March 13, 2006 -- YOUNGSTER'S BLACK-POWER POEM RILES SCHOOL A 7-year-old prodigy unleashed a firestorm when she recited a poem she wrote comparing Christopher Columbus and Charles Darwin to "pirates" and "vampires" who robbed blacks of their identities and human rights. Hundreds of parents of Peekskill middle- and high-school students received a recorded phone message last week apologizing for little Autum Ashante's poem, titled "White Nationalism Put U in Bondage." "Black lands taken from your hands, by vampires with no remorse," the aspiring actress and poet wrote. "They took the gold, the wisdom and all the storytellers. They took the black women, with the black man weak. Made to watch as they changed the paradigm of our village. "Yeah white nationalism is what put you in bondage. Pirates and vampires like Columbus, Morgan and Darwin." Autum was invited to speak at the Westchester schools on Feb. 28 by Melvin Bolden, a music teacher at the middle school who advises the high school's Black Culture Club and is a member of the Peekskill City Council. Autum, whose résumé includes several television appearances and performances at the Apollo Theater and the African Burial Ground in Manhattan, told The Post that her poem was meant to instill pride in black students and to encourage them to steer clear of violence. "I don't think there's anything wrong with my poem. I was trying to tell them the straight-up truth," Autum said. "I'm trying to tell them not to fight because they're killing the brothers and sisters." Autum, who is home-schooled in Mount Vernon and speaks several languages, prefaced her performance at the high school with a Black Panthers' pledge asking black youngsters to not harm one another. It did not sit well with parents. In a telephone interview with The Post, Bolden said Autum has been "unofficially" banned from performing in a district school again and that school officials would review transcripts of future speakers. "It's unfortunate, because some teachers said they wanted this little girl to explain the things she said to their students, but some parents don't want her on school grounds," Bolden said. "[The poem] might have been a little too aggressive for what the middle-school kids are ready to handle," Bolden added. Kimberly Greene, a mother of children in the high school and middle school, said she was shocked when she got the recorded phone message. "If there are people who are upset about what she said, the schools should have talked about and analyzed it rather than send a message to everyone saying this little girl was offensive," Greene said. Autum's father, Batin Ashante, said he can't believe the fuss over his daughter's poem. "She's a little girl who does poetry about real things. She doesn't do poetry about cotton candy," Ashante said. "She's a serious little person."
Just like the American public to make a mockery and a menace out of a black kid who probably doesn't know any better, in comparison to a white kid, who gets all the benefit of the doubt... for example: Some white boy goes crazy for no apparent reason and then begins to terrorize an entire neighborhood and starts killing a bunch of people. He is just 'troubled' and 'confused.' Now, let's replace this boy with a black guy. Now, he is a menace to society, an animal, a lunatic, a thief, a criminal, etc..... and, might I add to this that even IF there are blacks out there who spread messages of 'white devil repellent' rhetoric, AT LEAST, unlike a lot of OTHER blacks out here, they don't 'steppin' fetchit' to the white people, nor do they see their skin as a plague onto humanity in any way. I'll give 'em that much.
totally agree sardonic... I strongly believe that people still need to realize that Blacks will always be persecuted for speaking about their history good or bad..... but coming from a 7 year old hits home even more that some will never accept black truth.... Truth will always defeat lies.
It's always interesting that people will endorse free speech in the abstract, but raise merry hell when, in the exercise of free speech, someone says something which they don't agree with. Hypocrisy has no limits.
It does bring fear into some adults that a 7-year old Black child can write and perform words as powerful as these. I have no concern for the girl, she appears to have a strong sense of self for such a young person. This may, in the end, empower her. I have great concern for the hundreds of young people who were told that this type of expression is offensive and untruthful and worthy of public humiliation.
This is a post I posted on this topic on another board. There is more to this story than what some media report. Like the fact that she asked all the black kids to stand and told the white kids who stood to sit down. Ask yourself, if it were a white kids who did the same would you be cool with it? She is the daughter of a single father who is heavy into NOI. Here is another article about her, written by someone who doesnt appreciate this little girls POV. (I wont even mention that this author is philipino and wrote a book about ethnic interment...completely forgetting that if this was 1940 instead of 2006, she and her entire family would have probably been in an interment camp themselves. Philipino, Japanese, it was all the same back then) If I could ask her to explain one thing, I would like to know what she meant by this... "Autum Ashante' is the natural offspring of militant multiculturalism and government-sanctioned identity politics. We reap what we sow." What is "militant multicultralism" and "government-sanctioned indenty politics"?
