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New jersey gov wanted to fire poet laureate { October 8 2002 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57516-2002Oct7.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57516-2002Oct7.html
Anti-Semitism, Not Poetry
By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, October 8, 2002; Page A25
NEW YORK -- My favorite New York mayor of the moment is not the incumbent Michael Bloomberg, or the sainted Rudolph Giuliani of recent memory, but Edward Koch of more distant tenure. It was Koch, in a letter to the editor, who whacked the New York Times for its wimpy editorial suggesting that the way to deal with the anti-Semitic poetry of Amiri Baraka -- he's New Jersey's poet laureate -- was through "discussion and condemnation." Koch had a better idea: Eliminate Baraka's position. Atta boy, Ed.
I grant you that poet laureate of New Jersey sounds like some sort of a joke, but the post does pay $10,000 a year and it comes with some authority, if not obligations. One of them is to read the odd poem or two, of which Baraka can be said to have acquitted himself splendidly. His poem was odd in the extreme.
It is called "Somebody Blew Up America." Baraka wrote it shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and recited it last month at a New Jersey arts festival. As he explained to Connie Chung on CNN, "The whole imperialist world knew this was going to happen. . . . They warned the United States previously." Among his sources, he cites Rep. Cynthia McKinney, who recently lost her congressional seat for practicing politics while quite mad.
So Baraka posed some questions:
Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed
Who told 4,000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers
To stay home that day
Why did Sharon stay away?
The canard that Israelis and Jews in general got advance warning of the attacks stems from a Lebanese radio station. At first, those supposedly tipped off were Jews in general. Now it has become Israelis, a more acceptable vehicle for expressing anti-Semitic sentiment. Be not fooled.
The canard has since become accepted wisdom throughout the Middle East and is nothing less than a contemporary version of the worldwide Jewish conspiracy first concocted by the czar's secret police at the end of the 19th century.
Baraka's anti-Semitic bleat was, of course, promptly denounced. Some called it appalling while others insensitively called it insensitive -- as if Baraka had told a woman he didn't like her dress. New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey wanted to fire Baraka but was told he could not do so. So he asked Baraka to resign. Baraka, of course, refused.
Then came the usual warnings: Baraka must not be censored. So spoke the Times and other newspapers. Yes, indeedy. But withdrawing a state subsidy is not censorship. Why do the people of New Jersey -- including not a few Jews -- have to subsidize the anti-Semitic lunacies of this second-rate poet?
As Koch points out in his letter, the response would surely have been different if David Duke had been appointed poet laureate of Louisiana and had read "a virulent attack against blacks, using every canard in the book." Then, everyone would have demanded that the Louisiana legislature choke off his funds.
It is no different with Baraka. What is different is that anti-Semitism is somehow more tolerated than the related idiocy of racism. This seems to be particularly the case if the anti-Semite cloaks himself in the gobbledygook of anti-imperialism, anti-Zionism and, in Baraka's case, anti-whitism as well.
When Baraka performed his next reading, people came to hear him thinking what he had said was "controversial" or "provocative" or so innocent that the entire controversy was a puzzle to them. "I don't see what the controversy is," said Carl Gregory, a school principal who had brought some students with him. Fire him, too.
Baraka is a bigger idiot than he is a dangerous anti-Semite. But the biggest idiots of all are those who are either ignorant of history or have no respect for it. Anti-Semitism is aided by people who either don't recognize it for what it is or, amazingly, find it interesting, provocative, controversial or some such thing.
So, I'm with Koch -- and, now, with McGreevey. He is proposing that the legislature undo what it has done. That would amount not to censorship but a statement of principle -- a repudiation of anti-Semitism. Now that would be refreshingly "provocative."
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
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