Bad, Bad Le Roi Jones (NJ Poet Laureate)

The BBQ Pit
81

I recall hearing, maybe ten years ago, that he had actually had his name legally changed to Meat Loaf. As in “Mr. Loaf.” As in “Loaf-comma-Meat.” Go figger.

And yes, stofsky is correct; Baraka is a talentless loudmouth, as I learned pretty quickly when I stumbled across him in grad school. Of course, by the time I got to grad school I’d already outgrown my Marxist-Leninist Third World Socialist phase (I matured early or something), so maybe I just wasn’t in the right space for him. :rolleyes:

That said, I’m going to go out on a very shaky limb here and say that the quotes Captain Amazing cited from Baraka’s poems should be read with caution. It is dangerous stuff to take lines out of a poem, or even out of the context of a cycle of poems, and assume they represent the author’s true meaning. As Exhibit A, I submit Randy Newman’s lyrics to “Short People,” which you may recall was a minor hit in the early 80s:

“They got little hands
And little eyes
And they walk around
Tellin’ great big lies
They got little noses
And tiny little teeth
They wear platform shoes
On their nasty little feet”

Sounds like Ol’ Randy really hates short people, doesn’t it? Nope. The song is viciously critical of people who hate for stupid reasons, or no reasons at all, but it criticizes by assuming the voice of one of these people and sounding impossibly stupid, without ever giving us the (metaphorical) wink that would say, “It’s OK, I don’t really believe this.”

I am NOT saying Baraka is doing this, and frankly I doubt it; he’s never struck me as having that kind of rhetorical subtlety. BUT it’s entirely possible that when he writes the ugliness about “the slimy bellies/of the owner-jews,” he’s putting these words into the mouth of a character.

I mean no offense at all to Captain Amazing, and Baraka may very well mean exactly what he says, but one of the subtleties of poetry is the shifting narrative voice (read “Prufrock” for one of the great examples), and we are behooved to be careful with quotes taken out of context without reading the entire piece.

[sub]Wow, why did I just waste a half-hour of my life checking old source-books and writing about Amiri Baraka?[/sub]

82

Well, EasyPhil did say something I agree with: “I say you don’t know shit, if you don’t know him.”

83

Ukulelel Ike tipped me off to Stanley Crouch’s column in today’s NY Daily News, which says in part, “Jones should not be asked to resign. Those who appointed him should resign—if they have read his work over the last 35 years. It is an incoherent mix of racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, black nationalism, anarchy and ad hominem attacks relying on comic book and horror film characters and images that he has used over and over and over . . . . It was simple evolution: All whites—and Jews especially—should be murdered; then all Negroes who did not submit to his agenda; then all homosexuals; then all capitalists; then all who did not agree that the Western world and capitalism should be destroyed.”

84

Thank you Eve, this is my point. He’s written all of this stuff prior to the appointment, why are they now so outraged about the comments in “this” poem? Thjat’s why I say its bullshit, especially since the thing that’s so offensive is something that was widely published even though it wasn’t true. It’s not like he made up the story about the 4,000 Jews, it was offered up as fact.

85

Thank you Eve, this is my point. He’s written all of this stuff prior to the appointment, why are they now so outraged about the comments in “this” poem? Thjat’s why I say its bullshit, especially since the thing that’s so offensive is something that was widely published even though it wasn’t true. It’s not like he made up the story about the 4,000 Jews, it was offered up as fact.

86

Okay:

  1. It wasn’t “widely published.” It was a rumor, spread by a lot of websites that specialize in spreading rumors. Any publication in legitimate newspapers was mainly to dispel the rumor.

  2. Our only complaint isn’t just “Somebody Blew Up America.” You’ll notice that most people are complaining about him being a racist in general. The “America” poem was just what initiated the ranting, since that’s the one that the original news story in the OP was about. Nobody said that he just suddenly became a racist once he was the Poet Laureate; it’s obvious that he’s been that way for awhile.

87

And my point is that, they knew all of this when he became Poet Laureate. If you want to really complain or rant talk to the poeple that approved.

I guess at some point he turned into an anti-semite, racists, and all around hater of every and anything, but he was married to Hettie Jones, a jewish woman for seven years and had two children by her, one of them being Lisa Jones. Unfortunately after marrying Jones, Hettie got disowned by her parents. Can we call them racist jews?

88

Not necessarily. I think you’re a fucking moron, but that hardly makes me biased against all people named Phil.

89

Alright, Phil, I can definitely agree with you on that point. The people who made him poet laureate obviously weren’t thinking. Still, the fact that he was given the position doesn’t mean that he has the right to abuse it, and doesn’t make his comments any less inflammatory.

As for Hettie, he divorced her pretty much at the exact point when he started hating everything. He was living in the Village at the time, and was heavy into the beat movement. But then Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Kennedy were all assassinated in such a brief period of time. According to what he said at the Q&A section, he suddenly found himself unable to tolerate whites, so he left her and that’s when most of his hatred started spilling into his poetry. Sounds like a great guy. :rolleyes:
And I wouldn’t call her parents racist jews. I’d call them racist people. Their being Jewish has nothing to do with it.

90

How did this man ever get to be Poet Laureat of New Jersey? Did the body that placed him in this position read any of his work?

EasyPhil, surely your not saying blacks can’t be racist, are you?

91

I’m sure there’s are black people that think they are superior to white people because they’re white. I’m also sure you can find some black people that are in a position to deny rights to white people simply because they’re white. I’m sure you can find instances of that here in this country. I also believe that zionism is racism.

92

Of course you also believe that Nasserism (the United Arab Republic / the Arab Republic of Egypt) and Baathism (the Syrian Arab Republic) are racist. Right?

93

Sure, if that “ism” and any other “ism” supports this.

94

Oh, sure. Bradley Smith and the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust are really objective commentators about Judaism and Zionism.

95

Phil. Did you just link to a fucking Holocaust Denial website to support your POV?

So now we are starting to get a good idea why you aren’t upset about Baraka’s anti-semitic lies.

96

Here we go. Check out here:
http://vho.org/About.html
You’ll find the English language version of the statement of purpose for the website Phil cited:

97

So, lemme get this straight: If Israel doesn’t annex the Occupied Territories–in other words, if a Palestinian state were established there–then that would make Israel racist.

Of course, if Israel did annex the occupied territories, I’m sure EasyPhil and the writers of that website would be quick to condemn Israel for its imperialism, racism, etc.

As I suspected, nationalism is only racism if it’s the Jews who are aspiring to have their own nation.

98

MEBuckner, how many other nations are using nationlism in a way that Israel is using it towards the Palestinians?

**Lemur866, I’m only interested in what that site is saying about Israeli policy towards the Palestinians which no one in their right mind can dispute is wrong.

Captain Amazing, it doesn’t matter who says what, when the what is accurate. If a liar tells you the truth, the truth doesn’t become a lie because a liar told you.

99

Let’s get this thing back on track by straightening out some of misinformation written in this thread…

Ah, how the spin machine works. The poem reads:

“Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers To stay home that day”

Not
4,000 New York Jews!

Anti-Israel doesn’t mean anti-semetic and there are plenty of jews that disagree with the policies and practices of the Israeli government, but we can’t label or brand them as anti-semetic.

100

I cannot believe, with the level of poetic talent displayed on this thread, that the poet laureate of New Jersey has to be a no-talent hack like LeRoi J.

december, Polycarp - I want to nominate both of you as co-Poets Laureate of New Jersey. We can split the ten grand between you, or use it to buy faster hamsters for the SDMB servers.

EasyPhil - I would much rather see the thread return to facile mockery of the no-talent racist of the title, but don’t you think the other anti-semitic references in the corpus of drivel produced by Mr. Jones are evidence that he is a Jew-hater?

Or are you going to link to another Holocaust denial site, so I can open a can of SDMB Whup Ass[sup]TM[/sup] and start serving out a big, steaming helping?

Regards,
Shodan