Word: cleaverly
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...tiger has grown tired and has decided to struggle up in front of the white man's fire. Cleaver currently writes for stodgy publications like Buckley's The National Review. He roundly criticized Jesse Jackson's Presidential campaign, calling him a "ruthless politician on the make." Last year, he ran as a conservative independent in a race for the House of the Representatives in the eight district of California, hoping to split than Black vote with the incumbent Democrat. Ronald Dellums, and allow the Republican challenger to sneak in the back door. Along with the rest of his former opinions...
...EVEN the more militant Cleaver has abandoned many of his former tenets, what has become of Baldwin? Simply nothing. In contrast to his contemporary, Baldwin has not budged from his basic convictions. In last April's issue of Essence, he wrote: "The multitudinous bulk of [whites] sit, stunned, before their TV sets swallowing garbage that they know to be tormented by the suspicion that all men are brothers...
...because he was not a tiger. He never expected a revolutoin. He knew that no amount of marching in the street or breaking storefront windows was going to complete the process of equal rights. He did not flee America out if some fawning, unconscious love for white European, as Cleaver claimed, but rather because he knew change was not going to come quickly and he didn't want to be destroyed by the disappointment that inevitably followed the hope of the sixties...
...result, Baldwin was not dismayed by his sense of isolation to the extent that Cleaver was- a dismay which has led to the latter's capitalization. Though he is thousands of miles away, Baldwin still remains in touch with the concerns of Blacks in this country: he has written a book about the Atlanta child murders, tentatively titled Evidence Of Things Not Seen, ready for publication before the end of this year. Surely, even the Cleaver of 1968 would have to be impressed with Baldwin's two decades of loyalty to the cause of Black civil rights...
...this commitment something that Baldwin tosses off to make a living Baldwin's work bespeaks a conviction that goes beyond even Cleaver's words, as brilliant is those are. Indeed, Cleaver's writings now seem invalid, not because the sentiments expressed in Soul On Ice have become irrelevant, but because the author has not lived up to his work. Today's Black leaders especially Jesse Jackson can learn a lot from Baldwin's constant level-heads devotion to the Black interest. the Pussycat that roared...