rootwork the rootsblog: a cyberhoodoo webspace

diabetes, brother nagin and the new orleans diaspora: a tough row to hoe

FRIDAY

kids, what do they know

all writers steal
the question is how well you do it

the trick is do it so well
nobody can tell

got to digest it

i once broke down one hundred years of solitude line by line
for awhile everything i wrote sounded like bad marquez (and thats really bad)
now i want to write chamoiseaus texaco when i grow up

what interest me is not that the kid fumbled the steal
but these book packagers getting credit and royalties

its appalling how badly out of the literary loop
i am these days - $500,000? where do i sign up for one
of these packagers deals - school me somebody

ive tried to write genre, ima big fan of scifi and got some
literary scifi (uh magical realism) in rest for the weary

but i remember once when i was a young cub in new york and
before there were any black romance novels - this company with a vision
approached the harlem writers guild and dangled success in our faces - said
once we got the hang of it we could produce one a year forever

we all tried it, me, adero, ashanti, barbara, brenda, doris, imogunla, jacqui, wesley, tmac, all of us
and they sent us this manual - the lovers had to kiss on page 16, sex by the 5th chapter and not before, the suggested details of the act - and so forth and so on and so on

we all tried it and we all abandoned it - took the same hassle it took to write a real book
folk write whats in them to write and we was all irredemptively oldschool by that time

but what with the abundance of ghetto lit and slick commercial works and the
industry caution on serious african american literary works these days

sometimes you feel like you out of your time - a literary dinasaur lumbering along
wondering howcum its so chilly lately

some of my literary buddies upset with the commercialization of africanamerican lit but i figure it just the maturation of the culture

when i was coming up to be taken seriously as an african american writer you had to be deep and historical, now the culture will sustain any number of genres and thats just the way it is

i dont have time to be whining about the way of things - too busy trying
to get my own work done

literature always been a tough row to hoe
just the nature of the challenges that change

buddy of mine once said said if it was easy
everybody would go down the street and get some

hanging tough
rdoc

WEDNESDAY

some fox commentator tony snow is bushs new spokesman

brother snow has a column on a whitepower website that was
reprinted here

i will let his column speak for itself
commenting on why kwanza is a bogus holiday:

"Detroit native Keith Richburg writes in his extraordinary book, "Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa," that "this strange place defies even the staunchest of optimists; it drains you of hope ..."

Richburg, who served for three years as the African bureau chief for The Washington Post, offers a challenge for the likes of Karenga: "Talk to me about Africa and my black roots and my kinship with my African brothers and I'll throw it back in your face, and then I'll rub your nose in the images of rotting flesh."

Nobody ever ennobled a people with a lie or restored stolen dignity through fraud. Kwanzaa is the ultimate chump holiday"

and so forth along those lines

then he goes on to talk what a great colored guy this richburg is
a leader of his people - bah humbug, a chicken eating comprador if ever there was

reminds me of that quote by jc watts daddy
"a black man voting for a republican is like a chicken voting for colonel saunders"

so this is bushs new spokesman, you see what time it is
bush playing to his base, bush playing pr games

hope this snow fellow gets back pay for all the shameless shilling
hes done for bush on fox to date

this ought to be interesting

cause bush he like to run the okeydoke and the flimflam
i suspect this boy more forthright than bush is ready for

in struggle
rdoc

forked tongued politicians

congressional republicans and the bush administration
worried about the effect of rising oil prices on the november elections
making populist sounding noises about gas policies

whilst in the chambers of congress its business as usual

ignoring a $400 million dollar bonus for retiring exxon chair
ignoring exxon report last quarter of the highest profit in american history ($36 billion)

gop negotiators just yesterday knocked out tax bill provisions that would have
forced the oil companies to pay a measely $5 billion more in taxes on their profits

said they dont believe in 'windfall taxes'

populist flavored proposals bush put forth yesterday do nothing
the perennial federal probes of oil companies profits are election year ploys
that inevitably conclude big oil innocent of skullduggery and misunderstood victim
of unfortunate market trends

the tax measure bush mentioned stretches big oil tax relief from 2 years to 5
we can live with that one big oil spokesman say, thats not necessarily a bad thing he say

a true measure of reform would be to get access to cheneys secret deals/meetings
with oil company executives negotiating last years energy bill - information the tame
supreme court said he had the right to hide from us

remember that cheney and bush are both oil men running the flim flam
everytime you pull up to the pump, everytime you drive to work

take that anger to the ballot box in november
where it belongs

in struggle
rdoc

black snake moaning

the latest offering from whiteboy who did hustle and flow
is about a whitewoman with a jones for blackmen healed
of her promiscuity by a memphis bluesman

when asked if it wasnt a tad sensationalist
brewer started talking about how blacks and whites conduct
dancehall 'orgies' in the memphis jooks that he goes to

in his mind maybe

boy got issues

spewing black sexuality fantasies all over
the celluliod screen

and lying on memphis

aint that much difference between the brutes in birth of a nation
and the pimps and bluesmen of brewers vision - except they macks now
instead of rapists

progress

ive had folk try to point out the redemptive qualities of hustle and flow
and i suspect the same ones will laud this latest offering from mr brewer
nothing succeeds like success (and pushing americas race button)

dont get me wrong now, i much prefer black man as sex machine
over more recent urban myth of black men on the down low

but much as i like seeing memphis mythologized
much as i like the premise of the healing power of the blues

ima have to call this boys work for what it is
sensationalist exploitation - the latest in a long line of same

black snake moan comes from a blind lemon jefferson bluessong
could have used: they have took my blues and gone

lord deliver us from whiteguys w/issues
anointing themselves experts on black culture

a luta continua
rdoc

TUESDAY

on you i said to the enemies of the soul

for my money ishmael reed probably the most influential
african american literary artists alive today - him and amiri

folk like toni and john edgar have a different kind of influence
the longterm diffuse influence of literary players to shape cultures

but ishmael, john o killens and amiri
were also ideological players in a way that most writers are not

as did john os efforts to build a black literary infrastructure
and amiris contributions to the black arts movements

mumbo jumbo transformed african american
literature and culture

in order to understand it you had to do like this paradigm
shift into an afrospiritual worldview and once you did you
never came back

after ishmael blackwriters on the cutting edge moved from a christian mode
to being afrospiritual word magicians using books as spells to shape the future

mumbo jumbo and conjure blew my young literary mind
and im proud to consider myself of his line
my literary hoodoo thing just a riff on ishs neohoodooism

this counterpunch article show uncle ish still on it

talking about medias use of colored surrogates as
mind doubles to keep other blackfolk in line

i like to think of myself as a destinyplayer
but im forever humbled before a true master
of the game

in struggle
rdoc

MONDAY
not quite the zone but it will do

pretty good weekend, i got last 80 pages of rest to longhand
i figure 4 a day will get me to the promiseland in about 30 days
then i redpen the whole thing over rest of the summer - thats the plan

i clocked 4 saturday and 6 sunday, im okay
raw manuscript so they aint the best pages in the world but im okay

course every morning i got to fight the whole battle all over again
but so far so good, i aint complaining, ima do this

brother nagin though i dont know if he gon make it to highground

the black new orleans diaspora didnt turn out for him
we generally slack under the best electoral conditions much less these
lot of those folk have moved on and my brother blows an uncertain trumpet

he got most of the black votes that did vote, blackfolk tend to the redemptive
its a jungle out here and anybody can stumble

but landrieu is nagins worst case scenario
heda been better off with forman, a clear cut fatcat whereas
landrieu got crossover support

on the real side, it aint about nagin or landrieu
its about whats best for rebuilding new orleans and nurturing
its unique afrospiritual culture - who will defend us

from the fatcat efforts to ethnically cleanse new orleans

im a big cynic when it comes to politicians of any stripe
but i do believe in voting

we need to jack them both up
make them bid for their black support

as a black dawg democrat im willing to give nagin another chance
but blackfolk can live with landrieu - thats a problem for nagin

nagin will have to fire up his newfound black support while trying to
reassure white support that has abandoned him

thats a tough row to hoe
boy gon have to speak in tongues

say it aint so lord

guess i better tell you, no sense acting like it aint so
my life seems to be orchestrated around it these days
and the personal nature of this blog makes it a lie not to tell you

doctor told me i got diabetes, man you talking about a bummer
i keep wondering was this avoidable - my mama and daddy had it
so it seem im inclined

but i feel like its a negative reflection on my hoodoo skilz
the hoodooman aint supposed to be coming down w/no diabetes

it embarrasses me

and its amazing what ive got to cut back on
fruit and freshsqueezed orangejuice
(im told a serving of grapes is 8 grapes)

and you should see the piddling little portion of watermelon
im allowed

got to poke my finger with the regularity and modulate the carbs
and i got to be serious about it
dont want to lose no organs, dont want to have to shoot no insulin
gotta deal with it

i used to be so proud of myself, i would go in for checkups and the like
and the doctor would say are you taking any medicines and i would proudly
say - no im not

now im locked in on a rigorous schedule for a toxic cocktail of meds
im only 55 lord, kinda early for all this

gon be a rest of my life struggle apparently
im seriously bummed out over it but hey i can do this

i assume its going to make me more serious about life, bonnie, family
getting my work done -
puts everything in perspective and further trivalizes the inessential

i can do this

but today im feeling mortal today, rickydoc has got the blues
today im looking over my shoulder - got hellhounds on my trail

i tell you dear surfer, time is a boogerbear, a stone cold boogerbear
ruthlessly marching on - seem like just yesterday i was young, fit, fine and immortal

reminds me of that nicholas brother in his 90s when he said:
if i had known i would live this long i would have taken better care of myself

ohwell, whatever - buddy of mine just lost part of his foot so im real focused
i just wish i had done all this caretaking before the crises rather than after

and it is in that light ima keep a running commentary of this struggle
hopefully i can help you avoid what im about to go thru

all my love
rickydoc flowers

conjure in african american society by jeffrey anderson

this article on was brought to my attention
by my homegirl, sheree thomas of
black pot mojo

i avoid posting articles in their entirety
unless i feel like it and so:
 

      

Excerpt from the Introduction         to

Conjure in African         American Society
http://www.lsu.edu/lsupress/Books/Fall2005/books/Anderson_Conjure_Excerpt.html


        Jeffrey E. Anderson

      

        Introduction
        The Invisible Conjurer: The Disappearance of Hoodoo from Conceptions of         Black Society

      

Thomas Nelson Page,         one of the major architects of the “moonlight and magnolias”         myth of the Old South, published his most famous novel, Red Rock,         in 1899. Set during Reconstruction, its pages are filled with the standard         characters of Page’s genre: heroic southern planters, dutiful Union         soldiers, and depraved carpetbaggers. One villain, Dr. Moses, is particularly         overdrawn in the depiction of his physical as well as moral perversity.         Rachel Welch, the novel’s heroine, observes, “His chin stuck         so far forward that the lower teeth were much outside of the upper, or,         at least, the lower jaw was; for the teeth looked as though they had been         ground down, and his gums, as he grinned, showed as blue on the edges         as if he had painted them.”

      

Moses is a trick         doctor, a term Page felt no need to define. Modern readers are left         to question why the bizarrely misshapen Moses should be such a threat         to the white population. Other contemporary works provide answers. For         instance, Philip A. Bruce, author of The Plantation Negro as a Freedman         (1899), described the trick doctor as “a man whose only employment         . . . lies in the practice of the art of witchcraft,” who “is         invested with even more importance than a preacher, since he is regarded         with the respect that fear excites.” Moreover, Moses’s physical         appearance is typical of the numerous descriptions of trick doctors that         appeared during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For         instance, in the early-twentieth-century article “Observations on         the Practice of Conjuring in Georgia” Roland Steiner recorded the         African American folk belief that the spells of blue-gummed blacks invariably         caused death. Likewise, folklorist Mary Alicia Owen, using the language         of her informant, in 1893, described a legendary “witcheh-man”         as “de mos’ uglies’ man in de worl', wid er whopple-jaw         an’ er har’-lip, sidesen er lop side an’ er crookid         laig an’ one eye dat wuz des lak fiah an’ one dat was daid.”         In short, published accounts of African American magic were so common         during the era that Page had no need to explain what he meant by trick         doctor. After Page’s time, however, literary and academic interest         in black sorcery declined. The net result has been that the trick doctor,         also known as the "hoodoo doctor" or "conjurer," has         become virtually invisible in most Americans’ conceptions of black         society, even while the vocation of conjuring lives on in many African         American communities.

      

How can one explain         such a drastic shift in attention to conjure? The answer lies in intellectual         and cultural shifts over the course of the late nineteenth and twentieth         centuries that have changed the ways both blacks and whites have constructed         identity. Between the Civil War and World War II, Americans in general         and southern whites in particular feared losing their cultural identity         to the homogenizing effects of industrial capitalism, and conjure was         one expression of peculiarity that they used to resist the threatened         loss of national and regional distinctiveness. Once war catapulted America         to the forefront of world politics and economics, regional distinctions         became less important than national pride and a united front against Communism.         For blacks, attention to hoodoo was likewise a question of identity. Unlike         whites, however, they tended to view hoodoo as a negative feature of their         society. Its practice, they thought, would have to be stamped out before         they could hope to achieve equality. Recently, the influence of the closely         linked forces of cultural pluralism, postmodernism, and the New Age movement         and rising black assertiveness have made magic an acceptable expression         of spirituality for many. Nevertheless, conjure remains an understudied         facet of black society.

      

        Before the Civil War, southerners, white and black, were well aware of         the existence of conjure. For instance, in a diary entry for 3 March 1816         the South Carolinian George Izard recorded an encounter with a sickly         Mr. Perkins, who explained his illness as a result of a spell cast by         a spurned admirer. After physicians’ remedies failed him, Perkins         turned to conjure. Izard’s experience was far from unique. Many         whites learned of conjure from their slaves. Such was the case with Thaddeus         Norris, author of “Negro Superstitions.” Writing five years         after the Civil War, he admitted that he had “firmly believed in         witches” as a child, a conviction he had acquired through his close         relationship with an elderly “house servant.” Frederick Douglass,         the most prominent of black abolitionists, included an account of hoodoo         in his antebellum Narrative, spreading knowledge of the practice         to northern readers. Nevertheless, few observers commented on the practice         beyond pointing it out as a sign of slaves’ intellectual backwardness.         Slaves were to be either worked or freed, not studied for their culture.

      

Immediately following         the war southern whites were too busy restoring Democratic control of         their states to devote increased attention to sectional identity and certainly         to black folk religion. After all, their recent experience of military         defeat and occupation had left no room to doubt their distinctiveness.         One of the few whites to address black folk religions was Thaddeus Norris,         who bluntly wrote that “the more refined a people, the more interesting         its mythical legends. Those of the Caucasian race are attractive; while         those of the negroes are repulsive, especially when connected with their         heathenish religions.” Literate blacks generally felt the same way.         A selection of letters on conjure published in the Southern Workman         provides evidence. This newspaper was associated with Virginia’s         Hampton Institute, one of the nation’s oldest black schools. In         1878 the school solicited reports from its students and graduates on the         level of superstition among the freedmen. The response was more than one         hundred letters, only six of which saw print. Most of the responders frankly         stated that conjure was a negative but common feature of black society.         One author, referred to as “L.” in the printed version of         his letter, was particularly harsh in his denunciation of hoodoo, asserting,         “Conjure doctors are not so numerous now as they were before our         race became so enlightened, but still they are too numerous. They are         a curse to their race.” Overcoming racist oppression and abject         poverty through education was much more important to blacks than questions         of culture. With both whites and blacks disgusted by Negro ignorance,         few were interested in doing more than denounce conjure.

      

Since Reconstruction,         interest in conjure has generally followed a wavelike pattern of increasing         and decreasing interest. Since the end of Republican rule in the South,         interest in conjure has crested three times. The first of these upturns         began in the mid-1880s and persisted until shortly after 1900. Following         the turn of the century, writings on conjure appeared less and less frequently         until the 1920s, when a new wave of interest began. It had passed by the         early 1940s, when conjure once again faded from public view. The second         trough was much deeper than the first. With occasional exceptions, few         works on hoodoo appeared until the 1970s. At that point, a new respect         for black folk beliefs, including conjure, arose.

      

As local distinctions         seemed threatened by industrial homogenization following the Civil War,         whites searched for regional peculiarities in order to construct a distinct         identity. Corporatism, national advertising, and consumerism threatened         to transform the South into a carbon copy of the North. It is no coincidence         that articles on conjure peaked in the 1890s, when a generation that had         never owned slaves or fought in the Civil War came to prominence.

      

In addition to ending         the most important distinction between the North and the South, emancipation         had begun a process that would cause blacks and whites to grow more and         more foreign to each other. Under the peculiar institution, members of         both races had lived and sometimes worked side by side, occupying the         same geographic space. Whites inevitably learned much about blacks’         culture, including their supernatural beliefs, from simple observation         and conversation, and the same was true for blacks. Though convict leasing,         sharecropping, and other forms of “free” labor that replaced         slavery resembled it in many ways, they were a first step in a growing         physical separation between the races. When the temporary political entitlement         and citizenship rights that blacks had gained during Reconstruction faded         during the last two decades of the nineteenth century, African Americans         became increasingly vulnerable to racism. By the turn of the twentieth         century a rigid system of economic and social segregation had developed         throughout the states of the former Confederacy. During the first half         of the 1890s the white Democrats’ “Solid South” had         begun to crack in the face of the Populists’ agrarian radicalism.         In part, the implementation of Jim Crow was the work of white politicians         seeking to reunite their race under the banner of white supremacy. Whatever         the cause, blacks and whites lived their lives ever more separately, and         each culture became less familiar to the other.

      

Whites had long         considered blacks a primitive and superstitious people. With African Americans         safely cut off from political and economic power, their folk beliefs could         now be used to bolster white superiority and regional distinctiveness.         To white authors, the hoodoo doctor became a powerful image of the southern         past, conjuring up images of aristocratic planters and their happy but         dependent “servants.” Moreover, by describing blacks as a         backward people, whites defined what their race was not. At the same time,         African Americans began to develop a class system. As members of the small         but growing middle class became educated and quickly adopted the scientific         outlook and social Darwinism of the larger American society, they confidently         expected conjure to disappear. In fact, according to many blacks’         ideology of racial uplift, such backward features of black society would         have to give way before the race could hope to advance. Thus, while whites         used black folk beliefs as a point of contrast to display their own glories,         African Americans rejected whites’ self-serving characterization         of blacks as superstitious.

      

The local color         literary movement typified whites’ construction of identity. In         the South, this impulse often found expression in collections of black         folklore, relayed in the dialect of the plantation “darkie.”         Most prominent among these works was Joel Chandler Harris’s 1880         book Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings, a collection of         African American animal stories ostensibly related by an elderly former         slave to a child whom he had befriended. Over the next twenty-five years         numerous authors sought to duplicate Harris’s success, with the         result that black folklore became staple reading for white American youths         until well into the twentieth century. In practice, local color works         provided a bridge between the romanticism of the early nineteenth century         and the realism that came to characterize the twentieth. As such, it was         the perfect vehicle for whites to record the exoticism of the plantation         past, dovetailing nicely with the chivalric tales of Thomas Nelson Page.         At the same time, it allowed authors to glorify the region’s race         relations by providing “records” of friendly interaction between         superior whites and dependent blacks through the medium of African American         stories told in dialect. In an age when white southerners sought sectional         reconciliation while maintaining their distinctiveness, local colorism         helped them write their past and present racial systems in a way that         made their acceptance by the rest of the nation more palatable.

      

The growth of the         social sciences, especially professionalized folklore, provided another         vehicle for white southerners’ search for identity. Brought to prominence         in Europe by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm during the early and middle nineteenth         century, folklore quickly became a popular pursuit. By the late 1870s,         folklorists had begun to professionalize their field. One of the earliest         signs of this development was the founding of the English Folklore Society         in 1878. Ten years later, American folklorists created their own national         organization, the American Folklore Society. The international expositions         of 1889, 1891, and 1893, which stressed the importance of progress, hosted         folklore congresses in order to emphasize the backwardness of primitive         societies, while preserving their beliefs for future generations. During         the 1891 exposition, Mary Alicia Owen helped bring conjure to scholarly         attention by presenting a paper entitled “Among the Voodoos,”         which described the magical practices of Missouri’s blacks. The         newly founded Journal of American Folk-Lore (later the Journal         of American Folklore), an organ of the American Folklore Society,         published numerous articles on conjure and related practices throughout         its early volumes. Following an article on Haitian Vodou in its 1888 inaugural         issue, the journal published W. W. Newell’s “Reports of Voodoo         Worship in Hayti and Louisiana” in its second volume. The journal         did not confine itself to Voodoo proper, however, and over the next decade         and a half numerous brief notes and full-length articles appeared. Typically         they resemble Roland Steiner’s “Observations on the Practice         of Conjuring in Georgia,” an essay that combines conjure stories         with instructions for using particular magical materials.

      

After 1893 southern         African Americans had their own folklore society, based at Virginia’s         Hampton Normal School, later to be known as the Hampton Institute. In         a notice to students announcing the founding of the Hampton Folk-Lore         Society, an anonymous author stated, “The American Negroes are rising         so rapidly from the condition of ignorance and poverty . . . that the         time seems not far distant when they shall have cast off their past entirely.”         If a record of conjure was not preserved, blacks would become a people         without a history beyond what whites chose to give them. Progress, destined         to wipe out folk beliefs like conjure, would nevertheless preserve knowledge         of such “savagery” for future generations through the work         of professional folklorists. To this end the Southern Workman,         the school newspaper, published numerous articles on black folklore during         the late nineteenth century.

      

Throughout the 1890s         and the early years of the twentieth century the Southern Workman         frequently included a column entitled “Folk-Lore and Ethnology,”         which regularly addressed conjure. Like the articles appearing in the         Journal of American Folklore, these accounts tended to be simple         descriptions of hoodoo beliefs. Nevertheless, a few accounts display a         high degree of analytical sophistication. The most important example is         A. M. Bacon’s “Conjuring and Conjure-Doctors,” published         in 1895. Bacon divided conjuration into two types, those involving charms         and those involving poisons, and argued that conjurers provided five primary         services to their clients, roughly summarized as follows: diagnosis of         afflictions caused by magic, discovery of those who had cast spells, searching         out and destroying tricks, curing those who had been conjured, and turning         spells back on those who had cast them.

      

Meanwhile, other         authors began to tentatively introduce new interpretations. For instance,         Leonora Herron, in her essay “Conjuring and Conjure-Doctors”         (not to be confused with Bacon’s article of the same title), argued         that conjure functioned as a means of redressing wrongs, for which slavery         had provided no other mechanism. In addition, Herron proposed that conjure         was not solely of African origin but had also been influenced by “association         with the white race . . . till it became a curious conglomerate of fetichism,         divination, quackery, incantation and demonology.” Despite the growing         volume and analytical rigor of such articles, few authors saw conjure         as a positive aspect of the black past. Instead, African Americans followed         the lead of whites, condemning hoodoo as a sign of backwardness. While         whites used conjure to bolster their supremacist assumptions, however,         blacks saw its supposed decline as a symbol of advancement.

      

Southerners’         attempts to build a new identity brought hoodoo to national attention.         Knowledge of conjure ceased to be the purview of southerners who had experienced         it firsthand. Instead, a growing number of books intended for popular         consumption began to treat hoodoo as an important part of black culture.         Publications reporting on the progress of the black race, such as Bruce’s         Plantation Negro as a Freedman, increasingly came to address         the backwardness of conjure. Likewise, autobiographies of ex-slaves often         pointed to antebellum conjure to demonstrate how far blacks had risen         from bondage. Such was the case with Jacob Stoyer, a former South Carolina         slave, who made much of slaves’ belief in magic, recording their         use of red pepper and salt to repel witches. Another former slave, William         Wells Brown, author of My Southern Home, used the semihumorous         character Uncle Dinkie, a conjurer, to demonstrate the “ignorant         days of slavery.” In addition to being a fraud who earned his reputation         by fortunetelling, love potions, and “medicine,” Uncle Dinkie         had learned to serve the devil instead of God “kase de white folks         don’t fear de Lord.”

      

Another class of         publication that usually addressed conjure comprised the collections of         black folklore that appeared during the years around 1900. Harris’s         Uncle Remus refers to conjure only briefly, but some of his imitators         dealt with it in greater depth. For instance, in Charles Colcock Jones         Jr.’s Gullah Folktales from the Georgia Coast, “Buh         Rabbit” must contend with conjure doctors as well as wolves and         tar babies. Two works appeared that were entirely devoted to stories of         hoodoo. The earliest of these was Mary Alicia Owen’s Voodoo         Tales as Told among the Negroes of the Southwest, first published         in 1893. As its alternate title, Old Rabbit, the Voodoo, and Other         Sorcerers, suggests, Owen’s work was a collection of animal         stories in which magic was the driving force. Rabbit, Woodpecker, and         the Bee-King appear as the animal kingdom’s principal conjurers.         Another work from the period that centers on hoodoo was Virginia Frazier         Boyle’s Devil Tales. Unlike Harris, Colcock, and Owen,         Boyle recorded stories of human hoodooists, usually locked in combat with         the devil. Nevertheless, her underlying aim was the same: glorification         of the southern past. Describing her sense of loss at the death of her         storytelling black “Mammy,” she wrote, “The swaying         form, crooning in low rich voice, like some bronze Homer blind to letters,         a weird primeval lore into the ears of future orators, is shut within         the feudal past of the old plantation days.”

      

A final group of         books that began to appear during this era were fictional works built         around the workings of African American magic. The most remarkable of         these was black author Charles W. Chesnutt’s Conjure Woman,         which recounts a series of tales told by Uncle Julius, an ex-slave, to         white Ohioan immigrants to North Carolina. Though the tales are ostensibly         a collection of conjure stories from plantation days, Chesnutt’s         Julius uses them to persuade his white acquaintances to favor him with         gifts and other considerations. For example, in the story “Po’         Sandy” he persuades the Ohioan narrator and his wife not to tear         down an old building because it had been built from a person whom a conjure         woman had changed into a tree. Shortly after, Julius himself asks for         the building, which he uses for a church. Chesnutt, who was only marginally         interested in the practice of conjure, used stories of the occult to demonstrate         the overriding power of whites. Only by preying on whites’ sense         of sentiment did Julius succeed in achieving his goals. Nevertheless,         white readers used The Conjure Woman to bolster their own version         of the pre–Civil War South, including the primitive superstitiousness         of blacks

marking time and mo kwani kommentary

`A RAINY SATURDAY MORNING
my best kind of workday

god im struggling

this novel is beating me all about the head and shoulders
its crawling and limping along, defying me every step of the way

2 hours already today - got 2 usable paragraphs and they iffy
ill never get to the promiseland at this rate

this simply will not do, as of this moment rickydoc is officially in the woodshed
schoolhouse is now a facade, can i maintain it for 10 more days lord

as of today moving from a semester 3 to a woodshed 6
that means 6 hours a day minimal on rest for the weary
(looking for 9 and would love to get 12)

hells bells i got 5 novel manuscripts ive committed to read for folk

been on my plate for months now, they been waiting too long for me to blow them off
crunch those out of the way in the next 2 weeks, no more accepted till post woodshed

nothing gets thru as of this moment
but new renaissance and the hoodoo way

lifelong organizing initiatives
that must be maintained

no matter what

in struggle
rdoc

and family, family always gets thru

no matter how tough you hanging, family gets thru
what can you do, family emergencies, they get thru

and acts of god, they can stop the show too

when i was a young man i didnt allow acts of gods to stop
me from gettting my work done but over the years
god has taught me different

now i try to work with the big whatever
you the boss hoss, can i get a couple more productive
years please

a decade or 2

i got so much work to do

THURSDAY

looking for a deal

every once in awhile when the dollars are tight
i will slip into the local wal mart looking for a deal

but always with the guilt, the resolution never to do it again

i know the dogs to be the face these days of ruthless corporatism
and would like to see them tamed

so it was with some % of surprise that i read civilrights warhorse
andrew young is chairman of the 16 member steering committee of
Working Families for Wal-Mart:

"we all have an interest in wal-mart; we all want wal-mart to succeed." he says
at recent arkansas news conference,"we don't think it ought to be trashed. we think it ought to be perfected."

well i hope he gets paid more than a wal mart associate do
and some health benefits too, must be getting soft in the head

this puts me in mind of another account i ran across

seems the mijikenda people of kenya erect carved wooden statues called vigango
to honor and appease the spirits of recently deceased relatives

seems stealing these statues is a pretty lucrative business and two recently stolen vigango
were traced to two museums - the illinois state museum agreed to return their stolen vigango
to the aggrieved kenyan family, the hampton university museum has not

hampton?  our hampton?
say it aint so lord

apparently they got 99 of the things but wont return 1 to this poor farming family from
which it was stolen in the night (cost them $895 apiece, thats a lot of money for
a poor farming family in kenya, family say they had bad luck ever since)

our hampton?

we really need to make it clear to the folk at hampton
that type of behavior is unacceptable

it is unworthy of the people i see

word by
rickydoc flowers

wouldbe prophet of the
hoodooo way

TUESDAY

mo kwani kommentary

cause of my relationship with sls kenya
(i will be there december 2006, if you know whats what you will too)
i keep up with literary events in east africa

those familiar with my kwani kommentary
will recognize in this interview w/doreen baingana
the comment, "she arrived, a little later than planned"

thats my girl
she may not be on time but shes always in time

also i see the kwani krew still getting attacked by
various kenyan academics as literary gangsters

in a series of caustic warring articles in the east african standard
as commented on by chris werimo, impressive young brother i met last time i was there

says critics who have themselves experienced the creative process are redeemed
quotes one wanjana as saying publishing his own novel made him 'a more sober critic'

well good for him, everybody knows critics are curious creatures
chris himself is a budding critic who also writes fiction - he got potential

i been trying to save him from the darkside

hanging tough
rdoc

war in the holyland

islamic jihad bombing in tel aviv kills 9
and hamas says job well done
israel will try to make them both pay for that

hamas just named a wanted militant head of their security services
and israel threatening to assassinate the whole cabinet behind it

the war weary world sighs again
will this family squabble never end

its almost biblical
how much war in the holyland
affects us all

MONDAY

hello world, i havent posted all week

all i want to do is work on rest for the weary
apparently im moving into a early woodshed

trying to put closure on schoolhouse obligations
two more weeks but in my heart im already gone

been feeling giulty about rootsblog posting though
so let me get started w/some quickies off the cuff,
clean them up later

spreading the pain

chad rebuffs sudanese backed rebels

chad accuses the sudan of trying to 'export fundamentalism to sub sahara africa'
this is mostly deby trying to cover missteps that have made him vulnerable

but the truth lurks within

100% zuluboy

ex vice president zuma of south africa testifies on stand that he had to force himself
on woman he is accused of raping because she was aroused and no true zulu man
would insult an aroused woman by not sexing her

says he knew she was hiv positive so he took a shower afterwards to
cleanse himself - not a condom mind you a shower

hard to know what to say to this one,
i will let the zulu women at his trial have the last word

the ones wearing t shirts that said: 100% zuluboy

chocolate city and the blackbelt south

racial aspects of new orleans mayoral election becoming more and more overt
forget chocalate city, we talking black belt south

this intriguing article say there are two kinds of power
organized money and organized people

say the people of new orleans organizing best they can in the face of an
attitude that has fatcats still partying on basinstreet while bloated bodies
still being dug out of the ruins of the 9th

talks about how the basinstreet fatcats turned on their tame negro
when he refused to write off the black neighborhoods like they told him to

how they backing forman and landrieu now as their best bet for cleansing
new orleans - and that the spotlight of american concern has moved on

we on our own on this one yall
cant be waiting around on no more rescue boats

reminds me of that old delta joke about the deacon in the flood

old deacon of the church got caught in a flood and waiting on god to deliver him
one rescue boat comes by and he waives it on, god will protect me he says

another boat comes by and he waves it on too, samesame a helicopter

finally he dies and when he gets to heaven he got an attitude - howcum
you didnt save me he ask god - god say look here, according to my records
i sent you 2 boats and a helicopter

howcum you didnt save yourself

do your duty black new orleans
each 1 of you voting for 10, do whatever you got to do but make that vote

that goes for all of you in this voting year
we got to wield electoral power beyond our numbers

i am a child of the 60s, we marched struggled and died for our right to vote
do your duty (and while you at it do something about that crime)

a luta continua

its all relative

was all proud of myself in previous weeks post for saying things other progressives wont
but was looking at conservative black blogs the other day and their opinions appalled me

my transgressions are only transgressions for progressive audiences
and not even transgressive to the young generations

race moving steady to the right
neocons cleaning our clocks

dynamics of the times pushing blackfolk to the middle
our strategic posture needs to finesse that

looking for the zone

i guess thats it for the moment, im feeling pressed
supposed to be working on my novel - stealing time

cause this gon be a do or die summer
im ready to throw down and im ready to throw down now - its do or die

im scared im always scared

what if it doesnt work, what if i finally have to acknowledge i just dont have
another novel in me - always scared but that aint gon stop the show -

whatever i come up with is what i come up with
got to get this baby to the promised land

ima desperate man
ima desperate man

in struggle
rdoc

hard truths from the conjureman: blacks, hispanics and immigration policies, arabs, jews and models of empowerment

MONDAY

and you o mythworker, o teller of tales
and weaver of lies, o fool of a trickster

is there nothing you hold sacred
no boundary you will not cross
in search of a song . . . .

im going to start working on a myth

i was looking at that piece i just wrote and had this image of blackfolk
withdrawing into a defensive circle and
thought it would be nice to depict the race as a group like that and then i
thought about this myth of the children of the sun i been playing with
and i thought im going to start telling that myth as part of this
weblog

those of you familiar with my work will recognize the basic parameters
i figure i will stumble at first but ima keep telling it until i
start making it shine, maybe a booklengthwork, every week ima tell more of it

and so i begin:

once upon a time there was a mighty people
a star traveling people respected throughout the galaxy
the illuminated children of the sun
humanities living ancestors and gods true chosen

legend is that they are guard and guardian of humanity
destinyworkers, leading humanity unto its ever greater self

legend is they had a vision, legend is they had a destiny . . . .

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

okay, im stuck, and embarassed
will get back to this during the week, hopefully
bring it to life, hopefully
figure out where im going with it, hopefully

but you know, as weak as it is
ima stick with it and see if i can make it a regular part
of my presentation, it will justify the time i give this blog
get a little mythwork done

now thats what i call working at the
crossroads

word by
rickydoc trickmaster

be well, be wary, be safe

SATURDAY
speaking truth to the people

once when i was a young conjuror in training
i had this discipline where once a month i would speak absolute truth
to everybody i knew - for the whole day i would
speak nothing but the truth as i saw it

i quickly abandoned that discipline, it was more trouble
than it was worth

but i think this week i will speak hard truths on difficult issues
at least my truths, thought about it when i did the bill cosby post

i admire what he trying to do even though its not how i would go about it
if you gon call the race to account got to spread the blame

but his issue is community dysfunction and he taking the blows
in a quixotic effort to save blackfolk

i admire that - i think its a profile in courage

but i get enuf flack from my radical friends and colleagues
so i been reluctant to publicly speak on the coz

another issue i been reluctant to speak on is immigration
cause im conflicted

my progressive instincts say i got to go along with it
but im concerned that its gon hurt blackfolk

already we been pushed aside by the burgeoning hispanic population
and i fear we will be left on the bottom again - gon have to learn how to beg in spanish

and i envy them their growing power, they hardworking disciplined folk
unlike so many of my own - they mobilized 500,000 in their la march

and affected the political debate in their favor, thats power and i envy it

im nervous about where this dynamic leaves us
blacks and hispanics clash about as much as they get along

but this immigration situation doesnt just affect hispanics
it also affects caribbeans and thats family

and all them dark hispanics, they may not know it yet
but they family too

also the rise of the hispanics is kinda inevitable
and we got to maintain a working relationship

cause in the future we gon need their help a lot more
than they will need ours

so blackfolk may be conflicted on this one but in the final analysis
we got to support liberalized immigration policies

ive spoken before on our impending most favorite minority demise
i believe we have to prepare for that inevitable eventuality

by maintaining a working relationship
supporting their struggles whenever we can

and claiming the allegiance/identification of darkskinned hispanics
a strategic fifth force so to speak (more on that later)

also there is some room here for crossroads game between the old power
and the new - if you get my drift

forget most favorite minority anyway, it was weak game
i say we move into global shadowplay

as much as i envy mobilizing a 500,000 march i think its old and tired game
been there, done that - all that marching and protesting, i think its yesteryear game myself

the make do game of the weak and the powerless and i for one will be glad when blackfolk move on

for me its all about strategic empowerment - the longgame
a grinding day to day commitment to 20 year plans, 100 year plans, 100 generation plans

we have to forge our people into a global (and even cosmic) instrument of power

my model is still the jews, how a disrespected minority can achieve security
power and prosperity in a hostile environment

thats another issue i tend to avoid, jewish power
the israeli lobby been spotlighted recently in some report i heard about
and will have to hunt down

the jews of course insist that there is no such thing and anybody who says so is antisemitic
well i understand the tactical imperative of disowning power but everybody knows the jews wield power inordinate to their numbers

that they have inordinate influence in power industries such as finance, media and entertainment, and that many of our policies in support of israel are antithetical to our strategic interests

but i do not want to get on the wrong side of the jews, they can be ruthless enforcers
jews probably the only folk on the planet more sensitive than black folk
two battlescarred folk feel like they always on the edge of disaster, always ready to rumble
but blackfolk got to speak truth on this issue, we learned it from you

that situation w/the palestinians, you wrong on that, i say it
as a friend, you jackboot wrong

also i be dancing around the arab/islamic conquest of africa
ticklish because so many strong afroam have gon islamic

but the truth is the truth

when blackfolk rename themselves after muhammad ali - one of the most proficient slavers/killers of blacks ever to depopulate the sudan we have a problem

genocide in the sudan, slavery in mautetania, etc etc
islam must be made to understand it is a guest in africa and not a conqueror

mess around and let africa go islamic we will have no place to call home, no place
where the african way can grow into the glory it could be instead of the ruin that it is

surrounded by our enemies
the west on one side, islam on the other

also i avoid this one because i dont approve of what often passes for discourse
in islamic circles, dont want nobody issuing no fatwas on rickydoc

but if you call yourself a serious artist and intellectual you got to be willing to speak
truth to the people and i like to think of myself as a serious man

a serious
artist, intellectual, conjureman

my response to the cultural establishments (black & white) refusal to treat me
with respect, you might not take me seriously but i do - and when i speak i speak in
words of power - i will speak the truths that make other folk tremble

and the hard truth of the moment is that

all my political life hispanics been our allies in struggle
we always ready to call on them to back our plays

the progresssive among us struggle for commonground
and to avoid ruptures
if they want to throw down on this we got to throw down with them

but ima tell you that civilrights mode of empowerment, based on our own, is of limited utility
the jewish model is more appropriate to the times, a diasporic/global model of

ritualized group solidarity, strategic positions of influence in influential  social sectors
a vision and a sense of destiny - the longgame

that civilrights model is like an old ghetto neighborhood, let the new folk have it
its time to move on

i will forge blackfolk into an instrument of power or die trying

and im not gon let folk stuck in yesteryear restrain me from doing what have to be done, from saying what have to be said

all that dysfunction killing our communities got to go
thats not gon be part of the black future the old rootdoctor see

21st century yall, no more games, we got to do this

and i would you be tricksters all
a people of power and masters of strategy
the key that opens all locks

it is the geas of rickdoc

i know this is so far from the current reality
that you might not see it like i see it

but i am a dreamer, a conjuror and a lifelong organizer
an ideological orchestrator and a wouldbe prophet
of the hoodoo way

forcing reality to bend itself to my will
is what i do

the first step is to see
things as they truly are

word by
rickydoc trickmaster

awaken the sleeper
protect the weak
guide the strong

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.

amiri baraka and lord legba, highjohn the conqueror and an african american way

THURSDAY

hangingtough

took a couple of punches today
sometimes it seems no matter how hard i try
i just keep coming up short

it takes a village

well im certainly not fool enuf to support bill cosbys
quixotic campaign to address community dysfunction

my radical comrades already think im questionable
and i agree his analysis lacks the depth of a more
accomplished player such as myself

much too much you and not enuf we

but the old rootdoctor admire a man w/the courage of his convictions
a blackman who could kick back w/his riches

out here doing what he can - trying to make his contribution
to the condition and destiny of blackfolk - saying what he think need to be said

21st century yall, no more games, we got to do this

almost prophetic what he doing, using the media attention celebrity commands
as delivered in front of the notorious convention center in new orleans:

"It's painful, but we can't cleanse ourselves unless we look at the wound. Ladies and gentlemen, you had the highest murder rate, unto each other. You were dealing drugs to each other. You were impregnating our 13-, 12-, 11-year-old children. What kind of a village is that?'

WEDNESDAY
rickydoc in the zone

i wrote the most wonderful scene this morning

its the memphis riots of 1866 and i have this slave child who was
"apprenticed" after the end of slavery and is using the riots to try
to get to her real parents on another side of the city but she doesnt
know where they live,

she has not been allowed outside since the last attempt years ago
she doesnt know where they live and the streets are full of rioting yahoos
killing colored folk

on an apparently empty street she almost runs up on a mob
when i have this old black woman suddenly appear beckoning her to safety
basically trying to show blackfolk helping each other survive

but i had this segment elsewhere of somebody calling on harriet tubman in a ritual
and harriet herself leading a bunch of slaves to freedom suddenly doing her sleep thing

then i thought what if that beckoning oldwoman is harriet and im saying
that when she did that sleep thing she was helping some escapee on another plane

so i put them together and god it feels good - now im playing with it to make it work
and i think maybe i will have the conqueror have played a role in this
maybe setting up a crossroads moment

so now i have to make this little girl escaping a significant historical crossroads of some sort
damn im in the groove, i live for these moments

of revelation

i been bad this weekend - generally i take the weekends for rest and pay the cost,
playing academic catchup, manuscripts to be  graded/critiqued, class prep, etc

but this weekend i been bad, i been working on this impo scene (idas escape, the husharbor, the gathering/mission) and when monday came along i was unwilling to quit, if i stop now it will take fri and sat just to get my groove on again (if at all)

so i squeezed the schoolhouse, woke up early tuesday morning crunching it to get thru my tuesday class straightup and now i got to prep for thursday and got studentconferences today and should be schoolhousing but instead this morning i got right back on that scene, fuck everybody including me, i got to get this novel done

what im doing now is inputting the longhand pages i did over the weekend but thats always something of a rewrite in itself and so i was back there on my writing porch trying to hustle thru this when bam, this narrative revelation came down on me and now im off to the races and so excited i had to tell you about it (bonnie muttering i should get off the internet and get back to work)

so i got to get back on it, try to get thru it in the next couple of hours so i can get my schoolhouse work done - this spose to be my day off anyway - well actually its a prepday but closing down the semester you dont get no days off noway, its catchup catchup catchup

not only have i squeezed the schoolhouse i have also allowed some impending lifecrises to fester
got to get on those real quick - but i tell you dear surfer, a scene like the one im working on now

for that i will pay my dues without a whimper

amiri baraka was here day before yesterday, brought up by the Black Artists student organization, and i hung out with him some, that was inspirational - didnt want to come off my game, found out about it the last minute, the day of, but hey it was amiri, one of the great destinywarriors and one of my few remaining mentors in the game - im rolling today in amiris name

im outta here

rdoc


TUESDAY
crunched all weekend and still crunching
will have to pay schoolhouse dues - this gon be a catchup week
holding on by the skin of my chinny chin chin

i works for the conqueroo
hello world

spose to be working so ima just hit it real quick
set up the sermon for this week - on an african american way

i have been most of my hoodoo life a devotee of lord legba
but i also serve highjohn the conqueror

there is therefore some question in me about the conqueroo/legba relationship
i still believe i serve lord legba but i works for the conqueror now,

i believe the conqueror is an afroam manifestation
of that trickster force, some kin to legba and that i can serve them both

i dont have much choice in the matter, i do not serve the conqueror of
my own volition - i have been called

its seems that the conqueror is a specifically afroam context
an african american way

some folk question my looseness w/legbas rules and imply a retribution of sorts
but since i first devoted myself to legba i have been given a dispensation to break the rules

even legbas own

long as i do his bidding and enlarge his space
that dispensation is even more so under de conqueroo

i believe de conqueror reaching for his own
i believe its time

word by
rickydoc flowers