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Obama’s call for poet, playwright, and Yale prof Elizabeth Alexander to recite her poetry at the inauguration ceremony – the fourth poet ever to be part of the festivities – has created a huge media buzz. Within Baristaville, many recognize Alexander as the sister of Montclair resident and Obama advisor, Mark Alexander. While poetry reading is not yet a tradition at presidential inaugurations, Alexander’s invitation follows that honor previously given to fellow poets Maya Angelou, Miller Williams, and Robert Frost. Montclair’s own Byron Pitts, CBS news correspondent, talks to Alexander about how she feels being Obama’s inaugural poet.
She should just grab a stanza from Public Enemy’s “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back”:
To those that disagree it causes static
For the original Black Asiatic man
Cream of the earth
And was here first
And some devils prevent this from being known
But you check out the books they own
Even masons they know it
But refuse to show it, yo
But it’s proven and fact
And it takes a nation of millions to hold us back
And then, like Sexual Chocolate, she should drop the mic dramatically…..
How about Saul Williams’ “List of Demands?”
How about Saul Williams’ “List of Demands?”
Last night on CNN, Anderson Cooper was noting that the next story is the minor distraction of the tax issue for the Treasury Sec Elect. Again, if this was a Republican does any Dem out there really think this story would be a minor distraction?
And then on Imus this morning, Mark Halperin, a Time Correspondent, said he and the rest of the media expect Nobama to make an extraordinary speech next Tuesday. Does anyone think there will be any negative words about the ‘coronation’ next week?
And yes, I’m bitter about how the main stream media in the country has lost all sense of proportion.
Again, if this was a Republican does any Dem out there really think this story would be a minor distraction?
——————
Nope…neither would the issue surrounding the immigration status of his housekeeper.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) “There’s a few little hiccups but that’s basically what they are, I am not concerned at all.”
Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mo), “honest mistakes – these errors were not intentional,”
Speaking of taxes, Fmr NY Fed chairmen and the guy who will write tax policy, immigration status, money and financial crisis.. any word if Obama’s auntie Zeituni Onyango will be driving down from Bean Town to attend the the $50 million innaugu. affair?
Come on, prof. Public Enemy? Why not, in turn, add the books of Leonard Jeffries to the American grade school curriculum? (I realize this suggestion might set dannyboor to slavering happily, but not, I hope, thee.)
I have no idea what kind of poet Ms. Alexander is, nor do I recall Miller Williams. But Maya Angelou for Bill Clinton’s inauguration was a joke (it was doggerel, fit for greeting cards at best, not hard-worked-on poetry, and as best I could tell it was something about becoming a tree). And I’m not even that sure about the value of Frost.
I’d suggest, instead, novelist and poet Stephen Dobyns. And he has a Baristaville connection too, since he was born in Orange.
And don’t forget the newest members of the Democrat hippodouchebag Hall of Lame. Rangel, no tax-no condo-no parking-no apartment chairman of Ways & Means, “there’s no problem with Fannie & Freddie” chairman of Finance Franks, Banking committee chair Dodd. The silence is deafening.
And all of them will be in charge of investigating what happened and creating solutions. What a country. And the comeback kid’s sleazoid reemergence of stonewalled Billary scandals. SOS different Democrat admin.
If these were Repubs the blah blah would be deafening as it has been.
It’s axiomatic that it’s all Bush’s fault.
Reminds me of banana republics.
Food and tax riots by 2012.
cathar, your rudimentary grasp of Public Enemy’s lyrics and pigeonholing of their songs into hate music is both indicative of the inability of many whites to “get it” and a result of white privilege.
When you’re in the dominant group, when your reality is considered the ‘norm’, you have the luxury of suggesting that a predominantly minority musical artform is corrosive yet never have to undergo scrutiny for your groups’ form of music.
Case in point, rap gets labeled as violent, misogynistic, and hateful but such scrutiny is not given to country music.
Tim Wise, to wit:
Consider Johnny Cash, who sang about shooting a man in Reno “just to watch him die.” Hell, Johnny even sang that song in a prison to a bunch of inmates, with no apparent concern for inciting violence on their part.
Consider country legend Porter Wagoner, whose song “Cold Hard Facts of Life,” tells of a man who kills his wife for cheating on him. Or better still, “The First Mrs. Jones,” in which Wagoner’s protagonist, speaking to his new wife–who has just left him–tells her how he stalked and murdered his former betrothed, after which killing he buried her body parts in the woods. In other words, unless the “second Mrs. Jones” comes back to him, she’s going to join the first one, pushing up daisies in the forest. If Young Buck dropped a song like this, white America would be screaming about how he was encouraging violence against women. But for Wagoner, a revered member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, no such concern attaches. He’s just “telling a story.”
Then there’s Johnny Paycheck’s classic, “Pardon Me, I’ve Got Someone to Kill,” or Jimmy Rodgers who sang, “If you don’t want to smell my smoke, don’t monkey with my gun,” or several of the violent ditties recorded by Spade Cooley in the 1950s: a man who didn’t just sing of violence, but also practiced what he preached, by beating his wife to death in front of their teenage daughter in 1961. That rap is viewed so much more negatively than any other genre of music–so many of which have had their fair share of disturbing, violent and sexist imagery–attests to the racialized way in which danger has come to be understood. Only a fool could think race wasn’t the primary reason for the double standard. In fact, research has found that when lyrics with violent themes are presented to whites in a focus group, as being rap lyrics, the participants respond far more negatively than when the same lyrics are presented as the lyrics they actually are: from a folk song, sung by whites.
If you really want to shake in your Banana Republic khakis cathar, lend an ear to Paris’s “The Devil Made Me Do It”.
The suggestion that Public Enemy is akin to Leonard Jeffries is conveniently opportunistic and intellectually dishonest. Really now, I expect more from you Mr. Lynch. You expect everyone to be so well read and cultured yet you obviously do not comply with your own standards. There are lyric sites out there though if you’re running short on funds.
All in the Family…eh?
cathar,
Lest, ‘ol dannyboo(r) continue with is thesis on PE, my comment was directed to the dumb idea of a “poem” during the inauguration.
Why not a pantomime?
Or a modern dance?
Or a stand-up? (I’m sure Colbert is available)
Or an French Horn solo?
Or perhaps (and this is a better idea) let Bruce go Acoustic!!!
Anyway, the snow has me wanting to quote Ms. Angelou, from Clinton’s inauguration:
Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister’s eyes, into
Your brother’s face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.!!!
Even the Beatles had violent imagery with this line,” I’d rather see you dead, Little Girl, than see you with another man,” from “Run for Your Life.”
Lennon later regretted that line in an interview.
McCartney had is own version of this in “Getting Better” off Sgt Pepper:
“I used to be cruel to my woman I beat her and kept her apart from the things she loved.”
I’ll still listen to Beatles over rap any day.
Perlstein,
Why don’t you just write that you’re over 50….
Really, it’s the same as saying you’d take the Beatles over “rap” any day…
And guess what?
Any rapper/hip-hop artist worth their salt wouldn’t care about you… (Not their demo….)
Sadly, I don’t think they’d care too much about me either.
F-’em….
Sing it with me:
“Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
all your life you were only waiting for this moment to be free”
It is likely that the media will get to the bottom of Giethner’s nanny and kiddie camp tax evasion “hiccups”, with the same vigor as they did with Joe the Plumbers $1,200.00 tax snafu.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL5QcSaJhpU&feature=related
Are you really comparing a guy who was playing football on his lawn with his kids and had Obama walk up to HIM and ask a question (to which he had a bonehead reply) to the guy who wants to be Treasury Secretary?
C’mon….
The question for Giethner is: Why should we hire you when as NY Fed Chief you were oblivious to what was going on…………?
That you cite so many songs probably written before you were even born (but for which I was in fact around), dannyboor, would seemingly be to your credit. Still, “murder ballads” have been around since at least 1400 or so, as Music Appreciation 101 usually stresses. So no points for you. (And why do you always sound so earnest when lecturing folks on race relations? Do you perchance have a Klansman or two in your family closet?)
And Public Enemy remains crap. And crap much influenced by the likes of Leonard Jeffries and several other “high intellects” of the delusional Afrocentric movement.
Profwilliams, now you’re quoting Maya Angelou? See ya at the Hallmark Gold Crown store!
Baron Von Cathar – “delusional Afrocentric movement.”
That’s offensive.
She connects to some… Not me…
But as it relates to art, I prefer to allow folks to be turned on to whatever they like.
For me PE was important in my life.
Call it crap all you like, I don’t really care.
They mark a fun time for me.
Well, I didn’t think there was anything to criticize in my post, but the Prof. found an angle anyhow.
“C’mon….”
Perhaps you should reread the post and then watch the video.
It’s really not all that surprising that a rag a day is failing.
the racist Dannydouche never ends. Rap music is basically “F your mother, kill your sister, rape any bitch and mainly. mine is bigger than yours.” Crap is too mild a word. But eveyone knows that Blacks can’t be racist by definition, we must tolerate different cultures’ views of violence, and mainly that it’s Bush’s fault.
Ms. Alexander’s poem was lovely.