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David Boyle
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Uncivil Wars , 105 West Virginia Law Review 655 (Spring 2003) (165
Footnotes Omitted) Book Review: Uncivil Wars: The Controversy Over
Reparations for Slavery. By David Horowitz. San Francisco: Encounter
Books, 2002. Pp. 147. $21.95.
"Some might regard this book as
an act of literary masochism. In the spring of 2001, I attempted to
place an ad in college newspapers opposing the idea of paying
reparations for slavery . . . (b)ut when
my ad appeared on college campuses, the reactions were volcanic and the
attacks on me were savage." With
this opening passage of Uncivil Wars, author David Horowitz has taken
the obvious trouble to position himself as a martyr; whether he is truly
a martyr or not is another question. Uncivil Wars relates the story,
from the point of view of Horowitz, of his placing in campus newspapers
an advertisement opposing payment of reparations, whether by the United
States government or by anyone else, to African Americans for the
slavery that their ancestors endured in this country and in the colonies
which existed before the Declaration of Independence in
1776. The title of the book refers to the rancor and debate which
surrounded the publication of the advertisement, including massive
public criticism of Horowitz, and actions such as those of university
students who destroyed, en masse, copies of the newspapers containing
the advertisement. In an ironic fashion
which counterposes "uncivil" to "civil," the title
also refers to the American Civil War which led to the freeing of the
slaves--though the war did not lead to the restitution which could or
should have been theirs, or their descendants,' for the slaves' hundreds
of years of unpaid or badly paid labor.
Perhaps the most significant contribution that Horowitz makes in
Uncivil Wars is his demonstration that the arguments supporting
reparations are not above challenge. He makes some case that reparations
may be unnecessary, racially divisive, burdensome on modern taxpayers
who never held slaves in the first place, and altogether inappropriate.
Furthermore, Horowitz adds to the discussion of "race-and-law"
or, "law-and-race," as one might - drawing on the term
"law-and-economics" - term that
field of legal academic inquiry which meshes the legal and the racial
and includes such subfields as Critical Race Theory. The meaning of the
American Constitution - including its clause that
slaves were considered each to be 3/5 of a human being
- and of other legal documents or aspects of the law is discussed
extensively in Horowitz's book, especially as such meaning relates to
race. However, Horowitz's analysis is both insensitive towards its topic
of reparations (and to African Americans), and unfairly selective in its
understanding or presentation of history. Horowitz ignores or discounts,
when discussing race, slavery, and reparations, the unsavory omissions
of whites, including himself, in the
field of justice towards African Americans. His failure fully to deal
with or take account of such omissions creates the unintentional irony
that in Uncivil Wars, he himself is promulgating conflicts, or even
"wars" of a sort, of an arguably less-than-polite nature.
Horowitz's "uncivil" take on the issue of reparations taints
his analysis and his image, as will be seen below.
Part I of this review summarizes Uncivil Wars, and includes a
discussion of First Amendment issues relating to the book and to
Horowitz's campaign against reparations. Part II analyzes the tendency
of Horowitz in the book to focus on his own supposed victimization at
the expense of more accurately discussing either his efforts to fight
reparations to African Americans, or the victimization of African
Americans over the centuries under the regimes of slavery, segregation,
and racism in the United States of America. Part III catalogs and
investigates the various ways in which Horowitz writes
and acts in uncivil or abusive ways when discussing his campaign against
reparations. Part IV goes beyond the issue of Horowitz's media campaign,
in order to explore his arguments against reparations, and then presents
counterarguments to his contentions. Finally, Part V suggests that
reparations could be a sound alternative to things possibly worse than
financial expense, such as social division or unrest caused by the lack
of reparations. Part V also offers some parting comments on the role of
Horowitz himself in the debate over reparations.
Since there is less law concerning, or directly apposite to,
reparations for slavery than about other racially related topics,
e.g., affirmative action (a program which actually exists, unlike
reparations for slavery, and therefore has a body of statute and case
law, including challenges to affirmative action), much of this book
review will comment on policy, moral, or other issues rather than employ
strictly legal analysis. However, the
law will be referred to if possible, especially after the initial
summary of the book; although Uncivil Wars does not present a
"casebook" on reparations, despite the promises of the book's
dust jacket to that effect, this review will try in some wise to
compensate for that lacuna, in exposition both legal and non-legal.
. . .
Calling on the genius of James Baldwin one last time, one will note
that his book ends with the quote that gave it its name, a quote from an
old African- American hymn: "God gave Noah the rainbow sign, No
more water, the fire next time!"
This apocalyptic scenario, bringing to mind the Biblical Book of
Revelation and the end of the world, is what Baldwin suggests will
happen if African Americans do not boldly rise to the demands and
dynamics of their history and stand up for their dignity and their civil
rights. Better, perhaps, that there be
a "fine" next time America carefully considers race relations,
that is, that there be a fair and adequate "taxation" of all
the wealth of America, and the unearned wealth of whites in particular,
stolen from the slaves and their
descendants over the centuries, and that that "fine," that
justly "punitive" (or is it really so "punitive"?)
sum be returned to African Americans--better that there be a
"fine," which would be fair and remedial, than that there be a
"fire," which could hurt or even potentially destroy many
people, not only in America but elsewhere as well.
Horowitz suggests that paying reparations will bring on a disaster. But
if justice is denied to African Americans, it is possible that such
failure, such insult, could itself bring on disaster or exacerbate
current problems of racial tension, poverty, and discrimination.
In conclusion, while David Horowitz raises some provocative and
interesting questions in his book, the omissions, or easily avoidable
mistakes, in Uncivil Wars are unsavory, just as the omissions of decency
by whites, and the injustices, whether deliberate or reckless, of whites
toward blacks in America, have been unsavory for centuries now, from
Jamestown to the present. Horowitz repeatedly offers relatively valid
commentary, whether on the American Civil War,
or welfare programs, or slavery on the
African continent, but then omits
showing either a truly fair range of counterarguments to his assertions,
or the wide extent of possible outcomes to the scenarios he describes.
His omissions greatly lower the value of his observations, as do his
omissions of mannerliness and of coolness and fair- mindedness of
appraisal.
Although this review questions
the extent and nature of Horowitz's focus on his own unpleasant
experiences instead of on those of others, no attempt is made here to
belittle any real pain or discomfort Horowitz himself has suffered
throughout his advertisement campaign, or earlier in his life as an
activist, even if some of his pain came from people whom he goaded or
belittled, and who attempted to defend themselves or reacted
aggressively to his advertisement.
Still, Uncivil Wars, true to its name, literally adds insult to injury,
and while some might consider it disrespectful to Horowitz to say that
any eventual reparations to African Americans should be larger because
of what Horowitz has said in his advertisements and in his book, it
would be inaccurate for a review of his work to omit his part in
distorting the debate over reparations, and in distorting his own role
in that debate.
. B.A. 1989 Yale College; J.D. 2002,
University of Michigan Law School. |
