The New York Review of Books

To the Editors:

Having also observed the “New Politics” convention in Chicago, we have a few questions for Andrew Kopkind [NYR, Sept. 28]:

1. Mr. Kopkind says, “If the blacks were the ‘vanguard’ of the new radicalism, as almost everyone acknowledges, they ought to be calling the political tune, too.” a. In what sense did the blacks in the “Black Caucus” represent the blacks who may be the “vanguard”—however that is defined? Some of them were from small elitist groups; others were freelance Chicago militants; very few identified themselves to the convention at large. b. Is a movement seeking to achieve “participatory democracy” properly run by a dictatorial vanguard? c. If the Black Caucus wished to run the movement, why did they propose no political platform? d. If the object of the convention was to have a black-run movement, why then did most of its spokesmen conclude that black and white movements must be conducted separately?

2. Mr. Kopkind states that when the demand was made to let the hundred-odd Black Caucus delegates vote half the convention’s votes as a bloc, “Rich board members spoke against the demand.” We remember only one rich board member speaking, and another not so rich. Could Mr. Kopkind name the others he has in mind?—and tell why their wealth impugns their political arguments? Most of the speakers were young people, perhaps ten years younger than the SDS leadership, who were disturbed at the loss of their participatory franchise. Practically all the speakers in favor of the motion were from the DuBois Clubs or the Young Communist League; they denounced “formal democracy” as a “tool of fascism”—and apparently the convention agreed.

3. Mr. Kopkind describes James Forman’s speech as “extraordinarily blunt and effective.” Why does he not report that Forman was escorted by a flying wedge of bodyguards who pushed whites from the platform and stood glaring at the audience as Forman spoke? Why not report that Forman appointed himself chairman and passed resolutions without letting others speak? An in-joke? Telling how one delegate discovered that “the hostility he felt for the blacks was in great measure projected by himself,” Mr. Kopkind omits mention of the physical intimidation against both blacks and whites practiced by members of the Black Caucus and by black teen-agers present at the hotel. Mr. James Bevel, for example, was physically threatened when he tried to express his differences with others in the Black Caucus.

4. Mr. Kopkind admires Mr. Forman’s statement, “We’re going to liberate you whether you want to be liberated or not.” Could Mr. Kopkind tell us what kind of “liberation” Mr. Forman has in mind and how he proposes to go about it? Was the convention an example?

5. Although he says that “the rhetoric was ragged,” Mr. Kopkind omits the text of the statement on Israel phrased by the Black Caucus and endorsed 3 to 1 by the convention: “Condemn the imperialistic Zionist war: this condemnation does not imply anti-semitism.” Can Mr. Kopkind tell us the political origins of such a resolution? Why it was important to the Black Caucus? What effects is it likely to have on future “organizing” and other political activity in America?

6. Point 4 of the Black Caucus statement called for “total and unquestionable support to all national peoples liberation wars in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, particularly Vietnam, Mozambique, Angola, South Africa and Venezuela.” One of the most popular and frequent assertions on the convention floor was that all guerrilla actions in the world are morally and politically equivalent, and perfectly analogous to the riots in American cities. Is this analysis not important enough for Mr. Kopkind to mention? Where does he think it comes from? Does he himself believe that guerrilla warfare is equally justified against the governments of, say, Angola and Venezuela? Does he personally support the Viet Cong, believe that most American Negroes do, or that they should?

7. Mr. Kopkind states that Vietnam Summer involved “26,000 volunteers, 700 local projects, 500 paid staffers, $400,000 raised.” Can he give a source for these figures? Checking with members of the Vietnam Summer Steering Committee, we received estimates ranging from one third to one half of Kopkind’s statistics.

8. Mr. Kopkind is high in his praise of “getting people, together in multiissue organizations.” He says “the organizers, not the suburban peace-marchers and reform Democrats, have to lead the movement.” But he also says that “at this point there is no coherent strategy for community organizing, especially among the middle class.” Why then is it self-evident that the self-styled organizers can create radical institutional change?

Also Mr. Kopkind does not tell us what success the community organizers have had so far. How many groups currently exist, with what actual membership, what programs, what achievements? On what basis of success do they want their programs duplicated?

Curious that Andrew Kopkind, usually such a caustic critic of American politics, should have donned for this occasion a pair of rose-colored glasses!

Jeremy Larner
Henry Schwarzschild

New York City

Andrew Kopkind replies:

I wish, for the sake of all those increasingly disturbed by developments in black and white radicalism, that the “Movement” conformed to a more wholesome model, one that would combine revolutionary effect, non-violent strategy, Social-Democratic rhetoric, integrationist sentiment, middle-class reasonableness, and Upper West Side intellectualism, in one nice pink package. There was a time when the Movement had such qualities, but alas, it now has a different shape, color, and content. It is not the movement of those who saw the Chicago convention as the last best hope for social change, and are now hopeless. They have been outstripped by the rush of events.

Through the perception of wish-fulfillment, they invested the Convention with a significance it never had. NCNP was not the New Left, nor its Central Committee. It could not be made responsible for effecting the programs or realizing the rhetoric associated with some New Leftists. It is easy, but not very helpful, to set up NCNP as the personification of New Left ideals, and then knock it down when it fails in implementation. To attack the Convention for not achieving “participatory democracy” (whatever that is, and whatever its achievement entails) seems to me particularly disingenuous.

The problem with the Convention was NCNP itself—its structure, leadership, and program. It was the creature of its few “lib-rad” creators and their financial angels—most of whom, to their credit, consistently disclaim their membership in the New Left. NCNP’s style and language were contemporary enough to attract the “Old New Left” radicals from time to time, in various supporting roles, but it could not and did not direct the Movement. There is no organization or directorate for the New Left, nor is there likely to be, in the next few years. That may be a shame, but the fact of “unstructure” is at the heart of the Movement mentality, and the fact of fragmentation is what America does to its radical movements.

Many critics of the Convention were traumatized by the “chaos,” which they attributed to the bloody-mindedness of the blacks, the guilt-complexes of the whites, and a general affinity for totalitarianism throughout. My own diagnosis is different. NCNP’s was not the “democratic” organization it appeared to be. Whatever “democracy” it had was largely abstracted from political reality. The self-appointed leadership selected certain “activist” groups for membership, weighted their participation according to the prevailing values of the Board, and called it New Politics. Thus, a suburban peace committee with twenty members had participating strength equal to that of a ghetto organizing project with twenty activists. The assumptions underlying such a system seem to be awry. The effect of the suburbanites in their community is entirely different from the organizers in theirs. Middle-class whites perceive political organizations in ways entirely different from poor blacks. It is at least arguable that most poor urban blacks are so alienated as to be in opposition to the government and the status quo, and that their opposition is as strong a radical force as any mounted by middleclass white committees. If that is the case, numerical membership in conventional “organizations” is irrelevant.

In a post-Convention memorandum, Arthur Waskow observed that “there is not one movement, but two: one black and one white.” Perhaps that is an overstatement—but there are surely two quite distinct branches to the Movement, and their separate interests and needs are increasingly divergent. The white branch is obsessed with Vietnam and US imperialism on the one hand, and with student affairs on the other. Literally and metaphorically, that is where white radicals are “at.” They have middle-class needs which must be fulfilled, values which must be upheld, and a style which must be maintained. The black branch is primarily concerned with destroying a culture of oppression and creating a new kind of identity for black Americans. As most people now realize, that has to be done by blacks, with methods which blacks must decide, according to values which blacks must define.

It was naïve to think that representatives of each branch of the Movement could come together in one Hilton hotel and become a functioning, democratic body. The structure of NCNP and its convention made it appear to the blacks that the whites were defining the Movement as a whole, and orchestrating the various elements. That may be a kind of democracy, but it did not strike me as being realistic. “Formal democracy” as a slogan obviously raises all kinds of shades for critics on the Left, and I hesitate to offend historical sensibilities. But it is always a good idea to look at the relationship of the form of an institution to its function; my own impression was that NCNP had little reason to claim the rights of a democratic organization.

The history of radical action in the past year and a half, at least, should make it clear that blacks as a group in the Movement have to be treated as equals to whites as another Movement group. Surely within the democratic tradition there are ample precedents for treating blocs as equals despite their numerical composition (the US Senate is one of the more formalistic precedents). The mutuality of assumptions, the bonds of trust, and the community of interests which make democracy possible among different publics does not exist now between the black and white branches of the Movement. It would be easier for us all if the Movement, and the nation, were integrated; but they are not, and it is both foolish and unproductive to pretend that they are. NCNP needed a different set of constitutional arrangements from the one presented by the leadership. It was extremely difficult to see what had to be changed; the blacks intuited, rather than articulated, their subservient role, and the whites were confused by their own good intentions. After much conflict and bitterness, the Convention—pushed harshly by the blacks—produced just such necessary rearrangements. What was worst for the Left, old and new, was that the pushing and shoving was all done on network television, before scores of journalists, and under the gaze of both hostile and friendly observers. If NCNP had materialized with a structure equating blacks and whites, there would have been few squawks. As it was, the blacks had the devil’s own time—first of all seeing the dimensions of the box they were in, and secondly, fighting their way out of it.