Amiri
Baraka
Playwright Poet and Activist
"Democracy, War and the Responsibility of Intellectuals in
a Bushwacked America"
September 24, 2002
Amiri
Baraka: I want to talk about democracy and self-determination
and the responsibility of intellectuals who I trust you will be
when you come out of here. Although I know some of you will
not be unfortunately. Some of you will be. You know this is a
small quote at the bottom of your diplomas that says I will not
bite to kick or scratch, I will be perfectly calm and submit to
every dumb thing to come out of the white house. Some of you who
will look beyond that hopefully, you will have to understand that
you have a responsibility if you are indeed intellectuals, if
you are indeed artists, if you are indeed honorable people that
you have responsibility. For one thing that Afro-American history
African American history, black history you understand because
we are black and we are Americans to study that history is to
understand what the Dubois call the Sisyphus syndrome. How many
people her actually read “The souls of Black Folks.”
Some of you are probably lying, but I would trust that you will
go to it. Remember those opening words “How does it feel
to be a problem?” That’s some stunning words if you
know what this is. “How does it feel to be a problem?”
How does it feel to be a problem? People talk all around it. They
come into a room and say oh I know a great colored man down the
street. How do you feel about these outrages, but not one of them
posed the question directly? And this makes my blood boil. How
does it feel to be a problem? So that is the first thing that
you have to find out. Not only you black students and you say
working class white students and you women who don’t want
to be raped by ideology and statute, but anyone who wants to be
an honorable person. You have to find that out. How does it feel
to be a problem? Cause you a going to be a problem. Cause say
If you oppose the ideas that are coming out of the White House
now by this foolish greedy imbecile who is our president that
means then that you have to be a problem. You have to be a problem.
But for black people it is not complex. People see you. What is
the difference between racism and national oppression? National
oppression I have to call you across the street. If I am in Kosovo
you might be a Serb and I say I want to see your ID and I say
Oh you are a Serb and bang I shoot you. But what racism does is
identify you by physical characteristics. I don’t have to
call you across the street to see your ID I can see your ID on
your face. Like Stevie Wonder said I don’t have to call
you nowhere I can just shoot you from across the street. That
is what racism is identification by physical characteristics.
But the African American people suffers from more than just racism.
Racism is what the liberal claims is our only problem. Racism.
But the Afro-American people suffer from national oppression.
That is from robbery, from the removal and elimination of our
rights. So that when we ask for reparations, we are not only going
to sue you for the national oppression, robbery, fraud, lynching
kidnapping, child abuse, psychological attacks, but we want to
sue you for all the caricatures you made of us, all the sambo
movies all the Negroes with their eyes rolling around with their
eyes turning white in them clocks you understand we going to sue
you for that to. We going to sue you for Damon Wayons movies we
might even sue you for Spike Lee movies. We are definitely going
to call for reparations for all of them cause it’s a total
thing.
The
point is that we have to look at Afro-American history and specifically
what Dubois calls the sisyphusists. You know the story of Sisyphus?
Right? Well that’s the dude death comes for Sisyphus. Sisyphus
by the way lived in Corinth. Corinth you could always tell because
unlike most Greek sculpture, which is all white, Corinth has colors
in it has reds and greens and oranges. It was further down closer
to the other part of the world where the Greeks got their information
from -- Egypt. So anyways death comes for Sisyphus and says it’s
time for you to go. And he says no I’m not going with you.
You are not going to take me out of here. He was the son of the
wind god and he did not want to go with death. So what was the
punishment for not going with death was that he had to roll a
huge rock up a mountain and when he got up it would roll back
on his head. Dubois says that is the story of black people in
this country. Every time they struggle and push the rock of national
oppression and racism up to the top of the mountain what happens?
Bush the second comes. I just wrote an opera about called
the Sisyphus syndrome from say slavery pushing that rock up the
hill till January 1, 1863 the Emancipation Proclamation all the
people that died all the people that struggled. Do you know Fred
Douglas’ words? Alata Equiano, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner
Truth, and William Wells Brown these are people you need to know.
Not only you black students and if you don’t know then you
need to be whipped. Like my mother used to say you going to get
whipped if you keep that up. Or actually you being whipped now
because you don’t know it. You know what I say, I’m
gonna keep beating your butt till you stop selling it. But
then to remember and Fred Douglas the mighty Fred Douglas the
mighty mighty Fred Douglas. You don’t know Fred Douglas.
The greatest writers of the 19th century are whom Henry
James well he wrote like an Englishman what ever happened
to Mark Twain, or Herman Melville or Emily Dickinson in her abstract,
subtle ways who fought against the patriarchy. But what happened
most of all to Fred Douglas. The great Fred Douglas who is a great
as Melville who is probably the greatest writer in the century.
Would you have me argue that all men have souls. That is not a
fit argument for republicans. Read Fred Douglas speech on July
5, 1856 as an escaped slave find a prose greater than that. Find
an address to America that begins so large and promises largess
yet to come. Fred is the Man The reason that Melville and Fred
why I would choose Fred is that his work lives today. They are
not symbolic. They are not great based on his ability to frame
a symbolism of the white whale. The white whale of course the
largest white character in literature Moby Dick. But Moby Dick
is imperialism. Notice all the different characters. All of them
harpooners, all of the people different nationalities. Even notice
the white folks in there he’s got first mate second mate.
Notice Ahab. He says at the end Ishmael and I alone remain
to tell the tale.
So
under these great writers we look at the progress in the 19th
century. Finally what happens 1863 January 1. Emancipation Proclamation.You
black students may remember that. You need to carry a copy of
that in your pocket. You never know what Bush will do. You may
need to pull that out and say now wait a minute Jim I was freed.
You may find yourself back on the plantation picking potatoes
or something. For those of you who don’t think so, you don’t
have much information. But then you see at that point what happens.
Well first Lincoln was killed. Fred had to keep on him cause first
Lincoln was not such an admirable character. He wanted to send
you back to where you wouldn’t go. In the first place. Nobody
told you to bring me over here. Nobody asked to come here. I don’t
even like the weather over here. Now you are going to tell me
I have to go back. You shouldn’t have brigyht ne her
in the fiest placeNo I am not going back. You want to see a real
revolution send these try and send these Negroes back to Africa.
They’ll burn the place. So the question then at that point.
Then what happens Lincoln is moved. Lincoln goes to New Orleans
and has a change of heart. He says you are free now you should
never have been slaves and if people come to you and and try to
take your freedom you should show them with you bayonets that
you mean to keep it. What happens next? Bang Goodbye Lincoln.
Interesting that the two people that dealt with the whole question
of black people as a motive force of their own political power
were both assasinatioed. Who are we talking about Lincoln and
John Kennedy. Check it out. Dead press there’s two dead
pres. Two killed off presidents. You have to ask yourself why
Lincoln and Kennedy. And you need to read Black Week Instruction.
You students who are interested not only you Black students and
I would call you infamous types if you didn’t but you progressive
students read Black Week Instruction. So you know where you are
in this country. So you know who you are. So that you have what
Dubois calls true self-consciousness. There is a difference when
you walk into a place and you don’t know who you are people
treat you bad. They see you we don’t know who you are you
are looking all funny you’re eyes are all glazed. But once
you have that true self-consciousness Shakespeare says “The
eye sees not itself, but only in reflection” you can’t
look in your face. you can’t see yourself. you don’t
know hwe you look to other people you don’t know what
people see in you. So what true self consciousness does as Dubois
says It brings your mind into focus where you can use it to live
day to day. You don’t have to remember you have a brain.
Your brain is always up there functioning. When people see you
when you have true self-consciousness then they act different.
They will not treat you with such instant dismissal. Say I don’t
know what’s up with that Negro but he looks like he’s
looking through me. Yeah he’s looking through you all right.
The question of consciousness so that Black Reconstruction is
a very important book for you to read. It will take you a long
time for you to read it. It’s a thousand pages. You should
get in a l study circle once a week read it. You can drink hot
cocoa or whatever you want to drink. Read the book Discuss it.
The
question of the reconstruction is very important. How do you make
the transition from slave to free man? How do you do that. How
do you freed from slavery with no education, no job, no understanding
no nothing and how do you survive. That’s why the Sisyphus
syndrome because you were supposed to die. They thought you were
going to die. You had no education you didn’t know anything
you were a slave. You were supposed to die. Then why are you still
live. How come your still alive. Sisyphus said I am not ready
to go anywhere. So what’s the punishment push this rock
up the mountain. So we pushed the rock up the mountain 19th
century. We get up there they kill Lincoln and bang it goes down.
By 1876 the same thing that happened in 2000 happened. Hayes Tillden
compromise. How Rutherford Hayes gets to be president. All kinds
of irregularities happening at the polling places. Some
kinds of irregularities happened last week in Florida. They need
to give them an enema to keep them regular. All those irregularities
happen all the time. Especially around us black people. You have
to admit this. Based on democracy the struggle of democracy. Now
we can have a Negro get up there and raise his hand and say yes
sir I vote for Bush. The dialectic of democracy. Now you have
crazier Negroes than you had before. There were some Negroes when
I went to school but they weren’t as crazy as they are now.
You’ll got some crazier Negroes. I’ve never seem them
before Some of the stuff that comes out of Colin’s mouth.
You know the colon it connects the upper and lower intestine.
So that when the doodoo comes out of Bush’s stomach comes
right to the colon and out the rectum. We call that right –
Bushit. But that’s the dialectic of democracy. Once you
push the rock of the hill then there are Negroes and poor white
people and women who get raised up with that pushing who might
not have done anything but be black or be a woman or be a poor
white who benefit by that. Just like workers who don’t strike
with the rest of the workers who still get a pay raise. But they
rolled the rock after 1876 when they stole that election. They
had removed all the civil rights that we had won in the Civil
War. Same thing that Bush has done. Everything that happened
during the Civil Rights movement, they removed. Reagan first
then Bush I then Bush II it’s like the Thermador after the
French Civil War. The backwardness that comes after the forwardness
What Langston Hughes called white backlash. We struggle
not only for democracy, but we struggle for everything Americans
have except their stupidity. We want everything Americans have
except their racism. Everything they have except Bush’s
insane desire to have a military dictatorship over the world telling
people who should run their country. We don’t want that.
But we are Americans. And we are black and we know we are Black
unless we have some serious psychological damage we know we are
black. And the cultural revolution is to keep us from having
that serious psychological damage. That’s why Langston
Hughes comes on the scene. You must read the essay, “The
Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain”
“I
heard a young man say he wanted to be a poet, not a black poet
but a poet. I knew then that he would be no kind of poet cause
no poet can ever deny his own self. That’s the cultural
revolution. What are they doing? They are fighting to get out
of the slave mentality. The question of equality has to happen
not only in terms of the law, but the level of consciousness has
to be raised. The level of your consciousness the productive forces
-- what you do, your education, where you work has to be raised.
People are not equal naturally. People are equal based on intervention
of society. For anybody to put down black people or Latinos or
poor hilbillies up the street because they are inferior
what they are doing is just protecting white supremacy. They are
protecting the strength and dominations of the beujousis. Cause
everybody can learn. Everybody can be socialized into being regular
citizens, unless you’ve got a poisoned context like this
one in which some people are doomed. And so we can’t go
through this whole syndrome, but you see what I’m saying
throughout the 20’s we push the rock up the mountain again.
The NAACP is Born. Marcus Garvey, the new Negro the Harlem Renaissance.
Zore Niel Herston Duke Ellington comes to New York. New York becomes
so hip because Garvey and Dubois are there. Du Bois publishing
The Crisis. Garvey is publishing Dunia. Many people don’t
understand that they are two sides of one coin. The problem is
there was no united front. When sumbady talks about self democracy
and someone talks about democracy now you are talking about Garvey
and Dubois. But the question is. You can be fighting for democracy
but you cannot have democracy without self determination. It was
not the US government that registered black people in the South
it was Julian Bond, Stockley Carmichael, myself in the north.
Black people would not be registered if we had depended on the
office of elections in Wash D.C. . We did that. That’s self
determination. But what were we doing. We had to have that self
determination in order to get democracy. NAACP is a form of self
determination. You have to have struggle you have to create your
own weapons. You cannot depend on an oppressive government to
give you equality. I hope you understand that. It means we have
a double-edged sword. We are Americans. We are Americans. Even
though we have never been treated like that. We doint have Equal
Citizenship rights. Equal rights that’s what we want.
We want our children to be able to sit in these colleges just
like yours. That’s what we want. Rather than dying in be
ghettos we want then in the University of Virginia and the Univrsity
of what not. We don’t want them to come out crazy. That’s
means we have to have self-determination. We have to impinge on
the University. We have try to change fabric of thought of the
United States itself. We don’t want to be just integrated
into Hitler’s mad house. We want Hitler’s mad house
to be transformed so we’ll can integrate us into a higher
level of understanding of the world in the first place and a better
question social relations. I hope you all understand that. My
voice is telling me to shut up.
Let
me read this poem first. It is called Jungle Jim Flunks his Screen
Test
James,
you shd know
How
the world
Makes
you ugly. You is, you know, James
Veddy ugly. You-gly, we used to say
Back in the playground, just touching
The surface of the thing,
Not
understanding that there's ugly, there's You-gly
Then various deeper degrees. Like
Dirty ugly, sick ugly, devil ugly, death ugly
Right on till you get to the bottom of the beginning
Of some shit too ugly to be dug, by mere you man.
I never seen that deepest dirtiest past-serial killer ugly
I seen Bush-2 and his charcoal imp-dummy, Kneel Bent
I seen a Lott, a Bilbo, a thing wrapped in white sheets carrying
His burning soul, disguised as a baking nigra eyes melting
Into snot. I seen somethin' so ugly I canceled it out my mind
And if I try to remember I get horizontal lines and blood come
out
Ugly
is the first letter of where you is. Satan begin with an S.
Put together they is money. A collection of ignorant medusas
Halloween; piano lessons in a human skin mask polka dot with blood.
Self is above, dead and unconnected, as if floating
Defying gravity with the magic of bullshit
You ugly with and in and because is you was the same
You ugly because you know you ugly and say you ain't
You ugly because you eat everybody and belch Hollywood
You ugly because you like it and wanna be ugly and you think ugly
Cute. You uglier than anybody except who made you ugly, look between
yr legs
At the flickering light of skyscraper teeth on fire again, and
some peepas say
God did it. Was either him or somebody else colored.
You ugly because that's how you got rich
But you got more ugly than you got money
With all that money you still ugly.
The ugliest other thing in the world think you ugly
And happy because you make them feel better
You uglier than Agnew. When you get yr Ph.D. in ugly
You will be Hitler's last meal. You uglier than Churchill
And Bush the father hideous wife
Ghouls say you ugly behind yr back
Vampire scared a you
When Clarence Pendleton passed gas it painted your face all over
the room
You uglier than that painting Clarence Thomas got in the attic
Of his real self which Oscar Wilde did of him
You uglier than Papa Doc, Hitler and Mobutu
You uglier than Mussolini Franco and the Swedish Angel
Is yr twin. You uglier than zombie vomit.
Uglier than zoo dirt. You the ugliest thing in the human family
And the ID you got sayin' you human is ugly
You ugly as devil doo doo, white supremacy and you
Is identical. You ugly as the brain emptiness of a cracker lynch
mob.
You ugly as Falwell dressed as Cab Calloway. You uglier than white
people.
You uglier than Armstrong Williams. You and Ashcroft is movie
stars
Among the backward dead. All insects look better than you. At
yr best
You is vomit, rats run away from you, you is uglier than Dahmer's
sweet tooth.You
is uglier than the police. War is yr make up.
Prison yr altar. Assassination yr
Conversation. You think stealing make you better looking,. Lying
gives you an orgasm. Only pain make you smile. But you so ugly
No smile would stay near your face. You drink people's tears and
paint yr face
color:black'>With their blood. You so ugly when you sleep your
dreams torture people.
color:black'>The Devil complains when you tell people you him.
The Devil say you uglier than him.
That cd be a trick. But nobody ever seen the two of yall
Together. But the Devil dress better than you.
Your face is a uniform. Clothes wont let you put them on
You cannot fart because gas refuses to stay in yr ass
You went to Denmark for sexual transformation
But the doctors cd not figure out which sex you were.
You claim not to be dead
You claim the reason you look the way you do
Is not yr fault. "Nature made me like this," You say.
Naturally everything denies it. Everything denies it.
Thank you.
