Hey, Louis Farrakhan and Richard Cohen: You Can't Scare Me

Writing in his regular column for the Washington Post today, Richard Cohen sought to frighten me and every other Jew in America into believing that Barack Obama at worst supports, and at best tacitly approves of, the vile ideology and racialist libels that Louis Farrakhan has variously promulgated over the course of a long and serpentine career.

Having received a number of anxious emails from fellow Jews across the country, quoting from or including the entire text of the column, I can reassure Mr. Cohen that his efforts have not gone in vain. No one could argue, however, that Mr. Cohen set himself a difficult task. As a Jew, I know how easy it is to fear an anti-Semite, in particular a rabid one who, like Farrakhan, claims to have the ear of millions.

Indeed, it is as easy to fear hatred as it is to feel it; that is precisely why I refuse to be afraid. An extremist cannot flourish without the good offices of alarmists and those whom they incite to fear.

Now, I am certain that Mr. Cohen -- whose work I grew up reading and admiring in my family's hometown newspaper -- would argue that nowhere does he accuse Barack Obama of any sin worse than an ominous silence. In his column Mr. Cohen merely relates the troubling information that a magazine published by the minister of Obama's church gave an award to Louis Farrakhan, and that the same minister, Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, has made a number of approving statements about Farrakhan in the past. How, Mr. Cohen appears to want to know, can Barack Obama let such perfidy pass without condemnation?

I say "appears to want to know" in part because Mr. Cohen knows perfectly well that Obama has publicly disagreed with his family minister over the subject of Farrakhan; but more than this, I believe that, in fact, what Mr. Cohen really wants to know is the same thing so many American Jews -- indeed, so many Americans -- want to know: Just how afraid should I be?

Alas for Mr. Cohen and for all of us, in the service of his own fear he resorts to employing the time-honored strategies (smear and guilt-by-association) and tactics (a false appearance of reasonableness, assumption of unproven conclusions, selective reference to facts not in evidence) employed by the very demagogues and masters of hate whom he is presumably trying to combat. Why has there been no response from the Obama camp to this deeply troubling message of hate?

Well, as it turns out, there has been a response -- at least two of them -- and Mr. Cohen even quotes them in his column. Since they interfere with his crucial business of frightening himself and the rest of Jewish America (not to mention the quotidian duty of filling one's allotment of column-inches), however, he ignores them. In so doing, Mr. Cohen resorts to a time-honored principle of propagandists of hatred: Every denial is in fact tantamount to a confession.

I grew up reading and admiring Richard Cohen's column because I grew up half an hour from Washington, in the visionary city of Columbia, Maryland, a racially and economically integrated "New City" planned, and built, to serve as a model for a new way of thinking about race in America. Columbia and the children it raised up reaped the fruit, and savored the victory, of the preceding decade's great struggle for equality and justice, which had made such a vision possible.

One of the most painful passages in Mr. Cohen's column invokes the broken promise of black-Jewish unity as embodied by the lives and deaths of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, without appearing to acknowledge that in falsely impugning Barack Obama he is damaging the only politician in America who has any hope of redeeming that promise on a national level, whose very rise to the lofty precincts of "electability" is proof that the promise is redeemed, in little ways, every single day; just as it continues to be broken, every day, by every African-American or Jew in this country who is not actively reaching out to heal the division, and to work for for justice and fairness and opportunity for everyone.

Barack Obama knows that black people and Jews need to come together to fight for all the important issues and values they share. He knows that we need to start talking from the center of our communities, and stop whispering or shouting at the extremes. As a Jew whose heritage comprises the bitter memory of racist demagoguery insufficiently denounced by the powerful, would I welcome a stout denunciation of Farrakhan by Obama? Sure I would. But that same great heritage also boasts of the most staunch and fearless struggle against the forces that seek to divide us, to set us against one another, and it's that side of my heritage that I choose to honor.

Let's all choose, Jews and African-Americans, to set fear aside, and work for a return to the days, whose memory Cohen's fear-mongering so grievously tarnishes, when we set aside everything that separated us to join together in the service of our common American good.

Comments

[KaAp]

This whole thing with MClurkin is absurd look at Obama's record on GLBTQI rights --- I dare you to find a candidate whose stand is as based in human and humane rights stop spreading rumors. He supports gay adoption, gays in the military, sponsored an amendment extending civil rights legislation to include glbtqi people etc etc etc ... spare me ...
Listen to Obama's comments when he quotes principles housed in Tikkun ... healing the world etc ... and he has had a long relationship with the Jewish community Cohen's words are just poisonous and very disturbing ... and utterly baseless

[drab]

You join a church listen to the sermons support the church financially,make a racist,anti gay reverend your spiritual adviser .But god forbid someone associate you with his views.I think Cohen is isn't being unfair here.If you are a Obama supporter would you let Hillary have the same preacher and not take her to task?

[MRb1000]

Richard Cohen of all people his wife is a black women. Man he is stupid. I wonder how she feels about this. It must make her feel really good about her husband misdeeds. Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton cronies are out their helping because they owe a debt to Bill Clinton.

America Bush, Clinton, Bush, ????? Are we that stupid!!!

America the Clinton are trying to run a game on us. We must stop this political game!!!

Please stick to the facts and the Truth!

[MelindaPost]

How/why do you claim he will create unity? What has he done to support this? This is demagoguery- attributing qualities that you have no basis for claiming. It would be nice but, Mr. Chabon, you are trying to build a 'legend' beforehand. Fatuous. Write your fiction but not in electoral politics.

[truthiness]

ANATOMY OF A SMEAR, by Richard Cohen: Write a column claiming the only African-American presidential candidate must support Louis Farrakhan, because the candidate's church gave him an award. Spend the entire column outlining Farrakhan's misdeeds. Sneak in this sentence at the end: "I don't for a moment think that Obama shares Wright's views on Farrakhan.­" Pretend that you have not delivered a vicious, factfree smear. Go have cocktails with Fred Hiatt.

Call article "Obama's Farrakhan Test"

This sickens me.

[esl]

Does he still attend that church? I've stopped attending several churches in my lifetime because I didn't agree with the pastor, mainly about war and peace. I couldn't attend a church where the pastor was pro war anymore than I could cut my own throat. If Obama doesn't believe the same way as the pastor why is he still going to church there?

[wsayscoupgood]

Here is all Obama has to do if he chooses to do anything..­..Say this:

I repudiate any statement by any person, black or white ,that impugns the dignity of any human being based on the color of his skin or the religious beliefs of any human being.

Period. I have to say I was surprised to here this story and it did affect my feelings about Obama. It is important for a man who is running for president to get out in front of this kind of story. I find farrakahn to be a marginal figure with a limited following but it is still important for people to know that as president of the United States that type of retoric will not be condonded nor avoided with a present vote as Mr Cohen has stated. I should also mention that I am no fan of Mr. Cohen.

[eddeevy]

Cohen's piece is only a taste of what is to come. If it becomes apparent that Obama might get the nomination we'll see an all-out effort to destroy his reputation. I only hope that decent Americans will see through this racist crap.

[vaughan]

Excellent post, Chabon. Apparently Obama is supposed to answer for all black men's comments ever made--supposedly he's to answer for everything any black guy did or was written about by any organization he's been associated with.

[isis]

Isn't it strange that people try to scare us away from Barack Obama? You can see what Obama means about campaigning with fear and how divisive it is.

[altohone]

Nice post!

Politics is dirty, and the establishment is doing all it can to ensure the lone candidate who opposed the war when it mattered won't win.

Clinton supporters strayed in the race debate and this seems yet another wandering into dangerous waters in an attempt at political gain.

Lieberman democrats may not be offended by these calls for reassurances, but ignoring comments already on record suggests intentional omission or shoddy researching for the piece. Neither reason makes Cohen look very good.

[vbond]

Cohen should be ashamed of himself.

He knows better.

[adamNsteve]

He is about as much the only politician in America capable of pulling off black-Jewish unity as he is the only politician capable of pulling off black-gay community unity.

In other words - not a chance if he's the kind that "explains" his churches award instead of condemning his church's giving F. the award.