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Monday, January 15, 2007

A Quote for MLK Day

posted by on January 15 at 9:15 AM

Let me preemptively say that I’m in awe of MLK Jr. and the civil rights movement.

And I certainly don’t fall for the pseudointellectual, contrarian hipster stance that MLK was a softy sellout compared to bad Malcolm X.

Having said all that, there is an uncanny, eccentric, and magnetic quote in Sunday’s NYT from dissident black poet Amiri Baraka (formerly LeRoi Jones) that does a real number on today’s festivities.

Jones was a member of the white Beat literary scene in the late 1950s before exploding like an ANC Molotov cocktail in his own right as an orthodox Black Power Marxist in the mid-’60s. He changed his name upon Malcolm X’s assassination to Amiri Baraka. From that day forward, he has been an incorrigible bomb thrower.

(I don’t think much of Baraka these days, but he was important to me as a kid. I’ll never forget stumbling across his agit-prop poem about Muhammad Ali, “Note to America,” while sitting in detention in my high-school library one afternoon—and later, reading Baraka’s black music history book, Blues People, where he plays the dozens against the minstrelsy of Al Jolson, Glenn Miller, Elvis Presley, and Mick Jagger.)

Anyway, here’s Baraka’s hot Marxist quote from yesterday’s NYT that, in Baraka’s inimitable style, seems perfectly timed to detonate on MLK Day.:

“The civil rights movement,” he said, “has just provided more opportunities for prostitution.”

Happy day off, everybody.

RSS icon Comments

1

Baraka has always been really important to me, too, Josh, more the Jones writings, but really, the whole reolutionary package. But the NJ poet laureate business, and the “Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers / to stay home that day/ Why did Sharon stay away?” stuff was really hard to make peace with.

Posted by SEAN NELSON, EMERITUS | January 15, 2007 9:26 AM
2

wait, people actually get this day off?

Posted by scharrera | January 15, 2007 10:38 AM
3

Josh,

I agree in the enormous contribution MLK Jr. made to America. In no sense of exageration, if Teddy Roosevelt could be on Mount Rushmore, MLK should be as well.

I will say too that Malcom X does not get his due. I do not know as much as you do about the civil rights movement, but I think he was a sort of stick to MLK's carrot (with some stick of his own). His assasination was from within the Nation of Islam, but no less tragic in terms of what could have been accomplished had he, or MLK Jr. for that matter, lived. Truly tragic.

In some ways I see their deaths, along with the two Kennedy deaths, as the staring point to the dark day America is in today with the war in Iraq.
God Bless America. (no irony intended)

Posted by StrangerDanger | January 15, 2007 12:20 PM
4

SD,

I intended no disrespect for Malcolm X. I think both he and MLK were super heroes. I was just trying to address the superficial hipster analysis that demotes MLK in Malcolm's presence.

I do understand that mainstream America doesn't give Malcolm X his props.

Posted by Josh Feit | January 15, 2007 12:37 PM
5

what a wasted opportunity...the stranger's readers are young and could use some updating on the civil rights movement. and what do you do on MLK day? make some kind of cynical, obscure statement about a white hipster.

wow, you all are so cool aren't you?

Posted by trouble | January 15, 2007 1:02 PM
6

Agree with #1. I thought Baraka's first two books of poetry were worth owning. But he's been pretty godawful ever since ...

LOL at Baraka the white hipster ...

Posted by abracapocus | January 15, 2007 1:54 PM
7

This is to remind everyone (including myself bc I forgot until I heard it on NPR today) that the government was agaisnt MLK. They knew that people had made threats on his life when he was in Memphis, but they did not tell him and did not investigate. Also, Rosa Parks was not a random woman who "one day" decided not to give up her seat. She was a trained activist. She was chosen by the movement, it was staged. Activism takes planning. And whoever the government tries to kill today, may be celebrated tomorrow as a hero. Today, tomorrow and next week, let us remember that as much as the mainstream media* wants to portray MLK as a "nice" guy, he was hated in his time by the many people who did not want equality.

*Just to be clear, I am not including The Stranger in mainstream media.

Posted by Papayas | January 15, 2007 10:23 PM
8

I would love to hear Baraka's response to being called a "white hipster"...

Posted by ronbailey | January 16, 2007 1:27 AM

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