USAfricaonline COUNTERPOINT

'Guns don't kill Black people, other Blacks do'

By CHRIS LOWE Special to USAfricaonline.com and USAfrica The Newspaper, Houston Matt Drudge reports that Salon columnist David Horowitz is suing Time magazine writer Jack White for $50 million for defamation, after White criticized Horowitz as a racial bigot for the column "Guns don't kill Black people, other Blacks do." Horowitz' lawsuit against White exhibits the usual conservative double standard that prevails in the media these days. Conservatives can use any distorted and inflammatory language they want to "define" and defame anyone or anything they label liberal, leftwing, politically correct, multi-cultural, feminist and so on. That is just free speech. But if someone so labelled fights back by calling it like they see it on conservative racism, class bias, sexism and so on, then they are suppressing conservative free speech, and so deserve to be censored. The truth: Jack White answered speech with more speech. That is the free speech way. David Horowitz responded by trying to enlist state power to impose an enormous financial cost on White and Time magazine, in order to suppress future criticism. That's the real censorship in the case. If Horowitz' column is really as he says, something that no reasonable person would find bigoted, he should welcome White's comments, which will draw people to his views, and discredit White. The truth is though that if people read Horowitz' column, they will find his approach so one-sided that most reasonable people will agree with White. White has not defamed Horowitz. Horowitz' purblind narrowmindedness (the essence of bigotry) discedits him by his own hand. Horowitz is a double-dyed hypocrite. As his suit shows, he backs the conservative agenda of preventing any discussion of real continuing racism in the U.S. For years he has postured as a defender of freedom against an imaginary liberal/left orthodoxy. This suit shows clearly that his aim is to establish a conservative orthodoxy and prevent questioning of it. Lowe, is a specialist on U.S.-Africa international affairs and he is based in Portland, Oregon. His e-mail address is clowe@igc.org (August 29, 1999/ USAfricaonline.com) MEDIAWATCH Jack E. White of Time magazine versus David Horowitz's anti-First Amendment and right-wing zealotry by Chido Nwangwu