(R)hyming (A)merican (P)oetry

Abstract

“American Slavery Was Not A Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western,”spluttered Spike Lee on Twitter in December 2012, vowing not to see Tarantino’s latest pulp fiction Django Unchained. Historically speaking, he had a point. Westerns do not usually depict blacks holding other blacks slave, and even less fighting in courts for their right to do so. But American slavery was not a spaghetti western, and, in one of the first freedom lawsuits recorded in the New World, a free black, Anthony Johnson, did file for his right to the life of black John Casor.

History repeats itself.

David Shabazz, Preface to The United States v. Hip-Hop