316
"perverted," "demonic," "evil,"
"aberrant," Nazis used to use.)
If
Dickstein had been talking about
"mutual influences" he would have
cited George Schuyler or James
Weldon Johnson, who wrote about
the "white negro" long ago and
wrote about it better, as having in–
fluenced or even
anteceding
Nor–
man Mailer's "white negro." But
certainly anyone who says, "Today
black people in this country have
begum
(my italics) to speak for
themselves" when black people
have not only been speaking for
themselves as long as they've been
here but have been writing the
particular kind of essay of which
Dickstein calls Norman Mailer,
"the presiding genius."
(Try
David Walker's Appeal,
1829.)
Dickstein is too ignorant to draw
or discern mutual influences. He
didn't think anyone would notice
in a day when not only "blacks,"
but thousands of white students are
being educated to Afro-American
writing.
No one but a handful of critics
who share Dickstein's ideology
have claimed that white critics
can't review "black writing," the
crippled red herring that Dickstein
raised in the first place. "White"
critics are contributing volumes of
criticism to not only "black writ–
ing," (a particular school with a
definite aesthetic and viewpoint,
which along with many other
schools and individual styles may
be grouped under the heading
Afro-American writing) but to
Afro-American culture in general.
Some like Michel Fabre, Michael
Preston, Leslie Fiedler, Tony Tan–
ner, John O'Brien, Jerry Bryant,
Daniel Jaffe, Walter Sheppard,
Frank MacShane, Neil Schmitz,
Richard Morris, Fielding Dawson,
COLIN FALCK
Donald Phelps, the circle of
"whiJte" critics around the Univer–
sity of Buffalo's magazine,
Paunch,
have contributed intelligent arti–
cles and have done their home–
work. Others like Dickstein
use
"black writing" to feed some per–
sonal familiar that torments them
like warning Jezebel (Updike's
mama) of 1he company she keeps.
When 1heir shallowness and
weird motives are pointed out they
fall back upon the old McCarthy
contingency plan, "you're against
me because you're a racist." The
rest of Dickstein's letter was full of
such cry-baby drivel. Dickstein like
some "blacks" who share his ideol–
ogy (he resents me "being all cool
hip and liberated"; he wants me
foaming at the mouth and scream–
ing at him
like
some fucking sav–
age) is most likely an individual
on most occasions but in a pinch
wails along with ·the tribe and
throws up a rally. I mean, suppose
the Budge book I quoted had said
that the most severe critics of the
Egyptians were .the Greeks? Would
Robert Graves organize a demon–
stration against me? Would Zeus
send me hateful things through
the mail? Of course, individuality
is someth,ing that Dickstein would
deny me. Notice how, in his reply,
he interpreted sections of my let–
ter as not only performing a "dis–
service" to myself but to other
blacks as well. Dickstein in his arti–
cle, we hope, was writing the views
of Dickstein and Dickstein alone,
but to Dickstein I have to be Moses
leading the cast of "Green Pas–
tures" across Dickstein's Red Sea.
On the other hand, to even suggest
that there's a certain Jewish critic
who in a gung-ho manner measures
everybody else's artistic traditions
by the standards of a few eastern
