Exposing the hate speech of the radical fringe

I often send a friend an online link to a good newspaper article or to a story in the Arts section of the New York Times. Some days ago, an active member of the Princeton Peace Network sent a poem by activist Amiri Baraka to the group's e-mail list. What we forward to our friends and colleagues by e-mail reveals much about what we think valuable and worth saying. Many might be surprised to learn what some members of the campus community consider inspiring poetry.

The poem, "Somebody Blew Up America," begins, "They say it's some terrorist / some barbaric / A Rab, in Afghanistan / It wasn't our American terrorists / It wasn't the Klan or the Skin heads / or them that blows up n[——-] / Churches, or reincarnates us on Death Row." The poem identifies "them" as "Giuliani / Or Schundler." "Somebody Blew Up America" continues for another six pages. This poem was forwarded without any words of reservation or critique to PPN's e-mail list. It is a litany of grievances held by the far left and the black-nationalist movement against America and the West.

Baraka's poetry is completely sincere. According to www.amiribaraka.com, "since the deaths of Malcolm, Martin, and the brothers Kennedy, the U.S. has been in the slowly tightening grip of would be creators of the new international corporate state." Baraka, a Marxist and Black Panther, has been a radical voice since he emerged on the Beat scene in 1960s New York, where he was originally known as Leroi Jones. The Voice Literary Supplement, in its Oct. 16 issue, describes him as "the only unrehabilitated 60's radical figure still around." His latest work, a musical entitled "Amadou: Slaughter in Harlem," addresses the racial tensions that polarized New York city after police shot and killed an unarmed black man in 1999. Jerry Watts, a professor of African-American studies at Trinity College, has completed a new biography, Amiri Baraka: The Politics and Art of a Black Intellectual. Watts writes that while Baraka is "committed to black freedom . . . the viciousness of his sexism, the obscenity of his anti-semitism and the ridiculousness of his pipe dream to usher black Americans into African feudalism" approach "an atavistic black neo-fascism." Is this the kind of dialogue the PPN wants to have?

The poem includes passages that brand America and the West as co-equal terrorists with Osama bin Laden: "Who cut off people's hands in the Congo? Who invented AIDS Who put the germs in the Indians' blankets Who thought up the trail of tears?"

The poem's subjects also include African Americans prominent in public life: "Who do Tom Ass Clarence work for Who doo doo come out the Colon's mouth, Who know what kind of Skeeza is a Condoleeza, Who pay Connelly to be a wooden N[——-]?"

And Jews: "Who know why Five Israelis was filming the explosion And cracking they sides at the notion?" "Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers To stay at home that day, Why did Sharon stay away?"

The content of these words begs the question of why any member of PPN would choose to distribute Baraka's poem.

Of course, Baraka has every right to express himself. Ironically, he criticizes the very nation that would protect his right to do so. Yet one wonders why anyone would choose to associate herself with Baraka's ideas.

Members of PPN did not write this poem. Nor should we infer that all of its members approve of it. Indeed, they may be the ones with the most reason for concern. Most PPN members are sincere pacifists who want what they believe best for their country and the world.

Is Mr. Baraka's opus a work of peace? Carlos Ramos-Mrosovsky is from New York, NY. He can be reached at cr@princeton.edu.