Madhubuti, Haki R. (Pseudonym of Don L. Lee) - Madhubuti, Haki R. (Pseudonym of Don L. Lee) 1942–
Madhubuti, Haki R. (Pseudonym of Don L. Lee) 1942–
Madhubuti, a Black American poet, writes intensely about racial issues.
Lee strongly believes that education in white America teaches the black man how not to be Black. In a typical poem, from his volume Think Black—a poem, entitled "Wake-up Niggers"—he says, parenthetically, "(you ain't part Indian)." And in "Back Again Home," also found in Think Black, he tells us that to rediscover his blackness, the black man has to resign from white values. Once he does this, Lee says, he is "Back Again, BLACK AGAIN, Home."
Although the black man's blackness is often the topic for serious treatment, Lee is capable of seeing humor in it, too, at times. In his poem "But He Was Cool or: he even stopped for green lights," he writes of the "cool cat" who is so anxious to be black that he is "super-cool ultrablack." He wears a double-natural "that wd put the sisters to shame"; is, in...
[The entire page is 797 words long]
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