The Southern Poverty Law Center released its Spring 2012 Intelligence Report titled “The Year in Hate and Extremism,” which described the dramatic increase in the number of radical right- wing organizations

Black Americans and Self-Defense

Stand Whose Ground?

by BENJAMIN WOODS

“Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,

Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!”

– “If We Must Die” -Claude Mckay

The Southern Poverty Law Center released its Spring 2012 Intelligence Report titled “The Year in Hate and Extremism,” which described the dramatic increase in the number of radical right- wing organizations.

A few of the groups are described as neo-nazis, neo-confederates, white nationalists, and racist skinheads. According to the report, the number of militia and patriot groups jumped from 158 in 2001 to 1274 in 2011. A similar rise of right-wing groups has occurred in Europe as well.

The publication provides three reasons for the rise of so-called ‘hate groups’: the first Black President, a growing non-white population, and, I think most importantly, the so-called Great Recession.

For obvious reasons, Black people should be especially alarmed by the rise of the radical right. We are subjected to a distinct type of oppression in America. Historically, Black people are defined by America as the opposite of all that is moral, just, beautiful, industrious and divine.

In short, we are the most likely scapegoats in periods of instability, like, I don’t know– an economic recession. Of course, other groups such as Jews, Arabs, women, homosexuals, etc. are targets as well, but Blacks are the eternal “other.”

The murder of Trayvon Martin should be placed in this context.

However, I don’t think these incidences of white radicalism should be viewed as strictly the province of the so-called lower classes. A large part of this potential raging fire is being fanned by right-wing elites such as the Koch brothers.

The Koch brothers fund politicians like Newt Gingrich who stated, “I will tell black people to demand paychecks instead of food stamps,” and Rick Santorum who enlightened us with “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money.”

The Koch brothers, are also behind the voter ID legislation and owners of Georgia-Pacific–you know, all those new paper towel and soap dispensers in bathrooms across the university campus.

White radicalism could not be so widespread and protracted without white elite complicity. In 1919, after the Washington Post ran a story stating a white woman had been raped by a Black man, whites engaged in a rampage through The District for multiple days, murdering Black people throughout the city.

Once it became obvious that the government was not going to intervene, Black folk began to form self-defense units against white neighborhood watchmen, I mean–vigilantes. They even placed snipers on the roof of Howard Theater to defend themselves.

In the 1950s, Robert Williams, head of the Monroe, North Carolina chapter of the NAACP started a gun club to protect civil rights workers. Self-defense was a necessity for survival in Black communities, not a “get-out-of-jail-free,” or rather, a “never-be-arrested-for-murder” card.

Although, for the most part, their methods have changed, this rise in right-wing radical groups reminds us that there was a time when a certain group of people, many of whom now criticize our hoodies once wore different hoods of their own.

In many ways, the self defense aspect of Stand Your Ground law is not foreign to the history of Black people. The answer to our question of what else can we do outside of marches, rallies, and petitions, is there, only if, we listen to the ancestors…..

Benjamin Woods is a PhD candidate at Howard University.

This article originally appeared in the Howard newspaper, The Hilltop.

Fracking Low-Income Residents

Collateral Damage in the Marcellus Shale

by WALTER M. BRASCH

There’s nothing to suggest that in his 51 years Kevin June should be a leader.

Not from his high school where he dropped out after his freshman year.

Not from his job, where he worked as an auto body technician for more than 35 years.

Both of his marriages ended in divorce, but did produce two children, a 31-year-old son and a 28-year-old daughter.

June readily admits that for most of his life, beginning about 14 when he began drinking heavily, he was a drunk. Always beer. Almost always to excess. But, he will quickly tell you how many weeks he has been sober. It’s now 56, he says proudly.

In October 2008 he was in an auto accident, when he swerved to miss a deer and hit an oak tree head on. That’s when he learned MRIs showed he had been suffering from degenerative arthritis. Between the accident and the arthritis, he was off work for three months. Then, in May 2009, he was laid off when the company moved.

The pain is now so severe that after about 10 minutes, he has to sit.

Unable to work, surviving on disability income that brings him $1,300 a month, just $392.50 above the poverty line, he lives in the 12-acre Riverdale Mobile Home Village, along the Susquehanna River near Jersey Shore north-central Pennsylvania. The village has a large green area where families can picnic, relax, or play games, sharing the space with geese and all kinds of animals.

For most of the six years June lived in the village, he kept to himself—chatting with neighbors now and then, but nothing that would ever suggest he’d be a leader. The last time he led anything was almost two decades earlier when he was president of a 4-wheel club.

On Feb. 18, the residents found out their landlord had sold the park, only after reading a story in the Williamsport Sun-Gazette. The landlord, who the residents say did what he could to make their village safe and attractive, later came to each of the 37 families. He told the families he sold the park and they would have two months to leave. It was abrupt. Business-like. “We knew he was planning to sell,” says June, “but we all thought it would be to someone who would allow us to stay.”

Four days after the residents were ordered to move, certified letters made it official. The owner sold the park to Aqua PVR, a division of Aqua America, headquartered in Bryn Mawr. Sale price was $550,000. It may have been a bargain—land and industrial parks that have been vacant for years are going for premium sales prices as the natural gas boom in the Marcellus Shale consumes a large part of Pennsylvania and four surrounding states.

Aqua had received permission from the Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC) to withdraw three million gallons of water a day from the Susquehanna; the 37 families of the mobile home village would just be in the way. The company intends to build a pump station and create a pipe system to provide water to natural gas companies that use hydraulic fracturing, the preferred method to extract natural gas from as deep as 10,000 feet beneath the earth. The process, known as fracking, requires a mixture of sand, chemicals, many of them toxins, and anywhere from one to nine million gallons of water per well, injected into the earth at high pressure. Jersey Shore sits in a northeastern part of the Marcellus Shale, which is believed to hold about 500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Aqua isn’t the only company planning to take water in the area. Anadarko E & P Co. and Range Resources-Appalachia have each applied to withdraw up to three million gallons a day from the Susquehanna. While the Delaware River Basic Commission, and the states of New York and Maryland, have imposed moratoriums upon the use of fracking until full health and environmental impacts can be assessed, Pennsylvania and the SRBC have been handing out permits by the gross.

Most residents had only a vague knowledge of fracking and what it is doing to the earth. “They have a lot more knowledge now,” says June, as politically aware as any environmentalist.

Aqua had originally ordered the residents to leave by May 1, but then extended it to the end of the month. It dangled a $2,500 relocation allowance in its eviction.

However, the cost to move a trailer to another park is $6,000–$11,000, plus extra for skirting, sheds, and any handicap-accessible external ramps. But, most trailers can’t be moved. “These are older trailers,” says June. His is a 12-by-70, built in 1974, with a tin roof and tin siding (“tin-on-tin”); like others, it isn’t sturdy enough to survive a move. But even if it did, there would be no place to put it. The parks want the newer trailers, but most parks are full.

So, the residents began looking in the classified ads for rentals. Because the natural gas companies are bringing in thousands of employees to frack the land, there is a shortage of apartments, most with inflated prices to take advantage of the well-paid roustabouts, drivers, and technicians who moved into the area, and spend their money on local businesses eager to improve their own profits. During the past two years, rents have doubled and tripled. “None of us can pay a thousand or more a month,” says June. The current mobile home owners paid $200 a month for their lot.

Not long after he was served his own eviction notice, June had a dream. Some might call it a nightmare; some might see it as he did, a religious experience. “It was Jesus coming to me, telling me I had to do something,” he says.

June is constantly on the move, going from trailer to trailer to help the families who were abruptly evicted. Whatever their needs, Kevin June tries to provide it, constantly on the phone, running up phone bills he knows he can’t afford but does so anyhow because the lives of his neighbors matter.

There’s Betty and William Whyne. Betty, 82, began working as a waitress at the age of 13 and now, in retirement, makes artificial Christmas trees. She has a cancerous tumor in the same place where a breast was removed in 1991. William, 72, who was an electrician, carpenter, and plumber before he retired after a heart attack, goes to a dialysis center three times a week, four hours each time. They brought their 12-wide 1965 Fleetwoood trailer to the village shortly after the 1972 flood. Like the other residents, they can’t afford to move; they can’t find adequate housing. “We’ve looked at everything in about a 30 mile radius,” they say. They earn $1,478 a month from retirement, only $252.17 above the federal poverty line. One son is in New Jersey; one is in Texas, and the Whynes don’t want to leave the area; they shouldn’t have to.

There’s April and Eric Daniels. She’s a stay-at-home mom for their two children; he’s a truck driver whose hours have been reduced. Their 14-by-70 trailer is valued at $13,200; she and her husband were in the process of remodeling it, had already paid $5,000 for improvements, and were about to start building a second bathroom. April Daniels had grown up living in a series of foster houses, “so I know what it’s like to move around, but this was my first home, and it’s harder for me to leave.” Their trailer provides a good home, but can’t be moved. “We’re pretty much on the verge of just tearing down the trailer and living in a camper,” she says. They don’t know what will happen. They do know that because of what they see as Aqua’s insensitivity, they will lose a lot of money no matter what they do.

Doris Fravel, 82, a widow on a fixed income of $1,326 a month, has lived in the village 38 years. She’s proud of her 1974 12-wide trailer with the tin roof. “I painted it every year,” she says. In June, she paid $3,580 for a new air conditioner; she recently paid $3,000 for new insulated skirting. The trailer has new carpeting. Unlike most of the residents, she found housing—a $450 a month efficiency. But it’s far smaller than her current home. So she’s sold or given away most of what she owns. She may have a buyer for the trailer, and will take $2,500 for it, considerably less than it’s worth. “I can’t do anything else,” she says. “I just can’t move my furnishings into the new apartment,” she says.  Like the other residents, she has family who are helping, but there’s only so much help any family can provide. “I never knew I would ever have to leave,” she says, but she does want to “see one of those gas men come to my door—and I’d like to punch him in the shoulder.”

Not only are there few lots available and apartments are too expensive, but most residents don’t qualify for a house mortgage; and there are waiting lists for senior citizen and low-income housing. The stories are the same.

No one from Aqua has been in touch with any resident. But, the company did hire a local real estate agency. The agency claims it has made extraordinary efforts to help the residents find other housing. The residents disagree. April Daniels says “some of the Realtors have gotten real nasty with the people in the park—they just don’t understand that we are all in a hardship, so we get mad and frustrated and take it out on them.” But there really isn’t much anyone can do. The natural gas boom has made affordable housing as obsolete as the anthracite coal that once drove the region’s energy economy.

The residents, with limited incomes, have lived good lives; they are good people. They paid their rents and fees on time; they kept up the appearances of their trailers and the land around it. They worked their jobs; they survived. Until they were evicted

And now it’s up to the residents to try to survive. They have become closer; they listen to each other; they hug each other; and, the tough men aren’t afraid to let others see them cry. “The pain in this park is almost too much at times,” says June.

If something goes wrong, the residents have to fix it; Kevin June is the one they call. If he can’t fix a problem, he finds someone who can. In this trailer park, as in most communities, there is a lot of talent—“we help each other,” says June. His job is to make sure the residents survive until they can move. I’ve had the Holy Spirit running through my veins a long time, but it’s running real deep right now,” he says.

A half-dozen families have already moved, but most say they will stay and fight what they see as a politically-based corporate takeover.

During the week Aqua PVR issued eviction notices, its parent company issued a news release, boasting that its revenue for 2011 was $712 million, a 4.2 percent increase from the year before; its net income was $143.1 million, up 15.4 percent from the previous year. But, for some reason, the company just couldn’t find enough money to give the residents a fair moving settlement. “They just expect us to throw our homes into the street and live in tents,” says June.

“I went to see a state representative to ask what he could do to help,” he says, “but his secretary just coldly told me there was nothing that could be done because whoever owns a property can do with it what he wants to do.” He never saw the state representative.

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania—armed with an industry-favorable law recently rammed through by the Republican-controlled legislature and eagerly signed by a first-term Republican governor who received more than $1,6 million in campaign contributions from the energy industry—has decided that fracking the earth, threatening health and the environment, is far better for business than taking care of the people.

Kevin June and 36 families are just collateral damage.

Walter Brasch is an award-winning syndicated columnist and author of 17 books. His current book is Before the First Snow

Celecbrating 10 years of the Black Commentator - the best source of honest political / historical / economic insight anywhere. We, your loyal readers, are deeply in your debt!

Building an Institution: Ten Years of BlackCommentator.com! The African World By Bill Fletcher, Jr. BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board

Is it possible that it has been ten years? Apparently so. And in this day when it seems like organizations and institutions come and go at the snap of two fingers, there is something to be said about BC not only being alive and kicking but growing. As someone who has been associated with BC for a few years it is easy to get sentimental. It is also easy to not recognize many of the achievements of the magazine. What I point to with pride are actually two features of BC. The first is the diversity of writers and articles. The second is that it has become a reference point. Over the years, BC not only expanded its readership but it made a conscious decision to diversify the writers and editors connected with the magazine. Someone recently asked me whether there was a particular political orientation that BC followed. I thought for a moment prior to responding and then noted that while BC is certainly to the left-of-center, when you look at the writers you cannot summarize their opinions into one word or term except to say that they are progressive. They come from different parts of the movement; they often emphasize different issues; and they have, on occasion, differences among themselves, including sometimes sharp differences. Yet, despite the diversity (and the differences of opinion), BC has been able to create a family in which those differences are accepted and respected. This is no small accomplishment. The second feature I mentioned is that BC has become a reference point. By this I mean that people in different movements want to know what the columnists affiliated with BlackCommentator.com have to say about different issues. Their commentaries are widely reprinted and re-posted. Being affiliated with BC is a badge of respect even among those who may disagree with the views of some of the writers. As BlackCommentator.com proceeds into its second decade it has many challenges. One of the most important, and one that faces virtually every on-line publication, is that of fundraising. The availability of free media - irrespective of its quality - often makes it difficult for legitimate publications to raise funds and sustain their work. Readers frequently take for granted that the publication will continue, rarely questioning how the publication is put together and who is doing the work. Until we break with magical thinking, all our publications will be haunted. BC will need to further explore expanding its media offerings. On-line conferences, for instance, are now quite feasible and can be done globally. BC has a role to play in this. While BC already is engaged in various aspects of social media, e.g., Facebook, Twitter, it needs to position itself as an instrument for the larger African World for purposes of communication and interchange. And certainly, as funds increase, BC will need to consider paid, investigative journalism. Too much on the Web is recycled news. We need to offer more. So, this is a moment to applaud the work of the original team that constructed BlackCommentator.com; it is a time to reflect on the accomplishments and challenges of the last ten years; and a time to look forward and realize that no matter how good the magazine has been, it will have to evolve as we proceed deeper into the 21st century. My hat goes off to the writers, editors, and publisher who have made this trip both exciting and possible. Note: As BC observes 10 years of publication we offer a new feature titled "A Visit to the BC Archives" which will continue on a regular basis. BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member, Bill Fletcher, Jr., is a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies, the immediate past president ofTransAfricaForum and co-author of Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice(University of California Press), which examines the crisis of organized labor in the USA. Click here to contact Mr. Fletcher.

The N-Word 3-Ways: Part III - When the axe came into the forest, the trees said, "The handle is one of us"

We hope you have already read the N-Word author's request for an apology in N-Word Part 1and N-Word Part 2 in which Harvard colleague, Dr. Martin Kilson says an apology is not warranted.

In our July 8th issue we published the following e-Mail message from N-Word author, Randall Kennedy:

May I have space in your publication to respond to the charges that have been aimed at me and my work by you and Professor Kilson?

Kennedy was the subject of a June 27 Guest Commentary in these pages by Harvard's Dr. Martin Kilson and an additional comment in the July 11 issue. Although The Black Commentator was under no obligation to Kennedy - moral, ethical, or otherwise - we responded:

As you requested, we will make space available in The Black Commentator for your response "to the charges that have been aimed at me and my work by you and Professor Kilson." Please use as much space as you feel necessary. We will publish every word, as written.

We promised our readers a very interesting issue. Here is Part 3 from the publishers of , because the N-word author asked for it!

The Hustler as Public Intellectual

Randall Kennedy's cold, calculated disrespect

"There are Negroes who will never fight for freedom. There are Negroes who will seek profit for themselves alone from the struggle. There are even some Negroes who will cooperate with their oppressors. These facts should distress no one. Every minority and every people has its share of opportunists, profiteers, free-loaders and escapists."

- The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Harvard University professor of law Randall Kennedy has become the kind of race hustler that Dr. King so aptly described. He has opportunistically used his status as a well-known Black public intellectual to reap profit and a perverse kind of fame through what Dr. Martin Kilson calls "a cold indifference to the typical sensibilities of African-American citizens." Kennedy cooperates and collaborates with those whites who would reintroduce into polite society the term "nigger." Worse, he is a racial free-loader, arrogantly claiming the right to a free ride among the historical victims of whites' use of the word.

We would rather ride him out of town on a rail. However, The Black Commentator is very serious about the drawing of political lines separating conduct that is merely disturbing or misguided, from that which constitutes a conscious assault on African Americans as a people. Kennedy's book, "Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word," falls into the latter category. He has crossed the line, and should be repudiated.

Before dissecting the carcass of Kennedy, for whom we have no respect, we should address the opinions of those readers who might believe that we are giving the malefactor too much space in our publication - an arguable position. We have long been convinced that a central weakness of the African American body-politic is its tolerance of enemies within the ranks, men and women who are allowed to circulate with impunity - and are even accorded praise - while behaving with a depraved indifference to the interests and "sensibilities" of the community.

Black people's adversaries interpret this tolerance as acquiescence in, or even approval of, the actions of the "opportunists, profiteers, free-loaders and escapists" of the race, thus boosting the cash-value of the hustler class. Internally, these surrogates for the enemy infest Black political discourse, causing confusion that we can ill afford. They need to be unmasked.

The Black Commentator seeks to devalue the likes of Randall Kennedy by stripping away the veneer of authenticity and credibility that they are assumed to have within the community. More importantly, we have an obligation to you, the readers, to explain as clearly as possible why we have singled out individuals for condemnation. We owe Kennedy nothing, and believe he was quite stupid to give us another reason to examine his own "strange career."

The Nature of the Crime

Although Kennedy, in his pathetic response, throws out more defenses than a skunk spraying stink - inventing accusations we haven't made and ideas we do not hold - our charges against him are simple and straightforward. He has transformed a Harvard podium into an auctioneer's platform, from which he sells dispensations to whites who believe Blacks are enforcing an unfair covenant against casual white use of the word, nigger. His book is targeted at, and of useonly to, white audiences, many of whom badly want to believe that their racist behavior is sanctioned by significant Black opinion.

Randall Kennedy stands in for that illusory opinion, for which he is paid. In polite white American circles, the kind Kennedy moves in, only a Black person could offer advice on the acceptability of nigger. He ducks and covers to avoid the fact of his complicity. Kennedy and other conservative Blacks have always used the fiction of intellectual "independence" as a cover to clear shelf space for their anti-Black products, but they are intensely aware of their true value in a racist society such as ours. Black opinions carry no weight with most whites except to answer the question: What do the Blacks think? Should we pay them any attention?

In this sense, Kennedy is selling whites a false version of Black opinion, advising them to ignore the complaints of those African Americans who insist on maintaining strict social taboos on whites' use of nigger.

In the process, he callously disregards the harm caused to members of the race.

He made Mamie cry

In an interview with the collegiate website, ATHENSi.com, Kennedy gave the yellow light option to whites who are itching to find a reason to say the All-American word: "My position is that anybody who uses 'nigger' as a term of abuse ought to be condemned - regardless of race. Other than that, I'm open. Anyone can use it, depending on the intention. My question is 'What is he doing? Is it anti-social or just dumb or boring? Or does he have a point?'"

Purposeful vagueness is Kennedy's slick trick. First, the pro-forma denunciation, one that Strom Thurmond could fit his lips around. This allows Kennedy to deny that he would countenance injury or insult to anyone. Then, Kennedy follows with the open-ended nonsense about the speaker's intentions and intelligence. He leaves that to white imaginations. Purposely. For an apparently large number of whites, this is the intrigue and appeal of the book. It's all open to civilized discussion. The racists might really be..., reasonable.

"Hey, you, nigger!" The African American turns around to see the white face behind the voice. "Pardon me," says the Black person, "but how do you mean that?"

Is this what Kennedy intends? Of course not; he intends to sell books and ingratiate himself to a white public, some of whom yearn for any excuse to do the wrong thing.

But we have no need to construct a hypothetical. Mamie was sitting in her chair, sobbing loudly and uncontrollably. In her 70s, Mamie is a flesh and blood, real person who has worked as a domestic for many years - and has never been a crier. Her white employer rushed to Mamie's room, fearing the woman was deathly ill. From the radio came the voice of Randall Kennedy, speaking words like those quoted above.

Mamie shook with torment, unable to explain the loss of her famous control. Randall Kennedy, the Harvard law professor whose social and professional rise represented the dreams of Mamie's generation, had utterly betrayed her.

Later, finally composed, the elderly woman explained to her employer the crushing impact of Kennedy's remarks. As a Philadelphia teenager in the Forties, Mamie was compelled to 

spend a summer with her uncle in South Carolina, a place she didn't want to go. Her first cousin, the uncle's teenaged son, didn't come home one day. Word was that he had made advances on the white lady of the house where his mother did cleaning work.

A few days later, her cousin's body was found in the woods. Details of his murder spread around town. He had been dragged for miles behind a car, and then shot twice in the head.

Shortly after the funeral, the husband of the allegedly offended white woman pulled up to Mamie's uncle's car at an intersection. The man was prominent among whites. "You're a good nigger," the white man told the grieving father, whom he had known for years. Mamie, sitting in the car, still hears that white voice. "But if I had to do it all over again, I would." He spoke as if he had committed no crime, and drove away. Naturally, no one was arrested.

Randall Kennedy has no compassion for Mamie, or any other African American but himself. It was Kennedy's words, not those of a dead or contemporary white man, that brought Mamie to tears.

Kennedy discovers "complexities"

Kennedy calls the word nigger a "cultural artifact." The first dictionary definition of artifact is "an object remaining from a particular period." Usually, artifacts are dead things from ages past, which can be picked up and manipulated by... anybody.

In the case of nigger, this fits nicely with the views of those whites who claim that racism is a thing of the past. The word has lost its bite, its kick, its power, they say, because the white users are not the same old racists. "Can whites properly use this cultural artifact or not?" Kennedy asks, rhetorically, in the online interview. Yes, he answers himself, in his stock spiel. However, he gives no real guidance on the matter, besides the usual admonition not to use nigger as a term of abuse. Again, the deliberate vagueness. The issue is "complex." Civilized people ought to talk about it.

The use of nigger among Blacks is, indeed, complex and many-layered. However, that's not the point of the book, the attraction (to whites) that made it a best-seller. In fact, there is no other purpose of the book than to justify white use of nigger.

"Did you think the fascination of the word itself helped selling the book?" Kennedy was asked. "That's part of it," the hustler replied. "I begin by saying that 'nigger' is a very special word in American society. I've been asked if the title of my book is a provocation. In a way, it is. I wanted to grab people's attention. I write a book to be read, and I want as wide a readership as I can get."

Mamie is aware of the specialness of the word, and Kennedy's motivation. That's what made her cry.

Cohorts in crime

Kennedy is among a growing number of what could be called Black counter-opinion-makers; African Americans who can be counted on to help whites rationalize racism. This peculiar and perverted little industry has its own specialists and, like flies drawn to cow dung, they find each other. It is useful here to remind readers of the December 1, 2001, New York Times story on Erroll McDonald, Pantheon's Black editor of Kennedy's book, as cited by Dr. Kilson in his June 27 guest commentary, "The N-Word as Therapy for Racists." McDonald, a true soul mate of Kennedy's, couldn't get enough of hearing the N-word streaming from white mouths. Contemplate the sick games he played:

Mr. McDonald enjoyed the reactions of colleagues, almost all of them white. He carried a piece of paper around the office with the word "nigger" written on it, asking people to pronounce it. Presenting the idea [for the book] at a planning session in January, he asked about 45 editors and other executives to say it [nigger] in unison. In both cases, some refused. "I think it is pretty fun[ny]," Mr. McDonald said, imagining customers asking a bookstore clerk, 'Can I have oneNigger, please?' He added, "I am not afraid of the word 'nigger.'"

McDonald and Kennedy understand each other, and the positions they have both volunteered to assume in the race-business.

The publishing house and the trusted Black editor look for products like Kennedy's to hawk to white readership - a book to serve as a counterweight to prevailing Black opinion. They got exactly what they paid for.

We wonder how many African American organizations have made a cursory assessment of McDonald's accomplishments in the publishing industry and dubbed him a "credit to the race."

Diversions and Lies

"[A] serious effort to erase nigger altogether would have bad consequences that would supercede the good that might be achieved," writes Kennedy, in his response to Kilson and The Black Commentator. He whines on for several paragraphs about people who want to "expunge" or "eradicate" the word. Yet, neither Kilson nor BC ever called for erasing nigger from historical or contemporary America. We denounced Kennedy for encouraging white people to put the word back in their mouths, where it seems to have lain, semi-dormant, awaiting the signal to re-emerge in full malevolence. Kennedy provides that signal.

Neither of us said a single word about Black people's use of nigger - be they Rappers or otherwise, in all-Black company or within earshot of whites. That's a different subject, entirely. Nevertheless, Kennedy rambles on, imagining himself in the company of Mark Twain, the publishers of The Crisis magazine, and Dick Gregory. What gall, from the hacker of a racist-friendly book!

If we were attempting to be civil, we would call Kennedy's irrelevant squirmings a red herring. However, we do not intend to prettify the situation for the benefit of a man who would sell Black people's honor, as Dr. Kilson might put it. Kennedy is like a pickpocket caught in mid-act. Frozen in crime, he points, "Look, over there!"

From the Serpent's Mouth

Randall Kennedy is not a smart man, merely clever enough to insinuate himself into the darker recesses of some white minds. The sleazy scholar succeeds in damning himself in one, short paragraph.

Regarding an outbreak of white usage of nigger on Harvard's campus last spring, following publication of his book, Kennedy says: "A connection was plausible, even likely." Then, he

dares Kilson and The Black Commentator to "clearly" make the connection. Why? He already admits that it is "likely."

Kennedy presses on, digging himself in deeper: "But let us suppose that, in fact, my book did prompt the misbehavior. Is a writer obligated to avoid a subject because some reader might misuse the writer's work?" A writer, one who goes about the work of describing the world as he or she sees it? Probably not. However, a public intellectual who intends to influence public policy and behavior is unquestionably obligated to be concerned for the effects of his speech - that is his very reason for being. Kennedy knew what the effect would be, and cares nothing about the consequences to African Americans. As a public intellectual, he is a fraud; he admits as much, by conveniently claiming to be a simple writer.

Still, the troublesome fool persists in denying any responsibility for his audience's actions. "I think not. The alternative approach would permit bigots too much sway." It is Kennedy's purposefully vague advise to his white readers on the do's and don'ts of using nigger that gives bigots all the "sway" they could want.

Finally, Kennedy is "sure that some racists will make mischief with my book. I cannot prevent that. I can only hope that the good that comes from the public education I attempt to impart will supercede the instances of misuse that are almost certain to occur."

As "public education," Kennedy's book is useless. His is a shallow, small work that, like a bad disco record, has only one "hook": constant repetition of the word, nigger, designed to titillate whites who may or may not find use for the word under ill-defined circumstances that he cannot control, yet to whom he gives at least a yellow light. His attempts at the "history" of the word are rehashes of well-worn material, unimaginatively executed.

There is no new, independently developed thought, no fresh fact - nothing! - in Kennedy's book, lectures or talk circuit interviews that we have encountered. Here's an example from one of his articles: "Leading etymologists believe that 'nigger' was derived from an English word 'neger' that was itself derived from 'Negro', the Spanish word for black. Precisely when the term became a slur is unknown…." On and on he drones, dribbling widely known facts to nowhere. This book exists only for the purpose of holding out hope for nigger-using white respectability.

Useless (to Black people) and helpless - that's Randall Kennedy. Naturally, he is also helpless to prevent Mamie from crying. Too bad for her.

To be accurate, raw young racists are not at the core of people that Kennedy is trying to influence. These volatile elements are not rich and powerful, nor are they dependable book-buyers.

Aid and Comfort

We need only observe the reaction of Kennedy's most immediate market - the media outlets that hold the keys to his career as a "public intellectual" - to gauge the effect of his book on white opinion molders.

Publishers Weekly: "This may be the book that re-ignites larger debates over race eclipsed by September 11. Look for a best selling run and huge talk show and magazine coverage...."

Newsweek: "He's made his case: that this 'troublesome' word is only a word. And that words - like people - can always change."

Andy Rooney, 60 Minutes: "The best way to get rid of a problem is to hold it up to the bright light and look at all sides of it, and that's what Kennedy does in this book. He takes a lot of poison out of the word while he's doing it.... This is the way to get rid of words like 'nigger' and all the contemptible ideas that go with it."

The New York Observer: "Calm, correct, informative."

The New Republic: "Kennedy's commitment to racial justice is plain, and so is his impatience with the subverting of empiricism by the theatrics of the underdog.... He frequently throws the cold water of common sense upon issues that are too often cloaked in glib histrionics."

We lifted these reviews from Kennedy's own publicity material, and can assume that he is pleased with the opinions stated by his friends in the corporate press. What are they saying?

Publisher's Weekly looks forward to the debate. Since Kennedy's repackaged "history" of nigger contains nothing exciting or debatable, the industry's hype magazine is referring to the coming debate over white folks' newfound options to use nigger. They thank Kennedy for the favor, and bless his sales. So much for Kennedy's service to "public education."

Newsweek solemnly proclaims that Kennedy has convinced them that nigger is "only a word" - one that a "changed" (white) people can comfortably reacquaint themselves with.

The old irritant at 60 Minutes, Andy Rooney, who has had racism scandals of his own, feels vindicated by Kennedy's contribution. He can almost taste the word, now that Kennedy has removed the "poison."

The next two reviews get to the white supremacist heart of the matter. The New York Observer is soothed by Kennedy's "calm" presentation, apparently a rare trait among African Americans. The neo-conservative New Republic believes that Kennedy, like itself, is fed up with Black people's "theatrics" and subversion of "empiricism" - which basically means that most Black minds are not rooted in reality, i.e., they imagine things like racial insults.

These are the sentiments that Kennedy evokes, the real "poison" that his book calls forth, from the places where Kennedy, like a tomcat in heat, really wants to make his mark.

Are Jews Too Sensitive About the Holocaust?

Back in June in these pages, Dr. Martin Kilson compared Kennedy's loonyness to the idea "that the more today's German citizens in Germany employ anti-Jewish epithets the more freely German citizens will finally purge anti-Semitism from their souls...."

We would expand on Kilson's approach, and insist that the anti-Semitic terms evoke murder and dehumanization, just as nigger does in white American mouths. Imagine the following dialogue:

Present-day Jewish Public Intellectual (JPI), greeting a group of Germans:

"Hello, my German friends. I as a Jew am here to explain to you the reasons my fellow Jews are so upset about being called 'blood suckers of children' and 'Christ-killers.' Of course, you may be aware that they suffered greatly here on German soil."

Germans:

"Yah, yah, we have heard some terrible things. But, that was a long time ago. Why are they still so super-sensitive? It makes us feel uncomfortable. It's a New Germany. Why can't we use the old words?"

JPI:

"Ah, but you can, my friends. Relax, and read my book, 'Christ-Killer. 'Christ-Killer' is well worth the price. It will bring you peace of mind, believe me. Go ahead, say the title a few times, see how it feels."

Germans, in unison:

"Christ-Killer, Christ-Killer, Christ-Killer! Das es goot! But, are you sure this is acceptable speech from an Aryan... I mean, from a German's lips? Won't the Jews become angry?"

JPI:

"Don't worry your little blond head about it. These are my people. They'll just have to get used to it. It's your emotional health I'm concerned about."

(Even the fictional TV character Sergeant Schultz from Hogan's Heros is not so stupid. He is smart enough to say to his fictional commander, Colonel Klink: "I don't think it's acceptable to use the K-Word when talking with Jews.")

No, you can't imagine such a conversation; it could never take place. And, yes, we have arrived at that time-honored juncture when comparison of Jewish and African American communities is in order. Readers of The Black Commentator are smart. We won't condescend to you with elaboration on the meaning of our little fictional dialogue. You get it.

What to do with a Troublesome Fool

As discussed earlier, slick Black counter-opinion-makers like Kennedy are extremely vulnerable to the charge of being unrepresentative of the race - or, at least, some significant segment of it. Minus the cachet of authenticity, the Black surrogate for racist opinion or power is useless to his employers and, therefore, harmless to his intended victims.

That is half of the reason we rail against the Randall Kennedys, Cory Bookers, and Condoleezza Rices of the day. Silence is acquiescence, and keeps them in their traitorous business. For Kennedy to prosper, he must convince his patrons that he speaks for some significant Black public opinion. Black Commentator does not hesitate to say that we despise him and his works. We wish many others would do the same. In this regard, Dr. Kilson's forthcoming book, "The Making of Black Intellectuals: Studies on the African-American Intelligentsia," performs an invaluable function on a grand scale, delineating the wondrous continuity of progressive Black thought in the 20th Century, and exposing the aberrant pretenders and hustlers along the way, including Randall Kennedy.

If Clarence Thomas didn't have a lifetime job, but stooged for the Republicans as a transient appointee somewhere else in government, they would have gotten rid of him by now. Thomas is so clearly reviled by the vast bulk of African Americans, his value as a credible, alternative Black voice is nil. Even Jay Leno knows that.

Thus, Kennedy must adorn his response to Kilson and BC with references to his Black students - captives of the preening poseur - and list his appearances on Black-oriented media.

We have observed that most Black collegiate audiences react quite negatively to Kennedy's remarks. Certainly, our readers do. So, why does he take time out from his busy white schedule to make stops in hostile, Black territory - including his insistence on a response in this publication? The answer is simple: Kennedy must present a false front of Black authenticity to whites, who can then say they learned the correct uses of nigger at an actual, Negro knee. We are all sales tools for Kennedy, the conniving racial entrepreneur, including his students.

He may even attempt to use his presence in this issue of BC to demonstrate to whites how brave he is; how he struggles with the backward and narrow elements among Blacks, all in the effort to establish a reasoned, civilized atmosphere in which to calmly discuss white uses of nigger. How heroic! Perhaps Kennedy's tales of his travails among dark, undisciplined minds will be worth another book.

We are confident we will achieve the opposite effect, by demonstrating that Kennedy is hated for his callous disregard of Black sensibilities.

Repudiate the bum

Kennedy says Glen Ford "extends the attack to my career as a whole." Yes, emphatically, as does co-publisher Peter Gamble. We maintain that Nigger is the financial highpoint of Kennedy's career, and the low point of his moral existence.

We don't care how Kennedy makes his money - unless it is by giving aid and comfort to racists. We believe Kennedy's calculated maneuvers are more harmful than the crimes of common felons, no matter how much or how little he is paid. The magnitude of the offense, not the profit to the perpetrator, is what counts.

Kennedy professes to be upset that "Mr. Ford did not call" before denouncing him. Why shouldwe? Kennedy pays Black people no respect, yet he thinks he deserves a phone call. Amazing. He needs to wander in the wilderness for five or ten years, to do penance for his crime, followed by additional years of atonement.

We didn't call him, we didn't invite him, and we have absolute contempt for him.

Consider this commentary an exercise in drawing lines; that's the other half of our reason for allowing Kennedy to respond. If we do not learn to protect ourselves from the servants of money among us - at the very least, by exercising our powers of indignation -we will surely be crushed. Repudiate Randall Kennedy, loudly, wherever and whenever he pops up, and you will have neutered him, and made others consider taking another path.

When the axe came into the forest,

the trees said, "The handle is one of us"

From the American Directory of Certified Uncle Toms, Published by the Council on Black Internal Affairs

The N-Word 3-Ways - Part II

The N-Word 3-Ways - Part 2

We hope you have already read N-Word Part 1 in which the N-Word author asks for an apology. When you have finished reading Dr. Kilson's commentary, we invite you to read the N-Word Part 3 in which  calls for the repudiation of the N-Word author.

In our July 8th issue we published the following e-Mail message from N-Word author, Randall Kennedy:

May I have space in your publication to respond to the charges that have been aimed at me and my work by you and Professor Kilson?

Kennedy was the subject of a June 27 Guest Commentary in these pages by Harvard's Dr. Martin Kilson and an additional comment in the July 11 issue. Although The Black Commentator was under no obligation to Kennedy - moral, ethical, or otherwise - we responded:

As you requested, we will make space available in The Black Commentator for your response "to the charges that have been aimed at me and my work by you and Professor Kilson." Please use as much space as you feel necessary. We will publish every word, as written.

We promised our readers a very interesting issue. Here is Part 2, Dr. KIlson's response, because the N-word author asked for it!

Randall Kennedy: Black Intellectual as a Tramp

by Martin Kilson, Guest Commentator

Professor Randall Kennedy at the Harvard Law School concludes his reply of my critique in The Black Commentator of his book, "Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word" with the following sentences: "The treatment I have been given by Professor Kilson and The Black Commentator is mistreatment. It should give rise to apologies." Let me say straightoff that there is not one word in my critique of Kennedy's book that warrants an apology, nor one word in my characterization of Kennedy as a new-wave conservative Black intellectual who specializes in trashing Black people's honor for the entertainment of White folks that warrants an apology. I stand firmly by my original critique.

Randall Kennedy represents a new variant or wave of the cadre of Black conservative intellectuals that initially surfaced in the late 1970s into the 1980s - figures like Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Glenn Loury, Robert Woodson, Anne Wortham, among others. The initial wave of Black conservative intellectuals might be called "conservative technocrats," insofar as they were "conservative true believers," convinced that problem areas in the modern development of African Americans into parity social and political standing in our racist American democracy could be resolved by fervent application of classical capitalist processes. And as a corollary proposition the Sowells, Steeles, and Lourys believed that racism was merely an aberration on the face of an otherwise perfect American Republic, not, as I and other progressive Black intellectuals believe, a deep-rooted pathology at the core of the American Republic that must be activistically challenged in order to uproot.

On the other hand, as what I call a new-wave conservative Black intellectual, Randall Kennedy, I suggest, is merely a huckster-type Black conservative, very much like the thousands of huckster-type Irish-American and Jewish-American conservatives who surfaced from the late 1960s onward. Huckster-type conservatives in American society have a hawk's eye for conservative discourse that sells, and maximizing the market value of their conservative discourse is their core obsession. The Anglo-Protestant (WASP) core power group in American society since, say, the 1930s has had a keen talent for anointing White ethnic intellectuals (Irish, Jewish, Italian, etc.) willing to perform this crucial capitalist-hegemonic role for the Anglo-Protestant power class. In our post-Civil Rights era the American power class has extended the anointing of intellectuals willing to serve this power class's capitalist-hegemonic purposes to conservative Black intellectuals. Enter Randall Kennedy as a huckster-type Black conservative intellectual - a type I view as tramps.

The apology requested of me by Randall Kennedy at the end of his reply was not the first time he's done so, by the way. Following a sharp critique of Kennedy's book that I wrote and that the Boston Globe printed in January 2002, Kennedy sent me a letter in which he said that my observation that his core argument in his book was that free access to usage of the vicious epithet "nigger" by Whites would help purge their souls of Negro-phobia was an erroneous statement. He demanded I send him an apology. I threw his letter into my wastebasket! But let me reiterate here that I still maintain that it's a reasonable interpretation of Randall Kennedy's core purpose in his book that some kind of soul-liberation among White Americans will result from freer usage by them of that vicious epithet "nigger."

Now in the remainder of this reply to Randall Kennedy, I don't want to speak to all of his numerous defenses of himself, for most of them are not worthy of serious intellectual rebuttal. I say this because most of his defenses are couched in a self-serving "straw-man" context, as it were. For example, in one "straw-man" context Kennedy pretends that opponents of that vicious epithet "nigger" like Martin Kilson seek to wipe-out part of the historical record, a claim that is just nonsense. Here's how Kennedy puts it:

In my book I proceed to argue…that a serious effort to erase nigger altogether would have bad consequences that would supercede the good that might be achieved. First, erasing nigger entirely would obscure from view significant parts of the history of racism. People should know, for example, that until recently major politicians openly and without embarrassment or apology referred contemptuously to blacks as niggers on the floor of the United States Senate and House of Representatives. Obliterating nigger from books, movies, plays, and similar productions would entail losing access to such knowledge.

As I read this passage in Kennedy's reply, I wrote the word "nonsense" in the column alongside the passage. That is, there is no pedagogical or sociology of knowledge reason why contemporary persistence of the vicious epithet "nigger" is a condition for the effective recalling or rewriting of the historical record of racist practices and processes in the American past. Not only is this argument by Kennedy "nonsense," it is also "idiotic," as I also wrote in the column alongside the above passage in Kennedy's reply.

In another part of his reply, Kennedy denies my charge that his choice of the epithet "nigger" as the first word in his book's title was purely a cynical, "money-grubbing" decision. Well, my charge was based on an interview Kennedy gave to Boston Globe "Living Arts" columnist Renee Graham, January 8, 2002. Graham asked Kennedy if cynical, money-making concerns influenced his choice of the book's title. Kennedy's reply: "I'm not ashamed.... This is a catchy title that will get people's attention, yes." And indeed the title did catch "people's attention," for in Spring 2002 the New York Times Book Review's "Best Seller List" had Kennedy's book listed for several weeks.

Well, Kennedy's slick term, "catchy title" doesn't go far enough to characterize his venal, money-grubbing title choice: Nigger. At bottom, Kennedy's title choice amounted to a twisted and horrifying insult to Black people's honor. To the honor of Black mothers, fathers, grandfathers, grandmothers, great grandparents, sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, nieces, nephews, cousins, etc. But as what I call the "tramp-type" Black conservative intellectual, Randall Kennedy can never recognize this, I'm afraid.

Now Randall Kennedy would have readers of The Black Commentator believe that only mad-hat leftist Black intellectuals like Martin Kilson and Glen Ford have produced critiques of his book. Well, this is wrong. Perhaps the sharpest critique of Kennedy's book was an article by the conservative Black literary and art critic Hilton Als. Titled "More Harm Than Good: Surviving the N-Word And Its Meaning," the critique appeared in The New Yorker, February 11, 2002. Unlike Professor Kennedy, Hilton Als' conservatism doesn't cause him to have contempt for Black people's honor.

Hilton Als argues that, having run the risk of horribly insulting Black people's honor by using the cruel epithet "nigger" as first word in his book title, Randall Kennedy might at least have fashioned an intellectually and analytically viable discourse on that epithet's history. This, Als tells us, Kennedy failed to do. For one thing, says Als, the initial questions used by Kennedy as conceptual rudders for his discussion "are disingenuous." Those questions were as follows:

How should nigger be defined...? Is it a part of the American cultural inheritance that warrants preservation? Why does nigger generate such powerful reaction? Is it a more hurtful racial epithet than insults such as kike, wop, wetback, mick, chink, and gook? Am I wrongfully offending the sensibilities of readers right now by spelling out nigger instead of using a euphemism such as N-word?

Now for Hilton Als, the bid by Kennedy to use these queries as conceptual rudders lacked candor and seriousness. As Als put it:

The questions are disingenuous. Instead of trying to answer them - by writing about the moral and psychological repercussions that the word has for blacks and for whites-Kennedy simply accumulates data, data that never quite add up to an idea. His book is aimed at a large readership... but it would attract little attention... were it not for the nearly pornographic weight of the six lower-case letters that are centered on the book jacket. The word appears in his book not as it is used within the complex fabric of epithets that blanket this country but as show-biz rhetoric, as a star turn that demands our attention rather than our engagement. To use 'the N-word' would of course, have been infinitely less impressive, less of an event. 'Nigger' is Muhammad Ali. 'N-word' is Pee-Wee Herman. (Emphasis added.)

In regard to Randall Kennedy's theory that as White Americans use the epithet "nigger" more freely they will more readily purge Negro-phobia from their souls, Hilton Als - as I do - begs to differ. Kennedy puts forth this view in a discussion of the friendship back in the 1920s to 1940s between the White literary impresario Carl Van Vechten and the African-American poet Langston Hughes. Of the friendship, Kennedy informs his readers that Van Vechten "wrote of 'niggers' in correspondence with his friend Langston Hughes, and Hughes did not object.... Should Hughes have objected? No, Van Vechten, a key supporter of the Harlem Renaissance, had shown time and again that he abhorred racial prejudice... and treasured his black friends."

Now for Hilton Als, Randall Kennedy's has a pathetically shallow understanding of the Van Vechten/Hughes friendship back in the 1930s era - and by extension of the Black/White friendship in general, I should add. As Hilton Als put it:

Kennedy ignores the complicated distribution of power between Van Vechten and Hughes. Van Vechten, when he met Hughes, was already rich and well connected. Hughes was obscure and ambitious. Imagine Hughes jeopardizing everything by contradicting Van Vechten. 'Listen, Carlo, I object to this and all racial epithets. You are using it simply as a test to see how far you can go in our relationship, and as a means of identifying with what you can never be.' The commissions and the parties would have dried up faster than you can say Brer Rabbit.

Furthermore, to reinforce his critique of Kennedy's naivete regarding the place of racial-power dynamics that surrounded the Van Vechten/Hughes friendship in the White Supremacist Age, Hilton Als refers his readers to Langston Hughes' own understanding of that friendship. "In 'The Big Sea' [Hughes' autobiography] Hughes wrote - 'The word nigger, you see, sums up for us who are colored all the bitter years of insult and struggle in America.'" Hilton Als then continues this searching thought thus:

His [Hughes'] silence with Van Vechten was simply the price that every black artist and intellectual pays: to climb out of obscurity, he must endure the language of whites whose humor and cocktail party chatter is still drawn from the well of Reconstruction.

But never mind, Hilton Als suggests to his readers. In my words, Randall Kennedy "is a tramp." Or in the words of Hilton Als: "Kennedy's belief that it's possible to convert the [N] word from a negative to a positive is not only naïve but dangerous."

Martin Kilson

(August 22, 2002)

Harvard University

We now invite you to read N-Word Part 3 in which  calls for the repudiation of the N-Word author.