Can We Take A Stand
Actor, Singer and Activist Paul Robeson, left. Writer, Poet and Activist Alice Walker, right.
Her Blue Body Everything We Know is the title of a book of poetry by Alice Walker published in 1991. Here's an excerpt from a poem in the book We Have a Beautiful Mother. She wrote:
We have a beautiful
mother
Her green lap
immense
Her brown embrace
eternal
Her blue body
everything
we know.
Alice Walker as woman, writer and poet embraced the earth and used her art in defense of it. She embraced womanhood and the right to choose and used her art in defense of those rights. Her art spoke her heart and her passion. She embodied what Paul Robeson spoke about in 1958 when he said:
" I have never separated my work as an artist and my work as a human being. I have always put it even more strongly, that to me, my art is always a weapon."
Many people, women especially are coming together now to protest the possible overturning of Roe v Wade by the Supreme Court. This attempt to control the decisions women make over their own bodies and health feels to me like there's an attack on womanhood. Shouldn't the court protect the rights of its citizens? Why do issues around women's health become so politicized? Why such efforts to control the bodies of women? Questions we must face and react to if Roe vs Wade is overturned. Over 20 states in our country already have enacted laws that make a legal abortion difficult, illegal or next to impossible regardless the situation. As if they prefer to turn back the hands of time into a dark period in our history. Whether you agree with the procedure or not abortions should remain legal nationwide and a decision left in the hands of the woman. I agree with Paul Robeson and I admire artists like Paul and Alice who see their art as a vehicle to bring public awareness to serious social issues and possibly affect real change.
Toni Thomas
My Favorite Poem
Amina Baraka's Selection
There it is by Jayne Cortez
My friend
they don't care
if you're an individualist
a leftist a rightist
a shithead or a snake
They will try to exploit you
absorb you confine you
disconnect you isolate you
or kill you
And you will disappear into your own rage
into your own insanity
into your own poverty
into a word a phrase a slogan a cartoon
and then ashes
The ruling class will tell you that
there is no ruling class
as they organize their liberal supporters into
white supremacist lynch mobs
organize their children into
ku klux klan gangs
organize their police into
killer cops
organize their propaganda into
a device to ossify us with angel dust
preoccupy us with western symbols in
african hair styles
inoculate us with hate
institutionalize us with ignorance
hypnotize us with a monotonous sound designed
to make us evade reality and stomp our lives away
And we are programmed to self-destruct
to fragment
to get buried under covert intelligence operations of
unintelligent committees impulsed toward death
And there it is
The enemies polishing their penises between
oil wells at the pentagon
the bulldozers leaping into demolition dances
the old folks dying of starvation
the informers wearing out shoes looking for crumbs
the life blood of the earth almost dead in
the greedy mouth of imperialism
And my friend
they don't care
if you're an individualist
a leftist a rightist
a shithead or a snake
They will spray you with
a virus of legionnaire's disease
fill your nostrils with
the swine flu of their arrogance
stuff your body into a tampon of
toxic shock syndrome
try to pump all the resources of the world
into their own veins
and fly off into the wild blue yonder to
pollute another planet
And if we don't fight
if we don't resist
if we don't organize and unify and
get the power to control our own lives
Then we will wear
the exaggerated look of captivity
the stylized look of submission
the bizarre look of suicide
the dehumanized look of fear
and the decomposed look of repression
forever and ever and ever
And there it is
