Stanley Crouch, comparing President Obama to "a rapper talking about race politics," comments on the Gates fiasco, before concluding:
Have no fear: Barack Obama will recover and he will bring all of the obligatory honor back to his administration and will continue to lay down the overriding challenges to all concerned—as he did in his brilliant speech to the NAACP on its 100th anniversary. It is more than significant that the president, as he told those attending his NAACP address, has chosen not to accept any excuses for selling out oneself, one's ethnic group, or one's country. Digging in and doing the very best that one can do has become a new version of patriotism. Given the stage cynicism of our moment, that version of patriotism is something far more meaningful to all of us than what happened to an influential black academic one afternoon in Cambridge on the steps of his home, where he was arrested for belligerence, no more, no less.
Once again, I'm absolutely astounded by the idea that someone could think arresting someone for "belligerence" is appropriate. But what really drives me nuts is that this is coming from Stanley Crouch, who has a reputation for assaulting people who piss him off. A few years ago, I had the privilege of meeting Amiri Baraka (I was meeting him alongside former Nixon lawyer Leonard Garment, the whole thing was as random and awesomely strange as it sounds--Garment and Baraka spent the entire time reminiscing about Jazz musicians they both liked) and Baraka casually recounted a story about how Crouch had once asked him to step outside so they could throw hands.
What I didn't realize at the time is that this is something Crouch is prone to doing. I figured that out reading this old piece from Ta-Nehisi Coates about how Crouch slapped literary critic Dale Peck after had given his book a bad review--years after. He took a swing at Jazz critic Russ Musto, threatened to kill then Village Voice reporter Guy Trebay, and tried to choke out writer Harry Allen. That's on top of trying to fight the former poet laureate of New Jersey.
Who is this dude to be lecturing anyone about "belligerence"? Lemme be careful. I don't want him coming down to the TAP offices and trying to steal me in the face.
-- A. Serwer
