Consider two quotes:
“There’s never been a suggestion on my radio program that there is some inherent characteristic or ability of one race that makes them superior to another,” [Don] Imus said. — from 60 Minutes transcript, April 15, 2007
“I find it important to mention that in none of my political texts or interviews have I ever used any kind of racially orientated arguments.” — Gilad Atzmon, UK-based saxophonist and “activist,” attempting to deny that he is an antisemite.
Their logic is precisely the same, resting on an absurdly narrow and self-serving definition of racism. Atzmon (Imus) wants us to believe that if you’re not a master-race theorist, running around comparing the size of human skulls and such, then you’re not a racist. It’s amazing that anyone on the left would buy this for a second.
Here is the latest from Atzmon: a speech he made at the University of Denver, where he tried to wow the students with “Lacanian terminology” and openly proclaimed solidarity with “the last sovereign pockets of Muslim resistance” in Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan. I do wonder whether he supports the jihadis of the Tawhid and Jihad Brigades in Gaza, who abducted and very possibly killed BBC journalist Alan Johnston — a crime that has been condemned outright by a large number of Palestinians.
Worst of all, Atzmon invokes jazz music itself as a vindication of his beliefs:
For me, Jihad and Jazz are very similar forms of commitment. For me, the generations of Black Americans who sacrificed everything for the sake of beauty and resistance were actually engaged in a holy war. For me it was Bird, Max Roach, Dizzy, Coltrane and others who went far beyond the American dream of materialism and market value.
To the best of my knowledge, Bird, Max, Dizzy and Trane never killed anyone, let alone an innocent civilian.
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