#23 Whose America?, pt. 2: Inner City Blues

“In his book, The Culture of Narcissism, the American social critic Christopher Lash complained that in the 60s and 70s, left-wing politics in America became less about getting anything done to actually help the lives of people at the bottom.”

“In a now famous or maybe infamous essay in the neoconservative journal Commentary called My Negro Problem and Ours, Podhoretz attempts to excavate the roots of his own prejudice.”

“Journalist Eugene Methvin, in his book, The Riot Methodist, writes about the volatile condition of Newark's Negro men in the 1960s, describing a state of normlessness and frustration.”

“McCoy was heavily influenced by a 1967 book by Harold Cruz called The Crisis of the Negro Innocence, which discussed the power dynamics in the black struggle.”

“Hoffer wrote that book in 1963, and he had more in mind the post-colonial revolutions in the Third World when he talked about drastic change leading to turmoil.”

“Michael Harrington, author of the book The Other America, wrote, quote, John Lindsay is not once given the slightest hint that he has any sympathy for or understanding of unionism.”

“Richard Wright, the black author who wrote the book Native Son, said that to hold an attitude of antagonism or distrust toward Jews was bred in us from childhood.”

“Philip Roth's best book, 'American Pastoral', features a character named Swede Lvov, who navigates the chaos of the 1960s, including the Newark riots.”

“The story is about a Jewish man, Manashevitz, who finds a common identity with a black angel named Levine, leading to themes of redemption and brotherhood.”

“The Tenants is about two writers, a Jewish man named Lesser and a black man named Willie, exploring themes of resentment and racial tension.”

“Upton Sinclair's polemic against the Chicago stockyards, the jungle, it centered on a Lithuanian stockyard worker.”