Once again, \u201cAfrican-American History Month\u201d is upon us.<\/p>\n
Of course, these four weeks of February have little to do with actual history, <\/i>and everything to do with ideology.<\/i>\u00a0 That this is all about the advancement of a decidedly leftist political agenda is borne out readily enough by the conspicuous absence of the names of once-famous blacks who refused to endorse the conventional wisdom on the \u201ccivil rights era.\u201d<\/p>\n
One such person is George Samuel Schuyler.<\/p>\n
The reason is simple: Schuyler, in spite of being one of the most incisive and compelling popular writers of the twentieth century, wasn\u2019t just black; he was black and conservative.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
Born in 1895 in upstate New York, Schuyler would eventually become associated with \u201cthe Harlem Renaissance.\u201d And from the 1920\u2019s through the 1960\u2019s, he wrote for and edited The Pittsburgh Courier, <\/i>one of the largest black newspaper publications in the country.\u00a0 During this time, Schuyler authored what many regard as the first racially-oriented science fiction novel, Black No More. <\/i>His 1966 autobiography, Black and Conservative, <\/i>has been credited by no less a figure than the black Ivy League left-wing scholar Cornel West as a \u201c\u2018minor classic\u2019 in African-American letters.\u201d The famed iconoclast H.L. Mencken, of whom Schuyler was a prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of a sort, described the latter as perhaps the ablest writer, black or white, of his generation.<\/p>\n
Besides being an ardent anti-communist, Schuyler also had little good to say about those of his contemporaries who lead the civil rights movement of the 1950\u2019s and 1960\u2019s. Although he had been a tireless champion of racial equality for all of his life, he regarded the plans of the civil rights activists as inimical to liberty.<\/p>\n
For instance, while it was still a bill in Congress, Schuyler argued powerfully against what would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964.<\/p>\n
Schuyler readily concedes that the white majority\u2019s attitude toward the black minority is \u201cmorally wrong, nonsensical, unfair, un-Christian and cruelly unjust.\u201d Still, because \u201cit remains <\/i>the majority attitude,\u201d the federal Civil Rights law would be but \u201canother typically American attempt to use the force of law to compel the public to drastically change [.]\u201d<\/p>\n
Although race relations weren\u2019t where Schuyler wanted for them to be at this time, he was quick to point out that they had improved markedly since slavery had ended.\u00a0 He was equally quick to observe that \u201ccivil rights laws, state or federal, have had little to do with\u201d such changes. Rather, it is \u201ccustom\u201d that \u201chas dictated the pace of compliance\u201d with those civil rights laws that would have otherwise remained \u201cdormant in the law books.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u201cprincipal case\u201d that Schuyler makes against this proposed legislation pertains to \u201cthe dangerous purpose it may serve.\u201d\u00a0 Such a law \u201cis still another encroachment by the central government on the federalized structure of our society.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schuyler is blunt:<\/p>\n
\u201cArmed with this law enacted to improve the lot of a tenth of the population, the way will be opened to enslave the rest of the populace.\u201d\u00a0 A federal civil rights law of the sort that was passed in 1964 strikes \u201ca blow at the very basis of American society\u201d\u2014i.e. \u201cstate sovereignty and individual liberty and preference.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schuyler insisted on being even more graphic: \u201cWe are fifty separate countries, as it were, joined together for mutual advantage, security, advancement, and protection.\u00a0 It was never intended that we should be bossed by a monarch, elected on born.\u00a0 When this happens, the United States as a free land will cease to exist.\u201d<\/p>\n
That Schuyler had choice words for those men, like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, who are have been canonized by our culture is alone enough to relegate him to the dustbin of official \u201chistory.\u201d<\/p>\n
When King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, Schuyler was outraged. He wrote that King deserved, not this prize, but \u201cthe Lenin Prize,\u201d for \u201cit is no mean feat for one so young to acquire sixty Communist-front citations [.]\u201d Schuyler lauded King\u2019s objectives but deplored his motives. King\u2019s \u201cincitement,\u201d he charged, \u201cpacked jails with Negroes and some whites, getting them beaten, bitten and firehosed, thereby bankrupting communities, raising bail and fines, to the vast enrichment of Southern Law and order.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schuyler debated Malcolm X on more than one occasion.\u00a0 He had little regard for Malcolm, who he referred to as \u201cone of the high priests of Black Power [.]\u201d\u00a0 Schuyler says of Malcolm that he \u201cwas a bold, outspoken, ignorant man of no occupation,\u201d just one of the many \u201cmediocrities, criminals, plotters, and poseurs\u201d that had come to fill the ranks of this \u201cpast generation\u201d of \u201cblack \u2018leaders [.]\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Upon meeting Malcolm for the first time, Schuyler admits that he \u201cwas initially astonished by his wide ignorance.\u201d\u00a0 He explains that when Malcolm \u201claunched into an excoriation of white people in the name of Islam, I called his attention to the fact that the majority of Moslems were whites [.]\u201d\u00a0 Malcolm, he continued, was no better prepared to reply to this revelation than he was Schuyler\u2019s assertion that Moslems were more involved in the African slave trade than were Europeans. \u201cHe was surprised to learn this,\u201d Schuyler recalled.<\/p>\n
Some years after his death when the movement to memorialize Malcolm was well under way, Schuyler said that \u201cwe might as well call out the school children to celebrate the birthday of Benedict Arnold.\u201d He added:\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cIt is not hard to imagine the ultimate fate of a society in which a pixilated criminal like Malcolm X is almost universally praised, and has hospitals, schools, and highways named in his memory!\u201d<\/p>\n
Perhaps it\u2019s for the best that George Schuyler\u2019s is not among the names that we\u2019ll be hearing this month.\u00a0 Given the lover of individuality that he was, Schuyler would never have wanted to have been remembered as a black man.\u00a0\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
But we should remember him for the man<\/i> that he was, a man who waged a relentless campaign for truth and freedom and against the fashions and cant of his day.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Once again, \u201cAfrican-American History Month\u201d is upon us. Of course, these four weeks of February have little to do with actual history, and everything to do with ideology.\u00a0 That this is all about the advancement of a decidedly leftist political agenda is borne out readily enough by the conspicuous absence of the names of once-famous…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n