ELDER BROTHER: The Great Race Debate

    In 1633 Galileo was convicted of heresy. He had written that the Earth revolves around the sun. This contradicted 2000 years of dogma which held that the Earth lies immobile at the center of the universe, and the sun, moon and stars revolve around it. Galileo recanted and his life was spared.

    We of the Twentieth Century endure a similar inquisition. Today, although astronomy may be discussed freely, biology may not; specifically certain aspects of human biology. Today's heretic claims there are important differences between blacks and whites. This contradicts The Doctrine of Equivalence, which declares that all races (and both genders) are equivalent and interchangeable. The Doctrine of Equivalence lies immobile at the center of the Left's universe, and all permissible thought, speech and deed revolve around it.

    I have studied long under men no less astute and courageous than Galileo. What directly follows is an act of heresy - an honest, unfettered discussion of race. Anyone is welcome to speak who is willing to follow the rules: 1) no interrupting, 2) no changing the subject, 3) no name-calling, 4) no lying, 5) no relativism.

    Some people object to this discussion, convinced that no good can come of it. On the contrary, we need to talk about race. The Left is shredding our Constitution, and race politics is their blade of choice. We Americans cannot preserve our liberty absent Constitutional restraints on federal powers.  Over the past 50 years the Left has gradually and systematically severed those restraints, unleashing the enormous federal monster that today has its claws and snout in virtually every aspect of our lives.  In violation of the Constitution the federal government determines how we conduct our business and with whom; it regulates conduct between parent and child, and between doctor and patient. It even presumes to oversee conduct between suitors. And it taxes us exorbitantly to pay for these services. As Jared Taylor observed, England's King George, against whom our founding fathers waged revolution, was a mild and distant irritant compared to the federal Leviathan we face today, and I say again, it is race politics more than any other device that has allowed the Left to reduce us to this condition. 

    We have now an obligation to ourselves and our posterity to reclaim our nation, and to do this we must restore the Constitution.  I am convinced that, odd as it may sound, the key to restoring our Constitution is to hold an honest, forthright discussion of race. 

    At the very least, to hold such debate would reaffirm our right to free speech. The best measure of what we have lost is the extent to which most Americans are afraid to speak our minds about race, for fear of reprisal. Freedom of speech is the keystone of our liberty, and we have all but lost it. Have we forgotten the countless patriots who gave their lives in defense of that precious freedom? Have we forgotten our duty to our children? 

    Let us remember also that when we discuss race, we are discussing nothing more than measurable differences between races of Man and whether those differences are genetic, environmental, or some combination of the two; which is to say, we are discussing human biology. 

    I am calling for a nationally televised series of debates on race. 

    There are no evil truths. 

                                                                                                        A. W., December 1998

A last note to the reader: within the body of this text there are several endorsements of the works of other men. It should not be assumed that any of these worthy men endorse this work. A. W.

CHAPTER ONE

WHITES OWE BLACKS

"...America has given the Negro people a bad check; a check which has come back marked 'insufficient funds’.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

The civil rights movement was born of this idea: Whites Owe Blacks.

It is the fruit of this syllogism:

1) Blacks are equivalent to whites,

2) Blacks are worse off than whites, therefore,

3) Blacks have a disadvantage entirely external to themselves. They live in a hostile environment created by whites.

No one denies that blacks are worse off than whites. Whether in Africa, Europe, or the Americas, blacks are less likely than whites to be prosperous, law-abiding, and responsible to offspring.

And whites are to blame.

Whites must be to blame, because the only other possible explanation is that blacks are worse off through some shortcoming of their own, and that is impossible. It is unthinkable; it contradicts the Doctrine of Equivalence. No, black poverty is caused by white wickedness, and black poverty is proof of white wickedness. Whites owe blacks. And whites must pay.

And whites have paid - in money, in racial preferences, in the decline of academic standards and workplace standards. We have paid with our freedom of speech and our rule of law. Aided by their pals of the Left, blacks quickly learned that to exact these concessions from us, we must be made to feel responsible for their poverty. Once responsible we are in their debt.

This strategy has been incredibly effective. We whites do in fact feel responsible for black squalor, and we accept debtor status for ourselves and our children, with blacks as are our creditors.

"Ah, but whites are responsible for black failure," says the Left. "What about slavery? What about separate water fountains, and sitting in the back of the bus, and sub-standard schools, and Jim Crow? What about prejudice, discrimination, and racism!?"

I'm not denying that blacks were enslaved, nor am I denying that blacks were and are scorned. I'm denying, first, responsibility for it. I have never owned a slave, and neither has anyone else here. We whites are not the same whites who owned and traded slaves. We are not the same whites who drafted Jim Crow laws. Those few of us who are descendents of slave owners are not responsible for the crimes of our ancestors. All whites are not responsible for the crimes of some whites. Are all blacks responsible for black crime?

"No," says the Left. "No blacks are responsible for "black crime". The high crime rate among blacks is the result of 400 years of poverty and oppression that blacks have suffered at the hands of racist whites. Whites are the cause of "black crime", and of all black pathology."

I see. So when some whites commit crimes, all whites are responsible; and when some blacks commit crimes, all whites are responsible.

"Correct," says the Left.

[table, black crime worldwide, Rushton]

We are not responsible for the Atlantic slave trade. As for blacks being the objects of scorn: no group or individual has a constitutional right to be loved and wanted. I am under no obligation to like you, or to include you in my business. The federal government is not empowered to monitor my attitude towards you and impose sanctions on me for the "wrong" attitude. My beliefs, right or wrong, are my business.

"Oh, you're entitled to your beliefs, miserable as they are," says the Left. "You're just not entitled to act on them. If you felt like killing someone, should we let you?"

No. I have no right to murder. I do have a right to choose my associates. It is preposterous and tyrannical to tell me I have a right to my beliefs as long as I don't act upon them. [table black crime, Mankind Q, Whitney]

* * *

I once knew a man, a Jew, who hated Germans. He had seen firsthand what Hitler and his thugs had done. This man hated Germans so much he would not ride in a German car. It was certainly irrational of him to blame all Germans for the sins of the Nazis. However, back then America was still America. Back then a man had a right to his prejudices. Being irrational was not yet against the law. No one would have tolerated the Federal Government imposing sanctions on this man for his policy toward Germans. No one would have tolerated federal inspectors nosing around his office to see if he was employing the correct number of Germans.

Nor would the World War II vet who hated Japanese have been forced to associate with Japanese. Everyone understood it was not the business of government to set norms for a man's feelings towards Japanese people and then require compliance with those norms. Such Orwellian tyranny would have mocked that soldiers' very sacrifice. For what had he been fighting, if not to preserve our freedoms?

In those days no minority claimed a Constitutional right to be loved and wanted, to be included. Everyone understood that such policy encroaches on the liberty of others. But somehow, when it comes to blacks, our freedoms of association and speech are trumped by the "right" blacks claim to be included in almost every aspect of our lives. What if some people don't like blacks?

"Sounds like you don't like blacks," says the Left. "You're a racist!"

You're changing the subject. The truth of a statement cannot be determined by examining the motives of the speaker. And my feelings are none of your business, and they are certainly not the business of our federal government.

As for slavery - it will come as a blow to the black victim industry, but blacks were quite active in slave trading. If one wishes to assign blame by race for the Atlantic slave trade, blacks were at least as responsible as whites. Contrary to the story in Roots, slaves who were brought to North America were not kidnapped by whites. Whites acquired virtually all of them legally, in African slave marts or transactions, and blacks were the vendors. Blacks kidnapped, kept, and sold other blacks, and sometimes ate other blacks. Some blacks sold their own wives and children, thereby earning the distinction of being the most despicable pimps in history.

  Graph 1

  Graph 2

  Graph 3

The Ashanti, for example, were notorious dealers in black slaves. They acquired most of their slaves in unprovoked raids against other tribes. In the 19th century the Ashanti fought seven wars against the British, in part because England was trying to abolish the African slave trade and the Ashanti wanted it to continue. The Ashanti sent a delegation to England to petition the throne that England desist in its opposition to the slave trade.

American blacks are now demanding that the United States pay reparations for slavery. But the U.S. federal government never owned a single slave, nor did the majority of Americans' ancestors. In contrast, the Ashanti today are actual descendents and heirs of slave traders who grew rich supplying America with black slaves.

Will American blacks demand that the Ashanti pay reparations for slavery?

Will elephants learn to fly?

In any event, the topic of slavery is a grand distraction. Slavery and discrimination are not the causes of black poverty.

Slavery and discrimination are not the causes of black poverty, nor should anyone assume they are. Oppression doesn't guarantee failure. Jewish and Chinese and Japanese minorities have all been oppressed and poor in America, the latter two being conspicuously non-white, and today all three groups outscore WASPS in school and out earn them in the marketplace. Moreover, all three groups suffer disproportionately from affirmative action, and all three pay more into welfare than they take. Not all who are oppressed fail; therefore, when those who are oppressed fail, oppression need not have been the cause.

"Oh, so you admit that blacks have been oppressed," says the Left.

I don't admit it. I state it. But so were Asians and Jews, and look at them.

"It's not fair to compare Asians and Jews with blacks," says the Left. "Blacks have suffered more."

I wasn't comparing Asians and Jews to blacks. I compared them to Anglo-Saxon whites. Asians and Jews out earn WASPS, and outscore them in school.

"It's not fair to compare Asians and Jews with blacks," persists the Left. "Asians and Jews have a cultural advantage over blacks".

That's doubletalk. It's a restatement of the premise disguised as an explanation. I tell you that Asians and Jews are more scholarly and less violent than blacks, and you "explain" it by saying that Asians and Jews have cultures that are more scholarly and less violent. Well, there's no doubt that Asians and Jews have a cultural advantage over blacks. The question is, why are some cultures superior to others? Is it because cultures reflect the talents and inclinations of the people in them?

Or is it that cultures fall at random from the sky and lucky people get the good ones?

"This is insulting to blacks!" shouts the Left.

If so it's not gratuitous:

A man with a limp angrily accuses me of injuring his leg. He demands that I and my children pay damages for his injured leg. But I believe that he was born with his limp, and I say so.

"How dare you," says the Left. "How dare you be so mean-spirited!"

This is how the Left operates. We whites are blamed for black poverty, but we are not allowed to object, because to deny blame for black failure is to claim that blacks are responsible for their condition, and that's racism. No, the only allowable explanation for black poverty is white wickedness. Whites owe blacks, and it is wicked to deny it. Whites are to pay up and shut up.

Well, I refuse to be shaken down any longer. If you don't want to hear my take on black poverty, don't blame me for it and don't bill me for it. You claim my remarks are insulting? It is insulting to us whites to be falsely blamed for black poverty, and made to pay for it, and it is beyond insulting to see our children blamed and made to pay.

* * *

"Think about it: we went into slavery pagans; we came out Christians. We went into slavery pieces of property; we came out American citizens... Notwithstanding the cruelty and moral wrong of slavery, we are in a stronger and more hopeful condition, materially, intellectually, morally, and religiously, than is true of an equal number of black people in any other portion of the globe."

Booker T. Washington

May we speak plainly? If it is true that blacks fail because of whites, how is it that blacks benefit from their association with whites? Blacks in America are better off than blacks anywhere else on Earth, and this was true long before the "civil rights" movement. Blacks in pre-civil-rights America were better off than their African counterparts. Nor is this phenomenon confined to America. Blacks in Europe are better off than those in Africa. Blacks in white-run Africa are better off than their Negro neighbors. At the height of apartheid, blacks from other parts of Africa endeavored to get in to South Africa, often illegally.

The truth is that blacks are vastly better off in white societies than in any they can make on their own. On their own they make Haitis and Liberias and Zimbabwes, and Democratic Republics of Congo, which are invariably neither democratic nor republic. On their own the Ashanti kidnapped, slaughtered and sold black men, women and children. On their own the nomadic Lunda tribe ate human flesh and routinely killed their own children as a technique for staying mobile. They adopted the children of defeated tribes as slaves, requiring as a rite of passage that each child deliver to the king the head of an enemy.

The Ashanti and Lunda were not small, obscure tribes. They were major participants in the Atlantic slave trade. Not a few American blacks have ancestors who were captured and sold by these savages.

Today few American blacks seek to escape racist America for Mother Africa, and this was as true in Lincoln's time as it is now.

One of the best-kept secrets of our fraudulent education is that Abraham Lincoln wanted to rid America of blacks. He did not free the slaves so that they could live among us as equals. It was Lincoln's intention to "transfer" blacks to Africa or Latin America after the Emancipation. He believed, as did most of our founding fathers, that blacks and whites should not live together. Here is an amalgam of quotations from Honest Abe:

"But Judge Douglas is especially horrified at the thought of the mixing of blood by the white and black races: agreed for once - a thousand times agreed...I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, - that I am not now nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office...I have said that separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation...Such separation if ever effected at all, must be effected by colonization...to transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the task may be."

True to his word, Lincoln did try to "transfer" blacks to other countries. He failed, the main reason being that most blacks in pre-civil-war America did not want to leave.

* * *

Black slave trading, cannibalism and infanticide are never mentioned in our schools, nor are they ever mentioned by the "media". Is that not odd? If historians suddenly discovered that white slave traders had been cannibals who routinely killed their own children, you can bet Dan Rather would report it that very night, if he had to run on broken legs to get to a microphone.

Americans hear very little about black African societies, past or present. Why might that be? Blacks rarely miss an opportunity to claim that whites have hurt them, and how better to prove it than to showcase the prosperous, well-ordered societies that blacks can build when they are in charge and there are no whites around to oppress them and discriminate against them. We hear about the glorious accomplishments of Egyptians, to be sure; but Egypt was at best a mixed society, whites and blacks, and Asians. There is, rather, a wealth of information on black Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, an Africa whose black peoples pre-dated whites by one hundred thousand years; yet we scarcely hear a word about them. Instead, our schools teach myth in place of true black history, while the rest of us attend a 30-year staggered parade of empty Black History Months.

Here then are some excerpts from the book Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile, 1863, by British explorer John Hanning Speke:

Taking the Negroes as a whole, one does not find very marked or much difference in them. Each tribe has its characteristics, it is true. For instance, one cuts his teeth or tattoos his face in a different manner from he others; but, by the constant intermarriage with slaves, much of this effect is lost, and it is farther lost sight of owing to the prevalence of migrations caused by wars and the division of governments. As with the tribal marks, so with their weapons; those most commonly in use are the spear, assegai, shield, bow and arrow...xxii [picture of assegai]

Of paramount consideration is the power held by the magician (Mganga), who rules the minds of the kings as did the old popes of Europe...with men unenlightened, supernatural and imaginary predictions work with more force than substantial reasons. Their implement of divination, simple as it may appear, is a cow's or antelope's horn (Uganga), which they stuff with magic powder, also called Uganga. Stuck into the ground in front of the village, it is supposed to have sufficient power to ward off the attacks of an enemy.

So imbued are the natives with belief in the power of charms, that they pay the magician for sticks, stones, or mud, which he has doctored for them.

...in times of tribulation, the magician, if he ascertains a war is projected by inspecting the blood and bones of a fowl which he has flayed for that purpose, flays a young child, and, having laid it lengthwise on a path, directs all the warriors, on proceeding to battle, to step over his sacrifice and insure themselves victory. Another of these extra barbarous devices takes place when a chief wishes to make war on his neighbor, by his calling in a magician to discover a propitious time for commencing. The doctor places a large, earthen vessel, half full of water, over a fire, and over its mouth a grating of sticks, whereon he lays a small child and a fowl side by side, and covers them over with a second large earthen vessel, just like the first, only inverted, to keep the steam in, when he sets fire below, cooks for a certain period of time, and then looks to see if his victims are still living or dead - when, should they be dead, the war must be deferred, but otherwise commenced at once. These extremes, however, are not often resorted to, for the natives are usually content with simpler means, such as flaying a goat, instead of a child...

How the Negro has lived so many ages without advancing seems marvelous, when all the countries surrounding Africa are so forward in comparison...at present the African neither can help himself nor will he be helped by others, because his country is in such a constant state of turmoil he has too much anxiety on hand looking out for food to think of anything else. As his fathers ever did, so does he. He works his wife, sells his children, enslaves all he can lay hands upon, and, unless when fighting for the property of others, contents himself with drinking, singing, and dancing like a baboon to drive dull care away. A few only make cotton cloth, or work in wood, iron, copper, or salt; their rule being to do as little as possible, and store up nothing beyond the necessities of the next season, lest their chiefs or neighbors should covet and take it from them.

Slavery, I may add, is one great cause of laziness, for the master becomes too proud to work, lest they should be thought slaves themselves. p. xxiv

"Racism!", screams the Left, vexed beyond endurance because they were unable to interrupt the reading of that passage.

Not all accounts of Black Africa agree with Speke's. Physician and missionary David Livingstone had a tender heart towards blacks. He was the Schweitzer of his time, and he tried in his published writings to put blacks in the best possible light:

"[Black African] children are esteemed one of the greatest blessings, and are always treated kindly...Our progress down the Barotse valley was just like this. Every village gave us an ox, and sometimes two. The people were wonderfully kind. I felt, and still feel, most deeply grateful, and tried to benefit them in the only way I could, by imparting the knowledge of that Saviour who can comfort and supply them in the time of need; and my prayer is that he may send his good Spirit to instruct them and lead them into his kingdom." Livingstone's Africa, Vol.ll, p.310

"Many have but a faint idea of the evils that trading in slaves inflicts on the victims and authors of its atrocities. Most people imagine that Negroes, after being brutalized by a long course of servitude, but with few of the ameliorating influences that elevate the more favored races, are fair average specimens of the African man. Our ideas are derived from slaves of the west coast, who have for ages been subject to domestic bondage and all the depressing agencies of a most unhealthy climate. These have told most injuriously on their physical frames, while fraud and the rum trade have ruined their moral natures so as not to discriminate the difference of the monstrous injustice.

The main body of the population is living free in the interior, under their own chiefs and laws, cultivating their own farms, catching fish in their own rivers, or fighting bravely with the grand old denizens of the forest... I know nothing that distinguishes the uncontaminated African from other degraded peoples more than their entire reasonableness and good sense. It is different after they have had wives, children, and relatives kidnapped, but that is more than human nature, civilized or savage, can bear... It would be unjust to forget that Great Britain has done much, very much, for the suppression of this terrible traffic in other portions of the globe...But it stands proved...that it is subjects of the British monarchy who are responsible for the existence of the slave trade of Zanzibar and all the nameless horrors of the interior resulting therefrom." 1872, letter reprinted in "The Herald" newspaper.

This letter implies that whites were the principal source of evil in Africa. Livingstone knew better. He knew this letter would appear in the newspaper, and he wrote it with the intention of engendering opposition to the slave trade. He wrote it as a Liberal would today. While much of what he said is true - slavery does inflict terrible woes upon a population - Livingstone was keenly aware of the black contribution to the slave trade. He was a world authority on the subject of "uncontaminated" tribes of the interior. In his private correspondence Livingstone's reporting was more balanced. Even some of his published accounts belie his letter to the newspaper. This first excerpt is from a letter to his parents (underlines are mine):

"The country is a dreadful scene of confusion. They have been fighting or rather stealing from each other in every direction, and there is no possibility of saying when it will stop. Mahura [a chief living 90 miles east of Kuruman - A.W.] commenced it by falling upon the defenseless Sebegwe [chief of the BaNgwaketse] and murdering 36 of his people. Sechele, chief of the Bakwain, next fell upon him, but was repulsed with the loss of about 20 men. While he was away from his town Pillanie, another ...chief, came to fight him, and finding nobody in his town but old men, women, and children, of course Pillanie like a valiant Bechwana the most of these (sic), burns the town & seizes all the cattle....Pillanie not having an opportunity of fighting, or rather inflated by having acted so valiantly against the helpless women & children, - I do not speak in irony, the murder of a child is in the eyes of a Motchuana a very brave deed, and they are not ashamed to boast of it afterwards, - fell upon Sebegue after he had just experienced a reverse in an engagement with Bubi, & succeeded in killing a great number of women & children & carrying off a great number of cattle...May the time soon come when war shall cease. But that never will, unless the gospel is carried to them who are now delighting in blood...The people at this station, I believe, are the least advanced of any. Yet when I look at the Interior, the people here seem quite civilized in comparison." Letters, Vol I, pp.64-66

"The ... Makololo ...lake and river tribes are generally quite cleanly, bathing several times a day. The women use water sparingly, rubbing themselves with butter instead; this keeps off insects, but does not improve the flavor of their clothes...As slave stealing is the gigantic evil with the tribes near the coast, so with these inland pastoral tribes cattle stealing, which they call lifting, is the great evil. They justify it, if the chief has given permission for one of these marauding trips." Livingstone's Africa, p.467

"The Makololo are by far the most intelligent and enterprising of the tribes met by the expedition." p.465

"Among the Africans, as among every people, men of ability occasionally appear; but the want of any method of writing prevents the recording of their wisdom."

P.458

"The same superstitious ideas being prevalent through the whole of the country north of the Zambesi seem to indicate that the people must originally have been one. All believe that the souls of the departed still mingle among the living and partake in some way of the food they consume.

...A chief's brother inherits in preference to his son. The sons of a sister belong to her brother; and he often sells his nephews to pay his debts. By this and other unnatural customs, more than by war, is the slave market supplied. p.283

The Manganja country is finely watered. The natives live in villages, each with its own head man... the people are regarded as his children...The Manganja chiefs sell their people; they are ashamed of it, and say they only sell criminals, but others are really sold. The price of a man is four yards of cotton cloth, three for a woman, and two for a child." pp. 449-45

"An incident which occurred ...of a character totally unknown in the south...Two children, of seven and eight years old, went out to collect firewood...and were kidnapped...we suspect some of the high men of Shinte's court were the guilty parties: they can sell them by night. The Mambari erect large huts...to stow these stolen ones in; they are well fed, but aired by night only. The frequent kidnapping from outlying [Negro] hamlets explains the stockades we saw around them: the parents have no redress, for even Shinte himself seems fond of working in the dark. One night he sent for me...he presented me with a slave girl about ten years old: he said he had always been in the habit of presenting his visitors with a child. On my thanking him, and saying that I thought it wrong to take away children from their parents, that I wished him to give up this system altogether and trade in cattle, ivory, and bees'-wax, he urged that she was "to be a child" to bring me water, and that a great man ought to have a child for the purpose, yet I had none. As I replied that I had four children, and should be very sorry if my chief were to take my little girl and give her away, and that I would prefer this child to remain and carry water for her own mother, he thought I was dissatisfied with her size, and sent for one a head taller. After many explanations of our abhorrence of slavery, and how displeasing it must be to God to see his children selling one another and giving each other so much grief as this child's mother must feel, I declined her also. If I could have taken her into my family for the purpose of instruction, and then returned her as a free woman, according to a promise I should have made to the parents, I might have done so; but to take her away, and probably never be able to secure her return, would have produced no good effect on the minds of the Balonda; they would not then have seen evidence of our hatred to slavery..." Livingstone's Africa pp.176-177

Try as he might, Livingstone is unable to make this chief understand that slavery is something bad. Of course, there are worse things for children than slavery.

During the time I resided at Mabotsa, a woman came to the station with a fine boy, an albino. The father had ordered her to throw him away; but she clung to her offspring for many years. He was remarkably intelligent for his age. The pupil of the eye was of a pink color...The hair, or rather wool, was yellow, and the features were those common among the Bechuanas...the mother is said to have become tired of living apart from the father, who refused to have her while she retained the son. She took him out one day and killed him... and nothing was done to her by the authorities. From having met with no albinos in Londa, I suspect they are there also put to death. We saw one dwarf only in Londa, and brands on him showed he had once been a slave...The general absence of deformed persons is partly owing to their destruction in infancy, and partly to the mode of life being a natural one...

In several tribes, a child which is said to "tlola" (transgress) is put to death...A child who cut the upper front teeth before the under was always put to death among the Bakaa, and, I believe, also among the Bakwains. In some tribes, a case of twins renders one of them liable to death." p.365

"The father of Moyara was a powerful chief; but the son now sits among the ruins of the town, with four or five wives and very few people. At his hamlet a number of stakes are planted in the ground, and I counted fifty-four human skulls hung on their points. These were Matabele, who...had returned sick and famishing. Moyara's father took advantage of their reduced condition, and, after putting them to death, mounted their heads in the Batoka fashion...One cannot help feeling thankful that the reign of such wretches is over. They inhabited the whole of this side of the country...When looking at these skulls, I remarked to Moyara that many of them were those of mere boys. He assented readily and pointed them out as such. I asked why his father had killed boys. 'To show his fierceness,' was the answer. 'Is it fierceness to kill boys?' 'Yes, they had no business here.'...He was evidently proud of these trophies of his father's ferocity; and I was assured by other Batoka that few strangers ever returned from a visit to this quarter. If a man wished to curry favor with a Batoka chief, he ascertained when a stranger was about to leave, and waylaid him at a distance from the town, and when he brought his head back to the chief it was mounted as a trophy, the different chiefs vieing with each other as to which should mount the greatest number of skulls in his village." pp.334-335

His public pronouncements to the contrary, Livingstone's accounts gibe with Speke's. This is not to say that Livingstone did not encounter honest and decent blacks. Of course he did; so did Speke. But both men describe black cultures as more primitive and more violent than those of whites. And they were not alone. Philippe Rushton summarizes the written impressions of seven major explorers of black Africa, including of areas uninfluenced by whites:

"... these explorers were chosen because of their reputation for accuracy and reliability in reporting...H.F. Fynn, 1824-34; D. Livingstone, 1840-56; F. Galton, 1850-51; B.P. du Chaillu, 1856-59; J.H. Speke, 1860-63; S.W. Baker, 1862-65; and G. Schweinfurth, 1869-71...the [shared] impression gained is of a poor level of civilization, including naked or near naked appearance...self-mutilation as in filing down the teeth and piercing the ears and lips to admit large ornaments; poorly-developed toilet and sanitary habits; one-story dwellings of simple construction; villages rarely reaching 6 or 7 thousand inhabitants or being connected with roadways; simple canoes excavated from large trees with no joining parts; no invention of the wheel..; little domestication of animals or using them for labour or transport; no written script or recording of historical events; no use of money; no invention of a numbering system, nor of a calendar...

Race, Evolution and Behaviour, pp.99-100

Transaction Publishers

New Brunswick, New Jersey

[Dr. Rushton is the Darwin of our time. Everyone should have a copy of his book, if only for its value as a collectible. The Left is terrified of this book, and came within an ace of jailing Dr. Rushton (in Canada) for having written it. - A.W.]

Is it any wonder that blacks are better off in white societies than in any they build on their own? Historically there is an enormous achievement gap between blacks and whites, and whites cannot be blamed. Blacks have been on Earth twice as long as whites. The two races only just met in the last ten thousand years or so, and then only because whites found blacks. Whites were not and are not responsible for the Negro’s utter lack of technology, science and written literature. Whites were not and are not responsible for milleniae of black tribal rivalries and wars, and slavery black-on-black. Nor were whites famous for selling or killing their own children, nor for cannibalism.

Whites are less civilized now. Thanks to the Left, America now is famous for killing children; over 38 million and counting since Roe v. Wade. Statistically, American blacks are more likely than whites and Asians to abort their own children, even when income is held constant.

* * *

Blacks in America are more likely than whites to be poor and ignorant, more likely to commit violent crime, more likely to abandon or abuse or neglect their children. We are taught that white wickedness is the cause of this. Whites owe blacks.

Here's a question: exactly how much do we whites owe to blacks?

Here's a better question - how much are we paying and how much have we already paid? ( If all whites are collectively responsible for the sins of some whites, then all whites here get credit for reparations made by some whites.)

Blacks receive over 41% of welfare, but collectively pay only 6% of its cost. This amounts to a net white-to-black transfer of roughly $75 billion per year. As Michael Levin points out, this is in effect a Marshall Plan for the "inner cities" every three years. And that doesn't include the billions (trillions?) spent on blacks for health care, police and courts and prisons, "de-segregation" and affirmative action. It doesn't include the costs of added security against violent crime. It doesn't include financial and military aid to black Africa.

[Read Why Race Matters, by Michael Levin

Praeger Press

The Left is terrified of this book as well. - A.W.]

Does anyone know how many trillions of dollars we whites have spent on blacks? I think it's a fair question.

Another question: if we whites are in debt to blacks for having enslaved them, do we then get credit from blacks for teaching them to read and write? Do we get credit for giving blacks knowledge of the wheel? Do we get credit for giving them mathematics, electricity, plumbing, antibiotics, vaccines, phonographs, cameras, motors, cars, airplanes, radio, television, movies, telephones, computers and satellites?

However many trillions of dollars we have given to blacks, however much of our civilization they have enjoyed, I have yet to hear anyone say that we whites have paid off even a small part of our debt. On the contrary, blacks are talking about additional reparations, in cash thank you, and this time there are to be no euphemisms about a "War on Poverty" or a "Great Society". This time we are to say out loud that we're giving blacks yet more money because we owe it to them.

Who could have guessed that all these years of appeasement would lead to increased demands?

* * *

In tallying our bill, let us remember that the money we have already given to blacks was borrowed money. Our children will someday be taxed to repay it with interest. Taxation without representation is tyranny; therefore part of our debt to blacks is paid with our children's liberty.

More and worse, we have allowed blacks to set quotas on our children's achievements, in school, the workplace, and the military. If the reader thinks I exaggerate the impact and extent of racial preferences in America, the reader is uninformed. Uncounted thousands of white and Asian kids have been robbed of their best efforts in life, robbed right in front of our eyes. Had we only stood by and watched blacks rob them of their lunch money, it would have been less cowardly.

This cowardice is part of a spell we are under. We are deeply persuaded that it is wicked to deny blame for black failure.

"If white racism is not to blame for black problems, you tell me what is."

Ronald Walters

as reported in The End of Racism

Whites must be to blame for black problems, because if not, blacks themselves are responsible for their condition, and that could be true only if blacks are inferior to whites in some way. To suggest this even as a possibility is to commit the most heinous crime of our age: racism. Anyone who gives voice to such thoughts will be shunned, harassed and threatened, and possibly fired, and possibly worse, and no federal agency will protect them or the First Amendment. White wickedness is the only acceptable explanation for black failure. Whites are to blame, whites will pay, and there'll be no more talk about it.

Well, I say we need to talk about it.

I have been studying and thinking about this for a long time. I'm a Christian and a biologist. After long and honest study I am convinced that whites are not responsible for black failure, and that it is a sin not to say so, because blacks have been shaking us down and will continue to shake us down, and our children, until we stand up for ourselves. We have an obligation to stand up for ourselves and our children, even if it means uttering unpopular truths, even if it means giving offense to blacks. That this actually needs to be said is a tribute to the Left and to their nearly magical powers of persuasion.

* * * *

"...these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, free and independent states."

The Declaration of Independence

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Amendment X, The Constitution of the United States of America

As we tally our bill (soon to be our children's bill), remember that what we pay in dollars is far less than what we pay when we allow government to break the law. Affirmative action is unlawful. Federal welfare is unlawful. The federal government has no business giving charity to any group, be it a race of people or a roomful of widows. It has not the power, and for good reason. Knowing that government by nature tends to grow large and tyrannical, the framers wisely designed our federal government to be small and have few, well-defined powers, such as arbitrating disputes among states, maintaining the military, minting money. The lion's share of power, especially over matters of family and private business, was to remain with the people and the states. Restraints on federal powers are essential to maintaining this result, and these restraints are written in the Constitution, written clearly for all to see. The United States were just that - heterogeneous sovereign states, willingly bound by a small central government of limited powers.

America was to be a nation of severing individuals dedicated to God, family and freedom.

"How much freedom did the slaves have?", sneers the Left.

Little. But blacks were at least as responsible as whites for slavery. Furthermore, before its hundredth birthday the United States abolished slavery, long before African chiefs did, long before Liberia did.

* * *

To illustrate my point about the Constitution:

In 1827 in the U.S. House of Representatives, a $10,000 relief bill was proposed to aid the widow of a naval officer. Representative Davy Crockett rose in stern opposition to the bill, saying,

"We must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not attempt to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right to appropriate a dollar of the public money."

The bill was defeated by a wide margin, after which Crockett, one of the poorest members of Congress, made a substantial private contribution to the widow.

* * *

"Civil rights" laws are incompatible with our free nation. They are twice poisonous to our Constitution.

Like all "civil rights" laws, Brown v. Board of Ed. [1954] was based upon a deliberate misreading of the Constitution. The "equal protection" clause of the Constitution in no way entitles the federal government to impose school integration on unwilling parents, and everyone knew it - even The New York Times. Its headline for May 18, 1954 was: "A Sociological Decision: Court Founded Its Segregation Ruling On Hearts And Minds Rather Than Laws." Judges, of course, are entrusted to interpret the law as written; not to imagine the kind of world they might like, and then twist the law to fit their vision.

When once we stray from the law it becomes easier to stray further the next time. It's frightening how quickly the law can thus unravel. Brown paved the way for The 1964 Civil Rights Act.

The 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibited race-based discrimination in employment and education. Again, the Federal Government has no right whatever to meddle in private-sector hiring or selection policies. Even assuming that the law properly applies to the public sector, it of course protects whites as well as blacks.

Enter racial preferences; a.k.a. "affirmative action".

Affirmative action does not just tolerate discrimination against whites; it requires discrimination against whites. For example, among medical and law school students in this country, there is virtually no overlap between the white and black populations; the white students with the poorest qualifications have better credentials than the black students with the best credentials. Assuming that schools are looking for the best and brightest, there is simply no way for blacks to be admitted proportionally unless better-qualified whites and Asians are turned away. Virtually none of the blacks in medical and law schools today (as well as those now in practice) would be there had not academic standards been lowered for them, to the detriment of some white or Asian. It is a similar story for nearly every profession or job (sports being a notable exception) - notwithstanding the fierce denials of the Left, the enforcement of racial quotas (affirmative action) requires discrimination against whites and Asians.

So, by the terms of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, (and the Constitution), affirmative action is illegal. But Liberal Supreme Court Justices desired affirmative action. Did they faithfully interpret the law, as they had sworn to do?

No. They did not. In 1978, in United Steelworkers v. Weber, Liberal Justice William Brennan "interpreted" the 1964 Civil Rights Act to allow companies to promote blacks with less seniority over whites with more seniority. Apparently, the law's prohibition of racial discrimination against "any individual" did not apply to discrimination against whites.

Judges need to outline the logic through which they arrive at their decisions. How did Brennan explain having interpreted the 1964 Civil Rights Act to allow that which it prohibited?

Ah. He did it by writing this: The meaning of this law cannot be found in its language.

Of course this is an enormous lie, a lie of Orwellian proportions. The meaning of a law can be found only in its language. If the meaning of the 1964 Civil rights Act is not to be found in its language, where then can it be found? If its meaning is not to be found in its language, who can know what it means?

Fortunately, Brennan knew what it meant; oddly, it did not mean what our democratically elected representatives crafted it to say.

In short, Brennan did not like this particular law, so he "interpreted" it to mean the opposite of what it said - that discrimination by race is acceptable, as long as blacks benefit. Brennan was no doubt aware of the gross malfeasance of his actions- judges are sworn to uphold laws, even those laws they don't like - but Brennan was convinced he was doing the right thing. Subverting the law was necessary, he surely reasoned, in order to right The Great Wrong. If blacks were to be made whole, if they were to be made equal, it could not be done by lawful means, at least not quickly enough. The law would have to be ignored. Ordinarily such vigilante justice is to be eschewed, but Liberals are so much smarter and more evolved than the rest of us that they can be trusted to take the law into their own hands. Besides, this breach of law was to be temporary. Liberal experts assured us that blacks, given this tiny "leg up", would quickly achieve parity with whites. How could they not? Blacks and whites are equivalent.

Few dictators have perpetrated a greater act of tyranny than the one Brennan perpetrated that day. With a straight face and a stroke of the pen he and his accomplices hijacked our government of the people and by the people, and in so doing wounded our nation more grievously than had Hitler and Mussolini combined. It's a shame they were never horsewhipped for it. In fact they should have been horsewhipped twice, just in case anyone thought the first whippings were done by mistake.

Of course Brennan could never have gotten away with such arrogance and mendacity had not the preceding years seen similar irrational and deliberate misinterpretations of law, perpetrated by Liberals to speed the process of making blacks "equal". Prior to Weber, Justice Burger and cronies had interpreted the 1964 Civil Rights Act to mean that private businesses were not allowed to use tests of intelligence and competence as tools for selecting employees, because blacks as a group do poorly on such tests. Employers were also not allowed to consider schooling or literacy or criminal behavior in selecting employees, because all these too disproportionately disqualify blacks. And in 1978, in Regents of the University of California v. Bake, the Court held that white students with high grades may be rejected by schools in favor of blacks with low grades.

The logic behind these decisions is by now familiar to us all. Since all races are equivalent and interchangeable, all disparities between whites and blacks are the fault of whites. If a white applicant proves to be more honest and more intelligent than a black applicant, or have more seniority, the black must be chosen anyway, until blacks are proportionally represented. Whites owe them this because whites are responsible for the initial disparity.

So Brennan did get away with it. He loudly declared that the law doesn't mean what it says, and no one stopped him. He held that the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which barred racial discrimination, allowed racial discrimination - against whites. Our republic suffered a grievous blow that day. The few threads frayed by Brown v. Board of Ed. had, in 24 short years, given way to a gaping hole in the fabric of our law; a tattered monument to Liberal good intentions.

But these arguments merely show how disregard for the law, any law, can lead to further disregard for law. More specifically, civil rights laws are of their nature toxic to our Constitution, because "civil rights" are not rights at all. They are obligations.

The "civil right" of one person is nothing but the obligation of another. True rights derive from God, and are not paid for by curtailing the liberty or individuality of another. No person or group has a right to be well thought of, or sought-after. No person or group has a right to be included in my affairs. In any America worthy of the name I have a right to choose my employees and you don't have a right to work for me. In any America worthy of the name the federal government has no right to meddle in my decision as to whom to let in my store or my cab or my clubhouse. Laws covering such matters must, if at all, be of a more local level, and no higher than the state level. Federal involvement in such matters is unlawful and tyrannical.

In any America worthy of the name no law requires discrimination against whites and Asians, as affirmative action does. No honest interpretation of the Constitution allows for the establishment of a debtor race and a creditor race. So in addition to our money, our liberty, and our children's liberty, we also relinquish to blacks our rule of law, the soul of our republic.

We owe it to them.

* * * * *

Again:

Blacks are equivalent to whites

Blacks are worse off than whites, therefore

The cause of black failure resides outside of blacks.

The syllogism rests upon the core belief of civil rights advocates: blacks and whites are equivalent and interchangeable. This slender assumption is the lynchpin of our enormous civil rights apparatchik. Prove it false and the whole thing falls to pieces, comes crashing to the ground.

And we should state here, for the record, that blacks and whites are not equivalent. They are different, and the differences are easy to see. The Doctrine of Equivalence is not only a lie; it is a stupid and transparent lie. That is why the Left must stifle dissent, why they must restrict speech and sabotage debate. Their stunted, pathetic philosophy cannot stand the light of day.

* * * *

"Slavery is the price I paid for civilization, and that is worth all that I have paid through my ancestors for it."

Zora Neale Hurston

"Thank God my ancestor got out [of Africa], because, now, I am not one of them."

Keith Richburg, black author of

Out of America

Below is a timeline of first appearances on Earth. The dates are estimates based on paleontologic and genetic evidence, which gibe.

                                Negroes                                    Caucasians                      Mongoloids

^_____________________________^_________________^______.......

200,000 B.C.                                             110,000 B.C.                 40,000 B.C.

As we can see, Negroes were the first Homo sapiens on Earth, and for almost 100,000 years they were the only Homo sapiens. Negroes preceded Caucasians by nearly as much time as Caucasians have existed.

Yet despite their head start, Negroes were not the first Homo sapiens to learn metalcraft. Whites were seen using metal as early as 10,000 B.C., in what is now Turkey. Egyptians first used metal circa 4000 B.C., and sub-Saharan Negroes circa 500 B.C. to 500 A.D. Does the reader appreciate the significance of these dates? Despite a head start of 100,000 years, sub-Saharan blacks emerged from their Stone Age only a millennium or two before whites had their Renaissance and Enlightenment.

Despite their head start, blacks were not first to use the wheel. There is no record of any pre-contact Negro society using wheels, not even for pottery.

Blacks were not first to write language. There is no record of any pre-contact Negro society writing language. Blacks were therefore not first to write laws or record historical events.

Blacks were not first to use standard measurements. They were not first to devise calendar and clock, not first to record sound and pictures, not first to harvest energy from wind, electricity, water, or the atom. They were not first with compass and telescope; not first to map the earth, the solar system, or the chromosome. Blacks did not isolate the cause of sickle-cell anemia. They were not first to make an abacus or a computer, not first to measure the speed of sound or of light. They were not first to fly.

Earth has one moon, and despite a head start of one hundred thousand years, blacks have yet to touch it.

Blacks today, the descendents of those who were not first, consistently score lower than whites in tests of intelligence. They are consistently underrepresented (absent racial preferences) in scientific, legal and technologic fields.

Should we whites accept blame for this? Should we agree to cede our kids' seats in school, or their jobs and promotions, to less-qualified blacks on the grounds that it's our fault blacks are less qualified and we owe it to them?

No. We should not.

We need to talk honestly about race.

Let's start with this: Negroes and Caucasians are of differing appearance; they evolved at different times in different locales and forged vastly different histories, especially with regard to technologic and moral constructs.

These two races are different.

At the very least, given the marked historical and behavioral differences between blacks and whites - differences which persist to the present day - the burden of proof is on he who claims there are not important differences between Negroes and Caucasians, to offer evidence to support his claim. The burden of proof does not fall upon he who claims that blacks and whites are different.

* * *

Pace, none of this is to say that The Lord loves one race over another. God is no respecter of men. It does appear, however, that for reasons of His own, the Lord did not equip all His children equally for all tasks.

There are those who disagree, who believe God has favorites. Louis Farrakhan teaches as scripture that blacks are genetically superior to whites, and that God loves blacks and despises whites.

Was the reader aware of that? No? If a white leader had said such things about blacks, everyone would know about it. There would have been banner headlines, and "exposes" on T.V. Let Farrakhan say it about whites, and it's the best-kept secret in town.

Q: What do we call people who are biased in favor of blacks?

A: We call them journalists.

As a further measure of the press' dishonesty, how many of the readers know that the Nation of Islam, the purveyors of this rabid racism, receives federal dollars?

* * * * *

"We must realize that our Party's most powerful weapon is racial tension."

American Communist Party member Israel Cohen,

from A Radical Program for the Twentieth Century,

written prior to World War 1

The Left will of course fight tooth and nail to prevent an honest discussion of race from taking place. Civil rights is the best thing that ever happened to them. As long as we feel guilty for black failure, the Left has an opportunity to manage us by unconstitutional means. Race politics is and has been the Left's tool of choice for shredding the Constitution.

And the Left loves racial friction, because it renders our political soil more fertile for revolution. And racial friction is inevitable wherever and whenever diverse ethnic groups attempt to co-habit. The Left knows this. They understand well the lessons of Bosnia and Palestine, of the Hutus and the Tutsis, of the Mongolians and the Chinese. They understand well what is happening between blacks and whites in America. Their slogan "Diversity is Strength" is Leftspeak for "We are a house divided."

The Left also loves black pathology and ineptitude, because both call for larger, more intrusive government. When blacks can't support themselves or raise their children or use guns responsibly, it gives the feds an excuse to manage all of us. Today almost no area of our lives is free from federal oversight, and black incompetence is a large part of the reason why.

The right to bear arms is a perfect case in point.

The Left claims that the high U.S. murder rate is cause to abolish the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms.

[tables Jared Taylor and Mankind Quarterly, Whitney]

But as the table shows, if not for blacks, the U.S. murder rate would be lower than the murder rate in England, where the citizenry is essentially disarmed of guns. It is blacks who drive our murder rate through the roof . (Jews and north Asians, both victims of discrimination, have lower than average rates of violent crime).

As Jared Taylor observed, if the U.S. murder rate were lower than that of England, which is virtually gun-free, would there be such a furor over gun control? Of course not. Many gun control advocates would be surprised to learn that it is only when we include statistics from blacks that Americans appear unable to manage guns responsibly.

[Jared Taylor is the editor and founder of a monthly publication about race entitled American Renaissance. It is without question the finest publication of its kind in America and maybe the world. Those wishing to subscribe may write to P.O. Box 527, Oakton, Virginia, 22124, or www.amren.com, or call (703) 716 0900. (For the record, I have no financial interest in AR, nor am I in any way associated with it, except as a subscriber and admirer.)-A.W.]

  Graph 4

A similar result obtains for childcare and education, and in fact for almost every sphere of human endeavor. Black incompetence and misery give the Left an excuse to intervene in all our lives, an excuse to enlarge government and restrict our choices. The black underclass fulfills every socialist fantasy of the need for big government and limited individual liberty.

Racial strife and black incompetence have afforded the Left many such opportunities. Not that anyone seems to care, but we Americans are an ace away from losing our right to free speech. "Hatecrime", (read "thoughtcrime") is the logical conclusion of civil rights laws, which were always in essence laws governing our attitudes. Today, if you throw a rock through someone's window because you don't like the color of their house, it is considered less of a crime than if you throw the rock because you don't like the color of their skin. The difference is not what intent you had, but what motive. Thus is born thoughtcrime. Our federal masters have begun to catalogue our thoughts and feelings, designating some "acceptable", and others inimical to the interests of the State. There was already a law against purposely throwing rocks through a man's window, and it should never have been amended to consider the motives of the thrower.

On another front, the Left has recently coined the phrase, "verbal conduct", in an attempt to blur the distinction between word and deed. And blacks (and women) are now claiming that our obligation to them has grown to the point where they have the right not to be offended by our speech. In a society that protects freedom of expression as zealously as we ought to (and used to), not only don't you have a right not to be offended by other viewpoints- you pretty much have a right to expect that you will be offended now and then.

Can we not see what is happening here? The Left is preparing to nail our First Amendment to their wall, above the Second and Tenth. If they succeed it will be their most cherished trophy.

After forty-plus years of social engineering, all of it based upon The Doctrine of Equivalence; after uncounted tribute paid to blacks, race relations in America have never been worse, and our freedoms never more imperiled. Racial faultlines deepen as we speak, and The Bill of Rights fades. The politics of race has been the principle device by which the Left has brought us to this day, in which our law is mocked and our citizens are shaken down and afraid to speak their minds. The following quotation is not from Russia during the '50's:

"Attempts at honest discussion of current scientific knowledge [of race and gender] are met with outraged cries of "racism," "sexism", "Nazism," or politically incorrect "insensitivity"...Many of my scientific colleagues, especially the untenured, now live in abject terror that their private discussions and true scholarly opinions might be revealed in public.

Prof. Glayde Whitney

Florida State University, U.S.A.

February, 1998

Is this the America for which our fathers fought and died? Is this the America we plan to leave to our children? We should be ashamed. Unless we find the courage to face these issues our nation will soon perish. People will still live and work here, but America will be no more. We will have squandered our American inheritance; our parting shot at our debtor sons and daughters.

This book is my best effort at an honest discussion of race, and I'm asking for a fair hearing. While there are uncomfortable truths, ugly truths, and even dangerous truths, there are no evil truths. I'm asking the reader to please keep an open mind and hear me out. I speak to that part of America - if indeed there is any America left to hear me - that still believes I have freedom of speech.

In any event, after much thought and prayer, I have a message for blacks, and here it is:

I owe you nothing.

My children owe you nothing. My nephews and nieces owe you nothing. I don't want to give you one more cent, nor elevate you above your qualifications, nor include you in my business unless it pleases me to do so.

CHAPTER TWO

HOW THE LEFT SABOTAGES DEBATE

"He who is at fault will avoid discussing matters."  Shamba Bolongongo, 17th-Century African king

Servants of the Left do not refute opposing arguments; they sabotage them. Propaganda and other tricks of speech are their chief weapons, although they are not above using force when they can.

The American Left displays a mastery of propaganda that borders on the supernatural. Like sorcerers of fable they prevail by confounding our senses and our judgment. They render some things invisible and make us see other things that aren't there. In the end we are persuaded to surrender our money and betray our children.

So before we begin we need some training. The Enemy will surely try to destroy this discussion.

You must be able to recognize the following techniques of sabotage:

1) interruption

2) changing the subject

3) ad hominem argument

4) lying

5) relativism

1) interruption

Interruption is an effective and frequently-used technique of sabotage. The purpose of interruption is of course to prevent opposing viewpoints from being aired. Liberals are often chronic interrupters, as anyone knows who has ever argued with one. (After the argument the Liberal then chuckles over how tolerant he is.) Say what you will about conservatives, they usually let a fellow finish his sentence, make his point.

Interruptions can be orchestrated. The disrupting of speeches is a beloved tactic of the Left. Learned men, including at least one American Nobel laureate, have had speeches disrupted by a well-coached mob. It's sad and disgraceful that we tolerate such antics here in the U.S., after the rivers of blood that have been shed defending our freedom of speech. Let someone be accused of infringing on the "civil rights" of another, and federal cops and lawyers descend like flies on manure, but no mob that defiles our First Amendment has aught to fear from Uncle Sam.

Interruption can also take the form of preventing a book from being published, or a radio or TV spot from being aired. (The Left will certainly try to prevent this book from being published.) It can come in the form of intimidation, or of causing someone to be fired or otherwise hurt. A subtle form of interruption consists of the absolute refusal to discuss race, except in safe, "politically-correct" ways. This last method is especially popular with Liberals.

Murder is the ultimate interruption.

2) changing the subject

Changing the subject instantly sabotages the discussion.

3) ad hominem argument (name-calling)

"We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses hate, revulsion, scorn, and the like, towards those who disagree with us."  Lenin

The ad hominem argument is a variation on "changing the subject", but it deserves special mention, as it is the technique closest to the heart of the true Lefty. It is his rock and his staff. It is his baby, and he cherishes it above all his other smelly tricks.

Let me illustrate the difference between an honest argument and an ad hominem one. Honest first:

Jack and Jill are having a discussion. Jack says, "I think the moon is made of green cheese."

Jill replies, "I disagree. Moon-rocks have been analyzed, and contain no cheese."

Jill has made an honest argument. She addressed the subject of Jack's argument, and offered data to support her position.

Compare that with this:

Jack says, "I think the moon is made of green cheese," and Jill replies, "I disagree, Jack. You're a bad person with bad motives."

This is an ad hominem argument. Notice how dishonest it is, and in how many ways it is dishonest.

For starters, Jill has (instantly) changed the subject. They are no longer discussing the composition of the moon. They are now discussing Jack's character. The subject has been lost, the discussion sabotaged absolutely.

Notice also the accusatory nature of the ad hominem argument. An accusation is a powerful weapon even in the absence of truth, because it puts the accused on the defensive. Human beings have a natural tendency to believe accusations. Perhaps there is some advantage for the group in such behaviour. Regardless, this is a chink in our armor, and the Left knows this and exploits it.

Finally, observe how accusation misdirects . Even if an accusation is true, even if Jack is a bad person with bad motives, it doesn't mean he's wrong about the moon. Bad people can say true things, and nice people can be wrong. This is the main lie hidden within the ad hominem argument - the notion that an idea can be evaluated by examining its source. It cannot. An idea like a work of art exists independent of it's source. It stands or falls on its own merits.

Here's another example:

Jack says, "I think there are big genetic differences between blacks and whites."

"I disagree, Jack," says Jill. "You're a racist!"

A "racist" is of course a bad person with bad motives. By calling Jack a "racist", Jill has successfully 1) changed the subject, 2) put Jack on the defensive, and 3) blurred the distinction between an idea and its source. Jack's discussion of genetic differences has vanished without a trace, and with such craft that many are unaware it is missing. There remains for many the illusion that Jill is still talking about racial differences. No sorcerer ever did better.

("Racism" is properly defined as a teaching or doctrine without scientific support that claims racial differences in intelligence or character, or some other important human attribute. For example, if we assume that height is an important attribute (a questionable assumption), it is not racism to say that Norwegians tend to be taller than Pygmies; it is racism to say that Pygmies are taller than Norwegians. The Left has, in recent years, succeeded in corrupting some dictionaries, which now omit the phrase without scientific support. "Racism" is thus defined as any belief in racial differences, whether or not there is evidence to support it. This confers legitimacy on their ad hominem argument; anyone who disagrees with The Doctrine of Equivalence is now by definition a "racist".)

There are variations on the ad hominem argument:

Jack says the moon is made of green cheese. " I disagree," says Jill. "Hitler said the moon is made of green cheese."

Note the "logic": Hitler was a bad person, therefore everything he ever said or wrote is untrue. Since Jack is saying what Hitler said, Jack is wrong. And Jack is also as bad as Hitler, for having said the same thing Hitler said.

But bad people can say true things. If Hitler says that 1+1 = 2, it's true.

Liberals love to call names, and they especially love to call people "Hitler". Notice that what infuriates Liberals about Hitler are not his mass tortures and executions. Egalitarians Stalin and Mao each killed, imprisoned, and/or tortured more people than Hitler did (between 30 and 50 million each, as opposed to Hitler's 10 million), but Liberals rarely denounce Stalin and Mao. You never hear a Liberal attempt to silence an egalitarian by calling him "Stalin". Liberals claim it was the atrocities they abhor, but what really infuriates them about Hitler was his belief that some races are superior to others.

Ironically, if not for their belief in racial equivalence, Liberals would make passable Nazis. Hitler too took religion out of the classrooms. Hitler too stifled free speech. And Hitler used quotas, against Jews and others. No one talks about it or seems to care, but American Jews suffer disproportionately from affirmative action, just as German Jews suffered from quotas in the 30's and 40's.

We need to be reminded that Hitler's ovens and gas chambers did not appear all at once, out of the blue. Hitler's extermination policy began with bad-mouthing Jews, blaming them for things that were not their fault; just as today whites are falsely blamed for black squalor. After that German Jews were taxed more heavily than others, just as today whites are taxed disproportionately. Hitler then instituted anti-Jewish quotas, just as today there are anti-white (and de facto anti-Jewish) quotas. All my life I have listened to Jews and others wonder aloud about how the Germans could have allowed Hitler to do what he did, and today we Americans find ourselves traveling the very same road that Hitler used to goosestep his nation to the holocaust.  (In America, oddly, Jews have always been at the head of the parade.) I believe we Americans are more to blame for what is happening here today than the German people were for what happened to them in the '30's and 40's, because we have them as a recent example of how not to behave.

And let us remember that if we continue along this road, whites will be a minority in America, and an elderly minority at that, in 50 short years.

But in the final analysis, Liberals resemble Stalin and Mao more closely than they resemble Hitler. Just like today's Liberal, Stalin and Mao claimed to believe that everyone is equal, that heredity means little or nothing, that environment alone explains why some people are winners and others losers, and that it is government's duty to structure society that it be fair.

(Of course in America Liberals decide what is fair. The job naturally falls to them because they're so high-minded and enlightened. Now in the course of structuring our environment that it be fair, Liberals sometimes find it necessary to violate the Constitution. They regret this. Indeed, nothing is more touching than the sincere and heartfelt regret Liberals feel when they have to illegally take our money or our liberty, For Our Own Good.)

Notice that the ad hominem argument is really argument by endorsement. As such it cuts two ways. Belief in racial superiority is not automatically false just because Hitler believed it, and it's not automatically true just because Thomas Jefferson and Immanuel Kant and Albert Schweitzer and Theodore Roosevelt and David Hume believed it.

A word of clarification. By racial superiority I mean genetic superiority of one race over another at a given task. Not necessarily that every member of one race is superior to every member of the other race, but that on average one race is superior to the other.

Hitler is dead, by the way. We shouldn't let him cause any more trouble. Nothing he said or wrote should be accepted or rejected merely because it came from him. The truth of a statement cannot be determined by the motives or deeds of the speaker. Ideas stand or fall on their merits.

4) lying

Some things never go out of style. Lying is the Left's main source of strength. An excellent example of a lie is the assertion that "there is no such thing as race." This is an easy lie to debunk. Organ transplants are more successful within a race than between races. There could be no better illustration of the fact that a race is an extended family of man.

Another great lie is "Afrocentrism".

"Afrocentrism" refers to fabricated accounts of Negro contributions to civilization. It is an ongoing effort to secure for blacks a "usable history", as their true history is embarrassing. Afrocentrists claim that black philosophers were the fathers of Greek civilization, and that black mariners found North America before Columbus did. They claim that Egyptian blacks used electricity and flew aircraft.

Such lies are the meat of African Studies courses on college campuses today, courses underwritten primarily by white taxpayers. Initially blacks claimed that these made-up histories were factual. Today they claim it still, but they also claim that these histories have merit even if false. Storytelling is the name given for this fraud, whereby it becomes simultaneously "true" that 1) their histories are factual, and 2) that it is irrelevent whether their histories are factual. Herein we witness the birth of doublethink, which bring us to:

5) relativism

"...Only the disciplined mind can see reality, Winston. You believe

that reality is something objective, external, existing in its own right...But I tell you, Winston, that reality is not external. Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and in any case soon perishes; only in the mind of the Party, which is collective and immortal. Whatever the Party holds to be truth is truth."

O'Brien in 1984

"There is no basis for distinguishing between reason and belief."

Stanley Fish

Relativism is the belief that everything is subjective.  There are no facts, just opinions. There is no Truth, merely different, equally-valid versions of truth.

But what if I believe that 1+1= 2? Isn't that true?

"No", says the Left. "One plus one equals two for you. Maybe for someone else it equals three. Can you prove 1+1= 2?"

No. I can not. No one can. The Left is correct, there is no such thing as absolute certainty. Nevertheless, relativism is a deception, a lie. The lie can be stated simply: since nothing is certain, all events are equally likely.

No, I cannot prove that 1+1 = 2, but I can say that the probability that 1 + 1 equals 2 is so high that I am impelled to assume it true. Not to base my calculations on one plus one being two would be irresponsible.

Relativism attacks any attempt at measurement. Again, this is a deception. It is true that no measurement is exact, but still I can know that sequoias grow taller than daisies.

"For you," says the Left.

For the relativist, there are no facts, and here is why: if there are no facts, it follows that all beliefs are equally true. If all beliefs are equally true, all cultures and lifestyles are equally deserving of respect. Hocus-pocus! Presto-chango! A world in which all are equal, necessarily so, as there are no standards by which to judge inferiority or superiority.

However, while all are equal, some are more equal than others. That is why slavery must be deplored when practiced by whites, and ignored or excused when practiced by blacks. It is why activists wearing Ashanti garb are allowed to lower Confederate flags and remove the name of Washington from our institutions. It is why white militia groups are reviled by the press while the Nation of Islam is tolerated or lauded.

When South African whites call for apartheid they are called racists; when Farrakhan calls for apartheid he is called minister.

Relativism contains the biggest lie of all - that there are no lies, because there are no truths. Of course, the Left's elite is not really so stupid as to believe in relativism, although some of their rank and file are. Relativism is merely a convenient refuge whenever facts reveal the Left's position to be indefensible, which is often. In the course of their own lives the Lefty elite routinely base important decisions on less than metaphysical certitude, as do all responsible people. If Stanley Fish should suddenly find himself directly beneath a falling piano, he will jump out of the way first, and dispute the piano's existence second.

For our purposes, if we can't agree that 1+1 = 2, there is no point in talking. Relativists are excused from the discussion unless they are willing for the sake of argument to temporarily stipulate that 1+1 always equals 2.

The Great Race Debate

President Clinton said we should engage in an honest discussion of race. I know he didn't mean it, but it's a swell idea anyway. Has there been a national debate on race since the Lincoln-Douglas debates?

I'm calling for a nationally televised series of debates on race. And let's first establish some rules of engagement; else the Left will sabotage the debate. Here again are my proposed rules of engagement:

1) no interrupting

2) no changing the subject

3) no ad hominem arguments

4) no lying

5) no relativism

All debate should be preceded by a reading and explanation of the rules, with special attention to the ad hominem argument. Techniques of sabotage not mentioned in the rules are likewise banned. The discussion should be monitored by a moderator and three umpires who are empowered to call fouls and apply sanctions. Rulebreakers may be suspended from the debate for a time commensurate with their infractions. Debators' microphones are rigged so that only one is "on" at any given time. Authorities on relevant matters should be in attendance, that all disputes of fact or logic be resolved as quickly as possible. The words, "There are no evil truths." should be visible throughout the debate.

The Left will fight like a cornered rat to prevent (interrupt) such debate, or if unable to prevent it, to alter or "expand" the topic (change the subject). We must not let them. Black/white discord is our country's oldest and worst domestic problem. But for it our civil war might never have been fought. But for it our cities would be livable and our Constitution intact, or more nearly so (F.D.R. did a fair amount of damage to the Constitution absent consideration of race). We need to talk about blacks and whites. If the Left wants to talk about other things, we'll do that after we talk about blacks and whites.

I am convinced that honest debate will be the death of the "civil rights" establishment. Prevented from sabotaging the discussion, it will die like the witch in The Wizard of Oz, dissolving before our eyes, screeching helplessly that the world is unfair, unfair....

Of course, killing the civil rights establishment will not kill the Left. The Left can never perish by the hand of mortal man. Rather, It must be cast out, and this we can do, with God's help.

Let's get started. I suggest we begin with this:

"Resolved - racial differences in achievement are genetic in origin."

Let the great debate begin.

CHAPTER THREE

The Atlantic Slave Trade

"No subject has been more generally misunderstood or more persistently misrepresented [than slavery]...and the misconceptions...are likely to be perpetuated in the mind of posterity, unless corrected..." Jefferson Davis

"In every African tribe that I have visited, I found slavery a natural institution of the country." Samuel White Baker

"African chiefs were the ones waging war on each other and capturing their own people and selling them. If anyone should apologize it should be the African chiefs." Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, from Reuters, March 1998

Slavery. The Great White Sin. The crime so great that descendents of the guilty may justly be punished.

Most of us think of Roots when we think of the Atlantic slave trade. This theme of the noble, peaceful black man being kidnapped and enslaved by wicked whites has been replayed countless times during our lifetimes, most recently in the film Amistad.

Roots is a lie. (Actually, it is twice a lie, as Haley plagiarized it.) The reality is that nearly all of the slaves brought to the New World were first enslaved by blacks and sold by them to whites. Historian Hugh Thomas:

In 1721 the Royal Africa Company ...asked its agents in Africa to discover how the slaves were originally taken...The overwhelming majority of slaves were certainly obtained by the European traders in Africa by purchase or negotiation with local rulers, merchants, or noblemen. Some were obtained directly through European wars, principally in Angola; except the first days of the Portuguese on the coast, up till 1448, only a small number were obtained by Europeans by kidnapping.

The Africans from whom the Europeans obtained most of the slaves...acquired them... first, as a result of war; second, in consequence of enslavement as a punishment for the people concerned; third, from poverty, resulting in someone's being constrained to sell his children, or even himself; or, fourth, from kidnapping, which was as frequent among Africans as it was rare among Europeans.

African monarchs also bought slaves (who might earlier have been obtained in any of these ways) from dealers, in order to sell them again to Europeans (or to other Africans, and especially Arabs). The Slave Trade, pp.370-1

Slavery was common and widespread in black Africa long before Europeans set foot there. Slaves were generally procured in raids on other tribes, or they were debtors or criminals. As noted, slaves were killed and eaten by some tribes.

Even when whites were involved in kidnapping blacks, as was frequently the case with the East African slave trade, it was usually done with the complicity of other blacks. British explorer Samuel Baker:

"The people for the most part engaged in the nefarious traffic [slave trading] of the White Nile are Syrians, Copts, Turks, Circassians, and some few Europeans. [emphasis his] So closely connected with the difficulties of my expedition is that accursed slave trade, that the so-called ivory trade of the White Nile requires an explanation.

A man without means ...borrows money ...at 100 per cent...he hires several vessels and engages from 100 to 300 men, composed of Arabs and runaway villains...He purchases guns and ...ammunition...together with a few hundred pounds of glass beads [for use as currency with natives].

The vessels sail about December, and on arrival at the desired locality, the party disembark and proceed into the interior, until they arrive at the village of some Negro chief, with whom they establish an intimacy. Charmed with his new friends, the power of whose weapons he acknowledges, the Negro chief does not neglect the opportunity of seeking their alliance to attack a hostile neighbor. Marching throughout the night, guided by their Negro hosts, they bivouac within an hour's march of the unsuspecting village doomed to an attack about half an hour before break of day. The time arrives, and quietly surrounding the village while its occupants are still sleeping, they fire the grass huts in all directions, and pour volleys of musketry through the flaming thatch. Panic-stricken, the unfortunate victims rush from their burning dwellings, and the men are shot down like pheasants in a battue, while the women and children, bewildered in the danger and confusion, are kidnapped and secured. The herds of cattle, still within their kraal...are driven off with great rejoicing, as the prize of victory. The women and children are then fastened together, the former secured in an instrument called a sheba, made of a forked pole, the neck of the prisoner fitting into the fork, secured by a cross piece lashed behind, while the wrists, brought together in advance of the body, are tied to the pole. The children are then fastened by their necks with a rope attached to the women, and thus form a living chain, in which order they are marched to the head-quarters in company with the captured herds.

This is the commencement of business: should there be ivory in any of the huts not destroyed by the fire, it is appropriated; a general plunder takes place. The trader's party dig up the floors of the huts to search for iron hoes, which are generally thus concealed, as the greatest treasure of the Negroes; the granaries are overturned and wantonly destroyed, and the hands are cut off the bodies of the slain the more easily to detach the copper or iron bracelets that are usually worn. With this booty the traders return to their Negro ally: they have thrashed and discomfited his enemy, which delights him; they present him with thirty or forty head of cattle, which intoxicates him with joy, and a present of a pretty little captive girl of about fourteen completes his happiness.

...Should any slave attempt to escape, she is punished either by a brutal flogging, or shot or hanged, as a warning to others.

An attack or razzia, such as described, generally leads to a quarrel with the Negro ally, who in his turn is murdered and plundered by the trader - his women and children naturally becoming slaves." Albert N'Yanzu pp.13-16

This, however, was primarily the Arab slave trade. The Atlantic slave trade was different. Europeans were much more likely to acquire their slaves at coastal marts than to make forays into the hostile and disease-ridden interior. There was no reason for them to take undue risks, as slaves were cheap and plentiful. Europeans paid in cheap manufactured goods such as linens, drinking vessels, and candy (Negroes were said to be especially fond of candied fruits). Later guns and alcohol became currency.

Negroes were more than eager to sell their brethren.

"We reached our friend Shinte, and received a hearty welcome from this friendly old man, and abundant provisions of the best he had. On hearing a report of the journey...and receiving a piece of cotton cloth about two yards square, he said, 'These Mambari cheat us by bringing little pieces only; but the next time you pass I shall send men with you to trade for me in Loanda.' When I explained the use made of the slaves he sold, and that he was just destroying his own tribe by selling his people... for the sake of these small pieces of cloth, it seemed to him quite a new idea." Livingstone's Africa pp.305-306

This is the same Shinte who could not understand why Livingstone would not accept the gift of a slave girl.

The African slave trade could not have existed, much less flourished absent African complicity. By illustration: the Kingdom of Benin, made wealthy from slave trading, refused to sell slaves to Europeans after 1550. As Hugh Thomas says, "The success with which Benin avoided trading in slaves after 1550 showed that such restraint could be exercised if an African king really willed it." The Slave Trade p.360

Not only did most not avoid it, they embraced it.

In the mid-1450's, Ca'da Mosto described a Wolof king in whose realm slavery was often a punishment for even moderate offenses. p60

By the late 1450's, slave trading in the Gulf of Benin was brokered on the African side by two peoples of the coastal region, the Ibo and the Itsekiri, who bought slaves at inland auctions or sold criminals and debtors from their own community. p.73

In 1486 a Wolof monarch sent 100 slaves to prince Joao of Portugal, asking for his assistance in a tribal dispute. At this time slaves were well established as a form of tribute in the Congo pp.81-82

In the early 1500's, King Alfonso of the Congo began raiding his neighbors, the Mbundu, for slaves. The Tio people procured black slaves from the interior. By 1530, 4000 to 5000 slaves per year were being exported from the Congo, and it would have been more, but there were not enough ships to carry them. The Africans were generating more "merchandise" than the Europeans could carry off. p.110 By 1535, Portuguese demands for slaves were unnecessary, as "great caravans of blacks" would usually arrive at any port frequented by the Portuguese. p.108

In the 1550's Portugal made an agreement with the king of Congo, Diogo 1, that certain Portuguese traders would trade only with Diogo.

"It had been agreed between the new Christian king of Congo, Diogo 1, and Portugal that the settlers on Sao Tome' should only trade in the former's realm; and, as a result, ten leading Portuguese merchants...took up the slave trade there, twelve to fifteen ships arriving every year to carry off four to seven hundred slaves each. The ships were still too few to carry the slaves available; captains overloaded, often causing revolts. The Portuguese being unable to fulfill all the details of this treaty, King Diogo of the Congo broke off relations in 1555..." The Slave Trade p.129

Thus the overcrowding of slaves in slave ships, so celebrated and lamented by the Left, was due at least in part to pressure from black vendors to move more merchandise. Maybe Mr. Spielberg can work that fact into his re-make of Amistad. While he's at it he can mention that the noble Cinque, on winning his freedom, returned to Africa and became a slave trader.

Nor was it unusual for ex-slaves to become slave owners. Speke:

"There are many positions into which the slave may get by the course of events, and I shall give here, as a specimen, the ordinary case of one who has been freed by the death of his master...In such a case, the slave so freed in all probability would commence life afresh by taking service as a porter with other merchants, and in the end would raise sufficient capital to commence trading himself - first in slaves, because they are the most easily got, and then in ivory...Slavery begets slavery. To catch slaves is the first thought of every chief in the interior; hence fights and slavery impoverish the land...

Some few freed slaves take service in vessels, of which they are especially fond, but most return to Africa to trade in slaves and ivory..." p.xxvii

Baker:

"It was amusing to watch the change that took place in a slave that had been civilized (?) by the slave-traders. Among their parties, there were many blacks who had been captured, and who enjoyed the life of slave-hunting - nothing appeared so easy as to become professional in cattle razzias [raids] and kidnapping human beings, and the first act of a slave was to procure a slave for himself! All the best slave-hunters, and the boldest and most energetic scoundrels, were the Negroes who had at one time themselves been kidnapped. These fellows aped a great and ridiculous importance. On the march they would seldom condescend to carry their own guns; a little slave boy invariably attended to his master, keeping close at his heels, and trotting along on foot during a long march, carrying a musket much longer than himself; a woman generally carried a basket with a cooking pot, and a gourd of water and provisions, while a hired native carried the soldiers change of clothes and ox-hide upon which he slept. Thus the man who had been kidnapped became the kidnapper, and the slave became the master, the only difference between him and the Arab being an absurd notion of his own dignity.

It was in vain that I attempted to reason with them against the principles of slavery; they thought it wrong when they were themselves the sufferers, but were always ready to indulge in it when the preponderance of power lay upon their side." (underline mine) Albert N'yanzu , pp. 213-214

"The Negro idea of the eighth commandment is this: 'Thou shalt not steal - from ME;' but he takes a liberal view of the subject when the property belongs to another." Samuel Baker, Ismalia, p.340

These quotes remind me of the astonishing ease with which American blacks accept racial discrimination - as long as it's discrimination against whites.

Baker describes a Latooka invitation to raid other Latookas:

Although the Latookas were far better than other tribes that I had met, they were sufficiently annoying; they gave me no credit for real good will, but they attributed my forebearance to weakness. On one occasion Adda, one of the chiefs, came to ask me to join him in attacking a village to procure molotes (iron hoes); he said, "Come along with me, bring your men and guns, and we will attack a village near here, and take their molotes and cattle; you keep the cattle, and I will have the molotes." I asked him whether the village was in an enemy's country? "Oh no!" he replied, "it is close here; but the people are rather rebellious and it will do them good to kill a few, and to take their molotes. If you are afraid, never mind, I will ask the Turks to do it." Thus forebearance on my part was supposed to be caused from weakness, and it was difficult to persuade them that it originated in a feeling of justice. This Adda most coolly proposed that we should plunder one of his own villages that was rather too "liberal" in its views.

Nothing is so heartbreaking than to be so thoroughly misunderstood, and the obtuseness of the savages was such, that I never could make them understand the existence of good principle; their one idea was "power" - force that could obtain all - the strong hand that could wrest from the weak. I...noted the feelings of the moment in my journal - '1863, 10th April, Latooka: I wish the black sympathizers in England could see Africa's innermost heart as I do, much of their sympathy would subside. Human nature viewed in its crudest state as pictured amongst African savages is quite on a level with that of the brute, and not to be compared with the noble character of the dog. There is neither gratitude, pity, love, nor self-denial: no idea of duty; no religion; but covetousness, ingratitude, selfishness and cruelty. All are thieves, idle, envious, and ready to plunder and enslave their weaker neighbors." Albert N'yanzu pp. 173-174

Speke says something similar:

"Laziness is inherent in these men...they will not work unless compelled to do so...Having no God, in the Christian sense of the term, to fear or worship, they have no love for truth, honor, or honesty. pp. xxvii-viii

The lack of morality caused Baker to question. Here is part of a conversation between Baker and a chief Commoro:

Baker: Do you see no difference in good and bad actions?

Commoro: Yes, there are good and bad in men and beasts.

Baker: Do you think that a good man and a bad must share the same fate, and alike die, and end?

Commoro: Yes; what else can they do? How can they help dying? Good and bad all die.

Baker: Their bodies perish, but their spirits remain; the good in happiness,

the bad in misery. If you have no belief in a future state, why should

a man be good? Why should he not be bad, if he can prosper by

wickedness?

Commoro: Most people are bad; if they are strong they take from the weak. The good people are all weak; they are good because they are not strong enough to be bad. (underline mine - A.W.)

Baker goes on to say this: I was obliged to change the subject of conversation. In this wild naked savage there was not even a superstition upon which to found a religious feeling; there was a belief in matter; and to his understanding everything was material. It was extraordinary to find so much clearness of perception combined with such obtuseness to anything ideal. Albert N'Yanzu, pp.180-181

Here is an excerpt from Wanderings in West Africa, by Richard Burton, first published in 1863:

"It would hardly be fair to leave Cape Palmas without saying something touching its peculiar population...the people call themselves "Kra'o", ["Kru", or "Krumen" - A.W.]...they never enslave one another; yet they were the life and soul of the Portuguese and Spanish slavers, and they proved themselves probably the greatest kidnappers on the coast...now they are in the habit of buying bushmen and boyslaves, and marking them like themselves, thus transforming them to "Krumen"...

Hugh Thomas:

"The local people (the Ivory Coast -A.W.), the Avikam, sold numerous slaves, ranging from individuals who were already slaves inside Avikam society, to others who came from a long distance away in the hinterland, whom they themselves had bought with salt or European goods. The Avikam obtained, by theft or purchase, as many female slaves as they could, in order to boost births, so as in turn to be able to sell the children. This was the only zone in Africa where such a policy was coherently pursued." The Slave Trade p.346

Slaves were used to breed more slaves, for sale. Of course, selling children isn't the worst one may do to them. We've already met the Lunda:

"More disconcerting...to the Portuguese...was new warfare in the kingdom of    Ndongo...after 1608. This fighting was caused by a series of brutal attacks on the Mbundu people of Ndongo by the nomadic, palm-wine-drinking and often cannibalistic    Lunda. To enable themselves to retain their mobility, the   Lunda never raised children. Even the monarch, with his long hair embroidered with shells, and his daily anointment with the boiled fat of his enemies, would slaughter his own offspring, by all his twenty or thirty highly perfumed wives. To maintain their numbers, the   Lunda adopted adolescents from the peoples whom they conquered. These novices were slaves, and wore iron collars as a sign of that status, until they were able to present the severed head of an enemy to the king.

Eventually... the Lunda would settle down, adopt a conventional attitude to families and procreation, and become a formidable empire in Central Africa, trading slaves in traditional style on a large scale." p.16

The Lunda were not unique among Negroes in their disregard for the lives of children.

"A Batetela woman dying during childbirth is buried with the child." The Ovambo [southern Bantu] killed twins by stuffing dirt into their mouths.

And even when they weren't killing their children, there was widespread enslavement of them.

To kill one's own children strikes me as the most despicable act imaginable, followed closely by enslaving one's own children. But what of those children who were neither killed nor sold? How were they cared for? Nearly 75 years after Livingstone tried to persuade Shinte to stop enslaving children of his own tribe, Albert Schweitzer wrote this:

"As I look back over the work of two months and a half, I can only say that a doctor is needed, terribly needed, here; that for a huge distance round the natives avail themselves of his help, and that with comparatively small means he can accomplish a quite disproportionate amount of good. The need is terrible. 'Here, among us, everybody is ill,' said a young man to me a few days ago. 'Our country devours its own children', was the remark of an old chief."

And not a day goes by today that we don't hear about relief efforts for the people in black Africa. Not those in white-run black Africa, of course. When the Belgians were running Zaire, Zaire was exporting food. No relief efforts are necessary in the French-run Ivory Coast, nor were any relief efforts  necessary in South Africa, although that is no longer true, now that blacks are in power there. Even when African blacks don't kill or enslave their children, their children often live in squalor.

When one human being claims to own another, there are varying degrees of evil that may result. On one end of the continuum, a slave may be used as a servant, but be "well treated", if such a phrase can apply to a person whose liberty is stolen.

Worse than this is mistreating a slave. Worse is selling a human being. Worse still is selling a family member, worse yet selling one's own children.

Worse than these is killing a slave as a sacrifice. And the worst, to me the most repulsive, is killing and eating one's slaves. Human livestock are properly referred to as "slaves" whether they be used as beasts of burden or a source of meat. Cannibalism is the most extreme form of slavery, of ownership of one person over another.

With regard to slavery, then: nothing Europeans or Americans did can ever compare with the barbaric and loathsome actions of blacks themselves:

"Mongonga, chief of Mongwele, has bought at Mongwele a native of Irebu...He broke his arms and legs this morning with a club as he intends eating him tomorrow...He exposed his victim, still living, during the night in the river, the head alone kept above water, so that the skin may come off easier. He was flayed in the morning after decapitation. The head was boiled in a special pot. As for the rest, it was cut up and put into the pot with pieces of goat's meat, palm oil, and salt...Friends were invited..."

Coqilhat in Congo Belge, iv, 185 [DSAR] "The reader will understand that breaking the bones of the victim caused massive swelling, thus tenderising the meat." Whites don't even treat livestock with such cruelty. [DSAR refers to the Descriptive Sociology of African Races]

"The people of Bonjoko (Bangala) determined to have a great feast. They bought as fat a slave as they could procure, broke his arms and legs, and fed him for three days, while they made a great quantity of sugar-cane wine...on the third day he was killed, and the horrible orgy was held."

Weeks, Among Congo Cannibals, p.104 [DSAR] "Cannibalism is widely spread among the Bankutu, but limited to men and the victims are always slaves, for a Munkutu would never eat a man of his own people. Slaves of both sexes are eaten...When a slave dies all the men and even the boys of the village partake of the meal and friendly neighbors send for their share...The whole body is eaten except blood and hair; the bones are broken to extract the marrow. Differing from the Batetela, the Bankutu have special pots for the preparation of human flesh...It may be boiled or grilled with salt and red pepper."

Torday and Joyce, Kasai, p.177 [DSAR]

"The Sungu used to eat the whole corpse [of prisoners or those killed in war] with the exception of the bones and genitals, which were thrown away. No special vessels were used for the purpose, nor was human flesh known by any other name than "meat." Murderers used to be sold to other villages on condition that they be killed and eaten."

Torday and Joyce, Kasai p.86

"As a rule, considering her commercial value, woman escapes sacrifice...I have seen an exception. A Bangala of high position, Mongonga...accuses at various occasions seven of his own wives of imaginary crimes, had them killed and ate them. One of these unfortunates was executed the very evening of the day she had given birth to a child. Westmark, in Bull. Soc. G. Comm. Paris, viii, 435 [DSAR]

Baker did not witness acts of cannibalism, but he gives reports of witnesses he believed reliable:

"They described these cannibals as remarkably good people, but possessing a peculiar taste for dogs and human flesh. They accompanied the trading party in their razzias, and invariably ate the bodies of the slain. The traders complained that they were bad associates, as they insisted upon killing and eating the children which the party wished to secure as slaves: their custom was to catch a child by its ankles, and to dash its head against the ground; thus killed, they opened the abdomen, extracted the stomach and intestines, and tying the two ankles to the neck, they carried the body by slinging it over the shoulder, and thus returned to camp, where they divided it by quartering, and boiled it in a large pot. Another man in my own service had been a witness to a horrible act of cannibalism at Gondokoro."

Albert N'Yanzu p.215

One can see why traders thought the cannibals were bad partners. Here the traders go to all that trouble to make a living, and their cannibal associates eat the profits. Some people can be so inconsiderate.

"The Tophoke claim that cannibalism is inspired more by vengeance than by taste. The whole body is eaten, the eyes excepted. There are two methods of killing slaves intended for food. They may have their arms tied behind their back; they are then made to walk and are speared from behind. Or, they are made to sit on a chair, feet and hands tied and a man from behind draws their head back and cuts their throat."

Torday and Joyce, Kasai, p.208 [DSAR p.218]

Interesting that the Tophoke, who claimed to be acting on vengeance, lacked the torturous meat-tenderising methods of others who considered human flesh a delicacy.

"Pogge made inquiries among the Bassange and was told that cannibalism was not due to hunger but was practiced in the home ceremonially. The body of the slain is laid for one night in water and the next day the legs and hands are cut off and put on an ant hill. After a few hours they are inspected and if the ants have eaten of them they are good. The corpse is then dissected and cooked by certain men together with the flesh of goats captured in war; this mess is then taken to the chief who eats some and distributes the rest among his warriors. Then dancing and singing begins. Women may neither cook nor eat the flesh. Sometimes corpses of slaves are eaten too, but it is not the custom to disinter buried corpses."

Mitth. d. Afrik. Ges., iv, 259 [DSAR]

Ashanti. The hearts of slain enemies were cut out and eaten by young warriors; those of famous enemies were reserved for the king and great men.

Torday, [DSAR]

The chief source of victims eaten in cannibalistic orgies was no doubt that of persons slain in war, and the next in connection with human sacrifices, especially those offered up at funeral obsequies."

Talbot, iii, 835 [DSAR]

"Cannibalism is widespread in the interior of Liberia..."

Johnston, Liberia, p.952 [DSAR]

In Uganda...there is a secret society of ghouls who join together at midnight for the purpose of disinterring and eating corpses." Johnston, Uganda, ii,693 [DSAR]

"The Amaponda Kafir [southern Bantu] chiefs drink the gall of their enemies for the purpose of acquiring additional strength."

Gardiner, p.265 [DSAR]

"In former times, whenever a Nandi killed an enemy, he used to eat a small portion of the dead man's heart to make himself brave." To this day the slayer must wash the blood off his spear and drink the water.

Hollis, Nandi, p.27 [DSAR]

Schweitzer also mentions cannibalism:

"..a small boy who, with every sign of extreme terror, refused to enter the room, and had to be carried in by force. It transpired later that he quite thought the doctor meant to kill and eat him! The poor little fellow had got his knowledge of cannibalism, not from nursery tales, but from the terrible reality, for even today [1914] it has not quite been extirpated among the Pahouins [Fan]. About the area over which it still prevails it is hard to say anything definite, as fear of the heavy penalties attached to it make the natives keep every case as secret as possible. A short time ago, however, a man went from the neighborhood of Lambarene into some outlying villages to collect arrears of debt, and did not come back. A labourer disappeared in the same way from near Samkita. People who know the country say that "missing" is often to be interpreted as "eaten".

The Forest Primeval p.47

Schweitzer also gives a fascinating account of "human leopards":

"Two years ago they actually perpetrated a murder at the Lambarene mission station.

They are men who are possessed by the delusion that they are leopards, and therefore must kill man, and when they are out to do this, they try to behave altogether like leopards. They go on all fours, fastening on their hands and feet real leopard claws or iron imitations of them, so as to leave behind them a spoor like that of a leopard; and when they catch a victim, they sever his carotid artery, as leopards do.

The remarkable and uncanny fact is that most of them have become human leopards involuntarily, having been made members of one of the bands without being aware of it. The band prepares in a human skull a potion made out of the blood of one of their victims, and some man, on whom they have previously fixed, is secretly given some of it in one of his ordinary drinks.. Then he is informed that he has drunk the potion, and therefore is from that time one of the band...The next step is a command

to take one of their brothers or sisters to some place where he or she can be attacked or killed by the members of the band. Then they themselves must start killing."

Ethnologist F. Migeod (1922) reports something similar:

There are, however, human "tigers" among them [the Fang]. They dress in leopard skins and murder...They only eat part of the heart of the victim, so do not kill merely for the purpose of having a good feed...

I was told of another sacrificial ceremony of the Fang in which the parts partaken of are the arm, heart, and liver only...I was not able to discover any food taboos among these local Fang. There is so little food that they can scarcely discriminate. They seem, however, to be unwilling to eat snakes, although the Bakele will do so readily."

Across Equatorial Africa, p.41

Note that, except for the leopard costumes, such behaviour is in no way extraordinary for black Africans.

"Among the Nkundo there is a special title called Somisomi given to a chief's daughter...The ceremony is this. The chief has first to kill a man. He cuts out the heart and rib. The rib she wears slung round her waist, but the heart she cuts up into tiny pieces and eats. She is then Somisomi, and can only marry a big chief."

Migeod, Across Equatorial Africa, p. 149

Migeod makes a distinction between true cannibals and those who eat human flesh for ceremonial purposes:

The mentality of a real cannibal is a very special one. One must not include in the same category the person who indulges in a formal sacrificial meal when only a minute portion of the heart or liver is eaten. The real cannibal looks upon every person he meets as a possible meal of varying quality, just as one watches the development of a turkey or a goose. Killing is always in his heart. p.163

Migeod goes on to explain cannibalism. His explanation is a favorite with black apologists:

The reason must be a dietetic one. Tribes owning herds of cattle are never cannibalistic, and I cannot recall an exception. Tribes that can get no meat and live on some such food as cassada are exceedingly feeble and degenerate...A mixed diet produces a better type both physically and mentally. It is instructive that the tribes which get a fairly abundant meat diet out of their own kind are for the most part of fine physique. p.163

I'm not sure that cannibalism is justified by the fact that it's easier to kill and eat your neighbor than to learn to domesticate animals and cultivate food-plants. In any event, it's a moot point. Migeod was wrong about cannibals being prompted by need. Emil Torday lived among cannibals; here is an excerpt from his book Camp and Tramp in African Wilds, 1913:

"This danger [scarcity of food] did not exist however in Kongo; any amount of chickens could be purchased at threepence apiece, goats and pigs were frequently refused when the top asking price was two shillings. As for native food, enormous quantities of cassava, sweet potatoes, yams, bananas, beans (probably introduced by Europeans), plantains, maize, &c., are exported, the people not being able to consume all they produce.

How then can we explain the fact that it is precisely in this country that cannibalism is most rife? In some parts of the Congo only enemies slain in war are eaten by the victors; but in Kongo slaves are also purchased and eaten. One day Mapanda, Chief of Kongo, sent me a so-called "antelope leg", which I instantly recognized as a portion of a human thigh...In the village, near his house, Mapanda has a museum of skulls, which I coveted for anthropological purposes. These are not only the crania of enemies and slaves who had been eaten in the village, but also crania sent as tribute by the neighboring villages...." pp.67-69

Here is Torday again, writing in the National Geographic Magazine, November, 1910, p.971:

"The cannibal Bankutus remove the upper incisors...The Bankutus are great cannibals, as far as the male members of the tribe are concerned, and the victims are always slaves. In fact, all slaves are ultimately eaten, since it is believed that if a slave were buried his ghost would kill his master."

Cannibalism is an every-day occurrence, and, according to the natives themselves, who display no reticence except in the presence of state officials, it is based on a sincere liking for human flesh. Enemies killed in war and people buried alive after the poison test, or dying as a result of it are eaten; so, too, are slaves, and farther north and near the river these are killed on rare occasions to provide a cannibal feast. In the latter a body may be buried for a couple of days and a fire kept burning over the grave. The flesh is consumed in the ordinary way with manioc flour...

Not only are the Ngombe and the Bambala tribes cannibals, but most of their respective neighbors likewise, and their enemies know that if they fall into unfriendly hands they will be treated with the utmost cruelty."

Others made similar observations:

"Their hunting expeditions supply them with meat enough for their requirements, their taste leading them to give the preference to the flesh of elephants, buffaloes, wild boars, and the larger kinds of antelopes...it is altogether a fallacy to represent that the Monbutto are driven to cannibalism through the lack of ordinary meat. To judge from Munza's accumulated store of ivory...the provision of elephant's meat alone must be sufficient to keep his people amply supplied. Nor should the immense quantity of poultry be forgotten..."

Schweinfurth, ii, pp. 89-90 [DSAR]

"For these Gagas [Jagga, Bayaka] are the greatest cannibals and man-eaters that be in the world, for they feed chiefly upon man's flesh having all the cattle of that country." Battell, p.21 [DSAR] "The Warega eat enormous quantities of game. Snakes are eaten occasionally, but they have no preference for this dish. Termites [on the wing] and big caterpillars...are a treat for them...shrimps are much appreciated...The only people eaten by the Warega were enemies killed in battle, people who died from the ordeal [in which those accused of crimes drink poison; survivors are deemed "innocent" - A.W.], or malefactors killed in the village. The sexual parts [of enemies killed in battle] were cut off by the victor and exhibited, stuck on a pole near his hut...."

Delhaise, pp. 69-70 [DSAR]

E. Torday again, in NGM, 10/1919:

"Each [Bambala] village is under its own chief, who holds the position by virtue of his wealth and is succeeded at his death by the next richest man of the tribe. His principle function is to act as moneylender to his subjects. No tribute is paid to the chief, but he has a right to the ribs of every human being killed for food and to the hind legs of each animal killed during the great hunts."

(I call the reader's attention to my forebearance in not making a joke about the chief eating ribs.)

"The ordinary food consists of manioc flour made into a paste and boiled...Animal food is not limited to goats, pigs, and other domestic small fry, for, frogs excepted, everything helps to make a stew, from ants and grasshoppers to man.

Human flesh is, of course, a special delicacy, and its use is forbidden to women, though they do not disdain to indulge secretly...

No doubt hunger contributed to the decision of some Negroes to eat human flesh, but as one can see, meat shortages were (are?) by no means always the cause of cannibalism. Conversely, tribes with limited access to meat are not always cannibals:

"The Basongo Meno assert [and the same applies to the Akela] and their statement is confirmed by their neighbors, that they have never been cannibals."

Torday and Joyce, Bushongo, p.275. and Kasai, p.190

"The food of the Basonge (sic) is principally vegetal; it is not that they do not love meat passionately, but game is rare and rearing insufficient."

Schmitz, Les Basonges, pp.125-126 [DSAR]

Slightly less repulsive than killing and eating one's slaves is killing them as sacrifices:

"If he be a man of some property in slaves, and belong to a certain family of the Wayao tribe (say the Abanda or the Amilansi), he will have a great many slaves to accompany him (at his death)." "When their master is buried they will be put in the grave along with him. This terrible custom does not prevail among all the families of the Wayao tribe..." It is said that the slaves have to be caught before they have taken part in the mourning." MacDonald, i, 100 et seq [DSAR]

The slaves "may be either cast into the pit alive, or the undertakers may cut all their throats. The body of their master or their mistress is then laid down to rest above theirs, and the grave is covered in. "

MacDonald, i, 107 [DSAR p.192] Sometimes cannibalism and sacrifice intersect.

"When a person has been found guilty of witchcraft, a grave ...is dug for him...He then sits down hard by and eats and drinks as much as he wishes, after which he enters the grave, usually of his own accord, and is buried alive."

Torday and Joyce, Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst, xxxvi, 49 [DSAR]

When a man has been buried alive as a Doki, i.e., one possessed by the malignant element Moloki, "a great fire is lit on his grave and kept burning for two days, after which the corpse is exhumed and cooked with cassava flour" and eaten. "The Banyazi, too, eat executed witches."

Torday and Joyce, Kasai, p. 294 [DSAR p.197]

Not all black Africans engaged in such barbaric and savage conduct. There is a continuum to be seen with regard to slavery.

CENTRAL BANTU -FOREST

"Among the Warega slavery is unknown."

Delhaise, p.337 [DSAR p.81]

Not true. They did exercise ownership over other human beings; they just didn't work their human livestock- their prisoners of war, and criminals. They ate them. In the Basongo Meno "Bohindu tribe everybody used to own slaves; in former times these formed a considerable part of the population, but their number had to be diminished as they got the upper hand, and rebelled against and killed their masters. There are two classes of slaves: those who are foreign born and bought in the open market; over these their masters have the right of life and death; then the children born of slaves, who are theoretically still, slaves (sic), but their master has no right to kill or sell them." "Slaves can redeem themselves." "Slaves can own slaves."

Torday and Joyce, Bushongo, p.267 [DSAR p.81]

Bangala "slaves number about 25 per cent. of the population. Some were born slaves, others were seized for debt, a few were captured in war, and some had sold themselves to pay their debts, incurred by adultery, or by loss of a lawsuit, the expense of which they could not meet. Some were sold to pay the family debts. It is also the custom for a father to give a son in pawn as security for a loan. The status of a pawn is somewhat higher than that of a slave, for he may be redeemed at any moment, and thus again become a free person. The one who holds a pawn cannot sell him, nor pass him on to anyone without the consent of the pawner..."

Weeks, Among Congo Cannibals, p.112 [DSAR p.81]

"The Batetela have very many slaves; among the Sungu they form more than half the population. In old times they were rare in this tribe, but the arrival of the Arabs has increased their number enormously as they were in the habit of selling in one village prisoners of war captured in another."

"All the Batetela make slaves of their prisoners of war. Among the northern tribes all slaves are foreigners, but this is not the case among the Olemba and Sungu [in the south]. Among the Sungu a man might be reduced to slavery for cowardice in the face of the enemy; for being an incorrigible rogue, or for having some characteristic or habit which rendered him objectionable to his fellow citizens; he was then sold to another village. Besides, it was possible to reduce a man in his own village to slavery in the following way: the inhabitants brought the individual before the chief and explained the grievances they had against him; if the chief found that the man deserved his fate, he would present the villagers with a goat and when this had been eaten, the obnoxious person was his slave."

Torday and Joyce, Kasai p.49 [DSAR 81]

"The Akela enslave prisoners of war and sell them to their neighbors; those who remain in the tribe adopt the tribal marks."

Torday and Joyce, Kasai, p.186 [DSAR p. 81]

Among the Bangala "the master is responsible for the actions of his slave. I remember a case in 1892, when a slave attempted the life of the head-man of the master's town. His attempt failed and he escaped to a distant town; but the master was tied up, killed and eaten."

Weeks, Congo Cannibals, p.113 [DSAR]

Among the Bangala "slaves can be sold by their owner; and they can also be killed by their master, and no one can prosecute him for murder - he has simply destroyed his own property...Slaves are, as a rule, treated well, for they can easily run away, and the owner will then lose the money invested in them. It is the owner's interest to look properly after them - to house them, to provide them with wives and husbands, and maintain their rights as members of the community."

Weeks, Congo Cannibals, p.111 [DSAR p.81]

Among the Bangala "a slave badly treated by his master breaks the eboko, or fetish saucepan, belonging to a witch-doctor. Then the witch-doctor demands such a heavy price from the master, as he is responsible for the slave's acton, that he prefers to leave the slave as compensation...Public opinion is very pronounced against a slave who breaks the eboko for insufficient reasons. The fear of this has a strong deterrent effect on bad, passionate-tempered masters in restraining them from ill-treating their slaves."

Weeks, Congo Cannibals, p.114 [DSAR 81]

CENTRAL BANTU - PRAIRIE

Pogge believes that [the slave trade] among the Negroes was due to European and Arab introduction.

Mitth. d. Afrik. Ges.,iv,244 [DSAR84]

Ba-ila "freemen are liable to be degraded into slavery, while slaves may gain their freedom and even be elevated to the chieftanship."

Smith and Dale, i, 299 [DSAR]

"The slaves are said to be generally criminals, and are sold in revenge or as punishment."

Livingstone, Last Journals, i,302 [DSAR 84]

Among the Baluba "slavery is mild. A slave can possess some chattels, and frequently, if he is worthy of it, he can redeem himself. If he has a disagreement with his master, say, for the possession of a goat, the slave can call a palaver and may win his suit."

Colle, p. 827 "...slaves enjoy consideration, and are not treated as though they were cattle."

Colle, p.828 [DSAR 84]

"The Bashilange slave woman has to do her share of field work, but she is never over-burdened. She enjoys kind, gentle treatment, and shares the meals of her lord. The Muluba wishes to possess a great number of wives and slaves, so that he may enjoy the consideration of other folk. To make the latter work hard is alien to his thought, and should he treat them badly, he would stand condemned in the eyes of his fellow tribesmen."

Wissman, Im Innern p. 158 [DSAR 84]

"According to Basonge ideas a slave is simply a beast of burden. The word 'slave' is an injury which cries for blood. One is entitled to beat him, sell him, he is even now sometimes killed 'to maintain his principle.' But in fact his condition scarcely differs from that of a free child."

Schmitz, in Les Basonge, p. 455 [DSAR85]

Among the western Basonge the owner may not kill his slave and, before the advent of the Arabs, he could not even sell him.

Torday and Joyce, Kasai, p.16 [DSAR 85]

"The slave is, on the whole, just a stranger who has been added to the family. As a matter of fact he is in most circumstances on the same footing as the other members. In the beginning, no doubt, he occupies an inferior position, but after being with his master for some time, he has become a child of the family."

P. Le Marinel, in Les Basonge, pp.451-452 [DSAR 85]

"The slavery among the Ba-ila is...in essentials, real slavery and not mere serfdom."

Smith and Dale, i., 411 [DSAR 85]

"The inhabitants [Wabujwa] constantly came into camp with slaves...for sale...Slaves were usually gagged by having a piece of wood, like a snaffle, tied into their mouths. Heavy slave-forks were placed round their necks and their hands were fastened behind their backs. They were attached by a cord to the vendor's waist...They were mostly captives, surprised when in the woods a short way from their own villages..."

Cameron, i., 342 [DSAR 85]

EASTERN BANTU

"The word for 'free' (mlukosyo) literally means 'belonging to the tribe or family,' and shows how slavery was originally viewed - the slaves did not belong to the 'family'. A freeman becomes a slave when captured...In clearing off a heavy debt a native first pays over his slaves, next his inferior wives [slave-concubines] and then his relatives in the following order: his sisters, after them his daughters, then his brothers, and then his father and mother...Sometimes one pawns his relatives only, if he cannot redeem his pledge promptly, he may find them sold."

MacDonald, i, 166 [DSAR 90]

"If a man is found guilty of adultery and does not pay his indemnity his daughter may be captured as a pawn by the offended husband or any of his relatives." Bosch, p.409 et seq.

[DSAR 90}

"Wanyamwezi. Before the advent of the Arabs, slaves were servants of their master and their position was similar to that of serfs in the Middle Ages. The slave had to work for, and frequently with, his master, who had to feed and lodge him and provide him with a wife. A slave's marriage was celebrated like that of a free man. A slave could not own property nor could he plead before a tribunal. His master had a right to kill him, but had to pay a heavy fine to the king for having shed human blood. If the slave had relatives, free or bond, they could take blood revenge. The female slave could be used by her master as a concubine, but frequently she became one of his secondary wives. Married slaves had a right, though this were not legally recognized, to use certain hours of the day for their own work. The children of slaves were never slaves themselves, and they were treated like the children of their father's master. It was rare that a man sold his slave. Without exception the slaves were foreigners, prisoners of war. Kidnapped people became slaves of the court and servants of the king. The following also became slaves of the king: children who lacked a family to provide for them, the wives and children of various criminals, and people who, to escape the consequences of some action or from poverty, put themselves voluntarily under his protection. Slaves could be redeemed and were frequently liberated without ransom by their master."

Bosch p.440 et seq. [DSAR 90]

Yao "slaves were acquired by capture or purchase, or were received as payment. Prisoners taken by the vassal of one chief in a fight with the partisans of another chief became slaves. Slave raids were also made...Slaves were a man's goods and chattels" but could not be killed without the chief's consent. The majority "lived the life of ordinary individuals in the village...Many a slave has become an important man in the village...Neither a slave himself nor a second party could purchase his freedom." They were allowed to earn for themselves...

Wayao. "The children of two slaves were of course born into slavery; the children of a slave woman by a freeman husband, were not quite emancipated," and belonged to the mother's master.

Stannus, p. 280 [DSAR 90]

"The children of slaves are likewise slaves, and as a rule belong to the father's master. But among the Wakitusika and Waziguha they belong to the mother's master. So also among the Washambaa if dowry was not paid for the mother...It is, however, not uncommon for the master or his son to marry a slave girl...and in such cases freedom invariably follows...In Useguha...a slave becomes free if he is married to his master's daughter." Among the Wapare, "the children born of a captured slave are free and entitled to inheritance from the owner, but children born prior to capture of the mother[i.e., captured themselves] remain slaves. Among the Wakitusika, the children of a slave woman by the owner are free, and if the father is not the owner but a free man, he may purchase the children and therewith liberate them...Among the Wakitusika, the owner commonly liberates his slaves, and generally when he feels he is about to die."

Hon. Charles Dundas, in Journ. R. Anthrop. Inst., li, 265 et seq. [DSAR 90] Slaves captured in war "were sold to the Arab and Swahili slave traders, girl captives were generally sold to another makamba. A girl realized 2 cows and 20 goats, a man would be sold to the Swahili traders for 30 Amerikani cloths of four yards each."

Hobley, A-Kamba, p. 48 [DSAR 90]

Akikuyu. "Slavery as an institution did not exist among them, nor did they make raids for the capture of slaves."

Routledge, p.16 [DSAR 90]

"Although they [the East Africans] kidnap others, they will not sell their fellows except when convicted of crime - theft, magic, murder, or cutting the upper teeth before the lower. In times of necessity, however, a man will part with his parents wives and children (sic), and when they fail he will sell himself without shame. As has been observed, amongst many tribes the uncle has a right to dispose of his nephews and nieces."

Burton's C.A., ii, 367 [DSAR 90]

Note that it is a crime for a child to cut his upper teeth before his lower.

"Another channel of supply [of slaves], fed by victims from all classes, but chiefly from the common people...when one portion of a tribe, urged on by the greed of gain, begins to steal and sell their fellow clansmen."

Livingstone, Zambesi, p. 126 [DSAR 90]

"Among the Banjika the king sold the older slaves, but kept the children, and these were received into his family as his own children and enjoyed all the respect due to the members of the royal family; the only difference being that on the death of the king a few such slaves were buried alive with the corpse.

Hon. Charles Dundas, in Journ. R. Anthrop. Inst., li, 263 et seq. [DSAR 90]

"Every owner of property finds slavery the most profitable investment..Each slave is allowed to build a house for himself. He may also get a wife who, however, may be taken from him again. He is politely called his master's 'child', the more offensive word 'slave' being seldom used."

MacDonald, i, 167 [DSAR 90]

SOUTHERN BANTU

The only kind of slavery practised by the Thonga is that of women and girls captured in war who are taken as wives or sold on the matrimonial market. "Such wives are not ill-treated as a rule."

Junod, i, 471 [DSAR 96]

In Barotseland "all subjected people are considered slaves if they do not belong to the Marutse (Barotse) or Mabunda tribes, or have not been declared free by the soveirgn. As a rule the Marutse are free of slavery, but they can be sentenced to this condition for misdeeds, or if they have incurred the displeasure of the king...If a slave took or received a Marutse woman as his wife, the children, if the father is not declared free, will be slaves and belong to the person whose serf the father was. The price of a slave was in Shesheke, a boat, a cow, or two blankets...There are no public slave markets in Marutseland, but it is easy to purchase a number of slaves in any village."

Holub, ii, 331 [DSAR 96]

WESTERN BANTU

"It is estimated that there are about the same number of slaves as freemen in the kingdom of Kongo."

Cavazzi, ii, 39 [DSAR 100]

The children of slaves born in the village live like freemen and cannot be sold. The slaves who were originally prisoners of war are real slaves, and can be sold and sacrificed.

Cavazzi, ii, 45 et seq. [DSAR 100]

An unpaid creditor "is entitled to the children, the wives, the slaves and the flocks of his debtor, but generally the latter's chief intervenes and lends him money - at a ruinous rate of interest. Thus, it frequently happens that the greatest number of the inhabitants become the pawn of the village chief."

Torday and Joyce, Kasai, p.281 [DSAR 100]

Among the Bambala the slaves are treated with the greatest kindness; they form two-thirds of the population. "Among the Southern Bambala a new slave must remit all his earnings to his master. After about a year he is entitled to keep his earnings...When a man buys a slave, he dresses him in his finest clothes and puts on him his best ornaments. Thus attired he leads him through the village and introduces him to his friends."

Torday and Joyce, Kasai, p. 260 [DSAR 100]

The Bayaka treat their slaves harshly...[they] are considered like so much cattle and frequently ill-treated.

Torday and Joyce, Kasai, p.260 [DSAR 100]

"A suckling baby is not charged for when its slave mother is sold...The same rule is observed in the selling of sheep, pigs and goats with suckling young... When the child is old enough, it may return to its father if it likes, but the father has no claim upon the child."

Weeks, Primitive Bakongo, p. 149 [DSAR 100]

"Bampangu chiefs sold their subjects principally to Bambata traders, whose caravans traversed regularly their country...A slave was never sold in the proximity of his village...It used to be the habit among the Bampangu to sell as slaves such of their subjects as were vicious, thieves, quarrelsome, murderers, and incorrigible adulterers. Women were sold for want of money." A tradition records a famine not more than five generations ago, when men, children, and especially women, were sold in great numbers for three to ten beads each."

Van Wing, pp. 135-136 [DSAR 100]

EQUATORIAL HYBRID TRIBES

"The Fan have no slaves, and do not trade in them."

Guiral p.15

The Fan have not even a word of their own language to designate a slave.

Largeau, p. 20 [DSAR 118]

Again, to the preceding I take exception. The Fan were notorious cannibals. They might not have referred to their victims as "slaves", but slaves they were, in the worst way. As noted, human livestock are properly called "slaves", whether they be used as beasts of burden or as a source of meat.

Somewhere on the continuum of slavery is the treatment of non-slave black women by black men. In black Africa, keeping women in a subordinate position seems to be the rule. Here is David Livingstone, in a letter to his sister:

"The reason I mention this is that [you] may value your priveleges more. In this country the women are in abject slavery, & have to build the houses, plant the corn, &c&c, and when mere children are bartered for; their consent is never asked, and the men don't care how many wives they have, the more wives the more corn &c he gets into his possession by their means. And the hard work they have to do soon making them look old, they are then thrown off. Forced to subsist on different kinds of wild roots, they are frequently, when ill especially, unable to return home at night, & are devoured by the wolves [hyenas - A.W.], or they perish from hunger in the endeavor to get food. Do you ever pray for your sisters who perish by wolves. If you once heard the dismal growl of one you would never forget it."

Letters, Vol 1 p.48

Livingstone, in a letter to his family:

"The women have hard work to perform among the Bechuanas. They cultivate the ground and build the houses, while the "Lords of the Creation" [the men-A.W.] sew karosses, milk the cattle, & hunt or sleep...if the latter are spoken to about it they reply, "O, it is good for them", "it makes them strong", &c...When sitting round a fire by our waggon (sic) I have sometimes tried to let the women have a share of it, by requesting the men to give way, but that was out of the question. "We are the kings" was quite a sufficient reason for the women being compelled to sit behind in the cold."

Letters Vol 1 p.41

In Angola "There is consequently no cruelty or hardship attending the state of slavery; a male cannot be made by his master to cultivate the ground, which is women's work, and the mistress and her slaves till the ground together."

Monteiro, i, 5, et seq. [DSAR 100}

Of course there are worse fates for women than this. Negro women were also used as human sacrifices.

Burial of a chief of Urua [Central Bantu -prairie] "...The first proceeding is...to dig an enormous pit, the bottom of which is then covered with living women. At one end a woman is placed on her hands and knees, and upon her back the dead chief, covered with his beads and other treasurers, is seated, being supported on either side by one of his wives, while the second wife sits at his feet. The earth is then shoveled in on them, and all the women are buried alive with the exception of the second wife. To her the custom is more merciful than to her companions, and grants her the privelege of being killed before the huge grave is filled in. This being completed, a number of male slaves - sometimes forty or fifty - are slaughtered and their blood poured over the grave. Smaller chiefs are buried with two or three wives and a few slaves only are killed." Cameron, ii, 110 [DSAR 191]

"When they [the Jaga] [Western Bantu - A.W.] bury the dead...his body washed...all his best robes put on...He has two of his (living) wives set with him, with their arms broken, and then they cover the vault on top."

Battell, p.34 et seq.

The chief cook, the chief brewer, the chief over the herdsmen, the guardian of the king's well, and the following women: the cook, the beer woman, the water woman, the milk woman, and the woman in charge of the royal bedchamber and the late king's clothing were taken as prisoners to the king's funeral. They, with hundreds more, were killed and sent to attend the king in the other world. "None of the bodies were buried, but they were left where they fell around the tomb." "The wives of the late king, who had been bound, were placed at intervals round the tomb...and were clubbed to death; they also had their legs broken, so that, if they were only stunned, they could not escape."

Roscoe, Baganda, pp. 106 and 107 [DSAR p. 198]

Urundi. Royal funeral. "Hecatombs of human sacrifices are required. Several great chiefs and important Warundi are killed to appease the manes of the king. An even greater number, especially concubines and near relations to the king, perishes, suspected of spell-casting and black magic by which the death of the king has been contrived."

van der Burgt, p.204 [DSAR p. 198]

Bushongo. "Human sacrifices are made at funerals, the number of victims depending on the position and wealth of the deceased and his family. In case of an ordinary person at least one male or female slave is killed to share the grave with him." The slave who has been killed is laid under the corpse of the free Mukuba [Bushongo]."

Dr. Wolf, in Wissman, Im Innern, p.241 [DSAR p198]

No account of Africa is complete without a contribution from Prof. Roland Oliver. Here is an extended excerpt from The African Experience pp.122-125 (all underlines are mine):

"...The Christians practiced wholesale enslavement and deportation of the conquered populations within their growing dominions, while the Muslims concentrated more upon the export trade of the Red Sea, which became the main source of African slaves reaching Arabia and the lands surrounding the Persian Gulf. All down the Indian Ocean coast of Africa there grew up, from the eighth century onwards, a series of maritime city states, of which the well-to-do- Swahili citizens owned both domestic and plantation slaves, captured or bought from the peoples of the interior...In western Bantu Africa the Kongo kingdom and its neighbors certainly knew the status of slavery before the earliest European contact. Kongo in particular was in origin a conquest state, established by Kongo-speaking settlers from north of the lower Congo river over a sub-stratum of Mbundu people, many of whom were enslaved during the wars of conquest. Sixteenth-century observers were of the opinion that in parts of Kongo slaves outnumbered the free and performed most of the menial and manual work. [ in America, no more than a quarter of Confederate households enjoyed the use of slaves -A.W.] ...early sixteenth-century Kongo king, Alfonso 1...was convinced that one man might be the property of another by reason of birth, poverty, punishment or the laws of war, and that he never doubted that a slave, like any other property, might be passed on by sale, trade, gift, or inheritance. ... the deep interior of Bantu Africa...tells essentially the same story... early twentieth-century missionary John Roscoe ...writes that, 'The status of slavery was not so dreadful in Uganda as in many other [African] countries. In many cases the worst that could be said against it was that a slave was deprived of his freedom, that neither his wife nor his children were his own, and that his life was at his master's disposal.'

...It was...slave women who mainly cultivated the banana plantations of the Ganda chiefs and officials and carried provisions and tribute from the provinces to the capital, while male slaves worked on the roads, carried for the armies on campaign, and collected building materials for the houses and compounds of the elite.

It is against such background of slavery and slave trading within Africa that the development of an intercontinental trade in African slaves has to be considered...the most dramatic increase in the intercontinental trade came with the opening of the Atlantic coast of Africa by European seafarers...in terms of world history, the forced migration of some eleven to twelve million Africans to the New World was of far more significance than their introduction into parts of western Asia and southern Europe. The more difficult question is how far the Atlantic trade caused additional numbers to be enslaved, and how far it merely provided new destinations for those who would have been enslaved in any case.

In one sense, The Atlantic coast of Africa was all virgin territory. Before the Portugese, no one else from any part of the outside world had established more than passing contact. But this did not mean that the coastal peoples had been isolated from each other, or from their vast hinterland. At most of their regular ports of call the Portugese found a commercial infrastructure already in existence which was capable of supplying them with viable cargoes of slaves...

In the Senegambia they traded with the same Dyula merchants who supplied the caravans of the western Sahara. At Elmina...the Porugese gained their entry by competing with the local foot-porters and canoe-men in carrying slaves and cloth...Both in Benin and the Niger delta beyond there was an established system for the marketing of slaves brought down the rivers from the interior. In the Kongo kingdom state trading seems to have been the rule. Nevertheless, slaves were offered for sale to the earliest Portugese navigators to reach the Congo estuary...

Even at the Atlantic coast, therefore, the slave trade was no novelty. The problem is rather how it grew to reach its seventeenth-and eighteenth-century dimensions. The short answer is that it did so through warfare between Africans. Even at the height of the Atlantic slave trade, most slaves originated as war captives, and it is striking how seldom it seems to have been the Europeans who called the tune. Here and there, the circumstances which provoked the warfare can be attributed to their presence. More often it would seem that the causes of warfare were essentially local, and that the wars would have occurred even had there been no ocean trade to carry away the captives."

* * * *

A few comments. Not only was slave trading commonplace and widespread in black Africa before Europeans got there; it seems to have been the principal form of commerce in black Africa. And it reached depths of depravity and savagery undreamt of by whites. Yet in all my years of schooling not a single mention of this ever escaped the lips of any of my teachers. Whenever slavery was mentioned, it was described as a practice of evil whites against noble blacks. Can anyone doubt that the omission was deliberate, practiced with an agenda in mind?

Also, I don't understand why it matters whether or not Negroes were further influenced by European or Arab offers to buy Negro slaves. If 400 years ago the Portuguese had offered to buy, say, French women and children, and the French had complied and sold their women and children, would history blame the Portuguese and not the French? If I offer to buy your children and you agree to sell, who bears the greater blame?

Add to this hypothetical case that the Portuguese paid for the slaves they took, in accordance with French law, but the French from whom they bought the slaves acquired them by kidnapping, or by selling their own wives and children. Who would bear the greater guilt? As disgusting as trading in slaves is, at least whites paid for what they took.

(Also note that black apologists, who blame whites for "infecting" blacks with the practice of slavetrading, never mention that black Africans were awfully slow to acquire other white devices, such as written language and wheels. Why weren't blacks "infected" with civilization?)

Today U.S. blacks remove the name of "Washington" from schools, on the grounds that George Washington was a slave owner, which he was. But again - virtually all the slaves that came to the U.S. were acquired legally, bought and paid for in accordance with African law. The vendors, on the other hand, acquired their "merchandise" through ruthless marauding and kidnapping, or by selling their own family members. Why should George Washington, or anyone else, have had more regard for Negroes than Negroes had for themselves?

As it turned out, Europeans did have more regard for Negro liberty than Negroes did. America abolished slavery in the 19th century, as did every European nation; long before black Africans did. Even Liberia, which was founded by black ex-slaves (under the direction of white Americans), was censured after World War I by the League of Nations for its involvement in slave trading.

Nor were all American slave owners white. The 1830 census counted 3,500 free black slave owners, who among them owned 10,000 black slaves. Some had bought their spouses out of slavery, and thus were only technically slave owners, but there were other blacks who owned large plantations with dozens of slaves. These black planters branded their property and broke up families, and most of them welcomed secession and supported the Confederacy. William Ellison, a black South Carolina planter, was notorious for having the worst fed and worst clothed slaves in the area.

Why should George Washington have had more regard for Negroes than Negroes had for themselves? The fact is, we do expect more of Washington than we do of blacks, don't we? In general, we expect more of whites than of blacks. We hold whites to higher standards. In schools whites need to answer at least 91% of questions correctly to receive an "A"; blacks need considerably less. In the military blacks make officer with less than is required of whites. On police and firefighter exams, and in most exams for a job or promotion, blacks are held to lower standards. Even in the realm of human conduct, less is expected of blacks. Jesse Jackson was excused for his "Hymietown" remark, and Louis Farrakhan, as noted, retains his title of "minister" even as he declares whites to be hated by God. Can anyone imagine whites who speak ill of blacks being treated respectfully by the press? Can anyone who has heard the poisonous rhetoric against white slave owners imagine what that rhetoric would be if whites had killed and eaten black slaves?

We hold blacks to lesser standards also when we speak of crime. White-on black crime is so well publicized and so loudly deplored that most Americans would be astonished to know the extent of black-on white crime.

The U.S. Department of Justice records data on interracial crimes. Blacks are 50 times more likely to commit violent crimes against whites than whites are against blacks. Blacks are 18 times more likely to kill whites than whites are to kill blacks, and over forty times more likely to rape whites than whites are to rape blacks. As noted, most people are completely unaware of this disparity. Thanks to our lefty press, the magnitude of black crime in America is one of the best-kept secrets of all time. If it were the other way around; if whites were so much more likely to hurt blacks, does the reader not think it would be routinely emphasized by the media? It's emphasized now, for goodness sake. If white males were responsible for so many rapes, can the reader imagine the reaction from feminists?

When was the last time the reader heard feminists complain about the black rape problem?

No, the Left does it's very best to convey the impression the white-on-black crime is our biggest crime problem.

And in our schools, children are taught that slavery was a crime committed by wicked whites against noble blacks.

[The New Century Foundation, which publishes American Renaissance, has issued an academic report on race, crime and violence called The Color of Crime, which is available to the public at a price of $5.00, which includes shipping. Send orders to American Renaissance, P.O. Box 527, Oakton, Virginia, 22124.]

More than 100 years before "affirmative action", Speke penned these words: "...While the people of Europe and Asia were blessed by communion with God...and obtained divine laws to regulate their ways...the Africans were excluded from this dispensation...Whatever, then, may be said against them for being too avaricious or too destitute of fellow-feeling, should rather reflect on ourselves...who have neglected to teach them..."

Blacks can't be expected to manage on their own, and whites have a duty to teach them. Nelson Mandela might agree. In December of 1997 he made a farewell speech to the ANC, resigning his position as its leader. By then there had been five years of black rule in South Africa, and it showed. The Rand had lost almost half its value, utilities and services were functioning intermittently if at all, and the black murder rate was eleven times that of New York City. Unemployment had risen, despite ANC promises of " Jobs, jobs, jobs". Extravagant promises regarding housing, health, and education had likewise gone unrealized. In his speech Mandela revealed the identity of the people responsible for these failures. Would the reader care to guess who Mandela said was at fault?

It was whites, of course. Even though blacks were now running things, whites were responsible for these failures. How so? Why, whites were trying to make the ANC look bad. "Various elements of the former ruling group have been working to establish a network which would launch or intensify a campaign of destabilization. Imagine hating blacks so much, you'd be willing to lose money by destabilizing your own currency. But wait. Some of those "various elements" were black - black businesses, black newspapers, etc. How could whites be responsible for their failures and intransigence? Mandela explained this seeming contradiction. Those black elements were "puppets" of evil whites.

But just how were whites responsible for the skyrocketing black murder rate? Mandela explained that too. Whites encourage blacks to kill each other.

Just as, centuries earlier, evil whites had encouraged noble African blacks to sell their families and countrymen. Whites are to blame for slavery.

It's all lies upon lies upon lies. What is happening now in South Africa is exactly what happened in Zaire (now the DR of C), Zimbabwe, Haiti and every other white-run African nation when once returned to black control.

And as we have seen, African blacks required no encouragement from Europeans to sell their brethren. The slave trade was already booming in black Africa when the Portuguese first landed there. And had it not been booming, it is nevertheless outrageous and preposterous to blame only the buyers in such despicable transactions. Yet we whites have been told all of our lives that whites are the evil perpetrators of slavery, and that whites, all whites, are responsible for reparations. Whites owe blacks.

I call the reader's attention to the incomparable audacity of the black man, who sells his own people into slavery and then accuses the buyers of slave trading.

CHAPTER FOUR

"SO. YOU WHITES THINK YOU CAN ESCAPE RESPONSIBILITY FOR SLAVERY BY BLAMING IT ON BLACKS. WELL, IT WON'T WASH. JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE ELSE DID IT ALSO, THAT DOESN'T ABSOLVE YOU OF GUILT."

Again: I'm not trying to escape responsibility for slavery. How could I be guilty of something I've never done? I have never enslaved anyone, and neither has anyone else here.

Furthermore, most Americans, myself included, are not descendents of slave traders. As for those who are descendents of slave traders - it is barbaric to hold a person accountable for the debts and crimes of his parents or ancestors. Anglo-Saxon law forbids. Negro law permits it. There are countless examples of African blacks selling or pawning children to pay the debts of their parents or uncles.

But if you were to assign blame by race for the Atlantic slave trade, black are at least as culpable as whites, and some would say more so. Why is this never mentioned?

Finally...slavery and subsequent discrimination are not the causes of black poverty and squalor. Blacks are better off in America than they are anywhere else on Earth; nor is this phenomenon peculiar to America. Anywhere you look, blacks are vastly better off in white societies than in any they can build on their own...

"WELL, IF WHITE RACISM IS NOT TO BLAME  FOR BLACK PROBLEMS, YOU TELL ME WHAT IS."

I will. Blacks on average are genetically less intelligent than whites, and genetically less moral as well. It's unfortunate that I have to say it, but I won't be shaken down any longer. And I won't let you shake down my children with affirmative action or talk of "reparations." We whites are not responsible for black failure; and if telling biological truths is the only way to refute that argument, I will tell biological truths. What do you say to that?

"RACISM!"

"RACISM!!!!!"

CHAPTER FIVE

NATURE VERSUS NURTURE

Why are some people smart and others not? Why are some musical, and others tone-deaf? Why are some gentle, and others violent?

Are we born smart, or musical, or gentle, or are we made smart, or musical or gentle by what happens to us after birth? Is it determined at birth (nature), or is it determined by what happens to us in life after birth (nurture)?

Mankind has been pondering this question for thousands of years, and I'm happy to report that we now know the answer.

The answer is, it's mostly genes (nature) and partly environment (nurture).

This contradicts the Doctrine of Equivalence, so of course the Left is screaming and stamping their feet, but I'm not going to let them speak just now. We'll hear from them later - not that they raise any great arguments.

How do we know that intelligence, musical ability, and temperament are mostly nature and partly nurture?

How could we possibly know, unless we could take the same individual, and subject him to multiple lives? Let Mozart grow up once with his real parents; let him be raised once again    from birth with a drunken, tone-deaf reprobate who beats young Mozart; let him be raised from birth a third time with sheep herders in desolate New Zealand. If all three times Mozart is musically gifted, we can believe his gift is not environmental but inherent; genetic.

Of course it is impossible to subject an individual to multiple lives; yet it would seem the only way we could separate the effects of nature and nurture. So how could we possibly know that intelligence and talent are mostly genetic? How could we observe one person (with one unique set of genes) being raised from birth more than once, in different settings?

The answer is twins.

Identical twins are genetically identical. Not only that, identical twins share an intra-uterine environment prior to birth. (Fraternal twins also share an intra-uterine environment, but fraternal twins are not genetically identical. They are as alike genetically as any siblings born of different pregnancies.)

Most identical twins live and grow up in the same household, the same environment, and so would be useless as subjects for a study on nature vs. nurture.

But if identical twins were separated at birth, and raised in separate environments, the degree to which they resemble each other is a measure of the degree to which genes determine who we are.

The University of Minnesota Twin Studies project, led by Professor Thomas Bouchard, is the most extensive and thorough research project ever conducted on identical twins separated at birth and reared apart. (Table 3.1 REB p.46)

Monozygotic twins (MZT) are identical twins, twins derived ultimately of the same egg, whereas dizygotic twins are fraternal twins, sibling who happen to share the same pregnancy. "r" is the degree to which the two twins resemble each other. An "r" score of 1.0 would signify absolute sameness. An "r" score of .2 or higher is generally considered significant.

Bouchard's research shows that identical twins reared apart are extremely similar to one another, not just in intelligence, but in talents and general personality traits. In fact, when compared with the degree to which fraternal twins resemble each other, it becomes clear the identical twins separated at birth and reared apart resemble each other more closely than do fraternal twins raised together.

From these data it is clear unequivocally and beyond rational refutation that genes play a larger part than environment in determining who we are. This is true not only for intelligence, but for attitudes social, political, and religious. It is true for altruism, aggression, criminality, emotionality and many other parameters of human conduct once thought to be determined solely or mostly by life experience. Mozart would have been musically gifted no matter where he was raised or by whom.

  Graph 5

Blacks and the Left claim that Bouchard's research does not apply to differences between blacks and whites, because blacks suffer from their association with whites. They compare it to planting identical seeds, one in good soil and the other in poor soil. The seed in good soil would grow better than the seed in poor soil, and differences between the plants would have nothing to do with genes. Blacks and the Left claim that racist whites create a toxic environment - poor soil - for blacks.

This objection might make sense except that blacks do not suffer from their association with whites. Even taking into account the effects of slavery and widespread anti-black sentiment, blacks are, again, vastly better off in white societies than in any they build on their own. Not only has no pre-contact Negro society ever been seen to build a civilization; none has ever been seen to maintain one built by others. It is simply beyond rational refutation that, for blacks as well as whites, genes mean more than environment. Blacks as a group are genetically less civilized than whites.

Recently a book was published which made the argument that the historical achievement gap between blacks and whites is a consequence not of genetic differences, but of continental differences. Sub-Saharan Africa, apparently, is simply not conducive to the development of civilization. For one thing, the rivers run the wrong way. For another, sub-Saharan Africa was too isolated for a civilization to develop. Blacks didn't have the benefit of contact with other peoples, and the mix of ideas. Those unfortunate Negroes - thousands of individual tribes - were stranded on seven million square miles of land, with thousands of miles of coastline, on billions of acres of timber and game, overlying trillions of tons of iron, coal, diamonds, oil, gold and uranium.

No wonder they never developed written language and wheels.

The writer of this Pulitzer-prize-winning book never explained why blacks today are unable to maintain civilizations built by others and left to them, such as Zaire, Haiti, and now South Africa. He was unable to explain why blacks still do not manufacture cars, computers, and satellites, unless there are whites or Orientals to help them.

Perhaps it never occurred to him that the usual excuse for blacks' lack of advancement is that blacks suffer from contact with others. Now here he is blaming isolation.

Unfortunate Negroes. First they had no contact with others. Then they had.

Sub-Saharan Africa does not lack what is necessary for the creation of civilization; it lacks what is sufficient - a population capable of building one.

* * * *

The Left fought tooth and nail to disrupt Bouchard's research. Bouchard was threatened and attacked, verbally and physically. Pressure was brought to bear on the U. of Minn. to fire him, and de-fund his research. Fortunately the university stood firm, and today Bouchard's work is available for all to see. It has not received the widespread attention and acclaim it deserves - the Left has seen to that - but it's there.

CHAPTER SIX

INTELLIGENCE AND ACHIEVEMENT

"The white man - give him his due - has an extraordinary intelligence, an extraordinary cleverness. His world is full of proof of it. You can't name a thing the white man can't make. You can hardly name a scientific problem he can't solve." Malcolm X, Autobiography, p. 268

"But never could I find that a black had visited a thought above the level of plain narration, never see even an elementary trait of painting or sculpture." Thomas Jefferson

"The explorers found Africans to be of low intelligence...The explorers tended to see the hybrid groups (part white, part black) as being more intelligent and the darker more Negroid groups as less intelligent." J. Philippe Rushton

"The improvement of the blacks in body and mind, in the first instance of their mixture with the whites has been observed by everyone, and proves that their inferiority is not the effect merely of their condition of life." Thomas Jefferson

"We preach to men who don't know but they are beasts who have no idea of God as a personal agent...Their consciences are seared & moral conceptions all blunted. Their memories retain scarcely anything we tell them, & so low have they sunk the plainest text in the whole Bible cannot be understood by them...You can't comprehend how degraded they are in their conceptions & in everything. We have therefore great cause to plead for the wisdom which will enable us to win their souls to Jesus. And we need much grace to uphold us in our work, lest we grow weary of their obstinacy and stupidity." David Livingstone, Letters, pp 100-101

"The Negro race has perfect contempt for humanity. Tyranny is regarded as no wrong, and cannibalism is looked upon as quite customary and proper...The polygamy of the Negroes has frequently for its object the having of many children, to be sold, every one of them, into slavery... The essence of humanity is freedom...At this point we leave [sub-Saharan] Africa, not to mention it again. For it is no historical part of the world; it has no movement or development to exhibit." Georg Hegel, 1837

"[Negroes are] a perfectly stupid race." Theodore Roosevelt, 1895

"The Negroes of Africa have received from nature no intelligence that rises above the foolish. The difference between the two races is thus a substantial one: it appears to be just as great in respect of the faculties of the mind as in color." Immanuel Kant, 1764

"A word in conclusion about the relations between the whites and the blacks. What must be the general character of the intercourse between them? Am I to treat the black man as my equal or my inferior? I must show him that I can respect the dignity of human personality in every one, and this attitude in me he must be able to see for himself; but the essential thing is that there shall be a real feeling of brotherliness. How far this is to find complete expression in the sayings and doings of daily life must be settled by circumstances. The Negro is a child, and with children nothing can be done without the use of authority. We must, therefore, so arrange the circumstances of daily life that my natural authority can find expression. With regard to the Negroes, then, I have coined the formula: 'I am your brother, it is true, but your elder brother.' " Albert Schweitzer, Forest Primeval pp.87-88

"Few white Americans will admit openly nowadays that they regard blacks as mentally inferior. But most harbor such beliefs, according to a survey conducted in 1990 by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago...

'Fifty-seven percent of nonblacks rated blacks as less intelligent than whites...and a much smaller but still a not trivial thirty percent of blacks rated blacks as less intelligent than whites.' ...62 percent rated blacks as lazier than whites...77 percent thought blacks more likely than whites to prefer living on welfare...

These are stunning statistics. They are measurements of a cruel wind that whips across America...if nearly two out of three see blacks as lazier, if more than one out of two regards [blacks] as relatively unintelligent, the consequence is a corrosive chemistry of low expectations, closed opportunities, and ultimate defeat. The judgments that spring from the stereotypes become self-fulfilling prophesies..." David K. Shipler, A Country of Strangers pp.277-279

Self-fulfilling prophesies. Whites believe that blacks are less intelligent and less industrious, therefore blacks become less intelligent and industrious. Whites cause blacks to fail.

Where have I heard that before?

Observe: whites think that blacks are less intelligent, and the data supports this belief. Does that mean that whites are correct in their belief? No; it means they caused the problem.

Observe also that when whites expect blacks to fail, 1) the existence of successful blacks proves that whites are mistaken, and 2) the existence of unsuccessful blacks proves that whites are guilty. If blacks are failing, whites are wrong, and if blacks are succeeding, whites are wrong.

Aren't Liberals precious?

Do low expectations from whites cause minorities to fail? In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries many Americans had nothing but contempt and scorn for Chinese and Japanese immigrants. Today the grandchildren of those immigrants out earn whites in the marketplace and outscore them in school. Why didn't low expectations hurt Asian-Americans?

Why haven't centuries of anti-Semitism prevented Jews from excelling in school and business?

The answer is that intelligence coupled with hard work will quickly overcome the negative expectations of others. As Murray and Herrnstein demonstrated in The Bell Curve, I.Q. correlates more closely with life success than does socioeconomic status. In a meritocracy, it's better to be born smart than rich.

"Oh, so America is a meritocracy," sneers the Left. "So there's no such thing as racial discrimination, or nepotism, or the old boy network."

Of course there are such things. America is not a perfect meritocracy, but it is a meritocracy, albeit flawed. Intelligent minorities really have overcome discrimination. Family "standing" really does correlate less with life success than does I.Q. and hard work. No, America is not a perfect meritocracy, but it's light years ahead of any society built by black Africans, or anyone else. Would anyone prefer to live in black Africa?

Mr. Shipler, a past winner of the Pulitzer Prize, refutes The Bell Curve thusly:

"Again and again, Herrnstein and Murray sloppily allow statistical correlations to slide into assertions of causality. If people suffering from unemployment are often found with a low I.Q., for example, it does not necessarily mean that the low I.Q. causes the unemployment; both could be symptoms of...deprivation."

Quite true. Just because low-I. Q. people are more likely to be unemployed doesn't mean that low I.Q. causes or contributes to unemployment. Although it does make sense that less intelligent people are less likely to be hired. In a competitive job market, employers try to hire the best available workers.

Note that if we want to avoid jumping to conclusions, there's certainly less reason to believe that low expectations cause blacks to fail than to believe that low I.Q. does not lead to unemployment. But of course Liberals only avoid jumping to conclusions when it suits them. If they thought they could demonstrate that blacks and whites are identical they would jump to the moon and back.

The bottom line is that blacks as a group consistently score lower than whites in any test of intelligence, and this David K. Shipler does not refute. Moreover, there is a mountain of evidence to demonstrate that the difference is inherent, that genes affect I.Q. more so than does environment, and Liberals know this. Pulitzer prize-winner David K. Shipler addresses this terrifying proposition:

"We may be comfortable with the notion that an individual's intelligence is at least partly genetic..But we also want very much to believe that some spark of brilliance lies smoldering in every human mind, waiting only to be fanned into flame by the right mother or father or teacher. Otherwise, a person's level of intelligence becomes a life sentence rather than a life opportunity. Everyone might as well walk around with a name tag so we can all know how to relate to one another:

Hi! I'm Joe.

My I.Q. is 109"

There's more, but that's enough. The theme is quintessentially Leftish:

Intelligence cannot be genetic, because if it were, the world wouldn't be the way we've decided it should be.

This is the essence of Lysenkoism, this notion that science (and history) should derive from ideology and not the other way around. Such drivel is what passes for thought in the Lefty head, and when expressed clearly, can win one a Pulitzer. Unfortunately for Lefties, Lysenkoism doesn't actually work. It didn't work in the Soviet Union, it didn't work behind the Iron Curtain, and it hasn't worked in Liberal America. It can never work, because all the good intentions in the world can't unmake Nature.

"You can drive Nature out with a pitchfork, but She'll always return." Horace

* * *

I.Q. is a good (not perfect) predictor of future accomplishment, and everyone knows it. In 1989 Snyderman and Rothman polled 661 scholars concerned with the study of intelligence. They report, "On the whole, respondents seem to believe that intelligence tests are doing a good job of measuring intelligence, as they would define it."

What is less-well appreciated is that the average I.Q. of a race of people can be used to estimate their past level of accomplishment. If one doesn't know anything of the history or accomplishments of race X, but one knows that their average I.Q. is 65-70, (assuming a normal bell-curve distribution) one can be pretty sure that race X never developed wheels or written language, and one can be virtually positive they never developed space travel. Conversely, if one knows that a race of people never developed written language or wheels or mathematics, assuming multiple societies ( any given society can turn on a dime, so to speak; a monarch can ban science and technology) one can reasonably expect the I.Q. of that race to be low.

Here is a time line of some landmark accomplishments of Man:

10,000 B.C.           9                 8                 7                 6           5          4                 3                   2           1000 B.C. ________^______^________^_________^_________^_____^_____^________^__________^__________^___....
metallurgy         plant cultivation      Jomon         fired clay                             wheel                cuneiform         linear A            
 in Anatolia,      Middle East           Culture        pottery                                Mesopotamia        script            script
Turkey                                           Japan                                                                                                      Crete 

Much is missing from this line, not least the Yang-Shao and Lung-Shan cultures in China, and the Sumerian civilization in Mesopotamia, all three of which flourished 5000 years before Jesus walked the Earth. What is not missing are contributions from black Africa.

CHAPTER LAST

The final chapter deals in greater detail with biological differences between Negroes and Caucasians. It is too controversial to be included in the present volume.

   Graph 7