Hating Whitey and Other Progressive Causes

by David Horowitz

In his introduction to Hating Whitey and Other Progressive Causes, former Marxist turned conservative muckraker David Horowitz insists that his views on race "have remained entirely consistent with my previous commitments and beliefs.... I believed that only government neutrality towards racial groups was compatible with the survival of a multi-ethnic society that is also democratic. I still believe that today." Horowitz has, in fact, remained remarkably consistent in attacking elite social institutions and their subtle attempts to promote what Nicholas Lemann refers to in The Big Test as a "meritocracy." While former colleagues from the '60s have come to defend the rise of progressives within the bunkers of power, Horowitz still assaults the ramparts with venomous glee; his appearances on cable TV news shows, NPR, and the Salon Web site have earned him a legion of fans.

In Hating Whitey, Horowitz pummels administrators, hapless scholars, rival pundits, and embattled defenders of affirmative action and race-based quotas. But while Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom and Shelby Steele have made the case against racial preference with rigorous methodological approaches or rhetorical eloquence, Horowitz doesn't throw much new light on the issue. Even the revealing personal essays dealing with the author's ill-fated tenure with the Black Panthers in the early '70s recycle material previously covered in his autobiography Radical Son. This time around, Horowitz mostly names names and issues ideological fatwas against those with whom he disagrees, invoking the 1950s anti-Communist newsletter Red Channels at its prime. Hating Whitey may satiate the blood lust of the converted, but it's only marginally useful in the larger discussions of race relations in America. --John M. Anderson

Genres: Politics, Race, Nonfiction, History, Essays, Cultural

Audible Audio

First published September 1, 1999

About the author

David Joel Horowitz was an American conservative writer and activist. He was a founder and president of the David Horowitz Freedom Center (DHFC); editor of the Center's website FrontPage Magazine; and director of Discover the Networks, a website that tracks individuals and groups on the political left. Horowitz also founded the organization Students for Academic Freedom.
Horowitz wrote several books with author Peter Collier, including four on prominent 20th-century American families. He and Collier have collaborated on books about cultural criticism. Horowitz worked as a columnist for Salon.
From 1956 to 1975, Horowitz was an outspoken adherent of the New Left. He later rejected progressive ideas and became a defender of neoconservatism. Horowitz recounted his ideological journey in a series of retrospective books, culminating with his 1996 memoir Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey.

Reviews

[Matthew Dambro · Rating 5 out of 5]

A series of masterful essays written in the late 90s by one of the most astute conservative writers of the age. The volume needs to be read slowly and carefully. Horowitz packs more thought into a paragraph than many writers do in a volume. He quite simply dismantles the entire Left.

[Ryan Young · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an extremely hard book for me to rate or review. It was hard to read. It was hard to read in the areas where I agreed and where I disagreed.

First, I don't think Horowitz is a racist. Despising some of the militant tactics of individual partisans of 'social justice' does not automatically make you a racist, any more than having a black person on your nightly news cast absolves you of racism.

The book was written in 1999, but even then I think the total conflation with "the left" with communism was overdone. I might be naive but I just don't think our universities are overrun with stalinists, even if there were a few in the 1950s and 60s.

That being said, Horowitz main point is that there is an atmosphere on the left that crushes dissenting viewpoints. I have noticed this myself. Sam Harris is clearly liberal, but is not a Muslim apologist, and is therefore a bigot. The (Capital L) Liberal camp has claimed all moral high ground and only lets you stand on it if you toe the exact party line.

I consider myself liberal but I can't consider myself LIberal for this reason. I don't like dishonesty in politics. I don't like cronyism that results in special favors for the richest and most powerful businessmen in the US. I don't like hate. I don't like fervent nationalism that doesn't allow for other countries to have any humanity (or resources). I don't mind abortion or capital punishment. I want to hear the unpopular views. I like Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky.

But since I am far from informed enough nor wise enough to know what is right, I'll have to keep an open mind to all views. For that, we need these views to be expressed. And for that, we have to be tolerant of people who think differently from us. Even (god forbid) David Horowitz.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hating Whitey: And Other Progressive Causes by David Horowitz explores the anti-white racism of the Left, one of the few remaining taboo subjects in America. A new brand of self-styled progressives threatens the very institutions that guarantee racial inclusion. Racial warlords and academic malcontents indict American democracy for racial oppression even as they themselves excuse intolerance to the point of murder. David Horowitz, a former leftist radical himself, whose ad campaign against reparations has provoked censorious rage on campuses across the country, delivers a powerful blow to contemporary race thinking.
-- Why do some civil rights leaders condone murder?
-- Has "progressivism" become a war against democracy?
-- How has Martin Luther King been betrayed?
A fascinating read for anyone with an open mind for exploring the political world around us.

[Armand · Rating 5 out of 5]

SAMPLE PASSAGE:
As a visitor reaches the end of the hall (at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the site of the old Lorraine Motel, in Memphis, Tennessee, where King was assassinated), however, he turns a corner to a jarring, discordant sight. Two familiar faces stare out from a wall-size monument that seems strangely out of place-the faces of Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad, leaders of the Nation of Islam. Aside from a portrait of King himself, there are no others of similar dimension in the museum. It is clear that its creators intended to establish these men along with King as spiritual avatars of the civil rights cause.
For one old enough to have supported King, such a view seems incomprehensible, even bizarre. At the time of these struggles, Malcolm X was King's greatest antagonist in the black community, leading the resistance to civil rights hope. The black Muslim publicly scorned King's March on Washington as "ridiculous" and predicted the failure of the civil rights movement King led because the white man would never willingly give blacks such rights. He rejected King's call for non-violence and his goal of an integrated society, and in so doing earned the disapproval of the American majority that King had wooed and was about to win. Malcolm X even denied King's racial authenticity, redefining the term "Negro" which King and his movement used to describe themselves, to mean "Uncle Tom."
King was unyielding before these attacks. To clarify his opposition to Malcolm X's separatist vision, King refused to appear on any platform with him, effectively banning Malcolm from the community of respect.The other heads of the principal civil rights organizations, the NAACP's Roy Wilkins and the Urban League's Whitney Young joined King in enforcing this ban.It was only in the last year of Malcolm's life, when the civil rights cause was all but won, and when Malcolm had left the Nation of Islam and rejected its racism, that King finally relented and agreed to appear in the now famous photograph of the two that became iconic after their deaths.
Yet this very reconciliation - more a concession on Malcolm's part than King's - could argue for the appropriateness of Malcolm's place in a "civil rights" museum. Malcolm certainly earned an important place in any historical tribute to the struggle of the descendants of Africans to secure dignity, equality and respect in a society that had brought them to its shores as slaves. Malcolm's understanding of the psychology of oppression, his courage in asserting the self-confidence and pride of black Americans might even make him worthy of inclusion in the temple of a man who was never a racist and whose movement he scorned.
But what of Elijah Muhammad? What is a racist and religious cultist doing in a monument to Martin Luther King? This is a truly perverse intrusion. The teachings of Elijah Muhammad mirror the white supremist doctrines of the Southern racists whose rule King fought. According to Muhammad's teachings, white people were invented six thousand years ago by a mad scientist named Yacub in a failed experiment to dilute the blood of the original human beings, who were black. The result was a morally tainted strain of humanity, "white devils", who went to to devastate the world and oppress all other human beings, and whom God would one day destroy in a liberating Armageddon. Why is the image of this bizarre fringe racist blown up several times life-size to form the iconography of a National Civil Rights Museum? It is as though someone had placed a portrait of the Hale-Bopp Comet cult in the Jefferson Memorial.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in 1999, this collection of essays by a former leftist turned conservative reads like the prologue to today's politics and the insanity of much of the left. The "policy" sections are less interesting than his in-the-trenches descriptions of his personal experiences with members of the Black Panthers and others from his days as a writer for leftist causes and his knowledge of those and other people from those ranks. Worthwhile, and I would recommend some on the left read it. One line stood out to me from the book that seems still true today: Speaking of the eviction of Christopher Hitchens from the social life of his native left-wing after he provided evidence against a Clinton friend, Horowitz writes "What inspires these auto-da-fes? It is the fact that the community of the left is a community of meaning and is bound by ties that are fundamentally religious. For the nonreligious, politics is the art of managing the possible/ For the left it is the path to a social redemption. This messianism is its political essence."

[Kevin Kirkhoff · Rating 4 out of 5]

David Horowitz's Hating Whitey is not just a book on how politically correct it is to hate white people. It's also about Marxism, liberal activism, and how they both have infiltrated our universities.

In the racial portion, he cites case after case of black on white hate crime and related statistics, and yet all we hear in the media is about Matthew Shephard and James Byrd. Martin Luther King dreamed of a colorless society. Unfortunately, his deciples haven't changed their tune. Racism is still a serious problem to them. Any advances blacks have made is because white racists gave in to avoid a violent revolution. In the end, all whites are still racist. He asks why blacks still support the Democratic party? The Democrats have continually patronized blacks and their leaders. Enter Bill Clinton, the first "black" president. Horowitz also shares his history of association with the Black Panthers and being a '60s radical.

Of particular interest is his examination of Camille Cosby's (wife of Bill Cosby's) article for USA Today entitled "America Taught My Son's Killer to Hate Blacks". Forget about a grieving mother venting her anguish, this is an angry anti-white rant written one year after her son's death.

Also interesting is his rememberance of Elaine Brown; who for a time was the leader of the Black Panthers. He details a lot of what went on and what it was that made him flee the Panther party. The Panthers resembled a Mafia family. Extorting store owners for protection. Violence against party members who spoke ill of leaders or were a little too curious about certain activities. Betty Van Patter's death was examined in depth.
Johnnie Cochran defended Geronimo Pratt, a man accused of executing a (white) woman and wounding her husband on a tennis court. In spite of damning testimony, Cochran plays the race card to get this guy acquited. This shouldn't sound like anything new for Cochran, except that this happened in 1968, Pratt was a Black Panther, and the testimony was from his on Panthers who wanted him out of the way.

College campuses around the country denounce conservative speakers as being racist and hateful, while embracing the radical left. Several examples of deans and heads of departments forcing their radical ideologies into the cirriculum and onto unsuspecting college kids. Numerous black activists, writers, and professors speak of uncontrolled rage against white people. This rage is all whitey's fault for inflicting "pain" on blacks for so many years. It's scary to think these people teach and are asked to speak at major universities. Michael Savage applied for a deanship at Berkley. He had sparkling credentials. Except he was a conservative. That didn't set well with the outgoing dean and his colleagues. He was passed over for someone with no experience and modest credentials, but more radicalism.

Horowitz highlights several examples of Maxists that promote Marxism under the guise of fairness and factuality. Colleges used to be thought of as institutions for the pursuit of knowledge. They are now a haven of political correctness and social change.

All in all, this was an eye-opening look at an insider's account of radical life in the '60s. I'd read most of the racial discussion before, but the Black Panther and University writing was fascinating.

[Cwn_annwn_13 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall Hating Whitey is a mixed bag. There is good and bad in this. Horowitz does do a good job of pointing out racial hypocrisy and double standards on the left, especially on university campuses.

Horowitz is a former leftist turned neo-con. He worked with the Black Panther Party and does a lot to expose their thuggish side, which I knew existed, but some of Horowitzs claims are a bit hard to swallow for me. He makes a claim that a friend of his who was also working with them was murdered by the Black Panthers. Personally I don't buy it. For one why would they kill somebody who was trying to help them over what basicly amounted to a minor personality conflict? Also why would they kill a person for such petty reasons when for one they were under a microscope from the feds to begin with and it would bring even more heat on them from law enforcement if this person turned up dead or missing? Elaine Brown, who Horowitz seems to point at as being responsible for ordering the murder, is still around so if there is any evidence pointing in this direction why hasn't she, or anybody else, been arrested? The story just doesn't add up, especially when you consider Horowitz is a Jewish neo-con, who as a group have proven themselves to be about the biggest liars and psychopaths on the planet.

I expected Hating Whitey to be like a version of The Redneck Manifesto by Jim Goad except for eggheads, right wing conservatives and other humorless types. I also thought there might be at least SOME stuff in here defending the white working and middle class. But really its all about critiquing lefties more than anything else and nothing that truly defends white people. This book is really all about attacking the left and the anti-white hatred that the left often expresses is just used as a springboard for Horowitzs platform.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

A collection of essays, and as such, a bit uneven. Comes out swinging with the title piece, continues to hit hard with the next essay, an expose of the Black Panthers, but then bogs down into obligatory Clinton-bashing endemic of the era.

[Peter Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

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This is a collection of essays written by David Horowitz in the 1990s. However, despite being twenty years old - in fact, because they are twenty-years old - they are all the more interesting in telling the reader how we managed to get where we are today.

Twenty years ago, the cultural wars we are dealing - leftist anti-white hatred, censorship of divergent ideas, Anti-American American elites, etc. - was a real phenomenon, but limited to the institutions that the Left then controlled, namely academia. Now, these habits of the Left have gone mainstream into mainstream news and mainstream politics. Horowitz provides an insight into how the habits of his former comrades have become the habits of half of American society.

Horowitz also provides many historical retrospectives that provide context for the present situation. For example, after spending two years listening to baseless conspiracy theories about "Russian collusion," Horowitz takes us back to the 1990s when there was solid evidence that Bill Clinton was conspiring with China and the media and Democrats did not care at all.

Horowitz also offers a recap on his history with the Black Panther Party. I found this surprising because while I may have thought that the Panthers were crazy, I had no idea how murderous and evil they were. In fact, it seems that they were everything they were accused of being, but I had been conditioned to treat true descriptions of the murderous and rapist activities as being hysterical.

Now, those people and their fellow travelers are the mentors of the people who are turning American politics into a cesspool.

If only Horowitz had gotten a larger audience back then.

[Charlene Mathe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charges of racism, institutionalized discrimination, and structural disadvantages residual to slavery have been the fundamental weapon of Leftism deployed at every opportunity to discredit American social, educational, and political institutions. David Horowitz sums up these charges in the title, "Hating Whitey." From the key charge of racism, the Left elaborates "Other Progressive Causes." Drawing on his intimate involvement with early activists in the Black Power movement, Horowitz exposes a cloak and dagger history of crime and violence that adds to the history of the Black Power movement that he detailed in RADICAL SON (1997).
The closing chapter, "A Political Romance," reflects on the timeless appeal of political romanticism. Thomas Sowell, writing on the same phenomena in "The Vision of the Anointed," called it a "special state of grace" (p.2), characterized elsewhere as a "secular theory of redemption." Horowitz concludes:
"And that is when I also realized that our progressive romance would go on. Some, like myself, might wake from its vapors under blows of great personal pain. But there would always be others, and in far greater number, who would not. A century of broken dreams and the slaughters they spawned would, in the end, teach nothing to those who had no reason to hear. Least of all would it cure them of their hunger for a romance that is really a desire not to know who and what we are." (p.286)
Published in 1999, this book is even more relevant today. Read it to better understand the challenge and daily drama of preserving a free America.

[Rafael Suleiman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good conservative look at race relations.

[عدنان العبار · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book offers a definitive history of racism against white people and sexism against men in the intellectual sphere. It details a lot of the methods Leftists in the United States use to shun their political opponents, like calling them racists and sexists and xenophobes without reasonable justification and repeating these accusations ad nauseam until people start to believe these slogans -- often simply because they are repeated so many times. Moreover, this book explains how whole disciplines (women studies, race studies, white or black studies) were erected to further political agendas and normalize racism against white people. In fact, with time, even the word racism had its meaning changed to involve "power structure" so that the spewn vitriol is exempt from being called harassment or bigotry. It shows just how contemptible and despicable some people can be for a handful of votes.

I absolutely adored this book, because it shows a major shift in many of the ideas people (often, including myself) hold so strongly without good basis. In fact, most of our conceptions on these issues are really unfounded. A lot of it was made up or exagerrated by ideologues. I only recently read a paper by Angela Davis about capitalism and black people, how she tells us that capitalism is inherently racist and sexist because it did not tend to these disenfranchised people; as if her proposed solution, socialism, did not subject the people to the harshest and most abject poverty and oppression history has ever known.

These things just make me sick. What happened to the goal or racial cohesion? Now even Cartoon Network encourages children to notice the skin colors of others. That's stupid and wicked, and they're not even hiding their attempts at indoctrinating children. Everything in politics is obsessed with the race and sex of people. It's like it is impossible now to treat others as human beings regardless of their skin color or sex, or any dividing feature these bigot intellectuals and politicians want to enforce onto others.

***

A review of my second reading of the book, Hating Whitey, and Other Progressive Causes, by David Horowitz.

“In the radical romance of our political lives, the world is said to have begun in innocence, but to have fallen afterwards under an evil spell afflicting the lives of all with great suffering and injustice. According to our myth, a happy ending beckoned, however. Through the efforts of progressives like us, the spell would one day be lifted, and mankind would be free from its trials. … When all was said and done, there was no happy ending. If anything, in the liberated nations, the injustice was even greater than before. In retrospect, it was apparent to me that most of the violence in my lifetime had been directed by utopians like myself, against those who would not go along with their impossible dreams. ‘Idealism kills,’ Nietzsche had warned before all the bloodshed began, but nobody listened.”

David Horowitz is perhaps the most important conservative author of our age. He started as one of the leading figures of the New Left, editing one of their leading journals, Ramparts, and managing the Black Panthers’ organization. He studied English, and English literature at Columbia and Berkeley, but ended his education amid his doctoral studies to become a writer. He has written many books that range from sociology to English to history to politics and economics. Most of his previous works subscribe to a leftist worldview. That was until the Black Panthers brutally murdered his friend, Betty Van Patter, and dumped her corpse in the sea. The story of her murder is first told in Horowitz’s Radical Son, his autobiography after migrating from the radical left (it is also recounted in this book, in chapters nine and ten).

Like many of his books, this one is a collection of articles and essays that revolve around several themes. The book is separated into an introduction (Memories in Memphis), six sections (i. Get Whitey, ii. Black Caucus, iii. Panther Reflections, iv. Progressive Education, v. Looking Backward, vi. Foreign Affairs), and an epilogue (A Political Romance). Each section contains several chapters around those themes.

The introduction of the book details how much racial tensions have actually increased and worsened from the times of Martin Luther King Jr. because of race-hustlers like Malcolm X, Al Sharpton, and Louis Farrakhan. And how progressivism has exacerbated the problem ever since, instead of healing old wounds.

The first section details the kinds of problems the book will be dealing with and gives examples. In the first chapter, we see the son of Bill and Camille Cosby, Ennis Cosby, who was killed by an armed robber. The chapter focuses on how an armed robbery was magically transformed into a racial issue, though had similar armed robberies (or hate crimes) been committed by opposing parties, they wouldn’t be considered hate crimes, as examples are provided in the second chapter of the book. A set of recent events just shows how persisting this problem is, even in our times. Two alleged racists, Darrell Brooks, and Payton Gendron, were accused of committing massacres. The former, Black, in Waukesha. The latter, white, in Buffalo. Both massacres were deemed racially motivated. Both targeted the other ‘race,’ and both were vocal in their racial hatred. The two events are not directly connected (as far as we know, and as of the 16th of May, at the time of writing this article). However, one event was memory-holed, and the other is being covered as a hate crime. In this, the book is very prescient. The author, in the C-SPAN interview for the book, talks about many similar events that were memory-holed at those times.

The third chapter opens with bell hooks’ story about how her hatred towards white people manifests in her essays. In this chapter, he explains a very important idea: How racism in Race-Marxism is more concerned with theoretical racism, that is really not racist at all in any reasonable and realistic sense, and racism that we all detest and try to eliminate: Hate and bigoted discrimination against people because of their race (or sex). The theoretical racism used here is more concerned with projections, insecurities, and perverted ideas of justice as totalitarian equality amongst all persons. The justifications for this institutional or systemic racism are based on a faulty understanding of statistics (such as comparing groups instead of individuals of comparable statuses), or on undigested ideas in political philosophy, such as the possibility of equitable distribution of wealth without the use of coercion. The chapter ends with analyzing bell hooks’ Afro-Nazism.

The second section of the book deals with political issues. Chapter five details the downfall of the civil rights movement, and how it was hijacked by progressives who were trying to use the achievements of Martin Luther King Jr. for their own personal and political benefits. The following two chapters deal with the Clinton era and the hyper-politicization of race in the United States. These chapters explain how racial tensions were revived and aggravated for political reasons, especially since people would not associate with racists, nor were they racist. The aim was to smear republicans, libertarians, and conservatives with the infamous r-word, ‘racist.’ Chapters seven and eight explain the process in detail, with several examples and a historical overview.

The third section of this book covers many of the murders and crimes committed by the Black Panthers that he did not cover in his previous books, as well as how these crimes, and how many of the criminals that perpetrated the murders were given a free pass. These two chapters (nine and ten) were among the longest in the book.

The fourth section is mostly concerned with education, higher education, the leftist bias in universities, and the new courses that allow professors to teach nonsense instead of producing meaningful research (much of the research in feminist-, afro-, women-, queer-, and postcolonial-studies departments amount to cognitive biases, make-belief, political pamphleteering, and intellectual gibberish). They expose the corruption, both democratic and racial, in higher education.

One chapter truly stands out: Chapter 15. I, Rigoberta Menchu, Liar. Ms. Menchu is a Nobel laureate in Peace, for her activism in Southern America, especially in her hometown in Guatemala. Her autobiography is assigned to reading in many schools in Southern America and the United States, as well as in many universities. However, even though it was her book that catapulted her to her fame, she was awarded the Nobel prize ‘for her struggle for social justice and ethnocultural reconciliation based on respect for the rights of indigenous peoples.’ However, it turns out that her autobiography was mostly fabricated, and she was a leftist ideologue, who followed the party lines. The struggles against the regimes she claims to have fought for were familial problems or struggles over real estate. Chapter 21 echoes the same problem with the famous feminist author, Betty Friedan, who said that she was a simple housewife without political affiliations, though it turned out later on that she was a communist propagandist.

In the fifth section, the author remembers his days in political activism and their ramifications. The topics are varied here as well. They cover events that radicals, like Horowitz himself, falsifying history — which the author shared with these radicals. It contains farewell letters to two recently deceased Black Panther members, one of which has been mellower than the other. Both were terrorists, but only one recanted. The chapter that follows speaks of how he had seen his fellow radicals support one radical revolution (Castro’s regime), but upon switching to the side of conservatives, he was able to not support Chile’s Pinochet regime without being ostracized or kicked out of the conservative movement. The standards of both parties become clearer upon understanding these facts. The last three chapters of this section cover stories about Richard Rorty, Christopher Hitchens, and the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), respectively. And the last section ranges from public officials exposing secrets of the design of nuclear bombs to foreign affair blunders related to China and Russia, especially concerning officials who make the design of weapons public information.

The epilogue of the book has been my favorite. It is really masterful in both prose and in sobering the reader to the political problems of our times, and how all of them could have easily been avoided if we have not been hell-bent on manufacturing a utopian dream. It is really sad that we, human beings, are like that. The book reads like an Oedipal tragedy when we read it through the visor of this epilogue. Even in my home country of Kuwait, I have seen people, either in the ruling family or the politicians who sought to democratize (or actually socialize), Kuwait led to its current state of affairs.

Much of our problems, Bastiat reminds us, are due to our attempts at extracting something from others, and from others doing the same to us. In the end, we destroy ourselves by our attempts to reach an earthly paradise that only existed in our imagination. We are, as homo politicus, Lennie Small trying to wish his garden with bunnies and puppies into existence. This book is a modern masterpiece, which I recommend to everyone who wishes to understand the roots underlying the current racial tensions and racial divides. It was at some point easier for us to be completely blind to race, and we thank God that race is not a divisive issue in Kuwait. But if we are not careful about what happened in the USA, we might destroy the cohesion and fraternity we have here.
Score: (8.9/10)

***

This is undoubtedly my favorite book by David Horowitz where he masterfully lays bare the hypocrisy of the Left and shows how murderous and corrupt they are both in the United States and abroad.

==================

New year's reread.

[Christina Knowles · Rating 1 out of 5]

I should have known by the title that this book would be filled with over-the-top liberal hate, but Amazon recommended it to me after I favorably reviewed the wonderful book, Woke Racism by John McWhorter. Read that instead, please.

This book was nothing more than an indictment of the Clinton Administration, accusing them, possibly correctly, of every type of corruption and even implying that Clinton was a traitor to America and in league with the Russians. Imagine that. This coming from a former member of the Black Panthers who left them only because they allegedly murdered a close friend of his. He went on to become a conservative who actually defends the Red Scare to this day. He rightly lauds Christopher Hitchens for speaking his conscience regarding the Enron affair, however, so I withheld judging his mostly irrational generalizations of all liberals (giving them evil intentions where there are really only policy disagreements) until I did some research into his more recent views. I thought to myself that if he holds Trump just as accountable for his treasonous actions, which were exactly the same and even worse than those he attributed to Clinton, along with the sexual immorality citations and lies associated with them, then I would at least consider Horowitz as a man of integrity, if not rationality. But alas, no. He is a worshipper of Trump and has never indicted him for being in bed with Putin or for his sexual exploits or lies regarding them. Therefore, I call you, David Horowitz, an unethical, irrational, hypocritical, party-worshipping hack.

[Vagabond of Letters, DLitt · Rating 3 out of 5]

6.5/10

[Denise Spicer · Rating 3 out of 5]

A former radical leftist chronicles his 70’s activism with the Black Panthers and traces the reasons for his disillusion and change of heart over previous positions. Other chapters in this book document the rise of progressive, Marxist and socialist control over academia, politics and the media.

[Franklin · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read while the drama over the Google manifesto played out. Horowitz makes some good points, but at times takes them too far, revealing heavy bias. I do believe the book raises important questions about encouraging intellectual discussion even with those who disagree, left and right.

[Jpavalock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eye Opening

[Ted Heitz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nothing new really, but interesting enough and reassuring that a conversion is possible.

[Foxglove · Rating 1 out of 5]

Horrible, one sided book that basically convinces me of nothing.

[Tom Schulte · Rating 3 out of 5]

Horowitz offers a remarkable and rare perspective by tracing a journey from Black Panther to conservative commentator. As such from his insider perspective, he has some hair-raising anecdotes from his direct knowledge.

This includes

* Huey Newton sodomizing Bobby Seale as part vengeful punishment in the gang-style organization.
* Maxine Waters actively supporting efforts to free apparent murdered Geronimo Pratt.
* The murder of Betty Van Patter.

Also, Horowitz while looking back a half century derides the subjects of his attack for being backwards looking:

What has the "civil rights" argument come to, when it cites discriminatory policies of the past to justify discriminatory policies in the present?

So, what does Horowitz want? He is apparently appalled at former radicals invited to give campus lectures. (I guess his former associations don't count, or he deserves a fresh evaluation not given to others.) He is generally abhorred by the apparent lack of conservatives in academia -- Maybe he want some kind of affirmative action in tenure based on political ideology? I am not really clear on it. I support a diversity of opinion, I am just not clear on the remediation suggested here.

For me, Horowitz is on firmer ground for his attacks on Clinton foreign policy and foreign influence. Having recently read Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped by Garry Kasparov, I can see a lot of missteps in Bill's decisions in Europe there. Here, Horowitz focuses on Chinese meddling and secrets stealing, including the murky case of Wen Ho Lee and more.

Reflecting on the book, I feel Horowitz is inviting me to consider the worst crimes of extreme leftists and by that judge "Progressives", whoever they are. This feels rather like judging all Conservatives by the actions of the January 6 Insurrectionists.

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[Bruce Cline · Rating 2 out of 5]

Former far Left activist David Horowitz takes that same Left to task in this moderately long audiobook. It’s a bit over 9 hours, but it felt like far longer as I listened to Horowitz repeatedly savage the left for its arrogance and stupidity. The author grew up, I’ve read, in a community that provided him his communist bonafides, later joining with the Black Panthers and other revolutionaries to change the world. At that time, he avers, he was not aware of most of the less savory aspects and actions of those with whom he was associating, e.g., drug use, violence, corruption, misogyny, etc. He appears to have brought that same level of obtuseness to his relationship with the far right after his conversion to conservatism. According to this diatribe, the author is convinced everyone on the left A) is a white-hating socialist (if not outright communist) who condemns all whites as racist, B) is uniformly anti-democratic, and C) believe western civilization is inherently and irretrievably flawed. Frankly, I’m now searching for my long misplaced membership card in the liberal left. In my rush to join I must have failed to read the fine print on the back that probably noted all these truths. Shame on me. Anyway, I was less than impressed with Horowitz himself, and even less so with his flimsy arguments proving the dastardly character of the left. To his credit, he does point out flaws—some quite serious—of various high profile characters like Louis Farrakhan, Angela Davis, and Elijah Muhammad to name only three, who have been fully embraced at one time or another by left leaning politicians. He cites their (and others’) beliefs as proof that all people on the left hold those same views and condemns them all. Horowitz’ rant is so extreme as to be laughable. That reaction, however, may be a self-defense mechanism kicking in to protect me from accepting my complicity in attempting to overturn western civilization and rid the United States if not the world of white people. Read at your risk.

[Mike Cheng · Rating 2 out of 5]

David Horowtiz is an author of countless books and columns, primarily about history, current events, and political issues. Originally a self proclaimed progressive and Marxist intellectual, a series of events eventually caused Mr. Horowitz to make a right turn. This book, published in 1999, is a collection of essays written after Mr. Horowitz turned conservative; presumably some of his reasons are discussed here - including his separation from and renouncement of the Black Panther Party. He opens Hating Whitey by giving kudos to his former employer Salon for agreeing to publish his work in spite of the backlash it would face as a progressive website. The introduction proceeds to praise the United States and its Constitution for being a beacon for immigrants which offers more rights and opportunities than any other society in history. Mr. Horowitz equates today’s political left to Marxists, in that the former is just a repackaged form of the latter (e.g., the moral superiority of the oppressed and exploited). Most of the book goes on to discuss issues regarding race and criticizes the weaknesses of the left’s primary talking points, for example: (a) resorting to ad hominem attacks by simply calling opponents racists or being some type of phobic rather than responding to actual arguments; (b) believing that disparity is inherently equivalent to oppression; and (c) justifying reverse-racism (known better today as antiracism) on the grounds that only those in power can be considered racist. The other essays address then relevant topics such as the failures of the Clinton administration (and the president himself) and the demystification of Betty Friedan. While many of Mr. Horowitz’s takes are compelling, (imo) some seem like sweeping generalizations.

[Mike Glaser · Rating 3 out of 5]

An important but somewhat flawed book. First, it shows us just how long some of the insanity that we are dealing with now has actually been going on. It also shows that both the American university system and the news media have been sliding down the road since before the turn of the century which helps to explain why they have no credibility left. Finally, it is a helpful reminder of just how corrupt the Clinton administration was back in the 1990’s. I think that an updated author’s overview of where some of the individuals discussed are now would have been helpful and relevant. Also the Kindle edition that I used had a number of typos.

[Holly Johnsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a really hard time taking this book seriously. Not because anything the author was pushing, but because there are really people out there who are so entranced with victim hood mentality that they immediately think everything is racist against blacks. The author is great. I just couldn’t stand to listen to anymore whining by people who would otherwise be treated HORRIBLY if it wasn’t for living in America.

[D.M.Pasquill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was an interesting read, puts in writing stories about the Panthers I heard growing up, interesting angle on Angela Davies and Belle Hooks, both of which are extended recommended reads at universities (not all). I am surprised it is available to read as it goes against decolonisation of literature available and could be seen as racism and offensive to some. It is good that books like this are available to give people an option to look and decide whether they agree or disagree.

[Trudy Pomerantz · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was interesting to go back and read a contemporary account of history that I remember as it happened. What scoundrels the Clintons were. But sometimes you have to wonder even though I do not tend to believe in conspiracy theories, that there really is only one political party and their whole purpose is to lord it over the lower beings.

[Elizabeth Swift · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoy Horowitz and this was no exception.This is the story of the progressive left, how they hate America, and how they want to change it to a socialist country. Talks about how progressives have infiltrated the media, schools from K to college, and are working to build a narrative that it isn't racist to hate all things and people who are white. I think it's very scary for our country.

[Mike Horne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good read. I love reading old stuff (1998?) and seeing how much they get right. This guy was a 60s/70s radical and hung out with Huey Newton and Black Panthers. He subsequently became a neo-conservative. You should take everything with a grIn of salt. But if you are interested in that time period, a lot of these chapters are essential reading.

[Rod · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insightful. Sharp. Extreme in its relevance.

A MUST READ! Horowitz wrote this 1999, could have been written for 2021. This isn’t just a brief history of woke, leftist militarism, it’s a warning. Vote accordingly.

[Eric C 1965 · Rating 3 out of 5]

details of the black panthers criminal activity and politics