For the record, Paul Robeson was a favorite son of Rutgers (my grad school) and a poster was put up in the faculty lounge promoting some or other Robeson-named event. There was an angry remark written on the poster regarding Robeson's activities. Probably written by a student of one of Rutgers' more prominent professors who is very active in human rights, is Jewish and escaped a particularly unpleasant version of Communist oppression.
to the Right towards fascism and Nazism.
BTW, I will argue with this characterization, not so much with the first, but with the last. Hitler's nationalism was important, but he infused it with run-of-the-mill leftist socialism. But I won't argue the point further.
What made Robeson different, what singled him out, was that he was a black man protesting against white domination.
OK, that too. The point was, his political bent has served as part of the marketing of his legacy (posthumously and without his active participation, of course).
and by the way, what was so great about Lindberg?
Well, he risked his life making the trans-Atlantic trip and he had done something no one else had done. That's what history remembers. Now if Robeson were the first person to put words to music . . .
I don't dispute that Lindberg should be celebrated for his talents. I say Robeson should be treated in the same way. What's wrong is that you want Lindberg's talents celebrated despite his politics, while insisting that Robeson's be denigrated because of his politics.
Why is that?
Both Lindberg and Robeson faced real problems. Both proposed solutions which proved to be fatally flawed - had either triumphed the problems they adressed would not have been solved and America would have been mortally wounded if not destroyed.
So why are you willing to forgive Lindberg but not Robeson?