NJ Governor's Racist Request:
Eliminate Poet Laureate Position in order to Silence Amiri Baraka

MICHAEL SYMONS / Courier Post (NJ) 5dec02

TRENTON - Senate Democrats, acting at the behest of Gov. James E. McGreevey, today will move to eliminate the position of poet laureate, effectively removing Amiri Baraka from the job by cutting the post.

Legislative sources in both major parties said McGreevey asked for that approach. Bills scheduled to be considered by the Senate State Government Committee would have allowed the governor to fire Baraka in the wake of a controversial poem critics call anti-Semitic.

Firing Baraka could cause political headaches for McGreevey among black supporters, even though the Democrat has already publicly requested that Baraka - a prominent, much-praised poet also known as a fiery political activist and black nationalist* - resign. 

• mindfully.org note: Anyone who speaks out against this system of discrimination, especially people of color, are made to appear radical by the media. 

Copies of the amended bill weren't available Wednesday, and McGreevey's office didn't return a request for comment.

Sen. Peter Inverso, R-Mercer, a primary sponsor of a bill supported by 19 of the 20 Republican senators giving McGreevey the power to fire Baraka, is willing to work toward bipartisan amendments, said his chief of staff, Steven Cook.

"The governor, when this thing started, said he wanted the ability to fire the poet laureate," Cook said. "We haven't seen amendments. Right now, the senator is going into this committee hearing advocating for his bill giving the governor exactly what he asked for."

The Democrats' bill, sponsored by Senate President Richard Codey, D-Essex, and Sen. Bryon Baer, D-Bergen, would allow the state Council for the Humanities, which chose Baraka as poet laureate, to hold a hearing on Baraka' s status and make a recommendation to McGreevey, who would be free to accept or reject it.

Baraka is the state's second poet laureate since the job was created in 1999. He has refused to resign and won't testify at today's hearing because he wasn't invited by senators.

Baraka's poem, "Somebody Blew Up America," sparked controversy when he read it at a poetry festival in September. The poem suggests Israel had advance knowledge of the World Trade Center attack and that 4,000 Israelis were warned not to go to work on Sept. 11, 2001.

The story has been discredited. Baraka said the poem is not anti-Semitic and notes it addresses a range of injustices and atrocities, including the Holocaust.

The job of poet laureate is a two-year assignment that pays a $10,000 stipend.

• More on Amiri Baraka and the fallout from his sincere and truthful poem
  Somebody Blew Up America The poem by Amiri Baraka 1oct01
  Governor's Racist Request: Eliminate Poet Laureate Position - MICHAEL SYMONS / Courier Post (NJ) 5dec02