Overcoming White, Jewish, and Hungarian Privilege

 

Alice C. Linsley

At times and in places black and Hispanic Americans have been greatly inconvenienced. They have had to deal with discriminatory practices and abuses that "white" Americans have not. This is called "white privilege" but it isn't about race as much as it is about abuse motivated by fear of the unknown and self-serving attitudes. 

Palestinians experience great inconvenience when they try to take their children to school and have to cross Jewish checkpoints where they are often held up for hours. Should we call this "Jewish privilege"?

Muslims trying to immigrate to parts of Europe can't go through Hungary. This is a great inconvenience to them. Do we call that "Hungarian privilege"?

People who discriminate are motivated by many factors: fear, personal and familial histories, culture, economic forces, and socio-political trends.

Early exposure to people of other ethnic groups has a tremendous impact a person's perspective. Parents should introduce their young children to people, customs, and beliefs that are different from their own.

As I young child my parents provided many such experiences and these formed my love of Humanity in all its diversity. At age 9, I visited a remote village in the mountains of Luzon where we were greeted by the chief of the headhunters. The outskirts of the village were circled by shrunken heads on stakes.

In India, I saw extreme poverty, leprousy, ornate palaces, and Hindu temples. I saw the faces of hungry children as they pressed against the windows of our passing car. 

In Thailand, I ate unfamiliar foods and observed the Buddhist monks in their saffron robes enter the gilded temples. I heard the temple bells and smelled the incense as it was carried on the breeze.

Experiences like these made me who I am, and laid the groundwork for my research in anthropology. I realize that most parents cannot take their children to far-away places. However, they can expose them to diverse peoples where they live. Perhaps a neighbor is from Iran. Reach out to that person to learn about their culture. It takes effort, but the child will become a better citizen of the local community and of the world. 

Related reading: Understanding the Science of Biblical Anthropology; Anglican Soul-Searching About the Occult; Ethnic and Cultural Diversity in the Bible

Israel's Abuse of Ethiopian Women

Years of rumours that Ethiopian women were pressured into having contraceptive injections by Israeli officials have finally been confirmed. The Health Ministry has ordered immigration officials in Ethiopia and health workers in Israel to stop coercing or coaxing women into accepting the long-lasting injectable contraceptive Depo-Provera.

The directive instructed doctors "not to renew prescriptions of Depo Provera to women of Ethiopian origin or any other women who, for whatever reason, may not understand the treatment's implications." They should also ask patients why they want to take the shot, using a translator if necessary. The Ministry did not confirm or acknowledge any wrongdoing.

Ethiopians who claim to be Jews are welcome to migrate to Israel under the Law of Return, but they face discrimination and have not always integrated well into Israeli society. Births among Ethiopian women have dropped by 50% in the last decade, according to a report by the "Vacuum" investigative news program on Israeli Educational Television. "This story reeks of racism, paternalism and arrogance. It's a story to be ashamed of," journalist Gal Gabai concluded.

Ethiopian women told the journalists stories of unsubtle coercion and misinformation. "They said, 'Come, there are vaccinations, gather everyone," one of them said. "We said we wouldn't receive it. They said, 'You won't move to Israel.'" Women said that they were told that it would be hard for them to work or find accommodation of they had large families.

This is not a new problem, but the government is finally facing up to the lack of informed consent on the part of a marginalised, poorly-educated minority. In 2008, Hedva Eyal, of the feminist group Isha L'Isha, wrote a report alleging that the medical profession had failed Ethiopian migrant women.

"The paternalistic attitude towards women of Ethiopian origin and the state's concern over high rates of birth among poor and black populations drove Israeli official bodies, such as The Jewish Agency and the medical establishment, to act, allegedly for the benefit of women's health, but in fact according to the concepts and wishes of the establishment regarding the desirable way to conduct family life. As a result, and as this paper shows, women did not get crucial medical information and their right of choice regarding their bodies, families and lives was severely curtailed."

From here.

Israel did offer an apology for the abuse of these women.

HGTV Racist Statement

Last night House Hunters International (HGTV) aired a show about an American couple from Washington DC who moved to Zimbabwe. The HGTV narrator said something very racist like "imagine having a higher standard of living (more living space for the dollar) in Africa than in the US."

It is a fact that the average African has a higher standard of living than the average person living in most parts of India. Yet when HGTV airs shows about couples who move to Mombai, India, there is no such attitude expressed.

More people live in poverty in eight Indian states than in the 26 poorest African countries, according to the UN-backed Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), which  looks beyond income at a wider range of household-level deprivation, including services.

The study found that half of the world's MPI poor people live in South Asia, and just over a quarter in Africa.

There are 421 million MPI poor people in eight Indian states alone Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and 410 million in the 26 poorest African countries combined.

Read more here.

Racist Bake Sale at Berkeley

It was a ‘racist bake sale.’ No kidding.

At first glance, this looked like a parody in the Onion.

A student group at the University of California Berkeley has sparked a furor by staging a bake sale that charges customers differently based on their race and gender.

The Berkeley College Republicans devised the satirical “Increase Diversity Bake Sale,” as a protest against proposed bill SB 185, which would have the race, gender, ethnicity and national origin of prospective students considered alongside other admission criteria.

The bake sale, which went ahead Tuesday despite the disapproval of the school’s administration, set prices for baked goods on a sliding scale — charging the most to Caucasian males and the least to Native American women.

“If preferences based on skin color are okay for college admissions, they should be okay for other aspects of life,” wrote the group’s president,… (read the whole article and comment here).

Race Riot at Wisconsin State Fair

Norb Roffers described the scene outside the Wisconsin State Fair to Newsradio 620 WTMJ in Milwaukee. “They were attacking everybody for no reason whatsoever.”

Roffers and others painted a grim and detailed picture of what unfolded during the first day of the fair.

“It was 100% racial,” claimed Eric, an Iraq war veteran who told the station that young people beat on his car.

WTMJ sums up their accounts: “Witnesses’ accounts claim everything from dozens to hundreds of young black people beating white people as they left State Fair Thursday night.”



 

On August 4, 2011, the opening night of the Wisconsin State Fair, the worst race riot in Wisconsin history occurred. As darkness fell over the amusement park area known as the Midway before closing time, hundreds of young blacks swarmed out into the parking lot, seeking out white fairgoers to attack -- pulling people off their bikes, out of their cars, to knock them to the ground and beat them: with fists and whatever blunt instruments they had handy.

Now, this wasn't the worst ever in America. The race riots of the Red Summer of 1919, for example, sometimes involved thousands of people at a time. But it is certainly something new and terrifying for the Wisconsin State Fair, which, like all state fairs, is normally a peaceful and traditional celebration of the state's agricultural heritage.

Read it all here.

 

Israel is Fighting Our War

“Israel is fighting our war”

Even a journalist from a friendly country such as Israel does not escape invasive hands of the security guards who protect Geert Wilders. At the entry point to the interview with Holland’s extreme politician, founder and leader of the anti-Islamic “Party for Freedom” [PVV], bodyguards do not hold back, and run extensive security checks. Time and again they recheck my identity, making sure that I possess nothing that could potentially turn into a weapon.

Wilders, on the other hand, looks disconnected from the security turmoil around him. It seems that he must be used to it. That’s the way it is if you are one of the most threatened persons in the world.

“To tell the truth, yes, I fear for my life,” he admits.

“I am just a man. The danger does not come only from Holland. It is outside too. There are very serious threats from various terror groups, and when one is aware of the extent of the danger, it is only human to think that something bad will happen. But I cannot allow these thoughts to affect my work. If I moderate my voice because of the threats, stop saying what is on my mind, or quit being a politician, those people will have used anti-democratic means, threats and murders to silence others. They will win. I am not going to let them”.

He has reason to fear. His statements against Islam, his demands to stop immigration of Muslims to his country, the building of new mosques or wearing the veil in public — all that did the job. Although in Europe he is recognized as the most prominent leader of the anti-Islam movement, imams in the Muslim world have sentenced him to death. Terror groups promise to murder him — a man who until recently was an obscure politician with hardly any influence, but now, thanks only to his support, a new Dutch government was formed a few weeks ago.

Wilders says aloud what many Dutch and EU citizens probably think, and he pays a very heavy price for that. He lives under around-the-clock tight protection in a “safe house” provided by the Dutch government. He is the only parliamentary representative with an “unknown” home address.

“It is sad that while fighting for my country’s freedom I lost my own,” says Wilders in a special interview for Yedioth. “I have only freedom of speech and thought. Threats to my life prove that my arguments are just. I am sure that if I spoke with criticism about Christianity or Judaism, there would be no such radical response. There would be no demonstrations in Vatican. The Dutch flag would not be burnt. A million and a half people who voted for us in the last elections do not see me as a fascist or a racist.”

In two weeks Wilders is coming for a visit to Israel as a guest of a parliament member Ariel Eldad. He is invited to participate in a conference against the two-state solution.

“Israel is the lighthouse and the only democracy in this backward and dictatorial part of the world,” he proclaims. “Israel is very close to us, to our European identity. Israel fights our war.”


It Is Not About Color

Just a few days ago Dutch court decided not to punish a Muslim rapper who wrote in one of his songs that he is going to attack Wilders. “Geert, this is not a joke. Last night I had a dream about taking off your head,” the rapper sings and promises “Anyone who talks about Muslims will be killed.”

There are many rumors about Wilders’ way of life. They say that he does not sleep in the same place twice in a row, that he does not see his wife for months.

At first, six years ago, when the government did not have “safe houses”, “My wife and I stayed for a few months in a prison,” he says. “The cells we lived in had been previously occupied by two Libyan agents, responsible for “Pan Am” plane slaughter. We were not there as prisoners, but as protected personas. We also slept on military bases around Holland and military planes took us, if need be, to our meetings. It was insane. There were times when I had to put on a wig, a false mustache, and a pair of sunglasses to prevent others from recognizing me.”

Wilders stands out as a leader of anti-Islamic movement in Europe. Six years ago he left the Liberal Party [VVD] and founded an independent fraction. His party’s unpredicted success in last year’s elections to EU Parliament stunned the political arena.

In last summer’s elections to the Dutch parliament, The Party for Freedom tripled its numbers and became the third largest party in The Hague’s House of Representatives [Tweede Kamer]. The latest polls show that if new elections were held today, his party would be the largest, with 31% of the vote.

The standoff between the two largest parties — Liberals [VVD] and Social-Democrats [PvdA]— left the coalition negotiations stranded until they decided in a surprising move to form a minority government that will be supported by the Party for Freedom. From now on Wilders is an officially recognized and accepted part of Dutch politics.

Extreme right? Racist? Fascist? “I am the direct opposite of all this,” protests Wilders. “We use democratic means only. We are definitely not racists; we do not care about the people’s skin color. It is ridiculous to claim that all of our voters are fascists. It is an insult — not just to me, but to them as well. There are not that many insane people in Holland. But the political elite, who failed to solve the problems we talk about openly — massive immigration, crime rates, Islam — still thinks that it is not politically correct to talk about that. They see us getting wide support and they demonize us in response.”

Wilders says that well-established parties around Europe have no idea how to treat parties like his. “They try to stick all kinds of labels on us and then they copy what we do. A few weeks ago I made a speech in Berlin. I told Germans “Please forget your past. New generations are not responsible for what happened. Get rid of your past, because it prevents you from speaking freely about problems created by mass immigration and Islam.

“Angela Merkel and half of the government ministers criticized my speech and stated that I had no right to say things like that. A few weeks later, when surveys showed that if a party similar to mine were to be founded in Germany, it would get 20% of the voters’ support, Merkel changed direction and proclaimed the failure of the multicultural society.”

By the way, Islam is not a religion, in Wilders’ opinion. “It is a totalitarian ideology. There is no place in it for anything but Islam itself. It wants to control not only one’s private life, but the society’s life as well. If you are an atheist, a Christian, or a Jew living in a society where Islam is dominant, your life is very difficult. That’s why comparisons must be made between Islam and other totalitarian ideologies like communism and fascism.

“I have nothing against Muslims as human beings. Most of them are law-abiding people like you and me. But I am against mass immigration from Muslim countries, because immigrants will bring their culture here, which, if permitted to be dominant, will change our society. Already in countries with a sizable Muslim minority, those changes for the worse can be seen.”

In your struggle, you find yourself in the company of some very problematic parties such as Party for Freedom of Austria or France’s National Front.

“We do not have and never will have anything in common with those extremist parties. They are very different from us. We are conservative on issues concerning our culture and liberals on many other issues. The majority of Holland’s gays vote for us — they would never do that if we were extremists.”

Ariel Sharon As An Example
Wilders (47) is one of the most ardent and loud of Israel’s supporters in Europe, and contrary to many others he does not bother to hide this. He had even insisted on including in the platform of the new Dutch government the intention to improve relations with Israel.

“I am very glad that Israel is the only country mentioned by name in the platform; this will get it the needed attention,” he said “We are Israel’s best friends and we will support it in any way possible.” He bursts out laughing when asked about allegations of his being an “Israeli agent”.

“Common!” he says “It is obvious that I am not an Israel’s spy. It is insane. I am a Dutch politician and I work for Holland and what is best for its citizens. But I am a friend of Israel, and I am not afraid to say so. Because of my open support of Israel, people who do not like me invent these stories. The Iranian press states that I am a Mossad agent. Jordanians call me Shabak’s man. It’s nonsense.”

His romance with Israel started when he was 17 years old and came here to work as a volunteer for a year. “I enjoyed it very much, and not only because of the beautiful Israeli girls,” he recalls. “I was not involved in politics back then at all. I worked in the tourist industry in Eilat, a bakery plant in Jerusalem, and the cooperative settlement Tomar in the Jordan Valley. I went through some tense times in Tomar because the border with Jordan was not very secure. We had to take shelter from time to time when terrorists managed to cross over. We saw the arrival of IDF helicopters — for someone from the south of Holland who went to Amsterdam just a few times, those were very impressive experiences.”

Over the years Wilders visited many Muslim countries, including Iran, Iraq, Syria, Tunisia and Afghanistan. “I’ve met with some very friendly people over there, too,” he clarifies, “but the power in those countries is in the hands of the dictators. These people deserve better living conditions.”

He has many friends in Israel, and some of them are politicians. He had a very warm relationship with Ariel Sharon for example, whom he still admires. “Sharon was demonized in the West, too, but he was a great politician, and I take an example from him,” Wilders emphasizes.

“I believe that the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is not territorial. Anyone who claims otherwise has no idea what he is talking about. If you gave up Western Bank and East Jerusalem and let the Palestinians have it, that would not end the conflict. It will take some time — a month, a year, ten years — but they will demand the rest of your country, because it is an ideological conflict. The solution therefore could not be territorial; it has to be ideological.

“Palestinians believe — and this is the nature of Islam — that Israel is theirs, and through the struggle with Israel they fight the non-Muslim West. The fight against Israel is the fight against us. We are Israel. The reason for Dutch parents’ good night sleep with no worries for their children is that parents in Israel go through sleepless nights because their children are in the Army. It does not mean that Israel cannot be criticized, but I am not ashamed to fight for Israel.”

At the conference Wilders will try to convince the public that Palestinians already have a country of their own. “Jordan is Palestine,” he states. “This was true in the past after Sykes-Picot agreement, and thus it is a solution to the conflict. Even the Jordan kings, Abdulla and Hussein, said so in the past. Only after they realized that these statements could endanger their reign, because Palestinians are a majority in Jordan, did they change their minds. I am against the idea of transfer or ethnic cleansing, but if Jordan became Palestine, it would be possible to encourage Palestinians to move there. Of course I will not be the one who decides how to end this conflict. Israel is a democracy and will decide for itself which solution is best for it. It is your decision.”


What is your opinion on Israel’s debate concerning the “loyalty oath”? Could it be implemented in Holland too?

“I think it is a good idea. Even though the background in Holland is different, I think that a pledge of allegiance to the country is a good thing. We will not be able to pass such legislation with the current government in Holland. I talked in the past about an integration agreement between the state and the immigrants or a loyalty oath, which will show their commitment first of all to our country and our values, our constitution, and our culture. It would be a positive step to take. The people of Europe have no idea who they are anymore, that’s why they do not know what to fight for. We have to reinvent our identity. In France, for example, before every speech by the president, the French flag is displayed and the national anthem is played. If someone tried to do that in Holland, everyone would think that he was out of his mind. We do not have a flag even in Parliament. You are not a racist if you are proud of your national uniqueness and fight to preserve your culture. The idea that all cultures are equal was forced on us by the left and the liberals, and is in fact the Europe’s worst sickness. People cannot see any difference between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam anymore despite the fact that they are worlds apart and are different in a thousand ways. We are fighting this idea, and we are slowly winning.”

Europe Is Not a Friend
Wilders does not hide his support for military action against Iran. “Iran is the biggest geopolitical threat to Israel, to the stability of the Middle East region, Europe, and the whole world,” he says. “That country is ruled by insane, religious lunatics like Khamenei or other crazies like Ahmadinejad. We can see some changes over there these days. Even the Revolutionary Guard is voicing criticism. Iran could explode from the inside. The danger in countries that deal with such an internal threat is that their regime may react violently and unpredictably. I am afraid of that. Because of the growing internal unrest, we cannot allow them to implement any program that could potentially be put to a military use. They will look for the common external enemy, and Israel would be the first to pay the price. I hope that diplomacy will lead to a peaceful resolution, but if Israel decides it has no other option but to strike Iran militarily in order to defend itself against this existential threat, I will understand. The alternative is the destruction of Israel.”

Is Turkey on its way to becoming a new Iran?


“Turkey is a very complex country. We have good relations with Turkey. It is a respected NATO member. But at the same time it is a country which can easily turn to the ways of Islam. I am against the American pressure on the EU to grant membership to Turkey. Europe does not need such a large country, where Islam is dominant, as a member. A good neighbor is not the same as a family member. If Turkey were to become a EU member, it would be required to fulfill certain criteria, one of which is to dismantle the army. I am quite uneasy about this. The army is Turkey’s only balancing power. If the army is dismantled, people like Erdogan could accelerate the Islamization process, which will turn Turkey into the Trojan horse in the heart of Europe. I also would not want to have a common border with such criminal countries as Iran and Syria.”

And what is your opinion on Israel joining the union?

“I would advise my friends in Israel not to consider such an option. The Union has always supported Palestinians. Israel has a lot of friends in Europe, but Europe is not a friend to Israel."
 
From here.

1872 Statement against Racism in the Church

"We have concluded that when the principle of phyletism (i.e. ecclesiastical nationalism) is juxtaposed with the teaching of the Gospel and the constant practice of the Church, it is not only foreign to it, but also completely opposed, to it. We decree the following in the Holy Spirit: 1. We reject and condemn racial division, that is, racial differences, national quarrels and disagreements in the Church of Christ, as being contrary to the teaching of the Gospel and the holy canons of our blessed fathers, on which the holy Church is established and which adorn human society and lead it to Divine piety. 2. In accordance with the holy canons, we proclaim that those who accept such division according to races and who dare to base on it hitherto unheard-of racial assemblies are foreign to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church and are real schismatics." Constantinople...1872

Same-Sex Partnership is Not Like Interracial Marriage

While doing research for an academic paper on the topic of same-sex marriage and political liberalism, I was struck by how many authors, including judges, draw an analogy between bans on interracial marriage and the present law in almost every state in the United States that recognizes marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

The court cases most frequently cited by these writers are Loving v. Virginia (1967), the U. S. Supreme Court case that declared interracial marriage bans unconstitutional, and Perez v. Sharp (1948), a California Supreme Court case that did the same in relation to its state constitution. Here’s how Massachusetts’ highest court in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health (2003) employs Loving and Perez in order to make the analogy between interracial marriage and same-sex marriage:

In this case [Goodridge], as in Perez and Loving, a statute deprives individuals of access to an institution of fundamental legal, personal, and social significance—the institution of marriage—because of a single trait: skin color in Perez and Loving, sexual orientation here. As it did in Perez and Loving, history must yield to a more fully developed understanding of the invidious quality of the discrimination.

Although the focus of my paper is not this analogy, the ubiquitous use of it in the literature, including some very important court cases, piqued my curiosity. What I discovered astounded me.

I learned that “at common law there was no ban on interracial marriage.” What does that mean? It means that anti-miscegenation laws were not part of the jurisprudence that American law inherited from the English courts. Anti-miscegenation laws were statutory in America (though never in England), first appearing in Maryland in 1661 after the institution of the enslavement of Africans on American soil. This means that interracial marriage was a common-law liberty that can only be overturned by legislation. The Maryland statute, for example, “prohibited the intermarriage of white women and negro slaves under the penalty of slavery to the white woman and all her issue,” eventually expanding the penalties and including the prohibition of interracial cohabitation. Nevertheless, seven states (out of 13) at the time of the American founding had such laws, though three repealed them well before the mid-20th century when Perez and Loving were decided: Massachusetts, 1843; Rhode Island, 1881; Pennsylvania, 1780. In fact, of the 50 current states, 13 have never had anti-miscegenation laws, and when Loving was decided in 1967, only 16 of the 50 states still had such laws.

It should also be noted that when anti-miscegenation laws were on the books they were widely diverse in whom they covered and what groups were forbidden from intermarrying. For example, Irving Tragen writes in his 1944 California Law Review article:

Although originally the statutes were directed wholly against Negro-Caucasion unions, the scope of the legislation now extends to interdictions against marriage between white men and Mongolians, Malayans, mulatto, or even American Indians. The ban on marriages between negroes and whites is still the most common one: the unions are banned throughout the South, the Southeast, and the West except for Washington and New Mexico; the interdictions are non-existent in New England, and the Middle Atlantic States outside of Delaware, and in the North Central States except Indiana; and, in the “great farm belt,” typical is the situation of states like Nebraska and Iowa living side by side one with a miscegenation statute, and one without. Mongolian-Caucasian marriages are prohibited in fourteen states, mostly in the West but a few in the South. Some five western states prohibit Malay-white marriages. South Dakota especially names Koreans in its miscegenation statute. Five states, scattered throughout the South and West, place Indian-white marriages in their prohibited classes. In all the states which have miscegenation statutes, except California, these marriages are not only void’ but are subject to criminal penalties. The penalties fall upon all persons, white and “colored” alike, either for attempting such a marriage or, as the attempted marriage is void, for engaging in illegal extramarital relations.

The overwhelming consensus among scholars is that the reason for these laws was to enforce racial purity, an idea that begins its cultural ascendancy with the commencement of race-based slavery of Africans in early 17th-century America and eventually receives the imprimatur of “science” when the eugenics movement comes of age in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In Loving, for example, the statue overturned, SB 219, The Racial Integrity Act of 1924, was the product of the eugenics movement. On the same day that SB 219 was passed, Virginia also passed the Eugenical Sterilization Act (SB 281), a law the allowed the state to involuntarily sterilize, among others, the mentally unfit. In the case of Buck v. Bell (1927), the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Virginia’s forced sterilization of Carrie Buck under that statute. In some of the most memorable and chilling words ever penned by a Supreme Court justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” The Racial Integrity Act and The Eugenical Sterilization Act were of a piece, both legislative accomplishments of the eugenics movement and its goal of racial purity.

Anti-miscegenation laws, therefore, were attempts to eradicate the legal status of real marriages by injecting a condition—sameness of race—that had no precedent in common law. For in the common law, a necessary condition for a legitimate marriage was male-female complementarity, a condition on which race has no bearing.

It is clear then that the miscegenation/same-sex analogy does not work.

Read it all here.

Hugo Chavez Against Israeli Tourists

(IsraelNN.com) Venezuela, under President Hugo Chavez, is taking additional steps to deter Israelis from visiting the country. An Israeli tour group slated to visit Venezuela was forced to cancel its trip this week due to unreasonable demands placed on the would-be tourists.

The group of 13 Israelis was set to fly to Venezuela in coming days, with lodging, tours and flights already arranged by an Israeli travel company, Echo Outdoor Touring Ltd. When Echo requested tourist visas for its clients, the demands of the Venezuelan government placed an insurmountable barrier that ultimately led to the cancellation of the trip.

The difficulties began with the absence of a Venezuelan diplomatic presence in Israel. In January of this year, Venezuela expelled Israel's ambassador from the country and cut diplomatic relations. Israel responded by expelling Venezuela's ambassador to Israel.

Read the full report here.

Ahmadinejad is Jewish?

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was born Jewish and converted to Islam, according to a report in London's Daily Telegraph.

The Saturday report cited a photograph from 2008 which showed Ahmadinejad holding up his identity card, bearing his former last name, Sabourjian, a common Jewish name in Iran.

The Telegraph said that the name was "Jewish" for cloth weaver, and that the Iranian president's family had changed their name when they converted to Islam.

Read more here.

Jim Crow and Catholics of "Color"

Here is an excerpt from a report written by my friend Arturo Vasquez.

Perhaps the most unfortunate story I heard about black Catholics during these times comes from Ms. Eunice, a friend of Mr. G.'s who is now a Catholic lay oblate. In her town growing up, there was only one church, but she and other black Catholics were not allowed to sit down during Mass. There were a few benches in the back that constituted the "colored" section, but if white parishioners needed to sit in those benches for some reason, the few black parishioners who could sit had to cede their place -- even if pregnant, old, or otherwise infirm. What's more, the black members of the congregation had to come late and leave early so that white Catholics didn't have to see them. They had to depart after the final blessing and be across the bayou by the time the rest of the congregation exited the church. Those who could not rush across the bridge and be out of sight of white churchgoers when they came out of Mass were subject to a severe beating.

It would be a mistake to say that such actions characterized the perennial attitudes of the old, provincial South. The system of racial separation that we now know as Jim Crow in many places did not really take affect until the late-19th and early-20th centuries. In the case of Mr. G.'s family, as "Creoles of color" or "mixed race," they were well aware of who their white relatives were; his mother, born in 1920, still remembers being baptized in the one Catholic church in town and going over to play with her white cousins on Sundays. It was only in her late childhood that the strict codes of racial apartheid began to be taken seriously in all circumstances.

In terms of religion, it was on one Sunday that her family was told that they were not allowed to come to Mass at their church anymore. They and other Creoles had to scramble to build another church and find priests who would minister to them. This was often not easy, since most of the all-white clergy didn't want to serve them. In many cases, it was only members of religious congregations like the Holy Ghost Fathers, set up to do missionary work in the "pagan" world, who would come and service their churches. As in the case of Ms. Eunice's church, these situations were often framed by violence and threats of violence. When one priest suggested in the early 1970s that the congregations should integrate and go to Mass together, his own parishioners beat him to within an inch of his life.

Most of the "resistance" to Jim Crow when it came to the Church, however, was done by a rebellion of the feet. Driving through rural Louisiana and seeing many of the black Protestant churches now present there, it's easy to forget that many of those congregation's ancestors were probably Catholic at some point. Instead of putting up with the idea of having to sit in the back of the church, or trying to organize their own church and finding a white priest who would administer the sacraments to them, many left Catholicism altogether and sought refuge in the black Protestant churches as something that could be truly and unequivocally theirs. In places like New Orleans, there was also the emergence of the black spiritual churches, which incorporated Catholic ritual and imagery into a Pentecostal-style worship service. The Catholic Church lost many souls because it chose to go along with Jim Crow, seeking not to upset the status quo even when it came to the seating arrangements of its own churches.

Read it all here.

Durban Document Recognizes "Christianophobia"

The outcome document of the Durban Review Conference held in Geneva from April 20th to 24th of 2009, recognizes the phenomenon of Christianophobia: "12. Deplores the global rise and number of incidents of racial or religious intolerance and violence, including Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Christianophobia and anti-Arabism manifested in particular by the derogatory stereotyping and stigmatization of persons based on their religion or belief..."

Read the full outcome document here.

Babbitt Dies. Her Portraits Survive

Dina Gottliebova Babbitt, an artist who had been forced to paint portraits of fellow prisoners at the Auschwitz concentration camp and later sought to recover the artworks from a museum there, died Wednesday in Northern California.

Babbitt, 86, died of cancer at her home in Felton, near Santa Cruz, her daughter Michele Kane said.

Babbitt’s long and unsuccessful campaign to retrieve the seven paintings of doomed Gypsy prisoners from a Polish state museum at Auschwitz became a rallying point for many other artists and Holocaust survivors. Although the museum recently sent Babbitt reproductions in what Kane acknowledged as “a kind gesture,” that was not enough, Kane said.

Babbitt “was terribly sad and upset and so despondent that she never got her pictures back. ‘Heartbroken’ is the right word,” Kane said.

The family pledged to continue fighting for the paintings, which Babbitt said helped save her life.
From her childhood in a Czech-Jewish family to her later success as a Hollywood animator, Babbitt was a witty, upbeat woman whose personality belied some of the tragedies she endured, said U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, the Nevada Democrat and Babbitt family friend who worked on her cause.

“For her to continue this quest took not only a certain strength of character, but a very optimistic view of life, rather than a pessimistic view,” Berkley said Friday.

Babbitt’s wry humor was evident during a 2006 interview, when she showed the forearm scar where her concentration camp number had been tattooed. (She had it removed during an unrelated surgery.) The number, 61016, had a symmetry that she sometimes used to play the California Lottery. “It doesn’t work,” she quipped.

A young art student when she was deported to Auschwitz, Babbitt drew a “Snow White” scene on a wall of a children’s barracks to help soothe the youngsters. Josef Mengele, the infamous Nazi doctor who performed hideous experiments on prisoners, heard of her talents and ordered her to paint portraits as mementos for his racist theories.

Babbitt said she told Mengele she would rather die if her mother was not also let out of a group of Jews scheduled to be gassed. Her mother was allowed to live. Her father and her fiance died elsewhere in the Holocaust.

Babbitt said she wanted to briefly hold the paintings, which bear her signature, and then lend them to a museum of her choice. “I wouldn’t be alive if it hadn’t been for those paintings, and my kids wouldn’t be here,” said Babbitt, who is also survived by another daughter, Karin Babbitt, and three grandchildren.

The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum insists it is the rightful home of the paintings, which it says it bought from camp survivors in the 1960s and ’70s. Artifacts proving Holocaust history should be in their original setting, museum officials say.

Babbitt and her mother managed to survive Auschwitz and evacuation marches. After liberation, Babbitt went to Paris and became an assistant to American cartoonist Art Babbitt, one of Disney’s “Snow White” animators. They married and moved to Hollywood and later divorced. Dina Babbitt worked in animation at various Hollywood studios.

Read the full report here.

Gates a Racist?

Muslim Woman Stabbed 18 Times in German Courtroom

Thousands of Egyptian mourners marched behind the coffin of the "martyr of the head scarf" – a pregnant Muslim woman who was stabbed to death in a Dresden courtroom on Wednesday in front of her young son.

Many in her homeland were outraged by the attack and saw the low-key response in Germany as an example of racism and anti-Muslim sentiment.

The woman's husband was critically wounded in the attack, after he tried to intervene and was stabbed by the attacker and accidentally shot by court security.

"There is no God but God and the Germans are the enemies of God," chanted mourners for 32-year-old Marwa el-Sherbini in Alexandria, where her body was buried.

"We will avenge her killing," her brother Tarek el-Sherbini told the Associated Press by telephone from the mosque where prayers were being recited in front of his sister's coffin. "In the west, they don't recognise us. There is racism."

Sherbini, a pharmacist who was four months' pregnant and wore the Islamic head scarf, was involved in a court case against her neighbour after he called her a terrorist. She was due to testify when he stabbed her 18 times inside the courtroom in front of her three-year-old son.

Read the full report here.

Michele Obama's Views on Race

Michele LaVaughn Robinson (Obama) wrote her senior dissertation at Princeton University on racial separationism. Her thesis is available to read online. Part 1 is here, Part 2 is here, Part 3 is here and Part 4 is here.

The Obama campaign requested that her dissertation not be made available to the public until after the election.

Arab World in a Mess?

The Arab states continue to be apoplectic over the Gaza war, at least apoplectic in public. This is true even though some of the most significant of these states secretly cheered Israel on and certainly did nothing to help their Hamas brethren fight or recover. Yes, I know they have pledged, this country, this many zillions and that country, that many zillions. Welcome to the world of the forked tongue as both routine chat and high rhetoric.

The big royals and small, plus all of the colonels and petty politicians, who run Arab Islam have gathered this week in Qatar, the second richest per capita principality in the world, according to the CIA, the richest according to the IMF. The Qatari sheikhs own al-Jazeera and they also host a U.S. military base. Sometimes they tow the American line, more recently they are on the radical side of the Arab street. There are 350,000 native citizens and, at least as of last year, 800,000 laboring and foreign non-citizens, mostly from India. Maybe there are less now, due to the depression in oil prices. But there is no change in their status: they are without rights.

In any case, the big news event of the Qatar gathering was the arrival of Omar al-Bashir, the president of Sudan, who is a fugitive from the International Criminal Court which has a warrant out for his arrest on charges of genocide. Now, genocide is a serious accusation to have made against a head of state, particularly one who is being welcomed by an Arab summit that is so concerned about human rights. Well, no, that is not quite accurate. The summiteers are not concerned about human rights in their own countries or very much, for that matter, in each others' countries. But do any of you doubt that Bashir is guilty of genocide? Do any of you doubt that hundreds of thousands (three, maybe four hundred thousand) of African Muslims have been murdered by Arab Muslim hordes deployed by Khartoum to kill, rape and pillage.

The Arabs are moved only by the plight of the Palestinians.This is true. It is, in fact, a truism, so obvious that one should be embarrassed even having to argue it. And why the plight of the Palestinians? Because their condition can be blamed on Israel and--make no mistake about it--on the Jews, the Jews the world over.

The New York Times, playing its inherited role as opponent of Jewish peoplehood, has now brought some credibility to the accusations of reckless killing against the Israeli military. My friend Ethan Bronner published a piece in the Times retailing charges made by a few soldiers against the commands of their officers. Actually, they were not as shocking as Bronner insinuated. Alas, unintended tragedies and often even intended tragedies happen in every war. And they happen especially in wars where one side fights from within civilian life, which is how Hamas fought in Gaza. A few days after Bronner's initial dispatches he wrote another article reporting on the army's inquiry into the initial charges. It read to me like Bronner actually believed the army in its rebuttal. What convinced me was the presence in the narrative of an old pal of mine, a deputy commander of the reserve battalion that fought in Gaza, Bentsi Gruver. In fact, he was not for the Gaza engagement. He was rather against it. You may say that it was predictable that I'd believe him.

And I also believe that Israel, with America and England and Australia, are probably the most ethically constrained militaries in the world. Of one fact I am absolutely certain: the leaders of the Arab world are welcoming a mass murderer into their midst. And, instead of turning him over to authorities in the Hague, they are welcoming him because he is an Arab who is killing black Africans.

"A black face begins a black day,"

Of course, the Arab world is in a mess. No one believes anyone else--and for good reason. The Saudis are saying that they are giving Israel, maybe, ten minutes to accept their peace proposal, which is to say their ultimatum. Or else. In the meantime, the king prays that Bibi Netanyahu will save his ass and his whole monarchy of cousins from Captain Marvel's mad scientist, Dr. Sivana. Nope, a far more dangerous scientist, Dr. A'jad.

From here.