George S. Schuyler, a black cultural critic, was among the greatest popular writers that twentieth centuryAmerica had produced.\u00a0 A particularly astute observer of political circumstances generally and race relations in particular, a staggering array of the nation\u2019s most well known publications from across the ideological and racial spectrums eagerly sought his services for over five decades.<\/p>\n
Yet today, Schuyler is scarcely mentioned at all.\u00a0 Those who either weren\u2019t around from the 1920\u2019s through the 1970\u2019s (when he died) or whose memory span is short wouldn\u2019t even know his name.<\/p>\n
While this is a tragedy, it is no mystery.<\/p>\n
Schuyler pitted himself against those of his contemporaries, like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, who have since achieved iconic status.\u00a0 This, in large measure, is what accounts for the painful fact that the self-appointed guardians of our Politically Correct orthodoxy have sought to erase them from their official histories.<\/p>\n
But while Schuyler\u2019s relentless criticism of such famed \u201cracially correct\u201d heroes as King and Malcolm X accounts for the treatment that he has been accorded, it is crucial to grasp that his critiques were informed by his conservatism. <\/em><\/p>\n In fact, so unabashed was Schuyler regarding his politics that he entitled his autobiography Black and Conservative. <\/em><\/p>\n Schuyler opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.\u00a0 The previous year, he penned his case against it.\u00a0 \u201cA proliferation of largely unenforceable legislation has everywhere been characteristic of political immaturity,\u201d Schuyler wrote.\u00a0 Being a relatively \u201cyoung nation,\u201dAmerica particularly has been disposed toward \u201cenacting laws regulating social conduct,\u201d legislation that is more a function of \u201cpolitics\u201d than \u201cstatesmanship.\u201d\u00a0 Politicians pass laws \u201cwithout too much attention to consideration of how and at what cost they are to be enforced [.]\u201d<\/p>\n The Civil Rights Act of 1964 would prove to be but the latest attempt to \u201cmake people better by force<\/em>\u201d (emphasis original).\u00a0 This enterprise, however, \u201chas been the cause of much misery and injustice throughout the ages.\u201d<\/p>\n Schuyler is quick to condemn the attitude of the white majority toward \u201cthe so-called Negro\u201d as \u201cmorally wrong, nonsensical, unfair, un-Christian and cruelly unjust\u201d; still, he is just as quick to note, the fact of the matter is that this position \u201cremains <\/em>the majority attitude\u201d (emphasis original).\u00a0<\/p>\n Schuyler\u2019s condemnation of whites\u2019 view of blacks is not unqualified, though.\u00a0 \u201cAnybody who has observed race relations during the past quarter of a century,\u201d he remarks, \u201cknows\u201d that the white majority\u2019s view of blacks \u201chas been progressively modified [.]\u201d\u00a0 And while \u201cchanges have been very slow since 1865,\u201d there can be no denying that they have been \u201cmarked [.]\u201d\u00a0 Moreover, \u201ccivil rights laws, state or federal, have had little to do with it,\u201d for legislation has \u201cbeen enforced and accepted only when the dominant majority acquiesced\u2026.\u201d\u00a0 Otherwise, it has \u201cgenerally lain dormant in the law books.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n In short, it is \u201ccustom,\u201d most decidedly not <\/em>law, that \u201chas dictated the pace\u201d of improving race relations.<\/p>\n Unlike his leftist rivals, the Kings and the Malcolms, Schuyler resolutely eschews the ideology of Blackism, an ideology according to which racial \u201creality\u201d begins and ends with a severely truncated\u2014and politicized\u2014version of American history.\u00a0\u00a0 Central to Blackism is a meta-narrative of perpetual White Oppression and Black Suffering.\u00a0 Schuyler, recognizing this \u201chistory\u201d for the useful political fiction that it is, rejects it in favor of a genuinely historical\u2014and global\u2014perspective.<\/p>\n American whites should not be judged along the lines of some perfectionist\u2014and, thus, wholly unattainable\u2014standard.\u00a0 They should, rather, be judged against the backdrop of other flesh and blood beings.\u00a0 And when they are judged by this <\/em>standard, they look pretty damn commendable.<\/p>\n \u201cIt might be said here parenthetically that nowhere else on earth has the progress of a dissimilar racial minority been so marked in education, housing, health, voting and economic well-being\u201d as that of blacks in whiteAmerica. \u201cNot one of the foreign countries whose spokesmen criticize and excoriate the United States can equal its record in dealing with a minority group,\u201d Schuyler declares.<\/p>\n All of this notwithstanding, in the concluding paragraph of his brief against the Civil Rights bill, Schuyler clarifies that his \u201cprincipal case against\u201d it is an argument from liberty.\u00a0 <\/em>The law would be but \u201canother encroachment by the central government on the federalized structure of our society.\u201d\u00a0 He asserts: \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<\/p>\n This is no stretch.<\/p>\n \u201cUnder such a law the individual everywhere\u201d will be \u201ctold what he must do and what he cannot do, regardless of the laws and ordinances of his state or community<\/em>\u201d (emphasis added).\u00a0 Yet \u201cthis is a blow at the very basis of American society,\u201d a society \u201cfounded on state sovereignty and individual liberty and preference.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Schuyler concludes: \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 or born.\u00a0 When this happens, the United States as a free land will cease to exist.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The rhetoric of other \u201ccivil rights \u2018leaders\u2019\u201d aside, the honest person, black or white\u2014but especially white\u2014can\u2019t help but suspect that in far too many instances, such activists want to advance the interests of blacks\u2014particularly themselves\u2014at the expense of racial good will.\u00a0<\/p>\n With Schuyler, such suspicions could never arise.\u00a0 He was not only a great black American, but a great American, a real apostle of liberty.<\/p>\n Jack Kerwick, Ph.D.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" George S. Schuyler, a black cultural critic, was among the greatest popular writers that twentieth centuryAmerica had produced.\u00a0 A particularly astute observer of political circumstances generally and race relations in particular, a staggering array of the nation\u2019s most well known publications from across the ideological and racial spectrums eagerly sought his services for over five…<\/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-463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n