The example you draw on to support this argument is that of an African living in the United States. If the latter were a victim of some injustice, or of police brutality, he at least has recourse to the embassy of his native country, which will ensure his protection. An African has a country; he has a nation behind him. On the other hand, a black American who is wrongly imprisoned will find himself at a loss, will “find it nearly impossible to bring his case to court. And this means that because he is a native of this country. . he has no recourse and no place to go, either within the country or without. He is a pariah in his own country and a stranger in the world.”109
Jewish people, you think, are not only considered Americans; they can rely on allies throughout the world. You deduce that it would not occur to anyone to suggest to Jewish people to be “nonviolent.” When they fought for Israel, this act was saluted as heroic: “How can the Negro fail to suspect that the Jew is really saying that the Negro deserves his situation because he has not been heroic enough?”110
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You had been trained to despise Jewish people. The exasperation builds when you think of your neighborhood transformed into a slum: neglected apartment buildings, broken windows, peeling paint, sagging stairwells, faulty heating and cooling, and, needless to say, an unending stream of roaches and rats in the apartments. “When we were growing up in Harlem, our demoralizing series of landlords were Jewish, and we hated them. We hated them because they were terrible landlords, and did not take care of the building. . We knew that the landlord treated us this way because we were colored, and he knew that we could not move out. [. .] Not all. . were cruel. . but all of them were exploiting us, and that was why we hated them.”111
Such allegations suggest that you generalize black anti-Semitism in Harlem — some are quick to accuse you of this — despite the irony your article employs to expose the roots of a hatred based on several misunderstandings. You point out that those facing you are Americans first and foremost, regardless of being Jewish. But can the latter be dishonest businessmen? “Jews in Harlem are small tradesmen, rent collectors, real estate agents, and pawnbrokers; they operate in accordance with the American business tradition of exploiting Negroes, and they are therefore identified with oppression and are hated for it.”112
A latent animosity defines the power dynamic between the two communities. Black hatred toward Jewish people does not prevent them from playing a role, or from being hypocritical, because they require the services offered by those they loathe: “I remember meeting no Negro in the years of my growing up, in my family or out of it, who would really ever trust a Jew, and few who did not, indeed, exhibit for the them the blackest contempt. On the other hand, this did not prevent their working for Jews. .”113
When it came time to discuss the thorny issue of the arrival of Jews and blacks on American soil, your arguments were far from convincing to your audience. For example, during a discussion with Budd Schulberg, who is Jewish, you make assertions that appall him: “I would like to insert a parenthesis on this point. . a dangerous parenthesis, but it will serve to clarify in some way the bitterness of the black American. Here it is: I was here before you. I mean to say, historically speaking. [. .] Historically speaking, I have been here for four hundred years. Let’s say that you stepped off the boat last Friday, and you didn’t yet speak English; on Tuesday I will be working for you.”114
Schulberg’s shock is tremendous, and his scathing reply throws you somewhat:
“What you just said, ‘I was here before you,’ is a stupid Muslim argument.”115
Schulberg in this way alludes to the theories of Black Muslims that are popular at the time with Elijah Muhammad (one of the founders of the Nation of Islam) and Malcolm X, who proclaim the supremacy of the black race, and who advocate fighting — by any means necessary — in the name of the Nation of Islam, which today is lead by Louis Farrakhan. The target of the fight is anyone known as the “white devil,” and, because of this, their theories are accused of being racist. Schulberg persuades you that such assertions are the crutches of fanatics and those who would believe in the supremacy of one group over an other, and that the “Aryans, too, believed the same thing.”
Pulling yourself together, you clear your thoughts and repeat that the theory of the “white devil” never interested you: “I don’t have the feeling of ever having been even vaguely attracted to the theory of the white devil. It is certainly not I who will propagate the idea, or who will allow someone to spread the teachings to any of my children, nor to anyone who is dear to me. But it’s something else that I’m trying to get at. .”116
You are trying to dissect the notion that Jewish suffering is considered a part of the world’s moral history. As whites, Jewish people can achieve hero status through the suffering they endured and their recollection of them — America is dedicated to a boundless admiration for the white hero — while blacks who would do the same thing would be accused of “native savagery.” In short, America’s love of the white hero would lead it to a categorical rejection of “bad niggers.”117 This is the distinction that you believe sparked black anti-Semitism in Harlem at the time. Currently, it is a distinction that still affects relations between various demographics in France, where the question of “competing for historical recognition” is being hotly debated.
You protest the silence of the Western press, for example, on the atrocities committed by Belgium during its colonization of Congo. Would we have needed to rebuke this silence had the tragedy occurred in the white world? Herein lies the responsibility that you place on the shoulders of the Christian world, since the acts of violence committed during the colonial period were accompanied by conversion of the conquered peoples: “And since the world at large knew virtually nothing concerning the suffering of this native, when he rose he was not hailed as a hero fighting for his land, but condemned as a savage, hungry for white flesh. The Christian world considered Belgium to be a civilized country; but there was not only no reason for the Congolese to feel that way about Belgium; there was no way that they could.”118
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Is there a disproportionate amount of outrage sparked by an event, a disproportion linked to a kind of hierarchy of communities? Let us examine a case that took place in France, in our adopted land: the death of young Ilan Halimi in the Paris suburbs. The facts come together like the plot of a horror film. For several weeks, twenty-three-year-old Ilan Halimi is held captive by a gang from Bagneux, who torture him to death. Because he is Jewish. The French daily Le Parisien even reveals on the front page that inhabitants of this suburb were aware of the young man’s confinement, but chose not to inform the authorities. The opening pages of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold come to mind. .
The political reaction is strong and unanimous in the face of this crime clearly motivated by anti-Semitism. The story shocks the entire country, especially as other incidents of anti-Semitic crimes had been reported several months earlier.
Can we see evidence in this of two different degrees of outrage? To be clear — and let’s not beat around the bush about it — would the murder of a black man in France, under the same conditions, have generated the same widespread outrage?