Thursday, May 29, 2014

Why her jelly shook...Celebrating Buttzilla (1980-2014)

Dear Comrade Sekou:


Buttzilla Timbuktu (1980-2014)
I am quite afraid that while many Black people are uncontrollably distraught over the death of the Black poetess Maya Angelou they may overlook an equally significant recent passing of an African American artists and activist. Of course, I am talking about Buttzilla Timbuktu. She died last night in Crown Heights, apparently the victim of acute beef patty overdose. Let me share a little about why Buttzilla will be remembered as a giant of modern-day Black culture.


Buttzilla Timbuktu, born Neecy Jenkins in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, was always outstanding. At nine months of age, she already weighed 75 pounds. She was a very special student, skipping elementary and most of junior high school because there were no classroom seats to suit her. She dropped out of high school, but that did not discourage her hunger for attention, which she readily received wherever she went.

At 25, Buttzilla met Rev. Al Sharpton. She joined the National Action Network (NAN). Impressed with her outgoing personality and her way of attracting men to the organization, Rev. Sharpton appointed her the head of the Irvington, New Jersey chapter of NAN. She remained as chairperson for three years until the chapter was converted to a slot machine hall. But she continued her political pilgrim's progress by developing an insatiable appetite for bean pies. One night, during a bean pie eating binge, Neecy Jenkins found her true African American National Identity and adopted the name Buttzilla Timbuktu, in honor of the Motherland and her wholesome pastries.

One afternoon, while shopping for bathroom tissue at the Atlantic Terminal Pathmark, Butzilla was discovered by the famed artistic producer Fart Pappy Corncob. That is when her career as a pioneering Black cultural icon began. She quickly found herself garnering leading roles in numerous novelty rap videos. She was best known for her twerking performance in Dimwit Green Teeth's groundbreaking film RUBBER BOOTY. But her star really took to the heavens through her appearance in Hoghead Toejam's three-hour epic BITCH, 'HO, MUTHAFUKIN, BITCH, 'HO. Of that performance, the New York Times critics raged, "Vulgar. Loud. Stupid..." The New York Post added, "Broadway bound!..." And the New York Amsterdam News continued, "Butzilla Timbuktu is a Revolutionary Black genius whom we hope will never forget our enthusiastic praise by remembering to buy advertising in the Black press."

Visionary cultural leader
Butzilla, after conquering the screen, turned to literature. She became a poet. Her inspiring collection of blank verse, I KNOW WHY MY JELLY SHAKES, became an instant sensation, selling hundreds of copies on curbside book tables across Brooklyn. In the book, she proudly explains:

My jelly shakes,
freely willed,
loose and obscene,
and lusted in the 'hood,
by homeys up to no-good.
And on the subway,
my jelly shakes,
shakes on me good...

Buttzilla Timbuktu enjoyed a large and loyal following among young and morbidly obese Black women. They saw her as a political and cultural role model. Said Sheneekwa Mathis, president of the Buttzilla Timbuktu Literary Circle, upon hearing of her idol's demise today, "When Buttzilla arrived at our meetings the room shook and swayed. It was emotion and basic physics. She left a trail of busted sofas across the Tri-State region. We will miss her. But we can all take comfort in knowing that we can all be like Buttzilla. And we probably will."

So, please, Comrade Sekou, don't let the TV and the politicians slight or ignore our sister Buttzilla's contribution to the community. And don't listen to Comrade William either. He just doesn't like Black women. Let us celebrate the legacy of Sister Buttzilla Timbuktu.

Signed,

Mofarrakhana Jackson

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Maya Angelou: Even the lame go unspared

By Sekou OSEI and William PLEASANT

Maya Angelou (1928-2014)


"Generally Speaking, Negro writing in the past has been confined to humble novels, poems 
and plays, prim and decorous ambassadors...


Richard Wright

The Negro writer who seeks to function within  his race as a purposeful agent has serious responsibility. In order to do justice to his subject 
matter, in order to depict Negro life in all of its manifold and intricate relationships, a deep, 
informed, and complex consciousness is necessary; a consciousness which draws for its 
strength upon the fluid lore of a great people, and moulds this lore with the concepts that 
move and direct the forces of history today"

(Richard Wright, Blueprint of Negro Writing--1938)    


It must be said that one of the  political struggles that must be waged is around the question of aesthetics and art. But this struggle must be tied to material and political goals, or it will collapse--as it has done before--into commercialized symbolism or worst. A truism says that "time" catches all of us, even the "lame." Maya Angelou just left the world in death as everyone will do at some point. And now, Afrocentric, middles class Negroes will come up with something to celebrate; to rationalize her years of formally silly tropes, her sentimental Black petit-bourgeois narcissism as "art." 

Her's was a poetry of personal grandstanding. While there may be those who argue that she was once "left," but so was Gus Hall of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), who spent his time reading the "winds of change" rather than the impotence of the disorganized and mis-organized US working class. Bob Avakian was "left," too. Exploring the crannies of his navel, he prophesied a spontaneous revolutionary storm with the regularity of December 25th and the infantile breathlessness of Santa worship. While neither Hall nor Avakian pretended to be artists or poets, they, nonetheless, had a lot in common with Maya Angelou. They all wallowed in sterile performances as social insight and political prescription. Angelou, like them, substituted vulgar symbolism and metaphorical extrapolation for anything even approaching a material understanding (or expression) of the imperative historical task at hand for the ascending class in this country or elsewhere. In the end, Maya Angelou merely demonstrated an artistic and political propensity to celebrate the color of the clock while intentionally mis-appreciating the critical nature of the TIMES.

Again, many will insist that Maya Angelou was a communist, even a radical fellow traveler who was once investigated by the witch hunting House Un-American Committee (HUAC), but that only demonstrates that the US Left lacked and lacks any political/artistic standard to determine who it chooses to embrace other than the declarations and denunciations of the STATE.


Malcolm X and Angelou in Ghana

On the black hand side, other pundits would style Angelou as a distinguished Nationalist. After all, she did welcome Malcolm X to Ghana. But that was long ago, in a galaxy far away with regards to WHAT NEEDS TO BE LEARNED AND DONE NOW to staunch the fascistic consumption of our people in America and in the so-called Motherland. The truth of the matter is that, like Malcolm X, Angelou was at best a guest of a faltering neo-colonial regime. And her presence in Ghana, like that of Malcolm X and other Black expatriates at the time, failed to advance the cause of Pan Africanism or the Black Liberation Project one centimeter.



Was Maya Angelou a kindly, elderly lady? Probably. Did she throw what political and cultural clout that she had at the time behind the Supreme Court nomination of the arch neo-fascist negrophobe Clarence Thomas? Indeed! Was she Bill Clinton's poetic jester? Most certainly!


Clarence Thomas, the scum of the earth.

Was Maya Angelou an inspirational figure to many Black writers, particularly female writers? Yes.
After all, what literary artist would shun fame and a steady paycheck and fail to worship those who strived for such blessings'?

But Maya Angelou was no Phyllis Wheatley, who elegantly pleaded her very humanity to a vicious American slavocracy. Maya Angelou was no Sojourner Truth, who could shout down the fortress of white supremacy and sexism  with but a breath. Maya Angelou was no Zora Neal Hurston, who could sensuously weave in words a people's tapestry of suffering and struggle.


Phyllis Wheatley
Sojourner Truth



Zora Neal Hurston

Maya Angelou must be appreciated as a victim and beneficiary of her time. Like many members of the contemporary negro-ratti, particularly the female variety, she found her niche in the cultural toy boxes of white liberals. In death, she joins the pantheon of NEO-MAMMY DOLLS, tearjerkers and pacifiers, that crowd America's bookshelves, for the benefit of retail exploitation and nothing more.

Just leave it at that.

--30--

Thursday, May 22, 2014

GORILLAS IN THE MIST (2014 Version)

By Sekou OSEI

Dedicated to our contemporary Black journalistic concession:
Or  they observe nothing and celebrate everything.



Old African
 black man with characterful face Stock Photo - 9425796 


              As men
                     stare
                            at once blue
                                              skies
                                                   under
                                                           the eyes of
                                                                           Gorillas
                                                                                        in
                                                                                          the
                                                                                              Mist.
lit match

           As we ride buses
                                     pretending
                                     to be working
                                         just
                                                posturing,


           As on point
                             NEGROS
                             of cowardly
                             porno
                             films
                                  of image
                                  mystification
           of righteous
           NEGROS
           under the corporate
                                   state
                                        of
                                           under
                                                 a “Buckwheat” democracy
                                                                              under
                                                                                       the eyes of
                                                                                                        Gorillas
                                                                                                                in
                                                                                                                   the
                                                                                                                      Mist
            As NEGROS
                            drink their
                                         own
                                               empty
                                                         seduction
            Dancing to
                              a
                                jukebox
                                             of
                                                 no
                                                     music:
                                                               posturing
                                                                             the
                                                                                  GREAT

                                                                                              
pretend.

As huge Gorillas
                   snarl and growl
                                 with
                                 outrageous teeth
                                                  and
                                                    beat their
                                                            huge
                                                    Black leather
                                                                  chest
                   in a silent movies,
                                         that quickly becomes
                                                                unplugged
                                                                    or
                                                                       the
                                                                           lights
                                                                              are
                                                                                   simply
                                                                                         switched on
                    only to
                               become
                                            a
                                               sissy
                                                      memory
                                                                   of lets
                                                                             pretend.


            As centrists
                               teaching journalism
                               of celebration
                                                   of lets
                                                             make-believe
                                                                                 of
                                                                                   bearing
                                                             Becoming soaked
                                                                             pretending
                                                                                       the rain is not falling.
           As an East African
                                     teaching
                                                 Blacks of the West,
                                                                          the need to sensationalize
                                                                                               Black trivia
                                                                                               As militancy.

Just Do it !

           While, the not so
           secret to be foretold
            that
                 centrists
                       almost
                          always
                              accommodate
                                 the rationality
                                  of the psychopaths
                                                         in power,
       
           Of colorful Negros
           wearing a color
                            past
                             of
                    “Make-believe”
                     with their isolated
                     backyards
                           of
                     militants
                             under
                                    the eyes
                                            of
                                              gorillas
                                                     in
                                                         the
                                                             mist
Kwanza-RonKarenga.jpg

          So with the
                       grand fake gold earrings
                                 of
                       over weight Black
                                                    men
                        of three hundred pounds of beads
                                 on their
                                            wrist
                                               trying
                                                       to affect
                        the mirror shadows
                                              of
                                                   a
                                                      wise
                                                              elder,
                                   only to be seen
                                    as an empty
                                                       paper cup
                                    mumbling
                                    memories
                                          of Marcus Garvey
                                                          under
                                                                    the
                                                                       eyes
                                                                            of
                                                                              gorillas
                                                                                     in
                                                                                        the
                                                                                            mist.
                 As this grand mammal
                                            beaches
                                            amicably
                 before the projector
                                             becomes
                                                          unplugged.
                 As these centrists
                                 host stages
                                           fof
                                              an
                                               over
                                                    sexed
                                                       make-believe
                                                                women
                                                                    of
                                                                        the
                                                                             Sudan
                    who
                           are
                               madly
                                         in
                                            love
                                               with
                                                 Zionist
                                                         Israel,
                      who argue
                                  the question
                                                   of race
                                                         through
                                                                   the fight
                                                                              of
                                                                        complexion.
                       Who claim
                                          to fame
                                                     was
                                                            to be a forced concubine and harlot
                        to a Saudi princeling of US money
                                                                          through
                                                                          a Pakistani restaurant called
                                                                          ISI to fight Moscow in Kabul.   

                       While the editors
                                                 are
                                                    looking
                                                               for
                                                         something
                                                                       to celebrate,
                        through long hours
                                                  of multi-tasking
                                                                        only
                                                  phone tag
                                                  and multi-tasking
                                                         head games
                                                         of empty
                                                                postures.
                      Whose media
                                has no role
                                of giving informred presence
                                for Black people are good for symbolic
                                                           FEEL GOOD
                                                           never to be informed
                                                           of how to wage their struggle.
                                 Because, they don't need to rock
                                                                            the boat
                                                                            of a
                                                                               “Buckwheat”
                                                                                           Democracy.
Barack Obama made numerous promises when he ran for president. He ...

          As history unplugged
                                this film projector
                                                  of this snarling gorilla.
         As Black mothers
                                  of Texas
         Become members
                                  of silent movies
                                        as state-run social services kidnapped their children
                                                with the silence
                                                                       of make-believe
                                                                       Black newspapers,
                                                                              under
                                                                                      the
                                                                                          eyes
                                                                                              Gorillas
                                                                                                         in
                                                                                                           mist.
                            Who don't produce
                                                   anything
                                                               of
                                                                 who  men
                                                                                once stared at once blue skies,
                                                                                looking for insight,
                               only to see the inadequate
                                                                   silence
                                                                           of pedophiles
                                                                           in sport showers
                                                                           of Pennsylvania,
                                 But
                                       were wordless
                                                       about sportsmen
                                                                          pedophiles
                                                                                           of the Bronx
                                                                                                    for months. 
                                For these celluloid gorillas
                                                                   lack the vision
                                                                                     of relevance
                                gorillas
                                    who pretend to be journalists
                                    never understood that there was
                                    a duty to throw a light on
                                    the state of affairs of the people and their
                                                                                             majority
                                                                                                      class.
                                    There is the plight of
                                                                 surrender,
                                                                          because their vision is plugged into a 
                                                                                      film
                                                                           projector of convenience.
                                                                           Because of their tie to machine
                                                                           of empty images,
                                                                                    they observe nothing
                                                                                                  and
                                                                                     celebrate everything.

                                                                          
                  For image gorillas, its easy to pledge criticism,
                                                            but harder to be critical.
                                                            For these gorillas, only ask us to
                                                                                                    celebrate,
                                                             but never to think.
                  Perhaps history will
                              show we must unplug
                                                    the projector to relevance.....
                                                                         under
                                                                           the
                                                                          eyes
                                                                               of
                                                                                  the
                                                                                      gorillas
                                                                                         in
                                                                                           the
                                                                                              mist