-Caveat Lector-
In a message dated 1/12/1999 5:03:45 PM, you wrote:
<< -Caveat Lector-
Sure ... all perpetrators of crimes should be dealt with on an equal basis.
Unless: there is a predilection for criminal types to *target* certain
groups more than others (i.e., do hate crimes represent a higher percentage
within a certain category of crime?). Robbery of a "moneyed" person might
be demonstration of negative vibes for "moneyed" people, sort of a "Robin
Hood" theme without altruistic motives.
One thing that I read in USA Today was concerning the torching of houses of
worship. I had been led to believe (to that point) that certain groups'
(ethnic) houses were being torched to the exclusion of tohers. Along comes
USA Today and points out that more European-American chruches were being
turned to ash and cinder than those of African-American. So, I became
confused as to where the "hate" was directed. This became even more
misleading when federal funding was set aside to apparently assist one of
the groups rebuild.
So, in conclusion,
Sure ... all perpetrators of crimes should be dealt with on an equal basis
according to crime(s) committed. So add to '... religion, race, creed ...'
"crime" ... <<<
The report allegedly says, "'We recognize ... that white churches are burning
nearly five times as often as black churches.'"
But white people out number Black people *8 to 1*.
More Black churches are being burned, proportionately.
Best,
HA
~~~~~~~~~~~~
>From web-cln.com
<Picture: News >
Church burnings a conspiracy?
A report released last week by the Center for Democratic Renewal, an
Atlanta-based organization that tracks race- and hate-based crime, included
warnings of a racist conspiracy in its overview of arson fires and bombings
at 211 churches serving black and multiracial congregations between 1990
and 1997.
The report, The Fourth Wave: A Continuing Conspiracy to Burn Black
Churches, cites South Carolina as the focal point of "a conspiracy by white
supremacists to burn black churches for the purpose of starting a race
war." The attacks, says the CDR, have resulted in more than $25 million in
damages, and affected more than 20,000 people.
"We recognize ... that white churches are burning nearly five times as
often as black churches," says the report, but in those cases,
"anti-religious sentiment and/or personal motivation are most often the
leading factors."
The "Fourth Wave" is a reference to four periods of black-church burnings
since Reconstruction. Perpetrators, according to CDR research, are
generally white males, aged 14 to 45, traveling in groups of two to five
and working at night. But the "backbone" of the conspiracy, according the
report's authors, are older white supremacists who enlist young men to
carry out the burnings. More than half of the 52 arrests in the cases thus
far, it notes, have been juveniles.
The report also says a hindrance to the investigations have been local
police and fire officials' reluctance to address racial motivations, and
says evidence of involvement by white volunteer firefighters in some of the
fires has been "minimized by local law enforcement and some state
prosecutors."
A multi-agency task force investigating the arsons has so far failed to
find any evidence linking more than two or three of the cases. And Dr.
Ozell Sutton, regional director for the U.S. Justice Department's Community
Relations Division, says his field workers have uncovered no evidence of a
wide-ranging conspiracy, in South Carolina or anywhere else.
"We've found a couple that may have been linked, says Sutton. "But, from my
perspective, it's the lack of any real conspiracy that makes it even more
onerous. If there's this level of racial hatred out there driving
individuals to carry out these burnings, it's even more difficult to deal
with."
One person may have died as a result of the fires: 23-year-old Peter Adams,
to whom the CDR. report is dedicated, died in a Feb. 25, 1995 blaze at
South Richland Bibleway, in Lexington County, S.C. No investigation into
the fire's cause or Adams' death was ever conducted, says the CDR.
-- Greg Land
<Picture: [ Directory Imagemap II ] >
Copyright 1997 by Creative Loafing | Published Mar 22, 1997 |
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>From ConsumerAlert.CoM
Church-Burning Hoax Pays Huge Dividends
Michael Fumento
It appears that the public may be finally catching on that the black
church-burning epidemic of 1996 is actually one of the biggest hoaxes to
come along in years. It's also turning out to be one of the most lucrative
for the people who started it.
We've all seen such headlines as "Flames of Hate: Racism Blamed in Shock
Wave of Church Burnings,""A Southern Plague Returns," and "The South is
Burning: A Rash of Torchings at Black Churches Has Resurrected the Ugly
Specter of Racism."
In fact, independent investigations by several reporters, including those
at the Associated Press, The New Yorker, USA Today, and myself in a piece
for the Wall Street Journal, have revealed no plague and little evidence of
racism. Despite claims that the "epidemic of hatred" began in 1994, the
only increase came in 1996. This increase was the result of two factors:
better reporting of a crime that like all crimes is normally underreported,
and copycat fires by arsonists who (as some openly stated) got the idea
from media publicity.
Though we were warned of a white supremacist conspiracy, only two church
fires (of over 70 which USA Today investigated), have been identified with
any racist group. Both were lit by the same two Klansmen. A third burning
clearly had racial motivations. That's it. Meanwhile, during the same
period far more southern white churches than black churches were burned.
Further, USA Today's latest tally shows that of all the arsonists arrested
in connection with black church burnings, a third have been blacks.
So how did this harmful hysteria get started? My piece in the July 8 Wall
Street Journal focused on the originating group, the Center for Democratic
Renewal (CDR), whose political leftism was carefully omitted in the
hundreds of media stories which uncritically repeated its claims. The
group's stated purpose is to work "with progressive activists and
organizations to build a movement to counter right-wing rhetoric and public
policy initiatives."
CDR's June report alleged to show an epidemic of 90 black church arsons in
which all the perpetrators caught were white. But when I called fire
officials in four southern states I found that the CDR had systematically
labeled mere vandalisms as fires, had ignored fires set by blacks and those
that occurred in the early part of the decade, and labeled fires as arsons
that were not--all in an apparent effort to make black church torchings
appear to be an escalating phenomenon.
Why? The bottom line appears to be the bottom line: The church-burning
epidemic was essentially a fund-raising effort for the National Council of
Churches (NCC) and its causes. The NCC is an association of Protestant
churches, essentially a left-wing version of the Christian Coalition.
"A little more than a year ago, the [NCC] was struggling to raise money to
fund ambitious programs designed to combat racism," an August 9, 1996
front-page Wall Street Journal article noted. "Even after soliciting funds
among normally sympathetic charitable foundations, it found virtually no
donors."
The idea of exploiting burned churches was that of Mac Charles Jones, the
"associate for racial justice" of the NCC, and a former president and
current board member of the CDR. It was Jones's plan to have the CDR
prepare the bogus church-burning report. He then fanned the flames of fear
and racial division with statements eagerly broadcast by the media decrying
"domestic terrorism" by "a well-organized white-supremacist movement."
Suddenly the NCC's coffers were overflowing. It had established a "Burned
Churches Fund" which it announced in major newspapers with full-page ads.
Many newspapers also reprinted the group's 800 number in articles about the
"epidemic." As a result, according to the Journal, the group raised "more
money more quickly than it has for any previous cause."
It has already amassed over $10 million, which added to insurance coverage
is enough to build each burned church three times over. But not to fear,
the NCC knows what to do with the windfall. It has designated at least a
third of that amount to what Jones calls "program advocacy," seminars and
other forums to denounce not just "racism" but in Jones's words
"interlocking oppressions from gender to homophobia." NCC will also use the
cash to campaign for "economic justice"--a code phrase for increased
welfare spending.
Some of the NCC's donors, especially the larger ones, are well aware of
this. Grain magnate and Archer Daniels Midland Chairman Dwayne Andreas,
himself the major recipient of a corporate welfare program (gasohol)
estimated to cost taxpayers $770 million a year, considered giving money to
the Burned Churches Fund but ended up cutting a cool $1 million check
directly to the NCC instead.
But most of the $20 and $50 donors have no idea their contributions won't
necessarily be spent on a new steeple or altar, but perhaps instead to
convince Americans that gay is good and that American women are treated as
second-class citizens.
They also don't know that the man designated to administer the fund is Don
Rojas, formerly press secretary to the Marxist leader of Grenada, Maurice
Bishop, and later executive editor of the anti-Semitic Amsterdam News in
New York.
If anything good has come from this hoax, it's proof that Americans are not
the scum-sucking racists we've been accused of being. But we are, alas,
suckers. Behind their crocodile tears, the NCC and CDR must be laughing all
the way to the bank.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Fumento Files
~~~~~~~~~~~~
A<>E<>R
The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking
new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
----------
: From: M.A. Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
: To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
: Subject: Re: [CTRL] Republican Hate Rhetoric Turns Deadly
: Date: Monday, January 11, 1999 9:20 PM
:
: -Caveat Lector-
:
: Murder is murder ... execute the perpetrators or otherwise
: [non-taxpayer] fund their permanent incarceration.
:
: Would any robbery be a 'hate crime' since the perpetrator most
: certainly 'hates' 'rich people'.
:
:
: Regard$,
: --MJ
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