It A Regiment of 'So Dem Tink. So Dem Tink'

Til Death OR DISTANCE Do You Part

"Lewis Hayden remained the property of the Warner family throughout the 1830s.  During this period he was allowed to marry Esther Harvey, a slave owned by a Lexington merchant, Joseph Harvey.  While Lewis and Esther considered themselves married, slave owners only recognized their relationship as a union of convenience.  If slave owners allowed a wedding ceremony, they often used the phrase "till death or distance do you part."  In other words, the couple were married until the owner decided to sell one or the other to a new owner who did not live in the area.  As with many slave couples, Esther and Lewis also had to overcome the barrier of being owned by separate masters.  Whether the slave husband and the slave wife lived together, or whether they even got to see one another, was entirely a decision of their owners."

…Lewis and Esther had a son who was added to Harvey's property.  When Harvey's business failed, his slaves and his other property were sold at auction to pay his creditors.  Esther and her child were purchased by Henry Clay.   …While Clay's slave, Esther gave birth to a second child, but the baby died soon thereafter.  About a month after this, Esther ran crying to her husband.  Clay had sold her and their surviving son to one of the hated slave traders.  Hayden was powerless to stop the sale and could only watch as his wife and child were dragged away, never to be seen again.

   When Hayden asked Clay for a reason for selling Esther and the boy, Clay replied haughtily that "he had bought them and had sold them."  Hayden was devastated.  Slave sales had separated him from his mother, his brothers and sisters, and now from his wife and child.  Years later he wrote, "I have one child who is buried in Kentucky and that grave is pleasant to think of.  I've got another that is sold nobody knows where, and that I can never bear to think of."

~Joel Strangis, Lewis Hayden and the War Against Slavery

Cable & Atari Yuts Dem

"I was raised on the struggle of elders-iron collars, severed feet, the rifle f dirty Harriet, and down through the years, the Muslims and regal Malcolm.  But mostly what I saw around me was rank dishonor: cable and Atari plugged into every room, juvenile parenting, niggers sporting kicks with price tags that looked like mortgage bills.  The Conscoious among us knew the whole race was going down, that we'd freed ourselves from slavery and Jim Crow but not from the great shackling of minds.  The hoppers had no picture of the larger world.  We thought all our battles were homegrown and personal, but, like an evil breeze at our back, we felt invisible hands at work, like someone else was still tugging at levers and pulling strings."

~Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Beautiful Struggle

And He Didn't Believe

Lumumba was black

And he didn't trust

The whores all powdered

With uranium dust.

Lumumba was black

And he didn't believe

The lies thieves shook

Through their "freedom" sieve.

Lumuba was black.

His blood was red-

And for being a man

They killed him dead.

They buried Lumumba

In an unmarked grave.

But he needs no marker-

For air is his grave.

Sun is his grave,

Moon is, stars are,

Space is his grave.

My heart's his grave

And it's marked there.

Tomorrow will mark

It everywhere.

~Langston Hughes, (1961)

How Many Bullets Does It Take

Death In Yorkville

(Jamas Powell, Summer, 1964)

How many bullets does it take

To kill a fifteen-year-old kid?

How many bullets does it take

To kill me?

How many centuries does it take

To bind my mind-chain my feet-

Rope my neck-lynch me-

Unfree?

From the slave chain to the lynch rope

To the bullets of Yorkville,

Jamestown, 1619 to 1963:

Emancipation Centennial-

100 years NOT free.

Civil War Centennnial: 1965.

How many Centennials does it take

To kill me,

Still alive?

When the long hot summers come

Death ain't

No jive.

~Langston Hughes, The Panther and the Lash

Warm Manure

Un-American Investigators

The committee's fat,

Smug, almost secure

Co-religionists

Shiver with delight

In warm manure

As those investigated-

Too brave to name a name-

Have pseudonyms revealed

In Gentile game

  Of who,

  Born Jew,

  Is who?

Is not your name lipshitz?

  Yes.

Did you not change it

For subversive purposes?

  No.

For nefarious gain?

  Not so.

Are you sure?

The committee shivers

With delight in

Its warm manure.

~Langston Hughes, The Panther and the Lash

- - - - - - - - -

" 'Your honery'," Simple elsewhere had threatened to testify, if called long as I have been black, I been an American.  Also I was a democrat-but I didn't know Roosevelt was going to die.'  Then I would ask them, 'How come you don't have any Negroes on your Un-American Committee?'  And old Chairman Georgia would say, 'Because that is un-American'."

~Langston Hughes, (Jesse B Simple), Arnold Rampersad, The Life Of Langston Hughes Vol. II,  p217

Purge

Who can purge my heart

    Of the song

    And the sadness?

Who can purge my heart

    But the song

    Of the sadness?

What can purge my heart

    Of the sadness

    Of the song?

Do not speak of sorrow

With dust in her hair,

Or bits of dust in eyes

A chance wind blows there.

The sorrow that I speak of is dusted with despair.

Voice of muted trumpet.

Cold brass in warm air.

Bitter television blurred

By song that shimmers-

   Where?

Langston Hughes, Song for Billy Holiday

Upon what riff the music slips

. . . The Negro

With the trumpet at his lips

Whose jacket

Has a fine one-button roll,

Does not know

Upon what riff the music slips

Its hypodermic needle

To his soul--

~Langston Hughes, Fields of Wonder

Ballad of Pearl May Lee

Ballad of Pearl May Lee

Then off they took you, off to the jail,
A hundred hooting after.
And you should have heard me at my house.
I cut my lungs with my laughter,
Laughter,
Laughter.
I cut my lungs with my laughter.

They dragged you into a dusty cell.
And a rat was in the corner.
And what was I doing? Laughing still.
Though never was a poor gal lorner,
Lorner,
Lorner,
Though never was a poor gal lorner.

The sheriff, he peeped in through the bars,
And (the red old thing) he told you,
“You son of a bitch, you’re going to hell!”
‘Cause you wanted white arms to enfold you,
Enfold you,
Enfold you.
‘Cause you wanted white arms to enfold you.

But you paid for your white arms, Sammy boy,
And you didn’t pay with money.
You paid with your hide and my heart, Sammy boy,
For your taste of pink and white honey,
Honey,
Honey.
For your taste of pink and white honey.

Oh, dig me out of my don’t-despair.
Pull me out of my poor-me.
Get me a garment of red to wear.
You had it coming surely,
Surely,
Surely,
You had it coming surely.

At school, your girls were the bright little girls.
You couldn’t abide dark meat.
Yellow was for to look at,
Black was for the famished to eat.
Yellow was for to look at,
Black for the famished to eat.

You grew up with bright skins on the brain,
And me in your black folks bed.
Often and often you cut me cold,
And often I wished you dead.
Often and often you cut me cold.
Often I wished you dead.

Then a white girl passed you by one day,
And, the vixen, she gave you the wink.
And your stomach got sick and your legs liquefied.
And you thought till you couldn’t think.
You thought,
You thought,
You thought till you couldn’t think.

I fancy you out on the fringe of town,
The moon an owl’s eye minding;
The sweet and thick of the cricket-belled dark,
The fire within you winding…
Winding,
Winding…
The fire within you winding.

Say, she was white like milk, though, wasn’t she?
And her breasts were cups of cream.
In the back of her Buick you drank your fill.
Then she roused you out of your dream.
In the back of her Buick you drank your fill.
Then she roused you out of your dream.

“You raped me, nigger,” she softly said.
(The shame was threading through.)
“You raped me, nigger, and what the hell
Do you think I’m going to do?
What the hell,
What the hell
Do you think I’m going to do?

“I’ll tell every white man in this town.
I’ll tell them all of my sorrow.
You got my body tonight, nigger boy.
I’ll get your body tomorrow.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow.
I’ll get your body tomorrow.”

And my glory but Sammy she did! She did!
And they stole you out of the jail.
They wrapped you around a cottonwood tree.
And they laughed when they heard you wail.

And I was laughing, down at my house.
Laughing fit to kill.
You got what you wanted for dinner,
But brother you paid the bill.
Brother,
Brother,
Brother you paid the bill.

You paid for your dinner, Sammy boy,
And you didn’t pay with money.
You paid with your hide and my heart, Sammy boy,
For your taste of pink and white honey,
Honey,
Honey.
For your taste of pink and white honey.

Oh, dig me out of my don’t-despair.
Oh, pull me out of my poor-me.
Oh, get me a garment of red to wear.
You had it coming surely.
Surely.
Surely.
You had it coming surely.

~Gwendolyn Brooks, A Street in Bronzeville (1945)

Lunch-Box Retreats (from various assorted Unhingement)

"In steamy Louisiana, while a perspiring Langston argued in vain with a white brakeman about the lack of air-conditioning in the crowded Jim Crow car, an old black lady quietly listened to him.  Then, embarrassed for them both, she lowered her eyes, took out her lunch box, sighed, and began to eat.  As the train rolled on, Langston penned a bitter little poem about Jim Crow:

Get out the lunch-box of your dreams

And bite into the sandwich of your heart,

And ride the Jim Crow car until it screams

And, like an atom bomb, bursts apart."

~Arnold Rampersad, The Life Of Langston Hughes Vol. II

Fine as Wine

. . . You may see me holler,

You may see me cry-

But I'll be dogged, sweet baby,

If you gonna see me die. 

            Life is fine.

            Fine as wine!

            Life is fine!

~Langston

Everything YOU Want.

While George Bush took the oil from the soil/ I was in front of counter buying some milk from Arabs/ in the land of honey I order fries from Chinese surviving off of what's in the foil/ gallon of gas & 2% is the same price/ so its seems to villain goes the spoil/ cheap fuel, fried rice to brother man/ cheap fuel pipelines from the motherland/ it's all the same right, on the other hand/ supply & demand fills the corners on the late night/ the suffering bestowed upon us by the great white/ not Columbus but Colombians/ ain't no cocoa leaves growing in the district/ of Columbia, so the rut we're in/ got to be the best example of some pimp shit/ hit the strip nigga, get the money and/ bring it back to daddy/ are forefathers been giving shaft/ back lash of a whip, to the whip like the back of caddy's/ but we don't give a fuck because we getting cash, exactly/

This is everything you want, it's everything you need/ This is good old fashion American greed/ see we get it how we get it & we spend it how we spend/ Cause it's good old fashion American greed/

I want that dollar, but when I get got, it's not enough/ fucking forget I, you think I'm quitting, you're out of luck/ cause I'm addicted to picket fences & getting profit/ fuck penny pinching & pissy pensions amount to what/ I'm never stopping, killing myself to make a living/ I make it, I spend it/ they lend it I take it/ they print it I fake it/ the laws invented by those who break them/ I bend them I'm painted as heinous by hypocrites that feel offended/ blue collar due to stains from blood of royals/ can't complain, freedom rang but it didn't holler/ I'm hard knocking at opportunities door for life/ cause you can only reach the buzzer if you are a scholar/ higher learning higher earning at the same time/ fire's burning in the ghetto it's about to boil/ the tipping point in the celebrated plot/ of I have everything I need but I want everything you got/

credits

from People Hear What They See, released 05 June 2012

You Still Watching Lindsay?

"Oh, you don't know, man?  About they programs?
You still watching Lindsay, you don't see that low hand?"

:)