Pollitt on West

Peter Kilander peterk at enteract.com
Thu Dec 31 10:47:22 PST 1998


Someone else who likes to slam West is Adolph Reed, Jr. (I haven't seen anything published by him in a while, though) I would guess Reed and Pollitt think West's biggest offence is lending legitimacy to Farrakhan. Reed also has bashed West's stress on underclass pathology - a somewhat voluntaristic way of looking at things - even though West has written about the pit falls of voluntarism.

It does seem West has become a Civil Society type; I thought he was pretty good when he first came on the scene. I think for Pollitt this is part of a wider battle waged against an apparent backsliding on identity politics issues on the part of liberal and leftist males. I don't want to open a can of worms, but here in Illinois you had the example of Poshard (pro-union, pro-family, anti-woman and anti-gay) running for governor on the Democratic ticket and then there was the Senatorial race between Fitzgerald (a raging right-winger) and Mosley-Braun.


>I haven't read the West book, but from my experience
>w/Ms. P I would counsel all to take her comments with
>a bucket of salt. She seems to have difficulty fairly
>and accurately characterizing arguments with which she
>disagrees. Anyone interested in the West book should
>seek more diverse advice, not the least of which would
>be to find out for themselves. What I heard about it
>did not interest me enough to buy it, but that could
>have been a mistake.
>
>mbs



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