A Tribute to Sonia Sanchez

By Steve Halpern

This past Sunday I attended an inspiring event that was a tribute as well as a Birthday celebration of Sonia Sanchez. Sonia Sanchez is a wonderful poet who has given a voice to people from around the world, who have been marginalized by those who have power. She is also a retired tenured professor from Temple University. The event was held in the African-American Museum in Philadelphia.

I needed to work that day and didn’t get a chance to see the entire program. While my work can be tiring, and at times frustrating, attending this tribute—celebration, was like taking breadth of fresh air.

Included in this program were presentations by about thirty people who in one way or another have been influenced by the life of Sonia Sanchez. I happened to be one of the presenters and I shared my poem, Don’t Sit Down. Many of these poems are included in the book, A Tribute to Sonia Sanchez.

Ishmael Reed gave his tribute to Sonia Sanchez on the back over of this book:

“Sonia is much more than a poet.

She is a medium

Through her we see our ancestors,

Tubman, Truth, Wells, Brooks, Walker.

Through her, we know that they are still alive.”

One poet gave a nice description of a part of who Sonia Sanchez is. This woman was a teacher who asked her class to write a poem. The students found this assignment to be challenging.

So, one student went home and asked her parents about poetry. The student returned to class and gave her teacher a copy of Sonia Sanchez’ poem, Homegirls and Handgrenades. This poem apparently transformed the way the teacher viewed this assignment.

I came to the meeting during the time when Sonia was being interviewed. This was a long interview, but every minute of it kept my interest. I’ll just relate two of Sanchez’ stories.

Early in Sonia’s career, agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation came to her home. Sonia was a teacher and couldn’t understand what these agents wanted with her—a law-abiding citizen.

Then, the agent read a list of names that included Paul Robeson, Marcus Garvey, and W.E.B. Du Bois. The agent accused Sonia of teaching the ideas of these leaders to her students. Being a teacher Sonia didn’t initially understand what the problem was. The agent informed her that she wasn’t supposed to teach students about these leaders because he considered them to be communists.

At this point, Sonia talked about a dog she owned at the time. She said that while she fed and walked the dog, she never had an attachment to it. However, while she was being grilled by the F.B.I., the dog attacked the agents. Sonia then pulled the dog off the agents and had the dog sit. She then pet the dog for the first time. A new relationship of mutual appreciation was established between Sonia and her dog.              

Being an expert in the English language, Sonia has an incisive understanding of the meaning behind the words people use. She talked about how she doesn’t like to use profanity. But when she talked about the people who are running this country she said “It’s a Motha F—a.”

To be honest, I haven’t been a student of Sonia Sanchez’ poetry. I’ve seen her give her unique contribution to political events I’ve attended. Now, I plan to read her work with a new and inspired interest.

You might ask: If I have written so many poems, why haven’t I already read Sonia Sanchez, as well as many other outstanding poets? In order to answer this question, I need to give a bit of my background.

I was born and raised in the city of Newark, New Jersey. I lived in the Weequahic section on the south-side. This is the same neighborhood where Philip Roth grew up and wrote about in several of his books. Roth and I are both Jewish. Philip Roth grew up at a time when the city was predominantly Jewish. I lived there during the transition from Jewish to African-American. Amiri Baraka became the most well known poet in the city.

1967 was my first year in high school. This was the year Newark erupted in a rebellion against police repression. The government responded by invading the city with the national guard and murdered about 21 people. There was a considerable amount of destruction in the city because of the rebellion and ensuing repression. Unlike other cities that had rebellions at that time, the people who had power in New Jersey chose not to rebuild the many destroyed storefronts.

I attended Arts High that was located in close proximity to the downtown Newark area, as well as the former housing projects of the city. I took the bus to school every day where, for four years I viewed the burned out rubble from those buildings that had been destroyed in 1967. Because I was young, I thought this was normal.

These were the years when there was a massive movement against the war in Vietnam. While the U.S. armed forces carried out a massive bombing campaign against Vietnam, this same military destroyed large sections of Newark, New Jersey.

There are moments when people like me realize that the government, or the political economic system is hostile to the interests of working people. My moment was in going to a broken down school in Newark, and then seeing the country-club like schools that were a mere half hour away. Understanding this huge disparity is what made me think that there is something profoundly wrong with the political economic system in this country.

So, I became a communist and worked with various causes to defend the interests of working people in the world. Then, in 1992 my life took a turn and I began to write. First, I became a columnist for the Student Vanguard that is the student newspaper at Community College in Philadelphia. This experience caused me to see that for better or worse, I have a somewhat unique voice.

Then, one of my teachers in school gave us an assignment to write poems. I never thought about doing this before, but now I have an entire book of unpublished poems. I’ve also written a novel and currently contribute to my blog.

You might ask: Why am I giving all this information in my blog of a tribute to Sonia Sanchez?

In my opinion, one of the themes of this tribute was in an idea expressed by the revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara when he said: “At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking in this quality.”

Listening to the many tributes for Sonia Sanchez the word “love” is the one that resounded. This was found in Sonia’s poetry as well as in the way she communicates with people.

My poetry is about people, events, words, and ideas. In my poems I have attempted to cut through the day-to-day hypocrisy we see in what the media calls the “news.” However, thinking about my poetry, I feel that I could do a much better job in expressing the emotion of love. Perhaps in the words of Che, I’ve been reluctant to take, “the risk of seeming ridiculous.” If we aren’t willing to take that risk, we might as well give up.             

I learned something else at this meeting. While I’ve written many poems, there are many poems written by others that I clearly don’t understand. This bothered me. Then, I thought about many political meetings that I’ve attended where I didn’t understand everything that was being said.

I consider myself a communist, but have never been able to do a complete reading Karl Marx’s three volumes of Capital. For many years, I didn’t even understand the Communist Manifesto. Then, a few years ago I had gained a bit of knowledge of history and began to grow a real appreciation for the Manifesto.

I remember a meeting when Sonia Sanchez talked about meeting Malcolm X. Sonia, like Ida Wells, is short in height. She wanted to say something to Malcolm when he was in Harlem, but he was surrounded by his security guards. However, Sonia, like Ida Wells has a way of making her presence known. So, when Malcolm saw young Sonia’s persistence, he wanted to hear what she had to say.

In those days Sonia said that she liked much of what Malcolm was saying, but not everything. Malcolm, who was one of the best speakers in the history of this country, answered her with two words. “You will.” I believe that today Sonia would say that she indeed did. 

 My point here is that I shouldn’t put myself down because there are many things I don’t understand. By making a continuing attempt to educate myself, I’m learning more and will understand more.

Two of my favorite poets are Pablo Neruda and Langston Hughes. These are two very different poets. Neruda used words like brush strokes of a painting to portray an image. Hughes wrote in clear and precise messages that were unique. This is an excerpt of Neruda’s poem Great Happiness:

“At the gates of factories and mines I want

my poetry to cling to the earth,

to the air, to the victory of abused mankind.

In the hardness that I built, like a box,

Slowly and with metals. I would like

The youth who opens it, face-to-face, to find life,

And plunging his soul in may he reach the gusts

that spilled my happiness, in the stormy heights.”

And this one by Langston Hughes titled Frosting:

“Freedom

Is just frosting

On someone else’s

Cake—

And so must be

Till we

Learn how to

Bake.”

When I think of the totality of this tribute to Sonia, I think of how she continues to nurture young people and encourages them to use their bottomless creativity. I also think that that she represents an essential ingredient in teaching humanity, in Langston Hughes words, “how to bake.”

     

The Other Naomi Osaka—Serena Williams Story

By Steve Halpern

Recently, one of the hottest sports stories has been the dispute between Serena Williams and the United States Open umpire Carlos Ramos in the finals of that tournament. This blog is not about that dispute.

When we look at the two women athletes who competed in the finals of the 2018 U.S. Open, we also viewed the culmination of two related stories. Why are the stories of Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka related?

First, Naomi Osaka viewed Serena as an idol from an early age. Then, we know that Naomi’s father, Leonard Maxime François, consciously worked to use Richard Williams training methods. Richard Williams trained both his daughters Serena and Venus Williams. However, looking at the paths the families of these two athletes have taken, brings us on a journey from Shreveport, Louisiana, to Compton, California, to the nation of Haiti, to Osaka Japan, to the concentration camps in the United States where Japanese-Americans were detained, and then to the Haitian community in this country.

Shreveport, Louisiana to Compton, California

Richard Williams wrote an autobiography titled: Black and White—The way I see it. Williams dedicated this book to his mother Julia Metcalf Williams who he says is his “greatest hero.”

This book starts with the following quotation from Langston Hughes:

I am the darker brother.

They send me to the kitchen

When company comes,

But I laugh,

And eat well,

And grow strong.

The book begins with Serena Williams winning the 2012 Wimbledon finals against Agnieszka Radwańska. Then, in the second chapter we see the almost unbelievable series of events that surrounded the birth of Richard Williams.

On the day Richard Williams was born, Julia Williams was alone and she needed to go to the segregated hospital that would care for her. This was in Shreveport, Louisiana. She went to the hospital in a wagon pulled by a mule named Midnight. On the way to the hospital there was a horrendous storm and Midnight broke his leg. Dozens of white motorists saw Julia Williams struggling for her life at the side of the road, but passed her by. Then, a Black man named Mr. Leroy rescued Julia and took her to the hospital in his broken down pick-up truck. Richard Williams was then born in the hospital.

In his first years, Julia Williams brought Richard Williams into the cotton fields while his mother worked. Julia Williams could not control the hostile environment her family lived in, but she did her best to nurture her children and teach them how to deal with that environment.

Richard Williams learned how to run fast in order to escape from racist mobs. Three of his close friends were lynched as a result of the vicious Jim Crow discrimination in Shreveport.          

He eventually left Shreveport in what is known as the Great Migration out of the states where Jim Crow segregation was the law. He wound up in Los Angeles, California. This is where he met Venus and Serena’s mother Oracene Price.

This is also where he accidentally viewed a women’s tennis tournament where the winner was awarded $40,000. He then learned the game of tennis, and wrote a 78-page proposal arguing that he would raise two daughters to be tennis champions. This was before Venus and Serena were born.

He then moved the family from the middle-class neighborhood of Long Beach, to the mean streets of Compton, California. There Richard Williams needed to battle street gangs every day, just so his daughters would be able to play on the public courts.

When Venus and Serena were 11 and 10 years old the family moved again to Florida. During this entire process Richard Williams consciously worked to instill in his daughters the same values that he received from his mother. He raised them to deal with a hostile environment and nurtured them at the same time.

Haiti, to New York, to Japan, and Back

I wasn’t able to find much information about Naomi Osaka’s father Leonard François. What I did find, uncovered an amazing story most people are unaware of.

Leonard François was born in Haiti. Haiti happens to be the only nation in the world that carried out a successful revolution for both independence and to end the horrendous institution of slavery. Hundreds of thousands of Haitians lost their lives in the revolution of 1804 against the armies of Spain, Britain, and France. All three of these nations wanted to rule Haiti because sugar production, using slave labor, was the most lucrative way of making money in those days.

Because of the French defeat in Haiti, Napoleon sold the French Louisiana Territory to the United States government. This sale doubled the size of this country. The sale also ironically strengthened the position of slave owners. The slave owner Thomas Jefferson was President at that time and New Orleans became the new center for the slave trade.

So Haiti became the only nation where slaves had freed themselves and managed to maintain power. The United States responded to this by imposing a trade embargo against Haiti. Because Haiti was isolated politically, France used it’s position of power to demand that Haiti pay reparations for the fact that France had been defeated in the Haitian Revolution. The extreme poverty of Haiti was caused in part because of the embargo against the country and the payment of reparations to France.

Then, in the early years of the twentieth century the United States military forces occupied the Haiti for about twenty years. During that time the U.S. military went to war against the forces of independence on the island.

Then, the United States supported the repressive regimes of both François “Papa Doc” Duvalier and Jean Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier these two regimes terrorized Haiti with their paramilitary force known as the Tonton Macoute.   

This was the background to the environment that Leonard François was born into. Understanding this, we might also understand why François left Haiti for an education in New York City and then continued his education in Japan.

It was in Sapporo, Japan that Leonard François met his future wife Tamaki Osaka. Sapporo is the capital of Japan’s northern island, Hokkaido. Tamaki Osaka’s family is from Nemuro that is on the eastern edge of Hokkaido.

Tamaki Osaka’s father initially disapproved of his daughter marrying a Black man from another country. This animosity caused Tamaki and Leonard not to have contact with the rest of the Osaka family for ten years. As a result Leonard and Tamaki started their family in Osaka. The family used the Osaka name to make it easier for their daughters in school. Osaka is located in Japan’s southern island about half way between Tokyo and Hiroshima.

Today Tamaki Osaka’s family has changed their attitudes to their children and grandchildren. They, as well as most of Japan are proud that Naomi Osaka is the champion of the United States Open.

Flames Over Tokyo

At this point I believe it is useful to look at a chapter of Japanese history most people are not aware of. In school the so-called educational system of the United States gives their version of the events that led to the Second World War. That version of history argues that Japan bombed the United States military base in Hawaii without warning and this cause the government in this country to go to war.

The facts are that U.S. ships entered Japanese waters in 1853 under the command of Commodore Perry. Perry demanded that Japan open up trade with the rest of the world. For many years Japan was isolated and blocked international trade in an attempt to prevent becoming a colony.

By the year 1892 the United States took control of Hawaii. The U.S. then went to war against Spain and Philippine independence fighters. The U.S. victories in those wars led to the transfer of power from Spain to the United States in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines. With the building of the Panama Canal the U.S. government had the clear goal of becoming the dominant capitalist power in the Pacific region.

The one persistent problem in advancing this goal was the Japanese government’s moves to also control the Pacific region. The United States initially declared an oil and scrap metal embargo against Japan. This trade war is what led to the shooting war with the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. After the war the United States government continued their goal of controlling the Pacific with wars against Korea and Vietnam.

What does all this have to do with the Osaka family? My answer to this question comes from the reality of what happened to the city of Osaka in the last year of the Second World War.

Most people are aware of the fact that the United States Air Force dropped the atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Most people are not aware of the fire-bombing campaign the U.S. Air Force conducted against Japan for six months before the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

E. Bartlett Kerr wrote a history of this bombing campaign in his book Flames over Tokyo – The U.S. Army Air Forces’ Incendiary Campaign Against Japan 1944-1945. Kerr wrote about how phosphorous or incendiary bombs were used against Japan because the civilian housing of that nation was usually made of flammable wood. These incendiary bombs were used to destroy civilian areas of about 67 of Japan’s largest cities.

Kerr reported that 35.1% of the city of Osaka was destroyed by these phosphorous bombs. Osaka had a population equivalent to the population of Chicago, Illinois. It is unimaginable to think of what it meant to live in a city where the people are surrounded by burning hot fames, and searching desperately for a place we they could breathe. 

This is the same city where the Osaka family lived for the first years of Naomi Osaka’s life.

Naomi Osaka wins at Indian Wells in California

From Osaka Japan, Naomi Osaka and her family moved to Long Island, New York and then Florida where they lived with relatives and others in the Haitian community. It was here that Leonard François attempted to teach his daughters tennis using the same methods as Richard Williams.  

The first major professional tournament Naomi Osaka won was at Indian Wells in California. This is the most prestigious tennis tournament in the state.

We might also mention that California is the state that sent large numbers of Japanese to concentration camps during the Second World War. Many of the Japanese in the state were farmers who worked the land few people wanted. They built up these farms to eventually control a large share of the produce market in the state.  When the Japanese were sent to concentration camps, the government allowed for the confiscation of their farms and businesses.

In the year 1944, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in the case of Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu v. the United States. The Supreme Court’s decision supported sending Japanese-Americans into concentration camps. By the year 1988 President Ronald Reagan signed the Japanese Liberties Act that awarded all U.S. survivors of the internment camps $20,000 as compensation for the time they served.

The United States government has yet to award compensation to African Americans living in this country who have relatives who lived in slave labor camps.

The 2018 U.S. Open Tennis Tournament

When we look at the entirety of this history, I think we gain a new appreciation for the finals of the U.S. Open between Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka. In Serena Williams case her ancestors, no doubt, experienced slave labor, and Jim Crow segregation. Her ancestors also experienced the Civil War as well as the Civil Rights movement that forced the government to give Black people citizenship rights in this country.

Naomi Osaka’s ancestors, no doubt, experienced the Haitian Revolution as well the horrendous policies the United States government inflicted on the people of that country. Her ancestors also experienced the criminal firebombing as well as the atomic bombing of the country of her birth.

Although Naomi Osaka lived most of her life in the United States, she says she doesn’t know what it means to identify as an American. Given that she is one of the twelve million immigrants in this country, why would we think she would feel differently. Clearly the past few Presidents of this country have deported millions of immigrants who came to this country merely looking for a place to live and work.

So, this year at the most prestigious tennis tournament in the United States we saw two women who share a similar but different background. Their ancestors experienced the horrors of policies inflicted by the United States government. Yet through all these horrors, these two women managed to show the world a glimmer of perfection.

Whatever disagreement unfolded with respect to this match, let us remember the long and winding road the families of these two wonderful athletes managed to overcome in order to reach this point in history.

A Letter to the Philadelphia Inquirer on Socialism

To the Editor,

Politicians as well as the entire pro-capitalist media have never tired of being critical of the word socialism. We might argue that one of the central priorities of United States government has been to do literally everything in it's power to mobilize against those who support this word. The September 4 column by Anthony Davies and James R. Harrington that chastised this word merely follows in that ugly tradition.

Eugene Debs ran for president under the Socialist Party five times. He spent three years in prison for merely giving a speech against the United States participation in the First World War. Tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers lost their lives fighting in Korea and Vietnam because the government claimed they were fighting against communism. No Korean or Vietnamese soldier ever came to this country with an intent to harm anyone. Hundreds if not thousands of people were blacklisted and many went to prison because they refused to answer the question: "Are you a member of the Communist Party?"

Why is the government and the press so afraid of the idea of socialism? Today we visit supermarkets that are brimming with food. Yet there are about 41 million people in this country that do not have enough food to eat. The United States pays more for health care, per person, than any other nation in the world. Yet those who have serious diseases might loose everything in an attempt to pay their medical bills. No less than 80% of the world's population lives on $10 per day or less.

A genuine workers government will view the needs of humanity as more important than the profits for the owners of corporations. Why do banks, insurance companies, and advertising agencies exist? Aren't they all about the drive to maximize profits for corporations? Why not have a government that works with the people every day to organize a system where human needs are the top priority? Today the human and material resources exist to make top quality medical care, education, housing, and food a right for literally everyone in the world.

Bernie Sanders claims he is a socialist, but he is in fact a supporter of the capitalist system. Does anyone really believe that our day to day lives would be significantly different if Bernie Sanders was President? I'm 65 years old and I've seen Presidents come and go. They promise all kinds of things and their legacy is the 41 million people who don't have enough food to eat. As long as these conditions exist, working people will find the idea of human needs before profits to be attractive. 

I was in Cuba on May 1, 2017 and witnessed over one million Cubans demonstrating in support of their socialist government. This will not change because of a column in the Inquirer.