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news from kintespace.com ::: Friday, June 22, 2007

Contents:

  • ::: Home Box Office, Inc.: def poetry six rasx() mix
  • ::: Cornel West: Socratic and Prophetic Approaches to Democracy
  • ::: Ezrah Aharone: Arms, Africa, and America’s Inmate Industry#### ::: Home Box Office, Inc.: def poetry six rasx() mix

::: ::: http://kintespace.com/p_defpoetryjam0.html

Peoples, peoples, peoples… People all over the world came to YouTube.com and celebrated HBO’s Def Poetry Jam. In spite of my “confused” view of the Def Poetry Jam legacy rambling in a recent Blog post, the work of Russell Simmons, through the auspices of HBO is celebrated here. Using YouTube.com to ‘celebrate’ property licensed (or owned out right) by Home Box Office, Inc. may deserve punishment and censure, but, in the mean time, enjoy!

This kinté space mash up brings you video of George Clinton, Black Ice, Saul Williams, Sonia Sanchez, Ursula Rucker and the great Mutabaruka! When you force me to make a decision right this very second, then let me be pleased to finally get some work by Mutabaruka here in the kinté space! His online presence is far more extensive than what even Home Box Office provides for its poetry so it is a privilege to contribute to Mutabaruka soul in this digitized form.

So you are now invited to participate in the YouTube.com “controversy” here in the kinté space—the clock is ticking and lawyers may be coming… And just in case there is concern about my concern for the economic future of the likes of HBO, it is my pleasure to remind you that my hard work aired on HBO in a show called Beah: a Black Woman Speaks—the nerdy (historical) details are on my company site…

::: Cornel West: Socratic and Prophetic Approaches to Democracy

::: ::: http://kintespace.com/p_cornel_west0.html

On September 18, 2004, at Barnsdall Art Park, an event sponsored by Skylight Books featured Dr. Cornel West in the most refined, rhythmic and elegant display of post-modern, progressive Negritude I have ever heard. His appeal is held in a container labeled “Socratic and Prophetic Approaches to Democracy.” He is careful to repeat that the Socratic approach is a “Greek invention” and the Prophetic approach is a “Jewish invention”—at the end of the speech, struggling for time, he adds the Black invention: the “tragic, comic hope” of the Blues. My use of the word “Negritude” therefore means that Cornel West demonstrates—without doubt—that he is coming from a Negro perspective.

The Negro perspective is not “evil” or “stupid.” When you judge by the social life and economic life Cornel West leads, then clearly this lifestyle is materially superior. However, as Cornel syncopates in his speech, there is Africa in the “backdrop.” The Negro perspective (that is respected here in the kinté space by providing Cornel West’s speech in full) deliberately stops short and stays ‘safely’ in America with its impressive Black inventions—but the depths of this Blackness stays forever “mysterious” and in the “backdrop”—or is even mistaken for “tragic hope”—when the intellectual power of Africa is ignored. Not one African scientist, novelist, playwright, poet, agriculturalist, stonemason or bricklayer—ancient or modern—is mentioned in this one-hour-plus sermon and discussion! And I am more than certain that Cornel West knows the Christian price he would have to pay to recognize Africa’s relationship to Greek and Jewish “inventions.” When you literally have the choice of partying with some of the finest (and smartest) women in the “real” world or honoring your oldest ancestors, most of us guys will choose the ladies and the perils of modern love. That’s just keeping it real—in this “Constantinian” reality. It’s not really work; it’s just the power to charm…

And, yes, let us ‘play fair’ and stay in America and look for indigenous contributions to democracy: again Cornel West gave more time to gender-bending politics and no time to the indigenous people of the Americas and their democratic systems. Does Cornel West find the Iroquois Confederacy out of style with the current fashion trends? Can’t he at least mention for a few rapid-fire seconds the “new research” that supposedly undermines this “Red Indian” theory of non-white democracy? Wasn’t there at least one cute Iroquois woman in the audience? And, yes again: let us bend over backwards to fit in the Cornel West disco and dance with Socrates. So now let us ask, ‘Why was Socrates killed by his own people?’ Cornel West could have explored that one for at least a few sentences—or is his obligation to be fair, inclusive, liberal and balanced so strong that he can’t even go there? Is not this a “truncated dialog” or are the words you are reading now coming from a “sad” place of “dangerous nationalism” and deifying certain “slices of humanity”?

My words come from a place so old that the concept of nation and the concept of family are one and the same. My words come from a place so old that the very idea of “slicing” humanity sounds like science fiction from a post-apocalyptic world of unimaginable violence and egocentric neurosis.

::: Ezrah Aharone: Arms, Africa, and America’s Inmate Industry

::: ::: http://kintespace.com/kp_aharone3.html

What do Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms have in common? Well, to start with, they have a clear connection to crime and violence, which is why the U.S. government ATF bureau exists. Beyond that, all three were primary commodities of the Triangular Trade for slaves. In addition, all three have since remained chief factors that inordinately affect the health and lives of Black people across the globe.

Ezrah Aharone is a Scholar of Sovereign Studies and the author of Pawned Sovereignty: Sharpened Black Perspectives on Americanization, Africa, War and Reparationshttp://www.1stbooks.com/bookview/18126. He can be reached at EzrahAharone@juno.com.

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