Adolph Reed

[Rakesh Bhandari]

Kenny if you simply wanted to dis Reed--and so far your criticisms either
evince no knowledge of what he has written (his views on religion or the
philosophical influences on DuBois) or don't hold water (he shouldn't have
published in the Village Voice) or are ill-defined (he's a sectarian) or
are bizarre (he claims to be the only sophisticated Negro who ever
lived--where?though his historical analysis of the civil rights movement 
in the book he edited is surely the most searching one I have read); at
any rate, if you wanted simply to dis him, you should learn something from
him. He doesn't use the trite, rather pathetic  put downs
of "idiot" or "lightweight"  in the academic game of dozens (don't you
think you should have had something substantive to say
before such abuse?) Now look at how Reed plays:  he has memorably referred
to a certain talking head  as the Reverand Hip Hop Pork Chop; he has
referred to some elite black narrative of returning to the hood as a rerun
of the "Go Tamba, Go Tamba" commercials. So if you have nothing
substantive or accurate  in your critique, at least be funny.  Yet after
all these years, you remain in your own humorless mind The Savior of the
Negro. 
Rakesh