Saturday, January 25, 2025

Amiri Baraka, DEI, and Racial Barriers in the Arts



Given the coverage of moves to dismantle DEI this week, I started thinking that folks like me in the arts could and should do more to chart the ways that diversity efforts have been important in areas like American and African American literature. 

In one of his last published writings, Amiri Baraka provides a critical review of an anthology edited by Charles Rowell. At one point, Baraka singles out a statement by Rita Dove who noted that "by the time I started to write seriously, when I was I was eighteen or nineteen years old, the Black Arts Movement had gained momentum; notice had been taken. The time was ripe; all one had to do was walk up to the door they had been battering at and squeeze through the breech."

Baraka responds to that point with one word: "Exactly!" He was amplifying a previous point that he made about he and his fellow Black Artists "trying to fight back" against "slavery, white supremacy, and racism." Their efforts, Baraka indicated, had made it possible for subsequent generations like Dove, Yusef Komunyakaa, and others to simply walk through the doors or barriers that had been battered down. 

Look, you can read a lot in Black poetry studies and not come across writings about how Black poets paved the way for all kinds of advancements in diversity and opportunities for generations of Black poets. One, many people don't know. Two, it's kind of taken for granted now. 

I'm noting it all at the moment though because we're witnessing the public dismantling of DEI at the federal level and among corporations. It'll be interesting seeing how it affects the arts.  

Noted:

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