National Vanguard's voicemail notes the organization's objective: "We want a decent future for white children."

Kevin Strom, founder of the neo-Nazi group dedicated to protecting the rights and racial purity of white people, was indicted on January 3 in federal court in Charlottesville on charges of possession of child pornography and for intimidating a witness. Two days later, a grayer, jailstripe-clad Strom pleaded not guilty to child porn possession, which carries a sentence of up to 10 years with no parole and a $250,000 fine, and witness tampering, which carries a sentence of up to 20 years and a $250,000 fine. Strom is being held without bond.

According to the indictment, Strom has been into the kiddie porn since at least October 17, 2005, up until August 4, 2006, and kept it in a computer file called "Karen."

The Southern Poverty Law Center notes that up until Strom's second marriage to Elisha Strom, his personal website "carried a gallery of alluring photos of young girls, many of them scantily dressed, and running to shots of a teenage Brooke Shields atop a horse."

But a plurality of rapes, and the majority of sexual assaults (the majority of which happen on girls between 12 and 18) is not being done by us ethnic minorities (52.2% of rapists and 73.9% of sexual assaulters are white, 67.8% of rape victims are white, 76.4% of sexual assault victims).

And 72% of Black American Christians (the far-reaching majority of African-Americans) -- just to pick an example -- are going to church at least once a month, 41% are going every week. (Overall, in America, 38-44% of Americans worship every week.)

If these allegations are true, Mr. Strom is the immoral one -- and how dare he accuse his black neighbors of any wrongdoing without deleting "Karen".

Posted by Y-Love at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

As a member of the hip-hop community, I feel almost a duty to repost this.

Powerful words from Mos Def.

A hat tip and one love to Islamohemian for this video.

Posted by Y-Love at 09:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

It's just disgusting. Houston's Channel 13 News gives us the story:

(12/19/06 - KTRK/HOUSTON) - Millions of Christmas cards are in the mail, but we discovered one card that many call disturbing - especially since the card is filled with racial expletives, and claims to have come from the University of St Thomas.

The University of St. Thomas is a Catholic University in Houston which is quite un-Nazi in its operations -- an interfaith lecture on character development is among their upcoming events. The culprit not only sent out his Nazi filth with University of St. Thomas as a return address, but also Rice University. As was noted in the televised story, this is information so offensive that your average person wouldn't buy, say, the "Nazi Journal" or put himself or herself on a Nazi mailing list. However, under the guise of legitimacy lent by a name of a respected institution, their hate fliers find their way into more homes. The Houstonist has more.

If it were just happening in Houston, dayenu, it would be enough.

Continue reading "Holiday Shock: Nazi Greeting Cards Sent To Unsuspecting Recipients" »

Posted by Y-Love at 09:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

From San Francisco's Inside Bay Area.com:

Japanese, Muslims recall racism
Pearl Harbor, 9/11 ushered in problems for minorities
By Michael Manekin, STAFF WRITER

When the Imperial Japanese Navy swooped over Pearl Harbor 65 years ago and destroyed more than 2,400 American lives, Mas Yamasaki was watching a church basketball game in Sacramento. He was 12, and he didn't know that he would soon live in a detention camp at Tule Lake — sleeping on an Army-issued mattress, braving the elements without indoor plumbing or heat.

The child of Japanese immigrants, Yamasaki was born an American citizen. But he spent 31/2 years of his American childhood in the camp — he was considered a threat to national security. The internment of Japanese immigrants is familiar to most Americans — in large part, because Yamasaki and legions of Japanese camp survivors have made their voices heard.

Now, Yamasaki and other survivors are speaking out against a new danger.

"We were stereotyped," said Yamasaki. "Now, with the Muslims, it's the same thing. Everyone's pointing fingers saying they're an enemy." The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor stripped Japanese Americans of their homes and freedom. But five years ago, the actions of 19 hijackers radically altered the lives of the county's estimated 6 million Muslims.

"Pearl Harbor gave the United States the excuse to discriminate against Japanese Americans by saying these guysare potential saboteurs," said Steve Okamoto, co-president of the San Mateo chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL). "Now, they're lumping (Muslims) together like they did with the Japanese."

And one particular Imam is also like-minded, expanding his actions to include interfaith unity with Jews and Christians:

Continue reading "Japanese-Muslim Unity In California" »

Posted by Y-Love at 04:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Any blog which bills itself as being from a "liberal perspective" gets de facto love from me. (Most of humanity gets de facto love from me.) While I find some of the antics of my current left-wing brethren, to say the absolute least, off-putting at times (Hugo Chavez much?), in general I find that a common thread of love of equality and interpersonal unity squashes most differences.

But I can't just let this go.

Today's Kesher Talk decries the "mob rule" extant on college campuses. Speaking of "bullying behavior" rearing its "ugly head", the first case Cinnamon Stilwell brings up is:

Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo, one of the strongest anti-illegal immigration voices in politics, had his speech at Michigan State University of Law last Thursday disrupted by violent student protesters. They set off the fire alarm beforehand and when that didn't stop the event, proceeded to shout loudly throughout Tancredo's speech. Protesters also attacked members of the Michigan State University College Republicans and Young Americans for Freedom, both of whom backed the event.

This is the same Tancredo who called Miami a Third World country. Un pais tercermundista. A vibrant Spanish-speaking populace equals Darfur to this man, and it is the students who are wrong for protesting?

I thought Stillwell was only decrying the use of violence -- as people in Michigan were, after all spit on, and tires were slashed. But then Stillwell continues:

This incident put me in mind of the treatment given to Chris Simcox, founder of the anti-illegal immigration group, the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, when he spoke at Georgetown University in November. Protesters, led by the ironically named GU Students Against Racism, Hate and Violence, set off the fire alarm (which, as I recall, is a tactic straight out of grade school) and managed to disrupt Simcox's speech briefly. They continued to chant outside the speech in an unsuccessful attempt to drown Simcox out.

David Horowitz was shouted down by an unruly mob at San Francisco State University last year, as was Daniel Pipes at UC Berkeley in 2004.

Unruly mob? Hardly.

Students -- especially in these repressive times of increasing right-wing control -- should not be taught that silencing themselves and editing their emotions is the answer. Obviously, as Proverbs 20:22 says, "Do not say 'I will repay evil'," the way to show one's distaste with a person's actions is not to inflict damage on them.

But if you will say that one can not even shout in the face of perceived injustice -- or scream in the face of a blatantly pro-racist xenophobe (and I don't care who he works with) -- then you will have deprived American youth of the one thing that gives them a fighting chance to actually make this nation back into somewhere to be unconditionally proud of.

Should they only speak when they are spoken to? Or should all dissent be duly filed with the Office of Dissenting Opinions in triplicate?

Posted by Y-Love at 04:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Un legislador de Colorado comparó la ciudad de Miami con "un país tercermundista" y el...

Oh I'm sorry. I didn't want to speak the language of a Third World country. CBS News reports:

[Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO)] a vocal supporter of the anti-illegal immigration movement in the U.S. House, made his initial comments to WorldNetDaily, a conservative online new site, his spokesman Carlos Espinosa said.

"Look at what has happened to Miami. It has become a Third World country. You just pick it up and take it and move it someplace. You would never know you're in the United States of America. You would certainly say you're in a Third World country," Tancredo said.

"I certainly understand and appreciate your need and desire to create the illusion of Miami as a multiethnic 'All American' city," Tancredo wrote. "I can also appreciate that Miami's schools graduate many outstanding students and that the cultural and ethnic diversity of the city offers many advantages to its residents.

"However, it is neither naïve nor insulting to call attention to a real problem that cannot be easily dismissed through politically correct happy talk," Tancredo wrote.

Tancredo said a growing number of Miami residents don't speak English, one of the few things that holds Americans together.

I mean, this is the guy who, after The Denver Post published a report about an illegal immigrant struggling to pay for college, called up the immigration agency to have him deported. The guy who thinks President Bush is going soft. The guy who last year told a radio show that the United States should ''take out'' Islamic holy sites if fundamentalists attacked this country.

''You're talking about bombing Mecca?'' the radio host asked, just to clarify.

''Yeah,'' Thoughtful Counsel responded.

He said he absolutely stands behind his statements. Defending himself to the Rocky Mountain News, he said that:

But Tancredo said it was Bush who is being naive.

"The tolerance of cultural diversity in a city or a nation is admirable up to a point, but when diversity is worshipped to the detriment of assimilation, it becomes a serious problem that undermines the civic culture that forms the basis for our democratic institutions and the rule of law," he wrote.

[...]

He's best known for campaigning against illegal immigration. But Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Littleton, makes headlines in all sorts of ways:

• September 2006: Tancredo speaks at a South Carolina gathering that critics called "a hate-group event." Tancredo and others dispute the description. But he still draws flak for appearing on a podium with a Confederate flag and joining audience members in singing Dixie.

• September 2005: Tancredo criticizes the crescent-shaped design of a 9/11 memorial to victims of United Airlines Flight 93. He said it resembles the lunar crescent symbol of Islam and could be seen as a "tribute to the hijackers."

Damned right. I hate 'em all - negroes, wasps, spics, eskimos, jews, honkies, krauts, ruskies, ethopans, pakis, hunkies, pollocks and marxists; there are way too many of them. I'm all for trout, elephants, bacteria, whales, wolves, birds, parrot fish, deciduous foliage and mollusks. Time to rebalance the planet, bleeding heart liberals be damned. [sic]

This is what Colorado voted for? Read more about this pro-racist Republican at tancredowatch.blogspot.com.

So if you don't have a dominant European culture with "white" paradigms, or too much pluralism and not enough assimilation, you're obviously living in a backwater village in Chad. Disgusting.

Posted by Y-Love at 01:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

From the Toronto Star:

In his compelling work Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation, social critic Jonathan Kozol interviews children and adults in the Mott Haven section of the South Bronx.

It's one of the poorest congressional districts in the U.S. nited States and an area with alarmingly high incidences of murder, drug abuse, and poverty. (It is usually not a stop on the Disney-Times Square package tours of The Big Apple.)

Unfortunately, this section of New York also has one of the highest rates of asthma in the nation, and children with inhalers are commonplace. One of the main reasons for the soaring asthma rates, according to Kozol, is the medical waste incinerator operating in the neighbourhood.

Kozol learned from a local minister, Rev. Martha Overall, that the waste incinerator handles so-called "red bag products" — amputated limbs, fetal tissue, bedding, syringes, and bandages from 14 New York City hospitals.

Some of these items were slated to be burned at a proposed incinerator on the East Side of Manhattan, but the proposal was successfully blocked by area parents worried about the canc