The inexplicable, masochistic drive that sends liberal intellectuals sprawling at the feet of assorted racists to be berated, insulted and spat upon, hit a new high of madness last week at a Greenwich Village fixture called the Village Vanguard. Ostensibly, the purpose of the evening was a discussion of art and politics with particular emphasis on the subject of civil rights, but the choice of LeRoi Jones as one of the panelists should have warned the audience to expect a verbal whipping worthy of the Marquis de Sade.
Jones, a Negro, is a playwright whose success cannot, we pray, be the result of his writing, most of which is a sick, raving cesspool of hate and dirt. His latest play, The Toilet, is a happy and apt description of the origin of his works. Rarely have plays so lacking in – not only talent, but elementary civilization – succeeded as have the obscenities of Mr. Jones. He is a bearded, mental neanderthal moved by irrationalities and most especially by a frightening hatred of all white men, an emotion plainly and crudely set out in his works.
This paragon of stability was joined on the panel by one Archie Shepp, a Negro jazz musician of the paganistic school, whose primitive nature was admirably expressed by a boorish insistence on wearing his fur hat throughout the “discussion.” In the end, this act proved to be his least offensive of the evening.
Mr. Jones set the tone of the evening as he coolly surveyed the 123 white liberals waiting for the first strokes of his whip and obliged them by describing the “revolutionary theatre” as one which hates whites. On this relatively innocuous note, Jones moved forward with ill-concealed delight to declare that the words “fascist” and “fascism” had been made obsolete by the words “America” and “Americanism” and with an abundance of good cheer informed his audience that “our enemies” include “most of you who are listening,” pausing for just a moment to assure his white compatriot on the panel, Larry Rivers, that he, too, was included in this happily hated group.
Mr. Rivers, chuckling at this witticism, was further assured by Mr. Shepp, in a typically irrational outburst, “I consider you a friend, an enemy.” It is the measure of the audience’s stability that they greeted this “bon mot” with appreciative humor.
Mr. Shepp had just begun to rave. Lashing out at the White man, he spoke bitterly of the murders of Blacks by Whites in Mississippi with particular reference to the killing of Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman and bared the sheer sickness of his own mind by a refusal to praise the latter two white men for having gone and given their lives for the Negro cause. He would give “no civil service charity,” said this cannibal, because the two youths had merely gone to Mississippi “to assuage their consciences.” Not to be outdone, Mr. Jones described the two dead men as “artifacts” and as “paintings on the wall.”
There was more of this sickness, but little can be gained by discussing it further. It remains rather for the lesson to be learned. Hate is never the sole inheritance of one group. Side by side with the Klansman walks the Black Muslim, and hand in hand walk the sick minds of Lincoln Rockwell, LeRoi Jones and Archie Shepp. White or Black, there are always sick people who need to hate, who are secretly thankful for the fact that there are “enemies” at whom they can lash out, thus feeding their own inadequacies and psychoses. Jones and Shepp speak of evil and they should know it well, because they represent it. They condemn hate but they are daily living examples of it. They consider themselves heroes, but the real heroes are men like Goodman and Schwerner, who fought, not for themselves, but for an ideal. Jones and Shepp are unfit to shine their departed shoes.
There is something frightening about men who spit in the face of people who give them their hands in friendship, who work and die for them, and without whose help they could never have gained their freedom. It seems especially ironic that anti-Semitism should be the new plaything of the “revolutionary Negro” when one considers the fact that no group has been a more active and consistent champion of Negro rights than the Jews.
It is terrible that we honor people like this by flocking to their “lectures.” Not only do they lack decency, they are ignorant boobs who can teach us nothing we should take back into our homes. Those who would boycott a speech by Ross Barnett must do a great deal of explaining before I will understand their motives for listening to LeRoi Jones. Hearing creatures such as this, one’s sufferings are unlimited. We cannot even find relief in the toilet sink, the room is so full of Mr. Jones’ presence.
7 Nisan 5728 – April 5, 1968