Wilentz, West, and Black Intellectuals: A Reply
Kilson, Martin
Let me say straight off that I do not think the Sean Wilentz article "Race, Celebrity, and the Intellectuals" (Summer 1995) warranted publication in Dissent. Why? Because of protocol. As a...
...Wilentz should know this...
...Wilentz himself characterizes the Wieseltier article as an assault against West—or at least this is how I interpret his description of Wieseltier's article as "aggressive, even fierce...
...Alas, Wilentz uses this method twice...
...To my mind, both he (an editorial board member of Dissent along with Cornel West) and the editors of Dissent erred badly in this matter...
...Yet there was, I regret to say, a kind of assault on West's reputation in Wilentz's article, because he several times seems to qualify his characterization of Wieseltier's article as "fierce...
...Now I consider these "findings" to be inaccurate...
...Our circulation has grown with each issue for the last several years...
...Wilentz is a more balanced intellectual...
...Such squeezing, Wilentz asserts, is a habit of overzealous left-liberal and leftist commentators on black intellectuals...
...And tell your friends about this major financial/technological innovation at DISSENT...
...In short, Sean Wilentz's comparison of Cornel West and Michael Harrington is spurious, since the premises from which it is made are groundless...
...Of course, Sean Wilentz has a right to his perspective on West as an intellectual...
...The vast majority of black intellectuals are, I think, comfortable with this and don't consider their activity "ghettoized...
...94 • DISSENT...
...And if left-liberal or leftist commentators (mainly white) on black intellectuals— like Michael Berube—have been pointing this out, they are not wrong...
...They believe there are aesthetic, moral, ethical, and systemic lessons for American society as a whole (for the human condition, in fact) that can be derived from using black realities as the groundwork for intellectual and scholarly activity—just as Irish realities, Jewish realities, Hispanic realities, women's realities, gay realities, and so forth can be similarly employed...
...Some people can do it...
...West has not written anything nearly as politically effective as Harrington's best work," says Wilentz, "although he might do so if he allows himself the time...
...For example, Wilentz offers the following summation of Wieseltier-on-West: "[H]e finds [West's writings] extremely wanting—contradictory in their pragmatic premises, scatterbrained in their Social Gospel Christianity, and woefully inattentive to matters of moral responsibility...
...Conservatives (old and new) join neoliberals like Wilentz in pointing out this diversification...
...It was not, I admit, like the vulgar piece by Leon Wieseltier on Cornel West in the New Republic...
...For Wilentz, this WINTER • 1996 • 93 Arguments amounts to a veritable "ghettoization"—an overemphasis on the black-connectedness of their discourse and thus on its systemic critique (that is, the critique of the longstanding white-supremacist victimization and marginalization of African Americans and the significance of this in American life...
...But Wilentz and those who follow him in this are wrong...
...Thus in Sean Wilentz's neoliberal scheme of things, neither Cornel West's general range of intellectual work nor his book Race Matters amount to very much...
...But that will not be easy, and not just because of his habit of speaking and writing all over the map...
...For Wilentz simply to offer this summation of Wieseltier's conclusions without some evaluation of them is, I believe, tantamount to concurrence with them—a kind of concurrenceby-indirection, while ostensibly slapping Wieseltier on the wrist for being "aggressive, even fierce...
...So Wilentz comes forth with a certain neoliberal arrogance, informing AfricanAmerican intellectuals that either we are being influenced from within our own ranks by individuals who brandish unwarranted badges of intellectual achievement or we are being patronized (manipulated) by presumably sympathetic left or left-liberal white commentators...
...The largest increase has been in bookstore and newsstand sales...
...Thompson, and Noam Chomsky...
...The fact of the matter is that the work and discourse of most AfricanAmerican intellectuals are inspired by black realities, especially the role of white supremacist patterns vis-à-vis those realities...
...Post Office, in good social democratic fashion, is the cheapest distributor of magazines, we make money on subscriptions...
...You can use your credit card...
...So, please, subscribe now, and while you are at it, subscribe for two years: that is an even bigger help...
...We now have Stanley Crouch, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Carol Swain, and some others not quite as conservative in their black diversification perhaps— Stephen Carter, Orlando Patterson (though Patterson is moving back to a critical mode), and so forth...
...Some people speak and write all over the map and produce effective work too—such as Frances Fox Piven, the late Christopher Lasch, Stuart Hall, the late E.P...
...Now Wilentz wants to make the point that neoliberal progressives are always anxious to make these days aboutAfrican-American political discourse—namely, it has diversified, it is no longer mainly defined by black-connectedness and radical criticism...
...Comel West is one of two African-American members of Dissent's editorial board...
...For Wilentz, then, intellectual discourse connected with "racial politics" borders on distortion...
...And why is speaking and writing all over the place an intrinsic barrier to producing good and effective intellectual work anyway...
...But Wilentz's article does not belong in Dissent...
...Or, if there are any such marks, the winds of change set in motion by the civil rights legislation of the late 1960s will soon eradicate them...
...As a long-time reader of Dissent from its start-up days under the deft leadership of Irving Howe and Lewis Coser, I don't ever recall Dissent's publishing reputation-measuring articles on members of its editorial board...
...Now we've made subscribing easier...
...So, yes, there is in this system-critical mode of mo st African-American intellectuals a "racialist story line...
...Put another way, Wilentz is informing AfricanAmerican intellectuals that our "racial politics" discourse is out of step with post-civil rights era America—what neoliberals like Wilentz consider a "colorblind society" or at least a society that seriously endeavors in that direction, as if America's longstanding white supremacist hegemony has left no enduring marks on the souls and life chances of black folks...
...This is nonsense...
...Neoliberals like Sean Wilentz and Ellen Willis clearly prefer to tune in to more "authentic" voices—Shelby Steele, Stanley Crouch, and so forth—because, from Wilentz's perspective, the "racialist story line" is mistaken...
...We welcome these new readers, but each copy they buy costs us money, and money is hard to come by for a left magazine...
...Put DISSENT on Your Credit Card...
...In the course of his article, Wilentz migrates between a poorly disguised critique of Cornel West and the pretense of defending AfricanAmerican intellectuals against having their intellectual discourse artificially squeezed into the straitjacket of what Wilentz calls "a racialist story line...
...James, and Edward Said, to name a few...
...Sean Wilentz has no special insight as to whether Comel West will or will not find it easy to produce works as politically effective as Harrington's...
...This non-evaluative summation does not sit well with me...
...He also makes a gratuitous observation about Cornel West in comparison with one of West's mentors— Michael Harrington...
...Some people write all over the map and produce effective work—such as Dissent's editor Michael Walzer, Garry Wills, Nathan Glazer, the late C.L.R...
...And make no mistake about it, the essential thrust of the Wilentz article was reputation-measuring...
...Because the U.S...
Vol. 43 • January 1996 • No. 1
