Transition 114 , livre ebook

TRANSITION
Transition was founded in 1961 in Uganda by the late Rajat Neogy and quickly established itself as a leading forum for intellectual debate. The first series of issues developed a reputation for tough-minded, far- reaching criticism, both cultural and political, and this series carries on the tradition .
TRANSITION 114
AN INTERNATIONAL REVIEW
Editors Tommie Shelby Glenda Carpio Vincent Brown
Visual Arts Editor Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw
Managing Editor Sara Bruya
Editorial Assistant Adam McGee
Image Assistant Jason Silverstein
Publishers Kwame Anthony Appiah Henry Louis Gates, Jr .
Senior Advisory Editor F. Abiola Irele
Advisory Editors Laurie Calhoun Brent Hayes Edwards Henry Finder Michael C. Vazquez
Chairman of the Editorial Board Wole Soyinka
Editorial Board Elizabeth Alexander Houston A. Baker, Jr. Suzanne Preston Blier Laurent Dubois bell hooks Paulin Hountondji Biodun Jeyifo Jamaica Kincaid Achille Mbembe Toni Morrison Micere M. Githae Mugo Khalil Gibran Muhammad Eve Troutt Powell Cornel West William Julius Wilson
CONTENTS
Amiri Baraka (1934-2014) When Baraka died in January, the news was full of controversy-laced obituaries, penned by people who mostly never knew him . Transition remembers this important artist with reflections from those who may have known Baraka better than anyone .
Amiri Baraka and the Music of Life Komozi Woodard , the premier biographer of Baraka, highlights a number of key episodes from the writer s life that have impacted how he has been memorialized
LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka and Me Celebrated novelist and sometimes-publisher of Amiri Baraka, Ishmael Reed , explores his complicated relationship with the writer and the Black Arts Movement
The Staccato Master of the World Molefi Kete Asante , who included Baraka in his 100 Greatest African Americans, reflects on why he considers him to be one of the greatest American poets
Witness Deborah Willis interviews Baraka s daughter Kellie Jones about her father s impact on her scholarship and curatorial work, including her recent exhibition , Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties
Gay Rights in Nigeria Throughout sub-Saharan Africa, there has been a sudden spike in anti-gay legislation . Transition looks closely at the circumstances surrounding the recent passage of Nigeria s Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act, and what it means for the country s most vulnerable citizens .
One More Nation Bound in Freedom Nigerian writer and lawyer Ayo Sogunro offers scathing analysis of the legal and social hypocrisy that underpins Nigeria s Anti-Gay Law
Dire Straights in Nigeria Anthropologist Rudolf Pell Gaudio elucidates his theory that it is not merely homosexuality, but sexuality writ large, that is in a state of crisis in Nigeria
Changing Attitudes through the Example of Jesus Transition interviews Nigerian gay rights activist Davis Mac-Iyalla about his work in the Anglican Church and the grave dangers of being out in Nigeria
Ode to the 99 cent store Poetry
On Rage by Joshua Bennett
Castles Jonathan Roberts presents the surreal, tragicomic tale of a British ex-pat whose dream is to convert a Ghanaian slave fort into a five-star resort, proving yet again that truth is stranger than fiction
The Chief Sam Movement, A Century Later Writing from both sides of the Atlantic, Kendra Field and Ebony Coletu go in search of the mysterious Chief Sam-hero to some, con man to others-who helped inspire Marcus Garvey s Black Star Line
Cento for C saire Poetry
The Silences of Bob Kaufman: A Cento by Spree MacDonald
Hypothecation Led by the research of her incarcerated student, Trey, Micol Seigel uncovers the startling truth of who wins and who loses in the world of criminal bail bonds
The Great Convert Fiction by Chigozie Obioma
How to Freak Out Your American Roommate Fiction by Gholahan Adeola
Is Viola Davis in it? Historian Kellie Carter Jackson nuances the claim that 2013 was a landmark year for black films, asking whether audiences are ready for films about black women that go beyond stereotypical single stories
12 Years a Slave Henry Louis Gates, Jr. interviews Oscar-winning filmmaker Steve McQueen about the process of translating Solomon Northup s classic abolitionist text to the big screen
Cover: Dogon Couple II. Oil on canvas. 72 72 in. 2013 Kehinde Wiley. Courtesy of the artist and Sean Kelly, New York, NY. Used by permission.
Amiri Baraka (1934-2014)
A MIRI B ARAKA WAS never one to shy away from public controversy. And, predictably, controversy has dominated his memorialization, in many cases overwhelming acknowledgement of his important roles as artist, thinker, educator, and activist. Among his many achievements, one must include that he was a founder of the Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School, a distinguished and prolific poet, a leading figure and theoretician in the Black Arts Movement, the author of the pathbreaking study of African American music Blues People , an early proponent for and practitioner of Black Studies, an Obie-winning playwright, and a community organizer central to the revitalization of Newark, NJ. Variously and persistently accused of being a racist, a misogynist, a homophobe, an anti-Semite, and an anarchist, this chorus of criticisms, though sometimes having merit, risks losing sight of Baraka s outstanding artistic contributions, obscuring his steadfast commitment to fight for social justice and black liberation, and underappreciating his often principled changes of mind and heart.
To fully honor the man, then, requires giving space to examining these complexities. In the following essays and interview, we offer four quite different reflections on the person and impact of Amiri Baraka. In the first, Komozi Woodard, Baraka s leading biographer, reviews some of the key facts of the artist s life, in particular noting some that are often reported incorrectly. In the second essay, the famed novelist Ishmael Reed delves into his personal history with Baraka, alongside whom he grew up as an artist and with whom he enjoyed a long and contentious relationship as frenemies. In the third essay, Molefi Kete Asante, the leading authority on Afrocentric thought, discusses why he selected Amiri Baraka for his list of the one hundred most important African Americans, and why he feels that Baraka was one of the greatest American poets to ever live. We conclude with an interview of Kellie Jones, Baraka s daughter, in which she talks about the influence of her family on her scholarship and work as an art curator.
Artwork appearing in this cluster is part of the exhibit Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties (March 7-July 6, 2014) at the Brooklyn Museum. Organized by Teresa A. Carbone, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of American Art, Brooklyn Museum, and Kellie Jones, Associate Professor, Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University, the exhibit offers a focused look at painting, sculpture, graphics, and photography from a decade defined by social protest and American race relations. In observance of the fiftieth anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, this exhibition considers how sixty-six of the decade s artists, including African Americans and some of their white, Latino, Asian American, Native American, and Caribbean contemporaries, used wide-ranging aesthetic approaches to address the struggle for racial justice .
Writer and poet Amiri Baraka. Corbis Images.

Lawdy Mama (1969). Barkley L. Hendricks (American, born 1945). Oil and gold leaf on canvas, 53 36 in. (136.5 92.1 cm). The Studio Museum in Harlem, Gift of Stuart Liebman, in memory of Joseph B. Liebman, 83.25. Barkley L. Hendricks. Photo: Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Amiri Baraka and the Music of Life
Blues People fifty years later
Komozi Woodard
U NFORTUNATELY, THE N EW York Times neglected most of the materials that I provided their reporter for the Amiri Baraka obituary. Fortunately, they included Maya Angelou s assessment that Amiri Baraka was the world s greatest living poet. However, it is difficult to account for the newspaper of record that neglected to mention that, by 1995, Amiri Baraka was officially inducted into this country s most prestigious cultural assembly, the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Was that a case of criminal neglect or a case of tragic blindness?
He advised that students imaginatively learn the art of maneuver in the Black Revolt; then he referred students to Sun Tzu s The Art of War .
A few years ago, Baraka invited me to his sunny breakfast nook; that is the room that housed his portrait standing amidst an overwhelmingly white crowd of the 250 men and women honored in the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1995. He pointed to the few dark dots in the group portrait, indicating where he and Toni Morrison were standing as a token gesture to racial diversity in the constellation of American genius represented in that esteemed academy.
Characteristically, Baraka wasn t bitter about it, but rather amused; and he smiled at the honor with touches of irony and sadness for all of the African American geniuses (including Duke Ellington) routinely excluded from the American cultural establishment. Meanwhile, I looked at the stack of new books that Amiri Baraka had piled up, as usual, on a shelf in that sunny room. There were several books on language, including new scholarship on Wittgenstein; and there was also a recent biography of Ho Chi Minh that I, too, was reading.
In fact, the first speech I heard by Amiri Baraka, given in 1968, discussed the flexibility of tactics employed by the elderly Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh, who had led the 1954 defeat of the Frenc