Prometheus 6

If Senator Obama deviated one milimeter from AIPAC's position on the Middle East, Joe Klein would be trashing him too. I don't disagree with what Rev. Al said but I do disagree with his decision to express his reservations through the yawning and vapid maw of the mainstream media (MSM). The issues that his comments raise are too important to become sidelined or trivialized over the MSM's desire to turn all political matters into discussions about personality and character. I wish that he had used or availed himself of a black media outlet - print or electronic - to bring this issue up. 

Sorry Klein , as a African- American male. I find Sharpton is right on withholding support for Barack Obama until we know where he stands on issues important to African- Americans. we should not support Obama because he is of mixed ancestory. African- Americans are no monolith politically and have opinions that he may be too centrist for the black community, Jews like you think you have the right to criticize Sharpton because you assisted African- Americans in civil rights 50 years ago. Anicent history and it does not mean a damn thing in 2007.In my opinion Jewish- Americans are white nothing more nothing less.

This is what our great intellectuals have talked about allowing Jewish- Americans to frame our issues. When I made comments in the 80's criticizing Israel's support of South Africa I got called anti- semite for my problems and almost got expelled from my school. It is time we stood up to Jewish writers like Klein for being racist, it should not have to come from the NOI that modern Jews are using our  past alliance to say and do racist things to African- Americans.

Jews like you think you have the right to criticize Sharpton because you assisted African- Americans in civil rights 50 years ago.

Bro. Soulus - Joe Klein's right to criticize Al Sharpton has nothing at all, IMHO, to do with the Civil Rights Movement. Klein has the right to write ill or well of Sharpton for any reason that crosses his mind or any bit of undigested food that causes him gas. I am in complete disagreement with Klein about almost anything he writes about including Al Shaprton, but let's not trivialize the contributions of our non-black brothers and sisters, many of whom were Jewish, to our struggle for civil rights and the end to state sanctioned segregation.

I think the notion of a black/Jewish alliance in the civil rights era has always been over romanticized. There were probably a disproportionate number of Jews involved in our struggle in terms of their proportion of the total U.S. population and their work and sacrifices should always be acknowledged and honored but these folks, in my opinion, don't have any connection, by and large, with the Joe Kleins and Joe Liebermans of this world. If anything, the Kleins and Liebermans are pimping off of the good works these other folks - many of who remain anonymous and unknown - performed.

There never was a black-Jewish alliance in the United States as you hear folks in the mainstream media (and, undoubtedly, will hear from Barack Obama sooner or later) and others talk about. It is a myth. Nonetheless, there were and are strong bonds between some blacks and some Jews. But these relationships cannot be extended across each community as if there are not real differences between us. Jewish merchants who owned stores in Harlem during the 1930s and 1940s and would not hire blacks to work in their stores, for example, cannot be described as being part of any black/Jewish alliance. The role that Jews played in the founding of the NAACP cannot be used by blacks or Jews today to demand or expect anything of each other in terms of public policy.

What existed for one brief shining moment was an alliance between a broad array of folks who wanted to do good and create a better country and world. Jewish guys like Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, who were murdered with James Chaney in Phlladelphia, Mississippi, were there because they were raised by their parents to believe in things like fairness, justice and equality. They were not like the Kleins and the Liebermans.

But my issues with Jewish- American elites that they are hiding behind the brave Jewish folk who actually did risk their lives for racial equality, It reminds me of the scene in 'The Boondocks' where Huey questions Grandad and other older blacks who want to take credit for stuff other black folk did and over romanticize the Civil Rights movement and you are right about this

(quote) There never was a black-Jewish alliance in the United States as you hear folks in the mainstream media (and, undoubtedly, will hear from Barack Obama sooner or later) and others talk about. It is a myth. Nonetheless, there were and are strong bonds between some blacks and some Jews. But these relationships cannot be extended across each community as if there are not real differences between us. Jewish merchants who owned stores in Harlem during the 1930s and 1940s and would not hire blacks to work in their stores, for example, cannot be described as being part of any black/Jewish alliance. The role that Jews played in the founding of the NAACP cannot be used by blacks or Jews today to demand or expect anything of each other in terms of public policy.

What existed for one brief shining moment was an alliance between a broad array of folks who wanted to do good and create a better country and world. Jewish guys like Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, who were murdered with James Chaney in Phlladelphia, Mississippi, were there because they were raised by their parents to believe in things like fairness, justice and equality. They were not like the Kleins and the Liebermans.

And that's my exact point about people like Liberman, Horowitz, Thenstrom, and Klein that want to think they have the same right because their friends  and other real Jewish folks who actually believed in justice were involved in the movement. I think the NOI is right about the need to break free from Jewish influence into our cultural affairs because of people like I described above. I don't think with the NAACP and other black organizations on the Jewish Tit, they can be independent voices for black empowerment. When the NOI  or other blacks do their anti- Jewish speil it makes it easier for these voices to ignore real  intellectual issues that blacks like me have with these Jewish- American voices who are in fact racist to the core towards Afro- Americans who happen to have a different opinion on issues from foreign policy to their control of the entertainment media. and their part in producing some of the these images.

I think the NOI is right about the need to break free from Jewish influence into our cultural affairs because of people like I described above.

We have always been free from Jewish influence of the kind that you describe and deplore although we may not have recognized the direction where our freedom lay. What we cannot easily extricate ourselves from, if at all, is the influence that Jewish culture and Jews have played in shaping our consciousness as Americans. No more than Jews and white Americans can remove themselves from the role that African Americans have played in shaping American culture and civilization.

I don't know but I think the NOI was referring to the role that Jews have played as brokers, managers and entrepreneurs in packaging, selling and marketing the works of black performing artists or as scholars, academics and researchers identifying and explaining aspects of black culture to others. I think the only way to overcome this type of hegemony is not to protest against its presence but to work harder to identify and preserve what is significant and important in black culture. I don't know, for example, the ethnicity of many of the music reviewers that appear on National Public Radio but I know that almost none of them are black and I find this particularly irksome when the discussion is about jazz, blues and gospel music.

I realize that it is a tough battle for us to gain control over how we define ourselves but it is worth the struggle.

strident jewish nationalism...she's right there with klein. i'm all in favor of folks flexin' on their n'lism, but it's just like harold cruse said...some of these jewish nats wanna act like they on some objective humanist shit when they're really on some old clandestine anti-negro bullshit. klein: exhibit A; kramer: exhibit b; diane ravitch: exhibit c; arthur schlesinger: exhibit d; ed koch: exhibit e. i don't believe this is a case of elites vs. common folk...it's a question of orientation. the CRM goals and objectives were aligned to those of the american jewish community during the 1960's. there were times of limited operational alignment in the 1930's as well...but that situation did not obtain in the american south of the 1800's...nor does it obtain in the diaspora where africans find themselves in economic, political and cultural combat with jews operating as whites. bottom line...the jewish community (like the US gov't.) is wise enough to know there are no permanent alliances, only permanent interests. and if you were to strike up a permanent alliance, would you do it with black folk or would you take the lieberman/israeli/rsa(apartheid) route?? just axin'. there are exceptions, but y'all know 'bout how rules get proved. quite frankly, it is still perilous for jews to admit to being nationalistic - and so the easiest way to mask it was to attack black nationalism...now the easiest way to argue in favor of American interests in the region...makes perfect sense to me. we ain't lovers and we ain't friends - unless we need to be - then we are.

My mind is drawing a blank here. What does CRM stand for?