our children and young people tornvisit Holocaust museums? Whyrndo they need to hear lecturesrnabout skinheads and neo-Nazisrnand growing anti-Semitism? Whyrnshould they see every film aboutrnthe Holocaust, always portrayingrnJews as victims running for theirrnlives?rnSpeaking of Israeli psychological resistancernto moving forward in peace talksrnwith the Palestinians, CommunicationsrnMinister Shulamit Aloni told a radio interviewerrnon March 24, “We have got tornget it into our heads once and for allrnthat in our relations with the Palestiniansrnwe are not the victims. We are thernrulers; we are the occupiers.” There is anrnAfrican-American tradition of pride inrnself-help rather than self-pity, of lookingrnforward, from Booker T. Washington andrnMarcus Garvey to some leaders today.rnWhat did Ferguson and Goldsteinrnhave in common? Forget Brooklyn! Itrnwas probably rage. Rage so great thatrnthey could not contain it. They feltrncompelled to take it out on others. Thernconstant repetition of violence in audiovisualrnand written materials about Afro-rnAmerican slavery and the holocaust, arnNiagara of negativism, must have an effectrnupon the psyches of its recipients. Itrnmay be experienced as violation—asrnviolence. It is a form of torture of thernpsyche, which may produce distortionsrnof perception and judgment, a tendencyrnto delusions of persecution or grandiosity,rnfocused or generalized anxiety or fearrnor depression.rnGould those who have written andrnproduced so many dramas on the horrorsrnof slavery and its aftermath have had arnpart in the mindset of Colin Ferguson asrnhe set out for Hicksville on his mission ofrndeath? Were Stephen Spielberg’s imagesrnfrom Schindler’s List the last strawrnfor Baruch Goldstein?rnMany African-Americans and Israelisrnare sorely in need of liberation from theirrnconstant, toxic diet of mental violence,rnvictimology, and negative thinking. Wernneed to liberate ourselves from the pervasirne psychological flagellation, oppression,rnviolence, and negativism of slaveryrnand the holocaust.rnRobert John is a diplomatic historian, arnpoUcy analyst, and the author of ThernPalestine Diary and Behind the BalfourrnDeclaration: The Hidden Origins ofrnToday’s Mideast Crisis.rnWhite Liberals,rnBlack Racistsrnby Hugh MurrayrnOn March 3,1994, ABC-TV’s Mghtlinerndevoted its half hour to thernquestion of deteriorating relations betweenrnblacks and Jews. As background,rnthe program showed clips of newsreelsrnfrom the civil rights era, the “halcyonrndays”—and years—of unity betweenrnJews and blacks in the 1950’s and earlyrn60’s. The narration then jumped to thern1980’s and 90’s with statements by Nationrnof Islam Minister Louis Farrakhanrnand by his spokesman Khallid AbdulrnMuhammad attacking Judaism as a “gutterrnreligion” and Jews as “blood-suckersrnof the black community.” Unfortunately,rnthe guests. Cornel West of PrincetonrnUniversity and Leon Wieseltier of thernNew Republic, seriously distorted the historyrnof black/Jewish relations.rnTrue, blacks and Jews did work togetherrnin the civil rights movement, andrnthe emblem of that unity was forged inrnblood during Freedom Summer 1964rnwhen three activists were murdered nearrnPhiladelphia, Mississippi: Chancy,rnGoodman, and Schwerner—a black andrntwo Jews. But even in the 1950’s andrn60’s neither all Jews nor all blacks werernsympathetic to the civil rights movement.rnFor example, while a student atrnTulane University in my native New Orleans,rnI was one of the first to join the localrnchapter of the Congress of RacialrnEquality (CORE) in I960. Quickly,rnnearly half our members were whites,rnmostly Southerners, and some were JewishrnSoutherners. But on the other sidernwas fellow Tulanian Ken K., Jewish, whornboasted that he had spied on civil rightsrnorganizations in Atlanta on behalf of thernKu Klux Klan! His rationale—so long asrnthe Klan was fighting blacks, it wouldrnnot have time for Jews. Also, when AlanrnNathanson was arrested in an earlyrnCORE sit-in, some of his AEPi fraternityrnbrothers sought to expel him from thernJewish fraternity. Ultimately, AEPi didrnnot expel him, and more importantly,rnthe only fraternity to which any of thernwhite GORE members belonged was thernJewish AEPi.rnIt must be stressed that CORE andrnthe Student Non-Violent CoordinatingrnCommittee (SNGG) were deemed extremelyrnradical at that time, and it wasrnnot only a Jewish organization thatrnfeared contamination by them. Whenrnthe New Odeans CORE began a sit-inrncampaign in September I960, the leadersrnof the New Orieans NAACP threatenedrnto lift the charter of the NAACPrnYouth chapter if it did anything to supportrnour sit-in. The NAACP Youths defiedrnthe adults and picketed on behalf ofrnthe GORE demonstrators, and the adultrnNAACP group relented.rnYet, far more vociferous in its oppositionrnto the civil rights movement in thernearly I960’s was the Nation of Islamrn(NOI). Thus, the official newspaper ofrnthat organization, Muhammad Speaks,rnprinted in 1962 an open and lengthy letterrnby Dolores Dunlap to “The FreedomrnRiders and Sit Ins,” admiring their couragernbut deploring their tactics and urgingrnthem to forsake integration. She observed:rn”You have better opportunities tornexpand in the [segregated] south than inrnany other part of the country.” MuhammadrnSpeaks derided integrationists andrnmocked Martin Luther King, Jr. This isrnhow the paper reported an April 1962 incidentrnin Louisiana:rnMixed Sit In Pair Jailed. BatonrnRouge . . . Two young ringleadersrnof the integration movementrncame here recently allegedly tornvisit a man in prison—and endedrnup in jail themselves on charges ofrncriminal anarchy.rnThe two are Charles McDew,rnchairman of the Student NonviolentrnCoordinating Committee, arnsouthern organization that agitatesrnfor mixing the races, andrnRobert Zellner, a staff member ofrnthe same organization. McDew isrna so-called Negro, and Zellner isrnwhite and apparently the “brains,”rnThat report might almost have beenrnreprinted from a Klan paper.rnThe Nation of Islam philosophy wasrnsummarized in a heading that covered arnthird of the front page of MuhammadrnSpeaks in January 1962, “Blood MixingrnDeath to Races.” When in its very firstrnissue in October 1961 it asked “WhornSpeaks for Negro?” the Black Muslimrnpaper answered, “Certainly not ArthurrnSpingarn, white president of thernNAACP, or Henry Steeger, white presidentrnof the Urban League; JamesrnFarmer, director of CORE, married to arnwhite woman,” or Harry Belafonte,rnGeorge Schyuler, Adam Clayton Powell,rnAUGUST 1994/43rnrnrn