Date: Sun Nov 12, 1995 1:50 am CST
From: Virginia McMillan
EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414
MBX: jinks@u.washington.edu
TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762
Subject: Who Wants a Race War?
C O N S E R V A T I V E C O N S E N S U S(tm)
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I N T E L L I G E N C E ::: Editor's Desk
B R I E F I N G ::: Distribution: World
For Immediate Release
Copyright 1995 by Conservative Consensus, ISSN 1074-245X.
QUOTATION AND REPOSTING ARE ENCOURAGED, provided
our name & address are credited. V1XIX54
WHO WANTS A RACE WAR?
By Craige A. McMillan
The idea of a race war in their country horrifies
ordinary Americans. This is so because most Americans -- of all races
-- are decent, hardworking people. While they often fail to live up to
their values, they will tell pollsters that they broadly support their
inherited Judeo-Christian values in their family life. They do not
want their daughters to become promiscuous and have abortions. They
want their sons to grow up and get married, and to love their
children. In the main, large numbers of these Americans attend
churches where they hear sermons that advocate the value of love and
tolerance for one's neighbor, and support for governmental authority.
How, then, can America be so deeply divided by the
outcome of a tragic pair of murders in Los Angeles and the glitzy
celebrity trial that followed? Media reports tell us that even before
the OJ Simpson verdict three-quarters of Black Americans believed the
former football great innocent, while three-quarters of white
Americans were convinced of his guilt. Millions of television images,
produced by egos and wallets the size of California, publicized an
essentially private proceeding: Twelve individuals doing their best
under difficult circumstances to determine the guilt or innocence of
one man. Having endured this voyeurism for over a year, is America now
to be rewarded with Blacks and whites killing one another in the
streets because of their skin color?
Possibly. For while the idea of a race war horrifies
ordinary Americans, it does not horrify all Americans.
The OJ Simpson trial has not divided Americans along
the faultline of race. It has divided them by experience. Month after
month, this newspaper has chronicled the payoffs, arrests, and
prosecutions of local police, prosecutors, and US Justice Department
attorneys. The bulk of these cases involve crimes against drug
dealers: when police are involved, they frequently beat, rob, and
sometimes kill the dealers who don't cooperate with them. Entire
precincts in New York and other major cities are under investigation
for such corruption. On 27 May 1994 this newspaper reported:
"Perhaps ten of New York City's 75 police precincts will see
massive arrests for corruption, according to William Bratton,
police commissioner. A quarter of the 30th precinct's 190 police
officers are expected to be arrested for robbing drug dealers,
stealing and selling cocaine, and murder and assault. The Mollen
Report identified 140 senior corruption cases either 'lost' or
'buried.'"
In Chicago, Assistant US Attorney William R. Hogan
achieved prosecutorial fame in the early 1990s by obtaining
convictions against 53 El Rukn gang members. But, "By 1993 it emerged
that informants and witnesses were on drugs and allowed to have sex in
prosecutors' offices, a fact Mr. Hogan failed to mention to defense
lawyers." The Justice Department has recommended that he be fired for
"indiscretions." [CC 11 September 1995]
It is a sad fact that large numbers of young Black men
are involved in drug crimes, and therefore fall victim to such
corruption when it enters a police or prosecutor's office. Corrupt
officials target the powerless.
This rising tide of corruption has taken its toll on
Black jurors. Given their experience with the criminal justice system,
should we really be surprised that large numbers of Blacks believed
the defense claim that OJ Simpson was framed by corrupt cops?
But if the OJ Simpson verdict doesn't reflect a racial
divide in America, why portray it as if it did?
Here are three possible answers. Network television
viewership figures are in freefall, and executives are beginning to
question who packed their parachutes. "The most recent ratings book
shows NBC in first place with a 9.7 average. Ten years ago and NBC had
a 17.5 average." [CC 3 July 1995] A former advertising executive
recently told us, "Television ratings are a joke. Nobody inside the
[advertising] industry believes them."
Television news, however, excels at reporting live
action. Millions of viewers were glued to the screen during the Gulf
War and the Rodney King inspired Los Angeles riots. Millions followed
the OJ Simpson trial. Now those viewers are gone. When viewers leave,
so do advertisers. A race war would provide just the kind of
senseless, yet graphic violence that television excels at reporting.
Advertising revenues would skyrocket -- along with executive bonuses.
New opportunities would open up within the reporting ranks.
Walter Williams is fond of the phrase "poverty pimps,"
which he uses to describe white liberals and Black opportunists who
have made a comfortable living for themselves by heading up
organizations dedicated to telling Black Americans how bad they have
it, and what an awful racist society America is. The Reverend Jesse
Jackson, longtime self-appointed spokesman for the Black community,
recently failed even to sway the limp-minded California Regents, who
voted to end admission quotas at California colleges. Even the
venerable NAACP is broke and in disarray over mismanagement. Surely a
race war would have its silver lining, if it showed ordinary Black
Americans where their allegiance should reside?
But although television and self-appointed "leaders"
have an interest in stirring the pot of racial discontent, it pales in
comparison to the self-interest of politicians inhabiting our nation's
capital. Vast sums of money are now plundered from taxpayers and fed
to bureaucrats heading discredited social programs, who serve in an
army of loyal, big-government voters. Hundreds of millions of dollars
are extracted from industry in political contributions to "control
regulations" and "provide access" to the process. Consumers foot the
bill. These ill-gotten gains are then shoveled into the media coffers
leading up to election time. The profits enrich executive bonuses and
media personalities' pockets.
The media-social-federal establishment has been shaken
to its core by the 1994 shift in voter favor away from national power
and toward state and local governance. Those who have adapted to a
life of crime all share one characteristic: They come to depend upon
its benefits. This is true for dirty cops, and it's true for dirty
politicians. The realization that there is no safe haven, no reserved
parking space at a comfortable lobbying or law firm while the
electorate rearranges the deck chairs on the Titanic, may be the
justification our ruling elite need to foment a race war in America.
For too many powerful people, the loss of that power is a prospect
beyond their comprehension.
We as Americans must face facts: many in our nation's
capital have peddled their influence for so long, and lived so
lavishly off its sale, that they cannot be trusted to prevent a race
war -- because it is in their benefit to preside over one. The glories
of federal power could be restored. Emergency powers legislation could
dispose of dissidents. And the lifeline of money and power would be
restored. For many, the alternative -- a modest twenty or thirty
thousand dollar per year job -- is unthinkable.
The contempt of the ruling class for those they
represent -- us and our way of life -- is worn as a badge of pride by
the ruling elite. The response of Washington State Congressman Norm
Dicks to this editor about the necessity of a $30,000 midnight pay
raise during the Bush administration says it all. Upon pointing out to
Congressman Dicks that his pay increase was more than many of his
constituents salaries, he snapped, "I don't have to live like them to
represent them." Surely the end justifies the means?
###
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