Word: bernstein
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...guest of honor 16 years ago was not Bernstein himself, but Don Cox, who was pinch-hitting for Huey Newton, the minister of Defense for the Black Panthers who had just been arrested. That night the richest and most liberal New Yorkers gathered to hold a fund-raiser for 21 Black Panthers who had been jailed months earlier...
Some 15 years later Bernstein was up to his old tricks. In front of a bunch of pretentious, tuxedo-clad, self-construed student-leaders at Harvard, he preached about how the mythic "Enemy" prevents Americans from working for world peace--how fear of the Soviet Union stops this country from socializing industry and perhaps making life a little better for the worse off in this country...
...Bernstein concluded by thanking the audience for making the "experience" possible, and furthermore saying that the power of the visceral talk came from them. No way. The audience had nothing to do with...
...Perhaps Bernstein will always be misunderstood by the Tom Wolfes of the world. Petty journalists will always be obsessed with the irony of designer clothing clad partiers making the Black Panther fist of protest, of political radicalism as a status symbol...
Well, call me petty. That night I thought I was part of something unique, and it turns out that Bernstein has been performing that same show for nearly 20 years. And thanks to this high holiday season and his vow to make amends with his alma mater, I will have the opportunity to catch his act over the next three years. Maybe that'll be enough time for me to buy a tuxedo--but, knowing my luck, Lenny will be wearing Georgio Armani...