RESTORE AMIR BARAKA!
Let the plight of former New Jersey poet-laureate Amir Baraka be a lesson to you: Never offer a dissenting opinion (at least not out loud) in this supposedly “free” country of ours. Do so at your own risk—to both your reputation as an artist and to your bank account.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the story, and such should be no surprise, given the white media’s reflexive tendencies to obscure, if not completely cover-up, injustices to the black man, Amir Baraka (born LeRoi Jones) was appointed New Jersey poet laureaute a year ago. Initially, the choice to confer upon Baraka the highest state honor for a literary artist caused a great hoopla. This was the man, after all, who conceived, then inscribed, such incendiary works as “Fuck you Chinese People” (“Squinty-eyed midget men/ Women haired tied in a bun/ Git on that first boat back to China/ An’ don’t ferget yer wonton.”) and “Real Black Folk is Stupid” (“Fuck you educated black man/Throw yo books out the do’/ You ain’t no real black man/ ‘Less you dumb an’ po.’”)
Are the previous stanzas controversial? Of course they are. But one cannot deny the passion clearly evidenced in Amir Baraka’s poems. As a black man (I would have mentioned this earlier, but I never wanted race to—pardon the pun—“color” the argument.) trying to make his way in this racist world of ours, I can sympathize to the sort of mindset exemplified in “Real Black Folk is Stupid.” Smart people truly terrify me. I never graduated high school, I work fifty hours a week at the local Burger King, and the thought of anybody—you, for example—accomplishing anything with your life, fills me with a burning rage. It’s not enough of a rage to make me want to work harder, crack open a book, and not sit around all day whining that money and opportunities ain’t dropping in my lap. But it makes me angry enough to steal your hubcaps, son!
If I have to live the rest of my life in this urine-smellin’ ghetto, full of pimps and Puerto Rican street gangs, why can’t you all do the same? I’m poor. Be poor with me. Those last two lines are my credo, and Amir Baraka, more than other supposedly great writers such as Eric Jerome Dickey, and football wide receiver Keyshawn Johnson, understands that.
Much of the criticism ladled upon Amir Baraka, at the time poet laureate status was first conferred upon him, was that he spoke only for “extremely angry black men.” He certainly speaks to me as an extremely angry black man. However, I, and many of Baraka’s supporters, would argue that his poems and writings reflect an overlooked universality. Who hasn’t walked through the streets of Chinatown and wanted to tell the various immigrant Chinamen to go back to China, and not to forget their wonton? Baraka writes of the great, dark truths which we refuse to acknowledge, because they are politically incorrect, or, as his uninformed critics attest, belonging only to the ignorant and racist. Well, let me say this to you, critics who would label Amir Baraka, and those, like me, who actively read, study, and participate in his works, as ignorant racists: We may be a group of ignorant racists in your eyes, but if there is one thing we can be proud of, it is that we are not Chinese.
Amir Baraka, having received poet laureate status from the state of New Jersey, composed a poem in response to the terrorist attacks on New York City on September 11th, 2001. Entitled “Someone Blew Up America,” it hypothesized that terrorists from Arab countries did not perpetrate the World Trade Center attack. On the contrary, Baraka blames the attack on a white-supremecist conspiracy. Far-fetched? Let us examine the bare facts:
(1) Several hundred Jews were employed in the World Trade Center, prior to Sept. 11th, 2001.
(2) To this day, only 7 individuals of Jewish descent have been accounted among the WTC victims.
To explain the mysterious disappearance of the several hundred Jewish employees, racist white politicians have fallen back on the age-old excuse that “many of the bodies pulled from the WTC wreckage were incinerated to the point where they simply could not be identified.” Anyone knows that’s just another way of saying, “The Jews were all safe in their fancy upper East side neighborhoods, sipping cocktails while all the colored people burned.”
New Jersey’s racist white government immediately called for Amir Baraka to either rescind his opinion or resign. Not only did Baraka refuse to resign, but he openly defended his white supremecist conspiracy theory. As a reporter for “Word: Da News on the Street” web site, I did my own independent investigation into the sources cited by Amir Baraka. The sources consisted primarily of Travis Jessup, the self-appointed “Sole Black Nazi” of the northeastern United States, and Jason Winthrop, a 52 year-old retired shipyard worker who often hung around Nellie’s Barber Shop in East Camden, where Baraka also got his hair cut on occasion.
Jason Winthrop was a man of few words. Part of the reason behind that paucity of words was an apparent relapse into alcoholism. However, Winthrop did manage to emerge into lucidity for a brief interval to enlighten me.
“The Jews, man. Fuckin… You know, it’s ‘cos of them, uh, there ain’t no big-time black actors in Hollywood.”
Before I could interject, Winthrop added, “You ever Jurassic Park?” I nodded.
“Why is it all the dinosaurs is played by blacks?”
I thought for a moment. I could offer no easy answer for him except, “I think they used computers to animate the—“
But Winthrop was adamant in his argument. “Ain’t no white boy computer playin’ no T-Rex! You ever heard a white man call hisself ‘T-rex?’ It a black man nickname!” Then he cursed the Jews some more before politely shoving me out of the way so he could go into the alley behind the barber shop. I heard vomiting sounds, and eagerly expected his imminent return. But he must have had other important business to attend to, for he stayed in the alley.
Clearly, Amir Baraka’s sources for his white supremecist conspiracy theory are beyond reproach. Yet, faced with Baraka’s refusal to back down from his constitutional right to free speech, as well as his refusal to resign his position as poet laureate, New Jersey governer Jim McGreevey decided to dissolve the state poet laureate title altogether. The message here is: If New Jersey can’t have no poet laureate who knows his place, they won’t be no poet laureate at all.
Along with eliminating his job, the state has also refused to pay Baraka his $10,000 annual prize for having held the public position over the last year. Worse yet, Amir Baraka’s reputation has now been tarnished by slanderous accusations of racism. No state will consider him a poet laureate candidate now, and Baraka will have to embarrassingly explain to his next employer why “New Jersey poet laureate” appears on his resume, but no, he would prefer you didn’t call them.
Ladies and gentlemen, do not let this injustice go on! Why is it that cops in New York City can appear in a public parade wearing blackface, and pantomime the lynching of a black man for fun, and not only keep their jobs, but receive back pay? You could argue that the city is challenging the courts to not have to pay these racists, and that ex-mayor Rudolph Giuliani has called them a public disgrace, and is fighting to keep them off the police force. But clearly, what we have in this situation is the usual “White government protects write racists.” Enough of this hypocrisy! Fight to get Amir Baraka his position back! Write to your congressman! March on the New Jersey governer’s office! And for God’s sake, boycott all Jurassic Park movies!
