Martin Peretz, owner/editor of the New Republic, has come under fire recently for his anti-Muslim comments–leading to protests at Harvard, where Peretz is scheduled to be honored with an endowed chair in social studies named for him.
Peretz’s bigotry has been well-known for years–and is not confined to Muslims or Arabs, though those may be the most frequent targets of his prejudice. Here’s a remark made by Peretz at a forum on black/Jewish relations in 1994 (New York Newsday, 3/28/94; Washington Post, 3/28/94; cited in Extra!, 3-4/96):
So many people in the black population are afflicted by deficiencies, and I mean cultural deficiencies, which Jews, for example, didn’t…. I would guess that in the ghetto a lot of mothers don’t appreciate the importance of schooling.
UPDATE: Sourcing clarified; one missing word restored.
UPDATE 2: See “Double Your Standard: Repudiation, Forgiveness and Martin Peretz” (Extra!, 9-10/94) by Alexander Cockburn for reactions and non-reactions to Peretz’s comments.
And I guess Peretz’ mama didn’t appreciate the importance of raising a son with a sense of humanity, did she?
Or maybe, as the song goes …
No one could steer me right, but Mama tried, Mama tried
Mama tried to raise me better, but her pleadin’ I denied
That leaves only me to blame cause Mama tried.
No doubt in further reading into the history of blacks in America, we might find an explanation for why black mothers “don’t appreciate the importance of schooling.” Perhaps there wasn’t a president to remind them of this.
We might also find a reason why they mysteriously came over from Africa as slaves without the libraries their ancestors’ land naturally afforded them.
Why is Harvard University honoring this man? I thought Harvard was better than that.
How in the world can you honor a man like this? We have enough trouble with prejudiced people in the country without honoring them. if you follow through with this I guess any respect I had your school will disappear.
I did type a comment. You copied this at the top of the page
Take blacks out of Africa, make them slaves, break up their families, don’t allow them to be educated, make them dependent on you for their very lives, take away the black man’s power as a husband and father, take away the black woman’s power to be a nurturer and guardian to her children, sell or kill those blacks that rebelled, do this for centuries, and then free them to fend for themselves, with very little help from the government. This is a recipe for disaster, and the fact that so many made good lives for themselves and their families, is a testament to their abilities. Martin Peretz is a despicable human being, and the fact that he is being honored by Harvard makes Harvard despicable too.
Can’t the poohbahs of Harvard see that Peretz has lots of deficiencies in culture, compassion, and intelligence? Really, people. Honor a man with no honor? talk about pouring it down a rat hold…
I can’t comment on past statements by this fellow since I have not read them. But his comments here seem perfectly reasonable, if not very PC. There has for a long time been a dispicable subculture within the black community that is the worst enemy of blacks as a whole. Ask black critics of gangsta culture what they think. Ask the kid who stops doing homework because he is ridiculed and worse for “acting white.” There are plenty of good, educated and successful black. But let’s not kid ourselves about the BET, gangsta and street crowd. These folks degrade themselves, black culture and America as a whole. Obama didn’t get to be president by being a hood… He did it by “acting white” (or so he wouldve been told if he went to my kids inner city school). Personally, that’s not acting white, that’s just studying and getting smart.
I disagree about the “perfectly reasonable, if not very PC” comment. I think it is a big stretch to speak of cutural deficiencies in general as there are plenty of people from every culture who succumb to analogous failings in their culture, while there are those who do not. Jews used to be tarred for their culture before they were largely accepted into the mainstream, although anti-Semitism still remains. There are cultural equivalents to “the BET, gangsta and street crowd” from every culture I know, and yet they do not get tarred as deficient, a characterization that seems to be reserved for racial minorities. I have known young people who “studied and got smart” and yet still somehow managed to participate in a “deficient culture.”
Tishada, sure there are parallel deficiencies in other cultures. Jews & Italians, for instance, had their own Odessa and Sicily “gangsta culture in the past. And these criticisms might have been appropriate to them in the past as well. This criticism applies within black culture now since “gangsta culture” is dominant or romanticized as such. It’s power and allure is testified to it’s spawning of a parallel “wigger” culture that whites partake if.
I will say that making much of this is simplistic since there are other things that hinder black integration. But let’s not discount what can be achieved by putting on a belt and hitting the books hard. The way out of the hood for Jews was books. The way out for Italians was to disappear into the middle class. Melanin and stereotypes makes the latter more difficult for blacks. But ignoring and failing to find fault with the cultural deficiencies mentioned helps nobody. I know this first hand. I think my own kids have escaped what has dragged many of their friends down because I stood against this culture as a parent. But it’s influence has hindered their education and screwed up their schools and shuffled them to community college rather than a better school because of the study habits they unlearned to survive middle school.
Harvard apparently doesn’t care about how bigoted or stupid its honorees are , as long as they are rich and can do something for the trustees.
Jack you would have to experience Harvard to get an understanding of some of its quirks.It is very liberal.Very into the compartmentalizing of people.This does not surprise me at all.F Lee Buckley once said any joker off the street would be better than a Harvard grad for a seat in the Senate.I know of that which he spoke.Your blog is sadly very close to the truth I fear.
John eve……….Easy there on the insult to community colleges.For what they do- I can name a number that do a far better job than ivy league schools in the same area.The elitist idea of ivy league is fast disappearing anyway.The “name”means less and less in most fields.But we all smile and boast if out kids get admitted.Funny