When Uncle Toms Attack!

Ishmael Reed writes: "African-Americans have a number of individuals who are willing to serve as mind doubles. Some are supported by right wing think tanks like the Manhattan Institute's John McWhorter, black front man for the Eugenics movement. The Manhattan Institute boasts that they can provide enormous publicity for their fellows--the kind of clout that enables them to impose their viewpoints upon discussions about black issues--by using proxies who are unknown to black Americans.

"When McWhorter attacks me in Commentary, a magazine that praised Charles Murray's The Bell Curve, or in his books, where do I go to get equal time? He once challenged me to a debate, threatening 'to wipe up the floor with me,' but when I accepted, he backed out.

"Another proxy person-of-color intellectual for right wing interests is Shelby Steele of the Hoover Institute. He just got three hours on C-Span to explain his one-note theory that blacks complain too much about their 'victimization.' He accused blacks of expressing 'victimization' when they complained about being robbed of their votes in Florida during the Presidential election of 2000, even though there is abundant evidence that they were victimized."

On Republican theft of the White House, see superb journalist Greg Palast's site and audio.