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Books by Kalamu ya
Salaam
The Magic of JuJu: An Appreciation of the Black Arts
Movement /
360:
A Revolution of Black Poets
Everywhere Is Someplace Else: A Literary Anthology
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From A Bend in the River: 100 New Orleans Poets
Our Music Is No Accident /
What Is Life: Reclaiming the Black Blues Self
My Story My Song (CD)
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The Myth of Solitude: No
Writer Is an Island
By Kalamu ya
Salaam
>>No writer is
an island.<< No writer creates alone. Even those who
withdraw from human contact—the
Salingers and O'Tooles of literature—are
actually shaped by their social development, or more
precisely, in the cases just cited, by their social
deficiencies. No matter how technically brilliant such
writers may be, unless undergirded by social exchange
and observations thereon, their writing will not stand
the ultimate test of greatness: is the work relevant
across time and across cultures?
In order to achieve
both linear (across generations) and lateral (across
cultures) greatness, writers must be both immersed in a
specific era/culture and conscious of that era's
relationship to other eras and other cultures. It is not
enough to report on or even analyze the news of the day.
The ultimate meanings of human existence transcend the
specifics of any given moment.
In practice
achieving greatness means moving beyond topicality,
requires that we insightfully deal with how and why
humans are shaped by social and environmental forces,
and deal with how we respond to our specific shaping
processes.
>>As writers,
our goal is the expert use of words<< to convey
ideas and information, emotions and experiences, dreams
and visions. On the one hand we must study, and study
hard, the development of our craft, but, on the other
hand, we must never forget that craft without content is
meaningless. Beyond the craft/content argument is the
more important question of writing for whom? Who is our
audience? Are we connected to others?
An audience is the
single greatest determinant of the shape and relevance
of one's craft. How is this so? This is so because as
writers our whole craft is based on communication and,
quiet as it is too often kept, communication requires an
audience.
Some of us insist
that we write to please no one but ourselves. But does
that mean we write for an audience of one? No, it does
not. When we write only with ourselves in mind, we are
implicitly trying to communicate with the social
elements that shaped our being. Indeed, who does not
want to be understood by their parents, their children,
their siblings and peers? Besides, if we were writing
literally only for ourselves as an audience of one, we
would have no need to share our writing, no need to
publish or recite our writings.
In the contemporary
United States, "audience" has been collapsed into the
concept of consumers, people who literally buy whatever
is marketed. That is ultimately a very cynical approach
to determining who is one's audience. To write for and
about a specific audience does not necessarily mean
writing to sell to that audience. What it does mean is
using the culture of the intended audience as the
starting point (and hopefully an ending point) for our
work.
Writing well in
English presupposes that we deal with the history of
English-language literature, a significant part of which
includes use as a tool in the historic process of
colonizing people of color. As able a craftsperson as
Ralph Ellison was, craft is not what distinguishes
Invisible Man. Rather, Ellison's insightful handling
of an investigation of the anti-humanist effects of
exploitation and oppression on those who are victimized
by a dominant and dominating society is the significance
of that novel.
Ellison,
understands at a depth few others have so thoroughly
presented in the novel format, that both those who fight
against their subjugation and those who are not even
conscious of their condition are twisted by social
forces. However, Ellison's novel is not merely a
political screed because Ellison is more concerned with
the range of human responses to social conditions than
he is with advocating a specific social order. Moreover,
far more than many books that on the surface seem to be
more political, Ellison's novel is grounded in the
cultural mores, the folklore, of mid-20th century
African American life.
Invisible Man can not be fully
appreciated without an appreciation of Black culture.
A horrible truth is
that too many of us are unprepared to write significant
literature because we have no real appreciation of our
audience as fellow human beings, as cultural creatures.
We know neither history nor contemporary conditions. We
talk about "keeping it real" but have no factual
knowledge of reality. Thus, we glibly bandy
generalizations, utter hip clichés as though they were
timeless wisdom, and inevitably offer instant snapshots
of the social facade as though they were in-depth
investigations of the structure and nature of our social
reality—in short, we lie and fantasize.
Moreover, unless we
consciously deal with our conditions, we end up
replicating our oppression in our literature. When we
are poor we write admiringly of being rich—when
we get some money, we write guiltily about poverty. What
is this madness? This is the psychology of the oppressed
captivated by their own oppression.
If this analysis
sounds extreme, run the litmus test of examining works
of popular literature and see if this is not the case.
Look at the rap videos, notice the lifestyles portrayed.
Look at the movies. At some point, we need to be aware
that videos, movies, televisions, all of those media
employ scripts—these
scripts are our popular literature. The absence and/or
low level of craft in popular literature, both in
publishing and in electronic, broadcast and video
mediums, points to one of our real problems—many
of the people who are scripting for the media, can't or
don't write well.
Moreover, I
understand that the majority of scriptwriters for
Black-oriented projects are not Black writers; however,
the lack of Black writers in the dominant and dominating
mainstream media underscores rather than invalidates my
premise. A major part of our problem has nothing to do
with craft and everything to do with consciousness—our
consciousness and the consciousness of our fellow humans
in the United States of America.
Our daily lives are
shaped by our social conditions and the consciousness
that emerges from those conditions. A significant
percentage of writers who are craft conscious are also
writers who are psychologically alienated from their own
culture. Indeed, for the person of color, the act of
acquiring education and expertise typically is also an
act of alienation. It is unfortunately generally true
that mainstream training in craft is simultaneously a
directive to distance one's self from the culture and
consciousness of our Black communities. Explicitly, to
become professional means to emulate the other and
eschew the Black self, the working class self, and, for
women, to an even greater degree than many may realize,
becoming a professional also means eschewing the
self-actualized female self.
Thus, it is no
surprise that once we become professionals, we insist on
the right to be seen as autonomous and self-defined
individuals who desire to live beyond the restrictions
of race, class and/or gender. Indeed, we are often proud
as peacocks strutting around glorying in our
individuality—look
at the beauty of my butt feathers! We disdain groups,
assert that organizations stifle our creativity.
Meanwhile, people who are organized control the
production and distribution of our creative work.
The status quo
system loves those of us who think we can make it as
individuals precisely because individuals are dependent
on the status quo for life support. When you don't have
a community of friends and comrades, you end up going to
your enemy for supper and shelter, both literally and
metaphorically.
>>The challenge
for conscious and self-identified writers is both
external and internal.<< External to the individual,
we must build community by working with and achieving an
understanding of the people with whom we identify.
Internally there is the individual quest to develop a
craft that reflects and projects our individual feelings
and ideas about ourselves as well as about the world we
live in. This struggle for social and artistic
development is not an abstract concern. In practical
terms such development requires that we who identify
ourselves as Black writers:
1. Study Black music and Black
history.
Music because Black
music is our mother tongue—the
language through which the deepest and most honest
emotions of our people have been expressed in the rawest
and most "unmediated" manner. More than in any other
sphere of social activity, African Americans have
determined our own musical expressions and have
communicated with the world through that form of
expression.
History because if
you don't know yourself you will inevitably end up
betraying yourself.
Is it possible to
write without a working knowledge of Black music and
history? Of course it is. Is it possible to produce
great literature without such knowledge? Probably not,
and certainly none that would be considered Black
literature. Ultimately, all literature is a product of
culture, whether that culture is one's indigenous
culture or an adopted culture.
2. Study the craft of writing.
One certainly would
not claim to be a carpenter without learning how to
build, nor a farmer and be unable to raise crops.
Moreover, we also need to tackle the development of our
own approaches and the development of a theoretical
foundation.
During the Black Arts
Movement, this process was called the Black
aesthetic—the
development of an aesthetic is still needed. Craft is
the concrete manifestation of philosophical aesthetics.
If we don't consciously shape our own aesthetics, our
craft will invariably and often in a contradictory and
conflicted manner reflect someone else's aesthetic,
generally the aesthetics of the dominant social order.
3. Join with like-minded
colleagues.
We should join
writers associations, guilds, organizations, both formal
and informal. Workshops are important in one's formative
years. As one develops, peer associations become
extremely helpful both in terms of career development
and in terms of craft development. We literally find out
what's going on by being in touch with others. We become
inspired and get ideas from interacting with others.
The internet is a
major source of community activity for young writers
today. There are on-line workshops, resource web sites,
informational web sites and specifically, a number of
Black oriented literary web sites. A young writer who is
not on-line is literally "out of it"—outside of the
ebb and flow of ideas and information. With the advent
of public access through libraries, arts organizations,
schools, and relatively inexpensive commercial services,
there is no excuse for not being on-line.
>>Writing is not just the words
on the page.<< Writing is documentation of social
praxis. There is both an art and a science to writing, a
feeling and a thought.
Not only is no
writer an island, it is up to each one of us to develop
as social creatures (i.e., men and women) and as
professionals. For our ancestors, for our selves, for
our children and those yet unborn, let us as writers
come together and create a literature that is as
persistent and profound as our people who outlived
centuries of chattel slavery, segregation and
degradation, and who stand now on the verge of creating
a new definition of what it means to be a free, proud,
and productive people.
posted 10 October 2010
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Audio:
My Story, My Song (Featuring blues guitarist Walter Wolfman Washington)
Guarding the Flame of Life
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New Orleans Jazz Funeral for tuba player Kerwin
James /
They danced atop his casket Jaran 'Julio' Green
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Track List
1. Congo Square (9:01)
2. My Story, My Song (20:50)
3. Danny Banjo (4:32)
4. Miles Davis (10:26)
5. Hard News For Hip Harry (5:03)
6. Unfinished Blues (4:13)
7. Rainbows Come After The Rain (2:21)/Negroidal Noise (15:53)
8. Intro (3:59)
9. The Whole History (3:14)
10. Negroidal Noise (5:39)
11. Waving At Ra (1:40)
12. Landing (1:21)
13. Good Luck (:04) |
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music website >
http://www.kalamu.com/bol/
writing website >
http://wordup.posterous.com/
daily blog >
http://kalamu.posterous.com
twitter >
http://twitter.com/neogriot
facebook >
http://www.facebook.com/kalamu.salaam
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Weep Not, Child
By
Ngugi wa Thiong'o
This is
a powerful, moving story that details the
effects of the infamous Mau Mau war, the
African nationalist revolt against colonial
oppression in Kenya, on the lives of
ordinary men and women, and on one family in
particular. Two brothers, Njoroge and Kamau,
stand on a rubbish heap and look into their
futures. Njoroge is excited; his family has
decided that he will attend school, while
Kamau will train to be a carpenter. Together
they will serve their country—the
teacher and the craftsman. But this is Kenya
and the times are against them. In the
forests, the Mau Mau is waging war against
the white government, and the two brothers
and their family need to decide where their
loyalties lie. For the practical Kamau the
choice is simple, but for Njoroge the
scholar, the dream of progress through
learning is a hard one to give up.—Penguin
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Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in
America
By Melissa V.
Harris-Perry
According to the
author, this society has historically exerted
considerable pressure on black females to fit into one
of a handful of stereotypes, primarily, the Mammy, the
Matriarch or the Jezebel. The selfless
Mammy’s behavior is marked by a slavish devotion to
white folks’ domestic concerns, often at the expense of
those of her own family’s needs. By contrast, the
relatively-hedonistic Jezebel is a sexually-insatiable
temptress. And the Matriarch is generally thought of as
an emasculating figure who denigrates black men, ala the
characters Sapphire and Aunt Esther on the television
shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.
Professor Perry
points out how the propagation of these harmful myths
have served the mainstream culture well. For instance,
the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for
black females to feel a maternal instinct towards
Caucasian babies.
As for the source
of the Jezebel, black women had no control over their
own bodies during slavery given that they were being
auctioned off and bred to maximize profits. Nonetheless,
it was in the interest of plantation owners to propagate
the lie that sisters were sluts inclined to mate
indiscriminately.
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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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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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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
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January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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