By Nicholas Stix
George S. Schuyler (1895-1977) has been dead for almost thirty years, and yet he still manages to make every semi-literate black racist who hears of him froth at the mouth, and vent his rage in e-mails. That’s progress, for you.
Tonight brought the following e-mail. Since the writer took the trouble to actually sign his name (the rants and death threats are usually unsigned), I decided I’d have a little fun with him/shim/her. I have copied and pasted the writer’s letter, verbatim, with all of the typos intact. As for the writer's misspellings of whites' names, while that may be due to illiteracy or laziness, I suspect it is a Bogleism, after Donald Bogle, the racist black alleged film scholar who is scrupulously careful about correctly spelling the names of even the most obscure black movie figures, while deliberately misspelling the names (not to mention, diminishing the contributions) of white motion picture figures, including giants of the silver screen.
Re: A Note on George Schuler and his Apologists
In a message dated 7/3/2006 8:27:10 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, PGBenjamin writes:
[That’s PGBenjamin@aol.com]
My Dear Mr. Stixx
While conducting research on George Schuyler I came across your panegyric. Although it's certainly true that Schuyler was a great journalist - I won't qualify his contribution by confining his achievement to comparison to other "black journalists"- he was, in so far as most black people who are familiar with his work are concerned, a colossal ass hole and Uncle Tom! For instance he opposed the Civil rights movement and disparaged Dr. King. Which makes him like the proverbial cow who gave a good bucket of milk then kicked it over in my book. I grew up in the apartheid south with it's Nazi ideology and use of state terror to deny human rights to my people. Hence I regard him as a traitor to his race - as did other members of my well educated family.
Since you made mention of the brilliant biography of his daughter, "Composition in black and White," why didn't you mention that his daughter disposed him for his Uncle Tomming and ass kissing with the worst racist in white America! I think the reason that you didn't mention this is because you are not accustomed to encountering people who have actually read this text. While I do not agree with the reduction of his often brilliant work as a reporter, or his equally brilliant satirical writings, in the end it is no exaggeration to say that he was a wounded man and an intellectual Quisling.
This is certainly my view of him from the perspective of a proud Afro-American who can't stand any semblance of ass kissing and Teeming for white folks. So I say George Schuyler was an ass hole in spite of his talents. And so are his apologists with the unmitigated gall to question my right to assess the man any way I choose. In other words fuck you too!
Yours Truly
P.G. Benjamin
PS: Ishmael Reed is not only the greatest "black" satirists, but as a major journal of opinion observed: "Reed is the greatest American Satirist since Mark Twain." Since you sound like a run of the mill snide know-it-all white chauvinist, I am not surprised that you dare not compare Schuyler with Twain, just as you do not find it odd that in spite of Schuyler's great gifts none of the major white publications would actually offer him a regular job. It is an ommission on par with your selective reading of "Composition in Black and White."
In this sense you are as guilty as the black writers whom you pompously flaggelate! Furthermore, Schuler was not the first black journalist to write freelance pieces for leading white publications. Dr. Dubois was publishing in the leading white publications when before Georgie Porgie was allowed to come out of the yaed by himself! And I wouldn't take a million poot butt Toms like Schuler for one W.E.B. Dubois. So There! Put that in your pipe and smoke it in place of whatever you are smoking now!
Incidently, my favorite Menchkin quote regarding Schuyler is :"George Schuyler is the only writer I know who enriches the English language everytime he picks up his pen." But perhaps this is a bit too much praise for you.
My response follows.
Dear P.G. Benjamin,
I don’t know if you are a “him, a shim, or a her,” but you claim to be black and to have conducted research on George “Schuler” (sic). Well, maybe you are black, though what you consider “research” is likely on a par with that of a tenured professor with an endowed chair in “African-American” studies.
That a giant like Schuyler had no degrees, while it has come to pass that the likes of Cornel West and Houston Baker are celebrated “scholars,” and the likes of you claim to “conduct research” on Schuyler, is a situation which only Schuyler could have done right by.
If you had read my work with any care, you would know that I have never questioned the right of semi-literate, black racist morons like yourself to assess Schuyler in “any way that [you] choose.”
You noted that Schuyler “opposed the Civil rights movement and disparaged Dr. King.” But, of course. So what's not to like?
By the way, I feel obliged to correct but one of your countless writing errors. You cited MLK without putting his doctoral title in scare quotes. Surely you know that King stole his doctorate through massive plagiaries of other men’s work. So, that’s “Dr.” King to you. No one who has any respect for the scholarly or intellectual life would fail to somehow note King’s intellectual fraud.
By the way, there’s something pathetic about people who obsessively refer to the dead as “Dr.” So-and-So. Max Weber and Jonas Salk and Niels Bohr all had doctorates, but you don’t hear white folks saying, since their deaths, “Dr. Weber” and “Dr. Salk” and Dr. Bohr.” And those guys didn’t steal their doctorates!
Racist blacks obsessively deride the legitimacy of white-run institutions, but just as obsessively cling to every title that any such institution has ever bestowed upon a black. Doesn’t that seem the least bit odd to you? Oops, I just remembered – unlike Schuyler, you don’t take your irony supplement.
Like the other black racists who write to me, you are incensed at people writing honestly. Had Schuyler lied about the likes of King and Malcolm X/Little, there’d be professorships named after him, and cretins like you would bow down to graven images of him. But since he was honest, you vilify him. And you rage because you have encountered one white intellectual who refuses to kiss your ass, or those of your fellow racists.
Fuck you very much for taking the time to, ahem, write.
Sincerely,
Nicholas Stix
P.S. Who is “Menchkin”?
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