Until last week, Dean Atta was relatively unknown; unless you were deeply immersed in the world of spoken word you probably wouldn’t have heard of him. Then, in the wake of the conviction of Gary Dobson and David Norris for the murder of Stephen Lawrence, he wrote his poem I Am Nobody’s Nigger, and took the internet by storm. In five days, his poem had received in excess of 15,000 hits and gained him an extra 1,000 followers on Twitter. The poem was, he says, a reaction to “the injustice of the death of Stephen Lawrence”, and to the loose usage of the N-word. “Watching Panorama, where they reconstructed his murder, and hearing that the N-word was the last thing they said when they stabbed him really struck a chord with me”…/
We know who the killers are,
We have watched them strut before us
As proud as sick Mussolinis’,
We have watched them strut before us
Compassionless and arrogant,
They paraded before us,
Like angels of death
Protected by the law.
It is now an open secret
Black people do not have
Chips on their shoulders,
They just have injustice on their backs
And justice on their minds,
And now we know that the road to liberty
Is as long as the road from slavery.
The death of Stephen Lawrence
Has taught us to love each other
And never to take the tedious task
Of waiting for a bus for granted.
Watching his parents watching the cover-up
Begs the question
What are the trading standards here?
Why are we paying for a police force
That will not work for us?
The death of Stephen Lawrence
Has taught us
That we cannot let the illusion of freedom
Endow us with a false sense of security as we walk the streets,
The whole world can now watch
The academics and the super cops
Struggling to define institutionalised racism
As we continue to die in custody
As we continue emptying our pockets on the pavements,
And we continue to ask ourselves
Why is it so official
That black people are so often killed
Without killers?
We are not talking about war or revenge
We are not talking about hypothetics or possibilities,
We are talking about where we are now
We are talking about how we live now
In dis state
Under dis flag, (God Save the Queen),
And God save all those black children who want to grow up
And God save all the brothers and sisters
Who like raving,
Because the death of Stephen Lawrence
Has taught us that racism is easy when
You have friends in high places.
And friends in high places
Have no use whatsoever
When they are not your friends.
Dear Mr Condon,
Pop out of Teletubby land,
And visit reality,
Come to an honest place
And get some advice from your neighbours,
Be enlightened by our community,
Neglect your well-paid ignorance
Because
We know who the killers are.
“Jeering white youths display this sign, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and demonstrators marched into all-white neighborhood on far Southwest Side of city in Chicago, Aug. 22, 1966.”
You might have expected this kind of blind, bigoted ignorance in 1962 Mississippi, but this is Chicago – home to the finest blues musicians in the world – and the mid-sixties, when the music of black American artists on Motown and Atlantic Records was being lauded around the world. In white youth culture conditions were already brewing for a Summer Of Love that would erupt the following year.
OK, racism has a long and inglorious history, but who was inciting these Illinois kids to this kind of poisonous intolerance in 1966 ? My guess is maybe the fat ugly c*nt holding the top right hand corner of the placard had something to do with it – maybe he’s even their dad. I was wrong in yesterday’s post. EMI witholding the footage of Dr King’s speech isn’t a fucking disgrace.
Nina Simone’s version of Please Don’t Let Me Be Mistunderstood is being used by the BBC in a trailer for their cop drama Luther. It’s a powerful reminder of her importance as an artist. Have put together a few other favourite tracks to remember her importance as an advocate for Afro American rights.
In her songs you can hear Simone’s massive talent suffused with simmering rage. “You don’t have to live next to me – just give me my equality” (Mississippi Goddamn) “Hard times in the city… in a hard town by the sea” (Baltimore) “You better stop the things you do… I ain’t lyin” (I Put A Spell On You) “Shall we kill them now – or later?” (Pirate Jenny).
Having been born in 1933 and grown up in North Carolina she had plenty to be angry about. See her biography on Wikipedia. Meanwhile here’s that TV trailer…
“Dear friends and family, this is one of the most powerful interviews I have ever heard in my life. Minister Louis Farrakhan gives the real implications of the US/ British/ French/ Italian/ Canadian invasion of Libya: Farrakhan Warns Obama About The CIA Plants In Libya”
It only lasts nine minutes – hear for yourself.
On his last visit my brother startled us by announcing that the CIA had deliberately caused Japan’s earthquake and nuclear disaster in order to further US commercial and political interests. And sure enough, if you care to look for it, the evidence is right there on the internet:
Back in 1964 the Warren Commission was able to convince most of the world that JFK was assasinated by a lone sniper with a single gun.
Nowadays the unbelievable outrages committed by the CIA – from 9/11 to the Japanese earthquake – can be explained to the world within hours by some of the finest minds on the planet. Thank God for the internet.
