Garlands to a Revolutionist Thespian—Imamu Amiri Baraka (II)

This daunting creative, performative and filmic products of a man who is additionally, in fact predominantly a political activist and frontline civil rights proponent (and his writing and performances feed from and envision his activism inimitably). Every one of his work, I dare say, is a reflection of the important role that a writer-activist (to […]

This daunting creative, performative and filmic products of a man who is additionally, in fact predominantly a political activist and frontline civil rights proponent (and his writing and performances feed from and envision his activism inimitably). Every one of his work, I dare say, is a reflection of the important role that a writer-activist (to borrow a coinage of Biodun Jeyifo) plays in his immediate society, nation and the world. Often studied in comparison with our own Wole Soyinka, Imamu Amiri Baraka is a public personality who had been most indomitable, consistent and unapologetic in his crusade for human rights and the defence of civil rights, liberties and democratic rights and values.
 With reference to his works, including some of his most outstanding ones in regard to their radical politics and egalitarian values and codes, Baraka has made significant cultural productions that have upped political consciousness and revolutionary conscientization in the African-American society and the world. His films/videos, Black Theatre:  (1978) Furious Flower: A Video Anthology of African American Poetry 1960-195 (1998) make an eloquent statement about his impassioned commitment to and cultivation/definition of the creative tradition and culture of the African American. In the sphere of music works like The Music; Reflections on Jazz and Blues and Black Music are among the very critical/creative efforts to locate the place of African American music, with specific reference to Jazz and Blues in the development of contemporary American music and the cultural identity of the African American in the civilization pattern of the United States. But it is in his dramatic works that we have seen the radical and dialectical interrogation of the polarized, misogynized politics of America and the identity retrieval of the black in a white-dominated America. Plays like A Black Mass (1966), his Four Revolutionary Plays (1969), The Slave (1964) and Dutchman (1964) depict and delineate Baraka’s drama of commitment.
As I have said earlier, a huge controversy surrounds Baraka’s creativity, besides his political activism. While some, especially among the African American community consider him as one of the greatest writers of Black descent, many even equate him to the greatly revered James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison and Hurston; bourgeois intellectuals across race denounce and condemn him for the unorthodox and radical nature of his writings. First is the seeming eroticism in some of his early works with obscene and sensuous images. The phallic images on the cover of his initial notebooks shown in cafes and bars in Greenwich country home provoke this negative perception and pejorative commentary of his works. There is also the ‘unsettling’– to the bourgeois elite and high cultural elements—potential of Baraka’s advocacy on rape, sexual violence, toward women, heterosexual instincts, Jews and people of white colour. Baraka’s contention is that ‘homophobia’ (animosity to and abhorrence toward homosexuals) have been read as an attempt to ‘conceal his own (alleged) history of same-sex encounters’, which as the Jewish author, Jerry Watts opined, compromises his radical and militant disposition and bent. Watts, in a mode which appears vengeful in view of Baraka’s perceived anti-Semitism states that Baraka ‘knew that popular knowledge of his homosexuality would have undermined the credibility of his militant voice.’ He further averred that his becoming openly anti-homosexual, was aimed at dousing awareness of his homosexual past. This is a consciously expressive position of American bourgeoisie—predominantly white and also black– of the undisguised homophobia, his dialectal expressions, so-called sexism and anti-Semitism. Quotes of Baraka’s literary works and essays in this direction are often made to discredit Baraka’s palpable radical and revolutionary life.
 It is, however, important to note that Imamu Baraka’s robust anti-racist lyrical strategy came in the sixties, in the younger days of the writer’s evolution in the midst of black repression. His own rebuttal and/or defence of this negative perception of his polemics will suffice and add to our view of the conscious undermining of the credible, robust positive radicalism of a foremost black American writer in the age of protest; righteous anger against black repression. Wrote Baraka in 2009, and quoted in Wikipedia; ‘Those quotes are from the essays in Home, a book written almost fifty years ago. The anger was part of the mindset created by first, the assassination of John Kennedy, followed by the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, followed by the assassination of Malcolm X amidst the lynching and national oppression. A few years later, the assassination of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. What changed my mind was that I became a Marxist after recognizing classes within the Black community and the class struggle even after we had struggled to elect the first Black Mayor of Newark, Kenneth Gibson’. Nothing, really, no amount of propaganda could diminish the great contribution to the struggle for racial equality and civil rights, among classes in the American society and the freedom of the human spirit all over by this great revolutionary and public intellectual, Imamu Amiri Baraka. 
For his intimidating profile and immense contribution to literature, music and society, especially the African-American society, Barak received numerous awards, which, to my mind are not commensurate with his contributions to society but which, at least, reveals some appreciation of this great man of letters and revolutionary activism.