FRIDAY
many rivers to cross
sudan and the janjaweed
still driving blackfolk into chad
30,000 waiting for the river at the border
to get low enough to cross
sudan and the arab league
still asking for more time
i have nothing more
to say
armchair revolutionaries of the world unite
here i sit at the sacred desk
words are my primary weapon
sometimes they are powerful
sometimes they are not
god give me the grace
to know when and how
to use them best
and when to stand and
let them be
sudan: passion of the present
resource website for activists interested in actually helping in the sudan
bushwhacked
what irks me most about bush is that the
world feels so much more fragile since hes
been in charge
no one can afford to sit this one out
his domestic and international policies affect us all
they will afflict our children
these trying times have made it clear that
human progress is such a precious thing
and i treasure it ever more
everybody has to do something to
put humanity on the good foot
again
i beg of you
strategic martyrdom
al sadr would have to be a fool
to give up the shrine
no matter what they tell him
they will hunt him down
he might as well play it out
apparently this confrontation started
when gung ho marines took over
from the army and just as they did in falluja
w/o coordinating w/us or iraqi authorities
aggressively bit off more than they could chew
this kind of blind recklessness has
crippled the us policy aim in iraq
in spite of glowing official reports
this has been an incompetant occupation
and it is w/some reluctance
that i admit admiring al sadr
for so doggedly resisting the
occupation of his country
im very uncomfortable admiring a sworn enemy
especially a fundamentalist one
but the player in me
respects good game
readership
numbers going up
thats good, i like that
but they not going up fast enough
to feed my need
i would appreciate it if those of you
who do read rootsblog regular
maybe pass the url on to maybe 10
of your chosen friends
you think might enjoy the work
empathize with the game
players and wouldbe players
i crave me more readership
my deal w/you is that i will give
you in return the best and most strategic truths
i have to give
i will entertain you
make you smile when i can
think when i cant
and never waste your time
w/the insignificant
i will deal only in graceful
words of power
be safe
arf
THURSDAY
the myth of mammy pleasant
still working on a listing of hoodoo ancestors
one meroe turned me onto that i knew nothing of is
san francisco’s mammy pleasant
i googled her
she is a most interesting personality
most accounts were either sensationalized
or sanitized
but all indicative of the complex mythwork she left behind her
i am very deeply into mythwork and being a mythworker
it is one of my most valued skilz
so the mythic quality of her life interests me
its mostly fed by a dramatic ambiguity about her life
that would be difficult to achieve in this mediaage
which also brings up the question of self promotion
hoodoo practitioners are conflicted on self promotion
it is an occult tradition after all and a % of secrecy integral to its power
but at the sametime its hard to ignore the internet as
an evolving hoodoo instrument
a magical instrument of unimaginable power
part of which entails crafting an online persona
and selling it
putting it to work
as a writer and cultural opinionmaker
promotional skills are essential
but when does self promotion become counterproductive
and work against your true power
i guess for me it would be
when it inclines you to shallow work that sells/plays better
or when you no longer do it gracefully
instead of you got the demon the demon got you
i am a delta mythmaker
i work very hard at crafting my hoodoo persona of rickydoc
and the mythwork of it for future generations
sometime realwork you dont get paid for it
in your lifetime
and while i do hope my promotion/mythwork
enhances the marketability of my realwork
my Work work
its all part and parcel of my efforts to shape the
future of the tradition
the destiny of the blackrace and all humanity
to make real into the world that which was not
planting seeds and preparing the ground
my every move is prettymuch judged by how it shapes the mythwork of rickydoc
there are times when im uncomfortable promoting myself so vigorously
but my mythwork i consider sacred ground
WEDNESDAY
the banana republicans of florida
bob herbert say
florida state troopers have been going to the homes
of black voters in orlando florida in an
'investigation of voting fraud'
they are targeting
the orlando league of voters
elderly black voters (president is 73) who
have been a powerful electoral force in orlando
now their elderly participants are afraid of being
caught up in ashcroftian investigations and refusing to
work with voter league workers
this suppression of floridas black vote must be
understood in a pattern of suppression
highlighted by the felons list florida was recently
forced to abandon
as a child of the civilrights movement
this infuriates me
this is the kind of thing we fought against
back in the delta of 68 and like the rev said
our right to vote has been paid for in blood
to think these good old swampboys still think so little of us
that they would commit blatant disenfranchisement
and dare us to whimper
TUESDAY
southern discomfort
oldschool racist james hart has won the republican nomination for the us house (tenn)
running against racemixing with “the poverty genes of less favored races"
the republican party tried to stop him
that oldschool racism embarrasses them
he didnt get the memo
bottletrees and holygrounds
i been trying to sanctify my yard
been wanting for sometime to do me a bottletree
but truth be told i didn’t know how they worked
or what they were for
id like to tell you the knowledge was passed on to me
but since it wasnt i went to that grand repository of
cultural authenticity - the internet
apparently bottletrees come from old congo practice
of hanging glass as talisman against evil spirits
the spirits get caught up in the beauty of sunlight
in the glass and get trapped
when the wind blows you hear them singing
nairobi bound
looks like im going back to nairobi
looks like the kenyan summer literary seminar is on
jeffrey renard allen will be doing fiction
wanda coleman will be doing poetry
josip novakovich will be doing nonfiction
binyavanga will be lecturing on african lit
i will be lecturing on african american lit
last time i did the kenyan sumlit it went sacred on me
& im looking forward to hanging out w/the kwani crew again
they got their own little nairobi renaissance going
two weeks in nairobi w/option of
last 3 days in mombasa
god is good
what are they trying to hide
whats w/this american campaign against journalists in najaf
the iraqi police have been arresting journalists
after telling them they all had to leave najaf
and last sunday fired 'warning shots' at their hotel
warning shots at journalists?
an iraqi police lieutenant threatened to kill protesting journalists"we are going to open fire on this hotel. we are going to smash it up. i will kill you all."
the americans trying to say its an iraqi policy
that they wouldnt dare treat journalists like this
that they wouldnt dare try to hide their actions
from the media
whats up with that
SUNDAY
cointellpro 04
the fbi has been interviewing and even subpoenaing
potential protestors of the republican convention
in an apparent attempt to chill protest next month
their response to folk who have raised concerns about
freespeech and civilrights has been
trust me
we are only concerned about violence, not protest
but the folk they’ve been monitoring are your
garden variety peaceniks
trust me is the bush administrations response to
all the transgressions that have come to light
before the ugly truths are ferreted out
we can trust them alright
we can trust them to do wrong whenever they think
they can get away with it
fight like an iraqi
these bush league imperialists chose iraq in part because
they thought the iraqis wouldn’t fight
so now we have pissed off folk like the
crippled militant carrying his AK47 while
being pushed five hours in a wheelchair
in an effort to get into the fight at najaf
people who know they are being abused will fight you tooth and claw
while if you know you are the abuser you crippled w/reservations
this is not a just war and god
is not on our side
people of color united
the rightwing has sponsored a 'black' political action group
running ads against kerry and his wife on black radio stations
ads designed to get blackfolk mad at him or discourage them from voting in november
a repub dirty tricks operations that obviously considers us gullible little sambos
theyve been funded by this guy rooney,
a rich rightwing hitman made richer by repub healthcare policies
a supporter of school vouchers who swears he knows black folks needs
a plantationstyle great white father
"I have a long history of involvement with and support of the black community," Rooney said. "For 21 years I have gone to an all-black church. They finally elected me over other black people to their church board. I'm one of them.”
well gag me w/a spoon
just put me out of my misery
rwandans in the sudan
rwandan troops have deployed in the sudan
this is kidna ironic don’t you think
the survivors of one african genocide protecting
the victims of another
and probably part of the reason they volunteered early
and moved in early as the vanguard of the african unions attempt
to secure the sudan
supposedly there will eventually be a couple thousand au troops
to secure an area the size of iraq
okay, its a start, the initial 300 was supposed to have been deployed earlier
but planning and logistics have postponed the deployment
come on african union
get your act together
I want you to succeed in this
as much as I want the killing
stopped in darfur
the global african presence
runoko rashidis site
is dedicated to chronicling the global black presence
he got so much blackworld historical on this site
that it will take me some time to get thru it
but he seems to be avoiding the excesses of afrocentricity
like the claim for a black jesus for instance
it is a manifestation of our weakness and our needy insecurity
that we will spend so much energy trying to
claim jesus and god knows who else
god knows i hate it when blackfolk act all
weak and insecure
course now it is a known fact that slavery
was merely part of legbas plan to make us a global people
it takes a global people to contend for power in this day
and fortunately we have been dispersed all over the world
a move in legbas game
a cautionary tale
the resignation of nj gov mcgreevy reminds me of a joke:
a happily married ant had a onenight stand w/an elephant
the elephant got happy and died of a heart attack
the ant said damn, for a moment of pleasure
i got to spend the rest of my life digging a grave
a hoodoo legacy
djenra windwalker recently made a case for identifying our hoodoo ancestors
i will start chronicling some of the great hoodoos
as i myself learn more about them and their legacies
folk like dr moore of the tree of life in harlem
folk like aunt caroline dye
folk like jim jordan
the hoodoos chronicled in hyatt
the gullah buzzard flocks
my boy gullah jack
and contemporary masters like
djenra windwalker herself
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