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Re: Avoiding the mirror
David Lipovitch (dlipovit@HUSC.HARVARD.EDU)
Thu, 3 Nov 1994 11:24:50 -0500
On Wed, 2 Nov 1994, Sherwin P. Hicks wrote:
>
> 'First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out - because I was
> not a Jew. Then they came for the communists and I did not speak out because
> I was not a communist. Then they came for the tradeunionist and I did not
> speak out because I was not a trade unionist, Then they came for me andthere
> was no one left to speak out for me.'
> Pastor Niemeoller, victim of the Nazis.
>
As a Jew, whose grandmother went to weekly Party meetings (for the tea of
course) and whose grandfather was a trade unionist, I'm getting sick and
tired of Mr. Hicks' accusations of indifference, prejudice and racism
being levelled at all of us white academics. As I think everyone on this
board would agree, we think Mr. Rushton and his like are practicing a
brand of (at the very least) questionable scholarship - and we (most of
us) as academics have treated him both with the respect due him as another academic (and a
stranger) and with the critical eye of more mainstream scholars. You are
the one who has called for violence, and you are the one spreading
overgeneralizations based on nonsensical studies linking arcana and
pseudo-science to claim that those of us who are "melanin deficient" are
all raving bigots. RUBBISH. If you want to make a contribution to
shooting down such offensive "scholarship" then learn to do it in an
acceptable and scholarly manner without resorting to the ad hominem attacks
on everyone you disagree with. If you are not capable of that, then try not to get
in the way of people who can deal with the likes of Mr. Rushton without
creating a martyr out of him. As I wrote you earlier (privately), your
arguments have only helped Mr. Rushton rather than deflate his opinions.
David Lipovitch
Harvard University
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