Monday, June 29, 2015

UC Merced Global Arts Studies Program prresents Voices of the revolutionary theatre collective: Amiri Baraka, Marvin X, et al.

We congratulate UC Merced professor Kim McMillan for keeping the flame of liberation alive. Ishmael Reed said, "If not for the Black Arts Movement, Black culture would be extinct!"

Art is the life blood of culture, the images, rhythms, sounds, words, colors, dances, songs, myths and rituals are reflections for the Man/woman in the Mirror, Michael told us. Remember the Time? Art and Culture is the collective memory bank. Continue your work, Kim. I love your students!
--Marvin X

Dear Marvin,

My students love you.  I have eighteen students who have never acted before.  They are performing excerpts from your work, Amiri Baraka, Robert Alexander, Ben Caldwell, Carolyn Rodgers, George C. Wolfe, and closing the show with Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On."  We open the show with Amiri Baraka's "SOS - Calling All Black People." A reporter from the Merced Sun-Star showed up today.  I think he was a bit surprised by my students.  The class consists of two bi-racial students, 13 Chicano/Latinos, and three Asians.  One of the young men is reciting Dudley Randall's "Ballad of Birmingham."  He told the reporter that when he first choose the piece the killing of innocent churchgoers in Charleston had not happened. He felt saddened that a poem written so long ago would sadly be so relevant.  The students said their work stands as a testament that "Black Lives Matter" and all lives matter.  One student broke down why Amiri Baraka's Dutchman was so important now.  I was so proud of them.  They told me how much they had learned from you.  Thank you for coming to Merced and speaking to my students.  It meant a great deal to them.

Peace,
Kim

Marvin X during a recent lecture/discussion at the University of California, Merced. Students in Kim McMillan's Theatre and Social Responsibility class read to him Flowers for the Trashman, his first play written while an undergrad at San Francisco State University, 1964. The Drama Department produced Flowers for the Trashman. It appears in the anthology Black Fire and the BAM reader SOS.

Black Bird Press News & Review: In the Name of Love, a play by Marvin X, Laney College Theatre, 1981

Black Bird Press News & Review: In the Name of Love, a play by Marvin X, Laney College Theatre, 1981

Marvin X at University of Chicago: Sun Ra Symposium Roundtable Discussion

Black Bird Press News & Review: Marvin X calls for all Men to March who love ho's and multiple wives

Black Bird Press News & Review: Marvin X calls for all Men to March who love ho's and multiple wives



I say to those who passed legislation
permitting sex between consenting adults, and in California one
of them was then Assemblyman Willie L. Brown, if gays can be
with gays and lesbians with lesbians, then men who love
prostitutes should be allowed to be with their sex workers in
peace, not sneaking around in the alley like a broke dick dog,
arrested and cars seized.  Yes,
legalize prostitution. Lakum dinu kum waliya din: to you your
way and to me mine.--Marvin XXX




Free the last Soledad Brother, and don't forget Ruchell McGee

 
by John Clutchette ~

  I have read your publication periodically over the years, and after some discussion with fellow prisoners, it was suggested I seek your assistance with getting the message out there that I need help!
The enclosed documents tell a lot of the story of what I’ve been up against for years. Most of my support system has died – mother, wife, daughter and sister. The Brother Keith Wattley took my case and fought it to a short lived victory.

Note, I was found suitable for parole in 2003, but that decision was reversed. Also, the court ruled in my favor on a Habeas Corpus; that’s when I found out they had 11 confidential 1030s (Confidential Information Disclosure Forms) against me containing all sort of allegations. I received copies in 2005. The courts later sealed that evidence and labeled it confidential to prevent my attorney from seeing the information.

Instead of taking me back before the Parole Board, I was locked up on a 114-D investigation order, validated a BGF (Black Guerilla Family) and sent to Corcoran SHU for six years.

Director Susan Hubbard let me out on the Step Down Program, bypassing the first four steps to Step 5, sending me straight to General Population. I had to postpone all hearings while in the SHU. They were giving guys 10 and 15 year denials, based on that alone. Jan. 27, 2015, was my first time going back before them since the 2003 hearing.

It would take more time and paper than I have right now to rehash over 45 years of history – bottom line being, I went before the Parole Board in 1972, after Fleeta Drumgo and I was acquitted, when all the events were fresh. They found me suitable and paroled me; in 2003 I was found suitable and in 2015 I was again found suitable.

The enclosed documents tell a lot of the story of what I’ve been up against for years. The Brother Keith Wattley took my case and fought it to a short lived victory.

Gov. Brown “reversed” the Parole Board as though the events of 1971 were something new. I wasn’t charged or indicted with the San Quentin Six, yet the governor acts as if I was an unindicted conspirator.

Before I close, let me go on record by saying none of us – George, Fleeta, David, Willie, Luis, Johnny, Hugo, James, Ruchell, William – were BGF. I’ve always taken issue with those who used George as a recruitment tool, for lack of a better word, reducing all his efforts and sacrifice to what the prison authorities now call a “Black prison gang.” The Brother had evolved far beyond that.
What I am trying to do is get some funds for Keith Wattley. He has represented more prisoners than myself and is deserving some reward and benefit for his diligence.

What I am trying to do is get some funds for Keith Wattley. He has represented more prisoners than myself and is deserving some reward and benefit for his diligence.

Thank you in advance for whatever assistance you can provide.
Respectfully,
John Clutchette
Send our brother some love and light: John Clutchette, C-23857, CSP Solano B7-139L, P.O. Box 4000, Vacaville, CA 95696

It’s time for the last Soledad Brother to go home

In a March 15, 2007, story headlined, “Justices Look Past Notorious History for Inmate’s Parole,” the San Francisco Daily Journal quoted the divided appellate panel explaining why he deserves to be paroled: “The fact that Clutchette was one of the ‘Soledad Brothers’ denotes only an alleged involvement in the murder of a corrections officer, of which he was acquitted. It is no wonder the People have never, even in the trial court, attempted to explain how this historically interesting but otherwise irrelevant material was significant for denial of parole.”

Clutchette enclosed a clipping of the article in a packet of papers with his letter. Also in the packet is a 1982 CDC Form “Q” “Tip and Enemy Information” naming him a BGF member and “one of the Soledad Brothers. Involved in SQ adjustment center incident of 8-21-71.” He notes this is “the sole basis for the BGF designation … This is not a validation.”

Ironically, several credible reports are circulating that high CDC officials want to remove BGF from the list of prison gangs because it is a political organization and not a gang but that “internal politics” are preventing them from doing so. Clutchette is in his 70s; how much longer must he wait?

Eugene B. Redmond on the Sacramento Black Book Fair

Kwansaba cum Haiku: Sacramento Annual Black Book Fair 2015

Reading is as important as eating.
--Ralph Ellison





Once Black Books were wrought
by Oak Park's School of
Afro-American Thought
Brickhouse” & “Underground” soular spots witness polyglots
testify “Straight Out”--“writin' is fightin'”--as
Halifu Osumare, Bill Strickland, Marvin X, Denise
Nicholas, Diane Pinderhughes, S. Pearl Sharp, David
Covin & Charles Blackwell scribe like Ishmael's
reeds.” Rudy Martin's whisper unfurls fictive/spoken
whirls & pearls. The nerve of words!

Eugene B. Redmond


Ritual ground known as Oak Park hosted the Second Annual Sacramento Black Book Fair June 5-7 with dozens of w/riters, thinkers, filmmakers, musicians & visual artists in nine venues--& hundreds of children & adult attendees. Mind mining panels, literary & spoken word performances, autograph parties, receptions & walks near historic sites such as the Women's Civic Improvement Club and the former Oak Park School of Afro-American Thought (of the 1970's: thanks James Fisher & Marie Collins!) were among the rich offerings. Few other collectives in the nation are as threaded into their communities as the SBBF which boasts scores of supporters, sponsors & partners. http://www.sacramentoblackbookfair.com/

Black Bird Press News & Review: Marvin X calls for all Men to March who love ho's and multiple wives

Black Bird Press News & Review: Marvin X calls for all Men to March who love ho's and multiple wives

Sacramento: Dr. Frances Cress Welsing and Dr. Joy DeGruy, Saturday, July 11, 2015

Free the land, free your mind and your ass will follow!--Marvin X

Wish I could fly like a hawk, poem by Marvin X

Wednesday, March 30, 2011





Wish I Could Fly Like a Hawk

Wish I could fly like a hawk
just soar above earth
silent
gliding smooth
no noise
silent
observing all
madness below
rats scurrying
snakes in the grass
wish I could fly like a hawk
sometimes in motion still
wings frozen in flight
yet moving
wish I could be hawk
above the madness of it all
the meaningless chatter
cell phone psychosis
talking loud saying nothing
why are you breathing
jogging
without meaning purpose
no mission beyond nothingness
absorbing air from the meaningful
who subscribe to justice
let me fly above the living dead
let me soar
let me dream
imagine
another time and place
another space
this cannot be the end game
the hail marry
let me soar above it all
wings spread wide
let me glide
ah, the air is fresh up here
did I make it to heaven
did I escape hell
come with me
do not be afraid
the night is young
let us fly into the moon
see the crescent
so beautiful
let us fly into the friendly sky
wings spread wide
we are strong and mighty
the hawk.
--Marvin X
10/10/10

Eugene Redmond poem Baltimoor


Kwansaba: “Baltimoor” Blues Forges Us Ntu Ankh-People


Roiled blood, rising like Katrina, floods “Baltimoor,”

harbor of bitter succor that once bore

Cullen's “furnace” & Billie's lore. (Next door--

in Duke's D.C.--Obamas feel Fahrenheit's roar.)

Still, phat mamas sing Juneteen. Blues &

gods zag & zing: “fruit” of Lady

Day's labors that songify/signify our ankhors.


Eugene B. Redmond


Collage art courtesy of the Eugene B. Redmond Collection: Southern
Illinois University-Edwardsville (eredmon@siue.edu)

Notes from Poet Neal Hall, MD, in Hyderabad, India

Hello Friends:







Yesterday, I had the honor of being invited to speak before 46 members (40 men, 6 women; 30 of whom represent the governing body) of the African Student Association of Hyderabad, India.  asa-telangana.org

The talk ( 20 minutes) and Q&A went on for four hours straight. 

The 46 individuals represented 16 African countries to include: Botswana, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Republic of The Congo, Uganda, Yemen.

The Association is 5,000 members strong representing numerous African Countries with students attending universities in the greater Hyderabad area.  The organization was created, in large part, to establish a united front and mutual support against  racism and discrimination African students are experiencing at the hands of Indians during their studies in India.
It was absolutely an amazing experience for all involved. 


NealHallpoet.com

Marvin X and Neal Hall, MD, at Sacramento Black Book Fair


Sunday, June 28, 2015

We will shoot back!


‘We Will Shoot Back': Meet The Black Activists Who Aren’t Ready To Forgive

Taurean “Sankofa” Brown
June 27, 2015 

In the days after white supremacist Dylann Roof killed nine black congregants during a Bible study at Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, South Carolina, Americans of various racial and socioeconomic backgrounds across the country have joined together in remembering the group now known as the Charleston Nine. At the gatherings, onlookers sing hymns and light candles as speakers call for prayer and forgiveness of aggressors.

As noble as that philosophy might be, an often ignored but growing number of African Americans aren’t buying into it — perhaps out of a frustration with the litany of state-sanctioned violence against black men and women for whom the courts have held none responsible. Some black people have instead adopted the ideology of militant self-defense, arguing that they have no choice but to take up arms against those who threaten their livelihood and that of their family.

Last week, many people of color took to social media to voice this position as part of the #WeWillShootBack online movement, sparked by Taurean “Sankofa” Brown, a community activist and blogger who hails from Kinston, North Carolina. Brown, a self-described revolutionary and proponent of militant self-defense, told ThinkProgress that dissenters who have called for peace often forget that black people have always had to take arms up against those who used violence to intimidate them and limit their progress in the United States.

“There’s a campaign to pacify black people,” Brown, 28, said. “The point of this movement is to educate and let black people know that we too have the right to protect our families and communities by any means necessary.”

That opportunity may be around the corner. Black people across the country will learn about gun laws in their state and attend community trainings where instructors will show them how to use and clean their weapons as part of National Gun Registry Day, tentatively scheduled for early August. In preparation for the daylong event, Brown said he reached out to Akinyele Omowale Umoja, chair of American-American Studies at Georgia State University and author of “We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement.”

“There will be black trained firearms instructors who are able to give our people that education. This message resonates with black youth who have seen that reformism does nothing and generally other black people — especially older black people who remember the violence before, during, and after the Civil Rights movement,” brown said. “That mindset hasn’t died, but folks have tried to erase it from history.”

The growing sentiment around armed self-defense may be unable to be ignored. A survey by the Pew Research Center earlier this year showed that 54 percent of black people view gun ownership positively, describing it as a means of protection — an increase of 29 percentage points from just two years prior. While African Americans living in rural regions may feel neutral about gun ownership, some of their counterparts in urban centers with strict gun laws have found a change of heart in recent years, initially out of fear for their lives in high-crime neighborhoods.

Particularly after the Charleston massacre and other acts of violence against black people, the focus among some African American clergy and civil rights officials has shifted. Numerous threats prompted members of a Minnesota church to tote registered pistols and sit throughout the chapel in preparation for a probable attack. In April, the head of the Georgia chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference gave a similar call a week after police officers killed a mentally ill black man, telling protestors at a rally in Atlanta that “we’re going to have to do something in our community to let the rest of America know that we’re not going to be victimized.”

Many black people, perhaps frustrated by the media’s lukewarm treatment of Roof, couldn’t stomach any talk that didn’t involve punitive recourse for last week’s massacre. Not long after family members of the Charleston Nine said they forgave Roof, Stacey Patton of the Chronicle for Higher Education wrote in a Washington Post opinion piece that black people shouldn’t have to be kind in moments of absolute tragedy in order to have their humanity recognized.

Such action and commentary, however, hasn’t come without backlash — with some critics calling to mind the civil rights movements of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi, both stalwarts of nonviolent resistance who said “an eye for an eye makes the entire world go blind.”

However, some religious leaders, like Kadir Muhammad, head of the Nation of Islam (NOI)’s Mid-Atlantic region and Mosque No. 4, located in Washington, D.C., lampoon such arguments. Muhammad counted among more than 500 people who filed into Metropolitan A.M.E. Church in the District to hear the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, leader of the NOI, officially announce the observance of the Million Man March’s 20th anniversary to be held on the steps of the U.S. Capitol in October during an event aptly themed, “Justice or Else.”

Days earlier at a candlelight vigil, Muhammad told onlookers that too much has happened to young African American men and women in recent years for black people to appeal to the whims of the majority power structure and the white people who benefit from systemic inequality, regardless of whether they want to be allies.

“Throughout the whole country, a lot of black people are upset because we are too quick to forgive. It’s not working,” Muhammad told ThinkProgress. “We have forgiven white people for 400 some odd years and continue to get nothing but disrespect. Black folks aren’t going to keep tolerating this. Someone’s going to have to stand up and change the picture. We have to stop this. The slave master’s children always outnumber us at the rallies because they want us to forgive them. But you can’t trust them. One of them might act crazy and shoot us again.”

Those fears of white violence prompted previous black militant self-defense movements. To the chagrin of his colleagues, Robert F. Williams turned the local chapter of the Monroe, North Carolina NAACP into an armed self-defense unit, a move that placed him under federal government surveillance until he exiled to Cuba. Residents of the a Cairo, Illinois housing project also picked up their guns when police officers didn’t protect them against white people who retaliated for their boycott of stores that didn’t hire African Americans. The Deacons for Defense, an armed civil rights based in parts of the South, also took up arms to protect their communities against the Ku Klux Klan, even acting as security during the March against Fear , a demonstration in 1966 during which protestors marched from Memphis to Jackson, Mississippi.
At the height of its existence, the Black Panther Party for Self Defense had more than 40 chapters across the country, each with armed police patrol groups and community programs for children and adults. Civil rights leader Stokeley Carmichael said this tradition of Black Power spoke to the desires of people of African descent to achieve self-determination — direct involvement in their daily affairs and the recognition of their value as black people. Slain civil rights leader Malcolm X espoused similar values of self-defense years and self-determination a few years before, imploring his followers to act within the bounds of the law but “send [aggressors] to the cemetery” if they inflict violence against them.
While students of these movements see its leaders as symbols of protection and grassroots activism, history has been less kind. Unless they do their own research, today’s students will more than likely learn to see the stalwarts of armed resilience movements as violent. School curricula in the post-civil rights era has often juxtaposed them alongside their nonviolent peers, especially King — whose birthday the U.S. government recognizes as a federal holiday.
Additionally, today’s history books rarely mention events after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, in essence downplaying the suffering of black people decades after the 1960s and writing the Black Panther Party out of the prevailing narrative. In her 2010 blog post, Rhodes Scholar Caroline Mulloy reflected on how her miseducation about the Black Panther Party didn’t allow her to understand the black struggle in a deeper context.
“These programs, established by the Black Panthers, are details that were too easily skipped over by teachers who taught the master narrative version of the Civil Rights Movement,” Mulloy wrote. “Many poor African Americans were still suffering from poverty and few opportunities as a result of discrimination. The Black Panthers play a profoundly important role in improving the lives of African Americans in these poor communities as well as further pushing the issue of not just civil rights, but human rights in the United States.”
That shallow understanding about the systemic racism has allowed racial and socioeconomic disparities to persist decades later. The same holds true for the justice system, leaving some to wonder what course of legal action would proponents of armed self-defense take if they find themselves in police custody.
According to a study conducted by the Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center, the odds aren’t in black people’s favor. The findings of that research show that white people living in “Stand Your Ground” states have a 354 percent greater chance of being found justified in their killings than their black counterparts. In states without “Stand Your Ground” laws, that disparity only goes down to 250 percent. Marissa Alexander, a Florida woman who fired a “warning shot during an argument with her husband, learn that reality firsthand when a judge sentenced her to 20 years in prison in 2012. Even as members of the Ku Klux Klan members threatened to use lethal force against Ferguson protestors, authorities arrested members of the New Black Panther Party and charged them with purchasing handguns and conspiring to detonate pipe bombs last November.
While Brown admits that situations like the aforementioned cannot always be avoided, he advises black people to learn the intricacies of their local gun and self-defense laws. But he said that even the command of complex legal language won’t suffice if people — particularly African Americans — fail to understand that armed resistance movements aren’t antagonistic. Rather, they’re a means of protection when the systems in place have failed to work for marginalized communities.
“’We will shoot back’ doesn’t mean initiating violence,” Brown said. “Nobody shamed cattle rancher Clive Bundy but when black people talk about using self-defense, it’s a national worry. That’s the hypocritical nature of nonviolence in this country. We’re just defending ourselves to ensure our humanity.”
 
 
 

Saturday, June 27, 2015

Manifesto of Marvin X's Academy of da Corner, 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland and other cities on his grassroots guerilla warfare rampage, stick and move

 Marvin X at San Francisco Juneteenth, 2015, Fillmore

Marvin X at his Academy of da Corner, 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland.


 Brazilian dancers at Academy of da Corner at San Francisco's Juneteenth

 Russian woman stops to help poet collate his pamphlete Mythology of Pussy and Dick
She said, "I see what you are doing. I did it for thirty years, let me help you." Marvin let her help him.

Marvin X and the next generation Brother Nubian. "We must pass the baton! We are the elders, soon we shall be the ancestors! We must thus speak to the living, the dead and the yet unborn!When I look at my grandchildren, I have no illusion about life and death. I only know I must give them all the wisdom I have so they can carry on."says Marvin X. "But at three years old, my grandson told me, 'Grandpa, you can't save the world, but I can!'" When he said this, I knew I could die in peace. Therefore, I am not seeking a long life, I'm ready to go at any time. Prophet Muhammad said live like you are going to die tomorrow, and live like you are going to live forever." After learning my history, my daughter asked, "Father why are you still living?" I am still alive because no matter that my friends were killers, I out thought them. That is the only reason I am alive. You must out think your enemy and your friends to stay alive."

 Poet Samantha with Tarika Lewis on violin in background
performing with Marvin X's Black Arts Movement Poets Choir and Arkestra at Laney College, Feb. 7, 2015
 Princess Samantha delivering her lines. Samantha is Ghanaian and North American African, grew up in Harlem, graduated from Spelman College, a New World African Woma. She is so serious. Oh, these young women are so serious. Hey, let them take the baton and run with it. I am just happy to be alive to see the changing of  the guard. 

 Queen Mother Kujichagulia, multi-talented master griot/jejali

 Val Serrant, master percussionist from Trinidad, always at the beck and call of Marvin X and BAM

 Poet Samantha in a swoon before doing her thang in a masterful manner. 

 Aqueila Lewis, Ms Erotica

 The Master teacher, Marvin X. A man came to his Academy of da Corner to ask him what is the meaning of the white face? The Master answered, "The white painted face goes back 50 thousand years, depending on the myth-ritual. It could be a manhood rites of passage or womahood rites of passage. It could be a marriage rite, a funeral rite, a warrior rite, it is so ancient and remote, we cannot be exact, but it goes back into aboriginal time, into myth-ritual time. The brother was satisfied with the answer and did not question the teacher further.

 Paradise, who taught us They Love Everything About Us But Us. What a lesson.

 Kalamu Chache', poet

 Dr. Ayodele Nzinga, Marvin X's top student, now a master in her own right as producer, playwright
She is about to complete the full cycle of the August Wilson plays for the first time in history

 
Manifesto of Academy of da Corner
 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland
 
"Marvin X is Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland."
--Ishmael Reed, author The Complete Muhammad Ali, including a chapter long interview with Marvin X

Academy of da Corner is a continuation of the Black Arts Movement, an educational/ performance/academic/activist project to inspire the Cultural Revolution in North American Africans, with implications for the rest of humanity that apparently follows closely every cultural move of North American Africans. We can't fart without the world copying our fart. So perhaps we should be flattered except for the fact that often imitation becomes exploitation and we become victims of our own creations, e.g., "Lord, look what they did to my song."

Nevertheless, we shall strive forward with our cultural revolution to transform the negative aspects of our lives into the positive, to reconnect our community, parents with children, males with females, brother to brother and sister to sister, yes, even enemies must reconcile in the spirit of recovery, healing and liberation of the entire community. This is the challenge of the new millennium and we shall not move forward without meeting it. Either we are brave warriors willing to face the jihad within ourselves and our community, or we're cowards prepared to tread water until we become extinct, a forgotten people, relics of a glorious past but no future except a multicultural chasm where we exist on the last rung of the ladder, simply because we refuse to transcend our differences for the greater good, thus succumbing to a low intensity war determined to destroy us politically, economically, morally and culturally.

Academy of da Corner/Black Arts Movement Poets Choir and Arkestra: The Performance and Educational Arm of the Cultural Revolution

As Fidel Castro has said, our weapon is consciousness, yes, it is the only weapon we have that can defeat the forces allied against us. Consciousness is an awareness of our traditions and our mission. Our tradition is a freedom loving people, not political, economic and cultural slaves to others. We reject the slave tradition of clowning and buffoonery so evident in African American artistic expression today, especially movies and rap (now called yap, for rap derived from the tradition of revolutionary spoken word: H. Rap Brown, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Last Poets, Baraka, Sonia, Askia, Haki, X, and yes, Malcolm, Martin, Kwame Toure, Fannie Lou, Queen Mother Moore, Angela).

If one is not aspiring to be in the tradition of Paul Robeson, i.e., the artistic freedom fighter, then one has no right to claim membership in the Black Arts Movement, and is therefore merely a whore for capitalist pimps, ready to wear any clown suit, do any shuffle, say any jingle and rhyme, put on any make up and dance for the master's American bandstand, manifesting the cultural hate personified by the likes of Michael Jackson and others too numerous to mention.

No people with consciousness would allow themselves to be paraded on BET, MTV and elsewhere as naked whores, pseudo gangstas and wannabe pimps. Although we are about artistic freedom and freedom of speech, we reject phony black bourgeoisie culture police who are themselves guilty of a profane and obscene lifestyle of conspicuous consumption, yet we demand African American artists get in harmony with our tradition and mission to use our creativity to help liberate the deaf, dumb and blind, not take them deeper into the devil's den of iniquity.

Academy of da Corner/Black Arts Movement Poets Choir and Arkestra Will Speak Truth to Power

Academy of da Corner/Black Arts Movement Poets Choir and Arkestra will perform works that liberate not desecrate. Rappers have given us graphic descriptions of our psychosocial condition, now we must come with solutions. If you hate yo daddy and mama, show me how you turned hate into love, show me how you sought reconciliation and unconditional love. Otherwise, you are simply yapping nursery rhymes, snibbling like snotty nose babies too pitiful to wake up and release your lips from your mother's breasts, you ungrateful bastards! Grow up, did mama tell you life was a bowl of cherries—you are lucky to have a mother and father—think of all the children who are products of foster care.

We were not brought to America to create families, but to be mules, donkeys and horses, to have our families utterly destroyed for capitalism and slavery. And we can only overcome America's plan for us by putting on the armour of God and standing tall together, defying America's hope for our continued subservience and debauchery. Aw, Jesus said be in this world but no of this world. After all, it is an illusion, a world of make believe, a world of materialism and conspicuous  consumption.

Poets and spoken word artists have an obligation to speak truth to power, not submit gleefully, yapping nonsense around the world to make a dollar and make mockery of the elders, calling them "broke heroes," although the so-called broke heroes are the reason you are among the newly rich because of their sacrifice and unconditional love for your punk bitch little asses.

The American Educational System Is An Abysmal Failure

Since the American educational system has failed to teach Johnny and Johnnymae how to read, write and most of all, think, the Academy of da Corner shall see it as a priority to teach basic skills. How can we have a drama class in which students are unable to read the script. I have taught such classes on the college and university level, so I know the degree of the problem. Don't try to cover ignorance and mental retardation as a result of America's public school miseducation.

Academy of da Corner/Black Arts Movement Poets Choir and Arkestra  will train students with talent in the arts: drama, dance, music, creative writing, nonfiction, poetry and spoken word, for these are serious crafts that take discipline and training, not a jack in the box game of jingles and rhymes produced because one can memorize words that are full of sound and fury signifying nothing, although audiences are enraptured by the nothingness and babble, rewarding the jester with money at poetry Slams/Scams, deluding the person that he/she is a poet and spoken word master because of his/her natural talent as a product of the ancient African oral tradition.

Racism 101

Racism is the abomination of the new world, but Elijah Muhammad used racism and black supremacy as an anti-toxin to white supremacy. The Black Arts Movement did the same. Whites were often banned from attending performances and certainly from performing in productions. Harold Cruse noted how this marked a radical departure from traditional Negro theatre (see Crisis of the Negro Intellectual). Thus BAM was of, for, and by Black people, if only for a moment, time enough to get “ourselves” together. This moment was necessary to raise a people from the dead, who were full of fear after being terrorized for centuries by white supremacy. 

Why is this so difficult to understand, perhaps because there are those in denial about the ravages of white supremacy on North American African minds, to say nothing about what it has done to delusional white minds. Why should victims of liars and murderers want them in our presence? How can we recover with them in our midst? Can the rape victim recover with the rapist in her bed?

Even today, American racism and capitalism/globalism is the scorn of the earth, blood sucking the poor in the name of global free trade, caring nothing for the rights of poor nations to economic parity. You consume the world’s energy for the greedy privilege of driving SUVs and having a television in every room, left on 24/7. You have no intention of dealing with the root causes of terrorism: poverty, ignorance, and disease. 

Until you do so, you will become a prisoner in your own land, afraid of those outside your borders and those within whom you’ve equally mistreated, abused and falsely accused of being criminals, unworthy to share in the fruits of their labor and that of their ancestors, while white descendants enjoy the surplus capital from centuries of slave labor.

Our primary concern was then and is now ourselves. You are dangerous to our health, mental, physical, and spiritual, unless you have radicalized your consciousness, or shall we say become blackenized, certainly all vestiges of white supremacy must be processed out of your consciousness. Those whites who have worked on themselves we welcome as allies, brothers and sisters in revolution.

It is not the nature of North American Africans  to hate and exclude. We can be nationalists and internationalists, i.e., Pan Africanists, Aboriginial Black Man,  without hating and excluding. But we do have the human right to do for self as others do, whites, Latinos, Asians, gays, lesbians, and others of every race, sex and creed.

We must not be afraid to become economically self-sufficient. We were in better economic shape under segregation, yes, when we were Negroes, now we’re black and don’t have a decent restaurant or hotel in any American city.

We have thousands of religious houses where the people receive their dose of opium as a form of social control to delay the day of our liberation, where people are taught fairy tales and nursery rhymes about a sky god who died on the cross for our sins. What have African Americans done but be loyal slaves, down to this present moment we are dying in Iraq defending liars and murderers.

Finally, racism is a component of capitalism. We cannot be capitalists because we have no capital! We hardly have one black bank in America.  Where are our African American global markets? We might sell a few raps songs in Europe and Asia, but do we sell a blackmobile, trucks, socks, toilet paper, matches? At least Mexico produces their own oil, gasoline, soap, toilet paper. Why can't 40 million North American African produce one roll of toilet paper?

Black Studies and Academy of da Corner

Although black studies derived from the efforts of black revolutionary students, with the demise of the liberation struggle, radical instructors and scholars were removed and replaced with academically "qualified" collaborators and trusted colonial servants, unconcerned with the original mission of black studies: to uplift the community. As a result, for every one brother going to college, four go to prison. For the most part, black studies is a sham, a place for tenured Negroes to keep a job for life unless they rock the boat by teaching radical ideas found to be politically incorrect by their academic masters.

Black Studies began in revolution, but has succumb to reaction and irrelevance with respect to providing a leadership role in uplifting the community. Where is a truly radical black studies department? Where in America is one black radical college or university? Even under Zionist occupation, Palestinians have their radical universities.

Please don't mention the Negro colleges and universities, mainly outhouses for training house slaves who escape the hood into corporate America and never look back. Of course   the white colleges and universities do the same. Isn't it interesting that Dr. Ben couldn't find a black academic institution to donate his thirty thousand volume library? He gave it to the Nation of Islam, which is very ironic in light of his history of anti-Islamic pronouncements.

As a consequence of the above, the Academy of da Corner  must step to the front line of community education; it must become an institution for the training of radical scholars and social activists who will fulfill the original mission of black studies by attacking illiteracy, joblessness, economic empowerment, addictions, mental and physical health issues and spiritual poverty caused by excessive religiosity. Academic subjects will be considered for their relevance to life issues as we confront America's low intensity war on a daily basis.

Gender Studies and Academy of da Corner

 Marvin X has had a spiritual relationship with his muse Fahizah Alim, she has inspired him and he has inspired her life work. 

 This married woman said Marvin X inspired her to be a better person, to love her husband even more. She thanks Marvin X for his writings.


The Arabic word nisa has two meanings depending on syllable stress. One meaning is woman, another meaning is to forget. Long ago, Warith Din Muhammad gave a lecture on how men forget women. More recently, Amina Baraka exhorted me and her husband, Amiri, not to forget women, to respect them always, especially for their contribution to our liberation struggle: "Remember the women of history, remember Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Ida B. Wells, remember Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, Queen Mother Moore, remember Ella Collins," Amina cried.

Academy of da Corner must address problems in male/female relations since such problems directly impact healthy family and community development. Mrs. Baraka was addressing two poets, both having the artistic sensibility and insensitivity to become emotionally detached from women, children and men in our quest for creativity, thinking a poem is more important than the human being. (Of course Amiri Baraka is qualified to speak for himself, but since I know him, I'm taking the liberty to place him in the boat with me, other poets and artists in general.)

If men of intelligence can be so detached, imagine the behavior of men with lesser intelligence. Perhaps this is why the divorce courts and the anger management programs are full. Men just don't get it and some have no intention to "get it." It will take generations before the patriarchal mentality subsides, if then, although great strides have been made in male/female equality. Now we are in danger of women getting revenge after coming into power situations. They want to oppress. Go before a female judge with a domestic violence case!
 
But the socialization of males and females must be examined to explore better, healthier methods of interpersonal relations. How can women who love talking endlessly, communicate with men who will go silent when approached on critical matters? "Do you hear me, man," the woman says, "Then why don't you say something?" In the TS Eliot poem the women say, "That is not what I meant, that is not what I meant at all. . . ."
Male education must involve manhood rites that allow them to explore male psychology and female psychology, and the same for women. So often we come together not knowing a damn thing about each other, until it is too late, two or three children later, several ass whippings later.
Men must learn to understand and treat females as equal but different human beings. The idea is not to make men more feminine, but to understand their natural selves and gain a more precise understanding of the opposite sex. Mythologically speaking, understand the function of the sky god and the earth mother goddess. One is the protector, one the nurturer. Today the situation is such that the woman needs protection from the protector!
And the man feels his nurturer is somehow his enemy, the very person he sleeps with he is terrified of, and often the woman feels the same. What kind of horror story is this?
Moving from myth to nature, roosters will not become hens, bulls will not become cows, so stop trying to reverse nature, although it is urgent that we understand the nature of human psychology, understand different functions of each sex, responsibilities, desires, drives and dreams. Often men are indeed lost in the stars, while women are usually forced to stay grounded in reality. As Joseph Campbell explains, men must be taught they are approaching manhood. Women know they are approaching womanhood at the first cycle—they can see, feel, touch, smell womanhood, but men need a ritual: they must come out of the sky and go into the bush to be terrified into the reality of manhood.
Men must at least listen to the dreams of women, even if we reject their dreams, and women must do the same—ultimately a compromise can and must be found. It shall never be again, "Your way or no way," although men will attempt to maintain male privilege until the sky falls—look up, brother, the sky is falling!
And women, in their new found aggression and power positions, will push their agenda at every turn, forcing men to react violently, "Bitch, I don't want to hear nothing you got to say. Shut the fuck up." But she's not going to shut up and she ain't going away—you may leave her for another woman but strangely it will be the same woman with another name. A woman is a woman is a woman is a woman, stupid!
So before there can be unity, there must be understanding. The main thing is not to oppress each other, especially since we're both freshly out of slavery. Men often feel the double-edged sword of oppression from the black woman and the white man. And women feel the same sword blade from the white man and the black man. If we, males and females, would recognize we're not enemies but friends and lovers, sailing in the same love boat, we'll be at least halfway free!
When women are at the top of their game, they have the unique ability to get anything they want from men, sometimes with the glance of an eye, a stride, a smile, the tone of her voice can totally disarm a man. Call it feminine charm or whatever, but women have been successful throughout the ages. With her newfound power, do not forget her ancient secrets that worked for thousands of years, giving her the ability to be a helpmate to great men and tearing down great men when in rage and frustration.
Consider the Children
These twisted male/female relationships have profound implications for the children. When the male departs from the jungle to the forest, the child, especially the male child, is soon out of control, usually by age 15. He is in absolute rebellion against his mother's agenda, although her agenda is often bisexual because she is forced to don the persona of the female/male. The young man's hatred is directed at the female side of the mask, although he harbors a distinct hatred for his missing father as well. So consider his rage, just as his hormones are kicking in. Again, the need for manhood training. But even with females, there is a need and desire for father's love that she will search for in fatherless young men or dirty old men!
Likewise, with young males, the hatred is transferred to girlfriends whom they verbally and physically abuse. This hatred is expressed in the poetic language of rap songs. Healing such shattered young lives is the task of mental health specialists such as Dr. Nathan Hare's Black Reconstruction mental health group sessions that he is calling to be established across America. In the interim, hip hop youth use poetry, sometimes unconsciously, for peer counseling, and this is all good. The University of Poetry must address such stress and strains in the personality of males and females, urging them to use poetry as a healing tool in their lives, let poetry be a bridge for reconciliation rather than a vehicle to only express pain and rage between the sexes and the generations.
Poetically Gay
If we were against gay and lesbian poets, there would be little poetry to read, since the arts seem to be the home of many gay people. Imagine a world without Langston Hughes or James Baldwin, or Audre Lorde and June Jordan. So my attitude is what does sex have to do with being a poet—nothing! A poet must understand human sexuality in general. A poet stuck on being gay is not a poet, for what happens when he or she must put on the persona of a man or woman, or a tree for that matter. A poet must transcend all sexuality in order to understand the universal human spirit that is, yes, beyond a particular sexual orientation. Gays and lesbians might sometimes have a more sensitive spirit, but every poet, whether gay or straight, must have a sensitive spirit.
Did Baldwin write as a gay or as a writer of the human condition? After my 1968 interview with him, I remarked to Ed Bullins, “He talked like a man.” Ed said, “He damn sho did.” Alas, Baldwin wrote the script for Spike Lee’s film Malcolm X. If he had been trapped in his gayness, how could he have written a script about a hero who symbolized black manhood? When people questioned whether he was qualified to write the script because of his gayness, Baldwin said, “Hey, I pay my rent, I write what I want to write.”
In the video version of my play One Day In The Life, a gay actor portrays my son. If he had not transcended his gayness, he wouldn’t have been in my play. So he was in my play because he was a great actor. At the audition for my play in New York, a gay brother tried out for the part but couldn’t transcend his sexuality. My daughter was casting director, and when I told her to let the guy read the part again, she said, “No, Daddy, no. Let me handle this. He got to go!”
So we have no time to condemn people for their sexual orientation. We might thereby condemn the goose laying the golden egg. We could use another Baldwin or Langston right about now to help free us from this precipice.
But I say to those who passed legislation permitting sex between consenting adults, and in California one of them was then Assemblyman Willie L. Brown, if gays can be with gays and lesbians with lesbians, then men who love prostitutes should be allowed to be with their sex workers in peace, not sneaking around in the alley like a broke dick dog, arrested and cars seized.  Yes, legalize prostitution. Lakum dinu kum waliya din: to you your way and to me mine.