LETTERS, CROUCH GETS LETTERS: Stanley Crouch opens his mailbag and finds some criticism of a recent column where he pointed out that Alex Haley's "Roots" was a fraud. Crouch wades in with his usual fearlessness:

"The basic idea of those doing the scolding is that it is my duty as a black writer to speak only well of the Negro. I should never engage in "doing the white man's work" by "tearing down" other Afro-Americans. To do otherwise is only to curry favor from "that old pale thing," as Malcolm X described the white man. I don't buy any of that. I do have a duty, but it is not to somebody's skin color, regardless of what they do."

And Crouch, as he has done so many times before, debunks the silly genuflecting before Africa that has been a corrosive element of African-American thought for more than three decades:

"I would say the book and miniseries helped the pointless Afro-American romance with Africa — a romance that lets Africans off the hook. This has been consistent for about 30 years, but it seems to be abating finally in the face of the truth that Africans were not a bunch of noble savages overrun by the demon white man, but were indispensable to the success of the slave trade. And they still sell slaves."

Crouch also returns to one of his constant themes: the recognition that African-Americans are not African, but quintessentially American. Indeed, despite coming here as slaves beginning 300 years ago, they have contributed much to our elusive American identity, both in concrete achievements and in the more silent and unseen ways of culture:

"The reality that should be made clear to those who still want to bow down before "the motherland" is harsh but true: Given our having grown up in — and helped create! — a very sophisticated society, and given the fact that, as of now, American Negroes are the most remarkable black people in the world, we have much, much more to offer Africans than they have to offer us."