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J. Edgar Hoover,
American Gansta
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Marvin X Reviews Classics:
Great Debaters
Akila and the Bee
Baby Boy
Ali
Maangamizi
My Son the Fanatic
Ray
Traffic
Pursuit of Happyness
American Gansta--J. Edgar Hoover

Danny Glover Film on Toussaint-Louverture of Haiti

http://www.dominicantoday.com/dr/this-and-that/2008/7/26/28807/Danny-Glovers-Haiti-film-lacked-white-heroes-producers-said
Paris.– US actor Danny Glover, who plans an epic next year on Haitian independence hero Toussaint-Louverture, said he slaved to raise funds for the movie because financiers complained there were no white heroes.
"Producers said 'It's a nice project, a great project... where are the white heroes?'" he told the press during a stay in Paris this month for a seminar on film.
"I couldn't get the money here, I couldn't get the money in Britain. I went to everybody. You wouldn't believe the number of producers based in Europe, and in the States, that I went to," he said.
D"The first question you get, is 'Is it a black film?' All of them agree, it's not going to do good in Europe, it's not going to do good in Japan.
"Somebody has to prove that to be a lie!", he said. "Maybe I'll have the chance to prove it."
"Toussaint," Glover's first project as film director, is about Francois Dominique Toussaint Louverture (1743-1803), a former slave and one of the fathers of Haiti's independence from France in 1804, making it the first black nation to throw off imperial rule and become a republic.
The uprising he led was bloodily put down in 1802 by 20,000 soldiers dispatched to the Caribbean by Napoleon Bonaparte, who then re-established slavery after its ban by the leaders of the French Revolution.
Due to be shot in Venezuela early next year, the film will star Don Cheadle, Mos Def, Wesley Snipes and Angela Bassett.

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor." [Bishop Desmond Tutu -- Nobel Prize for Peace 1984]

"If you do not understand White-Supremacy (Racism), what it is, and how it works, everything else that you understand, would only confuse you." [Neely Fuller,1971]

Precious









“Precious”

or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Movie

By Nicholas Powers

December 8, 2009

I did not want to see this film. An obese black girl raped by her parents, cursed at, infected with H.I.V. who struggles to read. I see Precious everywhere. In “Do or Die” Bed Stuy mothers yell at children as if stabbing them with words or yank them around like dolls for not hurrying. At night, in the whispered talk between friends, I hear of bodies opened by the hot hands of fathers or mothers who hit their kids for being loud or antsy or for being the weight in their lives they must carry alone.Months ago I was in bed, adrift in half-sleep when a scream shot out. I dashed to the window. The next building is close enough to finger the dust off its ledge. Inside a girl begged whoever was hurting her to stop. I hollered, “Where are you?” Her screams were cut. I called the police. Soon two cops jingling with badges, keys, guns jogged up the stairs. I guided them to the window. They peeked out then went down to the next building. In minutes they came out, got in their car and drove away. A month later the girl was screaming again. I didn’t want to see Precious because the language used to interpret her pain can become abuse itself. The significance of pain comes from how we read its cause, its effects and its cure. When European ships hauled slaves across the Atlantic the few who freed themselves testified to the horror. Olaudah Equiano told of crushed bodies in the cargo. Frederick Douglass told of whippings that cut scars into the soul. But whether the author wrote of the Middle Passage or the American plantation their imagery was violent and in it black people were damaged but the cause was always slavery and the cure was its end.Pre-Civil War images like the dark fat mammy, the lazy drunken coon, kinky haired picaninnies, the lewd Jezebel or the obedient Uncle Tom circulated like floating lenses to train the vision of whites to see blacks as happy in the care of their masters. In Daryl Scott’s Contempt and Pity we learn how after the smoke of war cleared, conservatives flipped the images of blacks from child-like servants to animal-like deviants. They cited black crime or illness as proof that without slavery blacks would destroy themselves or the nation. Again the imagery was violent and black people were damaged but here the cause was freedom and the cure was slavery.Each generation born on the color line has inherited black damage imagery. Marcus Garvey used it, Malcolm used it, Martin used it but for each of them the cause was the institutional racism that is the cultural echo of slavery. I use it to. Many of us on the Left do but warily brush shoulders with conservatives like Charles Murray of The Bell Curve, Dinesh D’Souza, Shelby Steel or James McWhorter where the cause is the innate deficiency of the black body or the internal pathologies of black culture. Using those images is like talking with a razor in the mouth. It cuts too easily and too wildly. And more often than not, we are being asked to wave our pain around because no one else is allowed to.As the Civil Rights Movement pushed wave after wave of black folk into the American mainstream it became less accepted for whites to use it. Yet the generations deep, historically resonant appetite whites have for black damage imagery is never filled. So it’s become profitable for black artists, Hip Hop specifically, to sell black pathology and it’s become painful for black critics to watch helplessly at it happens. What is at stake are images that conservatives use to scapegoat black people in general and black men in particular.So when Alice Walker’s The Color Purple was published in 1982, she was accused by critics like Prof. Trudier-Harris, Ishmael Reed, bell hooks and Louis Farrakhan of collaborating with white supremacy. They thundered that she demonized black men, portrayed them as brutes and hence helped justify white contempt. They warned us that as long as black men are scapegoats for white anxiety we will never learn the truth about our nation, a truth Jesse Jackson made plain in his 1988 Democratic Convention speech, “Most poor people are not lazy. They are not black. They are not brown. They are mostly White and female and young. But whether White, Black or Brown, a hungry baby’s belly turned inside out is the same color — color it pain; color it hurt; color it agony.” But pain and hurt and agony is colored in America in order to displace white anxiety on to blacks who in turn rightly fear this spectacle. Words kill, images can destroy because they underwrite the racial social contract we silently sign our names to. Black damage imagery sells Hip Hop, sells news headlines, sells fear, sells harsh laws, sells death penalties and after the selling is done we are surrounded by so many monstrous reflections of ourselves that we begin to think they are real.The national appetite for black damage imagery means being poor defines blackness and being angry at this defines the black middle and upper class. So when Precious came out, inevitably critics like Ishmael Reed in Counter Punch, Armond White in the New York Press or professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell in The Nation accused the film-makers of collaborating with white supremacy.All I knew was I didn’t want any more shit in my head. Most my friends said the same but we felt that itchy curiosity that always wins out. While shopping; I bought a boot-leg copy from an African brother, left it in my bag and when I got to school next morning, saw it while rooting around for chalk. Class began. Everyone had glazed eyes from all-night caffeine-fueled writing that is the end-of-the-semester college ritual. “Are we going to learn today,” I asked. “Or will you waste time dawdling?”Row after row of eyes stared at me. “I said we’d begin democracy in class and you have the vote. My preference is we review for the final exam. The better prepared you are the better your grade. Or…,” I reached in my bag and pulled out the Precious DVD. Row after row of hands shot up, waved, snapped fingers, someone in the corner mock-howled like a wolf. “Christ, will anyone vote for final exam review,” I pleaded. They calmly stared at me and a student sitting mid-row said dryly, “The perils of democracy professor.” I laughed, put in the movie in, pressed play and sat in the dark, grading papers. The movie flickered on their faces and slowly their eyes hardened. When Precious was being raped and escaped into a glowing fantasy world one student squirmed, bundled her notes and said “We can turn it off now.” The class said no in one voice. They stared at Precious as if she carried their secrets for them and what happened to her happened to them. When she struggled to sound out a sentence, they held their breath until she reached the last word. When she wrestled her mother and fell down the stairs; they yelled “Run!” When her mother sat in the social worker’s office and confessed that she forced Precious between her legs, they sunk into silent horror and looked away.At the end I flicked on the lights, stood in front of the class and saw Precious had become a symbol for their pain. The room felt thick as if filled with unspoken secrets that could not be put back inside.I breathed in the anxiety and shaped it, “I can feel that the movie brought a lot. Many of us here have dealt with at least one wound that Precious struggles with. Some of you have been abused physically or mentally or sexually. Some of you have been homeless. Some born into poverty. Some addicted to drugs. Some taunted for being black. Some for being big. So it’s easy to see yourself in this character which is why Precious works but the main goal of the movie is to know that if you’ve been hurt it’s not your fault. Like Precious, tell your story. Confront the cause of your pain and free yourself from it.”The flow passed through me back to them and they nodded. A young black woman in the front said, “I went to see it. People was so ignorant, laughing at her, cracking jokes. I couldn’t even watch the movie.”“I was worried folks would act up,” I scratched my eyebrow. “I think its nervous laughter. It’s too close to them and they make fun of it to hide from the truth.” Her eyes slimmed to moon-like slivers as she said, “People are scared of themselves.”The next class, again the vote, again Precious, again the hardened eyes, again the pain gushing through faces but at the climatic fight one of my best students began a large braying laugh. She was thick, chocolate colored and fell off her seat until everyone began trying to hush her but she laughed on and on as Precious was being beaten by her mother. Finally I said, “Is that nervous laughter?” After class, I YouTubed a video of Katie Couric interviewing Sapphire, the author of Push the book on which Precious is based. In the 1980’s she worked in crack-era Harlem, as a family mediator. She listened to abused children as around her people quietly died from a disease the world would later know as H.I.V. Sapphire lived in two worlds, Harlem and the middle-class Downtown art scene where no one believed her stories of life Uptown. So she wrote, furiously, a hundred pages of an angry political novel when a small illiterate voice poked in. Sapphire let it grow and the character Precious came to be and in her was condensed the lives of those thrown away kids. Like Frederick Douglass and Equiano before him, Sapphire went to the origin of black damage imagery which was the testimonial of those in pain.Maybe that’s why it pulled my students so powerfully, many of them have been damaged in the same ways but unknowingly hide shared secrets. As for Sapphire, the kids she knew and taught soaked her with their grief and it came gushing out; she was simply the channel. Again in that way she resembles the first slave narrators who wrote to give voice to those they loved but lost when they escaped to freedom. Like the slave narrators, the self stands in for the people.Yet unlike many real thrown-away kids, the character Precious survives. It’s one girl’s story and critics accused Sapphire of ignoring the system. Yet everyday people don’t see the “system” they see each other and if you want to show the “system” you have to show its scars on the body. When critics accuse her of using black damage imagery that gives whites the pleasure of voyeurism, of displacing anxiety we should turn the dialectical wheel. Should victims of systemic oppression not show symptoms of it? Is black on black crime not one of them? Is it not true that the powerless often attack those weaker than they? Why can’t we say that this happens with us to? Men attack women. Mothers attack children. Memories attack the present. How can we heal if we can’t see how we hurt each other?Precious works because people identify with her. My students followed her as if watching their own shadow. I saw that shadow two days lager, when I took my mom to dinner for her birthday. We drank until a warm glow loosened our faces. Her voice flashed like a light inside scenes of her youth. I saw her picking her hair into an Afro, mud-dancing at Woodstock, acting off-Broadway and then I saw her run from home, Grandma saying “I tried to abort you” and Grandpa saying “I’m not wasting money on you to go to college. You’re just going to get pregnant.” She stopped and shook her head to get their voices out of her mind. I rubbed her back and realized as parents get older they drop their secrets into our hands.As she caught her breath, I remembered a scene from the movie where the mother stood on the stairs and blasted Precious with insults, “You’re a dummy. Don’t nobody want you. I should’ve aborted you.” I looked at my mother and thought of her as a child hearing those same words from her parents and how she carried those voices inside her long after they died. I looked at her and realized before I was born, she was a young girl who someone may have heard in the next building screaming for help.Share and Enjoy:0. For nine years, The Indypendent has printed truth in the face of power. With political and economic systems faltering, there is an opportunity for real change from the bottom up. But this means having a vibrant independent media. Consider supporting The Indypendent as a monthly sustainer, donating as little as $5 a month. Please visit indypendent.org/donate.Subscribe to the Indypendent! 11 Responses to ““Precious” or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Movie”Michael Says: December 8th, 2009 at 11:18 pmIncredible! I feel its hard to talk about this, very hard but you do it! Incredible!Ishmael Reed Says: December 9th, 2009 at 8:06 amBarbara Bush enjoyed the movie,too. Had a reception for it in Houston. Wrote a review in
the latest Newsweek. Her son is a former drunk and cocaine addict. Her husband was responsible
for the invasion of Panama, which led to the murder of 3 thousand civilians not to mention the
death of thousands as a result of the support for the Contras, who also brought cocaine into
the ghettos.Her daughter in law sold weed in college and killed a man. So the Matriarch of
a dysfunctional family is saying that all black men are incestors. So “Carl” in “Precious”
is America’s new Willie Horton.By the way, Sapphire was in on the lynching of the
Central Park 5. They were innocent. That’s how she gained $500,000 from Alfred Knopf. Why
don’t you ask her to give some “Precious” money to the families of these boys who were lynched
in her poem,”Wild Thing?” Do you think that Hollywood will ever do a film about incest in
the ethnic group to which Sarah Seigal belongs. The woman who put up the money for this
Nazi filmishmael Reed Says: December 9th, 2009 at 8:31 amIshmael Reed didn’t lead any charge. The most scathing comments about “The Color Purple”
were made by Toni Morrison,Michele Wallace, bell hooks, Trudier Harris- all black women!!
You should read these comments instead of going along with the gossip! Alice Walker
criticized Steven Speilberg for his interpretation. Now that “Carl” of “Precious” has become
the new Willie Horton ( See: Barbara Bush’s review of the movie in latest Newsweek), do
you think that someone will do a “Precious” about the ethnic group to which Speilberg and
Sarah Seigal who put up the money for this Nazi film? Moreover, do you have any views
about Sapphire making $500,000 as a result of her aiding in the lynching of the Central
Park 5 as a result of her poem,”Wild Thing?” These kids grew up in jail. They were innocent.
Now that she’s rich should she try to make amends to their families?Just askingishmael Reed Says: December 9th, 2009 at 9:05 amOne more. I just examined the profiles of your staff. Really shows the racism of the white
progressive movement that your paper would endorse “Precious,” which includes the
kind of stereotypes that you’d find on any KKK website. I attribute this to the white feminist
takeover of the progressive movement, women who when they look at domestic abuse
can only see black, but are silent about the domestic abuse of their fathers, uncles,sons,etc.
you ought to be fucking ashamed of yourself for endorsing this Nazi film.Reader Says: December 9th, 2009 at 4:06 pmCheck out Reed’s screed on counterpunch here:
http://www.counterpunch.org/reed12042009.htmlI think the author Nic Powers did an excellent job on the review and looked at multiple angles of black victimization. It even includes some personal revelations from the writer. The film depicts the harsh realities that some poor blacks live, but is not a stand in on its own. Precious lives a horrible life unlike most African-Americans but I think it is Nic’s point that there is some appeal to African-Americans who can sympathize or empathize with the character. Nic wrote this review in large part geared at African-Americans.On the other hand, Reed’s points about the “white feminist takeover of the progressive movement” is worthy of a few essays. The stretch that Precious is a “Nazi film” is straight out of Sara Palin’s book.Nicholas Powers Says: December 9th, 2009 at 4:31 pmDear Prof. Reed,Wow I’m star-struck. I’m honored that you read the piece. A friend and mentor, Prof. Louis Chude-Sokei who teaches at UC Santa Cruz introduced me Flight to Canada fifteen years ago. I gobbled it greedily. I didn’t know it was possible to do that with words. After that I was on the Reed train and read Mumbo Jumbo, your critical essays and poetry. So although it’s forgone that I’m going to argue your points; I’m grateful for your influence on my life. Thank you, Prof. Reed for making me laugh my mask off.
Okay, let’s get to it. Your first point is you did not lead the charge. If I read you correctly your concern is that such language paints your critique as isolated male resentment. So it’s vital in the article to show powerful and knowing Black women who also share your criticisms of the movie. Fair enough. The facts are clear. Prof. Trudier-Harris severely critiqued the book in her article “The Color Purple: On Stereotypes and Silence” in Black American Literature Forum Vol. 18. Num. 4 (Winter 1984). In her book “Invisibility Blues” Prof. Wallace did critique the movie but not the book. Prof. bell hooks in “Writing the Subject: The Color Purple, Reading and Racism” pointed out it flattens of history. Couldn’t find the Toni Morrison quotes but I trust you. So I’ll re-edit that sentence to include them so it doesn’t seem so lop-sided.
Okay, your second point is “Carl” from Precious is the new Willie Horton. I’ll use a structural-functionalist analysis, in which we look at cultural norms, behaviors and traditions as parts working in a total system. Just so we’re clear, the system I’m analyzing is white supremacy. A movie review has two functions one implicit one explicit. The explicit purpose of a review is to tell if the narrative works, does it flow, does it set believable conflicts, build to a climax and resolve them. The implicit purpose is to legitimize narratives that promote the interests of the ruling class. Let’s look at “Carl” from Precious and the Willie Horton political advertisement used by the 1988 Bush campaign against Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis. For those who don’t know, “Carl” was the shadowy father who rapes Precious. Horton was a felon in Massachusetts of which Dukakis was governor. Horton was let out on weekend furlough and raped a woman. Bush made TV ads using Horton to scare voters that Dukakis would let black rapists out on the streets.
Prof. Reed, if I understand you correctly, “Carl” and Horton both are variations of the Brute caricature, the image of Black men promoted by Southern racists after the Civil War to justify lynching and imprisonment of men of color which you parallel with Nazi policy. The role these images play is to support white supremacy by re-invigorating the Brute in the American mind. It’s been used in Birth of a Nation, in justifying Emmett Till’s murder, in Native Son, in the seemingly countless New York cop shows. In your view, the implicit role of movie reviews of Precious is to re-legitimize the Brute image with a Black stamp of approval from Sapphire, Tyler Perry and Oprah.
Here’s where I think you trip up. “Carl” and Horton are at different points and trajectories in the Cycle of Violence. Horton was the Brute image used in by the Conservative sector of the ruling elite in an electoral contest. The goal was to evoke white fear, get in office, gut social programs, turn back Civil Right’s gains and all of these led to renewed oppression of working poor in general and black people in particular. The point and trajectory of Horton is top to bottom, divide and conquer. Now this is one in a series of white supremacist violence, including crack and cocaine sentencing disparity, stop-n-frisk policy, lopsided globalization that leads to decades of underemployment that William Julius Wilson maps in, “When Work Disappears.”
If you look at it dialectically, white supremacist violence will do what force always does. It will shape what it has acted on and in this case it has acted on and shaped to a degree black culture. We see it in the glamorization of violence in Hip Hop, the marketplace for the Brute caricature; we see it in our disproportionate incarceration rate, we see it in our 70% single-mom families, in the high black male murder rate.
Unfortunately this is where “Carl” comes in. He is a fictional character in a novel written by a sister, herself sexually assaulted, who in Push combined the stories of children who’d been abused. She is testifying to what oppression has done to some of us. Her “Carl” is a Brute image but it’s because some of our brothers have been shaped into brutes. Her image of “Carl” reflects her experience and what she heard and saw in her students. It reflects the experience of a lot women I’ve talked to who said they felt relief when they could see the hidden parts of their lives on-screen. “Carl” is a reminder that when we don’t fight against oppression we often turn on those weaker and they, being the victims of the weak are nearly completely invisible. The male violence, the child abuse, the homophobia, the many “Carls” we know are effects of institutional violence on black people.
Sapphire’s “Carl” is at the bottom of the Cycle of Violence but looking at it dialectically, every force has a counter-force. Against the silence, Life, beautiful, greedy Life wants to grow. Sapphire’s art is part of the Life, that need to be conscious and to re-claim power. “Carl” could be a shocking force, a sight in the mirror, forcing us to see how we look to those we hurt because we have been hurt ourselves. It could be the beginning of a healing. Yet because of Sapphire’s class position (Downtown art-scene, literary agents) the Brute image of “Carl” moves up the pyramid of power and can be used by the ruling elite to justify the same racist social policies that created him.
I say all that to make clear, “Carl” and Horton may look the same but their mutual authors are different (Bush Campaign/Sapphire) the roles in their narratives are different (to scare white voters/to make pain visible) and to fuse them together doesn’t help us. When we can’t admit that institutional racism has misshapen us, we condemn ourselves to a stoic silence that saps our strength instead of freeing it.
So instead of repeating ad nauseum one reading of Precious, that’s it’s a tool of white supremacy, try acknowledging the painful experiences it shows are also a product of it. Many women need to have their pain acknowledged without being made to feel guilty for betraying the race. When that happens we can start fighting it together.
Ok, I’m tired. Last two points quick. Sapphire’s Wild Thing poem? It’s a good poem, not great but good. Apologizes too much. My rule as a writer, don’t judge the character just be it. Wish it was a general poem on violence but as a poem on The Central Park Five, she should’ve apologize by now, maybe with a poem titled “How Self-Righteousness Can Get You In You Trouble”. I think you could write a poem on that to Prof. Reed.
Last point, the white Indy staff, not all white and to measure the racism by staff profiles is stupid. Of course we have our moments. Sometimes they say something ignorant and I roll my eyes. Sometimes I say something ignorant and they roll their eyes. Then we go have beers and laugh it off. While we’re laughing we are of course secretly planning to promote the genocide of black people because, you know, we’re Nazis!Ishmael Reed Says: December 9th, 2009 at 9:01 pmRight. Maybe the Nazi thing was a stretch. I’ve examined Nazi material and
though their image of the black male as a rapist is frequently drawn i’ve
never seen one of a black incestor. It took Sarah Seigal, the money behind
“Precious,” not Sarah Palin, to do that. I also see that your magazine is close
to Democracy Now. I remember Amy Goodman’s take on Kobe’s criminal
hearings. It wasn’t that his accuser had lied and that the D.A. knew it,What
did Amy conclude from this lynching? “Now women will be reluctant to
come forth with charges of rape”). God. Don’t you miss the Old 1930
Left with their corny solidarity songs. The people who defended the
Scotsboro boys.
(this D.A. ordered T-Shirts that showed Kobe hanging). Will some of the
women on your staff ever write an article about domestic and child abuse
in the Jewish community, here and in Israel? I read Lillith and the feminists
there say it’s being covered up. (It was a big topic when I visited Israel
for the first time in 2000.0Will the “white men” who weigh in on
“Precious” do it? Will they let you?Thanks for your balanced response, but
when Barbara Bush and Indy agree on something shouldn’t we be
concerned? You and she say that ‘Precious” is everywhere. Check out
the book Julius Streicher The Anti Semitic Editor of Der Sturmer. This
is the kind of charge made against Jewish men in Nazi film and newspapers.
They were creating Precious among Aryan women. This got them sent to
the camps.Anonymous Says: December 10th, 2009 at 9:20 am“When we can’t admit that institutional racism has misshapen us, we condemn ourselves to a stoic silence that saps our strength instead of freeing it.
So instead of repeating ad nauseum one reading of Precious, that’s it’s a tool of white supremacy, try acknowledging the painful experiences it shows are also a product of it. Many women need to have their pain acknowledged without being made to feel guilty for betraying the race.”Best parts of Nic Powers’ response.Ishmael Reed Says: December 10th, 2009 at 9:38 amRight, but why is it that the brothers are always symbols of universal cruel treatment of women
in film, stage and literature. And the vague responses to the challenges i’ve offered in
debating this film- which at one point advocates sterilization and praises work fare- demonstrates
why people like Palin are always running over these progressives who’ve never been able to
come to terms with their racism. In fact black women of the type who agree with me about this film
(See:Jill Nelson’s blog) have been complaining about white feminist racism for over one hundred
years ( See:Black Abolitonist Women by Lee), and the white men who love Precious are
hypocrites.A SUNY study reports that 90% of the white women interviewed said that they
had been abused, or seen their mothers and daughters abused.The author said that she
was surprised because they were products of “stable middle class households.” Why doesn’t Indy deal
with that?Nicholas Powers Says: December 12th, 2009 at 3:49 pmDear Prof. Reed,Sorry for the delay. I re-edited that sentence about who led the charge against The Color Purple to be more accurate.
Your first point is that black men are universal symbols of cruel treatment of women in film, stage and literature. The problem with such a claim is it’s easy to make but hard to answer. It’s rhetorically smart as it puts the person questioned in a near impossible position of having to answer without doing the exhaustive research. I’ll take a short cut. As you point out in your article “Black Pathology is Big Biz” most crime is committed by whites and so I would point out, is most media in the U.S. In other words, there are many images of white men being cruel being produced and consumed. I could go into a tedious list but just look around and you’ll see most villains are white in the media. Also, the imagery of black men is no longer monolithic. Pres. Obama aside, the class representations of black men have widened.
Still I don’t want to dodge the core issue. Historically we have a pyramid of power where small ruling elite lives off the wealth produced by the majority and within that majority are a black minority used as a scapegoat. So yes, the Brute caricature is a vile image used to disguise the true source of violence. If I read you correctly, Precious fits into that tradition. I differ. It’s not so simple. The mistake you make is assuming there is only one way to read Precious. Yes, it can be read by whites to justify their racism but it can be read by black people as a reflection of the damage the system has caused in us. The question is one of intent. My reading of the intent behind Push the book and Precious the movie is to give a voice to people made invisible or unredeemable by our system.
I did see the film again and did not see anything advocating sterilization. Also the one conversation about work-fare, is explicitly an argument against it. Precious is sitting by the window. She and her classmates work out how much she would get if she worked as an on-call nurse versus welfare and going to school. They all agree she should stay on welfare until she can finish school. Precious says, “I want to work but I want to finish my schooling first.” So it’s actually the opposite of what you assert. The film does not advocate work-fare at all.
In a prior post you write “do you think that someone will do a “Precious” about the ethnic group to which Spielberg and Sarah Siegel who put up the money for this Nazi film?” It seems you’re saying that no one would put up money to make a movie showing Jews in the same dire circumstances as Precious. More so, you accuse Spielberg and Siegel, both Jews of producing a Nazi film which is insulting and Anti-Semitic.
First American Jews do not have the same history in the U.S., no Middle Passage, no slavery and have after World War 2 been able for the most part to move into the white mainstream. So it’s obvious they would not have the same poverty rate (although Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty in NYC reports it rose from %7 in 1991 to %13 in 2002, so much for the myth!) and subsequent pathologies that are caused by racism and generations long exploitation. In the U.S. racism against black people has been the primary channel of social frustration, paranoia and anxiety. So to the degree that Precious is a film that reflects the problems of the Black working poor caused by institutional racism, you won’t find a “Jewish” Precious.
More importantly, each minority is repressed by a historically specific ideology. The imagery used against Jews and Blacks are very different. So imagine a theater backdrop and on it plays the standard Anti-Semitic racist images, greedy bankers, puppet-masters etc. If you had Jewish actors on stage acting out the Precious screen-play with incest and abuse; it wouldn’t have any resonance because that’s not part of the oppressive ideological tradition used against them. It would just seem the odd plight of an individual family.
Same thing with Black folk, if you had a theater backdrop and on it was projected the Mammy, Coon, Brute, Jezebel caricatures and black actors re-enact some screenplay about loaning money at high interest rates or manipulating media to trick people, it wouldn’t resonant because that’s not part of the oppressive ideological tradition. It would be read as the story of an individual family.
So the question is has there been a Jewish Precious? Are there films which investigate the degree to which social stereotypes have damaged and shaped Jewish identity? Just a glance at Jewish cinema and we see the answer is yes. We see movies that examine the mentality behind their persecution as a religious minority as well as self-criticism of internalized Anti-Semitism, of religiously driven sexism and persecution of Palestinians. We see this in A Gentlemen’s Agreement, Yentl, Schindler’s List, Pi, Borat, Waltz with Bashir and Taking Woodstock. When you suggest that Jewish film-makers don’t criticize their own culture you’re wrong. When you suggest they are in cohorts with white supremacy you invoke the same racist logic you decry. It’s hypocrisy.
Finally to suggest that the Indy doesn’t focus on abuse in white household because the white women on the Indy staff are racist is sheer bullshit. Read the fucking Indy.Ishmael Reed Says: December 14th, 2009 at 8:33 pmIf you don’t think that Jewish writers are capable of creating Nazi stereotypes of blacks check
out David Mamet’s film,” Edmund.” In a Jewish magazine called Tablet, there’s an article about
Jewish film makers stereotyping Jewish women!! Historically. Also, I cited a book about
stereotypes of Jewish males in the Nazi media .If you took the time to read the book instead
of pleasing the ‘progressives’ at Indy, you’d find that they’re consistent with those in “Precious.”
Also, how do you respond to the complaints of Jewish feminists who say that the abuse of
some Jewish women by some Jewish men has been covered up? I can send you a biblography.
Has Indy written about this? Send me the article Ireedpub@yahoo.com. I don’t expect Amy
Goodman to do it. She’s more interested in torture at Gitmo than in torture in New York
juvenile facillities. See today’s Times.

MARVIN X REVIEWS FILM CLASSICS

The Great Debaters

This is a coming of age film of the North American African Nation. It is about a people regaining their consciousness after decades of obscurity. This film puts them back properly in the time and space of history, for they present themselves as a civilized people, the children and the adults, thus making it a movie on the goodness of life and the power of consciousness to reveal the very best of a people, thus regaining their self respect before the world community. It shows the intelligence and leadership of American African youth-- of adult leadership and intelligence as well, including the radical activist tradition in North American African History. Every North American African, every Pan African, can be proud that Oprah Winfrey and Denzil Washington produced this. Perhaps we have reached that moment in time when our people have no choice but to be their true selves, their best selves. For the first time in a long time, we see the intellectual genius of a people during the turbulent 1930s. This should be a lesson to all North American Africans that we have a dignified liberation tradition to uphold, thus we cannot sink into the morass of today, but in the manner of this film, take a great leap forward into dignity, respect, and intelligent behavior. As a people, we must be proud of the young performers in this drama. They have exhibited the very best in us as human beings, as African people. The children teach us and themselves in this movie. They teach us the worst in human consciousness with their remarks on a lynching. They repeatedly show us the power of using the black mind for intellectual dexterity rather than barbarity and expressions of animal consciousness. This film is in the genre of Akila and the Bee, except that it goes deeper socially, intellectually, historically and spiritually. While it reveals the utter racism and white supremacy of this nation, it also depicts the resistance and transcendence to this unique American evil, especially in the present era. The music is excellent, the visuals as well, including the acting and dance, giving us a sense of the ritual life of our people during the 1930s. The young character Henry who became a debater after a riotous life is exemplary and a clear example to other wayward youth struggling to survive in the hoods of America. You can come up if you get up! Yes, it takes energy: the same energy it takes to stay down it takes to get up! Denzil Washington must be given kudos for his role as Melvin Tolson, the great poet of our people. Denzil proves his acting ability in presenting Tolson as the intellectual/activist, a tradition often represented by the artists/activists of the 1960s. But in the character of poet Tolson, we see the roots of the Black Arts Movement artist/activism that would emerge in the 60s with Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Askia Toure,Larry Neal, Marvin X, Haki Madhubuti, Ed Bullins, June Jordan and others. But this tradition had its origins in the Harlem Renaissance of the 20s, and the poets, writers, and artists of the 30s, 40s and 50s, from Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Sterling Brown, Gwen Brooks, Ralph Ellison and others. Forest Whitaker as the senior James Farmer maintained a certain dignity early on that his character revealed late in The Deacons, his character kept its self respect when confronted by white racists after he accidentally ran over their hog. This scene is a survival lesson for young black men. I tell young black men on the street and in the schools and colleges that they must pass the tone test when confronted by police: depending on their tone of voice, they can be killed, arrested or released. But imagine, so-called Negroes having an intellectual debate, even a team of debaters with a coach who apprises them on the Willie Lynch syndrome, who tells them straight out white supremacy has them insane, thus confirming the sister who says it is not white supremacy but white lunacy, thus we are victims of an insanity far beyond the economic implications. I love James Baldwin’s quote, “It’s a wonder we haven’t all gone stark raving mad,” dealing with white supremacy for four hundred years. The Debaters is a hopeful sign that we can and shall overcome, that we can and shall regain our sanity.

--Marvin X

Akeelah and the Bee



Keke Palmer as Akeelah Anderson
Lawrence Fishburne as Dr. Joshua Larabee

This is a most wonderful movie, especially for a wordsmith like myself, although I am the world's worse speller, but I did win a spelling bee in elementary school. What a movie and what a pity it only earned 14 million dollars in three weeks. Yet, something positive for a change, reflecting the very best of African American culture and the human spirit. It is a film about coming to recognize the divine within one's self, an important step in human development. For some of us it takes a lifetime, for others only a few years on the planet, such as the eleven years Akeelah (Keke Palmer) had been around. But what is even more interesting is how the film revealed that it is equally important for others to recognize the divinity of a person—and yes, it took a village to support Akeelah Anderson on her way to the national spelling bee. Even the boyz in the hood and girls, supported her; also the community intellectual who became her coach, Dr. Joshua Larabee (Lawrence Fishburne, who performed admirably), although Larabee was in pain and suffering along with the rest of the characters—there was communal pain that was too obvious to ignore. Larabee was mourning over a niece, but began to heal as he transferred his love onto Akeelah. He was actually a UCLA English professor but was too traumatized to teach until working with Akeelahhealed him and he returned to the classroom. Akeelah had lost her father to street violence and her mother grieved over the lost of her husband. The mother was in pain from her loss, she also suffered from that great monster of life called fear—scared to finish college, settling for a wage slave job at a hospital, forcing her to work long hours to survive and care for her children: one in the Air Force, another a wannabe thug and a daughter with a baby. Akeelah was the bright spot in their lives. The mother was especially concerned about the wannabe thug, fearing he was bound to die on the streets of LA like so many of his peers. We could see how easy it would have been for the movie to focus on him, but the world knows his story, it is in the crime section of the daily papers and nightly news. But even the thug eventually embraced Akeelah's mission, especially after instructions from his thug elders. But this is not about hugging a thug, rather supporting a genius on the move. The film is a model of how the community can and must support its children with talent, especially its impoverished children who work with nothing but the talent God gave them. They often receive little or no parental support and even friends can be haters. Akeelah’s poverty was in sharp contrast with the affluence of her spelling bee comrades from the other side of town who had full if not overbearing parental support, as we saw with the Asian speller whose father nearly crippled the boy emotionally by pressuring him to win. Akeelah’s mother had no time to see her on the path to the national championship—she had no time or energy to be a spelling bee mom. This was painful for Akeelah, although her mother eventually came around after seeing the determination of her daughter and those assisting her. Children who have parental support are the lucky ones. I know my mother had no time to come see me play basketball—she was busy raising eleven children by herself, so I got over my desire for her to see me at every game. I was happy the few times she came. Finally, the film was about discipline and focus, a most valuable lesson of life. And again, the film stressed community support, from intellectuals to the boyz and girls in the hood. The entire village helped Akeelah learn the necessary words to become national champion, thus her victory was a community victory.

--Marvin X

Maangamizi (the Ancient One)



a film by Martin Mhando,
Ron Mulvihill and the Ancestors






Featuring Andina Lihambra,


Barbara O, Mwanajuma Ali Hassan,


Thecla Mjatta, Waigwa Wachira

Maangamizi is a film in the genre of Daughters of the Dust and Sankofa, it even stars Babrara O from Daughters of the Dust. So let's get to point of this film that has won awards at several international film festivals, though few have heard about it. I have long maintained that before African Americans can heal the trauma of White Supremacy they must make peace with their southern roots, the pain of slavery in all its vicissitudes. This film justifies my thesis that we must indeed come to peace with the terror of Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and the rest of the south before we can truly be healed. Whatever the south meant to us or means to us now, we must come to grips with it before we can deal with Mother Africa. In the film the African American psychiatrist (Barabra O) goes to Tanzania to work in a mental hospital, but she cannot heal the Africans until the Africans come to terms with who she is as long lost daughter and she cannot deal with Africans until she is woman enough to confront the terror of African American oppression, there is a leitmotif of lynching to allow us to see her suffering, even though she is a doctor on a mission to heal her African brothers and sisters. But she cannot heal her primary patient until the patient understands that the doctor from America is her salvation, not in a medical sense but in a spiritual sense. After the African sister is traumatized by seeing her father burn her mother to death in a hut, the child refuses to speak until the wise woman Manzamizi (also grandmother) entreats her to connect with her African American sister, that is her salvation. But as I said above, the African American must heal from the terror of America, not their disconnection with Africa as we are usually told. Supposedly, we cannot heal until we come to terms with our Africanity, but this film flips the script as many revolutionaries and radicals have discovered: we must come to terms with our Americanity in all its vicissitudes. Afterwards, we will have no problem with Africa. With their attitude of jealousy and envy as expressed in the film, clearly, it is Africans who must adjust to African Americans. The film showed our African brothers and sisters as the playa haters of African Americans, and certainly the star patient had reservations about reconnecting with her African American sister, but this was the point of the film: that until Africans come to terms with African Americans, no healing can come to Africa, even though she has her neo-colonial problems with religion, Western religion, Christianity, the father being so dogmatic and savage that he burns his wife alive because her daughter is supposedly under witchcraft when it is clear the father is a devil under the power of a pseudo-Jesus. What Jesus told him to burn his wife alive in the granary hut? The most powerful scene is the father in hell begging his daughter for forgiveness. And she forgives him, thus transcending the pseudo-Christianity of her father, to the objection of her wise woman, grandmother, Maanzimizi, who said to hell with the father, let him burn in hell for dissing the ancestors in favor of Christianity.

--Marvin X




ALI

"…A notable and articulate advocacy of black conscientious objection came from the Nation of Islam. In 1942 Elijah Muhammad was arrested in Chicago and convicted of sedition, conspiracy and violation of the draft laws. After serving time in a federal penitentiary until 1946, Muhammad continued in his beliefs. Two decades later he vigorously urged his followers to refuse participation in the Vietnam War. Among those who listened were world heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali and Marvin X."

--Lorenzo Thomas



ALI

Starring Will Smith



Directed by Michael Mann


Rated R for some language and brief violence.


Runtime: 158 Country: USA
Language: English Color: Color


Cast overview, first billed only:


Will Smith .... Cassius Clay / Muhammad Ali


Jamie Foxx .... Drew 'Bundini' Brown


Jon Voight .... Howard Cosell


Mario Van Peebles .... Malcolm

Ron Silver .... Angelo Dundee

Jeffrey Wright (I) .... Howard Bingham


Mykelti Williamson .... Don King

Jada Pinkett Smith .... Sonji

Nona M. Gaye .... Belinda


Michael Michele .... Veronica Joe Morton ....


Chauncy Eskridge Paul Rodriguez (I) .... Dr. Ferdie Pacheco
Barry Shabaka Henley .... Herbert Muhammad


Giancarlo Esposito .... Cassius Clay, Sr.


Laurence Mason .... Luis Sarria

Some things in life are a cause for hesitation-we know we're not walking on solid ground, yet we go forward into the unknown like a brave soldier ordered into battle. This is how I approached ALI, knowing this movie was bound to touch me in a personal way, since Muhammad Ali and I were the two best known Muslims who refused to fight in Vietnam or anywhere for the white man. Ali was in sports, I was part of the Black Arts Movement, also associated with the Black Panthers. Elijah told Ali to give up sports, that the world was not made for sport and play. Ali refused. Elijah told me to give up poetry, that he was after the plainest way to get truth to our people: poetry, he said, was a science our people didn't understand. I refused. Was Elijah right? Look at the present condition of Ali. Look at the present proliferation of poetry: gansta rap poetry has contributed to the desecration of black people. How did we go from revolutionary BAM poetry to the reactionary rap songs about bitch, ho and motherfucker? Sonia Sanchez says the rappers simply put on stage what was happening in the black revolutionary movement and our community in general: the disrespect of women. Even spoken word is at a pivotal point of becoming crassly commercial, promoted in night clubs along with alcohol and other drugs. Certainly, this is no atmosphere to teach truth which is the poet's sole duty, not to be a buffoon or entertainer. Poetry is a sacred art: in the beginning was the word and the word was with God…. One club owner stopped a successful poetry night when it became a butcher shop, patrons trading poetry for sex, more or less…. Academic poetry never made it in the hood, since it is essentially a foreign language. Thank God for poetry slams, they have allowed the masses to appreciate poetry, seizing it from the academic barbarians who killed the word in abstract nonsense only a rocket scientist or linguist can understand. Perhaps, this was Elijah's point to me. But, finally, all poetry uses devices such as metaphor and simile which may confuse rather than "make it plain" in the style of Elijah and Malcolm, even though they too used these devices. Elijah didn't stop Muhammad Ali from being a poet! "Refusing induction, Marvin X fled to Canada. 'I departed from the United States…to preserve my life and liberty, and to pursue happiness….' "-loc. cit. Malcolm X recruited Cassius Clay into the Nation of Islam. Malcolm's oratory influenced me to consider Elijah's Islamic Black Nationalism while I was a student at Oakland's Merritt College, along with Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Ernie Allen and others who became the new black intelligentsia, the direct product of Malcolm, Patrice Lumumba, Kwame Nkrumah and Elijah. When Malcolm X spoke before seven thousand students at U.C. Berkeley's Sproul Plaza (1964), I was in the audience. When he was assassinated, we wore black armbands to express our grief at San Francisco State University, actor Danny Glover among us. In truth, we were too confused to do more, which was the devil's purpose: confuse, divide and conquer. Although Ali and I were followers of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Ali followed closer to the letter than I-I followed the spirit of Elijah. Elijah told us to resist the draft, go to prison if necessary. Ali followed orders-but I was under the influence of my Panther friends who said we should not only resist the draft, but resist arrest as well-so rather than go to jail, I fled to Toronto, Canada, joining other resisters. But before I went into exile, I met Muhammad Ali at the Chicago home of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. After Eldridge Cleaver was placed on house arrest for allegedly causing a riot at a Black Power conference on the campus of Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn. (along with Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, Kathleen Neal, later Cleaver), Ramparts magazine permitted me to interview Ali in place of Cleaver who was a staff writer. To the disappointment of Ramparts, Cleaver and myself, Elijah called Ali into a room. When he returned, he said to me, "Brother, the Messenger said not to do the interview." He added, "This is the man I'm willing to die for-what he says, I do." So I didn't get the interview. I returned to California with the disappointing news. Ramparts eventually did a story on Ali. This was 1967-a few months later I was exiled in Toronto. After Toronto, I went underground to Chicago, arriving in time to see troops occupy the south side and the torching of the west side, following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In Oakland, the Black Panthers responded to the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. by staging a shootout with the police in which Eldridge Cleaver was wounded and Little Bobby Hutton murdered. With the FBI on my heels, I left Chicago and arrived in Harlem, joining the Last Poets, Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Askia M. Toure', Don L. Lee, Amiri Baraka, Ed Bullins, Sun Ra, Milford Graves, Barbara Ann Teer and others for the second Harlem Renaissance. But my draft problems weren't over-coming back from Montreal, Canada one weekend, I was apprehended at the border and returned to California for trial-I resisted a second time, fleeing to Mexico City before sentencing. It is now 1970. In Mexico City, I met the sons of Muhammad Ali's manager, Herbert Muhammad (son of Elijah Muhammad), who were attending the University of the Americas. The sons, Elijah and Sultan, were in a kind of exile from the madness of Black Muslim Chicago-they didn't receive Muhammad Speaks newspaper, of `which I was now foreign editor and their father manager-so I gave them my copies. They were talk of the town. The African American ex-patriot community informed me Elijah's grandsons didn't believe his teachings. I discovered they were right about Elijah, nicknamed Sonny, who was caught bringing marijuana across the border, among other things. I arrived at their casa for a party to see Sonny dancing with a white woman. Sonny let me use his birth certificate to cross the border to get my woman. Yes, I was "Elijah Muhammad." But as I crossed the border, my woman was on a plane to Mexico City. At least Sultan had a Mexican girl. Sultan eventually became the personal pilot for his grandfather, Elijah Muhammad. After journeying to Belize, Central America, against the advice of my Mexico City contact, revolutionary artist Elizabeth Catlett Mora, I was arrested for teaching black power and "communism," deported to the US and served five months in federal prison for draft evasion. With this background, I entered the cinema to view Ali, the story of a man and a time that shook America and the world. "For his court appearance, Marvin X prepared an angry and eloquent statement, which was later published in Black Scholar (April-May 1971), 'There comes a time…when a man's conscience will no longer allow him to participate in the absurd.' He recalled with disgust the Supreme Court's 1857 Dred Scott decision which pronounced that 'a black man has no rights which a white man is bound to respect.' And in ringing tones he challenged the court's authority to contravene his religious and philosophical principles, 'But there you sit…with the blood of my ancestors dripping from your hands! And you seek to judge me for failing to appear in a court for sentencing on a charge of refusing induction, of refusing to go l0,000 miles to kill my brothers in order to insure the perpetuation of White Power in Southeast Asia and throughout the world.' " --loc. cit. ALI The name Muhammad Ali means the one who is most high and worthy of much praise. In Ali, we saw a man arise from "Clay" or dirt to become the most recognized person on earth. Will Smith deserves much praise for his portrayal of Ali, bringing him alive, making him believable. This was no easy task because of the character's complexity as folk hero with many dimensions: athlete, religious militant, poet, lover man. As athlete we must give credit to the camera man for so many close-ups that transformed and reinforced Will Smith's image as Ali. Actually close-ups seemed to be the dominant camera angle throughout the movie and they worked to bring forth the beauty of the African skin tones as well as reflect character in various situations. The camera catches Ali's third wife Veronica Porche (Michelle Michael) at an angle that reflects the absolute golden beauty of her skin as she and Ali stroll in the African sun. There are great pan shots of people in the streets of Ghana and Zaire. The sound was awesome when Ali was in the ring punching or getting punched. The sound vibrated our bodies, making us a virtual part of the movie. We meet Ali as he was meeting Malcolm X (Melvin Van Peebles) and being converted to a Black Muslim. Malcolm converted an entire generation, especially youth in the north. Martin Luther King, Jr. reigned in the south, having almost no influence with us college students. We looked upon Martin as the chief bootlicker of the white man. As Malcolm, Melvin Van Peebles did a credible job. Of course he is no Denzel Washington (Spike Lee's Malcolm X), but at least he looked like Malcolm-although his delivery was weak-he lacked the fire of Denzel, but was acceptable and his relationship with Muhammad Ali clearly established an intimate friendship until they were forced apart by Nation of Islam politics which the movie pointed out was not apart from U.S. government politics of intervention and neutralization. We see the agents inside the NOI. Of course the NOI, along with the Black Panthers, was the main black organization on the FBI's list of subversives. Hoover and his Cointelpro was determined to prevent the rise of a black messiah who could unite African Americans. Malcolm and Martin were marked for elimination. Muhammad Ali slipped through to become hero of the Afro-Asian, Islamic world. After all, he defied the American government in a manner no one has until Osama Bin Laden. We have to draw the parallel between these two because they are heroes of the oppressed, especially the oppressed Muslim masses of Africa and Asia. The movie gave us the impression Ali was more a hero in Africa than with African Americans. One wonders whether this was deliberate, to dampen Ali's image in the eyes of the hero starved African American community. Let's be clear, Ali was in the tradition of the defiant, rebellious bad nigguh: Nat Turner, Denmark Vesey, Gabriel Prosser, Jack Johnson, Paul Robeson. Ali was doing all right until he sent a shout out to the world, "No Viet cong never called me a nigguh."And we hear Danny Glover may be added to America's bad nigguh list, since Oliver North is encouraging Americans to boycott his movies because Danny made statements against military tribunals. Ali made it crystal clear he was going to say and do whatever the hell he wanted. America made him pay the price for being a free black man. What if the other mentally enslaved black men followed suit? Jada Pinkett Smith as Ali's first wife, Sonji, was rather conservative in light of the character who was quite simply a so-called Negro who rejected Islam, initially accepting it solely because of her man. I wanted her to be more of a slut, a hard headed, stiff necked, rebellious negress. She was some of that, but maybe the script limited her because I know she has the talent as an actress to be more of a bitch than she was. Belinda (Nona Gaye), his second wife, was more sassy than Sonji in some ways, especially in her condemnation of Herbert Muhammad (Shabaka Hemsley), Ali's manager and the NOI, particularly when Ali was nearly broke. Her critical remarks were utterly shocking since they came from someone who grew up in the Nation of Islam. For a Muslim woman, she was equal in boldness with Ali. Herbert Muhammad is one of the classic characters in NOI history and Shabaka did a fairly good job representing him, although we don't get the sense he was one of the most powerful men in the NOI and the first prominent black fight manager. If there had not been a Herbert Muhammad, there probably would not have been a Don King. The character Elijah Muhammad (Albert Hall) was rather weak and one dimensional, mostly negative. Realistically, it is impossible to downplay Elijah Muhammad in the drama of African America. He educated two of our greatest heroes, Malcolm and Ali, not to mention Farrakhan and even myself and thousands more brothers and sisters throughout this wicked land. Don't make me quote writer Fahizah Alim, "Elijah Muhammad was like a momma, even if she was a ho' on the corner telling lies to get money to feed us, she gave us life and kept us living until we could stand on our feet…" Basically, we see him suspending Malcolm and later Ali. I think the best supporting actor in this film would have to be Jamie Foxx as the legendary Drew Bodini, Ali's sideman. He was beyond belief as the tragic-comic Bodini, who seemed to inspire much of Ali's poetry and serve as cheerleader and confidant. Howard Bingham (Jeffery Wright), Ali's friend and photographer, should have served as sane counterpoint to the insane antics and witchcraft of Bodini, but he remains muted behind his camera, although we know by nature the photographer sees everything and often advises his client, constantly whispering words of wisdom from his vantage point. These characters were poets above all else, beginning with Malcolm, although we heard very little of his rhetoric, then Ali, Bodini, Don King (Mykelti Williamson). How Don King escaped the rat image is beyond me, but he did by donning the poet's persona. We must give Don credit for ushering in the age of the multimillion dollar fight purse. But we had to sigh a little sadness that the murderous land of Mubutu's Zaire was the scene of the Rumble in the Jungle, as if anywhere else in Africa was any different, i.e., devoid of a dictatorial regime. In Africa, Nkrumah taught, every state is a military state! Last but not least, Jon Voight (Howard Cossell), must be given credit for bringing the legendary Cossell to life, but it is clear Ali made Cossell, not the other way around, and in no way were they equals: Cossell, as media pimp, represented America at its worst --Ali's verbal sparring made Howard Cossell's world larger than life and sometimes smaller when Cossell made the mistake of asking Ali if he was the man he used to be. Ali retorted, "Howard, your wife said you ain't the man you used to be…" The music score weaved in and out of the action at proper moments, making it delightful and meaningful, although it's hard to imitate Sam Cooke. The scenes in Africa made us feel the universal love for Ali, especially when the people were chanting "Ali" -again, the sound reached inside us, grabbing us into itself. Finally, we must credit Will Smith for transforming himself into all the things that make up Ali, his political consciousness, his religiosity, his morality and immorality, his media savvy and especially his poetry. Of course director Michael Mann must be credited with shaping the entire film. It was long but I didn't want it to end, especially when it did with the Rumble in the Jungle, the Foreman/Ali match in Zaire. But Ali's story is so much a part of modern American history that it could have gone on forever. Imagine him commenting on the events of 911. We understand that he has been requested to make public service announcements supporting America's war on terrorism. Would this be a more dramatic ending: the people's champ who fought against oppression, finally broken down to a servant of the oppressor? It may or may not be dramatic, but the tragic truth is that Ali is a member of Warith Din Muhammad's sect that was known for flag waving long before 911. Even before his transition in 1975, Warith had rejected the teachings of his father, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, in favor of orthodox Islam, dismissing the Black Nationalism of Elijah for Americanism, so it is not whack for President Bush to call upon Ali to be the "voice of America" to the Muslim world, nor for Ali to accept. Remember when my friend, Eldridge Cleaver, returned from exile waving the flag-the radical community was horrified one of their leaders had sold out. Let ALI end with the Rumble in the Jungle. One purpose of that fight was to reestablish ties between Africa and African America. This was of great significance for Pan Africanism, including the therapeutic healing of divisive wounds in the colonized psyche of Africans and African Americans. As I said, Ali was indeed bigger than America-the first Muslim heavyweight champion of the world, the first African American athlete to unabashedly recognize our Motherland by staging a fight there. Ali was a man of the times, not by blending or following, but leading the way. The hero is first of all a leader. He extends the mythology of his people, like Coltrane taking us to A Love Supreme. Ali's mission was transcending our colonial education, breaking the bonds of our Christian mentality with its impediments of passivity and submission, although Martin Luther King, Jr. attempted to transform the Christian myth-ritual with his liberation theology. Ali's athletic prowess and discipline, his political consciousness, was an example for all fighters, especially freedom fighters around the world. If indeed, our hero has been co-opted, let us be mature enough to realize humans are not made of stone and we know in real life people change, not always for the good-thus the danger of hero worship and thus the Islamic dictum: nothing deserves to worshipped except Allah.

--Marvin X

My Son the Fanatic

Director: Udayan Prasad


Cast: Om Puri, Rachel Griffiths,


Stellan Skarsgård, Akbar Kurtha

In light of recent events in London, I thought it would be important for a clearer understanding of London's Muslim community to resend this review of the film My Son The Fanatic. Most western politicians, media spooks and experts refuse to address the root cause of young men and women willing to self destruct as suicide bombers or why they choose to become fundamentalist Muslims. Westerners and the moderate Muslim experts continue in denial that white supremacy is the root cause of their former colonial subjects desire to remove the last vestiges of the disease of cultural imperialism. White supremacy has spread hopelessness in young Muslims in Europe and cultural imperialism has spread it to the former colonies, now neo-colonial regimes best described by journalist Ayman Al Amir, who recently said, “Terrorism is the consequence of political ostracism, not religious fanaticism. It is fermented not in the mosques of Egypt or the madrassas of Pakistan but in solitary confinement cells, torture chambers, and the environment of fear wielded by dictatorial regimes.” The film reveals that Muslims in Europe, and London in particular, are not only politically disenfranchised but culturally, economically, and spirituality alienated as well. This alienation is simply the nature of the beast, the Mother Country, that devours the little people from the colonies who seek comfort in the Mother but are rejected for being less than human, thus in a twist of the Oedipus complex, they seek to destroy the Mother who has all but destroyed them, stunted their personalities and possibilities for human and spiritual development. The Review …Essentially, it is about the colonized man, the colonized family and its attempt at de-colonization. Ironically, we are challenged to decide who is the fanatic, the father or the son, for both are battling their supposed demons. For the son, it is western culture—the father fights to escape eastern culture, i.e., his Pakistani roots. The son wants to return to his religious roots, Islamic fundamentalism. The father is fanatically in love with secularism—he is non-religious, in love with jazz, blues, alcohol and whores, one in particular. What if Osama Bin Laden and his band of devils came to your house at the invitation of your son? When his son comes under the influence of fundamental Islam, he get his father to allow a Muslim teacher to visit from Lahore, Pakistan, turning the house into an Islamic center, which the father reluctantly allows because of his deep love for his son. Although he arranges for his son to marry a London policeman’s daughter, the son rejects his father’s request, opting for Islam, claiming the girl represents the worst of western culture. Couldn’t he see how the policeman abhorred him, the son asks the father. The father is blind: his loveless job as a London taxi driver exposes him to street life and he succumbs, falling seriously in love with a whore, rejecting his homely wife who has failed to inspire him, perhaps because she doesn’t represent the decadent western culture he loves, symbolized and summarized in the whore. For him, the whore has life, love, tenderness, and freedom. Why can’t he get this at home? Is it because the wife represents the old world he rejects so totally? …After his son and comrades attack the whores for being whores—the son actually attacks his father’s whore, spitting on her, and striking her in a violent anti-prostitution riot, forcing the father to expel the imam, with the son departing in disgust. …In the German trick Mr. Schitz, we see the arrogance of western man who derides the father for being the “little man.” What can the little man from the East do with the white whore, the symbol of western civilization? The little man is inferior by nature, with defects, genetic of course, which disqualifies him from being on par with western man. Mr. Schitz can pat the “little man” or eastern man on the head, kick him to the ground and apply any number of verbal insults, until eastern man finds a bat in the truck of his car and threatens to use it. Of course, this is the colonized man fighting back, regaining his manhood. The father fights on a personal level, the son on a politico-religious level, but both are fighting colonialism. Their misunderstanding each other’s fight is symbolic of the tension between moderate and fundamental Muslims. We know we cannot go back to Islam of the Prophet’s day, but nor can we accept the passivity of the moderates. There is no excuse for one billion Muslims being humiliated by a few million Jews in Israel. This is not a question of hatred, but the result of political backwardness, the non-use of power. With Muslim unity, the Palestinian problem could be resolved tomorrow morning. Until contradictions between moderate and fundamental Muslims are resolved, eastern man will not be able to successfully challenge western man. This, of course, will necessitate revolution because moderate Muslims control most Islamic societies and have no plans to give up power without a struggle—those who struggle against them being described as terrorists to disqualify legitimate freedom fighters who will ultimately challenge the corrupt, undemocratic, secular Muslim nations. The final question is what will be the nature of the new Nation of Islam. Can fundamentalism function in the modern era or is it antithetical? Will it be repressive, will it be democratic in any sense, not necessarily in the western democratic sense? Will Iran be an example? Tunisia? Turkey? For sure, the motion in the Muslim world will lead to a synthesis of the best of the old and the new. Let us understand clearly, if the reactionary secular regimes cannot or do not eradicate ignorance, poverty and disease, they will be replaced. The father’s love of the whore was real. She represented the poor underclass that even the revolutionary son could not accept because of his moral myopia. If the father had married her (another wife being acceptable in Islam), perhaps the son would have respected him and the tension between the old and new would have eased, allowing the possibility of a better day. After the present convolutions, look for a marriage between old Islam and the new, between East and West. We will either come together or go to hell together. For all his attempts to claim allegiance to the Islamic past, Osama Bin Laden is the most modern of men, using modern technology, modern weapons, modern financial systems, and modern media techniques to the best of his ability.

--Marvin X

Baby Boy

Written, Directed, Produced

by John Singleton

Rating: RStudio: Columbia Tri-Star

Theatrical Release Date: June 29, 2001

DVD Release Date: November 6, 2001
Run Time: 129 minutes
Production Company: Columbia Tri-Star

Tyrese Gibson stars as JodyYvette (Taraji P. Henson)

Peanut (Tamara LaSeon Bass)

Juanita (Adrienne-Joi Johnson)

Sweetpea (Omar Gooding)

(Snoop Doggy Dogg)

Marvin (Ving Rhames)

From Boyz in the Hood to Baby Boy is not much progress, or is it a necessary return to the scene of a crime for a closer look at the evidence, to figure out a motive, to clarify certain thoughts on a problem that has proven a conundrum. Certainly the situation of the black man in America is such a problem. How did he get here, why, and how will he get where he wants and should be? The movie opens with some definitions of boy, crib, mama-and I was waiting to hear man defined, as in The Man, as in white man as opposed to black man. I have been told John lacks political consciousness, so perhaps this is why he didn't go into The Man but stayed with Baby Boy-an easier task, yet difficult enough to confound the greatest minds in the world. DuBois, Garvey, Elijah, Malcolm, Fanon, Hare, these are a few of the men who've tried to decipher the innards of the black man's soul, heart and mind. So we must give John credit for stepping into high cotton, for attempting to answer a most profound question, how do we get the black boy to manhood, especially when many fathers have long gone and society deals with the question as a criminal matter, especially when the Oedipus drama between boy and mom reaches the climax or gets out of control. On one level, the answer to all this is very simple, manhood training is the prescription John's movie tries to fill: initiating the boys into manhood. Since the Black Men's Conference in Oakland, 1980, many organizations have come on the scene to offer manhood rites for black boys, from coast to coast there are age-grade ceremonies and rites of passage. But most of these programs are relegated to the bourgeoisie youth, the ghetto boys must fend for themselves. At least John had enough sense to transcend gang socialization and affiliation as a solution because it is mostly a case of the blind leading the blind. The sole elder or manhood facilitator is the mother's boyfriend, an ex convict trying to do the right thing after a ten year journey up river. In spite of his serious limitations including the neglect of his own children, he initiates Jodie into manhood. The boyfriend is the only adult male we see, although we hear of previous abusers of Jodie's mother and of his father we learn very little, mainly that he is long gone, the typical situation in the hood where the black man is a premium and often a rarity in the family or anywhere else, after all the black man is busy escaping from the ever encroaching white man and his variety of viruses, from jail, prison, alcohol, drugs, homosexuality, infidelity, insanity, hostility, etc. We see the boyfriend is a killer and he comes close to taking Jodie out in a fit of rage that might be excusable as a manhood training exercise-he had to show Jodie who's the man, or at least the elder or the authority figure, a similar procedure practiced by the police when they stop ghetto youth for the slightest matter-they terrorize them, punch, hit, choke them, often before asking for ID. In the end, Jodie is dancing to the Boyfriend's music, literally and spiritually, suggesting his maturity, but John takes us into the surreal for this to happen. We see Jodie shot multiple times, but in the Christian tradition surfacing from the deep structure of the movie, Jodie is crucified, resurrected and completes his journey into manhood. He ascends. He leaves his mama's nest and goes off to create his own with his ever insecure baby's mama. In spite of their immaturity, the couple revealed deep love and affection, which is usually the case with the woman, but we never doubt that Jodie loves his baby mama number one. I really appreciated John's ear for our language-it was precise and true to people in the hood-it was poetry to my ears, a vindication of the freedom of speech the Black Arts movement presented and the rappers extended. Now Peanuts, baby mama number two, is lost in the scuffle, which is another problem that John S. was obviously incapable of dealing with as are most Christians and most Muslims, the problem of the other woman. So Peanuts is like Hagar and her daughter like Ishmael, abandoned and sent into the desert to be forgotten. At some point in our existence, we must deal with the multiple families we have created-if polygamy is not the answer, then what is? It was obvious Jodie was not mature enough to handle one woman, let alone two or more-and he didn't really try, but clearly the women in the hood wanted him to be their BD, baby's daddy. I really appreciated John's ear for our language-it was precise and true to people in the hood-it was poetry to my ears, a vindication of the freedom of speech the Black Arts movement presented and the rappers extended. It was raw but natural-thank God the culture police didn't censure him because they have no originality or creativity, only moral hypocrisy. Let the people speak their language, let their voice be heard-freedom of expression is a political act protected by the Constitution, or it was before 911. I enjoyed the love scenes, they too were natural and not the usual fake looking arrangements-and the mama's boyfriend butt naked in the kitchen cooking breakfast was a monster. The motif of the mother in the garden worked for me, except some close-ups of the vegetables might have made them not look so phony. The mother in the garden and in the house was central to what Baby Boy was all about-getting the bird out of the nest, out of the garden, out of the house, so mama can have a life and the boy become a man. Without daddy, there is only so much mama can do-and the boy warriors are so rebellious an early exit is necessary. They cannot linger pretending to protect mom-as mom said, whatever happens in love is going to happen. Don't get me wrong, Jodie had a right to be concerned about his mother's safety since she had a history of hooking up with violent males. But after OJ the violent male is a top priority of the criminal justice system-often the children become obsessive in their concern for mama, as if they can pick and chose who mama sleeps with. The mother was forceful in demanding a life of her own, she was busy kicking birds out of her nest, or crib as they say. For a moment, I saw sparks of Death of A Salesman when Jodie decided to do for self and began selling women's clothing. This was revolutionary-maybe John does have some consciousness. Jodie had enough sense not to sell dope and not to work for the white man. And he was quite a salesman. John could have told us why Jodie chose to sell women's clothing-aside from the fact that women have money on a constant basis-they can always get money, I've heard-but selling to men is a problem because of playa hatin, jealous, envious brothers-something the movie could have discussed at this point, because this has great relevance for the state of mind, growth and maturity o f the black man-why is it so difficult to sell something to another black man? When I was a dope fiend, I made it a practice to never buy dope from a black man-my choice was the women dope dealers who gave up love, as they say. Why can't a black man give another black man justice? This has everything to do with manhood training and John failed to pick up the ball here. I know brothers who sell women's clothing for all the above reasons. But finally, the movie was too long. There came a point when we knew nothing else could happen except the moment of truth-when the bullfighter kills the bull. And we wanted to see the blood and get it over with. The brother coming home from prison and returning to his ex girl's house was a prescription for homicide in the hood. With so many young men caught up into the criminal justice system, this is an important issue that should have been dealt with as such, but it was done in a Miller Lite fashion, not exploring the sensibilities of the brother coming home to no home, to no woman, no family. It could have been treated on a deeper level without getting the script off focus. Snoop Dogg did a great job with the limited script. With respect to the woman, it has to do with control, power, and ownership, as if the woman is chattel, personal property. This must be a subject in the curriculum of manhood training. That's her pussy, Mr. Black man-if you can control your dick and protect your dick, you will be doing wonders for yourself and the entire community. The dialogue over pussy and dick was boring, probably because I've heard it throughout my relationship with women and I refuse to go there at this point in my life-I don't want to discuss what I do with my dick or what you do with your pussy. Whatever we do together is our business and what I do without you is mine-and what you do without me is yours. I have transcended flesh. Too many of my friends have made their transitions behind flesh. I don't plan to go out that way. It is said half the brothers in prison are there behind trying to impress a woman or behind a woman that they have convinced themselves they were in love with-when in most cases the brother didn't love himself because he had no knowledge of self and most especially no knowledge of a woman. John Singleton accepted a great challenge when he wrote, directed and produced Baby Boy, but one thing a young man lacks is wisdom, for it only comes with age or in deep consultation with the elders. If he had shown the young brothers meeting with the elders, the movie would have taken us as a community to a new level of consciousness. One day such a meeting will take place and be the subject of movies because it will usher in the reconciliation and stabilization of our community. We shall go nowhere as long as our young boys must fend for themselves, must reinvent the wheel of fortune. The challenge is not on the young, but on the elders: black men must step to the front of the line. Time out for marching and talking-Marcus Garvey told us the world is moving against all unorganized people. Black man, get organized!

11/23/01

© 2001 by Marvin X

RAY

Ray

Unchain My Heart: The Ray Charles Story (2004) (USA)
Rated PG-13 for depiction of drug addiction, sexuality and some thematic elements.
Runtime: 152 min
Starring: Jamie Foxx, Kerry Washington,
Clifton Powell, Harry J. Lennix,
Bokeem Woodbine, Regina King, Larenz Tate, others

Taylor Hackford, writer, director

Ray is a classic tragic-comedy in the African tradition of all's well that ends well; tragic in the wretched conditions of his childhood with poverty, the drowning of his brother and the crippling blindness that his mother persisted and insisted he overcome; tragic that in adulthood he initially allowed heroin and sex to cripple him and almost destroy his talent and family, but by the end of the movie Ray Charles Robinson becomes the heroic comedian who overcomes all demons and disabilities to become the master of the game, an internationally recognized superstar and innovator who changed the world of music. It is the musical arrangement that makes this story so powerful and softens the task of actor Jamie Foxx because the music essentially tells the story, weaves in and out of events, connects them, finalizes. Ray's music is the history of a generation, the jazz, blues, rock and roll, country, gospel, he simply, clearly and profoundly did it all. What a gift this blind man gave us to see us in our heart of hearts and soul of souls and the world is a better place because Ray walked this earth without seeing-eye dog or cane, seeing with his ears, hands and voice, as when he began his torturous journey on the kitchen floor searching for the cricket, later he let his wife to be know he and we must be able to see with our ears after he pointed out the hummingbird at the window; indeed we can see God if we take a moment to listen, He is there in spite of all the noise around, yea, all the darkness. I remember the first time I was around a blind person and what a revelation it was when I realized she didn't need a light bulb in her room. Who was really blind, she or I, after all, I was the one who needed light! RAY took us into darkness to better understand the soul in tragic circumstance, the soul that overcomes with pure determination because we see it is only determination that permits RAY to become a success; his persistence to control his destiny is clearly a lesson for any struggling human being, but especially the artist. We see the artist must not only master the show but the show business as well, and any moment he neglects show business he is ripe for robbery as happened in the beginning of his career and even later when he dismissed his assistant for stealing, but even more important is how RAY demanded rights to his music, including ownership of the master tapes. The movie is a how to for young artists. Photo by Goode, Nicola - © 2004 Universal Pictures. All Rights Reserved. Jamie Foxx did a masterful job as the blind Ray. I was totally convinced he was Ray and not Jamie. As I said above, the music made his path easier, providing him with a crutch to stand on but the crutch was after all part of Ray's essence. As a former addict and director of Recovery Theatre, I was pained at his heroin addiction although I sympathized and empathized because of his disability, after all, I thought, if I were blind I might want some heroin just to get through the night, but we know better, we know and we saw the destructive power of the drug on his person, his art and most importantly, his beautiful family that was his codependent for many years, his wife, later his children, who suffered greatly because they loved him so much. Every addict should see this movie to understand the pain of the codependent because we can never say we've recovered without understanding how we subject those around us in our selfish desire to self destruct. As my New York comrades told me, no excuse is acceptable, none. We were happy to see RAY finally seek recovery, but more importantly the constant flashback to his mother and brother were a demonstration that we must confront demons even deeper than drugs to become holistic. It is after the doctor tells him he needs analysis that we see RAY subjecting himself to self-analysis to process the death of his brother and the truth of his mother whose words "don't be a cripple" were a healing motif throughout the movie. Of course, we could have used more of him enduring the recovery process but we are gratified he stayed clean thereafter. Sex, his other addiction, was, for all concerned, no less toxic than heroin. As the other woman, Regina King was great, making us realize her pain, especially when pregnant. The question for me is when will American culture accept the other woman, recognize her as a human being, including her children. If gays and lesbians can and will come out of the closet to marry, so must the other woman, and the other man, for that matter. As his wife "on the road," Marge probably spent more time with him than his wife, so why must she suffer non-recognition, a total debasement of her human right to happiness, prompting her to suffer a drug overdose that we know was clearly suicide. Imagine, the highest rate of HIV/AIDS is black women who engage in one night stands rather than submit to polygamy with a man practicing safe sex. If there can be civil unions for gays and lesbians, then the same is proper for persons with multiple partners, or is a person in a relationship with multiple partners less than human? Perhaps, this is the subject for another movie, but RAY suggests it is a question that isn't going away, especially with artists who often discover sex fires the engine of their creativity. Consider all the lyrics Ray gave us on the pussy and dick theme, "Hit the Road, Jack," "Night Time Is The Right Time," "What'd I Say,"et al. His turn to country music because it tells a story is the reason my mother, a country girl, declared her love for the music. In short, any music genre Ray touched, he turned to gold for himself and his audience. RAY is a great movie about a great man who shared his creativity with the world, in the process taught us how to transcend musical and physical boundaries, even boundaries of the soul.

TRAFFIC

Directed by Steven Soderbergh
Screenplay by Stephen Gaghan
staring Michael Douglas, Benicio Del Toro
Studio: Usa Films
Theatrical Release Date: January 5, 2001DVD

Release Date: May 29, 2001

Run Time: 147 minutes

Production Company: Usa Films

As a former dope fiend, I looked at Traffic with a jaundiced eye, for it showed how much a fool I was to go for the "dope" after having clear knowledge of the real "war on drugs," which is, in fact, a war on blacks, the poor (throughout the world), and the 85% deaf, dumb and blind American public in general. Ironically, Traffic focused on upper class drug use, which is where and when we learn there is a real problem in the land-when a disease reaches the rich as it did with the drug czar's daughter and/or when the "big boys" get busted as with the La Jolla businessmen. So even with two million men and women in prison, mostly on drug related charges or under the influence of drugs at the time of their arrests, there is no real problem because most of the imprisoned are minorities and poor, and the new prison industry is a boon to the economy-basic cost is nearly $50,000 per inmate per year, more than it costs to attend Harvard and Yale. What a horrendous waste of economic resources. Imagine the number of scientists, engineers, sociologists, teachers, social workers that might have come out of the prison population, rather than dope fiends, murderers, rapists and robbers. And don't mention the traumatized, neglected and crime prone children of these inmates. No, Traffic didn't deal with any of this, at least not on the American side of the border. For all the poverty of Mexico, the only thing the good Mexican cop (Benicio Del Toro) wanted for the children of Tijuana was a night baseball field. For this he put his life on the line dealing with the corrupt drug gangs and military generals, which were really one and the same, as anyone would know who has lived in Mexico-corruption is the way of life, the only way-no different than most banana republics. And is America any different? Recently the US general in change of the drug war in Columbia had to be deprived of his wife when she was caught sending kilos of cocaine back to America. Of course the general was innocent, right? With Traffic we are allowed to see how drugs affect people on both sides of the border. The movie begins with the Tijuana police busting drug runners in the desert, but the police are interrupted by general Salazar who is part of a rival cartel fighting for control of the border drug trade. Meanwhile in the USA, the new drug czar is about to be installed. And on the American side of the border another bust is in progress, headed by a black/Latino DEA duo of good guys(Luis Guzman as Ray Castro and Don Cheadle as Montel Gordan). Action shifts to the drug czar's house where his daughter is entertaining friends with coke and crack. This scene probably shocked ghetto dope fiends who've never seen white kids do crack. I know it was shocking when I found myself in a crack house that was a virtual united nations: whites, blacks, Africans, Latinos, Asians, all gathered at the round table, hustling and whoring for dope. The daughter Caroline (Erika Christensen) is soon hooked and falls into the ritual, wishing she could stay in a seedy hotel room and do drugs forever, the crack was that good, her psychotic mind told her. Blacks don't have the luxury to decide whether to stay is a seedy room, the lifestyle leaves them no choice, although there is a step lower: homelessness and pushing a shopping cart. In Atlanta I was told the blacks were poor before crack, after crack they were totally destitute. Seeing the daughter and boyfriend smoke crack gave me a powerful flashback to my days as a druggie, but not enough to trigger a desire to go cop, although seeing that smoke rise was a reminder of days gone past and years one managed to survive only God knows how. After all, I did try to kill myself numerous times, once accidentally cutting an artery but continuing to smoke until my friend ran to the hotel manager who rushed into the room with a baseball bat to get me out, not to save my life but to make sure I didn't die in his hotel-the pool of blood I was standing in was damaging his carpet, bed and curtains. The scene moves to La Jolla, the rich white suburb of San Diego. When I taught briefly at the University of San Diego, located in La Jolla, the police stopped one of my students for a traffic violation and told him, "We stop all niggers in La Jolla…." The dope dealing La Jolla businessman's wife Helena Ayala (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is eating duck with her girlfriends, enjoying wine, completely oblivious that her drug financed lifestyle is about to end. The movie doesn't tell how much the American economic wealth is derived from the drug trade, but how much of America's wealth was created from the slave trade-the reparations movement is calculating this. When the figures come in, will America be as shocked as the wife when she learns the source of her husband's wealth? When the husband David (Alec Roberts) is arrested, she cries out, "What will my neighbors think?" The drug czar Wakefield (Michael Douglas) is informed by the politicians of the various interest groups and their agendas for the drug war, cutting demand, prison, treatment on demand. At dinner, the daughter tells her dad her friends think it's really fucking cool that her dad is the drug czar. Not long after one of them suffers cardiac arrest at her house and they dump him on the ground outside the hospital emergency room. The police bust them at the scene. The 16 year old honor student cannot explain to juvenile authorities why she is there, and in typical dope fiend fashion, lies to her parents about her drug use. The father is so busy being czar he doesn't question his daughter about the depths of her addiction, his only concern is that she have a clean record. Cutting to Mexico, the good cop is persuaded by general Salazar to join his team to break the Tijuana cartel, after all, the good cop Javier Rodriquez only makes $316 monthly. He is ordered to bring in the cartel's assassin, Flowers, who is captured in a gay bar by the ever adaptive Rodriquez and brought to the Salazar for a classical Mexican torture session, ending with wine at the general's table. During a plane ride, the drug czar asks his staff for ideas on the drug war, there is silence, typical of true-red white and blue America-she is devoid of answers, feigns innocence and ignorance about so many things….We learn the czar is an alcoholic, supposedly due to boredom with marriage. His wife Barbara (Amy Irving) tells him to inform his dope fiend daughter how bored he is and drives off, leaving him to enter the house and discover the daughter in the bathroom smoking crack. Carolyn is put in treatment. In a 12 step meeting, she confesses to anger, although not sure why. Perhaps it was due to the agony of being born with a silver spoon. She is seen escaping the facility. Probably the saddest moment in Traffic is the czar searching the ghetto for his daughter who has turned crack ho, tricking with the black dope man and others, having advanced to shooting coke. Imagine with all the power at his disposal, the father must go powerless on his personal crusade. Another revealing moment is when Carolyn's boyfriend is snatched out of class by the father to join the search. The boy tells dad if l00,000 black people entered suburbia seeking drugs, there would be no white kids in law school-market forces would take effect, just as in the ghetto. Indeed, who will doubt how much the ghetto economy is dependent on drugs. We know many churches would go out of business without donations from mothers of children in the trade. Jesus wept. The power of dope is clear when the father offers the black dope dealer a thousand dollars to tell the location of his daughter. The dealer replies to the broken down drug czar, "Get the fuck outta here, I got money…." It is a touching moment when he finds his daughter tricking with a white man-at least he finds her. I thought about all the black girls with no daddy to rescue them, like the ones I knew, Annie, Judy, Yvonne, Renee, who made their transitions, long gone in traffic. In Mexico, the general is arrested for his role in the counter cartel and the partner of Rodriquez is executed for double crossing. His humbling last words are for Rodriquez to tell his wife he died doing something honorable, not like the rat he was. The good-hearted Rodriquez honors his request, although the wife is doubtful. When all the rats are sorted out in this complex drama, Rodriquez emerges as the hero, simply because he was lesser of the evil ones, after all, he was totally devoid of greed, wanting only a night baseball field for the children of Tijuana. Was this sentimental or sensible because we know the dope cartels are doing a brisk business as we speak, although they may be tied up in traffic at the border due to the 911 disaster and new security regulations. The late news says the drug war will be combined with the war on terrorism. We shall see. And what exactly does this mean-that black people shall be the target of the Bush devils? Traffic exposed the complexity of the drug problem, of course the reality is even more disparaging-Traffic touched the surface, particularly as it affects white people, although let's be honest, a dope fiend is a dope fiend is a dope fiend. Michael Douglas as the czar was outstanding and his final words worth repeating, "The war on drugs makes many of our family members the enemy-and I don't know how to wage war on our families…." In my own family and among my close friends, there are those who do not desire to give up drugs-and what can I say to them except, "Peace." There are many classic films on drugs and addiction, Traffic is now one of them.

Pursuit of Happyness

Starring Will Smith

Will Smith has processed himself into a great actor, from rapper to Fresh Prince, to Ali and other characters. But Pursuit of Happyness lacked the full drama of being down and out in the most beautiful city in the world, San Francisco. The film was a Miller Lite version of homelessness, and the narrow focus on the main character excluded the high drama of homelessness in San Francisco’s Tenderloin, that poverty area two blocks from the famous Cable Car line at Market and Powell, and a few blocks from the Shopping area for the rich, Union Square. The contrast is so overwhelming we wonder how could the filmmaker fail to show us this. It is totally shocking to tourists who often make the wrong turn coming out of their hotel room and find themselves in the Tenderloin, the multiracial ghetto inhabited by Blacks, Latinos, Asians and poor whites, with a great amount of the population addicted to drugs. All we see of the homeless are them standing in line at Glide Church, administered by Rev. Cecil Williams, the angel of San Francisco’s homeless, addicted and afflicted, the male version of Mother Theresa. Cecil appears in the film as himself; after all, no one can perform his role except him. The most dramatic moment is this scene outside Glide when Rev. Williams allows the main character and his son to get in line for a room. But it is powerful because we see the army of the homeless and the hungry in America. This moment is communal and we see the individual as part of a nation of homeless. France has called homelessness a matter of national security. France is calling for its citizens guaranteed housing. America can do likewise. There is absolutely no excuse for homelessness and hunger in America, the richest nation in the world. I lived the life of a homeless drug addict in San Francisco’s Tenderloin. On one level, it was good to see the main character was not drug addicted. But it would have added so much more drama. Maybe his little frustrated wife should have been on drugs, because she has no real motivation to depart for New York, leaving her son behind for a two dollar job. Her character was weak and should have been explored, or at least included a violent departing scene. Since Will Smith used his son, why not have Jada as his wife, surely they could have created more drama, including a love scene that was absent in the film. After I spent a decade in the Tenderloin (and God only knows how I made it out alive—thank you God Allah) as a Crack addict, I knew many mothers and fathers who abandoned their children for the drug life. Yesterday, a young lady at my outdoor classroom, downtown Oakland, told me she became homeless in San Francisco because her mother was doing Crack and she had to escape, so she lived in the street. The young lady, now 19, said she grew up in foster care. A few weeks ago, a young brother recently released from prison, asked me about his mother whom he hasn’t seen since he was a baby.—she has been lost in the Tenderloin for years, and I have seen her from time to time, so I told the young man, also a product of foster care, now the California Department of Corrections, to go stand at 6th and Market and eventually he will see his mother, passing by on a mission impossible. I had told my nephew to do the same to find his father, lost and turned out in the TL. This is some of the pain the film lacked. It showed the grand beauty of San Francisco, but again, it should not have neglected the contrasting ugliness. There was a scene with Chris and his son at the East Bay bus terminal, where they spent the night along with other homeless, although we don’t see the others in the film. I spent many nights on those benches at the East Bay terminal; it was difficult to find bench space in those days, around the same time as the film, early 1980s. Ok, this is one man’s story, the struggle of an individual to get ovah in America, a slave narrative. Slavery was communal, not individual, so we need to know about all those others who are still there, who didn’t make it out. Can they get out? I got out. Chris got out, so it takes discipline as he demonstrated. You got to be bout it bout it. For Chris it was one step forward two back, but he fought all the way, trying to be husband, father, and worker in a racist society. Apparently he was successful.

--Marvin X

BET's American Gangsta: J. Edgar Hoover


BET must be congratulated for presenting a real American gansta: the FBI’s founder J. Edgar Hoover. Those of us in the movement know too well his activities with COINTELPRO or the counter-intelligence program to disrupt, destroy and neutralize the liberation movement. We suffered their spying, lying, murder and other activities during the 60s. For the hip hop and younger generation of today, we urge them to study this video as ardently as they have the socalled black American ganstas.

Even though we now have a black president, this fact doesn’t preclude the continuation of similar activities under the Patriot Act or fighting terrorism. Amiri Baraka has warned us, “In the end, Blacks will be the terrorist.” Black people must therefore be aware of snitches, agent provocateurs, and undercover black FBI and police agents out to destroy our liberation movement in the same manner and zeal as in the days of J. Edgar Hoover.

Watching American Gansta: J. Edgar Hoover brought tears to my eyes because I am so familiar with events during this time. Any person involved in black liberation was a subject for intelligence gathering. I remember being followed home by strange negroes on the bus while I was a student at San Francisco State College (now university).

While living on San Francisco’s infamous Haight Street, a strange negro came to my apartment asking what I wanted. Did I want guns, money, what? I looked at him and told him to get out of my motherfucking house.

During the time I was on the run and in exile for refusing to fight in Vietnam, the FBI came to my mother with photos of me in various situations, begging her to reveal my whereabouts. Mom refused, but later told me they had photos of me with my girlfriend at the time, Ethna X (now Hurriyah).

After my exile in Toronto, Canada, Mexico City, living underground in Chicago, Harlem and Philly, I was finally apprehended in Belize, Central America. At the ministry of home affair, my deportation order was read aloud: “Your presence is not beneficial to the welfare of the British Colony of Honduras. Therefore you are under arrest until a plane departs at 4pm for the United States.” I was taken to police headquarters and told to have a seat. Then suddenly I was surrounded by police who begged me to teach them about black power—the very reason I was being deported. The spies had reported to the government I was teaching black power and was therefore suspected of being a Communist. This was the label given to anyone fighting for liberation throughout the Americas, and one could be killed, jailed or deported for being a revolutionary.

After five months in federal prison, I was released and returned to Fresno, California, in time for the birth of my first daughter, Nefertiti, January 29, 1971. I began organizing a black theatre company that soon gathered youth together in great numbers. Even the rehearsals were packed with young people eager to participate in theatre. But we faced opposition from people who should have been supporters, such as the NAACP and the local black newspaper. The community center suddenly wanted us out, even though we were in full production on the musical version of my play Flowers for the Trashman, not titled Take Care of Business. With the concurrence of local black officials, a worker at the center was told to get a shotgun to get us out since we were supposedly trespassing.

He was the janitor but obtained a shotgun and shot our choir director in the back, killing him. Winfrey Streets was not only our choir director, but was one of the few conscious black people in town. He had been president of the Student Body at Edison High, wore the first natural haircut in town, and most importantly, was the local leader of the Black Panther Party. The black newspaper did a full page story labeling me the cause of my friend’s murder—actually they said I killed him. I believe this was part of the FBI’s Cointelpro activities in Fresno. As we know, J. Edgar Hoover said go after any leader, any potential leader, no matter how prominent. In spite of the murder of Winfrey, the show was performed.

Soon after I was told there was a hit on me because someone had insulted a white boy across town and supposedly the assaulter was associated with me. Actually, as the bogey man of the town, brothers would use my name to scare white people, especially after I came to Fresno in 1969 to teach at Fresno State College, now University. Then Gov. Ronald Reagan told the State College Board of Trustees to get me off campus by any means necessary. But Jack Kelly, one of the first black police officers in Fresno, told me, “Marvin, when you fought to teach at Fresno State College, you made it better for all of us, not only black students. Before you came to FSU, black police were not allowed to patrol the white side of town.” FYI, this was the same year Reagan kicked Angela Davis out of UCLA. The same year Bunchy Carter and John Huggins were murdered in the BSU meeting room at UCLA—as noted in the BET video, this was a COINTEPRO action, as well as the Black Panther shootout at their Los Angeles headquarters. When I came to Los Angeles on a speaking tour during my struggle to teach at FSU, students showed me the BSU room with blood and bullet holes still evident. Lil Joe was part of a group of Los Angeles students who gave me the tour and who supported me during my struggle to teach black studies at FSU.

Although I was fearless concerning the hit, my friends encouraged me to leave Fresno for the Bay area, so I departed and organized my Black Educational Theatre (BET) in San Francisco’s Fillmore. Sun Ra and his Arkestra worked with me as he had done on the East coast. In fact, Sun Ra encountered the hit man outside my theatre. He said the hit man showed him a photo of myself. Sun Ra claimed he used his Ra power to dismiss the hit man. Truth is, after Sun Ra’s encounter, I never heard anymore about the hit. Sun Ra gave me another prophecy. He was teaching in black studies at UC Berkeley. One day he said, “Maavin, you gonna teach at UC Berkeley.” I told him he was crazy, since I had been kicked out of FSU by Gov. Reagan. But Sunny was right: a few weeks later I was invited to lecture in Black Studies with the same qualifications that were used to deny my lectureship at FSU. But in a matter of months, not only myself, but almost the entire black studies faculty was removed and replaced with a passive crew who would do the administration’s bidding, meaning an end to radical, black nationalist based ideology and instruction. This was not unique to UCB but occurred nationwide: radical instructors who had fought to expand black studies and relate it more directly with the community, were removed and replaced with house negroes. At UCB it was professor Bill Banks and his crew of sycophants. A reading of UCB documents from the chancellor’s office will reveal it was a concerted move to eliminate black radicals from the faculty, in line with Cointelpro. Forty years later, black studies is weak, passive and pitiful, although black studies faculty will attempt to defend themselves of such charges as they did recently at the 40th anniversary of the BSU/Third World Strike at San Francisco State University.

Bottom line, Cointelpro is alive and well. We were privy to a meeting between a US Marshall and Oakland Post Publisher Paul Cobb. The officer was there as a private security company person to discuss providing security for Paul Cobb who has been threatened since his editor Chauncey Bailey was assassinated in broad daylight downtown Oakland. The officer revealed that he was also a minister and informed us that there were many ministers who are official FBI and police agents.

And with respect to the assassination of journalist Chauncey Bailey, we call for the investigation of the investigators of the investigators! Mayor Ron Dellums has called upon California Attorney General Jerry Brown to investigate the Oakland Police investigators of the Chauncey Bailey murder—the suspects being young black Muslims.

But the lead police investigator has had a personal relationship with the young Muslims and yet continues on the case, even though he refused to interrogate an eye witness at the crime scene. And as Mayor, Jerry Brown instigated the firing of Chauncey Bailey from the Oakland Tribune because “the nigger was snooping around city hall and the police department.” Jerry Brown’s internet records disappeared when he departed to become attorney general, so how can he investigate the investigators when he himself needs to be investigated?

--Marvin X
Brooklyn, NY
22 November 2008