Anti-Semitism in the Ghetto
AMERICA AT MIDTERM-2 By KEITH KYLE The notion of minorities earning complete acceptance by exemplary civic virtue, the en- forcement of total silence about racial character- istics (except for licensed in-group jokes) and the principle of employment by merit alone are all established liberal norms that are affronted by the assertion of 'Black Power.' The phrase rasps on the exposed nerve-ends of liberal sympathisers who either are Jews themselves or who, in almost all situations of oppression, instinctively see the victim in terms of Jewry. Black implies the forbidden emphasis on racial identity and physical appearance. Power, in addition to the immediate fascist overtones when associated with a racial term, is not wholly reassuring even when explained in a more homely democratic context. It means, say many of the new radicals, that just as, say, James Michael Curley did a great deal for the poor Irish of Boston by stirring them up and exploiting the political complexities
and the election mania of the American federal system, so should Negro politicians make use of the fact that Negroes are crammed into urban ghettoes to take over a hunk of power in the cities to get something out of the system for their race.
But most white liberals have spent their lives fighting against the kind of purchasable and nepotistic city governments that the Curleys built. Now they are having to ask themselves to what extent if at all they are prepared to 'make exceptions' to their liberal standards, to 'waive the rules' for the sake of Negroes just because Negroes have been treated so badly in the past. Is the hard-fought-for principle of admission by civil service examination to public jobs even at a local level to be relaxed in order to give a break to Negroes who have suffered educational handicaps? And what are liberal leaders who, especially in New York, have fought so long against political bosses and patronage-and-graft- ridden politics to do if Negroes throw up leaders who fail to possess a good liberal image?
New York liberals have had several decades of practice with this problem in the case of the Rev Adam Clayton Powell, the high-living play- boy parson of the Abyssinian Baptist Church who represents Harlem in Congress and holds the key chairmanship of the House Labour and Education Committee. 'If Powell were an Italian or an Irishman, everyone would probably affect a sneaking admiration for his delightful rascality while continuing officially to deplore his methods,' said a recent profile of Mr Powell by James Q. Wilson in the Jewish-American periodi-
cal Commentary. 'The truth is that people are upset by Powell because he is a Negro, believing implicitly that Negroes in this day and age .ought to produce selfless, honest and dedicated leaders who will advance (genteelly) the cause of civil rights and Negro betterment'
Negro advancement has been in a very special sense a Jewish cause. Jewish-American writers frequently relate the situations of the two racially isolated minorities. Jewish businessmen have been very heavy subscribers to the Negro organisations. There seems, indeed, to have been an expectation that when the Negro masses found their voice it would pronounce in favour of all the causes that the benefactors held sacred.
Malcolm X, the forerunner of the new radi- cilism, used frequently to complain that he only had to mention the word 'Jew' for him to be accused of 'anti-Semitism: He would add that while the white race had good reason to feel guilt-ridden about the Jews, why should that be of any concern to the Negro?
Now that the civil rights campaigns have moved north to the decayed urban centres, many of the particular whites with whom the Negroes are coming into direct collision are in fact Jewish. Many of the run-down tenement blocks that are now all-black (or all-Puerto Rican) were formerly Jewish in character. As their in- habitants gained prosperity (and overcame pre- judice) they moved out into the suburbs. But in districts like Watts, Los Angeles, and West Side, Chicago, while Negroes moved in as tenants the former Jewish residents remained the landlords. Jewish businessmen now living outside the area retained ownership of the corner grocery stores and, in the case of the Chicago West Side, even continued to act as absentee precinct captains of the dominant Democratic party machine.
This situation is not, of course, a new dis- covery for the ghetto Negroes. But the Jewish- ness of people with whom you are in conflict is the one thing about them which, by liberal groundrules, must never be mentioned. And until the last year or so the articulate Negro voices have been those of the established civil rights organisations which work by liberal ground rules.
Now the most outspoken of the new Negro radicals have decided that they are not going to confine themselves to language approved of by white liberals. 'We refuse to pretend that we are not suffering at the hands of Jewish land- lords and merchants,' writes Lawrence P. Neal, a Negro (or, as he would prefer to have it put, an Afro-American) journalist in the July issue of Liberator, the smartly produced monthly organ of the late Malcolm X's supporters. And Mr Neal concludes, after complaining that the Negro question has largely been a preserve of Jewish academics, especially sociologists, and has, there- fore, been discussed in terms that they have set, with the bitter words: 'We do not need patho- logical love-hate relationships.'
But do the black radicals not need white money? The 'Black Power' slogan, together with attacks on the Vietnam war, has produced a large crop of resignations of white members of the more militant civil rights organisations and cancellations of generous subscriptions. Not only CORE and SNCC, which have endorsed 'Black Power,' but Dr Martin Luther King's SCLC which has condemned the phrase, have felt the draught and, indeed, are already in financial embarrassment. The militants maintain that Negroes will never earn self-respect until they can finance their own movements. They could be right
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