Near the Levee (repost)...

Architecture About.com: What is a Levee?

© 21 September 2005, The Griot Poet

Inspired by the article from Dr. Cornel West: “Exiles from a city and from a nation,” 11 September 2005.

Note: I corrected the spelling of levee in the title and text (it was originally "levy" as a double entendre). On reflection of the carnival barking political times we're in and to avoid the appearance of xenophobia, a preposition and country name were both exchanged from their original versions. The piece still hits powerfully, and clarifies instead of stereotypes, origin of the demand for drugs in this country is this country in total, and no one group in particular.

Dedicated to my cousin from New Orleans, John (Gus) Holmes, Jr., his beautiful family, and the survivors of Hurricane Katrina (note: they're all fine, and relocated to another state).

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“When you live so close to death”

You create songs in the French Quarter on Slave Sundays that follow no pattern.

Rhythm set by clap and tambourine; washboard and kettle drum,

Old people hum in accompaniment to a Constantine Christian jubilee celebration of no cotton bailed; no backbreaking labor toiled.

The one suit you own is spoiled from overuse, and your children’s children carry on the tradition of “dress up” to anesthetize their pain.

“When you live so close to death”

The Mississippi delta builds a sediment foundation for your tragicomic pain:

“Laughing to keep from crying” births the blues!

“When you live so close to death”

People of your hue fought and escaped the French back in the day, and each day are turned away each year as they try to escape the death-hole now known as… Haiti.

“When you live so close to death, you live (life a little) more intensely,”

You create order out of chaos, from Massa raping your sisters and mothers to slaves tipping with another man’s lover: “hey baby, can we JAZZ around a little bit”?

Fighting fiercely in mock duels modeled after “southern gentlemen,” feeling disrespected, passing it down from Jazz procreation to your Hip Hop great-grandchildren’s generation as being “dissed”: with the same deadly consequences.

“When you live so close to death”

What are scraps from Massa’s table become culinary creations:

- Craw dads;

- Jambalaya;

- Gumbo;

- Shrimp Creole

- And Etoufée!

“When you live so close to death”

Lead and pollutants they allowed for your kind to warp your minds & drive the I.Q.s of your babies down scarred your psychology

BEFORE the levees broke;

BEFORE the drug flights to America!

“When you live so close to death”

You are not counted; clouded – an invisible majority under the all-mighty shadow of insignificance: exiles in your own country, resembling from years of neglect more “third world” than ninth ward or US citizenry

Hence, their news media in their quest for a ratings spree mislabeled you “refugees.”

Now, suddenly they are on our side, “shocked and awed” back to the reality of their sacred duty to inform the citizenry of a democracy… neglected for five years.

Shocked by the sight of dead bodies marred by dogs and crocodiles, piled in stairwells like logs… floating downstream! It seems perceptions change once you’re beyond a sheltered, suburban political haze, and find YOURSELF for many days

Breathing the stench,

Your own eyes seeing,

Your own ears hearing the gunshots and screams… in this country,

You cannot believe you could stay reasonably SANE…

Living so close to death!

Open Letter to SAE...

© 13 March 2015, the Griot Poet

Dear Sigma Alpha Epsilon (founded in the Deep South; University of Alabama; “true gentlemen”):

Some history: a mystery to you, I’m sure.

The “Divine Nine”: Alpha Phi Alpha (1906), Alpha Kappa Alpha (1908), Kappa Alpha Psi (1911), Omega Psi Phi (1911), Delta Sigma Theta (1913), Phi Beta Sigma (1914), Zeta Phi Beta (1920), Sigma Gamma Rho (1922) and Iota Phi Theta (1963)

Each were founded in the 20th Century,
Spanning the breath of Civil Rights history
From the lynching era, through Jim Crow to right before the Civil Rights (1964) and Voting Rights (1965) acts,
I know you lack the knowledge
As you and your kind spent your time in college
You had, and have had privileges, not frustrations
Without the threat of your rights being stretched at the neck
By a long noose,
Nor your women raped;
Nor your men burned and castrated;
Except by faux boogie men you created
In blockbuster “Birth of a Nation” silent movies
That shouted volumes of disdain at the freest labor
This nation has ever had
That would bankrupt it and the whole world system
If they ever tried to pay reparations

Many like my noble founders in Kappa Alpha Psi
Were the servants in your frat houses that waited your
Tables;
Scrubbed your bathrooms;
And cleaned your floors;
All the while planning their own version
Of Pan-Hellenism
Our founders knew
Education was our key
To uplift and prosperity

Our leaders were trained
In Robert’s Rules of Order
And parliamentary procedures
To eventually elevate some
To the front of the bus
And the front of movements
Like Rosa Parks (AKA); Dr. Maya Angelou (AKA); Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Alpha); Ralph Abernathy (Kappa); Jesse Jackson (Omega)
That would and still is changing America for the better…
Your little chant: you had decades of practice with that,
Rap music didn’t fuel the venom we all heard,
You’re sorry: because before I-phones and YouTube
You would have never been caught
Big brother isn’t just watching you,
That video came from a disgusted brother
Of Sigma Alpha Epsilon
That whatever “ideals” you once taught
You completely jettisoned
In a fortnight of utter error
For the pleasure
Of slapping every African American
Across the face,
Just like 47 senators sending punk letters to Iranian Mullahs
To openly disrespect and deplore a sitting president
In support of perpetual war
Please counter now with “you use it too!”
We’re aware of that,
But yet, when our founders formed,
Their Pan-Hellenic
Respectability wasn’t just “politics,”
It was survival,
So, we have no songs to rival
The casual poison you at least had
For an impressive instance

ON BEAT

So, I repeat:
The “Divine Nine”: Alpha Phi Alpha (1906), Alpha Kappa Alpha (1908), Kappa Alpha Psi (1911), Omega Psi Phi (1911), Delta Sigma Theta (1913), Phi Beta Sigma (1914), Zeta Phi Beta (1920), Sigma Gamma Rho (1922) and Iota Phi Theta (1963)

Each were founded in the 20th Century,
Spanning the breath of Civil Rights history
From the lynching era, through Jim Crow to right before the Civil Rights (1964) and Voting Rights (1965) acts,
I already know you’re “lawyered up,” and will likely escape
The fate that canned a broadcaster at Univision
For daring to reference our lovely “let’s move” FLOTUS and “Planet of the Apes,”
You’ll be careful; measure your words;
And hope to God you’ve never again have to publically recant
And, no other turncoat brother of yours
Is present at your next racist chant!

An ironic motto...