Baltimore Sun Warns Against Mixture of Black Nationalism, Anti-semitism

The Baltimore Sun warned today that anti-Semitism was being mixed with Black Power extremism to create “an indigestible political stew which, if swallowed, could be poisonous.”

In an editorial-page column, Gerald Griffin said that Black Power advocates had displayed anti-Semitism “too many times to be accidental.” He said that “those who make use of it describe their position as anti-Zionist rather than anti-Semitic but in the context of their resolutions and literature, this distinction is not impressive.”

The article held that “this exploitation of anti-Semitism by Black Power extremists appears to stem in part from the Communist line in support of the Arab states vs. Israel, in part from feelings among Negroes in the slums against some shopkeepers and in part from the sheer opportunism and irresponsibility which make anti-Semitism profitable to white racists. It feeds on the worst human instincts, as Hitler demonstrated. The appalling irony now is that the Black Power extremists have made themselves look so much like the white supremacists.”

Reference was made to the recent “new left” convention in Chicago with the comment that “this political mess attempted at Chicago is as ugly as it is potentially poisonous, and its implications should be widely understood.”

Extreme black nationalism, the article said, “promises violence and destruction.” But when, it added, “a streak of anti-Semitism, typically blind and nasty, is applied to black nationalism, along with an assortment of Russian, Chinese, and Castroist Communism, the product is thoroughly vicious. Whether its fomenters know what they are doing, or are groping in the darkness of their impassioned ignorance, the result is equally deplorable and obnoxious.”