I saw Don Warden in Action

Submitted by Ted Gruen (United States), Oct 27, 2008 at 12:22

Fascinated by the pompous, even condescending title of a "forum" called "The Black Man Speaks" that was sponsored & well-publicized by the white-dominated American Socialist Party at UC Berkeley some time in the late 1960's, I decided to attend for laughs, but wound up not even smiling.

A couple of party hacks got up to babble briefly, but it was the menacing, nasty Don Warden, "San Francisco community organizer", whom I recall by name at all. "First of all," he began quietly with a look of loathing on his face, "I find it repellent that I see any WHITE faces here. And I find it absolutely disgusting that there are any JEWS in the audience."

He then allowed as how he would nonetheless deign to continue his remarks "out of respect for his black brothers" in attendance, none of whom said a word in opposition to his racist cant. I judged the depth of his understanding of the world by the fact that his only voiced complaint about Jews was that certain black musical recording artists in Chicago, according to him, had been ruthlessly exploited by Jewish producers. Anyone who had any trouble with what he had to say that day, he ultimately told the mixed audience, could come "talk it over" with him back in "his" neighborhood across the Bay in San Francisco.

The audience chuckled, whether out of sympathy with the implied threat or out of incredulity that he might seriously expect, say, any white Jew in the audience to walk into the violence he so very obviously was implying. A couple of white guys remonstrated with him oh so politely and briefly afterward, but he just walked away with a smug sneer.

The next time I even heard of this despicable character was last month in the in DanielPipes.org newsletter while reading about "Khalid Mansur", as he later decided to style himself after he became a darling of the Saudis.

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