rootwork the rootsblog: a cyberhoodoo webspace

getting your game on and keeping your eyes on the prize: word by rickydoc trickmaster

SATURDAY,

that friend i was talking about, adam banks, teach rhetoric
here at syracuse, one of keiths folk, askd me to be on that

wright panel, i wrote back somewhat snarly that ima
pass man, i applaud the effort but im trhu w/rwright,

and i aint gon give no noveltime to a sideshow ...
(im in the woodshed now, no discretionary time no where)

this what he wrote back

pulling my coat when im
in no mood to listen

message received
acknowledged

check

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

i hear you on that.  seems to be the dominant read on him.  trying to
see all sides, though, i can't just brush him off like that.  the bill
moyers interview and the press club talk (before the Q/A session) were
carefully thought out, well put together, and even conciliatory toward
whitefolk and the nation in a lot of ways. even the naacp speech had a
lot of that in it too.

the naacp speech was trying to challenge the naacp to have some
backbone and really step past its old boojie semi activism.  he even
said that he supported obama in that speech (though he did it in
veiled language to keep the naacp from having the IRS on their
behinds).  politically, i cant see why he would build with the naacp
and their footdragging scared politics of the last 30,40 years if his
intent was to take down his boy.

i don't blame him for either of those goals.  the Q/A at the press
club is where it bordered on farce, and that pissed me off too, but
that could easily be one of those moments where he just failed. 
intended to go in there lucid, thoughtful, and just lost his mind when
he saw the foolishness of how they came at him (foolishness he should
have known to expect, of course).  guess im sayin there's a difference
between trying to do right and messin up vs. just egotrippin from jump.

only reason im willing to try to read it a lil different is that he
did lay low for a long time and let obama do his thing even though
obama really did do him wrong in how he handled the
"denounce/repudiate" stuff after the first go round--a go round in
which the supposedly worst quotes werent even from wright but wright
quoting an ambassador in iraq.

guess i dont see wright as quite the same as the old black left
either.  nor do i think he was charging obama with pushing the left
line--matterfact, most of the black left laid low once they saw obama
having a real chance (like cornel changed his tune).

i think it was definitely ill advised, bad timing, and all of that,
but i guess im willing to read the situation and him a little
differently.  the man had a hit put out on his character, nobody was
willing to step out there for him the first time, *and* he watched the
same hit go down on obama's campaign in PA--the isht that billary and
her people did to obama in PA is exactly the same thing they did to
wright the first time, and tried to do to obama by going after wright.
  he might have just had one of those enough is enough moments, and
handled some of it poorly.  if it looked to him, like it looked to a
lot of people that this thing was done in PA, that billary and her
folks worked the backroom deals that were going to get her the
nomination, and seeing himself torn down in the process, i dont know,
i think that would be enough to make a lot of people step out there,
and that it wouldnt be all ego.

only real problem is that wright should have peeped his boy's cards,
since he made it a point to praise him (talkin bout farrakhan). 
farrakhan got 20-30 years experience knowing that some fights with the
american media are no win situations, you aint gonna be heard, and you
gonna be intentionally misinterpreted anyway (like the gov't and AIDS
comment--of course he never said the gov't had anything to do with it,
just that a lot of people who look at what happened with tuskegee, and
with AIDS drug trials being misrepresented in south africa, would say
that its at least possible.  and we know that aint how it was reported).

so anyway, long story short, i feel you on the read, and feel a lot of
the frustration you bringing.  matterfact, at least two of the folk on
the panel are bringing just about the exact same read as yours.  i
just think there's more to the story that the rest of us aint gonna
know for a good long time.  hard left politics or not, i think
jeremiah been committed and in the fight way too long to come out and
intentionally do a drive by on his boy just to get some spotlight. 
guess we'll see sooner or later....

as for the program tomorrow, i aint pushing no one way of reading it
though, was just trying to make sure that we got a space to think it
through together without having to rely on these wackass media
outlets.  cause even if you right, its a major moment for blackfolk
and the political process, and one where we got to ask how we want to
deal with it.

thanks for considerin it though.  you know i appreciate your wisdom on
these things.

ab


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

FRIDAY MORNING

hello world, buddy of mine is hosting a forum on rev wright
i should go but that hurt me so much i believe ima pass

wrights timing is so bad i got no slack in my heart for him
dont want to hear no reasoned debate - waste of noveltime

im thru w/him, aint giving no more
time to a sideshow

got boy obama in a crouch, taking fire from hillary and her colored minions, wright and the hard black left, mccain and the republicans, racists crawling out from under rocks

mccain and the racists, well thats just the way it is, but hillary and wright hurt

i shouldnt post damn near this entire article about hillarys use of racism
her willingness to violate everything shes stood for in progressive politics

this politics of resentment shes fanned will poison relations for years

im just noting his vulnerabilities she say - im not actually using them
like them republicans would, im just pointing them out, again and again

folk say obama got this far cause he black deluded
got this far because he bringing what america need

a new politic, a higherground - this longgame
this the nature of struggle in the 21st century

providing a new way, an african american way
a higher ground to which others aspire

clueless dinosaurs like wright best get up to speed
the game is on

hard left just as problematic as the hard right

and hillary has just scratched the surface
of the racism this campaign will unleash

hillary has fanned the dogs of war

but if obama cant handle hillary, cant handle mccain, how
he gon handle putin, mugabe, osama

carville say if hillary was to give obama one of her cojones they would
both have two - boy obama gon have to learn how to work w/both hands

clinton buy into bully america, just as determined as bush
was to prove how tough she can be, how rough she play

okay, i give it to her, she play
rough, she play real rough - but

subtle she is not, and if the nomination get took by such venal means, ima have
to sit it out, cant support that, can reward that

i suspect my little vote dont mean nothing to them, but
it mean something to me -

if blackfolk sit it out and the repubs win, (or worse the
dems win without us) we got to be ready to take a punch

i suggest the passions unleashed by obamas run have yet to play out
i believe its gon get ugly, i believe the hurting has just begun

everybody gon need to throw down on this
one, everybody gon have to do they part

i believe times about to get hard o regulators
obama win obama lose, we bout to go thru the fire

word by rickydoc trickmaster

wouldbe prophet of
the hoodoo way

in the name of
the conqueror

get your game on

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

from article in nation by betsy reed called: race to the bottom

Yet what is most troubling--and what has the most serious implications for the feminist movement--is that the Clinton campaign has used her rival's race against him. In the name of demonstrating her superior "electability," she and her surrogates have invoked the racist and sexist playbook of the right--in which swaggering macho cowboys are entrusted to defend the country--seeking to define Obama as too black, too foreign, too different to be President at a moment of high anxiety about national security. This subtly but distinctly racialized political strategy did not create the media feeding frenzy around the Rev. Jeremiah Wright that is now weighing Obama down, but it has positioned Clinton to take advantage of the opportunities the controversy has presented. And the Clinton campaign's use of this strategy has many nonwhite and nonmainstream feminists crying foul. 

While 2008 was never going to be a "postracial" campaign, the early racially tinged skirmishes between the Clinton and Obama camps seemed containable. There were references by Clinton campaign officials to Obama's admission of past drug use; the tit-for-tat over Clinton's tone-deaf but historically accurate statement that Martin Luther King needed Lyndon Johnson for his civil rights dreams to be realized; and insinuations that Obama is a token, unqualified, overreaching--that he's all pretty words, "fairy tales" and no action.

From the point of view of Obama's supporters, the edge was taken off some of these conflicts by the mere fact of his stunning electoral success, built as it was on significant white support. Melissa Harris-Lacewell, a professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton and an Obama volunteer, recalls that for black Americans "Iowa was an astonishing moment--watching Barack win the caucus felt like Reconstruction. There was something powerful about feeling as though you were a full citizen." In democracy, Harris-Lacewell explains, "the ruled and rulers are supposed to be the same people. The idea that black folks could be engaged in the process of being rulers over not just black folks but over the nation as a whole struck me as very powerful."

Soon enough, however, that powerful idea came under attack.

"More than any single thing, that moment with Bill Clinton in South Carolina represents the rupture that was coming," says Harris-Lacewell. The moment occurred in late January, when the former President compared Obama's landslide win, in which he received a major boost from African-American voters, to Jesse Jackson's victories there in 1984 and 1988. Because the former President offered the comparison unprompted, in response to a question that had nothing to do with Jackson or race, the statement was widely read as chalking up Obama's win to his blackness alone and thus attempting to marginalize him as a doomed minority candidate with limited appeal. Obama was now "the black candidate," in the words of one Clinton strategist quoted by the AP.

By March, multiple videos of Wright, Obama's former pastor, had popped up on YouTube and had begun to play on an endless loop in the right-wing media. "God damn America for treating your citizens as less than human," Wright inveighed, reciting a litany of racial complaints. And he said in his sermon immediately following 9/11, "America's chickens are coming home to roost."

According to Smith College professor Paula Giddings, author of a new biography of Ida B. Wells, Ida: A Sword Among Lions and the Campaign Against Lynching, Wright's angry invocation of race and nation tapped into a reservoir of doubt about the very Americanness of African-Americans. "American citizenship has always been racialized as white. Who is a true American? Are African-Americans true Americans? That has been the question," she says.

In Obama's case--given his mixed-race lineage, his Kenyan father, his experiences growing up in Indonesia, his middle name (Hussein)--questions about his devotion to America carry a special potency, as xenophobia mingles with racism to create a poisonous brew. The toxicity is further heightened in this post-9/11 atmosphere, in which an image of Obama in Somali dress is understood as a slur and e-mails claiming that he is a "secret Muslim" schooled in a madrassa spread virally, along with rumors that he took the oath of office on a Koran. The madrassa and Koran canards have been thoroughly debunked, but still they persist--and few have been willing to stand up and say, So what if he was a Muslim? For her part, Clinton, asked on 60 Minutes whether Obama was a Muslim, said, "There is nothing to base that on, as far as I know."

Giddings calls the Wright association a "litmus test" that Obama must pass, saying, "It will be interesting to see if a man of color, a man who's cosmopolitan, can be the quintessential symbol of America" as its President.

Obama initially responded to that challenge with his speech in Philadelphia on March 18. While condemning Wright's words, he placed them in a historical context of racial oppression and said, "I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community." (More recently, of course, Obama did renounce him.) But in the Philadelphia speech, called "A More Perfect Union," Obama also outlined a racially universal definition of American citizenship and affirmed his commitment to represent all Americans as President. "I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together--unless we perfect our union by understanding that we have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction."

A mere three days after Obama spoke those words, Bill Clinton made this statement in North Carolina about a potential Clinton-McCain general election matchup: "I think it'd be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country. And people could actually ask themselves who is right on these issues, instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics." Whether or not this statement constituted McCarthyism, as one Obama surrogate alleged and as Clinton supporters vigorously denied, the timing of the remark made its meaning quite clear: controversies relating to Obama's race render him less fit than either Hillary or McCain to run for president as a patriotic American. A couple of weeks later, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen went so far as to call on Obama to make another speech, modeled after John F. Kennedy's declaration in 1960 that, despite his Catholicism, he would respect the separation of church and state as President--as though Obama's blackness were a sign of allegiance to some entity, like the Vatican, other than the United States of America.

In the Democratic debates, enabled by the moderators, Hillary Clinton has increasingly deployed issues of race and patriotism as a wedge strategy against her opponent. First, in the debate in Cleveland on February 26, she pressed Obama not only to denounce but to reject Louis Farrakhan--to whom he was spuriously linked through Reverend Wright, who had taken a trip with the black nationalist leader in the 1980s. In style as well as content, that attack was a harbinger of things to come. In the most recent debate, ABC's George Stephanopolous and Charles Gibson peppered Obama with questions such as, "Do you believe [Wright] is as patriotic as you are?" and, regarding former Weatherman Bill Ayers, a Chicago neighbor and Obama supporter, "Can you explain that relationship for the voters and explain to Democrats why it won't be a problem?" Time after time, Clinton picked up the line and ran with it. "You know, these are problems, and they raise questions in people's minds. And so this is a legitimate area...for people to be exploring and trying to find answers," she said, seeming to abandon her argument that these issues are fair game now only because they will be raised by Republicans later and thus are relevant to an evaluation of Obama's electability.

The Wright, Farrakhan and Ayers controversies have been fueled by a craven media, and ABC's performance in the debate has rightly been condemned. But given that Clinton is the one who is running for President and who purports to represent liberal ideals, her complicity in such attempts to establish guilt by association is far more troubling. While she has dealt gingerly with the matter of Wright in the wake of his recent appearance at the National Press Club--accusing Republicans of politicizing the issue--she also took pains to remind reporters that she "would not have stayed in that church under those circumstances."

It's disappointing, to say the least, to see the first viable female contender for the presidency participate in attacks on her black opponent's patriotism, which exploit an anxious climate around national security that gives white men an edge both over women and people of color--who tend to be viewed, respectively, as weak and potentially traitorous. Says Paula Giddings, "This idea of nationalism and patriotism pulling at everyone has demanded hypermasculine men, more like McCain than the feline Obama, and demanded women whose role is to be maternal more than anything else."

For Hillary Clinton, the gendered terrain of post-9/11 national security politics has been treacherous indeed. As Elizabeth Drew observed in The New York Review of Books, Clinton took steps in the Senate, like joining the Armed Services Committee, "to protect herself from the sexist notion that a woman might be soft on national security." As a 2002 study by the White House Project, a women's leadership group, found, "Women candidates start out with a serious disadvantage--voters tend to view women as less effective and tough. Recent events of war, terrorism, and recession have only...increased the salience of these dimensions." Clinton has been quite successful in allaying these concerns, although she faces a Catch-22: her reputed toughness and ruthlessness have helped ratchet up her high negatives. The White House Project study found that a woman candidate faces a unique tension between the need to show herself "in a light that is personally appealing, while also showing that she has the kind of strength needed for the job she is seeking."

Of course, Clinton's decision to play the hawk may have had other motivations. Perhaps she really believed that voting to authorize the war in Iraq was the right thing to do (which is, arguably, even more worrying). But her posture in this campaign--threatening to "totally obliterate" Iran after being asked how she would respond in the highly improbable event of an Iranian nuclear strike against Israel, for example--has at least something to do with a desire to compete on a macho foreign policy playing field. It's the woman in this Democratic primary race who has the cowboy swagger: the nationalist and militaristic rhetoric, the whiskey-swilling photo-ops, the gotcha attacks for perceived insults to a working-class electorate (as in "Bittergate") that is usually depicted as white and male.

Clinton has, to be sure, faced a raw misogyny that has been more out in the open than the racial attacks on Obama have been. But while sexism may be more casually accepted, racism, which is often coded, is more insidious and trickier to confront. Clinton's response to "Iron my shirt" was immediate and straightforward: "Oh, the remnants of sexism, alive and well." Says Kimberlé Crenshaw, law professor at Columbia and UCLA and executive director of the African American Policy Forum, "While sexism can be denounced more directly, that doesn't mean it's worse. Things that are racist have yet to be labeled and understood as such."

While on occasion Obama's campaign has complained of racial slights, Obama himself has avoided raising the charge directly. Even so, Clinton supporters make the twisted claim that it is Obama who has racialized the campaign. "While promoting Obama as a 'post-racial' figure, his campaign has purposefully polluted the contest with a new strain of what historically has been the most toxic poison in American politics," wrote Sean Wilentz in The New Republic in an article titled "Race Man." Bill Clinton recently groused that the Obama camp, in the controversy over his Jackson remark, "played the race card on me."

As for the way the Clinton campaign has dealt with race, Crenshaw says, "It started with a small drumbeat, but as the campaign has proceeded, as Hillary has taken part in things, more people are really seeing this as a 'line in the sand' kind of moment."

Among the black feminists interviewed for this article, reactions to the declarations of sexism's greater toll by Clinton supporters--and their demand that all women back their candidate out of gender solidarity, regardless of the broader politics of the campaign--ran the gamut from astonishment to dismay to fury. Patricia Hill Collins, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland and author of Black Feminist Thought, recalls how, before they were reduced to their race or gender, the candidates were not seen solely through the prism of identity, and many Democrats were thrilled with the choices before them. But of the present, she says, "It is such a distressing, ugly period. Clinton has manipulated ideas about race, but Obama has not manipulated similar ideas about gender." This has exacerbated longstanding racial tensions within the women's movement, Collins notes, and is likely to alienate young black women who might otherwise have been receptive to feminism. "We had made progress in getting younger black women to see that gender does matter in their lives. Now they are going to ask, What kind of white woman is Hillary Clinton?"

The sense of progress unraveling is profound. "What happened to the perspective that the failures of feminism lay in pandering to racism, to everyone nodding that these were fatal mistakes--how is it that all that could be jettisoned?" asks Crenshaw, who co-wrote a piece with Eve Ensler on the Huffington Post called "Feminist Ultimatums: Not in Our Name." Crenshaw says that, appalled as she is by the sexism toward Clinton, she found herself stunned by some of the arguments pro-Hillary feminists were making. "There is a myopic focus on the aspiration of having a woman in the White House--perhaps not any woman, but it seems to be pretty much enough that she be a Democratic woman." This stance, says Crenshaw, "is really a betrayal."

Frances Kissling, the former president of Catholics for a Free Choice, attributes this go-for-broke attitude to the mindset of corporate feminism. "There's a way in which feminists who have been seriously engaged in electoral politics for a long time, the institutional DC feminist leadership, they are just with Hillary Clinton come hell or high water. I think they have accepted, as she has accepted, a similar career trajectory. They are not uncomfortable with what has gone on in the campaign, because they see electoral campaigns as mere instruments for getting elected. This is just the way it is. We have to get elected."

The implications of all this for the future of feminism depend significantly on the outcome of the primary, says Kissling. "If Clinton wins, the older-line women's movement will continue; it will be a continuation of power for them. If she doesn't win, it will be a death knell for those people. And that may be a good thing--that a younger generation will start to take over."

Many younger women, indeed, have responded to the admonishments of their pro-Hillary second-wave elders by articulating a sophisticated political orientation that includes feminism but is not confined to it. They may support Obama, but they still abhor the sexism Clinton has faced. And they detect--and reject--a tinge of sexism among male peers who have developed man-crushes on the dashing senator from Illinois. "Even while they voice dismay over the retro tone of the pro-Clinton feminist whine, a growing number of young women are struggling to describe a gut conviction that there is something dark and funky, and probably not so female-friendly, running below the frantic fanaticism of their Obama-loving compatriots," wrote Rebecca Traister in Salon.

It's not just young feminists who have taken such a nuanced view. Calling themselves Feminists for Peace and Obama, 1,500 prominent progressive feminists--including Kissling, Barbara Ehrenreich and this magazine's Katha Pollitt--signed on to a statement endorsing him and disavowing Clinton's militaristic politics. "Issues of war and peace are also part of a feminist agenda," they declared.

In some sense, this is a clarifying moment as well as a wrenching one. For so many years, feminists have been engaged in a pushback against the right that has obscured some of the real and important differences among them. "Today you see things you might not have seen. It's clearer now about where the lines are between corporate feminism and more grassroots, global feminism," says Crenshaw. Women who identify with the latter movement are saying, as she puts it, "'Wait a minute, that's not the banner we are marching under!'"

Feminist Obama supporters of all ages and hues, meanwhile, are hoping that he comes out of this bruising primary with his style of politics intact. While he calls it "a new kind of politics," Clinton and Obama are actually very similar in their records and agendas (which is perhaps why this contest has fixated so obsessively on their gender and race). But in his rhetoric and his stance toward the world outside our borders, Obama does appear to offer a way out of the testosterone-addled GOP framework. As he said after losing Pennsylvania, "We can be a party that thinks the only way to look tough on national security is to talk, and act, and vote like George Bush and John McCain. We can use fear as a tactic and the threat of terrorism to scare up votes. Or we can decide that real strength is asking the tough questions before we send our troops to fight."

As comedian Chris Rock quipped, Bush "fucked up so bad that he's made it hard for a white man to run for President." Rock spoke too soon: many are hungry for a shift, but the country needs the right push to get there. Unfortunately, from Hillary Clinton, it's getting a shove in the wrong direction.

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

couldnt have said that no better myself

in struggle

rdoc

THURSDAY MORNING

well well well

hillary operatives in dc, organization called womens voices womens votes
using robocalls in north carolina to supress black vote

busted by a local nonprofit that traced anonymous calls when
black residents protested misleading information

suppressing the black vote is a political felony

kinda like putting nelson mandela on the terrorist watch list
mistake says washington, congress vows to fix it

may 3rd declared nyc day of absence behind sean bell case
rioting passe, blackfolk try a no spend boycott

likely to fail but what the hell
a luta continua - more or less

rdoc




WEDNESDAY  4:01 AM

hello world, last class yesterday, ima free man
usually i just crash for a week or so but im so desperate

i hope i hit the ground running
look here i aint gon say i told you so

but who let rev wright out
what possess him to step out now

some say the hard black left gunning for obama
in a war for the hearts and souls of blackfolk

some say the reverend wright just a gloryhound in
love with the sound of his voice

some say he a plant for clinton, well okay maybe not him
but the folk giving him play (who is this barabara reynolds)

i say he took his eyes off the prize

i credit him for the service trinity has provided

the right reverend has his role to play in the struggle
but warrior need to know when to come strong when to lay low

not your moment man, aint about you
forgive him lord, he know not what he do

not a clue

let me put this next post under human interest maybe
the turtle above was run over by a car

nursed back to health by a good samaritan except for
that crushed leg - so he was given a set of wheels

i enjoyed posting that

im outta here, rest or work
either one count as

rest for the weary

speaking of which, a nyfa in fiction, a vote of confidence just when i need
it, i forgot i applied, one of those spur of the moment things, today nyfa

tomorrow a mac, im
burning a candle

all my love

rdoc

praise songs for bessie smith, chelsea fetzer and ashwin parulkar

hello world, did 3 presentations recently
did a bessie smith collaboration with artist terry adkin

this is detail from altar he did libation in

also did intros for my two thesis students, chelsea and ashwin - ima start keeping track of syracuse students

recently did an essay class w/fiction and poets and it was a revelation what real poets go thru, folk often accuse me of

poetry cause i use these couplets but i know better
i use couplets to help readers and regulators digest my words,

not in some poetic delusion

am in a pretty good space, last week of schoolhouse
and already in the woodshed, struggling with the page

im good, its all good

all my love
rdoc

================

a praise song for saint bessie

lord legba, open this gate, we have gathered here this evening
in the name of the song, - we have gathered here this evening

to sing a praisesong for saint bessie

august wilson recounts what he considers his moment of artistic revelation, when in the fall of 1965 he put on an old 78 rpm, nobody in town can bake a sweet jellyroll like mine by bessie smith and says it was a "resurrection and a redemption",

say the "universe stuttered and everything fell into a new place,"

says it was "the beginning of my consciousness that i was representative of a culture and the carrier of some very valuable antecedents . . . i saw the blues as a cultural response …to  a world that did not recognize their gods, their manners, their mores. it despised their ethos and refused to even recognize (their) humanity. in such an environment the blues was a flag bearer of definition…a spiritual conduit that gave spontaneous expression to the spirit that was locked in combat and devising new strategies for engaging life and enlarging itself. it was a true and articulate literature that was in the forefront of the development of both character and consciousness. i turned my ear, my heart and whatever analytical tools i possessed to embrace this world. i elevated it, rightly or wrongly, to biblical status."

and so have we come here this evening to anoint bessie smith as an honored ancestor
queenmother bessie, orisha bessie, loa bessie, saint bessie

oshun frieda corinna bessie, bring down your blessings bessie    sing bessie sing
billie diana carmen cassandra and randy bessie  -  sing bessie       sing bessie sing

have you heard bessie sing, like august wilson heard her sing
have you heard her       do her thing

where you there, did you see her, harlem, misssissippi, the orpheum

great burly bessie, big crimson wearing bessie, big pretty shiny bessie, swaying all that woman to the piano bessie, where your snake bessie, where your tom tom bessie, how you gon bring the spirit down, yes bessie, shake the devil out your soul bessie, yes besie, shake him bessie, yes bessie yes, shake the devil bessie, we believe, we believe

tell us about the hurting bessie, sing the blues that tear our the soul bessie, blues bessie brown bessie  shiny bessie, bless me bessie, take me deep bessie, rip my soul bessie, take me to

the other side bessie  – sing bessie sing bessie

wrap us in those big arms of yours bessie, smoother me in all that downhome
funky flesh bessie, smother my soul bessie

bath me in the river bessie blessme, take me to the holyground

slow drag me bessie, slow drag me, put me in a slow groove, take me somewhere deep,
make me forget my troubles bessie, spell me baby, thrown it on me bessie

water getting deep bessie,

sing with the courage of new mothers and the newly dead bessie
sing bessie sing, blues bessie blue

they cant keep you down bessie, cant stop the magic woman bessie,
sing bessie sing bessie dream bessie dream bessie, wash me in the blood bessie,

bath me in the blues bath me in the blues ….

voodoo hoodoo you do bessie, obeah bessie, condomble santeria bessie
harriet sojourner zora and ida b bessie

big black woman w/riverwide shoulders bessie, big rivermud bessie
bessie i bow before you bessie, delta bessie, harlem bessie, bless me bessie

feeder of my soul bessie,  raise the sun with your song bessie    
sing bessie sing bessie - sweet bessie, soulmother bessie

soul snatch bessie hoodoo queen queen mother bessie,
heavy load, crooked stick nappyhead bessie -  sing

please bessie, sing blues sing

promiseland blessie, spelllady blessie, fellow traveling blessie
dont take no shit bessie, off no man black white or indifferent bessie

when she say she aint gon play no second fiddle, you believe her
she use to playing lead bessie i understand bessie your world bessie

and when our need is greatest you there for us mama bessie
singing them destinysongs bessie, healing souls only real blues women can

thats why this evening we honor your legacy
thats why this evening we praise your name -  that why we sing your song

may have took your arm and your life at the crossroads bessie
but they cant take away your name, may your legacy feed many generations

we have gathered here this evening in your name sweet bessie
this evening we thank you for the gift you gave

the dues you paid, for the paths you laid
we thank you for the love my love

gods blessings on us all
this spell is done

========================

chelsea fetzer: thats my girl

chelsea my girl. everybody know chelsea my girl.  let me tell you how i met chelsea, friend of mine in the industry call me one day.  arthur she tell me i think you need to look at this writers work.  it aint working right now but once she get the hang of it she gon be special, she gon be deadly arthur, 1st thing i thought of i thought of you.  but ima busy man right, i tell ms fetzer send me a couple of pages, let me see what you got.  chelsea send me about 10 pages that i was not impressed with, i told her to check back with me when she get her chops together.

chelsea sent me a blistering email accuse me of not recognizing talent.  call me an idiot, told me i was blind, said she would show me what time it was.   idiot.  i was very impressed.  i wrote back, said perhaps i missed something, send me the manuscript please.  i read the whole manuscript, and i saw i understood why chelsea fetzer was sent my way.  the gods of literature were looking out for me. 

cause me and chelsea we family, we come from the same root and chelsea like the cutting edge of my tradition, what wideman gaylejones morrison struggling with thats gon find fruition in the work of chelsea fetzer, mark my word chelsea fetzer the future, working we call the speakerly text,  a master storyteller, got voice on voice in voice, chelsea be signifying, be interweaving intertexting historical with coming of age into a narrative fierceness thats gon bust the border, thats gon bust the page, thats gon move the tradition we both love, this a storytelling woman here

heart so big im surprised the earth dont crumble under her feet.  chelsea fetzer is the point of it all.  the cutting edge.  like some kind of literary destiny and i love her fiercely.  thats my girl.  my ace boon.  thats my peeps.

may the gods of literature be good to her
may the gods of literature be good to us all

=================

ashwin parulkar: international man of mystery

i once heard ashwins workshop folk call him an international man of mystery and i thought that was so cool, thats what i want to be when i grow up, i want to be ashwin, cause you know aswhin deep, ashwin on his own little planet somewhere deep, rushdie morrison at they best deep but whatever deep ashwin got its all ashwin deep and its big and its primetime and its full of heart, some kind of cosmic man of mystery deep thats what he is, and the easiest thesis ive ever done, my role been yeah man thats good thats good, whatever you doing you just keep on doing it

ive learned so much working with ashwin, probably more than hes learned from me, which is one of the advantages of working with so many young guns who potentially better than you are, it keep you on your toes, and i thank our students for that blessing, for bringing it strong like you do

i admire ashwin cause hes figured it out, work that tackle the big issues of the human condition and be seriously craftful about it, craft heart vision the whole bit wrapped into a densely layered narration that never forgets what makes literature important, ashwin got heart, sarah told us to keep it tight you know so im trying to avoid unearned hyperbole here but i have to say in all seriousness that i consider ashwin to be a writer of historical stature and i consider him true voice and now that hes graduated i can officially acknowledge him the teacher and colleague hes been to me.  im proud to call him my fellow traveler, this literary man of mystery, im proud to call him my friend

pissing off the conjureman

SATURDAY

hello world, wrote this in a washington post comments section
its amazing to me how many folk are still enthusiastic supporters

of hillary clinton:

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

i use to respect the clintons

and its so unfortunate that they have proven themselves so politically venal under pressure, its really unfortunate

obama, for all his flaws, has tried to keep this race on a higherplane

something other than the politics of personal destruction that have so crippled america both domestically and in the world

hillary continues to try to drag it into the dirt as her only chance of winning

but what would she be winning if she wins by dragging the party  into the dirt, by stirring its racial polarizations and resentments

many of the posts here evidence an eagerness to go racial that hillary has fanned
a politics of resentment that will poison relations for years

what is she doing to the party, what is she doing to america

when she was the anointed leader she fought fair - but when times got hard she got win at any cost dirty and tries to spin it as somehow commendable

the clintons have dusted off all the politics of personal destruction the republicans used on them and turned them on their own

my daddy use to tell me never wrestle with pigs, you only get dirty and the pig enjoys it

but in this case obama doesnt seem to have much of a choice - clinton efforts show that in american politics 2008 down and dirty still has agency - according to them always has been always will

that might be so

but can the presidency be worth the damage she has done to her lifes work in politics
somebody who would win by tearing us apart

hillarys had a lot of detractors over the years but we progressives
have always defended and loved and stood by her

now everything positive that shes stood for all her life has been trashed
not by her enemies but her own actions  - she has become one of them

and 8 years of resentment politics is enough

is that what weve learned from republican rule
its just so unfortunate

i hope when its over that obama and democratic party and all the folk who
depend on it can forgive her (and bill) work with her (and bill)

at this point I don’t know that I can

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

i really dont

rdoc




FRIDAY

hello world: almost done, i got about one class and two
manuscript/conference obligations, not accepting anymore - nada

and if asked i will speak truth to the students - im done
im thru, its woodshed time for a desperate man

and look here, somebody that ought to be done - whats with reverent wright, hes embarked on a campaign to explain himself w/explanations like:

"He's a politician. I'm a pastor. We speak to two different audiences. And he says what he has to say as a politician. I say what I have to say as a pastor. Those are two different worlds. I do what I do, he does what politicians do. So what happened in Philadelphia where he had to respond to the soundbites, he responded as a politician."

i was hoping this man would keep his mouth shut and his profile low, or that he would come out grown - but him suggesting that obama just a politician macking is not good

i wouldnt be surprised if wright turn out to be a clinton mole

on the other hand that terryadkins bessie smith thing went well

i will probably put it up under presentations at some point
but today im thinking a rickydocs top ten list, was wondering

what do i think are the 10 most significant issues in the world today
in no particular order lets say

1    recent rise in hunger
2    the war in iraq
3    iranian nuke efforts
4    fundamentalism both american & islamic
5    darfur
6    israel/palestine et al
7    american election 2008
8    somalia
9    islam and the west
10  global health educ & welfare

what about 10 blackworld issues

1    darfur
2    somalia
3    congo
4    haiti
5    obama
6    zimbabwe
7    global development of black countries/communities
8    empowerment
9
10

lets say 5 most important to me personally

1   saving the blackworld
2   getting humanity off the planet
3   the geas of rickydoc as vision and legacy
4   enhancing/shaping human destiny
5   rest for the weary

okay, i will have to come back/refine both these lists later
right now feeling fidgety, i need to clock some pages today

goal this week - full rewrite of 70 page endgame

its all endgame
all my love

rdoc




WEDNESDAY

okay, hillary is stil in it, what else is new - be different if this was a
real race but its not, its like the clintons are some kind of republican demons

that have been inflicted on the democrats, who have gotten this far by splitting the democrats on race, its just amazing

also i notice latest report that americas prison population is the highest ratio in the world, what else is new - feels like more of the same at this point

also apparently darfur deaths underreported by a 100,000 or so, what else is new

apparently hunger is rising around the world, i think this is new

well at least angola said no to the chinese arms ship still searching for a port - im prouod to say the south african dock workers union said no

then mozambique and tanzania said no, now angola said no, just as proud of them as i can be

big up in the great black book of generations

kofi annan checked in: "the question which has been posed is: where are the africans? where are their leaders and the countries in the region, what are they doing?"

kofi playing a role here similiar to what he done in kenya - voice of a continental/global africa
to whom african heads of state defer - could this be nucleus of true continental africa

a real african union instead of the fake one

dream on rick
a luta continua

rdoc




TUESDAY  12:03 AM

hello world

so mccain is in alabama at the pettus bridge making noises about the civil rights movement
aint no blackfolk fooled by mccain okeydoke, his bush lite minstrel show

everybody know he dont care bout no blackfolk, he just
trying to hoodwink the independents

spare me, and our history of struggle from repub okeydoke

i have finally put my website back up after 6 months down - the text is dated and some of the links are shot but its good to be back in that saddle

i will try to fix it over the next couple of weeks
mostly updating that text

1st thing i did was started working on some of my
geo hunt short stories - finally - just to get started

me and george gon do this project, his works, my words
i call it the hoodoo tales: beale street talking

i get the images off sites selling his work online
so first thing i did was check to see if any new ones

were up and found keepers like this one - and the sojourner one - gon use this one somewhere, i love georges work

feel blessed to know him, collaborate with him

felt good to finally start that project
i figure it will take me a good decade to do it right

patience puppy - all good projects take time

felt good to be working my website again
at one point almost lost the domain name,

made me realize how much i appreciated it - snatched
rootwork.com back in the early days of the internet

gon keep it till the day i die
or fumble

all my love

rdoc




MONDAY 2:38 AM

hello world, i keep getting angrier and angrier about zimbabwe
i do not like it when folk in power take advantage of my people

having them living under repressive authoritarian conditions
abusing my people, piss me off

got folk like this zimbabwe woman w/child trying
to escape the prision zimbabwe has come

i do not like it when folk in power take advantage of my people - folk like mugabe, bashir et al - tyrants of any sort, on any level

do not fuck with my people

times like this i wish i was some kinda magician/sorceror/prophet from the storybooks -

able to right wrongs with the wave of my staff - the power of my mind

times like this i wish folk feared me for the sorceror that i am

two head man working
w/both hands

it aggravate me that my power so weak in the world

most hoodoos satisfied being folk magicians and hedge wizards
i want i need the power to affect social change as necessary -

destinywork - long and short game - some
secret society = work of the hand calculation

been trying hard to manifest hoodoo in a 21st century sensibility so as
to regain the tribal respect hoodoo once had in the community

if necessary the fear

project hoodoo power into the world
bring mugabe down - whatever need to

be done, until then
i can only dream of

rickydoc trickmaster

would be prophet
of the hoodoo way

on conjuration and the nature of mythwork

SUNDAY

hello world, im in a good space, been listening to dinah washington all morning
got a 5 day weekend and struggling with the page - thats all i ask

got me a literary cat, serenity is her name

she likes to sit/lay/sprawl next to me while i type
(we had to get an understanding about the keyboard)

after lady comes calling died, my cat of 15 years, me
and bonnie decide 2 cats this time

bonnies idea, they would be
company for each other

we decide bonnie choose/name one, i choose/name one - so  i chose the cream calico, spca cat, love at 1st sight

brought her home she act like i dont exist, except when its feeding time - then we buddies - otherwise she follow bonnie everywhere - purring

i come into bonnies office and there she is sitting on the arm of bonnies chair - looking at me like whats your name again - oh thats right you the one know how

to open the cat food, thats a good skill to have, why
dont you go practice some - o i was quite distraught

but then we got the tabby,bonnies choice, a foundling, and cats
being what they are shes adopted me - wherever i am 

the house she be there too - just chilling
both of us, just chilling, we be chilling

im just as tickled as i can be
got me a literary kitty

that ought to be worth some pages

some commentary under subject: bodacious claims:

bodcacious claim; us/iraq claim they fighting against iranian backed mahdi army
truth: malaikis gov based badr militia more thoroughly in irans pocket than sadr

bodacious claim: hillary accuses obama of negative campaigning
truth: where do we start with that one, its so bodacious its a joke

all my love
rdoc

FRIDAY

nice video here of obama commenting on debate
say clinton took advantage of opportunity to twist the knife

say it took them 45 minutes before they started talking
about a single issue important to the american people

look like abc was twisting the knife a bit too
engaged in trivial pursuit

i keep trying to withdraw from the fray but this boy
make a good case for bloggers being on it - for the role

they played in spinning the debate

in video boy obama mimic brushing off her attacks
check it out, boy showing some style

punching back while still staying positive

clinton/mccain/republican tagteam trying to swiftboat him
except this time one of our own aiding and abetting

she say she discussing his electability
thats just a cover for her to throw mud

i like that shoulder brush move, boy obama learning
how to punch back - gracefully

but look here, so as not to end on a negative note,
let me drop a hoodoo blessing on you

check out djenra windwalkers orb of djenra, she recently moved to
blogspot and is doing regular postings, djenra some kinda hoodoo queen

most powerful hoodoo i know
she kinda prickly though

she be dropping science, knowledge and wisdom
but she dont drop it often - best to take advantage

of it while she in a generous mood
i know i will

all my love
rdoc

THURSDAY

hello world, i will make this a real post later

but for right now i just want to pay homage to a master

just made ancestor, the incomparable aime cesaire

negritude poet and organizer from martinique

panafricanist spirit

godfather of chamoiseau and the creolites

o master of the word o master of fa

guide guardian babagriot

one hopes there is rest for the weary

also let me say i really dont like whats going on in zimbabwe
no africanist population should be subject to repressive authoritarian rule

w/o swift condemnation from the african powers that be
w/o efforts to move heaven and earth in redress

so say rickydoc
so shall it be

in the name of cesaire
he who loved the people

WEDNESDAY MORNING 11:54AM

man i am so damn near woodshed, im sitting here
on my 2nd floor wrirting porch and i am so feeling it

i dont want to do no more schoolwork, dont want to do nothing
but write, this last 2 weeks schoolhouse gon be rough

so anyway i just wanted to post what
springsteen say about obama, feel kinda

corny posting springsteen, ima
justify it as an artist thing ima

claim fellow
traveler:

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

Dear Friends and Fans:

LIke most of you, I've been following the campaign and I have now seen and heard enough to know where I stand. Senator Obama, in my view, is head and shoulders above the rest.

He has the depth, the reflectiveness, and the resilience to be our next President. He speaks to the America I've envisioned in my music for the past 35 years, a generous nation with a citizenry willing to tackle nuanced and complex problems, a country that's interested in its collective destiny and in the potential of its gathered spirit. A place where "...nobody crowds you, and nobody goes it alone."

At the moment, critics have tried to diminish Senator Obama through the exaggeration of certain of his comments and relationships. While these matters are worthy of some discussion, they have been ripped out of the context and fabric of the man's life and vision, so well described in his excellent book, Dreams of My Father, often in order to distract us from discussing the real issues: war and peace, the fight for economic and racial justice, reaffirming our Constitution, and the protection and enhancement of our environment.

After the terrible damage done over the past eight years, a great American reclamation project needs to be undertaken. I believe that Senator Obama is the best candidate to lead that project and to lead us into the 21st Century with a renewed sense of moral purpose and of ourselves as Americans.

Over here on E Street, we're proud to support Obama for President.

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

couldnt have said that no better myself

a luta continua

rdoc

WEDNESDAY MORNING 4:14 AM

hello world, been on minimum maintenance lately
pre woodshed, chomping at the bit

never know how my rootsblog posts will respond during woodshed, i generally
do more posting but its personal and self referential

which i would prefer otherwise - i hate when
all i talk about is me - such is the nature

of mythwork - this frederick douglas piece

came from the syracuse poster project - hilcock artist
wilber poet - nice huh, wish i had thought of it

you notice ive taken a break from the campaign, i was too close up on that, all those ups and downs just too stressful for me, im floating now, in my more customary

observatory mode, i see but am not seen - attuning myself
to the strategic flow, if i see a rootpoint i will press it

minimum effort, strategic impact - rootwork
on the hoodoo board of destiny

building institutions and infrastructures that
enable cultural orchestration

so when the crossroad moment come
you got something to bring ot the table

i see my homeboy rawdawbuffalo got a new book out
dirt behind my ears -  torrence stephens

way to go dawg

wordage into product
o i do love the game

some quick commentary:

bloated kenyan cabinet an expensive joke
reflective of traditionally exploitive politic

clinton and obama still crossed, lost points with
bitter clinging bit, gave the haters another opening

to go where they want to go anyway, i assume he will survive it, just a bump
in very hard road - a little seasoning for a blackman want to be president

obama gon have to be more careful - everytme
hillary in trouble she stir the racial pot

zimbabwe under the gun, no good news there - darfur damn
near off the map, rebel disarray has crippled that initiative

far as i can see the west coast of africa is stable, the east coast in turmoil, central
africa has stabilized in a lowgrade crises mode, north africa still being eaten by islam

from a panafrican perspective that is

blackworld you got the significant black populations of the americas, north america we in a prettymuch lowgrade
crises mode too but no more than normal, got some strategic initiatives (best left unsaid) in play that might

flip the board - times is

hard but we okay with it - then you got south america and the caribbean
dont know that i can rightly put those two together

the caribbean pretty much a strategic grouping of its own - africanist, multicultural, multiracial,
multilingual - marginal geopolitical posture,  economically vulnerable  - how does it position itself

south america, significant africanist population/culture in an area with untapped geopolitical potential - then you
got the marginal populations of europe and asia, the strategically marginal pacifica, the uncertain blacks

of india and arabia

got to wield them all into a
geopolical/cosmic force

shape the tribal
soul and destiny

the only blackworld common is that we been a weak people - that we
need a new kind of people, a different kind of people - confident and

competent, an affluent, illuminated and powerful people
(all that we currently are not) cultural custodians and

masters of strategy
the key that opens all locks

destinyplayers

but let me not get on my high horse - its 4 in the morning
and i need to clock some pages before the

schoolhouse come to get me

times like this i love blogging, my very marginality allow me to
talk about whatever i damn well please - its not like im gon be

losing readership, i got none to lose - africanist speculation

of this sort is very dear to me - and of little commercial/career value it seems
least not the way i do it, but i enjoy doing it, got all kinds of ideological

initiatives buried in this post - initiatives that might never come
to fruition, but tricks that i enjoy laying nevertheless

conjuration is all about forcing reality to respond to your will - you create this
magical/artistic reality in your head that is by definition deviant from reality as it is

reality as it is generally stronger than your personal reality which
we shall call for purposes of this discussion your fantasy

but you hold to magical reality with magical Will and you produce Works that seed
that reality in the cultural/ideological consciousness - the human/tribal soul

and you hold that reality and you live that reality until it takes root in reality as is
and becomes a reality in the world  - conduct yourself as you aspire to be and you shall

this is the essence of conjuration
according to rickydoc

and in the reality/vision i see blackfolk are a beautiful powerful people with strong and
beautiful communities that make many contributions to the human condition

in my reality humanity always strives to evolve and transcend
and constantly struggles to enhance the human condition

for everybody - and every thing
in my reality humanity meets all challenges

im my reality i am a man of power and a
force of historical stature and significance

not to mention a
great writer

all my love
rickydoc trickmaster

wouldbe prophet of
the hoodoo way

minimum maintenance or sacrifice: do or die

FRIDAY 4:52AM

hello world, talking about somebody w/nothing to say
just been off the grid lately, almost woodshed time

ought to have something to say about mugabe though
that situation gon from bad to worse and its still

panafricanist folk still support mugabe but i dont see it
boy exemplify whats been wrong w/african leadership

african politic so winner take all everybody else
poor that folk dont want to leave when its time to go

i hear zuma want to apply more pressure than mbeki been
willing to consider - make me reconsider zuma - but i aint

had my finger on that pulse like i should
old boy in a pre woodshed mode - going off

the grid in about 2 weeks - i cant wait, already
fudging it - o it feel good, this what i live for

dont know how my palf obligations gon work
in a woodshed mode, will have to see

i apologize upfront to you o regulators, you might want
to skip next couple of months, i get self referential

when im in the woodshed - when its just my world
when im in the woodshed thats all that interest me

so anyway they got this syracuse haiku poster project right
some years ago i sent them some i use the word loosely haiku

cause i like the idea of collaborating w/graphic artists
so i got chose this year by young artiste erin schechtman

this the poster she came up with, im pleased w/it, it feel warm
and toasty - you never know what folk gon come up with

i was riffing off syracuses chilly nature, which i dislike intensely
vs the warmth of the relationships ive found, bonnie et al

i treat syracuse like its a writers retreat - its been
good, ive grown as a writer, i been clocking pages

rest for the weary and the
hoodoo book of flowers

win or lose been a good run

i sing the blues sometime but im cool, life is
good and its time to put the weary to bed

look like im feeling kinda cocky today, give me a couple days
wrestling w/the beast and i will likely be back here crying

well what would a woodshed
be w/o dues

heres to a productive summer woodshed
moneydraft rick - do or die

may the gods of literature
be good to us all

rdoc





TUESDAY

wow, juno diaz won the pulitzer, go juno
me and juno got a checkered history - bout the only kind you can have w/juno

him finally finishing his novel and getting a pulitzer
for it has messed with my head somewhat, make

me ever more determined to get my own novel done

at this point i dont expect prizes for it (though they would be nice) - at this point i just want to get it done - for it to exist

had to remind myself to stay focused, to not start tripping,
had to remind myself - a luta continua

also thinking about martin luther king, yesterday bonnie asked me accusingly if i was one of the 'looters' broke up his last march in memphis, and i told her we werent looting - some folk may have but for the young turks who broke up that march it was

about turning our backs on nonviolence - and king - but even then we recognize
the changes king and the movement brought into our lives - i dont even try to

explain the apartheid south to young blacks today, they cannot imagine such a thing
might be good of they could, might commit them to some struggle

i remember when imoguna, a harlem boy who loved malcom the way i love king once ask

who caused the greatest historical change/influence and decided it was martin hands down
and i think how he was vilified from all sides in those final years and how much more

there is to his vision than the soundbites you hear every mlk day -

and how wonderful it is that the movement get explored every year like
this - and how much obama exemplify something about the movement

21st century stylee

and this post just wandering isnt it, i will clean it up over the next couple of days but let me
say it was the death of king, april 1968, that turned me out and made me a lifelong warrior

in the struggle

my chosen vehicle been the Work and the Word - and i still
hope/feel/pray i got a contribution to make

cant be sidetracked by jealousy of my literary companeros
victories, defeats, jealousy - everything get one response

work harder rick, work smarter - focus rick
moneydraft this summer - do or die

i know for a fact that juno struggled w/that novel
11 years he paid dues on it - do or die

way to go juno

in the name of the king
do or die

rdoc

SUNDAY 1 AM

was talking to a friend of mine today he say it was sad that
mlk got shot like he did but it was because he was shot

at his peak that his vision/myth/martyrdom
gained the power that it has today

sacrifice

i wonder if he had been given the choice
would he have chosen the hammer

as he said that stormy night in memphis
longetivity has its place

rdoc

FRIDAY

minimum maintenance and
sometime not even that

off the grid
rdoc




TUESDAY?

hello world
been off the grid

palf/schoolhouse got me running/gunning
squeezing noveltime when/where i can

im out of it
palf slowly falling into place

step by step, inch by precarious inch
jeff and mohammed on point

rickydoc slacking as always

got to step up my game/always
old boy got to pull his freight

ok, some really quick commentary

mugabe out but not quite
darfur - statusquo
kenya - no news is good news

ok clearly im not into this, maybe later - me and bama both
burnt out - but all you can do is keep doing

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

look like aint no/rest
for the weary

just maintain
rdoc