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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)
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Sex at the Margins
Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry
By Laura María Agustín
This book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work, that migrants who sell sex are passive victims and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label 'trafficked' does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the 'rescue industry' serves to disempower them. Based on extensive research amongst both migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustin, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry, and although they are treated like a marginalised group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice. "Sex at the Margins rips apart distinctions between migrants, service work and sexual labour and reveals the utter complexity of the contemporary sex industry. This book is set to be a trailblazer in the study of sexuality."—Lisa Adkins, University of London |
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The Warmth of Other Suns
The Epic Story of America's Great
Migration
By Isabel Wilkerson
Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, a
sharecropper's wife, left Mississippi
for Milwaukee in 1937, after her cousin
was falsely accused of stealing a white
man's turkeys and was almost beaten to
death. In 1945, George Swanson Starling,
a citrus picker, fled Florida for Harlem
after learning of the grove owners'
plans to give him a "necktie party" (a
lynching). Robert Joseph Pershing Foster
made his trek from Louisiana to
California in 1953, embittered by "the
absurdity that he was doing surgery for
the United States Army and couldn't
operate in his own home town." Anchored
to these three stories is Pulitzer
Prize–winning journalist Wilkerson's
magnificent, extensively researched
study of the "great migration," the
exodus of six million black Southerners
out of the terror of Jim Crow to an
"uncertain existence" in the North and
Midwest. Wilkerson deftly incorporates
sociological and historical studies into
the novelistic narratives of Gladney,
Starling, and Pershing settling in new
lands, building anew, and often finding
that they have not left racism behind.
The drama, poignancy, and romance of a
classic immigrant saga pervade this
book, hold the reader in its grasp, and
resonate long after the reading is done.
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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updated 27 March 2009
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