Two things.
First, Amiri Baraka is an idiot and a pig and quite possibly a racist. (Although, you know, do some research. “It is a narrow nationalism that says the white man is the enemy… Nationalism, so-called, when it says ‘all non-blacks are our enemies,’ is sickness or criminality, in fact, a form of fascism.” You’ll never guess who wrote that. Still, set that aside: once you start with calling people a whore during your lectures, you get slotted into the idiot and pig categories. At the very least.)
Second, I take it all back. If we’re going to have to hear the words “Trent Lott moment” every time someone says something stupid that should be condemned, I want to go back and undo the entire Trent Lott furor. Leave him as Senate Majority Leader. It’s not like he suffered that much; he still has a prestigious post. And I am already getting really, really tired of the analogies. If you can’t make the case against someone without comparing them to Trent Lott, you don’t have a case.
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What, no mention of the poem (http://www.amiribaraka.com/blew.html) that got Baraka in such hot water recently?
And frankly, that Instapundit commentary suffers from a disease I see a great deal on the right, and am unfortunately starting to see on the left: it’s the “look at how nobody is condemning this awful thing the other side did/said/lied about”. Baraka got backlash before; he’ll get backlash again. Actually, cally Condoleezza Rice a skeeza might even get the heavyweights of black political power to condemn him, even given Ms. Rice’s political party affiliation. He might even get NOW on his back.
Hrm. If there’s any state title which allows, even encourages, its holder to perform literary expression that the majority finds uncomfortable, and possibly offensive, it’s “poet laureate”. Still, I do sometimes wonder if my state couldn’t strip him of the title without setting bad precedent.
Yeah, you get it on both sides. I don’t think Baraka is someone I’d like to have over for dinner; he’s got a shitload of talent but it doesn’t make him immune from criticism.
I’m just firmly tired of the “Trent Lott moment” crap, s’all.
Actually, Daniel, it’s in that poem that he calls Condoleeza a “skeeza”. This is the same poem that, as the ADL notes with much annoyance, repeats the slander that 4000 Israelis stayed home from their WTC jobs on 9/11/2001.
It’s also worth noting that he rips on Lott in that poem.
Frankly, I’m not sure why the Instapundit thinks that a poet laureate (whose job is to write inflammatory art that affects no one directly–you should see how upset a friend of mine gets with Billy Collins) should be held to the same standard as the Senate majority leader (whose job it is to write and determine laws and to oversee the process), anyway.