Women and Maori urged to leave 'ghetto' for the mainstream

Tammy Bruce has written a number of books. Picture / Paul Estcourt

An unconventional American feminist is warning New Zealanders not to follow the American path of "positive discrimination" in favour of women and racial minorities.

Tammy Bruce, a lesbian talkshow host who supports abortion but voted for George W. Bush, says returning land to American Indians has led to alcoholism, hopelessness and suicide.

She urges women, Maori and other minorities to get out of the "ghetto" and compete in mainstream society.

A former executive member of the National Organisation for Women, she has been brought to New Zealand for a pre-election tour by former Hamilton Act party candidate Joanne Reeder, with support from property developer John Sax.

Mr Sax and his wife Alma organised a letter signed by Auckland Mayor Dick Hubbard and others late last year against the Civil Unions Bill. Ms Bruce supports civil unions, although she said yesterday that she accepted that most Americans did not support gay marriage.

In her book, The New Thought Police, she says she is "probably still trying to save my mother, who led a difficult life as a single mother of two girls, abandoned by my father, periodically dependent on welfare, and addicted to valium".

At 17 she began a relationship with Days of Our Lives actress Brenda Benet, which ended two years later when Ms Benet killed herself at the age of 36. Ms Bruce heard the gunshot and saw the mutilated body.

"In the years that followed, my entire focus was on me - what I wanted, what I was going to get, how much money I was going to make," she writes. "There were no moral standards in my life."

Now 42, she says her life changed in 1993 when she took a job hosting a talkback show and found that Christians could be curious and tolerant, even though they disagreed with her.

"The left relies on multiculturalism to isolate groups so that there is no unity and they can maintain a victim sensibility," she says.

Quotas for blacks in US universities and Government jobs worked mainly against Asians, she says. A Californian referendum banning racial preferences in 1996 was "a rousing success".

"Those that are in university have expressed that they are excited because they know that they did this on their own. There is a certain amount of pride, then that increases," she says.

"So race admissions have increased, actually, and young people are competing at a higher level. Asians are now not blocked out, so that racism has been eliminated."

But she says "outreach" activities are still needed to tell blacks, women and others about opportunities that they might not be aware of.

Americans overwhelmingly oppose moves to pay "reparations" to the black descendants of 19th-century slaves, says Bruce. So many immigrants had come to the United States since slavery was abolished that it would be impossible to decide who should pay and who should receive the money.

"Reparations are meant to reinforce isolationism, racism, separatism and the argument that blacks remain oppressed by the white slavery," she says. "Blacks want to move on from that."

American Indians had been granted sovereignty of their reservations, allowing a few people to become "obscenely rich" from casinos. But that wealth had not spread to ordinary people.

* Ms Bruce speaks at the Founders Theatre in Hamilton at 7.30pm tomorrow

Taking a stand

Tammy Bruce

Age: 42

Education: political science degree from the University of Southern California

Career: president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Organisation of Women. Two years on the national NOW board of directors. The Tammy Bruce Show premiered on radio in 1993 in Los Angeles. Now heard on 153 stations across the US. Editorials and commentaries published in a wide variety of magazines and newspapers. Fox News Channel political analyst. Served on California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's transition team.

Political stance: "A brand of feminism that places her somewhere between Donna Reed and Thelma and Louise." Openly gay, pro-choice, gun-owning, pro-death penalty, voted-for-President Bush progressive feminist.

Books: The New Thought Police (2001), The Death of Right and Wrong: Exposing the Left's Assault on Our Culture and Values (2003), The New American Revolution: Using the Power of the Individual to Save Our Nation from Extremists (2005).

Favourite authors: Ray Bradbury and George Orwell.

Source: Tammybruce.com