Amiri Baraka, Mentor and Advisor to Marvin X on the Cultural Revolution. Catch Marvin X in New York at the Vision Festival with Amiri Baraka, et al.
From: Anthony Mays
Sent: Fri, April 29, 2011 7:13:11 PM
Subject: RE: Black Bird Press News & Review; Inspired Artist Award
Dear Brother Marvin, I wish to congratulate you for your award at the prelude to the 25th Anniversary of the Bay Area Black Comedy Competition and Festival's Final Competition Round, and I believe that it is well-deserved. I must say, however, with all of the humility that I might muster, that I do not feel that your art should be associated with comedy. I tend to feel that your art is relevent, functional, diverse, timely, beautiful, but not comical (though comedy is often a technique used in your writing). Perhaps there will be more people at a comedy show than would attend an academic or cultural event. Perhaps I'm tooooooo serious, but just sharing an opinion witha brother whose work I respect.
Love, peace, Anthony
Marvin X Replies to Anthony:
Brother Mays, I understand your concerns, but do you think black intellectuals would award a self confessed Nigguh for life with any of their many awards, reserved for those who search eternally in failure for bones in Egypt rather than dry bones in the ghettoes of America?
They avoid dry bones like the curse of King Tut is upon them, but it is only their lethargy and passivity, the product of their white supremacy edumakation and certification.
I appreciate the Comedy Negroes for honoring me, rather than an award from the tragi-comic intelllectual Negroes in perpetual crisis as delineated by Harold Cruz fifty years ago.
I am a product of the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad who only late in his mission won over the edumakated Negroes. How ironic that we must hear white people pontificate on his teachings and mythological musings on such programs as Coast to Coast Am, nightly, with their scientists confirming all his teachings,confirming how far in advance he was from the Pan African chronological wonderings and spurious speculations on our history in the universe or mutliverse. It is deeply disheartening to hear the white man smash the pontifications of these neo-colonial elite Negro intellectuals.
So, brother, my reward is with Allah. Yet I thank the Comedy Negores for recognizing me, after all, many have told me I am very very funny. Long ago when I taught at the University of Nevada, Reno, the Reno Gazzette interviewed me and said, "Marvin X has humor and he uses it well when he uses it."
I must tell you that the Los Angeles Black Book Expo did give me a lifetime achievement award, under the direction of my dear colleague Itibari M. Zulu, who, as you know, invited me to be guest editor of the Journal of Pan African Studies Poetry Issue. We appreciate him and have made my edition of the JPAS the Sacred Text of the First Poet's Church of the Latter Day Egyptian Revisionists.
Finally, my mentor, Amiri Baraka, told me don't accept the award but the "reward," which is money.
Peace and love,
Marvin X
I appreciate the Comedy Negroes for honoring me, rather than an award from the tragi-comic intelllectual Negroes in perpetual crisis as delineated by Harold Cruz fifty years ago.
I am a product of the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad who only late in his mission won over the edumakated Negroes. How ironic that we must hear white people pontificate on his teachings and mythological musings on such programs as Coast to Coast Am, nightly, with their scientists confirming all his teachings,confirming how far in advance he was from the Pan African chronological wonderings and spurious speculations on our history in the universe or mutliverse. It is deeply disheartening to hear the white man smash the pontifications of these neo-colonial elite Negro intellectuals.
So, brother, my reward is with Allah. Yet I thank the Comedy Negores for recognizing me, after all, many have told me I am very very funny. Long ago when I taught at the University of Nevada, Reno, the Reno Gazzette interviewed me and said, "Marvin X has humor and he uses it well when he uses it."
I must tell you that the Los Angeles Black Book Expo did give me a lifetime achievement award, under the direction of my dear colleague Itibari M. Zulu, who, as you know, invited me to be guest editor of the Journal of Pan African Studies Poetry Issue. We appreciate him and have made my edition of the JPAS the Sacred Text of the First Poet's Church of the Latter Day Egyptian Revisionists.
Finally, my mentor, Amiri Baraka, told me don't accept the award but the "reward," which is money.
Peace and love,
Marvin X
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