Orwellian...

 

Reading Group: Do you really know what 'Orwellian' means? Sam Jordison, The Guardian

© February 1, 2023, the Griot Poet

We laid Tyre Nichols in peace,

On the first day of Black History Month, 2023,

The cowardly College Board picked THAT DAY,

To strip down AP African American History,

Bowing to the presidential ambitions of Ron DeSantis,

Who must kowtow to the crazy,

To survive in a GOP primary,

 

Gone are:

Black feminist theory,

Queer theory,

In Florida and Texas, February 1st is the first day of *Blank* History Month,

Reference to the enslaved substituted in Texas with “migratory workers.”

“Woke” is how Florida refers to history, math, science, reality, and AP courses,

 

Gone are:

The debate on Reparations,

Diamond and Silk replacing Bell Hooks,

 

Gone are: Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Langston Hughes, Nicole Hannah-Jones, Tony Morrison,

Notice the pattern?

 

Ron DeSantis is nakedly afraid of ideas,

That challenges the status quo patriarchy,

 

Censoring certain African American authors who challenged white cisgender supremacy and power,

 

Crispus Attucks was the first to die for The American Revolution - barely a mention,

They treat Medgar Evers like he never existed,

Malcolm’s name [subtracted], leaving an algebraic “X,”

Dr. King’s’ efforts to unify the country’s rural and urban poor deleted,

 

They ignore American history, looking squarely at our virtues and our faults,

We can’t say,

“Black Lives Matter” (because they [obviously] don’t),

But the College Board that makes the AP, GRE, and SAT added a NEW feature: black conservatism, to do class projects.

 

Question to the College Board (in the letter I plan to write):

Does that include Clarence Thomas,

His addiction to pornography,

His sexual harassment of Anita Hill,

Him falling asleep at numerous Supreme Court arguments,

Until January 6th, and the release of files from the National Archives,

That implicates his conspiratorial wife,

The one “no” vote out of nine in rare, bipartisan unanimous consent,

His refusal to recuse in matters of insurrection and Ginny Thomas?

Some AP students should start writing about that!

  

Clarence Thomas was the boring, Step-n-Fetch, dumbed-down replacement,

 

For an actual jurist: Thurgood Marshall,

Who led the NAACP Legal Defense Fund,

Who fought to end segregation in the public school system,

Who won 29 of the 32 civil rights cases he argued before the U.S. Supreme Court,

Back when getting there meant riding on the back of the bus,

Who WON Brown vs. Board of Education,

In front of the place where he would finish his life’s work, making history,

Both as the first African American Supreme Court Justice,

An inspiration for Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson,

Marshal, an alumnus of Howard University,

A History Block College and University,

 

Clarence had no such activism or resume,

He attended Yale Law School,

Bush Sr’s Alma Mater,

He wasn’t a member of Skull and Bones but a fraternity brother of Holy Cross,

He led the EEOC when he sexually harassed Anita,

Before that, he had authored eight legal opinions,

Bush Sr appointed him,

Not too long after the Willie Horton ad,

And Clarence said nothing.

He didn’t want to care.

He was under the spell of his cult leader Ginny then,

Whose parents said he was “nice for a black guy,” the only one they had ever met,

He’s the kind of turncoat who pretended to be with you on the Underground Railroad,

Shouting at the right moment for runners to be found,

And collected cash for diming you out,

 

Don’t insult our intelligence with your tokenism,

Byron Lowell Donalds

He was never going to be Speaker of the House,

Matt Gaetz wasn’t serious about that,

Byron’s just as much a token as Lindsey Graham’s mascot, Tim Scott!

 

White supremacy in burnt cork face is minstrelsy,

Aaron McGruder made his framework in “The Boondocks’” Uncle Ruckus,

He was a caricature fashioned to warn us,

The enablers of fascism are sometimes among us,

Dr. Nathan Hare referred to them as “Black Anglo Saxons.”

I don’t know why they think they can get away with this bad joke,

Let me sum this up with Ebonics:

“All skin folk ain’t kinfolk!”

 

The Missouri legislature instituted a dress code for women,

Maybe they’ll introduce hijabs and Handmaid’s Tale bonnets next,

 

Libertarians and Republicans used to believe in,

Personal Liberty,

Limited Government,

 

Stop looking for the idiots carrying Confederate flags, wearing swastikas, and goose-stepping,

Fear instead the wolves of Wall Street possessing positions and pedigrees,

Fear instead the people owning propaganda outlets and calling them “news.”

Democracy is a kryptonite to sociopaths.

“Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” means that the mean kids in the ivory towers have to share resources.

 

“CRT,” “woke,” and anything else are smokescreens.

They plan to obliterate the progress of the mid-20th and 21st Centuries,

Reestablishing old-world toxic oligarchy and patriarchy,

A “lords and serfs” autocracy,

And make sure you’re too anxious and depressed to think your vote means anything,

I’m here to tell you, like the rapper Common:

It does: That’s why they’re hellbent on blocking it!

If it’s “a pox on both houses,”

If you’re “too woke to vote,”

If voting doesn’t matter,

Why are wealthy Americans voting and trying to block you from doing it?

 

George Santayana said:

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

 

The anti-George Santayanas are saying quite bluntly:

“It’s not condemnation if repeating it is our intent!”