200505 American Renaissance

American Renaissance - 1 - May 2005

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

Vol. 16 No. 5 May 2005

California Prison Segregation to End

American Renaissance

The Supreme Court ig-nores racial reality.

by Stephen Webster

On February 23, the UnitedStates Supreme Court is-sued a ruling that is likely

to stamp out the last vestige of gov-ernment-enforced racial segrega-tion in the United States. In John-son v. California, it ordered theNinth Circuit Court of Appeals toreview the housing policies of theCalifornia prison system, and to ap-ply legal standards that will prob-ably lead it to ban the practice oftemporarily grouping new arrivalsby race and ethnicity. At issue waswhether the California Department ofCorrection’s (CDC) decades-old prac-tice of giving prisoners initial cellmatesof their own race violates the Equal Pro-tection Clause of the 14th Amendment.The policy, of course, was to keep in-mates from killing each other, but merelysaving lives is less important to six Su-preme Court justices than promoting themyth that race is not supposed to mat-ter.

Prison Reality

The California prison system is notonly the largest in the country but alsothe most racially mixed. Of 160,000 in-mates, men account for 150,000 or 94percent. In 2003, the system took in morethan 112,000 men. The racial mix is analmost perfect recipe for friction: 37percent Hispanic, 29 percent white, 29percent black, and six percent Asian,American Indian, and Pacific Islander.Race- and even ethnic-based gang vio-lence is the top security concern forprison guards. California, in the wordsof one official, is “ground-zero” for race-based prison gangs.

For prisoners in most states, asidefrom the fact of incarceration itself, raceis the central reality of life. For Califor-nia prisoners, race-based gangs are of-ten the very key to survival. Gangs pro-tect members from other gangs, and are

a source of information on friends andenemies. Gangs supply food and ciga-rettes, and arrange visits from people onthe outside. Gangs dictate prison eti-quette, and enforce it with violence.Because prison is such a dangerousplace—a single misstep can provoke abeating or even death—gang membersform strong bonds.

There are two main Hispanic prisongangs in California: the Mexican Mafiaor La Eme (from the Spanish pronun-ciation of the letter “m”), which is asouthern California Hispanic gang, andNuestra Familia, a northern CaliforniaHispanic gang. The northern and south-ern Hispanics hate each other. NuestraFamilia has a sub-group, Nuestra Raza,that operates in the high-security hous-ing units. The main black prison gang is

the Black Guerilla Family, although theCrips and the Bloods are also active.There are two major white gangs, theAryan Brotherhood and the Nazi LowRiders. The Low Riders grew out of theAryan Brotherhood in the 1980s and

tend to be younger. The Hells An-gels have a minor presence.

Interestingly, the Aryan Broth-erhood has a defensive alliancewith the southern Hispanics of theMexican Mafia against the north-ern Hispanics of Nuestra Familiaand against the Black GuerillaFamily. Apparently southern His-panics hate their northern kinfolkeven more than they hate whitepeople. The Aryan Brotherhoodalso has friendly relations with theother white gangs, the Nazi Low

Riders and the Hells Angels.Gangs are inherently violent. They

routinely rob other prisoners or forcethem into prostitution. Some gangs makeprospective members kill another pris-oner in order to join. This is known as“making your bones.” Hispanic andblack gangs are notorious for mayhembut the Aryan Brotherhood is no strangerto violence, either. Prison authoritiesdescribe it as “a singularly vicious prisongang that has a hostility to black in-mates.” Race-based gangs are such aproblem in California that the state builta special “Supermax” prison at PelicanBay—in the northwest corner of thestate, as far from other prisons as pos-sible—to hold the worst cases. This iswhere the leaders live.

Gangs are the only significant pris-oner groupings, which means there areno real affiliations that are not race-based. Race and ethnicity are the bound-aries of what amount to warring armies.This is why California temporarily sepa-rates new male inmates by race. Womenare less violent, so they are never segre-gated.

A guard runs to break up a prison-yard fight.

Southern Hispanic pris-oners hate northern His-panics even more thanthey hate white people.


Letters from ReadersSir — I know you would have given

much not to have had to dedicate yourApril issue to Sam Francis, but it is, in-deed, a fine tribute. Yours and Mr.Dickson’s personal reflections weremoving. I learned much about Sam thatI did not know.

I liked the spirit of the man, and howhe could cut through the nonsense of asubject and get to the deep-down grit. Ialways looked forward to his take on the

issues of our times, since so many of hisviews concurred with mine. I respectedhis determination to look out for the in-terests of his own race. It was clear heunderstood the damage that had beendone to both blacks and whites becauseof the form of “liberation” that was thruston us.

I knew that his frankness had donehim in at the Washington Times, and Ioften wondered about the degree towhich his future had been underminedor sidetracked because he was above-board and open with his views. You clari-fied some of this in your article.

Two days before the news of hisdeath, I had sent Sam a get well note.So, like everyone else, I was totally un-prepared for the end.

I understand the long-range and over-

all importance of what is lost with Sam’sdeath. You and Mr. Dickson allude to itin your articles. It was not just his knowl-edge, intelligence and wit that made himimportant, but his very presence. Thefact that Sam Francis was out there do-ing his upfront, no-nonsense stuff, gavea kick in the pants to others to be morecourageous, even if they could not bequite so candid. Mr. Dickson called himirreplaceable and I think this will be evenmore obvious as time goes on.

Elizabeth Wright, EditorIssues and Views (www.issues-

views.com)

Sir — I appreciated immensely yourand Sam Dickson’s obituaries of SamFrancis. I have to say “appreciated” be-cause “enjoyed” would be completelyinappropriate in these very sad circum-stances. I spent only a few hours withSam but I took to him instantly. I hadheard about his gruff manner in advancebut it did not bother me. There was somuch evident sincerity underneath—to-gether with a dry sense of humor neverfar away.

Your and Mr. Dickson’s obituariesfitted in completely with my own briefimpressions. The theme of courage—particularly appropriate because he hadmore to lose than most—sends out someadmirable signals to those who are lessintrepid. The utter cowardice of conser-vatives is equally visible on both sidesof the big ocean.

I particularly liked Mr. Dickson’s pas-sage on calculation. It is the hallmark ofevery politician. “What’s in it for me?”is the overriding question that deter-mines all decisions and stances. Howdifferent was Sam!

Although I knew him far less and for

not nearly as long as either of you, I tooexperienced a great sadness when I heardof his passing. Such people are veryrare—anywhere. I am sometimes forcedto work with uncongenial people be-cause it is in the service of somethingmuch higher than ourselves. Encounterswith those few like Sam Francis are thegreat compensation for all this.

John Tyndall, EditorSpearhead (www.spearhead.com)

Sir — Thank you for making the Aprilissue a tribute to Sam Francis. AlthoughI did not know Dr. Francis, I was wellacquainted with his writings and consid-ered him a mentor.

I began reading Dr. Francis’ columnin the Washington Times when I movedto DC in the early 1990s, and was veryimpressed by the clarity of his thought.Before I began reading his work, I wasconservative, but not racially aware.That changed when I heard Dr. Francisgive a lecture on immigration oneevening at George Mason University. Inhis talk he mentioned census bureau pro-jections showing that whites would be aminority in the US by the middle of thiscentury, and explained what that meantfor the future. It was the first time I hadever heard anyone talk about this, and if

I had to point to a single moment when Ibecame racially aware, that was it. Morethan ever I regret that I did not intro-duce myself to him that night.

Despite the sadness I felt as I read theApril issue, I had to smile when JaredTaylor mentioned that there were peoplewho subscribed to the Times just to readSam Francis. That was why I began tak-ing the national weekly edition of thepaper after I relocated to the midwest—and I cancelled my subscription the veryday I heard he had been fired. I sub-scribed to Chronicles magazine for thesame reason, and discovered AR througha link on his old discussion forumwebsite.

Other than my father and two collegeprofessors, I can think of no one whohad a greater intellectual influence onme than Sam Francis. I will miss him,too.

Benjamin Giles, Carmel, Ind.

R.I.P.R.I.P.R.I.P.R.I.P.R.I.P.


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Continued from page 1

American RenaissanceJared Taylor, Editor

Stephen Webster, Assistant EditorIan Jobling, Web Page Editor

George McDaniel, Web Page Consultant

Housing prisoners is complicated.There are 32 prisons in the state, but onlyseven have what are euphemisticallyknown as “reception centers” that pro-cess newcomers and transfers. There issegregation only in the reception centers,and a new convict never stays in a cen-

ter for more than 60 days before he isassigned permanent quarters. These areeither attached to the reception centeror in a prison that doesn’t have a center.Whenever a man transfers from oneprison to another, he makes a stop of nomore than 14 days in a center before hegets his new assignment.

There is great variety in prison hous-

ing, with many men double- and triple-bunked in great, barracks-like rooms thathold as many as 225. In “reception cen-ters,” however, prisoners get two-mancells, where they are evaluated to seewhat kind of permanent housing (gen-eral population, maximum security, etc.)they should get. These two-man, recep-

tion-center cells where men are held forbrief evaluation are never integrated.Most men probably don’t even knowthere is a segregation policy; they get acellmate of the same race and think noth-ing of it.

What is the purpose of the evaluation?First, the authorities have to decide howviolent a prisoner is likely to be. They

consider his physical and mental health.They check his criminal history, and ifhe is transferring from another prison,they read his prison record. Low-secu-rity men—the most numerous—go todormitories. Medium-security men getpermanent two-man cells, and maxi-mum-security threats get single cells. Ifa man is known to have testified againstanother prisoner, to have shot someone’sbest friend, or to have some other rea-son to hate or be hated, this affects hishousing assignment. Convicted policeofficers and child molesters—whom allother prisoners despise—get specialtreatment, too. The prison system tries

to be very thorough in its evaluations,and has a 75-man unit that does back-ground checks both inside and outsidethe walls.

The men in centers are therefore newadditions to a population, and guardswant to look them over before decidingwhat to do with them. They are prob-ably complete strangers to each other,sharing living quarters that are morecramped and intimate than anything mostof us will ever experience, and prisonauthorities want cellmates to get along.Size and physical condition are part ofthe calculation, since no one wants toput a weakling in with a gorilla. The ideais to give a man a cellmate he is unlikelyto hate—someone of his own race.

In many cases, officials even subdi-vide prisoners along ethnic lines. “Youcannot house a Japanese inmate with aChinese inmate. You cannot,” says LindaL. Schulteis, Associate Warden at Cali-fornia State Prison-Lancaster. “They willkill each other. They won’t even tell youabout it. They will just do it,” She saysthe same is true for Laotians, Vietnam-ese, Cambodians, and Filipinos. Like-wise, a Hispanic from northern Califor-nia cannot be put in the same cell with aHispanic from southern California.


“They already have a conflict before theycome to prison,” explains prison spokes-man Margot Bach, “and it’s going to in-tensify when they come to prison.”

No other part of the California prisonsystem is segregated, not the recreationalfacilities, dining halls, work ar-eas or job assignments. Nor aredormitories reserved for cer-tain races, though the authori-ties make sure they are raciallybalanced to reduce tension. Ifa prison is 50 percent His-panic, 30 percent black and 20percent white, dormitoriesshould reflect those propor-tions. If there are just a fewprisoners of one race in a dor-mitory dominated by anotherthere is likely to be trouble.But even in mixed dorms, noprisoner is ever assigned abunk directly over a prisoner of anotherrace. Fights have broken out when thishappened.

What about the two-man cells formedium-risk offenders? In order to in-crease compatibility and reduce vio-lence, the system lets inmates choosetheir own permanent cellmates. Bothmen sign forms saying they want to sharea cell, and authorities grant the requestunless there are security reasons not to.

Needless to say, no one can think of acase in which someone asked for a room-mate of another race. Miss Bach of theprison system says, “there is peer pres-sure when you get to prison to align witha [racial] group for protection.” CharlesHughes, a corrections lieutenant at theLancaster prison is blunter: “If a blackinmate asked for a white celly [cellmate]there is no way in hell that I would dothat. I’d refer them both for a mental-health evaluation.”

Given the extraordinary level of ra-cial tension in California prisons, guardswould clearly like to segregate the en-tire system. Initial segregation, beforeauthorities have a sense of whom theyare dealing with, appears to be the mini-mum of common sense, and the Califor-nia system stands behind it. Prisoners

never willingly share a two-man cell withsomeone of another race. The systemwisely refrains from forcing them to doso.

What is the origin of the challenge tothe practice? Garrison Johnson, who

filed the original complaint, is a careercriminal and former Crip, who was con-victed in 1987 of murder, robbery andassault, and sentenced to 25 years to life.Mr. Johnson has been transferred fivetimes, and at each stop along the way hegot a black cellmate. In 1995, Mr. Gar-rison filed a pro se (meaning he repre-sented himself) complaint with the Cen-tral District of California against theprison system, arguing that always be-ing paired with a black violated his 14thAmendment rights to equal protection.After several years of procedural give-and-take, including appeals, in 2000 theNinth Circuit Court of Appeals in SanFrancisco instructed the district court toassign Mr. Johnson a lawyer and hearthe case. When the district court upheldthe segregation policy, he appealed tothe Ninth Circuit, which, in 2003, alsoupheld the policy. That was when he tookthe case to the Supreme Court.

Since Mr. Johnson is a violent, me-dium-security prisoner, he lives in a two-man cell. This means he gets to choosehis celly—and he has always asked fora black. He says he simply could not askfor a white: “You can’t cross races. Thatwill start racial tension right there. So Iknow I can’t go to a white guy and say,‘Hey, I want to move with you’ becausehe is not going to move with me.”

Mr. Johnson’s reasoning for challeng-ing the system is the following: Racialtension in prisons is so bad it is impos-sible for him to make friends with any-one who is not black. Blacks would turn

on him if he tried, and non-blacks wouldspurn him. This, he says, puts in himdanger whenever there is racial violence,because he does not have a single friendof another race to stick up for him in ariot. If, however, he spent 14 days with

a white cellmate when he wastransferred, he might make abosom friend who would pro-tect him the next time blacksand whites are fighting. Mr.Johnson has 25 years to lifeto make white friends. In ef-fect, he is saying he wants theprison system to make friendsfor him.

The Ninth Circuit Ruling

Like so many court cases,Johnson v. California has acomplex but interesting legal

background. The equal protectionclause, on which Mr. Johnson hung hiscase, has generally been interpreted torequire that government pretend racedoes not exist. In Shaw v. Hunt in 1996(which challenged the creation of twolargely black North Carolina congres-sional districts), the Supreme Courtwrote, “Racial classifications are anti-thetical to the Fourteenth Amendment,whose central purpose was to eliminate

racial discrimination emanating from of-ficial sources in the States.” The Courthas established a standard of “strict scru-tiny” when it comes to race (or religion,national origin, and sometimes sex),meaning a government agency must havea very compelling reason to take any no-tice of race at all.

The Supreme Court did not formallyend prison segregation until the 1968case of Lee v. Washington, when it ruledthat Alabama could no longer segregatecellblocks. The court did note that“prison authorities have the right, act-

Pelican Bay: the worst of the racial gangleaders live here.

“You cannot house aJapanese inmate with a

Chinese inmate. Youcannot. They will kill

each other.”


ing in good faith and in particularizedcircumstances, to take into account ra-cial tensions in maintaining security, dis-cipline, and good order in prisons andjails,” but never offered guidelines forwhen racial classification was legitimate.Several lower courts have cited Lee toargue that “unsubstantiated” fears of ra-cial violence do not justify segregation.These courts have usually limited racialseparation to lockdowns following raceriots or other violence.

In 1987, however, the Supreme Courtruled in Turner v. Safley that prison ad-ministrators may limit constitutionalrights of inmates if limiting those rightsserves a “legitimate penological inter-est.” Turner had nothing to do withrace—the question was whether prison-ers could write letters and get married—but the Court held that the standard of“legitimate penological interest” appliedto all constitutional claims, which wouldinclude equal protection. The justiceswisely pointed out that “courts are illequipped to deal with the increasinglyurgent problems of prison administrationand reform,” and that “the problems ofprisons in America are complex and in-tractable, and, more to the point, theyare not readily susceptible of resolutionby decree.”

In Turner, the Supreme Court estab-lished four rules for deciding whether aprison policy that limits inmate rightsmeets the standard of “legitimate peno-

logical interest.” The first is whetherthere is a “valid, rational connection”between the policy and the goal it is sup-posed to achieve. The second is whetherthere are “alternative means” by whichprisoners can exercise the rights they lostbecause of the policy. The third is howmuch trouble it will make for a prison ifinmates exercise their rights, and thefourth is whether there are any “readyalternatives” to the policy in question.

Mr. Johnson’s lawyers arguedthat segregation did not meet theTurner standard because therewas no rational connection be-tween temporary segregation andpreventing violence. Theyclaimed—amazingly—that sinceCalifornia prisons could notpoint to a single act of violencethat had been caused by integrat-ing two-man cells, the system’sreasons for segregation were “un-substantiated fears” of racial vio-lence and therefore unconstitu-tional. Of course, there have been nosuch acts of violence because two-mancells are never integrated.

The Ninth Circuit found a clearTurner standard connection between thesegregation policy and its objective ofreducing racial violence. It noted thatone of the worst prison riots in US his-tory was triggered in large part by theforced integration of cells (see next ar-ticle). “Under Johnson’s view,” it added,“the same violence would have to occurwithin the CDC [California Departmentof Corrections] in order to permit raceto be considered as a factor in makinginitial housing decisions. We disagree. .. . The CDC simply does not have to waituntil inmates or guards are murderedspecifically because race is not consid-ered in assigning an inmate’s initial cellmate; instead, Turner allows the admin-istrators to stave off potentially danger-

ous policies without first ‘seeingwhat happens.’ ” In other words,California was under no obligationto integrate prison cells just to seeif its decades-old segregation policyreally was preventing murder.

The Ninth Circuit also refutedMr. Johnson’s argument that thepolicy of temporary segregation in-creased racial animosity by perpetu-ating racial stereotypes. It pointedout there was already plenty of ra-cial tension in prisons with or with-out segregation, and that it was silly

to argue that a measure designed to keepviolence down was actually increasingit. Mixing up the races in cells wouldprobably lead to more racial violence,not interracial friendship. The court alsowent to great pains to point out just howpervasive racial tension is in Californiaprisons. It listed case after case in whichracial gangs attacked each other, andnoted that some prisons have been keptlocked down for years at a stretch be-cause race riots would erupt if there was

the slightest contact.At the end of this grisly recitation, the

court noted dryly, “In short, this is hardlya case where the prison administratorsare acting on an unsubstantiated record.”Therefore, “administrators are wellwithin their discretion to attempt to rec-tify or to reduce further violence by tak-ing reasonable measures.”

The second Turner test is whetherthere are “alternate means” for a pris-oner to exercise his rights, that is,whether blacks and whites have otheropportunities to get acquainted despitethe segregation policy in the receptioncenters. The Ninth Circuit found this wasobviously true, since the same-race cellassignment never lasted more than 60days. Mr. Johnson can meet all the whiteshe wants in the dining hall or the recre-ation yard.

The third Turner standard, whethergranting prisoners constitutional rightswould make a lot of trouble for the prisonauthorities, was met by testimony fromprison officials. Then-California prisonsystem director Steven Cambra told thecourt, “If race were to be disregardedentirely . . . there will be problems withinthe individual cells. These will be prob-lems that the staff will have a difficulttime controlling. I believe there will befights in the cells and the problems willemanate onto the prison yards. . . . [I]twould be very difficult to assist inmatesif the staff were needed in several placesat one time.” In other words, there wouldbe fights in the cells, violence would spillinto the rest of the prison, and the guardswould be overwhelmed.

As for the fourth Turner standard,whether there was a simple alternativeto segregation, it was the responsibilityof Mr. Johnson, as plaintiff, to offer one.His solution? Ask prisoners if they haveever been in a racial gang or if they don’tlike people of other races. The Ninth

A prison dormitory.

Meal time.


Circuit called this “disingenuous,” add-ing, “There is little chance that inmateswill be forthcoming about their past vio-lent episodes or criminal gang activityso as to provide an accurate and depend-

able picture of the inmate.” That, ofcourse, is why the system has a staff of75 investigators—prisoners lie.

The Ninth Circuit therefore con-cluded that the 14th Amendment permitstemporary segregation. Because of thespecial circumstances of prisons, thisform of racial classification need meetonly the looser standards of Turner andnot the “strict scrutiny” standard thatprevails elsewhere. Mr. Johnson did notaccept this ruling and appealed to the USSupreme Court.

Before the Supreme Court

By this time, of course, Mr. Johnsonhad a hot, court-appointed lawyer, aprominent litigator named Bert H.Deixler with the nationally-known firmof Proskauer Rose. Mr. Deixler arguedthat the Ninth Circuit was wrong to ap-ply the Turner standard and that by do-ing so, the lower court had “carved outa wholesale ‘prison exception’ ” when itcame to race. He repeatedly invoked theSupreme Court’s ruling in the Univer-sity of Michigan affirmative actioncases, Gratz and Grutter (see “What theSupreme Court Did,” AR, August 2003),pointing out that “all nine Justices werein agreement that strict scrutiny applieswhenever the government classifiesbased on race” and arguing that thisshould be the standard everywhere andwithout exception.

Mr. Deixler bought Mr. Johnson’sclaim that even brief segregation feddangerous racial stereotypes, and pro-posed that the best way to undermine the

influence of race-based gangs in prisonwas to integrate two-man cells. JusticeJohn Paul Stevens, one of the Court’smost liberal members, was especiallypleased by this silly argument.

Mr. Johnson found an allyin the Bush administration,which sent the acting solicitorgeneral, Paul D. Clement, toargue that given the country’s“pernicious history of race”—from which prisons are not ex-empt—it is vital that all racialclassifications be subject tostrict scrutiny. Otherwise, heimplied, the innate racism ofprison administrators wouldtake over.

During oral arguments, thejustices seemed most con-cerned that the segregation

policy applied to prisoner transfers aswell as newcomers, wondering why theyneeded to be segregated when they hadalready been under prison system con-trol, and had already been evaluated. Theresponse of California senior assistantattorney general Frances T. Grunder wasweak. She said it was often hard to get aprisoner’s records transferred at thesame time as the prisoner. Justice DavidSouter wondered if instead of segregat-ing transfer prisoners, the system shouldjust send the papers more quickly. MissGrunder could have madea different argument: Noone already in the prisonsystem ever asks for aroommate of a differentrace, so the system shouldnot court trouble by forc-ibly integrating two-mancells.

The segregation policyalso seems to have suf-fered because of its suc-cess. The justices wantedto know if there had everbeen racial violence because people ofdifferent races were put in a receptioncell. No, there hadn’t, because the cellsare never integrated. Rather than see thisas proof the policy works, some justicesseemed to think it showed the prisonsystem’s fears were exaggerated.

The Decision

In its February ruling, Justices Breyer,Ginsburg, Kennedy and Souter joinedSandra Day O’Connor in sending thecase back to the Ninth Circuit where the

segregation policy will be subject to“strict scrutiny.” In her view, any con-sideration of race by government is “im-mediately suspect” and must clearly pro-mote a “compelling state interest.” Anylower standard will fail to “ferret outinvidious uses of race.” Justice O’Con-nor also fell for Mr. Johnson’s claim thatsegregation—even for as few as 14days—may increase interracial violenceby “perpetuating the notion that racematters most.”

Justice John Paul Stevens issued adissent, but only to insist that the hous-ing policy was unconstitutional on 14thAmendment grounds and did not needany further “strict scrutiny” review. Hewants the cells integrated right away.

Chief Justice Rehnquist was sick withthyroid cancer during the case, and didnot participate. Justice Clarence Thomasissued a real dissent, in which JusticeScalia joined.

Justice Thomas pointed out that thecase required the Court to choose be-tween two conflicting lines of precedent.On the one hand, the Court has statedthat all racial classifications by govern-ment must be subject to strict scrutiny.At the same time, the Court has said theTurner standard applies every time aprison policy limits a prisoner’s consti-tutional rights.

Which precedent should the Court

choose? To Justice Thomas, decisionsabout race and violence “are better leftin the first instance to the officials whorun our nation’s prisons.” He accused hiscolleagues of indifference to the realityof prison life, writing, “The majority isconcerned with sparing inmates the in-dignity and stigma of racial discrimina-tion. California is concerned with theirsafety and saving their lives.” JusticeThomas even wrote that he thought tem-porary segregation might survive “strictscrutiny.” Keeping Americans from kill-

A convict’s shiv.

Doing the perp walk.


ing each other is surely a “compellingstate interest.” If the Ninth Circuit de-cides it is not, the California prison sys-tem will start mixing up the two-mancells. Mr. Johnson’s white celly mightturn out to be a 200-pound Skinhead whohas always wanted to strangle a blackman in his sleep. As Justice Thomas putit, somewhat more delicately, Mr. John-son, “who concedes that California’sprisons are racially violent places, andthat he lives in fear of being attackedbecause of his race . . . may well havewon a Pyrrhic victory.”

In fact, it is whites who will suffermost from forced integration. Blacks andHispanics have a well-documented his-tory of raping whites, especially theyoung and the weak. For many convicts,night after night of uninterrupted sod-omy with a terrified white cellmatewould be a dream come true (for a dis-cussion of prison rape, see “Hard Time,”AR, April 2002).

Whites who have served time knowhow much race matters. Joshua Engle-hart is a white man who served 37months in San Quentin on drug charges.He wrote in the Los Angles Times that

prisoners will pay the price for this fool-ish decision “because the truth is thatmixing races and ethnic groups in cellswould be extremely dangerous for in-

mates.” “[P]rison is an undeniably rac-ist place, and court rulings aren’t goingto stop it,” he explained. “Rule No. 1:The various races and ethnic groups sticktogether.” Mr. Engelhart concluded thatsegregation “is looked on by no one—

of any race—as oppressive or as a wayof promoting racism. It is done for theirown safety, and they know it. . . . Thisruling will strike dread in the hearts ofall California inmates when they readabout it.”

This Supreme Court decision is a par-ticularly dangerous example of how ournation lets ideology blind it to reality.That Sandra O’Connor and five otherjustices of the Supreme Court of theUnited States could actually think thatbriefly separating blacks from whitesfrom Hispanics during evaluation addsto racial tensions in prison simply beg-gars belief. Can they really believe con-victs show up without strong racial feel-ings, notice they got a same-race room-mate in the reception center, and thendecide the races are not supposed to getalong? These six justices—who holdmore power than even the President—have a completely fantasy-land view ofwhat race means, either in prison or inthe country at large. This is the view thatguides them and our other rulers whenthey make important decisions that af-fect our very survival as a nation and apeople.

Once again, the justice with the most sense.

The Lucasville RiotIntegration and its discon-tents.

The Southern Ohio CorrectionalFacility is a maximum-securityprison in Lucasville, about 80

miles south of Columbus. In the wordsof one Ohio supreme court justice, it gets

“the worst of the worst.” On April 11,1993—Easter Sunday—prisoners riotedand took control of L Block (one of thethree main cellblocks) taking a dozenguards hostage. They beat all of themseverely, and quickly released four they

were afraid would die. During the 11-day siege that followed, they murderednine inmates and a guard, making it thelongest and third-most deadly prison riotis US history.

Although the spark that started the riotwas a plan to inoculate black Musliminmates with a TB vaccine containingalcohol, which they say violated their

religion, racial hatred played amajor role. At the time of theriot, the prison was under acourt order to integrate doublecells, and a new warden namedArthur Tate, a black man, ap-pears to have enforced the or-der with blind enthusiasm. Injust a few months, the numberof integrated double cells wentfrom 1.7 percent to 31 percent.Inmates complained that men

were not allowed to choose their cellies,and that random assignments put knownracial enemies in the same cell. They saidthe warden told them that the only waythey could refuse integration was to at-tack their new cellmates. In one case, amember of the Aryan Brotherhood told

the warden that if he “put a nigger” inhis cell, he would kill him. Guards ig-nored him and gave him a black celly.The white convict immediately smashedhim in the face with a padlock wrappedin a sock.

Some people thought Mr. Tate wastrying to provoke a riot, presumably tosupport his campaign to have the prisonupgraded to an even higher security rat-

ing. White prisoners, a minority, thoughtMr. Tate and his chief deputy, also black,were discriminating against them.

Three main gangs operated in theprison—the Black Muslims, the BlackGangster Disciples, and the AryanBrotherhood. The Black Muslims startedthe riot by attacking the guards, and dur-ing the first few hours of chaos, prison-

The Lucasville riot didsolve the integration

problem in maximum-security prisons. All men

now get single cells.

Prison guard on patrol with an assault rifle.

ΩΩΩΩΩ


ers settled scores, most of them racial.At a dangerous point in the riot KeithLamar, a black man not in either blackgang, found his path blocked by BlackMuslims. He promised that if they lethim pass he would kill white “snitches,”and the Muslims agreed. He then orga-nized a “death squad” to find and killwhites whom he accused of cooperatingwith prison authorities. His group mur-dered four men, including one who was69 years old and used a walker. He alsoforced one white prisoner to beat anotherwhite to death.

After the initial confusion, any manwho could sought protection from oneof the gangs, each of which controlled asection of L Block. The leader of theBlack Muslims, Carlos Sanders, wasafraid there would be race war when theAryan Brotherhood started taking re-venge for Mr. Lamar’s killings, and pro-posed a truce to its two leaders, GeorgeSkatzes and Jason Robb. The menagreed that henceforth, only whiteswould kill whites, and only blacks wouldkill blacks. The whites appear to havekept their word. Mr. Skatzes of the broth-erhood had already killed one white in-

former, and he and Mr. Robb killed an-other before the riot ended. However,Mr. Sanders was later accused of order-ing the death of a white inmate who hadallegedly raped a black prisoner. TheGangster Disciples also agreed to thetruce, and for the remainder of the siege,the gangs managed an uneasy coexist-ence.

Not all prisoners rioted. Some es-caped to other parts of the prison andturned themselves over to authorities.The ones who could not escape weretraitors in the eyes of the rioters. Thegang leaders rounded them up and keptthem in cells under gang “security.” Af-ter the initial violence, whites managedwhites, and blacks managed blacks.

The gang leaders negotiated withprison authorities, and even broadcasttheir demands on local radio and televi-sion. One of their chief demands was anend to the policy of integrating doublecells, but they also wanted less crowd-ing, and the removal of the warden andhis deputy. In order to convince authori-ties they were serious, the gang leadersagreed to murder one of the eight guardsthey were still holding. They chose Rob-

ert Vallandingham, a 40-year-old whiteman. It isn’t known who actually killedMr. Vallandingham, but inmates havetestified that Anthony Lavelle, leader ofthe Black Gangster Disciples, strangledhim.

As food ran out and conditions wors-ened, the prisoners lost their bravado.On April 21, 1993, they surrenderedpeacefully. More than 50 inmates facedcharges in connection with the riot, andBlack Muslim leaders Carlos Sandersand James Were, Aryan Brotherhoodleaders Jason Robb and George Skatzesall got the death penalty for killing Of-ficer Vallandingham. Anthony Lavelle,who may actually have killed the guard,testified against the others in exchangefor a lighter sentence. Keith Lamar, whoorganized the anti-white hit-squads, wasalso sentenced to death. As of publica-tion date, no one has been executed.Arthur Tate, the warden whom all theprisoners hated, continued his career inprison administration.

In the end, the Lucasville riot didsolve the integration problem in maxi-mum-security prisons in Ohio. All mennow get single cells.

Hurrah, Hurrah, for Southern Rights, Hurrah!Michael Hill, Editor, The Grey Book: Blueprint for Southern Independence, Traveller Press,

2004, 170 pp., $20.00.

The League of the South’sroadmap to secession.

reviewed by Pauline Tate

More than eight decades ago, theIrish poet William Butler Yeatswrote the now-famous lines,

“Things fall apart; the centre cannothold.” That the center of the AmericanEmpire cannot hold has at no time beenmore evident than now, with the currentwave of secessionist movements risingup across the country: the Alaskan In-dependence Party, the California Seces-sionist Party, the Hawaiian SovereigntyMovement, the New England Confed-eration Movement, the North Star Re-public, the Cascadian National Party, theAztlan movement, the Republic ofTexas, and the Green Mountain Repub-lic of Vermont.

And then there’s Dixie. In 1994, 27Southern patriots organized the Leagueof the South (then known as The South-ern League) around the time-honored

principle of Southern independence. Tenyears later, their manifesto for a newnation is here, in The Grey Book: Blue-

print for Southern Independence.Why secession? As The Grey Book

explains:

“Since the War for Southern Indepen-dence, the South has been redefined byan alien and revolutionary vision radiat-ing from Washington, DC: the Ameri-can Empire. It has imposed on its once-free citizens a vast and oppressive bu-reaucracy in the form of welfare and af-firmative action programs that squanderour wealth and incite racial strife. . . . Ithas assumed control over the educationof our children, who are taught little ex-cept to hate their ancestors and to de-spise their own people. It has, while pur-suing empire abroad, refused to defendits own people against an epidemic ofcrime, the invasion of our borders by il-legal aliens, and the international agen-cies that are bit by bit chipping away atthe sovereignty of these United States.”

Reform is impossible, according tothe League, for these and a dozen otherreasons neatly outlined in chapter three.The League understands that because theSouth is the most “culturally distinct”region of the US, it is often at odds withthe rest of the country. For example, rep-resentatives of the South voted against

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the Immigration Reform Acts of 1965and 1986, both of which passed none-theless, with disastrous consequences.

The League defends the principle ofsecession by reminding readers that theUnited States came into being becausethe American colonies seceded fromEngland. Furthermore, the League con-tends that because the US Constitutiondoes not expressly forbid states fromseceding from the union, the right of se-cession is reserved to the people of thestates, in accordance with the TenthAmendment.

A new Confederation of SouthernStates (CSS) composed of the 11 statesof the original Confederate States (Ala-bama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Loui-siana, Mississippi, North Carolina,South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, andVirginia) would be home to 80 millionpeople and trail only the remainingUnited States and Japan in gross domes-tic product. This new CSS would bebased on the foundation of family, faith,and community under a limited and de-centralized government. Beyond pro-tecting its borders and its people, theCSS would leave governance to its sov-ereign states.

“But is it realistic?” members of theLeague are always asked. Yes, they say.According to a Southern Focus Poll con-ducted annually by the Odum Institutein Chapel Hill, North Carolina, a full 12percent of Southerners say they would

favor Southern independence if it couldbe achieved by peaceful means. Anotherseven percent are not sure. The Leagueasserts that the American Revolution be-gan with not much more support fromthe colonists (it estimates about one insix colonists were in favor of secession.)

Even so, the League acknowledgesthat secession it not an immediately prac-tical goal and that the first step towardan independent Dixie is to create a massbase of like-minded Southerners. To thisend, members urge cultural secession or“abjuration of the realm.” Culture, ac-cording to the League, is the essentialorganizing principle of a nation, and they

reject the Democratic/Republican argu-ment that America is a proposition na-tion. Rather, the League maintains thata shared culture is “the only legitimate,long-lasting foundation for genuinepeace, for genuine order, and genuine,shared prosperity.”

Without a culture, the people perish,and without its core Anglo-Celtic popu-lation, the culture of the historic South

will be lost. The League understandsthat Southern heritage and valuesare under attack by institutions ofboth the Left and the

neoconservative Right, and itpoints out that the government, the

media, and academia are waging aculturally genocidal war against the de-

scendants of the great civilizations of Eu-rope. The League argues that America’shistoric population being replaced with“more compliant Third-World peoples”who are accustomed to the kind of gov-ernment “now being put in place on theruins of the constitutional, limited gov-ernment established by the Founders.”

In response, the League promises toact on the following ten points:

“Advance the interests and indepen-dence of the Southern people.

“Defend the historic Christian faith ofthe South.

“Educate Southerners (and otherAmericans of good will) about our his-tory and our civilisation.

“Protect the symbols and heritage ofthe traditional South.

“Maintain our link with the greatcivilisations of Europe, especially thatof the Anglo-Celts, from which the Southhas drawn its inspiration.

“Encourage the development ofhealthy local communities and institu-tions by seceding from the mindlessmaterialism and vulgarity of contempo-rary American society.

“Restore the traditional rights re-served to the States under the Constitu-tion.

“Form friendships and alliances withsympathetic movements striving fordevolution of government and indepen-dence for authentic nations and regions,both inside and outside of these UnitedStates.

“Stimulate the economic vitality andself-sufficiency of the Southern people.

“Pledge our lives, fortunes, and sa-cred honour to the cause we have un-dertaken.” (The Grey Book, like theLeague’s other publications, uses Brit-ish spelling.)

The authors of this book are whatAmerican Renaissance would call racialrealists; therefore, they reject the “flawedJacobin notion” of egalitarianism thatunderlies America’s current publicpolicy. They would eliminate affirmativeaction as well as all attempts to “remakesociety in their image of diversity” andthat serve “profiteers with endlessstreams” of cheap labor:

“Though the Left willclaim this as evidence of

our ‘racism,’ to allownon-Western peoples andtheir institutions to domi-

nate the South woulddestroy our civilization as

we know it.”


“Though the Left will claim this asevidence of our ‘racism,’ to allow non-Western peoples and their institutions todominate the South would destroy ourcivilization as we know it.”

At the same time, the League “dis-

avows a spirit of malice” towards South-ern blacks and welcomes their coopera-tion “in areas where we can work to-gether as Christians to make life betterfor all people in the South.”

Much of this 170-page book is anoutline of policies for a new Southernnation. Of particular interest are discus-sions of immigration and race relations,which are worth quoting at length. Onimmigration, the League states:

“The strength of a country is conti-nuity from the past to the future. Conse-quently, the CSS immigration policyshall not bring radical changes to an areaor its people. Southern immigrationpolicy will limit overall numbers of im-migrants to prevent burgeoning popula-tion growth and attendant problems ofovercrowding, excessive urban and sub-urban development, and environmentalstress. Southern immigration policy alsowill not permit extensive change of theSouth’s cultural, ethnic and socio-eco-nomic make-up. Change of this sort isnot conducive to true good will and tol-erance, but rather to mistrust and divi-sion which unscrupulous interests willexploit.

“Immigrants wishing to become citi-zens of the CSS would be required toreside in one of its states for at least adecade.” They would need to renounce“all loyalty to their countries of origin”and obtain character references fromleaders of their communities. Mastery ofthe English language would be requiredof them as would extensive knowledgeof Southern history and civics. TheLeague states unequivocally, “Citizen-

ship will not be granted to the childrenof foreign parents simply because theyare born in the CSS.”

Illegal immigration would not be tol-erated. Borders would be well patrolled,and law enforcement officers at all lev-

els would have authority to arrest anddeport illegal aliens.

On race relations, the League ac-knowledges that “historically the inter-ests of Southern blacks and whites havebeen in part antagonistic.” As a Chris-tian nation, the CSS would look to Scrip-ture for guidance. Blacks would betreated as “brothers in Christ” and wouldbe afforded the same constitutional pro-tections as other law-abiding citizens:

“[The government] shall leave theraces alone to work out their problemsin private spheres (e.g. between indi-viduals, families, churches, businesses,etc.) Race relations, especially betweenwhites and blacks in the South, havebeen poisoned by the interference ofvarious agencies of the federal govern-ment and by the cultural scourge of ‘po-litical correctness.’ To remedy this prob-lem, government shall have no place infavouring or handicapping one racialgroup in relation to another. All shall befree to pursue their own interests underthe law.”

That being said, the League makesclear that its first duty is to self-preser-vation. “White Christian Southerners arethe blood descendants of the men andwomen who settled this country and gaveus the blessings of freedom and pros-perity. To give away this inheritance inthe name of ‘equality’ or ‘fairness’ wouldbe unconscionable.”

The CSS would eliminate welfare, inaccordance with Second Thessalonians3:10: “if any would not work, neithershould he eat.” Voluntary organizationswould attend to those truly in need, what-ever their race. “Though many blacksmay be taught to hate us in their homesand institutions,” the League cautions,“our response to them must be groundedin Christian charity.”

The Grey Book ends with two appen-dices. The first is a collection of “snap-shots” by various unidentified authorson the growth and development of theLeague. Although interesting, these short

essays are largely restated material cov-ered earlier in the book. The second ap-pendix answers questions most fre-quently asked about the League, and isa quick overview of the League’s phi-losophy, goals, and plan for secession.

Southern secession is not the Confed-erate flag-waving delusion its criticswould have us believe. Authors as di-verse as Gore Vidal (The Decline andFall of the American Empire), RobertD. Kaplan (The Coming Anarchy), Tho-mas W. Chittum (Civil War Two: TheComing Breakup of America), andMichael Hart (in The Real AmericanDilemma) have warned that secession,partition, or actual civil war may be actthree in the drama of American politicallife. Describing the “disturbing fresh-ness” of Edward Gibbon’s history of theRoman Empire, Mr. Kaplan writes:

“The Decline and Fall instructs thathuman nature never changes, and thatmankind’s predilection for faction, aug-mented by environmental and culturaldifferences, is what determines history.”

Since the publication of The GreyBook, a call has gone out to make SouthCarolina the first state of the new unre-constructed South. Cory Burnell, theformer director of the League of theSouth’s Texas chapter, has foundedChristianExodus.org, an online organi-zation urging fundamentalist Christiansto relocate to South Carolina. Ratherthan try to “redirect the entire nation,”Mr. Burnell hopes to “redeem States oneat a time.” Working with the League’sSouth Carolina chapter, ChristianExodus.org plans to relocate 12,000Christians annually to South Carolinawith a secession date set for 2016.

Yet, there is a problem with theLeague’s plan for secession that may be

This flag was surrendered at AppamatoxCourt House, April 9, 1865.

A new Confederacywould eliminate welfare,in accordance with Sec-ond Thessalonians 3:10:“if any would not work,neither should he eat.”


more intractable than domination by theAmerican Empire. Reversing a 35-yeartrend, blacks are now returning to theSouth in record numbers as they flee thehigh unemployment and crime rates ofnorthern cities. As appealing as an inde-pendent Dixie may be for white South-erners, it is hard to imaginethat Southern blacks willshare that enthusiasm.Blacks make up nearly 30percent of the population ofSouth Carolina, according to the 2000US census, and a high percentage ofmost of the rest of the South (Alabama,26 percent; Arkansas, 16; Florida, 15;

Georgia, 29; Louisiana, 33; Mississippi,36; North Carolina, 22; Tennessee, 17;Texas, 12; and Virginia, 20.)

As their population continues to grow,southern blacks will increasingly takepolitical control—first of the major cit-ies—just as they have in Atlanta. Whites

will flee to white enclavesand the new black estab-lishment will gorge itselfon what is left behind.Thomas Chittum predicts

an independent black nation in the South,with Atlanta as its capital. If that shouldhappen, Mr. Chittum believes whites willabandon the South, but some, like the

authors of The Grey Book one suspects,will stay and fight.

Readers of AR may not be ready tojoin Mr. Burnell when he moves his fam-ily to South Carolina next year. Somemay not agree with the League’s posi-tion on every social and economic is-sue, and others may find its fundamen-talism incompatible with a more scien-tific worldview. Still, The Grey Book isworth reading, if only for its unwaver-ing defense of white people from a fu-ture that looks increasingly dark.

Pauline Tate is a descendant of Con-federate soldiers. She lives in NorthCarolina.

ChristianExodus.org.

The Crime the Media Chose to IgnoreMass murder, incest, rape—and media silence.

by Ian Jobling

During 2004 and 2005, Americanswere fixated on Scott Peterson’smurder of his wife and unborn

son. News channels reported breath-lessly on the smallest developments inthe investigation and trial, and scruti-nized Mr. Peterson, his mistress AmberFrey, and the lawyers’ performances.

The national media has virtually ig-nored another case that is even strangerand more shocking: Marcus Wesson’smurder of nine of his own children inFresno, California. Not only were theremore victims, but the circumstanceswere much stranger. Mr. Wesson carriedon incestuous relations with several ofhis daughters and nieces for years, brain-washed the family into believing he wasa Messiah, and made a murder-suicidepact with them. The media silence mustcertainly be due to the fact that Mr.Wesson is black. The media soft-pedalnews about black crime because editorsdo not want to show non-whites in anunflattering light.

People who have known MarcusWesson say he is highly eccentric andmoderately intelligent. He has a largevocabulary and expresses himself inflowery language. He undoubtedly hasan unusual influence on others.

In 1968, Mr. Wesson left the army,which had sent him to Europe as a medi-cal orderly, and moved to San Jose, Cali-fornia. Then in his 20s, he moved in with

a Hispanic woman, Rosemary May-torena, who was in her 30s; the two hadone son. In 1974, Mr. Wesson marriedMiss Maytorena’s daughter Elizabeth,who was 15 at the time. Over the next16 years, he had ten children with her.

His wife Elizabeth had a sister namedRosemary Solorio, who also appears tohave been under Mr. Wesson’s spell. In1986, she sent her seven children to livewith the Wessons. The children had been

molested in their own home and werereportedly happy to make the change.The result was a household of consider-able size.

Mr. Wesson could not keep a steadyjob, and got most of his income fromwelfare. The family drifted from place

to place, and some of its living arrange-ments were inventive. At one time thefamily lived in a 26-foot boat moored inSanta Cruz harbor. Mr. Wesson some-times scavanged hamburgers out of aMcDonald’s dumpster for his family toeat. The boat got him in trouble, how-ever: He failed to list it as an asset onhis welfare forms, and went to jail forwelfare fraud in 1990. In the mid- andlate 1990s, the family lived in a trailerand large army tent in the Santa Cruzmountains, on land with no running wa-ter. The Wessons also lived for a time ina decaying 63-foot tugboat off the shoreof Marin County, California. Sometimesthey lived in a school bus. By the late1990s, the children of Marcus and Eliza-beth Wesson were old enough to work,and Mr. Wesson used their money to buythe Fresno building in which the mur-ders took place.

None of the children ever went toschool. Mr. Wesson taught them at home,using flash-cards, school textbooks, andhis own weird brand of Christianity. Hebecame fascinated with David Koreshduring the siege at Waco, Texas, in 1993,and made his family into his own per-sonal cult. He described himself as JesusChrist and police officers as Satan. Whenthe family watched television coverageof the Branch Davidian siege, Mr.Wesson told the children, “This is howthe world is attacking God’s people. Thisman is just like me. He is making chil-dren for the Lord. That’s what we shouldbe doing, making children for the Lord.”

Mr. Wesson taught his family to beprepared to die if anyone ever tried tobreak up the household. He told his

The media soft-pedalnews about black crimebecause editors do not

want to show non-whitesin an unflattering light.

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niece, Rosa Solorio, and his daughter,Sebhrenah Wesson, they were “strongsoldiers,” who would hunt down and killfamily members who betrayed him, andwho might have to kill the family andthemselves to prevent a break-up. Pos-sibly in anticipation of such a massacre,Mr. Wesson bought ten coffins from anantique dealer.

Mr. Wesson was also fascinated byvampires, and gave himself and hisdaughters and nieces vampire names.His name for himself was Jevammarc-suspire, a mixture of Jesus, Marcus andVampire.

Mr. Wesson began sleeping with hisdaughters and nieces after he got out ofjail in 1990. According to trial testimonyof Ruby Ortiz, née Solorio, one of the

nieces sent to live with the Wessons, Mr.Wesson began molesting her when shewas eight. Mrs. Ortiz testified that sheloved Mr. Wesson at the time and at age13 enthusiastically agreed to “marry”him. The marriage ceremony consistedof the couple putting their hands on theBible and reciting marriage vows. Mr.Wesson “married” three of his nieces andtwo of daughters this way and had chil-dren by all of them. Mrs. Wesson fullyapproved of these incestuous unions. Infact, when Ruby Solorio ran away fromhome as a teenager, Mrs. Wesson per-suaded her to come back to the house totake care of her son by Mr. Wesson. Mrs.Ortiz testified that Mr. Wesson could becruel and jealous. He isolated his chil-dren from the outside world and beat herwith a stick or baseball bat when shetalked to boys or did not learn her les-sons.

Despite this abuse, many in the fam-ily fondly remember their days with Mr.Wesson. He devised entertainments forthe family, such as plays, concerts, and“ugly” contests, in which the childrenwould dress up to be as ugly as possible.

The Wessons spooked their neigh-bors. Mr. Wesson weighs about 400pounds, and one neighbor in Fresno de-scribed his hair as “one big, long greasydreadlock. It was just caked in dirt andoil.” When Mr. Wesson would go out

with the family, the women wore darkrobes and walked behind him in silencewith their eyes downcast. When theWessons lived on the tugboat, the girlswould row Mr. Wesson to shore andback. “They rowed him like they wereslaves . . . ,” says one neighbor. “I hadhim pegged as some sort of Jonestowncult.”

All of the boys in the family movedout of the house when they were oldenough, as did most of the girls. How-ever, two of the daughters, SebhrenahWesson and Elizabeth Breani Wesson,and one of the nieces, Rosa Solorio,stayed with their father into adulthood,supporting the family. There were alsoseveral young children still in the house.

In 2003, the Wessons bought a housein Fresno that had been an office build-ing. City authorities moved to evict thefamily because it was a non-residentialbuilding.

The prospect of eviction may haveplayed some part in precipitating themurders. Mr. Wesson probably saw it aspart of a plot against him and his family.But the primary trigger for the murderswas a March 12, 2004 visit from RubyOrtiz and Sofina Solorio, two nieces whohad moved out of the household, andwanted Mr. Wesson to give them theirdaughters. He refused, and the familyshouted curses at the two women, call-ing them “Judas,” “whore,” and “Luci-fer.”

The two women left without their chil-dren, and returned with the police. Of-ficers ordered Mr. Wesson to come out,but he fled inside the building. The po-lice called the city attorney, who toldthem they had no legal right to go in-side. Then Rosa Solorio and Mrs.Wesson came out of the building andreported Mr. Wesson had a gun. Policeback-up and a SWAT team arrived. Justas they were taking positions around thehouse, Mr. Wesson emerged covered inblood and surrendered. Relatives of thevictims blame police for not taking ac-tion sooner.

What the police found inside was sohorrific that some of them went on ad-ministrative leave or into counseling.The nine bodies of Mr. Wesson’s chil-dren, who were all shot through one eye,were tangled up in a bloody pile of cloth-ing. The victims ranged in age from oneto 25. Two were Mr. Wesson’s daugh-ters; the other seven were children of hisdaughters and nieces, all of them undereight years of age. The ten coffins Mr.

Wesson had bought lined the wall of oneof the rooms. That night six police chap-lains reported to the building to soothethe detectives gathering evidence. Themayor of Fresno said the city wouldnever be the same again after the largestmass-killing in its history.

It is possible that Mr. Wesson did notcommit the murders. His lawyers say it

was “strong soldier” Sebhrenah Wessonwho shot the others and then killed her-self. She was on top of the pile of bod-ies, and the gun was underneath her.Police found no gun residue on Mr.Wesson. Even if he did not fire theweapon, however, prosecutors say hecould still get the death penalty for con-spiracy to commit murder, and aidingand abetting murder.

Mr. Wesson went on trial March 3,charged with nine counts of murder and13 counts of sexual assault. Many of hisfamily members continue to support him.One of Mr. Wesson’s sons shouted out,“I love you, Dad” in court. Rosa Solorio

says she still loves him, even though hekilled the two children she had by him.She says Mr. Wesson is her husband, andshe intends to stay faithful to him for-ever. She blames Ruby Ortiz and SofinaSolorio for causing the murders by try-ing to break up the family.

By the time this is published the jurywill probably be close to a verdict. Themedia will have delivered a different ver-dict by remaining silent about one of thestrangest mass murders ever committedin the United States.

In custody.

Surviving family members outside themassacre site.

What the police foundinside was so horrific that

some of them went onadministrative leave or

into counseling.

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O Tempora, O Mores!Born Victims

On March 8, 9,000 high school stu-dents marched in Paris to protest educa-tional reforms announced by the govern-ment. The march attracted 700 to 1,000black and Arab brawlers from the north-ern suburbs of the city who came to at-tack young whites. Small bands of thugscirculated through the crowd, beating upvictims and stealing their wallets, purses,or mobile phones. All the victims werewhite, and the thugs attacked women aswell as men. Dozens of victims were

taken to the hospital. Police were caughtflat-footed, and did little to help the vic-tims; they arrested only eight people.The organizers of the demonstrationended it early because of the violence.

When asked why they had beaten themarchers, the attackers openly expressedtheir hatred of “little French people” and“little whites.” “If you have a face like agood Frenchman,” said one, “you’re atarget. And especially if you look like asurfer with long hair.” They beat youngwhites, they said, because they werecowards and did not know how to fight.They also expressed resentment atwhites’ wealth. “The people who weremarching are those who want to succeedand who have a lot of stuff.”

The victims said the motive wasclearly not just theft: Even when theygave up their cell phones or money im-mediately, the thugs still beat them up.Some just smashed the cell phones onthe pavement and laughed. A group ofpublic figures, along with 1,000 students,released a statement denouncing whatthey called “anti-white” attacks. [A Paris,les Casseurs ont Trappé et Volé deNombreux Manifestants, Le Monde

(Paris), March 10, 2005.]When protesters marched again on

March 15, unions provided an escort ofseveral hundred. There were no attacks,but there were far fewer demonstratorsthan a week earlier. Student leaders saidmany whites were afraid to come out.[Union Escort for Protesting Paris Stu-dents, AFP, March. 15, 2005.]

The young men who attacked the pro-testers used the non-white ghetto slangterm bolos to describe their victims. Theword means “trendy young white” or“born victim.” The French newspaper LeMonde asked non-white high school stu-dents in the area from which the attack-ers came what the word meant to them.“It’s as though they had, ‘Come steal mystuff,’ written on their faces,” said onestudent. “Bolos look at the ground be-cause they are afraid, because they arecowardly,” says another. Blondes areparticularly likely to be bolos, but evennon-whites can be bolos if they assimi-late. “A North African can be a bolos ifhe thinks like a Frenchman,” says a stu-dent.

Black and Arab students respect andcan even be friends with “whites whodon’t take themselves for whites,” thatis to say, who mimic the ways of theghetto. Young non-whites particularlydislike whites who dress trendily, suchas those who adopt skater or “Goth”fashions. These people, in the students’view, are “not normal.” Bolos are weak-lings and don’t move around in gangs.One student explained that they are vul-nerable because of their small families.Young Arabs and blacks are likely tohave older brothers who will avenge at-tacks. [Manifestations des Lycéens: LeSpectre des Violences Anti-“Blancs,” LeMonde (Paris), March. 15, 2005.]

French non-whites do not see them-selves as part of the same nation aswhites. Blacks and Arabs have startedcalling white Frenchmen Gaulois orGauls, the name of the tribe that lived inFrance when the Romans conquered it.Some white Frenchmen use the term aswell, as in “the Gaulois vote.” YoungMuslims born in France, when askedtheir nationality, answer “Muslim” ratherthan French. [Olivier Guitta, Mugged byla Réalité, Weekly Standard, April 15,2005.]

A MysteryThe Lowry Avenue Bridge in Minne-

apolis over the Mississippi River joinstwo neighborhoods: Northeast, which ismostly white, and North Minneapolis,which is mostly black. Between May andDecember last year, the bridge wasclosed for repairs, and mostly-whiteNortheast saw a 41 percent drop incrime. Crime at the other end of thebridge rose sharply. A liquor store ownerin Northeast said he had noticed thecrime drop himself. While the bridgewas closed, there was less shopliftingand fewer customers trying to pass badchecks. A tattoo parlor owner in North-east said the drop in crime was a popu-lar subject of conversation in her shop.Some people even believed the bridgewas deliberately kept closed longer thannecessary.

Some Minneapolis residents areafraid to draw the obvious conclusion.A Northeast resident said, “Simply be-cause crime is down, you can’t say it’sbecause the Lowry Avenue Bridge isclosed. I think there’s implications forsome racial attitudes that we have to becareful about.” A Northeast restaurantmanager says it is difficult to know howthe bridge affects crime: “I don’t knowif the mystery will ever be revealed.” Hedid, however, concede that the bridge is“an open corridor to a whole differentworld.” The county commissioner dulydeclared himself “quite surprised” thatmany Northeast residents did not wantthe bridge reopened. [Mike Kaszuba,Was Lowry Bridge a Span to Crime?Star-Tribune (Minneapolis), March 29,2005.]

Disparate IncomeAccording to data from the US Cen-

sus Bureau, in 2003, college-educatedblack women made more money thancollege-educated white women: $41,100vs. $37,800. Asian women with ba-chelor’s degrees had the highest aver-age pay at $43,700, and Hispanic womenhad the lowest, at $37,600.

Economists and sociologists say theblack-white difference is due in part tothe tendency of black women to worklonger hours, hold more than one job,


or return to work sooner after givingbirth. But another factor is the premiumon college-educated black women, es-pecially in certain fields. “Given the rela-tive scarcity, if you are a woman in thesciences—if you are a black woman—you would be a rare commodity,” saysRoderick Harris of the Joint Center forPolitical and Economic Studies.

College-educated men still earn morethan college educated-women, withwhite men earning the most: more than$66,000 per year, compared to $52,000for Asian men, $49,000 for Hispanics,and $45,000 for blacks. [DisparityFound in Degreed Women’s Earnings,AP, March 28, 2005.]

Canadian Anti-RacismOn March 21, the Canadian govern-

ment unveiled a five-year, $56-millioncampaign to “get tough on racism.” Theplan grew out of a government surveythat found 18 percent of Canadians saidthey had suffered some form of racial

discrimination, coupled with the factthat, thanks to immigration, Canada isbecoming increasingly non-white. In1980, non-whites—“visible minorities”in Canadian government-speak—werejust one percent of Canada’s population.The figure is now 13 percent, and is ex-pected to reach 20 percent by 2017.

Fighting Internet “racism” is part ofthe effort. There will be a hot line soCanadians can report Internet “hate”sites, and the government will pressureInternet Service Providers to shut downwebsites it doesn’t like. The governmentwill also define and keep track of hatecrimes, meet the “needs” of victims, and“rehabilitate” perpetrators. The authori-ties will also work closely with employ-ers, unions, immigrants and Canadian“aboriginals” (but apparently not withwhites) to root out employment discrimi-nation. There will also be a “Welcom-ing Communities Initiative,” to “fostera more welcome environment” for im-migrants.

Fighting “racism” is one of JusticeMinister Irwin Cotler’s top priorities.“We have to send out the message un-equivocally,” he says, “as a governmentand as part of our shared citizenship andshared values, that our Canada is one inwhich there will be no sanctuary for hateand no refuge for bigotry. We will useall the panoply of remedies to bring thatabout: legal remedies, intercultural dia-logue, promotion of multiculturalism,anti-discrimination law and policy.”[Elizabeth Thompson, Racism BattleGets $56 million, Gazette (Montreal),March 21, 2005.]

Unwelcome GuestIn early March, Hakeem Hakeem

went on a rampage in the suburbs ofMelbourne, Australia. First, he beat andraped a woman. Five days later he rapedanother woman. The next day he raped,robbed and tried to kill a 60-year-oldwoman. The next day he forced a manto rape yet another woman before rap-ing her himself and sexually assaultingher with a tree branch. Mr. Hakeem is a19-year-old immigrant from the Sudan.By the time police got him into court,he had been in Australia for just threeweeks. [Accused Serial Rapist in Aus-tralia for Just 3 Weeks, Daily Telegraph(Sydney), March 16, 2005.]

State of the Black UnionEvery year since 2000, black radio

talk show host Tavis Smiley has put onwhat he calls a “State of the BlackUnion” conference. This year it was insuburban Atlanta during the weekend ofFeb. 26, and attracted such luminariesas Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, LouisFarrakhan, Rep. John Conyers and

former US Surgeon General JoycelynElders. The theme was black politicalactivism.

Many blacks say the 2004 presiden-tial campaign ignored “their” issues, andMr. Smiley said black leaders shoulddraw up a “contract with black America”that politicians would have to sign. “Thenext time you come calling on our vote,”he said of politicians, “you come cor-rect on the contract or you don’t comeat all.” The audience of 2,000 whoopedwith delight. Joseph Lowery, formerhead of the Southern Christian Leader-ship Conference, preferred a “covenant”to a “contract,” saying, “We’ve got torecapture that spirituality; that’s ourstrength.” Mr. Smiley agreed, saying,“Black folk have always been the con-science of this country. We are doing ourpart to help redeem the soul of America.”

Mr. Farrakhan said any contractshould be between blacks and their ownleaders, in order to present a unified frontin the face of white power. “Power con-cedes nothing without a demand,” hesaid, “but power won’t even concede toa demand if it comes from a weak con-stituency that looks like it’s lost its tes-ticular fortitude.”

Predictably, President Bush emergedas the villain. Mr. Farrakhan derided thePresident for going to war with Iraq,accusing him of believing that “no darknation should have a weapon of massdestruction.” Rev. Eddie Long had tojustify accepting an invitation to theWhite House: “Just because we went tothe house does not mean we had inter-course,” he explained. [Charles Odum,‘Contract’ Urged for Black Issues, AP,Feb. 27, 2005.]

Black Social SecurityPresident Bush is trying to persuade

blacks to support his proposal to priva-tize Social Security, arguing that they areshortchanged by the present system be-cause they tend to die younger thanwhites. “African-American men get onaverage two to four years of retirementbenefits, while white Americans get 10to 12 years of benefits,” says Republi-can National Committee spokesmanTara Wall.

The GOP’s critics say this appealwon’t work, because blacks rely on So-cial Security income far more heavilythan whites (38 percent—as opposed to18 percent of whites—have no other re-tirement income). “It is one of the best

House of Parliament.


deals that poor and working poor can get,and blacks are unfortunately over-rep-resented in those groups,” says blackcongressman Charles Rangel (D-NY).“If one of the appeals to blacks is thatthey’re not getting a fair shake becausethey die earlier, it would seem to me thatthey would at least address the questionof why they die earlier and what we cando about it.” [Edmund L. Andrews, GOPCourts Blacks, Latinos, New YorkTimes, March 20, 2005.]

Sins of the FatherPhiladelphia has joined Chicago

in forcing firms that do businesswith the city to report whether theyever made money from slavery.The law, which went into effect inMarch, says that any company thatgets a city contract must file an af-fidavit within 90 days stating it haschecked its records for any evi-dence of profits from slavery. Ifthere ever were such profits, thecompany must list the names of theslaves and slave owners. If thebusiness does not file the affidavitor lies in it, it will lose the con-tract.

“This is a chance to put in placean essential element—corporatedisclosure and transparency,” sayscity council member BlondellReynolds-Brown, who sponsoredthe bill. “We will arrive at a newera when corporations are able andwilling to face their past and makeproper amends, whatever they maybe, for any egregious wrongdo-ings.” [Angela Couloumbis, PastSlave Profits Focus of CouncilBill, Philadelphia Inquirer, March3, 2005, p. B-4.]

Dying DetroitDetroit was one of the first major

American cities to get a black mayor, andhas been run by blacks ever since 1973.Some blacks therefore call it the Capitalof Black America, but the capital is inbad shape. Its population of 911,000 ishalf what it was in the 1950s, and thecity is expected to lose another 50,000by 2010. The declining tax base meansDetroit faces a three-year budget short-fall of $389 million, and is on the brinkof bankruptcy. Mayor Kwami Kilpatrickis trying to stop the red ink by firing 687city employees, and cutting everyone

else’s pay by ten percent. This will notbe enough. Decades of featherbeddinghave left Detroit with 1.4 city workersfor each 1,000 residents, well above theone per 1,000 average in other major cit-ies. The mayor plans to save money byshutting down overnight bus service andclosing the aquarium. He is also consid-ering closing the zoo, cutting back onpublic medicine, and turning off somestreet lighting.

Schools have been getting the axe.The superintendent fired 372 teachersbefore Christmas, and plans to close 40schools this summer. According to pro-jections, the number of schoolchildrenwill decline to 100,000 by 2008, half the1999 figure. This would mean closing110 of 252 schools, and firing more thana quarter of the district’s 21,000 employ-ees.

Businesses have fled, leaving an un-employment rate of 14 percent, nearlydouble the state average, and almostthree times the national average. Detroitsqueezes 5.5 times more in taxes out ofits residents than the average Michigan

city. Part of this is due to a city incometax, which takes the place of all the real-estate tax the city does not collect onblock after block of abandoned build-ings. As if this were not enough, the cityis considering a new head tax of $252 ayear on the people it still has.

A generation ago, blacks spoke hope-fully of a renaissance. Now the wordsthey use are “cataclysmic,” “dire,” and“grave,” and the vocabulary is not likely

to change. “I see no turnaround im-minent,” says David Lippman,chief economist at Comerica Bank.“It does gravitate to a downwardspiral.” (see “The Late Great Cityof Detroit,” AR, Aug. 1991, for ananalysis of Detroit’s long decline).

Mayor Kilpatrick doesn’t wantto be known as the man who finallyran the city onto the rocks. He sayshe’s been working out with weightsto get into “fighting shape” so hecan tackle Detroit’s woes. “We’vebeen a black eye on the landscapeof America for too long. I don’twant that stigma attached to me.”The mayor could start economiz-ing closer to home. Not long agohe stuck the city with a $24,995 billfor a 2-year lease on an SUV forhis wife. [Jodi Wilgoren, Shrinking,Detroit Faces Fiscal Nightmare,New York Times, Feb. 2, 2005, p.A12.]

Mexican FearsMexican politicians routinely

campaign for votes in the UnitedStates, and plans are underway tomake the US a Mexican voting dis-trict for the next presidential elec-tion in 2006. That worries Mexi-

can Foreign Relations Secretary LuisErnesto Derbez—but not because ittreats the US as if it were a province ofMexico. In testimony before the Mexi-can senate, he said American authoritiesmight use Mexican election day to iden-tify and catch illegal immigrants. Mr.Derbez also worries that a massive voterturnout among Mexicans in the US mightencourage anti-immigrant sentiment.[Voting by Mexicans Abroad Spurs Con-cerns, AP, March 20, 2005.]

African InfluxDuring the 1990s, more African

blacks came to the United States thanwere ever brought here as slaves. Afri-

Depopulation: Aerial photographs of thesame part of Detroit, taken 54 years apart.


can immigrants first began coming inlarge numbers in the 1970s as refugeesfrom Ethiopia and Somalia. During the1990s, black African immigrationtripled. At more than 600,000, Africansnow make up 2 percent of the US popu-lation and, along with Caribbean-bornblacks, account for 25 percent of blackpopulation growth. If illegals arecounted, the numbers could be fourtimes higher.

Most of today’s legal African immi-grants come from Nigeria and Ghana.Many go to New York City, but othershead for Washington, Atlanta, Chicago,Los Angeles, Boston and Houston. Refu-gees, mainly Somalis, now live in Min-nesota, Maine and Oregon.

Daouda Ndiaye is an immigrant fromSenegal who won a visa in the diversitylottery in 1994 (see “The Green CardCrap Shoot,” AR, Sept. 1994). Mr.Ndiaye first worked in a sporting goodsstore and is now a translator. Thanks tothe family reunification provisions of USimmigration law, he has already broughtin two of his six children.

Because many African immigrants arethe most ambitious and capable of theirpeople, some of their countrymen pre-dict a brain drain that will hurt Africa.Others point out that African immigrantssend back more than $1 billion annuallyto their families. Some Americans fearthe economic success of African immi-grants (who generally do not blamewhites for their problems) will reflectbadly on American blacks. “Historically,every immigrant group has jumped overAmerican-born blacks. The final ironywould be if African immigrants did, too,”says Eric Foner of Columbia University.[Sam Roberts, More Africans Enter USThan in Days of Slavery, New YorkTimes, Feb. 21, 2005.]

Dutch DesertersThe Dutch used to take pride in their

open, anything-goes social liberalism.They welcomed hundreds of thousandsof non-white, primarily Muslim refugeesand immigrants, gave them welfare, anddid not ask them to assimilate. The im-migrants—now ten percent of the popu-lation—kept to their own customs, whichin many ways are antithetical to Dutchliberalism. Last November, a Muslimfanatic murdered prominent filmmakerTheo van Gogh, a critic of radical Is-lam.

The killing seems to have awoken the

Dutch to the threat they face, but insteadof fighting, many Dutch are running.“Our website got 13,000 hits in theweeks after the van Gogh killing,” saysFrans Buysse, who operates an agencythat helps people emigrate. “That’s fourtimes the normal rate.” Immigration con-sultant Paul Hiltemann says he was in-undated with phone calls and e-mail af-ter the murder. “There was big panic,”he says; “a flood of people saying theywanted to leave the country.” Five yearsago most of the clients he served werefarmers looking for more land. Of thoseseeking to leave now, he says, “They aresuccessful people . . . urban profession-als, managers, physiotherapists, com-puter specialists.”

Ruud Konings is one who wants out.“When I grew up,” he says, “this placewas spontaneous and free, but my kidscannot safely cycle home at night. Myson just had his fifth bicycle stolen.” Hischildren are reluctant to go to schoolbecause “they’re afraid of being roughedup by the gangs of foreign kids.” His wifebelieves the Dutch have brought the situ-ation on themselves. “We’ve been toolenient; now it’s difficult to turn the tide.”

Most Dutch deserting their own coun-try have their eyes on Canada, NewZealand, or Australia. [Marlise Simons,More Dutch Plan to Emigrate as Mus-lim Influx Tips Scales, New York Times,Feb. 27, 2005.]

Thinking the UnthinkableIn Britain, just as in the United States,

there is a huge gap in academic achieve-

ment between blacks and whites. In2001, the British government set up aplan to eliminate the gap, and in 2003, itput another £10 million into the effort.Needless to say, the British have noth-ing to show for their money; the gap stillyawns. Again, as in America, the Britishare prepared to try just about anythingin the hope of getting blood from tur-nips.

Trevor Phillips, the black chairmanof Britain’s Commission for RacialEquality, says the time has come for Brit-ain to “embrace some new if unpalat-able ideas”—including setting up sepa-rate classes for black boys. Mr. Phillipsthinks segregation could boost self es-teem, give blacks positive role models,and reform a “not cool to be clever”mentality. [Danielle Demetriou, TeachBlack Boys Separately, says Phillips,The Independent (London), March 7,2005.]

Anchor BabySneaking across the US-Mexican bor-

der can be hard work, especially if youare pregnant. On Feb. 27, US BorderPatrol agents found a pregnant Mexicanwoman by the road outside of Laredo,Texas. The woman, who was in labor,had been abandoned by smugglers be-cause she could not keep up. Agents ar-rested her, then delivered her baby—anautomatic US citizen—in the back oftheir vehicle on the way to the hospital.The woman named her daughter SaraiMarisol after the agent who deliveredher, Marisol Cantu. Young Sarai—10weeks premature—will receive first-world medical care at US taxpayer ex-pense in a Corpus Christi hospital. Asthe mother of a US citizen, the womanwill probably be allowed to stay. [Ille-gal Alien Gives Birth After Arrest, AP,March 4, 2005.]

Desperate solutions for irresolvable problems.

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