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In Mahogany Browne’s poem “Black Girl Magic”, she references Kunta Kinte. Hearing this reference, I was curious as to why she would include him. Her poem is about loving blackness and how black girls and women should push back against the white supremacist soceity and embrace who they are, ancestry included. Browne says “But You tell them you are more than a hot comb and a wash/ and set/ You are Kunta Kinte’s kin/ You are a Black Girl worth remembering”. Who is Kunta Kinte? Why is he significant to this poem? How is Kunta Kinte memorable?

Kunta Kinte was from an Island that sits on the Gambia River. He was captured, bound, thrown on a ship that journeys throught The Middle Passage, and was forced into slavery. Kinte’s master attempted to give him a new name, “Toby”, which Kunta Kinte rejected. This impostion of a new identity ties into Mahogany Browne’s poem. Browne is enforcing the importance of standing firm in your identity and to not let other people change who you are. Kinte stood as strong as he could and resitsted this new identity that was being forced on him just like Browne is telling black girls to stand strong and not let anyone form opinions and ideas as to who black girls and women should be. It is also worth noting the importance of ancestry. I think Browne mentions Kunta Kinte because she doesn’t want people to forget where they really come from and wants people to embrace their roots.

Citation
Campbell, Sabrina. LeVar Burton in 1977's "Roots." 1977. Warner Brothers, n.p.

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In Malcom X's "Message to Grassroots", he speaks of revolution and how there needs to be changes made to how society treats African Americans. He often mentions the role of the white man and how the white man basically controls the actions, thoughts, feelings, and rights of African Americans. In Malcom X's speech he talks about the use of violence and how peacefulness will not grant progress in the civil rights movement for equality amongst races. He mentions how Martin Luther King Jr.'s March on Washington was not as successful because racist intentions were still prevalent. X says that the March on Washington was taken over by white Americans. These white Americans told African Americans how they should act, not only for that march, but many other areas of their lives. This is described when Malcom X states, "long as the white man sent you to Korea, you bled. He sent you to Germany, you bled. He sent you to the South Pacific to fight the Japanese, you bled. You bleed for white people. But when it comes time to seeing your own churches being bombed and little black girls be murdered, you haven’t got no blood. You bleed when the white man says bleed; you bite when the white man says bite; and you bark when the white man says bark". Because some people belonging to the African American society have bought into the power of the white man, their minds become brainwashed in a sense. Some African Americans think that because they saw people from white communities supporting the March on Washington that their problems are solved, and that because schools were desegregated that their problems were solved. Malcom X mentions the church bombings in Birmingham Alabama (as pictured below) to remind the nation that racial violence and racial divides still exist and the only way it is going to be fixed is if African Americans start to "bleed" for their own people instead of their oppressors.

Citations
Malcom X. "Message to Grassroots." Northern Negro Grass Roots Leadership Conference, 10 November 1963, King Solomon Baptist Church, Detroit, Michigan. Speech.

Policemen outside the Shattered Stained Glass Window of the 16th Street Baptist Church, following a Racially Motivated Bombing, Birmingham, Alabama, September 15, 1963.1963. Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive, n.p.

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Jayne Cortez’s poem “There It Is” creates a dialogue surrounding institutionalized racism. She is wanting her fellow black community to open their eyes and see the issues related to race that still occur today. She is exposing the power of not only the government, but also the power of the people who contribute to acts of racism and discrimination. Examples of this can be found when she writes about the ruling class, lynch mobs, police brutality and sickness.

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 (48-57)

Naming these diseases and sicknesses in her poem alludes to the government’s use of biological warfare and how it effects different communities in our nation. More specifically, black communities. The use of biological warfare is not a new phenomenon. This allusion made me ask: what cases of biological warfare have been documented in the United States? How does this allusion connect to the overall message that Jayne Cortez is proclaiming?

One case of biological warfare that happened here in the United States was the Tuskegee Experiments. In Macon County, Alabama, a group of African American males who had syphilis participated in a study that wanted to look at the progression of the disease. When the study began in 1932 penicillin was not available, but when it did become available in 1947 it was found that penicillin could not only treat, but cure syphilis. “Between the start of the study in 1932 and 1947, the date when penicillin was determined as a cure for the disease, dozens of men had died and their wives, children and untold number of others had been infected.” (About the USPHS Syphilis Study). The spreading of this disease could have been 100% preventable, but because the individuals involved were of African American race, they were treated like animals. To me, it seems like the white community was purposely withholding this treatment because they wanted to save the medicine for someone who needed it more. It does not matter what you look like, if someone is sick, they should have equal rights to treatment. I think that is what Cortez is talking about in the quoted stanza above when she talks about using resources and fleeing when damage is done, but the white community ends out on top. The ruling class has access to these amazing medicines but preserves these treatments until they need them, withholding them from a “lesser” race. Cortez is saying that it happened in the past, and it will happen in the future. Cortez is sending a warning message to the black community to not be naive to how these diseases spread.

Citation: "About Us." About the USPHS Syphilis Study | Tuskegee University. Tuskegee  University, n.d. Web. 22 Feb. 2017.
Link to website: http://www.tuskegee.edu/about_us/centers_of_excellence/bioethics_center/about_the_usphs_syphilis_study.aspx

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In bell hooks’s book Killing Rage Ending Racism, the first chapter deals with how African Americans are taught to hide their anger and rage when it comes to racism and discrimination. This is depicted in the very first sentence when hooks writes about wanting to kill the white man sitting next to her on the plane. Hooks did not act on her anger and rage towards this man, but channeled those intense emotions into her writing. “We live in a society where we hear about white folks killing black people to express their rage. We can identify specific incidents throughout our history in this country whether it be Emmett Till, Bensonhurst, Howard Beach etc.” (Killing Rage Ending Racism pg. 15). She follows this quote with saying that there are very few incidents where we see black folks killings white folks, because for whatever reason, it is more acceptable for white folks to kill black folks. My question while reading this quote is: why would bell hooks mention individuals like Emmett Till? What connection does Emmett Till have to the notion of “superior” white rage?

Emmett Till went to visit with some family down in Mississippi. At a local drug store Till met Carolyn Bryant and upon leaving, Till whistled at her. Because segregation was a bigger problem then, than it is now, Till was kidnapped by Carolyn Bryant’s husband and his partner J. W. Milam, tortured, and killed. His body was found floating in the Tallahatchie River. When his body was pulled up from the surface, “a seventy-five pound cotton gin fan was tied with barbed wire to the neck of the floating body and there was extensive trauma to the head” (Law Enforcement Sensitive, pg. 6). Bryant and Milam were tried, but acquitted for the kidnapping and murder of Emmett Till.

With this background information, it is easier to connect bell hooks’s writing to Emmett Till and why hooks decided to include him in her writing. Emmett Till’s death is extremely heart shattering, and I think that is one of the reason why hooks mentions him. Hooks wanted to support her writing when she talks about whites freely expressing their anger and rage towards blacks. There are hardly any cases of black on white, brutal rage. But this example of Emmett Till, if the tables had been turned, and a white man whistled at a black woman, nobody would think anything of it. This double standard is what hooks is trying to expose. The fact that Bryant and Milam got away with this barbaric, sadistic act is what hooks is trying to expose. White supremacy is what hooks is trying to expose. She wants people, no matter what race you are, to understand that segregation still exists today. It may not be in the same form as it was in the 1950s, but some people still have segregated mindsets.

Citation: "Emmett Till Part 01 of 02." FBI. FBI, 30 Nov. 2010. Web. 06 Feb. 2017.
Link to FBI documentation: https://vault.fbi.gov/Emmett%20Till%20/Emmett%20Till%20Part%2001%20of%2002/view