Introduction


Amiri Baraka
Amiri Baraka is not an easy author to like...and that's just fine with him. Accused of hating whites, women, and Jews, Baraka has incited considerable controversy throughout his extensive career. The Obie Award-winning short play Dutchman exemplifies his highly charged writing style. The play portrays a young white woman who flirts with, debases, and ultimately murders a young black man on a subway train. The play ends with another black man getting on the train, hinting that the cycle will repeat itself. Baraka's thought and writing have been greatly influenced by Marxism and Black Nationalism, as well as other political movements. Though his radical views often meet with strong opposition, his confrontational works are credited with provoking discussion on complex issues.

Essential Facts

  1. Amiri Baraka was born Everett LeRoi Jones. He dropped the “Everett” in his early 20s and changed his name again in 1967 following the death of Malcolm X.
  2. As a young man, Jones/Baraka enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, only to be discharged when some of his writing was discovered and believed to have communist leanings.
  3. Though Baraka is known primarily for his controversial politics, he has also written extensively on jazz music, including the seminal text Blues People: Negro Music in White America.
  4. Baraka has frequently been accused of anti-Semitism, particularly in light of a poem he wrote, “Somebody Blew Up America,” which implicated Israel in the attacks of September 11. He has since defended that poem in an online essay titled “I Will Not Apologize, I Will Not Resign.”
  5. Baraka served as New Jersey’s poet laureate from 2002 to 2003. The position was eliminated by then-governor Jim McGreevey when he discovered that he could not simply fire Baraka.