Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers
Cover of the first edition
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| Author | Tom Wolfe |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | New Journalism |
| Publisher | Farrar, Straus & Giroux |
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Publication date
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1970 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 153 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 219920390 |
Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers is a 1970 book by Tom Wolfe. The book, Wolfe's fourth, is composed of two articles by Wolfe, "These Radical Chic Evenings," first published in June 1970 in New York magazine, about a gathering Leonard Bernstein held for the Black Panther Party and "Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers," about the response of many minorities to San Francisco's poverty programs. Both essays looked at the conflict between black rage and white guilt.
The first piece is set in the duplex on Park Avenue in Manhattan inhabited by conductor Leonard Bernstein, his wife the actress Felicia Cohn Montealegre, and their three children. Bernstein assembled many of his wealthy socialite friends to meet with representatives of the controversial Black Panthers and discuss ways to help their cause. The party was a typical affair for Bernstein, a longtime Democrat, who was known for hosting civil rights leaders at such parties.
The Bernsteins' usual staff of white South Americans served the party. Some of the Bernsteins' typical friends in the arts and guests in journalism (including Oscar-nominated director Otto Preminger and television reporter Barbara Walters) are labeled the "radical chic," as Wolfe characterizes them as pursuing radical ends for social reasons, partially because organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People had become too mainstream. Wolfe's criticism is implicitly of the general phenomena of white guilt and armchair agitation becoming facets of high fashion.
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