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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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That Old Black Magic
By Kalamu ya
Salaam
Black writers write White. This is
inevitable for those of us of the African Diaspora who
unavoidably use the language of our historic captivity
as though it were our mother tongue when in actually
English (Spanish, French, Portuguese or whatever
European language) is our father tongue, the language of
the alien patriarch who negated our mothers' tongues and
mandated we use an other tongue; a white tongue in black
mouths.
I believe our music is our mother
tongue when it comes to representing the full and most
honest spectrum of our thoughts and feelings, our
responses and aspirations, our dreams and nightmares
concerning whom we are and the conditions with which we
struggle. At the same time, the father tongue/imposed
language is the lingua franca of our daily
existence. This mother tongue/father tongue dichotomy
represents the articulation of our classic double
consciousness. When we make our music, we are our own
authorities and our own creators and innovators. When we
write the English language, the social authority of the
language is vested in the dominant culture.
The language of our dominating
step-father is a language that has not only historically
degraded us but is also a language which demands
conformity to alien values. Moreover, the words of the
“King's English” are often incapable of expressing the
complexities of our values and realities, especially
those values of positive “otherness.” For example, what
English words are there that give a positive description
for spiritual beliefs outside of the “great religions of
the world” (all of which, incidentally, are
male-centered, if not outright patriarchal—think of
buddha, krishna, allah and his prophet muhammad, etc.,
not to mention jehovah and god the father, son and holy
ghost)? All of other terms, e.g., animism, ancestor
worship, voodoo, traditional beliefs, all of them have a
negative or “less than” connotation.
When we consider the specifics of
our history in the Western hemisphere, the negativity is
increased in terms of words to describe our reality.
There are literally no English words for important
segments of our lives. But beyond the negative of our
resistance to exploitation and oppression, significant
aspects of our existence are “undefined” in Standard
English, either because similar concepts do not exist or
because our concepts are oppositional. In this regard,
the Black tendency to coin new words is not just slang,
creating words is a necessity if we are to reflect not
simply our reality, but also our worldview and our
aspirations.
At the same time, Black culture is
by nature adoptive and adaptive. We can take anything
and make use of it in our own unique way. Thus, the fact
that English is a foreign language does not stop us from
shaping and literally re-structuring how we use the
language to make it work for us. This adaptation of a
language we have been forced to adopt is however for the
most part an oral activity. When it comes to writing,
there is less latitude in the restructuring process. If
we wrote the way we talk, few people would be able to
read it, sometimes not even the authors, partially
because the standards for writing are much more rigidly
enforced than the standards for talking, but also
because although we can make sounds and use gestures
when we talk to give specificity to our utterances, this
specificity is lost in the translation to text.
Just as there is no way to
accurately notate Black music using standard western
notation, there is no way to accurately translate all
aspects of Black life into text because, in the words of
musician Charles Lloyd, "words don't go there." For
technical and/or social reasons, writing the way we
speak is then: either impractical, impermissible or just
plain impossible.
Yet, this impossible dream—writing
Black in a White language—is precisely the task of the
Black writer. The limitations of language are merely
that: limitations to be overcome. Indeed, although
undeniable in their negativity, the limitations of
language are actually the least of our problems with
writing.
The more we learn about writing,
the dumber we get about ourselves. Unless accompanied by
a critical consciousness, the formal act of learning to
write at the college and graduate level alienates us
from the majority of our people. An overwhelming
percentage of the examples we are given of great writing
inevitably come not only from outside of our cultural
realities, many of those examples are often literally
apologia for racism, sexism, and capitalism (or
colonialism). The very process of learning to write well
is a process of not simply studying others but indeed a
process of adopting the methodologies and values of an
alien culture, a culture that has generally been
antagonistic to Black existence. As a result, almost by
definition, anyone the mainstream considers a good Black
writer is either culturally schizophrenic or at the very
least ambivalent about the values exhibited by the
majority of Black people not only in the United States,
but indeed in the whole world.
If any of us spends six or more
years intensely studying how to write in an alien
language, then, to one degree or another, we can not
help but be alienated from our origins if our origins
are outside of the culture that we have been taught to
master as a writer. One sure indicator of this bi-polar
state is the references we use in our work. In general
three groupings will stand out: 1. Greek mythology, 2.
Western canonical writers (Shakespeare to Raymond
Carver), and 3. Western philosophy (with a notable
emphasis on modernity in terms of Freudian psychology,
existentialism, and post-modern individualism).
While I do not argue that any of
these three groupings are irrelevant to our daily
lives—after all we are partially a social product of
Western culture even as we are marginalized or otherwise
shunned by the American mainstream; nevertheless, I do
argue that to elevate these cultural references to the
major tropes, images and structural devices of our
writing implicitly alienates us from those aspects of
our own existence that are based on other cultural
values and realities.
Indeed, at one level, to engage in
intellectual argument via writing reductively requires
us to drag into our text words of Latin origin. We can
not even restrict our word choice to simple Anglo-origin
words, but are forced instead to use multi-syllabic
words whose origin is twice removed from our reality. (A
quick perusal of the vocabulary used in this essay will
illustrate that point.) In any case, the upshot of all
of this is that the more we master literacy, the more
non-Black our expression becomes because the formal
mastery of literacy is synonymous with covert
indoctrination in Western views and values. This is the
dilemma of academic study that all writers of color
face.
So profound is this dilemma that
many of us who have mastered writing become so alienated
from our "native" selves that we are unable to move an
audience of working class Black people whether the
audience members are reading our books or listening to
us recite. How odd then, for example, to be a Black poet
with an MFA in creative writing and be unable to rock a
Black audience. But then one of the purposes of our
education was to teach us to act like and fit in with
people who historically achieved their success by
excluding and/or oppressing and exploiting us.
Please do not construe this as an
argument against MFA writing programs or against
studying writing in college. I strongly believe in the
value of study both formal and informal. The question is
do we go to school to learn how to do what we want to
do, ever mindful of the institutional objective, which
is to make us like them, or do we go to school to
prepare ourselves simply to fit in, to get a good job,
to be recognized by the mainstream as a good writer? Or,
to put it in other terms (community to student): "we
sent you there to bring back some fire, not to become
mesmerized by the light show!”
This brings us face to face with a
profound fact of the Black literary tradition—almost
without exception, those Black writers who have made the
greatest contribution to our national literature were
either self-taught or were consciously oppositional to
the mainstream in both their content as well as in their
use of language. Think of a Dunbar despondent that he
was never accepted for writing in straight English;
other than dialect poems his most lasting contribution
are poems such as “The Caged Bird Sings” and “We Wear
The Mask,” poems which focus on the dilemma of
alienation. Think of highly educated W. E. B. Du Bois
whose great body of work is a veritable arsenal of
charges against the West and is a celebration of Black
life and resistance to oppression.
Think of Langston Hughes, Richard
Wight, James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka—all of them self
taught. Think of Francis Ellen Harper, an activist
author; Ida B. Wells, an activist author; Toni Cade
Bambara, an activist author; all of them autodidacts.
Or if we want to consider those who were specifically
educated as writers think of Nobel Laureate Toni
Morrison, Pulitzer prize winner, Gwendolyn Brooks, or
Dr. Margaret Walker Alexander; all of whom focused their
magnificent and often iconoclastic work on the lives and
struggles of working class Black people. These and many
others are the great writers of our literary tradition.
Just as not one great musical
innovator within the realms of blues, jazz, gospel, and
Black popular music has become a great creator primarily
as a result of formal musical education, in a similar
vein not one major Black writer who has been college
educated has made a profound impact on our literature
(or in American literature as a whole for that matter)
unless that writer has consciously taken an oppositional
stance. This is no accident. Indeed, throughout our
history thus far in America, opposition to the
mainstream has been a prerequisite of Black greatness in
any social/cultural endeavor. Whether this will continue
to be the case remains to be seen.
It is too soon to tell whether what
is sometimes referred to as the "New Black Renaissance"
in Black literature will produce major contributions to
the historic continuum of Black literature. While it is
true that popular production is at an all time high, as
the case of romance writer Frank Yerby demonstrates,
there is a big difference between popularity and
profundity, between best sellers and classic
contributions to the tradition. Frank Yerby dominated
the bestseller lists for romance in the fifties, yet his
work is hardly read and seldom referred to today. Will
many of today's bestsellers be subject to the same
popularity vs. profundity syndrome?
Capitalism materially rewards
commercial success and, in the process, emphasizes the
entertainment values and minimalizes the political
values of the work. Art becomes a spectacle and/or
product for distribution and sale, rather than a process
and/or ritual for community upliftment. Indeed, there
are those who argue that that an emphasis on political
relevance is an artistic straight jacket. My response is
that the diminution, if not total negation, of relevance
is a hallmark of commercialism, a philosophy that is
best summed up in the adage: everything is for sale. I
am not arguing against entertainment. I am arguing for
relevance and for the elevation of people before
profits, community before commercialism. Or to borrow a
phrase from Jamaica's Michael Manley: "We are not for
sale."
When the Bible asserts, What
profits it a man to win the world and loose his soul?, a
fundamental truth is raised. Do we understand that soul
is a social concept, that our existence as individuals
is directly dependent on social interactions? The
writer, who is alienated from self, invariably argues
for the supremacy of the individual, the right to write
and do whatever he or she wants to do without reference
to one person's effect on or relationship with others.
Whether pushed as good old American, rugged
individualism or post-modern self-referentialism, the
outcome remains the same: alienation from community and
schizophrenia of the personal self.
Unless we consciously deal with the
question of alienation, we as writers will find
ourselves unconsciously and subconsciously at odds not
only within our individual psyches but with our native
(i.e., childhood) and ethnic community howsoever that
community may be defined. This fundamental fact is not a
problem peculiar or exclusive to Black writers; it is a
problem for all writers in America.
Whom we are writing for determines
what and how we write. Writing presupposes audience,
assumes that the reader can understand or figure out the
message or meaning of the text. Some writers write for
the approval of other writers, others seek to impress
critics, many attempt to capture a popular audience of
book buyers. Those are but a few of the many audience
segments that influence, if not outright determine, the
nature of writing. In ways often transparent to or not
consciously acknowledged by the writer, the tastes and
interests of the presumed audience actually shape the
writing. Choices of subject matter and vocabulary,
style, and genre are all interconnected to the
interpretative abilities and desires of the presumed
audience.
The authority of the audience as
auditor is particularly important for writers who are
peripheral to or marginalized from whatever is the
mainstream of the language that the writer uses.
All writing also brings with it a
tradition. Over time standards of literacy develop. The
writer then may seem to be a Janus-figure: glancing in
one direction at the audience and trying to shape the
writing to appeal to or at least be understood by the
assumed audience, and glancing in the opposite direction
trying to match or exceed the prevailing literary
standards. For writers of color in the United States the
very act of writing alienates us from our native
audience most of whom are not readers grounded in the
literary traditions of the text's language.
I would argue that the truth is
that every writer goes down to the crossroads—and not
once or twice in a career, but each and every time we
write, whether consciously by choice or de facto as a
result of the particular spin we put on the style and
contend of what we do. We choose between speaking to the
truths of our individual and collective existence or
serving Mammon by scripting products for the commercial
mill. We choose whether to pander to our audiences by
concentrating on pleasure and thereby winning applause
and popularity, or to prod and push our audiences to
recognize the reality of our existence and to struggle
to improve and beautify the world within which we live.
In this regard, a more important metaphor for the Black
writer is Elegba, the trickster Orisha of the
crossroads.
In the final analysis, writing is a
conversation, and even if we can not tell the pilgrim
which way to go, certainly we should tell the pilgrim
from whence we have come, what brought us here, and what
is the nature of the "here" where we now find ourselves.
Moreover, the point is not simply the content. The point
is also the conversation. Not just what we are saying,
but also with whom we are speaking, to whom we are
writing.
One of the sad truths of Black
writing is that most of us are employed to be guides
(some would say pimps) of Blackness. In order to succeed
in mainstream terms, serving as a translator of Black
life, explaining the exotica (inevitably with an erotic
twist) to the non-Black mainstream is almost
unavoidable. But who will explain Black life to Black
people? Who will break down the whys and wherefores of
our daily existence in a language that our mothers and
fathers can understand and appreciate, that our children
can embrace and learn from?
The question of audience is seldom
raised directly in school but is implicitly dictated by
the writings suggested as models. When was the last time
our people were validated as the authority for our work,
not simplistically as the consumers to buy our books or
CDs, not duplicitously as the voters to determine a
popularity contest, but sincerely as the validators who
determine the ultimate relevance and value of our
literary work?
I believe the question of audience
is a dynamic rather than static question. I believe in
audience development. I believe that we must both reach
out to our people and we must teach our people, we must
embrace our people and we must challenge our people, we
must elevate our people and we must critique our people,
and ditto for ourselves and our peers. I believe in
cycles rather than linear development. I believe in
constantly doing one's best rather than achieving
perfection by creating a masterpiece or two. There will
always be contradictions, but the motion of our work
need not be in a negative direction.
Writing is often defined as a
lonely profession. I do not believe it has to be that
way. Part and parcel of developing audience is
developing community—as writers we need to create
networks and organizations of support for one another.
We need to model audience development and not simply
leave it to retailers and investors to market us while
pitting one writer against another. In order to know
what to write about in terms of defining, defending and
developing our communities, we must actively be engaged
in defining, defending, and developing community. If we
can not develop community among our colleagues, how then
will we be in a position to realistically inspire and/or
instruct our audiences?
The question of audience is the
ultimate question in our quest to contribute to the
development of a Black literary tradition. I do not
believe in racial essentialism or in racial
proscriptions. Just because one is a Black who writes,
that does not mean that one's work has to be part and
parcel of the Black literary tradition. I believe that
Blackness is color, culture, and consciousness, and that
color is the least important component. Cultural
awareness and practice are important, but
consciousness—choosing to identify with and work on
behalf of Blackness—is the ultimate sine qua non.
Each of us can choose to reject an
allegiance to Blackness howsoever “Blackness” might be
defined. We have the right to identify with any one or
even with a multiple of human social orders. Indeed, one
of the hallmarks of Blackness among African Americans is
the rejection of Blackness as a defining marker of
self-definition! Moreover, I do not denigrate those who
choose social options that I reject—everybody has a
right to define herself. However, for those of us who
are writers and choose Blackness, I suggest that we have
chosen a difficult but exhilarating path. We have chosen
to pass on the torch of that old Black magic, a
firelight that started the saga of human history, a
mighty burning whose bright Blackness continues to
stress the sacredness of love, community, and sharing.
Source:
WordUp
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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
Men
We Love, Men We Hate
SAC writings from Douglass, McDonogh 35, and McMain high
schools in New Orleans.
An anthology on the topic of men and relationships with men
Ways of
Laughing
An Anthology of Young Black Voices
Photographed & Edited by
Kalamu ya Salaam
Treme: Beyond Bourbon Street (HBO)
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Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical Essays
Edited by
Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Blacks in Hispanic Literature is a
collection of fourteen essays by scholars and
creative writers from Africa and the Americas.
Called one of two significant critical works on
Afro-Hispanic literature to appear in the late
1970s, it includes the pioneering studies of
Carter G. Woodson and
Valaurez B. Spratlin, published in the 1930s, as
well as the essays of scholars whose interpretations
were shaped by the Black aesthetic. The early
essays, primarily of the Black-as-subject in Spanish
medieval and Golden Age literature, provide an
historical context for understanding 20th-century
creative works by African-descended, Hispanophone
writers, such as Cuban
Nicolás Guillén and Ecuadorean poet, novelist,
and scholar
Adalberto Ortiz, whose essay analyzes the
significance of Negritude in Latin America. This
collaborative text set the tone for later
conferences in which writers and scholars worked
together to promote, disseminate, and critique the
literature of Spanish-speaking people of African
descent. . . .
Cited by a
literary critic in 2004 as "the seminal study in the
field of Afro-Hispanic Literature . . . on which
most scholars in the field 'cut their teeth'."
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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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If you like this page consider making a donation
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
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Enjoy!
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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
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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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ChickenBones Store
(Books, DVDs, Music, and more)
posted 10 October 2010
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