Why does LeRoi Jones (aka Amiri Baraka) hate Hard bop?

[fasstrack]

it was the Oceanhill Brownsville decentralization fight, that quickly turned into a racial and religious hot spot. As I said earlier, Hentoff did great work on exposing the Teachers Union's attempt to fan the flames, with even fake leaflets. Not that Leslie Campbell was innocent. I was a young kid who lived on Long Island during that whole thing, and I remember it well.

I remember it well (like Chevalier...). 'Relevance' and 'self-determination' were the watchwords. The Jewish teachers didn't want to be pushed out and the black folks in the community were doing the pushing. It got pretty ugly. I remember having a leaflet someone gave me with prose of the first paragraph quoting neighborhood agitators: 'You are a faggot. A white (can't remember). You will be dead in 1 year'. A loose paraphrase but only of the letter, not the spirit. I remember even the students were using words like relevant re their education, and they were not wrong. (A black girl named Yvonne who I had a slight crush on used it, but pronounced it 'revelant'. Who cared? I still had the hots).

The 60s were on big time!

Wisely, and setting the course of my own future I got into music instead of radical politics. The black and white kids were drawn to each other and forming bands, mostly R&B and soul. I was in 2 briefly: Exit 9 and The Dynamic Souls---who soon became Brass Construction and had a few LPs out. I went to Tucson, Ariz. that summer ('72) instead of joining the band, though I made it. Exit 9 preferred my lifelong friend Dave Lavender to me. I believe they made at least one LP too.

I'm tempted to tell the story of stopping a potential race riot at a dance in the Canarsie High School cafeteria by playing. Another time. Suffice it to say among us kids cooler heads definitely prevailed and we wanted to play music, smoke weed, and 'make love, not war'. Music was the way in.

Edited March 5, 2012 by fasstrack

[Brad]

We haven't heard from Spangalang for awhile. Wonder what she thinks on the direction that this thread has taken.

[AllenLowe]

freedom of speech does not give one the right to yell "food fight" in a crowded cafeteria.

as for spangalang, she should be happy. This thread is interesting.

[Brad]

I don't know about Interesting but different, yes.

As to whether she would be happy about its turn, that would be for her to say.

Edited March 5, 2012 by Brad

[JSngry]

I really don't see any possible way that Black America will become The New Nazis. Ever. Not even with a secretly-Muslim black president!

Until that comes to the table as an even remotely viable possibility, I say let's keep it in the ballpark as to how to react to it. There will always be hateful & hurtful language used to express feelings of frustrations and resentments. Sometimes it will be calculated rhetoric, sometimes frenzied rant, sometimes a cry of pain, and sometimes some dumbass talking some ignorant idiocy. Bringing out the Silencers to censure the language does nothing to further the dialogue about why this would be happening, and denies the opportunity to distinguish between disingenuous manipulation, misdirection of legitimate frustration, out and out vile gutter-hate, and, oh by the way, possible self-examination as to why these motherfuckers be so damn ANGRY all the time.

I don't care who you are, no matter where you go, there's going to be somebody who'd rather you not be there (I was adopted at the age of 4 days, so I guess that notion has been with me pretty much all my life at some level), and reflexively shutting them up (or trying to) won't change anything. Nor will "circling the wagons" with your "tribe" especially when your "tribe" contains about as many people with whom you'd just as soon keep away from as not (another less I learned from being adopted).

The only true freedom is Inner Freedom, and like I suggested earlier (and as a result was told to get fucked...gee, that doesn't exactly dispel the paranoia about there being Silencers in the shadows, does it?) the path to Inner Freedom might not always be peaceful or quiet.

So if we hear someone say "let's lynch the nigger" we should meditate? Personally I'd rather say "fuck you" to the speaker and to anyone who defends his rights to say it--even if it leads to charges that I'm a silencer.

I've been in that situation, actually, and more than once (the oil fields of East Texas in the 1970s, where I had a summer job for three years) were full of..."talkative" people).

You respond according to the level of real danger. If it's some old fat drunk cracker who's blowing off impotent steam, you just roll your eyes and figure he'll be dead soon enough. If it's a younger guy who's just gotten riled up, you talk sense to him, at least as much as you can.. If you think it's real danger, you proceed accordingly, up to and including calling the police (and where I lived then, that was by no means a guarantee of anything good happening, but...you took your chances).

And if you're lucky, you can get into a conversation where the real cause of the anger is coming from. Swear to god, I was working with a lady one time who told me point blank, "I don't like black people." "Oh really, why is that?" "they're so loud all the time. "Do you like loud white people?" "No, I don't". "Do you know any quiet black people?" "Yeah, a few." "Do you like them?" "Yeah, they're fine". "So it sounds like what you really don't like is loud people." looooonnnngggg pause "Yeah, I suppose you're right. I never thought of it that way before."

I swear to god, it was that easy. I have no illusions about how long or how deep it went, but if you can leave a situation better than you found it, if you can plant even a seed of discombobulation into those ignunt racist heads, you've done about all you can do at any given moment, short of slitting their throats and killing their babies, which, I think we'll all agree, is not a particularly good idea. And I don't think that saying "fuck you" plants seeds of anything too much more than determination to keep on keepin' on, which in the case of gut-level (or otherwise) racists is also not a particularly good idea.

Now, if you need to feel better, go buy some new shoes. I'm loving my new Vans. Better support and more comfort than shoes costing many times more.

Edited March 5, 2012 by JSngry

[Pete C]

I'm tempted to tell the story of stopping a potential race riot at a dance in the Canarsie High School cafeteria by playing.

Were you there at the same time as Howard Schultz? Based on your birth date you probably overlapped. And did you know Harold Bakst?

Edited March 5, 2012 by Pete C

[ejp626]

Until that comes to the table as an even remotely viable possibility, I say let's keep it in the ballpark as to how to react to it. There will always be hateful & hurtful language used to express feelings of frustrations and resentments. Sometimes it will be calculated rhetoric, sometimes frenzied rant, sometimes a cry of pain, and sometimes some dumbass talking some ignorant idiocy. Bringing out the Silencers to censure the language does nothing to further the dialogue about why this would be happening, and denies the opportunity to distinguish between disingenuous manipulation, misdirection of legitimate frustration, out and out vile gutter-hate, and, oh by the way, possible self-examination as to why these motherfuckers be so damn ANGRY all the time.

I've gone back and forth on this issue of what is basically the right to unlimited, hurtful speech. The freedom of speech is not completely unlimited anywhere, but it is certainly more unfettered in the U.S. than in Canada or Europe where there are more explicit boundaries put in place. I definitely used to be in the "let 'er rip" camp, but the sheer toxicity and lack of consequences of internet speech leaves me depressed and numbed. Beyond the problem of echo chambers ramping up the feelings on both sides of the aisle, I am starting to think that there is a "broken window" effect, i.e. the more nasty comments that float about, the more people do feel it is acceptable to wallow around in the mud and the more hateful people become, i.e. people who were somewhat on the fence actually become less tolerant and more hateful of outsiders. I expect there is research on this, and I will perhaps dig into it a bit.

Basically, I no longer subscribe to the dictum that the only answer to hateful free speech is more (illuminating) free speech, because I am starting to believe that the hateful free speech is actually adding to the level of hatred in the U.S. Now will we ever see a change in the U.S.? Doubtful, given how many free speech absolutists there are in the judiciary. And I don't think there is any easy remedy, other than far more effective monitoring of the internet and a push for anti-bullying in all spheres of social life. But I think it is a problem that will continue to worsen and coarsen public and private life in the U.S. Of course, I've given up on the U.S. anyway.

Edited March 5, 2012 by ejp626

[Face of the Bass]

The other thing about those anti-Jewish poems of Baraka's is that he's clearly trying to provoke a response there. He was probably feeling empowered by radical, violent imagery at that time. My only point in this thread is that those poems should not define his whole output, and that he later repudiated them. Whether people want to say that his lines in Somebody Blew Up America show he's still an anti-Semite at heart is up for them to decide. I don't think he is.

Edited March 5, 2012 by Face of the Bass

[Pete C]

The other thing about those anti-Jewish poems of Baraka's is that he's clearly trying to provoke a response there. He was probably feeling empowered by radical, violent imagery at that time. My only point in this thread is that those poems should not define his whole output, and that he later repudiated them. Whether people want to say that his lines in Somebody Blew Up America show he's still an anti-Semite at heart is up for them to decide. I don't think he is.

It may not prove he's an anti-semite---just a muddled thinker and a nut case.

[fasstrack]

I'm tempted to tell the story of stopping a potential race riot at a dance in the Canarsie High School cafeteria by playing.

Were you there at the same time as Howard Schultz? Based on your birth date you probably overlapped. And did you know Harold Bakst?

I graduated in '72---and the first name sounds familiar. But we didn't hang out.

[Pete C]

I graduated in '72---and the first name sounds familiar.

Probably because he's the head of Starbucks!

[fasstrack]

I graduated in '72---and the first name sounds familiar.

Probably because he's the head of Starbucks!

Overpriced coffee, but they do let you hang out. And refills are only 54 cents.

Which is probably the main reason I always have to pee. Way to go, Howie!

[JSngry]

That would be Howie-wie, wouldn't it?

[Pete C]

And refills are only 54 cents.

Is that true? I can't stand the stuff, but why would anybody buy anything bigger than a tall if that's the case?

[AllenLowe]

Starbucks coffee is terrible -

[fasstrack]

And refills are only 54 cents.

Is that true? I can't stand the stuff, but why would anybody buy anything bigger than a tall if that's the case?

Screw that. Get me his # so they can bankroll my CD and put it on the shelf next to Paul McCartney's. For that privilege I'd gladly pay 55 cents...

[medjuck]

I really don't see any possible way that Black America will become The New Nazis. Ever. Not even with a secretly-Muslim black president!

Until that comes to the table as an even remotely viable possibility, I say let's keep it in the ballpark as to how to react to it. There will always be hateful & hurtful language used to express feelings of frustrations and resentments. Sometimes it will be calculated rhetoric, sometimes frenzied rant, sometimes a cry of pain, and sometimes some dumbass talking some ignorant idiocy. Bringing out the Silencers to censure the language does nothing to further the dialogue about why this would be happening, and denies the opportunity to distinguish between disingenuous manipulation, misdirection of legitimate frustration, out and out vile gutter-hate, and, oh by the way, possible self-examination as to why these motherfuckers be so damn ANGRY all the time.

I don't care who you are, no matter where you go, there's going to be somebody who'd rather you not be there (I was adopted at the age of 4 days, so I guess that notion has been with me pretty much all my life at some level), and reflexively shutting them up (or trying to) won't change anything. Nor will "circling the wagons" with your "tribe" especially when your "tribe" contains about as many people with whom you'd just as soon keep away from as not (another less I learned from being adopted).

The only true freedom is Inner Freedom, and like I suggested earlier (and as a result was told to get fucked...gee, that doesn't exactly dispel the paranoia about there being Silencers in the shadows, does it?) the path to Inner Freedom might not always be peaceful or quiet.

So if we hear someone say "let's lynch the nigger" we should meditate? Personally I'd rather say "fuck you" to the speaker and to anyone who defends his rights to say it--even if it leads to charges that I'm a silencer.

I've been in that situation, actually, and more than once (the oil fields of East Texas in the 1970s, where I had a summer job for three years) were full of..."talkative" people).

You respond according to the level of real danger. If it's some old fat drunk cracker who's blowing off impotent steam, you just roll your eyes and figure he'll be dead soon enough. If it's a younger guy who's just gotten riled up, you talk sense to him, at least as much as you can.. If you think it's real danger, you proceed accordingly, up to and including calling the police (and where I lived then, that was by no means a guarantee of anything good happening, but...you took your chances).

And if you're lucky, you can get into a conversation where the real cause of the anger is coming from. Swear to god, I was working with a lady one time who told me point blank, "I don't like black people." "Oh really, why is that?" "they're so loud all the time. "Do you like loud white people?" "No, I don't". "Do you know any quiet black people?" "Yeah, a few." "Do you like them?" "Yeah, they're fine". "So it sounds like what you really don't like is loud people." looooonnnngggg pause "Yeah, I suppose you're right. I never thought of it that way before."

I swear to god, it was that easy. I have no illusions about how long or how deep it went, but if you can leave a situation better than you found it, if you can plant even a seed of discombobulation into those ignunt racist heads, you've done about all you can do at any given moment, short of slitting their throats and killing their babies, which, I think we'll all agree, is not a particularly good idea. And I don't think that saying "fuck you" plants seeds of anything too much more than determination to keep on keepin' on, which in the case of gut-level (or otherwise) racists is also not a particularly good idea.

Now, if you need to feel better, go buy some new shoes. I'm loving my new Vans. Better support and more comfort than shoes costing many times more.

Or you could make the speaker of such shit the poet laureate and put him in Warren Beatty movies. But your attitude is probably smarter than mine in that over the last 70 years I've probably been in more fist fights

than you have, some of them because someone called someone a "jew boy" or a "nigger".

And on a more important note i do indeed have the new "Yo Gabba Gabba" Vans for adults.

[JSngry]

Or you could make the speaker of such shit the poet laureate and put him in Warren Beatty movies. But your attitude is probably smarter than mine in that over the last 70 years I've probably been in more fist fights

than you have, some of them because someone called someone a "jew boy" or a "nigger".

And on a more important note i do indeed have the new "Yo Gabba Gabba" Vans for adults.

I really do think that Amiri Baraka has significantly more to offer to "the conversation" than does some oil-field racist. Baraka has a starting point, and then some more places to go from it, none of which really end up in a call to Kill All The (pick your poison). The oil-field racists had that as only their staring point, mid-point, and final destination. Most of them, anyway.

We're right to call bullshit on Baraka's anti-Semetic rhetoric, but we're wrong to do that and then just walk away without listening for/to the follow-up. This is a man who is far from being always right, but he's far from being always wrong either. At least in my mind.

Of course, if we don't want to have a/the conversation, or if we don't want to have THAT conversation, if we just want to hold hands and weep at our collective failed humanity, then yeah, fuck him. But if not him, then it will be somebody else at other some time. It always is. And they're not always as multi-tiered as Amiri Baraka.

Your fist fights, you conquered hate that way, eh? Or did you just shut up a loudmouth? Granted, that would be a triumph in and of itself, but it's a helluva loud world. Selective hearing is a survival skill, and actions do speak louder than words. I'll listen for actions, not so much to words, and proceed accordingly. Your mileage will vary, no doubt.

Besides, my fists will almost always be overpowered (especially back home, where people still lift heavy loads and such all day every day). My brain, not nearly so much. Gotta play from strength, and, especially, live to fight another day with the best weapons I have. Which are most assuredly not my fists.

More to the point, by the time I entered the real world, any able-bodied adult who would talk to like directly to somebody's face in a "general situation" would quite likely have a handful of hurt coming directly from the recipient. This is in no small part to people like Amiri Baraka and other "hateful" people. Like it or hate it, "militant rhetoric" does empower people, and being able to take down your own foe instead of having to look to somebody else to do it for you is not in and of itself a bad thing. And people who lift heavy loads and such all day every day recognize other people who lift heavy loads and such all day every day, if you know what I mean.

I get the all-black Vans. Wear them for office work, to gigs with a tux, and for play. Versatility, comfort, and damn good support. Them skateboarders got a good thing going with these things. I'm on my third pair, and have no intentions to look elsewhere for a substitute.

DAMN fine footwear.

Edited March 6, 2012 by JSngry

[Noj]

They really are among the best skateboard shoes, Jim. That model in particular.

Edited March 6, 2012 by Noj

[johnlitweiler]

I've just reread "Somebody Blew Up America." In the 10-page poem there are seven lines about the specific conspiracy theory (Sharon, Israel knew about the plot, et c.) that stimulates most of the comments here in recent days. I don't see anti-white, anti-Semite,anti-Zionist lines. I do see a few lines of recurring sympathy for some (mostly vicious) Communists of the past. He also says

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/

and later in the poem:

Who put the Jews in ovens

And who helped them do it

Who said "America First"

There's at least one more conspiracy theory in the poem, which I think is for the most part a potent verbal assault on the WHOs of history and of the present who could yet bring us World War III. I can think of some more crimes against humanity that need to be solved and prosecuted, but Baraka has made a start.

As to his jazz criticism, the only critics I agree with are the Organissimo critics.

[robertoart]

Or you could make the speaker of such shit the poet laureate and put him in Warren Beatty movies. But your attitude is probably smarter than mine in that over the last 70 years I've probably been in more fist fights

than you have, some of them because someone called someone a "jew boy" or a "nigger".

And on a more important note i do indeed have the new "Yo Gabba Gabba" Vans for adults.

I really do think that Amiri Baraka has significantly more to offer to "the conversation" than does some oil-field racist. Baraka has a starting point, and then some more places to go from it, none of which really end up in a call to Kill All The (pick your poison). The oil-field racists had that as only their staring point, mid-point, and final destination. Most of them, anyway.

We're right to call bullshit on Baraka's anti-Semetic rhetoric, but we're wrong to do that and then just walk away without listening for/to the follow-up. This is a man who is far from being always right, but he's far from being always wrong either. At least in my mind.

Of course, if we don't want to have a/the conversation, or if we don't want to have THAT conversation, if we just want to hold hands and weep at our collective failed humanity, then yeah, fuck him. But if not him, then it will be somebody else at other some time. It always is. And they're not always as multi-tiered as Amiri Baraka.

Your fist fights, you conquered hate that way, eh? Or did you just shut up a loudmouth? Granted, that would be a triumph in and of itself, but it's a helluva loud world. Selective hearing is a survival skill, and actions do speak louder than words. I'll listen for actions, not so much to words, and proceed accordingly. Your mileage will vary, no doubt.

Besides, my fists will almost always be overpowered (especially back home, where people still lift heavy loads and such all day every day). My brain, not nearly so much. Gotta play from strength, and, especially, live to fight another day with the best weapons I have. Which are most assuredly not my fists.

More to the point, by the time I entered the real world, any able-bodied adult who would talk to like directly to somebody's face in a "general situation" would quite likely have a handful of hurt coming directly from the recipient. This is in no small part to people like Amiri Baraka and other "hateful" people. Like it or hate it, "militant rhetoric" does empower people, and being able to take down your own foe instead of having to look to somebody else to do it for you is not in and of itself a bad thing. And people who lift heavy loads and such all day every day recognize other people who lift heavy loads and such all day every day, if you know what I mean.

I get the all-black Vans. Wear them for office work, to gigs with a tux, and for play. Versatility, comfort, and damn good support. Them skateboarders got a good thing going with these things. I'm on my third pair, and have no intentions to look elsewhere for a substitute.

DAMN fine footwear.

What brand of footwear you choose or don't choose to buy might make you feel good about how you contribute or don't to exploitative work conditions overseas, but it has no effect on those conditions for the workers.

Only structural change at the point of manufacture will do that.

I think this is what Payton is getting at with the name change.

[JSngry]

The only part of me that feels good as a result of my choice of footwear is my feet.

I am not unsympathetic to the gist(s) of Mr. Payton's broadsides.

[AllenLowe]

John, the part of the poem that talks about warning the Jews out of the WTC really, to my mind, supersedes any other sentiments. One cannot be, as the saying goes, a little bit pregnant.

as for the Organissimo critics, right on.

[Pete C]

Even without the "offensive" content, I'm surprised that at least three intelligent people here would consider this even partially a "good poem."

[Dan Gould]

And at least two of them made livings as writers.

But to each his own.