To the editors:
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I’m not sure which I found more distressing, Bill Wyman’s account of the homophobia and anti-Semitism that have characterized Public Enemy’s career, or his blase attitude toward these views [“Bringing the noise: Public Enemy on the front lines,” August 31]. Mr. Wyman proposes that because the group’s former “minister of information,” Professor Griff, has been the recipient of racist oppression, his bigotry should be taken less seriously. Because Germany after WWI was the victim of economic oppression, should the Nazis’ anti- Semitism arouse less disdain? It is important to understand the sources of racism and bigotry, but it is equally crucial to reject them in every form.
Stephen Paffrath
I don’t think that calling Professor Griff an “anti-Semitic dickhead” qualifies as being “blase”; and I didn’t make only a passing mention of the band’s homophobia: I said Chuck was an idiot on the subject and called the song “Meet the G That Killed Me” ugly. And saying that anti-Semitism has “characterized Public Enemy’s career” is the sort of irresponsible inflation of the band’s crimes that has rendered so many of the band’s critics untrustworthy.
