Horowitz, David

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Volume 105 | Issue 3 Article 10April 2003Response to Boyle's CommentDavid HorowitzCenter for the Study of Popular CultureFollow this and additional works at: https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/wvlrPart of the Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, Human Rights Law Commons, and theUnited States History CommonsThis Book Review and Responses is brought to you for free and open access by the WVU College of Law at The Research Repository @ WVU. It hasbeen accepted for inclusion in West Virginia Law Review by an authorized editor of The Research Repository @ WVU. For more information, pleasecontact ian.harmon@mail.wvu.edu.Recommended CitationDavid Horowitz, Response to Boyle's Comment, 105 W. Va. L. Rev. (2003).Available at: https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/wvlr/vol105/iss3/10RESPONSE TO BOYLE'S COMMENTDavid HorowitzI agree with Martin Luther King's statement that "[t]he moral justifica-tion for special measures for Negroes is rooted in the robberies inherent in theinstitution of slavery."' But this is a very different from a statement that thesespecial measures should take the form of "reparations," or the claim that living,free and prosperous black Americans who were never slaves should be compen-sated for the suffering of their long dead ancestors on the basis of their skincolor alone - which is what the reparations movement proposes.The reparations claim as articulated by Randall Robinson, Charles Ogle-tree and other leaders of this movement is about the alleged debt that "Americaowes to blacks" regardless of who they are or what they have suffered. It isabout an "apology" allegedly owed by all living non-black Americans to blackAmericans regardless of what they or their ancestors have actually done towardsblack Americans. And it is about a refusal of the leaders of the reparationsmovement to acknowledge any debt that they or other black Americans owe to anation that is responsible not only for their freedom and well-being but for thefreedom of black Africans generally, since it was America (and Britain) that ledthe world-wide effort to end slavery, an institution created and maintained byblack Africans, Arabs and other racial and ethnic groups as well as by Europe-ans and whites.Finally, "special measures for Negroes" have already been enactedthrough affirmative action programs and net welfare transfers in the amount ofseveral trillion dollars. The fact that both affirmative action and welfare havebeen available to groups other than blacks does not in any way vitiate the factthat they have been paid to blacks disproportionately in recognition that blackshave suffered disproportionately.Boyle makes a big deal of one reference in my lengthy reply that sug-gests that he is black. Since many of my antagonists on the reparations issuehave been white, I obviously did not draw this conclusion because he is a sup-porter of reparations as he maintains. In any case, it was a trivial error and in noI David Boyle, Unexpected Racial Assertions: A Counter-Reply to David Horowitz, 105 W.VA. L. REv. 711, 711 (2003) [hereinafter Boyle, Counter-Reply].1Horowitz: Response to Boyle's CommentPublished by The Research Repository @ WVU, 2003WEST VIRGINIA LAW REVIEWway affected any part of my argument. Similarly, the word "weasel" was ap-plied to Boyle's style, not his person:... Boyle employs a weasel style of insinuation that goeslike this: "Horowitz himself seems content to censor or censurethe free speech of others with whom he does not agree." Well,is it "seems" or "is" counselor? Is it "censor" or "censure?"There is a world of difference between them, and a lawyershould respect that.2That Boyle should see to embargo words on the basis of political correctnessand make racial mountains out of such molehills speaks volumes about the wayhe approaches these issues.Following these absurdities, Boyle's descent into the racial gutter israpid: "Even if not quite 'hate speech,' [Horowitz's] insults to blacks border onintimidation. (His book can, arguably, be boiled down to five words: 'Shut up,you black ingrates! ).,,3 This is ridiculous. There is nothing insulting to blacksin my arguments, my book or any word I have uttered in the course of thiscontroversy. It is the reparations movement, on the other hand, which may besaid to be insulting to black Americans, insisting that they are dependentvictims, and that the post-slavery years have been an unmitigated disaster andnot a remarkable triumph of the descendants of slaves over adversity anddisadvantage. Far from telling blacks or anyone else to shut up, I have beensolicitous of dialogue and debate on these issues and have been patient to a faultwith those - like Boyle - who seem unable to express themselves withoutresorting to personal abuse.While claiming to support intellectual debate, Boyle is resentful that Ihave a platform at all. "Not all blacks have their own books, columns, or web-sites, after all, unlike Horowitz," he writes.4 In the course of the controversyover my reparations ad there were in fact commentaries by black columnists forUSA Today, Time magazine, the Detroit News, the Chicago Tribune, and Forbesmagazine among other publications. The platforms from which blacks spoke onthis issue - the faculties of Harvard and other elite universities - had a fargreater reach in the intellectual culture than any I could command. But of coursethis doesn't fit the racialist melodrama of white masters and black menials,which provides the only prism through which Boyle appears to be able to ap-proach the subject.When Boyle is unable to distort my position, he simply makes it up:"And note Horowitz's claim in his response: 'a person's constitutional right to2 David Horowitz, Unsavory Black Insinuations: A Reply to David Boyle, 105 W. VA. L.REV. 699, 705 (2003).3 Boyle, Counter-Reply, supra note 1, at 712.4 Id.(Vol. 1052West Virginia Law Review, Vol. 105, Iss. 3 [2003], Art. 10https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/wvlr/vol105/iss3/10RESPONSE TO BOYLE'S COMMENTfree expression isn't worth much if his reputation can be destroyed by slanderand invidious comparisons . . . .' This is why I decry Horowitz's slanderousdismissal of black, and other, pro-reparationists as being idiots, ungratefulwhiners, or even proto-traitors." I observe that not a single instance of suchdismissals is adduced, nor a single individual named.Of course, I never meant to embargo the accusation of racism, whining,stupidity or betrayal from discussions of this or any other issue. The point wasthat the unsubstantiated accusations against me were made in televised protestsand newspaper editorials, that I became the target of a nationwide political lynchmob, and had to be protected by university-assigned armed guards wherever Iappeared.In his original review, Boyle attempted to answer my ten points and inmy reply to him I showed how shallow and insubstantial his answers were. Nowhe offers another slapdash ten responses, equally trivial. I will take one insteadof wasting the reader's time with all ten. In my reply to his original article Ishowed that Boyle was flatly and factually wrong about the Constitution's 3/5thcompromise. Instead of admitting his mistake, he tries to evade it by arguingthat there shouldn't have been slavery in the first place, making his ignorance onthe matter unimportant. As I have already pointed out, however, slavery existedin all societies and in black African societies for a thousand years before theConstitution was written and was accepted in all those societies (by blacks aswell whites) until the American founders declared it morally wrong andlaunched the world's first measures to end it. So what does Boyle's argumentamount to except a temper tantrum over the fact that everybody back thenwasn't as smart and moral as he thinks himself to be now?In closing, allow me to comment on Boyle's bad manners and wretchedresort to insinuation and personal abuse. Here is his parting shot:Once more, I happily support Horowitz's freedom ofspeech. I just wish that free speakers would use their freedom ina more fair and socially beneficial manner, lest they be mis-taken for Trent Lotts in sheep's clothing.6As I recounted in my book Uncivil Wars, which Boyle has read, whenTrent Lott's hero Strom Thurmond was running for President on a segregationistplatform in 1948, I was marching in support of Harry Truman's civil rights pro-gram.7 I have been a stalwart (and public) defender of civil rights for blackAmericans for the 55 years since. I was one of the loudest public voices callingfor Trent Lott's removal as Republican leader because of his remarks about5 Id.6 Id. at 714.7 DAVID HOROWITZ, UNCIVIL WARS: THE CONTROVERSY OVER REPARATIONS FOR SLAVERY 2(2002).2003]3Horowitz: Response to Boyle's CommentPublished by The Research Repository @ WVU, 2003718 WEST VIRGINIA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 105Thurmond's campaign. That knowing all this, Boyle would still stoop to suchmean-spirited insinuations (and in a law review debate) indicates why the repa-rations controversy is - and will remain - such a problematic episode in the an-nals of academic discourse.4West Virginia Law Review, Vol. 105, Iss. 3 [2003], Art. 10https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/wvlr/vol105/iss3/10

Response to Boyle\u27s Comment

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