Part Twelve: My Friend the Devil
Marvin X
From afar it looked like things were really jumping in Algiers, including several hijacked planes bringing Panthers to the land. We recall when a group of Panthers arrived with a million dollars but were seized by the authorities because it conflicted with their national interests which all governments secure first. In this case the government was negotiating a billion dollar natural gas contract with the US so they were not going to jeopardize the contract for Negroes with a million dollars. Of course this only added tension and stress to the relationship between the BPP and Algeria, and eventually the embassy closed and the Cleavers moved to France. After seducing the mistress of the president of France, Eldridge was given refugee status after she intervened with her man, the Prez. And then things began to unravel in the Soul on Ice. According to his testimony when he converted to Christianity, Cleaver had been slowing evolving from atheistic Communism. He saw the work of God in his children, how they were a combination of Kathleen and himself. And in France he saw the emptiness in their lives, the daily ritual of eating, sleeping and politics began to lose meaning. He saw darkness in his life, especially one night while eating dinner by candlelight. He had also been to all the Communist and Socialist countries and saw the lack of democratic ideals, where little or no opposition was allowed, only presidents for life. He knew of the torture chambers in many African nations, never forgetting his eighteen years in USA dungeons. But he began to grow disillusioned with left wing politics, in short, he was homesick and broke. In Algeria he was informed that his former lawyer/lover Beverly Axelrod had won by default his royalties from Soul on Ice. He had agreed to share his royalties with her as the price of her helping him get out of Soledad prison. And of course he had promised to marry her but instead fell in love with Kathleen. After winning her suit by default since he could not appear in court in the US, Axelrod gained
rights to the best seller's profits, depriving the Cleavers of much needed finance. Strangely, the day before his memorial service that I officiated in Oakland, a mudslide toppled Axelrod's home in Pacifica. I did not know she was in the audience until I looked at footage of the video from the memorial.
Cleaver began his attempt to return home. He contacted his old friends on the left, but he had caused such devastation in the radical community, especially by terrorizing certain black politicians and the warfare between Huey and himself that left much bloodshed on the streets of America, coast to coast. Eventually the Left sent Ron Dellums, Congressman and now mayor of Oakland to Paris with the message he was not welcome back in America, that he should forget about returning and enjoy his life in France, become a Frenchman. This message sent him into depression. After the Dellums visit, he felt hopeless and useless and wanted to take his life. And then one night in Southern France, he was sitting on the balcony watching the moon. Suddenly he saw the faces of various revolutionaries, Marx, Lenin, Mao, Castro and then Jesus. He broke down, wailing on the thrashing floor. He knew Kathleen had brought along the family Bible, before which he had no need, but he said he searched for the Bible and held it in his hands for dear life. And then he saw the light, something told him he was going home, no matter what the Left said, no matter what anyone said. He knew then Jesus was his Savior and Lord. No more Communism, no more revolution. The storm was over now. He had his attorney begin negotiations on his surrender to the US authorities.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Part Eleven: My Friend the Devil
Marvin X
Of course it wasn't uniforms that made the Panthers shake up the world, but the presence of armed black men and women on the streets of America, which took armed struggle in black liberation to another level, although there was resistance to slavery every day of the centuries we were kidnapped and terrorized on American soil (see the History Channel's documentary Slave Catchers and Resisters). There had been black men and women who took up arms against racism and white supremacy in the South, e.g., Deacons for Defense in Louisiana and of course Robert Williams in North Carolina. While in Houston, we visited the Museum of the Buffalo Soldiers and were especially moved by the 1916 revolt of black soldiers, most of whom were hanged after they avenged the murder of a soldier by racist police in Houston. We wonder why resistance history is not the primary lesson in Black Studies. But the BPP's "street theatre" told the world black men and women had had enough and would fight to the death to defend themselves. This is the significance of the Panthers, that they were willing to defend community at the pain of death, or as we used to say, "No slave should die a natural death."
And of course the cultural revolution backed resistance. Ben Caldwell's play The Job is about a Negro who came to the employment office to say he didn't come looking for a job but came to do a job. He proceded to beat the white employment couselor to death with a baseball bat. Maybe we can understand Mixon of Oakland in this light: all he wanted was a job, yet he obviously came to do a job--we don't know his ideology but we know he was clearly in Al Ansar territory, a Muslim cult founded by a former criminal renamed Master J, who taught his followers from Supreme Wisdom. Nation of Islam Muslims, Five Percenters, Al Ansar and other off shoots of NOI teachings know it is basic teachings to kill four devils, earning one a free trip to Mecca or instant Paradise. Here in the Bay we had the Zebra killings who executed this lesson from Supreme Wisdom. In the early days of the NOI in Detroit, a brother came to the Mosque with a paper bag, telling the minister, "I got me one." He had a white devil's head inside the bag. And in the Bay Area there a innumerable young brothers like Mixon who are steeped in the Al Ansar teachings. As they say here in Houston, "You better ax somebody!"
What I must say about Eldridge, Huey and so many other Panthers who were from the grass roots, and we can say this about the founding members of the Nation of Islam, including and especially Malcolm X (may Allah forever be pleased with him) that Allah went to the lowest of the low to get the people needed to rock the Good Ship Jesus America. The edumaked Negroes wanted to do everything except confront the American beast toe to toe, gun to gun. When Huey Newton confronted that pig shotgun to shotgun, there was a paradigm shift in the history of African liberation, especially after the demise of MLK,Jr and the Civil "Rites" movement. And with respect to Muslims in the Nation of Islam, officials said to me, "We might not carry weapons but we bury weapons." Of course there were instances when Muslims engaged in "armed struggle" as well. When I asked Huey Newton about his connection to the Nation of Islam, he said, "A Party can be part of a Nation." And of course the BPP was not lost on the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. He considered the BPP his children, after all they copied his program almost word for word. Compare What the Muslims Want and the Panther Ten Point Program. When I jammed Bobby Seale about this, he went into denial that the Muslims had any influence on the BPP. But when I asked what about the influence of Malcolm X, he was silent and submitted that certainly the NOI influenced the BPP.
But let us get back to Algeria and Papa Rage. We were told on a trip to cohabitate with European women, Cleaver was somehow informed Kathleen had a boyfriend named Rahim. When Papa Rage found out about this, Mr. Rahim went missing in the Algerian desert. The Panther newspaper back in the USA showed photos of Kathleen with black eyes from Papa Rage. Chris Brown and Rihanna are not the first high profile couples who engaged in domestic violence. One of the contradictions of the black liberation movement was our internal violence, especially domestic violence. We talked black power but often went home to beat our women's asses, and this was not lost on the children, many of whom were traumatized as a result and went on to practice this savage art, including members of the hip hop generation. Sonia Sanchez likes to say the hip hop generation is merely putting on stage what we did in private. If you want a literary version of domestic or partner violence see Sonia's great book Wounded in the House of A Friend or my play In the Name of Love, especially the poem Confession of an Ex-Wife Beater.
Now we must bring in Cointelpro at this time because J. Edgar Hoover is clearly in this picture. He had FBI agents writing letters to Kathleen in the persona of a "black sister" informing her of the infidelities of Eldridge, just as the FBI sent tapes of hotel conversations between our beloved Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in hotels with women to his wife.
This was done to purposely destroy the family life of black revolutionaries, whether Civil "Rites" leaders as King or revolutionaries like Eldridge. The FBI wrote letters in Black English to create division in the ranks of black revolutinaries. And we reacted according to script. Huey and Eldridge had been driven by FBI division or "dirty tricks" into a war against each other, ultimately creating two armies of black men and women who fought each other coast to coast, with Eldridge's army on the east coast and Huey's on the west. As I've said before, I knew brothers and sisters on both sides of this conflict and it hurt me because so many friends went down in the internecine violence, Samuel Napier being the worst example, since I remember the day he came into Black House as a worker looking for something to do, or in the words of James Brown, to "Get Involved." Samuel was murdered in New York then set afire. Lord have Mercy!
Marvin X
Of course it wasn't uniforms that made the Panthers shake up the world, but the presence of armed black men and women on the streets of America, which took armed struggle in black liberation to another level, although there was resistance to slavery every day of the centuries we were kidnapped and terrorized on American soil (see the History Channel's documentary Slave Catchers and Resisters). There had been black men and women who took up arms against racism and white supremacy in the South, e.g., Deacons for Defense in Louisiana and of course Robert Williams in North Carolina. While in Houston, we visited the Museum of the Buffalo Soldiers and were especially moved by the 1916 revolt of black soldiers, most of whom were hanged after they avenged the murder of a soldier by racist police in Houston. We wonder why resistance history is not the primary lesson in Black Studies. But the BPP's "street theatre" told the world black men and women had had enough and would fight to the death to defend themselves. This is the significance of the Panthers, that they were willing to defend community at the pain of death, or as we used to say, "No slave should die a natural death."
And of course the cultural revolution backed resistance. Ben Caldwell's play The Job is about a Negro who came to the employment office to say he didn't come looking for a job but came to do a job. He proceded to beat the white employment couselor to death with a baseball bat. Maybe we can understand Mixon of Oakland in this light: all he wanted was a job, yet he obviously came to do a job--we don't know his ideology but we know he was clearly in Al Ansar territory, a Muslim cult founded by a former criminal renamed Master J, who taught his followers from Supreme Wisdom. Nation of Islam Muslims, Five Percenters, Al Ansar and other off shoots of NOI teachings know it is basic teachings to kill four devils, earning one a free trip to Mecca or instant Paradise. Here in the Bay we had the Zebra killings who executed this lesson from Supreme Wisdom. In the early days of the NOI in Detroit, a brother came to the Mosque with a paper bag, telling the minister, "I got me one." He had a white devil's head inside the bag. And in the Bay Area there a innumerable young brothers like Mixon who are steeped in the Al Ansar teachings. As they say here in Houston, "You better ax somebody!"
What I must say about Eldridge, Huey and so many other Panthers who were from the grass roots, and we can say this about the founding members of the Nation of Islam, including and especially Malcolm X (may Allah forever be pleased with him) that Allah went to the lowest of the low to get the people needed to rock the Good Ship Jesus America. The edumaked Negroes wanted to do everything except confront the American beast toe to toe, gun to gun. When Huey Newton confronted that pig shotgun to shotgun, there was a paradigm shift in the history of African liberation, especially after the demise of MLK,Jr and the Civil "Rites" movement. And with respect to Muslims in the Nation of Islam, officials said to me, "We might not carry weapons but we bury weapons." Of course there were instances when Muslims engaged in "armed struggle" as well. When I asked Huey Newton about his connection to the Nation of Islam, he said, "A Party can be part of a Nation." And of course the BPP was not lost on the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. He considered the BPP his children, after all they copied his program almost word for word. Compare What the Muslims Want and the Panther Ten Point Program. When I jammed Bobby Seale about this, he went into denial that the Muslims had any influence on the BPP. But when I asked what about the influence of Malcolm X, he was silent and submitted that certainly the NOI influenced the BPP.
But let us get back to Algeria and Papa Rage. We were told on a trip to cohabitate with European women, Cleaver was somehow informed Kathleen had a boyfriend named Rahim. When Papa Rage found out about this, Mr. Rahim went missing in the Algerian desert. The Panther newspaper back in the USA showed photos of Kathleen with black eyes from Papa Rage. Chris Brown and Rihanna are not the first high profile couples who engaged in domestic violence. One of the contradictions of the black liberation movement was our internal violence, especially domestic violence. We talked black power but often went home to beat our women's asses, and this was not lost on the children, many of whom were traumatized as a result and went on to practice this savage art, including members of the hip hop generation. Sonia Sanchez likes to say the hip hop generation is merely putting on stage what we did in private. If you want a literary version of domestic or partner violence see Sonia's great book Wounded in the House of A Friend or my play In the Name of Love, especially the poem Confession of an Ex-Wife Beater.
Now we must bring in Cointelpro at this time because J. Edgar Hoover is clearly in this picture. He had FBI agents writing letters to Kathleen in the persona of a "black sister" informing her of the infidelities of Eldridge, just as the FBI sent tapes of hotel conversations between our beloved Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in hotels with women to his wife.
This was done to purposely destroy the family life of black revolutionaries, whether Civil "Rites" leaders as King or revolutionaries like Eldridge. The FBI wrote letters in Black English to create division in the ranks of black revolutinaries. And we reacted according to script. Huey and Eldridge had been driven by FBI division or "dirty tricks" into a war against each other, ultimately creating two armies of black men and women who fought each other coast to coast, with Eldridge's army on the east coast and Huey's on the west. As I've said before, I knew brothers and sisters on both sides of this conflict and it hurt me because so many friends went down in the internecine violence, Samuel Napier being the worst example, since I remember the day he came into Black House as a worker looking for something to do, or in the words of James Brown, to "Get Involved." Samuel was murdered in New York then set afire. Lord have Mercy!
Part Ten: My Friend the Devil
Marvin X
Marcus Garvey Park would be the last time I'd see Cleaver for several years. Even though I'd found his speech about Fannie Lou Hamer disgusting then because of my Islamic Puritanism at the time, today I would agree with Cleaver in bowing down at the altar of Fannie Lou, that great revolutionary woman from the Southern liberation movement who challenged the Democratic party for its unabashed racism at the time. Yes, Cleaver, I would kiss her pussy too! In his utter madness but searing insight, Eldridge said, "Nine out of ten women are an insult to a dick." So Fannie Lou Hamer was that one out of ten women who deserved praise and honor for valor and steadfastness in the face of brutal white racist savages in the South.
It must have been not long after his New York speech that Cleaver returned to California to face charges for the shootout with the OPD, or maybe he was supposed to turn himself in as a parole violator but instead he donned the persona of a woman and slipped out of his house in San Francisco to reappear in Castro's Cuba. In Cuba he soon discovered the role of Afro-Cubans in the history of revolutionary struggle in their land. Brother Carlos Moore had written about the African role in the Cuban liberation struggle. And it was in the eastern or African province of Cuba that the revolution began. Cleaver learned the white Cubans took over the leadership from the Afro-Cubans. He would name his son after the great Afro-Cuban revolutionary leader, Antonio Maceo. Of course Robert F. Williams (Negro's With Guns and leader of the Revolutionary Action Movement or RAM) had preceded Cleaver in exile on the island. Williams had grown somewhat disillusioned with the Cuban revolution and slipped away to China. Cleaver said after associating with the Afro-Cubans and telling them about Black Power, the Cuban government grew suspicious of the Panthers and basically wanted them to stop spreading the ideology of Black Power. Eldridge said they had to arm themselves with AK47s against the Cuban government when they attempted to put the Panthers in check. At the time Castro was pushing the line that all Cubans were one, negating any special emphasis of Africa or Afro-Cubanism. This attitude changed when Cuba decided to help Angola by sending troops to fight the colonialists. Suddenly, Cuba fully recognized her Africanity and solidarity with the African revolution. Many Cuban troops died fighting in Angola and confronting the apartheid regime in South Africa which supported the reactionary forces in Namibia.
Eldridge slipped out of Cuba after blasting Castro's Latin racism, but this was Cleaver's MO: to submerge himself into a phenomenon, study it then expose its contradictions. We will see this pattern as my narrative continues. He will go from being a Muslim in prison to Communist to Panther to Christian to Moonie to Mormon to Republican to Science of Mind to Crack Head. His life ended before he was able to deconstruct Crack.
He arrived in Algeria and the Panthers were soon given diplomatic status as the representative of the North American African peoples. Eventually the Panthers were given a building that had previously housed the North Vietnam or Viet Cong embassy--if I'm correct. Thus the BPP was now international and recognized around the world as a national liberation movement. With diplomatic status, the International Section of the BPP was able to meet and greet diplomats from other national liberation movements around the world, including the PLO, the Chinese, North Koreans and liberation movements throughout Africa. Cleaver traveled throughout the world as a diplomat of the North American African nation. Kathleen had arrived in Algeria just in time to give birth to their son, Antonio Maceo Eldrdige Cleaver. Their daughter, Joju would be born while on a visit to North Korea.
It was in Algeria that the BPP had to be taught the role of culture in revolution. After the Algerian International Cultural Festival, the BPP stopped slamming the cultural revolution in America because along with armed struggle there must be a cultural revolution. And as I have written, the BPP had evolved from the Black Arts Movement. Panther leadership had received consciousness in BAM, including Cleaver, Bobby Seale, Emory, Sam Napier, George Murray, et al. They had come through Black House, BAW and the BSU's Communication Project, directed by Amiri Baraka when he was at San Francisco State College/University.
Huey Newton had often said I taught him things, but the only thing I may have taught Huey was street theatre which Black Arts West and Baraka's Black Arts Repertory School in Harlem demonstrated. The BPP took street theatre to its highest level when the Panthers donned their uniform of black berets, black leather jackets and blue shirts.
Marvin X
Marcus Garvey Park would be the last time I'd see Cleaver for several years. Even though I'd found his speech about Fannie Lou Hamer disgusting then because of my Islamic Puritanism at the time, today I would agree with Cleaver in bowing down at the altar of Fannie Lou, that great revolutionary woman from the Southern liberation movement who challenged the Democratic party for its unabashed racism at the time. Yes, Cleaver, I would kiss her pussy too! In his utter madness but searing insight, Eldridge said, "Nine out of ten women are an insult to a dick." So Fannie Lou Hamer was that one out of ten women who deserved praise and honor for valor and steadfastness in the face of brutal white racist savages in the South.
It must have been not long after his New York speech that Cleaver returned to California to face charges for the shootout with the OPD, or maybe he was supposed to turn himself in as a parole violator but instead he donned the persona of a woman and slipped out of his house in San Francisco to reappear in Castro's Cuba. In Cuba he soon discovered the role of Afro-Cubans in the history of revolutionary struggle in their land. Brother Carlos Moore had written about the African role in the Cuban liberation struggle. And it was in the eastern or African province of Cuba that the revolution began. Cleaver learned the white Cubans took over the leadership from the Afro-Cubans. He would name his son after the great Afro-Cuban revolutionary leader, Antonio Maceo. Of course Robert F. Williams (Negro's With Guns and leader of the Revolutionary Action Movement or RAM) had preceded Cleaver in exile on the island. Williams had grown somewhat disillusioned with the Cuban revolution and slipped away to China. Cleaver said after associating with the Afro-Cubans and telling them about Black Power, the Cuban government grew suspicious of the Panthers and basically wanted them to stop spreading the ideology of Black Power. Eldridge said they had to arm themselves with AK47s against the Cuban government when they attempted to put the Panthers in check. At the time Castro was pushing the line that all Cubans were one, negating any special emphasis of Africa or Afro-Cubanism. This attitude changed when Cuba decided to help Angola by sending troops to fight the colonialists. Suddenly, Cuba fully recognized her Africanity and solidarity with the African revolution. Many Cuban troops died fighting in Angola and confronting the apartheid regime in South Africa which supported the reactionary forces in Namibia.
Eldridge slipped out of Cuba after blasting Castro's Latin racism, but this was Cleaver's MO: to submerge himself into a phenomenon, study it then expose its contradictions. We will see this pattern as my narrative continues. He will go from being a Muslim in prison to Communist to Panther to Christian to Moonie to Mormon to Republican to Science of Mind to Crack Head. His life ended before he was able to deconstruct Crack.
He arrived in Algeria and the Panthers were soon given diplomatic status as the representative of the North American African peoples. Eventually the Panthers were given a building that had previously housed the North Vietnam or Viet Cong embassy--if I'm correct. Thus the BPP was now international and recognized around the world as a national liberation movement. With diplomatic status, the International Section of the BPP was able to meet and greet diplomats from other national liberation movements around the world, including the PLO, the Chinese, North Koreans and liberation movements throughout Africa. Cleaver traveled throughout the world as a diplomat of the North American African nation. Kathleen had arrived in Algeria just in time to give birth to their son, Antonio Maceo Eldrdige Cleaver. Their daughter, Joju would be born while on a visit to North Korea.
It was in Algeria that the BPP had to be taught the role of culture in revolution. After the Algerian International Cultural Festival, the BPP stopped slamming the cultural revolution in America because along with armed struggle there must be a cultural revolution. And as I have written, the BPP had evolved from the Black Arts Movement. Panther leadership had received consciousness in BAM, including Cleaver, Bobby Seale, Emory, Sam Napier, George Murray, et al. They had come through Black House, BAW and the BSU's Communication Project, directed by Amiri Baraka when he was at San Francisco State College/University.
Huey Newton had often said I taught him things, but the only thing I may have taught Huey was street theatre which Black Arts West and Baraka's Black Arts Repertory School in Harlem demonstrated. The BPP took street theatre to its highest level when the Panthers donned their uniform of black berets, black leather jackets and blue shirts.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Part Nine: My Friend the Devil
Marvin X
The next time I see Cleaver is in Mount Morris Park, renamed Marcus Garvey Park, in Harlem. I was now a resident of Harlem, or at least a worker in Harlem, while living in the Bronx with playwright Ed Bullins, after slipping into Harlem from Chicago after the assassination of MLK, Jr. Yes, I came up out of the subway at eight avenue, that subway made so famous by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn in their tune Take The A Train. I came up into a sweltering Harlem summer of heat, sweat and funk, a love funk so beautiful that I never imagined such a happening after seeing so many beautiful black people--Chicago was great and there is nothing like Chicago, especially the South side, but Harlem, the capital of Black America, the ground that Malcolm X walked upon, and Duke, Billie, Bassie, Parker, Apollo Theatre, awesome power of my people, the East coast version of what I'd experienced in Oakland on Seventh Street, Harlem of the West. Seventh Street was a small version of what was before my eyes, a sea, a wonderland of Black people from over the world, Africa. Nigeria, Lagos,Ghana, Senegal, South Africa, Malawi, Kenya, the Caribbean, Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, all there swimming in blackness. And I among them now, a negro from Cali swimming in the sea of my people, loving every moment, under the guidance of Askia Toure, my elder and teacher, telling me about the Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, telling me more about the Sufi teaching of Hazrat Inayat Khan, Rumi, Ghazali and others, about the MuKhadimah of Ibn Khaldun and other Sufi and Islamic masters. And then there was Sun Ra, the master of all masters, my teacher, mentor, friend and guide, who taught me all that one ever needed to know about theatre, the master teacher of BAM, who told us about traveling the space ways, and Milford Graves, master drummer who was so powerful he was banned from downtown, too aggressive, too arrogant, too too too, Milford, my main man, and the Last Poets coming together to take us to the next level into Rap, Abiodun, Ben Hasan, Geylen Kayne, David and Filipe, Barbara Ann Teer and the New Lafayette Theatre, Ed Bullins and Robert Macbeth and crew,the Yoruba king, Baba Serjiman, who moved to Sheldon, South Carolina, Olatunji, master drummer of Nigeria, all there in the Harlem madness and joy, Amiri Baraka, gone home to Newark but slipping back into Harlem to continue his light with Larry Neal, Askia and crew, sane and insane, enjoying the madness of Harlem summer 68, Nikki, Sonia, Haki, June Jordan, Pharaoh Sanders, Archie Shepp and the Ayler brothers, and more, more, Farrakhan at Mosque #7, Akbar Muhammad and Donald Cunningham at the book store, the book store of the world at 125th and 7th Aveneue, Mr. what was his name, the master book seller? Harlem, 1969, a dream come true for a Cali Negro, swimming in the sea of his people. Fuck Vietnam and Fuck America. And there was Cleaver in Mount Morris Park saying he would kiss the pussy of Fannie Lou Hamer as I stood and watched. And Bobby Seale was at 125th and 7th Avenue, reciting my poem Burn, Baby, Burn, and James Foreman trying to lecture to the people on Franz Fanon, and on and on and on. And Dr. Ben and John Henry Clarke rapping on history and consciousness and beyond, etc.,etc.,etc.
Marvin X
The next time I see Cleaver is in Mount Morris Park, renamed Marcus Garvey Park, in Harlem. I was now a resident of Harlem, or at least a worker in Harlem, while living in the Bronx with playwright Ed Bullins, after slipping into Harlem from Chicago after the assassination of MLK, Jr. Yes, I came up out of the subway at eight avenue, that subway made so famous by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn in their tune Take The A Train. I came up into a sweltering Harlem summer of heat, sweat and funk, a love funk so beautiful that I never imagined such a happening after seeing so many beautiful black people--Chicago was great and there is nothing like Chicago, especially the South side, but Harlem, the capital of Black America, the ground that Malcolm X walked upon, and Duke, Billie, Bassie, Parker, Apollo Theatre, awesome power of my people, the East coast version of what I'd experienced in Oakland on Seventh Street, Harlem of the West. Seventh Street was a small version of what was before my eyes, a sea, a wonderland of Black people from over the world, Africa. Nigeria, Lagos,Ghana, Senegal, South Africa, Malawi, Kenya, the Caribbean, Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, all there swimming in blackness. And I among them now, a negro from Cali swimming in the sea of my people, loving every moment, under the guidance of Askia Toure, my elder and teacher, telling me about the Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, telling me more about the Sufi teaching of Hazrat Inayat Khan, Rumi, Ghazali and others, about the MuKhadimah of Ibn Khaldun and other Sufi and Islamic masters. And then there was Sun Ra, the master of all masters, my teacher, mentor, friend and guide, who taught me all that one ever needed to know about theatre, the master teacher of BAM, who told us about traveling the space ways, and Milford Graves, master drummer who was so powerful he was banned from downtown, too aggressive, too arrogant, too too too, Milford, my main man, and the Last Poets coming together to take us to the next level into Rap, Abiodun, Ben Hasan, Geylen Kayne, David and Filipe, Barbara Ann Teer and the New Lafayette Theatre, Ed Bullins and Robert Macbeth and crew,the Yoruba king, Baba Serjiman, who moved to Sheldon, South Carolina, Olatunji, master drummer of Nigeria, all there in the Harlem madness and joy, Amiri Baraka, gone home to Newark but slipping back into Harlem to continue his light with Larry Neal, Askia and crew, sane and insane, enjoying the madness of Harlem summer 68, Nikki, Sonia, Haki, June Jordan, Pharaoh Sanders, Archie Shepp and the Ayler brothers, and more, more, Farrakhan at Mosque #7, Akbar Muhammad and Donald Cunningham at the book store, the book store of the world at 125th and 7th Aveneue, Mr. what was his name, the master book seller? Harlem, 1969, a dream come true for a Cali Negro, swimming in the sea of his people. Fuck Vietnam and Fuck America. And there was Cleaver in Mount Morris Park saying he would kiss the pussy of Fannie Lou Hamer as I stood and watched. And Bobby Seale was at 125th and 7th Avenue, reciting my poem Burn, Baby, Burn, and James Foreman trying to lecture to the people on Franz Fanon, and on and on and on. And Dr. Ben and John Henry Clarke rapping on history and consciousness and beyond, etc.,etc.,etc.
Part Eight: My Friend the Devil
Marvin X
We discovered racism was as Canadian as hockey—and they play a lot of hockey in Canada, you can see children on the street playing hockey barefoot in the snow. As Austin Clarke explained in an interview, Canada may not have been involved in the slave trade and she might not have had colonies, but West Indian women workers described the journey from the Caribbean islands to Canada as the Middle Passage. And upon arrival they immediately became indentured servants with few rights of protest to harsh working conditions. One need only read the novels and short stories of Austin Clarke and others to get a taste of racial conditions in Canada. We made the mistake of not understanding racial dynamics when he held a rally at a West Indian night club and referred to the white women as snakes. Little did we know how many biracial children were in the audience, and they reacted to our racial insensitivity. After six months, I had enough of Canada, in fact I had renounced my US citizenship before the American consulate, having had enough of America as well. A fat man gave me a ride to Ottawa to tried to go to a Third World or Communist country. This same fat white man claimed he had helped Robert F. Williams escape to Cuba when he fled North Carolina ahead of lynch mobs because he advocated Negroes With Guns. A fat white man was also supposed to have helped James Earl Ray escape from Canada to England after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Well, we know there are some people who work both sides of the fence, from the right to the left.
After six months I made plans to return underground to the United States. I was homesick especially after receiving a letter from Ethna telling me about the Black Arts scene in Chicago, even sending me a book signed by a poet named Don L. Lee (Haki Madhubuti).
His book inspired me to pack up and make my way across the border to Detroit, where I was greeted by historian Harold G. Lawrence and Ahmed Alhamisi, editors of an anthology on BAM. From Detroit I slipped into Chicago where I worked under an assumed name in the Loop, eventually moving from the North side with Ethna’s sister to a room on the South side, 57th and Kimbark, Blackstone Ranger gang territory, walking home nightly knowing my life was in danger but having no fear, and there was never any incident between myself and the gang bangers. But one day there was a note on my door from Ethna’s sister saying the FBI had been to her house looking for me. I knew it was time to raise up from Chicago, but I didn’t get out of there fast enough. August 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated and America became a house on fire when North American Africans reacted nationwide with righteous indignation at the demise of King and his forever-gone era of non-violence. Cities burned coast to coast and Chicago was no exception: the West side went up in flames. When I got up early the next morning to go to work in the Loop, the South side was under National Guard occupation, with soldiers in jeeps, tanks, and military trucks manning intersections, especially along Cottage Grove, a main drive.
Four days later, we heard the news from California that the Panthers had a shootout with Oakland police in which Lil Bobby Hutton was murdered in cold blood and Eldridge Cleaver wounded. From his long experience in the California prison system, Cleaver knew when in confrontation with authorities you come out butt naked. The young hero of revolution, Lil Bobby probably had too much pride to come out naked and when he appeared from the house on 28th and Magnolia, the OPD murdered him in cold blood after he surrendered. The people released a cry of horror at what they witnessed. During the shootout other Panthers had threw down their guns and ran. One Panther leader was found by police hiding under a bed in a woman’s house. This cowardice is not unknown in revolutionary history. There were soldiers who turned heels and ran while fighting battles with Prophet Muhammad of Arabia 1400 years ago. As I wrote in a song, “Revolution is not a pretty thing..” What is worth nothing is that Eldridge told me after the assassination of MLK,Jr., suddenly black men appeared at the Panther office crying for guns to avenge the death of King. He described them as too clean for brothers in the hood. He said they had the look of military men disguised as common brothers from the community. We know Cointelpro or the FBI’s counter intelligence program was in full swing during this time. Furthermore, if anyone had anything to do with the assassination of Dr. King it was the FBI—see BET’s documentary of J. Edgar Hoover in the American Gangster series.
Marvin X
We discovered racism was as Canadian as hockey—and they play a lot of hockey in Canada, you can see children on the street playing hockey barefoot in the snow. As Austin Clarke explained in an interview, Canada may not have been involved in the slave trade and she might not have had colonies, but West Indian women workers described the journey from the Caribbean islands to Canada as the Middle Passage. And upon arrival they immediately became indentured servants with few rights of protest to harsh working conditions. One need only read the novels and short stories of Austin Clarke and others to get a taste of racial conditions in Canada. We made the mistake of not understanding racial dynamics when he held a rally at a West Indian night club and referred to the white women as snakes. Little did we know how many biracial children were in the audience, and they reacted to our racial insensitivity. After six months, I had enough of Canada, in fact I had renounced my US citizenship before the American consulate, having had enough of America as well. A fat man gave me a ride to Ottawa to tried to go to a Third World or Communist country. This same fat white man claimed he had helped Robert F. Williams escape to Cuba when he fled North Carolina ahead of lynch mobs because he advocated Negroes With Guns. A fat white man was also supposed to have helped James Earl Ray escape from Canada to England after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Well, we know there are some people who work both sides of the fence, from the right to the left.
After six months I made plans to return underground to the United States. I was homesick especially after receiving a letter from Ethna telling me about the Black Arts scene in Chicago, even sending me a book signed by a poet named Don L. Lee (Haki Madhubuti).
His book inspired me to pack up and make my way across the border to Detroit, where I was greeted by historian Harold G. Lawrence and Ahmed Alhamisi, editors of an anthology on BAM. From Detroit I slipped into Chicago where I worked under an assumed name in the Loop, eventually moving from the North side with Ethna’s sister to a room on the South side, 57th and Kimbark, Blackstone Ranger gang territory, walking home nightly knowing my life was in danger but having no fear, and there was never any incident between myself and the gang bangers. But one day there was a note on my door from Ethna’s sister saying the FBI had been to her house looking for me. I knew it was time to raise up from Chicago, but I didn’t get out of there fast enough. August 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated and America became a house on fire when North American Africans reacted nationwide with righteous indignation at the demise of King and his forever-gone era of non-violence. Cities burned coast to coast and Chicago was no exception: the West side went up in flames. When I got up early the next morning to go to work in the Loop, the South side was under National Guard occupation, with soldiers in jeeps, tanks, and military trucks manning intersections, especially along Cottage Grove, a main drive.
Four days later, we heard the news from California that the Panthers had a shootout with Oakland police in which Lil Bobby Hutton was murdered in cold blood and Eldridge Cleaver wounded. From his long experience in the California prison system, Cleaver knew when in confrontation with authorities you come out butt naked. The young hero of revolution, Lil Bobby probably had too much pride to come out naked and when he appeared from the house on 28th and Magnolia, the OPD murdered him in cold blood after he surrendered. The people released a cry of horror at what they witnessed. During the shootout other Panthers had threw down their guns and ran. One Panther leader was found by police hiding under a bed in a woman’s house. This cowardice is not unknown in revolutionary history. There were soldiers who turned heels and ran while fighting battles with Prophet Muhammad of Arabia 1400 years ago. As I wrote in a song, “Revolution is not a pretty thing..” What is worth nothing is that Eldridge told me after the assassination of MLK,Jr., suddenly black men appeared at the Panther office crying for guns to avenge the death of King. He described them as too clean for brothers in the hood. He said they had the look of military men disguised as common brothers from the community. We know Cointelpro or the FBI’s counter intelligence program was in full swing during this time. Furthermore, if anyone had anything to do with the assassination of Dr. King it was the FBI—see BET’s documentary of J. Edgar Hoover in the American Gangster series.
Rudy Lewis on My Friend the Devil, Part Eight
Marvin,
1967-1968 was a defining period for me as well. I was a student at Morgan State College in Baltimore . I had finished ROTC, which was mandatory at all public Negro colleges for freshmen and sophomore males, with plans of going into the junior program and onto becoming a second lieutenant. The Vietnam war was heating up.
The summer of 1967 changed all that. I was schooled by a Baltimore public librarian who had graduated from Hampton . She put me on a program of readings. That fall Stokely came to Morgan. Up from the country of Southside Virginia , I had never heard a black man speak like that in public, about white people. Other SNCC representatives came to campus. There was an active anti-war group on campus DISSENT. Students were burning their draft cards. I joined Baltimore SNCC, which was then headed by Bob Moore who had come up from Atlanta . But he was a native of Baltimore .
Spring semester came and I dropped out Morgan to join the Revolution. LeRoi Jones came to town invited by the Soul School . Maybe he had become Amiri Baraka by then, I can't remember. I can't recall whether it was before the assassination or after. But I rode with the little general across town to a party on the East side sponsored by VISTA workers after he and his troupe had put a play on at a local church. Stokely was there, as well as other noted persons in the movement.
My student deferment was soon moved up to 1 A, from 2 A. I carried on a protracted struggle with the draft board, first declaring myself a conscientious objector. After appeal I was finally required to report to Fort Hollabird , the local draft induction center. I passed leaflets out on the base. No one attempted to stop me. I was non cooperative with the paper work and the medical exams. After three days, they finally declared me unfit and was handed a 1 Y, unfit physically and mentally for military service. I was committed to not going into the service and would have done whatever was necessary. That was a 180 degree swing from May 1967.
After the death of King we were committed to closing down stores to honor King's death. This campaign inadvertently led to rioting in a black shopping district on gay Street in East Baltimore . That rioting spread like wildfire from one black shopping center to the next. Eventually the National Guard was brought into Baltimore and curfews were announced. The jails became so full that the Civic Center at Baltimore and Howard streets was used to detain young angry blacks.
The Baltimore Rebellion radicalized the entire city. Every Negro became black instantly. That argument was brought to an end. Every bougie Negro became a militant. This was when Spiro Agnew was governor of Maryland . His so called handling of Negro leadership led him to become vice president to Richard Nixon, and later to disgrace.
This radicalization of the city was ripe for 1199, a New York based health care workers union. In less than a year we organized a 5,000-member trade union, mostly women. Black candidates for office grew by leaps and bounds. Through the 70s Black Baltimore never looked back. Then came the 80s and retrenchment. The Uncle Toms wheeler-dealers were resurrected and betrayal of the masses was the watchword of the day.—Rudy
Marvin,
1967-1968 was a defining period for me as well. I was a student at Morgan State College in Baltimore . I had finished ROTC, which was mandatory at all public Negro colleges for freshmen and sophomore males, with plans of going into the junior program and onto becoming a second lieutenant. The Vietnam war was heating up.
The summer of 1967 changed all that. I was schooled by a Baltimore public librarian who had graduated from Hampton . She put me on a program of readings. That fall Stokely came to Morgan. Up from the country of Southside Virginia , I had never heard a black man speak like that in public, about white people. Other SNCC representatives came to campus. There was an active anti-war group on campus DISSENT. Students were burning their draft cards. I joined Baltimore SNCC, which was then headed by Bob Moore who had come up from Atlanta . But he was a native of Baltimore .
Spring semester came and I dropped out Morgan to join the Revolution. LeRoi Jones came to town invited by the Soul School . Maybe he had become Amiri Baraka by then, I can't remember. I can't recall whether it was before the assassination or after. But I rode with the little general across town to a party on the East side sponsored by VISTA workers after he and his troupe had put a play on at a local church. Stokely was there, as well as other noted persons in the movement.
My student deferment was soon moved up to 1 A, from 2 A. I carried on a protracted struggle with the draft board, first declaring myself a conscientious objector. After appeal I was finally required to report to Fort Hollabird , the local draft induction center. I passed leaflets out on the base. No one attempted to stop me. I was non cooperative with the paper work and the medical exams. After three days, they finally declared me unfit and was handed a 1 Y, unfit physically and mentally for military service. I was committed to not going into the service and would have done whatever was necessary. That was a 180 degree swing from May 1967.
After the death of King we were committed to closing down stores to honor King's death. This campaign inadvertently led to rioting in a black shopping district on gay Street in East Baltimore . That rioting spread like wildfire from one black shopping center to the next. Eventually the National Guard was brought into Baltimore and curfews were announced. The jails became so full that the Civic Center at Baltimore and Howard streets was used to detain young angry blacks.
The Baltimore Rebellion radicalized the entire city. Every Negro became black instantly. That argument was brought to an end. Every bougie Negro became a militant. This was when Spiro Agnew was governor of Maryland . His so called handling of Negro leadership led him to become vice president to Richard Nixon, and later to disgrace.
This radicalization of the city was ripe for 1199, a New York based health care workers union. In less than a year we organized a 5,000-member trade union, mostly women. Black candidates for office grew by leaps and bounds. Through the 70s Black Baltimore never looked back. Then came the 80s and retrenchment. The Uncle Toms wheeler-dealers were resurrected and betrayal of the masses was the watchword of the day.—Rudy
Part Seven: My Friend the Devil
Marvin X
And so in 1967 I found myself exiled in Toronto, Canada, actually I was in Hamilton, a suburb. I was given refuge by Ted Watkins, a pro-football player in the Canadian league. Ted was my cousin by marriage, actually his wife Natalie was related to me through my uncle Adam who lived in Modesto. There was a time in the recent history of Modesto when most of the blacks were related by blood or marriage. The late jazz pianist Monte Waters of Modesto was also related by marriage. But my favorite cousin Carol Lee of Modesto, daughter of my mother's brother Adam, connected me with Ted and Natalie who gave me the green light to come to Canada. They greeted me with open arms when I finally connected with them after arriving in Toronto. It wasn't long before I had converted Ted to Islam. He changed his name to Shahid. Another conversion was Canada's angriest Negro, Austin Clarke, a writer who changed his name to Ali Kamal. The great Pan Africanist Jan Carew was steeped in too much ideology to be converted, but Austin, Jan and I came together often for dialogue on events around the world.
My cousin Ted funded a publishing project Al Kitab Sudan which released my first collection of poetry Sudan Rajuli Samia or Black Man Listen. Eventually I moved from Hamilton to Toronto, renting a room from singer Salome Bey and her husband, Howard. I was soon joined by another draftee from San Francisco State College, Oswald, a poet who had published in Black Dialogue. Another brother in exile was from Los Angeles, Norman Rockland, who is still in Toronto today.
Exile is the worse of all possible things, for there is nothing worse than being cut off from ones people, especially when they are struggling to overcome oppression but you cannot be there with them to share their daily round, their pain and suffering. Internationalism is fine but ones national liberation is always ones priority, even though we know oppression is worldwide and thus the fight is everywhere.
So we got down in Canada, organizing and spreading propaganda. Of course the Toronto Star newspaper claimed twenty thousand black Muslims had invaded from the South (USA). There were about three of us brothers, and I was soon joined by Sister Ethna (Hurriyah) who fled an abusive relationship with her husband in Philadelphia. She had left me soon after we returned to San Francisco from Fresno and hooked up with a brother she thought she really loved. Ethna didn't stay long in Toronto because my money was real funny. Surely you know how women are when a man's money is funny. After several weeks of committing adultery, she departed for her hometown of Chicago. I was heart broken but stayed the course, a least for a few months.
I furthered my Islamic training after meeting brothers from the Middle East at Juma prayer service at the University of Toronto. One of those who mentored me was Hussein Shahistani. Hussein was a Shia who taught me my prayers in Arabic and also told me about the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt who were persecuted for years under successive governments, including the regime of the great Arab nationalist Gamal Abdul Nasser. The Brotherhood teachings are the ideological and spirtual foundation of Hamas which recently fought a battle in Gaza against the Zionists. Hussein told me not to worry too much about events in the Middle East since they have been going on for thousands of years. He was president of the Muslim Students Association of the United States and Canada and told me of his desire for a Nation of Islam similar to the notion of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Hussein became a nuclear scientist and returned to his native Iraq. He was persecuted by Saddam Hussein and imprisoned because he refused to work on Hussein's nuclear weapons program. Somehow he survived persecution and today is the Minister of Oil and a close associate of the Grand Ayotollah Sistani.
Meanwhile back in the States, events in the Black Panther Party happened rapidly. The first Panther attack was focused on the Richmond police who killed Denzill Dowell, a young black man. The killing of Dowell made headlines in the first issue of the BPP newspaper, edited by Elridge (Minister of Information) and layed out by Emory (Minister of Culture). Eventually Samuel Napier would become Minister of Distribution. And then there was the invasion of the State Capital with Panthers displaying unloaded weapons which was legal at the time, i.e., until the Panthers. The devil always changes the rules when you master the game. And then there was the shootout between Huey Newton and Officer Fry of the OPD in which the officer was killed and Huey wounded. Reading of events in exile made me happy to be in Toronto, although I wanted to be home to partake in the struggle. Eldridge would tell me years later, "Yeah, Huey shot the pig. We took the gun and threw it into the Bay."
Marvin X
And so in 1967 I found myself exiled in Toronto, Canada, actually I was in Hamilton, a suburb. I was given refuge by Ted Watkins, a pro-football player in the Canadian league. Ted was my cousin by marriage, actually his wife Natalie was related to me through my uncle Adam who lived in Modesto. There was a time in the recent history of Modesto when most of the blacks were related by blood or marriage. The late jazz pianist Monte Waters of Modesto was also related by marriage. But my favorite cousin Carol Lee of Modesto, daughter of my mother's brother Adam, connected me with Ted and Natalie who gave me the green light to come to Canada. They greeted me with open arms when I finally connected with them after arriving in Toronto. It wasn't long before I had converted Ted to Islam. He changed his name to Shahid. Another conversion was Canada's angriest Negro, Austin Clarke, a writer who changed his name to Ali Kamal. The great Pan Africanist Jan Carew was steeped in too much ideology to be converted, but Austin, Jan and I came together often for dialogue on events around the world.
My cousin Ted funded a publishing project Al Kitab Sudan which released my first collection of poetry Sudan Rajuli Samia or Black Man Listen. Eventually I moved from Hamilton to Toronto, renting a room from singer Salome Bey and her husband, Howard. I was soon joined by another draftee from San Francisco State College, Oswald, a poet who had published in Black Dialogue. Another brother in exile was from Los Angeles, Norman Rockland, who is still in Toronto today.
Exile is the worse of all possible things, for there is nothing worse than being cut off from ones people, especially when they are struggling to overcome oppression but you cannot be there with them to share their daily round, their pain and suffering. Internationalism is fine but ones national liberation is always ones priority, even though we know oppression is worldwide and thus the fight is everywhere.
So we got down in Canada, organizing and spreading propaganda. Of course the Toronto Star newspaper claimed twenty thousand black Muslims had invaded from the South (USA). There were about three of us brothers, and I was soon joined by Sister Ethna (Hurriyah) who fled an abusive relationship with her husband in Philadelphia. She had left me soon after we returned to San Francisco from Fresno and hooked up with a brother she thought she really loved. Ethna didn't stay long in Toronto because my money was real funny. Surely you know how women are when a man's money is funny. After several weeks of committing adultery, she departed for her hometown of Chicago. I was heart broken but stayed the course, a least for a few months.
I furthered my Islamic training after meeting brothers from the Middle East at Juma prayer service at the University of Toronto. One of those who mentored me was Hussein Shahistani. Hussein was a Shia who taught me my prayers in Arabic and also told me about the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt who were persecuted for years under successive governments, including the regime of the great Arab nationalist Gamal Abdul Nasser. The Brotherhood teachings are the ideological and spirtual foundation of Hamas which recently fought a battle in Gaza against the Zionists. Hussein told me not to worry too much about events in the Middle East since they have been going on for thousands of years. He was president of the Muslim Students Association of the United States and Canada and told me of his desire for a Nation of Islam similar to the notion of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Hussein became a nuclear scientist and returned to his native Iraq. He was persecuted by Saddam Hussein and imprisoned because he refused to work on Hussein's nuclear weapons program. Somehow he survived persecution and today is the Minister of Oil and a close associate of the Grand Ayotollah Sistani.
Meanwhile back in the States, events in the Black Panther Party happened rapidly. The first Panther attack was focused on the Richmond police who killed Denzill Dowell, a young black man. The killing of Dowell made headlines in the first issue of the BPP newspaper, edited by Elridge (Minister of Information) and layed out by Emory (Minister of Culture). Eventually Samuel Napier would become Minister of Distribution. And then there was the invasion of the State Capital with Panthers displaying unloaded weapons which was legal at the time, i.e., until the Panthers. The devil always changes the rules when you master the game. And then there was the shootout between Huey Newton and Officer Fry of the OPD in which the officer was killed and Huey wounded. Reading of events in exile made me happy to be in Toronto, although I wanted to be home to partake in the struggle. Eldridge would tell me years later, "Yeah, Huey shot the pig. We took the gun and threw it into the Bay."
Jeannette Drake on Mixon in Oakland
Dear Brother Marvin,
The real tragedy is that NO ONE helps men like Mixon to INTERNALIZE the belief, the faith that God (aka) Jesus and/or The Holy Spirit could have given, found, created and/or delivered him a job.
Jesus did not operate within the confines of a building. His power to deliver is still beyond "reason." The power of The Holy Spirit cannot be fathomed by mortal minds. It has taken me almost 70 years to finally get this! God is Divine Mystery...but I have learned that if I need something, I can get it from God. It is my responsibility to share this knowledge with my fellow human beings.
I have learned that even though I love God, the Father/Mother, Jesus, the son, and the mysterious (sometimes frighteningly powerful HG (Holy Ghost), I am called as a writer/servant to bring people to faith (not necessarily to Jesus). In the past I have been "a street minister"; that is, I wrote and gave out affirmations on the street, according to how I felt led by the spirit. There was no need for me to "preach." My gesture was a one on one touch- such as, "repeat these words ALOUD daily or three times a day, etc. etc. and don't forget to say "thank you God" (I don't remember ever being turned down, except once and that was by a "freaked out" white kid that I perceived to be a runaway. He did not want anyone to come near or hand him anything.) I don't do this daily anymore, but sometimes The Holy Spirit gives me a strong suggestion about a particular person and I follow through or I will feel no peace. My gesture is always the right decision. Sometimes a person may ask a question and I give them a personal example of how God has helped me with basic survival issues.
What we need now are men and women who have strong, INTIMATE relationships with God (as they understand God) who are willing to share their faith, their knowledge, their belief, their testimonies that God loves and that God will get them (the person in distress) a job or food or shelter, etc. (if they have the guts/wherewithal, etc to let God know that they need, expect and BELIEVE He can do this!) The right to make a covenant with God did not end with Abraham.
What is missing is a belief in HP (Higher Power) and persons willing to say I know HP personally. HP can get you a job.
I have many unpublished stories about the necessary things I've gotten from God. They run the gamut from parking spaces in a hospital zone to how to get my acccumulated $3,000 plus electricity bill paid... Hopefully, I will live long enough to use a detail or two.
The video I share with you (which came to me yesterday) is of Reverend Dr. Miles Jones, who died in 2002. He was a professor and theologian, who became my mentor though I was not in seminary. He helped me understand that "my call" was not to bring people to Jesus, but to faith, to believe that they have the right to expect God to love them and to act out of that love...
My recovery has been to understand that I am loved by God. (In those moments when I have thought of suicide or homicide, it is because I have forgotten that God loves me and I have the mistaken notion that I am (or mankind is) in control...) Radically and simply put, my well being is not decided or determined by man. We need "spiritual warriors" who can help young men like Mixon understand the nature of God so that it takes on practical, relevant everyday meaning.
My recovery has been to understand that God is Divine Mystery, yet still accessible 24-7.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGVHfRV2Tb4
Peace and blessings to you.
JEANNETTE
"The true manifestation of Divine Presence will be so explosive it will be like The Holy Spirit...and when it comes, it'll defy your ability to describe it...it's gonna have to be LIKE something...as of fire...as of, it's more than you know...realize...dream of."
Reverend Dr. Miles Jones
JeannetteDrake.com
Dear Brother Marvin,
The real tragedy is that NO ONE helps men like Mixon to INTERNALIZE the belief, the faith that God (aka) Jesus and/or The Holy Spirit could have given, found, created and/or delivered him a job.
Jesus did not operate within the confines of a building. His power to deliver is still beyond "reason." The power of The Holy Spirit cannot be fathomed by mortal minds. It has taken me almost 70 years to finally get this! God is Divine Mystery...but I have learned that if I need something, I can get it from God. It is my responsibility to share this knowledge with my fellow human beings.
I have learned that even though I love God, the Father/Mother, Jesus, the son, and the mysterious (sometimes frighteningly powerful HG (Holy Ghost), I am called as a writer/servant to bring people to faith (not necessarily to Jesus). In the past I have been "a street minister"; that is, I wrote and gave out affirmations on the street, according to how I felt led by the spirit. There was no need for me to "preach." My gesture was a one on one touch- such as, "repeat these words ALOUD daily or three times a day, etc. etc. and don't forget to say "thank you God" (I don't remember ever being turned down, except once and that was by a "freaked out" white kid that I perceived to be a runaway. He did not want anyone to come near or hand him anything.) I don't do this daily anymore, but sometimes The Holy Spirit gives me a strong suggestion about a particular person and I follow through or I will feel no peace. My gesture is always the right decision. Sometimes a person may ask a question and I give them a personal example of how God has helped me with basic survival issues.
What we need now are men and women who have strong, INTIMATE relationships with God (as they understand God) who are willing to share their faith, their knowledge, their belief, their testimonies that God loves and that God will get them (the person in distress) a job or food or shelter, etc. (if they have the guts/wherewithal, etc to let God know that they need, expect and BELIEVE He can do this!) The right to make a covenant with God did not end with Abraham.
What is missing is a belief in HP (Higher Power) and persons willing to say I know HP personally. HP can get you a job.
I have many unpublished stories about the necessary things I've gotten from God. They run the gamut from parking spaces in a hospital zone to how to get my acccumulated $3,000 plus electricity bill paid... Hopefully, I will live long enough to use a detail or two.
The video I share with you (which came to me yesterday) is of Reverend Dr. Miles Jones, who died in 2002. He was a professor and theologian, who became my mentor though I was not in seminary. He helped me understand that "my call" was not to bring people to Jesus, but to faith, to believe that they have the right to expect God to love them and to act out of that love...
My recovery has been to understand that I am loved by God. (In those moments when I have thought of suicide or homicide, it is because I have forgotten that God loves me and I have the mistaken notion that I am (or mankind is) in control...) Radically and simply put, my well being is not decided or determined by man. We need "spiritual warriors" who can help young men like Mixon understand the nature of God so that it takes on practical, relevant everyday meaning.
My recovery has been to understand that God is Divine Mystery, yet still accessible 24-7.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGVHfRV2Tb4
Peace and blessings to you.
JEANNETTE
"The true manifestation of Divine Presence will be so explosive it will be like The Holy Spirit...and when it comes, it'll defy your ability to describe it...it's gonna have to be LIKE something...as of fire...as of, it's more than you know...realize...dream of."
Reverend Dr. Miles Jones
JeannetteDrake.com
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Part Six: My Friend the Devil
by
Marvin X
A few weeks before my Black House exit, a dramatic event had taken place in Cleaver’s life.He had gone to Fisk University to attend a conference with black radicals, including members of SNCC: Kwame Toure (Stokely Carmichael), Imam Jamil Alamin( H. Rap Brown), Kathleen Neal and others. The police in Nashville, Tenn marched Cleaver onto a plane back to California for allegedly starting a riot. But the riot was in his soul, his ice was melting, he had met the love of his life, Kathleen Neal, the daughter of a diplomat, but she had chosen revolution and would soon choose Eldridge as her husband, much to the grave disappointment of her family. After all, what black bourgeoisie family would want their daughter to marry a former convict and especially a convicted rapist?
Nevertheless, when he returned from Nashville, nothing but talk of Kathleen came from his lips.We wished he would shut up talking about the sister, but our wish didn’t matter to this madman in love—as though love doesn’t produce madness in everyone. But EC had the love bug, was strung out like a heroin addict or meth freak. Kathleen, Kathleen, Kathleen. We were impressed when she finally arrived at Black House, a fine, high yellow sister. When I finally met Eldridge’s mother, I saw the resemblance between her and Kathleen.
After returning from the Fisk conference, his parole agent put Mr. Soul on Ice under house arrest. I don’t think he was even allowed to cross the Bay Bridge, so when Ramparts magazine wanted him to interview Muhammad Ali about the draft, Eldridge couldn’t go. He arranged for me to go to Chicago instead. It took several days before I caught up with Muhammad Ali at the home of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. When I arrived, I was ushered in the living room and sat down while Ali was in conversation with the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. When Ali came from the room with Elijah, he said his teacher told him not to do the interview because he had said enough about the draft, especially in the white devil’s media which I represented. Ali said to me, “This is the man I’m willing to die for, what he says, I do.” Ali asked me if I needed any money, and of course I say yes. As I recall, he probably handed me a couple hundred dollars. I departed the house without seeing the Hon. Elijah Muhammad, although Sister Clara did come into the room and nod at me. She was the first lady of the Nation of Islam and we are still waiting on an authoritative biography of her, the woman who ran the Nation of Islam for the twelve years Elijah was away: seven years of flight after Master Fard Muhammad appointed him supreme minister upon departing. Even his own brother, Kallot had disagreed with the appointment, along with other brothers who declared they would hunt Elijah down and kill him.
One brother said he would eat one grain of rice a day until he caught Elijah. After seven years, Elijah returned but was then arrested for treason and draft evasion during WWII, so he was away a total of twelve years. His son Wallace or Warithdeen was twelve when his father returned, thus his close identification with his mother Clara and alienation from his father who he finally denounced when he became head of the Nation of Islam.
When I returned to the Bay, Ramparts was naturally disappointed I didn’t conduct the interview, but they got over it and eventually they did a story on Muhammad Ali’s draft case. But it was soon after my meeting with Ali that I found myself on the run behind the draft. While at Black House I had lost my college deferment because I’d dropped out of San Francisco State College/University. But after joining the Nation and even before doing so, I knew I was not about to serve in the white man’s army. Elijah told his followers to go to prison as he had done, but I was also under the influence of the Black Panthers. Eldridge had tainted me with, “We must not only resist the draft but resist arrest as well.” I soon found myself in Toronto, Canada as a draft resister, along with several other brothers.
by
Marvin X
A few weeks before my Black House exit, a dramatic event had taken place in Cleaver’s life.He had gone to Fisk University to attend a conference with black radicals, including members of SNCC: Kwame Toure (Stokely Carmichael), Imam Jamil Alamin( H. Rap Brown), Kathleen Neal and others. The police in Nashville, Tenn marched Cleaver onto a plane back to California for allegedly starting a riot. But the riot was in his soul, his ice was melting, he had met the love of his life, Kathleen Neal, the daughter of a diplomat, but she had chosen revolution and would soon choose Eldridge as her husband, much to the grave disappointment of her family. After all, what black bourgeoisie family would want their daughter to marry a former convict and especially a convicted rapist?
Nevertheless, when he returned from Nashville, nothing but talk of Kathleen came from his lips.We wished he would shut up talking about the sister, but our wish didn’t matter to this madman in love—as though love doesn’t produce madness in everyone. But EC had the love bug, was strung out like a heroin addict or meth freak. Kathleen, Kathleen, Kathleen. We were impressed when she finally arrived at Black House, a fine, high yellow sister. When I finally met Eldridge’s mother, I saw the resemblance between her and Kathleen.
After returning from the Fisk conference, his parole agent put Mr. Soul on Ice under house arrest. I don’t think he was even allowed to cross the Bay Bridge, so when Ramparts magazine wanted him to interview Muhammad Ali about the draft, Eldridge couldn’t go. He arranged for me to go to Chicago instead. It took several days before I caught up with Muhammad Ali at the home of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. When I arrived, I was ushered in the living room and sat down while Ali was in conversation with the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. When Ali came from the room with Elijah, he said his teacher told him not to do the interview because he had said enough about the draft, especially in the white devil’s media which I represented. Ali said to me, “This is the man I’m willing to die for, what he says, I do.” Ali asked me if I needed any money, and of course I say yes. As I recall, he probably handed me a couple hundred dollars. I departed the house without seeing the Hon. Elijah Muhammad, although Sister Clara did come into the room and nod at me. She was the first lady of the Nation of Islam and we are still waiting on an authoritative biography of her, the woman who ran the Nation of Islam for the twelve years Elijah was away: seven years of flight after Master Fard Muhammad appointed him supreme minister upon departing. Even his own brother, Kallot had disagreed with the appointment, along with other brothers who declared they would hunt Elijah down and kill him.
One brother said he would eat one grain of rice a day until he caught Elijah. After seven years, Elijah returned but was then arrested for treason and draft evasion during WWII, so he was away a total of twelve years. His son Wallace or Warithdeen was twelve when his father returned, thus his close identification with his mother Clara and alienation from his father who he finally denounced when he became head of the Nation of Islam.
When I returned to the Bay, Ramparts was naturally disappointed I didn’t conduct the interview, but they got over it and eventually they did a story on Muhammad Ali’s draft case. But it was soon after my meeting with Ali that I found myself on the run behind the draft. While at Black House I had lost my college deferment because I’d dropped out of San Francisco State College/University. But after joining the Nation and even before doing so, I knew I was not about to serve in the white man’s army. Elijah told his followers to go to prison as he had done, but I was also under the influence of the Black Panthers. Eldridge had tainted me with, “We must not only resist the draft but resist arrest as well.” I soon found myself in Toronto, Canada as a draft resister, along with several other brothers.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Oakland, Toward Radical Spirituality
We know the spirit world is beyond color, therefore we must pray for all those slaughtered in the streets of Oakland, whether police or citizens. It is indeed sad when officers of the peace are unable to secure the peace of a community, but often become brute beasts in blue uniforms. And in return the citizens must become beasts in self defense, especially when they are already under stress from lacking the necessities of life: jobs, food, clothing and shelter, a stable family environment wherein they can evolve from animal to spiritual consciousness. When violence becomes the order of the day, when the community is mortally afraid of those employed to protect them, when the citizens resort to violence in interpersonal relations, then that society is not of Divine, but is existing on the animal plane, the lowest level of existence, and yet we pretend to be civilized. Yet we act like violent savages at the drop of a hat, the glance of an eye, we are ready to kill, slaughter each other often without the slightest cause, rhyme or reason. In my 1968 interview with James Baldwin, he said, "It's a wonder we haven't all gone stark raving mad." Jimmy, I submit 40 years after your statement, we indeed have now gone stark raving mad. The streets of Oakland are no place to be somebody, they are on par with Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Mexico, where violence rules the day and every man must be conscious of his surroundings and behavior at any time. The politicians and police are not the only ones to blame, but the entire community. We have churches on every corner yet there is something lacking in their spiritual message, something is being lost in translation from pulpit to congregation to street. How can such massive violence exist in a Christian society or Muslim society for that matter? Why is there so little spiritual transformation evident in the people? The prosperity consciousness in religiosity these days only leads to conspicuous consumption that has led us to the present precipice. Shall we continue in our madness until we slip over the cliff, until we are consumed by our own vomit?
Someone, anyone, step forward and show us the light, the path, the way, for we have become a headless monster, a car without a driver, clearly the politicians cannot solve this conundrum of our lives, the educators are lost in perpetuating the world of make believe called white supremacy. Our economic leaders are lost in their shoestrings, trying to revive a decadent and dying free market capitalist system based on greed, cheap labor and cheap resources. They are determined to ignore their own people in a global conspiracy of pyramid and Ponzi schemes which is the essence international finance.
All brother Mixon wanted was a job. And the tragedy is that there are desperate men and women like him throughout the streets of Oakland, men and women who will find no job and become mad enough to follow his act of desperation and despair. The police had a job watching him. His parole officer had a job watching him. His prison officials had a job securing him. Was he some sacrificial lamb to be slaughtered for all except himself? No wonder his desperation and despair, no wonder his feelings of nothingness and dread. No wonder his spirituality was crushed to the earth, making him a beast of prey, willing to do the ultimate to escape the jails and prison, the American gulag, the neo slavery plantations that exist throughout this nation, wherein the commodity is the souls and bodies of men and women. Up from Slavery, Up from Ignut, up from the animal plane to the Divine. Throw off the shackles of mental slavery that permits us to claim the gun as our savior, the panacea for all that ills our community, when in reality it is only putting on the armor of God that will elevate us out of the dungeon of wickedness and despair. The churches must teach a new way, the schools must teach a new way, discarding that old out of date white supremacy curriculum that over fifty per cent of our children are intelligent enough to reject outright for its abject meaninglessness absurdity. The churches are empty, especially of young men because the message does not touch their spiritual consciousness. They are too smart to be pimped by fake pimps in the pulpit.
The brothers at the barber shop asked me, "OG, what's the difference between the pimp and the preacher?" I replied, "The difference is that the preacher has more whores."
As Brother Fritz Pointer noted below, we can and must police ourselves, the police must be from our community, not living in Dublin, Tracy and Livermore.
These are foreigners who have no love for our community. They are here to enforce white supremacy, white privilege and white power. And nothing shall change but go from bad to worse until the fundamental order is radically restructured. Sun Ra taught me, "The Creator got things fixed, you can't go forward or backward until you do the right thing." So do the right thing, Oakland, the eyes of the world are on you at this hour, as it has been in the past when you raised up to check the power of brute beasts in blue uniforms. This time around, know that we have a problem that is not physical but spiritual, for when we put on the armor of God no one can touch us. Didn't Hammer tell us, "You can't touch this"? Those of you who don't believe in spirituality continue down the physical path when we know the end of this path. Look at America at this hour drowning from excessive belief in the physical and material things of life, while none of this path has brought joy, peace and happiness to this world. As I look around Houston, Texas at the mansions owned by black people, at the same time I see the numerous hospitals here to heal those sick from the trappings of materialism, the mental stress, the cancer and other diseases caused by the belief in the physical things of life, while we know our health is our wealth. What good are these mansions if we act like nigguhs inside them, if the women are in golden handcuffs, abused, neglected and depressed, on the verge of suicide?
We consume, consume, consume, and yet there is never enough. Our closets are full of trinkets we never take out of the bag, still with the tags on them because they were wanted but not needed. And yet there is enough to go around but we dare share, we dare give away anything, but hoard for dear life as though there will be no tomorrow. When we do not reach out to men like Mixon, we see the result, it is no mystery the desperation of his heart, the poverty of his dreams for simple things, basic survival in a land of plenty. Continue to deny his generation and await the Calamity. To avoid the Calamity we must embrace the Religion of the Heart, beyond churches, temples, mosques, but recognize our essense which is spiritual, beyond the physical and material. What is the use of violence when in the end of all wars in political discussion or diplomacy. Why all the violence when ultimately we must do as Isaiah taught, "Reason together."
--Marvin X
Marvin X is the author of Beyond Religion, toward Spirituality. He continued his message in How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy.
His next book is Up from Ignut, or Pull Yo Pants Up fada Black Prez, the Soulful Musings of a North American African Thinker, Black Bird Press,
Berkeley, 2009. All of you are invited to celebrate his 65th birthday at the Berkeley Black Repertory Group Theatre, 3201 Adline Ave., Berkeley Ca, May 29, 7pm. Save the date! May 1-3 Marvin X will participate in the Black Studies Forty Years Later Conference at Temple University, Philadelphia. Other participants include Amiri Baraka, Muhammad Ahmed, Askia Toure, Sonia Sanchez, Jimmy Garett.
----- Forwarded Message ----
From: tarika lewis
To: Marvin X Jackmon
Sent: Monday, March 23, 2009 11:54:53 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: Letter to A Post Black Negro
Thank you for eloquently articulating all of our sentiments...peace
--Tarika Lewis
--- On Mon, 3/23/09, Marvin X Jackmon wrote:
> From: Marvin X Jackmon
> Subject: Fw: Letter to A Post Black Negro
> To: blackantiwar@yahoogroups.com, bbstring2@bellsouth.net, bcpdigital@yahoo.com, amirib@aol.com, askia38@yahoo.com, mstanfrd@temple.edu, ubcindc@yahoo.com, "Nathan Hare", drjuliahare@pacbell.net, goodnewspc@aol.com, gmorozumi@yahoo.com, rudolphlewis@hotmail.com, runoko@yahoo.com, "Geoffrey Grier" , wordslanger@gmail.com, "John Woodford" , abspellman@mac.com, ac6123@wayne.yahoo.com, aherd@berkeley.edu, ajackmon@hotmail.com, d.jackmon7@gmail.com, D12M@aol.com, dbrooks@oaklandnet.com, deedrahs@fhlbsea.com, dimensionsdance@prodigy.net, DisabilityParty@yahoogroups.com, carmelita.harris@sfgov.org, cathyharrisspeaks@gmail.com, chelechauxnuff@yahoo.com, cheo@sfsu.edu, e.bullins@neu.edu, eastsideculturalcenter@gmail.com, edbullins@neu.edu, editor@aljazerrah.info, Ehoagland3nb@aol.com, el_my_t@yahoo.com, esailama@carrieproductions.com, "craig erving" , "Dean Terence
Elliott", "Ernest Allen" , "Muhammida El Muhajir" , "Oakland East" , "Dana Rondel" , falim@aol.com, prodeternal@hotmail.com, "Nefertitti Jackmon" , "Ayanna Ade" , normankbrown@hotmail.com, "Jerlean Noble" , mwhoward@bethany-newark.org, ramal.lamar@gmail.com, rasjbaraka@yahoo.com, "abdul raoof nasir" , doriseasley@att.net, RAmemorial@gmail.com, RashidaIsmaili@aol.com, rchrisman@cox.net, WSAB1@aol.com, bgreene@mec.cuny.edu, "benny stewart" , "Cuz Beverly" , miguelalgarin@hotmail.com, misterdaveyd@earthlink.net, "carolyn mixon" , "Michelle Obama" , officeofthemayor@oaklandnet.com, "Ademola Olugebefola" , "Omowale Clay"
, occur@sbcglobal.net, "Min. Paul" , "Roscoe Orman" , refa1@hotmail.com, reggiegeneral@yahoo.com, revandriette@ebcrs.org, revelouise@ebcrs.org, "destiny muhammad" , langemx99@yahoo.com, lewistarika@yahoo.com, ibespirit@yahoo.com, ganodee@hotmail.com, gaylemba@aim.com, GeorgeEdwardTait@msn.com, gramsey@sas.upenn.edu
> Date: Monday, March 23, 2009, 8:44 PM
> ----- Forwarded Message ----
> From: "fhpointer@comcast.net"
>
> To: Marvin X Jackmon
> Sent: Monday, March 23, 2009 9:20:42 PM
> Subject: Re: Letter to A Post Black Negro
>
>
> Marvin:
>
> I appreciate your analysis and insights. In fact, I
> marvel at the detailed information you summon and wield on
> our behalf. That is, on behalf of Black people. What
> you're doing is so very necessary and timely. I must
> say, as one born and raised in Oakland, I understand the
> obscene pride we feel about Lovell Mixon. Obscene because
> people like us, around the world, die like the four
> policeman did everyday, if not every hour, in mass. Pride
> because Lovell accepted the consequences of his actions. I
> don't know if we can ask more than that of human being.
> He also let the OPD know that they are human, merely
> human. This may surprise them to know. As we have said
> years ago, the police must come from the community they
> serve. Until then, like Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.
> the people of Oakland are under Occupation. Keep up the
> powerful, courageous writing, Mr. X.
>
> Fritz Pointer
From: rudolph lewis
To: Marvin X; mreynolds@bayareanewsgroup.com; blackantiwar@yahoogroups.com; goodnewspc@aol.com; Amiri Baraka ; Askia Toure ; Tarika Lewis ; lajpr@aol.com; occur@sbcglobal.net; officeofthemayor@oaklandnet.com; oyamo@umich.edu; mstanfrd@temple.edu; eastsideculturalcenter@gmail.com; j_vern_cromartie@yahoo.com; ubcindc@yahoo.com; eallen@afroam.umass.edu; falim@aol.com; alona3649@hotmail.com; wriles@pacbell.net; walterriley@rrrandw.com; d.jackmon7@gmail.com; blkaugustla@gmail.com; Davey D ; d12m@aol.com; dbrooks@oaklandnet.com; langemx99@yahoo.com; ggrier@researchdatagroup.com; weap@weap.org; ajackmon@hotmail.com; Kalamu ya Salamm ; Kam Williams ; keepersoftheculture@yahoo.com; kelly.vance@eastbayexpress.com; kambonrb@pacbell.net; philipjohnsonward@yahoo.com; ibespirit@yahoo.com; prodeternal@hotmail.com; dnspete27@gmail.com; poetrynmotion@sbcglobal.net; fhpointer@comcast.net; phavia@hotmail.com; Runoko Rashidi
Sent: Monday, March 23, 2009 12:24:58 AM
Subject: RE: Letter to A Post Black Negro
Marvin, Martin seems to be one of those Negroes who writes with a little white man on his shoulder. Martin is up to his eyeballs in sterile hypocrisy and sham sentiments.
Does he really believe that anyone reading his "people must become people" and "Death is death" that Americans are of that mind set when we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year seeking to murder people in the Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, to kill those who killed Americans? These are sentiments uttered daily by American politicians and American whites: we want the death of those who killed on 9/11!
Just today in the NYTimes the US Special Forces were applauded in killing 5 Afghan "militants," and they didn't call it murder or thought it outrageous when they did not know for certain that these were civilians. Where was Martin and the Oakland paper when Israelis were killing Gazan civilians, more than 1300--men women, and children?
We all know everything is not everything. That kind of equality and equity has never existed for blacks, browns--the Other American. Some deaths are more heavy and valuable than others. The officials and the elite of Oakland will cry huge crocodile tears for the four cops murdered in Oakland streets, tears that did not come for Oscar Grant, outrage that did not occur in high places for the black and poor beaten, abused, and murdered, daily in American cities.
We know in our hearts people are not treated as people especially when their skins are black and brown. Black men are murdered with abandon in American and there is a great reluctance to do anything about it. We all know this on our pulse.
Martin knows as well as anyone that white cops are placed in communities to terrorize black men, women, and children and that white police unions and judges and attorney generals support this terrorism by hook or crook and that often black mayors are afraid of their own police departments. Martin is a phony and a phony with phony sentiments. To place the great Marvin X on the same level as murderous and terrorizing cops is utterly outrageous and the height of pandering to power. He feels free to do that because he thinks he will gain some points from that little white man sitting on his shoulder.
We all want peace and love in our communities. We all would like to respect the security forces in our communities. But it just ain't that way, however evolved Martin may be. But dear Martin, they will be coming after you one of these days and your kiss up words will not save you -- Rudy
Rudolph Lewis, Editor
ChickenBones: A Journal
www.nathanielturner.com
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Marvin X Jackmon"
>
> To: "Martin Reynolds"
>,
> blackantiwar@yahoogroups.com, goodnewspc@aol.com,
> amirib@aol.com, askia38@yahoo.com, lewistarika@yahoo.com,
> lajpr@aol.com, occur@sbcglobal.net,
> officeofthemayor@oaklandnet.com, oyamo@umich.edu,
> mstanfrd@temple.edu, eastsideculturalcenter@gmail.com,
> "j vern cromartie"
>, ubcindc@yahoo.com,
> "Ernest Allen",
> falim@aol.com, alona3649@hotmail.com, wriles@pacbell.net,
> walterriley@rrrandw.com, "d jackmon7"
>, blkaugustla@gmail.com,
> Mrdaveyd@aol.com, D12M@aol.com, dbrooks@oaklandnet.com,
> lajpr@aol.com, langemx99@yahoo.com, "Geoffrey
> Grier",
> "Ethel Long-Scott",
> ajackmon@hotmail.com, KALAMU@aol.com, "kam
> williams",
> keepersoftheculture@yahoo.com, "kelly vance"
>, "Malaika
> Kambon",
> philipjohnsonward@yahoo.com,
> ibespirit@yahoo.com, prodeternal@hotmail.com, "Dennis
> Pete", "Dana
> Rondel",
> "Fritz Pointer",
> "Phavia Kujichagulia",
> rudolphlewis@hotmail.com, runoko@yahoo.com
> Sent: Sunday, March 22, 2009 8:43:03 PM GMT -08:00
> US/Canada Pacific
> Subject: Letter to A Post Black Negro
>
>
> Martin, you always amaze me with your post-black negro
> analysis of affairs in Oakland.
> Oakland has been in a state of war with its citizens at
> least the past forty years, and that war has been
> spearheaded by the police who have never,on any
> occasion,provided security for Blacks, maybe for the
> property-owning class of whites and a few blacks--but we see
> even businessmen like Geoffery Pete can be victims of police
> shakedowns. So when do the police receive justice, certainly
> not in the courts as we saw in the Riders case, and we doubt
> anything will happen with the killer of Oscar Grant. So it
> took the Panthers to rise up to challenge the police
> occupying army during the 60s. Of course the OPD had murder
> squads that killed black people in general and Panthers in
> particular. What the Panthers did was take pressure off the
> community by absorbing the blows so often directed on the
> people. For this the Panthers must be honored.
>
> The police deserve no respect for their decades of death
> dealing in the hood, for supplying drugs and guns to
> destabilize our community. We remember during 1979 they were
> killing a black man a month, climaxing with the death of
> Melvin Black. We organized a rally at the Oakland
> auditorium, bringing in Farakhan, Angela Davis, Oba
> T'shaka, Paul Cobb, Dezzy Wood Jones, Eldridge Cleaver
> and others. Immediately after this rally the police killing
> stopped but soon followed was the appearance of Uzis and
> Crack cocaine which we now know was the US Government's
> program to raise money for the Contra war in Nicaragua.
> Certainly the OPD played its part in the Crack epidemic
> that has continued to this day with drive by shootings and
> drug shake downs by the OPD that your paper and the Chauncey
> Bailey Project has yet to investigate, while continuing to
> play up the Black Muslim Bakery as the sole suspects in the
> assasination of journalist Chauncey Bailey.
>
> In short, I have no respect for the OPD because they are
> part of the problem and your paper appears to have a tainted
> relationship with them as you refuse to investigate
> Chauncey's allegations against the black murder squad on
> the OPD, supposedly headed by the very officer who was the
> lead investigator of the Chauncey Bailey homicide. Thus your
> paper, the Oakland Tribune and the CBP are guilty of shoddy
> journalism, faking professionalism, scaming the public with
> continued slander of Muslims as if they were the sole reason
> for Chauncey's murder when you know better. You know he
> was fired from the Oakland Tribune at the urging of former
> Mayor Jerry Brown because he was "tired of that nigger
> snooping around City Hall and the OPD." Now that he is
> Attorney General of California, Mayor Dellems wants him to
> investigate the murder of Chauncey when it is Jerry Brown
> who needs to be investigated for his role in Chauncey's
> death--what happened to Jerry Brown's
> internet records when he departed City Hall?
>
> From the above, we can see why Oakland is a death house and
> the OPD deserve no respect from the people, nor does City
> Hall, the Attorney General and the Oakland Tribune. All of
> you are part of the problem of wickedness in high places.
> Why do you think when the OPD is guilty of murder and can
> continue doing so under the color of law that the
> people's justice will not rise to the occasion. Your
> courts are a sham and mockery of justice and clearly the
> brother saw the need to execute justice his way. The OPD
> occupying army should be removed from the community as they
> provide no service, solve no homicides and remain a white
> racist bastion of incompentence and disservice to the
> people.
>
> They are disgusting to be present in our community. The
> fact that all the officers shot were white reveals the
> racism of the OPD with their precinct in the heart of East
> Oakland's majority black community.
> --Marvin X
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: "Reynolds, Martin"
>
> To: Marvin X Jackmon
> Sent: Sunday, March 22, 2009 7:18:17 PM
> Subject: RE: [blackantiwar] Oakland Poice Die in Gun Battle
>
>
> Death is death and nobody, citizen or cop deserves to
> leave this earth in a hail of gunfire.
> So for you to assert this is somehow a "taste of their
> own medicine" situation, sickens me.
> Not because I agree with ill police tactics or the
> horrific things done via COINTELPRO.
> The neo-cons of America do little to improve our standing
> in the world and at home.
> If the world is to ever become the peaceful, evolved place
> we all hope it one day will, we can't revel in
> the slaying of any human being.
> "Happy to learn a Negro can shoot?" C'mon
> man.
> Statements like that make you appear no better than a cop
> who patrols a community he has no regard for.
> Are you a revolutionary? A neo-political pundit? What?
> You come across as a zealot and utilize the history of our
> people's oppression to justify a warped sense of
> retribution as it relates to this incident.
> I don't for a moment condone actions by the cops that
> are inappropriate, corrupt or criminal.
> But at some point Marvin, people must become people.
> You're "neo-colonial black politicians"
> rhetoric does nothing to move us toward that plateau.
> You preach as though you are offering an equation to equal
> a solution.
> When in fact, you're a symptom of the problem.
>
> M.
> Martin G. Reynolds
> Editor
> The Oakland Tribune
> AME News - Bay Area News Group
> 7677 Oakport St. Suite 950
> 510-208-6433
> 510-390-1779 (cell)
> mreynolds@bayareanewsgroup.com
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Marvin X Jackmon [mailto:jmarvinx@yahoo.com]
> Sent: Sunday, March 22, 2009 11:00 AM
> To: blackantiwar@yahoogroups.com; amirib@aol.com;
> mstanfrd@temple.edu; ubcindc@yahoo.com; NMAAHCinfo@si.edu;
> officeofthemayor@oaklandnet.com; ramal.lamar@gmail.com;
> refa1@hotmail.com; reggiegeneral@yahoo.com;
> ibespirit@yahoo..com; Nathan Hare; drjuliahare@pacbell.net;
> goodnewspc@aol.com; Reynolds, Martin; Mrdaveyd@aol.com;
> wordslanger@gmail.com; John Woodford; rasjbaraka@yahoo.com;
> rchrisman@cox.net; falim@aol.com; monti@rivercitymaps.com;
> d.jackmon7@gmail.com; abspellman@mac.com;
> ajackmon@hotmail.com; mjackmon@gmail.com
> Subject: Re: [blackantiwar] Oakland Poice Die in Gun Battle
>
>
> Rudy, I have no information on Mixon, but the consensus is
> that people are happy to learn a Negro can shoot. Oakland is
> a great community that was humbled and crushed by
> Cointelpro, then neo-colonial black politicians, Dellums is
> probably the last of the black neo-colonials, after him it
> will probably be the Latino turn to be neo-colonial, then
> the return of the raw colonialist whites who are edging
> themselves back into power on the city council and with
> gentrification.
> But the universe may have a different agenda. --MarvinX
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Marvin X Jackmon
> To: blackantiwar@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Sunday, March 22, 2009 10:53:16 AM
> Subject: Re: [blackantiwar] Oakland Poice Die in Gun Battle
>
>
> Oakland Police Die in Gun Battle
>
> I got up this morning to see the news that a brother and
> three police are dead in Oakland, another officer is
> fighting for his life. I am saddened by this news from my
> beloved city by the Bay, city of my childhood, city where I
> learned black consciousness, city of black studies and Black
> Panthers, once one of the most radical cities in America..
> Of late she has become a house of death with the black on
> black homicide, often instigated by the police with weapons
> sold by the police. As they were in the 60s, the police are
> an occupying army of mostly white racist officers, and many
> of the black officers are no better, sometimes even more
> brutal to prove themselves to their white comrades. Chauncey
> Bailey is dead partly because he was writing about black
> police murder squads and shakedowns.. The chief recently
> resigned because journalists were inching closer to his role
> in allowing abuse under his watch.
>
> The killing of three officers by a young brother may be
> symbolic of things to come. As we know the new year began
> with the BART police murder of young Oscar Grant. Yes, the
> universe has a way of righting itself when things go out of
> control. We see the universe stepping in to bring humility
> to the greedy capitalist bloodsuckers of the poor and those
> addicted to wretched materialism. So it is time to reflect
> on this rampant violence in Oakland that has left so many
> people grieving for lost loved ones. And now the police get
> a taste of their own medicine. As thou has done, so shall it
> be done to thee. There is no escape for wickedness,
> especially in high places or low places either. The people
> do not deserve to live under occupation and violence under
> the color of law. Their is a limit to what a people can
> take, especially when they see no justice in the land, when
> the criminals are instituting and administrating the law for
> their own wicked purpose.
>
> The Black Panthers fought forty years ago against the
> police--yet today it is business as usual with the
> "pigs," who banned my open-air classroom at 14th
> and Broadway, at which people noted I made things better
> downtown by talking with spiritually burdened youth and
> adults, counseling them and listening to their problems of
> homelessness, hunger, ignorance, disease and unresolved
> grief, so often brought on by the murder of their loved
> ones. Isn't it strange that youth rioted at the very
> spot where I taught and tried to bring peace, love and
> understanding?
> I did not discriminate when the white mentally ill came by
> wanting a dollar, something to eat or simply a kind word
> like good morning, have a nice day. Often the police would
> stand next to me, yes, I knew they were listening to my
> conversation while they supposedly watched young weed
> dealers making their hustle. For several years the police
> said nothing to me, then after three or four years they
> informed me I was vending my books in a restricted area.
> Restricted for what purpose, there are hardly any stores
> downtown Oakland, it is a virtual cemetery, especially after
> dark while downtown San Francisco is bustling with people
> all night long.
>
> Oakland has a glorious tradition of radical social action,
> but it is a tradition soaked in blood, often the result of
> bad and brutal police relations with the community. Why
> can't Mayor Ron Dellums use the model the US military
> exercised in Iraq when they subdued the insurgents by giving
> them jobs securing their communities? Just as in Iraq, we
> have young men marginalized and alienated from society,
> ready to do any crime to "get theirs," but
> secretly wishing things didn't have to be this way, that
> all they want is economic parity with the rest of society
> that likes to eat in fine restaurants, wear nice clothes and
> take care of their families.. Clearly, the OPD has not and
> cannot secure the community, so why not be radical, Mr.
> Radical Mayor Dellums, hire youth to secure the hood you
> know the police cannot and never will, at least not until
> there is a radical revamping of this rotten, crumbling
> capitalist society, restructuring not only the police, but
> the
> schools, economic, political and religious institutions,
> social relations and in the process ending America's
> cowardly addiction to white supremacy, white privilege
> and the desire to dominate the world.
>
> We pray for all those grieving loved ones who are now
> deprived of their men due to gun violence. We are exhausted
> from attending funerals, but understand death is life and
> funerals are a way to help us understand and transcend the
> pain and suffering of losing the ones we love.
> We pray the people of Oakland will rise to the occasion to
> become the great and valiant community recognized around the
> world for radical social action.
> --Marvin X
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Marvin X Jackmon
> To: blackantiwar@ yahoogroups. com; amirib@aol.com;
> askia38@yahoo. com; mstanfrd@temple. edu; j_vern_cromartie@
> yahoo.com; ramal.lamar@ gmail.com; Muhammida El Muhajir
>; muhammadspeakslette
> rs@yahoo. com
> Sent: Sunday, March 22, 2009 7:14:06 AM
> Subject: [blackantiwar] Oakland Poice Die in Gun Battle
>
>
>
>
> Gunman kills 3 officers, wounds 4th in Oakland
> By TERRY COLLINS and LISA LEFF, Associated Press Writers
> Terry Collins And Lisa Leff, Associated Press Writers –
> 43 mins ago
> AP – This is an undated photo combo of images released
> by the Oakland Police Department of Oakland Police …
> * Play Video Video:3 officers, suspect killed in Oakland
> shootouts AP
> OAKLAND, Calif. – A police officer was battling for his
> life and three more were dead after a parolee with an
> "extensive criminal history" opened fire at a
> routine traffic stop and hours later gunned down members of
> a SWAT team searching for him.
> The gunman was also killed Saturday, capping a day of
> violence that the Oakland Police Department said was the
> worst in its history. Never before had three police officers
> died in the line of duty on the same day.
> "It's in these moments that words are
> extraordinarily inadequate," said Mayor Ron Dellums at
> a somber news conference Saturday night.
> The mayhem began that afternoon, when two motorcycle patrol
> officers stopped a 1995 Buick sedan in east Oakland, Oakland
> police spokesman Jeff Thomason said. The driver opened fire,
> killing Sgt. Mark Dunakin, 40, and gravely wounding Officer
> John Hege, 41....
> The gunman then fled on foot, police said, leading to an
> intense manhunt by dozens of Oakland police, California
> Highway Patrol officers and Alameda County sheriff deputies.
> Streets were roped off and an entire area of east Oakland
> closed to traffic.
> About two hours later, officers got an anonymous tip that
> the gunman was inside a nearby apartment building.
> A SWAT team had entered an apartment to clear and search it
> when the gunman shot them with an assault rifle, police
> said.
> Sgt. Ervin Romans, 43, and Sgt. Daniel Sakai, 35, were
> killed and a third officer was grazed by a bullet, police
> said.
> SWAT team members returned fire, killing 26-year-old
> Lovelle Mixon of Oakland, Acting Oakland police Chief Howard
> Jordan said.
> Officer Hege suffered brain damage and may not survive, his
> father, Dr. John S. Hege, said late Saturday.
> "It is a stunning thing to face," he said.
> Grieving officers at the police station hugged and consoled
> each other. People left four bouquets of white roses under a
> granite memorial wall inside the building lobby that lists
> 47 officers killed in the line of duty. The wall shows the
> last officer killed in Oakland was in January of 1999.
> Police said Mixon wielded two different weapons. One gun
> was used at the first scene and an assault rifle was used at
> the apartment building where he was hiding.
> Jordan said Mixon had an "extensive criminal
> history" and was wanted on a no-bail warrant.
> "(Mixon) was on parole and he had a warrant out for
> his arrest for violating that parole. And he was on parole
> for assault with a deadly weapon," said Oakland police
> Deputy Chief Jeffery Israel.
> Police said they did not know exactly why the officers
> initially stopped the suspect, but said it apparently was a
> routine traffic stop.
> People lingered at the scene of the first shooting. About
> 20 bystanders taunted police.
> Tension between police and the community has risen steadily
> since the fatal shooting of unarmed 22-year-old Oscar Grant
> by a transit police officer at an Oakland train station on
> Jan. 1.
> That former Bay Area Rapid Transit officer, Johannes
> Mehserle, has pleaded not guilty to a murder charge. A
> preliminary hearing is scheduled for Monday. Violent
> protests erupted on the streets of Oakland in the weeks
> after Grant's death, further inflaming tensions.
> Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger planned to fly to Oakland on
> Sunday from Washington, D.C., to meet with police and Mayor
> Dellums, the govenor's office said.
>
We know the spirit world is beyond color, therefore we must pray for all those slaughtered in the streets of Oakland, whether police or citizens. It is indeed sad when officers of the peace are unable to secure the peace of a community, but often become brute beasts in blue uniforms. And in return the citizens must become beasts in self defense, especially when they are already under stress from lacking the necessities of life: jobs, food, clothing and shelter, a stable family environment wherein they can evolve from animal to spiritual consciousness. When violence becomes the order of the day, when the community is mortally afraid of those employed to protect them, when the citizens resort to violence in interpersonal relations, then that society is not of Divine, but is existing on the animal plane, the lowest level of existence, and yet we pretend to be civilized. Yet we act like violent savages at the drop of a hat, the glance of an eye, we are ready to kill, slaughter each other often without the slightest cause, rhyme or reason. In my 1968 interview with James Baldwin, he said, "It's a wonder we haven't all gone stark raving mad." Jimmy, I submit 40 years after your statement, we indeed have now gone stark raving mad. The streets of Oakland are no place to be somebody, they are on par with Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Mexico, where violence rules the day and every man must be conscious of his surroundings and behavior at any time. The politicians and police are not the only ones to blame, but the entire community. We have churches on every corner yet there is something lacking in their spiritual message, something is being lost in translation from pulpit to congregation to street. How can such massive violence exist in a Christian society or Muslim society for that matter? Why is there so little spiritual transformation evident in the people? The prosperity consciousness in religiosity these days only leads to conspicuous consumption that has led us to the present precipice. Shall we continue in our madness until we slip over the cliff, until we are consumed by our own vomit?
Someone, anyone, step forward and show us the light, the path, the way, for we have become a headless monster, a car without a driver, clearly the politicians cannot solve this conundrum of our lives, the educators are lost in perpetuating the world of make believe called white supremacy. Our economic leaders are lost in their shoestrings, trying to revive a decadent and dying free market capitalist system based on greed, cheap labor and cheap resources. They are determined to ignore their own people in a global conspiracy of pyramid and Ponzi schemes which is the essence international finance.
All brother Mixon wanted was a job. And the tragedy is that there are desperate men and women like him throughout the streets of Oakland, men and women who will find no job and become mad enough to follow his act of desperation and despair. The police had a job watching him. His parole officer had a job watching him. His prison officials had a job securing him. Was he some sacrificial lamb to be slaughtered for all except himself? No wonder his desperation and despair, no wonder his feelings of nothingness and dread. No wonder his spirituality was crushed to the earth, making him a beast of prey, willing to do the ultimate to escape the jails and prison, the American gulag, the neo slavery plantations that exist throughout this nation, wherein the commodity is the souls and bodies of men and women. Up from Slavery, Up from Ignut, up from the animal plane to the Divine. Throw off the shackles of mental slavery that permits us to claim the gun as our savior, the panacea for all that ills our community, when in reality it is only putting on the armor of God that will elevate us out of the dungeon of wickedness and despair. The churches must teach a new way, the schools must teach a new way, discarding that old out of date white supremacy curriculum that over fifty per cent of our children are intelligent enough to reject outright for its abject meaninglessness absurdity. The churches are empty, especially of young men because the message does not touch their spiritual consciousness. They are too smart to be pimped by fake pimps in the pulpit.
The brothers at the barber shop asked me, "OG, what's the difference between the pimp and the preacher?" I replied, "The difference is that the preacher has more whores."
As Brother Fritz Pointer noted below, we can and must police ourselves, the police must be from our community, not living in Dublin, Tracy and Livermore.
These are foreigners who have no love for our community. They are here to enforce white supremacy, white privilege and white power. And nothing shall change but go from bad to worse until the fundamental order is radically restructured. Sun Ra taught me, "The Creator got things fixed, you can't go forward or backward until you do the right thing." So do the right thing, Oakland, the eyes of the world are on you at this hour, as it has been in the past when you raised up to check the power of brute beasts in blue uniforms. This time around, know that we have a problem that is not physical but spiritual, for when we put on the armor of God no one can touch us. Didn't Hammer tell us, "You can't touch this"? Those of you who don't believe in spirituality continue down the physical path when we know the end of this path. Look at America at this hour drowning from excessive belief in the physical and material things of life, while none of this path has brought joy, peace and happiness to this world. As I look around Houston, Texas at the mansions owned by black people, at the same time I see the numerous hospitals here to heal those sick from the trappings of materialism, the mental stress, the cancer and other diseases caused by the belief in the physical things of life, while we know our health is our wealth. What good are these mansions if we act like nigguhs inside them, if the women are in golden handcuffs, abused, neglected and depressed, on the verge of suicide?
We consume, consume, consume, and yet there is never enough. Our closets are full of trinkets we never take out of the bag, still with the tags on them because they were wanted but not needed. And yet there is enough to go around but we dare share, we dare give away anything, but hoard for dear life as though there will be no tomorrow. When we do not reach out to men like Mixon, we see the result, it is no mystery the desperation of his heart, the poverty of his dreams for simple things, basic survival in a land of plenty. Continue to deny his generation and await the Calamity. To avoid the Calamity we must embrace the Religion of the Heart, beyond churches, temples, mosques, but recognize our essense which is spiritual, beyond the physical and material. What is the use of violence when in the end of all wars in political discussion or diplomacy. Why all the violence when ultimately we must do as Isaiah taught, "Reason together."
--Marvin X
Marvin X is the author of Beyond Religion, toward Spirituality. He continued his message in How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy.
His next book is Up from Ignut, or Pull Yo Pants Up fada Black Prez, the Soulful Musings of a North American African Thinker, Black Bird Press,
Berkeley, 2009. All of you are invited to celebrate his 65th birthday at the Berkeley Black Repertory Group Theatre, 3201 Adline Ave., Berkeley Ca, May 29, 7pm. Save the date! May 1-3 Marvin X will participate in the Black Studies Forty Years Later Conference at Temple University, Philadelphia. Other participants include Amiri Baraka, Muhammad Ahmed, Askia Toure, Sonia Sanchez, Jimmy Garett.
----- Forwarded Message ----
From: tarika lewis
To: Marvin X Jackmon
Sent: Monday, March 23, 2009 11:54:53 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: Letter to A Post Black Negro
Thank you for eloquently articulating all of our sentiments...peace
--Tarika Lewis
--- On Mon, 3/23/09, Marvin X Jackmon
> From: Marvin X Jackmon
> Subject: Fw: Letter to A Post Black Negro
> To: blackantiwar@yahoogroups.com, bbstring2@bellsouth.net, bcpdigital@yahoo.com, amirib@aol.com, askia38@yahoo.com, mstanfrd@temple.edu, ubcindc@yahoo.com, "Nathan Hare"
Elliott"
> Date: Monday, March 23, 2009, 8:44 PM
> ----- Forwarded Message ----
> From: "fhpointer@comcast.net"
>
> To: Marvin X Jackmon
> Sent: Monday, March 23, 2009 9:20:42 PM
> Subject: Re: Letter to A Post Black Negro
>
>
> Marvin:
>
> I appreciate your analysis and insights. In fact, I
> marvel at the detailed information you summon and wield on
> our behalf. That is, on behalf of Black people. What
> you're doing is so very necessary and timely. I must
> say, as one born and raised in Oakland, I understand the
> obscene pride we feel about Lovell Mixon. Obscene because
> people like us, around the world, die like the four
> policeman did everyday, if not every hour, in mass. Pride
> because Lovell accepted the consequences of his actions. I
> don't know if we can ask more than that of human being.
> He also let the OPD know that they are human, merely
> human. This may surprise them to know. As we have said
> years ago, the police must come from the community they
> serve. Until then, like Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.
> the people of Oakland are under Occupation. Keep up the
> powerful, courageous writing, Mr. X.
>
> Fritz Pointer
From: rudolph lewis
To: Marvin X
Sent: Monday, March 23, 2009 12:24:58 AM
Subject: RE: Letter to A Post Black Negro
Marvin, Martin seems to be one of those Negroes who writes with a little white man on his shoulder. Martin is up to his eyeballs in sterile hypocrisy and sham sentiments.
Does he really believe that anyone reading his "people must become people" and "Death is death" that Americans are of that mind set when we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year seeking to murder people in the Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, to kill those who killed Americans? These are sentiments uttered daily by American politicians and American whites: we want the death of those who killed on 9/11!
Just today in the NYTimes the US Special Forces were applauded in killing 5 Afghan "militants," and they didn't call it murder or thought it outrageous when they did not know for certain that these were civilians. Where was Martin and the Oakland paper when Israelis were killing Gazan civilians, more than 1300--men women, and children?
We all know everything is not everything. That kind of equality and equity has never existed for blacks, browns--the Other American. Some deaths are more heavy and valuable than others. The officials and the elite of Oakland will cry huge crocodile tears for the four cops murdered in Oakland streets, tears that did not come for Oscar Grant, outrage that did not occur in high places for the black and poor beaten, abused, and murdered, daily in American cities.
We know in our hearts people are not treated as people especially when their skins are black and brown. Black men are murdered with abandon in American and there is a great reluctance to do anything about it. We all know this on our pulse.
Martin knows as well as anyone that white cops are placed in communities to terrorize black men, women, and children and that white police unions and judges and attorney generals support this terrorism by hook or crook and that often black mayors are afraid of their own police departments. Martin is a phony and a phony with phony sentiments. To place the great Marvin X on the same level as murderous and terrorizing cops is utterly outrageous and the height of pandering to power. He feels free to do that because he thinks he will gain some points from that little white man sitting on his shoulder.
We all want peace and love in our communities. We all would like to respect the security forces in our communities. But it just ain't that way, however evolved Martin may be. But dear Martin, they will be coming after you one of these days and your kiss up words will not save you -- Rudy
Rudolph Lewis, Editor
ChickenBones: A Journal
www.nathanielturner.com
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Marvin X Jackmon"
>
> To: "Martin Reynolds"
>
> blackantiwar@yahoogroups.com, goodnewspc@aol.com,
> amirib@aol.com, askia38@yahoo.com, lewistarika@yahoo.com,
> lajpr@aol.com, occur@sbcglobal.net,
> officeofthemayor@oaklandnet.com, oyamo@umich.edu,
> mstanfrd@temple.edu, eastsideculturalcenter@gmail.com,
> "j vern cromartie"
>
> "Ernest Allen"
> falim@aol.com, alona3649@hotmail.com, wriles@pacbell.net,
> walterriley@rrrandw.com, "d jackmon7"
>
> Mrdaveyd@aol.com, D12M@aol.com, dbrooks@oaklandnet.com,
> lajpr@aol.com, langemx99@yahoo.com, "Geoffrey
> Grier"
> "Ethel Long-Scott"
> ajackmon@hotmail.com, KALAMU@aol.com, "kam
> williams"
> keepersoftheculture@yahoo.com, "kelly vance"
>
> Kambon"
> philipjohnsonward@yahoo.com,
> ibespirit@yahoo.com, prodeternal@hotmail.com, "Dennis
> Pete"
> Rondel"
> "Fritz Pointer"
> "Phavia Kujichagulia"
> rudolphlewis@hotmail.com, runoko@yahoo.com
> Sent: Sunday, March 22, 2009 8:43:03 PM GMT -08:00
> US/Canada Pacific
> Subject: Letter to A Post Black Negro
>
>
> Martin, you always amaze me with your post-black negro
> analysis of affairs in Oakland.
> Oakland has been in a state of war with its citizens at
> least the past forty years, and that war has been
> spearheaded by the police who have never,on any
> occasion,provided security for Blacks, maybe for the
> property-owning class of whites and a few blacks--but we see
> even businessmen like Geoffery Pete can be victims of police
> shakedowns. So when do the police receive justice, certainly
> not in the courts as we saw in the Riders case, and we doubt
> anything will happen with the killer of Oscar Grant. So it
> took the Panthers to rise up to challenge the police
> occupying army during the 60s. Of course the OPD had murder
> squads that killed black people in general and Panthers in
> particular. What the Panthers did was take pressure off the
> community by absorbing the blows so often directed on the
> people. For this the Panthers must be honored.
>
> The police deserve no respect for their decades of death
> dealing in the hood, for supplying drugs and guns to
> destabilize our community. We remember during 1979 they were
> killing a black man a month, climaxing with the death of
> Melvin Black. We organized a rally at the Oakland
> auditorium, bringing in Farakhan, Angela Davis, Oba
> T'shaka, Paul Cobb, Dezzy Wood Jones, Eldridge Cleaver
> and others. Immediately after this rally the police killing
> stopped but soon followed was the appearance of Uzis and
> Crack cocaine which we now know was the US Government's
> program to raise money for the Contra war in Nicaragua.
> Certainly the OPD played its part in the Crack epidemic
> that has continued to this day with drive by shootings and
> drug shake downs by the OPD that your paper and the Chauncey
> Bailey Project has yet to investigate, while continuing to
> play up the Black Muslim Bakery as the sole suspects in the
> assasination of journalist Chauncey Bailey.
>
> In short, I have no respect for the OPD because they are
> part of the problem and your paper appears to have a tainted
> relationship with them as you refuse to investigate
> Chauncey's allegations against the black murder squad on
> the OPD, supposedly headed by the very officer who was the
> lead investigator of the Chauncey Bailey homicide. Thus your
> paper, the Oakland Tribune and the CBP are guilty of shoddy
> journalism, faking professionalism, scaming the public with
> continued slander of Muslims as if they were the sole reason
> for Chauncey's murder when you know better. You know he
> was fired from the Oakland Tribune at the urging of former
> Mayor Jerry Brown because he was "tired of that nigger
> snooping around City Hall and the OPD." Now that he is
> Attorney General of California, Mayor Dellems wants him to
> investigate the murder of Chauncey when it is Jerry Brown
> who needs to be investigated for his role in Chauncey's
> death--what happened to Jerry Brown's
> internet records when he departed City Hall?
>
> From the above, we can see why Oakland is a death house and
> the OPD deserve no respect from the people, nor does City
> Hall, the Attorney General and the Oakland Tribune. All of
> you are part of the problem of wickedness in high places.
> Why do you think when the OPD is guilty of murder and can
> continue doing so under the color of law that the
> people's justice will not rise to the occasion. Your
> courts are a sham and mockery of justice and clearly the
> brother saw the need to execute justice his way. The OPD
> occupying army should be removed from the community as they
> provide no service, solve no homicides and remain a white
> racist bastion of incompentence and disservice to the
> people.
>
> They are disgusting to be present in our community. The
> fact that all the officers shot were white reveals the
> racism of the OPD with their precinct in the heart of East
> Oakland's majority black community.
> --Marvin X
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: "Reynolds, Martin"
>
> To: Marvin X Jackmon
> Sent: Sunday, March 22, 2009 7:18:17 PM
> Subject: RE: [blackantiwar] Oakland Poice Die in Gun Battle
>
>
> Death is death and nobody, citizen or cop deserves to
> leave this earth in a hail of gunfire.
> So for you to assert this is somehow a "taste of their
> own medicine" situation, sickens me.
> Not because I agree with ill police tactics or the
> horrific things done via COINTELPRO.
> The neo-cons of America do little to improve our standing
> in the world and at home.
> If the world is to ever become the peaceful, evolved place
> we all hope it one day will, we can't revel in
> the slaying of any human being.
> "Happy to learn a Negro can shoot?" C'mon
> man.
> Statements like that make you appear no better than a cop
> who patrols a community he has no regard for.
> Are you a revolutionary? A neo-political pundit? What?
> You come across as a zealot and utilize the history of our
> people's oppression to justify a warped sense of
> retribution as it relates to this incident.
> I don't for a moment condone actions by the cops that
> are inappropriate, corrupt or criminal.
> But at some point Marvin, people must become people.
> You're "neo-colonial black politicians"
> rhetoric does nothing to move us toward that plateau.
> You preach as though you are offering an equation to equal
> a solution.
> When in fact, you're a symptom of the problem.
>
> M.
> Martin G. Reynolds
> Editor
> The Oakland Tribune
> AME News - Bay Area News Group
> 7677 Oakport St. Suite 950
> 510-208-6433
> 510-390-1779 (cell)
> mreynolds@bayareanewsgroup.com
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Marvin X Jackmon [mailto:jmarvinx@yahoo.com]
> Sent: Sunday, March 22, 2009 11:00 AM
> To: blackantiwar@yahoogroups.com; amirib@aol.com;
> mstanfrd@temple.edu; ubcindc@yahoo.com; NMAAHCinfo@si.edu;
> officeofthemayor@oaklandnet.com; ramal.lamar@gmail.com;
> refa1@hotmail.com; reggiegeneral@yahoo.com;
> ibespirit@yahoo..com; Nathan Hare; drjuliahare@pacbell.net;
> goodnewspc@aol.com; Reynolds, Martin; Mrdaveyd@aol.com;
> wordslanger@gmail.com; John Woodford; rasjbaraka@yahoo.com;
> rchrisman@cox.net; falim@aol.com; monti@rivercitymaps.com;
> d.jackmon7@gmail.com; abspellman@mac.com;
> ajackmon@hotmail.com; mjackmon@gmail.com
> Subject: Re: [blackantiwar] Oakland Poice Die in Gun Battle
>
>
> Rudy, I have no information on Mixon, but the consensus is
> that people are happy to learn a Negro can shoot. Oakland is
> a great community that was humbled and crushed by
> Cointelpro, then neo-colonial black politicians, Dellums is
> probably the last of the black neo-colonials, after him it
> will probably be the Latino turn to be neo-colonial, then
> the return of the raw colonialist whites who are edging
> themselves back into power on the city council and with
> gentrification.
> But the universe may have a different agenda. --MarvinX
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Marvin X Jackmon
> To: blackantiwar@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Sunday, March 22, 2009 10:53:16 AM
> Subject: Re: [blackantiwar] Oakland Poice Die in Gun Battle
>
>
> Oakland Police Die in Gun Battle
>
> I got up this morning to see the news that a brother and
> three police are dead in Oakland, another officer is
> fighting for his life. I am saddened by this news from my
> beloved city by the Bay, city of my childhood, city where I
> learned black consciousness, city of black studies and Black
> Panthers, once one of the most radical cities in America..
> Of late she has become a house of death with the black on
> black homicide, often instigated by the police with weapons
> sold by the police. As they were in the 60s, the police are
> an occupying army of mostly white racist officers, and many
> of the black officers are no better, sometimes even more
> brutal to prove themselves to their white comrades. Chauncey
> Bailey is dead partly because he was writing about black
> police murder squads and shakedowns.. The chief recently
> resigned because journalists were inching closer to his role
> in allowing abuse under his watch.
>
> The killing of three officers by a young brother may be
> symbolic of things to come. As we know the new year began
> with the BART police murder of young Oscar Grant. Yes, the
> universe has a way of righting itself when things go out of
> control. We see the universe stepping in to bring humility
> to the greedy capitalist bloodsuckers of the poor and those
> addicted to wretched materialism. So it is time to reflect
> on this rampant violence in Oakland that has left so many
> people grieving for lost loved ones. And now the police get
> a taste of their own medicine. As thou has done, so shall it
> be done to thee. There is no escape for wickedness,
> especially in high places or low places either. The people
> do not deserve to live under occupation and violence under
> the color of law. Their is a limit to what a people can
> take, especially when they see no justice in the land, when
> the criminals are instituting and administrating the law for
> their own wicked purpose.
>
> The Black Panthers fought forty years ago against the
> police--yet today it is business as usual with the
> "pigs," who banned my open-air classroom at 14th
> and Broadway, at which people noted I made things better
> downtown by talking with spiritually burdened youth and
> adults, counseling them and listening to their problems of
> homelessness, hunger, ignorance, disease and unresolved
> grief, so often brought on by the murder of their loved
> ones. Isn't it strange that youth rioted at the very
> spot where I taught and tried to bring peace, love and
> understanding?
> I did not discriminate when the white mentally ill came by
> wanting a dollar, something to eat or simply a kind word
> like good morning, have a nice day. Often the police would
> stand next to me, yes, I knew they were listening to my
> conversation while they supposedly watched young weed
> dealers making their hustle. For several years the police
> said nothing to me, then after three or four years they
> informed me I was vending my books in a restricted area.
> Restricted for what purpose, there are hardly any stores
> downtown Oakland, it is a virtual cemetery, especially after
> dark while downtown San Francisco is bustling with people
> all night long.
>
> Oakland has a glorious tradition of radical social action,
> but it is a tradition soaked in blood, often the result of
> bad and brutal police relations with the community. Why
> can't Mayor Ron Dellums use the model the US military
> exercised in Iraq when they subdued the insurgents by giving
> them jobs securing their communities? Just as in Iraq, we
> have young men marginalized and alienated from society,
> ready to do any crime to "get theirs," but
> secretly wishing things didn't have to be this way, that
> all they want is economic parity with the rest of society
> that likes to eat in fine restaurants, wear nice clothes and
> take care of their families.. Clearly, the OPD has not and
> cannot secure the community, so why not be radical, Mr.
> Radical Mayor Dellums, hire youth to secure the hood you
> know the police cannot and never will, at least not until
> there is a radical revamping of this rotten, crumbling
> capitalist society, restructuring not only the police, but
> the
> schools, economic, political and religious institutions,
> social relations and in the process ending America's
> cowardly addiction to white supremacy, white privilege
> and the desire to dominate the world.
>
> We pray for all those grieving loved ones who are now
> deprived of their men due to gun violence. We are exhausted
> from attending funerals, but understand death is life and
> funerals are a way to help us understand and transcend the
> pain and suffering of losing the ones we love.
> We pray the people of Oakland will rise to the occasion to
> become the great and valiant community recognized around the
> world for radical social action.
> --Marvin X
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Marvin X Jackmon
> To: blackantiwar@ yahoogroups. com; amirib@aol.com;
> askia38@yahoo. com; mstanfrd@temple. edu; j_vern_cromartie@
> yahoo.com; ramal.lamar@ gmail.com; Muhammida El Muhajir
>
> rs@yahoo. com
> Sent: Sunday, March 22, 2009 7:14:06 AM
> Subject: [blackantiwar] Oakland Poice Die in Gun Battle
>
>
>
>
> Gunman kills 3 officers, wounds 4th in Oakland
> By TERRY COLLINS and LISA LEFF, Associated Press Writers
> Terry Collins And Lisa Leff, Associated Press Writers –
> 43 mins ago
> AP – This is an undated photo combo of images released
> by the Oakland Police Department of Oakland Police …
> * Play Video Video:3 officers, suspect killed in Oakland
> shootouts AP
> OAKLAND, Calif. – A police officer was battling for his
> life and three more were dead after a parolee with an
> "extensive criminal history" opened fire at a
> routine traffic stop and hours later gunned down members of
> a SWAT team searching for him.
> The gunman was also killed Saturday, capping a day of
> violence that the Oakland Police Department said was the
> worst in its history. Never before had three police officers
> died in the line of duty on the same day.
> "It's in these moments that words are
> extraordinarily inadequate," said Mayor Ron Dellums at
> a somber news conference Saturday night.
> The mayhem began that afternoon, when two motorcycle patrol
> officers stopped a 1995 Buick sedan in east Oakland, Oakland
> police spokesman Jeff Thomason said. The driver opened fire,
> killing Sgt. Mark Dunakin, 40, and gravely wounding Officer
> John Hege, 41....
> The gunman then fled on foot, police said, leading to an
> intense manhunt by dozens of Oakland police, California
> Highway Patrol officers and Alameda County sheriff deputies.
> Streets were roped off and an entire area of east Oakland
> closed to traffic.
> About two hours later, officers got an anonymous tip that
> the gunman was inside a nearby apartment building.
> A SWAT team had entered an apartment to clear and search it
> when the gunman shot them with an assault rifle, police
> said.
> Sgt. Ervin Romans, 43, and Sgt. Daniel Sakai, 35, were
> killed and a third officer was grazed by a bullet, police
> said.
> SWAT team members returned fire, killing 26-year-old
> Lovelle Mixon of Oakland, Acting Oakland police Chief Howard
> Jordan said.
> Officer Hege suffered brain damage and may not survive, his
> father, Dr. John S. Hege, said late Saturday.
> "It is a stunning thing to face," he said.
> Grieving officers at the police station hugged and consoled
> each other. People left four bouquets of white roses under a
> granite memorial wall inside the building lobby that lists
> 47 officers killed in the line of duty. The wall shows the
> last officer killed in Oakland was in January of 1999.
> Police said Mixon wielded two different weapons. One gun
> was used at the first scene and an assault rifle was used at
> the apartment building where he was hiding.
> Jordan said Mixon had an "extensive criminal
> history" and was wanted on a no-bail warrant.
> "(Mixon) was on parole and he had a warrant out for
> his arrest for violating that parole. And he was on parole
> for assault with a deadly weapon," said Oakland police
> Deputy Chief Jeffery Israel.
> Police said they did not know exactly why the officers
> initially stopped the suspect, but said it apparently was a
> routine traffic stop.
> People lingered at the scene of the first shooting. About
> 20 bystanders taunted police.
> Tension between police and the community has risen steadily
> since the fatal shooting of unarmed 22-year-old Oscar Grant
> by a transit police officer at an Oakland train station on
> Jan. 1.
> That former Bay Area Rapid Transit officer, Johannes
> Mehserle, has pleaded not guilty to a murder charge. A
> preliminary hearing is scheduled for Monday. Violent
> protests erupted on the streets of Oakland in the weeks
> after Grant's death, further inflaming tensions.
> Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger planned to fly to Oakland on
> Sunday from Washington, D.C., to meet with police and Mayor
> Dellums, the govenor's office said.
>
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Comment on Marvin X's Letter to the Post Black Negro Editor of the Oakland Tribune
Marvin, Martin seems to be one of those Negroes who writes with a little white man on his shoulder. Martin is up to his eyeballs in sterile hypocrisy and sham sentiments.
Does he really believe that anyone reading his "people must become people" and "Death is death" that Americans are of that mind set when we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year seeking to murder people in the Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, to kill those who killed Americans? These are sentiments uttered daily by American politicians and American whites: we want the death of those who killed on 9/11!
Just today in the NYTimes the US Special Forces were applauded in killing 5 Afghan "militants," and they didn't call it murder or thought it outrageous when they did not know for certain that these were civilians. Where was Martin and the Oakland paper when Israelis were killing Gazan civilians, more than 1300--men women, and children?
We all know everything is not everything. That kind of equality and equity has never existed for blacks, browns--the Other American. Some deaths are more heavy and valuable than others. The officials and the elite of Oakland will cry huge crocodile tears for the four cops murdered in Oakland streets, tears that did not come for Oscar Grant, outrage that did not occur in high places for the black and poor beaten, abused, and murdered, daily in American cities.
We know in our hearts people are not treated as people especially when their skins are black and brown. Black men are murdered with abandon in American and there is a great reluctance to do anything about it. We all know this on our pulse.
Martin knows as well as anyone that white cops are placed in communities to terrorize black men, women, and children and that white police unions and judges and attorney generals support this terrorism by hook or crook and that often black mayors are afraid of their own police departments. Martin is a phony and a phony with phony sentiments. To place the great Marvin X on the same level as murderous and terrorizing cops is utterly outrageous and the height of pandering to power. He feels free to do that because he thinks he will gain some points from that little white man sitting on his shoulder.
We all want peace and love in our communities. We all would like to respect the security forces in our communities. But it just ain't that way, however evolved Martin may be. But dear Martin, they will be coming after you one of these days and your kiss up words will not save you -- Rudy
Rudolph Lewis, Editor
ChickenBones: A Journal
www.nathanielturner.com
Marvin, Martin seems to be one of those Negroes who writes with a little white man on his shoulder. Martin is up to his eyeballs in sterile hypocrisy and sham sentiments.
Does he really believe that anyone reading his "people must become people" and "Death is death" that Americans are of that mind set when we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year seeking to murder people in the Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, to kill those who killed Americans? These are sentiments uttered daily by American politicians and American whites: we want the death of those who killed on 9/11!
Just today in the NYTimes the US Special Forces were applauded in killing 5 Afghan "militants," and they didn't call it murder or thought it outrageous when they did not know for certain that these were civilians. Where was Martin and the Oakland paper when Israelis were killing Gazan civilians, more than 1300--men women, and children?
We all know everything is not everything. That kind of equality and equity has never existed for blacks, browns--the Other American. Some deaths are more heavy and valuable than others. The officials and the elite of Oakland will cry huge crocodile tears for the four cops murdered in Oakland streets, tears that did not come for Oscar Grant, outrage that did not occur in high places for the black and poor beaten, abused, and murdered, daily in American cities.
We know in our hearts people are not treated as people especially when their skins are black and brown. Black men are murdered with abandon in American and there is a great reluctance to do anything about it. We all know this on our pulse.
Martin knows as well as anyone that white cops are placed in communities to terrorize black men, women, and children and that white police unions and judges and attorney generals support this terrorism by hook or crook and that often black mayors are afraid of their own police departments. Martin is a phony and a phony with phony sentiments. To place the great Marvin X on the same level as murderous and terrorizing cops is utterly outrageous and the height of pandering to power. He feels free to do that because he thinks he will gain some points from that little white man sitting on his shoulder.
We all want peace and love in our communities. We all would like to respect the security forces in our communities. But it just ain't that way, however evolved Martin may be. But dear Martin, they will be coming after you one of these days and your kiss up words will not save you -- Rudy
Rudolph Lewis, Editor
ChickenBones: A Journal
www.nathanielturner.com
From: John Woodford
Sent: Sunday, March 22, 2009 9:54:33 PM
Subject: Re: My Friend the Devil
Hey, Marvin. Interesting account.
I don't know about all your facts and chronology, but to me the main interpretive statement I agree with is that Sam Napier was a superb fellow. Beyond that, I see a number of things quite differently. Cleaver was no real Marxist-Leninist, or scientific socialist, or whatever you may wish to call the science of political economy that critiques capitalism (and the imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism and racism that go with it) and seeks to figure out how to advance beyond it. Despite whatever labels one may toss around, the objective is worthy.
Cleaver, like many either willing or unwitting agents provocateurs, followed a course that played into the hands of the ruling elite. They are probably sorriest to see him go. The BPP had great achievements and potential, and the ruling class wanted to do them in by any and all means necessary. One of those means was Cleaver.
Proctor or any other CPers who thought they could get street cred, i.e. build their party, with the likes of Cleaver, were engaging in a form of opportunism and delusion that turned out to be one of the factors in the CPUSA's shoot-self-in- foot crippling. If you want to see a parallel with the BPP, look at the Russian Narodniks of 1905 and read what Lenin had to say about them in "Left Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder."
Sam Napier, who was a sincere student of political economy and a fellow admirer of Lenin, told me it was the US organization, not Cleaver's group, that wanted to kill him. This was in Chicago, on his way to NY.
Of course, considering the pedigree of the US organization, perhaps they and the Cleaver group were linked!
No revolution has been based on the so-called lumpen, and I don't think any will be. That's all Superfly/Mad Max fantasy that seems to appeal to Black and white petty-bourgeoisie.
The key insights into resisting and overcoming imperialism arose from Lenin, and none has surpassed him. Despite the shambles the Russians made of their socialist experiment, their failures in no way represent the principles and potential of the courses Lenin laid out. It takes a class-based well-organized party to defeat the capitalists, not one that idealizes violence but one that can defend itself with force if need be.
Mao's writings have little relevance to the U.S. You will note that the West goes along with touting Mao while continuing to portray Lenin as a terrorist and dictator, although he was neither..
Science is no the property of any color, ethnic group or nation. Those who depict scientific socialism as "white" have fallen into a pattern of thinking that accepts rightwingers' and racists' views: i.e., complex matters that require study, thinking and organization are alien to Black folks.
If the people in the capitalist countries are so gullible as to imbibe their view of socialism--and Lenin--from the tit of Uncle Samella, they will slide into common ruin of all classes.
As for religions, they are a matter of personal faith, and none of them has or will guide a complex nation state to societal advance.
j woodford
johnwood@umich. edu
On Mar 21, 2009, at 10:48 PM, Marvin X Jackmon wrote:
Part Four: My Friend the Devil
Eldridge had no knowledge of the Black Panthers until I informed him out of our artistic desire to get rid of him as chair of Black House, even though he had made it happen by putting up the money, but we rejected his desire to push Marxism at any cost, even though he paid the cost to be the boss. I didn't think he was so dogmatic about his mission which was to create a Communist organization. Thus when we realized he was merely using artists to advance his political goals, we objected. For a short time we went along with his sessions on Communism, sometimes they included Rosco Proctor. I think Rosco was secretary of the Communist party of California. We didn't mind reading Mao's Talks at Yenan Forum on Art and Literature or Robert F. Williams Negroes With Guns. But when we tired of the Marxist approach of Cleaver, I suggested he meet some of my friends across the Bay who were arming themselves for self defense against the police. I thought this would be
a way to get rid of Cleaver so we could do our cultural work. Cleaver best describes meeting the Panthers for the first time in his book Post-Prison Writings. But I took him to meet Bobby Seale one night after a radio interview at a station in Jack London Square. I took him by Bobby Seale's house in North Oakland, got Bobby to come outside to Cleaver's car. Bobby got in and the world knows the rest. Hooking up with the Panthers was not the idea Cleaver came out of prison to pursue, but it was still a dream come true, although I knew there would be hell to pay for somebody, in particular Bobby and Huey who I knew were no match for Cleaver's chicanery. Even though Bobby and Huey were well read, they were no match for Cleaver, especially in terms of Marxism. Nor were they on par with Cleaver's organizational skills and especially his ability to move on those in opposition to his mission, even to the point of murder. Who knows how many bodies Cleaver left
behind in the Gulag, or his special skills in getting rid of enemies. Huey may have been a psychopath but still he was no match for Cleaver. I was glad Cleaver was hooking up with the Panthers because it took pressure off us artists. But I felt sorry for what awaited the Panthers because I knew Cleaver was a man who had to be in control, especially because he had superior knowledge and had proven organizational skills as evidenced by the Soledad Prison Black Culture Club, which was a military organization as well.
Around the time I was introducing Cleaver to the Panthers, they were moving on a rival Panther organization the BPP called the Paper Panthers, led by their former associates in Donald Warden's AfroAmerican Association and co-students at Merritt: Ken and Carol Freeman, Ernie Allen, and others who were part of the group of neo black intellectuals at Merritt, including myself, Richard Thorne, Isaac Moore, Ann Williams, Maurice Dawson, John Thomas, Wayne Combash
and others. Several of us were associated with Soulbook, the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) publication headed by Robert F. Williams and Max Stanford (now Muhammad Ahmed). But Huey and Bobby had separated from the socalled Paper Panthers because they did not recognize the supremacy of armed self-defense. They eventually gave the Paper Panthers an ultimatum: put up guns or shut up and stop calling themselves Black Panthers. Again, Cleaver gives a good description of this conflict in Post-Prison Writings. I am certain Ernie Allen and Ken Freeman's brother, Donald Freeman (Baba Lumumba) can give their side of the story with documentation. Baba Lumbuma has a letter from the BPP to the Black Panther Party of Northern California that invites them to stop using the Panther name, signed by Huey and Bobby. Eventually there was a confrontation between the two Panther groups in San Francisco at the headquarters of Bill Bradley (now Oba T'Shaka). (I am
writing from total recall so events may be out of chronological order but I think the events happened close to the order I'm describing. There are a plethora of books on the BPP to confirm the sequence of events or correct my amnesia. If the reader has more accurate information, please submit it to me for inclusion in my narrative so I won't be guilty of revisionism. )
After introducing Eldrdige to the Panthers, events at Black House happened in rapid succession, leading toward the end of the cultural component and the establishment of Black House as the San Francisco headquarters of the BPP. Again, I may have the chronological order confused, after all, I am recalling events of forty years ago from memory. Anyway, Cleaver becomes minister of information of the BPP and soon followed the first publication of the BPP newspaper, headlined with the police murder of Denzil Dowell in Richmond. Eldridge and Emory Douglas laid out the paper. Besides Muhammad Speaks, the BPP newspaper would become the most powerful newspaper of the 60s revolution. And of course much of the distribution success can be attributed to Samuel Napier, Minister of Distribution. What I remember most about Samuel was his innocence and sincerity about wanting to get involved and giving his all once involved. I was never more depressed than when I learned
he was murdered in the internecine violence when the BPP factions split between Huey's west coast army and Eldridge's east coast army. Sam was murdered then set afire in New York. When I performed my play One Day In the Life in 1997 at Sista's Place in New York, the brothers pulled me aside and said the following: "Marvin, we love you, but we don't give a damn about Huey Newton," (the play has a scene of my last meeting with Huey--the setting of the one-act play Salaam, Huey, Salaam, by Ed Bullins and Marvin X, New Federal Theatre, 2008). New York is Eldridge's turf, they told me. "His army is still here." When he died May 1, 1998, I organized his memorial service in Oakland, along with Sister Majedah Rahman, a former Panther. Many Panthers did not attend because of their loyalty to Huey. Those who did attend included: Emory Douglas, Tarika Lewis,
Richard Aoki (recently deceased, the first Asian Panther), Dr. Nathan Hare, Dr. Yusef Bey, Imam Alamin, Minister Keith Muhammad, Kathleen and Joju Cleaver. Kathleen said to me after the service, "Marvin, the service was great, but there were just too many Muslims." Well, if it weren't for us Muslims, there would have not been any recognition of Cleaver's contribution to the revolution. Kathleen had agreed to have a poem I wrote read at his funeral in Los Angeles.
But let's get back to the chronology. There was a group of youth who made the basement of Black House their playhouse and apparently there was a lot of things going on down there between the youth, like playing hooky from school and sexual abuse of girls. We got word from some of our bourgeoisie friends, in particular Dezzie Woods and Bennie Ivy that the police were going to raid Black House. The Black bourgeoisie did give financial support to Black House, in contrast to their lack of support for Black Arts West. Maybe the notoriety of Black House made them more giving, especially with the presence of EC in the house, about to become a best selling author. Everybody likes to be around a star.
No one had time for the youth except me, certainly not Eldridge or Ed Bullins, so I was the liaison with the youth, some of whom I have been in contact with until today. Lil Bobby Hutton came to me one day with a directive from the Supreme Commander of the BPP, Huey P. Huey, saying the youth clubhouse had to be closed down. Lil Bobby was 16 and Huey was his hero. Lil Bobby was the third person to join the BPP and became Secretary, a model for youth of today to join the liberation struggle and forsake gang banging, set tripping and other reactionary activities. In my supreme arrogance, I told Lil Bobby, "Fuck the Supreme Commander!" I saw death in his eyes for me. But I felt Huey was an equal and even though the BPP had taken over Black House, they did not control me. Lil Bobby looked at me as if I had cursed God Almighty. "We go deal with you, Padna!" My days in the Black House were growing short. That night all I heard were Black Panthers clicking 45 automatics outside my bedroom door. Of course I was just as mad and psychopathic as any Panther. I was fearless. My attitude was, "Fuck you motherfuckers. Kiss my ass."
Nothing happened except the coming exit of myself and other artists from Black House, including Ed Bullins who would soon take off for New York. The BPP began to terrorize socalled cultural nationalists or those they considered would not take up armed struggle in the manner prescribed by the BPP. Musicians departed the Bay for the East coast. Askia Muhammad was threatened and fled East after coming to teach at San Francisco State College/now University.
Before my exit the BPP was next door in Eldridge's room planning their dramatic and historic to invade the State Capitol in Sacramento. I was planning my
departure from Black House. My next move was into the Nation of Islam, simply because I was wanted to be involved in a black nationalist organization that was spiritual as well. Easter Sunday, 1967, I went to Mosque #26 and joined the NOI.
--Continued-
--Marvin X
Sent: Sunday, March 22, 2009 9:54:33 PM
Subject: Re: My Friend the Devil
Hey, Marvin. Interesting account.
I don't know about all your facts and chronology, but to me the main interpretive statement I agree with is that Sam Napier was a superb fellow. Beyond that, I see a number of things quite differently. Cleaver was no real Marxist-Leninist, or scientific socialist, or whatever you may wish to call the science of political economy that critiques capitalism (and the imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism and racism that go with it) and seeks to figure out how to advance beyond it. Despite whatever labels one may toss around, the objective is worthy.
Cleaver, like many either willing or unwitting agents provocateurs, followed a course that played into the hands of the ruling elite. They are probably sorriest to see him go. The BPP had great achievements and potential, and the ruling class wanted to do them in by any and all means necessary. One of those means was Cleaver.
Proctor or any other CPers who thought they could get street cred, i.e. build their party, with the likes of Cleaver, were engaging in a form of opportunism and delusion that turned out to be one of the factors in the CPUSA's shoot-self-in- foot crippling. If you want to see a parallel with the BPP, look at the Russian Narodniks of 1905 and read what Lenin had to say about them in "Left Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder."
Sam Napier, who was a sincere student of political economy and a fellow admirer of Lenin, told me it was the US organization, not Cleaver's group, that wanted to kill him. This was in Chicago, on his way to NY.
Of course, considering the pedigree of the US organization, perhaps they and the Cleaver group were linked!
No revolution has been based on the so-called lumpen, and I don't think any will be. That's all Superfly/Mad Max fantasy that seems to appeal to Black and white petty-bourgeoisie.
The key insights into resisting and overcoming imperialism arose from Lenin, and none has surpassed him. Despite the shambles the Russians made of their socialist experiment, their failures in no way represent the principles and potential of the courses Lenin laid out. It takes a class-based well-organized party to defeat the capitalists, not one that idealizes violence but one that can defend itself with force if need be.
Mao's writings have little relevance to the U.S. You will note that the West goes along with touting Mao while continuing to portray Lenin as a terrorist and dictator, although he was neither..
Science is no the property of any color, ethnic group or nation. Those who depict scientific socialism as "white" have fallen into a pattern of thinking that accepts rightwingers' and racists' views: i.e., complex matters that require study, thinking and organization are alien to Black folks.
If the people in the capitalist countries are so gullible as to imbibe their view of socialism--and Lenin--from the tit of Uncle Samella, they will slide into common ruin of all classes.
As for religions, they are a matter of personal faith, and none of them has or will guide a complex nation state to societal advance.
j woodford
johnwood@umich. edu
On Mar 21, 2009, at 10:48 PM, Marvin X Jackmon wrote:
Part Four: My Friend the Devil
Eldridge had no knowledge of the Black Panthers until I informed him out of our artistic desire to get rid of him as chair of Black House, even though he had made it happen by putting up the money, but we rejected his desire to push Marxism at any cost, even though he paid the cost to be the boss. I didn't think he was so dogmatic about his mission which was to create a Communist organization. Thus when we realized he was merely using artists to advance his political goals, we objected. For a short time we went along with his sessions on Communism, sometimes they included Rosco Proctor. I think Rosco was secretary of the Communist party of California. We didn't mind reading Mao's Talks at Yenan Forum on Art and Literature or Robert F. Williams Negroes With Guns. But when we tired of the Marxist approach of Cleaver, I suggested he meet some of my friends across the Bay who were arming themselves for self defense against the police. I thought this would be
a way to get rid of Cleaver so we could do our cultural work. Cleaver best describes meeting the Panthers for the first time in his book Post-Prison Writings. But I took him to meet Bobby Seale one night after a radio interview at a station in Jack London Square. I took him by Bobby Seale's house in North Oakland, got Bobby to come outside to Cleaver's car. Bobby got in and the world knows the rest. Hooking up with the Panthers was not the idea Cleaver came out of prison to pursue, but it was still a dream come true, although I knew there would be hell to pay for somebody, in particular Bobby and Huey who I knew were no match for Cleaver's chicanery. Even though Bobby and Huey were well read, they were no match for Cleaver, especially in terms of Marxism. Nor were they on par with Cleaver's organizational skills and especially his ability to move on those in opposition to his mission, even to the point of murder. Who knows how many bodies Cleaver left
behind in the Gulag, or his special skills in getting rid of enemies. Huey may have been a psychopath but still he was no match for Cleaver. I was glad Cleaver was hooking up with the Panthers because it took pressure off us artists. But I felt sorry for what awaited the Panthers because I knew Cleaver was a man who had to be in control, especially because he had superior knowledge and had proven organizational skills as evidenced by the Soledad Prison Black Culture Club, which was a military organization as well.
Around the time I was introducing Cleaver to the Panthers, they were moving on a rival Panther organization the BPP called the Paper Panthers, led by their former associates in Donald Warden's AfroAmerican Association and co-students at Merritt: Ken and Carol Freeman, Ernie Allen, and others who were part of the group of neo black intellectuals at Merritt, including myself, Richard Thorne, Isaac Moore, Ann Williams, Maurice Dawson, John Thomas, Wayne Combash
and others. Several of us were associated with Soulbook, the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) publication headed by Robert F. Williams and Max Stanford (now Muhammad Ahmed). But Huey and Bobby had separated from the socalled Paper Panthers because they did not recognize the supremacy of armed self-defense. They eventually gave the Paper Panthers an ultimatum: put up guns or shut up and stop calling themselves Black Panthers. Again, Cleaver gives a good description of this conflict in Post-Prison Writings. I am certain Ernie Allen and Ken Freeman's brother, Donald Freeman (Baba Lumumba) can give their side of the story with documentation. Baba Lumbuma has a letter from the BPP to the Black Panther Party of Northern California that invites them to stop using the Panther name, signed by Huey and Bobby. Eventually there was a confrontation between the two Panther groups in San Francisco at the headquarters of Bill Bradley (now Oba T'Shaka). (I am
writing from total recall so events may be out of chronological order but I think the events happened close to the order I'm describing. There are a plethora of books on the BPP to confirm the sequence of events or correct my amnesia. If the reader has more accurate information, please submit it to me for inclusion in my narrative so I won't be guilty of revisionism. )
After introducing Eldrdige to the Panthers, events at Black House happened in rapid succession, leading toward the end of the cultural component and the establishment of Black House as the San Francisco headquarters of the BPP. Again, I may have the chronological order confused, after all, I am recalling events of forty years ago from memory. Anyway, Cleaver becomes minister of information of the BPP and soon followed the first publication of the BPP newspaper, headlined with the police murder of Denzil Dowell in Richmond. Eldridge and Emory Douglas laid out the paper. Besides Muhammad Speaks, the BPP newspaper would become the most powerful newspaper of the 60s revolution. And of course much of the distribution success can be attributed to Samuel Napier, Minister of Distribution. What I remember most about Samuel was his innocence and sincerity about wanting to get involved and giving his all once involved. I was never more depressed than when I learned
he was murdered in the internecine violence when the BPP factions split between Huey's west coast army and Eldridge's east coast army. Sam was murdered then set afire in New York. When I performed my play One Day In the Life in 1997 at Sista's Place in New York, the brothers pulled me aside and said the following: "Marvin, we love you, but we don't give a damn about Huey Newton," (the play has a scene of my last meeting with Huey--the setting of the one-act play Salaam, Huey, Salaam, by Ed Bullins and Marvin X, New Federal Theatre, 2008). New York is Eldridge's turf, they told me. "His army is still here." When he died May 1, 1998, I organized his memorial service in Oakland, along with Sister Majedah Rahman, a former Panther. Many Panthers did not attend because of their loyalty to Huey. Those who did attend included: Emory Douglas, Tarika Lewis,
Richard Aoki (recently deceased, the first Asian Panther), Dr. Nathan Hare, Dr. Yusef Bey, Imam Alamin, Minister Keith Muhammad, Kathleen and Joju Cleaver. Kathleen said to me after the service, "Marvin, the service was great, but there were just too many Muslims." Well, if it weren't for us Muslims, there would have not been any recognition of Cleaver's contribution to the revolution. Kathleen had agreed to have a poem I wrote read at his funeral in Los Angeles.
But let's get back to the chronology. There was a group of youth who made the basement of Black House their playhouse and apparently there was a lot of things going on down there between the youth, like playing hooky from school and sexual abuse of girls. We got word from some of our bourgeoisie friends, in particular Dezzie Woods and Bennie Ivy that the police were going to raid Black House. The Black bourgeoisie did give financial support to Black House, in contrast to their lack of support for Black Arts West. Maybe the notoriety of Black House made them more giving, especially with the presence of EC in the house, about to become a best selling author. Everybody likes to be around a star.
No one had time for the youth except me, certainly not Eldridge or Ed Bullins, so I was the liaison with the youth, some of whom I have been in contact with until today. Lil Bobby Hutton came to me one day with a directive from the Supreme Commander of the BPP, Huey P. Huey, saying the youth clubhouse had to be closed down. Lil Bobby was 16 and Huey was his hero. Lil Bobby was the third person to join the BPP and became Secretary, a model for youth of today to join the liberation struggle and forsake gang banging, set tripping and other reactionary activities. In my supreme arrogance, I told Lil Bobby, "Fuck the Supreme Commander!" I saw death in his eyes for me. But I felt Huey was an equal and even though the BPP had taken over Black House, they did not control me. Lil Bobby looked at me as if I had cursed God Almighty. "We go deal with you, Padna!" My days in the Black House were growing short. That night all I heard were Black Panthers clicking 45 automatics outside my bedroom door. Of course I was just as mad and psychopathic as any Panther. I was fearless. My attitude was, "Fuck you motherfuckers. Kiss my ass."
Nothing happened except the coming exit of myself and other artists from Black House, including Ed Bullins who would soon take off for New York. The BPP began to terrorize socalled cultural nationalists or those they considered would not take up armed struggle in the manner prescribed by the BPP. Musicians departed the Bay for the East coast. Askia Muhammad was threatened and fled East after coming to teach at San Francisco State College/now University.
Before my exit the BPP was next door in Eldridge's room planning their dramatic and historic to invade the State Capitol in Sacramento. I was planning my
departure from Black House. My next move was into the Nation of Islam, simply because I was wanted to be involved in a black nationalist organization that was spiritual as well. Easter Sunday, 1967, I went to Mosque #26 and joined the NOI.
--Continued-
--Marvin X
Letter to a Post Black Negro
Martin, you always amaze me with your post-black negro analysis of affairs in Oakland.Oakland has been in a state of war with its citizens at least the past forty years, and that war has been spearheaded by the police who have never,on any occasion,provided security for Blacks, maybe for the property-owning class of whites and a few blacks--but we see even businessmen like Geoffery Pete can be victims of police shakedowns. So when do the police receive justice, certainly not in the courts as we saw in the Riders case, and we doubt anything will happen with the killer of Oscar Grant. So it took the Panthers to rise up to challenge the police occupying army during the 60s. Of course the OPD had murder squads that killed black people in general and Panthers in particular. What the Panthers did was take pressure off the community by absorbing the blows so often directed on the people. For this the Panthers must be honored.
The police deserve no respect for their decades of death dealing in the hood, for supplying drugs and guns to destabilize our community. We remember during 1979 they were killing a black man a month, climaxing with the death of Melvin Black. We organized a rally at the Oakland auditorium, bringing in Farakhan, Angela Davis, Oba T'shaka, Paul Cobb, Dezzy Wood Jones, Eldridge Cleaver and others. Immediately after this rally the police killing stopped but soon followed was the appearance of Uzis and Crack cocaine which we now know was the US Government's program to raise money for the Contra war in Nicaragua.
Certainly the OPD played its part in the Crack epidemic that has continued to this day with drive by shootings and drug shake downs by the OPD that your paper and the Chauncey Bailey Project has yet to investigate, while continuing to play up the Black Muslim Bakery as the sole suspects in the assasination of journalist Chauncey Bailey.
In short, I have no respect for the OPD because they are part of the problem and your paper appears to have a tainted relationship with them as you refuse to investigate Chauncey's allegations against the black murder squad on the OPD, supposedly headed by the very officer who was the lead investigator of the Chauncey Bailey homicide. Thus your paper, the Oakland Tribune and the CBP are guilty of shoddy journalism, faking professionalism, scaming the public with continued slander of Muslims as if they were the sole reason for Chauncey's murder when you know better. You know he was fired from the Oakland Tribune at the urging of former Mayor Jerry Brown because he was "tired of that nigger snooping around City Hall and the OPD." Now that he is Attorney General of California, Mayor Dellems wants him to investigate the murder of Chauncey when it is Jerry Brown who needs to be investigated for his role in Chauncey's death--what happened to Jerry Brown's internet records when he departed City Hall?
From the above, we can see why Oakland is a death house and the OPD deserve no respect from the people, nor does City Hall, the Attorney General and the Oakland Tribune. All of you are part of the problem of wickedness in high places. Why do you think when the OPD is guilty of murder and can continue doing so under the color of law that the people's justice will not rise to the occasion. Your courts are a sham and mockery of justice and clearly the brother saw the need to execute justice his way. The OPD occupying army should be removed from the community as they provide no service, solve no homicides and remain a white racist bastion of incompentence and disservice to the people.
They are disgusting to be present in our community. The fact that all the officers shot were white reveals the racism of the OPD with their precinct in the heart of East Oakland's majority black community.
--Marvin X
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Reynolds, Martin"
To: Marvin X Jackmon
Sent: Sunday, March 22, 2009 7:18:17 PM
Subject: RE: [blackantiwar] Oakland Poice Die in Gun Battle
Death is death and nobody, citizen or cop deserves to leave this earth in a hail of gunfire.
So for you to assert this is somehow a "taste of their own medicine" situation, sickens me.
Not because I agree with ill police tactics or the horrific things done via COINTELPRO.
The neo-cons of America do little to improve our standing in the world and at home.
If the world is to ever become the peaceful, evolved place we all hope it one day will, we can't revel in the slaying of any human being.
"Happy to learn a Negro can shoot?" C'mon man.
Statements like that make you appear no better than a cop who patrols a community he has no regard for.
Are you a revolutionary? A neo-political pundit? What?
You come across as a zealot and utilize the history of our people's oppression to justify a warped sense of retribution as it relates to this incident.
I don't for a moment condone actions by the cops that are inappropriate, corrupt or criminal.
But at some point Marvin, people must become people.
You're "neo-colonial black politicians" rhetoric does nothing to move us toward that plateau.
You preach as though you are offering an equation to equal a solution.
When in fact, you're a symptom of the problem.
M.
Martin G. Reynolds
Editor
The Oakland Tribune
AME News - Bay Area News Group
7677 Oakport St. Suite 950
510-208-6433
510-390-1779 (cell)
mreynolds@bayareane wsgroup.com
Martin, you always amaze me with your post-black negro analysis of affairs in Oakland.Oakland has been in a state of war with its citizens at least the past forty years, and that war has been spearheaded by the police who have never,on any occasion,provided security for Blacks, maybe for the property-owning class of whites and a few blacks--but we see even businessmen like Geoffery Pete can be victims of police shakedowns. So when do the police receive justice, certainly not in the courts as we saw in the Riders case, and we doubt anything will happen with the killer of Oscar Grant. So it took the Panthers to rise up to challenge the police occupying army during the 60s. Of course the OPD had murder squads that killed black people in general and Panthers in particular. What the Panthers did was take pressure off the community by absorbing the blows so often directed on the people. For this the Panthers must be honored.
The police deserve no respect for their decades of death dealing in the hood, for supplying drugs and guns to destabilize our community. We remember during 1979 they were killing a black man a month, climaxing with the death of Melvin Black. We organized a rally at the Oakland auditorium, bringing in Farakhan, Angela Davis, Oba T'shaka, Paul Cobb, Dezzy Wood Jones, Eldridge Cleaver and others. Immediately after this rally the police killing stopped but soon followed was the appearance of Uzis and Crack cocaine which we now know was the US Government's program to raise money for the Contra war in Nicaragua.
Certainly the OPD played its part in the Crack epidemic that has continued to this day with drive by shootings and drug shake downs by the OPD that your paper and the Chauncey Bailey Project has yet to investigate, while continuing to play up the Black Muslim Bakery as the sole suspects in the assasination of journalist Chauncey Bailey.
In short, I have no respect for the OPD because they are part of the problem and your paper appears to have a tainted relationship with them as you refuse to investigate Chauncey's allegations against the black murder squad on the OPD, supposedly headed by the very officer who was the lead investigator of the Chauncey Bailey homicide. Thus your paper, the Oakland Tribune and the CBP are guilty of shoddy journalism, faking professionalism, scaming the public with continued slander of Muslims as if they were the sole reason for Chauncey's murder when you know better. You know he was fired from the Oakland Tribune at the urging of former Mayor Jerry Brown because he was "tired of that nigger snooping around City Hall and the OPD." Now that he is Attorney General of California, Mayor Dellems wants him to investigate the murder of Chauncey when it is Jerry Brown who needs to be investigated for his role in Chauncey's death--what happened to Jerry Brown's internet records when he departed City Hall?
From the above, we can see why Oakland is a death house and the OPD deserve no respect from the people, nor does City Hall, the Attorney General and the Oakland Tribune. All of you are part of the problem of wickedness in high places. Why do you think when the OPD is guilty of murder and can continue doing so under the color of law that the people's justice will not rise to the occasion. Your courts are a sham and mockery of justice and clearly the brother saw the need to execute justice his way. The OPD occupying army should be removed from the community as they provide no service, solve no homicides and remain a white racist bastion of incompentence and disservice to the people.
They are disgusting to be present in our community. The fact that all the officers shot were white reveals the racism of the OPD with their precinct in the heart of East Oakland's majority black community.
--Marvin X
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Reynolds, Martin"
To: Marvin X Jackmon
Sent: Sunday, March 22, 2009 7:18:17 PM
Subject: RE: [blackantiwar] Oakland Poice Die in Gun Battle
Death is death and nobody, citizen or cop deserves to leave this earth in a hail of gunfire.
So for you to assert this is somehow a "taste of their own medicine" situation, sickens me.
Not because I agree with ill police tactics or the horrific things done via COINTELPRO.
The neo-cons of America do little to improve our standing in the world and at home.
If the world is to ever become the peaceful, evolved place we all hope it one day will, we can't revel in the slaying of any human being.
"Happy to learn a Negro can shoot?" C'mon man.
Statements like that make you appear no better than a cop who patrols a community he has no regard for.
Are you a revolutionary? A neo-political pundit? What?
You come across as a zealot and utilize the history of our people's oppression to justify a warped sense of retribution as it relates to this incident.
I don't for a moment condone actions by the cops that are inappropriate, corrupt or criminal.
But at some point Marvin, people must become people.
You're "neo-colonial black politicians" rhetoric does nothing to move us toward that plateau.
You preach as though you are offering an equation to equal a solution.
When in fact, you're a symptom of the problem.
M.
Martin G. Reynolds
Editor
The Oakland Tribune
AME News - Bay Area News Group
7677 Oakport St. Suite 950
510-208-6433
510-390-1779 (cell)
mreynolds@bayareane wsgroup.com
Oakland Police Die in Gun Battle
I got up this morning to see the news that a brother and three police are dead in Oakland, another officer is fighting for his life. I am saddened by this news from my beloved city by the Bay, city of my childhood, city where I learned black consciousness, city of black studies and Black Panthers, once one of the most radical cities in America. Of late she has become a house of death with the black on black homicide, often instigated by the police with weapons sold by the police. As they were in the 60s, the police are an occupying army of mostly white racist officers, and many of the black officers are no better, sometimes even more brutal to prove themselves to their white comrades. Chauncey Bailey is dead partly because he was writing about black police murder squads and shakedowns. The chief recently resigned because journalists were inching closer to his role in allowing abuse under his watch.
The killing of three officers by a young brother may be symbolic of things to come. As we know the new year began with the BART police murder of young Oscar Grant. Yes, the universe has a way of righting itself when things go out of control. We see the universe stepping in to bring humility to the greedy capitalist bloodsuckers of the poor and those addicted to wretched materialism. So it is time to reflect on this rampant violence in Oakland that has left so many people grieving for lost loved ones. And now the police get a taste of their own medicine. As thou has done, so shall it be done to thee. There is no escape for wickedness, especially in high places or low places either. The people do not deserve to live under occupation and violence under the color of law. Their is a limit to what a people can take, especially when they see no justice in the land, when the criminals are instituting and administrating the law for their own wicked purpose.
The Black Panthers fought forty years ago against the police--yet today it is business as usual with the "pigs," who banned my open-air classroom at 14th and Broadway, at which people noted I made things better downtown by talking with spiritually burdened youth and adults, counseling them and listening to their problems of homelessness, hunger, ignorance, disease and unresolved grief, so often brought on by the murder of their loved ones. Isn't it strange that youth rioted at the very spot where I taught and tried to bring peace, love and understanding?
I did not discriminate when the white mentally ill came by wanting a dollar, something to eat or simply a kind word like good morning, have a nice day. Often the police would stand next to me, yes, I knew they were listening to my conversation while they supposedly watched young weed dealers making their hustle. For several years the police said nothing to me, then after three or four years they informed me I was vending my books in a restricted area. Restricted for what purpose, there are hardly any stores downtown Oakland, it is a virtual cemetery, especially after dark while downtown San Francisco is bustling with people all night long.
Oakland has a glorious tradition of radical social action, but it is a tradition soaked in blood, often the result of bad and brutal police relations with the community. Why can't Mayor Ron Dellums use the model the US military exercised in Iraq when they subdued the insurgents by giving them jobs securing their communities? Just as in Iraq, we have young men marginalized and alienated from society, ready to do any crime to "get theirs," but secretly wishing things didn't have to be this way, that all they want is economic parity with the rest of society that likes to eat in fine restaurants, wear nice clothes and take care of their families. Clearly, the OPD has not and cannot secure the community, so why not be radical, Mr. Radical Mayor Dellums, hire youth to secure the hood you know the police cannot and never will, at least not until there is a radical revamping of this rotten, crumbling capitalist society, restructuring not only the police, but the schools, economic, political and religious institutions, social relations and in the process ending America's cowardly addiction to white supremacy, white privilege
and the desire to dominate the world.
We pray for all those grieving loved ones who are now deprived of their men due to gun violence. We are exhausted from attending funerals, but understand death is life and funerals are a way to help us understand and transcend the pain and suffering of losing the ones we love.
We pray the people of Oakland will rise to the occasion to become the great and valiant community recognized around the world for radical social action.
--Marvin X
I got up this morning to see the news that a brother and three police are dead in Oakland, another officer is fighting for his life. I am saddened by this news from my beloved city by the Bay, city of my childhood, city where I learned black consciousness, city of black studies and Black Panthers, once one of the most radical cities in America. Of late she has become a house of death with the black on black homicide, often instigated by the police with weapons sold by the police. As they were in the 60s, the police are an occupying army of mostly white racist officers, and many of the black officers are no better, sometimes even more brutal to prove themselves to their white comrades. Chauncey Bailey is dead partly because he was writing about black police murder squads and shakedowns. The chief recently resigned because journalists were inching closer to his role in allowing abuse under his watch.
The killing of three officers by a young brother may be symbolic of things to come. As we know the new year began with the BART police murder of young Oscar Grant. Yes, the universe has a way of righting itself when things go out of control. We see the universe stepping in to bring humility to the greedy capitalist bloodsuckers of the poor and those addicted to wretched materialism. So it is time to reflect on this rampant violence in Oakland that has left so many people grieving for lost loved ones. And now the police get a taste of their own medicine. As thou has done, so shall it be done to thee. There is no escape for wickedness, especially in high places or low places either. The people do not deserve to live under occupation and violence under the color of law. Their is a limit to what a people can take, especially when they see no justice in the land, when the criminals are instituting and administrating the law for their own wicked purpose.
The Black Panthers fought forty years ago against the police--yet today it is business as usual with the "pigs," who banned my open-air classroom at 14th and Broadway, at which people noted I made things better downtown by talking with spiritually burdened youth and adults, counseling them and listening to their problems of homelessness, hunger, ignorance, disease and unresolved grief, so often brought on by the murder of their loved ones. Isn't it strange that youth rioted at the very spot where I taught and tried to bring peace, love and understanding?
I did not discriminate when the white mentally ill came by wanting a dollar, something to eat or simply a kind word like good morning, have a nice day. Often the police would stand next to me, yes, I knew they were listening to my conversation while they supposedly watched young weed dealers making their hustle. For several years the police said nothing to me, then after three or four years they informed me I was vending my books in a restricted area. Restricted for what purpose, there are hardly any stores downtown Oakland, it is a virtual cemetery, especially after dark while downtown San Francisco is bustling with people all night long.
Oakland has a glorious tradition of radical social action, but it is a tradition soaked in blood, often the result of bad and brutal police relations with the community. Why can't Mayor Ron Dellums use the model the US military exercised in Iraq when they subdued the insurgents by giving them jobs securing their communities? Just as in Iraq, we have young men marginalized and alienated from society, ready to do any crime to "get theirs," but secretly wishing things didn't have to be this way, that all they want is economic parity with the rest of society that likes to eat in fine restaurants, wear nice clothes and take care of their families. Clearly, the OPD has not and cannot secure the community, so why not be radical, Mr. Radical Mayor Dellums, hire youth to secure the hood you know the police cannot and never will, at least not until there is a radical revamping of this rotten, crumbling capitalist society, restructuring not only the police, but the schools, economic, political and religious institutions, social relations and in the process ending America's cowardly addiction to white supremacy, white privilege
and the desire to dominate the world.
We pray for all those grieving loved ones who are now deprived of their men due to gun violence. We are exhausted from attending funerals, but understand death is life and funerals are a way to help us understand and transcend the pain and suffering of losing the ones we love.
We pray the people of Oakland will rise to the occasion to become the great and valiant community recognized around the world for radical social action.
--Marvin X
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