Otto Rene Castillo: "Apolitical Intellectuals"

As a writer, I've had an office at home for years. It started out as an electric typewriter on a desk in my thirties, became a computer in my fifties, and a separate room in my apartment in my sixties. Now, I'm in the process of organizing that room to take on the appearance, efficiency, and feel of the hub I want to see Louisiana Network for Criminal Justice Transformation become.

For those of you who don't already know, I'm stepping down from my full-time position at the university on August 1st to dedicate the rest of my life to prison abolition. So I'm transforming the office that has been until now a center of creative womanist energy – fighting oppression as I have always done – to reflect the more honed focus I have developed in the past year.

Initially, I removed things: books, personal items, and random clutter unrelated to criminal justice transformation, collected over time and in the way of progress and practicality. I added a printer/scanner/copier and a shredder. And I will soon remove some of the art on the walls, replacing it with LA-NCJT documents and such.

Yesterday, as I continued the process while wading my way through six weeks of largely unanswered LA-NCJT mail, I came across a copy of the following poem by Otto Rene Castillo. Castillo was the Chief of Propaganda and Education for the Rebel Armed Forces in the mountains of Guatemala when he was captured in 1967 by representatives of the right-wing government installed by the U.S./CIA in his country thirteen years before. He was thirty-three years old when he was captured, interrogated, tortured, and burned alive.

When I organized a conference in Havana, Cuba, in 2017 for 300 radical sociologists from fifteen countries, I carried this poem in my heart. It seems appropos to re-post and re-center it again in this dark time with one additional note.

It won't be just the apolitical intellectuals who will be interrogated after this. It will be the anti-stay-at-home folks that have been encouraged by those at the top to pick up their weapons and create drama in public, calling it "freedom." It will be the die-hard ministers gathering their "flocks" to die and go to Heaven. It will be the ones who had the money to order Waitr and the health insurance to buy three months of their prescriptions at once.  It will be the birthday party revellers, the beach goers, yes, even the Netflix binge-watchers, who have hooked themselves up to the simultaneous intravenous drips of mind-numbing drugs and mind-numbing programming, which in fact has already been programming them for years. It will be everyone who let themselves be distracted from the suffering by the circus, who rode Instagram and Reddit while riding the lemmings off the cliff, who thought nothing could be done and so did nothing.

The COVID-19 pandemic is going to change human existence from this point forward. But in the struggle to survive, many are ignoring to one extent or another the creeping onslaught and entrenchment of right wing fascism in this country, dragging White Supremacy, misogyny, and religious fanaticism with it, like the four horseman of a long-awaited apocalypse. The amused smirks of so many when that word is used suggest that much of the population of the United States is still just comfortable enough to ignore the fact that (Netflix be damned) life is not a movie. It will not play to the credits in two hours with snacks. And the revolution will – this time – be televised.

19 Lines: A Poem From Inside Angola

19 Lines

by Melvin Hassan Thornton

I inhale and I exhale

deep breaths of life,

each one refreshing the lungs.

Much work to be done; much life to live.

Still so much more to give. This is not the end.

Step on the scene, face to face with COVID-19;

staring in its heartless eyes, I stand firm.

Unflinching, unyielding, unafraid but angry.

I breathe deep, fighting on the ropes –

a bit overwhelmed but resilient. I don't fold.

Cowardly, Officious, Vicious, Insidious and Deadly 19,

you shall be defeated. We don't retreat.

We step up to the challenge.

Kill if you will but you have more to fight.

Those who survive will shine their lights.

I inhale then I exhale.

I take in the good and exhale the bad.

And therefore, Mr. Virus, I'm doing fine.

Sincerely yours, these 19 lines.

The Universal and Unending Question

I spent most of yesterday trying to scale a small mountain of mail that had piled up in the month of December while I closed out my next-to-the-last semester I will ever teach full-time and organized the production and mailing of the first newsletter for the Louisiana Network for Criminal Justice Transformation. There were issues inside and outside the walls that had to be addressed during the month, of course, but overall, the mail still sat and then piled up, along with emails, especially after the newsletter went into Angola.

Some of the mail contained submissions for a theater production on solitary confinement we're going to put together to be performed on our campus in the spring. Essays, discussions, and poems were acknowledged and filed for later compilation and development of the project, but occasionally I would just have to read one. Which is how I came across the poem I'm publishing today. It reminds each of us -- no matter where we are, no matter what we have been through or what we may have to face in this coming new year -- that we continually evolve and have the option to consider who we are and who we want to be.

Marilyn Buck: "Black August"

On August 19th last year, I was in Washington, D.C., across the street from the White House with hundreds of other people from all over the country marching, chanting, speaking, and hanging out in support of the incarcerated people of America. Called the Millions for Prisoners Human Rights March, it had been planned for more than a year and inspired similar marches and demonstrations across the United States that weekend.

I got to catch up with other prison abolitionists I know well but don't see often. I got to meet formerly incarcerated leaders in the struggle, some of whom had been heroes of mine for a long time. And I got to connect face-to-face with some wonderful and dedicated younger people committed to prison abolition going into the future. I had already been to both Cuba and Montreal that summer and had just begun a new semester of teaching, so I was beyond exhausted. But I felt strongly that I needed to be there, needed to say my piece, needed to represent those I knew that are gone now, needed to renew my vow, as it were, to fight till I can't no more.

I knew I would only have five minutes. So I read a rant I wrote in the 1970s and then a poem by Marxist revolutionary Marilyn Buck who spent decades as a political prisoner before she was released in 2010, less than a month before she died of cancer. Comrade Marilyn went to prison in the first place at least partly for her role in helping to spring Assata Shakur from prison in 1979. Thirty years later, her poem "Black August" appeared in Issue 13 of 4StruggleMag, a publication featuring the written work of political prisoners.

I am posting it here in memory of Comrade Marilyn, to look back for a moment to the Millions for Prisoners Human Rights March last year, and to honor those who live or have died in the struggle to set themselves and others free. May those who are striking inside the walls across this country right now feel the love and the solidarity out here that is focused on them. And may we never forget that nobody's free until everybody's free.

"Black August"
by Marilyn Buck

Would you hang on a cliff's edge

sword-sharp, slashing fingers
while jackboot screws stomp heels
on peeled-flesh bones
and laugh
"let go! die, damn you, die!"
could you hang on
20 years, 30 years?

20 years, 30 years and more
brave Black brothers buried
in US koncentration kamps
they hang on
Black light shining in torture chambers
Ruchell, Yogi, Sundiata, Sekou,
Warren, Chip, Seth, Herman, Jalil,
and more and more
they resist: Black August.

Nat Turner insurrection chief executed: Black August
Jonathan, George dead in battle's light: Black August
Fred Hampton, Black Panthers, African Brotherhood murdered:
Black August
Kuwasi Balagoon, Nuh Abdul Quyyam captured warriors dead:
Black August
Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Ella Baker, Ida B. Wells
Queen Mother Moore -- their last breaths drawn fighting death:
Black August

Black August: watchword
for Black liberation for human liberation
sword to sever the shackles

light to lead children of every nation to safety
Black August remembrance
resist the Amerikkan nightmare
for life

__________________________________________________________

NOTE: The photo at the top is of me at last year's march with my close friends Robert King and Albert Woodfox, two of the Angola 3. The photo at the bottom is of Marilyn Buck and co-defendant Mutulu Shakur in the early 1980s.

Lesle' Honore': "We Already Made America Great"

"We Already Made America Great"
by Lesle' Honore'

on our backs
with our blood
on our souls
with our hands
on our shoulders
with our strength
with our tears
with our ancestors
and our legacies
on our hopes
with our will
on our prayers
with our courage
on our screams
with your lash
on our scars
on our lives
with our might
with our genius
with our light
with our magic
in spite of your hate
the children of slaves
have already made america great
______________________________________________________
NOTE: This poem is from Fist & Fire: Poems That Inspire Action and Ignite Passion by Lesle' Honore' (2017).

Last Week In Alabama

If you haven't been hiding in a cave somewhere, you know that two middle-aged White male politicians had a scuffle last Tuesday in Alabama and, inexplicably, the one who isn't a known pedophile won. Not by much, I must hasten to add, but won, nonetheless.

Interestingly enough, the winner also distinguished himself once by successfully prosecuting two KKK members for the bombing deaths of four little girls in the 16th St. Baptist Church in Birmingham back in the day. While his opponent shot himself in all his feet making remarks about slavery that he would have done better to keep to himself.

Anyway, Lesle' Honore' (see photo above) wrote this poem the day after the election, giving props to the voters in Alabama who carried the day. Lest you have any doubt, I'm providing the statistics at the bottom of this post. Hopefully, they will give us all pause. What this exercise in political will demonstrates rather clearly is that whenever solidarity hooks up with action, anything can happen.

Staceyann Chin: "All Oppression Is Connected"

Muhammad Ali Recites A Poem For The Ages

This was part of an interview with Muhammad Ali on Cathal O'Shannon's television show in Ireland back in the day. The poem he recites (which is about the uprising at Attica Prison in New York in 1971) is beautiful and moving and I've never even heard it mentioned before today.

Notice how, after his recitation, The Champ took the opportunity to make clear that, while we have our own particular nightmares, the struggle for freedom crosses all boundaries. As a leader in the army of Black resistance, he was one of the first in the world (on any side) to publicly acknowledge this, catching hell from some for it and confusing others.

Many are only just now beginning to embrace this truth. Our situations are not the same, but we will never win without supporting each other fully in our struggles. In order to offer full support, we have to respect each other. And respect -- then -- gets respect. Black people are much better at this than White people are, by the way.

What constitutes respect? Well, Black Americans are still waiting for White folks to see them as whole human beings and full citizens in the land of their birth. Once that happens, a lot of other stuff is going to take care of itself. What gets in the way? White folks thinking that nobody deserves that but them. Sigh.

Langston Hughes: Kids Who Die

Kids Who Die
by Langston Hughes

This is for the kids who die,
Black and white,
For kids will die certainly.
The old and rich will live on awhile,
As always,
Eating blood and gold,
Letting kids die.

Kids will die in the swamps of Mississippi
Organizing sharecroppers
Kids will die in the streets of Chicago
Organizing workers
Kids will die in the orange groves of California
Telling others to get together
Whites and Filipinos,
Negroes and Mexicans,
All kinds of kids will die
Who don’t believe in lies, and bribes, and contentment
And a lousy peace.

Of course, the wise and the learned
Who pen editorials in the papers,
And the gentlemen with Dr. in front of their names
White and black,
Who make surveys and write books
Will live on weaving words to smother the kids who die,
And the sleazy courts,
And the bribe-reaching police,
And the blood-loving generals,
And the money-loving preachers
Will all raise their hands against the kids who die,
Beating them with laws and clubs and bayonets and bullets
To frighten the people—
For the kids who die are like iron in the blood of the people—
And the old and rich don’t want the people
To taste the iron of the kids who die,
Don’t want the people to get wise to their own power,
To believe an Angelo Herndon, or even get together

Listen, kids who die—
Maybe, now, there will be no monument for you
Except in our hearts
Maybe your bodies’ll be lost in a swamp
Or a prison grave, or the potter’s field,
Or the rivers where you’re drowned like Leibknecht
But the day will come—
Your are sure yourselves that it is coming—
When the marching feet of the masses
Will raise for you a living monument of love,
And joy, and laughter,
And black hands and white hands clasped as one,
And a song that reaches the sky—
The song of the life triumphant
Through the kids who die.

"American Grace" by Rick Nagin

Remember those who grew this food
Who picked and packed
Who shipped and sold.
Bronze rainbow arms
Have set this food upon our table.

Remember those who built this house
Assembled, weaved, created
Light and warmth and health.

Remember those who fought and died
To break the king’s command, the slaver’s yoke
And slay the Nazi beast.

Remember those who walked in darkness
Eyes on the gourd and the Trail of Tears,
Marching in Selma, martyred in Memphis

They can’t kill the dream, Jesús y Maria,
Che on his cross in the Andean highlands
Shot in the stadium, pushed from the airplane
Martyrs for freedom
And America.

Never forget
Our ancient foe
His craft and power,
His cruel hate
His endless thirst
Through blood and oil
For profit, profit
Uber alles.

Remember those whose songs of love
Restore us still
Pablo, Diego, Woody and Giant Paul
Mus’ keep on fightin’, Comrades all

Remember those who grew this food
Who mined and forged
Who sang and loved
Who fought and died
Who made all wealth

All honor and glory,
All power and peace
Be unto you
Be unto you.
_________________________________________________

NOTE: This poem/prayer was originally published in People's Weekly World in March 2006. Updated Nov. 23, 2010 and Nov. 23, 2011. Learn more about Rick Nagin here

Charlotte O'Neal: The Red Cockatoo Feathers

I was cruising the blogosphere the last couple of days on a journey of discovery. If you slide down my blogroll, you'll find a number of interesting new options to look into, as well as a couple of new items on my "Some Basics" list.

I am always reassured when I take the time to look around that life is yet thriving gloriously. And as a way to celebrate the beauty that is all around us in spite of the Dark Forces that seem to lay wait around every corner, I'm posting the YouTube video below of Charlotte O'Neal, a Black Panther activist who, with her husband, Pete, moved to Tanzania in 1972, where they have become deeply enmeshed in the life of the community. People from the United States visit them regularly to learn and grow in their understanding of what is possible and what is important. In addition, Charlotte, called by many "Mama C", writes, sings, and performs on occasional tours in the U.S.

This video shows Mama C reading her piece, "The Red Cockatoo Feathers" at the 14th Annual International Poetry Africa Festival in Durban, South Africa, last October. I found it on the website of The Liberator Magazine. Enjoy.

Speaking Truth to Power

According to the Roman calendar, this is the first day of a new year. A fresh start. A day to shake off the excesses of the night before and the successes or heartbreaks of the previous 365 days to move forward, hopefully upward, in the struggle to survive as individuals and as a human race. It is not a mistake that I am here at the computer at this moment on this morning. It is a commitment to myself. And to you. And to all those deep in the dungeons of the Powers-That-Be. Whether those dungeons be in buildings or camps, in our minds or in shallow mass graves.

I'll spend the rest of this week, I promise, writing about people who make a difference because they have decided to do what they can wherever they are with whatever they have. This is an unapologetic attempt to encourage, to inspire, and to strengthen as we face what lies ahead, I'll admit. God knows, I need it. And if you're reading this blog on a regular basis, I suspect you need it, as well. Not everybody finds what I write edifying.

Still, on Christmas eve, I looked into my bathroom mirror and said to myself out loud (hey, I live alone, I can do this stuff) "I am going to do whatever makes me happy every day for the rest of my life. And that's my Christmas present to me."

Vision on February 2010

A young man I know, who has taught me much in the last couple of years as he sought, himself, to learn, wrote this recently and gave me permission to post it here. As Arundahti Roy suggests, "Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."

~~Vision on February 2010~~

by Gregory Esteven

Memory is the mortar which binds us to time,
Like red bricks in columns stretching up to the sky.
Memory is heavier than air, water or any other element.
And yet, it is as elusive as a vapor.
We wade through it, as old hunters
Wade through water and mist out in canoes past Manchac,
Traversing the mystery of the Louisiana wetlands,
Spanish moss tickling the tops of their heads.

I hear an old Johnny Cash song playing in the distance
While I sit in the window of my apartment.
“Get rhythm when you get the blues,” he sings.
What advice!
Well, maybe we should take it.
It’s not over yet.
We can make the revolution now.
Memory and the past weigh down on us
Like heavy, stinking swamp mud.
But in every human being,
Increasingly—more and more!—
I perceive a beam of light, as if coming from the future.
“You can’t light a candle and hide it under the bushel,” they say.
I’m prepared to believe them.

Even in this place, where wealthy planters once kept black slaves
Separated from poor white workers
(while keeping the power and riches for themselves),
Even in this place, where migrant laborers from America Latina
Are worked like slaves by gigantic corporations,
Even in this place, where you can still get killed
for fucking someone of the same “sex”,
Even in this place, I see hope for revolution.

Where the mouth of the Mississippi meets the Gulf of Mexico--
this is none other than the vulva of the United States of America.
Ships come in, pollution goes out like menstrual blood
As people sing and dance in the streets of the city.
They shit and fuck and get drunk and get high and make money
and waste away from lack of funds.
In the eyes of the folk in the Ninth Ward

and the Bywater and the Marigny,
In the tacky streets of Baton Rouge steaming amid refineries
and humidity on the Banks of the Great River,
In our heads as we think of our sisters and brothers in Haiti…
I see a light which is coming forth and cannot be held back.
The Moment is eternal, the past a vast stage —

meaning lost, actors dead.
This white light blots it all out and, suddenly,
All the old distinctions — color, sex, object of desire — do not matter.
We are the revolution/God is nowHere.

I AM The People

Back in the seventies, when I was neck-deep in the prison movement, I was sent at one point to ask to see a particular prisoner at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. I was a minister at the time in a church that had been founded in the federal prison system. It had been recognized in court as a church and therefore, under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, prison authorities had to allow our ministers access to any prisoner anywhere (even in solitary confinement) for whom we were the "chaplain of record." I was Joseph Harry Brown's chaplain of record and, by law, they had to admit me. Needless to say, it was some dance we were all doing.

I would show up, ask to see a prisoner, be denied, and our lawyers would take the case to court. Then the USP administrators would move the prisoner to another joint (making the case moot because the prisoner would now be located in a different judicial district) and the process would begin again. Nevertheless, it had to be done to force the issue.

I was pretty nerved out when I got off the bus in front of Leavenworth. I was alone. I was dressed in white with the crest of the church over my heart. And I was afraid they were going to arrest me for something, put me in jail, and have me killed. I knew well that far weirder and more illegal things were happening behind bars and I knew we had their backs to the wall.

As I entered the prison, I heard the whispers. "She's here." "She's here." "She's here." And I could see a prisoner pushing a broom around far down a hall behind a set of bars, a prisoner I had no doubt was down there expressly to carry the reports of whatever happened deeper into the institution to the prison population at large who knew perfectly well what I was up to.

When I asked to see Brown, I was sent to an adjacent waiting area where I was soon joined by the Chief of Classification and Parole, a notorious man who walked with a limp and got his kicks sending men to the hole.

"You're not seeing Brown, so you might as well leave," he began.

I assured him that I knew my Constitutional rights and that I was going nowhere until I saw Brown. He assured me in return that he would have me removed from the premises at the close of the business day. And then he did it. He flipped my switch. His smile looked more like a sneer as he said chumily, "Let's face it. I know why you're here and you know why I'm here. So you might as well give it up for today."

"I don't know if you know why I'm here or not," I replied steadily without missing a hitch. I was well into overdrive and came to accomplish something before I left, even though I knew I had come all the way to Leavenworth to be turned away. But he desperately needed a little tweak on the nose and I was just the one to do it. I flashed on all the guys languishing in the darkest belly of that beast because of this man, looked him dead in the eye, and said matter-of-factly, "Actually, I'm here to inform you that you've been tried and found guilty of crimes against the people, for which you will be held accountable at a later date."

"Tried?!?" he squawked. "By what court?"

"The court of the people," I responded, my face dead serious.

And he came unglued. As far as I know, he spent the entire afternoon unglued because not only did his face go blood-red as he rushed out the door sputtering about how I better be gone at 4:00, but when he returned at 4:00 with six of the biggest men I'd ever seen to carry me out of the building, his face was still blood-red, he had spit collected in the corners of his mouth and he was shrieking at what I can only presume was the top of his lungs. The goons deposited me on the concrete steps in front of Leavenworth, for which I was grateful. While being carried out at shoulder height, I had feared they were going to throw me down the stairs -- and there were a lot of them.

The Chief (and yes, I remember his name) stood like a dwarf in the middle of his troops, screaming that I better never come back to Leavenworth again -- or else. I stood back far enough that I was confident at least some of the prisoners would be able to see me, threw my right fist in the air, and belted out in my biggest stage voice, "I'm leaving, but we WILL return and we will KEEP returning until every man in this prison is free."

A couple of days ago, a man who once did time in Leavenworth sent me the following poem written by Carl Sandburg in 1900. It reminded me of the story I just told you, which is one of my favorites, actually. Sandburg had only been dead several years when I walked up the steps at Leavenworth to deliver a message I didn't even know I was carrying. And I never read this poem before I received it the other day. But I'd like to think that old Carl was whispering in my ear that day back in 1973. I mean, Carl Sandburg and I and you and...well...all of us ordinary humans make up a body so strong, we cannot be denied. Now if only we all knew it.

I AM THE PEOPLE, THE MOB

by Carl Sandburg

I AM the people -- the mob -- the crowd -- the mass.

Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?

I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world's food and clothes.

I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.

I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me. I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted. I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I have. And I forget.

Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history to remember. Then -- I forget.

When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool -- then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name: "The People," with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.

The mob -- the crowd -- the mass -- will arrive then.

_________________________________________________________

The Ricardo Levins Morales poster featured above is available from the Northland Poster Collective.

I Don't Know How African-Americans Do It

I’m exhausted. Really. I am what my mother used to call “sick unto death” of White folks’ thinly veiled commitment to their position of racial privilege and their smarmy, sniveling need to feel put upon by all those Black folks wanting “something for nothing.”

“I never got anything I didn’t work my butt off for,” White people declare defensively, causing me to have to try to remind them for the umpteenth time that people of color work their butts off, too, but all too often without the pay-off Whitey expects and can usually count on.

“I never owned any slaves and besides, that was a hundred years ago.” Whitey continues, “Why can’t Black people just move on and get over it?”

“Well, let’s see…” I counter, “Could it possibly be that they’re not thinking about what happened a hundred years ago, but rather about the way African-American men are still four times more likely to be unemployed than European-American men at every educational level? Could it be that they’re thinking about how law enforcement and the criminal justice system is continually demonstrated to function in a deliberately discriminatory manner toward people of color – and doesn’t change those practices despite being nailed for them repeatedly? Could it be that they’re checking out how even the President of the United States cannot expect to be shown common respect by many White people if the tone of his skin is such that he would be labeled ‘Black’? Ya think?”

“All I know,” Whitey huffs, “is that my grandfather came to this country with nothing but the clothes on his back and he pulled himself up by his own bootstraps…”

“Uh-huh,” I agree. “But he came with boots on. Most African-Americans came shoeless and naked and were stripped even of their names. They worked not only brutally hard, but for no pay at all for hundreds of years. It’s real hard to put together a nest egg when you get no pay at all; when your wife can be raped in front of you and you can be killed for even thinking about trying to protect her; when you, as an African-American, have (as the courts said decades after slavery ended) NO rights any White person has to honor."

"Then, like that wasn’t enough," I rant on, "African-Americans went from not being allowed to go to school at all to being relegated to schools so much worse in every way that even today, White people break their personal banks sending their kids any place else than public school, if they can pull it off at all. And all along, right up to the present, every kind of socialization process in this nation not only tells White people (no matter how stupid, how poorly educated, how mean-spirited, and/or how clueless in every way they may be) that they’re ‘better than’ people of color, but tells people of color (no matter how intelligent, how well educated, how gracious, and how reasonable they may be) that they’re ‘inferior to’ White people.” Good. grief.

And my favorite line of all is, “Okay...but everybody gets oppressed in one way or the other…”

I try to imagine what that oppression against White people looks like – really I do. But I can’t. And that’s when I get tired. Tired of listening. Tired of explaining it. Tired of thinking about it. Tired of watching the parade of broken-hearted children of color who've learned not to think it will ever change. Tired of watching White folks preen and priss their hour upon the stage of life as if they earned their moment in the sun.

Sometimes, I think they deserve what they’re gonna get. But the trouble is I’m White, too. Or at least I look White. And that’s good enough. Good enough to get me the privileges and benefits I don’t ask for. Good enough to keep me out of the line of fire directed at people of color for no other reason than the fact that it’s a norm in this society. And good enough to require me to do something about the situation. I can't help being part of the problem, but I can be part of the solution, if I so choose.

I didn’t ask to be me. But on my darkest day, at least I'm White-looking. So I can be tired, if I want to be. But since I can’t abdicate the goodies, I can’t skate on the responsibility of at least attempting to address the situation either. I wrote something similar a week or so ago. And just before the election, Abby Ferber did a good job of describing the mindset of Whiteness -- and what to do about it.

And in the meantime, this poem by Pat Parker reminds us that White folks can't begin to know what "tired" feels like.

For the White Person Who

Wants to Know How to Be My Friend

The first thing you do is to forget that i'm Black.

Second, you must never forget that i'm Black.

You should be able to dig Aretha,

but don't play her every time i come over.

And if you decide to play Beethoven--don't tell

me his life story. They made us take music

appreciation too.

Eat soul food if you like it, but don't expect me

to locate your restaurants

or cook it for you.

And if some Black person insults you,

mugs you, rapes your sister, rapes you,

rips your house, or is just being an ass--

please, do not apologize to me

for wanting to do them bodily harm.

It makes me wonder if you're foolish.

And even if you really believe Blacks are better

lovers than whites--don't tell me. I start thinking

of charging stud fees.

In other words, if you really want to be my

friend--don't make a labor of it. I'm lazy.

Remember.

_________________________________________________________

Thanks to Macon D. for tipping me to this poem and to the Angry Black-White Girl's blog.

More About Haiti

As my Faithful Readers know, I maintain an interest in and even connection to Haiti. It all began a little over twenty years ago, when I wound up with a student who had just shortly before quite literally escaped her homeland with her family after an aggressive attempt on their lives as a result of her father's commitment to social change.

When I asked her to tell me about what was really going on in Haiti (as opposed to what the governments and the media wanted us to "know"), she was reticent to engage in a conversation.

"Are you sure you really want to know?" she asked in warning. "Most people here in the U.S. say they want to know, but when I start telling them, they argue with me about it."

I assured her that I wanted to hear whatever it was she had to say. And she had plenty to say, believe me. Soon, I was reading about Haiti and writing about Haiti and planning an Amnesty International banquet about Haiti (with her father as the speaker) and, generally speaking, crafting a relationship with the culture, apparently for life.

Then, three years ago, I came across a website of photos of Haiti and its people and it was really on. Slowly, but surely, I tried with limited, but on-going, success to raise interest, consciousness, and funds for various causes related to Haitian children.

In July, right after I downloaded Skype, an on-line phone service that's free to use, even internationally, I discovered that I could talk with some of the kids I had been helping and, up until the last couple of weeks, we were talking as regularly as Haitian electricity availability and my difficult schedule allow. In fact, they have begun teaching me Creole against the day I come to visit them, which will be, it's beginning to appear, MUCH sooner than later. In fact, I'm nosing around for possible research funds so I can spend a month or two next summer in Port-au-Prince, looking at the effects of globalization on this tiny, poverty-stricken nation.

Haiti and Globalization, Part 1

Haiti and Globalization, Part 2

It's difficult to be in such close contact, distant as it is. The voices make the names and photos real to me, so that when Peter (who has had the most schooling and dreams of college) tells me that school for this fall is currently on hold because his sponsor has not sent the expected assistance as yet, I hear -- and feel the pain of -- his disappointment.

Still, he reminds me that "Depi nou gen la vi gen lespwa" ("When there is life, there is hope"), even though "lavi-a di depi le-m" ("life has been hard"). And I try to just keep forging ahead, living and hoping with him. A movie entitled "Strange Things" is currently under production. Maybe that will help. But when will the help arrive?

An unexpected pleasure in this process was reconnecting with my former student and friend who originally taught me about Haiti in the first place years ago. She's living in Port-au-Prince (of course) and sent me a truly beautiful photo book one of her companies published on the people, culture, and nation she loves so much. Needless to say, I'm trying to connect her to some of the kids I've been helping. And I feel the tendrils of this island country further planting themselves in my heart.

When I watched the YouTube videos above, I was reminded of a poem I wrote twenty years ago, a poem that could have been written yesterday and is still true. Between the economic devastation, the political corruption (still driven by U.S. interests), and the current horrified weather conditions, one wonders how Haiti and her people can survive. Yet, Peter tells me, when there is life, there is hope. And I cling, with him, to that thought.

~~For Haiti~~

Fire comes and fire goes

and we don't ever really know

what comes to take us by the hand

to lead us to the promise land.

We reach for stars and grasp the air.

We search for answers everywhere.

The echoes of our voices cry

through mountain passes to the sky.

We take our stand against the flood,

collect our tears and bathe in blood;

we will not stop till daylight comes

and we return to peaceful homes.

Ah, freedom.

Ah, freedom.

Time goes on while time stands still.

The scribes record a people's will.

We hold our ballots, hold our breath;

we stand in lines to meet our deaths.

With guns behind us, guns before,

we stand, steel-eyed, upon a shore.

We taste the salt, the coming tide,

and cling to hope that stirs inside --

believing that our cause is just,

agreed to suffer if we must,

committed now to fight as one

till flowers dance beneath the sun.

Ah, freedom.

Ah, freedom.

Until We Are All Free, We Are None Free

On this day in 1838, Frederick Douglass -- born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey and having spent his first twenty years of life as a slave -- escaped his bonds to freedom. Inspired by William Lloyd Garrison, who ultimately became a supporter, young Douglass soon began telling his story to standing room only audiences on the abolitionist circuit.

When he published his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, still in print and widely read to this day, some (White people, no doubt) couldn't believe a person raised in slavery could write so eloquently. You can read the part recounting his third and finally successful escape attempt here.

By the time he died at the age of seventy-seven, Douglass had become recognized all over the world for his political work, his writings, and the newspapers he edited. Of more immediate interest in light of Obama's campaign for the Presidency is the fact that, at the Republican National Convention in 1888 (back before they become the present-day Democratic Party), Douglass garnered the first vote for an African-American man in a major party's roll call vote, even though he was married to a European-American feminist at the time.

Here's a poem to remind us that until we are all free, Douglass' work goes on.

~~Frederick Douglass~~
by Robert E. Hayden

When it is finally ours, this freedom, this liberty, this beautiful

and terrible thing, needful to man as air,

usable as earth; when it belongs at last to all,

when it is truly instinct, brain matter, diastole, systole,

reflex action; when it is finally won; when it is more

than the gaudy mumbo jumbo of politicians:

this man, this Douglass, this former slave, this Negro

beaten to his knees, exiled, visioning a world

where none is lonely, none hunted, alien,

this man, superb in love and logic, this man

shall be remembered. Oh, not with statues' rhetoric,

not with legends and poems and wreaths of bronze alone,

but with the lives grown out of his life, the lives

fleshing his dream of the beautiful, needful thing.

What's Going On? Lies.

A few minutes ago, I came across this YouTube video posted by Carmen D. and I just had to pass it on. It hurts to think about how the photos and film clips of Vietnam could now be photos and film clips of the war du jour (is it Afghanistan, is it Iraq, is it -- God/dess forbid -- Iran?). How come? Because The Powers That Be tell lies.

I've posted this poem before, but it's been quite a while and it's one of my favorites.

~~Lies~~
by Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Telling lies to the young is wrong.
Proving to them that lies are true is wrong.
Telling them that God's in his heaven
and all's well with the world is wrong.
The young know what you mean. The young are people.
Tell them the difficulties can't be counted,
and let them see not only what will be
but see with clarity these present times.
Say obstacles exist they must encounter
sorrow happens, hardship happens.
The hell with it. Who never knew
the price of happiness will not be happy.
Forgive no error you recognize,
it will repeat itself, increase,
and afterwards our pupils
will not forgive in us what we forgave.

How Could That Have Happened?

How could two really astounding women poets of the twentieth century have been born on the same date, I wonder? I mean, what was it about that date? Were the stars in some kind of peculiar alignment? According to The Writers Almanac, which I visit online daily, two remarkable women were born on this date: Gwendolyn Brooks in 1917 and Nikki Giovanni in 1943. Perhaps Giovanni looked at the Earth from wherever babies wait for the go-ahead and decided she wanted to tumble into Gwendolyn Brooks' wake. But whatever, it gives one pause. And presents the unusual situation of having TWO stellar individuals to highlight.

The first date I ever went on with my daughter's father was to see Gwendolyn Brooks read from her work in 1981. At the time, all I knew about her was that she was the Poet Laureate of the state of Illinois (where we were) and that she was the first African-American to win the Pulitzer Prize. I wasn't so far removed from my poetry-writing days myself (though hardly deserving of having my efforts called "poetry") and during the question and answer period, I had the audacity to raise my hand and put this icon on the spot by asking, "If you could only give us one line to take with us when we leave here, what would it be?"

Brooks didn't flinch. She just paused for a moment, as if reaching inside herself, and said resolutely, "Conduct your blooming in the noise and the whip of the whirlwind." I've been doing that, clinging to that fragile connection between myself and her, ever since.

Here's one of her shorter pieces, but if you have a minute, you can read "The Lovers of the Poor", as well.

~~My Dreams, My Works, Must Wait Till After Hell~~

by Gwendolyn Brooks

I hold my honey and I store my bread

In little jars and cabinets of my will.

I label clearly, and each latch and lid I bid,

Be firm till I return from hell.

I am very hungry. I am incomplete.

And none can give me any word but Wait

The puny light. I keep my eyes pointed in;

Hoping that, when the devil days of my hurt

Drag out to their last dregs and I resume

On such legs as are left me, in such heart

As I can manage, remember to go home,
My taste will not have turned insensitive

To honey and bread old purity could love.

After serving in the revolution of the 1970's with Giovanni (in different battalions, if you will, but the same war), I got reacquainted with her when I created a book for a group of inner city African-Americans teenagers. I included her famous Ego Trippin' and also the following one. And if you watch the YouTube clip after you read, you'll see where her revolution has taken her.

~~Revolutionary Dreams~~

by Nikki Giovanni

i used to dream militant

dreams of taking

over america to show

these white folks how it should be

done
i used to dream radical dreams

of blowing everyone away with my perceptive powers

of correct analysis

i even used to think i'd be the one

to stop the riot and negotiate the peace

then i awoke and dug

that if i dreamed natural

dreams of being a natural

woman doing what a woman

does when she's natural

i would have a revolution.

Countee Cullen

On this day in 1903, Countee Cullen was born. A romantic poet in the fashion of Keats, Wheatley, and Dunbar, Cullen was one of the talented young African-American intellectuals who formed the backbone of the Harlem Renaissance. Graduating Phi Beta Kappa from NYU, Cullen went on to earn a Master's degree in English and French from Harvard and won more major literary prizes than any other Black writer of the time. And he married the only daughter of W.E.B. DuBois in one of the most lavish weddings in the history of the African-American community in New York. In memory of the beautiful who lived and died before us, here is one of his poems:

~~From the Dark Tower~~

We shall not always plant while others reap

The golden increment of bursting fruit,

Not always countenance, abject and mute,

That lesser men should hold their brothers cheap;

Not everlastingly while others sleep

Shall we beguile their limbs with mellow flute,

Not always bend to some more subtle brute;

We were not made to eternally weep.

The night whose sable breast relieves the stark

White stars is no less lovely being dark,

And there are buds that cannot bloom at all

In light, but crumple, piteous, and fall;

So in the dark we hide the heart that bleeds,

And wait, and tend our agonizing seeds.