Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
I say,
It’s in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It’s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can’t touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can’t see.
I say,
It’s in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I’m a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
‘Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

I had an assignment for my African-American Studies class to watch this documentary. It is called 500 Years Later. I thought that I was not going to that interested, because I’m not really interested in documentaries; however, this one was different. It was about slavery and other issues with in the Black and African community. There were audio clips of speeches and poems as well as pictures. There was this one poem that was very powerful and stuck out it my mind. So after the documentary was over I did a little research to find out who had wrote this poem, it turned out to be Amiri Baraka. So I decided I wanted to share this with others so that they can read it as well. It’s quite long, I wanted to find someone reading it, but I couldn’t find anyone reading it how it was read in the documentary, plus it wasn’t the entire poem. Anyways, here it is! Enjoy! 

SOMEBODY BLEW UP AMERICA

   (All thinking people
   oppose terrorism
   both domestic
   & international…
   But one should not
    be used
   To cover the other)

They say its some terrorist, some
         barbaric
                          A Rab, in
   Afghanistan
It wasn’t our American terrorists
It wasn’t the Klan or the Skin heads
Or the them that blows up nigger
Churches, or reincarnates us on Death Row
It wasn’t Trent Lott
Or David Duke or Giuliani
Or Schundler, Helms retiring

It wasn’t
the gonorrhea in costume
the white sheet diseases
That have murdered black people
Terrorized reason and sanity
Most of  humanity, as they pleases

They say (who say? Who do the saying
Who is them paying
Who tell the lies
Who in disguise
Who had the slaves
Who got the bux out the Bucks

Who got fat from plantations
Who genocided Indians
Tried to waste the  Black nation

Who live on Wall Street
   The first plantation
Who cut your nuts off
Who rape your ma
Who lynched your pa

Who got the tar, who got the feathers
Who had the match, who set the fires
Who killed and hired
Who say they God & still be  the Devil

Who the biggest only
Who the  most goodest
Who do Jesus resemble

Who created everything
Who  the smartest
Who  the greatest
Who  the richest
Who say you ugly and they  the goodlookingest

Who define art
Who define science

Who made the bombs
Who made the guns

Who bought the  slaves, who sold them

Who called you them names
Who say Dahmer wasn’t insane
 
       Who/  Who /  Who/

Who stole Puerto Rico
Who stole the Indies, the Philipines, Manhattan
   Australia & The Hebrides
Who forced opium on the Chinese

Who own them buildings
Who got the money
Who think you funny
Who locked you up
Who own the papers

Who owned the slave ship
Who run the army

Who  the  fake president
Who  the ruler
Who  the banker
 
                 Who/ Who/ Who/

Who own the mine
Who twist your mind
Who  got bread
Who need peace
Who you think need war

Who own the oil
Who do no toil
Who own the soil
Who is not a nigger
Who is so great ain’t nobody bigger

Who own  this city

Who own the air
Who own the water

Who own your crib
Who rob and steal and cheat and murder
       and make lies the truth
Who call you uncouth

Who live in the biggest house
Who do the biggest crime
Who go on vacation anytime

Who killed the most niggers
Who killed the most Jews
Who killed the most Italians
Who killed the most Irish
Who killed the most Africans
Who killed the most Japanese
Who killed the most Latinos

 Who/Who/Who

Who own the ocean

Who own the airplanes
Who own the malls
Who own  television
Who own  radio

Who own what ain’t even known to be owned
Who own the owners that ain’t the real owners

Who own the suburbs
Who suck the cities
Who make the laws

Who  made  Bush  president
Who believe the confederate flag need to be flying
Who talk about democracy and be lying
    WHO/ WHO/ WHOWHO/

Who  the Beast in Revelations
Who  666 
Who decide
   Jesus get crucified

Who  the Devil on the real side
Who got rich from Armenian genocide

Who  the biggest terrorist
Who change the bible
Who killed the most people
Who do the most evil
Who don’t worry about survival

Who have the colonies
Who stole the most land
Who rule the world
Who say they good but only do evil
Who  the biggest executioner

   Who/Who/Who     ^^^

Who own the oil
Who want more oil
Who told you what you think that later you find out a lie
Who/ Who/ ???

Who fount Bin Laden, maybe they Satan
Who pay the CIA,
Who knew the bomb was gonna blow
Who know why the  terrorists
   Learned to fly in Florida, San Diego

Who know why Five Israelis was filming the explosion
   And cracking they sides at the notion

Who need fossil fuel when the sun ain’t goin’ nowhere

Who make the credit cards
Who get the biggest tax cut
Who walked out of the Conference
   Against Racism
Who killed Malcolm, Kennedy & his Brother
Who killed Dr King, Who would want such a thing?
   Are they linked to the murder of Lincoln?

Who invaded Grenada
Who made money from apartheid
Who keep the Irish a colony
Who overthrow Chile and Nicaragua later

Who killed David Sibeko,  Chris Hani,
    the same ones who killed Biko, Cabral,
       Neruda, Allende, Che Guevara, Sandino,

Who killed Kabila,  the ones who wasted Lumumba, Mondlane , Betty Shabazz, Princess Margaret, Ralph Featherstone, Little Bobby

Who locked up Mandela, Dhoruba, Geronimo,
Assata, Mumia,Garvey, Dashiell Hammett, Alphaeus Hutton

Who killed Huey Newton, Fred Hampton,
    MedgarEvers, Mikey Smith, Walter Rodney,
Was it the ones who tried to poison Fidel
Who tried to keep the Vietnamese Oppressed

Who put a price on Lenin’s head

Who put the Jews in ovens,
     and who helped them   do it
Who said “America First”
        and ok’d  the yellow stars
                                                WHO/WHO/ ^^
 
Who killed Rosa Luxembourg, Liebneckt
Who murdered the Rosenbergs
   And all the good people iced,
   tortured , assassinated, vanished

Who got rich from Algeria, Libya, Haiti,
   Iran, Iraq, Saudi, Kuwait, Lebanon,
   Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine,

Who cut off peoples hands in the Congo
Who invented Aids Who put the germs
   In the Indians’ blankets
Who thought up “The Trail of Tears”

Who blew up the Maine
& started the Spanish American War
Who got Sharon back in Power
Who backed Batista, Hitler, Bilbo,
      Chiang kai Chek                       who WHO   W H O/

Who decided Affirmative Action had to go
  Reconstruction, The New Deal, The New
  Frontier, The Great Society,

Who do Tom Ass Clarence Work for
Who doo doo come out the Colon’s mouth
Who know what kind of Skeeza is a Condoleeza
Who pay Connelly to be a wooden negro
Who give Genius Awards to Homo Locus
       Subsidere

Who overthrew Nkrumah,  Bishop,
Who poison Robeson,
        who try to put DuBois in Jail
Who frame Rap Jamil al Amin, Who frame the Rosenbergs, Garvey,
         The Scottsboro Boys,      The Hollywood Ten

Who set the Reichstag Fire

Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed
Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers
   To stay home that day
Why did Sharon stay away                     ?
                                          /
Who,Who, Who/
                         explosion of Owl the newspaper say
the devil face cd be seen       Who  WHO     Who WHO

Who make money from war
Who make  dough from fear and lies
Who want the world like it is
Who want the world to be ruled by imperialism and national oppression and terror
   violence, and hunger and poverty.

Who is the ruler of Hell?
Who is the most powerful

Who you know ever
Seen God?

But everybody seen
The Devil

Like an Owl exploding
In your life in your brain in your self
Like an Owl who know the devil
All night, all day if you listen, Like an Owl
Exploding in fire. We hear the questions rise
In terrible flame like the whistle of a crazy dog

Like the acid vomit of the fire of Hell
Who and Who and WHO (+) who who ^
    Whoooo and Whooooooooooooooooooooo!

                             AMIRI B  10/01

P.S. If you get a chance you should watch the 500 Years Later documentary, it’s really good! It’s an hour and forty-eight minutes long. You can find it on hulu.com. I will try to post the link! 

When discussing if a person is racist or not, in defense of one’s self, why do they mention Barack Obama? Do people really think that by voting for him makes it impossible for you to be a racist or makes people change their views of you because you voted for Obama? Honestly, it is an ignorant comment for a few reasons, one he is half black and half white and two his opponent was on his last leg so it would not have been wise to vote for him anyway.

Since when did voting for Obama become the determining factor on a person being racist or not? I have a best friend whose father is racist, to the point that we can’t go inside her house, lately he seems to be loosening up; however, he voted for Obama, that did not make him invite us inside of his house.

President Obama is only one person, just because you may supported him does not mean you like the entire African-American community. To me, people see him as the “good black person.” A lot of black leaders, when discussing Obama, say that if he was a shade darker he would not be acceptable, and that is true, he is the right color. Some of the black leaders say that they love him, but they just want him to do more. Just because we have a black (correction half black) President does not mean that things have changed for black people or racism is non-existent. Take a trip to the deep south and see what it is like.

A year before the 2008 election, my high school soccer team had to play a game in a racist area in Georgia. During the game, a girl decided to call one of our players the “N” word and of course my teammate was about to fight her. The coach of the other team comes on our bus threatening us because he thought that people were throwing things out the window at her. Ask me was anything done. No! Nothing happened. My coach tried to talk to us and the the white players were telling us to calm down. None of them understand what it is like for that to happen. They had no right to tell us to calm down. The entire bus ride back the black girls were quiet and sat together. My mother made a phone call to our school and still nothing happened. I wish I could go back in time because I would have reacted differently. Like I stated previously, this was a year before the election. So do you mean to tell me in one year America has changed? Or if we played them a year later, she would not have made that comment? No. America is still racist no matter who you vote for or if you have that one black friend, who does not think they are black, or if you teach inner city kids. I don’t care what anyone says, I think every white person has a little racism in them. 

My main reason for discussing this was because over the weekend Louis Farrakhan and Dr. Cornel West spoke at my college, Howard University. My sister and I wrote Facebook statuses about our experience. Our high school soccer coach decided to comment on my sister’s status. He proceeded to say,

“Ughh… don’t get me started on Farrakhan.”

Of course, I was not going to stand for that and I responded back by stating,

“What’s the matter with Farrakhan? He didn’t say anything that didn’t need to be said. He just spoke what he was feeling and plenty of people do that and no one has a problem with it but when he says something its problem. It’s his opinion and …it’s not made for everyone to like. Maybe people should use reflective judgment and see where he is coming from instead of being close minded. Has farrakhan done anything personal to you? Do you know farrakhan? Then how can you fully judge him? I’m not saying he is completely correct about everything. I would just like people should do their own research instead of believing what the media says and how they portray people especially black people.” 

This happened Sunday, he didn’t decide to respond back until today saying,

“So, if I don’t know the person, I am not supposed to form an opinion of that person. I am not judging Farrakhan. I have only formed an opinion based upon his words and actions. My feeling is that he is anti-American and racist. …There is plenty of his quotes that lead me to believe this. You should know that I respect all races, colors, and genders. This is not about color for me. If it was about color, I would never have voted for Obama.”

In my opinion, Farrakhan was not saying anything wrong. I know in the past he has made remarks that people do not agree with and because of that people do not listen when he actually says something that is correct. He was speaking about loving everyone. It’s really unfortunate that people label you when you agree with one comment that someone says. Before I went to hear him, my sister and I were looking up things about him and he made a comment about Malcom X. I love Malcolm X, so I was mad and I did not even want to hear what he had to say, but I keep my mind open and listened anyway and heard a good message. Too bad not everyone is open-minded. 

Anyways, I was unenthused by his (my coach) remarks and decided to be the better person and not answer, but instead I decided to write this blog entry. Honestly, this is ridiculous, I am a 19 year-old college student, why are you concerned about what I am doing? You are a grown, married man with children. Don’t you have more things to do than to argue with me on Facebook? Shouldn’t you be working your 9-5? Just a thought.

I am not a disrespectful person, I just do not like people making ignorant comments about black people.