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
