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Charlene Morisseau: The Legal World’s Answer to Jayson Blair

Unless you follow the legal press, you probably missed the employment odyssey of one Charlene Morisseau, formerly an attorney for DLA Piper, one of America’s biggest law firms.

Ms. Morisseau, who is black, filed a federal lawsuit charging racial discrimination after being fired from the firm.  Her lawsuit was dismissed earlier this month for reasons, as other bloggers have noted, that only served to validate the firm’s decision to fire her.  After firing her lawyers and stepping in to act as her own attorney, Ms. Morisseau, a graduate of Harvard Law School, blew filing deadlines, made frivolous motions and obstructed her deposition (according to the judge), and in an act of bewildering incompetence, styled one of her filings to place her case in the United States Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit (her case was still in district court).

The details are found in a story by Anthony Lin of the New York Law Journal.

Note that this story, rich in irony and damning for affirmative action, appears nowhere in the mainstream press.  Beyond that, bloggers at overlawyered.com and abovethelaw.net picked up on it.

It will be easy for defenders of affirmative action to dismiss the tale of Ms. Morisseau:  she was an aberration, the firm was trying to do the right thing by hiring her, she may have problems in her life unrelated to her race, and so on.  But a Google search on Ms. Morisseau reveals that she is precisely the type of person big law firms today clamor for.

In 1998, she was the recipient of a “Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship,” which from the looks of it appears to be restricted to non-whites.

(Its website says that only “New Americans” are eligible, defined as “an individual who (1) is a resident alien; i.e., holds a Green Card, or, (2) has been naturalized as a U.S. citizen, or (3) is the child of two parents who are both naturalized citizens.” So, presumably, Ms. Morisseau falls into one of these three categories, in addition to being black.  Doubly oppressed, then, or triply, if her gender holds her back.)

Here she is at Harvard, where, as president of the Black Law Students’ Association, she protested the Amadou Diallo verdict, explaining that her brother was “bruised” by the police.

Here she is in the Harvard Law Review, presumably discussing the terrible calamities befalling minorities in the United States:

And according to the New York Law Journal article, Ms. Morisseau worked for a death-penalty defense group called the Southern Center for Human Rights, whom she’s also suing for discrimination.  Incredibly, her supervisor there, Steven B. Bright, submitted an affidavit to New York bar officials stating that she “appears unable to separate reality and fantasy” and described “vicious attacks” and “false allegations of outrageous conduct” she had made against many of the Center’s lawyers and staff, all while “making virtually no contribution to the Center’s work in the eight months she was here.”

“All this reflects very poorly on the professional qualifications of Morisseau to practice law,” Bright said in the affidavit, according to the NYLJ article.

All of which, in a rational society, would raise the question of why DLA Piper hired her to begin with, assuming they bothered to pick up the phone and speak to her former supervisor.  Or how, exactly, Ms. Morisseau got into Harvard in the first place.  But in the Alice-in-Wonderland world of race in America, of course, the normal rules don’t apply.

Remember Jayson Blair, the black New York Times reporter fired for making up stories?  Like Ms. Morisseau, he was a young black person ensconced in one of America’s most powerful and prestigious institutions through affirmative action, but in the end, his incompetence simply could not be ignored, even by the liberals who championed him and probably made every conceivable excuse for him.

As with Mr. Blair’s ascension to the Times, Ms. Morisseau almost certainly got into Harvard — and Harvard Law — partly on the strength of her status as a black (and immigrant) woman.  Likewise with DLA Piper.  The powerful indicators of her incompetence and boorishness were totally ignored.  Probably, nobody at DLA Piper was even looking for them.  They saw “black” and “Harvard”, and that was all they needed.

In many ways, although the firm prevailed in its lawsuit, it got exactly what it deserved (it may have had to pay for its legal defense costs, and certainly had to expend the time and effort needed to participate in the defense).  Think of how many deserving white would-be associates were passed over so that DLA Piper could trumpet its employment of Ms. Morisseau.  Not to “do the right thing,” if you will, but to impress its corporate clients and look good for the liberal press and the New York elites.

You might think DLA Piper clients would be angry to learn that the firm they’ve entrusted to handle their matters for hundreds of dollars an hour makes its hiring decisions for reasons of political correctness instead of competence.  But many big American companies, like Wal-Mart, are actually demanding that their law firms push aside white attorneys in favor of “lawyers of color” — or be fired if they don’t.  One attorney questions whether this is legal, noting “Not only may a law firm be liable for discrimination, but so may be the individual employees and partners at the law firm that participated in the discriminatory decisions,”

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The maddening injustice here is that any number of deserving whites are blocked from America’s big law firms and prestigious newspapers so that the likes of Mr. Blair and Ms. Morisseau can wallow where they don’t belong.  But you will never hear their stories reported.  You rarely seem them file lawsuits to vindicate their rights.  Morris Dees is not going to take up their cause (but will attack whoever does).  They are America’s unheard, unseen victims.

The absurd tale of Ms. Morisseau is also a reflection of the great frictions caused by our society’s attempt to make blacks and whites equal through forcible manipulations.  As an obvious starting point, blacks and whites are not, in general, “equal”:  the IQ differences are well-known, and beyond that there are behavior differences, as noted by Richard Lynn.

Lynn observes that blacks as a group have higher levels of psychopathic personality, and the behavior patterns of Mr. Blair and Ms. Morisseau are consistent with that (if this word seems too strong, ask most big-firm associates what type of personality it would take to order a partner out of an office). As Judge Kaplan noted, “She was a confrontational, stubborn, and insubordinate employee in an environment in which professional personal relations, flexibility and a willingness to accept supervision were essential.”

Ms. Morisseau’s story may well be forgotten as just another crazy chapter in American law.  But it is more than that.  It is part of an undeniable pattern of the failure of races to co-exist in the same society on the assumption that they are perfect equals.

Christopher Donovan is the pen name of an attorney and former journalist.

Media Watch – The New York Times Magazine: A Conversation Among Us Jews

The New York Times Magazine, the New York Times’ Sunday slick-page offering, is easily one of the higher-quality publications in America, with in-depth treatments of cutting-edge issues in medicine, science, foreign policy, politics and our sociological landscape.  But as with much of America’s elite media, there is a disproportionate representation of the Jewish community, its interests and organizations.  This is best illustrated by focusing not on a single story, but an entire recent issue:

From start to finish, the August 12, 2007 issue is revealing.  Two of eight letters to the editor come from Laura Winkler Stein of New Jersey and Marc Rosenblatt of Brooklyn — a comparatively low number compared to past letters pages, some of which have featured two letters from writers both named “Cohen,” for instance.

In the “Questions For” feature at the beginning of the magazine by Deborah Solomon, actor Jonah Hill of the new Superbad movie, tells Ms. Solomon, “I’m a nice Jewish boy.”  His bar mitvah, he relates, was “amazing” and “magical” and carried the theme “Jonah Goes Platinum.”

Prominent neocon William Safire delivers his by-now familiar “On Language” column, which critiques the intricacies of the English language.

In “The Ethicist” feature, we hear from “ethics expert” Randy Cohen, a former comedy writer, who finds it relevant to work in a reference to American slavery in his answer to a question from an American upset about Singaporean justice.  Cohen in the past has enjoyed lecturing readers about the evils of “racism,” though I have not yet seen him address the ethics of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.

The cover piece, on marriage counseling, is penned by one Laurie Abraham, and writer Joshua Yaffa gives an interesting article on the clarity of road signs.  In what even many Jews might chuckle at for approaching parody, Paul Greenberg tells us about Alaskan salmon fishing.

The magazine’s last-page feature, “Lives”, gives us a cozy tale by Joel Schwartzberg about moving back home at age 37.  It’s heavy on his Jewish identity and warm anecdotes of the Jewish family.

“So what?” you might say.  Jews are smart folks and good writers.  It’s no surprise they’d are disproportionately represented, especially in a New York City paper.  How many whites from Iowa read The New York Times Magazine, much less write letters to its editor?

Yet it matters, on at least two levels.  On one, it’s a simple sign of cultural displacement.  The Saturday Evening Post, with its own reflection of white majority mores, has long been replaced.  The loss of this voice, this presence, is itself significant, in the same way that many Jews find an abandoned synagogue in Poland to be significant.  Yes — you see there? Our people used to be here.  And now we are not.  The difference is that Jews ask themselves, “and shouldn’t we return?”  Whites have not, in the main, stopped to even ponder their own displacement, much less consider its implications or focus their minds on coming back.

So it’s worth pointing out that The New York Times Magazine, a part of the nation’s “newspaper of record”, has today become a virtual closed conversation among Jews on Jewish interests.  The thoughts, feelings, desires and dislikes of the American majority have been “disappeared”, which is perhaps worse than mocked or pilloried.

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On another level, predominant media influence matters because media influences policy.  How shall we approach illegal immigration, foreign policy?  The preferences of major Jewish organizations on these issues are well-known, and not coincidentally, have, for the most part, been enacted.  Yet the Jewish preferences are often not those of white Americans, as can be seen from numerous public opinion surveys.  Mass illegal immigration is not the preference of American whites.  Our policy toward Israel and the Middle East also cries out for re-examination if the United States is to extricate itself from the current morass.  So again, it matters.

The predominant influence of Jewish interests in the media simply does not represent the interests of the American majority.  Facing this reality is a necessary first step.

Christopher Donovan is the pen name of an attorney and former journalist.

A New Webzine: Introducing The Occidental Observer

The Occidental Observer will present original content touching on the themes of white identity, white interests, and the culture of the West. Such a mission statement is sure to be dismissed as extremism of the worst sort in today’s intellectual climate—perhaps even as a sign of psychiatric disorder. Yet there is a compelling need for such a site. A great many other identifiable groups in the multicultural West have a strong sense of identity and interest, but overt expressions of white identity and white interests (or European-American identity and interests) are rarely found among the peoples who founded these societies and who continue to make up the majority.

This is a completely unnatural state of affairs—the result of a prolonged assault on the legitimacy of these concepts by cultural elites that have dominated public discourse on issues of race and ethnicity since before World War II. We reject labels such as “white supremacist” or “racist” that are routinely bestowed on assertions of white identity and interests as a means of muzzling their expression. All peoples have ethnic interests and all peoples have a legitimate right to assert their interests, to construct societies that reflect their culture, and to define the borders of their kinship group.

We are highly cognizant of the fact that many of the most strident critics of the legitimacy of white identity and interests have a strong sense of their own ethnic identity and interests. And they have a deep sense of the importance of preserving their people and culture. Non-Western peoples throughout the world continue to seek political power, and they attempt to control their borders, establish their own cultures, and defend their perceived interests.

Societies in Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand that have been controlled by whites for hundreds of years are the only ones to accept their own demise as a moral imperative. We view this outcome as the result of competition over the construction of culture in which the legitimate interests of whites have been compromised.

The Occidental Observer will attempt to rectify that. Major themes will be the bankruptcy of the current culture of the West, the powerful forces of political orthodoxy, and the debasement of the political process in the areas of both foreign and domestic policy.

The situation is particularly worrisome because present demographic trends, especially massive non-white immigration into Western countries, threaten to make whites a minority in these societies within the foreseeable future. Most whites have a gut feeling that the present trends do not bode well for their future and for the prospects of their descendants. We predict that whites will develop a stronger sense of their own identity and interests as a natural outcome of becoming a minority. We are simply ahead of the curve—an unsettling harbinger of things to come.

Whereas The Occidental Quarterly specializes in longer articles and reviews,The Occidental Observer will be more like a newspaper. We will feature op-ed-length articles and reviews, as well as shorter comments on news stories and current events. Every effort will be made to be topical, readable, and intellectually stimulating.

Our content will reflect a deep concern with intellectual honesty and with making claims that are consistent with scientific evidence. Our opponents have erected an intellectual milieu that is scientifically indefensible and that can only be supported by increasingly heavy-handed methods, such as ostracism, removal from employment, and vilification by the cultural and media establishment.

Such “speaking truth to power” is obviously fraught with danger—so much so, that the editorial collective and some of our writers must remain anonymous. We look forward to a future where such tactics will not be necessary. In the meantime, we will do all we can to provide a worldview that is simultaneously intellectually stimulating, scientifically defensible, and pregnant with implications for the future.

Kevin MacDonald (Email him) is Editor of The Occidental Observer and is Professor of Psychology at California State University–Long Beach.
kevinmacdonald.net

Top 100 Least Racially Diverse Cities (population 5,000+)

Looking for that ideal community? One that is demographically compatible and overwhelmingly homogeneous in racial and ethnic composition? An area free of “diversity” and the endemic problems one encounters in a racially mixed or heavily nonwhite urban metropolis? Now prospective homeowners have several options for finding those monochromatic enclaves.

Money magazine features the “best places to live,” ranking the top areas (big cities, small towns, rural communities, suburbs and exurbs) out of a composite score across several categories: financial, housing, education, “quality of life,” leisure and culture, weather, health, and “meet the neighbors.”  In the “meet the neighbors” section, there is a “racial diversity index.” The national average is 100. More “diverse” areas receive a higher score, less diverse communities fall below the national average. According to Money, the “best places average” is 59.2 far below the national average.

This “racial diversity” ranking confirms what sociologist Robert Putnam discovered (and apparently tried to suppress) in his own research on diversity: too much of it erodes the desirability factor for prospective residents. Consider Adelphi, Maryland, a suburb of 18,300 east of Silver Spring, Maryland, which has a diversity index of 860.6—nearly 15 times the “best places average.” Adelphi borders Langley Park (missing from the list of Maryland communities), which has a sizable Latino population and relatively higher level of crime than some Maryland communities of comparable size. With an ever transient population, individuals who are seeking the “right” spot, say in relocating to an unknown area as a result of business or family considerations or simply moving away to the farthest outskirts of a metropolis, need to make informed choices about selecting a preferred residential community.

Finding a prime area to settle into—one that is at least implicitly defined by the shared interests of common ethnic and racial bonds—where residents identify with one another, neighbors are friendly and respectful, children can interact with their friends and roam freely “safe” environments, schools are “good” (a “violence-free” learning experience), surroundings are naturally pleasant and largely free of inner-city problems (where bank tellers are not insulated from their customers with three-inch bullet-proof plexiglass and homes do not have protective iron gates over ground-level windows), then consider one of the following cities:

1.    Cameron Park, Texas (99.3%, pop. 5,961)

2.    West Pittston, Pennsylvania (99.2%, pop. 5,072)

3.    Swoyersville, Pennsylvania (99.1%, pop. 5,157)

4.    Mack South, Ohio (98.8%, pop. 5,837)

5.    Old Forge, Pennsylvania (98.8%, pop. 8,798)

6.    Marilla, New York (98.7%, pop. 5,709)

7.    Pana, Illinois (98.7%, pop. 5,614)

8.    Skaneateles, New York (98.6%, pop. 7,323)

9.    Elma, New York (98.6%, pop. 11,304)

10. Wolfeboro, New Hampshire (98.6%, pop. 6,083)

11. Nanticoke, Pennsylvania (98.6%, pop. 10,955)

12. St. Marys, Pennsylvania (98.6%, pop. 14,502)

13. Columbiana, Ohio (98.6%, pop. 5,635)

14. Longboat Key, Florida (98.6%, pop. 7,603)

15. Sugarcreek, Pennsylvania (98.6%, pop. 5,331)

16. Roma, Texas (98.5%, pop. 9,617)

17. Jerseyville, Illinois (98.5%, pop. 7,984)

18. Latrobe, Pennsylvania (98.5%, pop. 8,994)

19. Tyrone, Pennsylvania (98.5%, pop. 5,528)

20. Timber Pines, Florida (98.5%, pop. 5,840)

21. Eidson Road, Texas (98.4%, pop. 9,348)

22. Waterloo, Illinois (98.4%, pop. 7,614)

23. Brookville, Ohio (98.4%, pop. 5,289)

24. Pelican Bay, Florida (98.4%, pop. 5,686)

25. Alexandria, Kentucky (98.4%, pop. 8,286)

26. Moosic, Pennsylvania (98.4%, pop. 5,575)

27. Salem, Indiana (98.4%, pop. 6,172)

28. Boston, New York (98.4%, pop. 7,897)

29. Kennedy Township, Pennsylvania (98.4%, pop. 7,504)

30. Aurora, New York (98.4%, pop. 13,996)

31. Monticello, Illinois (98.4%, pop. 5,138)

32. Shamokin, Pennsylvania (98.4%, pop. 8,009)

33. Cedarburg, Wisconsin (98.4%, pop. 5,744)

34. Oconomowoc, Wisconsin (98.3%, pop. 7,451)

35. Kiryas Joel, New York (98.3%, pop. 13,138)

36. Carroll, Iowa (98.3%, pop. 10,106)

37. Benton, Illinois (98.3%, pop. 6,880)

38. Archbald, Pennsylvania (98.3%, pop. 6,220)

39. Millinocket, Maine (98.3%, pop. 5,203)

40. Manchester, Iowa (98.3%, pop. 5,257)

41. Millinocket, Maine (98.3%, pop. 5,190)

42. Staunton, Illinois (98.3%, pop. 5,030)

43. Dickson City, Pennsylvania (98.3%, pop. 6,205)

44. Huron, California (98.3%, pop. 6,306)

45. Atlantic, Iowa (98.3%, pop. 7,257)

46. Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts (98.3%, pop. 5,228)

47. Warren, Pennsylvania (98.2%, pop. 10,259)

48. South Williamsport, Pennsylvania (98.2%, pop. 6,412)

49. Fort Edward, New York (98.2%, pop. 5,892)

50. Lafayette, Wisconsin (98.2%, pop. 5,199)

51. Sun City West, Arizona (98.2%, pop. 26,344)

52. Freedom, Wisconsin (98.2%, pop. 5,241)

53. Cumberland, Maine (98.2%, pop. 7,159)

54. Rumford, Maine (98.2%, pop. 6,472)

55. East Aurora, New York (98.2%, pop. 6,673)

56. Exeter, Pennsylvania (98.2%, pop. 5,955)

57. Baxter, Minnesota (98.2%, pop. 5,555)

58. Sandown, New Hampshire (98.2%, pop. 5,143)

59. Bright, Indiana (98.2%, pop. 5,405)

60. Rye, New Hampshire (98.2%, pop. 5,182)

61. Covedale, Ohio (98.2%, pop. 6,360)

62. Bridgetown North, Ohio (98.2%, pop. 12,569)

63. Greene, New York (98.1%, pop. 5,729)

64. Waterboro, Maine (98.1%, pop. 6,214)

65. Clearfield, Pennsylvania (98.1%, pop. 6,631)

66. New Martinsville, West Virginia (98.1%, pop. 5,984)

67. Lincoln, Maine (98.1%, pop. 5,221)

68. Mountain Brook, Alabama (98.1%, pop. 20,604)

69. Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania (98.1%, pop. 6,390)

70. Eliot, Maine (98.1%, pop. 5,954)

71. Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania (98.1%, pop. 6,271)

72. Constantia, New York (98.1%, pop. 5,141)

73. Kings Point, Florida (98.1%, pop. 12,207)

74. Boonville, Indiana (98.1%, pop. 6,834)

75. Georgetown, Massachusetts (98.1%, pop. 7,377)

76. Greenville, Rhode Island (98.1%, pop. 8,626)

77. Harrison, Wisconsin (98.1%, pop. 5,756)

78. Delphos, Ohio (98.1%, pop. 6,944)

79. Taylor, Pennsylvania (98.1%, pop. 6,475)

80. Fairfield, Illinois (98.1%, pop. 5,421)

81. Hopkinton, New Hampshire (98.1%, pop. 5,399)

82. Lancaster, New York (98.1%, pop. 11,188)

83. Hamburg, New York (98.0%, pop. 10,116)

84. Bloomingdale, Tennessee (98.0%, pop. 10,350)

85. Mount Horeb, Wisconsin (98.0%, pop. 5,860)

86. Kirtland, Ohio (98.0%, pop. 6,670)

87. Pendleton, New York (98.0%, pop. 6,050)

88. Yarmouth, Maine (98.0%, pop. 8,360)

89. Winthrop, Maine (98.0%, pop. 6,232)

90. Lisbon, Wisconsin (98.0%, pop. 9,359)

91. Mecca, California (98.0%, pop. 5,402)

92. Mooresville, Indiana (98.0%, pop. 9,273)

93. Groveland, Massachusetts (98.0%, pop. 6,038)

94. Holiday City-Berkeley, New Jersey (98.0%, pop. 13,884)

95. West Frankfort, Illinois (98.0%, pop. 8,196)

96. Hartford City, Indiana (98.0%, pop. 6,928)

97. Hingham, Massachusetts (98.0%, pop. 5,352)

98. Ocean Bluff-Brant Rock, Massachusetts (98.0%, pop. 5,100)

99. Gilford, New Hampshire (98.0%, pop. 6,803)

100. Economy, Pennsylvania (98.0%, pop. 9,363)

For more links on the best places to live, as well as compare the “racial diversity” composition, the following sites offer some useful (if partial) information:

http://money.aol.com/best-places-to-live

Kevin Lamb, a freelance writer, is a former library assistant for Newsweek, managing editor of Human Events, and assistant editor of the Evans-Novak Political Report. He is the managing editor of The Social Contract.

Comments on Katrine Fangen’s “Breaking Up the Different Constituting Parts of Ethnicity: The Case of Young Somalis in Norway” (Acta Sociologica, December 2007. pp. 401-414).

This article examines five case studies of Somalis living in Norway: Norwegian-Muslims who are Norwegian-Somalis. None of the five Somalis  see Norwegian identity as desirable, except in so far as it grants them opportunities and welfare. None of Somalis respect Norwegian culture. None of the Somalis feel “stigmatized” by Norwegians because  of their skin color, religion or race: By contrast, each of the five  Somalis appear to have deep and sometimes aggressive racial,  religious and cultural prejudices against Norwegian-Christians.  Despite all this, Fangen only concludes that the definition of ethnic identity can be  parsed into elements including “everyday practice” and “geographic  belonging.”  (See Fangen’s abstract here.)

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The five case studies include:

(1) Ayanna, who considers herself to  be Somali but also appreciates the greater freedom she has in Norway compared to Somalia or even among Somali relatives who live in the fundamentalist Somali colony in East London.

(2) Riyo, who came to  Norway as a small child refugee and grew up in Norway, sees herself as  “100% Somali.” He despises Norwegian institutions such as schools  because the schools, even if subtly, imply that the majority culture is more  important than Somali culture.

(3) Hassan is a cosmopolitan because he likes to date White girls. Increasingly(seemingly because his success in dating White girls has been limited) he has defined  himself as a Muslim more than as a Somali, but definitely does not  see himself as a Norwegian. (He thinks Norwegians are ignorant and  crude.)

(4) Abdulrahim moved from membership in Rastafarian Black [racist, drug] gangs to being a clan-oriented, “politicized” Somali supremacist. He sees his role as rescuing younger Somalis from entrapment and victimization by the inferior Norwegian culture.

(5) Asha, planning to enter law school (through Affirmative Action)  sees herself as 100% Somali and notes that Somalis will be 100%  Somali even after 100 years. Indeed, she plans to raise her future children  as 100% Somalis.

Notably, the author omits a case study of hardline Somali racial supremacists, who live self-segregated, welfare-sustained lives in  Norway away from the Norwegians they hate, although she admits they  exist in large numbers, especially in Oslo.

James Murray is the pen name of an academic sociologist.