God and America must be grateful for such a loyal defender. Lord knows they both need one these days.
I'm sure it was annoying to sit behind Noel in history class. He wasn't the only one who could be a jerk at times. I sometimes cringe when I think about my intellectually arrogance and often thoughtless self in those days. I hope that the people whose feelings I hurt have either forgiven me by now or forgotten about it in the course over their own struggles and failures and triumphs in life.
Best wishes for good health and a sense of humor to our dwindling number of classmates.
Re; Al Katz comment. It is good to read your words of reason. I remember walking home with you from Central to Logan. Those of use who are left should appreciate all the benefits we have received with humility, even the iconoclasts. Al please write to me and tell me have the adventure of life has treated you. Karl
Here's a direct quote from Noel's book Race Traitor. Is this really a classmate who deserves a memorial page?
"Obviously, all whites need to be destroyed, but why not start with white males? They are behind most of history’s greatest atrocities. Besides, some of the brothers like to bang white women. Eventually white women can breed out, but my feeling is that if you are a white male, you should kill yourself now. If you are a thoughtful person, with a social consciousness who considers himself white, you will consider suicide. It’s the right thing to do." Wow!!
Although I don't endorse Noel's provocative rhetoric, I think it is important to understand what he was trying to say in the book from which Jeff Ludwig extracted one inflammatory paragraph. To take his words literally, as Jeff has done, is simplistic and misses the point. What Noel wanted to destroy was not the people who are labeled, by themselves or others, as white, but the label "white" as a signifier of a natural trait along with the privilege to which it has traditionally been attached.
Neil Genzlinger, in his New York Times obituary (11/14/2019), gets the point, and offers a more nuanced reading: "[A]s Dr. Ignatiev always felt compelled to point out, he was not advocating some sort of mass extermination, just a change in presumptions. 'There is youth culture and drug culture and queer culture; but there is no such thing as white culture', Dr. Ignatiev said at a 1997 conference at the University of California, Berkeley. 'Without the privileges attached to it, the white race would not exist, and white skin would have no more social significance than big feet'.
"When interviewers would ask why he, a white man, was seeming to argue for canceling his own race, he would rebel at the very label. 'That’s not a term I like to have applied to myself', he told CNN in 2002. 'I want to get rid of it, because I think that the price that it extracts from us is greater than the benefit it brings.'"
One may well disagree with Noel's beliefs, but he deserves the courtesy of having them conveyed accurately. One may feel uncomfortable with the way in which he chose to express those beliefs, but one should read his words as he intended them to be understood.
Noel never wrote a book called RACE TRAIT0R. That was review or little magazine he intermittently published. In it he reasons temperately with white racists, seeking to engage their fears and assuage their inflamed rage with what I found amazingly humane patience. So that is not Noel's rhetoric. I can't imagine where in RACE TRAITOR Jeff Ludwig found that vile passage he believes represents Noel's utterance and thought. Noel's book was called HOW THE IRISH BECAME WHITE, the book itself far more tepid than its catchy title, and the same goes for RACE TRAITOR. Noel believed in social admiration by the rational dismantling of biases based on a racialist falsity that fed fear, sustained distrust and justified structural oppression, abuse and hideously murderous lynchmob hysteria--the deadly blaming of the insanely miserable. As for "elimination of the white race," the latter Noel believed was an artifice, to reason with someone you have to seize their attention, often enough by artifice, to which Noel wasn't averse. He was averse to repression's cruely. Noel was averse to cultural sentimentality. He changed his surname to quite mysteriously, to me, to quite late in life please his father. I think Jeff Ludwig's still distressed by Noel smirking after getting an A from Sam Katz almost 65 years ago, pleased, proud and confident of his abilities, but also embarrassed by his own feelings, needing to share and dilute them, recognizing their ultimate meaninglessness in any big picture, by making of them a kind of burlesque. Getting A's was obviously not a wave Noel sought to ride in life. And now he is dead. I was B and C student. I envied those guys who could mock and joke about their own achievements, but I wasn't angry, didn't hate them, absorbed and enjoyed their joy, and enjoyed being at Central and in the 210. For me the agony was 2 busses, the subway at Roosevelt Boulevard, running that half mile or so downhill, then a half mile uphill, into the office for Mr. Christianson (is that right?) to my hall pass and fill out my late room assgnment card, so kindly about it all. You'd think I'd have done better in gym. Let's drop this. I miss so many of our classmates who've passed away, and hope the living stay as well as they may. Awfully impressed by their photos, careers, and grandchildren!
I appreciate this discussion because it forced me to think about it for several days and then decide I had something I needed to share. As has been eloquently pointed out already, Noel could use all sorts of means to get people to think, and he still is doing that today--witness our postings. That has to be the mark of a great teacher--not that people agree with him or her, but that they are encouraged to think for themselves.
Deciding whether someone deserves to be remembered on their passing seems to me to lead to a slippery slope. Who would decide the criteria and judge whether they had been met? We were all very different students at CHS and led very different lives following graduation. Some excelled in their careers and received public notice, some not so much. Some excelled in their communities and families, and some not so much. You get the picture. To me, we all deserve to be remembered for whoever we were simply because at one time, many years ago, we were Men of the '10.
I wish all my classmates peace, happiness, and good health in whatever state of lockdown you are experiencing right now. To the classmates who became Masons, know that Masonic Village in Elizabethtown, PA, is taking exceptional care of the 1,400 of us who are living here and we will forever be grateful to the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania and all the lodges across the state.
The correspondence following Noel's memorial has just appeared in my email. I won't follow with more on Noel as Dave, Ken, John,Alan and Marc have done his lifework justice.
Here's a note to Jeff:
Though Noel was as deeply committed as anyone could be for his own communist visions, he was also remarkably respectful of the personage of those with whom he disagreed. As for his lack of appreciation of the traditions which gave us, “the Jews,” a safety we could not have in Europe, he was conscious of the half caste privileges we shared with other “white folks.” For that, I too am a Race Traitor. Here are thoughts based on my own experience with Christian faith in action.
I spent the bulk ( 28 years) of my career as director of pediatric clinics in central Brooklyn. My community outreach program was based at The Holy Cross RC parish in east Flatbush. The love of Christ expressed there included commitments to social justice, which in the America context countered both racial and economic injustice.* They lived what St James called for, “By my deeds I will show you my faith.” [2:18].
“What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but not works? Can his faith save him? If a brother or sister is ill clad and in lack of daily food and one of you says, `Go in peace, be warmed and filled' without giving them the things needed for the body what does it profit? So faith by itself, if it has no deeds, is dead.” [2:15-17]
My reading of St Paul includes his insistance to go beyond a hollow faith. Rather, faith sets a path of righteousness which in combination with that faith leads to salvation. For the Jews, the parallel is that the exercise of ritual observance can never be a substitute for righteousness. Here's the reading at Yom Kippur from Isaiah [57:6-8]
This is the fast I desire:
To unlock the fetters of wickedness,
And untie the cords of the yoke
To let the oppressed go free;
To break off every yoke.
It is to share your bread with the hungry,
And to take the wretched poor into your home;
When you see the naked, to clothe him,
I suggest John Gager's Reinventing Paul (Oxford press 2002) for an in depth discussion of how “Rejection – replacement,” the former reading of St. Paul, has been reinterpreted by a reading of dual paths to redemption. For the one it's faith-> righteousness-> salvation and the other observance -> righteousness-> salvation. Different beginnings with same endpoint.
Finally, please consider that in any relationship respect comes first. , as Alan and John wrote, we are nearing the end of our lives and have nothing to gain from doing otherwise. .
Be well, be safe.
Bob
* An essential reading here is Economic Justice for All: Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy 1986 United States Catholic Bishops.
In one of our phone conversations a year or two ago, I asked Noel what single recording he would take two a desert island. (For me it would be Louis and Ella.) Noel said, you might be surprised to hear for me it would be the St. Matthew Passion.
Allan M. Katz
God and America must be grateful for such a loyal defender. Lord knows they both need one these days.I'm sure it was annoying to sit behind Noel in history class. He wasn't the only one who could be a jerk at times. I sometimes cringe when I think about my intellectually arrogance and often thoughtless self in those days. I hope that the people whose feelings I hurt have either forgiven me by now or forgotten about it in the course over their own struggles and failures and triumphs in life.
Best wishes for good health and a sense of humor to our dwindling number of classmates.
Karl N. Stein
Re; Al Katz comment. It is good to read your words of reason. I remember walking home with you from Central to Logan. Those of use who are left should appreciate all the benefits we have received with humility, even the iconoclasts. Al please write to me and tell me have the adventure of life has treated you. Karl
Edward "Jeff" Ludwig
Here's a direct quote from Noel's book Race Traitor. Is this really a classmate who deserves a memorial page?
"Obviously, all whites need to be destroyed, but why not start with white males? They are behind most of history’s greatest atrocities. Besides, some of the brothers like to bang white women. Eventually white women can breed out, but my feeling is that if you are a white male, you should kill yourself now. If you are a thoughtful person, with a social consciousness who considers himself white, you will consider suicide. It’s the right thing to do." Wow!!
S. Marc Cohen
Although I don't endorse Noel's provocative rhetoric, I think it is important to understand what he was trying to say in the book from which Jeff Ludwig extracted one inflammatory paragraph. To take his words literally, as Jeff has done, is simplistic and misses the point. What Noel wanted to destroy was not the people who are labeled, by themselves or others, as white, but the label "white" as a signifier of a natural trait along with the privilege to which it has traditionally been attached.
Neil Genzlinger, in his New York Times obituary (11/14/2019), gets the point, and offers a more nuanced reading: "[A]s Dr. Ignatiev always felt compelled to point out, he was not advocating some sort of mass extermination, just a change in presumptions. 'There is youth culture and drug culture and queer culture; but there is no such thing as white culture', Dr. Ignatiev said at a 1997 conference at the University of California, Berkeley. 'Without the privileges attached to it, the white race would not exist, and white skin would have no more social significance than big feet'.
"When interviewers would ask why he, a white man, was seeming to argue for canceling his own race, he would rebel at the very label. 'That’s not a term I like to have applied to myself', he told CNN in 2002. 'I want to get rid of it, because I think that the price that it extracts from us is greater than the benefit it brings.'"
One may well disagree with Noel's beliefs, but he deserves the courtesy of having them conveyed accurately. One may feel uncomfortable with the way in which he chose to express those beliefs, but one should read his words as he intended them to be understood.
Kenneth Tyson
Noel never wrote a book called RACE TRAIT0R. That was review or little magazine he intermittently published. In it he reasons temperately with white racists, seeking to engage their fears and assuage their inflamed rage with what I found amazingly humane patience. So that is not Noel's rhetoric. I can't imagine where in RACE TRAITOR Jeff Ludwig found that vile passage he believes represents Noel's utterance and thought. Noel's book was called HOW THE IRISH BECAME WHITE, the book itself far more tepid than its catchy title, and the same goes for RACE TRAITOR. Noel believed in social admiration by the rational dismantling of biases based on a racialist falsity that fed fear, sustained distrust and justified structural oppression, abuse and hideously murderous lynchmob hysteria--the deadly blaming of the insanely miserable. As for "elimination of the white race," the latter Noel believed was an artifice, to reason with someone you have to seize their attention, often enough by artifice, to which Noel wasn't averse. He was averse to repression's cruely. Noel was averse to cultural sentimentality. He changed his surname to quite mysteriously, to me, to quite late in life please his father. I think Jeff Ludwig's still distressed by Noel smirking after getting an A from Sam Katz almost 65 years ago, pleased, proud and confident of his abilities, but also embarrassed by his own feelings, needing to share and dilute them, recognizing their ultimate meaninglessness in any big picture, by making of them a kind of burlesque. Getting A's was obviously not a wave Noel sought to ride in life. And now he is dead. I was B and C student. I envied those guys who could mock and joke about their own achievements, but I wasn't angry, didn't hate them, absorbed and enjoyed their joy, and enjoyed being at Central and in the 210. For me the agony was 2 busses, the subway at Roosevelt Boulevard, running that half mile or so downhill, then a half mile uphill, into the office for Mr. Christianson (is that right?) to my hall pass and fill out my late room assgnment card, so kindly about it all. You'd think I'd have done better in gym. Let's drop this. I miss so many of our classmates who've passed away, and hope the living stay as well as they may. Awfully impressed by their photos, careers, and grandchildren!David Drasin
I found Ken Tyson's contributon very moving, thank you for it.
John G. Hope
I appreciate this discussion because it forced me to think about it for several days and then decide I had something I needed to share. As has been eloquently pointed out already, Noel could use all sorts of means to get people to think, and he still is doing that today--witness our postings. That has to be the mark of a great teacher--not that people agree with him or her, but that they are encouraged to think for themselves.
Deciding whether someone deserves to be remembered on their passing seems to me to lead to a slippery slope. Who would decide the criteria and judge whether they had been met? We were all very different students at CHS and led very different lives following graduation. Some excelled in their careers and received public notice, some not so much. Some excelled in their communities and families, and some not so much. You get the picture. To me, we all deserve to be remembered for whoever we were simply because at one time, many years ago, we were Men of the '10.
I wish all my classmates peace, happiness, and good health in whatever state of lockdown you are experiencing right now. To the classmates who became Masons, know that Masonic Village in Elizabethtown, PA, is taking exceptional care of the 1,400 of us who are living here and we will forever be grateful to the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania and all the lodges across the state.
Be well.
Robert J. Karp (Robert Karp)
The correspondence following Noel's memorial has just appeared in my email. I won't follow with more on Noel as Dave, Ken, John,Alan and Marc have done his lifework justice.
Here's a note to Jeff:
Though Noel was as deeply committed as anyone could be for his own communist visions, he was also remarkably respectful of the personage of those with whom he disagreed. As for his lack of appreciation of the traditions which gave us, “the Jews,” a safety we could not have in Europe, he was conscious of the half caste privileges we shared with other “white folks.” For that, I too am a Race Traitor. Here are thoughts based on my own experience with Christian faith in action.
I spent the bulk ( 28 years) of my career as director of pediatric clinics in central Brooklyn. My community outreach program was based at The Holy Cross RC parish in east Flatbush. The love of Christ expressed there included commitments to social justice, which in the America context countered both racial and economic injustice.* They lived what St James called for, “By my deeds I will show you my faith.” [2:18].
“What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but not works? Can his faith save him? If a brother or sister is ill clad and in lack of daily food and one of you says, `Go in peace, be warmed and filled' without giving them the things needed for the body what does it profit? So faith by itself, if it has no deeds, is dead.” [2:15-17]
My reading of St Paul includes his insistance to go beyond a hollow faith. Rather, faith sets a path of righteousness which in combination with that faith leads to salvation. For the Jews, the parallel is that the exercise of ritual observance can never be a substitute for righteousness. Here's the reading at Yom Kippur from Isaiah [57:6-8]
This is the fast I desire:
To unlock the fetters of wickedness,
And untie the cords of the yoke
To let the oppressed go free;
To break off every yoke.
It is to share your bread with the hungry,
And to take the wretched poor into your home;
When you see the naked, to clothe him,
I suggest John Gager's Reinventing Paul (Oxford press 2002) for an in depth discussion of how “Rejection – replacement,” the former reading of St. Paul, has been reinterpreted by a reading of dual paths to redemption. For the one it's faith-> righteousness-> salvation and the other observance -> righteousness-> salvation. Different beginnings with same endpoint.
Finally, please consider that in any relationship respect comes first. , as Alan and John wrote, we are nearing the end of our lives and have nothing to gain from doing otherwise. .
Be well, be safe.
Bob
* An essential reading here is Economic Justice for All: Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy 1986 United States Catholic Bishops.
[http://www.usccb.org/upload/economic_justice_for_all.pdf
Allan M. Katz
In one of our phone conversations a year or two ago, I asked Noel what single recording he would take two a desert island. (For me it would be Louis and Ella.) Noel said, you might be surprised to hear for me it would be the St. Matthew Passion.Edward "Jeff" Ludwig
“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, but lose his soul?" -Mark 8:36”