Class Memory...was Michael Moore

Katha Pollitt kpollitt at thenation.com
Thu May 28 16:06:30 PDT 1998


I think Carrol Cox makes a very good point about the CP and race. I grew up in a CP milieu in the fifties and sixties, and today I am struck by how racially integrated it was. My parents' circle of political comrades and friends had many blacks and Asians; they sent me to a fellow-travelling summer camp (Woodland, in Phoenicia NY) that was a real racial (and class) mix. Of course, the big difference between those CPers and gitlin,alterman and co is that the CP, for better or worse, was doing actual politics. But Gitlin and Alterman are just pontificators. They don't belong to any social movement, or even know much about them. What they are basically all about is book contracts, and panels, and grants. Which is hardly a crime --- I'm a writer too-- but they shouldn't speak as if they represent a wing of an actually existing "left." I've yet to meet a leftist, of any stripe, who takes them seriously.

Katha Pollitt



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list