Those people...

Amiri Baraka, the artist formerly known a LeRoi Jones, loves Jazz, is a cool dude, works to help with street kids and gang members, and bebops his way through public readings. He’s a guy who began his career as a poet and editor and quickly became associated with the Beat Generation where he resided until the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965. Although the Beats are known for acceptance and 

tolerance, Baraka apparently decided at this time the best way to fight for civil rights would be to distance himself from the white world. Thus, he moved to Harlem and associated himself with the Black Nationalist movement. Wikipedia reports, “he broke away from the basically white Beat Generation and became very critical of the pacifist and integrationist Civil Rights movement. His revolutionary poetry now became more controversial. A poem like Black Art (1969), according to academic Werner Sollors from Harvard University, expressed his need to commit the violence required to ‘establish a Black World.’ Rather than use poetry as an escapist mechanism, Baraka saw poetry as a weapon of action. His poetry demanded violence against those he felt were responsible for an unjust society.”

Here's the poem referenced in the quote:

Black Art
Amiri Baraka

Poems are bullshit unless they are
teeth or trees or lemons piled
on a step. Or black ladies dying
of men leaving nickel hearts
beating them down. Fuck poems
and they are useful, wd they shoot
come at you, love what you are,
breathe like wrestlers, or shudder
strangely after pissing. We want live
words of the hip world live flesh &
coursing blood. Hearts Brains
Souls splintering fire. We want poems
like fists beating niggers out of Jocks
or dagger poems in the slimy bellies
of the owner-jews. Black poems to
smear on girdlemamma mulatto bitches
whose brains are red jelly stuck
between 'lizabeth taylor's toes. Stinking
Whores! we want "poems that kill."
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
with tongues pulled out and sent to Ireland. Knockoff poems for dope selling wops or slick halfwhite politicians Airplane poems, rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr . . .tuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuh . . .rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr . . . 

Setting fire and death to
whities ass. Look at the Liberal
Spokesman for the jews clutch his throat
& puke himself into eternity . . . rrrrrrrr
There's a negroleader pinned to
a bar stool in Sardi's eyeballs melting
in hot flame Another negroleader
on the steps of the white house one
kneeling between the sheriff's thighs
negotiating coolly for his people.
Aggh . . . stumbles across the room . . .
Put it on him, poem. Strip him naked
to the world! Another bad poem cracking
steel knuckles in a jewlady's mouth
Poem scream poison gas on beasts in green berets
Clean out the world for virtue and love,
Let there be no love poems written
until love can exist freely and
cleanly. Let Black people understand
that they are the lovers and the sons
of warriors and sons
of warriors Are poems & poets &
all the loveliness here in the world
We want a black poem. And a
Black World.
Let the world be a Black Poem
And Let All Black People Speak This Poem
Silently
or LOUD 

Well all this is well and good. Here’s a guy who was fed up with the racism he saw around him and decided to take action. But for those of you who know the story, part of Baraka’s “action” included at one time refusing to read poetry to white audiences (a position he has since abandoned), advocating violence toward those he believes are responsible for racism (a position that he may have also abandoned), and an ongoing anti-Semitic undertone which raises its head every once in a while even though he publicly denies it. 

I happened to be in the audience that booed Baraka in 2002 at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival when he read his 9/11 poem “Somebody Blew Up America.” This poem, which is actually quite good with the exception of Baraka’s anti-Semitic conspiracy theory stanza, caused the governor of New Jersey to ask Baraka to resign as the state’s poet laureate. The controversial stanza is:

“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?” 

For the entire poem here’s the link:
Somebody Blew Up America

Baraka’s is just one example of the dilemma that may be inherent in all of us. How do we reconcile conflicting ideas. For Baraka, his conflict is in reconciling a personal hatred of racism with a personal hatred of certain groups. For me it is reconciling a personal humanitarian position of acceptance, compassion, and tolerance with existential “you get what you pay for” thinking. Sure this is often reconcilable, but when it comes to population control, modern medicine, and environmental issues, things get a bit confusing. So over the next three days, I will wrestle with my conflicts and see if indeed there is some resolution.