Read Online Hating Whitey and Other Progressive Causes by David Horowitz - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: David Horowitz
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these cadences from one of our most celebrated and rewarded national literary figures. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetimes? Apparently, Colin Powell, the most popular presidential prospect in polls taken only two years before is not all that black, having been born into a two-parent household and, though poor in origins and familiar with discrimination, not known for his unhealthy food addictions or stereotypical musical tastes.
On the other hand, perhaps the liberal identification of blackness with victimization and social dysfunction is not so wide of the mark in explaining the sympathy of political leftists like Morrison and Bond or the support of the Congressional Black Caucus for the immoralist from Little Rock. Perhaps it reflects a resonance in the black community to the White House's cynical strategy of defining presidential deviancy down: "They all do it." Roosevelt, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Reagan, Bush — they all lie and cheat. So why shouldn't our guy? This certainly seems to be the corrosive logic behind which some blacks have rallied to the defense of other criminal politicians, like the corrupt and crack-addicted former mayor of Washington, D.C., Marion Barry. It could easily account for the undertones of racial paranoia ("they're out to get our guys") that surfaced when African-American members of the Clinton Administration, Ron Brown, Mike Espy and Hazel O'Leary came under investigation for irregularities in office.
Which is precisely the way Toni Morrison frames Clinton's problem: "When virtually all the African-American Clinton appointees began, one by one, to disappear, when the President's body, his privacy, his unpoliced sexuality became the focus of the persecution, when he was metaphorically seized and body-searched, who could gainsay these black men who knew whereof they spoke?" According to Morrison the message from white America is clear: "No matter how smart you are, how hard you work, how much coin you earn for us, we will put you in your place or put you out of the place." Or, to paraphrase the mantra of the late Malcolm X, No matter how high you rise, you're ahvays gonna be a nigger to the man.
Putting aside the paranoid overtones of such attitudes in the era of Oprah Winfrey and Michael Jordan — or Toni Morrison for that matter — one might still ask why Bill Clinton should be "our guy" from an African-American point of view. Isn't this the Bill Clinton who established his New Democrat credentials by delivering a verbal slap to Sister Souljah on the eve of his election in 1992 and by losing the phone number of Jesse Jackson for the next five years? Isn't this the Bill Clinton who betrayed old friend and political soul-mate Lani Guinier, and who, after nominating her as his civil rights chief, left her to the mercies of her political enemies, all the while pretending ignorance of who she was and what she believed? Isn't this the Bill Clinton whose vaunted "dialogue on race" — the centerpiece of his racial initiative — was immolated by his own sex scandal while the final report of his Race Commission ended up calling merely for . . . more dialogue? Reviewing the report, liberal columnist Frank Rich summed up the Clinton record on race as follows: "high ideals, beautiful show, one-night stand."
Indeed, isn't this the Bill Clinton who brought Jesse Jackson back into the fold and wrapped himself in the protective cloak of the black community and its historic symbols only when he himself was in terminal trouble? Only after Democrats had lost the Congress and he no longer had the power to seriously advance the black community's agendas? Surely there have been few more repellent demonstrations of Clinton's user-ethic than his pilgrimage of atonement to Africa, at the height of the Lewinsky scandal and after he had been trapped in his labyrinth of lies and become an international laughing-stock. With Jesse Jackson and Maxine Waters and a
On the other hand, perhaps the liberal identification of blackness with victimization and social dysfunction is not so wide of the mark in explaining the sympathy of political leftists like Morrison and Bond or the support of the Congressional Black Caucus for the immoralist from Little Rock. Perhaps it reflects a resonance in the black community to the White House's cynical strategy of defining presidential deviancy down: "They all do it." Roosevelt, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Reagan, Bush — they all lie and cheat. So why shouldn't our guy? This certainly seems to be the corrosive logic behind which some blacks have rallied to the defense of other criminal politicians, like the corrupt and crack-addicted former mayor of Washington, D.C., Marion Barry. It could easily account for the undertones of racial paranoia ("they're out to get our guys") that surfaced when African-American members of the Clinton Administration, Ron Brown, Mike Espy and Hazel O'Leary came under investigation for irregularities in office.
Which is precisely the way Toni Morrison frames Clinton's problem: "When virtually all the African-American Clinton appointees began, one by one, to disappear, when the President's body, his privacy, his unpoliced sexuality became the focus of the persecution, when he was metaphorically seized and body-searched, who could gainsay these black men who knew whereof they spoke?" According to Morrison the message from white America is clear: "No matter how smart you are, how hard you work, how much coin you earn for us, we will put you in your place or put you out of the place." Or, to paraphrase the mantra of the late Malcolm X, No matter how high you rise, you're ahvays gonna be a nigger to the man.
Putting aside the paranoid overtones of such attitudes in the era of Oprah Winfrey and Michael Jordan — or Toni Morrison for that matter — one might still ask why Bill Clinton should be "our guy" from an African-American point of view. Isn't this the Bill Clinton who established his New Democrat credentials by delivering a verbal slap to Sister Souljah on the eve of his election in 1992 and by losing the phone number of Jesse Jackson for the next five years? Isn't this the Bill Clinton who betrayed old friend and political soul-mate Lani Guinier, and who, after nominating her as his civil rights chief, left her to the mercies of her political enemies, all the while pretending ignorance of who she was and what she believed? Isn't this the Bill Clinton whose vaunted "dialogue on race" — the centerpiece of his racial initiative — was immolated by his own sex scandal while the final report of his Race Commission ended up calling merely for . . . more dialogue? Reviewing the report, liberal columnist Frank Rich summed up the Clinton record on race as follows: "high ideals, beautiful show, one-night stand."
Indeed, isn't this the Bill Clinton who brought Jesse Jackson back into the fold and wrapped himself in the protective cloak of the black community and its historic symbols only when he himself was in terminal trouble? Only after Democrats had lost the Congress and he no longer had the power to seriously advance the black community's agendas? Surely there have been few more repellent demonstrations of Clinton's user-ethic than his pilgrimage of atonement to Africa, at the height of the Lewinsky scandal and after he had been trapped in his labyrinth of lies and become an international laughing-stock. With Jesse Jackson and Maxine Waters and a
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