Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Imagine A Black Nation: Dr. Imari Abukari Obadele Joins Ancestors






Imari Obadele

"Father of Reparations"

dies in Ga.
The Associated Press

ATLANTA -- Imari Obadele, the former leader of the Republic of New Africa separatist group, has died. He was 79.
Obadele's daughters, Marilyn Obadele and Vivian Gafford, said Tuesday that their father died of massive stroke Monday in Atlanta.
Known as the "Father of Reparations," Obadele was a staunch supporter of Malcom X and eventually became President of the Republic of New Africa, which sought to establish its own nation in the South.
He was president when, in 1971, city police and FBI agents battled RNA members who were inside a fortified home in Jackson, Miss. One police officer was killed and two others were wounded in the shootout.
Obadele spent more than five years in prison for conspiracy but was not charged with murder.
Funeral arrangements are pending.



From Hannibal Cassanova

I just received the sad news that one of our tallest trees in the forest of Black intellectual Nationalism has unfortunately made transition. Dr. Imari Abukari Obadele was the founder of the Republic of New Afrika that came out of the 1968's convention of Black government held in Detroit. Dr.Obadele and his brother (Milton) were both friends of Malcolm during the early mid sixties. They were the ones who brought him (Malcolm) in to Detroit to give that historic speech that we love so much called "Message to the Grass roots." After Malcolm's assassination they developed what was called the 'Malcolm X Society' that led to the Republic of New Afrika (RNA) in 1968, then Chokwe Lummumba emerged out of that group to form the 'New Afikan Peoples Organization (NAPO);' all of this led to the Provisional Government of new Afrika and the Five States formation in the South (South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, forgot fifth one), all under the constitutional right to develop a self-determined Plebiscite political independent states. In short, I don't believe we utilized Dr. Obadele's call to "Free The Land' the way he outlined everything in his wonderful autobiography. Dr. Obadele went back to school, after brief time in Jail because of being setup, and achieved his doctorate degree, I think in Government. Also, it was Dr. Obadele who founded N'COBRA, which further augment his fight for reparation. Dr. Obadele has written numerous books and articles on Government, '40 acres and a Mule,' Reparation, etc. Also, he even wrote a very valuable book on 'Ancient Egypt' in which some of the African-centered community either neglects or don't appreciate (I never hear any one cite it as a source of reference). Nevertheless, Dr. Obadele has left his mark in our movement for liberation in this country by example! Libation Poured!




Imagine A Black Nation



Marvin X


What happened to Nation Time, the dreams, visions, revision, disillusion, a time of hope unfulfilled, Driftin and Driftin like that Charles Brown tune, no more imagination beyond a return to ancient Kemet, the land we fled four thousand years ago, thus an impossible return, for who can go home after four thousand years, except a mad Jew, and we see what terror he caused upon return.

But it is a mental drift, the most terrible kind, most wretched because it tears at the heart as well as the mind, thus we are drenched in sweat upon awakening from the nightmare of imagination and must face the bright sun of reality.

Shall we drift from here to eternity, for how can we avoid synchronizing our dreams with reality, finally and forever, standing on solid ground as we move into the future of a thousand tomorrows.

Imagine a nation, a land of soul people who are healing their wounds from centuries of terror, who blame no one except themselves for the terror, for the ship and whip, the cross and lynching tree, yes, the strange fruit of the last supper in paradise, before entering the door of no return.


Imagine a nation, somewhere in the south where our people died, where we can honor their bones and blood shed in the sun and night, where their spirits still dance in the swamp and river bottoms, the plantations and huts still standing, where spirits go wild in the wind and in the stillness of summer.

Imagine a nation, perhaps up south in the wicked cities that defied the hope and dreams of generations, maybe there we shall declare ourselves free and claim sovereignty, a place called the Republic of Pan Africa, like Brooklyn. where we have gathered for the first time in four thousand years, de facto capital of the Diaspora, coming from Mississippi, North and South Carolina Africans, Jamaica and Haitian Africans, Nigerian, Ghanaian and Senegalese, bound together again, this time forever on Fulton Street and streets too many to name.

And yes, there is pain and rivalry, jealousy and envy, love and hate in the night, but we are there in the sun, in the snow, a nation not yet standing, not fully sensing our power, strength, the full strength of a mighty nation forced together again, not since fleeing the pyramids and pharaohs, the murders for succession, the flight of queens with sons and daughters who did not assume the throne. And there was drought and famine forcing them up the Nile, the mighty Congo and Niger.

Imagine, the Republic of Pan Africa, not the nationalism of fools, but the product of engineers, planners and builders who began with a thought centuries ago in the cane, cotton and rice fields, the woods of Nat Turner, Gabriel Prosser, Denmark Vesey, the railroad of Harriet Tubman, the womanhood of Sojourner Truth, but caught, yes, as Cone said, between the cross and the lynching tree.

But it was the thought that refused to die, yet resurrected every season like the Nile, the dream of the homeland where we must be taken in once again. Have we not paid for this land with sweat, blood and tears? It is ours so claim the portion we desire, stand upon the ground and cry liberty or death, but have we not died a million times, even now at this hour we crucify ourselves for failing to stand tall as full men and women, our children annihilate themselves like Buddhist monks on fire in Vietnam, only because we have not passed on ancestor tales of liberty and freedom, discipline and work.

Imagine a nation, days of absence from our animal selves, and the donning of our divinity, wherein we hate each other no more, never again, the jealousy, the Willie Lynch syndrome, Yacoub’s children playing with steel, some genetic defect in our divine nature.

Imagine a nation, removed from those we cannot live with in peace, thus we part from them and their wickedness, taking with us only the genius of our minds, for look at the fruit of our labor under the sun, surely we can do the same for ourselves as we did for the master, transcending the pyramids with our original creations for now and tomorrow.

But the question is not if or when America falls, but what is the post-American plan for North American Africans? Will they finally acquire the sovereignty as a nation of self-determined people, will they secure a land base with access to the sea and minerally rich for their centuries of free and nearly free labor under the sun? Or will they sit with dicks in their hands and hearts racing while other ethnic groups secure the division of this stolen property.

Surely the Native Americans will want their fair share, the Latinos, the Asians, and poor whites--will the so called Negro sit around waiting for the Master to return, or will he go about, finally and without hesitation, doing for self, reconstructing his fallen cities, getting control of the infrastructure, water, electricity, roads, schools, work places, airports.

Long ago he called for Black Power, with the coming fall of America, he will have the opportunity to fulfill his dreams. Oh, it cannot happen? America is too strong. Firstly, you have no real idea how strong America is just as you have no idea how strong you are--you are so full of fear you cannot and never have been able to think straight. Every thought you ever thought has been wrong simply because it was not thinking outside the box of Americana because you have been confined to the box and never had a chance to consider the configuration of your society except for your 19th century thinkers and dreamers, and your 20th century thinkers and planners. Garvey and Elijah Muhammad. Imari dreamed of the Republic of New Africa.

But where is Egypt, Rome, Greece, Great Britain and the Soviet Union? Does the Chinaman have a chance today--you haven't heard that racist remark recently, for the Chinese have a very good chance to rule the world. so why do you think America shall remain forever and forever in its present condition?

It will absolutely change because its ethnic minorities will soon become the majority, so why are not your leaders planning for the future and our well-deserved fair share? If and when America, as did the Soviet Union, falls apart, what do you want? A job? A job, a job!

You mean after 400 years of free and nearly free labor, you only desire a job? Are you crazy, are you totally insane or just lazy, like a whore awaiting marching orders from her pimp--not knowing the pimp is dead, he was killed in a shootout with rivals. Your leaders, why are they running around licking the behinds of the the Democratic and Republican parties rather than establishing an independent political entity that will take us into the future? They shall be charged for their shortsightedness, their myopia of the mind.

As sister Zetha Nobles said recently, our goal should not be to achieve parity with white Americans (which is mediocrity, at best), but with India and China. We should forget about equality with Americans and see the global picture and imagine our role in it. But we are so blinded by white supremacy that all we see is white, white, white. Look around, the world is no longer white. Power will not be white in the not so distant future--can you look ahead a few days and plan accordingly or shall you sit on your behinds awaiting the crumbs from the fall of America? Imagine a nation!
--Marvin X

Friday, January 15, 2010

Same Sex Marriage, Straight Men & Prostitution











YouTube - Prince - Pussy Control































Same Sex Marriage and Straight Men









It matters not to me whether gays and lesbians can legally marry. It's none of my business. And maybe this new marriage configuration will serve as a model for human relationships, still it is not my concern, since I am not into that lifestyle, although I do love lesbians, speaking as a dirty old man.





But seriously, my concern is with straight men, and I have been involved with the men's movement since we produced the Black Men's Conference at the Oakland Auditorium, 1980.


I am ashamed of straight men for being unorganized and hypocritical, since they want to condemn gays and lesbians for their lifestyle, yet straight men cannot entertain prostitutes, ho's, sex workers or whatever you want to call women who charge men for sex. A friend's wife told me, "I know I'm just a ho in disguise." So marriage can be called prostitution as well but I am really concerned with straight men who appear angry and jealous at gays and lesbians because they have organized for their rights, no matter what we think about them. They have come together to fight for the right to legally marry. And the irony is that straight couples have little right to condemn the gays/lesbians when 50% of straight marriages end in divorce.


And of course the two main reasons are issues of sex and finance, with the resultant domestic violence, including verbal and emotional abuse. Perhaps straight people need to consider a reconfiguration of so-called monogamy, especially with respect to sex outside of marriage. In short, I favor legalization of prostitution, but this would require straight men to get organized as the gays and lesbians have done, but instead of fighting for the rights of straight men to exercise their human right to have sex with whomever they please, they are exhausting their time fighting against same sex marriage. Look at yourself, straight men, look in the mirror at your behavior, Tiger Woods, Kobe Bryant, McNair (now deceased). With your billions and millions, you cannot have sex with whomever you desire but must be treated like a criminal dog, beaten by your spouse, murdered in your sleep and charged with criminal behavior, including rape, only because you have not organized yourselves to secure the rights you desire and deserve.


As men, you are pitiful, especially with your billions and millions of dollars, yet get treated like a dog. How can you call yourself a man when you must sneak around in the alley, lie, cheat, or steal away into the night to be with the one you love--or the other one you love.



Thus, in your powerlessness, in your jealousy and envy, you waste your time condemning the gays and lesbians for doing their thing yet you can't do shit. You are less than a gay and lesbian on the scale of humanity. Get organized for your rights and leave other people's rights alone.






And tell your wives they don't own your dicks and you don't own their pussies. Please read my Mythology of Pussy, http://www.mythologyofpussy.blogspot.com/ .


--Marvin X





Re: Same Sex Marriage and Straight Men

Thank you...wowwwuuoouuo...ok, we done went deeply shallow. Cuz we talking bout legalizin prostitution and same sex marraiges! Can SOMEBODY PLEASE TALK ABOUT CULTURAL HISTORICAL AMNESIA....!!l Like damn, did white folk just come and liberate us from our overly oppressive, repressive culture that just did not allow this big thing in the "closet", in Egypt and before to just come out? Like. we were just waiting on these johnny come lately-from- the-cave fools to enlighten us into opening up to our "found selves" that was just waiting to lay with same sex but just couldn't do it until the socially evolved whites came along and liberated our consciousness. What the hell are we thinking? We need to do some serious research and fast.

Cuz we need to know that these are the folk who did the crusades with their own children, that killed five or so million women just cuz they were women. check the book (you may not find it but i can get you a copy of mine) Crimes of the Last Fleet that shows these folks were stealing chickens and goats and pigs and getting sentenced to hang. They were hungry.. !!

Sexing a woman was liability cuz she might get pregnant. I am not professing the answers but i can tell you that when pigeons and other animals start having homosexual relations shit is gone way wrong. We need to really look at the thing that was considered ill behavior and check it. Breast feeding (choice) bottle feeding (choice) is common (shooting each other in the hood too) but it does not mean that it is normal. We need a serious look at ourselves thru our own eyes and not thru the cultural eyes of our oppressor. One of our Most powerful revolutionaries, Amilcar Cabral, of Guinea Bissau observed, “Liberation is an act of culture, and one can measure a people’s chance for achieving liberation by the qualitative difference between the culture of the oppressed and the culture of the oppressor.” We often use the term culture loosely.

Aaaaahhh, prostitution has been around since the beginning of time or homosexuality has been around since the beginning of time, but where do these studies come from? We must be carefuland really check ourselves cuz did this really and truly exist in a just and balanced society of ten thousand years ago??Really..?? Anyway...peace...and let us grow together....
Rehema Bah

Marvin X Replies to Rehema


You have said a mouthful, so I want to respond. But your point about memory is key, culture is memory, collective, and we definitely suffer collective amnesia, thus our behavior is demonic, that is we express love with hate. Listen to the conversation between mates, it is often not the language of love but hate, anger, insecurity, jealousy, envy--and we're/they're supposed to be lovers.Historically, if we are the first man and women, from which all others came, then all aspects of human culture came from us, the good, bad, ugly, whether homosexuality, prostitution, murder, greed, selfishness, the gamut of socialpsychology.The key to all human activity is the balance, not going over the precipice. If there is a man shortage, the natural response would be either polygamy and/or lesbianism. The devastation from war in our community is an abundance of women without men. The men are either mentally deranged from the effects of white supremacy, or imprisoned from the same. They are not in college as any visit will attest. And 25% to 50 % are unemployed, thus unable to take care of their families except through criminal activity. They are in constant danger of being taken out by another brother or the white man. So their own mental and social instability makes them a bad choice for a mate, hence the many problems when they do connect with another person who is likely suffering the same trauma, whether male or female. Dr. Julia Hare called it political and sexual anorexia, a slow death of the heart and mind.
Without the collective memory or mythology, things go from bad to worse because at best we improvise, trying this, trying that--trysexuality it's called. But Dr. Nathan Hare tells us no amount of sex, drugs, religiosity, money, will satisfy the social angst and shattered cultural strivings. Fanon, Hare and others have told us the way to mental health is through social action called revolution, seizing power over ourselves and all institutions that sustain us as human beings. Only then can we configure new patterns of social interaction. Until then, all that we do is improvisation or jazz, trying to find our "voice," trying to do a solo while the band(community) waits for us to take the horn out our mouth.
Thus it doesn't matter whether it's homosexuality, heterosexuality, prostitution, polygamy, polyandry or a combination thereof, it is all transient, elusive and ephemeral, pending the permanent revolution.
Haiti is an example of people who had their revolution but didn't make it permanent and have suffered ever since. And we North American Africans are symbolically and literally quite similar to the Haitians, for our situation is just as fragile and yet just as valiant. But ours and theirs will not improve until we stand up and take control, then practice eternal vigilance, never allowing reaction to set in. The Cuban revolution is a good example of the permanent revolution.
So what does sex have to do with it? Nothing except our sexuality is socially determined by the circumstances of our lives. After the US government's destruction of the black liberation movement, why would we expect strong black men and women to exist when the purpose of the destruction was to destroy black power, male and female, to turn it into some kind of twisted, convoluted version of what it was so that it will never again strive for liberation-- or try an apolitical liberation that means nothing but hedonism or nihilism as we see in hip hop culture. These are the warrior children lost and turned out from revolution, diverted to other causes, now focused on their sexual identity while their ancestors knew the only matter to identify with was freedom, not individual but collective. If revolution is to restore family and perpetuate family, how did we get diverted into lifestyles that are anti-family, such as the drug culture, reactionary hip hop culture and apolitical activities that only advance the individual.

Nor can same gender marriage perpetuate the race. Can two roosters continue the chicken race? Or two hens? But as Rehema noted, chickens, cows, fish and humans are turning homosexual, so we need to question is this a natural happening or some freak occurrence induced by bio-chemical warfare. Is it in the water that is being recycled with hormones, certainly we know the animals are injected with growth hormones to get them to the market place quicker, and we see the result with our children, especially the girls, having periods at nine and ten, and we see the effeminization of our boys as well. I don't believe this is happening naturally but is a genocidal plot to keep us off balance mentally and socially.I don't mean to condemn same gender loving people, but I think the focus on sexuality is a diversion from the task at hand which is the total liberation of a people, of the planet, from the scourge of white supremacy domination in all its forms, including black face or gay/lesbian face. As brother Jones noted, the racism in same gender loving white people is no different than the white supremacy of their heterosexual brothers and sisters. And there is a lot of the same hatred and bitterness in black same gender loving persons toward black heterosexuals, while black heterosexuals have long tolerated the same gender lifestyle. It has been prevalent in the church, colleges and universities, the arts and elsewhere.
Did anybody condemn Luther, Langston, Baldwin, June Jordan, Audre Lourde, Nikki Giovanni, Angela Davis for their sexuality? Do we not love them and embrace them, no matter if they were/are same gender loving. Are we not better because they lived?
But revolution means change, so change we must, change our values to keep apace a world is in rapid transformation, at the same time we cannot throw out the baby with the wash water. There are basic values that must be maintained to insure the perpetuation of the species unless we want to commit mass suicide and fall victim to genocide. As they say in the game, all money ain't good money. And so everything that tastes, looks, feels good ain't good. And we know for a surety our perception is warped if not demented, for when have we had the opportunity to think with a clear mind, free of trauma, amnesia, schizophrenia, manic depression and other mental scars caused by oppression, the white supremacy domination capitalist/globalist "free" market society and civilization (though I hesitate to called this a civilization--what did the Last Poets say, "This is madness!").


--Marvin X





Reply from Adaoma


Subject: TRICKS, JOHNS, PIMPS AND OTHER CAPITALIST PIGS"





Look at yourself, straight men, look in the mirror at your behavior, Tiger Woods, Kobe Bryant, McNair (now deceased). With your billions and millions, you cannot have sex with whomever you desire but must be treated like a criminal dog, beaten by your spouse, murdered in your sleep and charged with criminal behavior, including rape, only because you have not organized yourselves to secure the rights you desire and deserve. In short, I favor legalization of prostitution, but this would require straight men to get organized..." MARVIN X





Greetings Marvin X,


I am addressing your advocacy of legalizing prostitution, only. You can have sex with whomever you like, as long as she is of the age of consent and is willing. Nothing is stopping you. If you happen to be married, adultery is not a criminal act in America and in most countries in the world. There is open marriage, if you like. Or, why marry at all? You mentioned no spiritual or moral limitation for yourself nor will I place any on you.






Therefore, you are free to all the options above. In light of this, however, you advocate that it be made legal for a man to purchase and own the body of a woman as a commodity, to use for pleasure, or pain as it may be. Despite the male bias that has prevailed for centuries...until now, prostitution is a male violence against women.






Women in prostitution are 18 times more likely to be murdered than women of similar age and race;


80% sustained bruises,


35% sustained broken bones;


47% sustained head injuries,


53% sustained mouth and teeth injuries;


86% felt depressed, 41% felt hopeless;


64% felt suicidal,


63% have hurt themselves or attempted suicide;


68% of women in prostitution meet the criteria for diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder.


In Chicago:


25% of the women in drug houses, hotels, and on the street were raped more than 10 times;





21% of the women in escort services were raped more than 10 times;


“Johns” – men who purchase sex acts – were the most frequent perpetrators of violence http://www.cwfa.org/articles/9691/BLI/family/index.htm Though women being prostituted has been referred to as the "Oldest profession", it is not a profession at all. It is an activity that a woman is forced into because of illiteracy and poverty. No little girl desires to grow up to have sex with strangers for money. Prostitution of women is legalized in Amsterdam, Australia, Belgium, Germany and Sweden. In none of these places did legalization stop the physical violence to women and girls, sex trafficking of women and girls and the slavery of women and girls by their handlers.


Sweden, took a different approach to prostitution. Sweden decided to decriminalize the sell of sex and began to criminalize the sex purchasers, the agents of prostitutes and the sex traffickers. "In Sweden prostitution is regarded as an aspect of male violence against women and children. It is officially acknowledged as a form of exploitation of women and children and constitutes a significant social problem... gender equality will remain unattainable so long as men buy, sell and exploit women and children by prostituting them."http://www.justicewomen.com/cj_sweden.html






No, its not prostitution that is the "Oldest Profession in the world" It is the exploitation of women to meet the desire for sex, it is the "trick and the John", it is the pimp and the sex traffickers that would sell and buy women like capitalist do with worker's labour. Sex trafficking is a multibillion dollar business where women who are prostituted don't make a profit. While you bemoan the abuses of men who find other lovers, consider the lifestyle of violence that the women you wish to buy and own like commodities suffer. And, stop lying...Marriage is no form of prostitution. If so, there is probably grounds for annulment...no divorce fees.


Adaoma





Marvin X replies to Adaoma


So there is no violence, exploitation, abuse in same gender loving relationships or heterosexual relationships? Married men pay the cost to be the "boss", therefore marriage is a form of prostitution--even freedom ain't free! Although we cannot put all partner abuse on the capitalists since much of it happened in pre-capitalist socities, and still occurs in underdeveloped communities, especially precolonized and neo-colonized nations. If a woman is abused, does it matter if she is a "ho" or wife, girlfriend? Oh, ok, it's a matter of degree. When people evolve there shall be a right way and wrong way to do things. France recently made verbal abuse of women on the same level as physcial abuse. In America men and women can be charged with making terrorist threats to each other. Amazingly, all this abuse is done in the name of love, including the prostitution, although rape and violence are sick love. And even the everyday language of partners is an abberation of the love language. And further, not only are tricks, johns, pimps and other men capitalist pigs, but women as well, after all, they collaborate with the capitalist pigs by desiring and demanding their men acquire for them the crass materialism of capitalist society. And it matters not that they are now able to acquire for themselves the conspicuous consumption trinkets of capitalist society. If women, men and children stopped shopping at the malls and stores of the capitalist pigs, his world would fall in an instant. More often than not, the man pays his "pussy bill" in his role as co-dependent of his capitalist pig woman whose closets are filled to capacity with goods she desired but didn't need and refuses to share with the less fortunate by donating them. The sexual activity, the comspicuous consumption, the delusional make believe mental world with the resultant psychoses and physical abuse, all stem from our addiction to white supremacy. And in the patriarchal societies it is primitive religiosity that allows the same abberations to exist and grow into full blown pathologies. --Marvin X


Reply from Adaoma


Hi Marvin,

You wrote this -In short, I favor legalization of prostitution, but this would require straight men to get organized...Marvin X.

And, I responded with this:
"I am addressing your advocacy of legalizing prostitution, only."

Therefore, I will skip your first sentence and deal with the second.

So, are you telling me that husbands must go through a third party to have sex with their wife? Or that they must put some cash in the till next to her bed before making love to her?
Are you saying that if men are not sexually pleased by their wives they get a refund?
No!

Your analogy doesn't fit. Prostitution by definition implies that woman having multiple sex partners for money. So, if a woman is the prostitute in the marriage (according to your analogy..).where are the other partners? Or is she stuck just trying to get paid from hubby's limited finances???

The reality is that most wives are not kept women at home, but, working women who sometimes makes more than the husband.

Quote me where I said all capitalists were men. I did not. Further, you implied that all women were capitalist pigs...into consumerism and filling their closets. Not all women are materialistic. Its simply not so.

So, let's talk about real issue of prostituting women. The real issue is that focus needs to be on the customer, the market for sex. It is the market that abuses the "commodity". 1) It relegates the whole woman to one body part. (Which you, Marvin, don't even call the one body part by its proper name.), separating her from her humanity....as I did when I consciously called 'tricks', 'johns' and 'pimps to be 'capitalist pigs'. I did it for shock value. I respect all humanity.

The problem is that women and little girls get herded into the industry from around the world by tricksters promising other employment, promising education, promising debt relief for their families and they forced to fulfill a market and produce hard cash. Little girls as young as 7 are forced, raped.

Sweden has proven, as I mentioned, that targeting the customer, rather than the woman, has reduced the violence to women, the consumer market and ultimately the prostituting of women. Followed by education, and healthful and helpful resources to women, women have more options for living.

A customer (trick, john) or agent/sex trafficker (pimp) is part of the problem, not part of the solution. The nameless "ho" he may have bought to boss could be a desperate woman or a dressed up little girl.

http://humantrafficking.change.org/blog/view/whos_stealing_little_black_girls


So, Marvin X, now that you've heard me out, you have the floor to give your explanation on why you still think that prostitution should be legalized...that if you still think so.

"Prostitution creates a setting whereby crimes against men, women, and children become a commercial enterprise.... It is an assault when he/she forces a prostitute to engage in sadomasochistic sex scenes. When a pimp compels a prostitute to submit to sexual demands as a condition of employment, it is exploitation, sexual harassment, or rape -- acts that are based on the prostitute’s compliance rather than her consent. The fact that a pimp or customer gives money to a prostitute for submitting to these acts does not alter the fact that child sexual abuse, rape, and/or battery occurs; it merely redefines these crimes as prostitution." Female Juvenile Prostitution: Problem and Response, 1992

Adaoma





Marvin X Replies to Adaoma


The subject of prostitution cannot be separated from the general condition and treatment of women, whether as partners, wives or in same sex relationships. Women suffer the same violence, emotional and verbal abuse. It is only a matter of degree. Lesbian and gay partners are known to be more violent that heterosexual relationships. In the patriarchal society, all relationships are based on ownership, thus persons suffer the domination of the owners, and in marriage it is sometimes mutual--we own each other. Thus the root problem is buying into the mythology of people as chattel real or personal property. Within this mythological foundation, all relations are essentially the same, whether partners (boyfriend/girlfriend), marriage partners or partners in prostitution (ho/trick). All these relations involve ownership, whether temporary (for the moment as in prostitution) or permanent as in marriage. And all these relationships suffer the resulting violence. After reading my Mythology of Pussy, a brother noted that I said nothing about marriage. I told him he was correct. Under the present patriarchal conditions I cannot suggest marriage to anyone, not under the conditions of ownership of said partners, man or woman, since the woman in marriage feels she owns the man as well. As far as I am concerned, ownership of humans ended with the emancipation of slaves, although it continues as we write, but ownership and domination not only continues in the traffic of human beings, but in marriages as well, especially among the religious community, no matter what religion, African traditional, Judaism, Islam and Christianity. So I make no distinction between marriage and prostitution--they are both violent, abusive encounters. As my friend's wife noted (RIP), "I know I'm just a ho in disguise (of a wife)."


The man pays his "pussy bill" on a regular basis when he shares the cost of maintaining the relationship or family. He doesn't get free pussy. And who would want free pussy--I would be scared to death of free pussy. "Hey man, that girl/woman is giving away free pussy, don't you want some?" Hell, no.


And if I was with a girlfriend or prostitute, I would not leave her with no money, especially when I knew she didn't have any money, and definitely not if we'd had a nice time kicking it without a lot of bullshit and drag. In fact, I would give a bonus just for attitude. And attitude has nothing to do with sex. It's about manners and appreciation. This is no doubt why some men pay a woman just for talk, not sex. They may only want the woman to listen to them, maybe something the wife or girlfriend never does. They may only want to hear a soft feminine voice, not the sound of a bitter bitch.


Again, the exploitation of women is pervasive in a capitalist society, as is the exploitation of men, now known as boy toys, since they are now only needed for sex, not for economic survival. And they are discarded, thrown out at whim, depending of the woman's disposition or phases of the moon.





Once the patriarchal, capitalist society is destroyed, there shall be the possibility of new, radical configurations of human relationships, minus violence, exploitation and ownership. It is doubtful prostitution will ever disappear since men and women seem to have the need for extra partners. Polygamy and Polyandry are possible solutions only if they are beyond the patriarchal mythology, especially within religions. But we would need to be careful with polyandry, especially within a matriarchal society, for I don't advocate domination by men or women. Why is there the need to dominate? At this point in my life, I don't want to see oppression by anyone, male or female, white or black. We are free spirits, divine beings in human form. We are here to express love and joy. Even the prostitute I fell in love with told me she was here to give love to all who needed her love and was willing to pay.


Men who want to expoit women, abuse women, rape women, need to go into a recovery program until they are cured of their addiction that is a mental abberation of the capitalist or society steeped in religiosity of the most primitive, reactionary form. They must be resocialized into the modern era, trained and armed with the knowledge they do not own women, but only own themselves. Women are not their property and must be respected as divine beings in human form. Such knowledge will eradicate much partner violence, emotional and verbal abuse. Many men have come to this new realization after reading my little pamphlet The Mythology of Pussy.






Women and young ladies say it empowers them. Mothers are buying it and demanding their daughters and sons read it. The young men say it ups their game. Older brothers say they learned something new. To hear this is the ultimate joy of any writer, to know his work is healing and causing radical change. What other task does he have?


If you can get pass the title, especially you intellectuals, read my Mythology of Pussy online: http://www.mythologyofpussy.blogspot.com/


--Marvin X



Rasheedah Sabreen Mwongozi Replies to Adaoma







"'No little girl desires to grow up to have sex with strangers for money"'~Adaoma





Unless Adaoma has met every little girl in the world of all nationalities I am unclear as to how she came to this conclusion. I know of two women who entertained such a desire as young girls. The first is my self and the second woman is my god sister's daughter who at the age of twelve announced to her mother that she wanted to be a "ho" and she did. When this child was fourteen she met the future father of her first set of four children. He in turn took her home to his mother's house where he lived. They had one child a year until she was eighteen. In between labors and deliveries he found time to turn her out thereby assisting her in her chosen profession. Their relationship ended when he walked in on her having sex with a non-paying consort. Her husband/pimp pistol-whipped her causing brain damage to a person who wrote the most beautiful, exquisite poetry I have ever read. As a result of the beating she never again was able to gift her poetic gems to the world nor would she ever again speak or think without impediment. Fate presented me with two incidents in my life when, had I chosen to be a "lady of the evening", I would have walked a totally different path from that which I am now walking. My plan had been to be a courtesan of means. My services would have been available to the artists, the creative minds among men thus eliminating the riff raff. This idea came to me in my late teens after I read of Mary Magdalene as she is portrayed in Nikos Kazanzakis' novel, "The Last Temptation". My mentor for establishing intellectualism as a criterion for my consorts came from reading "The Diaries of Anais Nin". I will conclude by saying that Adaoma would do well to heed a lyric line from a Bob Dylan composition:"Know your song well before you start singing".~Love and Gratitude~

Marvin X reply to Rashidah and Adaoma






Aside from little girls dreaming of being ho's, just as boys in the hood dream of becoming pimps, most ho's give testimony to being molested at home by fathers, brothers, uncles, aunts, mothers.Thus not all come from poverty, not economic poverty. The ho I feel in love with came from a good, middle class, property owning, business owning family. Now she may have been molested, certainly she was physically abused. She told me the dimple in her jaw was not cute to her because it was the result of her step father hitting her.





My attitude on prostitution comes from growing up with my brother whose only desire from childhood was to become a pimp like the ones he saw on Seventh Street in West Oakland where we lived. And then there were good pimpin cousins and friends. I myself am not, nor have I ever been a pimp.





I am a hustler who would not think of waiting for a woman to bring me money. But my attitude was also shaped by living in the state of Nevada where prostitution is legal and controlled by the state. If athletes use their muscles to make money, why can't a woman use her's?The exploitation is what is shameful and disgusting, the violence and abuse.





And how many ho's end up with anything, or how many pimps for that matter? Ask Fillmore Slim what happened to all the money he made off pimping, and ask him where are all the ho's he had. Dead, drugged out or in the mental ward, although any socalled normal person in the capitalist society could end up in those places, so we can't put it on prostitution,unless we understand that America is a pimp/ho society. How many workers retire with anything in America, most die in poverty after a lifetime on the job. They were not pimped, exploited, abused, cogs in the wheel of the capitalist swine?





I am sensitive to the plight of prostitution as a result of seeing the babies on the streets of Oakland, eleven, twelve and thirteen, who obviously know nothing about whoring, some can't even put a rubber on a nigguh, let alone give head or have vaginal sex. They need to go back to school and get their GED, along with their socalled pimp who is on his bicycle, living at his mama's house.





Thank God the state of California has passed legislation decriminalizing the young ho's if they give up the pimp, then the girls are sent into recovery programs. My daughter works for such a project in New York, helping exploited young girls caught up in the traffic.





I will restate the need for men to get organized for what they desire just as the same sex marriage people have done. But of course the real deal is revolution of the social order so that people can live in relationships that are full of love, joy and happiness, not this capitalist, make believe world of conspicuous consumption, which ends up making the men, women and children ho's and tricks of the capitalist dirty swine, blood suckers of the poor.


Marvin X






Rehema Bah
Re: Same Sex Marriage and Straight Men



i really think it is crucial that we slow our role and sit in quiet with ourselves and try...try to reach into our higher self. where do we get the idea that prostitution is so old. we were not hungry. as far as i know the hunter gatherer societies in central Africa did not leave signs that they were starving. they moved to where there food was. they traveled the planet but i have yet to read stories of hunger and to the point that women had to sale their bodies to the next extended family or the nearby family to get more berries or the such...so come on. please as elders we gotta slow and check where this stuff comes from. their are so many scholars that have already done the work for us. And we have a responsibility to do as we are attempting to now, to discuss and explore and come up with sensible thought our approaches for our youth and the sake of the planet.Africans took several 10's of thousands of years to get to level of predynastic Egypt and Egypt in it’s heights. but to get to that the levels of science including cosmology, astronomy, astrology, and more along with the scholarly was the level of morality and ethics we rose to, we were working at it for some time. So coming up to this i just don't see where the prostitution (meaning someone selling and someone buying, right??) fits in the scheme of things.??? old as time?? And other lines of this sort, where do they come from. we gotta slow and check our selves. we have a job to do. at least start to get it right. also we have to really reach out for a space of clarity. it is ok to love our people and not love some behavior. choice is something else. look we can choose to “love” someone and if they don't pan out the way we want we can choose not to “love” them any more and get a divorce or just leave or what ever. demonstrating that there is choice in this matter. i hear you on the possibility of hormones and the like but even if so that sh..t. aint normal. and so what ..why not recognize it for what it "aint" and work with it from there.?! with love. if you were raped miss handled or molested or your mother took the mini pill while breastfeeding you or whatever and we never ever deal with that but you carry it to your grave or claim “oh, I was born like this”, is that cool i feel not. And i know for a fact that some men do that. and many women do as well but more often men, cuz women have places to go and feel as though there situation is excepted and can be talked about where as men sometimes don't feel that they have a space, safe space, or person who they gone tell? On that note we need more aunties and uncles for real in our communities. Our youth need us. And we need to create space for our folk to open up and sort out things. And we can grow up. There was a young man in our circle that everyone said all around was gay since he was little his parents let him play with dolls and he had what some of us (especially if you never visited the continent by physical means or media ) called feminine ways. But I often saw him in the African context. And one day as he was much older I pulled him aside and I said to him “don’t let anyone define you for you. You decide and define yourself. And use everything you know, not what others don’t know. This happened to me when I was younger. Folk use to ask me was I gay cuz I openly expressed admiration for women/girls or desire to meet so and so. I did not learn that it was ok to feel drawn to women, love being in the company of women, love sharing intimate moments with women , and not want or like sex with women, until I was 24 yrs old. So we got some growing to do. We really do and we really need to have dialog. But it has to be calm and thoughtful and deep and focused. And full of love for our people and the planet.
Rehemah Bah






Reply from Adaoma to Marvin X


PIMPS AND OTHER CAPITALIST PIGS




If you are a part of the problem, you are not part of the solution.




Definitions:A pimp is an agent for prostitutes who lives off their earnings. Pimping is illegal in most countries. The majority of pimps are men. The pimp-prostitute relationship can be abusive, with the pimp using psychological intimidation, manipulation and physical force to control the woman or women he sends out to work.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pimp




A trick


Slang - for a prostitute's customer.






Sex trafficking has two parts to its definition. Sex trafficking is human trafficking for the purpose of Commercial Sexual Exploitation. That’s another way of saying its human trafficking into prostitution. Also, in the US, the legal definition of sex trafficking includes the exploitation of anyone under 18 involved in commercial sex. So in the US, a pimp with a 20 year old working for him is a pimp. If that woman is enslaved then he is a trafficker. A pimp with a 17 year old working for him is a sex trafficker no matter how the girl ended up working for him.http://www.madebysurvivors.com/HumanTrafficking








MARVIN X WROTE:The subject of prostitution cannot be separated from the general condition and treatment of women, whether as partners, wives or in same sex relationships. Women suffer the same violence, emotional and verbal abuse. It is only a matter of degree.




ADAOMA SAYS: Not so!There is a great difference between Prostitution ( the commercialization of sex) and Domestic Violence (women suffering violence in personal relationships). One is an industry that generates billions of dollars and will cease to run , only, if it is strategically dismantled. If the customer base, the agent and the traffickers are destroyed the industry will be destroyed. The abusive partner, in the case of domestic violence, may be helped with "recovery", as you mention later in this response. So, let us turn our attention, not to the woman, in this case, but to the customer (the John/trick), the agent (pimp) and the trafficker. This has been my focus. Hope we are in tandem.




MARVIN WROTE: Lesbian and gay partners are known to be more violent that heterosexual relationships. In the patriarchal society, all relationships are based on ownership, thus persons suffer the domination of the owners, and in marriage it is sometimes mutual--we own each other. Thus the root problem is buying into the mythology of people as chattel real or personal property. Within this mythological foundation, all relations are essentially the same, whether partners (boyfriend/girlfriend), marriage partners or partners in prostitution (ho/trick).




ADAOMA SAYS: Those are all sweeping generalization of the all the relationships you've mentioned. All in all, I think that I've clearly shown the difference between Prostitution and domestic violence. You cannot compare a woman being abused by her lover to a woman forced into a sexual business transaction with multiple strangers. That you do compare them explains your use of "pussy" when talking about sexual relationships with women. You don't refer to the woman holistically... only to.the partof her that is bought, sold and used...which renders the rest of the woman meaningless, invisible...to the customer. This furthers my argument that prostitution renders a woman a commodity, not a person. Relationships are between people. What's between a John and a prostitute is not a "relationship" that can be compared to marriage. It is a cold business transaction.




MARVIN SAYS:All these relations involve ownership, whether temporary (for the moment as in prostitution) or permanent as in marriage. And all these relationships suffer the resulting violence.




ADAOMA WRITES: Not really.In prostitution, the various customers own the woman temporarily, and, the agent, the pimp, owns her much longer. The pimp owns her as she is useful to him.




MARVIN WROTE:After reading my Mythology of Pussy, a brother noted that I said nothing about marriage. I told him he was correct. Under the present patriarchal conditions I cannot suggest marriage to anyone, not under the conditions of ownership of said partners, man or woman, since the woman in marriage feels she owns the man as well. As far as I am concerned, ownership of humans ended with the emancipation of slaves, although it continues as we write, but ownership and domination not only continues in the traffic of human beings, but in marriages as well, especially among the religious community, no matter what religion, African traditional, Judaism, Islam and Christianity. So I make no distinction between marriage and prostitution--they are both violent, abusive encounters. As my friend's wife noted (RIP), "I know I'm just a ho in disguise (of a wife)."




ADAOMA RESPONDS: Marriage is a legal contract between two consenting people to build a family together. It is a spiritual contract (for those who are married within a religion). In prostitution, there is no contract. In prostitution there is no consent. In prostitution there is no legality and no spirituality. Your comparisons are blown out of the water, Marvin.




MARVIN WROTE:The man pays his "pussy bill" on a regular basis when he shares the cost of maintaining the relationship or family. He doesn't get free pussy.




ADAOMA WROTE: Your statement presupposes that women play no part in "maintaining the relationship or family. It also presuppes that a woman's job is to lay or her back or any position you like and his is "maintaining the relationship or family". Maybe for the neandrathal. From all I've read, relationships are far more dynamic than this. On religion. I can only speak about Christianity. The Bible says in Heb. 13:14 -The marriage is honorable in all and the bed undefiled... Which means that husband and wife have liberty to please each other as it pleases them. That sounds a lot more fun than what you're talking about.




MARVIN WROTE:And who would want free pussy--I would be scared to death of free pussy. "Hey man, that girl/woman is giving away free pussy, don't you want some?" Hell, no.




ADAOMA WRITES: It is for this reason that I agree with the Swedish model of dealing with prostitution. When the customer, the pimp and the trafficker of women and girl are faced with the threat of public exposure, arrest and imprisonment prostitution will diminish and finally end.




MARVIN WROTE:And if I was with a girlfriend or prostitute, I would not leave her with no money, especially when I knew she didn't have any money, and definitely not if we'd had a nice time kicking it without a lot of bullshit and drag. In fact, I would give a bonus just for attitude. And attitude has nothing to do with sex. It's about manners and appreciation. This is no doubt why some men pay a woman just for talk, not sex. They may only want the woman to listen to them, maybe something the wife or girlfriend never does. They may only want to hear a soft feminine voice, not the sound of a bitter bitch.




ADAOMA SAYS:Sounds like a persona problem. Marvin, its you who sounds like the "bitter bitch", as you say. Perhaps you should keep your money in your pocket and try a little tenderness, if you want a soft spoken tender woman, try approaching a woman with some transparency instead of carrying a lot of "bullshit" as you call it. You may save a lot of cash for your golden years. Because as difficult as it is to hear, some women are just not for sale.




MARVIN X WRITES: Again, the exploitation of women is pervasive in a capitalist society, as is the exploitation of men, now known as boy toys, since they are now only needed for sex, not for economic survival. And they are discarded, thrown out at whim, depending of the woman's disposition or phases of the moon.




ADAOMA REPLIES:What a pity.




MARVIN WROTE: Once the patriarchal, capitalist society is destroyed, there shall be the possibility of new, radical configurations of human relationships, minus violence, exploitation and ownership. It is doubtful prostitution will ever disappear since men and women seem to have the need for extra partners. Polygamy and Polyandry are possible solutions only if they are beyond the patriarchal mythology, especially within religions. But we would need to be careful with polyandry, especially within a matriarchal society, for I don't advocate domination by men or women. Why is there the need to dominate? At this point in my life, I don't want to see oppression by anyone, male or female, white or black. We are free spirits, divine beings in human form. We are here to express love and joy. Even the prostitute I fell in love with told me she was here to give love to all who needed her love and was willing to pay.




ADAOMA WRITES: When women have more education, more options and more access to the options coupled with the destruction of the customer base of prostitution along with its agents and traffickers women will choose options that will serve her own self-interests, not Tom, Dick and Marvin's. Sweden is the model. In Sweden, women are not doubly victimized by the State and the sex industry. It is the sex industry and its agents that are penalized. And, prostitution in Sweden has shrunken significantly.




MARVIN X WROTE:Men who want to expoit women, abuse women, rape women, need to go into a recovery program until they are cured of their addiction that is a mental abberation of the capitalist or society steeped in religiosity of the most primitive, reactionary form. They must be resocialized into the modern era, trained and armed with the knowledge they do not own women, but only own themselves. Women are not their property and must be respected as divine beings in human form. Such knowledge will eradicate much partner violence, emotional and verbal abuse.




ADAOMA SAYS:Great advice for men caught in domestic violence. For the victim of domestic violence I say get out while you can. There are safe houses and shelters that can help. Tell someone.Reach out. Perhaps, now Marvin is convinced that prostitution should not be legalized, but that attacking the customer basd to destroy it will deplete the sex industry and begin to take women and girls out of danger and violence. For prostitution is Sweden, the "revolution" has come and it is destroying prostitution from the foundation up. No! I'm not for legalizing prostitution. I'm for destroying it, for its demise. Get on the side of women, Marvin. If you are part of the problem you are not a part of the solution. Thanks for the exchange.


Adaoma









Marvin X Replies to Adaoma

Rehemah Bah suggests dialogue and conversation on this topic and others is sorely needed. In fact, I had started the Pan African Mental Health Peer Group Meetings Dr. Nathan Hare called for, but people refused to take authority to continue the sessions. But the meeting format is outlined in my book How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy, Black Bird Press, Berkeley.




This present conversation began as a call to men, so far I have only heard from women.Will men please stand up and represent yourselves.








Adaoma, firstly, you have wanted to take me off my original point of men getting organized to satisfy their sexual and spiritual needs, just as same sex couples are doing at this hour. You enter the conversation with the notion that men have no right to organize themselves for what they deserve and need. This sounds like feminine arrogance or simple narrow mindedness. But I don't want our conversation to degenerate into name calling.




But to think that men are going to stop visiting with women in a fare exchange that is mutual is totally ridiculous, since the sex trade exists in all societies I know about, whether Capitalist, Socialist, Communist, Christian, Muslim, traditional African.




And in reality, it is women who have forced men to run around in dark allies to have sex because they are not satisfied at home or with their wives or girlfriends. Or maybe they have greater needs than monogamy can fulfill, so they want multiple partners. So who in the hell are you to tell men what they can or cannot have. Your attitude is the very reason men go to the streets to escape your fascist terror of matriarchal domination.




As I said initially, in a world where two men or two women can do what they want, don't tell me a man and woman can't do the same, whether married or not. Now violence, rape, abuse are criminal problems, but it is obvious the actions of men or women who desire multiple partners, whether marriage or prostitution is not going to end anytime soon.




My objective is to get shit in an organized manner. As I said, it is not even about sex, always, sometimes men want to be with a person to have a conversation. If they want to pay a woman to talk with, this is illegal as well, in your book?




My objective is for men and women to find ways of doing what they want in an organized manner, without killing each other, exploiting each other, or any kind of abuse. For you to suggest that any kind of interaction between men and women for money should be abolished is beyond common sense.




And in the case of the prostitute I loved, she came to live with me during the time I was producing One Day In the Life, the docudrama of my recovery from Crack addiction. Initially, she had no interest in recovery, even though she was living at my house that was the home of Recovery Theatre. She indirectly listened to our rehearsals, then one day decided to begin her recovery from Crack. She successfully completed a drug program and found employment, reunited with her children and got married. I was happy for her even though I missed my "ho."




But then she began to suffer domestic violence, similar to the violence she suffered as a ho. So should she have remained a street ho, since her marriage treatment was no different than what she received from her tricks? Thus, I maintain violence against women is across the board and marital and/or partner violence is not to be separated from the violence and abuse in prostitution. Violence is violence. There is personal violence and mass violence as in war, but it is all the same, somebody gets hurt, wounded, killed, does it matter if it's a wife, girlfriend or sex worker? I don't think so.
Marvin X

Same Sex Marriage, Straight Men & Prostitutes


Marvin X Replies to Adaoma, Rehemah and Rashidah

This morning, on the birthday of Martin Luther King,Jr., I want to bring to conclusion my argument for men to organize for their rights. I've tried to argue that if two women and two men can advocate for same-sex marriage rights, men should organize for their rights to enjoy the prostitute or sex worker, for we know fare exchange ain't no robbery.


One thing the prostitute that I loved taught me was that she was here to give love to all who needed her love, that I could not be selfish with her, that I could not own her, but I could enjoy her when she was available. Once I understood that, we became the very best friends. In fact, she soon had three titles, "The Maid, the Ho, the Cook," (see In the Crazy House Called America, essays by Marvin X, Black Bird Press, 2002). She came and went as she desired, and I stopped pressuring her to stay. Of course other women wanted to know how and why she had three titles. I asked them which title did they want? LOL

And so I was happy as a puppy dog when she came home to visit me. My point is that the prostitute is just as holy and sacred as the wife. She is just as necessary, for there are men who don't have a wife or girlfriend, thus the necessity of the prostitute; she fulfills a social function.

My old friend, Eldridge Cleaver (RIP), and I were on the road some years ago during the days of his Christian ministry. Since we worked seven days a week away from home, from his wife and my girlfriends (His wife Kathleen said to me, "Marvin the girls used to call here for you, but they don't call anymore,"--no woman wants a man working seven days a week), we wanted to visit some sex workers. As we entered the motel room with our dates, we saw a blind man being escorted up the stairs with his sex worker. Eldridge laughed at the blind man, but said that's why the prostitute is needed, even the blind man needs to have fun sometime.

And there are men who cannot talk to a woman, who don't know how to "rap," who don't have the gift of gab, so the prostitute is there for them. More than any other reason, the "Crack ho" served many men who couldn't talk to a woman, so with the "Crack ho" men only needed to drop the rock on the table and the party was on. For many men, it may have been the first time they had sex.

We have read that originally the prostitute was the priestess who served in the temple. She would serve the stranger when he came into town and for her services she received a love offering that she would share with the priest and the temple god.

Thus we see the sacred origins of the prostitute. She is just as necessary as the wife, of equal importance to society, except today she is totally disrespected, exploited and abused--but no less than the wife, for often her husband is a stranger and she is as well to her husband. They are together yet not together, actually they don't even know each other after years of marriage. And there is the resultant abuse, and worldwide there is more violence in the home than with sex workers. (See my poem You Don't Know Me).

The prostitute I loved did not have a pimp. She was her own woman, and she made it plain that I did not and could not own or control her--don't even think about it! She was a free spirit and so was I. She came to give love and so did I. What crime is this?

In conclusion, if society can make room for same sex marriage, it must recognize the prostitute as a necessary member of society. We honor Dr. King for his support of lowly garbage workers, but he said don't honor him, honor the garbage workers. So I say to you, honor the prostitute. I call upon men to organize society so she has a dignified place, minus exploitation, abuse, exposure to disease and can earn a living wage.

Jesus did not condemn her, so why should you? Friends called the prostitute "My Somalian," since she had East African features. But she said, "I don't know where Somalia is, I'm black and Native American." I loved her and she loved me, what else does one need to know?
--Marvin X
http://www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com/








































Thursday, January 14, 2010

North American Africans As Haitians, Haiti, Oh Haiti





Also inside:
Fidel Castro on Haiti
Tracy Kidder, on A Short History


of Haiti, NY Times
Do Not Donate to Racist Red Cross,
SF Bayview



Review of the Black Jacobins by



CLR James, the classic on Haitian history



















The North American African As Haitian



Let us begin with the notion made by Mrs. Amina Baraka that the so-called Negro or North American African is a West Indian or has Caribbean roots since most of the kidnapped Africans were brought to the Caribbean first for the "breaking in," or brain washing/behavior modification to socialize them for eternal servitude throughout the Americas, including North America. Thus when Caribbean Africans refer to North American Africans as "you people," (meaning black American in the most derogatory sense)the North American African can shoot back that we are "you people" too.

But the similarities and parallels are even more glaring than our common Caribbean behavior modification. In the case of Haiti, our condition in the United States is not far different. Just as the Haitians are landless and lack an agricultural base, so are we. It is not stretching the imagination to say the North American African doesn't grow a tomato, a carrot or string bean.
He, like the Haitians, is a basket case, no matter that in terms of GNP he is the 16th richest nation in the world. In truth, he is a consumer who produces nothing, not even his own food, clothes, soap, beauty products or alcohol, of which he is a major consumer.

As a result of his being at the whim of the petrochemical agribusiness industry, he suffers a form of anorexia, starving like the Haitian, for the food he consumes is devoid of nutrients and vitamins, loaded with salt, sugar, and corn starch, leading him directly from the petrochemical (oil based) agribusiness corporations to the pharmaceutical industry/drug stores and medical facilities. In the old Muslim mythology, the so-called Negroes food consumption causes him to fall victim to the doctor, nurse and undertaker. But unlike the Haitian middle class mulattoes, the black middle class fare no better than the poor wretched underclass, for they do not take advantage of the health care they pay for or receive through employment.


This is partly due to the hostile relationship all blacks have with the medical profession--they have a well deserved fear of the doctor since the medical profession is known to misdiagnose North American Africans, subjecting them to unnecessary operations or over medicating them with pills.


Alas, there are more drug stores in the hood than grocery stores, and the grocery stores sell the worse quality food to the hood. A friend of mine recently retired as a truck driver for a grocery chain in southern California. He said what he delivered to grocery stores in the hood, he didn't consider food when compared to the gourmet food he delivered to white and upscale neighborhoods. And like the Haitian, the North American African owns few grocery stores coast to coast. I doubt he owns as many as Haitians in Haiti, for most stores in the hood are run by Arabs, Chinese, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, et al.

But driving through the hood and seeing the plethora of drug stores, one wonders are we really this sick? Yes, our addiction to white supremacy, especially the hostile environment all blacks work in (and live in), leads to the most severe mental and physical ailments. The health director of Alameda County theorizes that life expectancy is not determined by income but rather where one lives or space and place. If one lives in or near the hood, ones life expectancy is shortened by several years compared with those who live up in the hills as opposed to the flatland here in the Bay Area.

The hostile environment makes all blacks susceptible to stress related diseases, especially high blood pressure, depression, schizophrenia and paranoia. As per the later psychosis, someone is, in fact, after the North American African. He, and more often now, she, is not wanted in high positions challenging the glass ceiling of corporate America. He is not wanted on the streets, in the clubs, anywhere, except incarcerated where he is worth a minium of $50,000 per man per year. There are 2.4 million imprisoned with the majority black and other minority. One of three black men is connected to the criminal justice system, either in jail or prison, on parole or probation. In Washington DC, it is one of two black men.

Like the Haitian, the North American African is educationally challenged, to put it mildly. How can his educational system be any better than the Haitians when 50% to 70% of students in the hood either drop out or are pushed out--pushed out so they will not lower standards and disqualify schools of funding. And even if he received education on the level of whites, it would be mediocre compared with students in China and India who far excel whites, thus the reason for outsourcing of jobs. Why would the capitalist swines pay an American MBA, black or white, $140,000 per year when it can outsource to India and obtain MBAs for $14,000 per year who speak better English than whites or blacks?

With respect to agribusiness, the North American African, as I've noted above, fares no better than the Haitian who was hoodwinked into leaving the land and seeking wage slavery in the capital city, thus depriving his nation of food sustenance, making Haiti the worse basket case in the world. The North Amerian African who fled Up South, is similarly disposed. In California he lives in the richest agricultural valley in the world, yet is not involved in agribusiness to any meaningful degree. How many black students in California colleges and universities are majoring in agribusiness?

Even in tourism, seek out the North American African in the tourist cities of San Francisco and Seattle. You will generally only see him as street musician and/or robot at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco and Pike's Market in Seattle. And how does he fare on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, pre and post Katrina?

Just as in Haiti, decades of underdevelopment has led to the criminal society in the ghettos of North America. In America, the prisons are largely de facto drug recovery and mental health facilities--without recovery programs and mental health treatment.


Between 80% and 90% of all inmates were under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs at the time of arrest. With 30% to 40% of inmates severely mentally ill, the jails and prisons are de facto mental wards of the dual diagnosed, those suffering drug addition and mental illness, to say nothing of the illiteracy level at seventh grade. We know those in the seventh grade read at the thrid grade level.

Just as there is no political structure in Haiti, none of substance exists in North America, despite the so called black president who doesn't mention the word black, despite the plethora of black elected politicians. Have they gotten any of trillions and billions of stimulas money for the hood?

Have they called for a general amnesty for the 2.4 million imprisoned, mostly for petty, drug related crimes and for making deals without proper legal representation? Oakland has had three black mayors with no change in the political/economic order. Other cities suffer the same, Newark, New Jersey another example. Neo-colonialism is the order of the day from here to Haiti. It's been a week since the earthquake and we have yet to hear from the neo-colonial rulers in that pitiful island nation. It is now under de facto US military authority.


As in Haiti, the political structure is largely ruled by mulattoes, from Obama down. Poor Jesse Jackson couldn't be president if he ran a thousand times. Just as Haiti is a caste and class society, North American Africans suffer the same. The brown bag test still exists in politics, education, religion and the arts, especially Hollywood. If you ain't looking like Halle Berry, don't even think about Hollywood. Even the Nation of Islam is sugar coated with mulattoes in high places. And don't tell me I'm perpetuating the Willie Lynch Syndrome. No, Willie Lynch is perpetuating the Willie Lynch Syndrome.

Politics in Haiti is corrupt to the point of no return, as in the elected president exiled by US authorities who view Haiti as their turf, just as the cities are largely the turf of the Democratic party, with the resultant corruption of black officials on the west coast, dirty south and east coast. Take a trip from coast to coast and listen to the stories of corrupt black officials in politics, religion and education, from city halls, churches, mosques, secondary schools, colleges and universities. Corrupt officials under indictment. Find me an honest black man or woman who won't take a bribe! Find me one in Haiti and/or America.

Perhaps the earthquake shall bring about a new day in Haiti, though we doubt it. It will probably be exploited by capitalist swine developers. Their plans are already in motion. But just as Haiti needs a Marshall plan, so do North American Africans. With all the trillions given out to those who caused the global financial meltdown(they were rewarded for robbery), the filthy capitalist swine, those blood suckers of the poor, i.e., bankers, wall street robber barons, insurance companies, the poor in the hood did not receive an honorable mention. I have never encountered so many broke black people on the streets of Oakland. Think about it, North American Africans have been scammed out of their national wealth (homes) with the sub-prime loan schemes, including those blacks who qualified for prime loans.

The final comparison between Haiti and North American Africans is the fact that Haiti defeated the white slave masters, including the master military strategist of Europe, Napoleon. Haiti has never been forgiven for whipping the white man's ass. How ironic the white supremacist Rev. Pat Robertson said the Haitians are suffering from making a pact with the devil to defeat the slave masters and become the first free black republic in the Americas, aside from Palmares in Brazil that was independent for a century.


Since the 200,000 North American African troops were decisive in the Civil War, maybe they made a pact with the devil as well. For a surety, the South has never gotten over the fact they lost the Civil War, and they are determined to put the North American African back in his place. They are making a good effort to reinstate slavery by incarcerating them and subjecting them to involuntary servitude under the US constitution, to say nothing of the wage slavery that forces blacks in the South to work two and three minimum wage jobs to survive. God save Haiti, and God save North American Africans!
--Marvin X
1/20/10
http://www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com/
Haiti, Oh, Haiti




Haiti, Oh, Haiti




valiant
rich African history
mighty
in battle
in religion supreme

Haiti, Oh Haiti
defeated Spanish, French, English
your only sin
never forgiven
by the devils lingering on yur island in the sun

there are those who say evil shall prevail
but evil shall eat crow
this the devils shall know

Haiti, Oh Haiti
arise
as you did the Spanish, French, English
Come forth Toussaint, Dessalines, Bokman
Come in the name of Vudun
Check the devils at the crossroads

Haiti, Oh Haiti
Where is your president who loved the poor
flown into exile by those devils across the shore
your grave yards are not junk yards
but fields of life, hope, love
honor the dead, remember your history
you devoured the Spanish, French, English

Let the earth consume the evil ones
yes, the innocent must suffer
til the valiant children take control
in the name of ancestors
the living and yet unborn.

--Marvin X
1995, revised 2010



from Love and War, poems,



by Marvin X, Black Bird Press,



1995



Study Questions for Haiti, Oh, Haiti




1. What is meant by valiant, rich African history in general and Haiti in particular?



2. What battle is the poet speaking about?



3. Why is Haiti supreme in religion? What is the religion or religions of Haiti?



4.Why did Haiti defeat the Spanish, French, English? Haiti aided the US in what battle? She aidedSimon Bolivar in what battle? Who is Simon Bolivar?
5. Why is defeating the Spanish, French, English their only sin? What French general did Haiti defeat?



6. Who are Toussaint, Dessalines and Bokman?



7. What is Vudun or Vodoo? Why is it called a democratic society? This may have been answered in question number 3.



8. What is the crossroads? Who is the god of the crossroads? Who are the other chief gods in



the Haitian religion?



9. What president loved the poor?



10. Who flew him into exile? Where is he exiled today?



11. Why are grave yards called junk yards?



12. Why must the innocent suffer and how long?



13. What is the role of children?



14. What is ancestor worship?



Reflections



by



Comrade Fidel





NOTHING CAN BE IMPROVISED IN HAITI









Five days ago I read a press report stating that Ban Ki-moon would appoint Bill Clinton as his special envoy for Haiti. According to the report, Clinton accompanied the Secretary General on a two-day official visit to Haiti on March last in order to support the development program that had been designed by the government o fPort of Prince, aimed at awakening the lethargic Haitian economy.The report stated that the ex president had maintained a remarkable philanthropic commitment with the Caribbean nation through the Clinton Global Initiative. It likewise stated that the ex president had said he was honored to accept the Secretary General’s invitation to become the special envoyfor Haiti.Clinton reportedly stated that the people and the government of Haiti had the capacity to recover from the serious damages caused by the four tropical storms that devastated that country last year. The day after, the same news agency reported that Mrs. Clinton, the Secretary of State, had said with joy that Bill was an outstanding envoy. The UN Secretary General was said to confirm Clinton’sappointment as his new special envoy for Haiti. He said they both had been together in that country and that Clinton’s presence had helped to raise awareness within the international community on the problems facing that Caribbean nation. He added that the UN was afraid that, after a period of several yearsof a relative calm, propped up by the MINUSTAH, political instability could set in the country again.The new press report repeats again the story of the four hurricanes and storms that caused 900 deadly casualties, left 800 000 victims,and destroyed the scarce civil infrastructure that existed in that country.






The history of Haiti and its tragedy is far more complex. Haiti was the second country of this hemisphere after the UnitedStates –which proclaimed its sovereignty in 1776- that conquered its independence in 1804. In the case of the US, the white descendants from the settlers who founded the Thirteen British Colonies, who were fervent, austere and cultured religious believers and owned land and slaves, shook off the British colonial yoke and enjoyed their national independence. But this was not the case for the autochthonous population, the African slaves or their descendants, who were denied every right, regardless of the principles enshrined in the Declaration of Philadelphia. In Haiti, where more than 400 000 slaves worked for 30 000 white owners, the men and women submitted to that heinous system, for the first time in the history of humankind, were able to abolish slavery,maintain an independent State and defend it by struggling against soldiers who had brought the European monarchies to their knees.






That period coincided with the boom of capitalism and the emergence of powerful colonial empires that managed to dominate the lands and the seas of the planet for centuries.Haitians are not to blame for their current status of poverty; they were rather the victims of a system that was imposed on the wholeworld.






They did not invent colonialism, capitalism, imperialism,unequal exchange, neo-liberalism or any of the forms of exploitationand plundering that have prevailed in this planet during the last 200 years. Haiti has an area of 27 750 square kilometers and, according to some reliable estimates, in the year 2009 the population reached the figureof 9 million inhabitants. The number of inhabitants per square kilometer of arable land has increased to 885, one of the highest inthe world, without the existence of any industrial development or resources that would allow it to acquire a minimum amount of material goods indispensable for life.Fifty three per cent of the population lives in the countryside;firewood and charcoal are the only household fuels available to mostHaitian families, which hinders reforestation.






The absence of forests,where the soil gets spongy with the leaves, twigs and roots and helps to retain water, facilitates the human and economic damages that heavy rains cause to neighborhoods, roads and crops. Hurricanes, as is known, cause significant additional damage which will be ever greater if the climate keeps on changing so quickly. This is a secret to no one.






Our cooperation with the Haitian people began ten years ago, precisely when hurricanes George and Mitch battered the Caribbean and some Central American countries. René Preval was then the President of Haiti and Jean-Bertrand Aristide was the Head of Government. The first contingent of 100 Cuban doctors was sent on December 4, 1998. The figure of Cuban health collaborators in Haiti was later on increased to more than 600.It was on that occasion when the Latin American School of Medicine(ELAM), where more than 12 000 youths are currently studying, was created.






Ever since then, the Haitian youths have been granted hundreds of scholarships by the School of Medicine of Santiago deCuba, one of the most experienced in the country.The number of primary schools in Haiti had increased and progress was being made. Even the most humble families were eager to send their children to school, for that was the only hope that they could overcome poverty and work inside or outside their country. The Cuban medicine training program was very much welcomed. The youths who wereselected to study in Cuba had a good basic training, an inheritance perhaps of the achievements attained by France in that field. Theyshould spend one year taking a pre-medical course, which also includedthe Spanish language. That has become a good reserve of quality physicians.









Five hundred and thirty three Haitian youths have graduated from our medical schools as specialists in General Comprehensive Medicine; 52of them are currently in Cuba, studying a second specialty that is required right now. Another group of 527 are filling the vacancies that were granted to the Republic of Haiti. Four hundred and thirteen Cuban health professionals are currently offering their services, free of charge, to the people of that sisternation.









The Cuban doctors are present in all 10 departments of that country and in 127 of the 137 communities. More than 400 Haitian doctors who have been trained in Cuba, as well as the students fromthe last year of the career who are doing their practice in Haiti are also offering their services –side by side with our doctors- which make up a big total of 800 Haitian youths devoted to offer medical assistance in their homeland. That force will grow ever bigger withthe new Haitian graduates.It was a tough challenge; the Cuban doctors had to cope with difficult problems. Te infant mortality was above 80 per every one thousand live births; life expectancy was below 60 years of age; the prevalence of AIDS among adults in the year 2007 reached the figure of 120,000 citizens. Tens of thousands of children and adults of different ages still die every year from communicable diseases such as tuberculosis,malaria, diarrhea, dengue and malnutrition, just to mention some indicators.






Even the HIV is already a disease doctors can combat, thus guaranteeing the life of patients. But this can not be achieved in asingle year; it is indispensable to have a health culture, which the Haitian people are acquiring with greater interest. The progress observed shows that it is possible to improve health indicators in asignificant way.Thirty seven thousand one hundred and nine patients have undergone eye surgery in three ophthalmologic centers that were created in Haiti.






Those complex cases that can not be operated on there are sent to Cuba, where they are assisted at absolutely no cost.Thanks to the Venezuelan economic cooperation, 10 ComprehensiveDiagnosis Centers are being built, which are equipped with state-of-the-art technology that has already been acquired.Far more important than the resources that could be mobilized by the international community, are the human beings that make use of those resources.






Our modest support to the people of Haiti has been possible despite ofthe fact that the hurricanes mentioned by Clinton battered us as well.Solidarity is a good evidence of what the world has lacked.We could likewise speak of Cuba’s contribution to the literacy programs and other projects, despite our limited economic resources.But I do not want to expand on this; nor is there any desire to do itjust to speak about our contribution. I focused on health because itis an unavoidable topic. We are not afraid that others do what we are doing. The Haitian youths who are being trained in Cuba are becoming the priests of health required more and more by that sister nation.What matters the most is the creation of new forms of cooperation, so much in need by this selfish world.






The UN agencies can attest to thefact that Cuba is contributing what they describe as Health Comprehensive Programs.Nothing can be improvised in Haiti, and nothing will result from the philanthropic spirit of any institution.The project of the Latin American School of Medicine was later joinedby the new training program in Cuba for doctors coming from Venezuela,Bolivia, the Caribbean and other countries of the Third World, as long as their respective health programs required it urgently. Today, thereare more than 24 000 youths from the Third World studying Medicine inour homeland. By helping others we have also developed ourselves inthat field and we have become an important force. That, and not the brain drain, is what we practice! Could the rich and super-developedG-7 countries say the same? Others will follow our example! No one should ever doubt that!






Fidel Castro Ruz



May 24, 2009
























A Short History of Haiti



By TRACY KIDDER



NY Times
Published: January 13, 2010




THOSE who know a little of Haiti’s history might have watched the news last night and thought, as I did for a moment: “An earthquake? What next? Poor Haiti is cursed.”

Related
Op-Ed Contributor: Haiti’s Angry God (January 14, 2010)

But while earthquakes are acts of nature, extreme vulnerability to earthquakes is manmade. And the history of Haiti’s vulnerability to natural disasters — to floods and famine and disease as well as to this terrible earthquake — is long and complex, but the essence of it seems clear enough.




Haiti is a country created by former slaves, kidnapped West Africans, who, in 1804, when slavery still flourished in the United States and the Caribbean, threw off their cruel French masters and created their own republic. Haitians have been punished ever since for claiming their freedom: by the French who, in the 1820s, demanded and received payment from the Haitians for the slave colony, impoverishing the country for years to come; by an often brutal American occupation from 1915 to 1934; by indigenous misrule that the American government aided and abetted. (In more recent years American administrations fell into a pattern of promoting and then undermining Haitian constitutional democracy.)




Hence the current state of affairs: at least 10,000 private organizations perform supposedly humanitarian missions in Haiti, yet it remains one of the world’s poorest countries. Some of the money that private aid organizations rely on comes from the United States government, which has insisted that a great deal of the aid return to American pockets — a larger percentage than that of any other industrialized country.
But that is only part of the problem. In the arena of international aid, a great many efforts, past and present, appear to have been doomed from the start. There are the many projects that seem designed to serve not impoverished Haitians but the interests of the people administering the projects. Most important, a lot of organizations seem to be unable — and some appear to be unwilling — to create partnerships with each other or, and this is crucial, with the public sector of the society they’re supposed to serve.
The usual excuse, that a government like Haiti’s is weak and suffers from corruption, doesn’t hold — all the more reason, indeed, to work with the government. The ultimate goal of all aid to Haiti ought to be the strengthening of Haitian institutions, infrastructure and expertise.
This week, the list of things that Haiti needs, things like jobs and food and reforestation, has suddenly grown a great deal longer. The earthquake struck mainly the capital and its environs, the most densely populated part of the country, where organizations like the Red Cross and the United Nations have their headquarters. A lot of the places that could have been used for disaster relief — including the central hospital, such as it was — are now themselves disaster areas.
But there are effective aid organizations working in Haiti. At least one has not been crippled by the earthquake. Partners in Health, or in Haitian Creole Zanmi Lasante, has been the largest health care provider in rural Haiti. (I serve on this organization’s development committee.) It operates, in partnership with the Haitian Ministry of Health, some 10 hospitals and clinics, all far from the capital and all still intact. As a result of this calamity, Partners in Health probably just became the largest health care provider still standing in all Haiti.
Fortunately, it also offers a solid model for independence — a model where only a handful of Americans are involved in day-to-day operations, and Haitians run the show. Efforts like this could provide one way for Haiti, as it rebuilds, to renew the promise of its revolution.




Tracy Kidder is the author of “Mountains Beyond Mountains,” about Haiti, and “Strength in What Remains.”






Reconsider Donating to Racist Red Cross






PLEASE reconsider donating to the Red Cross and recall how badly they used their funds after Katina. Millions were wasted, stolen and embezzled. That's public record. A fund that will use every penny of your donation for the people who need it most is the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund. It was founded several years ago by Oakland attorney Walter Riley, Boots' dad, with Danny Glover and Harry Belafonte and works with the Haiti Action Committee headed by Pierre Labossiere. These are people you can trust! Donating is easy. Go to http://www.haitiaction.net/About/HERF/HERF.html or http://haitisolidarity.net/. That info and how to donate by mail and more is in the Bay View story, How to show your solidarity with heroic Haiti: resources, where to send donations. More info on Haiti and other critical topics is posted daily at http://www.sfbayview.com/.






Mary Ratcliff



SF Bay View












Review of the Black Jacobins, A Study of the Haitian Revolution




The Black Jacobins (1938), written by the Afro-Trinidadian writer C.L.R. James (4 January 1901–19 May 1989), is a historical interpretation of the 1791-1804 Haitian revolution. Secker and Warburg first published this history in England in 1938. Later a second edition of the work was published in 1963. An appendix titled “From Toussaint L’Ouverature to Fidel Castro” was included in the 1963 publication.[1]



James's book chronicles the story behind the San Domingo revolution and also the actions of the former slave Toussaint L'Ouverture to lead the revolution. First James examines the events leading up to the Revolution and how these events contributed to the social necessity for revolution. James establishes the reasons for the revolution before discussing the revolution itself. This allows him to provide context as well as a place to introduce the important factions and players in the revolution. After establishing the causes of the revolution James includes a section in which he looks at the revolution itself in depth. Throughout the entire book James puts a large emphasis on Toussaint L'Ouverture’s role in the revolution. He also discusses how he believes it was Toussaint’s unique background and skills that made him a successful leader for the rebel slaves. James views the event of the revolution from varying perspectives, notably exploring the Marxist point of view. The work also explores the economic relations between the Caribbean economy and the European economy during the era before the Haitian revolution.
This work is unique in many ways. James uses his idea of how historiography should be conducted as a justification for including his own ideas in his history. His reference to the presence of bias in the work, as well as ability to apply Marxist ideas to a history help James make this book unique. As a result, the text remains a valuable resource on the history of the Haitian as well as in the study of historiography.




James’s interpretation of historiography
In the 1980 foreword, James claims he was “specially prepared to write The Black Jacobins”, having grown up in Trinidad and having researched the Russian revolution in depth while studying Marxism in England.[2] Instead of focusing on the history of the Haitian revolution, in the foreword, written forty-two years after the first publication, James diverges to focus on the history of The Black Jacobins itself. In this section he includes information about his own background, his reasons for chronicling this history, and major people who influenced the work. While James stated that he hoped others would elaborate on his research, he felt that no one could dispute the accuracy of his history; he “was never worried about what they would find, confident that [his] foundation would remain imperishable”[3].
The Black Jacobins is the history of the Haitian revolution, “the only successful slave revolt in history”[4]. In the foreword, James discusses his motives for chronicling the revolution, while also stating why this work is unique when he says “I would write a book in which Africans or people of African decent instead of constantly being the object of other peoples’ exploitation and ferocity would themselves be taking action on a grand scale and shaping other people to their own needs”[5]. James motivation for this work is to give the people who were actually part of the revolution a voice. To do so, however, he does not stick to the traditional model of historical writing.
The preface provides James with a medium from which he can introduce the reader to both the area he will be writing about and his view on the nature of historiography. James believes that good historians must interpret historical situations and apply their own ideas and insights to them. Although this strays from a more traditional view of historical writing it is not unprecedented as often historiographers are presented with information together from unparallel sources and must piece it together. It is this unique view of historiography that allows James to include a bias in his work as he states, “the traditionally famous historians have been more artists than scientists”[6]. The preface again helps James as it allows him to introduce the bias present in his work due to the emotions involved in the recounting of the revolution.
[edit] Literary responses to the work
Published at the onset of WWII the work was overlooked by many at first, however over the years it has established a place in academia for its historical significance as well as its contribution to historiography. Literary critics have consistently appreciated the value of this work since the publication of the first edition in 1938. In a review for The Hispanic American Historical Review (1940) Ludwell Lee Montague asserts that James “finds his way with skill through kaleidoscopic sequences of events in both Haiti and France, achieving clarity where complexities of class, color, and section have reduced others to vague confusion”[7] . This review questions the validity of some of James’s conclusions but nevertheless compliments James on the effort. While this review does not predict the impact The Black Jacobins will have on the academic community, it does appreciate the work as an “illuminating study”[8] that will spark conversation at the very least. Another reviewer, W.G. Seabrook, gives The Black Jacobins an even warmer welcome in 1938 heralding James’s work as “a public service for which he merits the attention due a scholar who blazes the way in an all but neglected field”[9] . Seabrook even proceeds to predict the importance of the work to Caribbean history in general and the probable extensive circulation of the book. These contemporary reviews reinforce the works importance in its field as they comment on the necessity for The Black Jacobins.
More than 25 years after the first publication of the work, The Black Jacobins was being used by authors to strengthen their arguments about Caribbean culture. For example, in his 1971 article “African Religious Survivals as Factors in American Slave Revolts” William C. Suttles uses James’s discussion of the voodoo in The Black Jacobins to describe how religion served as a means of conspiracy[10]. James also builds from his own work in his 1963, Appendix: From Toussaint L’Ouverature to Fidel Castro.[1] In this appendix James looks at patterns between more recent developments in the Caribbean and the Haitian revolution. Literary critic Santiago Valles summarizes what James attempts to do in the appendix: “In an appendix to the second edition, James noted intellectual and social movements in Cuba, Haiti and Trinidad during the 1920s and 1930s. First in Cuba, Haiti (1927), then in Brazil, Surinam and Trinidad (1931), other small groups faced the challenge of coming to terms with events which disrupted their understanding and connectedness to the wider world by revealing the relations of force”[11] . Drawing from his own previous work allows James to show similarities between the Haitian revolution and recent movements in the Caribbean. This both strengthens his opinions in The Black Jacobins and allows him to make new points.
Today the book is still considered to be the one of the most authoritative texts on the Haitian revolution. Historians still continue to comment on the significance of the work and how it has paved the way for more detailed study of social and political movements in the Caribbean region. In a look at the role slaves themselves have played in Caribbean and American rebellions Adéléke Adéè̳kó̳ points specifically to The Black Jacobins influence on the perception of slaves in The Slaves Rebellion.[12] In this modern work, published in 2005, Adéè̳kó̳ says, “The Black Jacobins stirs this high level of inspiration for its symbolic reconfiguration of the slaves’ will to freedom”[13] . Contemporary and modern reviews appreciate both the value of James’s history and the value of James’s ideas regarding the revolution.
[edit] Bias (influence of Marxism)
In The Preface to the First Edition, James emphasizes that there may be bias in his work due to the nature of the Haitian revolution. In chronicling the story of the Africans taking action on a grand scale he attempts do to something that others before him have not. As there is no precedent to follow James establishes his own ideas in his history. As James’s historiography is somewhat unique he believes it is his duty to interpret history and insert his own ideas to it. James does not directly use the word bias however he mentions the impossibility of accurately portraying the emotions of the revolution as he says in the preface:
“The writer has sought not only to analyse, but to demonstrate in their movement, the economic forces of the age; their moulding of society and politics, of men in the mass and individual men; the powerful reaction of these on their environment at one of those rare moments when society is at boiling point and therefore fluid. The analysis is the science and the demonstration the art which is history. The violent conflicts of our age enable our practiced vision to see into the very bones of previous revolutions more easily then heretofore. Yet for that very reason it is impossible to recollect historical emotions in that tranquility which a great English writer, too narrowly, associated with poetry alone”[14] .
Here James directly compares a historian’s job to that of an artist, and also discusses the impossibility of being completely unbiased in any historical work. This introduces James unique perspective on chronicling history. James also accepts bias in his form of historiography because each historian has influences and particular areas of study. James remarks that his background his appreciation and study of Marxism and the Russian revolution apparent in the foreword. Throughout the work James’s Marxist approach can be seen behind the history and that has led some critics to question the historical validity of The Black Jacobins.
The significance of bias in The Black Jacobins has been discussed since the book has been published. Montague references it in his 1940 review of the work, “The author’s sympathies and frame of reference are evident, but he tells his story with more restraint than can generally be found in works on this subject by others less plainly labeled”[15]. Undoubtedly the bias is present, however Montague believes it is suppressed well. Others point to the bias as far more visible, “James work is radical, conceived with a Marxist framework, and favors the search for determinative factors within social dialects”[13]. Adéè̳kó says that while bias detracts a little from the historical accuracy of the work, it allows James to raise many important ideas about the revolution. He goes on to say that instead of detracting from the meaning of the work this bias increases its importance through adding a level complexity. While the bias is undeniable, both recent and contemporary reviewers agree that James ideas and opinion of historiography make the work extremely valuable in the study of Caribbean history.
[edit] Class struggles: Central to the work
Through the Marxist bias James is able to convey ideas about how social class affected the revolution. This sets The Black Jacobins apart from other contemporary works is James’s focus on social class as opposed to the role skin color played in the revolution. Víctor Figueroa lists James’s contemporaries who particularly focus on the issue of race over class in his article “The Kingdom of Black Jacobins: C. L. R. James and Alejo Carpentier on the Haitian Revolution” to be Luis Palés Matos, Alejo Carpentier, and Edouard Glissant.[16]
James focuses on the classes of individuals and how this shaped the revolution and subsequent history. Racism and the color of one’s skin still played a very large role in people’s judgments at the time when this work was published. In an attempt to draw away from this, James places a heavy emphasis on the different social classes each played their own part in the Haitian revolution. James is very thorough in his analysis of class, including not only the major classes in the Caribbean but also outsiders in France who played a role the revolution, such as the French bourgeoisie and British bourgeois.[17] Víctor Figueroa, in The Kingdom of Black Jacobins: C.L.R. James and Alejo Carpentier on the Haitian Revolution, says that James Marxist influence may be the cause for this as he asserts, “James’s emphasis on Haiti and Africa reflects his resolve, […], to not allow race to be subsumed in the category of class, but rather to open a space within Marxist revolutionary agenda for the particular plights of the Black peoples of both continents”[16] . Figueroa also goes on to say that although race is not a primary focus for this book, it goes hand in hand with class in terms of people’s perception at the time period. Another reason for James’s decision to write about class and it’s influence is because by focusing on this he directly supports ideas raised in some of his other works.[18] In his writings James argues for socialists to support the emerging black nationalist movements, as this could lead to more socialist countries as well as providing these countries with a model to follow. The importance of class can be directly linked to his Marxist background. James can justify this focus on class by applying his own version of historiography to the Haitian revolution. James’s form of historiography shows that while James embraces a Marxist approach in the examination of social class in the revolution he can also stray from this to analyze the individual characters of the revolution, such as Toussaint L’ouverature. James’s focus on, and treatment of, Toussaint is interesting because by focusing on the individual James is drifting away from communist ideals. This exemplifies the importance of James’s form of historiography as it does not confine him but allows him to embrace ambiguous ideas.
[edit] Importance of Toussaint L’Ouverature
Toussaint L’Ouverature is considered by many to be the most important figure in the Haitian revolution. Although he spent the majority of his life as a slave, Toussaint had more opportunities presented to him than most. James comments on this by saying “both in body and mind he was far beyond the average slave”[19] . Toussaint joined the revolution after its initiation and was immediately looked up to as a leader. He quickly established himself, organizing the Haitian people into the force that was able to break the French hold upon the colony of San Domingo. He then went on to be more than a military leader after the revolution was successful. Because of Toussaint large role in the revolution, James must include a large section about Toussaint, or his work would be an incomplete history. Throughout the text James’s attitude toward Toussaint is unclear as James asserts that while Toussaint is a great man, he may also be the product of a social necessity. While James establishes his respect for the brilliant military leader Toussaint L’Ouverature in the preface, he also makes it clear that he believes it was the slave’s passion for freedom that shaped Toussaint into the figure remembered today. James devotes two whole chapters, ‘The Rise of Toussaint’ & ‘Toussaint Seizes Power’ to Toussaint L’Ouverature, however he appears to have an ambiguous attitude towards him. James' attitude can be seen clearly as he states, “men make history, and Toussaint made the history that he made because of the man he was”[19] as well as “Toussaint did not make the revolution. It was the revolution that made Toussaint […] Great men make history, but only such history as it is possible for them to make. Their freedom of achievement is limited by the necessities of their environment”[20]. This apparent contradiction is still a point of controversy among scholars, as James was vague in his opinion of Toussaint. Victor Figueroa attempts to shed light on this attitude however simply refers to James opinion as “Paradoxical” as he both “criticizes (and also implicitly celebrates)”[16] Toussaint.
[edit] Notes
^ a b James Appendix
^ James vi
^ James vi
^ James ix
^ James v
^ James ix
^ Montague 130
^ Montague 130
^ Seabrook 127
^ William C. Suttles
^ Santiago-Valles 73
^ Adéléke Adéè̳kó
^ a b Adéléke Adéè̳kó̳ 89
^ James xi
^ Monatgue 126
^ a b c Victor Figueroa
^ James 56
^ Santiago-Valles
^ a b James 91
^ James x
[edit] References
James, C.L.R. The Black Jacobins. 3rd ed. London: Allison and Busby Limited, 1980
Adeeko, Adeleke. The Slave's Rebellion: Literature, History, Orature. New York: Indiana UP, 2005.
Figueroa, Víctor. "The Kingdom of Black Jacobins: C. L. R. James and Alejo Carpentier on the Haitian Revolution. " Afro - Hispanic Review 25.2 (2006): 55-71,227. Research Library. ProQuest. UC e-links, Berkeley, CA. 13 Nov. 2008 http://www.proquest.com/.
Montague, Ludwell L. "The Black Jacobins. Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution Review." The Hispanic American Historical Review Vol. 20. (1940): pp. 129-130
Santiago-Valles, W. F. "C. L. R. James: Asking Questions of the Past." Race & Class. 45. 1 (2003): 61-78. Saga Journals Online. UC e-links, Berkeley, CA. 13 Nov. 2008 http://rac.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/45/1/6
Seabrook, S.G. "The Black Jacobins Review." The Journal of Negro History Vol. 24. (1939): pp 125–27.
William, Suttles C. "African Religious Survivals as Factors in American Slave Revolts." The Journal of Negro History Vol. 56 (1971): pp. 97-104.
[edit] External links
Extract from The Black Jacobins
The Black Jacobins
Conference in London in February 2008 to mark 'Seventy years of The Black Jacobins' organised by the London Socialist Historians Group
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Jacobins"
Categories: History books History of the Caribbean Books by C. L. R. James