By David in TN
Wednesday, July 18, 2018 at 7:10:00 P.M. EDT
I've finished reading The New Racism (1971) by Lionel Lokos, published by Arlington House, which was the “conservative” publishing outlet of the day. My copy is a second printing edition.
Kirkus Review called the book a “scissors and paste job.” Actually, it is thoroughly footnoted and referenced. There are chapters on The Black Muslims and Black Panthers. There is a long, detailed chapter on Malcolm X. His death at the hands of his former friends is described.
Much of the book concerns “The Black Rebellion on Campus,” another chapter title.
The “rage” in those days was for “Black Studies,” along with “free tuition,” easy grades, etc., etc. Several “militants” of the time appear, who are now forgotten. There are chapters on “black rebellion” at San Francisco State, Federal City College, Cornell, and CCNY.
Chapter 13 covers Black Anti-Semitism and the 1969 New York Mayor's race. The “three major candidates were practically doing a 50-yard dash to any Jewish temple that would allow them to speak.” Lokos described appearances by each candidate at the Ocean Parkway Jewish Center in Brooklyn on different nights. The author “saw and heard all three candidates at this temple.”
The reparations scam was begun at this time. One James Forman (big name then) went to a church and delivered a reparations harangue. Forman announced he would go to a synagogue and threaten the people there. Meir Kahane announced his men would stand on the steps with clubs. Farmer didn't show up.
The last chapter is written by Lokos in the first person. He identifies himself as Jewish, and a member of the white working class. Lokos references a New York magazine article by Pete Hamill, the last white working-class leftist. Hamill wrote sympathetically of white working people, acknowledging they were hated by liberals, and why they were disaffected.
And this was 47 years before Hillary Clinton's “deplorable” fulmination.
Much of what Lokos wrote is applicable today. The same whining demands are still being made.
From the dust jacket: “Lionel Lokos was born in Brooklyn in 1928. A Navy veteran, he is a graduate of New York University. For the past fourteen years he has supervised commercial copy for a large New York City Radio station.”
The New Racism was Lokos’ fourth and (apparently) last book. It and his other books can be obtained from Amazon or a used book service.
4 comments:
"There is a long, detailed chapter on Malcolm X. His death at the hands of his former friends is described."
Shot down we all know by thin-lipped light-skinned men whose hair was as corn silk.
Here (http://nymag.com/news/features/46801/) is the New York Magazine article of April 14, 1969 by Pete Hamill I referred to: "The Revolt of the White Lower Middle Class."
Hamill preferred to call them "the White Working Class." The opening paragraph:
"They call my people the White Lower Middle Class these days. It is an ugly, ice-cold phrase, the result, I suppose, of the missionary eal of those sociologists who still think you can place human beings on charts. It most certainly does not sound like a description of people on the edge of open, sustained revolt. And yet, that is the case. All over New York City tonight, in places like Inwood, South Brooklyn, Corona, East Flatbush and Bay Ridge, men are standing around saloons talking darkly bout their grievances, and even more darkly about possible remedies. Their grievances are real and deep; their remedies could blow this city apart."
New York Magazine republished it two years ago due to the rise of the Donald Trump candidacy.
I have finished reading House Divided: The Life and Legacy of Martin Luther King (1968) by Lionel Lokos.
The book was published by Arlington House and was a second printing, August 1969.
The introduction gives Lokos' family background. His grandfather founded a clothing store in Harlem in 1910. Lokos wrote: "In the half-century of its existence, the Lokos Clothing Store apparently achieved a certain renown; a Negro co-worker told me it was considered the 'Brooks Brothers' of Harlem. After my grandfather died, the store was run by my uncle and his family until 1962, at which time they were 'persuaded' to get out of Harlem. Lest anyone, at this point, accuse me of being an embittered member of some fallen white power structure, I hasten to add that neither I nor my parents have ever had any financial interest in that store."
Lokos also wrote "If Dr. King mourned the 'spiritual death' of Negroes, Jews mourn the physical death of millions of their coreligionists in the human slaughterhouses of Nazi Germany a generation ago."
The main point of the book is that King decided which laws he would break and which laws he expected others to obey. This was a common mainstream conservative criticism of King during his lifetime. Lokos believed King's actions caused violence and encouraged the numerous 60's riots.
The first chapter covered the assassination in Memphis and the garbage worker strike which King had come to Memphis for.
There are chapters on the Montgomery bus boycott, Birmingham, and Selma. These actions were followed by the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act, which it is implied, were going to happen anyway.
There is a chapter on a failed campaign in Albany, Georgia in 1962. Why? The local police chief did not allow himself to be provoked.
In 1966 King campaigned for open housing in Chicago. He was hit by a rock during a march and met more resistance in the North than in the South. Mayor Daley had Chicago completely under his control.
By 1967, the media was promoting "Black Power" types like Stokely Carmichael, whom the MSM literally created. King was becoming yesterday's news. He then made a big speech blasting America and the Vietnam war. This alienated many of his white liberal establishment supporters. King had "gone to far" in their estimation.
King's plan for 1968 was a "Poor People's March" on Washington D.C. The trip to Memphis was sort of a dry run. During a march, "violence broke out." Not what King wanted. His Memphis venture was considered a big defeat.
Then he was assassinated.
Throughout the book, Lokos used the term "Negro." King always refers to himself and his people as Negroes. So does Carmichael. The term "Black" came into use during 1968.
House Divided is not a hatchet job. Lokos gives Martin Luther King credit for his charisma, inspiration, and sincerity in what he was doing.
The author scorned "the White Toms--those white sycophants who will invariably defend in Negroes, because they are Negroes, conduct they would find indefensible in whites."
Lokos (writing in 1968) looked for things to get worse. He expected white counter-violence which rarely happened. And the big riots tapered off after 1968. He also predicted "terrorism" in the future. He referenced a little remembered quote by Daniel Patrick Moynihan-"We must prepare for the onset of terrorism."
As it turned out, 1970-74 saw extensive leftist bombings, shooting of police, etc. And not least, the NOI Zebra murders.
This book is forgotten but worth reading 50 years later.
I just sent you a message about Counter-Currents discovering Lionel Lokos' 1971 book, The New Racism. The review (https://counter-currents.com/2022/12/a-first-look-at-a-half-century-of-black-militancy) concludes:
"After reading The New Racism, it became clear to me that the lunacy which spread across American society so quickly during the 2020 Summer of Floyd was built upon a metapoltical foundation more than a half century old. The reverential capitalization of 'black,' the religious undertones supporting the idea of decolonization, and the calls to keep the police away from events where sub-Saharans press demands upon white institutions were already in place in academia by 1967."
Post a Comment