PROUD FLESH 6 – EDITORIAL: “RESISTANCES”

PROUDFLESH: A New Afrikan Journal of Culture, Politics & Consciousness

ISSN: 1543-0855

Issue 6 (2007)

Greg Thomas

Once, a Negro in love with his location in an academic philosophy department sat in on a graduate student exam with me and said something very far from smart, as he objected at one particular point, “That ain’t resistance.” Whatever it was that had been touted as resistance was not the resistance that he claimed to like. But this does not mean that it was not resistance, or could not be. The Negro in question seemed at best to confuse “resistance” and “revolution,” despite classic debates revolving around a text such as Harold Cruse’s Rebellion or Revolution (1969), for example. For real, resistance is almost an elementary matter of physics, requiring much less in point of fact than revolution, which ultimately requires it. It represents a force, a counter-force, any force that counters the prevailing streams of force at a given point in time and space; it resists the physical and/or metaphysical powers that be . . . dominant. Once, I sat in on a graduate student exam with a Negro of the disciplinary philosophical persuasion who did not know squat about resistance, what resistance is, or what resistance could be, since he and a host of other folk feel that resistance is not resistance when it manifests itself in multiple forms beyond their anticipation and approval.

Of course, Audre Lorde said that “survival is not an academic skill.” So it would be foolish to assume academics of any sort should be experts on survival or resistance.

Our man Acklyn Lynch knows this much and more. He testifies: “Resistance is not just an ongoing reality, we see something at the end of it. But the resistance must take place because the conditionalities that are being offered to us are totally unacceptable to our spirits.” This is from our interview with him, climaxing our sixth issue of PROUD FLESH—whose theme is “ResistanceS.”

A special section of some often very musical poets jumps us off: Jane Alberdeston writes on hearing Amiri Baraka read as well as Rwanda, love and slavery. Rachel Eliza Griffiths gives further poetic voice to more or less neglected fictional characters of Toni Morrison, Jean Toomer and Richard Wright. Metta Sáma gifts us with a preview of The Black Odyssey, also writing on Rwanda—and the southern U.S.—not to mention Black women who kill the masters of sharecropping. Aza Amina Zhenga delivers poetic tributes to Abbey Lincoln and then Nina Simone via “Jena, Louisiana Goddamn.” Hear them. I completely understand what Clarence Major and Abraham Chapman meant when they spoke of “New Black Poetry,” “New Black Voices.”

The “articles” section of this issue begins with Boubacar Boris Diop, who addresses the current racist president of France’s offensive summer speech in Dakar, Senegal, despite other writers and “intellectuals” who capitulate more and more with every new colonial regime: El Hadji Moustapha Diop gives us these words in a much-needed English translation, helping us to read across the national and linguistic boundaries of colonial empire. Next, Amari Chris Johnson opens The New York Times to discuss urban maroonage. John H. McClendon III is here to treat Marxism and Black Studies in a provocative and productive reading of Cedric J. Robinson and others. Then, Acklyn Lynch remembers C.L.R. James., as we all should.

This time, our art exhibit comes from the Hip-Hop photography of Noelle Theard. Homegirl works magic with her instrument and her magical subject of live, global Hip-Hop Revolution. Behold!

In a special review-article, Carole Boyce Davies crafts an amazing statement surrounding the recent publication of a biography of Amy Ashwood Garvey by Tony Martin. She begins with a list of “Mistakes of an Activist Woman Not to Be Repeated.” She closes with a list of “Successful Examples for Future Generations of Activist Women.” What gets said in between is not to be missed.

Our standard reviews in this issue are not book reviews only, but also reviews of music (or musical texts): Sharisse Stancil-Ashford looks back to Max Roach’s WE INSIST!—Freedom Now Suite. Dax-Devlon Ross really writes the reviewer’s review of Acklyn Lynch’s Nightmare Overhanging Darkly, superbly. And, lastly, Tara Betts takes a peek at Nina Simone: Remixed and Reimagined.

“ResistanceS.” PROUD FLESH’s interview with Acklyn Lynch would embody this theme from beginning to end as much as this whole issue strives to represent it in multiple, myriad ways. “Resistance is not just an ongoing reality, we see something at the end of it. But the resistance must take place because the conditionalities that are being offered to us are totally unacceptable to our spirits.” So let this one be for Resistance-pending-Revolution—for Africans, especially, at home and abroad.

Citation Format:

Greg Thomas. “PROUD FLESH 6—Editorial: “ResistanceS”,” PROUDFLESH: A New Afrikan Journal of Culture, Politics & Consciousness: Issue 6, 2007