rootwork the rootsblog: a cyberhoodoo webspace

acting your race by lakshmi chaudhry

i try to avoid posting entire articles
but this one i found so provocative
about issues that are dear to me

cultural orchestration
self determination and selfdefinition
conjuration as shaping reality
and so forth along those lines

i probably want to do some commentary on it
but im working right now and not spose to be
on the internet at all

hopefully later i will dig into this one
i see some potential game licks up in here:

----------------------------

acting your race by lakshmi chaudhry
in these times, april 7th

The day after the 2006 Oscars, Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan penned a scathing critique of the academy’s choice of best film, Crash, which he described as “a feel-good film about racism.”  The film, he wrote, “could make you believe that you

had done your moral duty and examined your soul when in fact you were just getting your buttons pushed and your preconceptions reconfirmed.” But that is an accurate description of almost every major Hollywood movie that deals with race; they are designed to appease the white-centric biases of studio executives and the mainstream audience they entertain.

Like its predecessors, Crash offers up a self-serving thesis of race that consists of two propositions: One, racism is a matter of individual prejudice; two, the antidote to racism is, therefore, personal redemption. In other words, we—not just whites but also blacks, Asians, Arabs, etc.—are equally guilty of racism, and we each need to move past our bigotry to recognize the common humanity that binds us all. At the heart of this individualist perspective on race is the assertion of sameness: We are all racists; we are all human. Difference is an artificial cultural construct that disguises and distorts our true universal essence.

As various critics have pointed out over and over again, this kind of liberal humanism effectively lets white Americans off the hook and denies the need for radical social change. The failure of movies like Crash to articulate racial inequality, however, points to the more difficult challenge of talking about race, period. We do not know how to see the other as both different and equal, or how to recognize difference without resorting to essentialism. It’s one of the reasons why progressives are more comfortable talking about race in terms of how people are treated than who they are. And that means we end up defining racial identity entirely in terms of power relations: for example, whiteness equals privilege.

Many leading scholars on race have repeatedly argued against the liberal tendency to treat race—and therefore racial difference—as a social problem. They instead draw attention to the performative aspect of race, wherein racial identity is not a fixed unchanging essence but a set of mutable and contingent cultural behaviors. As Sarah Susannah Willie writes in her book Acting Black, “By treating race as acquired, like a skill or a behavior, we can begin to see it as something over which individuals have differing degrees of control and varying options for agency, as an aspect of identity that is at least partly performed, continuous, and contingent.”

As a woman of color, I find that theorizing race as a performance offers several benefits. One, it helps us recognize the fact that we all “act” our racial and ethnic identities, be it black, white, Chinese, Native American or, in my case, Indian. Two, it also reveals how people of color are forced to perform their identities in particular ways to meet the requirements of a racist culture—and in doing so, points to the way that racism shapes the most intimate parts of our selves.

Acting black, white

One of the most compelling examples of race-as-performance is currently playing itself out on television. The FX reality show “Black. White.” physically transforms an African-American and Caucasian family to look like the other race, and follows them around as they interact with the world in racially charged situations. On the surface, “Black. White.” offers a fairly standard view of racism as discrimination—i.e., how people are treated because of how they look. According to its producers, the aim of the show is to ask: “What is it like to live in someone else’s skin?” But “Black. White.”—intentionally or not—also raises a far more important question: What does it mean to “act” black or white?

The answer is revealed early in the series, when the two families gather to exchange tips about behavior that will help each other “pass.” For Carmen Wurgel, a white location scout in Santa Monica, the conversation reveals a “secret society with shared experiences and language and customs.” But when it’s their turn to solicit advice, the African-American Sparks family politely declines. “I already know how to adapt and get along with white people. … Black culture has to conform to white society,” says Brian, a contractor from Atlanta. Acting “white” is not an option, but an essential survival skill for any person of color in America.

Author Kenji Yoshino calls this behavior “covering,” which is also the title of his recent book exposing the shortcomings of civil rights legislation. He defines covering in the context of race as the pressure to “act white” by eliminating or playing down non-white aspects of one’s identity along four axes: appearance (Don’t wear a sari, turban, veil, corn-rows.); affiliation (Speak excellent, unaccented English.); activism (Avoid ethnic or race-based organizations.); and association (Cultivate predominantly white social networks.) Yoshino argues that people of color—consciously or otherwise—perform this whiter version of their identity to satisfy an unspoken “social contract, in which racial minorities are told we will be rewarded for assimilating to white norms.”

Acting white not only determines how you are rewarded, but also acts as a marker of what you deserve. It’s why African Americans, as comedian David Chappelle observed in a recent television interview, are “bilingual,” adept at eliminating “black-associated” patterns of speech in a job interview or at the workplace. “When I am sitting at the table [in Hollywood], I want that white guy to know that my parents are better-educated than he is,” said Chappelle. Speaking white is speaking privilege.

Yoshino, however, brushes past the fact that the ability to “cover” is in itself a class marker within communities of color. It is only the relatively affluent who have the opportunity to learn the skills of acting white. A Latino housemaid or an Indian taxi-driver has no such option. Their inability to “cover” instead becomes the grist for cruel ethnic jokes that their better-disguised brothers and sisters are required to laugh at to prove their “whiteness.”

At first glance, “covering” seems only about negating non-white norms of behavior. But at the heart of this imperative to “act white” lies a deeply racist and essentialist view of people of color. Yoshino points to Lawrence Mungin, a high-powered Harvard-educated attorney who spent his entire life “negating every possible stereotype about African-Americans in his behavior” because, in his words, “I wanted to show that I was like white people: ‘Don’t be afraid. I’m one of the good blacks.’ ” But as Yoshino notes, “In so carefully reversing every term of the racial stereotype, Mungin was defined by it as surely as a photograph is defined by its negative.”

Covering, however, doesn’t mention the ironic antithesis to Mungin represented by rap stars like 50 Cent, who assiduously perform every negative black stereotype in order to satisfy the fantasies of a white, middle-class audience, who then characterize such behavior as authentically “black.” And so when a naive and clueless Carmen Wurgel—who self-confessedly hasn’t “been around a lot of black people”—tries to “talk black,” she makes the mistake of playfully saying “Yo, bitch!” to her African-American counterpart, Renee Sparks.

Sadder still is when some people of color internalize this racist connection between performance and identity. In 1999, when psychologist Angela Neal-Barnett asked focus-group students to define “white” behavior, their list included enrolling in Advanced Placement or honors classes. It exemplified what Barack Obama described in his Democratic National Convention speech as “the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white.” This isn’t to say that anti-intellectualism is the sole preserve of African Americans, but to acknowledge that people of color are under pressure to perform different versions of their identity for different audiences, which includes acting more “authentic” to avoid being tagged variously as a “Banana,” “Coconut,” or “Oreo” by members of their own community.

Uncovering racism

Speaking of race-as-performance entails its own hazards. In “Black. White.,” Rose Wurgel, Bruno’s smart and sensitive 18-year old daughter, is repulsed by what she calls the “language of stereotype” that becomes inevitable in conversations about “acting” black or white. “I don’t want to be putting out this bullshit,” she says. In his book, Yoshino describes being challenged by a female colleague who levels a similar charge:

But the covering idea could perpetuate the stereotypes that you want to eliminate. One way minorities break stereotypes is by acting against them. If every time they do so, people assume they are ‘covering’ some essential stereotypical identity, the stereotypes will never go away.

Yoshino’s answer is to express his “commitment to autonomy as a means of achieving authenticity,” but does not explain what he means by an “authentic” self. But when understood in the context of the race-as-performance thesis, however, his critique suggests that we should each be free to “act” our race according to our own needs and desires—rather than to confirm or subvert social expectations. And so Brian’s 17-year-old son, Nick, could become a mathematician who speaks unaccented English, wears his hair in corn-rows, and enjoys playing golf with his African-American wife—and be entirely, authentically “black.”

The freedom to perform our identity gives us the power to define its meaning. But that freedom cannot be achieved by simply changing individual behavior or attitudes, which are merely symptoms of a greater social disease that afflicts our culture, its traditions and structures. Resisting this institutional pressure to perform distorted versions of ourselves has to be a collective struggle waged in courtrooms, schools, workplaces and in the media. It is only then that we can be both equal and different, together.

Lakshmi Chaudhry has been a reporter and an editor for independent publications for more than six years, and is a senior editor at In These Times, where she covers the cross-section of culture and politics.

kwani? kommentary: presentation on craft: singing your own song

hello world

this is the presentation im making this morning

got some kwani kommentary to make but im
going to find a internet cafe to do it cause

this hotel business center is expensive
will do that later today

be well:

-------------------------------------------------

thankyou for inviting me

i was here 2002 and my fondest memories was meeting binyavanga and the kwani? folk

so im tickled to be back and seeing kwani and meeting more of kenyas literary folk

being asked to speak on advanced perspectives on craft
is kinda intimidating cause i man struggling with craft everyday

by the time you become what im calling a mature writer your concept of craft has become very individualized. mostly id say that the advanced perspective on craft boils down to the attitude you bring to the work

of craft itself all i can speak on is the lifelong attempt to master it.

you cant just assume you will figure it out as you go along, you must go out there and master it. there is no greater struggle for the would be writer, for the aspiring scribe tin the house of life than the lifelong struggle to master craft

been doing this 30 odd years now and its still a daily struggle to become a better craftsperson.

you don’t get there unless you have gone through a lot of deadends, a lot of bad pages

a friend of mine once told me one of the most useful things anybody ever told me

aisha rahman, playwright,

i once said to her that i wanted to be the greatest novelist that ever lived

she said that’s not what you want art, she said you want to sing your song

the best you can sing it, then you can appreciate other folk singing theirs

that’s been one of the most helpful things ive ever heard as a young writer,

not only did it keep me from being jealous of my friends when they made it or

when they wrote good stuff, or getting lost trying to get other folks styles
but its gotten me in the habit of listening to my own song

thats the key struggle of any writer, developing their own voice,

being attuned to your own literary song.. trusting your own literary instinct
.

which basically means that you comfortable breaking the rules,

this is how you gain your own distinctive voice
when you learn to trust your own rules of the literary road

you grow by trying to master the licks of writers that impress you
there was a time when everything i did sounded like bad marquez

but you dont want to stay there and become derivative
you just want to add their licks to your own repetoire

also you want to learn to listen to your projects cause every book demands its own voice,

it’s the story you telling that tells you what kind of narrative licks a piece will demand

another friend of mine, george saunders, once said that its in following your mistakes

that you find new ground,

ive heard jazz musicians say some of their best licks came from some mistake they made

that they heard something new in and they tried that mistake over and over again on purpose

until they made in it something new and wonderful, until it lead them into new and higher ground

novel, the name of the form, novel new and seminal, covering new cultural ground
adding something new to the literary line - to human understanding 
trusting your own literary instinct only comes from years of crunching it

often without the outside world valuing it

but you cant let the outside worlds valuation of you as a writer influence your own

specially if you forging new ground, the world will tell you you cant do that

but you write whats inside you to write, say whats inside you to say and

you write it so good it cannot be denied

and it would be nice to get published and get paid

but that aint whats driving you, whats driving you is the need to see this work happen

when you young you have to get trained, you cant go but so far on heart

there is a trajectory for serious writers, you start off with heart, then you learn craft and for a minute you just a technician and then you move back into heart but with all these new skilz

but you cant get lost and stay a technician, once you learn the rules you abandon them

young writers generally don’t have the control.

you have to master the rules before you break them with the control that identifies mature work.. another friend of mine once told me anything you can control, control it.

for instance african american writers like wideman or gayle jones

will have multiple voices and povs in the same sentence much less the same paragraph

and have done it so well that the critics gave it a name - the speakerly text. 

for instance when im writing raw manuscript my tenses sprawl all over the place,

and folk say you got to fix that - but i like my tenses sprawling, give me more room to play

so what i have to do is go in there and make sure that its controlled, that there is a pattern,

that its doing something disciplined and controlled in the text.

i make sure it works for me, that’s controlling it.

but when your tenses sprawl because you don’t know they shouldn’t that’s lack of craft. 

young writers follow the rules, but the mature writer who follows the rules is a weak writer

but now when you wandering around on literary ground nobody else has ever covered

you have to believe in yourself, you have to believe in your godgiven talent, you got to keep the faith, not matter what the world says

most of you will end up slaving in the vineyards,
and the vineyards will winnow out the weak hearted

you want to be a writer you got to be hardheaded and obsessive about it,
you just cant take a no.

was recently reading this book called 13 ways of looking at the novel

said the primary determinate of who was successful at being a writer

was the absolute determination to be one. 

you got to show that determination in life if you want to be a writer,

you got to bust the move, if you need to move to nairobi, do it,

if you need to move to newyork, do it

but most of all you can never give up, giving up is the only fatal move

also you have to be attuned to the times.

fiction has been transformed by the advent of media

and if we want to retain our cultural primacy we to to deal with that.

this media saturated generation processes information differently from my own

and future generations will even more so

doctorow did a piece in the nytimes series on writers

where he said that contemporary fiction devalues exposition and transitions

cause contemporary readers an mtv generation, used to following MTV cuts and multitasking

you can write those longwinded plodding narrations if you want,
the critics might love it but future generations wont read it,
they will start multitasking on you.

better get to some hypernarration if you want to be competitive in the media saturated future

im a stylist and i often dont trust my work

cause it so often doesn’t look like a novel supposed to look,

but ive come to trust my literary instinct,

and i have learned it does my literary heart good to take chances

when you a mature writer craft is subsumed to vision and literary sensibility

that intimate connection to the human condition that understands the significant
that instinct for whats true and important, whats truly significant.

here is where we, the writers of the black world, have the advantage.

mainstream writers they have to search for things to write about

and often end up literary techinicians without heart

you want desperately to be competent and even masterful literary technicians

but if that’s all your work is about you’ve lost the way.

you want to write work that means something, work that counts,

work that speaks from your heart to the readers.heart

i tell young writers all the time, a novel that dont cost you emotionally

is probably not worth writing. 

you want to be a writer whose passionate about his or her work,

you want to be a writer with a mission.

african american writers are fortunate in this regard, we were born with a mission.

same thing i assume with kenyan writers,

this is not some abstract endeavor where you can write any old thing,

it is too important to our lives, the lives our of people

the future of our generations and the culture that has nurtured you.

your works mean something,

along the lines joyce refers to in portrait when he says he goes to meet life to

‘forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscious of my race.”

my mentor, john o killens, used to say the more important that you have to say

the more obligated you are to say it well.

for all its cost me over the years i love being a writer,
and choosing to give it all i had to give is one of the best decisions i ever made in my life. 
if you feel like you got it in you to writer, go for it with everything you got

master craft and go beyond

i am not comfortable that i can give you something about the advanced perspectives on craft,

depends on how im feeling that day, sometimes i feel like a master, sometimes i feel like i fool

but i have never given the word anything less than my very best.

and in return the word has been good to me.

i like feeling like im making a contribution to the human condition,

to human destiny.

i consider literature a sacred calling,
writers are creators, gods assistants on the planet,
and if you would be a god you must be a worthy god.

advanced craft moves beyond craft into vision

work that matters, work that means something

may the god of literature be good to you.

may the gods be good to us all.

thankyou.

that is all

going down slow: the legacy of august wilson

august wilson. 60, has inoperable liver cancer
folk say he crunching radio golf, the last play in his series
gon clean it up till the very last minute

a true artist, i have always been proud of him
and never as much as now

reminds me of that story about the 3 mountain climbers
they were about to climb the highest mountain in the world
when they were told they had been exposed to radiation
and had 24 hours to live

mountain climber 1 was asked what he was going to do
he said i will go home and be with my family, eat a good meal
mountain climber 2 was asked what he would do
he said i will make love to every woman ive ever desired

mountain climber 3 was asked what he would do
he said im gon climb this mountain

blessings to august wilson and his family during this moment
but i suspect hes okay with it
he got his work done, his ambitious creative vision
all 10 of them, got em done

and thats all an artist asks for, let me finish this one god
and i will be okay, whatever you want to do is cool w/me
just let me get this one done

thats our purpose for being on the planet - to leave a body of work
behind that speaks to the generations - it is to that purpose
that we dedicate our lives - and when your work takes x years
to get done its all a big gamble that you could so easily lose

august wilson bet and he won

and now i can hear my fellow blues devotee
singing one of the most classic blueslines:

ive had my fun if i dont ever get well no more
my health is failing me but im going down slow

i remember doris jean austin once said every book finished
makes it easier to die

the true tragedy was not that doris jean died, we all have to die
but that she didnt get but one book done before she left
(i once heard a hippie call it a graduation)

i was just thinking about mortality today
crunching rest for the weary and looking at the clock

i turned 55 just last month and im very conscious
of the clock ticking,

anything could go wrong at any moment, death, crippling injury, mind goes soft
talent goes soft - its a constant negotiation -  if i can finish rest for the weary, god
(and the hoodoo book of flowers) i will  check out easy

and hopefully i will check out as graciously
Ive lived a blessed life, august wilson says, im ready

in struggle
arf

on baba george and walt disneys song of the south: dat old zip a de do dah

zip a de do dah, zip a de ay
my o my what a wonderful day

saw on black commentator that
walt disney was going to bring out
song of the south on its upcoming 60th anniversary

that there were legions of fans
black and white asking for it

so the mouse decided to do it again
black commentator of course was incensed
but as an artist i think i will have to come
down on the side of anticensorship on this one

first thing i did was go get some confirmation
from the source they used, this guy jim hill
who covers disney cause i found it hard to believe
that disney was going to bring it back out
after all the controversy it has raised

i for one dont plan to buy a copy
though it will be tempting because i loved song of the south
as a kid, but then i liked tarzan too

all i remembered of song of the south though was the animation
an the song, zip a de do dah, zip a de ay, my o my what a wonderful day
still like that song, but i hate the movie

and would love to see the animation of brer rabbit and them again
characters who are still if not more important to me as
an african american storyteller and novelist

they were the first body of african american literature
and as a storyteller i love the brer rabbit tales
and as a novelist in the griotic tradition i love them also

in fact they play a significant part in my latest novel
rest for the weary

and since this is the only depiction of them in film
one day some years ago i went looking
for a copy of song of the south and ended
up reading about it and was appalled
when i read about the live action parts of it
and ending up deciding i didnt want it after all

its mostly about kindly old loyal uncle remus taking care of
the little white master, or rather ex master
because it was during reconstruction i believe
though disney sets it in some surreal
'united states of georgia' based on some vague
for of eternal slavery

plenty of loyal happy darkies
singing and dancing for the master

and the climax is when their masters tell
the youngmaster he cant hang out w/uncle remus
no more and uncle remus, devastated and damn near crying
exiles himself until he is reunited with his dear dear master

whats really deep is that i didnt remember any of this
must have just blocked it out, even then as a very young child
all i remembered was the animated parts

but when i realized just how much of a glorification
of the southern mythology of happy darkies
and kindly masters it was, i decided that was too much
antebellum trash to deal with just to get to the good parts

it was like i had been betrayed somehow
like walt disney had taken my blues and gone

about how they took something fine and true of black culture
and made it into pure cultural poison

(not that it wasnt reflective of the era, reminded me of those blackcrows in dumbo, or the zootsuited wolves in mightymouse, or daffyduck for that matter, dont get me started on what we had to endure when i was a kid . . ).

but disney had help, they used the works of joel chandler harris
a journalist who used the stories his parents slaves had told him
when he was a kid

being such a big fan of brer rabbit i once researched the history
of the brer rabbit corpus and found that the original storyteller
was believed to be one uncle george

joel chandler was a journalist who took the stories he
heard uncle george (lets call him baba george why dont we) tell,
made up a composite of his idea of a good and loyal slave
and named his composite uncle remus

joel chandler was operating out of two reconstruction contexts
he wrote in atlanta right after the civil war and was part of an organized effort
by white atlanta to get the newly freed slaves to both miss the good old days
and to act how white atlanta felt that good newly freed blacks should, ie subservient
and still loyal to the old plantation class

it also came out of a period journalistic tradition of giving advice
and social commentary through colorful regional character narratives

consequently chandlers brer rabbit body of work has a questionable slant
but the power of the tales shine through in spite of him

it is the first african american body of literature
(along with the slave narratives) and when im telling stories as
part of my performance work i always do some brer rabbit
(a little bit of selfmarketing there, i sing and dance w/the best of them)

this baba george was clearly one of the master storytellers of all times and i try to give him his denied props in this book george hunt and i are doing called babageorge and the oral tradition - an illustrated book for both children and adults

and i would love to see those old animations but when i saw how they were contexted in song of the south i just couldnt sit thru it and im not going to pay good money to see it now either

even beyond the offensive content, it is one of the most tedious and boring films ever done, it was much too much work to get to the good parts even if the live action segments werent offensive - and they most certainly were

but then im a big fan of the amos and andy tv show
(got some treasured amos and andy tapes i hunted down)
and they also got yanked for being offensive, but in that case i dont agree
i do love me some amos and andy and the kingfish too

and consider myself a member in good standing
of the mystic knights of the sea

so i got to come down on the side of anticensorship on song of the south too
you can see if it you want but dont expect me to support it

what disney ought to do is redo the damned thing
it would make a helluva animated movie done with a modern sensibility
(even as is SOS will probably generate some interesting dialogue
my understanding is they are going to try to frame it in a lot of dvd extras,
this is going to be interesting)

in the meantime im trying to reclaim brer rabbit and
put that and other afroam folklore in a new context

part of my mission with this novel is to reclaim our literary history
and reforge our folklore into an instrument suitable to our 21st century condition

in rest for the weary my conjureman lives in a riverside park
that im trying to define as an african american holyground
the riverside community that harbors the park is peopled
with folk from african american folklore

(as a kid back in memphis i grew up alongside the river and that riverbluff park was my playground,
but i didnt realize how mythic that was until i started writing about it)

my conjureman is tucept jubilation highjohn
and based on the mythwork of highjohn the conqueror

i also got john henry and pollyanne, i got frankie and johnny
and i got stagolee and billy lyons and a mess of such folk

i also got brer rabbit and them living in that park
cause that park is a hole in the wall where anything goes
where fantasy and reality interface (including scenes from other afroam novels)
it is a delta crossroads - a delta holyground

my neighborhood conjureman is a storyteller in the realworld
and his first intro of brer rabbit is as a story but then they show up as real characters

most folk know of brer rabbit and the tar baby, it is the most well known
but the intro story highjohn tells of brer rabbit is probably my favorite
hes telling it at an annual juneteenth celebration in the park:

"How many of you know, Highjohn ask a gaggle of spellbound kids from the neighborhood, that Brer Rabbit and his crew live in the Park here. Anklebells jangling, Highjohn walks to the edge of the stage and sits down among them. He drops his voice like it is a secret between him and them. That’s why I live here he told them because they tell me things I couldnt get nowhere else. Now the Rabbit and them, they wary of humanfolk but sometimes late at night I settle back and close my eyes and act like Im sleeping see and soon enough old Brer Rabbit he come peeping in the door and when he see me sleeping like that he call the rest of them in and they commence to partying right there in my front room. Brer Rabbit he pull out he bluesharp and Bear he play the bones and Sister Coon she play she guitar bigger than she and Brer and Sister Fox commence to kicking up their heels and sometimes I get in the spirit and I forget myself and I open my eyes and the music stop and they all hide away till I remember to close my eyes again."

five artists - bob gates, chester higgins, george hunt, ernest withers & me

well didnt this post get complicated
i started off with intent to give my two
favorite photographers some promotional space
which i do occasionally

trying to help them sell some work
and give them well deserved props

then i thought about giving my homeboy
george hunt some props while i was at it

which led to giving memphis elder ernest withers some
props too and what w/links and samples of their works
it ended up a full post

bob and chester i do regular
guess i will add babas hunt and withers to that

dont know what to say about them
i love their work and will let it speak
for itself,

first one of bobs, hes
got so many extraordinary works
i didnt know which one to choose

bob got that special eye that sees
the extraordinary in everything

but hey, best you go see for youself

and then there is chester higgens
what can you say about chester higgins
except that he is one of the most profound
chroniclers of black world images ever

and in particular its spiritworld
chester higgins is deep

and everytime i go on chesters site
its more primetime than ever

he must have somebody working
on that site, otherwise he wouldnt
have time to take photos in the
first place, the site itself is a

work of art

then i thought while im at it i might as
well give my homeboy georgehunt
some props,

me and george been
talking about doing projects
together for ever, we were
going to do cleveland lees beale st band
together but the company
couldnt deal with georges style

anybody from memphis will recognize this
one as being from the infamous garbage strike
that brought martin luther king to his death
at the lorraine motel

which reminded me a a famous photo from
another great memphis visual artist
photographer ernest withers, an old lion of the struggle
one of the great chroniclers of the civilrights movement

i saw him last time i was home, still getting around good
with his trademark kufi on his head, asking about my mama

of his most famous photos used that same sign and strikers
standing on the frontlines that brings chills to my spine
everytime i see it

this was the struggle that turned me out
we had always been engaged cause my mama was a racewoman
and dragged us along to marches and sitins and everything
but this struggle was when it got personal

this campaign and the death of king
was the battle that enlisted me in the movement and i been
a warrior in the struggle ever since

my life of struggle has been an ongoing growth process
i have sometimes zigged when i should have zagged and
often stumbled but by oguns beard ima live and die a warrior

everything i do, every word i forge is an
instrument of struggle - in the tradition
of my artistic elders - babas hunt and whithers

and like babas hunt and withers
ima a memphis artist to the bone
representing best i can - the delta is my home

me and george been talking about doing a
beale street work for the longest, i do stories
to go along with some of his paintings
but thats going to take forever
to do stories of a caliber his
paintings will require

we also got this childrens piece on
afroam folklore in the pot waiting for when we get the time
to put that in play,

in fact just thinking
about it i think i will send that draft
on off to george today

this image is the one he let me
use for mojo rising

memphis hoodooman is
what he calls this one . . . .

thats my homeboy

problem with doing projects with him
is that hes even more diffident than i am
i always have to convince him

george, lets do this man, lets go ahead
and do it

he always says yes, but still i have to work him

cause if you handle him wrong he will tell you
to kiss his creative

thats what happend with troll press on our
childrens book
they didnt like what he was doing and he
told them to go to hell

but hes susceptible to my collaborative initatives
cause i come to him correct

i think of myself as a pathblazer
when it comes to being a black memphis artist
but george was out there when it was really
a leap of faith

people think im antisocial and
stand offish but george is even
worse, whenever im in memphis
i defer to him as one of my
hometown elders

he does dont bother me im busy
much better than i do

The Longgame

I often refer in my posts to what I call the Longgame.

This concept originally comes from my mentor, John O Killens, who often complained that blacks were not longdistance runners (that was before the Kenyans dominated the marathons of course) and that we had to conduct ourselves in our lives in a manner that facilitated lifelong struggle and precluded burnout and in our political strategies to think in longterm effect.

I translated that as The Longgame. Because as a wouldbe hoodoo visionary and ideological orchestrator I have to think in generations when making my moves.

(Cast your vision young hoodoo as far as you can see. Determine the challenges the tribe will face. Prepare the tribal soul to meet them.)

In shaping the generations and in ideological conflict the longest and most comprehensive game wins. I try to take the games of other ideological orchestrators into mind when I construct mine so that their efforts feed mine. If your vision and your game is comprehensive enough everybody else's game becomes part of yours and their efforts empower yours. If you truly understand the Board of Destiny, young hoodoo, everybody on the planet works for you.

It behooves blackfolk to start thinking in generations, both in their personal lives and in their cultural strategies. It should always be about how many generations can we shape and how do we shape them.

Around the world, whereever you got blackfolk they are on the bottom of their respective societies. Everywhere. Apparently without exception. Cant blame Everywhere on nobody but ourselves. Somehow someway we must transform into strengths, the weaknesses that have crippled us in global competition.

My ultimate game is to ensure that blackfolk are never on the bottom ever again. My goal is that blackfolk be so strong in spirit, so powerful a people that no matter what the governing system we find ourselves part of - no matter where in the world/cosmos we find ourselves in the foreseeable and unforeseeable future - that blackfolk not only survive and prosper as a race and culture but that they are illuminated and empowered, forces for justice and righteousness in whatever type of social system they find themselves. Or create.

Politics is shortgame, basic defense, the longgame is always a spiritual one, trying to shape the initiation of the soul, trying to grow and evolve and be always greater than we are. This goes for cultures as well as people, (bear with me I will bring it back to earth in a minute) or in the case of African American culture, trying to shape our generations into what we would like them to be.

For instance AIDS. Once it became clear that AIDS had a special affinity for the souls of blackfolk, there should have been a way to communicate that to our people with the kind of cultural authority that enables timely adaptation to a cultural emergency. A cultural authority that would identify and finesse cultural crises in their infancy.

Immediate AIDS shortgame should have been to identify the cause and change community behavior accordingly and immediately. In this case - education, monogamous commitment, safesex, drug outreach, pharmaceutical research&pricing policies, etc.

But that’s just Shortgame. Defense. The corresponding longgame should be designed to harness the karmic power generated by a cultural crises of this magnitude to make health of primal importance in our culture. Once again we see the penalty of bad health. Both in the States and around the world blacks are sicker than other folk - we die earlier, we suffer longer, we have paid in stunted lives and stunted generations. We desperately need to use this cultural hammer to make nutrition, health, sanitation and healthcare a cultural imperative. We need to be a healthfreak culture.

AIDS has ravaged blackfolk throughout the Americas and Africa has damn near lost a generation. It is incumbent upon us to use the karma generated by a crises of this magnitude to make health an ongoing concern. Exercise, nutrition, lifestyle and compassionate healthcare policies are a must. The (v)ital lifestyle must become second nature to us. A cultural trait. Then we will have transformed adversity into strength. Worked the counterspell. Otherwise its just a tragedy. Just a tragedy.

(Please take care of yourself and your loved ones. Try to live a healthy and ital lifestyle in every way you can. This is both an individual and a cultural responsibility.)

It is in that vein that I express appreciation for the work of Kenny and Faatimah Gamble, who have used the monies theyve earned with The Philly Sound to support our community. Sister Faatimah founded The Wellness Of You Program, an innovatively comprehensive Health and Wellness Program based in Philly, while Brother Kennys Universal Companies has facilitated effective development of his South Philly neighborhood.

These efforts are commendable on so many levels. Rich black celebrities giving back to the community in a manner consistent with our greatest needs. I commend them both. I proclaim them both honorary Masters of the Longgame.

PBS Blues: Blacks Blues & Whitefolks

The recent PBS special on the blues was an education. Even for those of us who consider ourselves knowledgeable. It was wonderful seeing folk like Muddy, Cassandra and Chris Thomas King. I guess like anybody else, they missed some of my favorites like Little Axe, who does this amazing fusion of blues and the oral tradition.

But still I basically enjoyed it. Mostly. It was exciting, boring, inspiring, illuminative, tedious and at times offensive, often in the same program. Some, like Godfathers and Sons, were offensive period. I had heard Chess was going to respond to accusations of exploitation by saying that his father had been a benevolent ‘plantation owner’ to these benighted blues singers but I didn’t believe it and sat through much drivel to see if he really would. And to see if Chuck D would let it pass without commentary.

Well he said it alright and Chuck D shucked and jived his way through the whole thing. True, he got a good song out of it but still it was embarrassing seeing him play faithful colored sidekick to this guy I kept looking for evidence of irony on directors part but he appeared sincere. Reminds me of that old African proverb about the lions getting bad press until they learn to tell their own story.

But again, it was an education. Interesting how many commentators on the series claimed that whitefolk own the blues now. That blackfolk dont support the blues and it’s a white thing now. Which is what you would think if you had watched some of this series. But its interesting that the one that moved me most was Burnetts. The one that went souldeep. Which speaks to me about the African American relationship to the blues. The blues are more than music. The blues are also a cultural force. An African American metaphysical system. Encompassing the finesse of adversity. The transformation of adversity into strength. Into art.

For those of us who consider ourselves cultural custodians and shamans of the African American Way, the blues are a way of life that exemplify the tropes of transformation and redemption that inform African American culture at its best. That keep the tribal soul healthy.

The blues are one of African American cultures great contributions to the worldspirit, the evolving global culture in which the question is which cultures will survive and evolve and which shall decline and whither and disappear. The question of the multiculti future is which of the national cultures of the world shall be definitive in the evolving global culture. At its best African American culture is competitive with any culture on this planet and one of its greatest voices is the blues.

I am often asked when making blues presentations, can whitefolks do the blues. My response is if I can write novels I suspect they can do the blues. But in order to write novels I have been a student of the Craft for some 30 odd years now and am fully immersed in Western Civilization. And even then the power of my work draws from that little extra beat that defines black literature as fundamentally as it defines black music.

I dont mind if whitefolk and the whole world become aficionados of the blues. This is a good thing. I welcome and value those who come with respect and bring a little something something to the table. But those folks who bemoan and/or gloat that the blues are no longer a blackthing are sorely mislead.

I am not concerned about blackfolk losing the blues. Not gonna happen. Otherfolk more than welcome to come along for the ride. But the Blues are more than music. They are an African American Way. And the roots go souldeep.