>On Amiri Baraka's We Are Already in the Future
Amari Baraka wrote:> > At election's denouement, to the Right the outraged, self loathing of the loser & the losers, including one dude standing mutely in Michigan, a Republican delegate, in a Klan suit, describing Obama as an "Islamic communist". To the Left, the self important drears who had urged us to throw our votes away, as they objectively, in the name of their "principles" , gave votes to John McCain. >>> Let us be clear - Baraka is the one with an alliance with the Republican Party in Klan Uniform - Baraka is a Democrat and the Democratic Party is in a by-partisan union with the Republican Party, with Robert Gates and the other military officers, Generals and Admirals together with Zionists and academic representatives of capitalism is the content of Obama's Cabinet picks.What people throw away they throw into trash, thus the syllogism conclusion is that Cynthia McKinney is trash and the Green and Reconstruction parties are trash cans.. > > > Even dizzier, we supposedly hear from the left right corkscrew terrorist , Al Qaeda insults that Obama is a "house slave" But as I sd in an instant rejoinder, "Anyone who thinks suicide is revolutionary ain't all that bright to begin with. And as for that slave calling, best they refrain from drawing our attention to the fact that some of the Arab ruling class always thought of Black people as slaves". But we are willing to be momentarily cool, remembering Mao's dictum, "fight your enemies one by one". > > >Today, as Palestinian "Arabs" are being bombed to death in the hundreds, with Obama's approval, Baraka comes out in defense of Obama, whose presidency is the personification of US imperialism, and as he defends U.S. imperialism.
Baraka in his person and write-ups provides himself as an imperialist lickspittle by presenting anti-Arab and anti-Islam demagogy lso propaganda for the Obama promised deployment of thousands more US troops to Afghanistan. Obama participates in the imperialist propaganda campaign together with his by-partisan comrade the Republican Bill O'Railey by attacking Muslims as terrorists and Arabs as anti-Black racists. This association of Arabs and Muslims as terrorists is consciously in context of the Israeli campaign of genocide, ostensibly to "wipe out terrorists" [as they actually are killing for the most part hundreds of civilians, including women and children.in context of today's news in which all the Democrats in journalism and television are calling Hamas of being "terrorist" Baraka is now a mouthpiece for U.S. imperialism.>
> >> But back to reality. We have just won an election. We, meaning the masses in the US, indeed the people of the world. (I was in Italy, France, Spain, Norway during the period leading up to and through the election. In Italy just before the election at my readings I urged the Italians to call the states, since I knew they had a bunch of relatives over here, and tell them to vote. In city after city the crowds all seemed to cheer for Obama's victory.) And whoever seeks to downplay that victory is fool or enemy. >>>> Baraka's anecdotal fallacy doesn't constitute a logical argument. But, Baraka is right on one thing, where he wrote "whoever seeks to downplay that victory is fool or enemy": socialists, communists and anarchists are indeed enemies of U.S. imperialism, therefore Obama and his lickspittle Baraka, are their enemies
The European working classes are socialists and communists and they recognized Baraka for what he is: an agent of U.S. imperialism. By being the international lickspittle for the Democrats, urging Europeans to write letters urging them to vote for the imperialist wanna-be Chief Buffalo Soldier qua Commander in Chief, this time the Buffalo soldiers will not be killing native Americans - which Obama praised in his "Yes, I can" ( "The Little Engine that Could: "I think I can, I think I can, I know I can") speech.
The Little Engine that Could, also known as The Pony Engine, is a moralistic children's story that appeared in the United States of America. The book is used to teach children the value of optimism and hard work. Some critics would contend that the book is a metaphor for the American dream.
The tale with its easy-to-grasp moral has become a classic children's story and was adapted in 1991 as a 30-minute animated film produced in Wales and co-financed in Wales and the USA. The film named the famous little engine 'Tillie' and expanded the narrative into a larger story of self-discovery.
In the tale, a long train must be pulled over a high mountain. Various larger engines, treated anthropomorphically, are asked to pull the train; for various reasons they refuse. The request is sent to a small engine, who agrees to try. The engine succeeds in pulling the train over the mountain while repeating its motto: "I-think-I-can".
http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ The_Little_ Engine_That_ Could
Anyone moved by this rhetoric are as gullible children in Kindergarten or 1st grade understanding levels.
But, on the contrary Baraka knows exactly what he;s doing! In context of Israel murdering and maiming Palestinians, with Obama's support for this killing Muslims and Arabs, today the Israelis are using US supplied money and weapons to kill Palestinians, Baraka comes out denouncing Islamic and Arabs "terrorists" and suicide bombers, attributing it is socialists and communists who claim "terrorism" is "revolutionary. One must demand of Baraka that he present any articles from any socialist or communist press where they defined revolution as terrorism.> > >> > We shd understand the white supremacy junkies on the right. Their last pop was Old Dutch cleanser and seltzer water, so they have had almost to cold turkey off that WS they been shootin up, though still dizzy from its fumes. But the Left or soi disant wd be Left or some who style themselves, what? , progressive, moderate, wheeze wheeze. Some of these, certainly the vote wasters, sound almost as pitiful. As one pitiful pundit warns us, "Obama's election is to save capitalism…not bring equality to the society." What a silly person. >>> > To the contrary, it is Baraka and his Democratic and Republican "brothas and sistas" who call themselves "the Left ... progressive, moderate, wheeze wheeze"! The actual labor "left" call themselves socialists, communists and anarchists. Baraka's "homeys" - Obama and Colin Powell respectively call themselves "progressives" and "moderates". But again, I note in passing here that Baraka again refers to those who voted for Cynthia McKinney as throwing their votes into trash (waste)
Anyway, just a few notes to what Adaoma wrote, with which I agree. I will be back tomorrow to take on Baraka's concept of "revolution".> > > > > > Greetings All: This article came from Iskandar's lovely website. The link is at the end of the article. > > > The author in this piece is defensive and rightly so. He endorsed, campaigned for Obama as a "centrist" and as one who would empathize with so-called "progressives". The cabinet choices and appointments to committees, such as Rahm Emanuel, Lawrence Summers and Robert Gates contradict Amiri and shows that Amiri misrepresented Obama.> > Amiri suggested that voting for another Democrat was, this time, the revolutionary thing to do. After all, Amiri is a self-proclaimed Marxist, activist and revolutionary, though he does not define "revolution" like a Marxist??!! The productive forces are still in the hands of the capitalist, since the election, last I looked.> > This idea that "The left" or "progressives" can some how unite and put pressure on Obama to do anything is ridiculous. There was nothing in Obama's campaign that indicated that "the Left" or "Progressives" had audience with him. He distanced himself from everyone with which he was identified, ex. Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers.> > Where is "The Left" in Obama's cabinet? Where are the "progressives" on any of his teams. Obama never pretended to be anything but a Democrat, holding the party line.> > The new administration should not be protected from scrutiny and criticism, as Amiri wishes. It should not be dipped in gold and put in a museum to be admired through all the ages for being a novelty, the "First Black". Novelties wear off and reality sets in.> > The reality of working people and the the global community that this new administration impacts is the disabling economic depression, bloody wars and the threat of more of the same. The appointments, policies, political decisions, mandates and executive orders should of this administration should be critiqued by masses. It should be analyzed in light of our interests. Only then can parties form that serve worker's interests... without critique they will never form.> > The two party system represents the interests of capital, which is evident in their bipartisan support for appropriating workers money to fund the bail out of finance and industrial capital. > > Those who endorse, campaign and vote are responsible for their choices and for the next 4 to eight years of the "election denoument". Amiri is responsible and must be held accountable for this new administration and all it does. > Adaoma> > > > > > We Are Already In The Future!> > > At election's denouement, to the Right the outraged, self loathing of the loser & the losers, including one dude standing mutely in Michigan, a Republican delegate, in a Klan suit, describing Obama as an "Islamic communist". To the Left, the self important drears who had urged us to throw our votes away, as they objectively, in the name of their "principles" , gave votes to John McCain.> > > Even dizzier, we supposedly hear from the left right corkscrew terrorist , Al Qaeda insults that Obama is a "house slave" But as I sd in an instant rejoinder, "Anyone who thinks suicide is revolutionary ain't all that bright to begin with. And as for that slave calling, best they refrain from drawing our attention to the fact that some of the Arab ruling class always thought of Black people as slaves". But we are willing to be momentarily cool, remembering Mao's dictum, "fight your enemies one by one".> > But back to reality. We have just won an election. We, meaning the masses in the US, indeed the people of the world. (I was in Italy, France, Spain, Norway during the period leading up to and through the election. In Italy just before the election at my readings I urged the Italians to call the states, since I knew they had a bunch of relatives over here, and tell them to vote. In city after city the crowds all seemed to cheer for Obama's victory.) And whoever seeks to downplay that victory is fool or enemy.> > We shd understand the white supremacy junkies on the right. Their last pop was Old Dutch cleanser and seltzer water, so they have had almost to cold turkey off that WS they been shootin up, though still dizzy from its fumes. But the Left or soi disant wd be Left or some who style themselves, what? , progressive, moderate, wheeze wheeze. Some of these, certainly the vote wasters, sound almost as pitiful. As one pitiful pundit warns us, "Obama's election is to save capitalism…not bring equality to the society." What a silly person.> > First of all the very election of Obama has done more to bring some aspect of equality to the society than reams of pseudo leftist posturing. Which, all returns in, is meant merely to show the writer is smarter than you are. But what, dreary pundits, wd a McCain victory have done? And suppose your wasted vote had contributed to such? To always be on the outside nitpicking away with not one sign of useful political practice or construction, this is too often what the Left has become. I say it again, people who have never and cannot elect a dog catcher but who are full of immense ideas about politics. Bah, Humbug!> > No single election, my friends, will ever bring us Socialism, if that's what you really seek. The struggle is protracted, hasn't that been said? We have yet even to convince the "revolutionaries" they are in the United States. But Obama is not even in office yet these pundits of pitifulness already have the hole card on what his governance cannot or will not do. This is especially irritating from those commentators who counseled us not to vote for him in the first place. One wonders if they think their counsel, which meant nothing, is more valuable than having an actual person of color with the widest mandate in history actually elected president?> > > But to run off howling about it's not this and it's not that, when we do not yet have a viable analysis of what it really is! Not to understand how that victory was achieved is to willfully miss a rare opportunity of learning how to master the capitalist electoral system. One of the reasons we do not yet understand how to harness the electoral process to a revolutionary and socialist agenda is that too many of the very people who should be leading such a process denounce and/or avoid it. To do what? Make statements and demonstrate. To withdraw from the most acceptable way of gaining power in the society defies understanding by any rational means. Except for the hold that infantile leftism and anarchism have on too many wishing to present themselves as revolutionary.> > Barack Obama raised hundreds of millions of dollars, much of it as a result of using the internet culture, for fundraising and organizing. Let the foolish Right agonize over their attempt at denigrating "Community Organizer". Now they have at least felt a C.O. foot planted up their B &A Hinds.> > Obama raised 150 million dollars in October alone! He beat both Hilary Clinton & John McCain fund raising. At one point he wanted to buy one hour of time on CNN to lay out a complete campaign message, but CNN vetoed it. And here we thought that money was the ultimate boss. What the Right cannot forget nor the milksop Left is that Obama was/is smarter than both of them! And more in tune with the popular mind, not only of the 98% of the Afro American population but, obviously of the great majority of Americans. This, in itself, is a fantastic new precedent that must be acted upon immediately, before the corporate right media and all our "independent" smarty pants commentators cloud over the main issues.> > The "bottom line" of Obama's campaign was his initiation at the grass roots level in his appeal. The 04 Democratic convention is widely seen as the opening of his campaign and I can accept that, but even to be there to do that. A first term senator of color from Illinois. How did he get to be a Senator in the lst place? I watched the biopic on CNN and what I got from it is a skill developed as a, what?, community organizer. To organize significant groups around their own interests and with that connecting them in motion around some larger issue. Obama carried his Chicago, his Illinois constituency with him and as he made more powerful meaningful connections, like an extension cord, his total reach and power expanded.> > For the Left, they should never speak another word about "politics" unless they can understand and explain to their own constituents, how this Black man, Ok, this person of color, Ok, this half white dude, became President of the United States. Because it is just such grounding in basic everyday electorally oriented politics that the Left denounces and eschews. To all our detriments. In the main, the Left holds rallies and makes statements. Community Organization is almost as foreign to them as the Right. (But then the Right does its "community organization" through their media.)> > Usually, when the Left talks about "the people" or "the masses" they come out of some comic book academic manual confusing the US, the most highly developed 21st century monopoly capitalist society, with 19th century Russia or early 20th century China. Both largely peasant societies with small but developing working classes. The US is neither.> > The US is both debtor and predator state, at the same time. With a highly developed yet debt burdened working class who are told every day that they are the middle class. There is a middle class, a petty bourgeoisie, a very very affluent sector, who are the lieutenants and paid liars, the middle management who are also deeply in debt. There is also a petty petty bourgeois, the teachers, government workers, civil servants, office workers, &c. Racism still internally divides these classes horizontally, with the Afro American people still at the bottom, yet those same Afro American people, nearly 50 million, have a gross national product of 600 Billion dollars a year , the 16th largest in the world.> > There have already been Four Revolutions in the United States. The first in the 18th century, for "independence" (quotes because in some ways it never completely happened. Check out British holdings in the US). The 2nd in the 19th century, the Civil War, which ended chattel slavery (& w/the 13th, 14th 15th amendments) and competitive capitalism, ushered in monopoly capitalism and began to free the white worker from the land.> > The 3rd revolution was the 50's to 70's Civil Rights and Black Liberation Movements which ended petty apartheid & segregation (Civil Rights Bill, Voting Rights Bill, Brown vs. Bd of Ed). Though a case could be made that this was an extended motion that was initiated by the post Civil War move out of the south by millions of Black people transforming the Afro American people from a largely peasant rural people to a working class. An urban proletariat.> > The Obama election is the 4th Revolution! What is needed now is for the would be Left, the revolutionaries, , the progressive sector of the body politic, the Communists to correctly analyze and project widely just what kind of revolution this is. But more than that, lay out exactly what is to be done at this point, the entry to a new stage of US social development, like we used to say, What is the key link, to make the next forward motion.> ************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********> > We shd know that the stage of society to which we are moving toward would be some kind of Peoples Democracy. Fundamentally, this is the social base of Obama's victory, the so called Post racial coalition. We understand that there is yet no such reality existing concretely in the institutions and relations of US society, except that is the oncoming force that won the 4th Revolution and it is this force that must harnessed as a living material entity in transforming US society.> > This would place us near the most advanced stage of bourgeois democracy. We can see Monopoly capitalism crashing down around their and our heads! We have agreed to give the rulers a trillion dollars so they can continue to be rich and the rulers. But for the would be Leftists to tell us that Obama's Only or that his "primary function is to save capitalism by building a united front to rescue capitalism NOT to bring about a more egalitarian, antiracist anti sexist pro environment society". Why would anyone who was actually struggling for Democracy say that? It sounds like the sour grapes of the people who wanted us to waste our votes , but even though they tailed 98% of the Afro American and half of the rest of the American people, still want to give us advice and instructions. Actually, it is they who need advice and instructions.> > To make such a one sided infantile Leftist or Trot like analysis of the election would only turn that overwhelming majority whom you tail anyway, even more sharply and outspokenly against you. There is neither balance nor real analysis in that statement. Just an attempt to be again, more revolutionary than the people. But the task of the revolutionary is to lead the people by taking what they already know and giving it back to them with the focus of the present the past and the future.> > Plus to see Obama's victory as simply a victory for monopoly capitalism is so thoroughly anarchist that it rejects the most important essence of the entire Obama drama, i.e. it was the highest stroke of the Civil Rights and Black Liberation Movements yet. We bled to integrate lunch counters, buses, public toilets, water fountains, was that struggle just to create a united front to save monopoly capitalism? Do you think Obama's victory less than those? It was a concrete victory for Democracy. Don't you understand that you cd say the victory of the North in the civil war was just to preserve capitalism? Yes, at a higher level. But don't you think the concomitant advance of the Afro American people worth noting?> > So to say Obama's only function is to save monopoly capitalism, we say,"I'm glad you can dig it, but that's not all… "To claim merely an anarchist or infantile position and not deepen the analysis so we can understand that monopoly capitalism cannot survive unless it adopts some aspects of social democracy. Obama's election is the first aspect of that social democracy. In the same way that FDR's "New Deal" could not survive, even as a method of maintaining monopoly capitalism unless it adopted important features of socialism, social democracy, i.e., social security and Unemployment insurance, the WPA public Works project to put people back to work. Even the artists. I said before that what Obama must bring us is "A New New Deal"! That is why it is so important that he hit the ground running, in much the same way that Roosevelt did in his first 100 Days. (See ….) I was glad to hear that he was reading accounts of the emergency bills Roosevelt passed before the reactionary congress could block him. Obama faces the same exigency. We need a "fast break" strategy with a few"alley oop" dunks perhaps. Before the opposition can resolidify itself.> > We have a great unity among the people now with Obama's victory and we and the people must move forward with that catalyst. We must unite principally against still existing racism and white supremacy. We must also unite against the domination of monopoly capitalism over the people's needs. The theft of a trillion dollars has infuriated the people, certainly we can unite them, build a united front around the need to destroy surviving racism and white supremacy and for creating greater regulations on monopoly capitalism. If we give the investment banks a trillion dollars we should own those investment banks. If we give another two hundred fifty billion to the auto industry, we should own that auto industry.> > We cannot wipe away monopoly capitalism with one election but our minimum program must include regulation of it, Public ownership reversing the trend of outsourcing, and sending factories out of the country, usually out of working class and minority neighborhoods. Certainly we can build a united front around these things.> We should be listing those things we can do, those things that Obama's election has enabled us to do rather than spending time telling people that what they and he did was nothing!> > In attacking monopoly capitalism we shd support small capitalism and minority capitalism and fight that those businesses and institutions in working class and minority communities get the dollars that we are giving the investment banks and auto industry.> The development of small capitalism in those communities and state ownership of these financial institutions would be steps forward in terms of the development of a Peoples Democracy.> > Is this socialism,> No, but we must first regulate and weaken monopoly capitalism, in tune with the peoples newly awakened appetite for expanded democracy and their hard times which we know and can make them better understand is caused by the domination of monopoly capitalism and imperialism, including the Iraq war.> > It is up to us, the Left, to build on the powerful democratic coalition Obama's campaign and election have already built. We must strive to make such a democratic coalition more than just an temporary election campaign call and fight to turn such ideas and momentary commitment into a powerful new base on which to focus Obama's first term, but also to build this into a permanent aspect of US society. The anti war forces are another key aspect of this coalition and a means to call for a refocusing of the 10billion dollars a month now spent on the Iraq war.> > We shd try to build a broad united front out of the consensus coming out of the 63% of the electorate that voted for Obama! One wonders how people in the Black Left who were at the North Carolina meeting and some others, can really call for an smaller united front than the hundred or so people who were there. What we need is a unity based on real struggle over actual objectives and motives, i.e. being "open and above board" without "conspiracy and intrigue".> > There are forces who dropped out of the Black Radical Congress because they were angry about alleged CPUSA "domination" , domination of what, and to what end? Just as a somewhat earlier canard that they cdn't be in any group where there were white people. We wonder is this some fear of not being able to struggle for the correct line in these forces presence?> > Too often it seems that some of the Black Left are really nationalists straining for a new identity by claiming to be Left but never Marxist Leninists. Some are Black Nationalists who claim "Left" by being influenced by Trotskyist or Anarchist stands.> > At any rate we need an even broader United Front guided by genuine revolutionaries, communists not Trot influenced Black Leftists.> > +++++> There are questions about Obama's appointments even before he is inaugurated. Just as there were questions about him refusing public funding. On the second issue, it shd be obvious by now that Obama saw the public funding, as it is now constructed, to be a ruse to cripple his fund raising, while the Republicans would run ragtime and out raise him, just as Hillary would have done.> > On the chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, we should try to understand that this was a very smart choice. The constant calumny against Obama that he is a Muslim. The Right kept screaming his middle name, Hussain, in hopes that would stop the Obamacoaster that enveloped the country. The constant questions about his support for Israel or from the other side about his relationship to the "Zionist entity" were a constant negation Obama faced. Even now, after the election, the fool, al Qaeda's Zawahari, hurls insults about Obama. Just as some ignorant American anarchists threaten to disrupt the inauguration because of "Obama's Zionism & Militarism".> > Rahm Emanuel's selection is due to confound those who are not thoughtful about just what challenges Obama faces. The ever lurking actual Zionists will always make trouble until they can have what they really want, not peace, but the entire Middle East as a fiefdom ruled by Israel.> > The Emanuel appointment stops Zionist mischief at the door. Karl Rove's television appearance blasting Emanuel as "combative, ill tempered and foul mouthed" and that he was Obama's worst appointment , were very encouraging to me. Let the rumor mongers and mischief makers and other nattering nabobs try to cause havoc at the gates. I trust Emanuel to handle that as chief of staff, both the constant undermining questions of the Zionists as well as the others who want to make Obama a Zionist. To be a friend of the Israeli people is no crime, to foster a Zionist dictatorship over the Middle East would be a crime. We cannot see Obama doing the latter.> > The first necessity of the Obama precedent is to put out a call for a nationwide Democratic Coalition, to heighten even further the attack on white supremacy and racism. Even to fight to get these made illegal, unlawful. This would be the essence of the Post racial coalition, which has already shown its potential power with the election of the President. The Kennedy years could have set something of a precedent, but his assassination along with the assassinations of Malcolm X, Dr. King, Bobby Kennedy, peaked with the election of Nixon and then the takeover at the end of the 70's by the Reagan steamroller which has been with us in essence until today.> > Those assassinations were a Right wing coup, an oil smelling coup that at its denouement was the invasion of the Middle East and the outright takeover of the oil fields, plus the move of the financial markets to Dubai, as alternate to London and Wall St. Monsters covered with and bathing in oil . The crash of the financial markets in the US and to some extent worldwide can mark the end of this domination if we will move on the new precedent of Obama's election.> > Not only must this new Democratic Coalition take on White supremacy and Racism but to oppose and struggle to end the domination of monopoly capitalism over the people of the US, end the war in Iraq and in essence its domination of the world. State ownership, nationalization, new funding for non monopoly and small business. This democratic coalition must be built into a permanent electoral presence as well to combat the still powerful and ruthless forces of white supremacy and the domination of society by monopoly capitalism.> > The Public Works' New New Deal would see Katrina damaged New Orleans as a top priority and seek to reconstruct the entire gulf ravaged area from Louisiana to Texas. The sagging infrastructure of bridges and tunnels and urban structures must be repaired. This is one solution to chronic unemployment. Certainly these inner cities are in need of public dollars for employment and reconstruction. Just as in the depression 30's Roosevelt's new deal even supported the arts, we must see that our new Democratic Coalition demands the same kind of support after years of the Republicans attacks on public support of the Arts.> > =We want to build a new Democratic Coalition as an engine for the bringing of a People's Democracy. Any narrowing of the "Post racial coalition" that elected Obama is a mistake. We must fight to make it real. Those who think that tailing "Labor" mostly the labor bureaucrats or pushing economism as a substitute for political organizing and fielding candidates for every position we are able to are merely continuing the marginalization and irrelevance of the Left. The call for an anti racist anti monopoly Democratic Coalition is correct and necessary and the only move that will give the genuine revolutionaries leadership of the progressive political struggle in the US.> Amiri Baraka> 11/29/08> http://mbantunyanko mpong.wordpress. com/2008/ 12/03/guest- commentator- amiri-baraka/
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Friday, January 2, 2009
From: Marvin X Jackmon To: mreynolds@bayareanewsgroup.comSent: Friday, January 2, 2009 6:49:30 PM
Subject: Re: The Phony Chauncey Bailey Project
Martin, why do I need to do your work, especially when I am not being paid? Chauncey discussed his final project, the bakery and the police killers, robbers and drug dealers, with many people in the community. They have told me this. Why has not the project written anything about the contents of his notes or investigated the points he raised? The police incompentence is not the issue, not the real issue since it did not cause his death, except for that socalled stupid delay by the chief, followed by his lies.
The truth is that Chauncey was set up by certain family members who knew when information got to other family members, there would be a violent reaction. So even Bey IV and his crew were set up then "coached" by the OPD who had issues with Chauncey because they knew he was investigating them as well.
Chauncey fell into a trap of family intrigue move complex than the greatest Shakespearean dramas, try Macbeth, King Lear or Hamlet.
The Middle East crisis, your paper and the CBP are related since they deal with Muslims, Zionism and murder. The CBP has spread hatred against Muslims with its emphasis on Muslim bakery boys who had advisors on the OPD. So far the CBP has only dealt with Muslim involvement and the OPD with respect to administrative issues. Chauncey Bailey was only one Negro killed in Oakland in 2007, how many more might have died as a result of the OPD killers? How many innocent are in jail and prison as a result of the OPD planting false evidence? In short, like Zionist propaganda that is focusing the world on the four Israelis dead while ignoring the 400 dead in Gaza, the CBP is focusing on one killing when the matter is much deeper. What if half the black homicides in Oakland turned out to be police murders? Or a tenth of them--clearly this is a greater story than the Bakery boys, even the OPD association with the boys. Will you await information from the wire services on the wider slaughter on the streets of Oakland, which is similar to Gaza since blacks are under occupation by wicked police, politicians, preachers,teachers and journalists.
And you wonder why your paper is dead or dying--it's because it is deviod of truth and guilty of bias. Look at the recent uproar over the lesbian kidnapped and raped in Richmond. It is all over the news as a hate crime, but the murder of blacks is a small matter unless it is an "important Negro" from the bourgeoisie, may Chauncey rest in peace. The murder of a black by a black is a hate crime since the victims and the murderer suffer hatred as a result of their white supremacy addiction.
--Marvin X
From: "mreynolds@bayareanewsgroup.com"To: : Re: The Phony Chauncey Bailey Project
Sir, if Paul Cobb has some notes from Chauncey to share with the Bailey Project, he knows how to reach me. He and I have had dozens of conversations since Chauncey was killed and he has had ample time to share any vital information with me or Project reporters. For you to imply we have not inquired about any relevant information, such as his notes, is lunacy.For your part in taking repeated pot-shots at the validity and veracity of the Bailey Project and its reportage, I would suggest perhaps actually speaking with Project editors or reporters before making baseless accusations in your latest missive in the Post. Your "column" would appear to be a thinly veiled tip sheet wrapped up in unfounded criticism that spills over to the on-going Middle East crisis, for which we use the wire services to cover. A debate over their slant or tone is certainly worthy of discussion, although stories I have seen quote both sides amply. Again, if you would like to contribute something to the efforts of the Bailey project or would like an actual comment from the Project, my phone number and email are listed on the cover of the Tribune's Metro section 365 days a year. Paul has my cell number.-- Martin G. ReynoldsEditor, The Oakland Tribune
The Phony Chauncey Bailey Project
As we enter the new year, the Chauncey Bailey Project continues its sham reporting of the murder of journalist Chauncey Bailey. The more they uncover about the police role in his murder, the more they hide. We wonder when will they get to the root cause of his murder: not his story on the goings on at the Muslim bakery but most importantly, the black police murder and shake down squad, similar to the white police "Riders gang" who was found not guilty, if you can believe this sham justice system, sister of the sham police department and the sham white media.
We can see in its coverage of the Gaza genocide the white media is a hostage of Zionism. We see how they put the Gaza story on the back pages of their papers, e.g., San Francisco Chronicle and Oakland Tribune. Rather that inform readers about the slaughter of Palestianians in Gaza by the Zionists, the Oakland Tribune's headline was socalled new evidence on the Chanucey murder, or the police connection to the Muslim bakery. Will we ever get to the notes Chauncey left on the Oakland police department? Why hasn't the CBP revealed the notes. They need only check with Oakland Post publisher Paul Cobb. Has the CBP interviewed the eyewitness to the murder, the man Chauncey used to feed every morning on his way to work? Have they interviewed the brothers in prison who will testify about the black officers who used to shake them down for drugs and jewelry, and who planted false evidence on them? They claim the officers in charge of the crime scene are the same ones who used to shake them down. There was another former drug dealer at the crime scene who recognized the black officers who used to shake him down. Is there a conspiracy between the police and the media--is this possible?
Isn't it laughable that the Oakland Police delayed their raid on the bakery so members of the Swat team could return from a backpacking trip--in the meantime a journalist is murdered? The whole matter smells fowl. It stinks from Mayor Ron Dellums' office as well. We have previously said his call for State Attorney General Jerry Brown to investigate the investigators is a joke--especially when as Mayor Jerry Brown conspired to have Chauncey Bailey fired from the Oakland Tribune since he was tired of that "nigger snooping around city hall and the police department." Jerry Brown must be investigated himself for possible wrong doing as Mayor, such as the theft of the city treasury, that phony Fox theatre project and the Ice rink loan scam.
Imagine the priority of an ice rink for Oakland Negroes suffering homicide, unemployment, miseducation and disparities in health care.
Will my brother and fellow journalist Chauncey Bailey ever receive justice? It is doubtful since the case was bundled on purpose from the beginning by the investigating officers. The CBP has made some effort to uncover important facts such as the misplaced interview with the girlfriend of Bey IV (was she a police informant?) and the contradiction of the police chief regarding the delay of the raid on the bakery which was scheduled on August 1 but strangely delayed until August 3, the day after Chauncey was murdered.
--Marvin X
Marvin X is one of the founders of the Black Arts Movement and the father of Muslim American literature. His play Salaam, Huey Newton, Salaam, was recently performed in New York. Visit his blog: www.marvinxwrites.com. Also visit www.nathanielturner.com and www.aalbc.com.
Subject: Re: The Phony Chauncey Bailey Project
Martin, why do I need to do your work, especially when I am not being paid? Chauncey discussed his final project, the bakery and the police killers, robbers and drug dealers, with many people in the community. They have told me this. Why has not the project written anything about the contents of his notes or investigated the points he raised? The police incompentence is not the issue, not the real issue since it did not cause his death, except for that socalled stupid delay by the chief, followed by his lies.
The truth is that Chauncey was set up by certain family members who knew when information got to other family members, there would be a violent reaction. So even Bey IV and his crew were set up then "coached" by the OPD who had issues with Chauncey because they knew he was investigating them as well.
Chauncey fell into a trap of family intrigue move complex than the greatest Shakespearean dramas, try Macbeth, King Lear or Hamlet.
The Middle East crisis, your paper and the CBP are related since they deal with Muslims, Zionism and murder. The CBP has spread hatred against Muslims with its emphasis on Muslim bakery boys who had advisors on the OPD. So far the CBP has only dealt with Muslim involvement and the OPD with respect to administrative issues. Chauncey Bailey was only one Negro killed in Oakland in 2007, how many more might have died as a result of the OPD killers? How many innocent are in jail and prison as a result of the OPD planting false evidence? In short, like Zionist propaganda that is focusing the world on the four Israelis dead while ignoring the 400 dead in Gaza, the CBP is focusing on one killing when the matter is much deeper. What if half the black homicides in Oakland turned out to be police murders? Or a tenth of them--clearly this is a greater story than the Bakery boys, even the OPD association with the boys. Will you await information from the wire services on the wider slaughter on the streets of Oakland, which is similar to Gaza since blacks are under occupation by wicked police, politicians, preachers,teachers and journalists.
And you wonder why your paper is dead or dying--it's because it is deviod of truth and guilty of bias. Look at the recent uproar over the lesbian kidnapped and raped in Richmond. It is all over the news as a hate crime, but the murder of blacks is a small matter unless it is an "important Negro" from the bourgeoisie, may Chauncey rest in peace. The murder of a black by a black is a hate crime since the victims and the murderer suffer hatred as a result of their white supremacy addiction.
--Marvin X
From: "mreynolds@bayareanewsgroup.com"
Sir, if Paul Cobb has some notes from Chauncey to share with the Bailey Project, he knows how to reach me. He and I have had dozens of conversations since Chauncey was killed and he has had ample time to share any vital information with me or Project reporters. For you to imply we have not inquired about any relevant information, such as his notes, is lunacy.For your part in taking repeated pot-shots at the validity and veracity of the Bailey Project and its reportage, I would suggest perhaps actually speaking with Project editors or reporters before making baseless accusations in your latest missive in the Post. Your "column" would appear to be a thinly veiled tip sheet wrapped up in unfounded criticism that spills over to the on-going Middle East crisis, for which we use the wire services to cover. A debate over their slant or tone is certainly worthy of discussion, although stories I have seen quote both sides amply. Again, if you would like to contribute something to the efforts of the Bailey project or would like an actual comment from the Project, my phone number and email are listed on the cover of the Tribune's Metro section 365 days a year. Paul has my cell number.-- Martin G. ReynoldsEditor, The Oakland Tribune
The Phony Chauncey Bailey Project
As we enter the new year, the Chauncey Bailey Project continues its sham reporting of the murder of journalist Chauncey Bailey. The more they uncover about the police role in his murder, the more they hide. We wonder when will they get to the root cause of his murder: not his story on the goings on at the Muslim bakery but most importantly, the black police murder and shake down squad, similar to the white police "Riders gang" who was found not guilty, if you can believe this sham justice system, sister of the sham police department and the sham white media.
We can see in its coverage of the Gaza genocide the white media is a hostage of Zionism. We see how they put the Gaza story on the back pages of their papers, e.g., San Francisco Chronicle and Oakland Tribune. Rather that inform readers about the slaughter of Palestianians in Gaza by the Zionists, the Oakland Tribune's headline was socalled new evidence on the Chanucey murder, or the police connection to the Muslim bakery. Will we ever get to the notes Chauncey left on the Oakland police department? Why hasn't the CBP revealed the notes. They need only check with Oakland Post publisher Paul Cobb. Has the CBP interviewed the eyewitness to the murder, the man Chauncey used to feed every morning on his way to work? Have they interviewed the brothers in prison who will testify about the black officers who used to shake them down for drugs and jewelry, and who planted false evidence on them? They claim the officers in charge of the crime scene are the same ones who used to shake them down. There was another former drug dealer at the crime scene who recognized the black officers who used to shake him down. Is there a conspiracy between the police and the media--is this possible?
Isn't it laughable that the Oakland Police delayed their raid on the bakery so members of the Swat team could return from a backpacking trip--in the meantime a journalist is murdered? The whole matter smells fowl. It stinks from Mayor Ron Dellums' office as well. We have previously said his call for State Attorney General Jerry Brown to investigate the investigators is a joke--especially when as Mayor Jerry Brown conspired to have Chauncey Bailey fired from the Oakland Tribune since he was tired of that "nigger snooping around city hall and the police department." Jerry Brown must be investigated himself for possible wrong doing as Mayor, such as the theft of the city treasury, that phony Fox theatre project and the Ice rink loan scam.
Imagine the priority of an ice rink for Oakland Negroes suffering homicide, unemployment, miseducation and disparities in health care.
Will my brother and fellow journalist Chauncey Bailey ever receive justice? It is doubtful since the case was bundled on purpose from the beginning by the investigating officers. The CBP has made some effort to uncover important facts such as the misplaced interview with the girlfriend of Bey IV (was she a police informant?) and the contradiction of the police chief regarding the delay of the raid on the bakery which was scheduled on August 1 but strangely delayed until August 3, the day after Chauncey was murdered.
--Marvin X
Marvin X is one of the founders of the Black Arts Movement and the father of Muslim American literature. His play Salaam, Huey Newton, Salaam, was recently performed in New York. Visit his blog: www.marvinxwrites.com. Also visit www.nathanielturner.com and www.aalbc.com.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Palestine
by Marvin X
Black Scholar magazine, circa 1970
I am not an Arab, I am not a Jew
Abraham is not my father, Palestine is not my home
But I would fight any man
who kicked me out of my house to dwell in a tent
I would fight to the ends of the earth
someone who said to me
I want your house because my father lived here two thousand years ago
I want your land because my father lived here two thousand years ago
Jets would not stop me from returning to my home
Uncle toms would not stop me
Cluster bombs would not stop me
bullets I would defy.
No man can take the house of another
and expect to live in peace
There is no peace for thieves
for those who murder for myths ancient rituals
wail at the wall
settle in Judea and Samaria
fate awaits you
you will never sleep in peace
you will never walk without listening.
I shall cross the River Jordan
with justice in my hand
I shall return to Jerusalem
and establish my house of peace
thus said the Lord.
by Marvin X
Black Scholar magazine, circa 1970
I am not an Arab, I am not a Jew
Abraham is not my father, Palestine is not my home
But I would fight any man
who kicked me out of my house to dwell in a tent
I would fight to the ends of the earth
someone who said to me
I want your house because my father lived here two thousand years ago
I want your land because my father lived here two thousand years ago
Jets would not stop me from returning to my home
Uncle toms would not stop me
Cluster bombs would not stop me
bullets I would defy.
No man can take the house of another
and expect to live in peace
There is no peace for thieves
for those who murder for myths ancient rituals
wail at the wall
settle in Judea and Samaria
fate awaits you
you will never sleep in peace
you will never walk without listening.
I shall cross the River Jordan
with justice in my hand
I shall return to Jerusalem
and establish my house of peace
thus said the Lord.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Gaza and Global Politics
Gaza may go the way of Falujah, the city in Iraq that was completely eradicated of resistance fighters by American troops after two American mercenaries were hung from a bridge. Except Gaza may suffer worse by the Zionists. Even as we write American made bunker -buster bombs are dropping on Gaza, one of the highest population density areas in the world, surely innocent civilians are “collateral damage” to a high degree. Four hundred have died already. Mosques, schools, hospitals and office buildings are being systematically destroyed by the bunker busting bombs of the made-in-America Zionists.
The Vandals are at it again, destroying the holy land. Because a Zionist child is peeing in her pants, you must destroy a nation of people who have every right to live, certainly as much right as your peeing children. At least only a few Palestinian children have been bombed to death in Gaza.
But let us be clear, this present battle was not only hatched in Israel and America, but in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. It is a conspiracy between all of the above Sunni Muslims (with Jews and Christian Americans) against the coming power of Iran in the Shite crescent which includes Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and occupied Palestine, including the Gaza Strip.
Does the Hamas people of Gaza who voted in democratic elections for the rule of Hamas have the human right of self determination? So what if they are defined as terrorists by Israel, USA, and the Sunni Muslim reactionary regimes of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, along with the neo-colonial collaborator regime of Abbas and his PLO, who reminds us of Mbeki and his billionaire ANC revolutionaries in South Africa.
We only know that similar to the Black Panther Party in the USA, Hamas won the loyalty of the people by providing their essential needs, food, clothing and shelter, schools, clinics, and security, while the PLO partied in Europe with women and booze and money stolen from the national treasury of the Palestinian people.
The Zionists may win the battle of Gaza but they shall not win the war of liberation by the Palestinian people. The reactionary regimes of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and others have revealed their running dog connection with Zionism and American imperialism now called Globalism.
------------------
If you are brave in the African warrior tradition, invite Marvin to you black history celebration. Call 510-355-6339.
Gaza may go the way of Falujah, the city in Iraq that was completely eradicated of resistance fighters by American troops after two American mercenaries were hung from a bridge. Except Gaza may suffer worse by the Zionists. Even as we write American made bunker -buster bombs are dropping on Gaza, one of the highest population density areas in the world, surely innocent civilians are “collateral damage” to a high degree. Four hundred have died already. Mosques, schools, hospitals and office buildings are being systematically destroyed by the bunker busting bombs of the made-in-America Zionists.
The Vandals are at it again, destroying the holy land. Because a Zionist child is peeing in her pants, you must destroy a nation of people who have every right to live, certainly as much right as your peeing children. At least only a few Palestinian children have been bombed to death in Gaza.
But let us be clear, this present battle was not only hatched in Israel and America, but in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. It is a conspiracy between all of the above Sunni Muslims (with Jews and Christian Americans) against the coming power of Iran in the Shite crescent which includes Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and occupied Palestine, including the Gaza Strip.
Does the Hamas people of Gaza who voted in democratic elections for the rule of Hamas have the human right of self determination? So what if they are defined as terrorists by Israel, USA, and the Sunni Muslim reactionary regimes of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, along with the neo-colonial collaborator regime of Abbas and his PLO, who reminds us of Mbeki and his billionaire ANC revolutionaries in South Africa.
We only know that similar to the Black Panther Party in the USA, Hamas won the loyalty of the people by providing their essential needs, food, clothing and shelter, schools, clinics, and security, while the PLO partied in Europe with women and booze and money stolen from the national treasury of the Palestinian people.
The Zionists may win the battle of Gaza but they shall not win the war of liberation by the Palestinian people. The reactionary regimes of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and others have revealed their running dog connection with Zionism and American imperialism now called Globalism.
------------------
If you are brave in the African warrior tradition, invite Marvin to you black history celebration. Call 510-355-6339.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Plato's Last Class
"Marvin X is Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland."
--Ishmael Reed, author, novelist, McArthur Genius Award winner
After three years teaching on the streets of Oakland, Plato (Marvin X) was recently told by the Oakland Police that he can no longer vend his books or teach at 14th and Broadway, the crossroads of Oakland, no matter that the youth and adults of Oakland have had the pleasure of a leading writer and intellectual freely at their disposal, someone with whom they could engage on any topic, personal or political, religious or spiritual, matters of black consciousness and history.
In New York recently to see a production of his play Salaam, Huey Newton, Salaam, at Woody King's New Federal Theatre, Marvin returned to his open air classroom but was soon approached by a police officer who informed him the area was off limits to vending (after three years with no hassle, with police present on the block daily)--although vending was merely a front for Marvin X to engage the people, discussing their needs. The poet had set up a micro-credit bank on his table from which anyone could borrow money to satisfy their hunger, need for transportation or whatever critical need they had. People who borrowed from the micro credit bank (basket) would come by to repay their loan.
Intellectuals and politicos such as OCCUR's David Glover, entrepreneur Geoffrey Pete, attorney Walter Riley, actor Michael Lange, photographer Gene Hazzard, educators Ptah Allah El and math teacher Ramal Lamar often gathered to discuss current events, especially happenings at Mayor Ron Dellums' City Hall across the street, or the Obama Drama Plato wrote about in the Oakland Post newspaper whose office is located down the block at 14th and Franklin Streets.
Is it possible the OPD moved on Plato because of his series of articles on OPD connection to the murder of Oakland Post Editor Chauncey Bailey? (See the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, San Francisco Bay view Newspaper; also the Cross and the Lynching Tree and Who Killed Chauncey Bailey, Oakland Post.)
Before the OPD arrived to close his classroom/clinic down, Plato had to deal with a potential suicide. A brother came to him saying he wanted to kill himself because he and his woman had gotten into it the night before. She had a restraining order on him but called his hotel room begging him to come over, so he did and soon they were arguing. He left assuming she would call the OPD. He told Plato he loved her, even though she was ball headed, had a hump in her back and walked with a limp. He said she told him she would search for him to the ends of the earth because she loved him too. Plato told him to get a grip on himself, but the young man said he wanted to kill himself. He was on the way to cash his check and turn himself in to the OPD since he presumed his woman had called them. He wanted to cash his check so he would have money on the books in jail. He said he had a good job with the City of San Francisco but didn't go to work that day because he was so upset. Plato saw tears coming from the eyes of this tall warrior who stood before him, humbled as a midget. Plato begged him not to commit suicide. He told him things have a way of working themselves out even when it appears all hope is lost. The brother left to cash his check so he would have money on the books.
A short time later several young black males gathered in front of Plato's table with Obama T shirts and Plato's books. The young brothers began shouting, "Obama, Obama, the first Black President." Plato joined them, but added to their chant, "Obama, Obama, the first Black President--now pull your pants up for the first Black President. Pull your pants up for the first Black President!" The brothers pulled up their pants, then asked for a free Obama button which Plato gave them. But then here comes an OG Negro who intervened, saying, "Leave them children alone, if they want to sag let them sag." Plato told the OG Negro to shut up and get out of his mix. He saw that maybe the source of youth ignorance is parental or elder ignorance. When the blind lead the blind they both fall into the ditch together, as the Bible tells us.
And then came the pig telling Plato to close it down, saying he was only doing his job to feed his family. Plato, being his arrogant self, took his time packing, especially since he had no fear of the OBP-- after all, his Black Panther friends Huey, Bobby and Eldridge used to shoot the OPD.
But on the spiritual plane one door closes and another opens. Down the block is De Lauer's Newsstand and bookstore which sells Plato's books. The century old business was recently bought by Ethiopians. Plato asked the owner Solomon if he knew what a writer in resident is? Solomon said yes. Plato said what is a writer in residence? Solomon said you! And so it is. Plato's new classroom will likely be at De Lauer's. Stay tuned.
"Marvin X is Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland."
--Ishmael Reed, author, novelist, McArthur Genius Award winner
After three years teaching on the streets of Oakland, Plato (Marvin X) was recently told by the Oakland Police that he can no longer vend his books or teach at 14th and Broadway, the crossroads of Oakland, no matter that the youth and adults of Oakland have had the pleasure of a leading writer and intellectual freely at their disposal, someone with whom they could engage on any topic, personal or political, religious or spiritual, matters of black consciousness and history.
In New York recently to see a production of his play Salaam, Huey Newton, Salaam, at Woody King's New Federal Theatre, Marvin returned to his open air classroom but was soon approached by a police officer who informed him the area was off limits to vending (after three years with no hassle, with police present on the block daily)--although vending was merely a front for Marvin X to engage the people, discussing their needs. The poet had set up a micro-credit bank on his table from which anyone could borrow money to satisfy their hunger, need for transportation or whatever critical need they had. People who borrowed from the micro credit bank (basket) would come by to repay their loan.
Intellectuals and politicos such as OCCUR's David Glover, entrepreneur Geoffrey Pete, attorney Walter Riley, actor Michael Lange, photographer Gene Hazzard, educators Ptah Allah El and math teacher Ramal Lamar often gathered to discuss current events, especially happenings at Mayor Ron Dellums' City Hall across the street, or the Obama Drama Plato wrote about in the Oakland Post newspaper whose office is located down the block at 14th and Franklin Streets.
Is it possible the OPD moved on Plato because of his series of articles on OPD connection to the murder of Oakland Post Editor Chauncey Bailey? (See the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, San Francisco Bay view Newspaper; also the Cross and the Lynching Tree and Who Killed Chauncey Bailey, Oakland Post.)
Before the OPD arrived to close his classroom/clinic down, Plato had to deal with a potential suicide. A brother came to him saying he wanted to kill himself because he and his woman had gotten into it the night before. She had a restraining order on him but called his hotel room begging him to come over, so he did and soon they were arguing. He left assuming she would call the OPD. He told Plato he loved her, even though she was ball headed, had a hump in her back and walked with a limp. He said she told him she would search for him to the ends of the earth because she loved him too. Plato told him to get a grip on himself, but the young man said he wanted to kill himself. He was on the way to cash his check and turn himself in to the OPD since he presumed his woman had called them. He wanted to cash his check so he would have money on the books in jail. He said he had a good job with the City of San Francisco but didn't go to work that day because he was so upset. Plato saw tears coming from the eyes of this tall warrior who stood before him, humbled as a midget. Plato begged him not to commit suicide. He told him things have a way of working themselves out even when it appears all hope is lost. The brother left to cash his check so he would have money on the books.
A short time later several young black males gathered in front of Plato's table with Obama T shirts and Plato's books. The young brothers began shouting, "Obama, Obama, the first Black President." Plato joined them, but added to their chant, "Obama, Obama, the first Black President--now pull your pants up for the first Black President. Pull your pants up for the first Black President!" The brothers pulled up their pants, then asked for a free Obama button which Plato gave them. But then here comes an OG Negro who intervened, saying, "Leave them children alone, if they want to sag let them sag." Plato told the OG Negro to shut up and get out of his mix. He saw that maybe the source of youth ignorance is parental or elder ignorance. When the blind lead the blind they both fall into the ditch together, as the Bible tells us.
And then came the pig telling Plato to close it down, saying he was only doing his job to feed his family. Plato, being his arrogant self, took his time packing, especially since he had no fear of the OBP-- after all, his Black Panther friends Huey, Bobby and Eldridge used to shoot the OPD.
But on the spiritual plane one door closes and another opens. Down the block is De Lauer's Newsstand and bookstore which sells Plato's books. The century old business was recently bought by Ethiopians. Plato asked the owner Solomon if he knew what a writer in resident is? Solomon said yes. Plato said what is a writer in residence? Solomon said you! And so it is. Plato's new classroom will likely be at De Lauer's. Stay tuned.
A Look inside Baraka’s Toilet
By definition a classic is a work that withstands the test of time, fad, beyond the ephemeral. A classic theme deconstructs one or more of the eternal concerns of humanity, love, hate, life and death, or the problems of life that never seem to get solved even when the solution is quite apparent. The simple solution to hate is love, so simple we must revisit the question and solution from time to time.
Almost forty-five years ago, Amiri Baraka examined the themes of racism and homophobia in his one-act play The Toilet. The set is a high school men’s room, wherein he gathers a group of young men to decipher the meaning of love and hate. Mostly black, the young men appear to be at an urban manhood training rite. We see a myriad personalities expressing themselves in the rhythm and rhymes of the time—there are no pants sagging, no grills in teeth, but they are there seeking to discover their manhood, racial and sexual identity.
The tragedy of that time and this time is that their search for manhood and sexual identity is unorganized and haphazard, thus then and now young men must grapple with self discovery in isolated groups without mentor, elder or guide. No adult appears in the Toilet to give words of wisdom, thus the young men are adrift in their ignorance, seeking to find themselves in the midst of darkness. How ironic the setting is a high school where we assume learning is taking place, and yet learning occurs not in the classroom but the toilet. The toilet becomes the bush in African or primitive tradition, for there is terror, violence to bring transformation from hatred to love and interracial understanding.
A white boy writes a love letter to a black boy and the drama involves the resolution of this event. The white boy has crossed the racial line into the black brotherhood and suffers violence as a result—he his beaten into a pulp, bloody as a beet, half-dead when brought into The Toilet.
Gang violence is a natural happening in urban culture, senseless violence to express manhood; even sexual violence is a natural part of this oppressed society. And so the black boy is finally confronted by the white boy who loves him and the brother is physically overcome by the white boy to the chagrin of the black brotherhood. The white boy is again attacked by the toilet gang and all depart, including another white boy who had come to the defense of his white brother.
The Toilet ends with the black boy returning to embrace the white boy. Lights down.
What was Baraka trying to tell us forty-five years ago and what relevance has his message now? Since then gays and lesbians have come out of the closet, although the passage of California’s Proposition 8 denies them the right of marriage, and the gays are miffed at Blacks for supporting the proposition, although the president of the state NAACP in her role as a lobbyist opposed the bill, along with many black newspapers and several ministers who were probably paid to do so. Apparently a majority of blacks do not equate gay rights with civil rights. Are sexual rights human rights?
The question Baraka raised had to do with transcending hatred in favor of love. Proposition 8 denied gays and lesbians the right to codify their love in marriage.
Blacks are known to be sexually conservative, although they now have many children on the streets embracing the gay/lesbian lifestyle. Blacks are thus hypocritical and drowning in denial, in similar fashion to the black brothers in The Toilet who refused to consider that one of their own might have crossed the line, not only racially but sexually as well.
On my recent visit to New York to see Woody King’s production of my play (with Ed Bullins) Salaam, Huey Newton, Salaam, Baraka’s The Toilet and Hugh Fletcher’s Amarie, I was accompanied by two lesbian assistants. Of course, being a dirty old man, I tried to get at them. (See my poem Why I Love Lesbians.) And they were highly upset at my offensive language, something they should have known I am known for by those who know me. Although I imagined them to be young women, with whom I could talk adult talk, they were suffering arrested development, in search of their sexual identity, much like the brothers in The Toilet.
Nevertheless, I wanted them to spend some time with Amina Baraka who is still in grief over the lost of her daughter Shani and her lover Rayshan to homicide. I thought conversing with the young ladies, 19 and 25, would help Amina heal from the horror of losing her only daughter by Baraka. She did meet the young ladies at the theatre and immediately saw the physical similarity between one girl and her daughter, Shani. “I knew you would see that,” I told Amina. The girl, Raushanah, like Shani, had been a point guard as well. We agreed to come to Newark to spend time with Amina, but after my verbal insults, the girls declined to make the trip, even though we reconciled our issues as best we could.
I made the trip to Newark alone to hang out with the Barakas, who had me bar hoping after a wonderful dinner at the Spanish restaurant across from city hall. One of the bars we visited is owned by former mayor Sharp James, now doing prison time for corruption.
I hadn’t planned to spend the night but Amina had other plans, so she made room for me in the space they have preserved for Shani. On my last visit, she had told me that I was the first person to spend the night in Shani’s room, filled with her artifacts, several basketball size trophies, numerous awards and proclamations to her athletic prowess and mentorship.
After the last bar, we headed home. Tired, I said goodnight to the Barakas and went upstairs to my room or rather, Shani’s room. I shut the door and looking around at Shani’s archives, something told me to say a prayer, so I did.
I got up the next morning early, way too early to disturb the Barakas, so I purveyed the room, and seeing the trophies were dusty, wiped them. I just happened to have a poem in my back pocket When Thy Lover Has Gone to Eternity, so I placed it between the trophies as an offering. I said another prayer before departing. And then I heard Shani speaking, saying, “No, no, no, no to hate, no, no, no, no.” She said, “Yes, yes to love, yes, yes, yes, yes.”
I shut the door and made my way downstairs, passing the sleeping Barakas and out into the cold Newark morning. At South Tenth and Clinton Streets I hailed a taxi, telling him to take me to John’s Place, my favorite breakfast spot in Newark . I ordered Whiting, grits and eggs, with biscuits that melted in my mouth. After breakfast, I walked to the bus stop for the ride to Penn Station and the train back across the river to New York . As I stood waiting for the bus, Shani spoke again in the winter wind, “No, no, no, no to hate. Yes, yes, yes to love.”
Shall we not love our gay children, the many young men and women who have chosen the gay lifestyle for whatever reason: we can say they were born that way, or have an identity crisis from feminine or matrifocal socialization (lack of manhood rites or womanhood rites), or there was sexual assault by a gay or lesbian relative, or incest by father, uncle, brother, cousin who turned the girl against all men. We can catalogue all the possibilities yet not get to the end of the road on this matter: our gay children need help!
They need love and support as they go through their daily round. We cannot simply look at them and reduce them to social rejects, pariahs we must shun at all costs as if they are not natural but some kind of mutants from Mars.
In short, they need our help with their growing pains. All children need love, recognition and acceptance. Do you think the gay children are not suffering the normal white supremacy virus of parental abandonment, abuse and neglect? Even more so, our gay young men are suffering the highest rate of HIV infection. What shall we do—surely we can reach out and touch these young men on a suicide path—at the very least, we can educate them about the dangers of their unsafe sexual behavior.
Our lesbian children need our love and acceptance as well. Maybe some of them will return to the straight life (as if that’s anything to brag about until we evolve our spiritual consciousness from the patriarchal mentality of domination.)
Again, no matter the cause of the explosion of the gay and lesbian lifestyle, it is a reality we need to deal with. Those who want to be straight should be guided, others who want to be accepted as gay or lesbian should be shown unconditional love as well.
It is wrong for anyone to hate another human being, and especially to hate a child. So let us put on the armor of God and exercise Supreme Wisdom. Either we are working with Divine power or we are on the animal plane, from which our actions are devoid of spiritual consciousness
The Toilet is a state of mind, toxic and transfixed. It must be flushed clean with pure water. There is a moment in the play when a brother goes down the row of urinals flushing each one and laughing with joy as the water flows loudly like a river. Let us flush ourselves with the royal flush of all the urine and defecation in our lives, in our minds that have a strangle hold on the eternity of love, for love is all there is that is precious and real, radical and revolutionary, love, the meaning of the morning, the essence of the night, the why we rise to try again the daily round, to suffer the pain and joy—only love makes the day possible and the night bearable.
In conclusion, moral propositions become just that and nothing more, a momentary thing, until the destruction comes, then we see some things are beyond mere propositions, thoughts, a consensus of the moral or the immoral, for who is moral today, who is immoral? Who are the good guys, bad guys? Who is without sin? You are against gays and lesbians, yet you are a child molester! You are against gays and lesbians, yet you are a wife beater, a murderer, a dope dealer, a wicked teacher, a corrupt banker. Who has the high moral ground? Is it he who does the most good—in the hood? Shall he or she determine the moral code, or is this a free for all, do yo thing, I do my thing—in the Arabic: lakum dinu kum waliyadin (to you your way and to me mine, Al Qur’an).
Unless there is a consensus, who is to say what is right or wrong? We must come to a consensus on the new morality, no matter what ancient mythologies have taught us. In Divine consciousness surely we can find the Way of Love in all matters. Let us search the ancient holy books, texts, inscriptions, for the sure path, since there is doubt persisting into the night. What do the holy books say?
Shall we be swayed by illusions of any kind, spirituality or physicality, mentality or sexuality? If we reinstituted manhood and womanhood rites of passage, we might go a long way toward helping our children cross the threshold of sexual identity and toward spiritual maturation as divine beings in human form. Sexuality and other illusions become secondary to the primary objective of reaching spiritual maturity, following our true bliss, as Joseph Campbell taught us.
--Marvin X
November, 2008
Berkeley CA 94702
Marvin X, poet, playwright, essayist, philosopher, social activist, teacher, is one of the founders of the black arts movement and the father of Muslim American literature. His next collection of essays is Up from Ignut, the Soulful Musings of a North American African Thinker, Black Bird Press, 2009. He is available for speaking and performing engagements. Write to him at 1222 Dwight Way , Berkeley CA 94702 . Call 510-355-6339. Email: jmarvinx@yahoo.com. www.marvinxwrites.blogspot.com. Also see www.nathanielturner.com and www.aalbc.com. Search Google as well.
By definition a classic is a work that withstands the test of time, fad, beyond the ephemeral. A classic theme deconstructs one or more of the eternal concerns of humanity, love, hate, life and death, or the problems of life that never seem to get solved even when the solution is quite apparent. The simple solution to hate is love, so simple we must revisit the question and solution from time to time.
Almost forty-five years ago, Amiri Baraka examined the themes of racism and homophobia in his one-act play The Toilet. The set is a high school men’s room, wherein he gathers a group of young men to decipher the meaning of love and hate. Mostly black, the young men appear to be at an urban manhood training rite. We see a myriad personalities expressing themselves in the rhythm and rhymes of the time—there are no pants sagging, no grills in teeth, but they are there seeking to discover their manhood, racial and sexual identity.
The tragedy of that time and this time is that their search for manhood and sexual identity is unorganized and haphazard, thus then and now young men must grapple with self discovery in isolated groups without mentor, elder or guide. No adult appears in the Toilet to give words of wisdom, thus the young men are adrift in their ignorance, seeking to find themselves in the midst of darkness. How ironic the setting is a high school where we assume learning is taking place, and yet learning occurs not in the classroom but the toilet. The toilet becomes the bush in African or primitive tradition, for there is terror, violence to bring transformation from hatred to love and interracial understanding.
A white boy writes a love letter to a black boy and the drama involves the resolution of this event. The white boy has crossed the racial line into the black brotherhood and suffers violence as a result—he his beaten into a pulp, bloody as a beet, half-dead when brought into The Toilet.
Gang violence is a natural happening in urban culture, senseless violence to express manhood; even sexual violence is a natural part of this oppressed society. And so the black boy is finally confronted by the white boy who loves him and the brother is physically overcome by the white boy to the chagrin of the black brotherhood. The white boy is again attacked by the toilet gang and all depart, including another white boy who had come to the defense of his white brother.
The Toilet ends with the black boy returning to embrace the white boy. Lights down.
What was Baraka trying to tell us forty-five years ago and what relevance has his message now? Since then gays and lesbians have come out of the closet, although the passage of California’s Proposition 8 denies them the right of marriage, and the gays are miffed at Blacks for supporting the proposition, although the president of the state NAACP in her role as a lobbyist opposed the bill, along with many black newspapers and several ministers who were probably paid to do so. Apparently a majority of blacks do not equate gay rights with civil rights. Are sexual rights human rights?
The question Baraka raised had to do with transcending hatred in favor of love. Proposition 8 denied gays and lesbians the right to codify their love in marriage.
Blacks are known to be sexually conservative, although they now have many children on the streets embracing the gay/lesbian lifestyle. Blacks are thus hypocritical and drowning in denial, in similar fashion to the black brothers in The Toilet who refused to consider that one of their own might have crossed the line, not only racially but sexually as well.
On my recent visit to New York to see Woody King’s production of my play (with Ed Bullins) Salaam, Huey Newton, Salaam, Baraka’s The Toilet and Hugh Fletcher’s Amarie, I was accompanied by two lesbian assistants. Of course, being a dirty old man, I tried to get at them. (See my poem Why I Love Lesbians.) And they were highly upset at my offensive language, something they should have known I am known for by those who know me. Although I imagined them to be young women, with whom I could talk adult talk, they were suffering arrested development, in search of their sexual identity, much like the brothers in The Toilet.
Nevertheless, I wanted them to spend some time with Amina Baraka who is still in grief over the lost of her daughter Shani and her lover Rayshan to homicide. I thought conversing with the young ladies, 19 and 25, would help Amina heal from the horror of losing her only daughter by Baraka. She did meet the young ladies at the theatre and immediately saw the physical similarity between one girl and her daughter, Shani. “I knew you would see that,” I told Amina. The girl, Raushanah, like Shani, had been a point guard as well. We agreed to come to Newark to spend time with Amina, but after my verbal insults, the girls declined to make the trip, even though we reconciled our issues as best we could.
I made the trip to Newark alone to hang out with the Barakas, who had me bar hoping after a wonderful dinner at the Spanish restaurant across from city hall. One of the bars we visited is owned by former mayor Sharp James, now doing prison time for corruption.
I hadn’t planned to spend the night but Amina had other plans, so she made room for me in the space they have preserved for Shani. On my last visit, she had told me that I was the first person to spend the night in Shani’s room, filled with her artifacts, several basketball size trophies, numerous awards and proclamations to her athletic prowess and mentorship.
After the last bar, we headed home. Tired, I said goodnight to the Barakas and went upstairs to my room or rather, Shani’s room. I shut the door and looking around at Shani’s archives, something told me to say a prayer, so I did.
I got up the next morning early, way too early to disturb the Barakas, so I purveyed the room, and seeing the trophies were dusty, wiped them. I just happened to have a poem in my back pocket When Thy Lover Has Gone to Eternity, so I placed it between the trophies as an offering. I said another prayer before departing. And then I heard Shani speaking, saying, “No, no, no, no to hate, no, no, no, no.” She said, “Yes, yes to love, yes, yes, yes, yes.”
I shut the door and made my way downstairs, passing the sleeping Barakas and out into the cold Newark morning. At South Tenth and Clinton Streets I hailed a taxi, telling him to take me to John’s Place, my favorite breakfast spot in Newark . I ordered Whiting, grits and eggs, with biscuits that melted in my mouth. After breakfast, I walked to the bus stop for the ride to Penn Station and the train back across the river to New York . As I stood waiting for the bus, Shani spoke again in the winter wind, “No, no, no, no to hate. Yes, yes, yes to love.”
Shall we not love our gay children, the many young men and women who have chosen the gay lifestyle for whatever reason: we can say they were born that way, or have an identity crisis from feminine or matrifocal socialization (lack of manhood rites or womanhood rites), or there was sexual assault by a gay or lesbian relative, or incest by father, uncle, brother, cousin who turned the girl against all men. We can catalogue all the possibilities yet not get to the end of the road on this matter: our gay children need help!
They need love and support as they go through their daily round. We cannot simply look at them and reduce them to social rejects, pariahs we must shun at all costs as if they are not natural but some kind of mutants from Mars.
In short, they need our help with their growing pains. All children need love, recognition and acceptance. Do you think the gay children are not suffering the normal white supremacy virus of parental abandonment, abuse and neglect? Even more so, our gay young men are suffering the highest rate of HIV infection. What shall we do—surely we can reach out and touch these young men on a suicide path—at the very least, we can educate them about the dangers of their unsafe sexual behavior.
Our lesbian children need our love and acceptance as well. Maybe some of them will return to the straight life (as if that’s anything to brag about until we evolve our spiritual consciousness from the patriarchal mentality of domination.)
Again, no matter the cause of the explosion of the gay and lesbian lifestyle, it is a reality we need to deal with. Those who want to be straight should be guided, others who want to be accepted as gay or lesbian should be shown unconditional love as well.
It is wrong for anyone to hate another human being, and especially to hate a child. So let us put on the armor of God and exercise Supreme Wisdom. Either we are working with Divine power or we are on the animal plane, from which our actions are devoid of spiritual consciousness
The Toilet is a state of mind, toxic and transfixed. It must be flushed clean with pure water. There is a moment in the play when a brother goes down the row of urinals flushing each one and laughing with joy as the water flows loudly like a river. Let us flush ourselves with the royal flush of all the urine and defecation in our lives, in our minds that have a strangle hold on the eternity of love, for love is all there is that is precious and real, radical and revolutionary, love, the meaning of the morning, the essence of the night, the why we rise to try again the daily round, to suffer the pain and joy—only love makes the day possible and the night bearable.
In conclusion, moral propositions become just that and nothing more, a momentary thing, until the destruction comes, then we see some things are beyond mere propositions, thoughts, a consensus of the moral or the immoral, for who is moral today, who is immoral? Who are the good guys, bad guys? Who is without sin? You are against gays and lesbians, yet you are a child molester! You are against gays and lesbians, yet you are a wife beater, a murderer, a dope dealer, a wicked teacher, a corrupt banker. Who has the high moral ground? Is it he who does the most good—in the hood? Shall he or she determine the moral code, or is this a free for all, do yo thing, I do my thing—in the Arabic: lakum dinu kum waliyadin (to you your way and to me mine, Al Qur’an).
Unless there is a consensus, who is to say what is right or wrong? We must come to a consensus on the new morality, no matter what ancient mythologies have taught us. In Divine consciousness surely we can find the Way of Love in all matters. Let us search the ancient holy books, texts, inscriptions, for the sure path, since there is doubt persisting into the night. What do the holy books say?
Shall we be swayed by illusions of any kind, spirituality or physicality, mentality or sexuality? If we reinstituted manhood and womanhood rites of passage, we might go a long way toward helping our children cross the threshold of sexual identity and toward spiritual maturation as divine beings in human form. Sexuality and other illusions become secondary to the primary objective of reaching spiritual maturity, following our true bliss, as Joseph Campbell taught us.
--Marvin X
November, 2008
Berkeley CA 94702
Marvin X, poet, playwright, essayist, philosopher, social activist, teacher, is one of the founders of the black arts movement and the father of Muslim American literature. His next collection of essays is Up from Ignut, the Soulful Musings of a North American African Thinker, Black Bird Press, 2009. He is available for speaking and performing engagements. Write to him at 1222 Dwight Way , Berkeley CA 94702 . Call 510-355-6339. Email: jmarvinx@yahoo.com. www.marvinxwrites.blogspot.com. Also see www.nathanielturner.com and www.aalbc.com. Search Google as well.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
The Myth of the Soul
Myth under girds the soul story, the soul energy. The soul could not exist without myth, for myth makes the soul possible, its reason for being. Without myth there is no soul, for the soul by its very nature is communal not personal, and myth is the essential element is the communal. Jung taught us this: that there is a universality to myth, with basic elements common to the mythology of humanity. We all have the same basic myths, evident in our dreams, our ritual ceremonies and celebrations.
Mao taught us the class nature of mythology, as in propaganda, literature and art, it reflects class values. You love certain art and disdain other art because of your bourgeoisie education or miseducation. The grass roots appreciate certain art because it speaks to their reality and possibility, especially when it promotes radical consciousness.
Diop has taught of Northern and Southern Cradle myths, and how they differ. Diop said in the Northern Cradle or Europe they kill rather than welcome the stranger, while in the Southern Cradle or Africa they welcome the stranger, and this is true in Asia and the Americas as well, “Su casa is mi casa.” In the Arabic, “Ahlan wa sahlan”—welcome into my home and may you walk on level ground is the common greeting beyond As-Salaam Alaikum.
But in Europe the stranger was first killed then questions asked. Was he an enemy or friend, oh, sorry if he was a friend. In the Destruction of African Civilization, Chancellor Williams tells us our lack of xenophobia caused our destruction six thousand years ago. Yet to have killed the stranger first would have violated our basic mythology, our cultural prerogative. I saorw my grandmother feed strangers who knocked on her door in the projects in search of food, even white people. And all that I remember about Granny is her spirituality not her religiosity, for she was not a church going woman but she was a spiritual woman. She told my brother Ollie he would spend his life in the pen--and she told him this when we were small children. She was right. He has probably spent at least fifty of his sixty-five years in prisons and jails.
The Myth of the Soul is extracted from Marvin X's work in progress, Radical Mythology, 2009.
Myth under girds the soul story, the soul energy. The soul could not exist without myth, for myth makes the soul possible, its reason for being. Without myth there is no soul, for the soul by its very nature is communal not personal, and myth is the essential element is the communal. Jung taught us this: that there is a universality to myth, with basic elements common to the mythology of humanity. We all have the same basic myths, evident in our dreams, our ritual ceremonies and celebrations.
Mao taught us the class nature of mythology, as in propaganda, literature and art, it reflects class values. You love certain art and disdain other art because of your bourgeoisie education or miseducation. The grass roots appreciate certain art because it speaks to their reality and possibility, especially when it promotes radical consciousness.
Diop has taught of Northern and Southern Cradle myths, and how they differ. Diop said in the Northern Cradle or Europe they kill rather than welcome the stranger, while in the Southern Cradle or Africa they welcome the stranger, and this is true in Asia and the Americas as well, “Su casa is mi casa.” In the Arabic, “Ahlan wa sahlan”—welcome into my home and may you walk on level ground is the common greeting beyond As-Salaam Alaikum.
But in Europe the stranger was first killed then questions asked. Was he an enemy or friend, oh, sorry if he was a friend. In the Destruction of African Civilization, Chancellor Williams tells us our lack of xenophobia caused our destruction six thousand years ago. Yet to have killed the stranger first would have violated our basic mythology, our cultural prerogative. I saorw my grandmother feed strangers who knocked on her door in the projects in search of food, even white people. And all that I remember about Granny is her spirituality not her religiosity, for she was not a church going woman but she was a spiritual woman. She told my brother Ollie he would spend his life in the pen--and she told him this when we were small children. She was right. He has probably spent at least fifty of his sixty-five years in prisons and jails.
The Myth of the Soul is extracted from Marvin X's work in progress, Radical Mythology, 2009.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)