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Jewish World ReviewOct. 1, 1999/21 Tishrei, 5760

Larry Elder

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Econophone

An unfair attack against a fair-minded man

http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- "SO MANY RACISTS, so little time."

Black Time magazine editor Jack E. White fired that shot at David Horowitz, the "conservative" head of an organization called The Center for the Study of Popular Culture.

And get a load of White's headline: "A Real, Live Bigot."

Horowitz's crime? He wrote, for "Salon" magazine, an article called "Guns Don't Kill Black People, Other Blacks Do."

Horowitz dared suggest the unsuggestible: that the cause of black-on-black crime is, well, black criminals. To White, Horowitz's statement translates into "a blanket assault on the alleged moral failures of African-Americans ... " Odd, since Horowitz condemned the behavior of black criminals, not black non-criminals. White then purported to chronicle Horowitz's life from a Black-Panther-Party-sympathizing-leftist-radical to "a conduit through which extreme political ideas gain access to the mainstream."

(Horowitz, himself, writes of his conversion in his book, "Radical Son.")

Never mind that Horowitz, whom I've known for years, maintains a pro-choice position on first trimester abortion. Or feels that the state should sanction unions, short of marriage, between gays. Or that he opposes mandatory religious prayer in public schools.

White's attack on Horowitz again demonstrates the hypocrisy and inconsistency of the "compassion police."

Jesse Jackson, for example, made an arguably more "extreme" statement about black-on-black crime, "I hate to admit it, but I have reached a stage in my life that if I am walking down a dark street late at night and I see that the person behind me is white, I subconsciously feel relieved." Does this differ much from Horowitz who said, "The fact is that while blacks make up only 12 percent of the population, they account for 46 percent of total violent crime, and 90 percent of the murders of other blacks. It is they, not whites or gun manufacturers, who are responsible for the disproportionate gun deaths of young black males."

Horowitz
More hypocrisy and inconsistency? White, an affirmative action supporter, recently wrote about a black woman, Rene Redwood, the former executive director of George Bush's Federal Glass Ceiling Commission. Redwood now renounces her previous support of affirmative action, saying, "Some time in the 1980s, a sense of entitlement began to replace blacks' sense of doing things for ourselves." Redwood, White writes, attributes the black "performance gap" on standardized tests to an "erosion in values." Yet, despite White's support of affirmative action, he ended his Redwood article with a smile. "To me," White said of Redwood's retreat on affirmative action, "That seems like common sense."

Yet when Horowitz raises similar concerns about the values and moral failings of some blacks, White calls it "strident and accusatory." How dare David Horowitz suggest that society should hold blacks to the same moral standards as everybody else.

"A real, live bigot"? Where then to place, say, David Duke, or the Jasper, Texas, white supremacists who dragged James Byrd to his death? White also cried, "Well, what does Horowitz want us to do, go back to Africa?" Hm-mm. Would that include Horowitz's black daughter-in-law? Think of the frequent flyer miles racked up by Horowitz as he flies to and from Africa to visit his three multi-racial granddaughters.

White further condemns Horowitz for suggesting some "black leaders" behave irresponsibly. "Shaking down guilt-feeling whites, [Horowitz] says, has allowed 'racial ambulance chasers' like Jesse Jackson and the NAACP's Kweisi Mfume to live like millionaires." Well, don't they? And didn't black Republican J. C. Watts make a similar remark decrying "race-hustling poverty pimps"? Does that make Watts another "real, live bigot"?

Is White's silly, mean-spirited, and over-the-top reaction any different from the remark made by black New York Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel, who said about the Republican Congress, "It's not 'spic' and 'nigger' anymore. They say, 'Let's cut taxes.'"

White, perhaps inadvertently, gives a clue as to his motive. White said that Horowitz's column made him feel "young and militant again. It reminded me that blatant bigotry is alive and well ... " Ah-hh, the good ol' days of waterhoses and dogs sicced on black protesters. Marches. Pickets.

Get it? The joys of victimhood. Black "victicrats" feel a sense of moral superiority because of past discrimination, Jim Crow, and slavery. This creates a sense of power, of entitlement, of a club to be used against "oppressors." The comfort of underdog status.

After all, if underdogs decide not to try, who could blame them? The oppressors stack the odds against them. And, should an underdog triumph, well, this occurred only through superhuman efforts, and skillful navigation through the rocky, vicious, racist waters we call America.

So many "victicrats." So little time.


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©1999, Creators Syndicate