rootwork the rootsblog: a cyberhoodoo webspace

On Significance and Words of Power

Hello World.

Rickydoc is rolling. Clocking pages on my draft and paying my daily dues. Schedule is 5 pages a day, which should get me to the promised land of a complete draft by my birthday in late July. So far so good.

Cutting deeply into my discretionary writing time though. Got to be even more ruthlessly focused on the significant. That’s my abiding ambition, to be attuned to the significant.

As an artist, ideological orchestrator and practicing conjureman I am ruthless about being attuned to the significant. So that all my words are words of power.

First Words of Power: a sincere and heartfelt apology to Iya T’shia Asanti.

She wrote me an email about my April Oya NSoro article On Fa and the Nature of Conjure. Indicated how painful and unjustified she felt the attacks on her Mad World gig have been. It hurt her she said that I had joined the slavering pack. Made me feel bad. Feel like I owe her an apology.

I tend to think nobody is paying attention to me anyway which means I can wail like I want when I want but I, like few others, know that words are in truth powerful things, each and every one a work of art, and anybody with a skin as thin as my own should be more considerate of the skins of others.

Debra Dickerson, whom I seem to admire in spite of myself, told me I hurt/pissed her off too. I apologize to both of them, cause I don’t consider either one of them enemies.

Misguided perhaps but who among us should throw the first stone. Certainly not one as thin skinned as I am. I know exactly how they feel. Anybody who is willing to step out into the arena gets stoned occasionally.

For instance I don’t believe that Reparations are a viable empowerment strategy for the 21st century. For this I have been accused of being everything from a fool to a CIA plant and a traitor to the race. And each time, foolish though the attack may be, my little feelings get hurt.

Most hoodoos/ATR don’t agree with my theories on hoodoo/ATR evolution. Charge me with all kinds of blasphemous transgressions. And I aint never spoke out of nothing but love for blackfolk and the tradition.

Juat breaks my little hoodoo heart.

I believe that at our best we are a race of activists and there is enough struggle to go around. We have to be able to have sincere tactical disputes without them getting personal. Not among fellow activists who might be following a different path but whom you consider sincere.

As opposed to say Condi or Clarence, I consider Sisters Dickerson and Iya T’shia Asanti comrades in struggle and I apologize for any hurt I might have caused either of them

I am particularly aggrieved that I caused sisters in struggle grief. My mama raised me to be a southern gentleman and I don’t think she would approve. If anything we should be conscious of the care and feeding of our fellow activists at all times and in all regards. I will have to keep in mind that there are many roads to Timbuktu.

Okay, other points of significance upon which I wish to comment today: The War on Terror. Israel and Palestine. Genocide in the Sudan.

(Im starting to feel redundant because I seem to say the same thing over and over. Only the supporting evidence changes. But ive reached that point in life where I don’t really have but a few points to make and apparently Im going to make them over and over and in as many different forums as possible until its clear to future generations what I want my life and hoodoo ministry to represent.)

First the conflict between the West and Islam; the most significant threat to world peace today. It really shouldnt be defined as a win/lose situation though the Bush Administration has clearly done so. It should be a cool out the hardliners on both sides situation. The rest of us can work something out.

On the other hand, the conflict with Al Qaeda and the like is very real and one we cannot afford to lose. And yet I am so afraid that we could lose this one. Mostly cause these fundamentalist idiots we got in charge here so clearly don’t know what they are doing and their actions aggravate the problem rather than ameliorate it. General Zimmi, in a recent speech at the Center for Defense Information, listed what he calls the 10 crucial mistakes of US policy in Iraq.

And it becomes clearer and clearer that Abu Graib was not, as the Administration wants to paint it, the actions of a depraved few, unless you counting Bush and crew. Whats really interesting is that like the bullies they are, they are going to try to pin it all on those guards when it was clearly administration policy.

Including murder most foul.

And its also clear that you cant expect anything close to the truth from them. They continue to deny the facts no matter what the evidence and the American media continues to parrot official lies. The only good thing about this is that the increased spotlight will continue to make it more and more obvious that the wouldbe Emperor is as naked as a jaybird.

It will be interesting to see how much wiggling they do to make this "transfer of sovereignty" look real when we all know it wont be. By definition.

I am susceptible to the case that stabilizing Iraq is beyond partisan gain but the problem is that Bush and Crew aren’t above using it for partisan points and the idea of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield, et al with a real mandate and four more years to further muck up the world makes my blood run cold. So Ima hold my nose and use it too.

My other point of significance, at least for me, is the Slavery and Genocide in the Sudan:

Something about that Arab/Islamic factor that really really irks me. I guess because so many Afroam blacks decided they were going to dump one “slavemasters religion” and turned right around to serve another slavemasters religion.

In the Sudans conflict with the South there were issues of religion muddying up the waters but in Darfur they are all Islamic so its strictly warring on Blacks because they are Blacks, an historical pattern in that part of Africa. As evidenced by Muhammad Ali, one of the most proficient killers of blacks to ever come out of Egypt. When his son was killed on a slaving raid he depopulated entire regions of the Sudan. Turned them into charnel houses of the dead and dying. Much like they are doing today in Darfur.

Only a seriously inadequate reading of history would choose the name Muhammad Ali as a statement of black pride and empowerment.

Supposedly the deal has been cut with the Sudan and the rebels of the South. Darfur however continues to twist in the wind. Divide and Conquer. The Blacks Have Never Fought Together. Even Against Those Who Would War On Them Simply Because They Are Black.

Another issue of global significance is that of Israel and Palestine.

It is so clear that the actions of their last Gaza campaign, including destroying Palestinian homes and using missiles on a nonviolent demonstration, were designed to extract occupational vengeance on a civilian population for the deaths of those 13 soldiers.

At the risk of being unjustly charged with anti-Semitism I dont see a significant difference between the terror of state sponsored murderism and suicide bombers.

Whats deep is that I feel Israels moral transgressions personally. The Black Struggle is built on a Jewish diasporic model. Not only do I consider Israeli policies a problem of biblical significance in the world, it pains me to see what Israel has come to represent in todays world and useless though it may be, it is in the name of Schwerner and Goodman that I continue to speak out on this matter.

Recently Justice Minister and Holocaust survivor Yosef Lapid equated Israeli actions in Gaza with that of Nazis during the Holocaust. Israeli rightwingers called him everything but the Son of God.

If they wont listen to their own prophets they certainly wont listen to me.

But Rickydoc Flowers gon always speak Truth to the People. You never know when your Words will fall on fertile ground.

Word by Rickydoc

On Fa and the Nature of Conjure

I was asked at a dinner party the other day about the role of hoodoo in contemporary society.

Was trying to explain to a fellow academic the difference between Hoodoo and Voodoo. I told him that while both were part of a family of African religious retentions in the Americas, Voodoo, like most of the ATR family, is a mature religion while Hoodoo has traditionally been a magical system.

Though a very knowledgeable and engaged Pan Africanist, he was having trouble accepting Voodoo as a true religion. This is the case with many folk outside of the ATR world.

ATR, as is hoodoo, going through an intense process of selfdefinition, questioning just what is it and what is its role in contemporary society. This questioning comes from its increased viability in the world and pressures on it from more structured religions (Christanity and Islam). Not that it ever could, but African Traditional Religion can no longer just be what its always been. It has to grow and evolve. Everything grows and evolves or it dies.

The question is who will be in charge of this evolution. Will it be shaped by those of us who really care about it and its role in the care and feeding of the tribal soul and destiny. Or will it be defined by those who despise us as a people and culture, Will it be defined by those who want to sensationalize it for commercial purposes.

Or should I say will it continue to be sensationalized, demeaned and demonized by the powerful American cultural/commercial machine that defines it at best as cultic and at worst as evil. Much of the Fundamentalist West still considers ATR the devils work.

Or those who simply want to use it as a cashcow.

Our strength and weakness in the world is a direct result of how we are perceived, within and without.

A major aspect of demanding respect for what we do is how we conduct ourselves as spiritual workers. There are quite a few spiritual thugs in this line of work, taking advantage of the weak and the desperate. If we would guide others we must first clean our own house.

And then we must resist those who would define us as spiritual pop and even worse. My last book, Mojo Rising, the industry offered me a three book deal. They said we love your new book Art but we are going to turn it into a giftbook. “We are going to take out everything uncomfortable.”

A giftbook. They were going to turn my sacred hoodoo text into a newage giftbook. I was tempted, had visions of being a media friendly hoodoo guru and clocking big checks. Ricky Vanzant. But I just couldnt do it. In literary hoodoo we consider every Book a Spell. Every draft a divination. Here I was with Mojo Rising, trying to forge a spell that would define the hoodoo tradition as a valid and powerful tradition and the industry was trying to define me (and hoodoo) as spiritual pop.

The recent controversy in ATR circles over Iya ta'Shia Asanti’s participation in Mad Mad World is another case in point. The salient charge was one of disrespect.

When I tried to explain this to my colleague he didn’t get it. I had to explain that ATR is going through an critical process of selfdefinition. We will either define ourselves as a force to be respected in this world or we will be defined by those who despise us as a joke. Mad Mad World defined African religion as a joke.

(What pray tell does putting idiots in a pit and pouring animal entrails over them have to do with African religious practice?)

This is just another manifestation of the historical disrespect with which ATR has been treated in Western Civilization and which we are now defying by taking ourselves seriously.

It is clear what hoodoo gets from increased affiliation with the ATR family. It is less clear what hoodoo brings to the table. Personally I think it is our flexibility.

We are Conjurors. Conjuration is our pride and joy. To conjure. To create. To make real in the world that which was not. That’s what we do. We believe in Transformation. In turning Adversity into Strength. The redemptive power that has been at the heart of African American culture at its best.

Conduct yourself as you aspire to be and you shall. This is the essence of Conjuration. The essence of Transformation.

If anything Hoodoo has always been an inclusive system willing to adapt, adopt and evolve as necessary. An inclusive flexibility which has been one of the primal strengths of the African Way of God. What Hyatt called Anymethod Anytime - the hoodoo propensity to break the rules of magic according to need and circumstance.

The ability to hit a straight lick with a crooked stick. Legba’s Lost Children. Mythmakers and Realitybreakers.

Consequently hoodoo is not wedded to certain positions just because they are traditional, and unlike the more traditional paths, feels no obligation to accept religious dogma uncritically. We are willing to consider what is actually sacred and eternal and what can and should be left behind. These should be conscious (and sanctioned) decisions based on our ever evolving understanding of religious, spiritual and magical principles. Some rituals may have been viable in the social context of their inception but are now open to question. Clitorectomy is one example, animal sacrifice perhaps another.

If its any consolation to those offended by that last statement, my positions are considered anathema in hoodoo circles too. I have been charged repeatedly with being hostile to traditional hoodoo. I am not hostile to traditional hoodoo. I do, however, believe that hoodoo and ATR have to evolve. Or rather that they are in a constant state of evolution and that we have to take steps to shape that evolution or it will be shaped for us and to our detriment. Especially now.

Iya ta'Shia Asanti’s claimed that her participation had been sanctioned. Forgive me if I am a bit cynical about that. More like Hollywood made her an offer she couldn’t refuse. Who among us would not have been tempted. But the Mad Mad World gig was a stone sell out. It brought no dignity to the tradition. It brought no power. It demeaned and diminished us.

That said I was impressed with the dignity with which she defended herself in ATR forums, clearly wanting to maintain her good standing in the community. I hope she uses her increased visability wisely. There is power there. Those practitioners who attacked her sexuality by claiming homosexuality not authentically “African” just muddied up the water with diversionary bullshit. Fundamentalism is problematic, be it Christian, Islamic or African.

But the charge of sensationalizing African Traditional Religion was, I felt, a legitimate one. And unfortunate. A felony charge. How can we demand respect from others if we do not respect ourselves.

We cannot continue to allow Hollywood to define us. We cannot continue to let Hollywood sensationalize and demean us. Not now. For these are Trying Times and our ATR power needed now like never before. Many ATR practitioners are adverse to the politics of religious institutionalization. Yet until we do engage in the politics of religion and its institutionalization we will be defenseless against the onslaughts of those that do.

I believe that this is a critical moment in the evolution of ATR. I believe that we are standing at the crossroads and I believe that it is a question of our survival as a people and culture.

I believe one of the primary responsibilities of any spiritual tradition is the care and feeding of the tribal soul and destiny. I believe that it is because we have not lived up to that responsibility that our people and our cultures are in almost genocidal trouble today. I believe the questions of evolution and illumination facing ATR today are manifestations of an attempt to assume that responsibility

I believe that it is Fa.

Are we or are we not Spiritworkers. Are we or are we not Masters of the Way. Shaping reality is what we do. Surely we will shape our own reality. Our own traditions. Our own destiny. Our own Fa.

Are we or are we not Conjurors.

Woodsheds, Words and Pictures: John Coltrane and Abu Ghraib

According to the legend the way I heard it when Coltrane first came out to play back in North Carolina they blew him off the stage. He wasn’t ready. There was this woodshed out back of his house and he went into that woodshed and he practiced and practiced until he was THE John Coltrane. Got back on stage and said “Now blow this.”

That’s what my crowd calls it when you dig in for some serious work or intense craft development. Going into the woodshed.

Been out of pocket lately you may have noticed. Trying to dig into the summer woodshed and its been heavy slogging. So determined to get maximum novel use out of these next couple of months that I don’t have time to do discretionary writing. At the end of the day Im still trying to clock novel hours. 6 is minimal, 9 is good, 12 is in the zone.

Unfortunately Im still in that stage where the novel concept is still growing so the harder you work the deeper you dig yourself into the hole of raw manuscript.

Just this morning had to reconcept my slavery section, in large part because of what I figured out teaching Beloved this semester about dramatizing a period of Afroam history that is inherently dramatic and a period upon which every serious black writer has to make a statement.

Ah but evil is evil and one cannot be so deep into the woodshed that you lose track of whats going on back in the world. This Iraqi prisoner situation been on my mind for a variety of reasons.

The Red Cross and other folk have been saying there is a problem with the prisons for months now but nobody paid attention until they saw the pictures. When the Red Cross complained about Abu Ghraib they were told by military authorities that policies there ‘were part of the process.’

If it hadn’t been for the pictures the Bush Administration would have stonewalled like they do all their mistakes. They do it everytime. Just out and out lie to you until they get pressed to the wall.

But the pictures made it graphic in a way words could not.

Words and Pictures. I remember my girl Doris Jean Austin used to preach about how fiction had to maintain its cultural primacy in a media driven world. That’s part of why Im into the internet and into hypertext and letting it influence my print work. The generations of the future are going to process information differently and Im determined to stay on the cutting edge.

Bush and Co claims that they did not know of these abuses. Its more like they did not care. Did not consider their treatment of Iraqis a bad thing. (They havent been treating Americans much better lately) What they didn’t know is that there were pictures, evidence they couldn’t lie away.

And if Bush actually didn’t know about it, it is just further evidence of his total lack of, 'curiosity' I think is the prevailing euphemism here, about the consequences of his obsessions. And if his cabinet actually don’t keep him informed of these things they show about as much respect for him as I do.

The administration has tried to say this abuse is an aberration but apparently its been policy. And whats interesting, if not farcical, is the very general, the former commandant of Guantanamo (that paragon of penal restraint), Maj Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who initiated this policy of MPs softening up the prisoners for interrogation, is the one they just sent to clean up Abu Ghraib. They just don’t get it do they.

The Administration still refuses to make it clear who was in charge (apparently some of their privatized civilian mercenaries) or to release the information about the more serious charges of murder, beating people to death (as they did one Baha Daoud Salim according to the Red Cross), raping women and little boys and other such hands-on sexual abuse. Even apparently the 'improper use of a corpse'. (Who the hell knows what the improper use of a corpse could possibly be.)

The Bush Administration will try to stonewall these more horrific crimes too but they have learned best to give just enough so they can say we told you about this. We didnt really try to hide it not really.

Are we really that surprised that there is evidence (pictures and videos) of more than just humiliation but rape and murder and ‘crimes against humanity’. Surprised maybe at the evidence but not that abuse happened. No. It was almost inevitable.

These kind of abuses are almost inevitable in a war and one of the primary reasons to avoid war when its not critical, specially a bogus war in which you are the overwhelming power and can pretty much do what you want to do with a weak enemy (listen up Israel).

Folk wonder how regular people, regular Americans, allowed themselves to do this, but in a closed environment like that, its like those initiations that get out of hand, you start off with a little sadistic fudging with no checks and balances and before you know it you are in the realm of what Arendt called the banality of evil.

There are demons within us all, just waiting for the right nurturing environment. An environment clearly encouraged by the Bush Administration. If anything its refreshing that some soldiers like Pvt Darby, the whistle blower here, were able to resist the pressure to dehumanize them. Turns out Bush might be right after all and this is a fight between Good and Evil. The Evil within.

In the words of that great philospher Pogo Harmonious "We have met the enemy and he is us."

The real crime here is that the Administration has set up prisoner maltreatment as policy, from the initial declaration that the Geneva Convention would not be applied to the prisoners at Guantanamo to the efforts to deny Americans declared enemies of the state any recourse to law or lawyers strictly based on Bushs declaration of them as such. I thought the whole point of the Bill of Rights was to protect the little guys/gals against just this sort of arbitrary abuse by the powerful.

What I find most interesting is that the two at the center of it all, this Fredericks and Graner, are in real life prison guards. This is probably a reflection of what all those black prisoners in the US have to go through every day. Reminds me of the Beloved scene of Paul D kneeling on the chaingang. Waiting to be fed.

Also ironic that Saddams Abu Ghraib has become an icon for American brutality. We keep running out of justifications for invading Iraq. The war on terrorism failed when no Iraqi terror connections were found and lo and behold, the invasion, as feared by the reasonable, has inflamed Islamic rage. No WMDs were found so the rationale morphed into ridding the world of the evil of Saddam Hussein and imposing "Democracy". The Iraqis can perhaps be forgiven if they question Americas benevolence at this point. We have it seems only replaced homegrown evil with an imposed one.

This brutalization of American soldiers and policy is likely to increase the longer they are there. My Lai was not as much an aberration as it was played to be and neither is Abu Ghraib. This brutalization of the American dream is all the more sad because this war was so damned discretionary. All of a sudden we are in a real war where there was none. All those dead folk, American and Iraqi, should be laid at Bush’s door.

Another interesting point about the role of media these days is that these folk took these pictures in the firstplace (what were they thinking?) because these days folks are accustomed to digital recordkeeping - digital cameras and camcorders and burning CDs. Media is a powerful beast and it will not be leashed. If the mainstream media refuses to serve its function (kudos to CBS and Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker) then guerilla media must step to the plate. Both Words and Media are sacred instruments that will not be denied.

But the Bush Administration will try to keep those photos from the public and well they should. When I went to check this out on Google News, the global narrative, the world media was much more concerned about this than the domestic media. Fortunately this is still a democracy, in spite of all the Bush League efforts to cripple it, and eventually those photos will come into the light. Another chip at Bushs Teflon coating.

The election of 2004 is one of the most important elections ever to my way of thinking. I do not like the current direction of American character. This mean and fundamentalist America is not the America that I love. But even more than the election is our responsibility to give the American people an alternative vision to the one they are currently caught up in. That we Progressives of the Third Way work to forge a new vision of American character. A new shining city on the hill. That we get our work done.

Alienating the entire world does not contribute to our National Security.

The I Ching gives two modes of engagement for the superior personality. 2) Working in the court to affect public policy. 2) Withdrawal to work on self as a model of future possibility. A cycle of woodshed and engagement. A model I have found useful for us politically inclined writers.

I guess one image is worth a 1000 words after all. Part of the reason I have become so ‘selective’ about what I do with this Rootsblog. I am a Nommo Master and when I speak I speak in Words of Power. I don’t have time to do useless Words. I am reminded of that Talmud quote that says words should be weighed and not counted.

Even thinking about it makes me eager to get back into the woodshed. I tend to think these internet Words have a limited shelf life. A good novel is forever.

Unfortunately I got to rewrite a piece about a 1000 times before its good to go. I got to do about a 1000 okay/bad words for every good one. Best I get back to Work.

Be Well. Maintain Struggle.

Word by Rickydoc