Hacker News Reader

Comment by 1dundundun | Hacker News Reader

Interesting post from the comments ...

"The FBI did not investigate writers according to their literary merits. As Kurt Vonnegut's biographer, I can tell you that, despite his publishing Slaughterhouse-Five— one of the most popular anti-war novels of the 1960s— the FBI didn't keep a file on him. But the bureau did monitor the lives and works of Amiri Baraka, Lorraine Hansberry (a 1,000-page file), W.E.B. Du Bois, Ralph Ellison, Chester Himes, and Richard Wright, among others.

What the bureau opposed was African American literature and its potential— a backhanded recognition of that genre's power to influence readers. No cultural upheaval would be coming from the likes of Roth, Updike, or Mary McCarthy, for reasons you no doubt understand."

View on HN

Are people surprised that the FBI of the 50s was treating black intellectuals as some sort of alien internal enemy?

It's not as if this has changed much. Compare the treatment of e.g. Black Lives Matter with white groups or individuals which are overtly pro-violence, e.g. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/neo-nazi-br...

>Are people surprised that the FBI of the 50s was treating black intellectuals as some sort of alien internal enemy?

No, what's surprising is that some people think this was then, and things now are different.

A lot of that "thinking" is either wishful, or sculpted by people who need post-racial apathy to commit their very racially motivated crimes.

This is the problem with allowing the government to have invasive surveillance powers - they use them not only to prevent legitimate threats but also to try to prevent the social changes that naturally should occur over time.

> Are people surprised that the FBI of the 50s was treating black intellectuals as some sort of alien internal enemy?

> It's not as if this has changed much. Compare the treatment of e.g. Black Lives Matter with white groups or individuals which are overtly pro-violence, e.g. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/neo-nazi-br....

I think the implication is not much has changed

This had more to do with J. Edgar Hoover, his unlimited power and personal baggage.

Civil Rights groups were branded as subversives with potential communist leanings.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com