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READERS
thought I would read excerpts from the symposium (esp. the 4th ques–
tion) to my class. I've been trying to find some way to reach my class,
because their comments on the fiction and Baldwin's essays are, as one
of them put it, "from the converted." ...
The people in the class are a cross-section of sorts, a civil servant,
a couple of teachers, housewives, two professionals, students and an
industrial economist. They sat stonily silent at the repeated assertion that
the US was racist. The apocalyptic tone seemed, to them, eminently
American.
The term "backlash" meant nothing, but they all recognized
the referenceS' to Sharpsville. I guess this is to be expected. They were
puzzled about Susan Sontag (some having seen her on the telly): and
quite derisive about Diana Trilling's comment on socialism and racial
prejudice.
I had hoped the passages I read out would surprise them. It turns
out, among the "converted," that there is a fatalistic senS'e of "it's only
a matter of time before it (American racial problemS' and strife) will
happen in England."
Sirs:
Eric Honsberger
Cambridge, England
. . . My exhaustion stems from the recogmtlOn, after eight
months of futile organizing activity in the ghetto and two years of im–
potently protesting Johnson'S foreign policy, that I cannot use my
power in any way at all to change social and economic inequality at
home, and our impulse to impose military solutions on political prob–
lems abroad. . . .
I read that a group of students wrote a well publicized letter to
Secretary Rusk expressing their "concern" over our Vietnam policy.
I read it not with hope, but with the exhaustion of fruS'tration. For
rather than pinpoint any of the Administration's blatant lies or fantastic
appraisals, the letter merely provided the Secretary with another sound–
ing board for Yahoo propaganda. . . .
The students knew [the facts]. They should have included [them]
and a thousand other . . . facts in their letter. Instead, they ask whether
our vital interests are really at stake in Vietnam. Rusk himself could
not have written a S'Weeter take-off question. . ..
After seeing the best minds of their generation get splattered with
paint, thrown into prison, and sent to slaughter yellow-skinned peasants
(kill a commie for Christ), a group of student leaders write their letter
of concern, a letter which serveS' only to help the administration spread
its double-talk....
So the Vietcong cheer for the Indians while Ky's troops have yet
to believe that their (our) cause is just. And students write a letter of
concern. It's exhausting, really it
is.
