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I want point out another aspect to Reed's irrationa with Gates's standing in the public mind. Reed was in the UCB English department. I think he is retired now. Back in the mid-80s I tried one of his novels, can't remember which one. It started with Melville's famous line, ``Call me Ishmael.'' then quickly moved to incoherence. It read very advanced postmodern-modern satric style. I wasn't ready for it. Maybe now. It was the same kind of not yet ready, that most people have with Judith Butler, or the French theory crowd. With Reed, I should have started with his poetry. I stuck with Burroughs because he was filthy minded enough to interest me, but most people can't take Burroughs either. (As a completely off-topic note. I met a gay activist I knew vaguely at one of Burrough's readings, and B just flipped out. Hated Burroughs. Though he was a fraud.)
Okay so Reed is also a postmodern artist or can be. I haven't followed his work. So, I think one thing that's going on, is Reed is also pissed off at the general intellectual climate in the US that privilages guys like Gates who follow standard fare mostly mediocre academic writing, and basically don't say much we haven't heard before. Meanwhile guys like Reed who were out on the bleeding edge of both political thought and writing style get nada or little recognition. Here's the wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_Reed
What you maybe able to see is also a very traditional conflict between the bleeding edge avant-guard and the stuff shirt professoriat. English departments usually don't hire poets, unless they have a PhD and some journal articles and published essays in criticism. Do poets need PhD's? Do intellectuals for that matter?
Reed blends all these different, usually not-included elements and non-textural elements into a narrative which is real Joycean or Burroughs like, some like beat thing to do. Reed also does what could be called performance art. But not many people understand this wildly diverse assault. I certainly enjoy doing art like that (not at Reed's standard of course), but I know just about nobody but maybe fellow art-types and affectionados would either bother to look at it or understand what was going on with it.
On the asethetic level what's going here is a little like the contrast between John Coltrane (late) and say Duke Ellington, although they did cut one album together. The problem was that the album followed Ellington ballads as the only domain of argeement.
Here is one of Reed's poems, to see what I am talking about. It's called I am the Cowboy in the Boat of Ra:
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16178
``I am the cowboy in the boat of Ra, sidewinders in the saloons of fools bit my forehead like O the untrustworthiness of Egyptologists who do not know their trips. Who was that dog-faced man? they asked, the day I rode from town. ...''
That's first paragraph after the preamble. You have to know a little about Egyptian mythology to even begin to unpack this poem. What I have to do is just read it a couple of times and wait for some of the meaning to kick off some registers. It can't be analyzed with the usual methods....from the white academy that is. It sounds great as jazz semi-free improvization and associations on a riff. What if Ra was reincarnated in the US mythological world of the Western? There are a lot of very cool lines ``...the hawk behind Sony Rollins head'' This refers to Horus who sets behind Pharoud, as his conscieous reminder to do good, don't be a fool for your own ego, and a bunch of other things of wisdow. And then the ending ``I'm going into town after Set'' Set is another name for Seth, Orisis's evil brother who cut O into pieces and threw him into the Nile.
I guess, what I am saying is that there is a lot more going on at Ishmael Reed's place than Sir Henry Gates's place. So, guys like Reed are pretty justified in their grumbling position...well from my perspective. Even so I enjoy both of them including their limitations.
``As Quincy Troupe, editor of Black Renaissance Noire would say, Gates is among those leaders who were `given to us,' not only by the white mainstream but also by white progressives. Amy Goodman carries on about Gates and Cornel West like the old Bobby Soxers used to swoon over Sinatra. Last week Rachel Maddow called Gates “the nation’s leading black intellectual.” Who pray tell is the nation’s leading white intellectual, Rachel? How come we can only have one? Some would argue that Gates hasn’t written a first rate scholarly work since 1989...''
So, what's going on here is also going on between the white political scribling classes and some of the more avant-guard white writers. And there is a whole West Coast v. East Coast thing, as well as Berkeley v. Harvard. This dust-up is pretty interesting all the way around.
CG