I am clearly stating that my purpose is to debunk the falsehoods regarding my father, not to portray him or Obama as saints, but my own reputation is hardly an issue. I have already received the highest security clearances of the United States Government before I retired in 1993 after 24 years of service. I only seek the truth, which is the reason I invite anyone to refute the specific misrepresentation I have identified. Thanks again!

“Have patience awhile; slanders are not long-lived. Truth is the child of
time; erelong she shall appear to vindicate thee.”
– Immanuel Kant

I approved this reply because I think it is a model of misdirection in order to deceive and manipulate. Your purpose is to scrub your father’s reputation and thereby your own.

Cynthia

Frank Marshall Davis rejected collectivism. He was a capitalist. He owned two paper companies, and sold advertising specialties, in Hawaii. He joined the CPUSA because of the professional and social opportunities it presented. He joined the CPUSA during WWII, just as the United States joined the Soviet Union during WWII, not because they shared the delusion of a communist utopia. Each was a marriage of convenience. He joined because membership had its privileges, such as professional and social opportunities. He considered membership in the CPUSA as a “vehicle and tool” because, according to “The New Red Negro” (cited by AIM’s Cliff Kincaid as a source):

“ONLY the Communist left had any significant institutional impact on African-American writing during the 1930s and 1940s. This support was crucial as the institutions that had maintained the New Negro Renaissance faded. And for better or for worse, the leading CPUSA functionaries involved in “Negro work” took a direct interest in African-American cultural production in a manner that was unusual, if not unique.

Vilifying a writer for continuing to publish in CPUSA-supported publications, when they provided his only significant institutional support, is completely unfair. Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, and Frank Marshall Davis all took advantage of this institutional support.

Further, as The New Red Negro makes clear, there was no monolithic Stalinist doctrine within the CPUSA: “This is not to say that the impact of the Communist Left on African-American writers in the 1930′s and 1940′s flowed from absolute unity of ideology and practical application of that ideology. As mentioned before, the CPUSA itself, despite the claims of both the party leadership and its most ardent detractors, contained various, often conflicting tendencies. This conflicts appeared within top leadership, where Earl Browder and William Z. Foster and their supporters were frequently at odds. They also surfaced in the regional leadership of important districts that were occasionally, and in the case of southern California frequently, in opposition to the national leadership. Finally, at the rank-and-file level, when leadership debates broke out into the open (as they did in 1929, 1956-1946, and 1956), the were replayed in almost every CPUSA unit, often serving as the vehicle for the expression of a wide range of “unorthodox” political beliefs (ranging from social democratic to anarcho-syndicalist.”

“A huge proportion of African-American poets (and writers and intellectuals generally) remained engaged with the Communist Left and cultural institutions from at least the early 1930′s until at least the early 1950′s. With the partial exception of the period from the German invasion of the Soviet Union to the end of the Second World War, the CPUSA placed the issue of race and the fight against Jim Crow near the center of all its work.”

The bottom line is that communist ties were the NORM for African American poets and civil right activists during that period. Such ties did not mean that they internalized Marxist values, much less Stalinist values, even if they were aware of the distinction. To them, the CPUSA provided safe harbor from the ravages of Jim Crow America.

For those who question whether anyone would join the CPUSA without internalizing collectivist values, examples abound in more recent developments. Russians and Chinese joined their respective Communist parties because membership was important to professional advancement. Mikhail Gorbachev rejected these values in dismantling the Soviet Union. Leaders of the PRC’s capitalist boom are nevertheless pro forma Party members.

Even today people join some organizations, such as churches and the YMCA, without internalizing their core values because membership has its advantages. I believe everyone will agree that many so-called “Christians” have not internalized Christian values. Some could argue that Stalinism perverted the core values of Marxism, just as the Spanish Inquisition and pedophile priests perverted the core values of Christianity.

Thank you for keeping an open mind and objectively evaluating the evidence, rather than accepting the deliberate misrepresentation regarding my father spread by professional prevaricators of the blogosphere.

Edgar Tidwell, whom AIM’s Cliff Kincaid cites as “an expert on the life and writings of Davis,” dismisses misrepresentation of Davis’s influence in one simple paragraph:

“Although my research indicates that Davis joined the CPUSA as a “closet member” during World War II, there is no evidence that he was a Stalinist, or even a Party member before WWII. Further, to those attempting to make the specious stand for the concrete, there is no evidence that he instructed Barack Obama in communist ideology. Frank Marshall Davis did NOT believe in overthrowing the USA. He was committed to what the nation professed to be. For him, communism was primarily an intellectual vehicle to achieve a political end-a possible tool for gaining the constitutional freedoms of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for ALL Americans.”

BTW: Paul Kengor is an unreliable source regarding my father. There is irrefutable proof that he fabricated evidence regarding the 1949 Honolulu NAACP incident based on the Congressional testimony of rookie NAACP board member Edward Berman. He exaggerated Berman’s criticism, then falsely attributed this criticism to the NAACP’s Roy Wilkins. Berman’s testimony was conveniently posted by Cliff Kincaid as Exhibit 4A at http://www.usasurvival.org/docs/hawaii-obama.pdf

Kengor’s fabrication is just one of four debunked fabrications based on Berman’ testimony. Each has been thoroughly analyzed, with supporting links, at http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/Kaleokualoha/gG5kN7

Note the following from Paul Kengor’s article in American Thinker, 10/30/2008, linked in my post:

Davis, who is now deceased, was an African American from the Midwest who had worked as a columnist for the Chicago Star, the communist newspaper of Chicago, a city that had one of the largest CPUSA affiliates, and, in fact, hosted the September 1919 convention that launched the American Communist Party. Though Davis always tried to conceal any communist associations — ironically, Obama supporters have picked up that torch — there’s no question that Davis was a communist, as is immediately evident upon reading his columns, examining his background, or consulting with people in the party (to this day) who confirm he was a communist. The fact that he was at least a lower case “c” “communist” is obvious. It takes a little more digging to find evidence of his membership in CPUSA — but not much. Among the sources that reveal his membership are Davis himself, notably in a letter he wrote to a friend, published posthumously by his biographer, Professor John Edgar Tidwell. “I have recently joined the Communist party,” wrote Davis.

In 1948, Davis just happened to arrive in Hawaii the same time that leaders of the Communist Party in Hawaii — realizing the limits of national party organs like the Daily Worker and People’s Daily World — established their own weekly newspaper, the Honolulu Record. In 1949, Davis began writing a regular column for the Record, titled, “Frankly Speaking.” This was a key form of agitation work that Davis would do for the party in Hawaii for decades.

Cynthia

Or are you privy to some heretofore undisclosed information?

The message of Frank Marshall Davis’s sexual perversions and advocacy of Communism was thoroughly addressed. Since he is your father, you just don’t like it.

Cynthia

[QUOTE]
Comment by Sdferr on 4/3 @ 11:07 pm #

I just looked back at neo’s post and see that she only just now checked Mark’s links and learned that he’s Davis’ son (and that only after he finally proclaimed on her blog that Frank was his dad). So she’s been disputing right along without being aware who she’s up against.
[END QUOTE]

Now how about addressing the message instead of the messenger, if that doesn’t intrude too deeply into your fantasyland?

Cynthia