WHY DOES Jack E. White insist on using his pulpit in Time magazine to squirt racial poison into the nation's public discourse? When he chooses to, he can write columns that are thoughtful and humane; a piece he did earlier this year on Jesse Jackson's penchant for negotiating with dictators was a fine and sensitive piece of work.
But when it comes to politics, White pens some of the ugliest commentary around. A favorite brand of venom is to accuse political conservatives of being racists. Mind you, he never offers actual evidence that they are racists; it is enough for him that they are conservative.
Thus, when the New Liberty Baptist Church in Alabama was torched in 1996, White wrote this:
"All the conservative Republicans from Newt Gingrich to Pete Wilson . . . should come stand in the charred ruins . . . and wonder if their coded phrases encouraged the arsonists." Burning churches? Blame the GOP. "There is already enough evidence to indict the cynical conservatives who build their political careers, George Wallace-style, on a foundation of race-baiting. They may not start fires, but they fan the flames."
White has suggested that Clarence Thomas is "an intellectual slave" who is "lavishly rewarded for serving . . . conservative white Republicans." Newt Gingrich is "one scary white man . . . one very scary white man." He has mocked "Newt the slasher, Bill the waffler, and Jesse [ Helms] the crank" as "white men who make black people uneasy." In February, he wrote that the GOP resurgence after 1964 was built on "opposition to civil rights." Republicans might be "too genteel for a sheet-wearing bigot like David Duke but [are] all too willing to embrace bigotry if it's dressed in a suit and tie."
White and Time get away with this stuff because the victims of these smears never fight back. Until now.
 David Horowitz (right) answers questions at a news conference in Berkeley, California, in 1972, when he was an editor at the leftist journal, Ramparts. |
In Time's Aug. 30 edition, White wrote about David Horowitz, a noted conservative activist. In the '60s, Horowitz was a militant radical; famously, he later had second thoughts and moved to the political right. A prolific writer, Horowitz has dissected the cruel and antidemocratic instincts of "progressives" in several riveting books, among them "Destructive Generation" and "The Politics of Bad Faith." He operates a lively Web site, Front Page, and runs (with Peter Collier) the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, which publishes Heterodoxy, a journal on political correctness.
Somehow, Horowitz also finds the time to generate a fortnightly column for the liberal Web magazine Salon. On Aug. 16, he wrote about the NAACP's plans to sue gun manufacturers on the grounds that firearms are a leading cause of death among young black men, who are nearly five times as likely to die of bullet wounds as young white men.
"Am I alone," Horowitz wondered, "in thinking this a pathetic, absurd, and almost hilarious demonstration of political desperation by the civil-rights establishment?"
He went on to lacerate the leftist mind-set that holds that "there cannot be a wound the black community inflicts on itself that is not ultimately the responsibility of malicious whites." If nearly half the prison population is black, Horowitz wrote, "that cannot be allowed to suggest that the black community have a problem when it comes to raising its children as law-abiding. . . . Oh, no. Such a statistic can only be explained by the racism of [ the] criminal justice system."
It was a blunt and angry column. Perhaps Horowitz's ire was fueled by his lifelong passion for civil rights, which began 51 years ago at a demonstration against job discrimination. Perhaps it was fueled by the work he has done for charities that concentrate on at-risk minority kids — Operation Hope, School on Wheels, Angel's Flight. Perhaps it was fueled by the same commitment that led him to invite five leading black figures to a conservative conclave, "to tell Republicans," as he put it, "that they were not doing enough for African-Americans and other minorities." Perhaps it was fueled by his love for his black daughter-in-law and his three granddaughters.
Well, White read the column and came to a different conclusion. His usual conclusion. The column "reminded" him that "blatant bigotry is alive and well" on the Internet, even at liberal Webzines. He pronounced Horowitz guilty of a "blanket assault" that outdid "the antiblack rantings" of other conservatives. Worst of all was the headline: "A Real, Live Bigot."
White's accusation is scurrilous. But the damage such a libel can wreak is massive. "To be labeled a 'bigot,' particularly in the wake of Buford Furrow, is a verbal death sentence," Horowitz says. "That column is a calculated attempt to prevent anyone from ever again listening to what I have to say."
He's not taking it passively. He fired off a blistering letter to Time demanding an apology. On Front Page, he posted an appeal for support and his letter to Time. He is talking to lawyers about a libel suit. In short, he is making a stink. If more conservatives did that when they are slandered as racists and bigots, maybe the slanders would stop.
Meanwhile, Horowitz has no intention of censoring himself to please the Jack E. Whites of the world. His forthcoming book, due in November, is titled "Hating Whitey and Other Progressive Causes."
Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.
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