In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

116 the minnesota review Harold Jaffe Persian Lamb "I had elected . . . not to submit." Richard Wright American Hunger Ras Who killed 19-year-old Anthony Parchment as he was inscribing this resonant syllable with a magic marker on an IRT subway car in the Nevins Street station, 2:20 a.m., Thursday, mid-summer? Who killed Frantz Fanon of French Martinique, white cells flooding his blood (black skin-white enraged cells), dreadful in Paris, dead at 39, New York City, leukemia? From Jamaica (Lucea, Westminster Parish), Anthony Parchment came to Crown Heights, Brooklyn, with his mother, two sisters. Moved in with his mother's sister, her three children, also from Jamaica, Kensington Parish. Anthony's Rasta father? Dead, killed with a machete by a Maroon. Maroons the first Jamaican guerillas, made it tough for the British to sip their gin, harried the Brits out in the end. Black Rasta killed by black Maroon. Who killed Steve Biko? Anthony Parchment caught in the act of inscription, the talismanic Ras. Who beat him? The police. Who killed him? The police. The persistent reporter for the local black newspaper was told by a nurse at Bellevue Hospital that Anthony Parchment's nearly dead body arrived in the Emergency Ward manacled with four pairs of handcuffs, that he had deep bruises "all over— from the soles of his feet to his head." Twelve days after Anthony Parchment's murder, the New York City Medical Examiner released this inquest capsule: "No indication of physical trauma. Apparent cause of death: cocaine-induced coma. Resultant heart-stoppage." Ras. The boy got it out before they got him. It's still there, among the thousandfold graffiti, theater of the colored poor, will be there until they bury it, the subway, which is liable to be soon. Whites use busses, cars, cabs. The colored poor ride the subways, and so few bucks! bleats the City , bleats the State. We have our poor and we have our goodpoor— tell jaffe 117 me then: who rides the subways? Who don't get the bucks? Ras. "Steve Biko was shamming—he wasn't sick at all." Anthony Parchment's mother and aunt said No to the white New York City Medical Examiner, borrowed money to hire their own pathologist, whose report confirmed what you and I know: sixty-odd bruises on his body, multiple concussions of the skull, spinal trauma, death from injuries , zero evidence of cocaine. Five weeks after these independent findings , after local black citizen outrage, the New York City Medical Examiner revised his original report to read: "Some indication of head injury . Possibly fatal spinal trauma." Incantatory Ras. Back to Ethiopia, the cradle. Cite Marcus Garvey. Worship Taffari Makonnen (Haile Selassie), Emperor of Ethiopia, Lion of Judah. Cannabis is holy (for it will grant you access). "ItaP food is holy: roots, grain, legumes, mild fruit (no meat). Away from Ethiopia looms Babylon. But while in Babylon, what then? Swallow? Expel? Testify? Inscribe? And the police, the ones who beat and killed him? Three white males, ages twenty-seven to forty-one, two married with kids and living in Queens, the other living in Staten Island, all three members in good standing of the Patrolman's Benevolent Association. When asked what Ras meant to them, two said: "Black Power," the other said: "Black Power and heroin." When asked whether it was defensible to beat a person who was inscribing a word on the door of a subway train full of words, they refused to answer. Who asked these things of the policemen? I did. Who are you? Nobody. You're white? No. I mean yes. The Parchments in Crown Heights, Brooklyn: the mother, Hyacinth, worked in a neighborhood laundromat. The two teenaged sisters went to Thomas Jefferson High School. Anthony worked in downtown Manhattan, in the garment district, maneuvering a bulky pushcart filled with mink and sable and Persian lamb from factory to showroom, back again, through the cluttered streets. Persian lamb: the glossy black or gray pelt of the just-born (justkilled ) karakul lamb with its soft tight curls. Who murdered Patrice Lumumba: his "tongue," his "nightingale breast," his "assassinated whistle"?* All right, the boy was lynched. What now...

pdf

Share