LETTERS
"BLACK IS BLACK, WHITE
IS WHITE"
Sirs:
Since reading his "The Black
Aesthetic In White America"
(PR,
Winter, 1971-72), I have been
wondering why Morris Dickstein
wrote such an erroneous, pompous,
and nationalistic document (espe–
cially, nationalistic, when he sees
my influences as The Marx Broth–
ers, Surrealism [Tzara], or another
black wl'iter's as Philip Roth, and
when he views Norman Mailer as
the "presiding genius," of a par–
ticular type of black essay); when
he terms my work "incoherent," he
is saying that the way he intel'prets
the world is the best, the kind of
high-class bigoted stance responsi–
ble for Judaic-Christianity's cur–
rent difficulties.
That long speech which preced–
ed Mr. Dickstein's "criticism" re–
minded me of the ones Sam Ray–
burn used to make at the Demo–
cratic conventions: humorless, de–
magogic, corny, and prejudiced.
I have read Mr. Dickstein's ar–
ticle again ·and decided that his
grievances concerning something
called, "The Black Aesthetic ..."
have more to do with a long-stand–
ing quarrel between Jezebel and
the patriarchs than those questions
arising from a writing Dickstein,
superficially, traces to Richard
Wright.
Mr. Dickstein is imploring Jeze–
bel to reform and calling it "criti–
cism."
What I can't understand is why
he heaps his pet peeves and bad
scholarship -
to anyone who
knows the field - upon us. Why
not simply take out a personal ad
in
The New York Post :
"Jezebel
Come Home - Daddy."
As shoddy as Mr. Dickstein's es–
capade was it does have its mean–
ingful side. I t reminded me of
some notes on the back cover of
Dover's
Egyptian Magic
by E.
A.
Wallis Budge which say, "Even
their most severe critics, the He–
brews, admitted the power of
Egyptian Magic."
.
. .
I wonder were our ancIent cntIcs
as inept as our contemporary ones.
Finally, Mr. Dickstein
wrot~,
"Baldwin's hostility to Bigger,
his
horror at the violent street nigger,
causes him unconsciously to take
over the white man's perspective,
to project the same sexual fantasies
that he debunks so brilliantly when
they are applied to himself"; this
said, apparently, because of M.r.
Dickstein's belief that BaldWIn
erred in accusing Bigger Thomas
of rape.
James Baldwin is right 'and Dic.k–
stein is wrong. Bigger rapes BeSSIe,
his girlfriend, on page 217, Book
Two, of
Native Son,
The Modem
Library edition.
What does Mr. Dickstein's error
say about his . . . er . . . uncon–
scious?
Ishmael Reed, Berkeley, California
Mr. Dickstein replies:
Mr. Reed's one substantive point
first: Bigger does indeed force
himself on Bessie, but she is his
own girlfriend, she has run off with
him, and she does not wholly re–
sist him. Whether this can be called
rape is dubious ; in the novel itself
Wright chooses not to. Instead he
describes something more subtly
moving and painful. ("He heard
her sigh, a sigh he knew, for he
had heard it many times before ;
but this time he heard in it a sigh
