David Horowitz was unaware, until he read it on my blog, that the numbers he published concerning "interracial rape" in America -- i.e., 100 white women a day raped by blacks, and "virtually zero" black women raped by whites -- are grossly inaccurate.
Now that he is aware, Horowitz isn't doing much to fix the damage.
How do I know the 100-a-day figure is grossly inaccurate? Because Lawrence Auster, the man who presented that number in an article titled "The Truth of Interracial Rape in the United States," now admits he misinterpreted data from a Justice Department crime survey. He admitted it Sunday, on his own blog.
(One of Auster's readers added up the Justice Department crime victimization estimates over a 10-year period. Going by his figures, 36 white women a day are sexually attacked by blacks, while 8 black women a day are sexually attacked by whites.)
Today I urged David Horowitz, in an open letter, to remove "The Truth of Interracial Rape" from his FrontPage Magazine website. Instead, Horowitz has posted this notice (in large type) on its homepage:
"Correction. Auster's statistics were wrong, but his point about liberal hypocrisy on race was not."
Whoa.
Auster's article, with its faulty numbers in tact (as well as the incendiary conclusion Auster drew from them: "white women in this country are being targeted by black rapists"), remains on the FrontPage site. With the following "editor's note" by Horowitz slapped on top:
"Lawrence Auster has posted a correction to this article on the legal lynching of the Duke students, the presumption that white males are rapists and racists and the failure to hold blacks and whites to a single standard. The statistics in his article were incorrect, but the points the article makes about liberal hypocrisy and liberal racism were not. The Huffington Post leftists are in full throat denouncing Auster's racism but are silent about the racism of Huffington Post and every liberal media vehicle that I am aware of in going along with the Duke atrocity and failing to condemn racists like Sharpton and Jackson because they are black. The correction is printed here.
So, to recap this hot mess:
Last Thursday, Horowitz publishes a piece by one of his longtime contributors, Lawrence Auster...
Horowitz is reminded (by me) that in May 2006 he'd agreed that Auster held some "racist and offensive" views, and shouldn't contribute to FrontPage again unless he renounces them...
I write about this in a HuffPost entry...
Horowitz and Auster trade nasty emails, with Horowitz calling Auster a "big pain in the ass" whose "racial attitudes" have been the source of "many arguments" in the past...
Horowitz kicks Lawrence Auster off the FrontPage team...
But he KEEPS AUSTER'S BLACK-RAPE ARTICLE UP ON HIS WEBSITE.
Meanwhile, Auster's now-discredited claim of 100 black-on-white rapes per day is gaining traction in certain quarters of the Internet.
American Renaissance, a white nationalist site, linked to FrontPage with this teaser line: "Every day, more than 100 white women are sexually attacked by black men."
David Duke did his part to spread the word: "... more than 100 White women [are] raped by Blacks every day..."
And the neo-Nazi Vanguard Network News went for the gusto: "Over 100 White women are raped by niggers daily -- and no one in the media will cover it."
I don't know if it's possible to un-ring a bell. But David Horowitz should be trying a hell of a lot harder to un-ring this one.