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Books by Don L. Lee/Haki Madhubuti
Think Black
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Black Pride
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We Walk the Way of the New
World /
Directionscore: Selected and
New Poems /
To Gwen with Love
Dynamite
Voices I: Black Poets of the 1960s /
Book of Life
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From Plan to Planet
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Enemies: The Clash of Races
Say That the River Turns: The Impact of Gwendolyn Brooks
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Killing Memory, Seeking Ancestors
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Black Men: Obsolete, Single,
Dangerous?
Why
L.A. Happened: Implications of the `92 Los Angeles Rebellion
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Claiming Earth: Race, Rage, Rape, Redemption Million Man March/Day of Absence: A Commemorative Anthology
* * * * * Generational Perspectives
of Haki
Madhubuti's Hard
Truths
& Stanley
Crouch's "Clichés"
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An Introduction to Haki's
"Idea of America"
By Rudy Lewis
Sometime this year in the midst of
America's vociferous argument to make war on Iraq, the once
militant poet and African-American writer and publisher issued and
distributed an essay titled "Hard
Truths: September 11, 2001 and
Respecting the Idea of America." I had to read it four or five
times to really get into my head the drift of Haki's argument in
support of the American Way of Life or what he blithely calls the
"Idea of America." I mentioned the essay to a couple of
friends and told them how troubling I found the essay in light of
what I viewed as Haki's black militant past.
To my bosom
brothers, I railed about Haki and those of his generation and
militant past having given up the struggle in order to possess the
prestige and the comforts of middle-class success and to ape the
posture of the Whitney Youngs and the Roy Wilkins and others of
the elite black establishment that we as young men had railed
against for their patience with the pace of American progress with
respect to the lack of well-being and desperation of the masses of
black folk. And I was almost content to leave it at that until I
read a short response on Kalamu's e-drum by a young writer named
LeVon Rice.
I contacted
her immediately for I felt that she mirrored my own uneasiness toward
Haki's capitulation and kow-towing to the corporate-military
complex of America's ruling elite, about which Haki says proudly, "I will never speak ill of it."
The attack on America's corporate center, according to Haki, was
"personal." For he had fears for his daughter who worked
nearby America's corporate center. You see, Haki has gotten his
Ph.D. and he has taught at many universities and he has been
applauded on many stages by the well-to-do and he has his own
company and he has started a few philanthropic programs for the
poor. So he has a different point of view now than he had then in
his militant past when he was just struggling against white power
in America. In his own words, his success has "enlarged"
him "in unexpected ways."
Haki, it seems, is no longer interested in our
struggle and liberation as a people. For according to our wayward
brother, "the plain truth is that we are all individuals."
He has also given up his romantic ideas about Africa. So for him
Pan-Africanism has been tossed out with the bath water. He said,
"I
often thought of migrating to Africa." But now he believes,
he can help Africa by "working hard to be a success." It
seems that Haki secretly desires to be a Bill Gates and then he
can toss a few billion here and there and feel good about the
"Idea of America." Reassuringly, from his comfortable
couch, Haki tells us, the black poor and the oppressed shouldn't
despair, because "we do have
realistic options in America." For others can do like he
did and "make their own statements about success and
attainment."
And finally the coup de grace, Haki caters to our
ethnic pride in the manner of a Stanley Crouch, "African
Americans have more freedoms, prosperity, liberties, and
possibilities in the United States than Black people any place
in the world today." This bit of racial pride and American
patriotism overwhelms me and I feel quite embarrassed for Haki and
his ilk.
It was not my intent to go this far. I am an old
fogey, a former 60s militant, still living in the past when
service and sacrifice and principle gave us hope and vision. When
I hear the deceptive comments of those of my own generation
purporting to provide wisdom and leadership for the youth of
today, I get carried away. So without further to do, I present
LeVon's challenge to Haki Madhubuti's Hard
Truths:
A Response to
Haki Madhubuti's
"Hard Truths: September 11, 2001 and
Respecting the Idea of America"
By LaVon Rice
(article removed by request of author)
Gabrielle Daniels' attack on Levon Rice can be
found at www.topica.com (search
"e-drum," April 9, 2003)
"This system, that has already made mad cows, is making mad
people too.''
--Ahmed Ben Bella, Porto Alegre, 2002
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Sex at the Margins
Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry
By Laura María Agustín
This book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work, that migrants who sell sex are passive victims and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label 'trafficked' does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the 'rescue industry' serves to disempower them. Based on extensive research amongst both migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustin, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry, and although they are treated like a marginalised group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice. "Sex at the Margins rips apart distinctions between migrants, service work and sexual labour and reveals the utter complexity of the contemporary sex industry. This book is set to be a trailblazer in the study of sexuality."—Lisa Adkins, University of London |
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The Warmth of Other Suns
The Epic Story of America's Great
Migration
By Isabel Wilkerson
Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, a
sharecropper's wife, left Mississippi
for Milwaukee in 1937, after her cousin
was falsely accused of stealing a white
man's turkeys and was almost beaten to
death. In 1945, George Swanson Starling,
a citrus picker, fled Florida for Harlem
after learning of the grove owners'
plans to give him a "necktie party" (a
lynching). Robert Joseph Pershing Foster
made his trek from Louisiana to
California in 1953, embittered by "the
absurdity that he was doing surgery for
the United States Army and couldn't
operate in his own home town." Anchored
to these three stories is Pulitzer
Prize–winning journalist Wilkerson's
magnificent, extensively researched
study of the "great migration," the
exodus of six million black Southerners
out of the terror of Jim Crow to an
"uncertain existence" in the North and
Midwest. Wilkerson deftly incorporates
sociological and historical studies into
the novelistic narratives of Gladney,
Starling, and Pershing settling in new
lands, building anew, and often finding
that they have not left racism behind.
The drama, poignancy, and romance of a
classic immigrant saga pervade this
book, hold the reader in its grasp, and
resonate long after the reading is done.
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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Negro Digest /
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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updated
27 March 2009
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