Anti-Semitic Poet "Explains" How He Knew.

Shark Blog | September 28, 2002 | Stefan Sharkansky

[catonsville]

EARTH CALLING AMIRI BARAKA

I just had a brief telephone conversation with New Jersey poet laureate Amiri Baraka. Baraka made a fool of himself in public last week when he recited a poem titled "Somebody Blew Up America," in which he said

"Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed

Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers To stay home that day

Why did Sharon stay away?"

Baraka has refused New Jersey Governor James McGreevey's demand that Baraka resign as poet laureate and the governor does not have the legal means to force the resignation. So I looked up Baraka's phone number and called him to ask where he got the information that 4000 Israeli workers were told to stay home last September 11. I reached him at his home in Newark shortly after 8pm Eastern Time today. Based on the jazz that was playing in the background, I can report that at least he has good taste in music. I mentioned that I heard about the recent controversy and asked him where he got his information.

He was largely incoherent, but said that he got it off the Internet from the Israeli web sites "Yadiot" [his spelling] "Haaretz" and "Shabak". Shabak is the Hebrew acronym for the security agency which is generally known in English as "Shin Bet", and if they even have a public website, it is not called "Shabak". What he calls "Yadiot" would most likely be daily newspaper "Yediot Aharonot", whose website is solely in Hebrew, a language which Baraka gave no hint of understanding. I asked for references to exact pages, and with great confidence he refered me to the Jordanian newspaper Al-Watan. He couldn't give me a single URL. (Perhaps he got his information from a report attributed to the Hizbollah Al-Manar TV station, and not independently verified.)

I told him that I saw a story about his poetry reading on Haaretz (the website that he cited just a moment earlier) and he asked me how to spell that. So I spelled it, and he repeated "H-A-R-C-V"... I gave up and ended the conversation. I felt sorry for the guy. If he's not simply a garden variety idiot then he probably suffers from a medical condition or substance abuse. Either way, the State of New Jersey should be able to find a way to completely distance itself from him.

[catonsville]

Amiri Baraka is, I believe, the former Black Panther and agitator writer Leroi Jones. How did he incarnate to become the Poet Laureate of New Jersey at $10,000 a year? And actually be paid to write such inane poetry.

[livius]

Too disgusting for words. I assume the folks in charge of appointing the "Poet Laureate" are too PC for words, in which case we can understand the appointment of a semi-literate has-been who only achieved his pre-Islamic "Leroi Jones" fame because white-bashing was at that time the staple of Lenny Bernstein liberal crowd.

[Mo1]

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[I_Love_My_Husband]

BTW...he had a child with a white Jewish woman.

[ex-Texan]

The Governor should fire him a 'poet laureate' .... and demand a refund of the prize money. If he doesn't fork over the prize money, he ought to be sued.

[I_Love_My_Husband]

Did some googling on his Jewish wife. She wrote a bio and said he slapped her and was physically abusive to her. Pig.

[lelio]

She wrote a bio and said he slapped her and was physically abusive to her. Pig.
Impossible. He's a member of the religion of peace. Perhaps this was pre-Islam?

[Diogenesis]

What could be in the water up there?

[scotiamor]

I think Amiri Baraka is the literary name used by Sen. Robert Torricelli. He is always looking for cash, and this $10,000/year salary fits his profile (that is, New Jersey appears to be the victim of a shakedown by the poet laureate). The anit-americanism also fits the profile of current liberal democrat senators but admit at this point that Amiri Baraka could also really be Tom Daschle, Ted Kennedy, Jim McDermott, and a few others.