General Board
My best friend's dad David Horowitz
Posted By: Brian <lestoil500@aol.com> (152.163.204.67)
Date: Tuesday, 27 March 2001, at 9:21 p.m.For those unaware, David Horowitz is the man that penned that white-hot controversial piece called "Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Blacks is a Bad Idea for Blacks - and Racist Too" and took it out as an ad in major college papers.
I'm not going to condemn the man for his reasoning behind his piece because by-and-large I agree with what he says. There's many of us in the Black community that really don't need something else to fall back on as an excuse for our failures. But that's only one of a number of reasons why even considering reparations is unwise.
What I whole-heartedly disagree with is his opinion that America is a virtual Utopia for African-Americans. It's his opinion that as long as you can make money, you should be as happy as a bug in a rug. Facing the harsh realities of racism as practically every brown skin person in this country very much frequently faces is a minor problem compared to the oodles of money we can all earn. And of course he seems oblivious that the chances of a child from the Black community earning the kind of grades in an inner city public school that will guarantee him entrance in an ivy league school are slim to none.
What most gets my goat about his placing this ad in colleges all over the country is the simple fact that he did so. With his money, couldn't he have chosen a more lofty, more crucial, more noble subject to grab the attention of college kids around this country? He could have written a piece about how important it is for college students to raise their personal scholastic standards. He could have taken his money and used it to preach about how hate crimes are destroying the moral fiber of this country. Hell! He could have taken out an ad espousing how Clinton is a bad example of leadership and how young students need to re-examine the words virtue and morality! He knew damn well such an ad as the one he placed would racially divide campuses right down the middle. He knew it. *sigh*
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David Horowitz is the biggest walking enigma I've ever known. And yes, I very much did know him at one time. As a kid. I had two close friends in my early teens. Daniel Sperber and John Horowitz. The most memorable chapters of my childhood happened when I moved to Berryman Street in Berkeley when I was about eleven years old. It was a predominently Jewish neighborhood and the kids there made me an honorary Jew (Lord knows I wasn't the only kid there with an afro). The Bar Mitvas I attended never stopped (never did get used to the food though).
Anyways, John's dad David had made a name for himself in the late 60s for being one of the editors of the ultra-leftist radical magazine RAMPARTS. David Horowitz was as militant of a liberal as you could imagine. He STAYED on the frontline of the war against the poor and disenfranchised. He despised filthy rich business men and their means of buying their station in politics. David Horowitz was quite active with the Black Panther Party, as well as another less-known group (whose name escapes me) that looked out for the welfare of minorities. In other words, he was hot shit to the thousands of liberals that inhabited Protest Town, USA (Berkeley, CA) back in the early 70s. But to me David Horowitz was just John's, Benjy's, Annie's and Sara's dad who spoke in the most outrageously funny New York accent. When he turned my frail young ears on to the harsh but honest comedy stylings of Richard Pryor, and turned my frail young eyes onto such harsh commentaries on class struggle like the film "The Harder They Come", my Mom trusted Mr. Horowitz's judgement implicitly.
But things started to change when he and writing partner Peter Collier
became national celebrities for their massive best-selling book about the life of the Rockefellers. That success was followed by even bigger success when they released "The Kennedys". When I saw how gigantic those books were, it explained why Mr. Horowitz spent so much time typing away in that homemade little shack behind the house.Apparently what had happened was as he was reporting as a leftist outsider on the lives of these wealthy families, he learned that money--and loving money--wasn't the biggest sin in the world. While interviewing those associated with these books, he must have learned that the persuit of money was much more noble of a cause than the persuit of human dignity and freedom for each and every man and women on this planet. Apparently he discovered that all that glitters IS gold.
To make a long story short, David Horowitz left his wife (Elise) and big family and began living a swinging bachelor life filled with young girls and fancy cars. He began adoring money, and finding out there's not much of a pay-off at the end of the do-gooder liberal's rainbow. I must have been in my late teens/early 20s when this whole transisition took place. He even dated a friend of mine's ex-girlfriend!! Knowing the kind of person he became, I can only assume he wasn't too generous to his ex-family with his new-found wealth.
It wasn't until I was in my late 20s that I found out David Horowitz became this rabid conservative media whore that spent his waking minutes preaching of the evils of the Democratic party. My mouth dropped every time I saw him on some talk show going off on some lousy tirade against liberalism. I heard he had embraced this new bachelor life, but I didn't know he became such a mouth piece for Republicans!Hell, I didn't even know he was no longer a Democrat!!
So now my childhood buddy's dad is back in the news. I've always known his every actions and every word wasn't motivated by some personal heartfelt dogma. Everything he's created or stood behind was for the sole purpose of making money. He knows damn well there's better fat for college kids to chew on than why Blacks don't deserve reparations, but he knew by taking out such an ad in Black colleges would garner him much fame. And typically with fame comes wealth.
I simply don't understand how he could have gone from the king of the needy to the king of the greedy.
Brian
PS: No, I haven't heard from John Horowitz since I was 18 and moved from the neighborhood. Last I heard he was managing rock bands in Japan.