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Amiri Baraka and Ariel Sharon Both Dead
Jan. 11th, 2014 08:25 pmI have hated both men and I have admired both men and I sometimes managed to do it at once. Amiri Baraka soured my affection with that fucking post-9/11 poem (and not just the Zionists part) while Ariel Sharon spent most of his time as the guy who gets most of the blame for Sabra and Shatila. It was his job to oversee the area and he just let the massacre happen.
And yet I remember really enjoying Amiri Baraka in college - enough that I published Michael Boatman's book because his stuff reminded me of the Baraka "kill whitey" material at its finest (not surprisingly Boatman wrote "Bloodbath at Landsdale Towers" because of a horror story where nothing much happens except for white rednecks chasing down black people and killing them) and I was looking him up and found that Baraka's lesbian daughter was killed trying to save her friend from an abusive husband. It's weird when a personal anecdote makes you think well of someone that you normally don't like. But Baraka was more like Frank Miller for me after the one poem. I realized just how much I had been overlooking in the past, but as a person, he raised a woman who was not only openly lesbian without apologies but also would risk her life to save a friend. And maybe that's just what happens, but there is cowardice.
For Ariel Sharon - someone posted an article about Palestinians celebrating his death. One comment said that Arabs are devils and another comment said that Israelis should celebrate his death and look how the Arabs wasted Gaza. People on all sides of the political spectrum have reason to hate him but he came to power just as I got into my Kahane phase (sometimes it's easy to slip into a mindset where everyone on "the other side" is just wrong and evil - also Kahane didn't act like Arabs were children who would one day grow up and accept Big Brother Israel so that was a point in his favor) and Sharon managed to convince me and a nation that there was still value in peace talks and land concessions and the rest - not as fast and as far as the Ehud Barack administration would want to take it, but still in place. Hell, that security fence created a de facto Palestinian state. Granted, that's problematic because now Israel is trying to deal with immigrants who are coming for the opportunities from the lack of cheap Palestinian labor.
But yeah, Amiri Baraka and Ariel Sharon are both dead. For some, that's enough. I don't really know.
And yet I remember really enjoying Amiri Baraka in college - enough that I published Michael Boatman's book because his stuff reminded me of the Baraka "kill whitey" material at its finest (not surprisingly Boatman wrote "Bloodbath at Landsdale Towers" because of a horror story where nothing much happens except for white rednecks chasing down black people and killing them) and I was looking him up and found that Baraka's lesbian daughter was killed trying to save her friend from an abusive husband. It's weird when a personal anecdote makes you think well of someone that you normally don't like. But Baraka was more like Frank Miller for me after the one poem. I realized just how much I had been overlooking in the past, but as a person, he raised a woman who was not only openly lesbian without apologies but also would risk her life to save a friend. And maybe that's just what happens, but there is cowardice.
For Ariel Sharon - someone posted an article about Palestinians celebrating his death. One comment said that Arabs are devils and another comment said that Israelis should celebrate his death and look how the Arabs wasted Gaza. People on all sides of the political spectrum have reason to hate him but he came to power just as I got into my Kahane phase (sometimes it's easy to slip into a mindset where everyone on "the other side" is just wrong and evil - also Kahane didn't act like Arabs were children who would one day grow up and accept Big Brother Israel so that was a point in his favor) and Sharon managed to convince me and a nation that there was still value in peace talks and land concessions and the rest - not as fast and as far as the Ehud Barack administration would want to take it, but still in place. Hell, that security fence created a de facto Palestinian state. Granted, that's problematic because now Israel is trying to deal with immigrants who are coming for the opportunities from the lack of cheap Palestinian labor.
But yeah, Amiri Baraka and Ariel Sharon are both dead. For some, that's enough. I don't really know.
