Am I Plato Negro or Socrates?

I appreciate Ishmael Reed for bestowing the title Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland upon me. Indeed, I do teach on the streets of Oakland, specifically at 14th and Broadway, NE corner, outside Rite Aide.

And while it is true that Plato had a peripatetic academy, or a fluid, ever moving classroom, I am not going to live out the myth of Plato going into exile, specifically after his teacher Socrates faced the death penalty for corrupting the youth of Athens.

I am not going into exile since I already went there during the Vietnam war and never want to be cut off from my people again. Exile is the most pitiful existence any revolutionary can desire. Nothing is worse that being cut off from the revolution of one's people, although one can, as Che said, make revolution international, but there is no struggle like one's national struggle. Imagine, there may be Syrians who were a part of the Arab Spring in Egypt, but how can they feel truly vindicated until their homeland, Syria, is liberated?

And so we are here to go down with the Titanic, to help take it down, to take it straight into the iceberg,  since what choice is left the revolutionary, he must live or die with the revolution. Exile is no option, therefore I am not Plato, though you are free to call me Plato Negro, just to distinguish me from that Greek motherfucker that George M. James destroyed in his classic Stolen Legacy.