[Reprinted in the The Rain Review of Books (Issue 16 | Spring 2009, Coast Salish Territory, Vancouver, BC) from the Luv4self listserv.]
Dear Brother,
Thank you for the thoughtful and insightful analysis of The Spook Who Sat By The Door. What many people miss is that the book and film [1969 and 1973] are based on the solid foundation of African American folklore that were the bedtime stories told to my brother and me by my southern maternal grandparents; the Brer Rabbit tales, in particular.
Every few weeks a new hysterical response to a new genocidal plot as revealed by many of the contributors to this network [Luv4self] that include “the n” word among other means of psychological warfare. The current urban myth is that Disney Studios intends a release of Songs of the South, a cinematic depiction of the Brer Rabbit tales collected by Joel Chandler Harris, a reporter for the Atlanta Constitution and published in 1800. There seems to be no indication that any such release is imminent.
The Brer Rabbit tales are a direct descendant of the Dahomean fables that feature the African hare as protagonist in conflict with a hyena and lion as antagonists. In slave America, the hare becomes a jack rabbit and the hyena and lion become Brer Fox and Brer Bear. Intrinsic in the tales is that the predated survive the predator through intelligence, cunning and guile as the predator needs no more intelligence than that required to hunt, kill, eat and procreate. Predators are dumb by definition; witness the Iraqi fiasco and its defenders.
In the West Indies, the counterparts of the Dahomey-derived fables are the Ashanti tales of Ananci the spider and in the southern states he becomes the center of the tales of Aunt Nancy. While the Ananci fables of the Ashanti are widespread in the West Indies, they are rare in North America; possibly because when whites discovered that while Cinque was not Ashanti, the bulk of his rebellious followers were Ashanti warriors. There is historical evidence that in the aftermath of the Amistad trial; many slave owners refused to buy Ashanti as slaves.
My all-time favorite fable is that of Brer Rabbit and the tar baby, in which Brer Rabbit is captured when stuck in the melting tar of the tar baby, and begs to be impaled on the thorns of a briar bush. Once he is thrown inside and therefore safe, he announces that the briar patch was his birthplace; reverse psychology at its ultimate. The urban counterpart of Brer Rabbit becomes Stagolee, the ultimate street hustler. In Washington, Dan Freeman becomes Brer Rabbit and in Chicago he becomes Stagolee in a Brooks Brother suit. The “trickster” is a revered figure in both African and African American folklore.
I wonder how many of the people posting complaints about Song of the South have actually seen the film. However, facts are never allowed to get in the way of people that seem to believe in “oppression, oppressor and white supremacy” and that Wonder bread is a white folks plot to kill us through malnutrition. A people that dismiss the native oral history of folk tales and fables are doomed to see themselves through other’s eyes. There is little doubt that our literary ancestors, that include Wright, Killens, Walker, Brooks, Hughes and, above all, Zora Neal Hurston, who studied and collected southern Black folklore while pursuing a doctorate at Columbia University were steeped in the rich and vibrant folk lore of our African American ancestors.
Nobody has ever oppressed me; although many have tried. Call me Brer Rabbit!
Sam Greenlee
peace mr greenlee,
i thank you for your response to my work and applaud your reinterpretation of yours. it is always an honour to have the artist — the black griot— and/or writer feel so moved by a commentary or review that they feel they are move to respond — and in such a respectful and informative and eloquent apologia as you have, sir.
folklore and mythology often plays a great role in most diasporic if not all diasporic works — be it overtly or covertly = subtexte — as is missed by the afrobourgeois with rap/hip hop — as was the case with jazz prior that = ellingtonian “jungle music” — the afroeurasian mcluhan
the medium cool
bluesy
shaking something or other what makes the capital an “ism”
I am sure your underlying motif of the afrikan trickster is one example as covert and imbedded subtexte — as can be said of your response — as was the case with orson wells when we discover that his film of magic and tricksters was the trick itself — the other would be the structural patterns, tardids = repetition and crossfading and samplin’ into massive basic of sankofa used in the review of your novel the spook who sat by the door.
one is text book recited as nostalgia
the other embedded and utilized as living and vital = the practical
the beat of the homeland is so imbedded in the hearts of elementals that the lore becomes — only covert and digital in its binary translation form from one system to the other via the sound of the massives.
1.2
1.2
“Yo, yo it’s the unspoken word
You not heard, get your brains open
Controlled emotions freewill
As the same token
Keep a sword tucked sharp inside your personal
We can bust a shot or we can bust a verse or
two” – the rza
the brer rabbit mythology/folklore that you write so eloquently about which motivates your novel is self evident upon your new analysis — and yes brute force is often the way of fools unless it is defensive — the violence of the oppressed and that of the oppressor is a reality — not a sign of weakness nor surrender nor is it victim (hood) think — as once we saw in the original cut of brer freeman who uses his slave folklore wits to dodge the master via weapons training and bombing the mayors office and other acts of extreme black liberationist violence to engage the enemy — not as would the new version reveal which renders all as simply another trick by the bourgeois to use or misuse the proletariat in order trick the enemy and advance the self (interest)
“Fuck you Analog niggaz we be digital” – ibid
this enemy is still present today as we see crew of eager ameri-neo-afrikkkans set and ready to assist or sit back and watch amerikkka colonize afrika and have themselves — dashiki and pastiche afrikan culture and faith and all — replace the indigenous afrikans as did their (as they would feel) “hopefully” new neighbours israel did for europe.
the red
the green
the yellow
the black
and
the stars and afrocentrick bars of colonialism
i can say that freeman, as he appears in the original (dis) engagement of decolonization, is far more appealing, like original warriors movie, never seen version of the magnificent ambersons, and early auden poem, than the director’s cut presented in today’s edition.
you see the early work of amiri baraka like the toilet often nails it — sometimes the rest can be a pleasant rhetoric.
with all respects
your humble and rebellious student
khoda hafez
ishaq (ly braithwaite
Lawrence Ytzhak Braithwaite
Sam Greenlee is the author of The Spook Who Sat by the Door (reviewed by Lawrence Ytzhak Braithwaite in Rain 5:1), Blues for an African Princess, Ammunition!: Poetry and Other Raps, Baghdad Blues, “Be-bop man/be-bop woman” 1968-1993: Poetry and Other Raps, and Djakarta Blues; the film version of The Spook Who Sat by the Door was rereleased in 2004. His exchange with Braithwaite is reprinted from the Luv4self listserv.
Lawrence Ytzhak Braithwaite (1963-2008): Author of the novels Wigger, Ratz Are Nice, and More at 7:30: Notes to New Palestine, Lawrence Ytzhak Braithwaite (aka Lord Patch) likes to dub his prose like Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and King Tubby chopped music & voice. Braithwaite has performed at Lollapalooza, The National Black Arts Festival, Prose Acts: Alternative Fiction Literary Conference with Dennis Cooper, Kevin Killian, Robert Glück, and Dodie Bellamy, and at the Kootney School of Writing. His fiction has appeared in Fourteen Hills, Role Call: A Generational Anthology of Social & Political Black Literature & Art, Bluesprint: Anthology of Black British Columbian Literature and Orature, Redzone (Victoria’s street people zine), Fernwood’s Sleeping Dragon, Velvet Mafia, Of the Flesh, Nocturnes, and Biting the Error. His words and voice may be heard and read on the Hurricane Angel electronic and spoken word project ‘luckily i was half cat’, and Iskra’s self titled debut lp, as well as his own solo works, including ‘Clichy Sous Bois’ and ‘Mindwalk 31: Driving to Baghdad’. He lives in the Hood of New Palestine, Fernwood, British Columbia.” An audio disc of Braithwaite’s work as Lord Patch (myspace.com/lordpatchdub) is forthcoming.
The Rain Review of Books
Issue 16 / Spring 2009
issn 1718-486x
Edited by Aaron Vidaver
Coast Salish Territory
Vancouver bc ca
A scene from the 1973 film version of “The Spook Who Sat By The Door”
