Art, Poetry, Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Power

Power by Audre Lorde The difference between poetry and rhetoric is being ready to kill yourself instead of your children. I am trapped on a desert of raw gunshot wounds and a dead child dragging his shattered black face off the edge of my sleep blood from his punctured cheeks and shoulders is the only liquid for miles and my…

Continue Reading

Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Consumed by Hate

Imagine being so consumed with racial hatred that you travel all the way from Maryland specifically on a mission to kill black people. This is what seems to have happened last Monday night when Timothy Caughman suffered a brutal sword attack from a complete stranger apparently intent on targeting black men in New York City. Caughman, who was 66 and lived…

Continue Reading

Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Are you racist? Why ‘No’ is not a good enough answer

Marlon James is author of the 2015 Man Booker prize-winning novel  Brief History of Seven Killings. In this short video via The Guardian he makes the case that being non-racist may allow us a clear conscience about our personal conduct but it’s really not good enough. Letting things that are racist in the world just be – supporting that status quo…

Continue Reading