Don't Misrepresent Jeffries

To the Editors of The Crimson:

Like most people on this campus, I feel quite strongly that racist or anti-Semitic leaders like Leonard Jeffries and David Duke pose a danger to society. But I worry about the distortions and the inflammatory rhetoric that have been used against him. It seems that these can only play into his strategy of presenting himself as a victim of white lynching. I want to address three unfair criticisms of Jeffries or the BSA that appeared in the February 7 Crimson editorial piece by Allan S. Galper and Kenneth A. Katz.

1. The article says "the spectators in the orchestra section--exclusively members of the BSA and other sponsoring organizations--cheered Jeffries' views met applause, endorsement and approval from most-if not all--of the `sun people" in the orchestra." The article creates a false impression by failing to mention that Jeffries presented a toned-down and conciliatory speech. He focused on his rather feeble scholarship in the field of Black history, but also found the time to mention that he had ancestors and friends who weren't Black. He even claimed to have been part of a Jewish fraternity in his college days. So it just isn't fair to create the impression the BSA members were applauding the view that whites should be exterminated, or that Professor Gates is a "faggot"; those ideas simply were not raised in his address.

Galper and Katz also should have noticed that the clapping was much attenuated over certain of the more controversial points in Jeffries' speech. There was loud applause from whites and Blacks for some points, some applause primarily form Blacks for other points (like when he called Harvard a "citadel of white supremacy"), and clapping only by a quarter to a third of the BSA people in the orchestra when Jeffries sounded impatient in his response to a Jewish questioner.

Galper and Katz make it sound as if most Black students in Sanders Theatre that night were applauding all of the racism that Jeffries is accused of. This is wrong on two counts--he didn't express his nastier views, and even some of the things he did say got a lukewarm reception from both races.

Since I've mentioned his "citadel of white supremacy" tag, I might as well point out that the way it was quoted out of context in the February 6 Crimson was manipulative and unfair. White people who have tried hard to be sensitive to minority concerns must have found this a bitter and unjustified rebuke. But to be fair to the Black students who clapped when he used that line, however, we should remember when it cropped up. Jeffries was only making the claim that cultural canon in America consistently undervalues the achievements of Black people, and that the universities, insofar as they are central to the definition and dissemination of "culture," are bastions of this white-centered world-view. It's not a view I can accept without reservation, but it certainly isn't out of the mainstream of political discourse here at Harvard.

2. The article goes on to make a general attack on Black people at Harvard. After criticizing the BSA, it says, "As for Black students at Harvard who are not BSA members, their silence on the issue is even more disturbing. No Black Harvard student has denounced Jeffries' views in public, and only a handful were among the demonstrators at the protest Wednesday night." Well, if participating in the anti-Jeffries rally isn't denouncing the man in public, I don't know what is. Is calling the man a disgrace during a dining hall conversation (as did one Black woman I spoke to) not public enough? What could have motivated The Crimson to carry an irresponsible blanket statement about Black Harvard students?

3. Galper and Katz go on to say "So what if King Tut was Black? What does his Blackness do for Blacks in the inner cities?... For Blacks who are enslaved to this day in Arab countries? ....Beneath all his hateful demagoguery, Jeffries offers no constructive answers to any of the pressing problems facing Blacks and non-Blacks in America and the world today." This questioning is a arrogant and abrasive--a little bit like asking a feminist theorist, "what does all your stuff do for all the women out there who are beaten black and blue by their husbands or the teenage girls who are sold into prostitution?" There is of course a sense in which it is legitimate to challenge any academic by saying that his or her work is irrelevant to the crushing weight of misery in the world; but singling out a professor of Black history and telling him that he should look after poor Blacks looks a lot like discrimination.

Attempts to strong-arm a community into rejecting a leader or an ideology are usually counterproductive. They make people feel isolated and defensive, which only makes them more willing to embrace a Kurt Waldheim or a Leonard Jeffries.

Let me end with an anecdote. As many of us were waiting in the long ticket-line outside Sanders Theater, I saw a television reporter and camera man get a sound bite from a young Black man. They asked him whether he thought it was a good thing that Jeffries was going to be speaking at Harvard. The young man said yes--Jeffries was prominent Black figure, and therefore belonged in the lecture series the BSA was hosting. The reporter then asked whether this meant that BSA endorsed Jeffries' reported racism; the young man said no, it did not, and added that he was pretty skeptical anyway about those reports--coming as they did from the "white media." This distrust for the "white media" struck me as absurd--was he just saying this crap so he could get on TV? But after seeing some distortions of Jeffries' speech, I can see why some members of the Black community might develop distrust for media coverage of Jeffries.

I think it's vitally important that we be honest and accurate in our criticism of Jeffries. Blanket generalizations about Harvard Blacks, misrepresentations of Wednesday's speech and clumsy hectoring will only help him and all the others who want to drive a wedge between Black and White. Jadran Lee '92