Books by Stanley Crouch

Considering Genius: Writings on Jazz (2007) / The Artificial White Man: Essays on Authenticity (2005) / 

The Essential Harold Cruse: A Reader (2002)  /  The All-American Skin Game, or, The Decoy of Race: The Long and the Short of It, 1990-1994 (1995)

Notes of a Hanging Judge: Essays and Reviews, 1979-1989 (1991) /  Always in Pursuit: Fresh American Perspectives (1998)

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An Introduction to Stanley Crouch's "Clichés"

By Rudy Lewis

Unlike my former regard for Haki Madhubuti, I have never cared for Stanley Crouch. Moreover, I have been unable to get through more than a page of anything he has written. Though he comes off as quite learned and brilliant, especially when it comes to a knowledge of music, I sense he writes with a little white man standing on his shoulder directing him hither and thither. I will not be so bold as a Malcolm X or an Eldridge Cleaver and refer to him as the House Nigger who exclaims "Master, master, our house is on fire." Mr. Crouch is much more skilled and glib than his 19th-century predecessor.

I was extremely surprised when I discovered he had posted his "cliché" tirade against a youthful writer such as LeVon Rice, whose gender he stupidly mistook. But Mr. Crouch is the sort of company that Haki now wants to keep, a man who gives him a back hand with respect to "his former black nationalist intellectual limitations" as Don L. Lee. For, you see, Crouch has always had his alliances down pat. From his point of view black people have always been their worst enemies.

A keen African historian as well as a music critic, Crouch reminds LeVon that there "was NO abolition movement in Africa," which, I suppose, from his limited point of view excuses America's military support of American slavery. Wasn't Robert E. Lee at Harper's Ferry? Did not the Governor of Virginia send troops to squelch Nathaniel Turner's holy war in Southampton? But, no, Mr. Crouch wants to speak to us about Anthony Benezet, the 18th century Quaker and abolitionist, as if he managed American slavery and the oppression of black people . If he wants Benezet for his God, that's fine and good. For my taste he should keep his household gods in his house.

I have not done a careful reading of Crouch's many writings. But here in this brutal attack on Ms. Rice, he comes off as a henchman in defense of American racism and imperialism. His primary tactic is to redirect criticisms of America's shortcomings elsewhere. From Crouch's perspective, we are too indulgent in "romantic blubberings about Africa," a continent, for him, which is more noted for the production and sale of slaves or, worst, for genocide. We should turn our eyes more kindly back home and look at and appreciate better the kindness and generosity of white Americans, the source, I assume, of his comfort, security, arrogance, and obnoxiousness.

It is such "romantic blubberings" that sustains our "intellectual genocide," according to the learned Crouch. Instead of pointing out the wrongs of white America, we should look at what we do to ourselves: "street criminals 'of color' who have murdered, LITERALLY, thousands upon thousands over the last 30 years, raped thousands, sold drugs to thousands, and have maintained the kind of reign of terror that skinheads never could." In my estimation, this is not a black-white, either-or situation. I think we are intellectual enough indeed, even the Negro drop-out can hold more than one idea in his head at a time.

Instead of having hatred for our historical oppressors, Mr. Crouch prefers to generate or to instill hatred in us of the "Islamic world."  For, indeed, American whites probably learned their despicable behavior toward blacks from the Arabs: "the fundamental racist images of black people might well have arrived, first, in the the tale that opens A Thousand and One Nights." In addition he points out that "the Durban Conference on Racism . . . did not address the racism of Arabs toward black Africans or the tribal racism of black Africans toward other black ethic groups." 

As used to be said in disgust at stupidity, "What does that have to do with the price of tea in China." I won't go further. As one professor told me, this is a free country: a stupid man (or an opportunist) has a right in America to say whatever turns him on." I am sure there are many who are in Crouch's camp to buoy him up.

What is important in all of this is LeVon Rice decided to stand up to the great men -- to Haki and to the great Stanley Crouch. I admire her spirit. It is a sign that our young people will not be hoodwinked by our leaders who have made their peace with the oppressors of the poor and the weak. Below is LeVon's final response on the barrage that came against her in support of Haki's capitulation. I like indeed what she has written, and written well.

Addendum: An Apologia

A Response to Stanley Crouch's Victory Is Assured 

By LeVon Rice

(article removed by request of author)

Gabrielle Daniels' attack on Levon Rice can be found at www.topica.com (search "e-drum," April 9, 2003)