jonrappoport.substack.com
Iām going to print an excerptĀ from a 2010 opinion piece, published in the NY Times, written by Henry Louis Gates.
Itās a stunner.
It describes black slavery in black Africa, a āforbidden subject.ā
Black scholar and historian, Henry Louis Gates, isnāt some unknown lightweight. Many people are aware of him from his genealogy show on PBS. Or his professorship at Harvard. Or his many books. Or his famous 2009 arrest, outside his own home, by a Cambridge cop, who thought Gates was breaking in—which resulted in the highly publicized āsummitā at the White House—Obama, Gates, and the cop sitting down, chatting, and drinking a beer.
But before I print the excerpt from Gatesā NY Times piece, which describes the black slave trade in Africa, I want to publish a reaction to it—written by the well-known late political and jazz writer, Stanley Crouch.
Crouch, a black man, took no prisoners in conversation or in print. You might say he was famous for being avoided by ideologues and other superficial types. He backed down from no one.
