"Negroes Are Anti-Semitic Because They're Anti-White" was a landmark 1967 essay written by American writer James Baldwin that first appeared in the Sunday magazine edition of The New York Times, describing the tensions that existed in African American–Jewish relations.
Baldwin begins the essay by noting that he grew up in Harlem and resented the economic exploitation of the "demoralizing series of landlords", grocers, police officers, and pawnshop owners who were Jewish.
Baldwin writes that if "the Jew" feels "singled out by Negroes" it is "not because he acts differently from other white men, but because he doesn’t... And he is playing in Harlem the role assigned him by Christians long ago: he is doing their dirty work.
"[2] Baldwin argues that while Jews and Black people could have been allies, the white Jewish complicity in racism prevented this.
Johnson and Berlinerblau critique the essay for ignoring the fact that the "majority of world Jewry is non-white", for instance making no mention of Black Jews in Harlem that Baldwin could have seen at time of publication.