The Jewish Onslaught: Despatches from the Wellesley Battlefront 0912469307

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T JEWISH o SLAUG D

th

pat he from ell le Battl if;- nt

The Majority Press

THE JEWISH ONSLAUGHT: Despatches from the Wellesley Battlefront TON Y ~A RTI has.taug h t at Wellesley College. Massachu setts and s been a full professor of since 1973. rle.w~s t>ish Press castigated Jew ish Harvard law professor, Alan M. Dcrshowitz a nd other Jews for tak ing "no action...to a nswer the invi tation to Jeffries." The paper itself showed how outside adult Jewish pressure prodded the Harvard Hillel Into actio n. "It is important to note," it said, ~t ha l the Hillel Associa tion al Har vard and its director, a Reform Rabbi, Sally Firestone, had decided to do nothing to call at tention 10 the Jeffries appea rance....When it became apparent that the Jewi sh Defense Orga nization would d emonstrat e...the Hillel gro up suddenly became activist and decided to hold a demon stration to avoid the embarrass ment of being seen silli ng quietly on the sidelines while other Jews bore the brunt of defend ing Jews on the Harvard campus. As The Jewish Press is being published it is expected that Jeffries will speak, but that he will be greeted by a demonstration which will be officially sponsored by the Hillel gro up at Harvard ,"! The Hillel grou p at Wellesley, no doubt respond ing to this cli ma te of outside adult press u re, had long jumped a t any opportu nities to ha ssle whichever Black and Third World perso nalities happened its way . When in 1991 Profes sor Edward

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The Jewish Co,IIulh,

Said. a well-k no wn aca de mic com menta to r on the Palestine Jitua tion, , po ke on campus. the Hlllel group ere ted a hu llabaloo. The mixtu re of lies. half·truth. and shrill hyperbo le which cha cterizes the Jewish response to all the events dl5cussed In thi, book Immedialely ame into play. "Stud en t, and faculty have shared thcir 'outrage al his demagoguery: " wrote DoMa Tarutz, the Hillel dln:dor. To lhi. "outrage" she added. for good tne.'lsure. " 'anger at hi s historical misinterpretation: and overall disappointment In his expression to the audience," She demanded a "Co llege funded program; possibly organized by Hillel. to "balance" Said's lecture.' The co-prestdent of Hillel. speaking "In my C3pr;1dty as eo-president of Wellesley College Hillel, and as a conccmcd Jewish student on this campus; expressed the trademark HillcllADL intolerance for the expression of differing polnts of view. She voiced her youthful annoyance that "Wellesley chose 10 olS6Odate and represent itself wilh Edward Said, a spokesman for the Pa\cslinlan people••"' When in 1992 AfriCAn American dvil rights leader Rev . AI Sharpton ca mpa igned for the New York Senate at Wellesley College, "Debbie Shapiro. A member of Hillel," made the Aston ishing a llcgalion lh.1t Sharplon was "promoting genocide."Yes." she was quo ted as saying. "He' s radk:al but he ad vocat es murder."? Such Imma ture intolerance did not h.1ve far 10 look for adult example. The doyenne of Wellesley' s c1assid slS. the Jewish professor Mary Lefkowitz, Mellon Professor in the Humanities, ind ulged (with her husb.>ndl. in imprudent outbursts at college I«tu res by. among others, Dr. YOl;Cf ben-)lx:h.1nnon, one of African America', I"nO$\ belo ved Egyptologists. At th i, even t es pecia lly, question lime was tho roughly disrupted by lA!fkowitz', outbursts. These earlier foray, by the Wellesley HlIIel were wat ched closely and applauded by the lewlsh media. Th is f ct no doubt helped fuel the feeling of overconfidence wh ich charact enud Hillel', allack o n me in 1993. The lnuish PTts& , "The Largest Ind"J'Cfldent Anglo-jt'wish Weekly Newspaper." according to lIS mas thea d. commented ex tensively on Wellesley Hillel 's act ion against Rev. Shdrpton.

Introduction

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The paper focused on ." recent horror story from Wdk~if written by • A young gentile woman from \·...-llcslcy" who h.ld joined the Hilld allack on Rev, Sharpton, In the inflammatory slander all IClO characteristic of Jewish commentary on things African American. the Imi

'111C press release called upnn 'h'cllcsJcy Co llege tn fire me rV1.1rlin C nl d m ,ln, deputy .1Sscn.ltC directly of the !\1'11Cf"iC'..an [ewrvh Cnlll1l1tlcc. and rile of the slgn.llnnc-;. explained further in ihc lIe",fa, G/ci r n f Apnl 7, l in denying me (and one black studen t supporte r) acce ss 10 thei r pages: and that the adm inistration acted wrongly in sendi ng their one-sided coll ection o f hostile , introduced herself to me as a lormer attorney lor the NAACP !A'gal Defense Fund and offered concrete information and advice. The mother 01 the student who received the oflensive materials from the Friends 01 Wellesley Hillel immediately laxed them 10 me so that I muld be aware 01 what was going on. Several parents on campus

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for commence me nt exp ressed deep support and unders tand ing . During a speaking engagement in Brooklyn, New York, the mo ther of a student I had taug ht at Bro wn University sho wed me her so n's exa m pa per fro m my class (fortuna tely he had received a n A!) and expressed solidari ty. The appeara nce of the first articlcs in the Bos/on Globe were a gra phic demonstra tio n bo th of the pow er of the press (and the Jews' ab ility to u sc ill and the depths of Black solidari ty. Ca lls came in from far a nd ncar , all offering support. Each new item in the ma jor medi a (the New York Times, the Chicago Trib une, the David Brinkley progra m, e tc.), bro ught new calls. And afte r the ca lls cam e the letters . The Black press (mostly weeklies), were slo wer off the mark tha n eith er the Jew ish press o r the major med ia . A local Black newspa pe r actually hesitated to scoop the story but covered it after it beca me a na tiona l issue. On ce the Black med ia got goi ng, how e ver, it pro ved to be a veh icle of grea t force. Black radi o talk shows proved to be on the CUlling edge of fearl ess Black journali sm, but so me new spapers and a t least o ne Black television progr.lm, proved equally indepen dent and fear less. Suppo rt man ifcs ted itself very effective ly throu gh the network of co mmu nity o rganiza tions of variou s kinds that crisscross the cou ntry. Let no o ne doubt the po we r o f African Amer ican o rga niza ti o n or its ability to mob ilize q uic kly an d net wor k effectively. A number of rall ies was held , from Harl em to Los Angeles, with mor e to co me. Every where Broa d sid e No . I was reproduced in newspa pers and by orga niz.1 tions and indiv iduals. A Ha rlem rall y o rganized by the Patrice Lumu mba Coa lition, the Afr ican N at ionalist Co nstruction Mo vem ent and the Universal Negro Improvem en t Associati on drew several hundred per sons. There a lad y offered me a check to start a defen se fund . It was with dif ficulty th at I explained tha t my situation had not ye t a rrived at that stage . This was a to uching momen t. Such w ide-ran ging solida rity can be explained both by the h igh level of co nscio usness cur rently existi ng in the African American co mmu ni ty a nd by the w idespread feeling th at th e Je wis h onslaug ht has go ne too far.

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The Jewisb Oosljlullbt

Consciousness bas been facilitated by the Black Books Revolution, now about a decade old . For the first time in our history, Black folk now have the capacity to write. publish. distribute and sell their books without total reliance on white or Jewish establishments at any point along the way . The African American public is reading as never before and they are reading their own authors, writing from their own perspective. as never before. Not too long ago many a Black bookstore. On close examination, would be found to be stocking books on Blacksubjects overwhelmingly wrillen by non-Africans and more often than not. by Jews. Even now, in 1993. it is still possible to find a large African American Studies department in a large eastern university proposing to establish a Ph.D. program in BlackStudies where more than half of the compulsory readings in the bedrock "great Black books" course are by Jews. The reverse situation, of a Judaic Studies Ph.D. program Iaught by while Jews and based on the writings of Blackexperts. would be so unthinkable as to be the stuff of comedy. Fortunately, the ludicrous plans of this new Black Studies program. whicb would have been quite normal in the recent past, are now somewhat anomalous. The Black Books Revolution is perhaps unique in the avid interest it has stimulated in the non-academic African American community. Ifanything. the lay population may be reading more 01 their own material than many of the academics, who have more layers of miseducalion to work through before they can emerge into the clear light of self-knowledge. Frustration at the Black Books Revolution has added fuel to the Jewi sh onslaught against books such as The Secret ~lalioll5hip Belw",," Blacks a"d lcws. They cannot prevent its publication. they cannot prevent its distribution and , most frustrating of all, they do not even know who wrote it . The unprecedented full page New York Times op ed for Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has done nothing but increase the book's circulation . An apocryphal Negro of long ago, when ordered by ole rnassa to put down an African uprising. flung his hands in the air. scratched and shuffled. removed his hat from head to hand. bowed and scraped , shucked and jived, bucked his eyes, looked furtively around (as if dodging unseen ghosts), swallowed hard and finally

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said, in a plaintive, whimpering, dejected voice, "Boss, I didn'l start it and I can't stop it." IWith apologies to Malcolm X) . Henry Louis Gates, [r., spokesman for the Jewish group on the African question, in the midst of his op ed , threw his hands in the air as it were, and admitted sadly, that Sober and scholarly looking. I The 5«", R.I.lio.w.ip) may well be one of the most influential books published in the black community in the last 12 months . It is available in black-oriented shops in cities across the nation, even those that specia lize in Kcntc cloth and beads rather than books. It can also be ordered o ver the

phone, by dialing 1-8O(J-48·TRlITH. Meanwhile, the book', conclu sio ns arc, in many circles, increasingly treated as damning historical ract.

The African American feeling that Jewish influence has gone too far is fuelled by a long string of assaults since the 1960's, including the Ocean Hill-Brownsvllle school dispute in Brooklyn, NY in 1968 (where the Jewish community defeated African American efforts at community control of the school system), the Jewish assault on affirmative action (especially as manifested in the Bakke Supreme Court case of 1977), the firing of U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Andrew Young in 1977 (over his meeting with Palestinians), allegations of police protection of Hasidic Jewish vigilantes in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, the Crown Heights disturbances of 1991 (occasioned by the unpunished vehicular killing of a Black child and the maiming of another by a vehicle in the entourage of the supposed messiah of the Hasidic cult), the successful jewish assault on the public television documentary "The Liberators" (which highlighted the liberation of Jews in Nazi concentration camps by segregated African American troops in World War II) and much more. The Black targets of these assaults ran the gamut from poor people to the African American elite. Black resentments therefore ran deep. Henry Louis Cates, [r., of course, saw things differently. At an Ami -Defamation League conference at Brandeis University in 1992 he "drew perhaps the most dramatic response from the audience," to wit a standing ovation, when he denounced "younger,

be tter ed uca ted a nd wea lth ier blacks" as " the mo st bigot ed " membe rs of the race and u ng rateful for Iewish largesse to boot.' Two o f the assaul ts of this period bore striking rese mblance to my own case at Wellesley College. The firs t in vo lved Dr. E. Fred Dube, a Sou th Africa n bo rn p rofesso r at the Sta te University o f ew Yo rk a t Stony Brook. Dr. Dulle was fired in 1986 d esp ite twice be ing reco m me nd ed fo r tenu re by the app ropriate uni versity co mm ittees. He had g ive n his class twelve possi ble essay topi cs, includ ing on e on the th en hig hly publicized i sue o f Zionism as racism. (TIl(' Ge ne ral Assembly of the United I a tions ha d recen tly P.lSoSN a reso lution to that effect). Using tactics wit h wh ich I am no w ve ry fam ilia r, the An tiDefama tion League a nd othe r Jewish o rga niza tio ns and indi viduals waged a ca m pa ig n o f lies, hal f-trut hs and vilifica tio n agai nst Dr. Dube. They ne ver approached him d irectly bu t went o ve r his head to p ressure the school ad mi nistra tio n, legisla to rs and New Yor k gov erno r, Mari o Cuo mo . They were ab le to wi n the s u pport of the govern o r and of Clifto n Wharton, [r ., llIack cha ncell or o f the en tire sla te university system. The resu lt was that Dube lost his job. The ationa l Confere nce o f Black La wyers coordi nat ed a "Co mm ittcc to Su p po rt Prof. E. Fred Dube." Using trad itio na l methods tha t had wo rked for o the rs be fore, they lau nched a na tiona l ca m paig n to ga ther signatu res fo r a ne wsp.lper ad a nd esta bl ish su p po rt fo r Dr. Dube's pendi ng la ws u it. Sev era l promi ne n t Africa n Ame ricans len t th eir signa tu res to this effo rt, includ ing Rev. Ben Ch avi s, no w execu tive head of the N AACP and Hon . Walte r E. Fau nt roy, member o f Co ng ress fro m Wa sh ing to n, D.C. TIle ca m pa ig n was essen tially a d efcnslvc o ne, a restrained a pJX'n I for fai r pla y which was drowned o ut by th e caco p hony o f Jewish lies and d i to rlions. The fac t tha t fo u r pro minen t Je ws had signed the prelimina ry so licitation of su p po rt p ro ved of little co nsequence to the o u tco me o f this case. The lo ne libera l or rad ica l [e wish voice cry ing III the wild erness has more o ften tha n no t lacked the po wer to have mo re tha n a n irrita n t effl'Ct o n the major Jewish o rga niza tio ns. Such vo ices o ften e nd u p being vilified by the Jewish ma instrea m as "seltha ting Jews." A hat e ma il wri ter fnom Worcester, Massac huse tts illustrated th is po in t. He (or she) se nt me a hea f of clipp ings

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4S

ad orned with mu ch handwritten commemary. One clippi ng reported a speech by Jonathan Kozel, author of Savage In''lualitits. on inequities in public educati on across the United States. My Sl.'CJ"('t correspo ndent's commen t was - " pe rfect example of another Jew working on your bchall." In the case of Dr . Lronard Jeffries, chair of Black Studies at City College, New York, the Jewish onslaught finally met the first serious reverse in its twenty-five year rampage. Here was a professor with deep mots in the acad emic and lay communities, a veteran of many political battles and one with the willingness. ability and popular support to carry the battle to the Jewish juggernaut. Dr . JeUries made a spe ech in August 1991 in which he mentioned, among other things. Jewish involvement in the African slave trade (the same type of information to be found in The 5«ref Relationship). He also referred to the complicity of Jews. as Hollywood moguls, in popularizing the negative stereotypes of Black people disseminated by the film industry .l The now familiar campaign of lies, distortions, half-truths and political pressure erupted . The media was, as usual, used to greot effect by the j('wish mudslingers, as leffries was subjected to a public vilification of stupendous proportions. In September 1991 a "hall-dczen moderate to militant Jewish groups" marched in Manhallan against Jeffries while simultaneously"A militant Jewish group from New York City invaded the leafy suburbs" of his New Jersey home. At the latter affair a scuffle broke oul when a Jewish demonstrator called a bystander "nigger.HJ City College authorities bowed to the plt'Ssure and removed Jeffries as chair of Black Studies. Jeffries responded with massive academic and popular support (including support meetings with thousands present and protection from Black police organizations) and a lawsuit. In May 1993 the courts found that Jeffries' first and fourteenth amendment rights (freedom of speech and due process) had been violated and awarded him 5400,000.00. Yet the intemperate attacks have continued unabated in the Jewish press and among Jewish columnists in the major media . The lies, vicious name-calling and imputat ion s of wrongdomg on [effrtes' part

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The Jewish Onslaught

would apJX'ar, to a lay person. to place the Jewish writers in contempt of court. City ColI('~" has promised 10 appeal, The fact rcrnai ns. however, that this initial Jeffries victory represents a major turning point in the ~truhgl(' and ~ignals the possibility of further victnrie». as Black people emerge from the embattled position forced upon them by a quarter century of the Jewish onslaught. The decision in the JeffriL'S CdSC came just a few months after the outbreak on the Welle'slcy front. thereby ine vitably linking the two, The [cffries court victory and the outbreak at Wl'lIes!c'y abo coincided with startling revelations concerning ADl. and orhcr jewish spying against African American 1 ~ t in 'ght.

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She began by complaining about the studentln my Africans in Antiquity'" class who In 1989 wrote an op ed in the campus paper objecting to the portrayal of Cleopatra by white Elizabeth Taylor. With a maturity and sophistication belying her eighteen or nineteen years, the student wrote, M

This critique was sparked by the Wellesley CoII"Se Greek and L.uin departments and Classic. Club....Under Ihe boldly wrillen _I'd "CIropatra' Is a picture 01 Elizabeth Taylor, .uggesting thai she """"'bles C1ropatra.... It was nol until the rise of Ihe doctrine of while supremacy 1""1 C1ropatra wa. removed from the black race....In Shakespeare's A"!oJryIDId C""""'r. he describes her a. '7on~ and in Act I Scene 5 Oropalra describes herself as black. However. Ihe strongest testimony to her blacknes. is her lineage. Cleopalra'. falher was not a lull blooded Grock. Generation. afler ('tolemy I and many inlerracial marriages later the Greek ancestry was no longer pure. By the lime Clropatra was born she wa. almost , if nol all, Egyptian.... 'The Ihrology behind the white Cleopatra i. a cloar rcllecIion of lhe raclal sterrotypcs t""t penl.t in thi. country. They bel""'" 1""1 Arrican. and Alrlcan American. have made no .ignlficanl conlrlbutlons \0 history and thai no prominent civili7.ations could be anything Ieso than whlte.Such confident correctness in one so young was more than Lefkowitz could stand. A. the bearer of the self-imposed burden of Western Civilization, she and a colleague actually summoned the student to their office and grilled her for an hour or two in an effort to make her change her mind. Though only in her first yNr at college, this strong African American woman held her ground against this remarkable display of arrogant intolerance. lefkowitz's random fusillade took in Martin Bernal, Socrates' African features, Marcus Garvey (who she tried to tum into an apologist for Black folks' alleged lack of historical heroes), Molcfi Asante, Cheikh Anta Diop, George G.M . James, Vosef benJochannon and the Greek historian Herodotus «or writing about African influences on Gn..ek dvllizatlon). for all her verbose rantings, she still never quue dealt with tbe reality of African Influence on Greece. She ignored Ihe work of

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The Jewish On.laught

William Leo Hansberry" and others showing the multitudinous admissions of the Greeks themselves concerning their indebtedness to Egyptians and Ethiopians. The Greeks, unlike their modem alleged descendants, held Africans in great esteem . Their ssereotypes for Ethiopians (the most dark-skinned of Africans) were as positive as present day European stereotypes arc negative. For Homer and his successors Ethiopians were the tallest and most h....,hollle of p•.'uple, the most pious, the strongest. The piety of the Ethiopian gods was reflected in the fact that Greek gods journeyed thither annually to sojourn with their Ethiopian counterparts. Indeed The Ody.;sey of Homer, (together with the Iliad, Western civilization's first excursions into writing), begins with Poseidon. Greek god of the sea, away in Ethiopia for a sacrifice of bulls and rams - "and there he was, feasling and enjoying himself mightily...."t. Homer, with his several references to Ethiopia and Ethiopians, set a precedent for his Creek literary successors who, as Hansberry has shown, referred in their Writings more often 10 Ethiopia than to any other place, except for Greece itself. Clearly, the ancient Greeks knew more about Africa, were in closer day to day contact with it, held it in greater esteem and felt its influence much more than they did Northern Europe, whose descendants now lay claim to the Greek legacy. Grewe was also gl'Ographically milch closer 10 Africa than to most of Europe. It is likely that Greece, very familiar with Africa. had never even heard of most of the Northern European communities who now claim her. Crete. the scene of perhaps the earliest signs of a developing Gn.'Ck ovtttzauon, was even closer to Alrica than most of the rest of Gn.'('("C and was rouj;hly equidistant from Africa and the European mainland . The Minoan civilization of Crete showed signs of African influence (perhaps even involving an African invasion) as early as ca. 3,()(X) B.C. The Greek traveller Herodotus, the Europeans' "father of history" (except when he tells the truth about Africa, at which point he bc.'COII\CS the "father of Ill","), was expansive in his chronicling of the Gre'l'k debt 10 Africa . Travelling in Egypt in the fifth centory Ile. he noted the interconnectedness of Egypt and Ethiopia and diSdgre'l'll with those Creeks and lonians who argued that Ej;ypt co nsisted of the Delia area only. Of the 330 pharaohs of Egypt

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identlfled for Herodotu s by Egyptian pr iests, 18 were Ethiopian. Scsostris, the only Egyp tian king to rul e Ethiopia, according to Herodotu s, left statues in Ionia, the clothes and weapons of wh ich were half Egyp tian and half Ethiopian. Herodotus attribu ted to the Egyp tians/ Ethiop ians invention o( the twelve month solar calendar, the namin g of the twelve god s and pioneering the art of carving in stone. They were the first, he said, to ass ign alte rs, images and temples

10

the g od s. Th ey we re th e firsl

to ass ign to each day an d month a pa rticular d eit y. They were pionee rs of geo metry and astrology. The y were the most learned nat ion and possessed more imposi ng monument s than any o the r country in the world . He rodo tus specifically noted Greek borro wings, copyings and plagiari sm s (rom Eg yp t/E thio pia. He thoug ht that the Gree ks learned their calendar (rom the Egy ptians - or at the very least, he said, the Egyp tian one was olde r and better. They took the nam es of the twel ve gods from Egypt . They took the nam e of Hera cles (Hercules) (rom the Egyp tians. They depicted their god dess 10 with cow' s horns, like the Egyptian s d id Isis. They took the worsh ip of Dionysus from Egyp t.2o The fam ou s oracles of Ammon (in Libya) and Dodo na (in Greece) both had Egyptian origins. Indeed , s,aid Herod otu s, "The nam es of nearly all the god s came to Greece from Egypt."2' The Egyptians, he said , pioneered ceremonial meet ings, liturgies and processions. 22 Herod otu s suggested that Perseu s, Greek king of Argos (and Tiryns, according to so me accoun ts), was bo rn in Chemmis, in the Thebe s di sirici o ( Egypt. (Accordi ng

In

Grl'f'k 'rc,cond s, Perse us

marri ed And romed a, daughter of Cepheus and Cassiope ia, king and qu een of Ethiopia. He is said to have also founded the city of Mycenae, mad e famou s by Homer. Their so n PerS!'S found ed Persia / Ira n). Herod otu s spe cu la ted that the kno wled ge of geometry mu st ha ve passed (rom Egyp t to Babylon to Grcccc.D In her anti-Afrocentric wr itings Lefkowi tz is especially up set at Ceorgc G.M. James' sugges tions (in Stolen Legacy: The Greeks were

Not the Authors of Greek Philosophy, bul Ihe l'eol1le of North Africa, Commonly Called the Egyptians), that Gree ks were gui lty of intellectua l lar ceny. She is proba bly equa lly u pset with Herod otus, wh o co uld not have been more explicit in his allegatio ns. In a

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The Jewish On,'aulbt

probable reference to plagiarism by Greek philosopher Pythagoras (among others), Herodotus had this to say The Egyptians say thaI Oaneter and Dionysus are the chief powers in the underworld;and they were also the first people 10 put forw"rd lhe ductrine of the immoMality of the soul, and to maintain that after death it mten another creatureat the moment of that crealure's binh..•TIIis Ilvory/11I$ b«rr IIdopUd by arlai" C_k ","Ins, so.... ..... itr, 50_ "'In, """' Jrn. pul iJ forDJtlrd .. l1wir ""'". Their names are known 10 me. but I refrain from mentioning them.2tlEmphasis mine.) Herodotus was equally convinced that Solon, the early Greek philosopher-slatesman, adopted 5Omc: of his idCi15 from !he Pharaoh Arnasis, who "established an admirable custom, which Solon borrowed and introduced at Athens where it is still preserved...." The idea was that citizens should annually declare their assets. Inability to account honestly for accumulation of wealth "was punishable by death.N2S Herodotus suggested also that Homer's l/iQd was developed around an earlier Egyptian story. Lefkowitz attempted to anachronistically tum Herodotus' account into the supercilious observations of a European on the strange customs of an inferior people . The opposite was in fact true, Herodotus mentioned Greek prostitutes in Naueratis, on the Egyptian Mediterranean coast, and noted that Egyptians would not kiss a Greek or usc the same eating utensils as one. All of this runs counter to Lefkowitz's attempt to read twentieth century while supremacist ideas back twenty-five hundred years. Much of this information was unknown to Lefkowitz, who told me in 1989 that her Greek and Latin deparlment did not teach Book II of Herodotus' His/Dries. (It is mostly in Book II that Herodotus describes his visilto Egypt). Her lack of familiarity with Herodotus' African trip became painfully apparent when two of my students responded in 1992 to Lefkowitz's New Rtpllblic article. Relying on superior rank despite her inferior knowledge, she sought to summarily dismiss their arguments. The students, she asserted confidL'tIlly but wrongly, "seem to have little acquaintance with [Herodotus'] work .

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Herodotus does not say that Hercules had Egyptian parents or discuss the doctrine of immortality.H2O Lefkowitz was embarrassingly and publicly wrong here . We have already quoted Herodotus' reference to the doctrine of immortality. On Heracles/Hercules he said (contrary to Lefkowitz's confident but incorrect assertions), ~th the parents of Heracles - Amphilryon and Alcmcne - were of Egyptian origin." Lefkowitz could easily have checked the references provided by my students before rushing headlong into erroneous print. Instead, like "Prof:' Adelson of the /ewi5h Press. she preferred to rely on an unfounded assumption of Jewish intellectual superiority over those she considered Afrocentric and therefore academically lightweight. It is an eloquent testimonial to the power of white Jewish skin privilege that someone so confidently ignorant of basic material in her own discipline should be allowed to proclaim in the Chronicle of Higher Education (perhaps the most influentia! multidisciplinary forum in academia) that "Serious students of the ancient world must rise and protest lat Afrocentric history). At stake is the integrity not only of our disciplines, but of intellectual inquiry in generaL" And again, "The Afroccntrists, in my opinion ...are destroying what is perhaps the greatcsllegacy of Greek philosophy - rational thought. H27 One can only assume from such statements by the Lefkowitzes and Adelsons of this world , that to be white and Jewish is ipso facto 10 be rational. however wrong and foolish one might be. Lefkowitz was equally wrong when, in the New Republic, she poured scorn on Herodotus' description of the Egyptians as Black and claimed only one such reference in his Histories. There was in fact more than one such reference in Herodotus. HAs to the bird being black; he wrote. in discussing the origin of the oracles of Ammon and Dodona, Hthey merely signify by this that the woman was an Egyptian. H28 On the origin of the Colchians (who live near the BlackSea). he said My own idea on the subject was based first on the faci that they have black skins and wooly hair (nollhat that amount. 10 much. as olher nations have the same). and secondly, and mOil! especially, on the fact that the Colchians, Ihe Egyptian., and the Ethiopians are the only races which from ancient times have' practised

The 'ewish Orul,ulht circumcision . The Phc...~n id.ln~ and th(' Syrian". of J'.ltC"ilOtinC" thetn....lvcs admit that they adopted rhe practise from Egypl....29

If Black scholars were to adopt a mindset similar to that of the Lefkowitzes and Adelsons, they could make a stronger case for ancient Cre...'CC being a part of the African world, than the case made by their ]cwish detractors for whitening Egypt out of Africa. Lefkowitz's limited knowledge and understanding of the Creek-African connection later became apparent in a debate with Afrocentric scholars over radio station WBAI in New York in Spring 1993. Martin Bernal also pointed out some of her mistakes in the Nt:U' Rtpublic. She nevertheless scored a signal victory when she taunted &mal into abdicating his precarious Afrocentric throne. Stung by Lefkowitz's assertions in the New Republic that "Bernal has helped to provide an apparently respectable underpinning for Afrocentric (antasies;30 the white Jewish king of AfrocentricJand begged his way back into the dominant group. In language of which Lefkowitz and Adelson would be proud, and which every Black scholar should read, he declared, "I am not an Afrocentrtst. I have never been an Afrnccntrist, I do not believe that all good things come from anyone continent....To conclude, I hate racism of any sort and I am sorry if my work has given encouragement to black racists ."" Bernal here, like Lefkowitz, established a d ishonest premise (who ever said that "all good things come from" Africa?), and cut his Black admirers loose. As a famous Latin poet once said, NTi",,,, DatUUlS et dOlUl [,.,.,nICS" - "Beware of Greeks (or Jews for that mailer) bearing gifts" (whether Trojan horses or seemingly liberal books). Bernal went further and agreed with Lefkowitz (and generations of European exponents of the" Aryan mod el" wh ich he purports to attack) that the Egyptians were not racially African . He made the as tound ing statement, which even Lefkowitz m.'y have hesitated to make, that "Lower Egypt W .1S fundamentally North African Caucasoid , but as a consequence of continuing contact with the rest of Africa up the Nile had a much higher proportion of East and Central African physical types than is found in the Maghreb."J:! This places Bernal in the same league as the"Aryan model" exponents of the past who have seen Egyptians as "dark-skinned Caucasians; Hamites, Semites, swarthy while people and anything

Afroctntrls m

65

bul African. It also places him in h•..-t with jrwish whir" supremacist Professor Michael Levin, who announced on New York radio station WABC thai Egyptians were "Caucasoids" and that "All the great achievements of civilization arc done by whit" males." Nor, protested Bernal 10 lefkowitz, did he accept Herodotus' description of Egyptians as Black - "I merely mention Herodotus's reference to the Egypt ians as 'black: I did not write ' ncgroid' nor did I say that I accepted Herodotus's statement: ') ) So for Bernal black is white and negroid is black and negroid is blacker than black. And lena Home is Black, bUI King Tutankharnen (who was much darker than Ms. Home) was white. Which again brings to mind Marcus Garvey's 1923 question, "Who and what is a Negro?" - and his observation that "The custom of these anthropologists is: whenever a black man ...accomplishes anything of importance, he is no longer a Ncgro."34 Garvey may as well have brett speaking directly to Bernal when he observed in 1923Professor Ceorge A. Kersnor, head of the Harvard-Boston expedition to the Egyptian Soudan, returned to America early in 1923 and , after describing the genius of the Ethiopians and their high culture during the period of 750 a.c. to 350 A.D. in middle Africa, he declared the Ethiopian. were not African Negroes. He described them as dark colored races.... howing a mixture of black blood . Imag ine a dark colored man in middle Africa being anything else but a Ncgro. Some white men, wheth"r the y be professors or what not, certainly have a wide stretch of imagination.3S TIt" mOSI fasclnallng aspf a m ..

71

non u-aguc. 3, 6. 8, 10, 11,

19. 21.29, 33,38.43, 44. 46, 47,48, 49, 52. 68.74, 75, 100, 109, 112. 1\ 4. 1\5. 111; .IS" "1Aofamaoon Le..gue ", I I; libelous dialribcs of. 10; libe lous press

release, g..1 2;or~ n iu l i on s targeted by.46; ' py opcranon 0/, 46 Arlton)'.nd C~ " . (Shalo.~f'l".. re), 59 Aplhck e t , , ... ber•• 132 Ar.-.fat. Y.."i r, 74, 134 Argos, 61 Aryan moo d , 64 A sante, Of. Moleti. h.. 59 Aw ntcw a. Val , 94 J\$hkenJi zi Jew", 11 1 A!io.-.ociJIloo r'ress, 13 B·Nllfri.h,3, 106, 1).1 Babylon, 61 B..U. """,,23,43, 55. 133, 134 B.., bado>,9O, 112, 127, 130

Begin, Menachem. 54 ben ·Jacmnnon. Dr.YCl'OI. 6, 7, 58, 59.

102. 135 Ikonin, 65 11.."".1, Mar tin, 58, 59, 64. 65. 66; Bwd Athm.a, 57, 66; den oun ces N roct"ntrism, 64 Bcrtley, Or. Leo W.• ix. 81 Bibl., 98, 128 B irch, Jo h n. 31 Blac).. American Leadership Meeu ng, 2225 BI",I AI","" (Ikoman, 57, 58, 66 Black Books Revolution. 42

Black Con~"lM."95 Movement 01 J\z.Jnla. 46 B/",Il.if.br.iboo m.ukinf'; 20 yt'".l" al w ellcsrcy College, 40, 88; Jews dC'nund hi~

3d\'i~r y

board 01 Cm.llllnpoi"lIl.

M Uilary InlcUigenre Dt"'iWtmt'n1.49 M tllcr . Sara

e. *. 11ft

MUI, C"I~e. 46 M in o.m rivilil.alion . 60 Minor. Robert . 69 M M\~&1i.m o. Am.\ldu. M M C-:lri~h Sd('n",T('m~ll (' of I\mmc~

30 Lehrer , D.nid 1\.• 48

M uhamma..:! , Ebj.m, 23 M uhammed, Rkhard . 110

Levin, Midu1.",. I>. 22.3'. J.I. ~I>. 4 ~. n. s. RnJYw (Dartmouth College ). 2Q Roberts, Cokic. 14. 15 Robeson. Paul, Rock , Gall,)( Rockctclk-r Foundauon . 21 Kog("...... l A • .l-'l Kuman Cathohc Church, ~ 5. 77 Ro-enbarun, Y,sold, vii i. 5:! Ro-•en w ark c, IrOl, th~ FdX' of GrtllIIU'~~ . 114 R~'nwald, [uhus. 21, 50 Rothschild Ianulv. 1m Rubcctndo. M .lri·~)1, x. 12[) Rum dt",tllhng. 127

n

em

().·in);lon , Mar y \V'hih', :;0

Phlllq.....,

fi'~1

Rainbow ,,"Jilinn , 4tl

No )u..tk('. N o Pr_'I", 4{.

(mIN f JX'" 11f C: m~ I nt' ..'

n. 19,20,

120

Sdl'h!'o. Mr , 21 Said. Profc-, sor Edward, 5, 6, 7 Sainnl. Debbie. x Samuel. J4 Samuels, Tanva, -: 50:111 I rOlntL'>(1) 1:.Hol1l1J-nn-. 46 San Franl1!>l."uSta te Uruver-atv, 4ii 5.I~"-'hll';'n, Rdbbi David, 24 . ~ t'WX( lnt'qUollillt) ( K II W \) , 45 S.chuh... iso Secret RcLJ1•.-mshrp HttW«1'l flLMl.~ arul J~ws . T~ , "11.1:-,:,.1,10.15. Itl, 211, :\..1.

Index 34. 37. 38. 42. 43. 45. 49. 52. 54. 58. 68. 76.87.88.89.90.91.96, 101. 102. 104. 107.11 0.114.119.122.126.127. 129. 130.1 3 1.134.1 35 Sdi......n.lI