Controversial poet Baraka gives reading to packed Frist crowd

Only catchy "doo doos" and "da das" sung to the tune of obscure oldies broke Amiri Baraka's charged poetry last night in Café Vivian.

The controversial poet delved into sensitive racial and class issues, including reparations and the war in Iraq.

The full house in the Frist Campus Center cafe had a wide array of reactions to the performance, ranging from rage to enthusiastic approval.

Prior to the reading, a handful of protesters distributed fliers denouncing Baraka for his poem "Somebody Blew Up America," which some have interpreted as anti-Semitic. Baraka's poem asks why 4,000 Israelis did not go to work at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 and implies that Israelis knew about the terrorist attacks beforehand. The poem led Gov. Jim McGreevey to ask for Baraka's resignation as poet laureate of New Jersey last September.

Jason Wasser, a staffer for the Center for Jewish Life, who was distributing fliers outside of Frist, called Baraka's poetry "racist and bigoted." Wasser said the protests had not been well-received by some students.

"I was already called a jerk by one student for passing this out," he said.

Roger Bellin, an English department graduate student, said not all Jewish students are offended by Baraka's work. Dismissing the accusations of anti-Semitism as a lack of understanding and appreciation for poetry, he said Baraka was "one of his favorite living poets.'

Also performing were Jewish-American poet Vanessa Hitary, who writes primarily about race issues, and an African student dance group.

Theri Pickens ''05. prefaced Baraka's performance by saying that the campus sponsors had not intended to offend anyone.

"We're just trying to start an open and honest dialogue," she said.

Baraka's performance did stir the crowd. Beginning with a long political introduction that compared the American Jews' treatment of Palestinians to another Holocaust and implied that black students at Princeton had to be mindful of their behavior if they wanted to graduate, Baraka received a mixture of near uncontrollable laughter and stern gazes from the mostly-student crowd.

Several burst out laughing as Baraka berated President Bush, saying that the only thing wrong with him was that he "wasn't in jail." He later went as far as to compare him to Hitler.

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A recurring theme in Baraka's poetry was reparations. He didn't limit reparations to African Americans and cried out for compensation for Mexicans and American Indians for the "exploiting" that white Americans carried out against them in the past.

Baraka also asked students repeatedly to distinguish between "reality" and the "propaganda" he said they are taught on a regular basis.

One student angrily accused Baraka of undermining his "reality" argument by lying about the Israelis' prior knowledge of Sept. 11. Other students said that they were "explosively angry" when they left the performance.

Others, however, felt that the performance would provoke useful dialogue on campus.

"I was very stirred and happy to hear someone finally give voice to some of the feelings on general class issues as well as social issues in this country," said Sean Stone '06.