Horowitz/Reparations for slavery

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Thu Mar 8 14:50:27 PST 2001



>On Thu, 8 Mar 2001, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>> Then, let us restrict the parameters strictly to debates on
>> this list. No Elaine Chao, no Thomas Sowell here.
>
>No, but there is a black person here who thinks it apt to
>dismiss Adoph Reed with a reference to Clarence Thomas.
>
>Do *you* think Reed and Thomas share anything but skin color? I
>think that was a nasty and undeserved smear of Reed.
>
>Joseph Noonan

At 12:27 PM -0800 3/7/01, Art McGee wrote:
>Responding to multiple posts:
>
>> Fwiw, Adolph Reed, who's neither ignorant nor white,
>> shares a similar view: http://www.progressive.org/reed1200.htm
>
>Yes, and Reed, as with so many other things, is in the
>microscopic minority with his view. On this issue, he
>is ignorant, and if "whiteness" is defined by your
>disconnectedness from "Blackness," ala Clarence
>Thomas, well...

I believe Reed is more than capable of defending himself from Art or anyone else for that matter without your rising up to his defense (especially given that Art's main criticism is qualified thus: "On _this_ issue...).

As you may recall, Reed himself has sometimes dismissively, at other times venomously heaped scorns upon many black intellectuals, organizers, & activists: Mumia Abu-Jamal & MOVE (see <http://nuance.dhs.org/lbo-talk/0002/0530.html> & the threads it started); Manning Marable (whom he once classed among the "Super Friends"); & now the whole campaign (not just this or that part of the campaign) for reparations for slavery & its legacy. (The list of Reed's critical targets is _long_.) He sure can give as good as he gets, I think, since he has often given before getting any.

Reed is committed to an economistic program to be achieved by electoral-majoritarian means (= a wishful thinking), which in my opinion explains his tireless efforts to bury any black political phenomenon that may scare white leftists (of the kind who read _The Progressive_ faithfully). This is my opinion, though, and I don't pretend to read Art's mind.

Yoshie



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