Friday, Jul 25, 2008
Horowitz's "revisionist" understanding of race relations
Plus: The politics and art of Rage Against the Machine; telling AOL what to do with its spam-fest.
Nov 30, 1999 | Throw away the key!
BY DAVID HOROWITZ
(11/22/99)
I am one African-American who does not agree with Jesse Jackson's behavior in Decatur. Nor do I agree with (or appreciate) David Horowitz using Jackson's faux pas as yet another excuse to attack African-American culture. Nor do I agree with Horowitz's assumption that Jackson is some kind of uncivil rights leader. I, like many other African-Americans, do not consider Jackson our leader.
Horowitz's problem is that he is looking at the African-American community as a foot-marching, sign-carrying Borg creature willing to follow anyone that calls himself a black leader and raise a clarion call to "blame Whitey." The fact that many of us have not voiced our opinion in the Decatur situation demonstrates that we are not a unimind marching in lockstep. Some of us may agree with Jackson's actions but many of us don't; sometimes silence is the best rebuke.
-- Alvin McEwen
Jesse Jackson's diatribe against the Decatur school system has already received far more press than Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott's ties to the racist Council of Conservative Citizens. Racism is, you know, so OVER. Except when it is perpetuated by blacks.
Yes, black racism is helping to drive a wedge between whites and blacks who no doubt want the same things out of life. But that wedge has existed since the first Africans were brought to this continent as slaves. To blame the racial climate of the United States solely on black Americans, as Horowitz seems to do, is specious and revisionist, to say the least, and a form of conservative-approved political correctness. You know why George Bush won't criticize Pat Buchanan? Because the Republican Party needs the white bigot vote in order to survive.
-- David Dunne
Lately, there seems to be a rash of people who think that expulsion is a viable answer. I find this loony: How will these young people ever change their ways if the best answer a room full of supposedly educated people can come up with is "kick them out"?
Work with these kids; try to make some kind of difference. Kicking them out is just giving them an express ticket to a terrible life. It doesn't make any sense to remove misbehaving kids from anyone who would hold them accountable, That's a death warrant in cities like D.C., where almost 50 percent of black male teenagers are in prison or awaiting trial.
-- Brian Thomas
The "riot" David Horowitz refers to, while ugly, was a fistfight which apparently lasted less than a minute and resulted in no injuries. For that, the students were expelled for two years. Even the Grand Dragon of the KKK, who showed up to exploit the situation, said the punishment was obviously too harsh. Also, the Decatur school board did not, as required by law, present the students with options for alternative education.
It should also be noted that these so-called criminals faced no charges until Jackson came to Decatur, and law enforcement decided, two months after the fact, that the kids had better be charged with something to make the two-year expulsions look a little less extreme.
-- John Soloman
David Horowitz wrote: "A month ago, for example, even as the trial of Matthew Shepard's homophobic killer was concluding, two homosexuals -- one black, the other white -- raped and murdered an adolescent white youngster. There was little or no news coverage of this incident, no national hand-wringing over a politically incorrect hate crime. Do we need a white heterosexual civil rights movement to redress this injustice?"
Horowitz leaves one thing out of his discussion: context. The murder of this child was a heinous crime, and my heart goes out to his family. But the crime did not take place in a context of organized hate campaigns directed at young boys. There are no organizations claiming that young boys are unnatural and contrary to God and that society would be better off without them. There are no religious groups pointing out that the Bible insists that young boys should be murdered. There is no "kid panic defense" being used by defense attorneys.
The media focus on Matthew Shepard was on the link between his murder and the hatred of gays so common in mainstream society. That doesn't make the adolescent's murder any less evil. But it does call into question why Horowitz is using it to bash civil rights for gays and lesbians.
-- Bennet Marks
Why is David Horowitz's rant about Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton prominently labeled News at the head of the page? Reads like an old-fashioned editorial to me. Even if I didn't think Horowitz was a zealot, I'd still be irked by the fluffy presentation by which his hot air is presented as fact.
-- Jeff Sharlet
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