Corporate pimps
"I detest that if you come from a certain culture somebody is going to publish your [work]. When you apply that kind of standard, it can become a whorehouse of distorted mirrors." — Jimmy Santiago Baca.
Jimmy Santiago Baca's words seem appropriate here. When this poet from New Mexico served five years in prison some years ago he was not well educated. Since then, he has held the Wallace Stevens Endowed Chair at Yale University as well as the Regents Chair at the University of California, at Berkeley. This is quite an accomplishment for a person who could not even read when he began serving his time.
He later co-wrote Bound by Honor, a film that experienced a measure of success in 1992. It has since been retitled, Blood In, Blood Out, and released on video. It provides some accurate insights into the violence that is prison in America. There are several other works to his credit, including Black Mesa Poems and a volume of his memoirs, A Place to Stand: The Making of a Poet (the latter published by Grove; 264 pages; $24.)
Many readers would be surprised if they knew how many ex-cons — or cons while still in prison — are doing good things these days. Few journalists have the courage or inclination to write about things like that. While this essay is headed with Baca's words, it is not about him. Let me explain.
Recently, a newspaper article written by Joseph Perkins was sent to me. For those readers who do not know, I will tell you that Perkins is notorious in the African-American community for being a voice-of-colour speaking for the political right. There are others not unlike him: Ward Connerly (regent, University of California, at Berkeley), Shelby Steele, Clarence Pendelton, Clarence Thomas (US Supreme Court judge), and Dr. Walter Williams to name but a few. Each of these well-paid men has been frequently chosen by mainstream media to express his opinions because his anti-black thinking mirrors the dominant culture thought processes that support oppression of blacks.
Perkins' article is titled "Questions remain on issue of reparations". He begins by reminding us that he was a student editor at Howard University 20 years ago when he met James Forman, "a veteran of the black power movement". He goes on: "In 1969 Forman achieved a proverbial 15 minutes of fame — actually, notoriety was more like it — for disrupting Sunday services at Riverside Church in New York City. He demanded that black Americans be paid $500 million in reparations for the exploitation and oppression suffered at the hands of white America, 'aided and abetted' by religious institutions like Riverside."
As a parrot for the political right, Perkins thinks that "reparations make no sense". He questions, "why should all Americans be forced to pay restitution for slavery when all are not equally culpable?"
What I find so sad about that often-asked question is that many of those who pose it do not want an answer so much as they want to use it to create and leave a politically motivated rhetorical-cloud over the issue that the US government is responsible for paying the long-overdue debt that it owes to African-Americans. This seems to be a growing trend among those who routinely put that tired old question to us.
It is an obvious effort to force the reparations issue's entire agenda into being seen as an evil perpetrated by a few individuals who owned, and profited from, slave labour. It is as if they want to say that only those individuals and their descendants are to blame when, in fact, those individuals and their descendants represent only one part of the issue.
The issue has to do with the US government. It cannot be overemphasised how hugely important it is for the following to be clearly understood by all: That America is the largest and richest corporate body in the world is due, in part, to the work of slaves.
Because of America's past and present corporate structure, reparations are owed to African-Americans in the same way that pay and company benefits are owed to a hard working employee — and as a logical consequence, to that employee's surviving family — when he or she dies on the job without ever having been given even one pay check!
One of the many points surrounding this issue is that for more than 100 years before slavery was abolished the US government not only gave tacit approval to slavery and slave owners, it also required slave owners to pay taxes in both overt and subtle ways for and on those goods and services that slave labour produced.
When Perkins declares that he needs "no check from the government to get over the long ago enslavement of [his] African ancestors", I say that is fine — for him. He has a right to speak for himself. Alas, I am reminded that there was indeed an occasional slave who loved his or her bondage and the person or persons who bought and sold slaves with black skin. It is not a difficult task for me to imagine that Perkins may well be a descendant of such a slave.
Nevertheless, Perkins is wrong to report that "most black Americans" do not need reparations. Who gave him the right to speak for "most black Americans"? If I were to hazard a guess about the opinions of those African-Americans who I have encountered down through my 58 years, I would imagine that many could be more than a little angry that Perkins is so presumptuous as to speak for them.
After all, by his demonstrated behaviour he has come to be little more than a mouthy political whore for the extreme right's corporate pimps!
BY BRANDON ASTOR JONES
[The writer is a prisoner on death row in the United States. He welcomes letters commenting on his columns (include your name and full return address on the envelope, or prison authorities may refuse to deliver it). He can be written to at: Brandon Astor Jones, EF-122216, G3-77, Georgia Diagnostic & Classification Prison, PO Box 3877, Jackson, GA 30233, USA, or email <brandonastorjones@hotmail.com>. Jones depends entirely on donations. He welcomes contributions in any amount. In Australia, please transfer or deposit money directly into account #082-631 53 096 4691 at the Australian National Bank, Ltd. This account, under the name A. Frischkneckt, is entirely dedicated to receiving donations for him. US readers: please make a money order or cashier's check payable Del Cassidy, Jones' trustee, and send it to him at 142 Wilmer Street, Glassboro, New Jersey, 08028. Jones is seeking a publisher for his collected prison writings. Please notify him of any possible leads. Visit Jones' web page at <http://www.brandonastorjones.com>.]