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Can you help me develop a critical appreciation of Amiri Baraka's "Somebody Blew Up America" from the perspective of Postcolonialism?

As you probably know, the postcolonial perspective analyzes the effects of economic and physical control over the native inhabitants and the resources of an area. The poem "Somebody Blew Up America" provides a response to the 9/11/2001 terrorist attack in America. Baraka's speaker takes a stance that terrorism can be a reaction to all the oppression that white men have been handing down for centuries to the rest of the world.


The poem is structured...

As you probably know, the postcolonial perspective analyzes the effects of economic and physical control over the native inhabitants and the resources of an area. The poem "Somebody Blew Up America" provides a response to the 9/11/2001 terrorist attack in America. Baraka's speaker takes a stance that terrorism can be a reaction to all the oppression that white men have been handing down for centuries to the rest of the world.


The poem is structured around the central question of "Who?" In the first stanza the speaker sarcastically remarks that certain white extremist groups, such as the KKK and the Skinheads, could never have done such an evil deed. However, as the poem continues, the speaker continually asks questions which include the following:



Who killed the most niggers 
Who killed the most Jews 
Who killed the most Italians 
Who killed the most Irish 
Who killed the most Africans 
Who killed the most Japanese 
Who killed the most Latinos 


Who got rich from Algeria, Libya, Haiti, 
Iran, Iraq, Saudi, Kuwait, Lebanon, 
Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, 


Who cut off peoples hands in the Congo 
Who invented Aids....



The speaker asks questions so rapidly, due to the omission of most punctuation, that it is plain that he does not expect an answer. Rather he is making a point about American interventions and oppression which may have led, at least in part, to the behaviors of terrorists. The speaker clearly suggests that American imperialism and colonialism created a cloud of hatred and fear that could have given rise to the Twin Tower terrorist attacks. He urges Americans to look at themselves before they attach a label to others.

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