Sb blew

Hace mucho tiempo, when I was spinning around in NYC, estaba viendo tele. Dieron una serie de documentales about the First Amendment, which relates to freedom of speech. Y salían hartas cosas bastante interesantes. Entre ellas, estaba el caso de Amiri Baraka, un poeta de New Jersey que tenía como un premio que allá se llama 'poet laureate'. Thing is, for September 11th he did a poem called Somebody blew up America (una lata que se use el término de manera tan restrictiva, pero ni modo). Hubo toda una controversia porque el poema era un tanto radical en cuanto al tratamiento que tenía del ataque. Se le quiso quitar la condición de poet laureate, but the guy said he wasn't going to. Which is of course the right thing to do, since it's a poem and he's in his total right. Besides, it's a great poem and Baraka says it wonderfully.

Here's some parts

SOMEBODY BLEW UP AMERICA
(All thinking people
oppose terrorism
both domestic & international…
But one should not
be used
To cover the other)

They say its some terrorist,
some barbaric
A Rab, in Afghanistan


It wasn't the gonorrhea in costume the white sheet diseases
That have murdered black people
Terrorized reason and sanity
Most of humanity, as they pleases
They say who say?
Who do the saying
Who is them paying
Who tell the lies
Who in disguise
Who had the slaves
Who got the bux out the Bucks

Who got fat from plantations
Who genocided Indians
Tried to waste the Black nation
Who live on Wall Street
The first plantation
Who cut your nuts off
Who rape your ma
Who lynched your pa

Who say they God & still be the Devil

Who the biggest only
Who the most goodest
Who do Jesus resemble
Who created everything
Who the smartest
Who the greatest
Who the richest
Who say you ugly and they the goodlookingest

Who define art
Who define science
Who made the bombs
Who made the guns
Who bought the slaves, who sold them
Who called you them names

Who own this city
Who own the air Who own the water
Who own your crib

Who own the ocean
Who own the airplanes
Who own the malls
Who own television
Who own radio
Who own what ain't even known to be owned
Who own the owners that ain't the real owners

Who own the oil
Who want more oil
Who told you what you think that later you find out a lie

Who need fossil fuel when the sun ain't goin' nowhere
Who make the credit cards
Who get the biggest tax cut

Who put the Jews in ovens,
and who helped them do it
Who said "America First"
and ok'd the yellow stars
Who backed Batista, Hitler, Bilbo,
Chiang kai Chek

Who decided Affirmative Action had to go
Reconstruction, The New Deal, The New Frontier, The Great Society,

Who set the Reichstag Fire

Who make money from war
Who make dough from fear and lies
Who want the world like it is

Who you know ever
Seen God?
But everybody seen
The Devil