Critiquing bell hooks Postmodern Blackness: Does Black Literature need the critical apparatus of Black Postmodernism?

By Don Allen, M.A. Ed./MAT

           Looking through the lens of postmodernism as it pertains to color, race, class and more specifically, the African American, it becomes even more problematic to define the modern, postmodern and post-post modernism. Not because we cannot comprehend the  

Don Allen, M.A. Ed./MAT

meanings, but so few black intellectuals have been indoctrinated with postmodernism in a way that would lay bare to a very clear definitions, claims or arguments. In bell hooks’ “Postmodern Debates: Postmodern Blackness,” she is determined to cut relevance into her view of postmodernism at the sake of not stepping out and defining an apparatus of her own that can be used by black authors and society to make meaning for a ‘modern, post or post-post’ in ‘blackness.’ hooks writes, “I was told by another black person that I was wasting my time, that ‘this stuff does not relate in any why to what’s happening with black people.” (128).

          I tend to agree with the other black person on the critique of hooks amazement and have been unsettled by the lack of black literary agents who have not looked to solidify a meaning exclusively to black culture. If hooks and others would look at the examples of modernism to include the post and post-post in black culture there is an extensive prospect to break the mold set by the white-patriarchal construct as it pertains to having exclusivity in the hierarchy of literary devises. To define a change in literary meaning, you first need an example of devise you want to amend. For the simple sake of argument, the black culture could look at the sport of boxing. To look at the modern in boxing, one could argue that Mohammad Ali and Joe Frasier could fit perfectly in a literary definition. 

          From a postmodern definition, boxers like Sugar Ray Leonard, Wilfred Benítez, Thomas Hearns, Roberto Durán, and Marvin Hagler, called the boxers of the decade for the 1980s by Sports Illustrated fit fine. Nevertheless, when looking at post-post modernism in this example, stepping away from boxing’s golden age society has the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), which is the largest mixed martial art promotion company in the world featuring most of the top-ranked fighters in the sport. In addition, the World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (WWE), which is an American publicly traded, privately controlled Entertainment Company that deals primarily in professional wrestling, with major revenue streams from television and cable. 

          As a Black author, given the examples above, we could argue for a new literary device, or critical apparatus such as Current Relevatism – not to be confused with Cultural relativism, the idea that a person's beliefs, values, and practices should be understood based on that person's own culture, rather than be judged against the criteria of another. The meaning of ‘Current Relevatism,’ is that during our arts, society and literary history (Black America), there were moments in the depths that are timely and relevant in our cannons that lay bare to likening of Marxism, capitalism, modernism, postmodernism and postmodernity that can only be defined by the current state relevant to the black literary cultures purchase. Hence, while hooks understands what could be labeled as modern, she negates the opportunity to insert a new critical apparatus like Current Relevatism to account for the white-patriarchal construct and what it has used to create meaning and identity for black bodies, literature and culture for far too long. “During the sixties, the Black Power Movement was influenced by perspectives that could easily be labeled modernist,” (129). 

If Black literary agents cannot idea, create and distribute new meaning in the areas of literatures critical apparatus to define and review for debate, we have not gotten any further as intellectuals then the common household cat. Black Postmodernism and the definitions, which have never been cleared or applied, are unnecessary? 

Works Cited: Malpas, Simon. "Postmodern Blackness | Bell Hooks." Postmodern Debates. New York: Palgrave, 2001. 128-135. Print.

The Opioid Epidemic and Keeping it Real

Not many are black people; now it becomes important to society.

"They were in a small city in a rural county, fertile ground for prescription drug addiction, though they traveled from as far as Nashville and Missouri. They were young or middle-aged and ranged from blue-collar workers to businesspeople. They said painkillers prescribed after accidents or injuries paved the way to their dependence on opioids. They also were all white. Of all deaths in 2015 from opioid and heroin overdoses in Tennessee and nationwide, about 90 percent of the people were white. Black people accounted for little more than 6 percent in Tennessee and 8 percent across the country, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.Among African-Americans critical of the modern drug war launched four decades ago by President Richard Nixon, the fact that the opioid epidemic is primarily striking the majority race helps explain why it is largely being called an epidemic and treated as a public health crisis, rather than a war." From: Largely White Opioid Epidemic Highlights Black Frustration.

by Don Allen, M.A. Ed./MAT (response)

          People say there are many versions of the United States; Black, White, Red, and Yellow.

Don Allen, M.A. Ed.  - Teacher/Researcher
and Editorial Columnist 

From these many versions, no matter who you are, you can see that some are treated with less attention to generational challenges. I'm not trash-talking, nor whining, but let's face the facts; when an epidemic like Opioid misuse dug in and stayed with Black, Yellow, and Red versions, there was no outcry for help. The people in the mainstream just looked the other way, opened up treatment centers (multicultural disparities are a billion-dollar enterprise), and walked away wealthy from multi-version pain. 

          Now the Opioid epidemic has enveloped the White version of the United States killing children of well-off, poor and middle-class. Like the sun rising in the morning, all attention is now focused on saving "one version" when for generations the other versions have suffered catastrophic losses. 

          As a teacher, if I cannot present our world within a timely and relevant, and factual lens, our students do not benefit. I will not teach Black History because in reality its American History. Black people did not begin their journey in slavery, so while this topic is relevant, I know many black historical figures that invented thousands of machines, processes and guided many with words printed in some of the finest books ever. Once we decide to keep it real, Achievement Gaps disappear; crime rates drop; unemployment becomes a memory of a time long ago, and our families become reunited with the ideal that integrity, respect, politeness and love have always been the utility for us as people to make the world go around. Remember, we need each other; I need you, you need me...we cannot survive in any other construct no matter how far apart the differences might be.

Open letter to HU president Hanson and Dean of Students Sickbert, Kline: What about us?

Sometimes a concern written in the prose poem format can make your point!

Editors note: Talking about racial diversity is not enough. We need to experience it. A while back, I heard a university student compare campus life to “living in a bubble.” As part of their educational experiences, teachers need to nudge and even push students out of their cultural bubbles.  While college students might come from different cultural backgrounds, there is no guarantee that they will interact and learn from each other. Often, what we find on college campuses is what some term segregated pluralism, students keeping to themselves and interacting for the most part with their “own kind.” The college classroom and co-curricular activities can help break down these barriers, but college administrators need to focus more on activities, programs, and other initiatives to promote cross-cultural interaction. Furthermore, college presidents need to translate their personal commitment to diversity into organizational change.

By Don Allen, Senior Columnist – Hamline University Oracle student newspaper 2012-2015 (Editorial Opinion) 

Thanks for the cup any-who. 

St. Paul, Minn. - On Feb. 12 the HU senior team put together a top-notch event to celebrate the class of 2015 having less than 100 days before graduating. The event had great food, a cash bar, free champagne and a whole lot of words from the president and HU deans. While I sat with my back turned away from the podium and listened, I began to cringe from listening to the rhetoric likened to a high school pep fest.  The words spoken left out a very important part of the HU student body who did not live in the dorms or have a meal plan. Here today, I ask the question, “What about us?”

What about us? We are the students who transferred to Hamline University that did not take part in the first year student activities. We did not take the class of 2015 photo that appears on Facebook pages and sometimes on the HU website. We did not know about it; of course nobody followed up.

What about us? We figured out that Hamline’s Undergraduate Student Congress (HUSC) was nothing more than a laughable group who’s main concern is to manipulate imaginary power in the name of the HU administration while the student body gets absolutely nothing but empty promises and the students get nothing. We only do drama at home, not on campus.

What about us? We wanted to get involved on campus but were marginalized and dismissed while student leaders decided that students over a certain age were no a part of the HU participation base. We didn’t want to see a movie at the local theater that was meant for children (Big Hero 6).

What about us? We are the students who have children, families, and mortgage bills. We could not attend events made for students who live on campus that could skip right over to the Anderson Center after 5 pm. Where is the consideration for us?

What about us? The single mother’s, who worked jobs, paid for day care and went to school while the fathers of our children were far away. There was not a peep of gratitude for our struggles making it to the final year at HU. Yeah - really, what about us?

What about us? Students of color who wanted HU to take a position on race, gender and sexual orientation that sat by and watched HU go through the motions of boutique social engineering training the campus not to march, protest or voice concerns other than in a controlled environment.

What about us? Students who worked for the newspaper, radio station or had an opinion. Our voices where shut down; the First Amendment’s freedom of speech and expression was silenced by “suggestive overtures” from certain administrators.

What about us? We are veterans who served our country wounded with disabilities that sometimes cannot be seen from the outside who have to contend with a new HU veteran certifying official who will not update us on new benefits and will hardly look us in the eye and say hello when passing. What about the handful of soldiers who left HU because in reality the university is far from being veteran friendly and it is obvious that nobody really cares.

What about us? We have never seen so many university administrators out-of-touch with non-traditional student reality that could be needed for recruitment and retention. The world is changing and it is not what is sometimes represented at HU.

What about us? What happened to the words in celebration for the non-traditional students who did not miss a day of classes in more than three-years at HU despite sick children, schedules of our spouses and work? 

What about us? I know in the classroom HU professors take the time to use the knowledge and experience of the non-traditional student for the betterment of the whole class and learning experiences. This is where the rubber meets the road for HU’s high-impact learning. Unfortunately, HU administrators do not see (or it seems that way) the value of the class of students who will not fall into a fresh-out-of-high-school mentality when we know the real world does not operate on those terms.

In closing, to president Hanson and Dean of Students Sickbert, Kline – if you cannot see beyond the scripted words that only look to acknowledge one caste of HU students who made it to graduation, you miss the point of why HU is a great University. If you do not care, please disregard the above.

What about us? Do I need an apology letter...no, too many of those have been sent out. 

Earth Year 2666 - Commander Stony King’s Journal

Short Fiction by Don Allen in his pin name (pictured)

Deep space exploration had riddles that nobody could answer. Commander King is the sole survivor of the failed Tango-Nine mission to Terra-X. 

by Bartholomew Gottlieb (Don Allen)

Galaxy 3  “…Roger this is Galaxy 3 requesting clearance to land on Terra X…”

Control: “…Copy Galaxy 3; you are cleared for immediate landing on Terra X - over….”

Galaxy 3: “…Roger that. We are 5-by-5 in the hole preparing to deploy 4R shield around landing site, over.”

Control: “Roger that, have a safe mission. Control out.”

          The year 2877 on New Earth. Members of the United Nations of Deep Space Planetary Exploration (UNDSPE) have found a planet compatible to earth.

          Over 400 million people have been resettled.

           In 2666 we lost all contact with Tango-Nine. Ten days ago, our forwarding communications command (FCC)  picked up a faint...but consistent signal 40 light-years away from New Earth. It was Commander Stony King’s distress signal from Tango-Nine. The UNDSPE in now aware of the conditions on Terra-X and have taken precautions to land there safely and rescue the crew of Tango-Nine.

          When we arrived our recover crews found only Commander King, frozen in a Time Vortex Shield, alive and healthy. Now, our ship – the Hillary is headed back to New Earth with Commander Stony aboard, still frozen in stasis. 

          All we know about the crew of Tango-Nine was found in Commander Stony’s journal.  

   

          The commander’s last entry was on Christmas Day, December 25, 2666. The following journal entry was recorded before Commander King put his body back into a Time Vortex Shield to save his life.

     Earth Year 2666 – Log 0600 - December 24:

       As I look up at the sky I see a red haze with a deep orange-yellow mist that saturates the cold red rocks on this planet. This is Commander Stony King log entry 28.93, year 2666. I am the commander of the crew of Tango-Nine in search of habitable planets by the command of the United Nations of Deep Space Planetary Exploration (UNDSPE). 

        The wind blows with a howl on this planet reminiscent of an old western scene with deadly rattlesnakes under every rock and tumbleweeds rolling across the plain – only here, it’s not rattlesnakes or tumbleweeds rolling across the plain, it’s dirt spores with enough neurotoxin 

that with the slightest skin contact, the sticky venom can kill a whole city or a crew of explorers seeking a new habitat for terraforming into a friendly earth-like planet.       

       In review, in 2566 after the comet collided with the earth’s moon, the United Nations of Deep Space Planetary Exploration (UNDSPE) launched several crews into deep space in search of non-hostile environments. The plan was the UNDSPE would launch Noah One into deep space with its passengers frozen in stasis with the use of a Time Vortex Shield (TVS) that would protect them from aging, disease and any cataclysmic encounter, except for a sun-burst – a direct crash into a Supernova. This was one of the many risks we had to take making sure mankind would survive.  Death could happen any moment in deep space travel. 

       Earth Year 2666 – Log 0830 - December 24:

       I remembered what happen on earth after the comet McCain hit the moon.          

       The sun now rises in the west. This unusual shift in the gravitational matrix on earth happened 100 years ago when a comet collided with the earth’s moon. The magnetic poles are not on the north and south poles anymore. The North Pole has shifted to India and the South Pole to the Caribbean. Temperatures in these sub-topical places dropped drastically below freezing and cataclysmic level disasters caused thousands of deaths that could not be avoided.  The environmental shift in the ecology has caused violent earthquakes and massive title waves that engulf whole coastal cities.  Volcanoes erupt across the world killing millions.  A mass migration with the assistance of the military from several countries evacuated refugees from the India and the Caribbean to more friendly climates. Both India and the Caribbean are both frozen wastelands, abandoned and uninhabitable.   Many years before the meteor incident, several nations rallied to build a maximum-security prison in space that orbited the moon and held the earth’s most violent criminals. When the meteor hit the moon, 20,000 escape pods were automatically released on a trajectory back to earth – back to the United Wing of the America’s, formally the United States.  Chaos ensued with the deregulation of technology the criminal element ruled areas of the world with fear and death. Leaders of the United Wing of the America’s set up mega-cities across the world and defended them against numerous attacks from warlords set on commandeering the Noah project.

Earth Year 2666 – Log 1133 - December 24:

          Scientists estimate the earth has less than five-years and the United Nations of Deep Space Planetary Exploration have worked feverishly to build ten mega-ships code named Noah.  These ships are commissioned to terraforming of human friendly planets for a mass evacuation of earth.

         Noah One, now headed toward my location, Terra X-98, with the locator beacon on - is the geo-location targeting system for the massive ships to lock in on and travel to this God forsaken planet.

Earth Year 2666 – Log 1400 - December 24:

      It was our mission, the mission of the crew of Tango-Nine to find a suitable place before the earth implodes. China was the first to launch Noah Two, which headed 477 light years away from our known galaxy. They last anyone has heard from them was when the United States space shuttle Obama picked up a distress call that could have been broadcasted 20 light-years prior. The earth lay in mourning for the crew and its 800,000 passengers ever since.  Many of the large Noah arks did not make it to their final destinations. Attacks from aliens, to the likes we never knew launched massive attacks on our ships. We were outnumbered and outgunned

        

Earth Year 2666 – Log 1800- December 24:

          Unfortunately, what happened here on Terra X-98 was a tragedy to my ship Tango-Nine and its crew of ten; I never predicted my chances to return to earth could have been so faint; I never predicted a death so far away from earth for me and my crew.

        Earth Year 2666 – Log 2100- December 24:

       The earth is gone. I sit here feeling doomed, alone, without any communications. My crew is dead, killed by this deadly planet and I have no way to give mission control a warning about my deadly situation. If another ship, perhaps a rescue ship lands and its TVS’s are turned off, it’s a possibility everyone landing here will die within minutes. I know it’s too late, I know they have already launched Noah One to my beacon. If I turn it off, the occupants of Noah one will float into space, more than likely crashing into a sun. Damn, death can be a cruel dealer at the poker table. 

Earth Year 2666 – Log 2200- December 24:

          I don’t know how much longer I can take being on this planet alone and knowing that if Noah One lands on auto-pilot and the Time Vortex Shield is turned off, it’s a possibility, no, it’s fact everyone on board could be killed instantly by the blowing spores.                             

       My options have become limited. I have enough power to put myself back into the Time Vortex Shield, set the warning beacon and remain in stasis until someone can rescue me, or I can just give up. I cannot hold my poker face for much longer.

Earth Year 2666 – Log 0001 December 25:

            Merry Christmas and goodbye…

Computer voice: “…End of journal entries star date 2666 December 25.”

So Tired of You...

...Indeed. 

"In 2015 I decided I would take the high road and focus on problem solving in my community. There are many who I needed to leave in 2014 because of what I allege are their ill-gotten gains off the backs of their fellow-poor black people. Maybe someday my people will wake up, organize and send these folks back to the suburbs they live in." ~ Don Allen

So tired of you…

In 2015 I will not use my blog to put you on blast for fucking up money that should have went to the black community.  You’ve been on blast for too long and everyone already knows. Your ticket has been punched; the jig is up. You are in short-timer status…

So tired of you.

In 2015, I will promote solutions with cordial and diplomatic relationships – I don’t care what you say about me. It could be a fake as the bitch that told you.

So tired of you.

I tell you what might be missing and you tell me to “do it yourself” and we will support you. When I do, you say, “Good luck, have a nice day.” It seems only what you produce off the backs of other black people are the only thing you are interested in…Fuck You.

So tired of you.

Just to let you know, you have never successfully rented any time in my head. When I look at you I feel pity. You could have been a great man or woman, but choose to be just another nigger trying to make a name for themselves.

So tired of you.

Every year since I’ve known you, there is nothing but hustles to get money in your pocket. It is unfortunate you use your own black people to keep food on the table, drive a nice car and take expensive vacations. Maybe one day, somebody in our community will wake up.

So tired of you.

I realize who I am and what I have. This scares you to death. You marginalize me, dismiss me and I completely understand your position. I understand fear. I ‘ve been afraid before – but never afraid of you. You know this.

So tired of you.

In 2015, you are but pebble on the road; a spot on my glasses; a puddle I can easily walk over in 2015. I know this because I left you in 2014…

So tired of you.