Sunday, November 14, 2010

Final Preview, Poetry Issue, Journal of Pan African Studies, December 2010



Preview #22, Poetry Issue, Journal of Pan African Studies, Marvin X, Guest Editor

Deadline 15 November, 2010

Ptah Allah El, Richmond CA

photo Kamau Amen Ra

BLACK STUDIES WENT TO COLLEGE

AND NEVER CAME HOME

Black Studies went to college and I miss her

And when she comes home, I will hug and kiss her.

Black went to college and started a strike

Then the Third World Liberation fronted the mic.

Black Studies went to college, became a controversy started

Killed Bunchy Carter.

Black Studies lost her destiny and fate

She changed after 1968.

Black Studies went to college got her BA, MA, and PHD.

Now she petty bourgeoisie.

Black Studies went to college and forgot where she came from

She so damn smart, the community going dumb, dumb, dumb…

Black Studies went to college now she ain’t no good

Forgot all about the hood.

Black Studies went to college and pledged Greek

Now she don’t even speak.

Black Studies went to college and became Afrocentric

So complex, she simplistic.

Black Studies is acting like charades

Too many African costume balls and masquerades.

Black Studies went to college and I miss her

When she comes home, I will hug and kiss her.

Ptah A. Mitchell El M.F.D.

Ptah Mitchell is an educator and poet that is dedicated to keep the legacy of African American intellectuals and artists alive in the 21st Century. Ptah is also the first student to graduate from the University of Poetry, founded by Marvin X. He has written two books, Ghetto Folklore and Tainted Soul.


Shaggy Flores, New York

Negritude

For Pedro Pietri, Tato Laviera, Jesus Papoleto Melendez and Trinidad Sanchez Jr.

We be those Negroes

Born to Slave Hands

Resurrecting forgotten African Gods

When Transplanted to New Lands

Mixing Ebonics

With Splanglish Slang

We be those Negroes

Children of Yoruba y Ibo

Bilingual and Indio

Afro-Caribes

Masters of plantation work

Race mixing

And Orisha Spirit raising

We be those Negroes

Creating Jazz with cats

Named Bird, Dizzy, Duke, and Armstrong

Cubop Bugalu Sal-Soul Searching Journey men

Mongo-Santamaria/Chano Pozo Drum Gods

And Celia Cruz

AZUCAS!

Legends leaving our cultural footprints

On the muddy minds

of the mentally dead

We be those Negroes

Creating Schomburg museums

of Black Studies

In Nuyorican Harlem streets

Where we once dance

during zoot suits riots

to Conga

Maraca

Bata

Break beats

and Palladium Massacres

We be those Negroes

Drawn as Sambos and Jigaboos

By political cartoonist

Who couldn’t erase

The taste of

Africa

From Antillean Culinary

Magicians

Creating miracles

with Curries call SoFritos

We be those Negroes

Younglords

Island Nationalist

Black Panthers

Vieques Activist

Santeros

And Guerreros

Brothers of Garvey

Children of Malcolm

Black Spades

Savage Skulls

Chingalings

And Latin Kings

We be those Negroes

Like Harvard Educated Lawyer

Don Pedro Albizu Campos

Stationed

In all Black regiments

Learning the reality

Of Jim Crow Society

And their gringolandia

Government Race public policies

Calling Bilingual Niggers

Spics

We be those Negroes

Before Sosa

Before Clemente

Before Jackie

Giving Negro league

Baseball legends

A place

Under the sun

to call home

When no one else

Would have them

We be those Negroes

Dancing

Moving

Breaking

Egyptian

Electric Boogalooing

Locking

On concrete jungles

To Cool Herc

Jamaican

Sound Boy Systems

And aerosol

symphony backgrounds

We be those Negroes

Charlie Chasing

Rock Steadying

A dream call Hip-Hop

In Bronx Backyard Boulevards

Between

Casitas and Tenements

With Roaches for Landlords

We be those Negroes

Writing Epics

Like Willie Perdomo testaments

Called “Nigger-Recan Blues”

And Victor Hernandez Cruz

Odes to “African Things”

Hiding our dark skinned

Literary Abuelitas

With Bembas Colora

In places where the Whiteness police

could never find them

We be those Negroes

Denied access to Black Nationalist run

Karenga Kwanza Poetry readings

Because we remind the ignorant

Of the complexity that is their culture

Neither Here nor There

Not quite Brown

Not quite White

We navigate uncharted

Waters

Of Black Identity Boxes

We be those Negroes

Mulatto

We be those Negroes

Criollo

We be those Negroes

Moreno

We be those Negroes

Trigueños

We be those Negroes

Octoroons and Quadroons

We be those Negroes

Cimarrones and Nanny of the Maroons

We be those Negroes

Cienfuegos y Fidel

We be those Negroes

Luis Pales Matos and Aime Cesaire

We be those Negroes

Puentes,

Mirandas,

Riveras,

Colons,

Felicianos,

Lavoes and

Palmieris

We be those Negroes

Judios

Y a veces

Jodios

We be those Negroes

Dominicanos y Cubanos

We be those Negroes

Jaimiquinos y Haitianos

We be those Negroes

Panameños y Borinqueños

We be those Negroes

Seeking freedom from

Irrationality

In an age of Nuclear

Goya Families

And Television

Carbon Copy Clone

Univision/BET/MTV

Slave Children

We be those Negroes

Known by many names

And many deeds

Spoken of in Secret

By African-American

Scholars

In envy during their nightly

Salsa

Dance classes

As they try

To pick up White Girls

We be those Negroes

Caribbean

Negritude

Heroes

Sometimes negating our destiny

But always finding

Peace

In the Darkness

Of Sleep

We be those Negroes

Negroes

We

Be

--Shaggy Flores

Shaggy Flores

Nuyorican Massarican Poeta



Tainted Soul

By T. Ptah Mitchell

Blackbird Press, Berkeley, 2010

Pages.148 , $15.00)

This book is a film script about one of the North American Africans ( NAA's) who hijacked a plane, landed in Cuba, got fronted on by the government, thrown in the dungeon, and politicized with 'los gentes veridad', the unspoken mass of 'Afro-Cubans' who go through the same shit as their fellow NAA's here in America. The reader is exposed to a non-romanticized survey of modern Cuba, as well as the classic contradictions of Pan Afrika and the so called Afrikan Diaspora. Without taking a side in the dynamics of this ongoing dialogue on 'how to struggle and how to win', the author does introduce the reader to a world where you don't have to hop on a plane, risk extradition or even xenophobia, since the perspective and stylistics is really first person even when written from second or even third person.

The screenplay was inspired from a book. Reading the script only makes one want to see the movie.


Michael, the main character, is an average nigga from the local NAA community; one of the lumpen, if you will. He has an idealized notion of revolution and Cuba as a haven for North American revolutionaries based on the social climate, recent events and heresay. His main problem is that he is an affiliate of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, and not a member per se, like many in the community who loved and supported the Party but did not follow the ideological and organizational rules to a tee. So Micheal's loyalty to the movement while unquestioned on his part, was questioned by some of his so called comrades. Since he was not part of the 'inner circle' his lines to Cuba are not solid. In fact he might have been led on to do an impossible mission because some of the brothers , doubting Micheal, didn't believe he could pull it off. But when he did pull it off, with little strategy and tactic, no means were provided to support him. He essentially hijacks the plane because he was informed that if he did so, he would be greeted with open arms from the revolutionary Cuban government as an ally against the spread of American imperialism. The problem was that he did not receive authorization and support from the Central Committee of the Party; also, during the hijacking, he made the mistake of jacking a high level undercover agent from Cuba on the plane,who was coming back to Havana to debrief his supreiors.

To Micheal all white people, (except his white ho back in Berkeley of course), were the enemy, so he had no clue that there was another revolutionary on the plane besides him. So by the time the plane landed in Cuba, Cuban did not know whether Micheal was an agent of revolutionary blacks in America, a spy for the American government, since there was no communique between Cuba and the Black Panther Party of this specific activity.

Micheal is thrown in jail after Cuban officials decide that he's an American spy and not a revolutionary and sentences him to 12 years in Havana prison. It is this unknown aspect of Cuban society that for the first time I've seen (save Carlos Moore's book "Castro, the Blacks and Africa") is explored and illustrated, where the parallels of black life in Cuba are similar to black life in the USA. We fill the prisons there, we're dropping out of school there, we're at the bottom of society there. We're labeled as the thugs, criminals and any original social practices we demonstrate become either illegal or subsidized. Sounds familiar?

Here Michael learns from the majority of the Cuban prisoners the harsh reality of Cuban society. The bottom of the slave ship, all these African's from all over the Western Hemisphere, imprisoned for so called 'counterrevolutionary' activities: from attempting to leave Cuba, to criticizing government, etc. But these people never met a real nigga from the USA, and they could not understand why Micheal wanted to come to Cuba so bad, how loud, audacious, courageous and principled he was, even in the face of the Cuban police.


One crucial thing I must say, the ability for Ptah to tell this story and remain objective, authentic and loyal to the audience, with out taking sides requires skill and diplomacy. At times I doubted if this was a 'reactionary' story of a 'revolutionary' story, because so many contradictions come up. Many times I asked myself, do I support Michael smashing on the Cuban government? I mean they have done much to help us Afrikans in America, from medical school, to Assata, Robert F. Williams to Hip Hop. But then I remembered something Kwame Ture (RIP) said to the effect that the principles of socialism and revolution will always remain in tact, it is the human organization we must work on. This informs me that the Revolutionary Government will remain in principle as long as she is honest with herself and accepts criticism from inside as well as from outside. And we must remain vigilant and militant that criticism should be not considered or labeled as 'reactionary' or 'counterproductive'.

Nowadays movies are much like music, if you're promoting revolutionary culture, you'd best have independent means to put out your own art and technology. Kudos to Black Bird Press for putting out the book. As the author says in the introduction, everyone in L.A. has a cousin who is a big shot in Hollywood. So either wait (forever) for some one else to put your movie out for you, or do it your self. Perhaps the more who read Tainted Soul will demand a movie version, as the people demanded a movie that documented one of the most revolutionary acts of modern afrikan history, the liberation of Haiti. A task, that our most ablest of Pan Afrikan artists, Elder Danny Glover so aptly assumed responsibility of.. Tainted Soul in no way compares to a historiography of Haiti, but does contribute to that 'great pan African conversation' and does bring local hood heroes to the forefront of international affairs. Hopefully, we don't have to wait too long for the movie.

--Zulu King

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