George S. Schuyler was among the most distinguished American writers and pundits of the twentieth century.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He was also a conservative.<\/p>\n
And he was black.<\/p>\n
Today, it is on the rare occasion indeed that his name is mentioned.\u00a0 Most of the members of our generation, black and white, have never heard of him.<\/p>\n
There is a reason for this.<\/p>\n
Schuyler, you see, had no patience for what he perceived to be the foolhardiness, opportunism, and utopianism of those of his fellow blacks who have secured for themselves a place in the pantheon of \u201ccivil rights\u201d heroes.<\/p>\n
For instance, of Malcolm X, Schuyler said: \u201cMalcolm was a bold, outspoken, ignorant man of no occupation after he gave up pimping, gambling, and dope-selling to follow Mr. [Elijah] Muhammad [of the Nation of the Islam].\u201d\u00a0 Blacks who would transform him into \u201ca great Negro leader\u201d invite \u201ca serious indictment\u201d of themselves. Schuyler numbered Malcolm among the \u201cmediocrities, criminals, plotters, and poseurs\u201d who he believed composed \u201cthe past generation\u201d of \u201cblack \u2018leaders\u2019 afflicting the nation [.]\u201d<\/p>\n
Schuyler also had little regard for \u201cthe peripatetic parson,\u201d Martin Luther King, Jr.<\/em><\/p>\n In 1964, when King was a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, Schuyler identified him as but the latest in \u201ca succession of pious frauds\u201d to be awarded the coveted prize \u201cfor the purposes of political propaganda [.]\u201d\u00a0 That King didn\u2019t deserve this recognition owed to the fact that \u201cneither directly nor indirectly\u201d did he make a single \u201ccontribution to the world (or even domestic) peace.\u201d\u00a0 Schuyler added: \u201cMethinks the Lenin Prize would have been more appropriate for him, since it is no mean feat for one so young to acquire sixty Communist-front citations, according to the U.S. government.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n King\u2019s \u201cprincipal contribution to world peace has been to roam the country like some sable typhoid-Mary, infecting the mentally disturbed\u201d while \u201cgrabbing lecture fees from the shallow-pated.\u201d\u00a0 The unrest for which King was responsible \u201cpacked jails with Negroes and some whites, getting them beaten, bitten and firehosed,\u201d an endeavor that consisted in \u201cbankrupting communities\u201d and \u201craising bail and fines, to the vast enrichment of Southern law and order.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Upon King\u2019s death, Schuyler was not without some kind words.\u00a0 King was \u201ctalented and adroit,\u201d he remarked, and \u201cevidently,\u201d he was \u201cdedicated to the cause of improving race relations.\u201d\u00a0 Yet these compliments Schuyler made within the context of a reasonably lengthy critique entitled, \u201cDr. King: Nonviolence Always Ends Violently.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n It was Schuyler\u2019s position that King actually exacerbated race relations.\u00a0 \u201cCountless mass demonstrations which started to advance a good cause have ended in clashes with police, looting, vandalism and killing rather than the goodwill and understanding originally intended.\u201d\u00a0 Race-related problems are such that their resolution lies \u201cin moderation and\u2026innumerable compromises\u201d\u2014not <\/em>\u201cabrasive tactics that produce irritation and ill will rather than understanding and cooperation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Schuyler thought that King was \u201cdemagogic\u201d and opportunistic.\u00a0 More than once, he \u201cpersisted stubbornly\u201d to \u201cthe point of irresponsibility\u201d in inserting himself in local situations that he was encouraged to avoid.\u00a0 Black activists from Alabama andFlorida implored King to stay away from Birmingham and St. Augustine, respectively\u2014but King did not listen.\u00a0 As a consequence, his \u201cpersistence aided by the atmosphere of mob-mindedness among colored and white led directly to the deplorable events that followed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Schuyler notes that while no one can say \u201cwhat help\u201d any of this \u201cwas to race relations,\u201d one thing is for certain: the publicity assured \u201cmore speaking engagements for Dr. King.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n King\u2019s ends, Schuyler believed, were noble enough.\u00a0 \u201cIt was the methods he used which, considering the high emotionalism which surrounded his goals, were objectionable.\u201d Simply put, \u201cthere are too many retardate, half-witted, criminally-inclined people in our population whose expectations have to be kept in check,\u201d for it is they who \u201cprovide the fuel for great social conflagrations.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Schuyler was a great lover of liberty.\u00a0 There is much else that he did for the cause of freedom.\u00a0 But here it is important to understand that it wasn\u2019t primarily his conservatism that accounts for his being made to vanish from our collective memory.<\/p>\n First and foremost, it was his unrelenting criticism of contemporary racial orthodoxy and its heroes that explains this.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jack Kerwick, Ph.D.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" George S. Schuyler was among the most distinguished American writers and pundits of the twentieth century.\u00a0 He was also a conservative. And he was black. Today, it is on the rare occasion indeed that his name is mentioned.\u00a0 Most of the members of our generation, black and white, have never heard of him. There is…<\/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-461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n