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BOOK REVIEW    LLORENS

Invisible Man). But Mr. Murray, of course, fails to deal with the system.

It is no secret that those black writers whose works are most often maligned are engaged in defining a system (a system which produced, among other things, Murray), and it is no less true that one’s ability to define this nation’s (racist) system is necessarily dependent upon one’s ability to define his own role relative to the system. Proponents of Black Arts movements might impulsively dismiss Murray as an Uncle Tom; but to do so is to miss the point. Rather, one must consider his background-graduate of “name” schools, retired Air Force Major, consultant to the United States Information Agency-and endeavor to understand why, in the name of Art and Truth, he neglected to deal with the system.

A black man, of obviously gifted mind, reduced to writing intellectual nonsense reveals a condition-one that prevails in and out of the arts-that reflects more about the black experience in America than any dozen militant essays. To neglect the importance of Murray’s essay is to insure more of the same for generations to come.

In one moving passage from his contribution, “The Wonderful World of Law and Order,” it is almost as though Ossie Davis is responding to the entire Murray effort: “The Negro in this country has to write protest, because he is a protestant. He can’t help but be. He cannot accept the situation in which he finds himself, so therefore, he is driven to scream out against the oppression that surrounds him, that suffocates him.”

All of the essays deserve mention, as does the stimulation symposium on the works of Richard Wright. This nation can ill afford to ignore the writing of men who, as Hill states in his introduction, are “dealing with the absurdities and terrors of the white man’s condition and at the same time they are telling the truth about Negroes, the most important truth that white America needs to know”-and we would add, accept! But, alas, these essays contain profound messages for black Americans as well-or must the poet alone aspire?

David Llorens

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