Comments on: US Honors Communist With Postage Stamp

By: Paul

Paul — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 22:37:03 +0000

Ummmm, the majority of you who are writing in opposition to Mr. Wright are most likely WHITE because until you have grown up as a person of color, you will NEVER understand what it is to grow up poor (not to say there aren’t any poor white folks) and black. As a hispanic who grew up poor in the ghetto in the 80s, I also at one time embraced leftist politics (even liberation theology!) and even looked into socialism for a long time and researched it and found it to be very appealing… until I started researching some more and then lost interest in the ideology when I realized it was just as oppressive as the “rightist” politics I was criticizing. At that time, I found the Republican Party to be anti-poor and anti black, so clearly, I felt I had to embrace some alternative political ideologies because the ones currently in power (the status quo) wasn’t fulfilling my needs and didn’t offer me anything useful, as I saw the right as being greedy and racist (at that time). I no longer am socialist but am a moderate liberal, yet why should my past be used against me if I, at one time, was searching for truth and learning? Mr. Wright felt an attraction to the Communist Party at a time when the parties of his own country weren’t doing much for Civil Rights and what they saw as “institutionalized racism”, which was deeply entrenched and he probably felt the country needed more than a “bandaid” solution to the problems of racism and needed a more radical approach to obtaining justice in this country. I mean, come on…. the article even suggests that he was an America hating-commie. Wouldn’t you be also if you were being lynched left and right and you had no civil rights and your people were subjected to a miserable existence? Not to mention, you are BLACK? Put his past into perspective and in the context of the time he was living.

By: roy

roy — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 03:51:53 +0000

The problem is…why should the United States pay special honor to someone who often voiced hatred for our country? If he wrote some good stuff, that’s nice. Let his fan club honor him…not the nation that he hated

By: mikearama

mikearama — Sun, 10 May 2009 15:14:15 +0000

It’s okay you guys on the Right. I’m sure you’ll get Benito Mussolini and Dick Cheney stamps soon enough and you can relax. Be careful reading Richard Wright will instantly brainwash you into becoming a Marxist Leninist and vote for gay marriage. SAVE yourselves, don’t READ anything… let Rush tell you how to think…

By: Johann

Johann — Sun, 03 May 2009 09:12:57 +0000

I wanted to contribute something here, until I read further and saw the Great Frank’s response. I cannot better that. All I can do is laugh.

And wonder why the blind will never see and the idiots never awaken…

By: U.S. Post Office Honors Communist With Stamp « rjjrdq’s America

U.S. Post Office Honors Communist With Stamp « rjjrdq’s America — Sun, 03 May 2009 06:06:40 +0000

[...] some may believe just that about this guy. The U.S. Post Office has issued a stamp honoring Richard Wright, a communist party member. Your tax dollars at work. What this guy did to contribute to Americana [...]

By: The Great Frank

The Great Frank — Sun, 03 May 2009 03:15:40 +0000

Yes, Hemmingway was a “whore” for the Bolsheviki in the Spanish Civil War. He was given “special treatment” by the Bolsheviki. In the words of your god Lenin, “a useful idiot of the West”. So, again you rationalize someone supporting Bolshevism. After all, “he was a great writer”! George Orwell who saw through the sham of the Spanish Civil War and crimes of the Bolsheviki, hated Hemmingway for his being an ideological lackey and political running dog of Stalin! Get your facts straight, useful idiots!

By: The Great Frank

The Great Frank — Sun, 03 May 2009 03:10:00 +0000

Wow!! These leftists will rationalize anything to defend someone who was part of an inhumane and murderous ideology! Oh, okay, so communism murdered and oppressed people based on class and ideology, that’s okay? Can you morons in anyway compare what happened to blacks in the US to ALL the different groups that the Bolsheviki murdered in the tens of MILLIONS? Start with between ten and twenty million Ukranians and then work your way forward. Here he was so concerned about “civil rights” that this phony racist of colour was part of, like King and Robeson, the oppressive ideology of Bolshevism. They turned a “black eye” (no pun intended) to the crimes of Bolshevism? NO! And they admired Stalin! What hypocricsy! Lindberg was an admirer of Hitler. BUT he then flew combat missions for the US in WW2. And HE renounced National Socialism.Still, some don’t forgive nor rationalize this. Like Philip Roth, whose paranoid novel about Lindberg becoming Pres. instead of Roosevelt and “oppressing Jews”. When someone is “tainted” on the Right, the left NEVER rationalizes, do they? I don’t fall for this crap that you wrote,and neither do the listeners of TRP!

By: Lamont Cranston

Lamont Cranston — Sat, 02 May 2009 20:35:10 +0000

They can’t help being leftists. They were victims of a white-based anti-people of color power structure which penalized black people and only gave white people the privelege which exists up to the present day.

By: Dan R.

Dan R. — Sat, 02 May 2009 20:11:27 +0000

I think it’s only fair to note that Richard Wright contributed an essay to the acclaimed anti-communist book “The God That Failed” (published in 1954 and edited by Richard Crossman), where he wrote critically of his experience in the Communist Party. Despite that, it’s apparently also true that Wright remained a leftist through the end of his life (he died in 1960). In other words, the case against Wright is not strengthened by emphasizing his relationship with the U.S. Communist Party, a group which he ultimately rejected. Finally, on Wikipedia it’s stated that Wright DID disapprove of the Soviet purges. No doubt further investigation is needed on that point.

By: David Hinz

David Hinz — Sat, 02 May 2009 18:48:26 +0000

The problem is that everyone recognizes Native Son as a literary classic — and so it is difficult to make the case against his ideology. After all, if memory serves me correctly, Earnest Hemingway supported Communism — at least until his later years.