Psycholinguistic Crisis of the North American African

The Psycho-linguistic Crisis of the North American African

4/16/98 (c) 1998
By Marvin X
jmarvinx@yahoo.com
www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com

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I have long wanted to discuss language problems relating to the psychology of the oppressed. Let's begin with the notion that the oppressed is a disoriented person suffering symptoms of amnesia :he is not quite sure who he is, where he is, where he came from or where he is going.

We know to a great extent he was stripped of his cultural trappings and forced to don the apparel of the so-called negro, for American slavery would not allow him to retain knowledge of his African self--it was a danger to the slave master's plan of eternal servitude. So the proud African was beaten down from Kunta Kinte to Toby, perhaps the first level in his psycho-linguistic crisis: who am I, what is my name? Once in the Americas, he was no longer Yoruba, Hausa, Ibo, Congo, Ashante but Negro, and according to Grimm's law (the consonants C,K, and G being interchangeable) he was a dead, from the Greek Necro, something dead, lifeless, without motion and spirit. Of course, he retained some of his African consciousness in the deep structure of his mind, in the bowels of his soul and he expressed it in his dance, his love life, his work habits, his songs and shouts, but basically he was a trumatized victim of kidnapping, rape and mass murder--genocide, for after all, when it was all said and done, between 50 and 100 million of his brothers and sisters were lost in the Middle Passage, the voyage between Africa and the Americas, thrown to the sharks that trailing slave ships, one of which was named Jesus, perhaps the same one whose captain had the miraculous conversion and wrote the song Amazing Grace! But changing the African into Negro was a primary problem in terms of identity which persists until today, even as we speak a new generation is now in crisis trying to decide whether they shall be called by Christian, Muslim or traditional African names, trying to decide whether they are Americans, Afro-Americans, African-Americans, Bilalians, Khemites, Sudanese, or North American Africans.

With this term I've tried to emphasize our cultural roots by making Africa the noun rather than the adjective. Also, I wanted to identify us geo-politically: we are Africans on the continent of North America, as opposed to Africans in Central and South America, the Caribbean, Europe, Asia or the Motherland. As such, we are unique and have created an original African Culture in North America, imitated throughout the world.

The whole world wants to talk like us, dance like us, sing like us, dress like us: we have the highest standard of living of any Africans in the world and are thus in the position of leadership even though we lack any degree of National sovereignty, are yet a defacto Nation, albeit captive and colonized, exploited 24/7 by any pimp fearless enough to enter the ghetto, and there are many from around the world, including Asians, Arabs, Jews, Africans, West Indians, and Latins. I refuse to be sympathetic to anyone exploiting North American Africans--call me anti Pan African, anti Third World, whatever, but don't pimp my people and expect me to accept it because you're from Africa or Jamaica. I wouldn't go to Jamaica and exploit Jamaicans, then have the nerve to refer to them as "you people." I would be nice and diplomatic on their turf--then talk about them when I got home.

We are often derided by our African and Caribbean brothers, sometimes called "black Americans" but often simply "Americans," said in the most derogatory manner, as if we're dirt or feces, meanwhile they are in America enjoying the benefits of our struggle with the white man. If everything is so cool in Jamaica, why did they leave their Island in the sun?

With the last statement, we enter the Pan African psycholinguistic crisis, transcending the borders of North America, and perhaps the crisis of the North American African cannot be understood except in terms of the international Pan African struggle for liberation from neo-colonialism, the last stage of imperialism. The colonized man--wherever he is, wherever he's from--is a sick man, mentally ill. And as Franz Fanon pointed out, the only way the colonized man can regain his mental health is through the act and process of revolution. Dr. Nathan Hare tells us in his introduction to my autobiography SOMETHIN' PROPER, that neither messianic religiosity nor chemical dependency will free us. We must grab the bull by the horns or slay the dragon....

Don't Say Pussy

Don’t say pussy

just beat your woman half to death
because you own her
she yo private property
don't say pussy
just gang rape from America to Africa
from the streets of Richmond to the DA's office
don't say pussy
that's a nasty word
just cut off clitoris
it's African tradition
and we african to the bone
don't say pussy
let AIDS infect the world
but don't say pussy
say vagina
cunt
anything but pussy
say cat
dog
boo
anything but pussy
nastiest word in creation
we presume
don't say pussy
just be a church ho
jezebel in the temple
don't say pussy
people might understand 
it's a woman's body not man's
not his pussy but hers
24/7 she owns it
you don't have a pussy
you don't have a pussy 
pussy man
get the concept baby boy
now you got 25 to life for rape
don't say pussy
say asshole from now on
don't say pussy
abuse yo wife cause she gave up some
to yo buddy
only after you fucked her best friend
but don't say pussy
cause you own it
paid for it
got it legal
not in the alley
in yo house
so abuse it accuse it
but don't say it
send yo woman to the hospital
two black eyes
why not kill her cause she gave it up
in a revenge fuck
you taught her to say
"You don't have no evidence 
I gave it up"
you told her that many times
on yo pussy runs
but don't say pussy
in anger management class
court mandated
since you so warped
wanna beat her
why not beat the white man
beat yo boss
not yo woman, yo pussy
you love so much
but it's gone now
ain't coming back
you so crude and rude
don't say pussy
just think about it.
think about who taught you pussy was dirty, nasty
the church, the pope, the bishop fucking little boys
what he know bout pussy
ain't pussy God's mother
holy Mary mother of God
who taught you pussy was nasty, funky
was it religions of men
wanting control of women and the fruit of their womb
control of property
control of the world
who are these men
did they come from women
did women teach them this madness
was it her breast milk
her kindness
wiping their asses
snotty noses
was it mama's hands taught them this
yet they hate pussy
will beat it to death, throw it in the Bay, on the roadside, in the woods
in the backyard, in the wall
what kind of people are these
constructing a world to hate pussy
the very thing that gave them life
won't let it be free
want to cage it box it handcuff it tie it up in the closet
what manner of man is this
what beast what cave animal what dog
still cave acting in the modern world
actually hating that which he loves
some kind of schizophrenic devil

can't do without pussy for five minutes
he wants to cum
wants some head
wants some yeah pussy
wants some ass
wants wants wants
but hates hates hates pussy
a sick man really
go to the pussy doctor
not the gyno but the psycho
talk to him bout yo problem
why you so warped demented deranged
want to get violent over her pussy
that you can't own no matter what the papers say
no matter how much you pay on yo pussy bill
you can't own it dog
don't think you own it for a minute cause you don't you can't 
it's not yours to own baby boy
get a life a real life in a hurry
before the end of the world
don't you see it coming
and you still stuck on stupid
go be dead in this life 
dead in the hereafter
be careful
pussy gives life and pussy takes life
you can't beat it
too strong 
you lose in the end
pussy always wins 
pussy bad
better ax somebody.
go get a healing!

What is Love?

What is love

only kisses hugs

what is love
only meetings of the minds
what about times when minds do not meet
is love not present in the air in the blood of loving souls
too ignorant to know the test of love
the many ways it strives to be and not be
yet is always
and forever
not always tender
sometimes rough and sharp
like a razor cutting to the heart
love is pain
we take to grow
be strong again
tears in the night
alone again
we find ourselves 
wondering
if love was even real
yet it was
if we see
if we look
beyond romantic notions of everything is cool always with love
but we know the blues of love
when we miss the wrords from lips so tender in truth
but we miss them
in haste
to be the authority on love
yet love
has beeen around since eternity and will stay
when lovers have gone away
it will stay
in spite of all the tears
the fights
the verbal bouts
even the put outs
and come backs
and gimme my keys
and why don't you call
and don't you still care
and why did you go 
and do you really lover her or really love him
after all the time we shared
how could you do this to me
after all I did for you in the night
what is love
sometimes we must enjoy the hurt the pain
to grow
be wise again
this time
with God
in the center of things
but try
for love is precious
time is short
life must be lived with joy
somehow
through it all
let joy arise
take control of love.
--Marvin X
from Land of My Daughters, poems, 2005,
Black Bird Press, Berkeley