Mosaic Winter 2004

moL I T E Rs A R Y M aA G A Z I N Eic

HAKI MADHUBUTI Old School War Essay

AMIRI BARAKA Verbal Fisticuffs with Bill O’Reilly

DR. TODD BOYD Taking It to the Head BAKARI KITWANA Race and Hip Hop

YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA Poetic War Stories

RAQUEL RIVERA Where do Puerto Ricans fit into Hip Hop

CAMILLE YARBROUGH In the Midst of an Artistic Journey

OF LOVE, WAR & HIP HOP SUMMER 2004 | mosaic 1 2 SUMMER 2004 | mosaic www.mosaicbooks.com issue fourteen, finally

Contents

Generation Flex | 8 Former Source editor and author of The Hip Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture, Bakari Kitwana brings an intellectual voice to the dialogue of hip hop and politics. by Thabiti Lewis

Rican Havoc | 12 In five Q&As, hip-hop head and scholar Raquel Rivera, New York Ricans From the Hip Hop Zone, breaks down the culture in Black and Brown. by Ron Kavanaugh

Love and War | 14 Three literary stallwarts revisit America’s battle-fatiqued history

> essay Truth’s Consequences by Haki Madhubuti

> essay Yusef Komunyakaa’s Vietnam War Poetry by Angela Salas, Ph. D.

> dialogue ...with liberty and justice for all Amiri Baraka chats with Bill O’Reilly

Black Heads | 28 Dr. Todd Boyd, The New H.N.I.C: The Death of Civil Rights and the Reign of Hip Hop, approaches the new cultural movement with an unsettling urgency. by Lee Hubbard

All Praises Due |34 Writer, dancer, educator, and actress Camille Yarbrough talks about her life and prolific career. by DuEwa Frazier

SUMMER 2004 | mosaic 3 SUMMER 2004 No. 14

LYNNE d. JOHNSON Editor at Large DEATRA HAIME Reviews Editor RON KAVANAUGH Editor/Publisher

Mosaic Literary Magazine (ISSN 1531-0388) is published four times per year by the Literary Freedom Project. Content copyright © 2004. No portion of this magazine can be reprinted or reproduced in any form without prior permission from the publisher.

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Contact the editor We welcome letters and comments. Send us an email, [email protected] or a letter: Mosaic Literary Magazine 314 W 231St. # 470 Bronx, NY 10463. Please visit Mosaicbooks.com for guidelines on submitting poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and essays.

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POSTMASTER Please send address corrections to Mosaic 314 W. 231 St #470 Bronx, NY 10463

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brighter days

After a brief hiatus we’ve returned to the grind. Happy I have to confess, the Literary Freedom Project did not to be back, elated to put an end to the when’s-the- spring from an altruistic epiphany. It came out of a next-issue-coming-out mantra. desire to survive and the realization that for lovers of books independence is the only way we can. The one good thing about absence is it gives you time to think about the challenges faced––printing costs, After many a day spent begging for ads while witnessing time dedication, personnel––and you know what, this the self-publishing explosion–writers bearing the weight sh*t‘s tough. In our absence Book and Readerville of not only writing but also publishing their own work– magazines have ceased publication. But please don’t I realized that I should lead instead of follow. By forming ask why we continue. Sadists, I suppose, all with rent- coalitions publishing can be conquered on a small paying commitments, who have to carve out time but important level. The independence from pursuing ★ weeks in advance to find a few hours to read. Hats off advertisers will, in the end, give us the ability to examine to anyone–fool–hardy enough to start a new freely the torrent of poetry and literature that often commercial literary venture. beset and occasionally brighten our office.

To that end, there is good news. After some unplanned In order to start a successful organization we must sure- hiccups, we’re in the home stretch of completing our up our strong point, Mosaic. We’ve invited a cadre of I.R.S. paperwork. Mosaic Literary Magazine will begin cognoscenti to help steer Mosaic and strengthen its publishing under the auspices of the Literary Freedom foundation. It’s our hope that our new editorial board Project, a not-for-profit arts organization dedicated to will guide Mosaic as it ascends to preeminent creating opportunities for social change through independent literary publication. ★ literature and creative thinking. The nonprofit status, new editorial board, and our Besides publishing Mosaic, we will also host readings; continued commitment to literature will, if not ensure continue to present the Re:Verse Festival, our annual success, at least guarantee survival. celebration of independent publishing and media; and hold literature workshops for teens in Ron Kavanaugh ★ communities of color, instructing them on the Editor/Publisher importance of critical and social thinking through literature and media. (Social change through the arts) 2 RE:VERSE

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THE MAY 2002 ISSUE OF BLACK ENTERPRISE MAGA- ZINE PUBLISHED THE FIRST OF A FOUR-PART SERIES THAT EXAMINED THE GLOBAL ECONOMY OF HIP HOP IN THE AREAS OF MUSIC, FASHION, SPORTS, AND FILM.

ation flex The goal of the series was to reveal the power of hip hop in shaping advertising campaigns and directing consumer purchases. The very existence of a four-part study of hip hop’s influence on popular culture speaks volumes regarding its prevalence in the lives of America’s and the world’s youth culture.

What is most interesting is that amid all the hoopla about hip hop’s economic success one author has settled on analyzing the hip-hop generation and the sociopolitical forces shaping it. Bakari Kitwana’s The Hip Hop Generation: the Crisis in African American Youth in gener 8 SUMMER 2004 | mosaicBAKARI KITWANA, EDUCATOR AND FORMER SOURCE EDITOR, BREAKS DOWN HIP HOP RACE BY THABITI LEWIS www.mosaicbooks.com Crisis, unlike other books on rap music his undergraduate years as a student/activist at the from James Spadey, Tricia Rose, Greg Tate, University of Rochester, and from a tenure as edito- and Nelson George, Kitwana’s book does rial director of Third World Press, where he enjoyed more than record the history and trends a close relationship with his friend and mentor Haki of the music. It offers an analysis of the Madhubuti. While at Third World Press he pub- obstacles facing this post-civil rights gen- lished The Rap on Gangsta Rap, which along with eration, namely their racial, social, politi- stints as executive editor and political editor at the cal, and economic struggles. The text is Source magazine led to the publication of The Hip divided into eight chapters ranging from Hop Generation. It seems his varied experiences from an introduction and definition of the new grassroots to corporate have balanced his perspec- Black youth culture to race wars, activism tives quite well, as is evidenced by the quality of his in the hip-hop generation and the chal- latest work. lenge of rap. Perhaps the strongest chapters are “Young, Don’t Give a Fuc* and In the introduction to The Hip Hop Generation, Black,” “The New Black Youth Culture,” Kitwana states that his examination of the hip-hop and “The Politics of the Hip-Hop Genera- generation (those born between 1965-1984) “is an tion.” The latter was especially engaging attempt to jumpstart the dialogue necessary to change because it illuminates the internal horrors our current course.” Among the most important top- of Black-on-Black crime and underground ics of dialogue are: How high incarceration rates af- economies as well as the age-old conun- fect Black lives, why the unemployment rate of young drum that has plagued the Black commu- Blacks is double that of Whites, what it means to nity of “old guard” leadership eschewing come of age in first generation of post-civil rights the youth and the legitimacy of their con- America, and what issues are focal to this generation’s cerns. However, the lengthy discussion on activism and political agenda. “gangsta” films entitled, “Young, Don’t Give a Fuc* and Black” is a must read, for here He is equally critical of the older civil rights genera- Kitwana takes the films to task for promot- tion, which is ironic because they were equally criti- ing negative behavior and cultivating cal of their elders for also failing to allow the youth to skewed social views. His discussion of con- build on their political and social gains. temporary cinema seems to capture the essence of the hip-hop generation he sug- Although Kitwana is to be commended for his at- gests is in crisis. tempt to critically examine sexism and misogyny, at times he seems to have mistaken some genuine male Kitwana’s arrival at this point stems from bonding for anti-female behavior. “America has so his experiences as a teenager in New York, vilified young Black men that we’ve circled the wag-

SUMMER 2004 | mosaic 9 ons, excluding all others, including Black Chavis. They don’t understand that this is not a time for women.” Attributing this to gangs, prison, and grandstanding; this is a new movement. Ben [Chavis] street culture. The weakness in this argu- knows the history of SNCC (Student Non-violent Co- ment lies is the very natural reality of male ordinating Committee), which the elders helped get off bonding that is healthy and socialized by the ground, yet he failed to tell Russell and them, “I can activities outside of the prisons or gangs, help you but you need to start your own group.” The which are not the only reality for Black civil rights generation just did not do enough to help us males. Also, this discussion lacks the force build political organizations. They have to ask them- of some of his other chapters due to a sur- selves what they did to contribute to the current gen- prisingly unbalanced commentary that eration. completely omits male perspective on the subject (except for the misguided antics of TL: What I find interesting is that impresario Russell Tupac and Mike Tyson, whom he Simmons, whom you critique in your correctly critiques). Nonetheless, book, is on the periphery of the age range what is important about his dis- for those included in the hip-hop genera- cussion of sexism and misogyny tion, yet he has managed to position him- is that it does not omit the rel- self in the center of the political force of evance of feminist perspectives this generation. How is that possible and and the problems of sexism and does it mean that he is an exception or misogyny in the hip-hop genera- that his political direction has validity? tion. BK: It’s important to me that any antago- I recently chatted with Bakari nism with Russell is played down. We about his book and his view of need to build an organization and a move- the state of things for the hip-hop ment and it can’t be done with too much generation. attention focused on petty differences. My differences with Russell aren’t personal and em- Thabiti Lewis: In some of your recent inter- phasizing them makes it seem like we have personal views you have been critical of Russell beef, which we don’t. It’s a difference of stategy and Simmons and his political aspirations. tactic. I’m sure we’ll have an opportunity to work to- Weren’t you among those in the planning gether down the road, and I don’t want anything I say room when Simmons, David Mays, and to be construed as “hatin’” or to be used to block that. other head hip-hop honchos convened the Also, I have older brothers who are Russell’s age which initial press conference. Are you still in the makes it easy for me to see the delineations—what he mix, so to speak and if not, why? thinks is important differs from the hip-hop generation. Look at his stuff and read between the lines and there Bikari Kitwana: [Simmons] doesn’t want to is no consciousness at all. deal with young activists who haven’t done something or don’t have money. Thus, they TL: Someone may ask, what makes Bakari Kitwana deal with Al Sharpton, Jessie [Jackson], Ben the person to intellectualize about hip hop, much less

10 SUMMER 2004 | mosaic www.mosaicbooks.com carve out who gets into or excluded from BK: I want my book to spark a dialogue. I want to the hip-hop generation? I am from St. be part of the solution. I’m a writer and theorist and Louis and went to college in New York, hope that I can contribute something to the conver- and let me tell you, people were constantly sation around hip hop that has for too long needed challenging the validity of my claim to rap to go to another level. I want folks to start thinking music and hip-hop culture because I was about the issues differently. Stop thinking that hip not from the East coast, although, now we hop as a musical form is all this generation is about have the Nellys, Hot Boys, Master Ps and is a big first step. We need to take another giant step other regional successes. Still, the younger forward in terms of social change and hip hop pro- heads might contend that you are on the vides a unique opportunity. However if we expect it cusp of the very generation you delineate, to come via rap lyrics alone, we’re fooling ourselves. that your Long Island origins, instead of Any of the existing groups could play that role. For NYC proper, pushes you out of the box. example, old school Black Panthers instead of ar- guing with the New Black Panthers could help them BK: This book expresses how rap get the organization off the ground and its generation speak to the and not make the same mistakes they realities of what we grew up with, did. But this can’t be done by preach- how the music touches on ma- ing, talking down to young heads or jor social and political issues they repeatedly telling us how many miles faced. However, the truth is (in old heads walked to school bare- response to my being from out- foot. side New York City) that EPMD, Public Enemy, Eric B. and Rakim, TL: Judging from these comments it Keith Murray, and A Tribe Called appears that a new political focus was Quest are just a sampling of those the impetus for your book? It seems from Long Island whose contri- to me that your critique of these com- butions to rap are indisputable. ponents of Black politics derives pri- marily from the study of the civil rights movement TL: I think it is fantastic that you have and for that matter, your involvement in Black power moved yourself out of the role of “leader” institutions. Would it be safe to make such assump- and into that of participant, seeking solu- tions? tions towards moving the political, economic, and race struggles of this genera- BK: The hip-hop generation has new things to say tion forward. Why not take this book and about politics in the 21st century. This book came shout: “Here, I have the answer; read this about largely because the civil rights and Black and you will know what to do?” I only say power movements’ messages needed to be rede- this because [Hip Hop Generation] ad- fined for our generation [hip hop]. They have failed dresses numerous pressing issues that im- to incorporate our issues to make those institutions pact youth and elders in contemporary more relevant, like NAACP, Operation PUSH, and society. Urban League. ★

SUMMER 2004 | mosaic 11 RICAN HAVOC

RAQUEL RIVERA, NEW YORK RICANS FROM THE HIP HOP ZONE, REFLECTS ON THE LATINO CONNECTIONS TO THE ORIGINS OF HIP HOP

by Ron Kavanaugh

You clearly recognize the link among Blacks, Puerto Ricans, and hip hop, but what occured to make the form almost completely identified with Black culture? It has been a combination of the way the entertainment industry has marketed rap and also the misun- derstanding of the shared cultural territory (which extends way beyond hip hop culture) between African Americans and Puerto Ricans.

Does it matter that Blacks have taken the major role in rap when you consider it’s more about a culture as opposed to race or heritage? The fact that African Americans have had the predominant role in rap is an important fact and object of study because it points towards notions of race and ethnic identity and how they impact cultural production. It also reveals some of the ways in which race and ethnic identity are used as selling points by the entertainment industry.

Even though rap is currently a multi-racial and multi-ethnic phenomenon both in terms of production as well as consumption, race and heritage continue to be of crucial importance within rap music.

12 SUMMER 2004 | mosaic www.mosaicbooks.com Since Black culture has become the dominant culture in shaping today’s styles do you think future Puerto Ricans rappers will wear their pride the way Fat Joe does? The entertainment industry is extremely fickle. I would not venture to predict what will happen. I do hope that with the future come more Puerto Rican rappers who are knowledgeable about their history and culture. That does not mean that every Puerto Rican rapper has to say she or he is Puerto Rican every 5 seconds, but that the way they do express their Puerto Ricanness responds to the complexities of being Puerto Rican.

How do you feel about Latins who rap without reference to their own heritage? I think its fine. There is room for everything under the sun, especially if its coming from the heart. The Latino experience in the United States is very diverse, and art should be a reflection of that.

A few years ago there seemed to be a strange wave of Latin performers (Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin, Cristine Aguilera) totally entrenched in American pop music but at the same time being embraced as the new Latin beat. Is this the future of Latin rappers? Market trends are pretty unpredictable. Who would have predicted in the early 90s that there would be a renewed interest in the history of hip hop in the late 90s? Who would have predicted in the early 90s the fad within commercial rap music which started in the late 90s of including Spanish words in rhymes? Latino rappers may become media darlings tomorrow or they may be stripped of their legitimacy. Who knows? ★

SUMMER 2004 | mosaic 13 of

lov& e w14 SUMMER 2004 | mosaicarwww.mosaicbooks.com America’s return to the dubious situation of conflict merits an oblique

look at war. Not as a contemporary conundrum but as a persistent

belief.

The Gulf War is only the latest in a long line of choices America has made

as an aggressor. Political stances taken today were held during the Vietnam

War, Korean War, Spanish American War, et al. And just as many have

spoken out in the past, including Baldwin, Hughes, DuBois, here, views on

America’s battles have resulted in three disparate yet unifying voices;

reflection on the benefits of the first amendment, the empathy developed

for an enemy, and a cautious ode to America.

These poets, all pillars, continue to exercise their most basic right.

Speaking with a disquieting urgency, using free speech to confront

contemporary ills while bringing to the fore the lasting results of past

conflicts.

Truth’s Consequences Poet Haki R. Madhubuti gives his views on war and its reprocussions

Yusef Komunyakaa’s Vietnam War Poetry

An essay on Dien Cai Dau

by Angela Salas Ph. D.

...with liberty and justice for all. e Amiri Baraka and Bill O’Reilly obliquely discuss the first amendment.

SUMMER 2004 | mosaic 15 Haki R. Madhubuti

TRUTH’SCONSEQUENCES

16 SUMMER 2004 | mosaic www.mosaicbooks.com I DO NOT WEAR AN AMERICAN FLAG ON MY COLLAR, NOR IS THERE A FLAG ON MY CAR OR ON A WINDOW IN MY HOME. FOR THOSE WHO PROUDLY DISPLAY THE FLAG I FEEL THAT IT IS THEIR RIGHT TO DO SO, JUST AS IT IS MY RIGHT NOT TO JOIN THEM.

I am a veteran, volunteering and serving in the United States Army between October 1960 and August 1963, discharged honorably and early to attend college on the G.I. Bill of Rights. The military was my way out of debilitating poverty and I will never speak ill of it. However, I am wise enough to not send my sons when the options of a first-class university is there for them (two of them attended Northwestern University). On the road to becoming a poet, I have learned to love America. Coming to this feeling was not easy or expected. On my many journeys, if I’ve picked up anything, it is to question authority.

SUMMER 2004 | mosaic 17 As a poet, educator, publisher, and cultural activ- acts of some people and assign them to all people ist I have had the privilege to travel and interact of a particular ethnic group, race, or culture. But with people in nearly every state in the United the plain truth is that we are all individuals. It is States. I have served on the faculty of major uni- best to accept or reject people based upon their versities in Illinois, New York, Washington D.C., individual talents, gifts, intellect, character, and poli- Ohio, Maryland, and Iowa. Between 1970 and tics. America’s many cultural and ethnic groups 1978, I commuted by air each week between share the English language, public education, Chicago and Washington D.C. to teach at Howard popular culture, mass media, and the powerful University. In the early eighties, I drove each week and effective acculturation into Western civiliza- between Chicago and Iowa City for two and a tion and culture. In essence, if we are honest, we half years to teach and earn a graduate degree at are more alike than many would admit. the University of Iowa. These commutes and other travels, nationally and internationally, over the last I wrote in my book Enemies: The Clash of Races three decades have enlarged me in unexpected (1978), that I love America, but loathe what ways. The United States is a very large and beauti- America had done to me, my people, and other ful country. Its population is reasonably well-edu- non-white citizens of this country. I still stand on cated and is highly diverse––racially, ethnically, these words. We must never forget that America’s religiously, economically, and culturally. This re- “democracy” was built on the destruction of the ality gives me cause for hope. hearts, minds, souls, spirits, bodies, and holocausts of the Native peoples and Africans. This fact is not This hope has helped me to escape the trap of taught in the nation’s elementary and secondary accepting simple generalizations about racial and schools, or universities––although it remains the ethnic groups and narrow assumptions about their secret behind the enormous economic success of political positions. Serving in the United States the United States. The nation’s inability to hon- Army as a very young man, taught me that close estly come to terms with its own bloodied past quarter living, serious open-minded study, daily with public debate, acknowledgement and resti- conversation, and interaction with people of other tution remains at the heart of the centuries-old cultures can do wonders in eradicating stereo- racial divide. The sophistication of today’s op- types and racial and ethnic pigeonholing. pression of Native peoples, Black, Latino, and poor people is much more insidious, insti- My work over the last thirty-nine tutionalized and thereby excused by years has been confined almost ex- media, politicians, and corporate clusively to the African-American America as something of the past. community, the same community where I live, work, and build institu- At the same, time, we must acknowl- tions. As a result, I have few White, edge the vast changes in voting rights, Asian, Latino American, or Native employment, housing patterns, po- American friends or associates. I am litical representation, legal and health quite aware that there are literally care structures, access to secondary tens of millions “good and well” and higher education, and the cre- meaning people of all cultures doing ation of a large, yet fragile Black progressive political and cultural work every day. middle class. None of this would have come about, I say this because it is very easy to take the negative if not for the many Black struggles over the last one

18 SUMMER 2004 | mosaic www.mosaicbooks.com hundred years that forced the powers that be to a tangible future for generations of Blacks to com- accept their own laws, and not discriminate against pete and make their own statements about suc- people purely on racial or ethnic differences. cess and attainment.

Our struggles here for full citizenship, equality, and Yes, there is still much more to do. I have tried to fair access to all the opportunities afforded White give some insight into the politics of that work in citizens remains at the core of progres- this book. However, many (not all) Af- sive Black struggle. Our right to be politi- rican Americans have more freedoms, cally active is fundamentally what de- prosperity, liberties, and possibilities mocracy is about. This is no small right. in the United States than Black people My work of writing, teaching, editing, any place in the world today. Of publishing, traveling to speak, organiz- course, those of our people in this ing conferences, and workshops and category are still a fragile minority. As other cultural and political activities that contradictory, inconsistent, racist and I and other like-minded people of all unfair as America continues to be, it cultures are involved in could not be still is a nation that does afford a done in Afghanistan, China, Nigeria, Haiti, Iraq, chance, an opportunity to those who are intelli- Liberia, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Libya, Colombia, gent, organized and strong, focused and bold, se- Kuwait, and most of the member nations of the rious, hard working, and lucky enough to make United Nations. their statements heard.

In the early seventies, I often thought of migrating I can state unequivocally that my publishing com- to Africa. However, after visits to many African na- pany, Third World Press, publishes only the books tions, discussions with African Americans who have that I, and its editorial staff agree upon. Yes, there migrated and returned, and my non-romantic as- has been political and economic pressure on us sessment of the African continent economically, to not publish certain books. However, these pres- politically, and culturally, I decided against it. I sures did not directly come from the United States realized after a great deal of soul searching and government. The two African-centered schools I private and public debate that I could help Africa co-founded, New Concept preschool and the and its people (us) more by working hard to be a Betty Shabazz International Charter School like- success here and like the Irish, the Jewish, and wise continue to exist without open opposition other ethnic groups reach out to my people from the government. abroad. This decision remains critical in my thinking and actions today. For 21 years, myself along with other conscious and committed young brothers and sisters oper- My focus is to let young, and not so young broth- ated multiple bookstores in Chicago and only ers know that we do have realistic options in closed them in 1995 because of serious competi- America. It is my responsibility to communicate to tion from the super chain bookstores. But that, in you that our ancestors’ centuries old bloodied the United States, I and millions of others have fight for human, economic, and political rights in been able to fight for our space even in often dif- the United States has not been in vain. Our people, ficult political and economic structures is a com- against unrealistic odds, have taken the dirt, ment on the possibilities of this country. crumbs, scorn, and ideas of America and secured (continued on page 40)

SUMMER 2004 | mosaic 19 20 SUMMER 2004 | mosaic www.mosaicbooks.com yusef komunyakaa’s VIETNAM WAR POETRY

Angela M. Salas, Ph.D.

In a review of Yusef Komunyakaa’s Magic City, Jennifer Richter notes the volume “illustrates that at- tempting to know the world and make sense of it is, in fact, a lifelong process.” In “Sunday Afternoons,” from the same volume, the young narrator asks, “Where did we learn to be unkind?” While Magic City takes as its subject a childhood spent in Klan country, the question of where “we learn to be unkind” is central to Komunyakaa’s work.

One crucible in which Komunyakaa’s vision was forged was that of the Vietnam War, where he served as a correspondent from 1969-70. His 1988 volume Dien Cai Dau (meaning crazy in the head) is explicitly about the Vietnam War experience; however, Komunyakaa’s every volume is an assertion about what it is to be an African-American male, what it was to be a military correspondent (hence both witness and participant) during the Vietnam War, what it means to have been raised in the Jim Crow South, and what it has meant to see and know things he ought not. The issues with which Komunyakaa grapples in Dien Cai Dau include: the uneasiness of the soldier of color sent to battle other people of color; empathy for the enemy, whom he nonetheless brutalizes; awareness of women as victims of war and of male aggression; and the certain knowledge that serving alongside whites will not afford him equal regard in the world.

Komunyakaa won the Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for the 1993 volume Neon Vernacular; his work strives mightily toward canonization and, I predict, the Nobel Prize. Influenced by French and Russian literature, powerfully surrealistic, steeped in the work of the Language poets and masterful at intertextual riffs, Komunyakaa’s poetry “approaches the intensity of no less a figure than prototypical canon quester Ralph Ellison in his bid for mainstream American literary status” according to Alvin Aubert. And Vince Gotera, Komunyakaa’s friend, former student, and one of the first to write sustained critical examinations of Komunyakaa’s work, asserts that the poet wishes that his work, including the poems

SUMMER 2004 | mosaic 21 comprising Dien Cai Dau, be “tested with the Komunyakaa extends his poetic hand (and his full rigor applied to all serious literature.” metaphors) too overtly to justify criticism that his vision is too particular for wide consumption. This dedication to craft does not, however, re- When Komunyakaa spoke at Adrian College on move Komunyakaa’s poetry from the political October 3, 1996, an African-American man asked sphere. On the contrary, Komunyakaa him- him if he found his work overlooked or resisted by self, in a 1986 interview with Gotera, articu- white readers. “No,” Komunyakaa replied, “I write lated his discomfort with what he called a “neo- in images. Images are pretty universal. Images in- Fugitive” school of poetry, divorced from the vite the reader as a participant in the making of political concerns of the world, saying “I be- meaning.” Earlier in the discussion, Komunyakaa lieve poetry has always been political, long be- had declined to answer questions of what indi- fore poets had to deal with the page and white vidual poems are “about,” saying, “I desire the space. . . .There seems always some human reader to get to the end and go back to the begin- landscape that creates a Paul Celan. Too many ning. I don’t want the reader to just say, ‘OK, it contemporary poets would like to dismiss this means this’ and throw it away.” fact.” A 1992 interview with Muna Asali, New England We know that war can create poets. Dien Cai Review, puts a fine point on issues of race in Dau speaks boldly about the Vietnam War as Komunyakaa’s poetry: after Asali asked him about the landscape that helped produce Yusef how he avoided the “ghettoization” of his work, Komunyakaa’s particular, yet universalizing, po- Komunyakaa replied that “ghettoization is imposed etic vision. Komunyakaa deploys symbolism, upon certain people, and . . . is a pigeonhole that surrealism, journalistic language, Vietnamese the artist attempts to traverse by all means. But we and African-American idiom, imagism, allusion, cannot crawl out of our skin, even when we try to and even revivified cliche to give life and voice lie to ourselves or say that race doesn’t matter . . ..” to those individuals, white, black, Vietnamese, Race matters, particularly when it is race that per- American, women, men, rape victims and rap- mits others to question your humanity and to ists, whose human dramas occurred in the midst pathologize you. However, writing and being read of the war. In so doing, Komunyakaa refuses to exclusively on racial grounds (however valid they allow the claim that, because his experience are) risks being relegated to the ranks of special- and witness are outside the reader’s (as white, interest writer. On the other hand, requiring, as young, as female or draft resister) that they through imagery and the deferral of resolution, need not grapple with the issues that burn in that readers enter the poem and participate in cre- his poems. Instead, Komunyakaa writes on ating its meaning, is to cross the color line and drag terms that require a reader’s interaction with the reader back with you. What could be more his work and with the witness it bears. What he political than to confront a young white reader does to stunning effect is, through exquisite with what the black soldier heard in the field: that craftsmanship, universalize his experience so while the soldier was fighting for democracy in that even young, white, Northern readers can Vietnam, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated say “yes, I get it. I can see that Vietnamese for fighting for the democratic rights of blacks in woman being consumed by Napalm in ‘You America. And what could be more activist and and I Are Disappearing.’ I can see and feel the political than making a reader, years after the fact, horror.” feel that she too, stands impotent and complicit as

22 SUMMER 2004 | mosaic www.mosaicbooks.com another woman burns “like a sack of dry ice,” The lines are still drawn in the dust of this combat “like a cattail torch/dipped in gasoline,” “like a zone: whites and blacks are to remain separate and shot glass of vodka,” “like a burning bush/driven unequal. “America pushes through the membrane” by a godawful wind”? when, banned from the club, as from bars back home, the soldier wanders to a place where “black The reader’s guide in the trip through Dien Cai GIs hold to their turf also,” looking for female com- Dau is a haunted young African-American soldier. pany to prove that he is not “a small boy/again in In the interview with Asali, Komunyakaa speaks of Bogalusa”: his very particular African-American narrative per- sona in Dien Cai Dau, saying: An off-limits sign pulls me deeper into alleys, as I look This black soldier in Vietnam . . . seems for a softness behind these voices rather uncomfortable with his role. wounded by their beauty and war. Maybe the agent of free will lurks like a Back in the bush at Dak To specter in his psyche. Or perhaps he & Khe Sanh, we fought feels guilty, because he has a sense of the brothers of these women history and he knows that he’s merely a we now hold in our arms. cog in the whole contradictory machin- There’s more than a nation ery some might call democracy or even inside us, as black & white manifest destiny. Maybe he has singled soldiers touch the same lovers himself out because he feels responsible. minutes apart, tasting After all, we are condemned to carry the each other’s breath, weight of our own hearts. Indeed, this without knowing these rooms soldier seems limboed in a kind of run into each other like tunnels existential loneliness. leading to the underworld.

This soldier is alone with his questions. He is Vietnam, like America, is divided in ways meant to tormented by Hanoi Hannah, who asks why a humiliate and emasculate the black soldier; yet the black man would fight the white man’s war; who soldier, struggling to retain his humanity, empathizes taunts him with Tina Turner music; who blurts with the prostitutes he uses and whose brothers he out news of racial unrest in America. He finds, may have killed. He has enough humor to realize further, that the race rules in effect in Bogalusa that, despite the illusion created for the white GIs, have been transplanted to this place so far from the prostitutes traffic in both black and white sol- home. In “Tu Do Street,” the black soldier still diers, aided by rooms that “run into each other like has his “place” when it comes to R&R: tunnels.” Jim Crow meets Vietnam and brings along all its ugliness and inherent absurdity. Music divides the evening I close my eyes & can see “Facing It,” the final selection in Dien Cai Dau im- Men drawing lines in the dust. plies, but refuses to give, resolution to the existential America pushes through the membrane crises of the war. “Facing It” takes place at the Viet- of mist & smoke, & I’m a small boy nam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. and again in Bogalusa. Whites Only is, as Gotera writes, “Literally a reflection about re- signs and Hank Snow. flections; it is a ‘facing’ of the dualities that govern

SUMMER 2004 | mosaic 23 this everyday life: there and here, America and Perhaps the most wrenching lines in the poem are Vietnam, living and dead. . . . Komunyakaa . . . those about the white veteran. “[T]hen his pale presents, practically unmediated, a series of im- eyes/look through mine. I’m a window.” Is this a ages.” “Facing It” reads this way: moment of empathy, when the white vet can see “through” the black’s eyes — really see with him? Or is it, perhaps more probably, a continuation of My black face fades, the racial status quo in America, with the white hiding inside the black granite. veteran seeing through the black as if he is not I said I wouldn’t, there; as if they have no common ground? And has this veteran, who has “lost his right arm/inside dammit: No tears. the stone,” been mutilated in the war, or is this loss I’m stone. I’m flesh. a momentary trick of the eyes? There are no My clouded reflection eyes me answers: instead, we have images of past memory and present time. Andrew Johnson is now a name like a bird of prey, the profile of night on the Memorial and a white flash the narrator slanted against morning. I turn remembers and forces the reader to see. The this way — the stone lets me go. Memorial itself can absorb the narrator, the other veteran’s arm, much as the war absorbed the lives I turn that way — I’m inside and blood of the 58,022 Americans whose names the Vietnam Veterans Memorial are inscribed on Maya Lin’s arresting black wall. again, depending on the light to make a difference. Komunyakaa has spoken of his poetry as an act of I go down the 58,022 names, witnessing. It is also an act of assertion. He speaks half-expecting to find with immediacy, clarity, and force about the vio- my own in letters like smoke. lence and cruelty we do to each other. In an age in which poetry is widely considered either threat- I touch the name Andrew Johnson; ening or impotent, Komunyakaa’s poems speak I see the booby trap’s white flash. with a force that provokes stunned silence in my names shimmer on a woman’s blouse own classrooms. They do this, I think, because Komunyakaa is so gifted at speaking through the but when she walks away horror of seeing and experiencing the harms the names stay on the wall. people inflict upon people, whether out of anger, Brushstrokes flash, a red bird’s despair, hopelessness, carelessness, or ignorance. Komunyakaa confronts Jim Crow, rape, self-ha- wings cutting across my stare. tred and all the things we would rather avoid dis- The sky. A plane in the sky. cussing in mixed company; in so doing, he re- A white vet’s image floats quires that his readers do so also. We come away closer to me, then his pale eyes from this confrontation emotionally bruised yet oddly relieved of the burden of silence maintained look through mine. I’m a window. around both the Vietnam War and issues of race He’s lost his right arm in America. We are all “condemned to carry the inside the stone. In the black mirror weight of our own hearts,” and Yusef Komunyakaa provides us with an inventory of the things we a woman’s trying to erase names: carry. ★ No, she’s brushing a boy’s hair.

24 SUMMER 2004 | mosaic www.mosaicbooks.com Yusef Komunyakaa

SUMMER 2004 | mosaic 25 ...WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL

26 SUMMER 2004 | mosaic www.mosaicbooks.com Bill O’Reilly interviews Amiri Baraka The O’Reilly Factor, Fox News, January 22, 2003 partial transcript

BARAKA: What was slavery? What happened to slavery? O’REILLY: Well I was — I was — you know, that... BARAKA: That was a long time ago. O’REILLY: Slavery was older than some of your poems I read, you know. BARAKA:& Well, are you saying Diallo — that was slavery. Are you saying... O’REILLY: I’m saying the jury... BARAKA: ... Byrd in Texas — that was slavery. O’REILLY: I will tell you this. The jury that... BARAKA: Are you telling me the man who was murdered in Alabama... O’REILLY: ... had black Americans on it acquitted the policemen. That’s all I can tell you. BARAKA: I know. O’REILLY: Black Americans... BARAKA: Are you going to tell me that Bush being against affirmative action, that’s not a continuation? Are you telling me that Bush getting into office... O’REILLY: With all due respect, Mr... BARAKA: Baraka. O’REILLY: Baraka, right. You know, I’m cloudy here because you’re throwing a lot of stuff at me. You teaching schoolchildren... BARAKA: I taught school for 20 years. O’REILLY: ... is akin to me having Mussolini come in and teach children. BARAKA: Well, your being on television is akin to having Goebbels on television. O’REILLY: All right. Well, I guess we... BARAKA: Joseph Goebbels. It’s the same thing. O’REILLY: I guess we don’t have too much common ground, other than we both don’t like bigots. BARAKA: We can talk about what — we don’t understand what each other is saying. O’REILLY: All right. I’ve got to tell you I appreciate you coming on in. I think you’re a lunatic, and... BARAKA: Yes. Well, I think you’re a lunatic who’s more dangerous because you’re on television. O’REILLY: All right. Mr. Baraka, thank you very much. We appreciate it. BARAKA: Thank you very much. That was short and sweet.

SUMMER 2004 | mosaic 27 BLACK

BY LEE HUBBARD

AFRICAN AMERICANS WHO GREW UP LISTENING TO MARVIN

GAYE IN THE LATE 60s AND EARLY 70s HAVE A DIFFERENT

PERSPECTIVE ON LIFE AND WHAT IT MEANS, THAN THE ONES

WHO ARE NOW GROWING UP ON JAY Z, AND OUTKAST.

28 SUMMER 2004 | mosaic www.mosaicbooks.com K HEADS

While this is apparent to most, you would never Blacks don’t think about this issue, and use the know this listening to many African-American word liberally. leaders today. And look at the voting patterns of younger Blacks compared to older Blacks. Older The differences in the two groups can be seen in Blacks have been the voice of the community for how they look at each other and how they view so long that many younger Blacks feel that their politics, history, and the importance of race in messages or the ideas that they wanted to convey today’s times. All of these issues are dealt with in have gone unheard. the book, The New HNIC: The Death of Civil Rights and the Reign of Hip Hop by Dr. Todd Boyd, But recent studies show that this lack of voice has an associate professor at the University of led to a generation gap between the two Southern California Cinema School. demographic groups. This gap on perceptions and ideas is very apparent when one looks at Boyd, the author of three previous books, and hip-hop music and its impact on the Black the writer and producer of the film The Wood, community. While older Blacks don’t like some believes that hip hop and the culture that it of the messages that are conveyed in the music represents is the voice of the new Black and the usage of the word “nigga,” many younger generation, which he feels is something that older

SUMMER 2004 | mosaic 29 Blacks cannot accept. In his book, Boyd deals People who grew up after the civil rights and with the myriad of issues that affect the two groups Black power eras have grown up in a different and how they are at odds with each other. I was era. It is hard for one generation to say this is the able to talk to the loquacious Boyd about his book, way it is and to try and pass it down to another the hip-hop and civil rights generations, the word generation, when another generation says we “nigga,” and his confrontation with Spike Lee. see things differently.

First, how would you define the civil rights At the end of the day, I am not saying that generation? racism has not disappeared. But I am saying To me the civil rights generation marks the time that there was a way in which people were period of people who grew up during the time taught to think during the civil rights era. They when Black people were segregated by law and were taught to look at things a certain way. were trying to push their way into the mainstream That mindset is no longer applicable. That of America. Then there is a generation of people mindset is out of style and it has played out. It is who grew up in the aftermath, between civil rights one thing to grow up in a world where there is and the Black power movement. They grew up in segregation. But it is different when it is legal, and the world that the success of civil rights gave them people can put up signs. Things are just different different options. and the civil rights mindset is outdated.

How would you define the hip-hop generation? So what do you mean by the new HNIC? I would define the hip-hop generation as the Back in the 1970s, people often used the phrase people who were born or came of age after the HNIC or Head Nigger in Charge. This was a hot civil rights movement, who came off age during 1970’s thing. It had to do with the first people the 1980s and the age of Regeanomics and after. integrating into mainstream society. I thought When there was no longer legal about this when thinking about the book segregation, but the impact of title. There is now a new group of African racism was such that you got Americans who have integrated the the rise of crack cocaine, the mainstream but in a very different way. rise of the prison industrial They did not go to the mainstream, the complex. Black people and mainstream came to them. These people, especially poor Black people to me, are the people who are best were pushed to the margins defined by hip-hop culture. and this culture of hip hop gave those a voice to express When thinking about this, I looked at themselves. Fortune magazine’s list of the 40 richest Dr. Todd Boyd people under the age of 40 and people So what about this divide between the hip-hop such as Master P, Michael Jordan, Will Smith, and and civil rights generation? P Diddy were on the list. Most of these young I think that this divide is pretty deep. We have a African Americans are connected to hip hop, and generation of Black people from the civil rights this is very significant. You have a number of era who have gotten accustomed to assuming that people with that much money and power their experience is the experience that all Black connected to hip hop. This is a new Black ruling people have experienced, and that is not the case. class.

30 SUMMER 2004 | mosaic www.mosaicbooks.com You are a tweener, a term that I and Bakari about gaining access. We now live in a society Kitwana term for people who grew up right after were people have access in some form. So we the Civil Rights Movement and just before the have to cut the garment according to the cloth. We hip-hop era. How does this make you feel when have to recognize that things are different. you write, talk, and analyze hip-hop culture? I look at it like this. You can call it being born Now people are looking for empowerment. They between the two. But I was born in 1964 and want to be able to participate in society and not as there are a lot of people who are claiming hip hop a secondary player but as a major player. In that who were not around in 1979. There are people way, civil rights will not do it. Hip hop is about in the hip-hop generation born in 1980 and 1981. keeping it real. A lot of civil rights were about I can remember being in school and having a accommodation. It was about putting on your best contest to see who could remember the lyrics of face, acting a certain way and demonstrating to “Rapper’s Delight.” I feel closely connected to hip the mainstream society that you were worthy of hop. I was born the same year that Martin King got being accepted. To me hip hop is not about the Nobel Prize. I am in some ways not part of the accommodation. It basically says that look, “we civil rights revolution. civil rights are more of my are who we are. If you like us, cool. If not, that is parent’s generation. cool too.” The culture is not trying to fit in. That is why I love that phrase, “I am going to do me.” I am But with hip hop, I was there from day one. To not going to do you or what everybody else wants me, I feel connected to hip hop me to do. I am going to do me and be although a lot of people my age don’t true to myself. That is very much different feel that they have that connection. I than the civil rights era. This is not to say feel like I have the ability to look at racism is gone and disappeared, but both hip hop and civil rights and times are different. comment intelligently on both. When I was on the set of the film The Wood Speaking of racism, what did you think six years ago, when the young actors about Trent Lott’s racist comments in on the film were working we would favor of segregation, which led him to sit up and talk about hip hop. The step down from his post as Senate older people on the film did not understand how Majority Leader? I could sit up there and talk about hip hop. To me In a way, when things like that happen I am it is the ability to walk both sides of the strength. If glad. There are so many people who want to you are going to be significant you can’t walk one act like there are no racists in our society or way. You cannot be one dimensional. racists in positions of power. When Black people mention racism, people say we are What is the difference between the civil rights making too much out of it. Or that you have a mode of thinking and the hip-hop generation’s chip on your shoulder or that was in the past. mode of thinking? To me, when he made his statement, that was Civil rights is very old school. It is valuable as confirmation of what we already know. something historic to learn from, but it is not something that can be applied today. Civil rights Trent Lott has had influence over something very was about access because Black people were significant. The statement just indicated we have denied so much in this society. Civil rights was a lot of people in this country who are still racist.

SUMMER 2004 | mosaic 31 And what frustrated me about this was the fact about. You have to remember that when hip hop that everyone wanted to act like he did not mean came about, that was during the time of Jerhi it. That it was a joke and off of the cuff. They curls, sequence suits, and Prince. wanted to imply that the statement was not bad. But ultimately, it was a good thing, because it is a No one was coming out in music with anything reminder that we still have a long way to go in this hard core. Hip hop came and it was like “Yo, we country. That there are still racists, there is still are taking it back to the streets.” Hip hop racism and that Black people and other people educated a lot of people. A lot of people did not of color are victimized by this. know about Malcolm, the Nation, or other elements of Black history. A lot of Black music How has hip-hop culture impacted the Black executives and Black civil rights people were community? talking about Bill Cosby and trying to be Heathcliff I think that hip hop has given the Black community Huxtable. Hip hop started speaking to people a voice. It has given the community a way to with more of an edge to it. express themselves. It has allowed people to represent. Hip hop is about the good, bad, and In the book you talk about the word “nigga”. ugly in Black life. Some people don’t want to deal Why did you say it is the most beautiful and with the bad and the ugly, they want to deal with powerful word that is used today? the good. But to me that is not progressive or is it I love the word “nigga.” It is my favorite word. realistic. When I wake up in the morning, I say the word ten times; Nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga. It puts Life is good sometimes, bad sometimes, and a smile on my face. I hate this N-word business sometimes it is ugly. Hip hop reveals that reality. that was started with OJ. It is not like just because Also, people do not have a sense of you don’t say the word that racism will history. If you look at the blues, they disappear. If you could guarantee that if were talking about some of the same people stopped saying nigga, then there things hip hop is talking about now. It would be no more racism then I will be was specific to its time, but all for not using the word. nevertheless, they were dealing with life. Hip hop is like a documentary The real issue with the word is what it film; it attempts to capture a certain symbolizes. It symbolizes a very sense of reality. I think that hip hop problematic history in America, and that has given the Black community a way to be seen is what we need to talk about. The word is just and heard in a very effective and dramatic way. window dressing. Hip hop has refined the word. It is not about nigga. It is NIGGA. Why was there resistance to hip hop in the Black music and civil rights community? Like Tupac said, “Never Ignorant Getting Goals There was a lot of bourgeois amongst a certain Accomplished”. Nigga. That is what I am about. segment of Black people. They felt that since they To me, any word that causes this much got there degrees, cars, jobs, businesses, and other controversy is something that we need to look things that they wanted to assimilate. Hip hop into and we cannot look into censoring it. I say didn’t want to assimilate and it reminded many lets say it, until someone starts to look at the history Blacks of something that they wanted to forget that makes that word so troubling in the first place.

32 SUMMER 2004 | mosaic www.mosaicbooks.com To many civil rights activists and those who grew on the stairs, you know they just don’t care,” and up during that time, your comments about the I was like “wow.“ word Nigga, would trouble them? They grew up at a time when the word was Grandmaster Flash’s “The Message” indicated to exclusively negative. For them, it carries a different me that rap could be more than talking shit, weight than it does for other people. But we need bragging, and wilding out, which is cool. to be honest. Black people have been saying nigga Grandmaster Flash indicated to me that this music from day one. Black people used the word nigga could be used for comedy, drama, and politics. as much as they used the word, the. Clearly there To me that is the golden era of hip hop. Then a was a difference when someone was using it in a year later I heard Run DMC’s “Its Like That” and negative way than a positive way. Like “My nigga.” “Hard Times”. To me that is love. Or you can use it derisively. If we are going to be honest, I don’t know how How does this moment contrast with the most many times White people called me a nigger. You defining moment in civil rights history, the know after a while it did not make a difference. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream“ speech? Them calling me that did not make me feel good, Lately, I have been thinking about this “I Have A but after a while you deal with it. Instead of these Dream” speech. The whole refrain in the speech racists being able to hide and function in a covert is that I have a dream where people will not be manner, I think that they need to be outed so that judged by the color of their skin but by the everybody can see who they are and what they content of their character. King used this are about. You cannot legislate the use of a word. metaphor of a dream. When I think about King’s It is in all of these hip-hop songs and movies and speech, I think about Biggie’s dream. “It was all a you cannot legislate the use of language. We need dream, I used to read Word Up magazine, Salt to focus on challenging and hopefully trying to and Peppa and Heavy D up in the limousine.” eradicate racism. To me, King planted a seed and that seed has now grown into something different. Much love What are some of the themes that you are trying and mad props to King, but to me what is more to convey in your book? relevant today is the dream that Biggie was talking I want people to think about how things have about. changed in society. I want people to recognize that we cannot always apply 1960s thinking to That comment is sure to incite older Blacks. the 21st century. You cannot do that, if your head How do they respond when you say this? is in a past era. They get hot. They get pissed. What I say to them is the purpose in life is to grow. You don’t get to a What is the most defining moment in hip-hop point and stop. You should not reach a point in history for you? life and stop. You should always grow. I always For me. I don’t know if I can reduce it to one say that if you are doing the same things at 30, moment. I would have to say when I first heard that you did at 20, then you have not made any “The Message.” When I first heard Grandmaster progress. To me civil rights, Martin King, and “I Flash in 1982, I was a freshman in college. Up Have A Dream” is what we did in 1964. But in until that point, most of hip hop was kind of silly. presently, we are doing something different and It was cool, but it was not serious. But then I we have grown. heard “broken glass everywhere, people pissing (continued on page 42)

SUMMER 2004 | mosaic 33 WITH A CAREER IN THE PERFORMING ARTS THAT HAS SPANNED A LIFETIME, THE ACCLAIMED SINGER, ACTRESS, POET, ACTIVIST, TELEVISION PRODUCER, AND AUTHOR, CAMILLE YARBROUGH IS AN INFLUENTIAL FIGURE.

Recently, Yarbrough re-released on compact disc The Iron Pot Cooker for a new generation of fans anxious to hear some of her music, and get some wisdom in their souls. Along with the release came the title “foremother of hip hop” from Spin magazine. And rightfully so, for she’s inspired a generation of poets and musicians through her lyrics and passion.

Looking at Ms. Yarbrough it’s hard to see on her face the span of her history or feel it in her presence. Time doesn’t show – she is smooth skin, graceful walk, deliberate speech, and feminine grace. You know that she is a legend.

34 SUMMER 2004 | mosaic www.mosaicbooks.com ALL PRAISES DUE by DuEwa Frazier

At first glance her regal stature brings to mind a “When you walked down the street, the men dean in academia–she did serve as a professor of selling their vegetables, fruits, and wares would African dance at New York’s City College for twelve be singing. They sung to you about what they years. You might also think she was one of the were selling. It was blues music. All around us characters on an episode of The Cosby Show, you was blues music.” know, one of Claire Huxtable’s friends––she’s that well coiffed and classy. Looking at Camille The Dancer Yarbrough you see your mother, your Her initial inspiration came at fifteen when she grandmother, the auntie you never had, you see heard the sounds of drumming coming from a a teacher and leader, all in one woman. A lover local community center and knew she wanted to and practitioner of dance, poetry, dramatic be a part of that music. By seventeen, she started theater, the written word as well as song and studying primitive dance, a modified Katherine protest for progress in the African-American Dunham technique, taught by the legendary community, you wonder, how did this woman dance master Jimmy Payne, as well as Martha get to be so many things and so good at so many Graham technique. things? And thus, the answer, is her journey, from past to present. While a teenager, Yarbrough frequented the famed Tivoli in Chicago. It was there she got her first Camille Yarbrough was born in 1938, the seventh chance to see such renown entertainers as Moms child of a family of four girls and four boys, on the Mabley, Butter Beans and Susie, Coles and Atkins, Southside of Chicago, and has fond memories of Billy Eckstein, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, and the people and community that surrounded her. Lena Horne. When Camille saw singer, dancer

SUMMER 2004 | mosaic 35 Josephine Baker for the first time, in the 1950s during encounter as a dancer traveling the world. Her close one of Baker’s U.S. performances, she was stunned. family upbringing from Chicago did not completely “I had never seen a performer who performed like prepare her for the worldly lifestyle of the artists she her. Baker talked about how she witnessed a race worked and socialized with. riot in East St. Louis when she was a little girl. I was admiring of her and other artists who spoke out. In 1960, shortly before the dance company Baker stood up to the racism, she was outspoken.” disbanded, the company traveled to Paris for a brief tour. Yarbrough reveals, “I learned so much about The blues of Chicago wouldn’t hold Yarbrough for myself being in the company and about the frailty long. After high school Yarbrough started working at of human nature and also the strength.” After dancing a local calypso club. It was there she met members with Dunham for five years, Yarbrough headed to from Katherine Dunham Dance Company who gave New York in 1961. her leads on dancing jobs in Canada and New York. At the age of twenty, Yarbrough left The Actress Chicago, first landing in New York. Camille Yarbrough hadn’t been in New There she stayed with the family of a York six months before she received her Puerto Rican dancer she knew. It was first Broadway show Kwamina, which a humbling beginning. Yarbrough was made use of her dancing skills once again. looking for work, striving to pay rent and make sense of the new world she She later performed in plays such as: God’s found herself a part of. Trombone/Trumpets (1969); Lorraine Hansberry’s To Be Young, Gifted and Black After a short time in New York, she (1970), and The Beast Story and Sambo returned to Chicago where she staged at The Public Theater. auditioned for John Pratt, husband of Katherine Dunham. Yarbrough was accepted The tour of To Be Young, Gifted and Black, started at into Dunham’s dance company in 1955, which the Cherry Lane Theater, which preceded a 56- was then based in Los Angeles. “It was with Dunham city tour, showcasing the critically acclaimed play that I had a high level of dance training. We were on college campuses around the country. “It was constantly rehearsing. an amazing tour,” says Yarbrough. In addition to her theater work, Camille was also acting on television When we didn’t get work in theaters, we danced in soap operas such as Search for Tomorrow and Where clubs. Dunham had thirty-five dancers and all the the Heart Is. When asked why she didn’t pursue performances involved showcasing African culture acting in Hollywood as a means to further her career, from the diaspora. Katherine Dunham’s study, her Yarbrough replies, “I was reading about Black research as an anthropologist in African culture in people, about Paul Robeson, and slave rebellions. I America, the Caribbean, Cuba, South American, listened to Black activists on the radio, my work and Central America fueled much of the dances. changed. I found that in this society, you get paid for not having values, you get paid to keep this system KDDC performed in Africa, Europe, Asia, and the going.” Americas. Yarbrough admits, “It was a cultural lesson to perform these dances.” She strived to understand Camille, not desiring to keep the system of racism the various lifestyles and personalities she would and degradation towards Black people going, on or

36 SUMMER 2004 | mosaic www.mosaicbooks.com off the stage and screen, set her goals on acting parts The Singer that would tell the stories of Black people without A sudden illness reconnected Yarbrough to her the added destructive Black images and perpetual ancestors through prayer and a changed diet. This stereotypes. also served as impedance for her first album, The Iron Pot Cooker. The album was a culmination of Yarbrough asserts, “Black folk, Black artists used to her performance show, Tales and Tunes of an African be concerned with freedom, but now, [acting] seems American Griot, which she performed for two years. to be solely about money.” As a working actress, When asked why she named her album, The Iron Yarbrough looked up to writers such as Lorraine Poet Cooker, Yarbrough replies, “Doing research and Hansberry and Alice Childress for their “thinking in thinking in terms of using the art for the people, I terms of the truth of what Black people were going found there were Nigerian female doctors who through.” Sharing what it was like to be a Black would travel, they would have their iron pots, they actress in the sixties and seventies, and a conscious cooked herbs, healing mixtures in their iron pot. I Black actress at that, Yarbrough adds, “If you’re going consider myself a healer, and thus, I too am the iron to be an artist, it is a difficult life. I was running from pot cooker.” The songs on The Iron Pot Cooker, “But racism, where the people were oppressed, where It Comes Out Mad”, “Dream/Panic/Sonny Boy the the police oppressed us. We were discriminated Rip-Off Man/Little Sally the Super Sex Star” were all against as actors and performers. Not only did she original spoken-word poems, before being set to learn the ins and outs of her craft as a performer, she music. also learned some ugly truths about the business in terms of the people who hired you and could fire The album dropped in 1975. Yarbrough made her you. “Even the shows you did, some directors would singing performances a full and fantastic production. direct you gearing towards racial stereotypes. I was Coming from a background with Katherine always in trouble for resenting those behaviors, so I Dunham and theater, Yarbrough fit her song- would be out of work for a little while.” storytelling performances into Black history monologues. “When you start your performance, if “I knew of plagiarism and how people were it’s spiritual, you use a high pitch, I would ululate, a exploited. During an open-call audition this woman traditional healing way of using the voice, for the director took myself and three listeners. Ululation is also to clear the air, to set other dancers aside, we had all the tone for spirituality. I’m reaching back into been with Dunham, she had our culture and bringing it back to us now. intentions on stealing our Dunham When I did the shows, I had a projection of a moves, Dunham choreography. Nigerian door. The stage was black, the music She told us that we would get solo started in darkness and then came my spotlight. dances or an understudy with I would come on stage with long African Ethel Ayler, a known actress here earrings and a huge kente cloth gown. I would in New York City, if we showed sing to them in Hausa, an African language. I her some Dunham moves. I began to see that these also had African stools on the stage,” says Yarbrough. people were stealing everything,” says Yarbrough. She did as she was told, but only to the extent that When asked about the value of today’s music she would always have her dignity and integrity as Yarbrough comments, “The music now, the an artist and as a Black artist who cared to preserve vibrations are very destructive, not healing.” the culture of her people, not exploit it. Camille Yarbrough is a griot within her songs.

SUMMER 2004 | mosaic 37 She tells a story of her people, she has always Over the years, Camille Yarbrough has worked told a story that her audiences can relate to and with Jazz Mobile, a program that utilized poets take value from. Camille gives you life in the public schools, and taught drama and experiences and praise and storytelling for poetry to young students. During a brief stint as a African ancestors, in her songs. student at Hunter College, Yarbrough began to write stories for Black children. In recent years, Camille has performed to packed houses ranging from school age children The experience led Yarbrough to write her to senior citizens as well as noted activists and acclaimed book, The Shimmershine Queens entertainers. Her concerts are called, “thought (Putnam, 1989). Others followed: Cornrows provoking,” “soul stirring,” “culturally uplifting,” (Putnam, 1997); Tamika and the Wisdom Ring and “African-centered.” Recently, Yarbrough (Putnam, 1994), and The Little Tree Growing in hosted and sang for the annual African Voices the Shade (Putnam, 1996). Rhymes, Rhythms and Rituals Music and Poetry Concert in Marcus Garvey Park, in Harlem, The Shimmershine Queens gives a message to singing songs of reverence to African spirits and African-American youth to respect themselves ancestors, for the hundreds in attendance. and others, achieve success and confidence Under the early evening sky and tall, sloping through knowing and connecting with their trees Ms. Yarbrough, dressed in one culture and heritage, and reversing of her trademark flowing African negative self images through artistic wrap gowns sang with a holy performance. The Shimmershine deliverance and uplifted all in Queens is a Parent’s Choice Award in earshot. Story Winner. In Cornrows, A Coretta Scott King Award Winner, Yarbrough Yarbrough’s performance was a reinforces the beauty of Black culture sheer uplift. She set a standard for all and African beauty for young readers the other artists to hope they could follow, in and families. The Little Tree Growin’ in the Shade their own special way. is a story that reveals an African family and it’s three generations in the midst of a history telling, The Poet and Writer by Yarbrough, weaving African proverbs and Spin magazine named Yarbrough “the spirituality with song, music and relation to the foremother of rap.” Journalist Kevin Powell Diaspora experience. Tamika and the Wisdom stated in her CD liner notes, “There is no Ring tells the story of a young girl striving to realize question that Camille Yarbrough ‘raps’ on this her cultural heritage in the midst of such album, be it the tender ode to Black men ‘But It destructive community ills as drugs and violence. Comes Out Mad’, or the panic sequence on Yarbrough finds ways to mix her love of African ‘Dream.’“ heritage with her messages of hope, beauty, self- esteem, triumph, and discovery for Black youth Asked to reflect upon her foremother of rap in all of her books. For years Yarbrough has title, Yarbrough answers, “When you go to the conducted workshops that entail her singing, old, you see where the new comes from. dancing, and storytelling in conjunction with Everything I did on stage, without music, was introducing her storybooks to the youth. It is with spoken word, it was rap.” Yarbrough’s African American Traditions

38 SUMMER 2004 | mosaic www.mosaicbooks.com Workshop that she has conducted such diverse and features Black performers, musicians, performance storytelling for young audiences. poets and book authors. The Activist Although it may not have always been pretty, During the 60s and 70s, there were marches, easy, or glamorous, Camille Yarbrough has riots, and protests. Black Panthers were being journeyed on a particular path, a spiritual jailed and killed. Black people were outraged and cultural path, leading her into the and fighting back. Camille Yarbrough was positions of: griot woman, songsters, poet, always right there to support her brothers and author, actress, teacher, dancer, lecturer, sisters. Yarbrough took her outspoken actress, and broadcaster. She continues to perspective of the civil rights movement and take her positions seriously, with grace and intertwined it with her performances. “I humility. would always lend my support. Every march there was, every protest there was I was there Camille Yarbrough, renaissance woman in her as a poet. lifetime. For all these things, are the reasons why we love and appreciate her and Yarbrough also seved as occasional host of appreciate her. ★ Bob Law’s Night Talk, a conscious Black radio show format, airing from midnight to 5 COMING THIS FALL am on WWRL-AM in New York City. The goal of the show was to give factual and inspirational information about Black people, E. Ethelbert Miller for Black people. “I’d say ’Good Morning, Africans’ at the beginning of the show. People John Rodriguez would call in and talk and debate with our guests and we loved it.” During the show Boogie Down Poets Yarbrough talked with some of the most intriguing, motivated, and conscious Black Archie Givens Collection activists and scholars of the time. Dr. Leonard Jeffries, Dr. Manning Marable, Dr. Betty Carl Hancock Rux’s Asphalt Shabazz, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Abiola Sinclair, and Dr. Adelaide Sanford were all guests. bell hooks’s The Will to Change Yarbrough continues to lend her voice and passion to progressive action for the Black Plus some other stuff community. Most recently working with a ★ panel of educators and activists to form a new leadership summit.

Today, she continues to write, record music, perform, and host a public access television show Ancestor House.” The show, produced SEPTEMBER 2004 by Yarbrough, showcases the art, culture, and perspective of people of the African Diaspora, ISSUE FIFTEEN

SUMMER 2004 | mosaic 39 Haki Madhubuti That I have never had the economic resources to must rise. This eminent majority must not have really compete with the major or midstream pub- the white supremacist mindset of the founding lishing companies is also a comment on the work patriarch or the ”superior” souls of the current that still needs to be accomplished in this nation. “rulership.” Those among this coming majority must be nurtured and educated in the essential A central part of the responsibility of an informed tenets of democracy. Many of you have tasted citizen is to question our government, specially its the debilitating effects of being denied your birth foreign policy which helped to create an Osama rights. So when the time comes for you to lead, bin Laden, al Qaeda, corrupt monarchs in Saudi you must be able to look your children in their Arabia and key nations all over Africa. As the na- eyes and state with firmness and clarity that you tion grieves and buries its dead, we must not allow do believe in democracy and fairness for all ourselves to just automatically buy into the an- people and not just the monied few and numeri- swers from our government. The larger question cal majority. We, too, stand and will fight for the from us must be why, after investing over thirty historical ideas of the Declaration of Indepen- billion dollars of our taxes a year, with few ques- dence, United States Constitution and its Bill of tions asked, is it that the Federal Bureau of Investi- Rights. Finally, we must take ownership of our- gation (FBI), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the selves, our families, communities and this vast and National Security Council and the Defense De- beautiful land. In doing so we will be making the partment didn’t have a clue to what was happen- most profound statement on our citizenship, and ing? And now there is a call from those agencies in the words of the great poet Langston Hughes, for people who speak the indigenous languages ”We too Sing America.” ★ of Afghanistan and others. Could racism be the reason for a lily white, angel bread security force This essay originally ran as “HARD TRUTHS: Sep- who can’t currently find its way out of a computer tember 11, 2001 and Respecting the Idea of program. Most certainly these people could not America” on the online magazine Chickenbones: get back in the field where the real dirty work of A Journal (http://www.nathanielturner.com/ human intelligence is being done. hakimadhubuti2.htm)

Thirty billion dollars for what? This is the type of gross incompetence and racism that Black folk and others have to deal with daily.

So, young brothers, I want you and young people of all cultures to know that the idea of America can become a reality, can become the visionary eye in the center of the storm, the organic seed growing young fertile minds, can be the clean ★ subscribe water purifying the polluted ideas of old men fear- ful of change, can take democracy from the monied few to the concerned majority if we believe in its sacred potential and the potential of the twenty- first century’s coming majority of Black, Brown and locked out White people. The best of you

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Make check or money order payable to: Mosaic Communications 314 W 231st St. #470 Bronx, NY 10463 or visit us on the web at www.mosaicbooks.com SUMMER 2004 | mosaic 41 SUBSCRIBE TODAY Black Heads Is some of the criticism of hip hop valid? In the book you write a lot about the Black Man/ If you go back to the 1960s there was no hip hop, White Man buddy roles in film. How did this but people were still getting shot and using dope. play in contemporary society and is this image You had pimps, hoes, and all of the negative things reality? that were talked about. A lot of hip hop is just This is your typical buddy-buddy flick. The Black people talking shit. To me that is part of Black man, White man genre. This was played out in culture. People talk shit and say things. To me, contemporary society though Bill Clinton, who hip hop captures various elements of Black life was one who people say, was connected to Black that shouldn’t be taken seriously. There has been culture. In one moment of trouble he was connected to Vernon Jordan. When you think about this image, you cannot help but think about Black people and especially Robert Culp and Bill Cosby, Stevie Wonder and poor Black people were Paul McCartney. Now there are situations where pushed to the margins and you have this reality. Black Male, White Male this culture of hip-hop gave reality. those a voice to express themselves. Back in the day, the Black man was always subordinate, but now the Black man does not a lot of stupid people around from day one. have to be subordinate. Eminem needs Dre, more People who will mimic. so than Dre needs Eminem. At the moment of Clinton’s impeachment, Clinton needed Jordan, You have had a small beef with Spike Lee. Explain whereas Jordan did not need Clinton. this? I wrote a piece about him in the L.A. Times about What do you think about those people who are his film Get on the Bus. In the piece, I wrote that saying that Eminem is one of the greatest Spike was the man in the 1980s, but he had fallen rappers ever? off in the mid 1990s. He got upset about the piece I don’t think that Eminem is the problem. But I and he had one of his boys send me a letter calling think it is what people put on Eminem. Eminem is me out. He had his producer send me this fax, down for hip hop. If he were wack, niggas would which I thought was kind of cowardly. not fuck with him. He is not whack. Eminem of late, is one who is taking the game seriously. You I called his producer back, but they would not can tell that he has been honing his lyrics. I am accept my calls. Sometime later, I ran into Spike not mad at him. But, it is what people put on him. at a L.A. Lakers game at the old Forum. He tried to That is where I have problem. It is like Larry Bird. loud talk me and call me out, as he was yelling When he was playing ball, he was a great and screaming. But I have no beef with anyone. basketball player. But he was not the greatest player We ought to be able to disagree with Black people ever, which is what they made it out to be. If you and sit down and chop it up. You take your are Black, that makes you feel uncomfortable, position and I take mine. We should at least be because the media blows these White characters able to sit down and show each other respect. out of proportion. ★

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SUMMER 2004 | mosaic 43 y illiterate adult On average, a functionall hool graduate. earns 42% less than a high sc

it couldn't read a bus schedule, w A study of 2l-25 year olds, 80% y, 63% couldn't follo stand a newspaper stor 73% couldn't under couldn't locate the gross pay-to- written map directions, and 23% ycheck stub. date amount on a pa ear in taxes goes to support people It is estimated that $5 billion a y e unemployable due to illiteracy. receiving public assistance who ar Proctor & Gamble, Phillip Morris and RJ Reynolds/ Nabisco each spend more on advertising than the U.S. government spent on adult education. At least 50% of the unemployed are functionally illiterate. The average kindergarten student has seen mor 5,000 hours of television, having spent more timee than in

front ofg the TV than it tak es to earn a bachelors's degree. The educa tion of the parent is the single greatest predictor of whether a child will be raised in poverty. 44% of all American adults do not read one book in the course of a year.

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