Thoughts on the Second Amendment inspired by Peralta TV’s film on The Black Panthers.

One thing Doris Thompson’s analysis of Merritt College: Home Of The Black Panthers suggests is the importance of the law-book for the Panthers. According to Thompson, before the Panthers came along the miseducation of black folks promulgated by the school system kept many black folks ignorant of the laws that could theoretically be used to protect and defend their rights. If the Constitution grants a right for a well-regulated militia, the Panthers asked, could we make use of this law as white people are able to? Or will whites once again apply a racial double standard?

The government confirmed the double-standard in its war against the Panthers (while today’s white militias are often still granted government protection). If the government had decided to do away with the Second Amendment all together, their crackdown on the Panthers would have been at least part of a consistent policy. In the subsequent decades, it’s become clear that the government wasn’t afraid of black people with guns as much as they were afraid of organized black people with (unloaded) guns; they feared the well-regulated militia. This fear led them to infiltrate the organization to breed internal mistrust, and encourage black on black crime by any means necessary (as their Hollywood entertainment division pushed Blaxploitation in the 70s and Gangsta Rap since the 90s).

Meanwhile, the most vocal proponents of the right to bear arms today (such as the NRA and white supremacist groups) tend to ignore, or erase, the constitution’s requirement for a well-regulated militia, and argue that it’s a right of the individual; such an interpretation of the law of course leads to more crime in general (white-on-white as well as white-on-black crime).  And, in retrospect, it’s clear that the Black Panthers understood the meaning of the second amendment more than today’s most vocal advocates of the right to bear arms. As the movie points out, crime rates decreased when the Panthers patrolled the police with their unloaded guns. Yet, this history is often erased and distorted.

Today’s schools, for the most part, still don’t teach the true meaning of the constitution just like they didn’t in the days before the Black Panthers. This is why—on the rare occasions they bring the Black Panthers up (which they usually don’t, unless pushed), they ignore the importance of the law book—that Huey and the others would read the officers their rights—which was ultimately more the point than the gun. For the Panthers, like Malcolm, understood the relationship between the Law and Brute Force, the Ballot and the Bullet.

In international diplomacy, it is understood that the threat of force can be an effective bargaining tool to bargain from a position of strength. Domestically, the Panthers asked: is the threat of the bullet (as opposed to the bullet itself) the only way to ensure that any victory at the ballot may mean anything? The Panthers put that question to the test and, alas, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that they, and, more broadly, the Civil Rights movement of the 50s and 60s in general proved the large scale impotence of the ballot without some show of collective strength to back it up.

Today, the civil rights act and the voting rights act have been dismantled, and other powerful external forces have caused the fragmentation of the large scale show of strength and unity that characterized the struggles of the 50s and 60s. The lesson that many take from this is that the ballot won’t work, and the bullet won’t work either—so the question emerges—if neither the ballot nor the bullet can effectively unite the black community in the struggle against police brutality, The New Jim Crow and American Apartheid, what can? Certainly body-cameras on police, or even community policing will not be enough. Can boycotts still work? A collective show of strength through the community’s “spending power?” Would it be enough to establish worker owned collectives?

The Panthers had a comprehensive program of demands that understood the need for long-term systemic demands, starting with economics and the importance of education. They fought on many more fronts than patrolling the police. Today, these struggles continue, but they need to be coordinated with each other in a comprehensive program (so the anti-gentrification activists work together in a larger organization with the anti-police brutality activists, for instance—since the two are at root part of the same oppression). In retrospect, perhaps the most enduring legacy of the Panthers was their role as teachers—teachers who showed by doing—and what they have the power to teach is still a threat to the power structure.

 Although in many ways the largely women-lead #BlackLivesMatter movement (as well as organizations like #Asians4BlackLives) have learned from the legacy of the Panthers, and speak to today’s issues more effectively, and there is much more to say and do, but I will end with a quote from Charles Hamilton, Stokely Carmichael’s collaborator on the Black power manifesto, from 1971 that I believe is still deeply relevant today:  “For blacks to gain control of a significant portion of the electronic media would be the most important single breakthrough in the black struggle, and would justify every bit of time, talent and resources expended toward its achievement.” Today, blacks have even less control of the mass media than they did in 1971, and that is one reason why racism is as at least as bad today as it was then. The white-owned media has been very effective in creating racist stereotypes that often affect people on an unconscious level, and lead to an implicit justification of discriminatory government policies. The question is: how do we act to change this, beyond the ballot or the bullet?

Teaching Sonnets To High School & College Students

I was introducing my creative writing students to sonnets. As I explained the form, a student asked, “How many syllables should each have again?” So I figured I’d try to write on the board a sentence that means what it says:

“Every line needs to have ten syllables”

I counted it out on my fingers, and I could tell it helped. Then another student asked me to refresh them on the rhyme scheme of the Shakespearean sonnet. On the spur of the moment, it occurred to me I could show the ABBA, CDDC, EFFE, GG rhyme scheme better through words rather than letters, and make the process more collaboratively interactive. So I asked the students to come up with 14 end words for the sonnet. We already had the first word, “Syllables,” though I knew that word ran the risk of making their sonnets too meta, so I gave them other options (as long as it rhymes with “syllables”) for their first line (some chose “cable” and others choose “table”). Someone mentioned “Pizza” for line two. Line 3 needed to rhyme; someone brilliantly suggested “Nietzsche!” (eat your heart out Ogden Nash!). He had been talking about Nietzsche in explaining something about an earlier poem he wrote. We went from there. Once we had the end-words, I asked students to write a spontaneous in-class sonnet based on these end-words; this would lend some commonality to the exercise.

Ultimately, I was very pleased with the results. I believe, for some students, this exercise helped liberate their work from the demands of unfettered subjectivity, of the fallback convention of self-expression, and allowed them to see poetry as a formal art as much as they understood their dramatic dialogue pieces. I feel it resulted in some work that, despite the silly end word rhymes (or even because of them), resulted in some genuine wisdom and insights worth sharing to the more "sophisticate" published poet-folk. It made me wish Kenneth Koch were still alive, because I think he’d be kinda proud of what we did (which was after all influenced by him). Anyway, I include five (5) of them here (though one of them only has 13 lines! That doesn’t bug me, and I hope it doesn’t bug you). I wrote one too, and may share that at another time (though I don't presume it's as good as my students' pieces).

+++++++ 

What would you do if there was no cable

If the only thing you had was pizza

You’d probably turn into a Nietzsche

And realize that life is terrible

You should let your mind become fugitive

And it would probably start its own blog

About how its life is like that of a dogg

However you would become lucrative

And live in a place with more than one wall

Were you ever afraid to show your face

Fear no more, just put your money in chase

Now there will be no reason to feel small

Remember that nobody is stupid

Or you can just get a job as cupid.

                                      ----Julia Alarcon

++++++++

On one mellow afternoon, the table

Was still yet devoid of any pizza.

“As you stare at the table,” said Nietzsche,

“nothingness stares back,” in a terrible

mood. He mused if the pizza, fugitive

of food standards according to some blogs

he read, was captured by the dogs

of the regime. They knew how lucrative

the market is for pizza. No such wall

was too great for the food regime to face.

Everyone his this food, for they would chase

To the ends of the earth for it. No small

Matter thought Nietzsche, it was a stupid

Thing anyways, like that fairy cupid.

                         ---Chaarlie Chawalit

+++++

Words swirl through my mind in neat syllables,

They’re tasty and plentiful like pizza,

Simple and yet so crass-y like Nietzcshce,

They wipe away all that is terrible,

Lazy thoughts escape like some fugitive,

Running away from the fray described on some blog,

Confidence and swagger much like Snoop Dogg,

Would turn these basic words more lucrative,

Phrases are blocked as though stopped by a wall,

Shock and awe are now so plain on my face,

I need to find my voice, I need to chase,

Pride that was once so grand is now so small,

Trying to sound cool I was so stupid,

I lost it all trying to play cupid.

                                      ------Marku Reynolds

+++++++++

 I want to hang out and use syllables

Also, order ginger beer and pizza

While we wait, let us talk of ol’ Nietzsche

Honestly, that topic is terrible

Give me a good tale of a fugitive

Harriet Tubman, righteous before blogs

Oh my god, did you see that adorbs dog?!

Soo so cute, definitely lucrative

I like how you catch me against the wall

When I try to look away from your face

Then fear passes because you don’t give chase

Accepting that, you see where I am small

These moments, my brain warns “Don’t be stupid!

This is really a prank; don’t trust Cupid.”

                                              -------Vanessa Mielesko

 +++++++

Love so distinct with two strange syllables

Nice walk made my hunger grow for pizza

Not a Romeo therefore a Nietsche

The heart can be cold and even terrible

You got me chained like a fugitive

Words have no meaning on a social blog

Simply loving and caring like a dog

Tried to take jealousy out on the wall

Vision of your angelic face

Love is a game but you won’t ever chase

Large world we have yet some say it’s so small

Don’t fall for the game be smart not stupid

Trust me darling don’t be fooled by cupid

                                            ------------Yesenia Briseno

Sonnet 61 (I guess this would be called the 'lynch mob' mentality)

Remember how #RonSilliman used to

Try to “cow” those younger in the 90s

Unlike his cronies back in the 60s

Who were more socialist than me, thou, you?

We muttured in wings, “his generation

Of white self-proclaimed radical poets

Helped spur backlash against Black Arts griots,”

But let them control the conversation

Trying to defend ourselves in their terms,

Learn their language, all the better to curse

In it, smuggling truths in their Trojan hearse.

I failed, now hope to help the tables turn

As he’s caught defending old time black face

Of ghost world plagiarist friend-in-high-Place

+++++++

So I got swept back into what used to be called "the poetry wars"

…If I Should Perform Poetry Again….

 I wouldn’t rule out performing poetry again, like I did from 1986 to 2004, but I don’t think I would do it unless there were either discussion or dancing, and preferably both. Discussion is probably easier to achieve in the standard literary reading context; it’s more “affordable.” So, if invited to do a literary reading, I write back and say: Can you publicize it as a discussion, or at least a lengthy Q&A? (as Baraka so masterfully achieved, but even in its own way those events that were documented in that 80s anthology Writing/Talks). 

I know I much prefer the experience of hearing one or two pages read and then a Q& A session rather than 15 or 20 in succession (with perhaps some witty asides and digressions). This could become a less autocratic form than the standard reading, more collaborative and improvisatory (like a classroom at its best, without the bothersome grading and accreditation “standards”). It helps unlock the tensions wound tight by great pieces of writing, unleashing its suggestive powers so the conversation can range from politics to poetics to health to love (and/or gender politics)—depending on who is in attendance.

As much as I believe this would breathe fresh air into the stale conventions of the “reading,” I believe that the incorporation of music does even more. Dancing, of course, would not be mandatory. And the incorporation of music, without verbal discussion and a Q&A session may run the risk of being as autocratic as the standard conventional reading by reifying the 4^th wall between “audience” and “performer.” But since music is collaborative and includes drums—or even electronic percussion—it has the power to pierce these walls without injury, even while seeming to accept these confines. The institutional conventions we reject provide a useful backdrop and frame; you need an envelope to “push.”

I’m aware my need for one, or preferably both, of these features to become standard in a literary reading context may be perceived as rooted in my own shyness, or lack of confidence in the words being presented, that it exhibits little faith in the “text itself,” and the beauties and possibilities of sustained contemplation afforded by the ways words dance with listeners consciousness against the “white space” of a shared silence (while some have their notebooks, or laptops, out to try to catch the stream). Yet, the incorporation of music and discussion still allows room for this form. It can make some feel comfortable, or more comfortable, than I’ve seen repeatedly in all the fidgeting and wondering when “the post-reading soiree” starts. We can put that “post-reading soiree” in the reading. And, for the visually oriented, at the very least, a painter can be on stage painting while this happens. Okay, now you can argue with me…and I’ll argue with myself too….

“Thou Shalt Not Pacify The Truth”: Tink’s “The Ratchet Commandments” (Mosley Music Group, 2015)

The major label debut by Trinity Home, better known as Tink, “The Ratchet Commandments,” introduces a fascinating young talent to a larger audience. She takes full advantage of this forum; I am immediately attracted by the chutzpah with which she cleverly structures the verses of her song around the “Thou Shalt Nots” of the Biblical Ten Commandments, and applies it to the contemporary “ratchet.” As the backup singers chant “Thou Shalt Not,” Tink speaks directly to the ratchet in her own language, preaching such Biblical commandments as “thou shalt not commit adultery, covet thy neighbor’s husband/wife, or bear false witness against they neighbor” as well as some others that don’t directly have Biblical analogues.

Although she’s riffing on Biggie Smalls’ “Ten Crack Commandments,” I take Tink at her word when she sings, “Thou shalt not...pacify the truth.” Throughout Tink keeps it real; not needing to pacify the truth behind “entertainment,” but embodying it in her art (even including the video---a rare video that doesn’t detract from, muddy, or contradict the song’s message). Yet this brief summary is hardly a good introduction to the song, as it flattens out its lyrical and musical complexites, ignores the humor and charm of her broad social vision and original rhymes, and is no substitute for hearing it.i

The Animal/Manual Rhyme

She eases into the lyrics, addressing her producer/co-writer Timbaland before directly addressing the ratchet in her spoken introduction: 

I been at this thing for years
It's done turned me to an animal
Some of y'all ratchet, I'm a write you hoes a manual
Step by step, G shit for you to keep
This the ratchet commandments, I need a moment to preach 

With a nod to Biggie, the first two lines may give us all the backstory we need; though only 20 years old, she had already moved from her childhood gospel roots to begin rapping at the age of 15, and released several mixtapes and collaborated with noise-pop band Sleigh Bells (among others) before being signed to Epic records. So she’s well aware of the lifestyle temptations encouraged by the music industry, and this song becomes a form of protection, a talisman against becoming that animal or ratchet she preaches against. A manual goes beyond commandments by not simply telling you what to do or not to do, but by giving a rationale, and offering alternative strategies. “G” Shit means gangsta, but it could also mean gospel: girl gospel (spiritual rhythm and blues). Preach! In the first, verse she does:

(Thou shalt not) fuck up on a nigga
When you know he got a missus, you want labels, alright bitches
(Thou shalt not) lie upon the bible
How you looking for a title when you sleeping with his rivals?
(Thou shalt not) put trust in these men
These niggas are now bitches, quit acting so feminine
(Thou shalt not) pacify the truth
If you know your pussy lose, you a ho, so do better

I picture Moses nodding in assent; surely Tink’s gospel singing mother would appreciate it; on the other hand, Tink seems to keep the white corporate suits happy enough by speaking their language of bitches and hoes. Yet it’s also sexy, and very funny, and it must be made clear that she’s not simply judging the ratchets from some high moral perch when she tells them they can “do better;” she understands that it’s easier to give advice than take your own and only gives advice she can take. In the chorus, she offers her first verbal hint of just how the ratchet can do better:

(Ratchet)
Every night doing the most up on Instagram
(Ratchet)
Maybe that's the reason why bitches, they can't keep a man

The Instagram/Keep A Man Rhyme 

You could argue that Tink is merely assuming that these ratchets actually want to keep a man, but let's grant her that (since it's the main point of the song: if these ratchets want to keep a man, they're certainly not going about it the right way). You could also ask: "What (aside from being a catchy rhyme) does Instagram have to do with this?" She elaborates on that point as she confides in Timbaland (and us) in her second spoken rap between the second and third chorus:

I told Tim like
I'm irritated, devastated
I thought
I thought we had some young queens, what you mean?
We act belligerent, generation of ignorance
Bitches live for the 'Gram
so they life ain't got no significance
Boy this shit be a trip like Expedia
She won't pick up a book but she'll probably bust it open for social media 
Man, you'd be surprised
cuffing and loving and fucking the team
Getting by just by living and making it work on they knees
Let's not debate it, these bitches is overrated
They probably will never learn 'cause they lacking in home training, yo 
But niggas lying on they money like every day
And niggas ratchet too, just in another way
You fake fathers never held your daughters, never had a conversation 
You too fucking immature to get an occupation.

Coming more than halfway through this song (which, divided into 3 main parts—a verse, chorus, and extended rap—has much more in common with old school/traditional song structures than much new school industry hip hop), Tink’s internally rhyming, graceful and confident rant makes it clear that she wants women to act like the Queens they really are, rather than ignorant and belligerent. Equating ignorance with belligerence, Tink encourages women (or girls) to be the opposite. But, in order to know what the opposite is, we may have to know how she defines the word “belligerence” in this song.

Traditionally, men are the more belligerent, war-like, sex, but women can also be belligerent in the ways they act to others as well as themselves and, in the process, sacrifice their authority by sinking to the level that men--especially white men--have established. The message may be nothing new--as certainly other women, as well as men (albeit sometimes hypocritically, with a double-standard), have preached against a "ho" or slut-like woman, but Tink takes it to another level. Interestingly, the first example she gives of these women's belligerence is an addiction to Instagram; social media is responsible for these young ladies' feeling so insignificant.

By equating these women’s addiction to Instagram with the traditional “ho,” Tink invites us to think deeply about how the latest fad in internet does more to corrupt the morals of youth than hip hop can. As Tink’s song challenges the sedentary attention-deficit disorder culture, her argument is aesthetic as well as ethical. Belligerence becomes one with sacrificing the long-term goal for the immediate gratification of the transient short-term, which is encouraged---even pushed—by social media culture.

Tink seems wise beyond her years in understanding that the pre-21st Century culture (in which people were encouraged to be patient enough to write letters and read books more than today) is ultimately more rewarding than the immediate gratification of the primarily visual (and non-verbal) mode of Instagram. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say Instagram's this generation's crack epidemic; at the very least, the ability to keep a man (assuming that's what one wants) is much more like the concentration needed to get lost, and found, in a book (or, at the very least, a song structured as artfully as as "Ratchet Commandments" that can grow richer with each listening). Of course, Tink knows that to place the ultimate blame for this state of affairs on social media would be historically inaccurate, yet the fact remains that the conventions of social media like Instagram enable such ethical ratched-ness. Yet, curbing one's addiction to instagram is not the only advice Tink offers.

The second defining characteristic of the belligerent ratchet (“getting by just by living and making it work on they knees”) brings money into the picture. For all their belligerence, they’re still begging on their knees, even if they think they’re hustling! In fact, their belligerence reduces them to begging! This line gains in resonance when we remember it’s not the first time she speaks of money in this song; nor will it be the last. The earlier spoken rap after the first chorus, though half the length of this one, uses condensed poetic economy to say even more. In its last four lines, a series of contrasts emerges to create a tight ethical syllogism (or riddle): 

They rather be on the block
Than taking care of the crib
I'd rather be making money
Than taking care of some kids  

Because Tink preaches that women should be "taking care of the crib," it could seem that she's not practicing what she preaches in the last line (or that she's putting quotes around it so that this "I" is the ratchet). But Tink would also rather be making money than being "on the block" (and it's hard not to think of the traditional "auction block" as well as the contemporary meat market or gang rape when she uses that phrase). Interestingly, this is the only time in the entire song that Tink makes a bold, direct statement about herself (with the possible exception of the introduction's fear that she's becoming an animal).

The contrast between making money and being on the block may collapse were it not for a crucial difference: these women have kids and Tink's persona lives the live of a single, childless, young woman who is freer to separate love from the yoke of economic dependence. This allows her to bargain from a position of strength that does practice the standard she preaches. There is no confusion or ethical contradiction in the way she brings up what polite society would call the dirty little secret of money.


The “Heathen/Need Him” Rhyme

This becomes even clearer in the second verse, where the THOU SHALT NOT goes beyond the biblical injunctions of the first verse into the contemporary trenches and reveals the complexity of relationships (or one night stands for that matter):

(Thou shalt not) slip up on a heathen
Always keep it cool, never let him know you need him
(Thou shalt not) let a nigga see you sweat
Fuck a bitch and get the check, move along, you know the rest 
(Thou shalt not) respond to these bitches
They envy what you doing and they only want attention
(Thou shalt not) pacify the truth
If you know your rent due, get the fuck out the club 

She's not saying you can't be in the club, hunting for a guy--but just have your own shit (and money) straight first. This could apply to the men too (since "niggas are now bitches"), as the video shows in a great image of poetic condensation: a guy writing his phone number on the back of his eviction notice!

Despite her invocation of the Biblical moral code, she's certainly not advocating pre-marital chastity, or a Lysistrata-like (think Chi-raq) sex strike, only to "keep it cool" whether you're female or male if you want a one-night stand: "Fuck a bitch and get the check, move along, you know the rest." She understands that in this (war)-game of dating that getting the check equals power, and that women can wield it as well as men. "The rest" is purposely left vague. All this adds up to a simple message--take care of yourself first or you'll come to the game partially disabled. The song suggests on a deeper level that it is money that has screwed up the male-female relationship (the tradition that a man can, and even is supposed to, buy a woman, is still, alas, alive), but in the meantime, fight fire with fire. You're worth more than you think you are; you sell yourself short. In this society, you may have to have money in order to back up your mouth, but in the sport of love, a woman's worth is a kind of money--don't squander it!

Once you know what you really want or need (whether keeping a man, or a one night stand), how do you go about getting it? The ratchets are not only lying to themselves as well as others, but also tactically and strategically dumb, or unschooled. By contrast, Tink offers strategies for various situations. It’s likely that she would agree with Shakespeare’s Cleopatra who, when advised by another woman to cross her man in nothing, responds: “Thou teach teachest like a fool the way to lose him!” This is not a belligerent approach, especially when it’s so brilliantly entertainingly theatrical as the way Tink acts it out. A beautiful, mischievous, yet righteous, spirit oozes out of this artful, soulful—even sanctified--20 year old.

Yes, there’s also a childlike “Na Na Na Na Na Na” scorn, and a highschool cliguishness in the song—for instance, in the one line that’s sung in the chorus/hook, “Y’all can’t sit with us.” (Us—the cool girls, the together girls, the Queens, the non-ratchets)—but this is what redeems it from the cloying tone of a strictly moral argument. Still, if you’re looking for easy sympathy from Tink, dear ratchet girl, you’re going to probably have to wait ‘til she drops another track. But, here, her tough love shows a deeper sympathy, if she can hook you (“I love that song, I’m laughing with her. She’s not really talking about me”). Then it can sink in.

Ultimately, "Ratchet Commandments" presents a persona that has found a balance, or even what Aristotle would call a "golden mean" between the extreme of "belligerence" and "femininity" (transcending the virgin/whore complex) in the battle of the sexes. By contrast, the ratchet is too "belligerent" for exactly the same reasons she's too "feminine" to be a Queen (as Tink defines "feminine" pejoratively: the act of pacifying the truth, sacrificing your moral authority to be "nice"--but then backstab nonetheless). But the main point of all her criticisms of the "ratchet" is that they reveal, through negation, the positive alternative. She says what she is (and hopes to be) by criticizing what she isn't (and hopes not to fall into). In this sense, the song is a vow--a reminder, a mind-protector--to herself--to be the anti-ratchet, a Queen, as well as a statement to any man who is overhearing about what kind of woman she is, to let them know where she's coming from and what she will and will not accept. 

There are male ratchets too, but clearly Timbaland is not one of them. It makes me very happy to see these two Pisces collaborating. Though many are comparing Tink to Lauryn Hill, it's possible that for Timbaland, Tink may very well fill that collaborative void he's felt ever since the death of Aaliyah in 2001 (certainly Katy Perry couldn't fill it). For my own part, she restores my faith that it’s possible—even today—that, yes, the pop media can teach better than school or preach as good as the church...not that every song need to do that as she does here, nor that one must be a “poptimist.” (afterall, it’s too early to tell if this song will be a pop smash; it hasn’t even reached half a million youtube views as of this writing). Whatever.....“Ratchet Commandements” is a strong, courageous song, and I pray it’s a hit.

If you can look past its “explicit lyrics,” you’ll find, “a dream or belief to reach” (Gwendolyn Brooks) beyond the beseeching of the self-hating profligate (ratchet), while maybe even helping you enjoy your body and dance (without white face, or a blonde wig). Beauty is only skin deep, you can’t judge a book by looking at its cover—to quote 2 R&B classics—and yes you are a book even if you don’t read yet. You have to be a book to be a queen; you don’t have to beg to choose and still play fair. I can’t believe that Trinity Home’s gospel singing mother wouldn’t be proud of her daughter’s achievement.