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Printablesoulpower said: Supernova said: soulpower said: I am sooo glad nobody mentioned Alex Haley here... the biggest cheat in black literature!
Meaning? If you dig into the history of the making of roots, you will find out that the whole story is made up, while Alex (who is known to be one greedy mofo) was selling it as somewhat autobiographical. He pretended to have written about his own family line. Roots was more about an entire race of people, instead of totally about his family. Even he had said that. Just because his research led to stories of people outside of his family didn't mean it wasn't true. Are you saying those things didn't go on at all? This post not for the wimp contingent. All whiny wusses avert your eyes. | |
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Supernova said: soulpower said: Supernova said: soulpower said: I am sooo glad nobody mentioned Alex Haley here... the biggest cheat in black literature!
Meaning? If you dig into the history of the making of roots, you will find out that the whole story is made up, while Alex (who is known to be one greedy mofo) was selling it as somewhat autobiographical. He pretended to have written about his own family line. Roots was more about an entire race of people, instead of totally about his family. Even he had said that. Just because his research led to stories of people outside of his family didn't mean it wasn't true. Are you saying those things didn't go on at all?  of course not! Still, it was a cheat... Its like if I am a Jew and I write an autobiographical story about my family's suffering in detail in Auschwitz, and then it comes out that my family never was in Auschwitz. Of course Auschwitz happened, but then my book would be fiction and still can be good... but its too much of s serious topic to lie about just out of greed and the thirst for respect. Haley even marketed the little shack where this all was supposed to have happened, and made a lot of money from it... all made up! I have read lots on Haley, and there's more shit that happened that took his credibility away as a journalist... Of course I grant him his work with Malcolm X, but that doesnt put him on my list of favorite african american writers, and looking at the many people listed above, I didnt find him there either..."Peace and Benz -- The future, made in Germany"  | |
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soulpower said: Supernova said: soulpower said: Supernova said: soulpower said: I am sooo glad nobody mentioned Alex Haley here... the biggest cheat in black literature!
Meaning? If you dig into the history of the making of roots, you will find out that the whole story is made up, while Alex (who is known to be one greedy mofo) was selling it as somewhat autobiographical. He pretended to have written about his own family line. Roots was more about an entire race of people, instead of totally about his family. Even he had said that. Just because his research led to stories of people outside of his family didn't mean it wasn't true. Are you saying those things didn't go on at all? of course not! Still, it was a cheat... Its like if I am a Jew and I write an autobiographical story about my family's suffering in detail in Auschwitz, and then it comes out that my family never was in Auschwitz. Of course Auschwitz happened, but then my book would be fiction and still can be good... but its too much of s serious topic to lie about just out of greed and the thirst for respect. Haley even marketed the little shack where this all was supposed to have happened, and made a lot of money from it... all made up! I have read lots on Haley, and there's more shit that happened that took his credibility away as a journalist... Of course I grant him his work with Malcolm X, but that doesnt put him on my list of favorite african american writers, and looking at the many people listed above, I didnt find him there either...Well, as I said, it may not have been 100% about his own family, but it was researched, and he did eventually say it was about "a people" in later years when talking about it. I don't remember him trumpeting the fact that it was supposedly about his own family years later in the 1990s. I found the miniseries to be a masterpiece, and looking back on it it's a miracle it was made for TV. I was too young to realize that back in 1977 though. I own the book, but have never read it after watching the miniseries. This post not for the wimp contingent. All whiny wusses avert your eyes. | |
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soulpower said: Supernova said: soulpower said: I am sooo glad nobody mentioned Alex Haley here... the biggest cheat in black literature!
Meaning? If you dig into the history of the making of roots, you will find out that the whole story is made up, while Alex (who is known to be one greedy mofo) was selling it as somewhat autobiographical. He pretended to have written about his own family line. Actually soulpower, the controversy over Alex Haley's Roots was not necessarily that it wasn't autobiographical per se, but that it was found to plagiarize the work of another author. Not sure what earns him the designation of "one greedy mofo." Care to elaborate on that? As Supernova says, Roots was really about the black family in America--that was its attraction. Haley's story was just as much someone else's story. And further, I'd caution against a total disrespect of Haley. Roots and its controversy aside, he DID write Malcolm's autobiography. That alone grants him an honored space on my bookshelf. "That...magic, the start of something revolutionary-the Minneapolis Sound, we should cherish it and not punish prince for not being able to replicate it."-Dreamshaman32 | |
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Rhondab said: The Mother by Gwendolyn Brooks
Abortions will not let you forget. You remember the children you got that you did not get, The damp small pulps with a little or with no hair, The singers and workers that never handled the air. You will never neglect or beat Them, or silence or buy with a sweet. You will never wind up the sucking-thumb Or scuttle off ghosts that come. You will never leave them, controlling your luscious sigh, Return for a snack of them, with gobbling mother-eye. I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed children. I have contracted. I have eased My dim dears at the breasts they could never suck. I have said, Sweets, if I sinned, if I seized Your luck And your lives from your unfinished reach, If I stole your births and your names, Your straight baby tears and your games, Your stilted or lovely loves, your tumults, your marriages, aches, and your deaths, If I poisoned the beginnings of your breaths, Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate. Though why should I whine, Whine that the crime was other than mine?-- Since anyhow you are dead. Or rather, or instead, You were never made. But that too, I am afraid, Is faulty: oh, what shall I say, how is the truth to be said? You were born, you had body, you died. It is just that you never giggled or planned or cried. Believe me, I loved you all. Believe me, I knew you, though faintly, and I loved, I loved you All. wow  --»You're my favourite moment, you're my Saturday... | |
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soulpower said: AaronForever said: I'm agreeing with you. But my point is that it just so happens that he fits into another context (the 9/11 one) and that that particular context (9/11, the US and Iraq, terrorism conspiracies, etc.) is one that he's ranting and raving about here 7 days a week. I don't think it's a coincidence. You are a funny dude, Aaron! You are limiting Leroi Jones to his work after 9/11, how narrowminded. um, no. I'm limiting the prospects that you had any interest in or had even heard of him before his 9/11 controversy. i already knew that they didn't teach history well in your schools over there, as you've demonstrated in another thread somewhere when we argued. but i'm now going to give whatever schools you went to low marks for instilling such poor basic reading comprehension skills in you!  | |
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Can U believe it? No mention of Prince as a great black poet? Has everyone gone buggers? Read Starfish And Coffee and tell me Prince isn't a great poet?
You think Tupac is good, what about the amazing, Ice-t: "The Tower" I'm rollin' up in a big gray bus And I'm shackled down Myself that's who I trust The minute I arrived Some sucker got hit Shanked ten times Behind some bullshit Word in the pen the fool was a snitch So without hesitatin' I made a weapon quick If found a sharp piece of metal Taped it to a stick Then a bullhorn sounds That means it's time for chow My first prison meal The whole feeling was foul It wasn't quite my style But my stomach growled So I flushed the shit down And hit the weight pile The brothers was swole The attitudes was cold Felt the tension on the yard From the young and the old But I'm a warrior I got my ground to hold So I studied the inmates To see who hd the power the Whites? The Blacks? Or just the gun tower! In a blink of an eye, a riot broke out Blacks put their backs to the wall Cause it was north and south A gun man shouts And everybody had doubt Until the bullets started fly'n Took two men out Thn they rushed everybody Back to their cells Damn the pen is different than The county jail I'm in a one man cell I know my life's on a scale I wonder if that gunman is goin' to hell This is my second day I got a ten year stay I learned my first lesson In the pen you don't plaay I saw a brother kill another Cause he said he was gay But that's the way it is It been that way for years and when his body hit the ground I heard a couple of cheers It kind of hurt me inside That they were glad he died and I ask myself Just who had the power? The Whites? The Blacks? Or just the gun tower! You see the Whites got a thing The call White pride The Blacks got the muscle Mexicans got the knives You better be wise You wanna stay alive Go toe to toe with a sucka No matter wht size A fool tried to sweat me Act'n like he was hard I stuck him twice in the neck And left him dead in the yard It was smooth how I did it Cause nobody could see With my jacket on my arm And my knife on the side of me Bam bam, it was over Another one bites the dust I went crazy in the pen With nobody to trust Bench'n ten quarters, so I'm hard to sweat Used a tat gun, and engrved my set They call me a lifer Cause I'm good as dead I live in the hole, so the floor's my bed And I ask myself again Who has the power The Whites? The Blacks? Or just the gun tower All you others say Hell Yea!!  | |
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I'm enjoying the poems, not gonna let it die...  | |
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we want freedom by any means necessary
we want justice by any means necessary we want equality by any means necessary Malcolm X | |
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you think the world was shocked when Nixon resigned?
wait till i whup george foreman's behind float like a butterfly, sting like a bee his hands can't hit what his eyes can't see now u see me, now u dont george thinks he will, but i know he wont i done wrestled with an alligator i done tussled with a whale only last week i murdred a rock injured a stone, hospitalized a brick mannn i'm so mean i make medicine sick the greatest of em all Muhammad Ali | |
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the skilled man always keeps himself just out
of distance of the opponent's attack and is constantly on the move to make the opponent misjudge his distance, while being quite sure of his own. in doing so he will obtain the distance that suits him best and when the opportunity arises he will close the distance or steal a march on the opponent's move to close in. i think this, i live this, i am this | |
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All Eyez On U
(for 2Pac Shakur 1971-1996) by Nikki Giovanni as I tossed and turned unable to achieve sleep unable to control anxiety unable to comprehend why 2Pac is not with us if those who live be the sword died be the sword there would be no white men on the earth if those who lived on hatred died on hatred there would be no KKK if those who lived by lies died by lies there would be nobody on wall street in executive suits in academic offices instructing the young don't tell me he got what he deserved he deserved a chariot and the accolades of a grateful people he deserved his life it is as clear as a mountain stream as defining as a lightning strike as terrifying as sun to vampires there were those who called it dirty gansta rap inciting there were those who never wanted to be angry at conditions but angry at the messenger who reported: your kitchen has roaches your toilet is over flowing you basement has so much water the rats are in the living room your house is in disorder and 2Pac told you about it what a beautiful boy graceful carriage melodic voice sharp wit intellectual breadth what a beautiful boy to loose not me never me I don't believe east coast west coast I saw them murder Emmett Till I saw them murder Malcolm X I saw them murder Martin Luther King I witnessed them shooting Rap Brown I saw them beat LeRoi Jones I saw them fill there jails I see them burning churches not me never me I do not believe this is some sort of mouth action This is some sort of political action and they picked well they picked the brightest freshest fruit from the tallest tree what a beautiful boy but he will not go away as Malcolm did not go away as Emmett Till did not go away your shooting him will not take him from us his spirit will fill our hearts his courage will strengthen us for the challenge his truth will straighten our backbones you know, Socrates had a mother she too watched here son drink hemlock she too asked why but Socrates stood firm and would not lie to save himself 2Pac has a mother the lovely Afeni had to bury her son it is not right it is not right that this young warrior is cut down it is not right for the old to bury the young it is not right this generation mourns 2Pac as my generation mourned Till as we all mourn Malcolm this wonderful you warrior Sonia Sanchez said when she learned of his passing she walked all day walking the beautiful warrior home to our ancestors I just cried as all mothers cry for the beautiful boy who said he and Mike Tyson would never be allowed to be free at the same time who told the truth about them and who told the truth about us who is our beautiful warrior there are those who wanted to make him the problem who wanted to believe if they silenced 2Pac all would be quiet on the ghetto front there are those who testified that the problem wasnÕt the conditions but the people talking about them they took away band so the boys started scratching they took away gym so the boys started break dancing the boys started dancing the boys started rapping cause they gave them the guns and the drugs but not the schools and libraries what a beautiful boy to loose and we mourn 2Pac Shakur and we reach out to his mother and we hung ourselves in sadness and shame and we are compelled to ask: R U Happy, Mz Tucker? 2Pac is gone R U Happy? | |
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The Negro Mother
Children, I come back today To tell you a story of the long dark way That I had to climb, that I had to know In order that the race might live and grow. Look at my face- dark as the night- Yet shining like the sun with love's true light. I am the dark girl who crossed the red sea Carrying in my body the seed of the free. I am the woman who worked in the field Bringing the cotton and the corn to yield. I am the one who labored as a slave, Beaten and mistreated for the work that I gave- Children sold away from me, I'm husband sold, too. No safety , no love, no respect was I due. Three hundred years in the deepest South: But God put a song and a prayer in my mouth . God put a dream like steel in my soul. Now, through my children, I'm reaching the goal. Now, through my children, young and free, I realized the blessing deed to me. I couldn't read then. I couldn't write. I had nothing, back there in the night. Sometimes, the valley was filled with tears, But I kept trudging on through the lonely years. Sometimes, the road was hot with the sun, But I had to keep on till my work was done: I had to keep on! No stopping for me- I was the seed of the coming Free. I nourished the dream that nothing could smother Deep in my breast- the Negro mother. I had only hope then , but now through you, Dark ones of today, my dreams must come true: All you dark children in the world out there, Remember my sweat, my pain, my despair. Remember my years, heavy with sorrow- And make of those years a torch for tomorrow. Make of my pass a road to the light Out of the darkness, the ignorance, the night. Lift high my banner out of the dust. Stand like free men supporting my trust. Believe in the right, let none push you back. Remember the whip and the slaver's track. Remember how the strong in struggle and strife Still bar you the way, and deny you life- But march ever forward, breaking down bars. Look ever upward at the sun and the stars. Oh, my dark children, may my dreams and my prayers Impel you forever up the great stairs- For I will be with you till no white brother Dares keep down the children of the Negro Mother. - Langston Hughes | |
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i is sees dat no body is say H. RAP BROWN.
maybe dat is a little too graphics fo ya. "sweet peter gitter the womb beater the baby maker, the carddle shaker." i is jus luh dat shit. oh, he is write da book too King BAD is the giver of ME LIFE
Me will Live for he, Me Die for He this account, i would make it FRY for He. | |
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This has to be one of my most favorite poems from the Black Arts Movement. By Nikki Giovanni, and before folks are all up in arms about the verses make sure you read it ALL THE WAY THROUGH.
The True Import of Present Dialogue: Black vs. Negro by Nikki Giovanni January 1968 (For Peppi, Who Will Ultimately Judge our Efforts) Nigger Can you kill Can you kill Can a nigger kill a honkie Can a nigger kill the Man Can you kill nigger Huh? Nigger can you kill Do you know how to draw blood Can you poison Can you stab-a-jew Can you kill huh? Nigger Can you Kill Can you run a protestant down with you `68 El Dorado (that’s all they’re good for anyway) Can you kill Can you piss on a blond head Can you cut if off Can you kill A nigger can die We ain’t got to prove we can die We got to prove we can kill They sent us to Kill Japan and Africa We policed europe Can you kill Can you kill a white man Can you kill the nigger in you Can you make your nigger mind die Can you kill your nigger mind and free your black hands to strangle Can you kill Can a nigger kill Can you shoot straight and Fire for good measure Can you splatter their brains in the street Can you kill them Can you lure them to bed to kill them We kill in Viet Nam for them We kill for UN & NATO & SEATO & US And everywhere for all alphabet but BLACK Can we learn to kill WHITE for BLACK Learn to kill niggers Learn to be Black men "That...magic, the start of something revolutionary-the Minneapolis Sound, we should cherish it and not punish prince for not being able to replicate it."-Dreamshaman32 | |
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nice NuPower!! | |
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ACCOLADES to both RHONDA B and NUPWRSOUL I AM King BAD a.k.a. BAD,
YOU EITHER WANNA BE ME, OR BE JUST LIKE ME  ™ | |
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I miss Curtis Mayfield.  | |
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SuperiorTe said: I miss Curtis Mayfield.
Me too. Nice poems, y'all. Saving them all. Thanks. "Peace and Benz -- The future, made in Germany" | |
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There is a book that was published in 1995 "Proud Sisters - The Wisdom & Wit of African-American Women. This book contains quotes and a few poems of just about every inspirational black women who helped pave the way for those of us who have the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of life. A good book. | |
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Alex Haley will always get Props from Me.the Mini-series is the Most Powerful thing that My Eyes have Ever seen.so much of it has come too pass in my lifetime. mistermaxxx | |
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