whats going on, i take a couple of days off
and folk start acting out
terror attack on britain
bush commutes libby sentence
the supreme court shows its rightwing derrière
lord knows what else i dont know about
whatever it is, im sure its bad news
haven’t been posting regular since im on the road
still cant shake the concern that rootsblog is worktime
that could be more constructively used on various projects, rest for the weary, hoodoo book of flowers, book of bones, beale street tales, etc etc -
(knowing the fickle finger of literary fate to be quirky, this will probably be the project (if any) that does become historically significant)
oh well, ours is not to concern ourselves, ours is just to do
okay, i got a bunch of backed up commentary, apologies for long & chaotic quality
1) was reading about scams taking advantage of folks in mortgage trouble
where they sign over their houses with complex offers of being able to get it back
in a year or so of affordable payments - or none whatsoever
but what happens is that the new owner borrows on the equity, next thing you know the poor deluded homeowner is in foreclosure with no equity, this is called equity stripping
now i know my sophisticated readership aint falling for this scam, but if you know of somebody stressed who might be susceptible, pull their collective coats, please
tell them to avoid bootleg mortgage deals so complicated they dont understand them
get legal advice, hook or crook - and if it sounds too good to be true it generally is
dont take chances w/your home - mostly this poor black folk being took advantage of - again
just reminds me of the unique challenges of representing a peasant people
sometimes i despair of it, cause i cant just change conditions, laws and all that
i got to change souldeep behavior, got to work the tribal soul, empower the culture
i got to deepdown transform blackfolk into a powerful and sophisticated peoples,
there are times when i myself cant imagine blackfolk as a powerful and competent race
its so counter to the reality even the conjureman falter
and forcing reality to respond to my will is what i do
then i look at historical examples of once weak and despised peoples being transformed over generations into powerful and sophisticated peoples, the germanic peoples, once slaves of rome for instance, the classic rebuild of the jews, etc etc - it can be done, its just difficult
2) that supreme court judgment on school diversity doesnt surprise me
if anything the surprise is how tenacious diversity et al has hung on
but the american people have turned against it and its a rearguard action at best
we got to finesse this dynamic and get ahead of it instead of holding onto the past
and the truth be told we cant continue to be coddled by society, that dont make for the cultural strength that we will need to get out of this historical trickbag we have found ourselves in
that dont help me in my quest to transform african american people
culture and destiny
the welfare state was good when it was good but its been counterproductive for some time now
it dont breed strength, it breed weakness and dependency
which dont negate the influence of racism, and we still got to fight racism whenever however
we can, but racism is just not my major concern these days,
the true legacy of the civilrights/blackpower era is the understanding that working/begging/cajoling
whitefolk does not constitute a viable strategy – it will not save us
its our own souls we got to work, its our own behavior we got to change
the reparations folk seem to have forgotten that, or never learned it
i claim self determination as the first step in transformation
and yes, yes i agree, got to stay on structural racism but thats just defense,
that wont win no wars, that wont win no prize
feel like i can say this over and over and it just wont take w/the black consciousness, cause its been said many times before and it aint took - im hoping i can say it emphatically and artistically enuf in my novel
that it will make a difference
o flowers, you are such a dreamer
such a believer in the power of art, in the power of the word
my sister and i were talking other day about our first consciousness of racism
how it sap the soul
my sister say her 1st consciousness that she can remember is as a little girl at a dept store and the salesmen didnt want to put his hands on her feet
1st time i was aware of racism that i can recall, we were traveling through north carolina and there was a beach and the beach was full of whitefolk enjoying themselves and i wanted to go to the beach and my parents explained as best they could that blackfolk werent allowed on beaches
ive had much more searing incidents since but that was the one that made me realize that being black was a problem
this came about cause we were talking about recent supreme court decision and elise say they have pushed us back 2 generations and i objected to the supreme court (the rightwing ascendancy) being the arbiter of our lives - or our destiny
i said if we been pushed back its because we have allowed it, cause we just weak and i am so tired of sitting around crying about it - im so tired of crying about racism i dont know what to do –
surely by now we have factored racism into our strategic posture
we spending too much time/strategic energy defending set asides, affirmative action, etc etc – (for all practical purposes, reparations in action)
one of the imani folk the other day was a teacher in atlanta and she was bemoaning that black kids have fallen behind hispanic immigrant kids in atlanta schools
she was all upset and i was like - that aint news, and i was not surprised, not at all, what are we going to do now, blame the hispanics for that
no, thats cause of weakness in our culture, not americas
you look at the immigrants, hispanic, indian, asians – even caribbean
and they coming in here and they working hard and moving up past blackfolk been here for generations (and it dont take them long for them to start dissing american blacks like natives)
other day i was having a conversation with an oldschool companera and she was talking about how america is going down and how much she was looking forward to it
and i said i am not
and ima do what i can to forestall that scenario
and that was difficult for me to say cause folk start
looking at you like you a comprador or something
like you dont know what time it is
we were talking about how the rightwing has inflamed the rest of the world
we were talking about the conflict between the west and islam and how precarious
the world has become
blackfolk be talking about letting the evil west fall but the problem with that if they fall they gon fall on us, blackfolk gon be at the bottom of that pile, thats just more suffering
im not with that, im not with nothing that cause blackfolk more suffering
i want to fix america, im not interested in dancing on its grave
the rightwing has learned to push the buttons that froth the american people
and it will take generations to try to get america healthy again,
some folk say its never been healthy that it was born on slavery and injustice
but you can say that about any society, im looking at the potential of what it can be
and our role in it
in this conflict between the open societies of the west, problematic though they be
and the closed societies of political islam i choose the west, its not even a question
theological submission is not i man thing
western or islamic (or african for that matter)
okay, obviously im just wandering, i got to get back to work
and this a ticklish subject matter
i think im going to leave this post inconclusive for the moment
coupla quick commentaries and im outta here:
3) bush and the libby: im not surprised, he had to do it, the folk who hate it are folk who dont like bush anyway and it sooth his restless base – it wont cost him: no gain
4) israel and palestine: israel still offering little piecemeal gestures that wont change the dynamic: no gain
(kinda ironic hamas forcing release of journalist in attempt to show moderation to world by disciplining even more radical Palestinians: gain?)
5) darfur: as long as darfur ‘cooperates’ with bush admin on terror in north africa, americas fuluminations on darfur will remain just that, fulmination: no gain
okay, im gone, you will be glad to hear that i been working very hard dear regulators
i been clocking strong pages, strong pages i might add, pages that satisfy me
first time ive not spent my memphis time at the librarys memphis room
deeply buried in research of historical black memphis
had planned to do so like always but didnt, its like okay, enough research, its showtime
i did pick up a new novel i saw at the bookstore - fort pillow by turtledove
i dont think anybody not from black memphis will ever understand the antipathy
black memphis has for nathan bedford forrest,
me who always talking about getting over it hates forrest like he still riding and i want to hurt him, i want to hurt his reputation, i want to crush the southern apologists who come up with all these excuses for him - he tried to stop his soldiers, he didnt know they were killing the poor blacks, so forth and so on,
im bringing him down if i can, i want to destroy his mythwork, which mean i got to build a really good character to withstand the inevitable counterattacks of the forrest partisans (i do it by telling a part of his life the historians have left alone, apparently he died on his convict plantation (renting black chaingang “vagrants”, 10 cents a day) after drinking mississippi river water – ie the mississippi river killed him – now thats rich material to work with, you see what im sayin, i got demons hainting him in his last days and a convict survivor of pillow playing a part in poisoning him - im taking you down forrest, ima whup the devil)
so i saw a new novel on fort pillow by harry turtledove but its just a recap of the research thats out there, not very well done, didnt learn anything new, no useful new details
but one interesting variation is that he has the black soldiers fighting hard and getting respect from the southern soldiers before they go down - in my account the blacks panic early and dont put up much of a fight,
needless to say, i prefer turtledoves version, but i dont think its historical, and i cant be ahistorical just cause i like the mythology of it, rickydoc dont play that,
im already what the industy would call a sentimentalist, when folk start breaking rest for the wearys historicals down they will see that whatever i wrote could have happened
and the historical record doesnt seem to support an account of the black soldiers putting up a good fight, the rebs were attacking a fortified position of 600 men and 6 canons,
they killed hundreds of defenders and only lost 20 men, that does not sound like a hardfought fight to me, that sound like a massacre of soldiers that wasnt quite soldiers
the fort itself was indefensible without enuf men to cover the outer lines, it wasn’t a fort, it was a deathtrap
a lot of the historical record, written by southern apologists, claim the blacks were drunken capering clowns incapable of fighting their masters, and forrests men didnt mean to kill them all, just couldnt help themselves in the heat of battle – we shall see
7) on the more personal side, read an interesting nyt article called the shelf life of bliss, say forget the 7 year itch bit - that with relationships, the initial thrill dies out pretty much 3 to 5 years
and hopefully by that time you buddies, life buddies
which is what maintains longterm relationships when the thrill dies
and the thrill do die, or rather is transformed into a more steady thing
and mature folk dont be out here looking for new thrills, tempting though it be
this dynamic is a big part of what im exploring in rest for the weary
keeping long term relationships viable (also in personal life)
and its always good to know to know what science has to say
about the dynamics of love and relationships
so that when those dynamics show up in your own life/love/relationship
you are able to finesse them cause you understand them instead of being
tossed around by what you dont understand about men and women
so you got the demon instead of the demon got you
thats one of my magical mantras about understanding forces that work on you
so you can control them – whereas if you dont understand them, they control you
for high magicians, demons are powers that you struggle with and if you win you in control of that power and you are that much more powerful a magician - but if you lose, that power is in control of you and you just a soulslave tossed about by forces beyond your understanding
okay, obviously im wandering, talking about any old thing
thats what happens when you off line for awhile
lets move into closure rick
pan african literary forum just got commitments from kofi awooner and ama ata aidoo
we got commitments from some powerful voices in african world lit
its going to be a phenomenal experience, we got highhopes, but we got no money to speak of
might have to fall back on plan b, maybe even plan c (d, e, or f)
impo thing is to have the conference no matter what
weak, limping, lame, we have to establish a record for doing what we say,
a record of consistency
picking up my boys and getting on the road soon as i post
taking four of them to the city for a week
arthur, cleveland, james, and evan – (fred is in iraq and asa
didnt feel comfortable leaving work for 2 weeks)
4 out of 6 & a week in the city - the hoodoo posse flowers
tires me out just thinking about it
i might take a moment, rest my head on the table
im tired im weary im gone
all my love
rdoc
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