Book Signing and Conversation with Author Marvin X
On Saturday, August 1, the Post Newspaper Group will host a conversation and book signing with author/poet/playwright/activist Marvin X. The event will be in memory of journalist Chauncey Bailey who was assassinated August 2, 2007. Marvin X will celebrate the release of his memoir Eldridge Cleaver: My Friend the Devil. Marvin wrote his memoir while on a national book tour in March. In less than three weeks he finished the first draft, inspired by a conversation with his daughter, Nefertiti, in Houston, Texas. Amiri Baraka, godfather of the Black Arts Movement (Marvin X is a co-founder), provided the introduction.
The event will at the Joyce Gordon Gallery, 406 14th Street, Oakland. James W. Sweeney will converse with Marvin on a variety of topics, local, national and international. Sweeney has said, "Marvin walked through the muck and mire of hell and came out clean as white fish and black as coal." Sweeney, a collector of black art, allowed Marvin to use a painting of Eldridge Cleaver for the book cover. He says My Friend the Devil is a metaphor for everyone to examine the demons in their lives. "Don't think Marvin is talking about Eldridge's demons, or even Marvin's because we all have demons in our midst, even Jesus had demons."
On the subject of his friend Chauncey Bailey, Marvin has this to say: It has been revealed that the brothers at Your Black Muslim Bakery were only patsies for the OPD, local politicians and Mexican drug dealers. The OPD was shaking down black drug dealers so the Mexicans could take over the black tar heroin trade. The OPD black shake down squad (similar to the Riders) then used the Muslims to fence the dope and jewelry taken from the blacks.
This case reveals the din of iniquity Oakland has become. It is almost impossible to separate the good guys from the bad. It is clear to me Chauncey was not killed because he was planning to write something negative about the Muslims. The Muslim Bakery problems were public information, including their bankruptcy proceedings. Bailey was thus not killed for investigating the Muslims but because the OPD, politicians and the Mexican drug gangs feared he knew about their scurvy activities, including the behavior of former mayor Jerry Brown, now attorney general, who is quoted as saying when Chauncey worked for the Oakland Tribune, "I'm going to stop that Nigger (Chauncey) from snooping around City Hall and the police department." Brown orchestrated Bailey's firing from the Tribune. The above information has been known by the OPD and the Chauncey Bailey Project but they have failed to disclose the Mexican drug connection. The former Chief of Police warned Post publisher Paul Cobb if he filed a complaint based on this information he should get a bulletproof vest.
Marvin X says it is time to tell the truth, so help me Allah (God). A community living on lies and denial can only go down as Murphy’s law tells us. Lies become an addiction until we are consumed by them. We cannot even face our children and family because they know we are cowards whose manhood and dignity is crushed under foot by fear. Our ancestors paid the price in full for us to stand tall and tell the truth, not scurry around like rats.
Invited guests include Angela Davis and Bobby Seale. Call 510-355-6339 for more information. Wine and light refreshments will be served. Admission with book purchase, $19.95.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Ishmael Reed on Skip Gates, Harvard Negro
How Henry Louis Gates Got Ordained as the Nation's "Leading Black Intellectual"
Post-Race Scholar Yells Racism
By ISHMAEL REED http://counterpunch .com/reed0727200 9.html
Now that Henry Louis Gates’ Jr. has gotten a tiny taste of what “the underclass” undergo each day, do you think that he will go easier on them? Lighten up on the tough love lectures? Even during his encounter with the police, he was given some slack. If a black man in an inner city neighborhood had hesitated to identify himself, or given the police some lip, the police would have called SWAT. When Oscar Grant, an apprentice butcher, talked back to a BART policeman in Oakland, he was shot!
Given the position that Gates has pronounced since the late eighties, if I had been the arresting officer and post-race spokesperson Gates accused me of racism, I would have given him a sample of his own medicine. I would have replied that “race is a social construct”--the line that he and his friends have been pushing over the last couple of decades.
After this experience, will Gates stop attributing the problems of those inner city dwellers to the behavior of “thirty five-year-old grandmothers living in the projects?” (Gates says that when he became a tough lover he was following the example of his mentor Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka as though his and Soyinka’s situations were the same. As a result of Soyinka’s criticisms of a Nigerian dictator, he was jailed and his life constantly threatened.)
Prior to the late eighties, Gates’ tough love exhortations were aimed at racism in the halls of academe, but then he signed on to downtown feminist reasoning that racism was a black male problem. Karen Durbin, who hired him to write for The Village Voice, takes credit for inventing him as a “public intellectual.” He was then assigned by Rebecca Penny Sinkler, former editor of The New York Times Book Review, to do a snuff job on black male writers. In an extraordinary review, he seemed to conclude that black women writers were good, not because of their merit, but because black male writers were bad. This was a response to an article by Mel Watkins, a former book review editor, who on his way out warned of a growing trend that was exciting the publisher’s cash registers. Books that I would describe as high Harlequin romances, melodramas in which saintly women were besieged by cruel black male oppressors, the kind of image of the brothers promoted by confederate novelists Thomas Nelson Page and Thomas Dixon.
Gates dismissed a number of black writers as misogynists, including me, whom he smeared throughout the United States and Europe, but when Bill Clinton was caught exploiting a young woman, sexually, he told the Times that he would “go to the wall for this president.” Feminists like Gloria Steinem defended the president as well, even though for years they’d been writing about women as victims of male chauvinists with power, the kind of guys who used to bankroll Ms. magazine.
Not to say that portraits of black men should be uniformly positive--I’ve certainly introduced some creeps in my own work--but most of the white screenwriters, directors and producers who film this material--and the professors and critics who promote it-- are silent about the abuses against women belonging to their own ethnic groups. Moreover, Alice Walker, Tina Turner and bell hooks have complained that in the hands of white script writers, directors and producers, the black males become more sinister straw men than they appear in the original texts.
There are big bucks to be made in promoting this culture. Two studios are currently fighting over the rights to a movie called “Push” about a black father who impregnates his illiterate Harlem daughter. A representative of one, according to the Times, said that the movie would provide both with “a gold mine of opportunity.”
As an example of the double standard by which blacks and whites are treated in American society, at about the same time that the Gate’s article on black misogyny was printed, there appeared a piece about Jewish American writers. Very few women were mentioned.
Gates was also under pressure for making himself the head black feminist in the words of feminist Michele Wallace as a result of his profiting from black feminist studies sales because, as she put it in the Voice, he had unresolved issues with his late mother, who was, according to Gates, a black nationalist. The black feminists wanted in. As a result, Gates invited them to join his Norton anthology project. The result was the Norton Anthology of African American Literature. One of the editors was the late feminist scholar Dr. Barbara Christian. She complained to me almost to the day that she died that she and the late Nellie Y. McKay, another editor, did all of the work while Gates took the credit. This seems to be Gates’ pattern. Getting others to do his work. Mother Jones magazine accused him of exploiting those writers who helped to assemble his Encarta Africana, of running an academic sweat shop and even avoiding affirmative action goals by not hiring blacks. Julian Brookes of Mother Jones wrote:
“Henry Louis Gates Jr. has never been shy about speaking up for affirmative action. Indeed, the prominent Harvard professor insists that he wouldn't be where he is today without it. Odd, then, that when it came to assembling a staff to compile an encyclopedia of black history, Gates hired a group that was almost exclusively white. Of the up to 40 full-time writers and editors who worked to produce Encarta Africana only three were black. What's more, Gates and co-editor K. Anthony Appiah rejected several requests from white staffers to hire more black writers. Mother Jones turned to Gates for an explanation of this apparent inconsistency.
“Did the staff members who expressed concern that the Africana team was too white have a point?”
Gates responded:
“It's a disgusting notion that white people can't write on black history--some of the best scholars of Africa are white. People should feel free to criticize the quality of the encyclopedia, but I will not yield one millimeter[to people who criticize the makeup of the staff]. It's wrongheaded. Would I have liked there to be more African Americans in the pool? Sure. But we did the best we could given the time limits and budget.”
While his alliance with feminists gave Gates’ career a powerful boost, it was his Op ed for the Times blaming continued anti-Semitism on African Americans that brought the public intellectual uptown. It was then that Gates was ordained as the pre-eminent African American scholar when, if one polled African-American scholars throughout the nation, Gates would not have ranked among the top twenty five. It would have to be done by secret ballot given the power that Gates’ sponsors have given him to make or break academic careers. As Quincy Troupe, editor of Black Renaissance Noire would say, Gates is among those leaders who were “given to us,” not only by the white mainstream but also by white progressives. Amy Goodman carries on about Gates and Cornel West like the old Bobby Soxers used to swoon over Sinatra. Last week Rachel Maddow called Gates “the nation’s leading black intellectual.” Who pray tell is the nation’s leading white intellectual, Rachel? How come we can only have one? Some would argue that Gates hasn’t written a first rate scholarly work since 1989.
CNN gave Gates’ accusation against blacks as anti-Semites a worldwide audience and so when I traveled to Israel for the first time in the year, 2000, Israeli intellectuals asked me why American blacks hated Jews so. In print, I challenged Gate’s libeling of blacks as a group in my book, Another Day at the Front, because at the time of his Op-ed, the Anti-Defamation League issued a report that showed the decline of anti-Semitism among black Americans. I cited this report to Gates. He said that the Times promised that there would be a follow up Op-ed about racism among American Jews. It never appeared. Barry Glassner was correct when he wrote in his “The Culture of Fear” that the whole Gates-generated black Jewish feud was hyped.
Under Tina Brown’s editorship at The New Yorker, Gates was hired to do hatchet jobs on Minister Louis Farrakhan and the late playwright August Wilson.
The piece on Wilson appeared after a debate between Robert Brustein and Wilson about Wilson’s proposal for a black nationalist theater. Gates took Brustein’s side of the argument. Shortly afterward, Brustein and Gates were awarded a million dollar grant from the Ford Foundation for the purpose of holding theatrical Talented Tenth dinner parties at Harvard at a time when regional black theater was heading toward extinction. Tina Brown, a one-time Gates sponsor, is a post-racer like Gates. Like Andrew Sullivan, a Charles Murray supporter, she gets away with the most fatuous comments as a result of Americans being enthralled by a London accent. On the Bill Maher show, she said that issues of race were passé because the country has elected a black president. This woman lives in a city from which blacks and Latinos have been ethnically cleansed as a result the policies of Mayor Giuliani, a man who gets his talking points from The Manhattan Institute. Thousands of black and Hispanic New Yorkers have been stopped and frisked without a peep from Gates and his Harvard circle of post-racers such as Orlando Patterson.
Even the Bush administration admitted to the existence of racial profiling, yet Gates says that only after his arrest did he understand the extent of racial profiling, a problem for over two hundred years. Why wasn’t “the nation’s leading black intellectual” aware of the problem? His exact words following his arrest were “What it made me realize was how vulnerable all black men are, how vulnerable are all poor people to capricious forces like a rogue policemen.” Amazing! Shouldn’t “the nation’s leading black intellectual” be aware of writer Charles Chesnutt who wrote about racial profiling in 1905!
The Village Voice recently exposed the brutality meted out to black and Hispanic prisoners at New York’s Riker’s Island and medical experiments that have damaged black children living in the city. Yet Maureen Dowd agrees with Tina Brown, her fellow New Yorker, that because the president and his attorney general are black--in terms of racism--it’s mission accomplished. Makes you understand how the German citizens of Munich could go about their business while people were being gassed a few miles away. You can almost forgive Marie Antoinette. She was a young woman in her thirties with not a single face lift operation.
What is it with this post-race Harvard elite? I got to see Dick Gregory and Mort Sahl perform in San Francisco the other night, the last of the great sixties comedians. During his routine, Gregory said that he’s sending his grand kids to black historical colleges because even though he lives near Harvard and can afford to send them there, he wouldn’t “send his dog to Harvard.” Maybe he is on to something.
When Queer Power became the vogue, Gates latched on to that movement, too. In an introduction to an anthology of Gay writings, Gates argued that Gays face more discrimination than blacks, which is disputed even by Charles Blow, Times statistician, who like Harvard’s Patterson and Gates, makes tough love to blacks exclusively. Recently, he reported that the typical target of a hate crime is black, but failed to identify the typical perpetrator of a hate crime as a young white male.
Moreover, what’s the percentage of Gays on death row? The percentage of blacks? Which group is more likely to be redlined by banks, a practice that has cost blacks billions of dollars in equity? Would Cambridge police have given two white Gays the problems that they gave Gates? Why no discussion of charges of Gay racism made by Marlon Riggs, Barbara Smith and Audre Lorde? How many unarmed white Gays have been murdered by the police? How many blacks? Undoubtedly, there are pockets of homophobia among blacks but not as much as that among other ethnic communities that I could cite. The best thing for blacks would be for Gays to get married and blacks should help in this effort, otherwise all of the oxygen on the left will continue to be soaked up by this issue.
For white Gays and Lesbians to compare their struggle to that of the Civil Rights movement is like Gates comparing his situation with that of Wole Soyinka’s. Moreover, Barbara Smith says that when she tried to join the Gay Millennial March on Washington, the leaders told her to get lost. They said they were intent upon convincing white Heterosexual America that “We’re just like you.”
Will the pre-late-80s Gates be resurrected as a result of what MSNBC and CNN commentator Touré calls Gates’ wake up call? (This is the same Toure, a brilliant fiction writer, who just about wrote a post-race manifesto for The New York Times Book Review, during which he dismissed an older generation of black activists as a bunch of “Jesses”.)
Will Gates let up on what Kofi Natambu the young editor of the Panopticon Review calls his “opportunism.” Will he re-think remarks like the one he made after the election of his friend, the tough love president Barack Obama? Gates said that he doubted that the election would end black substance abuse and unmarried motherhood?
Is it possible that things are more complicated than tough love sound bites which are designed to solicit more patronage? Will he reconsider the post-race neocon line of his blog, TheRoot.com, bankrolled by The Washington Post? Will he invite writers Carl Dix and Askia Toure, who represent other African American constituencies, as much as he prints the views of far right Manhattan Institute spokesperson and racial profiling denier, John McWhorter.
Will he continue to advertise shoddy blame-the-victim and black pathology sideshows like CNN’s “Black In America,” and “The Wire?” (Predictably CNN’s Anderson Cooper turned Gates’ controversy into a carnival act. The story was followed by one about Michael Jackson’s doctors. CNN is making so much money and raising its ratings so rapidly from black pathology stories that it’s beginning to give Black Entertainment Network a run for its money, so to speak.)
Predictably, the segregated media--the spare all white jury dominating the conversation about race as usual--gave the Cambridge cop the benefit of the doubt and the police unions backed him up. The police unions always back up their fellow officers even when they shoot unarmed black suspects in the back or, in the case of Papa Charlie James, an elderly San Francisco black man, while he was laying in bed. They back each other up and “testilie” all of the time.
Will Gates listen to his critics from whom he has been protected by powerful moneyed forces, which have given him the ability to make or break academic careers, preside over the decision-making of patronage and grant-awarding institutions. Houston A. Baker Jr.’s Betrayal: How Black Intellectuals Have Abandoned The Ideals Of The Civil Rights Era offers mild criticisms of Gates, West and other black public intellectuals, who, according to him, are “embraced by virtue of their race transcendent ideology.” His book went from the warehouse to the remainder shelves. The Village Voice promised two installments of courageous muckraking pieces about Gates written by novelist, playwright and poet Thulani Davis; part two never appeared. Letters challenging Gates by one of Gates’ main critics at Harvard, Dr. Martin Kilson, have been censored. Kilson refers to Gates as “the master of the intellectual dodge.” And even when Professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell at The Nation’s blog defied the 24-hour news cycle that has depicted Gates, a black nationalist critic, as an overnight black nationalist- - she calls him “apolitical”-- she had to pull her punches. As an intellectual, she has more depth than all of the white mainstream and white progressive media’s selected “leaders of black intellection,” among whom are post-modernist preachers who can spew rhetoric faster than the speed of light.
It remains to be seen whether Gates, who calls himself an intellectual entrepreneur, will now use his “wake up call” to lead a movement that will challenge racial disparities in the criminal justice system. A system that is rotten to the core, where whites commit the overwhelming majority of the crimes, while blacks and Hispanics do the time. A prison system where torture and rape are regular occurrences and where in some states the conditions are worse than at Gitmo. California prisons hospitals are so bad that they have been declared unconstitutional and a form of torture, over the objections of Attorney General Jerry Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger, who leased his face to the rich and was on television the other day talking about how rough they have it. A man who is channeling his hero the late Kurt Waldheim’s attitudes toward the poor and disabled.
Gates can help lead the fight so that there will be mutual respect between law enforcement and minorities instead of their calling us niggers all the time and being Marvin Gaye’s “trigger happy” policemen. Not all of them but quite a few. Or Gates can coast along. Continue to maintain that black personal behavior, like not turning off the TV at night, is at the root of the barriers facing millions of black Americans. Will return to the intellectual rigor espoused by his hero W.E.B Dubois or will he continue to act as a sort of black intellectual Charles Van Doren? An entertainer. (An insider at PBS told me that the network is demanding that Gates back up his claims about the ancestry of celebrities with more solid proofs.)
Gates has discussed doing a documentary about racial profiling. I invite him to cover a meeting residents of my Oakland ghetto neighborhood have with the police each month. (Most of our problems incidentally are caused by the off-springs of two family households. Suburban gun dealers who arm gang leaders. The gang leader on our block isn’t black! An absentee landlord who owns a house where crack operations take place.) He can bring Bill Cosby with him. He’ll find that the problems of inner citizens are more complex than “thirty five year-old grandmothers living in the projects” and rappers not pulling up their pants and that racism remains in the words of the great novelist John A. Williams, “an inexorable force.”
Finally, in his 2002 Jefferson lecture, delivered at the Library of Congress, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., during remarks about the 18th-Century poet Phillis Wheatley in which he excoriated the attitudes of her critics in the Black Arts movement, one more time, ended his lecture with: “We can finally say: Welcome home, Phillis; welcome home.”
If Gate’s ceases his role as just another tough lover and an “intellectual entrepreneur,” and takes a role in ending racial traffic and retail profiling, and police home invasions, issues that have lingered since even more Chesnutt’s time, we can say, “Welcome home, Skip; welcome home.”
Ishmael Reed is the publisher of Konch. His new book, "Mixing It Up, Taking On The Media Bullies" was published by De Capo.
Post-Race Scholar Yells Racism
By ISHMAEL REED http://counterpunch .com/reed0727200 9.html
Now that Henry Louis Gates’ Jr. has gotten a tiny taste of what “the underclass” undergo each day, do you think that he will go easier on them? Lighten up on the tough love lectures? Even during his encounter with the police, he was given some slack. If a black man in an inner city neighborhood had hesitated to identify himself, or given the police some lip, the police would have called SWAT. When Oscar Grant, an apprentice butcher, talked back to a BART policeman in Oakland, he was shot!
Given the position that Gates has pronounced since the late eighties, if I had been the arresting officer and post-race spokesperson Gates accused me of racism, I would have given him a sample of his own medicine. I would have replied that “race is a social construct”--the line that he and his friends have been pushing over the last couple of decades.
After this experience, will Gates stop attributing the problems of those inner city dwellers to the behavior of “thirty five-year-old grandmothers living in the projects?” (Gates says that when he became a tough lover he was following the example of his mentor Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka as though his and Soyinka’s situations were the same. As a result of Soyinka’s criticisms of a Nigerian dictator, he was jailed and his life constantly threatened.)
Prior to the late eighties, Gates’ tough love exhortations were aimed at racism in the halls of academe, but then he signed on to downtown feminist reasoning that racism was a black male problem. Karen Durbin, who hired him to write for The Village Voice, takes credit for inventing him as a “public intellectual.” He was then assigned by Rebecca Penny Sinkler, former editor of The New York Times Book Review, to do a snuff job on black male writers. In an extraordinary review, he seemed to conclude that black women writers were good, not because of their merit, but because black male writers were bad. This was a response to an article by Mel Watkins, a former book review editor, who on his way out warned of a growing trend that was exciting the publisher’s cash registers. Books that I would describe as high Harlequin romances, melodramas in which saintly women were besieged by cruel black male oppressors, the kind of image of the brothers promoted by confederate novelists Thomas Nelson Page and Thomas Dixon.
Gates dismissed a number of black writers as misogynists, including me, whom he smeared throughout the United States and Europe, but when Bill Clinton was caught exploiting a young woman, sexually, he told the Times that he would “go to the wall for this president.” Feminists like Gloria Steinem defended the president as well, even though for years they’d been writing about women as victims of male chauvinists with power, the kind of guys who used to bankroll Ms. magazine.
Not to say that portraits of black men should be uniformly positive--I’ve certainly introduced some creeps in my own work--but most of the white screenwriters, directors and producers who film this material--and the professors and critics who promote it-- are silent about the abuses against women belonging to their own ethnic groups. Moreover, Alice Walker, Tina Turner and bell hooks have complained that in the hands of white script writers, directors and producers, the black males become more sinister straw men than they appear in the original texts.
There are big bucks to be made in promoting this culture. Two studios are currently fighting over the rights to a movie called “Push” about a black father who impregnates his illiterate Harlem daughter. A representative of one, according to the Times, said that the movie would provide both with “a gold mine of opportunity.”
As an example of the double standard by which blacks and whites are treated in American society, at about the same time that the Gate’s article on black misogyny was printed, there appeared a piece about Jewish American writers. Very few women were mentioned.
Gates was also under pressure for making himself the head black feminist in the words of feminist Michele Wallace as a result of his profiting from black feminist studies sales because, as she put it in the Voice, he had unresolved issues with his late mother, who was, according to Gates, a black nationalist. The black feminists wanted in. As a result, Gates invited them to join his Norton anthology project. The result was the Norton Anthology of African American Literature. One of the editors was the late feminist scholar Dr. Barbara Christian. She complained to me almost to the day that she died that she and the late Nellie Y. McKay, another editor, did all of the work while Gates took the credit. This seems to be Gates’ pattern. Getting others to do his work. Mother Jones magazine accused him of exploiting those writers who helped to assemble his Encarta Africana, of running an academic sweat shop and even avoiding affirmative action goals by not hiring blacks. Julian Brookes of Mother Jones wrote:
“Henry Louis Gates Jr. has never been shy about speaking up for affirmative action. Indeed, the prominent Harvard professor insists that he wouldn't be where he is today without it. Odd, then, that when it came to assembling a staff to compile an encyclopedia of black history, Gates hired a group that was almost exclusively white. Of the up to 40 full-time writers and editors who worked to produce Encarta Africana only three were black. What's more, Gates and co-editor K. Anthony Appiah rejected several requests from white staffers to hire more black writers. Mother Jones turned to Gates for an explanation of this apparent inconsistency.
“Did the staff members who expressed concern that the Africana team was too white have a point?”
Gates responded:
“It's a disgusting notion that white people can't write on black history--some of the best scholars of Africa are white. People should feel free to criticize the quality of the encyclopedia, but I will not yield one millimeter[to people who criticize the makeup of the staff]. It's wrongheaded. Would I have liked there to be more African Americans in the pool? Sure. But we did the best we could given the time limits and budget.”
While his alliance with feminists gave Gates’ career a powerful boost, it was his Op ed for the Times blaming continued anti-Semitism on African Americans that brought the public intellectual uptown. It was then that Gates was ordained as the pre-eminent African American scholar when, if one polled African-American scholars throughout the nation, Gates would not have ranked among the top twenty five. It would have to be done by secret ballot given the power that Gates’ sponsors have given him to make or break academic careers. As Quincy Troupe, editor of Black Renaissance Noire would say, Gates is among those leaders who were “given to us,” not only by the white mainstream but also by white progressives. Amy Goodman carries on about Gates and Cornel West like the old Bobby Soxers used to swoon over Sinatra. Last week Rachel Maddow called Gates “the nation’s leading black intellectual.” Who pray tell is the nation’s leading white intellectual, Rachel? How come we can only have one? Some would argue that Gates hasn’t written a first rate scholarly work since 1989.
CNN gave Gates’ accusation against blacks as anti-Semites a worldwide audience and so when I traveled to Israel for the first time in the year, 2000, Israeli intellectuals asked me why American blacks hated Jews so. In print, I challenged Gate’s libeling of blacks as a group in my book, Another Day at the Front, because at the time of his Op-ed, the Anti-Defamation League issued a report that showed the decline of anti-Semitism among black Americans. I cited this report to Gates. He said that the Times promised that there would be a follow up Op-ed about racism among American Jews. It never appeared. Barry Glassner was correct when he wrote in his “The Culture of Fear” that the whole Gates-generated black Jewish feud was hyped.
Under Tina Brown’s editorship at The New Yorker, Gates was hired to do hatchet jobs on Minister Louis Farrakhan and the late playwright August Wilson.
The piece on Wilson appeared after a debate between Robert Brustein and Wilson about Wilson’s proposal for a black nationalist theater. Gates took Brustein’s side of the argument. Shortly afterward, Brustein and Gates were awarded a million dollar grant from the Ford Foundation for the purpose of holding theatrical Talented Tenth dinner parties at Harvard at a time when regional black theater was heading toward extinction. Tina Brown, a one-time Gates sponsor, is a post-racer like Gates. Like Andrew Sullivan, a Charles Murray supporter, she gets away with the most fatuous comments as a result of Americans being enthralled by a London accent. On the Bill Maher show, she said that issues of race were passé because the country has elected a black president. This woman lives in a city from which blacks and Latinos have been ethnically cleansed as a result the policies of Mayor Giuliani, a man who gets his talking points from The Manhattan Institute. Thousands of black and Hispanic New Yorkers have been stopped and frisked without a peep from Gates and his Harvard circle of post-racers such as Orlando Patterson.
Even the Bush administration admitted to the existence of racial profiling, yet Gates says that only after his arrest did he understand the extent of racial profiling, a problem for over two hundred years. Why wasn’t “the nation’s leading black intellectual” aware of the problem? His exact words following his arrest were “What it made me realize was how vulnerable all black men are, how vulnerable are all poor people to capricious forces like a rogue policemen.” Amazing! Shouldn’t “the nation’s leading black intellectual” be aware of writer Charles Chesnutt who wrote about racial profiling in 1905!
The Village Voice recently exposed the brutality meted out to black and Hispanic prisoners at New York’s Riker’s Island and medical experiments that have damaged black children living in the city. Yet Maureen Dowd agrees with Tina Brown, her fellow New Yorker, that because the president and his attorney general are black--in terms of racism--it’s mission accomplished. Makes you understand how the German citizens of Munich could go about their business while people were being gassed a few miles away. You can almost forgive Marie Antoinette. She was a young woman in her thirties with not a single face lift operation.
What is it with this post-race Harvard elite? I got to see Dick Gregory and Mort Sahl perform in San Francisco the other night, the last of the great sixties comedians. During his routine, Gregory said that he’s sending his grand kids to black historical colleges because even though he lives near Harvard and can afford to send them there, he wouldn’t “send his dog to Harvard.” Maybe he is on to something.
When Queer Power became the vogue, Gates latched on to that movement, too. In an introduction to an anthology of Gay writings, Gates argued that Gays face more discrimination than blacks, which is disputed even by Charles Blow, Times statistician, who like Harvard’s Patterson and Gates, makes tough love to blacks exclusively. Recently, he reported that the typical target of a hate crime is black, but failed to identify the typical perpetrator of a hate crime as a young white male.
Moreover, what’s the percentage of Gays on death row? The percentage of blacks? Which group is more likely to be redlined by banks, a practice that has cost blacks billions of dollars in equity? Would Cambridge police have given two white Gays the problems that they gave Gates? Why no discussion of charges of Gay racism made by Marlon Riggs, Barbara Smith and Audre Lorde? How many unarmed white Gays have been murdered by the police? How many blacks? Undoubtedly, there are pockets of homophobia among blacks but not as much as that among other ethnic communities that I could cite. The best thing for blacks would be for Gays to get married and blacks should help in this effort, otherwise all of the oxygen on the left will continue to be soaked up by this issue.
For white Gays and Lesbians to compare their struggle to that of the Civil Rights movement is like Gates comparing his situation with that of Wole Soyinka’s. Moreover, Barbara Smith says that when she tried to join the Gay Millennial March on Washington, the leaders told her to get lost. They said they were intent upon convincing white Heterosexual America that “We’re just like you.”
Will the pre-late-80s Gates be resurrected as a result of what MSNBC and CNN commentator Touré calls Gates’ wake up call? (This is the same Toure, a brilliant fiction writer, who just about wrote a post-race manifesto for The New York Times Book Review, during which he dismissed an older generation of black activists as a bunch of “Jesses”.)
Will Gates let up on what Kofi Natambu the young editor of the Panopticon Review calls his “opportunism.” Will he re-think remarks like the one he made after the election of his friend, the tough love president Barack Obama? Gates said that he doubted that the election would end black substance abuse and unmarried motherhood?
Is it possible that things are more complicated than tough love sound bites which are designed to solicit more patronage? Will he reconsider the post-race neocon line of his blog, TheRoot.com, bankrolled by The Washington Post? Will he invite writers Carl Dix and Askia Toure, who represent other African American constituencies, as much as he prints the views of far right Manhattan Institute spokesperson and racial profiling denier, John McWhorter.
Will he continue to advertise shoddy blame-the-victim and black pathology sideshows like CNN’s “Black In America,” and “The Wire?” (Predictably CNN’s Anderson Cooper turned Gates’ controversy into a carnival act. The story was followed by one about Michael Jackson’s doctors. CNN is making so much money and raising its ratings so rapidly from black pathology stories that it’s beginning to give Black Entertainment Network a run for its money, so to speak.)
Predictably, the segregated media--the spare all white jury dominating the conversation about race as usual--gave the Cambridge cop the benefit of the doubt and the police unions backed him up. The police unions always back up their fellow officers even when they shoot unarmed black suspects in the back or, in the case of Papa Charlie James, an elderly San Francisco black man, while he was laying in bed. They back each other up and “testilie” all of the time.
Will Gates listen to his critics from whom he has been protected by powerful moneyed forces, which have given him the ability to make or break academic careers, preside over the decision-making of patronage and grant-awarding institutions. Houston A. Baker Jr.’s Betrayal: How Black Intellectuals Have Abandoned The Ideals Of The Civil Rights Era offers mild criticisms of Gates, West and other black public intellectuals, who, according to him, are “embraced by virtue of their race transcendent ideology.” His book went from the warehouse to the remainder shelves. The Village Voice promised two installments of courageous muckraking pieces about Gates written by novelist, playwright and poet Thulani Davis; part two never appeared. Letters challenging Gates by one of Gates’ main critics at Harvard, Dr. Martin Kilson, have been censored. Kilson refers to Gates as “the master of the intellectual dodge.” And even when Professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell at The Nation’s blog defied the 24-hour news cycle that has depicted Gates, a black nationalist critic, as an overnight black nationalist- - she calls him “apolitical”-- she had to pull her punches. As an intellectual, she has more depth than all of the white mainstream and white progressive media’s selected “leaders of black intellection,” among whom are post-modernist preachers who can spew rhetoric faster than the speed of light.
It remains to be seen whether Gates, who calls himself an intellectual entrepreneur, will now use his “wake up call” to lead a movement that will challenge racial disparities in the criminal justice system. A system that is rotten to the core, where whites commit the overwhelming majority of the crimes, while blacks and Hispanics do the time. A prison system where torture and rape are regular occurrences and where in some states the conditions are worse than at Gitmo. California prisons hospitals are so bad that they have been declared unconstitutional and a form of torture, over the objections of Attorney General Jerry Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger, who leased his face to the rich and was on television the other day talking about how rough they have it. A man who is channeling his hero the late Kurt Waldheim’s attitudes toward the poor and disabled.
Gates can help lead the fight so that there will be mutual respect between law enforcement and minorities instead of their calling us niggers all the time and being Marvin Gaye’s “trigger happy” policemen. Not all of them but quite a few. Or Gates can coast along. Continue to maintain that black personal behavior, like not turning off the TV at night, is at the root of the barriers facing millions of black Americans. Will return to the intellectual rigor espoused by his hero W.E.B Dubois or will he continue to act as a sort of black intellectual Charles Van Doren? An entertainer. (An insider at PBS told me that the network is demanding that Gates back up his claims about the ancestry of celebrities with more solid proofs.)
Gates has discussed doing a documentary about racial profiling. I invite him to cover a meeting residents of my Oakland ghetto neighborhood have with the police each month. (Most of our problems incidentally are caused by the off-springs of two family households. Suburban gun dealers who arm gang leaders. The gang leader on our block isn’t black! An absentee landlord who owns a house where crack operations take place.) He can bring Bill Cosby with him. He’ll find that the problems of inner citizens are more complex than “thirty five year-old grandmothers living in the projects” and rappers not pulling up their pants and that racism remains in the words of the great novelist John A. Williams, “an inexorable force.”
Finally, in his 2002 Jefferson lecture, delivered at the Library of Congress, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., during remarks about the 18th-Century poet Phillis Wheatley in which he excoriated the attitudes of her critics in the Black Arts movement, one more time, ended his lecture with: “We can finally say: Welcome home, Phillis; welcome home.”
If Gate’s ceases his role as just another tough lover and an “intellectual entrepreneur,” and takes a role in ending racial traffic and retail profiling, and police home invasions, issues that have lingered since even more Chesnutt’s time, we can say, “Welcome home, Skip; welcome home.”
Ishmael Reed is the publisher of Konch. His new book, "Mixing It Up, Taking On The Media Bullies" was published by De Capo.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Comments on Mythology of Pussy
I admit the title turned me off-no man would ever lay his hands on me with that kind of language,but you have plenty to say and you say it like it is even if it makes you feel uncomfortable.
--C. Mixon
--Don't send me anything vulgar like this. My mother didn't talk like this.
--D. Jackmon
--My pussy ain't no myth!
--Anon
--Take me off your mailing list.
--Dr. E. Allen, Umass
I want my son to read this with a man, not with me.
-Rashida M
I wish I'd read this when I was 18. It would have saved me a lot of trouble with women. I would have recognized who they are and who I am as a spiritual being.
--Reginald J.
--Marvin, you and I should have read this when we were 17. Would have saved women a lot of hell.
--Lumukanda
Do you have a brown bag? I can't take this back to work, might get fired.
--Anon
I put it in the trunk of my car--can't take it in the house, my wife will kill me.
--Conway J
--C. Mixon
--Don't send me anything vulgar like this. My mother didn't talk like this.
--D. Jackmon
--My pussy ain't no myth!
--Anon
--Take me off your mailing list.
--Dr. E. Allen, Umass
I want my son to read this with a man, not with me.
-Rashida M
I wish I'd read this when I was 18. It would have saved me a lot of trouble with women. I would have recognized who they are and who I am as a spiritual being.
--Reginald J.
--Marvin, you and I should have read this when we were 17. Would have saved women a lot of hell.
--Lumukanda
Do you have a brown bag? I can't take this back to work, might get fired.
--Anon
I put it in the trunk of my car--can't take it in the house, my wife will kill me.
--Conway J
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Chauncey Bailey's Last Story
Chauncey Bailey's Last Story
Chauncey Bailey's last story did not have his byline as he was known to do with many stories. The story was more important than his name, after all, he said to me, "Do you know how many stories I write in a week?" But his last story was a review of my book How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy. It was a good review, not detailed as the Reginald James review that appeared in the Post, but the short story Chauncey was known for when he came into the editorship of the Oakland Post.
When it did not appear in the Post the week scheduled, I did not call to ask why. But a few days later Chauncey came down to my outdoor classroom at !4th and Broadway to show me a copy of his story and informed me it would be in the current week's paper. He wanted to let me know he wasn't "jiving." I said OK, but could I have a copy of it? He said no, then in what seemed like a flash, he was gone around the corner, like Clark Kent. He disappeared into eternity because I never saw him alive again. He fell victim to an assassin's bullet early the next morning, a few blocks down 14th at Alice.
I appreciated Chauncey because he was the "writer's writer," who wrote daily as I do--dedicated to his craft. When he interviewed me for the story, he had no tape recorder, nor did he take extensive notes. After all, he knew his subject, having written about me several times throughout his career while at the Oakland Tribune and the California Voice.
As news director at Soulbeat television, he appointed me as commentator, although it was short-lived because Chuck Johnson removed me for giving a radical opinion of the first Gulf war. The real reason was because Chauncey did not tell Chuck of his appointment. Chauncey would do silly things like that. There was a writer's conference at the African American Library/Museum in which I participated, but I left the conference when only a few people showed up. I went to the Black Cowboy event at Defermery Park. When Chauncey saw me there, he asked why wasn't I at the writer's conference. Off the record, I told him because all the nigguhs are at Defermery--look around. I thought my remarks were off the record, but Chauncey reported them on the Soulbeat evening news, totally upsetting the conference planners, who demanded I explain my remarks. I couldn't get mad at Chauncey as I am known for doing similar things when people tell me information that
should be kept off the record.
But again, Chauncey was the writer's writer, often without tape recorder or even without taking notes. His brain was his tape recorder and note book. Yes, he was that good.
Marvin X
25 July 2009
On Saturday, August 1, 3-5pm, Marvin X will pay tribute to his friend, Chauncey Bailey, at the Joyce Gordon Gallery, 406 14th Street at Franklin. The even is a book signing for Marvin's latest book Eldridge Cleaver, My friend the devil, a memoir. He will also have a conversation with former Berkeley city councilman, James W. Sweeney. Marvin X will read from his works, accompanied by percussionist Tacuma King, singer Augusta Collings and choreographer/dancer Raynetta Rayzetta. Light refreshments. The event is sponsored by the Oakland Post and the Black Dialogue Brothers. Call 510-355-6339 for more information.
Black Arts West/Black Liberation Writers Photo Shoot
In tribute to slain journalist Chauncey Bailey and in celebration of Marvin X's latest book Eldridge Cleaver, My friend the devil, a memoir, Bay Area writers will have a photo shoot at the Joyce Gordon Gallery, 406 14th Street @ Franklin, Tuesday, July 28, 11am. Invited writers include: Dr. Julia Hare, Dr. Nathan Hare, Ishmael Reed, Cecil Brown, Peter Labrie, Alice Walker, Jerri Lange, Ruth Beckford, Barbara Lee, Ron V. Dellums, Opal Palmer Adisa, Ayodele Nzingha, Ptah Allah El, Mickey Moore, Angela Davis, Bobby Seale, Emory Douglas,
Oba T'Shaka, Dr. Wade Nobles, Rev. J. Alfred Smith, David Hilliard and Fredrika Newton, Fritz Pointer, Charlie Walker, Adam David Miller, Avotcja, Wanda Sabir, Fahizah Alim, Dorothy Tsuruta, Margaret Wilkerson, Ula Taylor, Lige Dailey,
Chauncey Bailey: The Cross and the Lynching Tree
From the 12th floor office of the Oakland Post newspaper at 14th and Franklin, one can look down the block to a tree at 14th and Alice. Chauncey Bailey was lynched near that tree, although it was not in the tradition of a white lynching, but in the neo-America, his lynchers were black. And although the suspect is a young black man, there are witnesses who say the killer was an older person. Does it really matter, except for the fact that we are now doing the work of the KKK. We wear the hoods these days, and the fad is to wear gear with “stupid” designs, including skull and bones, thus signaling to the world our deathly intentions. We have become death angels, as sinister as the suicide bombers in the Middle East, although we have no purpose, no mission, except to kill another black, for of the nearly 130 killed in Oakland last year, not one white man was killed by a black. And for the most part, this is true throughout America. Our youth exhibit an
animal consciousness as opposed to their spiritual consciousness. No, they do not use the mind God gave them, as my mother told me to do, but they seem motivated by a demonic spirit of hatred of self and kind, causing them to perpetuate the internal violence Dr. Franz Fanon wrote about in Wretched of the Earth.
Mao Zedong told us some deaths are higher than Mount Tai, some deaths lighter than a feather. At least Chauncey gave his life for the cause of truth, no matter that we did not always agree with his abrasive attitude, who can deny the man was dedicated to seeking the truth? We all have defects of character, but are we fulfilling our life’s mission as Chauncey was doing? Are we trying to inform the blind, deaf and dumb, to educate the ignorant? Many of us say let the blind stay blind, and that the youth are a lost cause, yet we saw in the film the Great Debaters, youth will do the right things when guided right by sincere and dedicated adults. The only excuse for youth behavior is adult behavior!
The tree at 14th and Alice stands still, a monument to a fallen soldier. From the window, our eyes zoom down to the tree, eyes full of tears and heart full of sorrow. Bill Moyers asked Rev. James Cone the meaning of the cross and the lynching tree. He said they are one and the same, for on the cross Jesus was crucified and on the tree the black man was done the same. And just as Jesus transcended the cross, the black man must rise above his self crucifixion and ascend to spiritual consciousness. The crucifixion ends when the resurrection and ascension begins. We must rise up from the grave of ignorance, from the lynching tree of hatred, jealousy and envy. We must heal from the wretchedness that allows us to kill another brother at the drop of a hat, yet never approach the real enemy. And perhaps the real enemy doesn’t exist except inside of our selves. White supremacy/lunacy has no power over us except when we allow it. As Rev. Cone explained, the
lynching tree has no power over us because in our crucifixion comes resurrection and ascension.
Paul Cobb observed how white women can jog past West Oakland’s Campbell Village housing projects at night without fear. No one dare harm them because they are white and thus sacred. To speak harshly to them is a terrorist threat, to harm them is a hate crime that qualifies for the death penalty. But there is no crime for speaking harshly to another black, and killing another black does not qualify as a hate crime, although most surely it is the absolute essence of hate, self hate.
And so we dig our own grave these days. We put the noose around our necks, as some rappers have demonstrated. We killed our brother Chauncey because he was just another nigguh, therefore worthless, in the imagination of the killers, whoever they are. And then perhaps they recognized his importance and were instructed to eliminate him, for writers and journalists are killed around the world, simply for their dedication to telling the truth.
But we see after the thousands and thousands of words written about him, we see death has no sting, it has no victory.
On a horrible day last August, the tree at 14th and Alice gave forth a strange fruit that shall rise from the earth and give blessings from high heaven. Because Chauncey lived, we shall be a better people, a people who shall one day fulfill our radical tradition and destiny to free ourselves and the world. The attempt was made with the Oakland branch of the Pullman Porters, and it was made with the Black Panthers. Chauncey extended that tradition into the present era, for he gave his life in the cause of truth, freedom, justice and equality. Yes, he transcended the lynching tree. His death was not lighter than a feather but higher than Mount Tai.
--Dr. M
1/16/08
Chauncey Bailey's last story did not have his byline as he was known to do with many stories. The story was more important than his name, after all, he said to me, "Do you know how many stories I write in a week?" But his last story was a review of my book How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy. It was a good review, not detailed as the Reginald James review that appeared in the Post, but the short story Chauncey was known for when he came into the editorship of the Oakland Post.
When it did not appear in the Post the week scheduled, I did not call to ask why. But a few days later Chauncey came down to my outdoor classroom at !4th and Broadway to show me a copy of his story and informed me it would be in the current week's paper. He wanted to let me know he wasn't "jiving." I said OK, but could I have a copy of it? He said no, then in what seemed like a flash, he was gone around the corner, like Clark Kent. He disappeared into eternity because I never saw him alive again. He fell victim to an assassin's bullet early the next morning, a few blocks down 14th at Alice.
I appreciated Chauncey because he was the "writer's writer," who wrote daily as I do--dedicated to his craft. When he interviewed me for the story, he had no tape recorder, nor did he take extensive notes. After all, he knew his subject, having written about me several times throughout his career while at the Oakland Tribune and the California Voice.
As news director at Soulbeat television, he appointed me as commentator, although it was short-lived because Chuck Johnson removed me for giving a radical opinion of the first Gulf war. The real reason was because Chauncey did not tell Chuck of his appointment. Chauncey would do silly things like that. There was a writer's conference at the African American Library/Museum in which I participated, but I left the conference when only a few people showed up. I went to the Black Cowboy event at Defermery Park. When Chauncey saw me there, he asked why wasn't I at the writer's conference. Off the record, I told him because all the nigguhs are at Defermery--look around. I thought my remarks were off the record, but Chauncey reported them on the Soulbeat evening news, totally upsetting the conference planners, who demanded I explain my remarks. I couldn't get mad at Chauncey as I am known for doing similar things when people tell me information that
should be kept off the record.
But again, Chauncey was the writer's writer, often without tape recorder or even without taking notes. His brain was his tape recorder and note book. Yes, he was that good.
Marvin X
25 July 2009
On Saturday, August 1, 3-5pm, Marvin X will pay tribute to his friend, Chauncey Bailey, at the Joyce Gordon Gallery, 406 14th Street at Franklin. The even is a book signing for Marvin's latest book Eldridge Cleaver, My friend the devil, a memoir. He will also have a conversation with former Berkeley city councilman, James W. Sweeney. Marvin X will read from his works, accompanied by percussionist Tacuma King, singer Augusta Collings and choreographer/dancer Raynetta Rayzetta. Light refreshments. The event is sponsored by the Oakland Post and the Black Dialogue Brothers. Call 510-355-6339 for more information.
Black Arts West/Black Liberation Writers Photo Shoot
In tribute to slain journalist Chauncey Bailey and in celebration of Marvin X's latest book Eldridge Cleaver, My friend the devil, a memoir, Bay Area writers will have a photo shoot at the Joyce Gordon Gallery, 406 14th Street @ Franklin, Tuesday, July 28, 11am. Invited writers include: Dr. Julia Hare, Dr. Nathan Hare, Ishmael Reed, Cecil Brown, Peter Labrie, Alice Walker, Jerri Lange, Ruth Beckford, Barbara Lee, Ron V. Dellums, Opal Palmer Adisa, Ayodele Nzingha, Ptah Allah El, Mickey Moore, Angela Davis, Bobby Seale, Emory Douglas,
Oba T'Shaka, Dr. Wade Nobles, Rev. J. Alfred Smith, David Hilliard and Fredrika Newton, Fritz Pointer, Charlie Walker, Adam David Miller, Avotcja, Wanda Sabir, Fahizah Alim, Dorothy Tsuruta, Margaret Wilkerson, Ula Taylor, Lige Dailey,
Chauncey Bailey: The Cross and the Lynching Tree
From the 12th floor office of the Oakland Post newspaper at 14th and Franklin, one can look down the block to a tree at 14th and Alice. Chauncey Bailey was lynched near that tree, although it was not in the tradition of a white lynching, but in the neo-America, his lynchers were black. And although the suspect is a young black man, there are witnesses who say the killer was an older person. Does it really matter, except for the fact that we are now doing the work of the KKK. We wear the hoods these days, and the fad is to wear gear with “stupid” designs, including skull and bones, thus signaling to the world our deathly intentions. We have become death angels, as sinister as the suicide bombers in the Middle East, although we have no purpose, no mission, except to kill another black, for of the nearly 130 killed in Oakland last year, not one white man was killed by a black. And for the most part, this is true throughout America. Our youth exhibit an
animal consciousness as opposed to their spiritual consciousness. No, they do not use the mind God gave them, as my mother told me to do, but they seem motivated by a demonic spirit of hatred of self and kind, causing them to perpetuate the internal violence Dr. Franz Fanon wrote about in Wretched of the Earth.
Mao Zedong told us some deaths are higher than Mount Tai, some deaths lighter than a feather. At least Chauncey gave his life for the cause of truth, no matter that we did not always agree with his abrasive attitude, who can deny the man was dedicated to seeking the truth? We all have defects of character, but are we fulfilling our life’s mission as Chauncey was doing? Are we trying to inform the blind, deaf and dumb, to educate the ignorant? Many of us say let the blind stay blind, and that the youth are a lost cause, yet we saw in the film the Great Debaters, youth will do the right things when guided right by sincere and dedicated adults. The only excuse for youth behavior is adult behavior!
The tree at 14th and Alice stands still, a monument to a fallen soldier. From the window, our eyes zoom down to the tree, eyes full of tears and heart full of sorrow. Bill Moyers asked Rev. James Cone the meaning of the cross and the lynching tree. He said they are one and the same, for on the cross Jesus was crucified and on the tree the black man was done the same. And just as Jesus transcended the cross, the black man must rise above his self crucifixion and ascend to spiritual consciousness. The crucifixion ends when the resurrection and ascension begins. We must rise up from the grave of ignorance, from the lynching tree of hatred, jealousy and envy. We must heal from the wretchedness that allows us to kill another brother at the drop of a hat, yet never approach the real enemy. And perhaps the real enemy doesn’t exist except inside of our selves. White supremacy/lunacy has no power over us except when we allow it. As Rev. Cone explained, the
lynching tree has no power over us because in our crucifixion comes resurrection and ascension.
Paul Cobb observed how white women can jog past West Oakland’s Campbell Village housing projects at night without fear. No one dare harm them because they are white and thus sacred. To speak harshly to them is a terrorist threat, to harm them is a hate crime that qualifies for the death penalty. But there is no crime for speaking harshly to another black, and killing another black does not qualify as a hate crime, although most surely it is the absolute essence of hate, self hate.
And so we dig our own grave these days. We put the noose around our necks, as some rappers have demonstrated. We killed our brother Chauncey because he was just another nigguh, therefore worthless, in the imagination of the killers, whoever they are. And then perhaps they recognized his importance and were instructed to eliminate him, for writers and journalists are killed around the world, simply for their dedication to telling the truth.
But we see after the thousands and thousands of words written about him, we see death has no sting, it has no victory.
On a horrible day last August, the tree at 14th and Alice gave forth a strange fruit that shall rise from the earth and give blessings from high heaven. Because Chauncey lived, we shall be a better people, a people who shall one day fulfill our radical tradition and destiny to free ourselves and the world. The attempt was made with the Oakland branch of the Pullman Porters, and it was made with the Black Panthers. Chauncey extended that tradition into the present era, for he gave his life in the cause of truth, freedom, justice and equality. Yes, he transcended the lynching tree. His death was not lighter than a feather but higher than Mount Tai.
--Dr. M
1/16/08
Monday, July 20, 2009
Mythology of Pussy Dance
Choreographer Raynetta Rayzetta
Marvin X's favorite choreographer, Raynetta Rayzetta, has agreed to create a dance to accompany the reading of Mythology of Pussy.
She was ecstatic to learn Marvin X has written a work on manhood and womanhood training. But without her having read the book, Marvin is confident she can come up with a creative dance. She has been the best interpreter of his poetry in recent times, along with dancer Suzzette Celeste. Over the years, Marvin X has worked with many outstanding choreographers and dancers, including Raymond Sawyer, Nantizi Cayou, Ellendar Barnes, Jamilah Hunter, Nisa Ra and others.
Raynetta will perform with Marvin at the Joyce Gordon Gallery on Saturday, August 1, technically a book signing and conversation, but is shaping up to be an extravaganza in the X-man tradition. Percussionist Tacuma King and drummer Kokoman Clottey will perform, along with Augusta Collins, singer/guitarist.
Marvin loves the creativity of Raynetta because she can translate every word of his poetry into dance. She performed with him at his In the Crazy House in America concert at the Buriel Clay theatre, San Francisco, and at his concert with Amiri Baraka at the Berkeley Black Repertory Group Theatre.
Saturday, August 1, 3-5 pm, Joyce Gordon Gallery, 406 14th Street @ Franklin, downtown Oakland. Call 510-355-6339 for more information. It is a benefit for Black Bird Press and sponsored by Oakland Post Newspaper Group and Black Dialogue Brothers. Sisters supporting this event include Joyce Gordon, Sister Shukuru, Rashida Wongozi, Alona Clifton, Lanice Jones.
To read the online version of Mythology, go to www.marvinxwrites.blogspot.com
Marvin X's favorite choreographer, Raynetta Rayzetta, has agreed to create a dance to accompany the reading of Mythology of Pussy.
She was ecstatic to learn Marvin X has written a work on manhood and womanhood training. But without her having read the book, Marvin is confident she can come up with a creative dance. She has been the best interpreter of his poetry in recent times, along with dancer Suzzette Celeste. Over the years, Marvin X has worked with many outstanding choreographers and dancers, including Raymond Sawyer, Nantizi Cayou, Ellendar Barnes, Jamilah Hunter, Nisa Ra and others.
Raynetta will perform with Marvin at the Joyce Gordon Gallery on Saturday, August 1, technically a book signing and conversation, but is shaping up to be an extravaganza in the X-man tradition. Percussionist Tacuma King and drummer Kokoman Clottey will perform, along with Augusta Collins, singer/guitarist.
Marvin loves the creativity of Raynetta because she can translate every word of his poetry into dance. She performed with him at his In the Crazy House in America concert at the Buriel Clay theatre, San Francisco, and at his concert with Amiri Baraka at the Berkeley Black Repertory Group Theatre.
Saturday, August 1, 3-5 pm, Joyce Gordon Gallery, 406 14th Street @ Franklin, downtown Oakland. Call 510-355-6339 for more information. It is a benefit for Black Bird Press and sponsored by Oakland Post Newspaper Group and Black Dialogue Brothers. Sisters supporting this event include Joyce Gordon, Sister Shukuru, Rashida Wongozi, Alona Clifton, Lanice Jones.
To read the online version of Mythology, go to www.marvinxwrites.blogspot.com
Marvin X Literary Revolution
The real mission of the Marvin X Literary Revolution is to spread literacy. After all, with half high school students dropping out of school in the urban cities, how many of them can read his or any books? Educators must first get Johnny's attention somehow, then take Johnny up the road to literacy by holding his attention with relevant information in a language he can at least partly identify with. For sure, once Johnny gets into Mythology of Pussy, he will quickly discover my language is beyond the vernacular and reflects my education, even though I flunked English grammar, but I know enough to teach it on the university level. So the reader will find himself/herself with the need to grab the dictionary because I do know more words than motherfucker and bitch.
But let's be real, how many men in the hood have asked a woman for some vagina? White people or white black people may say, "Give me some vagina," but where I come from it's, "Baby, give me some pussy, please," although I advocate not asking for the pussy. Let the woman give it to you, since it's hers to give. Furthermore, I advocate silence and ESP in black communication since "the devil" is in the language. Look how stupid and silly some of us are reacting to the term pussy.
So the objective is literacy and I found out long ago when I taught English in secondary schools that the first order of business is to get the student's attention. Once you have their attention, learning can begin. In my case, students got so inspired they asked me to read my poetry during lunch and after school. Yes, students surrounded me during lunch and demanded I read my poetry because it was in a language they could understand and identify with. They came into my class after school and demanded I again read to them.
When I told them to read my poetry, they said, "No, Teach, you read it. We like the way you read."
When this happened to me, it made we reflect on post-slavery education when it is said they had to beat the students out of the classroom because they didn't want to go home, the thirst for learning was so great, in contrast to today when we must beat them into the classroom, unless we can get their attention and inspire them to learn with the thirst of their ancestors.
My colleague (Brother Ptah) and I have been working on the Hug A Thug Book Club to inspire literacy. "Hug A Thug Before the Thug Hugs You!" Paul Cobb added, "Crack a book before you're booked for crack!" Brothers write me from prison and jail to send them my books, but I am honored when these so-called thugs buy my books before they go to jail as Paul Cobb suggests. Although I understand jail and prison is the first time some black men get "time" to read, so I don't mind sending them books.
In these tight economic times, many brothers and sisters don't have money for books. When a young father told me the other day he didn't have money for Mythology of Pussy because he had to get his two sons haircuts, I started to give him the pamphlet. But I did not, instead I reflected to myself that the father better get them information to save their lives rather than a haircut. And when a mother said she was going to read the pamphlet herself rather than give it to her 15 year old son, I told her, "OK, but when Dante goes to juvenile hall for assaulting his girlfriend, don't call me." Another mother was simply embarrassed to have her son read it, especially in her presence. She said, "I don't want him to read this with me. He can read this by himself." Many parents have so much sex guilt and shame they cannot discuss sex with their children. This is why I call for manhood and womanhood training rites.
At the Berkeley Flea Market, an African man came by with a group of young African American males I suspected were in a group home or foster home. The African let me know he had received his manhood training in Africa, so I told him to give it to the boys with him. He said, "Yes, yes, yes."
As Brother Lumukanda, noted, if he and I had received Mythology of Pussy when we were 17, it would have guided us on the right path regarding gender roles or sexual identity confirmation. We would have had better manners and morals. So many of our youth are suffering a sexual identity crisis, they can't decide whether they are straight or gay. But this was/is the purpose of manhood and womanhood training, to help them decide. See Jomo Kenyatta's classic Facing Mount Kenya, his ethnography of the Kikuyu tribe in Kenya--their life and death, work and play, sex and family. President Obama, himself a product of Kenya, said notable things in his speech to the NAACP but perhaps because he lacked manhood training did not suggest it as a solution to African American youth. He said they must stop trying to get into the NBA and instead get MBAs and science degrees, and aspire to be scientists rather than rappers. I agree totally, unless they are going to rap freedom songs/poems.
Sonia Sanchez asks, "Will your book free us?"
I was so happy shortly after Obama was elected when I heard a young man on the bus in Oakland say, "Man, I'm so happy he is president. Now I got somebody else to look up to beside rappers." Yes, I was proud to hear this young man say this, even with a grill in his mouth--the grill made his remarks more profound!
The real mission of the Marvin X Literary Revolution is to spread literacy. After all, with half high school students dropping out of school in the urban cities, how many of them can read his or any books? Educators must first get Johnny's attention somehow, then take Johnny up the road to literacy by holding his attention with relevant information in a language he can at least partly identify with. For sure, once Johnny gets into Mythology of Pussy, he will quickly discover my language is beyond the vernacular and reflects my education, even though I flunked English grammar, but I know enough to teach it on the university level. So the reader will find himself/herself with the need to grab the dictionary because I do know more words than motherfucker and bitch.
But let's be real, how many men in the hood have asked a woman for some vagina? White people or white black people may say, "Give me some vagina," but where I come from it's, "Baby, give me some pussy, please," although I advocate not asking for the pussy. Let the woman give it to you, since it's hers to give. Furthermore, I advocate silence and ESP in black communication since "the devil" is in the language. Look how stupid and silly some of us are reacting to the term pussy.
So the objective is literacy and I found out long ago when I taught English in secondary schools that the first order of business is to get the student's attention. Once you have their attention, learning can begin. In my case, students got so inspired they asked me to read my poetry during lunch and after school. Yes, students surrounded me during lunch and demanded I read my poetry because it was in a language they could understand and identify with. They came into my class after school and demanded I again read to them.
When I told them to read my poetry, they said, "No, Teach, you read it. We like the way you read."
When this happened to me, it made we reflect on post-slavery education when it is said they had to beat the students out of the classroom because they didn't want to go home, the thirst for learning was so great, in contrast to today when we must beat them into the classroom, unless we can get their attention and inspire them to learn with the thirst of their ancestors.
My colleague (Brother Ptah) and I have been working on the Hug A Thug Book Club to inspire literacy. "Hug A Thug Before the Thug Hugs You!" Paul Cobb added, "Crack a book before you're booked for crack!" Brothers write me from prison and jail to send them my books, but I am honored when these so-called thugs buy my books before they go to jail as Paul Cobb suggests. Although I understand jail and prison is the first time some black men get "time" to read, so I don't mind sending them books.
In these tight economic times, many brothers and sisters don't have money for books. When a young father told me the other day he didn't have money for Mythology of Pussy because he had to get his two sons haircuts, I started to give him the pamphlet. But I did not, instead I reflected to myself that the father better get them information to save their lives rather than a haircut. And when a mother said she was going to read the pamphlet herself rather than give it to her 15 year old son, I told her, "OK, but when Dante goes to juvenile hall for assaulting his girlfriend, don't call me." Another mother was simply embarrassed to have her son read it, especially in her presence. She said, "I don't want him to read this with me. He can read this by himself." Many parents have so much sex guilt and shame they cannot discuss sex with their children. This is why I call for manhood and womanhood training rites.
At the Berkeley Flea Market, an African man came by with a group of young African American males I suspected were in a group home or foster home. The African let me know he had received his manhood training in Africa, so I told him to give it to the boys with him. He said, "Yes, yes, yes."
As Brother Lumukanda, noted, if he and I had received Mythology of Pussy when we were 17, it would have guided us on the right path regarding gender roles or sexual identity confirmation. We would have had better manners and morals. So many of our youth are suffering a sexual identity crisis, they can't decide whether they are straight or gay. But this was/is the purpose of manhood and womanhood training, to help them decide. See Jomo Kenyatta's classic Facing Mount Kenya, his ethnography of the Kikuyu tribe in Kenya--their life and death, work and play, sex and family. President Obama, himself a product of Kenya, said notable things in his speech to the NAACP but perhaps because he lacked manhood training did not suggest it as a solution to African American youth. He said they must stop trying to get into the NBA and instead get MBAs and science degrees, and aspire to be scientists rather than rappers. I agree totally, unless they are going to rap freedom songs/poems.
Sonia Sanchez asks, "Will your book free us?"
I was so happy shortly after Obama was elected when I heard a young man on the bus in Oakland say, "Man, I'm so happy he is president. Now I got somebody else to look up to beside rappers." Yes, I was proud to hear this young man say this, even with a grill in his mouth--the grill made his remarks more profound!
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Marvin X Literary Revolution
Marvin X Literary Revolution
According to Brother Lumakanda, Marvin X should receive the Pulitzer prize for his recent memoir on Eldridge Cleaver and his pamphlet Mythology of Pussy. Lumakanda says if he and Marvin had read something similar to Mythology of Pussy when they were 17 years old, it might have saved some sisters from partner abuse--it might have saved Marvin's marriages. It would have given them progressive consciousness at an early age. They would have avoided the patriarchal notions of women as chattel property. They would have received manhood training, especially on the nature of the female and male as spiritual beings.
Dr. Jimmy Garrett says Eldridge Cleaver, my friend the devil, is the funniest book of the year. And the more you know about black liberation movement history, the funnier it is.
Jerry Vernardo, one of the BSU strike leaders at San Francisco State University, says Marvin's Beyond Religion, toward Spirituality and How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy are both prophetic works.
At the Berkeley Flea Market, the largest African market in the Bay, women and men hugged Marvin for writing Mythology of Pussy, although the politically correct pseudo conscious Negroes avoided him. Not so with the masses, they grabbed nearly every copy of his latest writings.
In a phone conversation last night with Amiri Baraka, he asked Marvin, "What are you going to come out with next?" Marvin replied, "I don't know. I'm like Coltrane, I just let it happen. I try to take my mind as far out as I can--trying to figure out this conundrum of life in America."
Marvin X is a one man army on the streets of the Bay Area, selling and giving away his writings on the streets of Oakland, Berkeley and San Francisco. In the last few months, his plays have been produced from New York to the Bay, so is there a Marvin X literary revolution in progress? His first play will be performed at the upcoming San Francisco Theatre Festival later this month at Yerba Buena Center. On Saturday, August 1, he will have a book signing and conversation with James W. Sweeney, former Berkeley City Councilman. The event will take place at the Joyce Gordon Gallery, 406 14th Street @ Franklin, downtown Oakland, 3-5 pm, sponsored by the Oakland Post Newspaper Group. It is a tribute to slain Oakland Post editor, Chauncey Bailey. Co-sponsor is the Black Dialogue Brothers. Call 510-355-6339 for more information. Space is limited, come early. Refreshments served.
According to Brother Lumakanda, Marvin X should receive the Pulitzer prize for his recent memoir on Eldridge Cleaver and his pamphlet Mythology of Pussy. Lumakanda says if he and Marvin had read something similar to Mythology of Pussy when they were 17 years old, it might have saved some sisters from partner abuse--it might have saved Marvin's marriages. It would have given them progressive consciousness at an early age. They would have avoided the patriarchal notions of women as chattel property. They would have received manhood training, especially on the nature of the female and male as spiritual beings.
Dr. Jimmy Garrett says Eldridge Cleaver, my friend the devil, is the funniest book of the year. And the more you know about black liberation movement history, the funnier it is.
Jerry Vernardo, one of the BSU strike leaders at San Francisco State University, says Marvin's Beyond Religion, toward Spirituality and How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy are both prophetic works.
At the Berkeley Flea Market, the largest African market in the Bay, women and men hugged Marvin for writing Mythology of Pussy, although the politically correct pseudo conscious Negroes avoided him. Not so with the masses, they grabbed nearly every copy of his latest writings.
In a phone conversation last night with Amiri Baraka, he asked Marvin, "What are you going to come out with next?" Marvin replied, "I don't know. I'm like Coltrane, I just let it happen. I try to take my mind as far out as I can--trying to figure out this conundrum of life in America."
Marvin X is a one man army on the streets of the Bay Area, selling and giving away his writings on the streets of Oakland, Berkeley and San Francisco. In the last few months, his plays have been produced from New York to the Bay, so is there a Marvin X literary revolution in progress? His first play will be performed at the upcoming San Francisco Theatre Festival later this month at Yerba Buena Center. On Saturday, August 1, he will have a book signing and conversation with James W. Sweeney, former Berkeley City Councilman. The event will take place at the Joyce Gordon Gallery, 406 14th Street @ Franklin, downtown Oakland, 3-5 pm, sponsored by the Oakland Post Newspaper Group. It is a tribute to slain Oakland Post editor, Chauncey Bailey. Co-sponsor is the Black Dialogue Brothers. Call 510-355-6339 for more information. Space is limited, come early. Refreshments served.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Mythology of Pussy, hottest book in Oakland
Mythology of Pussy, Hottest Book in Oakland!
The hottest book in Oakland is not on the New York Times best seller list. And it will never be, more than likely. Over the last forty years, none of Marvin X’s writings have been reviewed in the major media, but in the black underground he is the most prolific writer. The Last Poets say he writes a book a month. In April he finished the first draft of his memoir of Eldridge Cleaver in three weeks. A few days ago he began writing an essay entitled Mythology of Pussy, a manhood training manual for brothers—and for sisters as well, telling them to look at the opposite sex with the lens of spirituality, rather than viewing each other as sexual objects.
The title alone is causing men, women, youth and children to snatch the pamphlet out of his hand. He was downtown Oakland asking for donations for the pamphlet, getting between $1.00 and $5.00. For those with no money, he gave it away. When Marvin handed the pamphlet to a father, his little daughter tried to snatch it out of his hand. He resisted and told her let him read it first, then she can read it. A teenager grabbed the pamphlet and wouldn’t release it, even though she didn’t have any money. She would have dragged the poet down the street if he didn’t let go of the Mythology of Pussy.
And when he ran out of copies for the day, a mature black woman was very angry he didn’t have any more after seeing him passing them out. He promised her he would return today with a fresh batch hot off the press.
If you want a copy, come down to 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland. Even Joyce Gordon of the Joyce Gordon Gallery where Marvin will sign his Cleaver book on Saturday, August 1, --3-5pm, took a copy to her gallery and began reading it aloud to customers. She returned to tell Marvin when he wants to know more about pussy, come see her. She has a few things to say. A conscious brother who read the pamphlet said he agreed with Marvin that manhood and womanhood training is the order of the day. The theme is about overcoming domestic and street violence, especially over pussy. Too many brothers must go to court mandated anger management classes because they think they own the pussy. Even the girls think they own the dick--witness NFL quarterback McNair who was shot to death by his girlfriend because she thought he had too many pussies. Marvin says too many brothers are in jail and prison because they tried to pay their pussy bill with ill gotten gain. Figure out a way to hustle without killing and destroying lives with dope, the pamphlet suggests.
The hottest book in Oakland is not on the New York Times best seller list. And it will never be, more than likely. Over the last forty years, none of Marvin X’s writings have been reviewed in the major media, but in the black underground he is the most prolific writer. The Last Poets say he writes a book a month. In April he finished the first draft of his memoir of Eldridge Cleaver in three weeks. A few days ago he began writing an essay entitled Mythology of Pussy, a manhood training manual for brothers—and for sisters as well, telling them to look at the opposite sex with the lens of spirituality, rather than viewing each other as sexual objects.
The title alone is causing men, women, youth and children to snatch the pamphlet out of his hand. He was downtown Oakland asking for donations for the pamphlet, getting between $1.00 and $5.00. For those with no money, he gave it away. When Marvin handed the pamphlet to a father, his little daughter tried to snatch it out of his hand. He resisted and told her let him read it first, then she can read it. A teenager grabbed the pamphlet and wouldn’t release it, even though she didn’t have any money. She would have dragged the poet down the street if he didn’t let go of the Mythology of Pussy.
And when he ran out of copies for the day, a mature black woman was very angry he didn’t have any more after seeing him passing them out. He promised her he would return today with a fresh batch hot off the press.
If you want a copy, come down to 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland. Even Joyce Gordon of the Joyce Gordon Gallery where Marvin will sign his Cleaver book on Saturday, August 1, --3-5pm, took a copy to her gallery and began reading it aloud to customers. She returned to tell Marvin when he wants to know more about pussy, come see her. She has a few things to say. A conscious brother who read the pamphlet said he agreed with Marvin that manhood and womanhood training is the order of the day. The theme is about overcoming domestic and street violence, especially over pussy. Too many brothers must go to court mandated anger management classes because they think they own the pussy. Even the girls think they own the dick--witness NFL quarterback McNair who was shot to death by his girlfriend because she thought he had too many pussies. Marvin says too many brothers are in jail and prison because they tried to pay their pussy bill with ill gotten gain. Figure out a way to hustle without killing and destroying lives with dope, the pamphlet suggests.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Part Three: Mythology of Pussy
Opal Palmer Adisa's play Bathroom Graffiti Queen is a womanhood training rite, the feminine counterpart to Amiri Baraka's classic The Toilet which was a manhood rite on the theme of homosexuality. Opal Palmer's play deals with the myriad problems pussy can cause its owner, the woman of course. The language is befitting the bathroom or rest room--though she questions what is there to rest about? But the room is where women come to share their pain by writing on the wall and then await the Bathroom Queen's written reply or spoken to the audience while the women sit on the toilet. The young actress Tatiana Monet does multiple roles, making us wonder is she simply suffering from schizophrenia as part of the drama. The Queen, performed eloquently by Ayodele Nzingha (also director/producer) gives bits of wisdom to each woman's problem, whether it is the young girl who wonders if she should allow the boy to play with her pussy or stick his tongue in her mouth or eventually put his penis inside her, or the woman who is stalked by a man, or how should a woman deal with her period or the funky smell of yeast infection. These are the problems addressed by the Queen, herself broken from time and space in an oppressive world. Her clothing and makeup are graffiti itself, an extension of her madness since something pushed her to live in the toilet among the piss and shit of life, a victim of capitalism and slavery. Her Jamaican accent adds to the flavor of this Pan African drama.
Just as Baraka's Toilet allowed women to peer or peep inside the world of young men, the males in the audience where allowed to view the feminine private conversation and ranting. We've often wondered what women do in the restroom, why they take so long. One female just came to address the wall and pray for an answer. Thus the room became the therapy clinic for a society lacking mental health workers. The sick must heal themselves. And so the young girls turned to the elder woman for comfort even though she was broken herself, for even the doctor or priestess is a victim of pervasive white supremacy.
The evening with the Lower Bottom Playaz theatre in the heart of West Oakland, began with Marvin X's classic Flowers for the Trashman, his 1965 classic about life in the very community the theatre is located. He attended Catholic school and Prescott Elementary School across the street from the theatre, located at 10th and Peralta. His play about the father/son relationship is still relevant today as conditions have deteriorated in the black family with a majority of fathers absent. Indeed, the two men playing the lead roles grew up without fathers. We wonder what pain, what trauma is in their heads as they perform this psychodrama about silence and communication, even police abuse since they young men are in jail from an altercation with police, yes, the OPD. Imagine, we are still dealing with police abuse in Oakland forty years later, yes, even after the rise of the Black Panther Party in this same neighborhood and throughout Oakland for that matter, from Oscar Grant ( shot to death by BART police) to Louvelle Mixon who killed four cops earlier in the year. A student from Howard University, President Davis, told Marvin X the play needs to be updated as per the police. Marvin said, "No. This play is about fathers and sons, not about police brutality--that is another play. When fathers and sons come together there will be no police brutality--there will be war!" The actors included: Doe (Wes) N Reezy (Joe), Wolfhawkjaguar (Negro), D'Leezy Coleman (white man) and High Beats Entertainment (jailer).
This show continues tonight. If you live in West Oakland or anywhere in the Bay, you need to make it down to the Sister Thea Bowman Theatre, 10th and Peralta.
Opal Palmer Adisa's play Bathroom Graffiti Queen is a womanhood training rite, the feminine counterpart to Amiri Baraka's classic The Toilet which was a manhood rite on the theme of homosexuality. Opal Palmer's play deals with the myriad problems pussy can cause its owner, the woman of course. The language is befitting the bathroom or rest room--though she questions what is there to rest about? But the room is where women come to share their pain by writing on the wall and then await the Bathroom Queen's written reply or spoken to the audience while the women sit on the toilet. The young actress Tatiana Monet does multiple roles, making us wonder is she simply suffering from schizophrenia as part of the drama. The Queen, performed eloquently by Ayodele Nzingha (also director/producer) gives bits of wisdom to each woman's problem, whether it is the young girl who wonders if she should allow the boy to play with her pussy or stick his tongue in her mouth or eventually put his penis inside her, or the woman who is stalked by a man, or how should a woman deal with her period or the funky smell of yeast infection. These are the problems addressed by the Queen, herself broken from time and space in an oppressive world. Her clothing and makeup are graffiti itself, an extension of her madness since something pushed her to live in the toilet among the piss and shit of life, a victim of capitalism and slavery. Her Jamaican accent adds to the flavor of this Pan African drama.
Just as Baraka's Toilet allowed women to peer or peep inside the world of young men, the males in the audience where allowed to view the feminine private conversation and ranting. We've often wondered what women do in the restroom, why they take so long. One female just came to address the wall and pray for an answer. Thus the room became the therapy clinic for a society lacking mental health workers. The sick must heal themselves. And so the young girls turned to the elder woman for comfort even though she was broken herself, for even the doctor or priestess is a victim of pervasive white supremacy.
The evening with the Lower Bottom Playaz theatre in the heart of West Oakland, began with Marvin X's classic Flowers for the Trashman, his 1965 classic about life in the very community the theatre is located. He attended Catholic school and Prescott Elementary School across the street from the theatre, located at 10th and Peralta. His play about the father/son relationship is still relevant today as conditions have deteriorated in the black family with a majority of fathers absent. Indeed, the two men playing the lead roles grew up without fathers. We wonder what pain, what trauma is in their heads as they perform this psychodrama about silence and communication, even police abuse since they young men are in jail from an altercation with police, yes, the OPD. Imagine, we are still dealing with police abuse in Oakland forty years later, yes, even after the rise of the Black Panther Party in this same neighborhood and throughout Oakland for that matter, from Oscar Grant ( shot to death by BART police) to Louvelle Mixon who killed four cops earlier in the year. A student from Howard University, President Davis, told Marvin X the play needs to be updated as per the police. Marvin said, "No. This play is about fathers and sons, not about police brutality--that is another play. When fathers and sons come together there will be no police brutality--there will be war!" The actors included: Doe (Wes) N Reezy (Joe), Wolfhawkjaguar (Negro), D'Leezy Coleman (white man) and High Beats Entertainment (jailer).
This show continues tonight. If you live in West Oakland or anywhere in the Bay, you need to make it down to the Sister Thea Bowman Theatre, 10th and Peralta.
Part Seven: Mythology of Pussy
Marvin X
We support a woman's right to control her pussy and the fruit thereof. At the same time we condemn men who deposit their semen in the pussy of a murderer, for we agree with Mother Theresa who said, "Abortion is the first murder, after which all other murder is possible." And prophet Muhammad said, "Do not kill your children for fear of poverty." Abortion would not be possible if men did not have sex with women they know favor abortion, so I put the onus on men, not women. Men should ask the woman if she gets pregnant will she kill the unborn child? If she says yes, he should depart from her in haste, unless he favors murder as well. Why are you jumping in a woman's pussy you know is a killer? Now if you want her to kill your seed, that is another matter--the matter is why? What if your parents had aborted you?
What is wrong with putting an unwanted child up for adoption, since there are many women who cannot have children? There are couples who would love and cherish that unwanted child, so why is there a need to kill it? And even though a woman's body is her business, it seems to me the man should be informed--supposedly, in the woman's mind, it's none of his business. This is why I say the man was wrong to enter her pussy in adverse circumstances.
Even in the case of rape, why not put the child up for adoption? If the life of the mother is in danger, this is another matter--abortion must be considered.
We are absolutely opposed to the right wing Christian anti-abortion hypocrites who favor murder to stop murder, even to the point of assassinating doctors. Furthermore, these right wing Christians--where in the Bible does Jesus advocate murder?--only want to delay the death of the child, allowing it to grow up so it can fight and die in imperialist wars across the planet. So these Christians are no different from the pro-abortion women, it is only a difference of time, the objective is the same. Does it matter if the child is killed in the womb or 18 years later in wars for the expansion of capitalism and slavery?
If the woman (and man) is too poor to feed the child, put it up for adoption. A dear friend of mine adopted a child from Jamaica whose family could not afford to feed. She brought the child back to America and raised him like a prince. She paid for him to received manhood training at the African Village in South Carolina. She adopted and raised four other Crack babies, giving them a wonderful life, even though they yet appreciate it--like most children (even the "normal ones")--they are ungrateful.
Often times economics is not the problem but education and psychology or the mental state of the parents, especially the woman--although the young man or father is in the same situation, ignorant and often mentally ill. The result is child abuse. Too many young mothers are ignorant of how to feed a child, even hold a child. I know young mothers who habitually feed their child and themselves at McDonalds--breakfast, lunch and dinner. Many young ladies were drug addicted when they got pregnant, thus unable to breast feed their child. These mothers need community support. We see these babies with babies on the streets of Oakland. We see their stress, how they curse the children, calling them motherfuckers and sons of bitches. They need community support because often grandmother (thirty, forty or fifty years old) says she's "too old" to be a grandmother. One grandmother whose son has two children, says she wants her son to stay home with her rather than live with his baby moma who's struggling for dear life with two children at 26 years old. This poor mother grew up in Berkeley but had never been to San Francisco. She is no different than young people in Newark, New Jersey who've never been to New York.
Babies with babies is not helpful to our community progress. Often the mother, father and children are doomed to poverty unless they are determined to rise up in spite of circumstances. And community support is greatly needed. Teach the young people manhood and womanhood rites or how to restrain themselves until they mature. At eighteen when I fathered my first child, I was a baby with a baby, and soon followed another child before I was twenty. I am happy for the children, but they could have been delayed until I finished my education. I am happy my children restrained themselves sexually until they completed their education. Thank God they had more discipline than I. I do know that one of my sons (now deceased, RIP) impregnated an Asian girl while in college. He asked me what to do and I told him not to abort, but he did so anyway because he said the girl could not return to Japan with a black child. As I've written elsewhere, she could have left the little Tiger Woods here and took her funky ass back to Japan.
Marvin X
We support a woman's right to control her pussy and the fruit thereof. At the same time we condemn men who deposit their semen in the pussy of a murderer, for we agree with Mother Theresa who said, "Abortion is the first murder, after which all other murder is possible." And prophet Muhammad said, "Do not kill your children for fear of poverty." Abortion would not be possible if men did not have sex with women they know favor abortion, so I put the onus on men, not women. Men should ask the woman if she gets pregnant will she kill the unborn child? If she says yes, he should depart from her in haste, unless he favors murder as well. Why are you jumping in a woman's pussy you know is a killer? Now if you want her to kill your seed, that is another matter--the matter is why? What if your parents had aborted you?
What is wrong with putting an unwanted child up for adoption, since there are many women who cannot have children? There are couples who would love and cherish that unwanted child, so why is there a need to kill it? And even though a woman's body is her business, it seems to me the man should be informed--supposedly, in the woman's mind, it's none of his business. This is why I say the man was wrong to enter her pussy in adverse circumstances.
Even in the case of rape, why not put the child up for adoption? If the life of the mother is in danger, this is another matter--abortion must be considered.
We are absolutely opposed to the right wing Christian anti-abortion hypocrites who favor murder to stop murder, even to the point of assassinating doctors. Furthermore, these right wing Christians--where in the Bible does Jesus advocate murder?--only want to delay the death of the child, allowing it to grow up so it can fight and die in imperialist wars across the planet. So these Christians are no different from the pro-abortion women, it is only a difference of time, the objective is the same. Does it matter if the child is killed in the womb or 18 years later in wars for the expansion of capitalism and slavery?
If the woman (and man) is too poor to feed the child, put it up for adoption. A dear friend of mine adopted a child from Jamaica whose family could not afford to feed. She brought the child back to America and raised him like a prince. She paid for him to received manhood training at the African Village in South Carolina. She adopted and raised four other Crack babies, giving them a wonderful life, even though they yet appreciate it--like most children (even the "normal ones")--they are ungrateful.
Often times economics is not the problem but education and psychology or the mental state of the parents, especially the woman--although the young man or father is in the same situation, ignorant and often mentally ill. The result is child abuse. Too many young mothers are ignorant of how to feed a child, even hold a child. I know young mothers who habitually feed their child and themselves at McDonalds--breakfast, lunch and dinner. Many young ladies were drug addicted when they got pregnant, thus unable to breast feed their child. These mothers need community support. We see these babies with babies on the streets of Oakland. We see their stress, how they curse the children, calling them motherfuckers and sons of bitches. They need community support because often grandmother (thirty, forty or fifty years old) says she's "too old" to be a grandmother. One grandmother whose son has two children, says she wants her son to stay home with her rather than live with his baby moma who's struggling for dear life with two children at 26 years old. This poor mother grew up in Berkeley but had never been to San Francisco. She is no different than young people in Newark, New Jersey who've never been to New York.
Babies with babies is not helpful to our community progress. Often the mother, father and children are doomed to poverty unless they are determined to rise up in spite of circumstances. And community support is greatly needed. Teach the young people manhood and womanhood rites or how to restrain themselves until they mature. At eighteen when I fathered my first child, I was a baby with a baby, and soon followed another child before I was twenty. I am happy for the children, but they could have been delayed until I finished my education. I am happy my children restrained themselves sexually until they completed their education. Thank God they had more discipline than I. I do know that one of my sons (now deceased, RIP) impregnated an Asian girl while in college. He asked me what to do and I told him not to abort, but he did so anyway because he said the girl could not return to Japan with a black child. As I've written elsewhere, she could have left the little Tiger Woods here and took her funky ass back to Japan.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Part Five: Mythology of Pussy
Lick the pussy lightly, like a feather in the wind. Don't devour it like a Mike Tyson cannibal, "...so greedy for my lady, I turn her womb into a tomb.... Be cool, fool, go away and pray and pray and pray." Yes, pray on the pussy, bless it with kindness until the lips open and spread wide, stroke it til juices flow like Niagara Falls washing your face with love. Oh, the juice of love in the night or early morn.
When joy comes do not spoil the hour with negative ideas, but open the heart of love as the bird cage opens for the bird to take flight only to return when it wills. There is no compulsion in love, for love is not to be forced but happens when it happens, so let it happen on its time not yours, for what do you know of love except when it speaks and you are silent, only then you gain understanding and wisdom. Be silent is the best mode, not the lips that chatter when silence is glory. In silence all things come to you for pleasure, because you are deserving and so the pussy runs over with the juice of love. And you have not touched it with tongue or finger or penis, but the silence of your mind is read by the pussy and so it came running as a lover in search of lost love, that eternal love beyond pussy and dick and silly gender notions of the infantile ones who dwell on the animal plane.
Imagine, the pussy is far away yet so near you smell it, feel it, stroke it until it comes, yet it is not there, only a thought, a memory of time past when pussy was young and fresh and wild, and you ran to it and it embraced you on the beach, in the wind and sun. There was no shame, no guilt, no greed, just innocence of time and place, not even knowing you were in paradise, heaven. It was the best of times and they did not end but reappear even now in the fourth quarter of your life. There is joy and joy knows you and welcomes you home with open arms and lips. Be gentle, ask for nothing because all is yours. No one can have what is yours, for the door only opens for you and you alone. It is no effort on your part, it is the voice of the wind, the falling leaves say it is yours for your labor under the sun.
--Marvin X
www.marvinxwrites.blogspot.com
"He's the USA's Rumi!'--Bob Holman, Bowery Poetry Club, New York
Lick the pussy lightly, like a feather in the wind. Don't devour it like a Mike Tyson cannibal, "...so greedy for my lady, I turn her womb into a tomb.... Be cool, fool, go away and pray and pray and pray." Yes, pray on the pussy, bless it with kindness until the lips open and spread wide, stroke it til juices flow like Niagara Falls washing your face with love. Oh, the juice of love in the night or early morn.
When joy comes do not spoil the hour with negative ideas, but open the heart of love as the bird cage opens for the bird to take flight only to return when it wills. There is no compulsion in love, for love is not to be forced but happens when it happens, so let it happen on its time not yours, for what do you know of love except when it speaks and you are silent, only then you gain understanding and wisdom. Be silent is the best mode, not the lips that chatter when silence is glory. In silence all things come to you for pleasure, because you are deserving and so the pussy runs over with the juice of love. And you have not touched it with tongue or finger or penis, but the silence of your mind is read by the pussy and so it came running as a lover in search of lost love, that eternal love beyond pussy and dick and silly gender notions of the infantile ones who dwell on the animal plane.
Imagine, the pussy is far away yet so near you smell it, feel it, stroke it until it comes, yet it is not there, only a thought, a memory of time past when pussy was young and fresh and wild, and you ran to it and it embraced you on the beach, in the wind and sun. There was no shame, no guilt, no greed, just innocence of time and place, not even knowing you were in paradise, heaven. It was the best of times and they did not end but reappear even now in the fourth quarter of your life. There is joy and joy knows you and welcomes you home with open arms and lips. Be gentle, ask for nothing because all is yours. No one can have what is yours, for the door only opens for you and you alone. It is no effort on your part, it is the voice of the wind, the falling leaves say it is yours for your labor under the sun.
--Marvin X
www.marvinxwrites.blogspot.com
"He's the USA's Rumi!'--Bob Holman, Bowery Poetry Club, New York
Part Six: Mythology of Pussy
Pussy ruled the world until along came Crack. Crack diminished the respect and value of pussy forever. It did not destroy the power of pussy but it wounded it forever. After Crack, pussy will never be the same. Its value became so low on the stock market, one could hardly find it, for it dropped worse than in the Great Depression and in this Second Depression pussy is fighting for its life, especially with young brothers thinking they can pimp pussy because the dope game has played out. But these days pussy can take your life, with one drop a man can die from the myriad STDs, not to mention AIDS. Yes, pussy has gone from the giver of life to the taker of life, from the power of God to the power of the devil. Oh, will the glory days of pussy ever come again. The young brothers in the barber shop said to me, "OG, when you were young and caught something from a girl, you only got a drip--today, when we catch something we die!" The times, they are a changing and so has pussy.
Brothers coming home from prison are infecting their women from the joy of prison life. Some women are infertile as a result of their man's homosexual behavior in prison that he denies until it is too late: his poor, innocent woman suffers a death dealing blow because of his dishonesty and debauchery. See Ayodele's great play Death by Twilight. The woman has so much faith in her man she never admits he is the cause of her dying from AIDS.
And then older women go to bars and nightclubs for that one night stand and never recover from their evening with undercover brother who looked like a man but was all bitch inside, even beyond bitch because he was a lier and deceiver, a wicked devil in the night, who stole the woman's heart, body and soul.
I wrote about the insanity of sex in my book The Crazy House Called America. As they say in sociology 1A, sometimes there's a cultural lag because the people are ignorant of the paradigm shift. They are caught unaware of the new order, so they play by the old rules and are naturally knocked out of the game. The Bible says the people were destroyed for lack of knowledge. There is no excuse for ignorance these days, in this information age with knowledge pervading the Internet, my space, face book, twitter and elsewhere. Yet the people walk in darkness. Young girls and old girls fall victim to the pleasures of life, or what used to be a pleasure, but what pleasure is there in making love to a dummy? Or a psychopath? I saw a girl with a T shirt that said, "Cute, but Psycho," at least she warned us, not that the boys will heed her message, for they are psycho as well. So when the blind lead the blind....
Michael said Remember the Time! Remember the time when pussy was golden and pure, pasteurized and homogenized! Today pussy is filthy as the harlot's, or maybe hers is cleaner than the square girls because the harlot knows how to clean hers, the square girl knows nothing because mama taught her nothing because mama didn't know being the Crack ho she was. But I agree with Tupac, "You might be a Crack fiend, Mama, but you still a black queen, Mama!"
--Marvin X
www.marvinxwrites.blogspot.com
"He's a Divine fool!"--Ayodele Nzingha
Pussy ruled the world until along came Crack. Crack diminished the respect and value of pussy forever. It did not destroy the power of pussy but it wounded it forever. After Crack, pussy will never be the same. Its value became so low on the stock market, one could hardly find it, for it dropped worse than in the Great Depression and in this Second Depression pussy is fighting for its life, especially with young brothers thinking they can pimp pussy because the dope game has played out. But these days pussy can take your life, with one drop a man can die from the myriad STDs, not to mention AIDS. Yes, pussy has gone from the giver of life to the taker of life, from the power of God to the power of the devil. Oh, will the glory days of pussy ever come again. The young brothers in the barber shop said to me, "OG, when you were young and caught something from a girl, you only got a drip--today, when we catch something we die!" The times, they are a changing and so has pussy.
Brothers coming home from prison are infecting their women from the joy of prison life. Some women are infertile as a result of their man's homosexual behavior in prison that he denies until it is too late: his poor, innocent woman suffers a death dealing blow because of his dishonesty and debauchery. See Ayodele's great play Death by Twilight. The woman has so much faith in her man she never admits he is the cause of her dying from AIDS.
And then older women go to bars and nightclubs for that one night stand and never recover from their evening with undercover brother who looked like a man but was all bitch inside, even beyond bitch because he was a lier and deceiver, a wicked devil in the night, who stole the woman's heart, body and soul.
I wrote about the insanity of sex in my book The Crazy House Called America. As they say in sociology 1A, sometimes there's a cultural lag because the people are ignorant of the paradigm shift. They are caught unaware of the new order, so they play by the old rules and are naturally knocked out of the game. The Bible says the people were destroyed for lack of knowledge. There is no excuse for ignorance these days, in this information age with knowledge pervading the Internet, my space, face book, twitter and elsewhere. Yet the people walk in darkness. Young girls and old girls fall victim to the pleasures of life, or what used to be a pleasure, but what pleasure is there in making love to a dummy? Or a psychopath? I saw a girl with a T shirt that said, "Cute, but Psycho," at least she warned us, not that the boys will heed her message, for they are psycho as well. So when the blind lead the blind....
Michael said Remember the Time! Remember the time when pussy was golden and pure, pasteurized and homogenized! Today pussy is filthy as the harlot's, or maybe hers is cleaner than the square girls because the harlot knows how to clean hers, the square girl knows nothing because mama taught her nothing because mama didn't know being the Crack ho she was. But I agree with Tupac, "You might be a Crack fiend, Mama, but you still a black queen, Mama!"
--Marvin X
www.marvinxwrites.blogspot.com
"He's a Divine fool!"--Ayodele Nzingha
Part Four: Mythology of Pussy
Brothers, clean your hands before entering the pussy, cut your fingernails, remove the dirt. Otherwise, you will wonder why your pussy is not feeling good, but it will be because of your filthy hands causing infection, to say nothing of your filty dick that might have been in any hole it could find, even a hole in the ground. Pussy is delicate, treat it gently, not like you are entering a machine, even though some pussies like it rough and hard, so accommodate those pussies, even though bad results will appear sooner or later. A friend tells me her doctor friend told her we can't imagine some of the problems pussies come to her with as a result of how the men treat pussy, the objects they put in it, beyond dildos--sometimes fists and arms up to the elbow. But pussy is to be treated gently for it is a vital, the most vital organ of the female, well, maybe not equal to the heart, but life comes through pussy, so threat it right. Let it rest from time to time, something I had to learn in my cave man days. In general, the woman's body is precious and complicated. You cannot beat it down and think it is going to serve you forever because it is going to break down. If you beat on your car with a sledgehammer how would it look.
We do the same with our woman in general, beat her down then expect her to function at her best. Sometimes we beat her while pregnant with our child. What can come of a savage who does this--nothing of good, no good luck, as my mother told me time after time when she learned I was abusing my women (as if I owned them).
Brothers in prison and jail behind women, either directly or indirectly (those who committed crimes to satisfy your pussy, i.e.,pay your pussy bill) need to think hard, now that you have a moment to think. There's a right way and wrong way to pay your pussy bill. Don't kill half the community to pay your bill. Figure out a way to hustle without killing people because that shit comes back on you. All money ain't good money. Money with blood ain't no good--it will never bring peace and happiness. Have you seen any movie where the gangsters and murderers went on to live a happy life?
And when you go to jail, you want to put your pussy in jail on the outside. You didn't treat your pussy right when you were free, so now that you're locked down your pussy wants revenge, and yes, your friend is the best way to get revenge--pussy knows how to hurt you real bad by giving some to your friend, best friend. Now you want to kill him and her over her pussy that you abused, disrespected time after time. You locked down with twenty-five to life, so let the pussy walk. Let it have a life. You can't stop it anyway. Go ahead and get with cellie Joe because your days with pussy are over--you blew it, buddy!
Don't stalk your pussy from the prison house. Got your boys following your pussy around town to make sure it doesn't find a dick. It's gonna find something, if only another pussy since you played yourself out of pocket, thinking out of your dick head. Now your girl's girl got your pussy. How you like that Mister Big Time?
Life is a thinking man's game, so think before you act. There are very few things in life really important and pussy ain't one of them. Can you take pussy to the bank? Even so-called pimps know pussy comes and goes, rarely does pussy stay forever, so why you killing over pussy that was going to leave anyway--it was just a matter of time, dummy. Ask Fillmore Slim how many of his ho's stayed forever? Ask him where are all those ho's he had, where did they go--they went to pussyland where all pussies go. So appreciate the pussy while you got it, if only for a moment. Like Fillmore says, if you treat pussy right, it might come back, but if you treat it wrong, it will be long gone.
--Marvin X
www.marvinxwrites.blogspot.com
Catch Marvin X's classic play Flowers for the Trashman at the San Francisco Theatre Festival. Catch him Saturday, August 1, signing books at the Joyce Gordon Gallery, 406 14th @ Franklin, downtown Oakland, 3-5pm. Come early, space is limited.
Brothers, clean your hands before entering the pussy, cut your fingernails, remove the dirt. Otherwise, you will wonder why your pussy is not feeling good, but it will be because of your filthy hands causing infection, to say nothing of your filty dick that might have been in any hole it could find, even a hole in the ground. Pussy is delicate, treat it gently, not like you are entering a machine, even though some pussies like it rough and hard, so accommodate those pussies, even though bad results will appear sooner or later. A friend tells me her doctor friend told her we can't imagine some of the problems pussies come to her with as a result of how the men treat pussy, the objects they put in it, beyond dildos--sometimes fists and arms up to the elbow. But pussy is to be treated gently for it is a vital, the most vital organ of the female, well, maybe not equal to the heart, but life comes through pussy, so threat it right. Let it rest from time to time, something I had to learn in my cave man days. In general, the woman's body is precious and complicated. You cannot beat it down and think it is going to serve you forever because it is going to break down. If you beat on your car with a sledgehammer how would it look.
We do the same with our woman in general, beat her down then expect her to function at her best. Sometimes we beat her while pregnant with our child. What can come of a savage who does this--nothing of good, no good luck, as my mother told me time after time when she learned I was abusing my women (as if I owned them).
Brothers in prison and jail behind women, either directly or indirectly (those who committed crimes to satisfy your pussy, i.e.,pay your pussy bill) need to think hard, now that you have a moment to think. There's a right way and wrong way to pay your pussy bill. Don't kill half the community to pay your bill. Figure out a way to hustle without killing people because that shit comes back on you. All money ain't good money. Money with blood ain't no good--it will never bring peace and happiness. Have you seen any movie where the gangsters and murderers went on to live a happy life?
And when you go to jail, you want to put your pussy in jail on the outside. You didn't treat your pussy right when you were free, so now that you're locked down your pussy wants revenge, and yes, your friend is the best way to get revenge--pussy knows how to hurt you real bad by giving some to your friend, best friend. Now you want to kill him and her over her pussy that you abused, disrespected time after time. You locked down with twenty-five to life, so let the pussy walk. Let it have a life. You can't stop it anyway. Go ahead and get with cellie Joe because your days with pussy are over--you blew it, buddy!
Don't stalk your pussy from the prison house. Got your boys following your pussy around town to make sure it doesn't find a dick. It's gonna find something, if only another pussy since you played yourself out of pocket, thinking out of your dick head. Now your girl's girl got your pussy. How you like that Mister Big Time?
Life is a thinking man's game, so think before you act. There are very few things in life really important and pussy ain't one of them. Can you take pussy to the bank? Even so-called pimps know pussy comes and goes, rarely does pussy stay forever, so why you killing over pussy that was going to leave anyway--it was just a matter of time, dummy. Ask Fillmore Slim how many of his ho's stayed forever? Ask him where are all those ho's he had, where did they go--they went to pussyland where all pussies go. So appreciate the pussy while you got it, if only for a moment. Like Fillmore says, if you treat pussy right, it might come back, but if you treat it wrong, it will be long gone.
--Marvin X
www.marvinxwrites.blogspot.com
Catch Marvin X's classic play Flowers for the Trashman at the San Francisco Theatre Festival. Catch him Saturday, August 1, signing books at the Joyce Gordon Gallery, 406 14th @ Franklin, downtown Oakland, 3-5pm. Come early, space is limited.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Part Two: Mythology of Pussy
Part Two: Mythology of Pussy
Marvin X
Brother McNeil, may he rest in peace, was an NFL quarterback who made it to the Superbowl, but in the Superbowl of Pussy he was an abject failure: he could not quarterback his team of pussies. In the end, pussy triumphed a thousand to one, meeting him on the one yard line and knocking him into eternity. Poor soul, his patriarchal mentality of "I pay the cost to be the boss" didn't mean anything when pussy stood up to confront his proposition of male domination. Clearly, he thought, like men of patriarchal socialization think, that he could have all the pussy he wanted, without a consensus from the pussies. At least the Muslims get a consensus in their polygamous fantasies. I was lucky to escape with my head. One of my pussies said she thought about killing me in my sleep for abusing her. And my father-in-law said he would have killed me a long time ago if his granddaughters didn't love me so much. Pussy is a life and death matter, as we see with McNeil and millions of other men who are meeting their fate these days in the pussy rebellion sweeping the planet.
Some time ago I went to speak at a court-mandated domestic violence session. I had come early to the men's session, so when I arrived a women's group was in session, so I sat in. I was amazed to hear the women speak of what they were doing to men these days: from violence to threats of violence over the phone. Brothers need to study the psychology of pussy. As the great mythologist Joseph Campbell noted, women know they are women after the first cycle. When do men know? All primitive societies had manhood rites that taught about womanhood and manhood, but in modern society this training is absent, so men rely on the ignorance of their friends or some reactionary pimp psychology. So when do men get the lesson they are dealing with a spiritual being, a being who can actually take more pain than they--who can bleed for five days without dying while a man cannot bleed for five minutes! Brothers need to get a healing real quick, quicker than you can say Jackie Robinson!
Brothers, don’t ask for the pussy. Wait until she offers it to you, after all it is her pussy. Please, brothers, get an immediate understanding on this, no matter how much you pay on your pussy bill, it’s still her pussy. Your ignorance on this point has caused many of you to be locked down in prisons and jails, some for the rest of your lives, simply because you thought, in your deranged patriarchal mentality, that you owned your woman, that she was your chattel or personal property, causing you to kill your brother or friend. I had friends no longer on this earth because they got caught up in the pussy game.
I sincerely miss my friends and wish they were here to enjoy the fall of Western civilization with me—and the fall of Eastern civilization, for that matter—all the reactionary myths and rituals of the East must fall into the dustbin of history as well, the domestic violence, female genital circumcision, child marriage, honor killings, the whole range of reactionary, archaic, ignorant male mythology pervading the religions and culture of Africa and Asia.
And obviously, women need a healing as well. The woman who killed the quarterback thought she owned her man’s penis. Just as your pussy is not his, his dick is not yours, he can and will give it to whomever he likes. Get a healing on this point and you will advance in your spiritual maturation.
These days, you can’t get on your cell phone and call baby boy to tell him you’re gonna “key” his car because your girlfriend saw him riding down the street with baby mama.
Nobody owns nobody, no matter what the marriage papers say, no matter what shacking laws say. We are free spirits and only when we recognize this will some relationships become lasting, after all, what does flesh have to do with it? Flesh has nothing to do with love and I can use myself as an example—read my essay The Maid, the Ho, the Cook, in my book In the Crazy House Called America. I describe my love for a prostitute who sold her love up and down San Pablo Avenue , one of the longest streets in the Bay Area.
But when she showed up at my door I was happy as a puppy dog, so don’t tell me about flesh. It wasn’t a physical matter, but a matter of the heart. I didn’t give a damn how many men she had slept with since the last time we were together, just come on in the house and give me my moment in the sun.
And what is life except a moment in time? That’s all we have with each other, a moment or two, so enjoy the one you’re with for the moment it is and have no regrets. Get rid of all that sexual greed and guilt from religious socialization that have you inside the box of sexual madness and depravity.
Ask any prostitute or sex worker, her pussy will be just as good tomorrow as it was yesterday. Come out of all that holy Joe bullshit that he violated my trust or she violated our vows. Grow up, what do vows have to do with the reality of life? Human beings are subject to do anything in the course of a day. A large percentage of black women admitted to having sex on the job with the boss in Jet Magazine some years ago. Now you know Jet is the Negro Bible, if it’s in Jet, it’s got to be true!
So love the one ya wit, give them all you can for the moment you are with them and have no regrets, since nothing lasts forever, know this and grow in your spiritual maturation. Let our boys become men with this knowledge and our girls become women. Don’t be a fifty or sixty year old man or woman still tripping about pussy and dick! Oh, he/she was unfaithful! He/she lied to me. He promised to be true.
How can you worry about her pussy when you can’t safeguard your dick? You want to stick your dick in every hole yet worry about what dick is going in her pussy. Get a life! What does it matter what dick is going in her pussy when you don’t even know who she is as a spiritual being and she doesn’t know you accept as a hard dick? Again Phavia, “If you think I’m just a physical thing, wait til you see the spiritual power I bring!”
-------------------
Join Marvin X tonight in West Oakland (land of his childhood) for a performance of his first play Flowers for the Trashman (1965, Drama department, San Francisco State University) at the Sister Thea Bowman Theatre, 920 Peralta @ 10th and Peralta Streets, 8pm. Directed by Ayodele Nzingha. The second play is Opal Palmer Adisa's Bathroom Grafitti Queen, also produced and directed by Ayodele Nzingha and her Lower Bottom Playaz. Save August 1st for the Marvin X booksigning and conversation with James W. Sweeney at the Joyce Gordon Gallery, 406 14th Street @ Franklin, downtown Oakland, sponsored by the Oakland Post and the Black Dialogue Brothers. Marvin X will discuss and sign his latest book Eldridge Cleaver: My friend the devil, a memoir, introduction by Amiri Baraka. Call 510-355-6339 for more information.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Ayodele Nzinga
To: ayo dele nzingha
Sent: Thursday, July 9, 2009 3:11:44 PM
Subject: The Lower Bottom Playaz @ The Sister Thea Bowman Memorial Theater
____________________________________________
Special Events
July 10th ---------Season Opening- Dinner, Red Wine and a Show for $10.00 (first 25 full price admissions).
July 11th ----------- Block Party performance WOEIP--14th & Willow 12-6:00pm -- Free performance coupons! Half off coupons.
Free in the Zip Code (get in free if you live in 94607)
July 12th------------3 for $20.00. Buy 2 full price admissions and the 3rd is free.
July 18th-------------Dinner, Red Wine and a Show for $10.00 (first 25 full price admissions reservations.)
(reservation must be paid by July 16th at 2pm)
July 26th------------ SF Theater Festival -- ( Flowers, Trashman, Mama at Twilight)
(WordSlanger also appears in Recovery Theater's piece: Cigarette Jet)
Coming Attraction:
Mama at Twilight: Death by Love by A. Nzinga
Open August 14 closes August 23rd.
Run dates, August, 14,15,16,21,22,23.
Admission: $10/15/20 in advance & door Tickets on sale August 1.
please add to your calendars
please forward to your list
...bringing consciousness back.
Marvin X
Brother McNeil, may he rest in peace, was an NFL quarterback who made it to the Superbowl, but in the Superbowl of Pussy he was an abject failure: he could not quarterback his team of pussies. In the end, pussy triumphed a thousand to one, meeting him on the one yard line and knocking him into eternity. Poor soul, his patriarchal mentality of "I pay the cost to be the boss" didn't mean anything when pussy stood up to confront his proposition of male domination. Clearly, he thought, like men of patriarchal socialization think, that he could have all the pussy he wanted, without a consensus from the pussies. At least the Muslims get a consensus in their polygamous fantasies. I was lucky to escape with my head. One of my pussies said she thought about killing me in my sleep for abusing her. And my father-in-law said he would have killed me a long time ago if his granddaughters didn't love me so much. Pussy is a life and death matter, as we see with McNeil and millions of other men who are meeting their fate these days in the pussy rebellion sweeping the planet.
Some time ago I went to speak at a court-mandated domestic violence session. I had come early to the men's session, so when I arrived a women's group was in session, so I sat in. I was amazed to hear the women speak of what they were doing to men these days: from violence to threats of violence over the phone. Brothers need to study the psychology of pussy. As the great mythologist Joseph Campbell noted, women know they are women after the first cycle. When do men know? All primitive societies had manhood rites that taught about womanhood and manhood, but in modern society this training is absent, so men rely on the ignorance of their friends or some reactionary pimp psychology. So when do men get the lesson they are dealing with a spiritual being, a being who can actually take more pain than they--who can bleed for five days without dying while a man cannot bleed for five minutes! Brothers need to get a healing real quick, quicker than you can say Jackie Robinson!
Brothers, don’t ask for the pussy. Wait until she offers it to you, after all it is her pussy. Please, brothers, get an immediate understanding on this, no matter how much you pay on your pussy bill, it’s still her pussy. Your ignorance on this point has caused many of you to be locked down in prisons and jails, some for the rest of your lives, simply because you thought, in your deranged patriarchal mentality, that you owned your woman, that she was your chattel or personal property, causing you to kill your brother or friend. I had friends no longer on this earth because they got caught up in the pussy game.
I sincerely miss my friends and wish they were here to enjoy the fall of Western civilization with me—and the fall of Eastern civilization, for that matter—all the reactionary myths and rituals of the East must fall into the dustbin of history as well, the domestic violence, female genital circumcision, child marriage, honor killings, the whole range of reactionary, archaic, ignorant male mythology pervading the religions and culture of Africa and Asia.
And obviously, women need a healing as well. The woman who killed the quarterback thought she owned her man’s penis. Just as your pussy is not his, his dick is not yours, he can and will give it to whomever he likes. Get a healing on this point and you will advance in your spiritual maturation.
These days, you can’t get on your cell phone and call baby boy to tell him you’re gonna “key” his car because your girlfriend saw him riding down the street with baby mama.
Nobody owns nobody, no matter what the marriage papers say, no matter what shacking laws say. We are free spirits and only when we recognize this will some relationships become lasting, after all, what does flesh have to do with it? Flesh has nothing to do with love and I can use myself as an example—read my essay The Maid, the Ho, the Cook, in my book In the Crazy House Called America. I describe my love for a prostitute who sold her love up and down San Pablo Avenue , one of the longest streets in the Bay Area.
But when she showed up at my door I was happy as a puppy dog, so don’t tell me about flesh. It wasn’t a physical matter, but a matter of the heart. I didn’t give a damn how many men she had slept with since the last time we were together, just come on in the house and give me my moment in the sun.
And what is life except a moment in time? That’s all we have with each other, a moment or two, so enjoy the one you’re with for the moment it is and have no regrets. Get rid of all that sexual greed and guilt from religious socialization that have you inside the box of sexual madness and depravity.
Ask any prostitute or sex worker, her pussy will be just as good tomorrow as it was yesterday. Come out of all that holy Joe bullshit that he violated my trust or she violated our vows. Grow up, what do vows have to do with the reality of life? Human beings are subject to do anything in the course of a day. A large percentage of black women admitted to having sex on the job with the boss in Jet Magazine some years ago. Now you know Jet is the Negro Bible, if it’s in Jet, it’s got to be true!
So love the one ya wit, give them all you can for the moment you are with them and have no regrets, since nothing lasts forever, know this and grow in your spiritual maturation. Let our boys become men with this knowledge and our girls become women. Don’t be a fifty or sixty year old man or woman still tripping about pussy and dick! Oh, he/she was unfaithful! He/she lied to me. He promised to be true.
How can you worry about her pussy when you can’t safeguard your dick? You want to stick your dick in every hole yet worry about what dick is going in her pussy. Get a life! What does it matter what dick is going in her pussy when you don’t even know who she is as a spiritual being and she doesn’t know you accept as a hard dick? Again Phavia, “If you think I’m just a physical thing, wait til you see the spiritual power I bring!”
-------------------
Join Marvin X tonight in West Oakland (land of his childhood) for a performance of his first play Flowers for the Trashman (1965, Drama department, San Francisco State University) at the Sister Thea Bowman Theatre, 920 Peralta @ 10th and Peralta Streets, 8pm. Directed by Ayodele Nzingha. The second play is Opal Palmer Adisa's Bathroom Grafitti Queen, also produced and directed by Ayodele Nzingha and her Lower Bottom Playaz. Save August 1st for the Marvin X booksigning and conversation with James W. Sweeney at the Joyce Gordon Gallery, 406 14th Street @ Franklin, downtown Oakland, sponsored by the Oakland Post and the Black Dialogue Brothers. Marvin X will discuss and sign his latest book Eldridge Cleaver: My friend the devil, a memoir, introduction by Amiri Baraka. Call 510-355-6339 for more information.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Ayodele Nzinga
To: ayo dele nzingha
Sent: Thursday, July 9, 2009 3:11:44 PM
Subject: The Lower Bottom Playaz @ The Sister Thea Bowman Memorial Theater
____________________________________________
Special Events
July 10th ---------Season Opening- Dinner, Red Wine and a Show for $10.00 (first 25 full price admissions).
July 11th ----------- Block Party performance WOEIP--14th & Willow 12-6:00pm -- Free performance coupons! Half off coupons.
Free in the Zip Code (get in free if you live in 94607)
July 12th------------3 for $20.00. Buy 2 full price admissions and the 3rd is free.
July 18th-------------Dinner, Red Wine and a Show for $10.00 (first 25 full price admissions reservations.)
(reservation must be paid by July 16th at 2pm)
July 26th------------ SF Theater Festival -- ( Flowers, Trashman, Mama at Twilight)
(WordSlanger also appears in Recovery Theater's piece: Cigarette Jet)
Coming Attraction:
Mama at Twilight: Death by Love by A. Nzinga
Open August 14 closes August 23rd.
Run dates, August, 14,15,16,21,22,23.
Admission: $10/15/20 in advance & door Tickets on sale August 1.
please add to your calendars
please forward to your list
...bringing consciousness back.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Mythology of Pussy
The Mythology of Pussy
Pussy is a many splendid thing. Pussy power has been known to help construct civilizations and destroy them. Wars have been fought over pussy. And the most powerful men in the world have been brought low behind pussy. What a powerful thing it is, totally confounding men time after time, season after season, century after century. The more men learn about pussy, the more they forget—or shall we say, they got it (theory) but didn’t get it (the practice).
It would probably be proper to first discuss the mythology of dick before discussing the mythology of pussy, but for dramatic effect we will continue our discussion of pussy, for it is common sense that what is good for the goose is good for the gander. And furthermore, there is more oppression in the world caused by men’s attitude toward pussy than toward their dick, although the patriarchal society gives dominance to the dick, but in the male’s headlong rush to enter the pussy, he becomes blind to his own sexuality and consumed by the need to plunge his organ inside the vagina. In his blindness and his resulting sexual pathology, he becomes numb to the reality that the female is more than pussy, that pussy has a mind, a brain, a cornucopia of emotions based on phases of the moon. “If you think I am just a physical thing, wait til you see the spiritual power I bring”, says a poem by Phavia Kujichagulia.
But rather than consider the totality of pussy, let’s limit our discussion to the physicality of pussy, although we may, by the end of this essay, arrive at a more holistic attitude toward pussy. In our initial discussion here, let us then deal with pussy as a physical thing, somehow unconnected to the phenomenon known as “woman.”
Let us begin by saying pussy is transient, elusive and ephemeral. “See,” a woman demonstrated to me as she jumped, “When I jumped my pussy jumped—therefore my pussy belongs to me.” Thus the locus of control of pussy is with the pussy, not any external source such as a man, based on marriage rites and patriarchal social definitions of authority, or de facto slavery when the female is viewed as chattel (personal) property. “I pay the cost to be the boss.”
The time is way past for men to get a grip on themselves regarding the matter of pussy and their warped attitude toward it that is primitive, reactionary and in the modern world forces men into court mandated anger management classes, and often jail and prison as a result of domestic violence. The purpose of this discussion is to bring about progressive consciousness on this matter so that men finally “get it,” and in the process free the woman of oppression and free themselves as well, so both man and woman can pursue their divinity by transcending the focus on sexuality to the higher level of spirituality.
Of course the roots of this sexual dysfunction are religious based—and nearly all the religions are guilty, certainly the patriarchal religions, Judaism, Christianity, Islam.
The educational system enforces the religious order by the sin of omission or saying nothing. After all, a person can attend the highest universities in the land, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, without ever having a class on human sexuality or male/female psychology and socialization.
And so the male, in the absence of manhood training, is left to his own ignorant notions of the nature and value of pussy. His main concern is that the pussy is his and nobody else’s. That he can come and go into the pussy at will, at his beck and call. Of course this is a mental blindness he must overcome immediately so he can enter the road to spiritual maturation.
He cannot continue throughout his life in these enlightened times with such backward notions of pussy. Pussy is never static but ever moving, dynamic and fluid. Pussy told me, “I can come with anyone.” But in the cave man’s mind, pussy is static, thus the man is shocked when pussy shows its fluid and dynamic nature jumping in tune with another dick or pussy for that matter. These days, pussies are jumping in tune with each other, partly due to male ignorance of feminine psychosexuality, but more importantly due to the effeminization of black males by societal forces or institutional racism.
The social construct has always been to keep the black male from the reins of power. In the Sisyphusian mythology, we advance to retreat, for with each advance the rules change so we must renew the march up the hill, for the closer we get, the more the mountain top retreats to higher ground. The 60s was the great leap forward in black manhood, but it was crushed of necessity by the US government—black men were determined to take power by force of arms—which could only mean civil war, so they had to be stopped—no society can risk civil unrest by its slaves or former slaves and/or their descendants.
This rush to manhood had to be stopped by any means necessary, infiltration, agent provocateurs, disinformation, sabotage, conspiracy, murder, false charges leading to imprisonment or exile, drugs, sex and rock and roll.
Perhaps a well disciplined army could have withstood the barrage from the oppressor America, but brothers went mad with power, misusing pussy while the government used pussy to destroy the movement by using pussy power to cause chaos in the movement.
Sonia wrote, “What a white woman got cept her white pussy?” She also told us about brothers taking pussy in the name of Fanon, Fanon, Fanon—the “revolutionary screw!”
As activist parents were terrorized by the oppressor, the men in turn terrorized the women, often beating them in the name of black power. The children took note of this parental behavior and some of the males emulated their fathers. And daughters emulated their mothers by remaining passive and submitting to male oppression. The religions enforced this notion of male domination or “leadership.” But when the blind lead the blind, they both fall into the ditch together. How can the male lead when he is ignorant to knowledge of self? Has no knowledge of Supreme Wisdom, or if he does, he doesn't know how to apply it! So he is blind, yet he is supposed to be in authority over his woman—his pussy, rather. This doesn’t make sense!The women fled from this ignorance to embrace each other, finally free from male terrorism, the man who only saw her pussy as pussy, never having a name, a personality and spirituality.
The gay/lesbian revolution caught the fallout from the failure of the pussy culture, the deconstruction of the patriarchy that could not remain in the process of the modern technological revolution that forced the woman out of the house as chattel slave--and once she saw the city, she would never return to the country. World War II brought her the beginning of economic independence with the desecration of the male population from the war. It instituted the matrifocal household or female dominated culture that would become pervasive as we entered the new millennium. The 60s revolution was the last outbreak of black manhood, afterwhich came the crushing power of the state to crush his nuts back into the sands of time, drugging him out, imprisonment, lack of economic opportunity and homosexuality took its toll.
After losing control of the pussy forever, some men turned into pussy, became weak and passive, a disgusting representation of the macho man so familiar to the female who concluded if she was going to have a woman she might as well have a real woman. Terrified of the new woman, the pussy man turned to his own kind for support, adding to the devastation of his gender. Do not think societal forces had no play in his deconstruction, for the 60s terrorized him as much as he had terrified the state--and of course the state won with its awesome police and military power. The state went a step further: it turned the male against himself, his brotherhood, by supplying the drugs and guns that would further deplete the male population by creating internal fear as well as external.
As his woman seized power allowed her by the state and given her by the powerlessness of her man who suffered a military and political defeat after the 60s rebellion, the next generation of males tried to continue the sexual domination with the rise of hip hop culture, the culture that is the direct descendant of 60s black power culture. The young males saw their fathers abuse their mothers and continued the tradition, even trying to extend the pimp/ho culture. So the black woman had a moment of glory when she became a "queen" in the sixties, but by the 80s she was depicted as ho, dog, bitch, even with her advance education and attempt at economic parity, thus equality. In short, his woman was completely and forevermore out of control unless he accepted reciprocity which was anathema to the patriarchal ideal of dominating the pussy.
But with female economic security, the woman would not tolerate his reactionary view of her as pussy. Or maybe she would flip the script and make him her boy toy, to be kicked out at her whim, depending on her emotional disposition or phases of the moon.
Alona Clifton, a political woman in the Bay Area, asked what happened to the love revealed in the song, I Love You Porgey? Indeed, the passion is gone, the chase, the capture, the triumph of domination. It is all fake these days. No one is true, but lies prevail and pervade the love ritual. What has love got to do with it, Tina asked? And Janet said, "What have you done for me lately?" And so we have arrived at a moment in the sun wherein the Creator has things fixed, as Sun Ra taught me, either do the right thing, or we can't go forward or backward in our relationships. Relationships are fragile at best, with men and women filled with insecurity.
Look at the tragic love affair of the young quarterback. It represents the woman asserting her rights to the dick, and so the script has flipped. She owns the penis now, are we not to assume, to the extent that she would blast him four times while he slept. Young men beware, things ain't like they used to be and never will be again. "If you think I'm just a physical thing, wait til you see the spiritual power I bring," says Phavia.
--Marvin X
Pussy is a many splendid thing. Pussy power has been known to help construct civilizations and destroy them. Wars have been fought over pussy. And the most powerful men in the world have been brought low behind pussy. What a powerful thing it is, totally confounding men time after time, season after season, century after century. The more men learn about pussy, the more they forget—or shall we say, they got it (theory) but didn’t get it (the practice).
It would probably be proper to first discuss the mythology of dick before discussing the mythology of pussy, but for dramatic effect we will continue our discussion of pussy, for it is common sense that what is good for the goose is good for the gander. And furthermore, there is more oppression in the world caused by men’s attitude toward pussy than toward their dick, although the patriarchal society gives dominance to the dick, but in the male’s headlong rush to enter the pussy, he becomes blind to his own sexuality and consumed by the need to plunge his organ inside the vagina. In his blindness and his resulting sexual pathology, he becomes numb to the reality that the female is more than pussy, that pussy has a mind, a brain, a cornucopia of emotions based on phases of the moon. “If you think I am just a physical thing, wait til you see the spiritual power I bring”, says a poem by Phavia Kujichagulia.
But rather than consider the totality of pussy, let’s limit our discussion to the physicality of pussy, although we may, by the end of this essay, arrive at a more holistic attitude toward pussy. In our initial discussion here, let us then deal with pussy as a physical thing, somehow unconnected to the phenomenon known as “woman.”
Let us begin by saying pussy is transient, elusive and ephemeral. “See,” a woman demonstrated to me as she jumped, “When I jumped my pussy jumped—therefore my pussy belongs to me.” Thus the locus of control of pussy is with the pussy, not any external source such as a man, based on marriage rites and patriarchal social definitions of authority, or de facto slavery when the female is viewed as chattel (personal) property. “I pay the cost to be the boss.”
The time is way past for men to get a grip on themselves regarding the matter of pussy and their warped attitude toward it that is primitive, reactionary and in the modern world forces men into court mandated anger management classes, and often jail and prison as a result of domestic violence. The purpose of this discussion is to bring about progressive consciousness on this matter so that men finally “get it,” and in the process free the woman of oppression and free themselves as well, so both man and woman can pursue their divinity by transcending the focus on sexuality to the higher level of spirituality.
Of course the roots of this sexual dysfunction are religious based—and nearly all the religions are guilty, certainly the patriarchal religions, Judaism, Christianity, Islam.
The educational system enforces the religious order by the sin of omission or saying nothing. After all, a person can attend the highest universities in the land, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, without ever having a class on human sexuality or male/female psychology and socialization.
And so the male, in the absence of manhood training, is left to his own ignorant notions of the nature and value of pussy. His main concern is that the pussy is his and nobody else’s. That he can come and go into the pussy at will, at his beck and call. Of course this is a mental blindness he must overcome immediately so he can enter the road to spiritual maturation.
He cannot continue throughout his life in these enlightened times with such backward notions of pussy. Pussy is never static but ever moving, dynamic and fluid. Pussy told me, “I can come with anyone.” But in the cave man’s mind, pussy is static, thus the man is shocked when pussy shows its fluid and dynamic nature jumping in tune with another dick or pussy for that matter. These days, pussies are jumping in tune with each other, partly due to male ignorance of feminine psychosexuality, but more importantly due to the effeminization of black males by societal forces or institutional racism.
The social construct has always been to keep the black male from the reins of power. In the Sisyphusian mythology, we advance to retreat, for with each advance the rules change so we must renew the march up the hill, for the closer we get, the more the mountain top retreats to higher ground. The 60s was the great leap forward in black manhood, but it was crushed of necessity by the US government—black men were determined to take power by force of arms—which could only mean civil war, so they had to be stopped—no society can risk civil unrest by its slaves or former slaves and/or their descendants.
This rush to manhood had to be stopped by any means necessary, infiltration, agent provocateurs, disinformation, sabotage, conspiracy, murder, false charges leading to imprisonment or exile, drugs, sex and rock and roll.
Perhaps a well disciplined army could have withstood the barrage from the oppressor America, but brothers went mad with power, misusing pussy while the government used pussy to destroy the movement by using pussy power to cause chaos in the movement.
Sonia wrote, “What a white woman got cept her white pussy?” She also told us about brothers taking pussy in the name of Fanon, Fanon, Fanon—the “revolutionary screw!”
As activist parents were terrorized by the oppressor, the men in turn terrorized the women, often beating them in the name of black power. The children took note of this parental behavior and some of the males emulated their fathers. And daughters emulated their mothers by remaining passive and submitting to male oppression. The religions enforced this notion of male domination or “leadership.” But when the blind lead the blind, they both fall into the ditch together. How can the male lead when he is ignorant to knowledge of self? Has no knowledge of Supreme Wisdom, or if he does, he doesn't know how to apply it! So he is blind, yet he is supposed to be in authority over his woman—his pussy, rather. This doesn’t make sense!The women fled from this ignorance to embrace each other, finally free from male terrorism, the man who only saw her pussy as pussy, never having a name, a personality and spirituality.
The gay/lesbian revolution caught the fallout from the failure of the pussy culture, the deconstruction of the patriarchy that could not remain in the process of the modern technological revolution that forced the woman out of the house as chattel slave--and once she saw the city, she would never return to the country. World War II brought her the beginning of economic independence with the desecration of the male population from the war. It instituted the matrifocal household or female dominated culture that would become pervasive as we entered the new millennium. The 60s revolution was the last outbreak of black manhood, afterwhich came the crushing power of the state to crush his nuts back into the sands of time, drugging him out, imprisonment, lack of economic opportunity and homosexuality took its toll.
After losing control of the pussy forever, some men turned into pussy, became weak and passive, a disgusting representation of the macho man so familiar to the female who concluded if she was going to have a woman she might as well have a real woman. Terrified of the new woman, the pussy man turned to his own kind for support, adding to the devastation of his gender. Do not think societal forces had no play in his deconstruction, for the 60s terrorized him as much as he had terrified the state--and of course the state won with its awesome police and military power. The state went a step further: it turned the male against himself, his brotherhood, by supplying the drugs and guns that would further deplete the male population by creating internal fear as well as external.
As his woman seized power allowed her by the state and given her by the powerlessness of her man who suffered a military and political defeat after the 60s rebellion, the next generation of males tried to continue the sexual domination with the rise of hip hop culture, the culture that is the direct descendant of 60s black power culture. The young males saw their fathers abuse their mothers and continued the tradition, even trying to extend the pimp/ho culture. So the black woman had a moment of glory when she became a "queen" in the sixties, but by the 80s she was depicted as ho, dog, bitch, even with her advance education and attempt at economic parity, thus equality. In short, his woman was completely and forevermore out of control unless he accepted reciprocity which was anathema to the patriarchal ideal of dominating the pussy.
But with female economic security, the woman would not tolerate his reactionary view of her as pussy. Or maybe she would flip the script and make him her boy toy, to be kicked out at her whim, depending on her emotional disposition or phases of the moon.
Alona Clifton, a political woman in the Bay Area, asked what happened to the love revealed in the song, I Love You Porgey? Indeed, the passion is gone, the chase, the capture, the triumph of domination. It is all fake these days. No one is true, but lies prevail and pervade the love ritual. What has love got to do with it, Tina asked? And Janet said, "What have you done for me lately?" And so we have arrived at a moment in the sun wherein the Creator has things fixed, as Sun Ra taught me, either do the right thing, or we can't go forward or backward in our relationships. Relationships are fragile at best, with men and women filled with insecurity.
Look at the tragic love affair of the young quarterback. It represents the woman asserting her rights to the dick, and so the script has flipped. She owns the penis now, are we not to assume, to the extent that she would blast him four times while he slept. Young men beware, things ain't like they used to be and never will be again. "If you think I'm just a physical thing, wait til you see the spiritual power I bring," says Phavia.
--Marvin X
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Michael as King Tut
Michael As King Tut
Boy king
like Tut
smasher of idols
old school religion
hailer of One God
made shahadah
beyond priests of Amen
sang poems of a new world
hail to Ra Supreme
Michael rode his boat ashore
down Nile
Remember the Time?
A song for amnesia people
Look in the Mirror!
those who deny self
wannabe werewolves
Tut lived three thousand years ago
but came again
see him today
coffin of gold
a glove
will live three thousand years
marvel at him
king of pop
how did he do it
out smart those priests
the Amen crowd
stone throwers
let us praise the good
of the boy king
no matters his foibles
flaws
sing a happy song
praise to the Sun.
He wanted to live forever
and shall
no matter what
the evil ones
haters all
Michael took his place
among the stars
sacred love songs
we shall sing forever.
Ra. Ra. Ra.
--Marvin X
Boy king
like Tut
smasher of idols
old school religion
hailer of One God
made shahadah
beyond priests of Amen
sang poems of a new world
hail to Ra Supreme
Michael rode his boat ashore
down Nile
Remember the Time?
A song for amnesia people
Look in the Mirror!
those who deny self
wannabe werewolves
Tut lived three thousand years ago
but came again
see him today
coffin of gold
a glove
will live three thousand years
marvel at him
king of pop
how did he do it
out smart those priests
the Amen crowd
stone throwers
let us praise the good
of the boy king
no matters his foibles
flaws
sing a happy song
praise to the Sun.
He wanted to live forever
and shall
no matter what
the evil ones
haters all
Michael took his place
among the stars
sacred love songs
we shall sing forever.
Ra. Ra. Ra.
--Marvin X
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Toward the Black Agenda
No matter what the issue, I think if a million black people gathered in DC with an agenda and refused to leave until their demands were met, Prez Obama would entertain them. What is the BlackAgenda?
1. Reparations, land, self-determination.
2. General amnesty for all prisoners.
3. Marshall Plan for the Hood
4. One man, one vote
5. A radical black education fit for human beings.
6. National health insurance
7. Forgive the black debt.
8. Departure of police occupying army in the hood
9. Establish community elder councils with conscious elders.
10. Micro loans as opposed to jobs so youth and adults can come up
--Marvin X
1. Reparations, land, self-determination.
2. General amnesty for all prisoners.
3. Marshall Plan for the Hood
4. One man, one vote
5. A radical black education fit for human beings.
6. National health insurance
7. Forgive the black debt.
8. Departure of police occupying army in the hood
9. Establish community elder councils with conscious elders.
10. Micro loans as opposed to jobs so youth and adults can come up
--Marvin X
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Men's Minds Failing: Fear
Men's Minds Failing: Fear
Marvin X
We have never been in anything that can be called a normal state of mind. There has never been grief counseling from the trauma and terror of the Middle Passage, the Maafa, or quite simply the kidnapping, rape and murder of slavery and the post slavery deconstruction of our minds with the additional terror of lynching and segregation. So at no time in our history have we been anything close to sane as a people. We have used the Blues as antidote, along with Jesus and gambling, sex, but Dr. Hare has said no amount of the above will eliminate our social angst and shattered cultural striving. And then the Sisyphus syndrome: we rise and fall, strive and fail, according to our own efforts and the societal winds. Cast your fate to the wind!
Now, at the final stage of imperialism--for who wants to be a wage slave in the global "free market" economy, we find ourselves mentally disconcerted with no social security for our black behinds. The world is rapidly metamorphosing into a new economic era, new powers on the horizon, China, India, Brazil, Russia. What shall Africa do, what role shall we play--we cannot continue as wage slaves, consumers, but shall be forced to produce something of value to the global marketplace, otherwise we shall have no role in it, except, perhaps, as soldiers to defend imperialism or victims of the same with a life-estate condo in the many prisons and jails awaiting us who have outlived our usefulness.
The symbols tell the story: clothing with military patches or prison garb. That is the choice: join the war for drugs, oil, neo-slaves, or remain passive in the vice of the petrochemical and pharmaceutical globalists. Eat their food that is not food and take their medicine that is not medicine for it never heals, yet the cost is high--death is the result of this game between the petrochemical and pharmaceutical.
Only a superman and superwoman can withstand the barrage coming at us, the weak easily fall by the wayside, perplexed, hoodwinked and bamboozled. They have no understanding of what's going on, as Marvin Gaye sang--it's too complex, the nature of the problem too intense for understanding by the simple minded. We are duped by neo-colonialism in black face, the most wretched kind perfected in Africa fifty years ago and now reaching it's ultimate in America. Our ignorance of affairs throughout the Americas, the leftist winds blowing below the border we seldom hear, know or care anything about, may one day soon consume us as it sweeps up from Mexico. While we stride about with pants sagging, the hungry ones come to replace us. Cleaver said we are tired in our genes from all the work our ancestors performed, and so we shall be replaced. Or perhaps we are that crop of seeds that was a dud, of no value even as food for the pigs.
How shall we return to a sanity we never had? Some of us maintained some semblance of family life, but are not most of us dysfunctional to a high degree, though so many pretend, front, fake, as in the Great Pretender--knowing all along something is very very wrong, something stinks. We need to see the doctor, talk to someone, we need help. And yet the mental health clinic is closed, the doctor is out to lunch. Even the doctor is sick, overwhelmed by the level of severity of his patients. Listen to my voice message: 510-355-6339.
Upon entering prison for a few months, the brothers told me no matter what, don't get sick. And so it is out here in the big yard, don't get sick. Heal yourself, look at the man in the mirror, remember the time....Memory is healing for memory was lost and must return as in amnesia, and ours is a collective amnesia, an entire people go about their daily round deaf, dumb and blind. There are two exhibits in the Bay Area we need to see: King Tut and Africans in Mexico. Go see them and remember the time. They may help heal our social angst and shattered cultural strivings, as Dr. Hare noted.
--
Save the date: Sat., August 1, 3-5 pm, book signing and conversation with Marvin X, Joyce Gordon Gallery, 14th and Franklin, downtown Oakland. Sponsored by the Oakland Post Newspaper Group and Black Dialogue Brothers. Admission with book purchase. This event is a benefit for Black Bird Press. Call 510-355-6339.
Marvin X
We have never been in anything that can be called a normal state of mind. There has never been grief counseling from the trauma and terror of the Middle Passage, the Maafa, or quite simply the kidnapping, rape and murder of slavery and the post slavery deconstruction of our minds with the additional terror of lynching and segregation. So at no time in our history have we been anything close to sane as a people. We have used the Blues as antidote, along with Jesus and gambling, sex, but Dr. Hare has said no amount of the above will eliminate our social angst and shattered cultural striving. And then the Sisyphus syndrome: we rise and fall, strive and fail, according to our own efforts and the societal winds. Cast your fate to the wind!
Now, at the final stage of imperialism--for who wants to be a wage slave in the global "free market" economy, we find ourselves mentally disconcerted with no social security for our black behinds. The world is rapidly metamorphosing into a new economic era, new powers on the horizon, China, India, Brazil, Russia. What shall Africa do, what role shall we play--we cannot continue as wage slaves, consumers, but shall be forced to produce something of value to the global marketplace, otherwise we shall have no role in it, except, perhaps, as soldiers to defend imperialism or victims of the same with a life-estate condo in the many prisons and jails awaiting us who have outlived our usefulness.
The symbols tell the story: clothing with military patches or prison garb. That is the choice: join the war for drugs, oil, neo-slaves, or remain passive in the vice of the petrochemical and pharmaceutical globalists. Eat their food that is not food and take their medicine that is not medicine for it never heals, yet the cost is high--death is the result of this game between the petrochemical and pharmaceutical.
Only a superman and superwoman can withstand the barrage coming at us, the weak easily fall by the wayside, perplexed, hoodwinked and bamboozled. They have no understanding of what's going on, as Marvin Gaye sang--it's too complex, the nature of the problem too intense for understanding by the simple minded. We are duped by neo-colonialism in black face, the most wretched kind perfected in Africa fifty years ago and now reaching it's ultimate in America. Our ignorance of affairs throughout the Americas, the leftist winds blowing below the border we seldom hear, know or care anything about, may one day soon consume us as it sweeps up from Mexico. While we stride about with pants sagging, the hungry ones come to replace us. Cleaver said we are tired in our genes from all the work our ancestors performed, and so we shall be replaced. Or perhaps we are that crop of seeds that was a dud, of no value even as food for the pigs.
How shall we return to a sanity we never had? Some of us maintained some semblance of family life, but are not most of us dysfunctional to a high degree, though so many pretend, front, fake, as in the Great Pretender--knowing all along something is very very wrong, something stinks. We need to see the doctor, talk to someone, we need help. And yet the mental health clinic is closed, the doctor is out to lunch. Even the doctor is sick, overwhelmed by the level of severity of his patients. Listen to my voice message: 510-355-6339.
Upon entering prison for a few months, the brothers told me no matter what, don't get sick. And so it is out here in the big yard, don't get sick. Heal yourself, look at the man in the mirror, remember the time....Memory is healing for memory was lost and must return as in amnesia, and ours is a collective amnesia, an entire people go about their daily round deaf, dumb and blind. There are two exhibits in the Bay Area we need to see: King Tut and Africans in Mexico. Go see them and remember the time. They may help heal our social angst and shattered cultural strivings, as Dr. Hare noted.
--
Save the date: Sat., August 1, 3-5 pm, book signing and conversation with Marvin X, Joyce Gordon Gallery, 14th and Franklin, downtown Oakland. Sponsored by the Oakland Post Newspaper Group and Black Dialogue Brothers. Admission with book purchase. This event is a benefit for Black Bird Press. Call 510-355-6339.
Men's Minds Failing: Fear
Men's Minds Failing: Fear
Marvin X
We have never been in anything that can be called a normal state of mind. There has never been grief counseling from the trauma and terror of the Middle Passage, the Maafa, or quite simply the kidnapping, rape and murder of slavery and the post slavery deconstruction of our minds with the additional terror of lynching and segregation. So at no time in our history have we been anything close to sane as a people. We have used the Blues as antidote, along with Jesus and gambling, sex, but Dr. Hare has said no amount of the above will eliminate our social angst and shattered cultural striving. And then the Sisyphus syndrome: we rise and fall, strive and fail, according to our own efforts and the societal winds. Cast your fate to the wind!
Now, at the final stage of imperialism--for who wants to be a wage slave in the global "free market" economy, we find ourselves mentally disconcerted with no social security for our black behinds. The world is rapidly metamorphosing into a new economic era, new powers on the horizon, China, India, Brazil, Russia. What shall Africa do, what role shall we play--we cannot continue as wage slaves, consumers, but shall be forced to produce something of value to the global marketplace, otherwise we shall have no role in it, except, perhaps, as soldiers to defend imperialism or victims of the same with a life-estate condo in the many prisons and jails awaiting us who have outlived our usefulness.
The symbols tell the story: clothing with military patches or prison garb. That is the choice: join the war for drugs, oil, neo-slaves, or remain passive in the vice of the petrochemical and pharmaceutical globalists. Eat their food that is not food and take their medicine that is not medicine for it never heals, yet the cost is high--death is the result of this game between the petrochemical and pharmaceutical.
Only a superman and superwoman can withstand the barrage coming at us, the weak easily fall by the wayside, perplexed, hoodwinked and bamboozled. They have no understanding of what's going on, as Marvin Gaye sang--it's too complex, the nature of the problem too intense for understanding by the simple minded. We are duped by neo-colonialism in black face, the most wretched kind perfected in Africa fifty years ago and now reaching it's ultimate in America. Our ignorance of affairs throughout the Americas, the leftist winds blowing below the border we seldom hear, know or care anything about, may one day soon consume us as it sweeps up from Mexico. While we stride about with pants sagging, the hungry ones come to replace us. Cleaver said we are tired in our genes from all the work our ancestors performed, and so we shall be replaced. Or perhaps we are that crop of seeds that was a dud, of no value even as food for the pigs.
How shall we return to a sanity we never had? Some of us maintained some semblance of family life, but are not most of us dysfunctional to a high degree, though so many pretend, front, fake, as in the Great Pretender--knowing all along something is very very wrong, something stinks. We need to see the doctor, talk to someone, we need help. And yet the mental health clinic is closed, the doctor is out to lunch. Even the doctor is sick, overwhelmed by the level of severity of his patients. Listen to my voice message: 510-355-6339.
Upon enter prison for a few months, the brothers told me no matter what, don't get sick. And so it is out here in the big yard, don't get sick. Heal yourself, look at the man in the mirror, remember the time....Memory is healing for memory was lost and must return as in amnesia, and our is a collective amnesia, an entire people go about their daily round deaf, dumb and blind. There are two exhibits in the Bay Area we need to see: King Tut and Africans in Mexico. Go see them and remember the time. They may help heal our social angst and shattered cultural strivings, as Dr. Hare noted.
Marvin X
We have never been in anything that can be called a normal state of mind. There has never been grief counseling from the trauma and terror of the Middle Passage, the Maafa, or quite simply the kidnapping, rape and murder of slavery and the post slavery deconstruction of our minds with the additional terror of lynching and segregation. So at no time in our history have we been anything close to sane as a people. We have used the Blues as antidote, along with Jesus and gambling, sex, but Dr. Hare has said no amount of the above will eliminate our social angst and shattered cultural striving. And then the Sisyphus syndrome: we rise and fall, strive and fail, according to our own efforts and the societal winds. Cast your fate to the wind!
Now, at the final stage of imperialism--for who wants to be a wage slave in the global "free market" economy, we find ourselves mentally disconcerted with no social security for our black behinds. The world is rapidly metamorphosing into a new economic era, new powers on the horizon, China, India, Brazil, Russia. What shall Africa do, what role shall we play--we cannot continue as wage slaves, consumers, but shall be forced to produce something of value to the global marketplace, otherwise we shall have no role in it, except, perhaps, as soldiers to defend imperialism or victims of the same with a life-estate condo in the many prisons and jails awaiting us who have outlived our usefulness.
The symbols tell the story: clothing with military patches or prison garb. That is the choice: join the war for drugs, oil, neo-slaves, or remain passive in the vice of the petrochemical and pharmaceutical globalists. Eat their food that is not food and take their medicine that is not medicine for it never heals, yet the cost is high--death is the result of this game between the petrochemical and pharmaceutical.
Only a superman and superwoman can withstand the barrage coming at us, the weak easily fall by the wayside, perplexed, hoodwinked and bamboozled. They have no understanding of what's going on, as Marvin Gaye sang--it's too complex, the nature of the problem too intense for understanding by the simple minded. We are duped by neo-colonialism in black face, the most wretched kind perfected in Africa fifty years ago and now reaching it's ultimate in America. Our ignorance of affairs throughout the Americas, the leftist winds blowing below the border we seldom hear, know or care anything about, may one day soon consume us as it sweeps up from Mexico. While we stride about with pants sagging, the hungry ones come to replace us. Cleaver said we are tired in our genes from all the work our ancestors performed, and so we shall be replaced. Or perhaps we are that crop of seeds that was a dud, of no value even as food for the pigs.
How shall we return to a sanity we never had? Some of us maintained some semblance of family life, but are not most of us dysfunctional to a high degree, though so many pretend, front, fake, as in the Great Pretender--knowing all along something is very very wrong, something stinks. We need to see the doctor, talk to someone, we need help. And yet the mental health clinic is closed, the doctor is out to lunch. Even the doctor is sick, overwhelmed by the level of severity of his patients. Listen to my voice message: 510-355-6339.
Upon enter prison for a few months, the brothers told me no matter what, don't get sick. And so it is out here in the big yard, don't get sick. Heal yourself, look at the man in the mirror, remember the time....Memory is healing for memory was lost and must return as in amnesia, and our is a collective amnesia, an entire people go about their daily round deaf, dumb and blind. There are two exhibits in the Bay Area we need to see: King Tut and Africans in Mexico. Go see them and remember the time. They may help heal our social angst and shattered cultural strivings, as Dr. Hare noted.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Love is all there is
Yes, it's all there is
a little time shared
for a moment a forever
growing tension
Impatient
giving agape
unconditional
love
years of ignorance
love persisted
ordeal by fire
rituals of life
myths bound
we know the drill
the story
we live myth
extending time
infinite
joy love happiness
it comes
we blow it
blind
unsure
a child in the garden
dreaming
acting out the myths
what happened
manhood/womanhood training
we don't kill the lion
we kill each other
such is the ritual crucifixion
resurrection
ascension.
--Marvin X
7-1-09
a little time shared
for a moment a forever
growing tension
Impatient
giving agape
unconditional
love
years of ignorance
love persisted
ordeal by fire
rituals of life
myths bound
we know the drill
the story
we live myth
extending time
infinite
joy love happiness
it comes
we blow it
blind
unsure
a child in the garden
dreaming
acting out the myths
what happened
manhood/womanhood training
we don't kill the lion
we kill each other
such is the ritual crucifixion
resurrection
ascension.
--Marvin X
7-1-09
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Get Well Soon
Wanda,
Yes, I've broken hearts and had mine broken as well. But I feel good this morning aside from soreness from the operation. I remained in the hospital until they could give me a cortisone shot for my shoulder--I can actually move my right arm this morning.
Wanda, Adaoma, Lil Joe, Fahizah, Nicole, Suzzette, Ayo, Ramal, Rashid, Phil, Ptah, Amiri, Amina, Abdul Sabri, Abdul James, Hasan James, Aubrey Labrie, Jah-D, Amira, Debbie, Judy, Ptah, Nicole (my personal assistant), Tarika Lewis and Muhammida, thank you for your love and concern. Thank all of you everywhere.
That hospital is no place to be somebody. We must pray for all of our people in hospitals throughout this land. And we should work to establish our own hospitals as a nation of fifty million people, as Elijah told us to do. In the myth of Yacoub, three people worked to create the devil: the doctor, nurse and undertaker. Poor Michael Jackson (peace be upon him--it is said he died the death of a Muslim--"Remember the Time"/"Man in the Mirror") had the doctor at his side but it didn't help. Imagine all of us who don't have a private doctor at our side. Now he is in the hands of the undertaker? What will the autopsy reveal, truth or lies?
I also want to thank Dr. Wang and my nurse, Sister J, for their kindness during this "minor" operation. Love is healing. As my favorite song Nature Boy says, the greatest thing you will ever learn is to love and be loved in return.
Peace and love,
Marvin X
From: "wsab1@aol.com"To: jmarvinx@yahoo. comSent: Wednesday, July 1, 2009 12:50:02 AMSubject: Re: [blackantiwar] Get Well MarvinGreetings Marvin:I hadn't known you were ill. I'm glad to hear you are back home and doing better. Had you had heart trouble before?Peace and Blessings,Wanda-----Original Message-----From: Marvin X Jackmon To: blackantiwar@ yahoogroups. com; amirib@aol.com; abdulsbry@yahoo. com; falim@aol.com; aubryla@comcast. net; arthur sheridan gmail.com>; shukuru@aol. com; niecwill@surewest. net; Nathan Hare ; askia38@yahoo. com; Deborah Ashay ; bbstring2@bellsouth .net; drjuliahare@ pacbell.net; goodnewspc@aol. com; rudolphlewis@ hotmail.com; Sonia Sanchez ; wordslanger@ gmail.com; WSAB1@aol.com; stagolee@mac. comSent: Tue, Jun 30, 2009 8:51 pmSubject: Re: [blackantiwar] Get Well Marvin
Thanks for your concern. I am in pain as I have been suffering a shoulder injury from a fall some months ago. Then the pacemaker was put on the right side, same as the shoulder injury--I had them put it there because I am left handed, but it put me in double pain. As a former dope fiend, I tried to suck up all the morphine in the hospital before they threw me out. If I eat at home the same servings the hospital gave me, I will surely lose some weight.
The Black Dialogue Brothers have decided to produce the University of Poetry Festival to honor Digane Joe Gonsalves, publisher if the Journal of Black Poetry.
Notes on the Journal of Black Poetry Festival
Marvin X, Chief Planner
Tentative date for the Journal of Black Poetry Festival: February, 2010.
Purpose: To give honor and respect to Brother Dingane Joe Goncalves, publisher and editor of the Journal of Black Poetry JBP. The invited poets and planners include Amiri Baraka, Askia Toure, Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Last Poets, Haki Madhubuti, Kalamu ya Salaam, Amina Baraka, Eugene Redman, Rudolph Lewis, Tureeda, Ayodele Nzinga, Naru, Ptah, Marcel Diallo, Tureeda, Ishmael Reed, Devorah Major, Al Young, Jose Angel Figerora, Nefertiti El Muhajir, Muhammida El Muhajir, Larry Ukali Johnson, Reginald Lockett, Devorah Major, Marvin X.
As per funding, we should consider that the JBP was published independently without corporate or government funding. Shall we continue this tradition of do for self with respect to funding this festival, since this project is a continuation of the cultural revolution that will impact the consciousness of participants, especially the hip hop generation. And why should we beg corporations and foundations to do for us what we should do for ourselves?
If every interested poet would donate a hundred or thousand dollars, we could pull this off independently. If poets would be willing to pay their own airfare and lodging, that would be a nice chunk out of the budget. We have a tentative facility at Oakland's Eastside Arts Center. Laney College is nearby and we expect the students at Laney's Club Knowledge to be a part of the planning to insure the hip hop generation is represented in this intergenerational gathering.
Anyway, tell me your thoughts on funding, agenda and expected outcome. Marvin X, 1222 Dwight Way, Berkeley CA 94702..
* * * * *
Journal of Black Poetry Festival
Marvin X is the chief planner of The Journal of Black Poetry Festival being organized for sometime next year. He is calling on all Pan African poets to participate. The JBP festival has the backing of founding publisher/editor Dingane Joe Goncalves. All poets who were published in the JBP are being drafted to participate. Nikki Giovanni has informed Marvin X she will contribute since her first published poem appeared in the Journal. Some of the editors included Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Askia Toure, Larry Neal, Marvin X. Contributors included Kalamu ya Salaam, Haki Madhubuti, Last Poets, Ed Bullins, and so many others it would be impossible to list.
In fact, the Journal was the chief organ of the Black Arts Movement, along with magazines Black World, Black Theatre, Black Dialogue, SoulBook, Liberator, Umbra, and a few others. See James Smethurst's The Black Arts Movement, University of North California Press. Almost anyone who was a budding poet or poet of substance appeared in the Journal, including poets from Africa and the Caribbean. Additionally, it was a communication organ of the black arts revolution, containing regional and national news on the cultural revolution.
The Journal of Black Poetry probably published more poets than any other journal in the history of American literature. Thus, we want to honor the man who single-handedly edited this critical publication of Pan African and North American African literature:Digane (Joe Goncalves). Shy and reclusive, Digane agreed to participate after Marvin X told him he would be kidnapped and brought to the festival.
Other key organizers include Eugene Redmond, Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Rudolph Lewis. If you and/or your organization would like to participate and be a listed as a supporter, please leave a note on my blog: http://marvinxwrite s.blogspot. com
The festival will probably take place in Oakland at the Eastside Arts Cultural Center, which recently hosted the 40th anniversary of the Black Panther Party, and produces the annual Malcolm X Jazz Festival.
If you have ideas on the agenda or papers, send them to the above blog. Dingane is preparing to publish an anthology of the Journal that was edited by the late poet/critic Sherley A. Williams. We know contributions are needed to publish this important anthology.. Certainly, any poet who appeared in the JBP should consider making a generous donation to the anthology. A topic of discussion should be how to publish radical literary organs to continue the cultural revolution.
Marvin
From: adaoma_o <nwaakwukwo@yahoo. com>To: blackantiwar@ yahoogroups. comSent: Tuesday, June 30, 2009 8:25:52 PMSubject: [blackantiwar] Get Well Marvin
Dearest Marvin, Its good to read from you. Thank you for letting the list know of your good recovery. I hope you take time to rest and recoup so that you will be 100%. How are you feeling? I hope that you are painfree and have loving people waiting on you hand and foot.God Bless You.With love,Adaoma---
In blackantiwar@ yahoogroups. com, Marvin X Jackmon wrote:
Marvin X was released from the hospital today after successful heart pacemaker implant. Al Humdulilah.____________ _________ _________ __
From: "Amirib@..."To: jmarvinx@...Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 11:58:14 AMSubject: (no subject)
How's your health? Phone calls saying you went in hospital for pacemaker??? Amiri B
Yes, I've broken hearts and had mine broken as well. But I feel good this morning aside from soreness from the operation. I remained in the hospital until they could give me a cortisone shot for my shoulder--I can actually move my right arm this morning.
Wanda, Adaoma, Lil Joe, Fahizah, Nicole, Suzzette, Ayo, Ramal, Rashid, Phil, Ptah, Amiri, Amina, Abdul Sabri, Abdul James, Hasan James, Aubrey Labrie, Jah-D, Amira, Debbie, Judy, Ptah, Nicole (my personal assistant), Tarika Lewis and Muhammida, thank you for your love and concern. Thank all of you everywhere.
That hospital is no place to be somebody. We must pray for all of our people in hospitals throughout this land. And we should work to establish our own hospitals as a nation of fifty million people, as Elijah told us to do. In the myth of Yacoub, three people worked to create the devil: the doctor, nurse and undertaker. Poor Michael Jackson (peace be upon him--it is said he died the death of a Muslim--"Remember the Time"/"Man in the Mirror") had the doctor at his side but it didn't help. Imagine all of us who don't have a private doctor at our side. Now he is in the hands of the undertaker? What will the autopsy reveal, truth or lies?
I also want to thank Dr. Wang and my nurse, Sister J, for their kindness during this "minor" operation. Love is healing. As my favorite song Nature Boy says, the greatest thing you will ever learn is to love and be loved in return.
Peace and love,
Marvin X
From: "wsab1@aol.com"
Thanks for your concern. I am in pain as I have been suffering a shoulder injury from a fall some months ago. Then the pacemaker was put on the right side, same as the shoulder injury--I had them put it there because I am left handed, but it put me in double pain. As a former dope fiend, I tried to suck up all the morphine in the hospital before they threw me out. If I eat at home the same servings the hospital gave me, I will surely lose some weight.
The Black Dialogue Brothers have decided to produce the University of Poetry Festival to honor Digane Joe Gonsalves, publisher if the Journal of Black Poetry.
Notes on the Journal of Black Poetry Festival
Marvin X, Chief Planner
Tentative date for the Journal of Black Poetry Festival: February, 2010.
Purpose: To give honor and respect to Brother Dingane Joe Goncalves, publisher and editor of the Journal of Black Poetry JBP. The invited poets and planners include Amiri Baraka, Askia Toure, Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Last Poets, Haki Madhubuti, Kalamu ya Salaam, Amina Baraka, Eugene Redman, Rudolph Lewis, Tureeda, Ayodele Nzinga, Naru, Ptah, Marcel Diallo, Tureeda, Ishmael Reed, Devorah Major, Al Young, Jose Angel Figerora, Nefertiti El Muhajir, Muhammida El Muhajir, Larry Ukali Johnson, Reginald Lockett, Devorah Major, Marvin X.
As per funding, we should consider that the JBP was published independently without corporate or government funding. Shall we continue this tradition of do for self with respect to funding this festival, since this project is a continuation of the cultural revolution that will impact the consciousness of participants, especially the hip hop generation. And why should we beg corporations and foundations to do for us what we should do for ourselves?
If every interested poet would donate a hundred or thousand dollars, we could pull this off independently. If poets would be willing to pay their own airfare and lodging, that would be a nice chunk out of the budget. We have a tentative facility at Oakland's Eastside Arts Center. Laney College is nearby and we expect the students at Laney's Club Knowledge to be a part of the planning to insure the hip hop generation is represented in this intergenerational gathering.
Anyway, tell me your thoughts on funding, agenda and expected outcome. Marvin X, 1222 Dwight Way, Berkeley CA 94702..
* * * * *
Journal of Black Poetry Festival
Marvin X is the chief planner of The Journal of Black Poetry Festival being organized for sometime next year. He is calling on all Pan African poets to participate. The JBP festival has the backing of founding publisher/editor Dingane Joe Goncalves. All poets who were published in the JBP are being drafted to participate. Nikki Giovanni has informed Marvin X she will contribute since her first published poem appeared in the Journal. Some of the editors included Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Askia Toure, Larry Neal, Marvin X. Contributors included Kalamu ya Salaam, Haki Madhubuti, Last Poets, Ed Bullins, and so many others it would be impossible to list.
In fact, the Journal was the chief organ of the Black Arts Movement, along with magazines Black World, Black Theatre, Black Dialogue, SoulBook, Liberator, Umbra, and a few others. See James Smethurst's The Black Arts Movement, University of North California Press. Almost anyone who was a budding poet or poet of substance appeared in the Journal, including poets from Africa and the Caribbean. Additionally, it was a communication organ of the black arts revolution, containing regional and national news on the cultural revolution.
The Journal of Black Poetry probably published more poets than any other journal in the history of American literature. Thus, we want to honor the man who single-handedly edited this critical publication of Pan African and North American African literature:Digane (Joe Goncalves). Shy and reclusive, Digane agreed to participate after Marvin X told him he would be kidnapped and brought to the festival.
Other key organizers include Eugene Redmond, Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Rudolph Lewis. If you and/or your organization would like to participate and be a listed as a supporter, please leave a note on my blog: http://marvinxwrite s.blogspot. com
The festival will probably take place in Oakland at the Eastside Arts Cultural Center, which recently hosted the 40th anniversary of the Black Panther Party, and produces the annual Malcolm X Jazz Festival.
If you have ideas on the agenda or papers, send them to the above blog. Dingane is preparing to publish an anthology of the Journal that was edited by the late poet/critic Sherley A. Williams. We know contributions are needed to publish this important anthology.. Certainly, any poet who appeared in the JBP should consider making a generous donation to the anthology. A topic of discussion should be how to publish radical literary organs to continue the cultural revolution.
Marvin
From: adaoma_o <nwaakwukwo@yahoo. com>To: blackantiwar@ yahoogroups. comSent: Tuesday, June 30, 2009 8:25:52 PMSubject: [blackantiwar] Get Well Marvin
Dearest Marvin, Its good to read from you. Thank you for letting the list know of your good recovery. I hope you take time to rest and recoup so that you will be 100%. How are you feeling? I hope that you are painfree and have loving people waiting on you hand and foot.God Bless You.With love,Adaoma---
In blackantiwar@ yahoogroups. com, Marvin X Jackmon
Marvin X was released from the hospital today after successful heart pacemaker implant. Al Humdulilah.____________ _________ _________ __
From: "Amirib@..."
How's your health? Phone calls saying you went in hospital for pacemaker??? Amiri B
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