Thoughtful and impassioned advice from Ishmael Reed, interviewed on his recent book, “The Return of the Nigger Breakers”.

Reed notes the one-sided treatment of pathologies in the black community, versus the treatment of  pathologies in other communities:

“The Gates line is picked up by white critics like Nicholas Kristof urging white rule to return to Africa.  I wrote Kristof a letter about his constant hammering of black male behavior toward women without challenging the wide-spread abuse of women by white men.

The Times got Solomon Moore a black Times writer to respond. He defended Kristof. (When I challenged NPR’s nasty and depraved “Ghetto I01,” they got a token Hispanic to respond). He wrote “… I think you are accusing the wrong dude of racially slanted coverage. If you read Kristof’s writings, I think you will find him to be pretty balanced and empathetic toward the wide variety of victims he writes about, and find him equally pissed off toward oppressors of all stripes. ” Yet when confronted by statistics that showed the abandonment of white children by their meth addicted white parents, he dismissed it as a “fad. ” The old penny press of the 1830s made money by depicting blacks as cannibals. Kristof updates this with his accusation that blacks in the Kongo engage in “auto-cannibalism ”yet on Sunday May, 2, he defended the catholic church which has had to pay billions for the pedophilic behavior of its priests and bishops. He doesn’t seem to be “pissed off” at the catholic church.

Kristof and Navarrete are not the only ones who draw readers and viewers to their opinion products by dissing blacks, a big business. Michelle Bernard, an MSNBC regular and a black right-winger says that “personal responsibility” is “especially !”a problem for black Americans.  She’s irresponsible. There is a higher rate per thousand births to Hispanic unmarried mothers than to black teenagers. They have a higher drop out rate. We thought that when women gained power in the media, they’d be responsible. The producer of MSNBC’s “Hard Ball” where Bernard is a regular is Jennifer Berman. She books Bernard, whose allowed to run amuck over blacks with spiteful generalizations. If I were on “Hard Ball” and made a generalization about women like if I were to say that women can’t do math, Berman wouldn’t invite me to return. At one time, blacks could respond through writing. James Baldwin used a diamond encrusted megaphone to plead black aspirations, and his generation of writers could debate their critics one on one. But with the disappearance of serious black fiction and non fiction this is no longer the case. When was the last time you saw a black author appear on CNN and MSNBC where white authors appear around the clock. Terry McMillan, interviewed In the latest issue of Konch (IshmaelReedpub. com), says that black fiction that is selling is urban fiction that shows blacks at their worst, which is not to say that black criminals don’t exist. But that’s all we get from the mainstream media, television and movies. Anyway, when I was left for literary road kill after the publication of my novel, “Reckless Eyeballing, ” in which, ironically, the women characters fare better than the men, I decided that never again would the success or failure of my work be determined by the trends in African American culture that are defined by outsiders. I studied Japanese and wrote “Japanese By Spring. ” It was panned by American critics but received a very favorable press in Japan where I toured, and signed autographs in Katakana. I studied Yoruba and read poems I wrote in Yoruba before an audience in Nigeria. Now this book, which my agent said no American publisher would publish, was published in Quebec. Between April 14, and 20. I did national media in Canada with front page stories in the major dailies and weeklies and a front page story on The Montreal Review of Books and was greeted by crowds in Montreal and Toronto. In Montreal they had to turn people away. This must have been what it was like when the fugitive slaves traveled abroad and lectured. There is a black reading public in Canada and Quebec, mostly African and Caribbean readers, and some American ex pats. There’s a union movement. My reception in Toronto was hosted by the Steelworkers Union. By contrast, when I appeared at the Hue Man bookstore in Harlem last summer in connection with my book, “Ishmael Reed, The Plays, ” only three people showed up. The most recent play, “Body Parts” about the exploitation of blacks and Africans being used as guinea pigs by the pharmaceutical industry was dismissed as “angry “by the Times while blame the victim plays and plays about black men as sexual predators, here and in Africa, even MLK, are drooled over by white male and white feminist critics. My advice to young writers is that they seek audiences elsewhere. It’s a big world.”

My Comment:

Obviously, I don’t agree with Reed’s statist solution to problems experienced by young black males – guaranteed payment of college educations, for instance.

I don’t agree with statist solutions for any community. But his advice to simply ignore the US media – and that includes some of the alternative media – is an excellent one. Its views are far too insular and predictable for it to see things with any clarity or even-handedness.

As for Reed’s other main point, the one-sided portrayal of black pathologies, that’s obvious enough.

Has anyone done an anthropological study of the government-financial nexus (let’s not even get into ethnicity on that subject) and asked what its ‘cannibalism’ of the rest of the economy says about the pathologies of its members? I dare say you wouldn’t go very far if you did.

Or if you asked why violence and drugs are passed off as “black” crimes, whereas embezzling, stock fraud, Wall Street looting, mass bombing of civilians, and sniping from robot drones aren’t ever depicted as “white” crimes?

Or why it’s just fine to suggest that European rule should return to Africa because the “natives” obviously can’t manage on their own (never mind the constant meddling in African affairs by European states and businesses that are never mentioned in such pieces)?

Africa has its share of autocratic, corrupt thugs in power. So does India. But doesn’t the US? And is anyone using that as an excuse to suggest that the “natives” here can’t manage and ought to be ruled by, say, South Koreans or Japanese?

I wonder how far they’d go if they suggested that.

Libertarians aren’t immune to parochial (to avoid the divisive term ‘racist’) arguments.

Opposing the government is a necessary condition for being a libertarian.
In my book, it’s not a sufficient condition.