From: Virginia McMillan 
Subject: Who Wants a Race War?
Message-ID: 
Date: Sat, 11 Nov 1995 23:13:59 -0800 (PST)

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     Copyright 1995 by Conservative Consensus, ISSN 1074-245X.
     QUOTATION AND REPOSTING ARE ENCOURAGED, provided our name &
     address are credited. V1XIX54


                         WHO WANTS A RACE WAR?
                         By Craige A. McMillan

    The idea of a race war in their country horrifies ordinary
Americans. This is so because most Americans -- of all race -- are
decent, hardworking people. While they often fail to live up to their
values, they will tell pollsters that they broadly support their
inherited Judeo-Christian values in their family life. They do not
want their daughters to become promiscuous and have abortions. They
want their sons to grow up and get married, and to love their
children. In the main, large numbers of these Americans attend
churches where they hear sermons that advocate the value of love and
tolerance for one's neighbor, and support for governmental authority.

    How, then, can America be so deeply divided by the outcome of a
tragic pair of murders in Los Angeles and the glitzy celebrity trial
that followed? Media reports tell us that even before the OJ Simpson
verdict three-quarters of Black Americans believed the former football
great innocent, while three-quarters of white Americans were convinced
of his guilt. Millions of television images, produced by egos and
wallets the size of California, publicized an essentially private
proceeding: Twelve individuals doing their best under difficult
circumstances to determine the guilt or innocence of one man. Having
endured this voyeurism for over a year, is America now to be rewarded
with Blacks and whites killing one another in the streets because of
their skin color?

    Possibly. For while the idea of a race war horrifies ordinary
Americans, it does not horrify all Americans.

    The OJ Simpson trial has not divided Americans along the faultline
of race. It has divided them by experience. Month after month, this
newspaper has chronicled the payoffs, arrests, and prosecutions of
local police, prosecutors, and US Justice Department attorneys. The
bulk of these cases involve crimes against drug dealers: when police
are involved, they frequently beat, rob, and sometimes kill the
dealers who don't cooperate with thm. Entire precincts in New York and
other major cities are under investigation for such corruption. On 27
May 1994 this newspaper reported:

    "Perhaps ten of New York City's 75 police precincts will see
massive arrests for corruption, according to William Bratton, police
commissioner. A quarter of the 30th precinct's 190 police officers are
expected to be arrested for robbing drug dealers, stealing and selling
cocaine, and murder and assault. The Mollen Report identified 140
senior corruption cases either 'lost' or 'buried.'"

    In Chicago, Assistant US Attorney William R. Hogan achieved
prosecutorial fame in the early 1990s by obtaining convictions against
53 El Rukn gang members. But, "By 1993 it emerged that informants and
witnesses were on drugs and allowed to have sex in prosecutors'
offices, a fact Mr. Hogan failed to mention to defense lawyers." The
Justice Department has recommended that he be fired for
"indiscretions." [CC 11 September 1995]

    It is a sad fact that large numbers of young Black men are
involved in drug crimes, and therefore fall victim to such corruption
when it enters a police or prosecutor's office. Corrupt officials
target the powerless.

    This rising tide of corruption has taken its toll on Black jurors.
Given their experience with the criminal justice system, should we
really be surprised that large numbers of Blacks believed the defense
claim that OJ Simpson was framed by corrupt cops?

    But if the OJ Simpson verdict doesn't reflect a racial divide in
America, why portray it as if it did?

    Here are three possible answers. Network television viewership
figures are in freefall, and executives are beginning to question who
packed their parachutes. "The most recent ratings book shows NBC in
first place with a 9.7 average. Ten years ago nd NBC had a 17.5
average." [CC 3 July 1995] A former advertising executive recently
told us, "Television ratings are a joke. Nobody inside the
[advertising] industry believes them."

    Television news, however, excels at reporting live action.
Millions of viewers were glued to the screen during the Gulf War and
the Rodney King inspired Los Angeles riots. Millions followed the OJ
Simpson trial. Now those viewers are gone. When viewers leave, so do
advertisers. A race war would provide just the kind of senseless, yet
graphic violence that television excels at reporting. Advertising
revenues would skyrocket -- along with executive bonuses. New
opportunities would open up within the reporting ranks.

    Walter Williams is fond of the phrase "poverty pimps," which he
uses to describe white liberals and Black opportunists who have made a
comfortable living for themselves by heading up organizations
dedicated to telling Black Americans how bad they have it, and what an
awful racist society America is. The Reverend Jesse Jackson, longtime
self-appointed spokesman for the Black community, recently failed even
to sway the limp-minded California Regents, who voted to end admission
quotas at California colleges. Even the venerable NAACP is broke and
in disarray over mismanagement. Surely a race war would have its
silver lining, if it showed ordinary Black Americans where their
allegiance should reside?

    But although television and self-appointed "leaders" have an
interest in stirring the pot of racial discontent, it pales in
comparison to the self-interest of politicians inhabiting our nation's
capital. Vast sums of money are now plundered from taxpayers and fed
to bureaucrats heading discredited social programs, who serve in an
army of loyal, big-government voters. Hundreds of millions of dollars
are extracted from industry in political conributions to "control
regulations" and "provide access" to the process. Consumers foot the
bill. These ill-gotten gains are then shoveled into the media coffers
leading up to election time. The profits enrich executive bonuses and
media personalities' pockets.

    The media-social-federal establishment has been shaken to its core
by the 1994 shift in voter favor away from national power and toward
state and local governance. Those who have adapted to a life of crime
all share one characteristic: They come to depend upon its benefits.
This is true for dirty cops, and it's true for dirty politicians. The
realization that there is no safe haven, no reserved parking space at
a comfortable lobbying or law firm while the electorate rearranges the
deck chairs on the Titanic, may be the justification our ruling elite
need to foment a race war in America. For too many powerful people,
the loss of that power is a prospect beyond their comprehension.

    We as Americans must face facts: many in our nation's capital have
peddled their influence for so long, and lived so lavishly off its
sale, that they cannot be trusted to prevent a race war -- because it
is in their benefit to preside over one. The glories of federal power
could be restored. Emergency powers legislation could dispose of
dissidents. And the lifeline of money and power would be restored. For
many, the alternative -- a modest twenty or thirty thousand dollar per
year job -- is unthinkable.

    The contempt of the ruling class for those they represent -- us
and our way of life -- is worn as a badge of pride by the ruling
elite. The response of Washington State Congressman Norm Dicks to this
editor about the necessity of a $30,000 midnight pay raise during the
Bush administration says it all. Upon pointing out to Congressman
Dicks that his pay increase was more than many of his onstituents
salaries, he snapped, "I don't have to live like them to represent
them." Surely the end justifies the means?

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