Ca Ba By Amiri Baraka

Honestly, the only reason I chose this poem because it is one of the poems that I could make a connection with on a personal level. This spectacular poem by Amiri Baraka centers around Baraka celebrating his African identity and what does it mean to be an African American; furthermore, he urges his fellow African Americans to unite and rise together as he acknowledges the hardships they go through in a white man society. Baraka converted to Islam and is credited with being the founding father of the Black Arts Movement, a “politically motivated black poets, artists, dramatists, musicians, and writers who emerged in the wake of the Black Power Movement” following Malcolm X’s assassination (blackpast.org). Therefore, the title of the poem, “Ka’Ba,” alludes to Islam: Kaaba is the most sacred and holy place for Muslims (it is a shrine and our most sacred mosque); Islam was often associated with the Black Power Movement because the Nation of Islam provided much of the leadership of the movement; as a result, it is possible that Baraka agrees with the views of the Nation of Islam and sees Islam as part of the development of modern African American identity.
Taking this into consideration, perhaps, the “sacred words” Braka is alluding to at the end of his poem could be Islamic.
I also think that Baraka titled his poem “Ka’Ba” because he hints at unity: For us, we can visit Kaaba any time during the year and perform what we call umrah*, and there’s this special ten days when we perform haj*; nonetheless, in both cases, Muslims all around Kabba are united and perform salat* and duaa* , hence, Baraka might be asking his African American audience to unite in a similar fashion to overcome adversity. I highly recommend you guys to look up the words I put an asterisk by to really understand what they are and what I’m trying to get at because 1) it is explained better on Dr. Google, and 2) it will take a lot from my 500 words
limit. However, the poem celebrates traditional African costumes, music, and religion as when Baraka states, “Full of masks and dances and swelling chants,” and what I really like about him is that he is very blunt and doesn’t beat around the bushes, for example, when he says “Though we sprawl in grey chains” to symbolize the chains that was used on slaves, and “We have been captured, Brothers.” The second quote, when I read it hit me with so much heavy emotions, it carries so much weight, you know? Additionally, I love the words Baraka uses to encourage African Americans to embrace their identity because they give out so much confidence such as “We are beautiful people / With African imaginations” and when he says “Defying physics in the stream of their will” in the beginning. After further investigation, I realized that Baraka used an allusion when he says “We are beautiful people” which is a slogan from the 1960s Black is Beautiful Movement that advocates African Americans to be proud of their ethnic customs; the movement initially spurred from John Rock, one w=of the first African American men to earn a medical degree, who believed that the beauty standard projected for the African American community is unrealistic and resulted in them hating their features; thus, Baraka states “With African eyes, and noses, and arms,” to hint at John Rock and the movement. And I went over 500 words …