flippant remarks about rasx() context taglines
These are the Wordpress.org Blog subtitles (or taglines) I have used from the beginning:
‘Eagerly awaiting the return of African matriarchy—no fat chicks’
This was least popular kinté space Blog subtitle. No one really bothered to explicitly tell me they hated this quip—but I could ‘feel’ it. This one is my favorite and I am willing to have a serious dialog about the various interpretations in any context of any level intellection. This “violent” turn of phrase is not an attempt at boyish charm but sutra-like accuracy.
‘just another future song with lonely little kitsch’
This tagline lasted longest. It’s a line from a David Bowie song called “Diamond Dogs”—which coheres with the first multipart series I started writing in 2001, “lines in the rasx() context.” So—based on the established content actually in the kinté space—this one works best.
For those honorable Black intellectuals who actually care, we notice that my tagline changed from “attacking” women of color in a very strong Black context to celebrating a Thin White Duke kicking Yiddish slang. So it should be obvious to my homies why this tagline works with the kind of English-reading people who have enough financial resources to casually browse the Web and find my writing—this includes (especially) English-reading people “of color.”
But there is some strong Blackness in this Bowie line: because for Black people the future (“future song”) is always better… we get one day closer… “…none of them can stop the time…”
‘I preach these Blues, then choose my seat and sit down.’
The Son House definition of The Blues is too simple for the greats like Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker. You can’t sell records to a “wider audience” with the Son House definition of The Blues. But here in the rasx() context, Son House Blues is Jheri curl free—the healthiest and, arguably, the eldest definition of the Blues.
Everything that I write about in this Blog that seems “too divisive” or “too negative” comes from my fire desire to preach these Blues. This assertion of mine should be even more confusing for the properly-assimilated educated Negro trying hard to minimize and dismiss the work going on here. The words of Son House should never seem to be too intellectually intimidating or “too hard” to understand. The only reason why so many African Americans have trouble understanding Son House is because of the “great migration” from the rural South to the urban environments.
Almost every urban Black family should find that something important was lost when this “great” move was made—and simultaneously I am not suggesting that this move should not have been made. The only African American filmmaker I’m aware of that really addressed this issue with the best poetry is Julie Dash. This implies that we as a people have trouble recognizing and visualizing this loss. So when a streaming audio presentation like “Mike Thornton: Black Farmers vs. USDA”—most of us first have to imagine that there are still Black farmers.
So this Son House tagline is from his piece called “Preachin’ Blues,” which you can hear on YouTube.com along (with an introductory lecture). I put this particular recording in my blues collection here in the kinté space.