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.

Part 1: North Minneapolis: Bloody Puddles | Black Fiction

The murder scene of Tabyis Paskins (8.3.16). Photo: fightthepowerjournal.com

On Wednesday, August 3, 2016 a 19-year-old named Tabyis Paskins was gunned down on his bike in a senseless but common act of youth violence in north Minneapolis. As his mother grieved for her son at a vigil late Wednesday of Penn Avenue North and 25^th, I wondered about Tabyis and the life he might have. I dedicated to all of the children who have lost their life in Minneapolis’ White Lie. This piece is written as if Tabyis is talking to us…

Fiction by Don Allen

…It was supposed to be an nice summer morning; the buses running down Penn, the fine ladies heading to work downtown, and us waiting for the liquor store to open  – hanging out with my boys, hitting the blunt and riding around the neighborhood. Ain’t none of us got no jobs, that’s why we’s got to hustle. Mom’s moved us up here from Peoria, Ill. She said we needed a fresh start – away from all the bullshit in Peoria. I wasn’t going to school anyway – that shit is whack; them white teachers don’t care about no niggers. In the “Mini,” was all about hanging with my boys around here and in the “Paul,” - the ones who got my back, not them turncoats who can’t smoke the African bush, or puff the Ace…Mok gets too high and was pushing up on Clyde’s sister in the basement. Pop’s came down and Mok tried to fight him…we can’t hang there anymore.

Wednesday morning should have been easy; we were going after this mark. It was an easy score; Mok, Clyde and me could make some quick loot.

It’s not that hard for things to go wrong; it happens a lot over north. Last week my boys got shot at by a bunch of different niggas. Didn’t none of them die, but damn, they shot at them right in front of they mom’s crib; that’s ratchet cuz. If you got heat with one of your boys, you ain’t ‘pose to try and shot him and his mom’s.

Coming up - Part 2: My Environment 

Slave in Space: The Story of Apollo Jefferson, the slave who ran…

Apollo Jefferson ran...

It’s the Year of our Lord 1820 in the Deep South. South Carolina announces penalties for introducing any written anti-slavery material into the state. The white-male led government feels slavery is a way of life in the south; they feel as if it is the right thing to do. Plantation owners take their slaves to market, breaking up families, mother taken away from children; wife’s separated from husband, and regrettably, father’s removed from sons. This is the story of Apollo Jefferson and the beginning chapter of “Slaves in Space: The Story of Apollo Jefferson,” the slave who ran…

By Don Allen, Author – Slaves in Space, Chapter 1: Hell

My heart was racing, the sun in the sky felt like hot lava, my chest burned, my vision blurred, and I truthfully felt as if I'd died long ago. Despite this however, my legs continued to carry me through the woods, as far away from that godforsaken plantation as possible. I willed myself to keep running, it would be worth this pain just to never have to hear the word “boy” again. I’m not a boy, I'm a man, and I, all of us, deserve more than working ourselves to death in those atrocious cotton plantations. Just a few more yards I told myself, just a few more yards and then I’ll rest, and rest I did. My eyes grew heavy, sweat poured down my face but I didn't care, I closed my eyes and slipped into a deep sleep, or perhaps even a coma, either way I didn’t care...

I awoke what I presumed was several hours later; I knew this as it was now dark. Despite this however, there were no stars in the sky, in fact, I could barely see a thing, and what’s more, it felt as if I was laying on a sheet of metal. I panicked, something wasn't right, I wasn't in the woods underneath that tree anymore, I was somewhere else, somewhere metallic. Had I been caught? No, I would have awakened, surely? I got to my feet, made my way to what looked like a dim crimson red due, perhaps a light, which was shining under what must have been a door. I made my way through the darkness to what I hoped was the door, fumbled around on the wall, and found some form of switch. A sudden THUD echoed throughout the room, the huge door lifted effortlessly, and the entire room was bathed in a deep red. I saw where I was, and what I saw made my blood turn to ice.

Cages after cages, filled with people just like me, and when I say just like me, I mean slaves, I recognised half of them from the plantation I’d spent the summer on. I recognised one lady, Bet, a sweet girl, and called out to her “Bet, bet, can you hear me”. She slowly turned to me, looked me right in the face, yet somehow she seemed different. Her eyes were vacant, almost dead, glazed over, like a dead fish. “Bet, what’s going on”? Nothing, not a word. I made my way down the lines of cages littering the entire room, and with each cage I encountered, I grew more and more terrified. Some faces I recognized, some I didn’t, and some faces, not even their own parents would recognize. They were contorted in agony, their skin, once dark, was now silver, and the eyes were as white as snow, as white as those devils that forced us to work ourselves to death on the plantations.

I was now petrified, these things in front of me weren’t human, they were demons, devils, perhaps I’d died and was in hell? It would explain the crimson hue washing over this room, and the near unbearable heat. I was snapped out of my god-awful train of thought by a clinking noise, nothing too loud, but loud enough for it to make my hair stand on end. “Who’s there”? I called out, yet immediately wished I hadn’t when I received my reply. There was no voice, instead, a blood curdling gargling shrieking sound. Out from the darkness and into the crimson light stepped a creature, the likes of which I’d never seen before. Even hunched over, it was taller than any person could ever be, its face was more beast than man, its skin, silver and glistening, and it was looking right at me. I slowly backed towards the exit but with one blood-curdling shriek, it raced towards me, faster than any animal I’d ever seen before in my life.

It was at that moment that I knew I was done for...