Somebody Blew Up America Audio

By Amiri Baraka

They say its some terrorist,
some barbaric
A Rab,
in Afghanistan
It wasn't our American terrorists
It wasn't the Klan or the Skin heads
Or the them that blows up nigger
Churches, or reincarnates us on Death Row
It wasn't Trent Lott
Or David Duke or Giuliani
Or Schundler, Helms retiring

It wasn't
The gonorrhea in costume
The white sheet diseases
That have murdered black people
Terrorized reason and sanity
Most of humanity, as they pleases

They say (who say?)
Who do the saying
Who is them paying
Who tell the lies
Who in disguise
Who had the slaves
Who got the bux out the Bucks

Who got fat from plantations
Who genocided Indians
Tried to waste the Black nation

Who live on Wall Street
The first plantation
Who cut your nuts off
Who rape your ma
Who lynched your pa

Who got the tar, who got the feathers
Who had the match, who set the fires
Who killed and hired
Who say they God & still be the Devil

Who the biggest only
Who the most goodest
Who do Jesus resemble

Who created everything
Who the smartest
Who the greatest
Who the richest
Who say you ugly and they the goodlookingest

Who define art
Who define science

Who made the bombs
Who made the guns

Who bought the slaves, who sold them

Who called you them names
Who say Dahmer wasn't insane

Who? Who? Who?

Who stole Puerto Rico
Who stole the Indies, the Philipines, Manhattan
Australia & The Hebrides
Who forced opium on the Chinese

Who own them buildings
Who got the money
Who think you funny
Who locked you up
Who own the papers

Who owned the slave ship
Who run the army

Who the fake president
Who the ruler
Who the banker

Who? Who? Who?

Who own the mine
Who twist your mind
Who got bread
Who need peace
Who you think need war

Who own the oil
Who do no toil
Who own the soil
Who is not a nigger
Who is so great ain't nobody bigger

Who own this city

Who own the air
Who own the water

Who own your crib
Who rob and steal and cheat and murder
and make lies the truth
Who call you uncouth

Who live in the biggest house
Who do the biggest crime
Who go on vacation anytime

Who killed the most niggers
Who killed the most Jews
Who killed the most Italians
Who killed the most Irish
Who killed the most Africans
Who killed the most Japanese
Who killed the most Latinos

Who? Who? Who?

Who own the ocean

Who own the airplanes
Who own the malls
Who own television
Who own radio

Who own what ain't even known to be owned
Who own the owners that ain't the real owners

Who own the suburbs
Who suck the cities
Who make the laws

Who made Bush president
Who believe the confederate flag need to be flying
Who talk about democracy and be lying

Who the Beast in Revelations
Who 666
Who know who decide
Jesus get crucified

Who the Devil on the real side
Who got rich from Armenian genocide

Who the biggest terrorist
Who change the bible
Who killed the most people
Who do the most evil
Who don't worry about survival

Who have the colonies
Who stole the most land
Who rule the world
Who say they good but only do evil
Who the biggest executioner

Who? Who? Who?

Who own the oil
Who want more oil
Who told you what you think that later you find out a lie

Who? Who? Who?

Who found Bin Laden, maybe they Satan
Who pay the CIA,
Who knew the bomb was gonna blow
Who know why the terrorists
Learned to fly in Florida, San Diego

Who know why Five Israelis was filming the explosion
And cracking they sides at the notion

Who need fossil fuel when the sun ain't goin' nowhere

Who make the credit cards
Who get the biggest tax cut
Who walked out of the Conference
Against Racism
Who killed Malcolm, Kennedy & his Brother
Who killed Dr King, Who would want such a thing?
Are they linked to the murder of Lincoln?

Who invaded Grenada
Who made money from apartheid
Who keep the Irish a colony
Who overthrow Chile and Nicaragua later

Who killed David Sibeko, Chris Hani,
the same ones who killed Biko, Cabral,
Neruda, Allende, Che Guevara, Sandino,

Who killed Kabila, the ones who wasted Lumumba, Mondlane,
Betty Shabazz, Die, Princess Di, Ralph Featherstone,
Little Bobby

Who locked up Mandela, Dhoruba, Geronimo,
Assata, Mumia, Garvey, Dashiell Hammett, Alphaeus Hutton

Who killed Huey Newton, Fred Hampton,
Medgar Evers, Mikey Smith, Walter Rodney,
Was it the ones who tried to poison Fidel
Who tried to keep the Vietnamese Oppressed

Who put a price on Lenin's head

Who put the Jews in ovens,
and who helped them do it
Who said "America First"
and ok'd the yellow stars

Who killed Rosa Luxembourg, Liebneckt
Who murdered the Rosenbergs
And all the good people iced,
tortured, assassinated, vanished

Who got rich from Algeria, Libya, Haiti,
Iran, Iraq, Saudi, Kuwait, Lebanon,
Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine,

Who cut off peoples hands in the Congo
Who invented Aids
Who put the germs
In the Indians' blankets
Who thought up "The Trail of Tears"

Who blew up the Maine
& started the Spanish American War
Who got Sharon back in Power
Who backed Batista, Hitler, Bilbo,
Chiang kai Chek

Who decided Affirmative Action had to go
Reconstruction, The New Deal,
The New Frontier, The Great Society,

Who do Tom Ass Clarence Work for
Who doo doo come out the Colon's mouth
Who know what kind of Skeeza is a Condoleeza
Who pay Connelly to be a wooden negro
Who give Genius Awards to Homo Locus
Subsidere

Who overthrew Nkrumah, Bishop,
Who poison Robeson,
who try to put DuBois in Jail
Who frame Rap Jamil al Amin, Who frame the Rosenbergs,
Garvey,
The Scottsboro Boys,
The Hollywood Ten

Who set the Reichstag Fire

Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed
Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers
To stay home that day
Why did Sharon stay away?

Who? Who? Who?

Explosion of Owl the newspaper say
The devil face cd be seen

Who make money from war
Who make dough from fear and lies
Who want the world like it is
Who want the world to be ruled by imperialism and national
oppression and terror violence, and hunger and poverty.

Who is the ruler of Hell?
Who is the most powerful

Who you know ever
Seen God?

But everybody seen
The Devil

Like an Owl exploding
In your life in your brain in your self
Like an Owl who know the devil
All night, all day if you listen, Like an Owl
Exploding in fire. We hear the questions rise
In terrible flame like the whistle of a crazy dog

Like the acid vomit of the fire of Hell
Who and Who and WHO who who
Whoooo and Whooooooooooooooooooooo!

Copyright (c) 2001 Amiri Baraka. All Rights Reserved.

ADL has complained to [the New Jersey] Governor about "Somebody Blew Up America"  & Gov has asked me to apologize and resign Poet Laureate post. Of course, I will do neither. But tell anybody who feels like it to write Gov. McGreevey Statehouse Trenton, NJ and give their opinion of poem. 

Senate Panel Moves to Abolish 

State Poet Laureate Position

By IVER PETERSON

TRENTON, Dec. 12 Gov. James E. McGreevey appointed Amiri Baraka as New Jersey's poet laureate without much of a hubbub in the fall. But the task of removing Mr. Baraka, now that he stands accused of reciting an anti-Semitic poem, has proved to be a great deal more difficult and time-consuming.

Faced with the judgment of government lawyers that Mr. Baraka could be fired, a State Senate committee took the first step today toward abolishing the position of poet laureate outright, with the idea that New Jersey should be supporting the arts in general, not individual artists.

By a unanimous vote and without dissenting testimony, the Senate Committee on Government sent on to the full Senate a bill to eliminate the position and kill its $10,000 stipend, which has already been withheld from Mr. Baraka. No similar bill has yet been introduced in the Assembly.

Governor McGreevey had asked Mr. Baraka to resign, but was rebuffed. He is expected to support a bill eliminating the position, although he will face pressure from the arts community to reconstitute it. Other proposals have been made in the Legislature to change the law to give the governor the power to remove a laureate.

Senator Garry J. Furnari, co-chairman of the committee, said the Baraka experience convinced him that the post should not exist.

"We're eliminating the job totally," Senator Furnari, a Democrat from Nutley, said after the vote. "I think we finally came to a policy conclusion that it would be best to promote the arts in general and not individually."

Mr. Baraka's star as New Jersey poet laureate lost its luster after he read a poem about the Sept. 11 attacks called "Somebody Blew Up America," in which he implied that Jews and the Israeli government of Ariel Sharon had foreknowledge.

Mr. Baraka, formerly known as LeRoi Jones, did not appear at today's hearing. Senator Furnari said that Mr. Baraka had not been invited, and that he had been led to understand Mr. Baraka would not attend without a personal invitation.

Shai Goldstein, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, attended the committee session and applauded its outcome.

"He wears his anti-Zionism and his anti-Americanism as a badge of pride," Mr. Goldstein said of the poet. "His beliefs in this regard are not political; they are bigotry."

The offending lines in the poem read, "Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed/ Who told 4,000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers/ To stay home that day/ Why did Sharon stay away?"

Mr. Goldstein said, "In all my years, I've never seen a piece of legislation get through committee that fast and that easily."

Source: NYTimes, December 12, 2002

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NJ Governor Demands State Poet 

Quit over Poem Critical of Israel     

By The Associated Press      

TRENTON, New Jersey - Governor James E. McGreevey called for the resignation of the state's poet laureate, based on a poem critical of Israel that Amiri Baraka read at a festival earlier this month.      

Baraka read his poem, "Somebody Blew Up America," at the 2002 Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival at Waterloo Village in Stanhope on Sept.19.      

"Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed," read a line from the poem, which was cited by the Jewish Standard weekly newspaper. "Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers to stay home that day? Why did Sharon stay away?"      

Some Jewish groups have characterized the poem as anti-Semitic.       McGreevey spokesman Kevin Davitt said Friday the governor strongly condemns any racist or anti-Semitic behavior.      

"The language used in Mr. Baraka's recent poem could be interpreted as stating that Israelis were forewarned of the September 11th terrorist attacks. Mr. Baraka should clarify the intent of his language, apologize for any potential misinterpretation of his language, and resign," Davitt said.      

Baraka said he would not apologize or resign. He rejected the criticism, denied he is an anti-Semite, and said that criticism of Israel does not amount to anti-Semitism.       Baraka said the poem addressed Israeli policy toward Palestinians, which he believes fuels anti-American sentiment among Arabs.      

In no way did he mean to imply that Israel was responsible for the attack, directly or indirectly, he said.      

"First of all, Israel and Judaism are not the same, and to hide behind Judaism every time someone criticizes Israel is a charade," Baraka said.      

Shai Goldstein, New Jersey regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, spoke with McGreevey Friday. He said in a letter to the governor that his organization was pleased McGreevey had called for Baraka's resignation.      

The poet laureate position was created in 1999 and pays $10,000 per two-year term.      

Davitt said the title of poet laureate and the grant money cannot be rescinded, and the decision to resign is entirely up to Baraka.      

A recommendation to name Baraka as poet laureate earlier this year came from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, in consultation with the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.

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updated 1 October 2007