Review by Rudolph Lewis
Rudy Lewis long ago recognized the genius of Marvin X
For Marvin X, a founder and veteran of the Black Arts Movement of the late 60s/early 70s, we who strive for a rebirth of humanity must choose to be a mentor rather than a predator. “No matter what, I am essentially a teacher,” he lectured at California College of the Arts, where he was invited by poet devorah major. Marvin has taught at Fresno State University; San Francisco State University; UC-Berkeley and San Diego; University of Nevada, Reno; Mills College, Laney and Merritt Colleges in Oakland. But, Marvin warns, “The teacher must know . . . no matter how many years he gives of his soul, his mental genius is not wanted” (“Parable of the Poor Righteous Teacher,” 12).
Gov. Ronald Reagan ran him out of Fresno State University, 1969, with
the help of the FBI’s Cointelpro which employed a hit man who sought him
out after an agent provocateur murdered his choir director Winfred
Streets, who died from a shotgun blast to the back (“Parable of American
Gangsta J. Edgar Hoover,” 171).
Pressured out of black studies academia, Marvin contends such programs
now attract “sellout” Negroes, or if such African American elites are
sincere and dedicated and allowed to remain, many die early from “high
blood pressure, depression, schizophrenia, paranoia.” One or more such
conditions, he believes, brought on the early and unexpected deaths of
poet June Jordan, scholars Barbara Christian, and Veve Clark at UC
Berkeley and Sherley Ann Williams at UC San Diego (“Parable of
Neocolonialism at UC Berkeley,” 115). There remain nevertheless many
educated colored elite all too willing to put “a hood over the hood” and
lullaby the masses with “Silent Night,”
while “colonialism [is] playing possum” (“Parable of the Colored People,” 42).
while “colonialism [is] playing possum” (“Parable of the Colored People,” 42).
In “Wisdom of Plato Negro,” Marvin teaches by stories, ancient devices
of instruction that appeal to a non-literate as well as a semi-literate
people. (Fables differ from parables only by their use of animal
characters.) The oldest existing genre of storytelling used long before
the parables of Jesus or the fables of Aesop, they are excellent tools,
in the hands of a skilled artist like Marvin X, in that he modifies the
genre for a rebellious hip hop generation who drops out or are pushed
out of repressive state sponsored public schools at a 50% clip. Marvin X
is a master of these short short stories. Bibliographies, extended
footnotes, indexes, formal argumentation, he knows, are of no use to the
audience he seeks, that 95 percent that lives from paycheck to
paycheck.
These moral oral forms (parables and fables), developed before the
invention of writing, taught by indirection how to think and behave
respecting the integrity of others. Marvin explained to his College of
Arts audience, “This form [the parable] seems perfect for people with
short attention span, the video generation . . . The parable fits my
moral or ethical prerogative, allowing my didacticism to run full range”
(“Parable of a Day in the Life of Plato Negro,” 147). But we live in a
more “hostile environment” than ancient people. Our non-urban ancestors
were more in harmony with Nature than our global racialized, exploitive,
militarized northern elite societies.
The American Negro or the North American African, as Marvin calls his
people, is a modern/post-modern phenomenon, now mostly urbanized, and
living in domestic war-zones for more than three centuries. Black codes
have governed their speech and behavior; they have been terrorized
generation to generation since the early 1700s, by patty rollers, night
riders, lynchers, police and military forces, usually without relief by
either local or federal governments, or sympathy from their white
neighbors or fellow citizens, though they have bled in the wars of the
colonies and the nation to establish and defend the American Republic.
Their lives have been that of Sisyphus, rising hopes then a fall into
utter despair. Such are the times we still live.
To further aide the inattentive reader, most of the 83 sections of this
195-page text begins with a black and white photo image. Although most
of these parables were composed between January and April 2010, some
were written earlier. A few were written in 2008 (e.g., “Parable of the
Basket,” 109) during the election campaign, and a few in 2009 (“Parable
of Grand Denial,” 153) after the installation of Barack Obama as
president of the United States. Three of these short short
stories—“Parable of the Man with a Gun in His Hand,” “Parable of the
Lion,” and “Parable of the Man Who Wanted to Die”—were first published
in the June 1970 issue of Black World. His classic “Fable of the
Black Bird” (86) was written in 1968. The “Fable of the Elephant” (7)
and the “Fable of Rooster and Hen” (97) are quite similar in form and
style to the black bird fable.
Marvin’s traditional or “classic” parables and fables, written during
the BAM period, differ from the ancient fables and parables, which were
told in an oral setting within a rural community with some wise men
available by a campfire or candle light to explain the story told. In
written form the writer in some manner must explain or make the meaning
evident, preferably without the mechanical explanation tacked on. That
would be a bore and not quite as pleasing to a hip urban audience, as
what has been achieved by Marvin’s improvisation on the genre.
Thus Marvin uses humor, sarcasm, irony, exaggerated and sometimes
profane language of one sort or another to capture the inattentive
reader’s attention. In the first parable, “Parable of Love” (2), Marvin
explains, “every writer is duty bound to speak the language of his
people, especially if he and his people are going through the process of
decolonization from the culture of the oppressor.” His parables are
“highly political” and intended also as a kind of “spiritual
counseling.” As he points out in “Parable of Imagination,” artists in
their work must “search the consciousness for new ways of representing
what lies in the depth of the soul and give creative expression to their
findings” (160).
“Under the power of the devil,” our lives tell us a story we hardly
understand, Marvin discovered from his teachers Sun Ra, Elijah Muhammad,
and others. The church, the mosque, the temple do not provide the
needed spiritual consciousness for out time. Nor do 19th century radical
political ideologies. As Stokely Carmichael told us in 1969, ideologies
like communism and socialism do not speak to our needs. They do not
speak to the issue of race. We are a colonized people, he argued, whose
institutions have been decimated, our language mocked (e.g. Bill Cosby),
our culture when not yet appropriated and stolen called “tasteless” by
black bourgeois agents or stooges (e.g., Jason Whitlock in his criticism
of Serena Williams at Wimbledon doing a joyful jig after her victory
and winning a gold medal).
In “Wisdom of Plato Negro,” Marvin X is about the work of
decolonization, though BAM has been commodified as a tourist icon at
academic conferences and in university syllabi. The “sacred” work of the
artist remains. Its object is to “shatter lies and falsehoods to usher
in a new birth of imagination for humanity” . . . to “promote economic
progress and political unity” . . . to undermine “pride, arrogance, and
self-importance” (160). Although he is critical of the black
bourgeoisie, Marvin knows that they have skills our people need, that we
must find a way to bring them home. They must learn to have as much
respect for the Mother Tongue as they have for the King’s English
(“Parable of the Black Bourgeoisie,” 35).
“Wisdom of Plato Negro” deals not only with the political but also with
the personal. That means he cannot live his life in an academic (or
ivory) tower, or up in a mountain, writing and publishing books. In
“Parable of the Man Who Left the Mountain,” written in 2008, he
explains, “in the fourth quarter of my life, I can only attempt to
finish the work of being active in the cause of racial justice, of using
my pen to speak truth, to put my body in the battlefield for the
freedom we all deserve” (45).
Though he sees the problem as economic and political, one that keeps us
poor and powerless, our oppression is “equally” one that creates “a
spiritual disease or mental health issue.” (45). Racial supremacy for
him not only affects the body or the potential to obtain wealth, it also
affects the soul. It is at the heart of the drug war crisis. Black
people seek to “medicate” themselves with drugs or the ideology of
racial supremacy to find relief from the pain of racial oppression and
the suppression of the imagination. Drugs and racial supremacy both are
addictive and create dependency. In numerous instances, Marvin calls for
moderation of desires and discipline, to “detox” from an addiction to
racial supremacy and other “delusional thinking” (“Parable of Sobriety,”
177).
Marvin centers himself in his “classroom/clinic,” his “Academy of da Corner” at 14th and
Broadway, Oakland, California. There he sells his “empowering books”
and offers insight, advice to mothers (e.g., “Parable of the Woman at
the Well,” 58), wives (e.g. “Parable of the Preacher’s Wife,” 29), and
lovers. “Other than the white man, black men have no other pressing
problem—maybe with another brother, but 90% of the brothers come to
Plato with male/female problems” (“Parable of a Day in the Life of Plato
Negro,” 148). In contrast to his street work, the racial experts seem
rather lost. Marvin reports on a 2008 conference held in Oakland by the
Association of Black Psychologists, which has a membership of 1,500
Afrocentric psychologists. Even the experts with two and three Ph.D.,
“victims of white witchcraft,” he discovered do not know how to heal the
community. When leaders don’t know, “why not turn to the
people?” (“Parable of the Witch Doctor,” 24).
There is much more that can be gained from a slow reading of “Wisdom of
Plato Negro” than what I have tried to recall in this short report.
Marvin X writes about such topics as sexuality and creativity and their
relationship, on war, the weather and global warming, and numerous other
topics that all tie together if we desire to bring about a rebirth of
humanity. This highly informative, insightful, and creative volume can
be of service to the non-reader as well as students and seasoned
scholars, if they want to be entertained or to heal their bodies and
souls so that they can become mentors rather than predators.
“Wisdom of Plato Negro” ends with the “Parable of Desirelessness” (193),
which mirrors the “Parable of Letting Go” (61). In the materialist
culture of contemporary capitalism we are beset on all sides by “greed,
lust, and conspicuous consumption.” There are a “billion illusions of
the monkey mind” that lead nowhere other than an early death, suicide,
or cowardly homicide. We all must “hold onto nothing but the rope of
righteousness.” That will guide us along the straight path to full and
permanent revolution and liberation.
.
Additional Notes by Rudolph Lewis on The Wisdom of Plato Negro
Thanks, Marvin, I am deep into the Parables.
I am looking at the construction of the book. I see that you have
shortened it. I found your parable of the lecture at the California
College of Arts helpful in that it presented a brief response to what
your parables are. I have taken about fives pages of notes, many come
from Parable of Imagination. That was masterful in your insight into the
role that the educational system play in the suppression and the
oppression of those on the margins, particularly black youth.
I'll
try to keep the review short (500 words or so) but we'll see. I am
still making myself pregnant. I have been skipping about in the text,
which may indeed be advantage for the reader you have in mind. But I
wanted to see how you constructed the work. I see that most of the
pieces were written between January and April of 2010. But you also have
pieces from 2008 and 2009, and pieces published in 1970 and 1973. I do
not know that you called them "parables" at the time.
I
am still meditating on the whole notion of "parable" and "fable." I
checked the dictionary definitions. I have yet to read the fables. I
have read at least one of the dialogues. I will get to the one on
"bitch" sometime tonight. I remember the parable of the man who talked
to cows. That was indeed humorous.
In
any case my present task is to finish reading the last four or five
parables. I am now on the Hoover piece and your experience with the FBI.
You are rare indeed: to have been steeped in all of that and lived to
the tell tale, and to tell it as boldly as if you were still there. As
Gore Vidal pointed out in writing his memoir, Memory is piled upon
memory upon memory, and so we remember our memories for we tell them
through filters of life, knowledge, and years and years of intellectual
and other experiences.
But
the thing is that so many who lived through the experiences of the 60s
and 70s are living other lives, lives of the status quo, lives that they
owe to the company store. You may in this incarnation of Marvin be
the only revolutionary of the 60s an 70s who is struggling as ever for a
"revolution of conscious and society" in the present. I have looked at
some of the material from the 50th anniversary of SNCC and other civil
rights veteran. Their memories do not inform their present.
Of
course, Julius Lester may be an exception. He was always a man of the
Imagination. But I have not kept up with his novels. Some of them
however seem quite to the point, though I do not know how he resolves
the conflict that continues, or exactly who his audience is. As you may
know he is now a Jew.
In
any case, your Call for a Renaissance of the Imagination is exceedingly
important. What seems most important is that you never cut yourself off
from the lumpen (the dopefiends, the hustlers, the workers), those who
have tragic relationships with their lovers and children, those who
can’t afford a $100 an hour psychiatrist. It is indeed important that
you point out the deficiency of health care in our communities and how
everything is commodified in the interest of the few.
Your
"classroom/clinic" has kept you grounded to the realities of racial
oppression. Many racial activist have sold their souls and become
wheeler/dealers of the powers that be. A few went into city and state
government, like Marion Barry and courtland Cox, and Ivanhoe Donaldson,
and Julian Bond and John Lewis. Many are union execs, and on the leash
of their whites bosses. Union execs are part mafia/part political hacks
of the Democratic Party. Obama can kill a million spy on hundreds of
millions and they will die for Obama, rather than the common man, woman,
and child. Of course, like any sane conscious person Obama is
preferable to Romney and Tea Party. But to die for Obama is to lose the
way of ethics in defense of humanity.
Well,
what I am trying to say. I am deep into your Wisdom, in your thought,
thinking and construction of a literary work that is quite post-modern,
an interactive text that would not have been possible before the
invention of the web, as indicated by your dialogues.
My
only comparison to what you have done is Jerry Ward's "The Katrina
Papers." Of course, his book is grounded by the destruction of an
American city, New Orleans , and the tragic destruction of his own home
and much of its contents, including papers, records, tapes and other
personal items.
But
of course, your work is grounded by your Academy of the Corner, and
your daily contact with the ongoing tragedies of our people. Those
stories are told in your parables. I thank God for a Marvin X, a Plato
Negro.
I will try to have a review of the book by Wednesday.
Loving you madly, Rudy
Muhammad Speaks Reviews
The Wisdom of Plato Negro
The Wisdom of Plato Negro
Marvin X has provided a
reflective work that explains the condition of Black people in America
today. He not only explains how we have arrived at this wretched
juncture in our history, but offers wisdom as to how we may regain the
love of self and family that was decimated through the drug and cultural
wars that were aimed at our people.
It is sad to note that
a people who were coming of age and promise in the 1960’s and 1970’s
were nearly destroyed by the ‘deliberate’ crack epidemic which robbed us
of ourselves, and robbed our children of their parents.
Marvin X candidly admits that his addiction to crack robbed his children of their father and his wife of a husband.
The reader is indeed
lucky that he survived his addiction, and that his talent for writing
and storytelling survived so that his work may live as a testament and
instruction to future generations.
He rightly describes
the current economic crisis Black America sees itself in as our being
the ‘donkey’ of the world that every other people ride to economic
prosperity. Black people live with this reality daily, as we patronize
others who come to this country sell us food, liquor, do our nails, sell
us hair, and the list goes on. We witness them take our money, and
deliberately not live in our community. We know that they would never
think of patronizing us. Yet, we are willing participants in our own
exploitation.
Why do we continue
this path to economic destruction? Are we like the parable of the
elephant as described by Marvin X? The circus elephant tied by a
simple rope and did as his trainer instructed, until one day, he decided
to break free, wreaking havoc on everything in his path?
Are we Samson, who brought the pillars down on the temple and destroyed himself along with his tormentors?
The Wisdom of the
Plato Negro is a must read for it explains the contemporary condition of
our people. What path we will take to correct this condition is in our
hands.
Raushana Karriem
Editor-in-Chief Muhammad Speaks Newspaper, Atlanta GA
8/29/12
Review by Ishmael Reed
Professor Emeritus, UC Berkeley
Photo: Michael Simon
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If someone would write a book demythologizing the Black Power movement, how would they assess it? One of great nobility, or one of hypocrisy, one of courage or one of cowardice, one that fostered change in the status quo, or one
that was part of the problem. Or would one conclude that it was one having mixed results.
That
it modified the direction of The Civil Rights Movement, which was
heading toward Anglo Saxon assimilation, the way that many Irish,
Italian and other white ethnic groups lost their roots and thereby lost
their souls, is indisputable.
Marvin X, who is not only a terrific writer but a Black Power historian has served us well by listing all of the 60s poets who were influenced by Islam and other non-Western sources, (though, without Muslim scholars there’d be no Western civilization.)
African writers, whom I interviewed for my book about Muhammad Ali find African American Muslim conversion puzzling since they view Islam as an invader’s religion and one that treats the indigenous population, harshly, but one cannot underestimate the influence of Islam upon the world.
However,if I had to pin down the influences upon Marvin X’s The Wisdom of Plato Negro,Parables/Fables,I would cite the style of Yoruba texts. I studied for some years under the tutoring of the poet and scholar Adebisi T.Aromolaran ( “ Wise Sayings For Boys and Girls”)and was guided through some texts in the Yoruba language which revealed that didacticism is a key component of the Yoruba story telling style. Africans use proverbs to teach their children the lessons of life. Marvin X acknowledges the Yoruba influence on his book, The Wisdom of Plato Negro, Parables/Fables.
He imparts wisdom by employing cautionary tales and uses his own life and mistakes to consul the young to avoid mistakes. George Bernard Shaw said that if you don’t write your own plays, others will write them for you and they will “degrade”and “vulgarize” you. As part of a grant, I attended local theater for three years and found the portraits of blacks to be offensive,mostly. The women were prostitutes and the men were like the black man in “Precious,” a bestial evil.
Marvin X in “One Day In the Life”, his classic play about recovery, which I saw at the Black Rep., the only local theater that doesn’t depend upon a audience that desires guilt free productions, was one of the few plays that wasn’t escapist, or preached post racism or blamed the victim.
Moreover, unlike some of the books written by popular African American writers, his book does not look backward to the period of slavery, though some of that is here. He writes about the contemporary problems of a community under attack. He blames crack for causing “ a great chasm between adults and children, children who were abandoned,abused, and neglected, emotionally starved and traumatized.”
Pundits,scholars and reporters who have posed as experts on the inner city, but
don’t live here, have blamed the middle class for abandoning the urban centers.They’re wrong. The middle class is making all of the cash from profits from vice. They run the motels, where the prostitution trade takes place.
don’t live here, have blamed the middle class for abandoning the urban centers.They’re wrong. The middle class is making all of the cash from profits from vice. They run the motels, where the prostitution trade takes place.
When Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker slapped an injunction against two prostitution hotels which were scenes of child sex trafficking, beatings and rapes by pimps, the proprietors complained that she cost them $80,000.
The middle class are the absentee landlords, who plopped down a crack house in my neighborhood, they’re storeowners who make hundreds of thousands of dollars selling liquor. None of these proprietors is black! When I asked the Muslim who runs the Northside Supermarket, who was paid a fawning tribute by a clueless Chronicle reporter, who painted him as some kind of Santa Claus, when those attending our neighborhood crime meetings have complained about the criminal activity in from of his store for years,I was called out of order by an Oakland policeman, who turned out to be a friend of his, when I asked what a Muslim was doing selling liquor?
I wrote, “I am sure that I’m not the only North Oakland resident who is outraged by Chronicle writer, Justin Berton, portraying Yahya ‘Mike" Korin of Northside Supermarket as some kind of neighborhood Robin Hood who hands out turkeys to the poor at Xmas.
“I've attended meetings over the years, where our neighbors, black, white, and Hispanic, have complained about this store which attracts some of the most unsavory elements in our neighborhood and whose violent behavior has threatened the safety of our residents.” I had to mention whites because “Mike” was claiming
that only newcomers were protesting against his store, and that he was some
kind of benevolent uncle to the folks.
Marvin X exposes the situation of other ethnic groups invading black neighborhoods and making the lion’s share of profits from vice, while the media focus upon the mules of the operation, the pathetic and disgusting pimps, the drug dealers who are killing each other over profits that are piddling next to the great haul made by the suppliers of the guns and the drugs. Don’t expect the local newspapers to cover this end of the distribution.
Marvin X writes: “ The so-called Negro is the donkey of the world, everybody
rides him to success. If you need a free ride to success,jump on the Negro’s back and ride into the sunset. He will welcome you with open arms. No saddle needed, just jump on his back and ride him to the bank.”
rides him to success. If you need a free ride to success,jump on the Negro’s back and ride into the sunset. He will welcome you with open arms. No saddle needed, just jump on his back and ride him to the bank.”
When you learn that the government ignored the dumping of drugs into our neighborhoods by their anti-communist allies, you can understand the meaning of Marvin X’s words. Not only are invading ethnic groups and white gun suppliers benefitting from using the black neighborhoods as a resource ,but the government as well.*
Marvin X also takes aim at the Dream Team academics who “parrot” the line
coming down from the One Percent that the problems of blacks are self-inflicted.
“The state academics and intellectuals joined loudly in parroting the king’s every wish. Thank God the masses do not hear them pontificate or read their books. After all, these intellectual and academic parrots are well paid, tenured and eat much parrot seed. Their magic song impresses the bourgeoisie who have a vested interested in keeping the song of the parrot alive.”
“The state academics and intellectuals joined loudly in parroting the king’s every wish. Thank God the masses do not hear them pontificate or read their books. After all, these intellectual and academic parrots are well paid, tenured and eat much parrot seed. Their magic song impresses the bourgeoisie who have a vested interested in keeping the song of the parrot alive.”
Marvin X’s answer to this intellectual Vichy regime has been to cultivate
off campus intellectuals by conducting an open air classroom on 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland, which is how the peripatetic philosophers like
Plato used to impart their knowledge in open air academies.
off campus intellectuals by conducting an open air classroom on 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland, which is how the peripatetic philosophers like
Plato used to impart their knowledge in open air academies.
The Black Arts movement expanded the audience for poetry. It inspired thousands of young people to write. They are the grandmothers and grandfathers of the Hip Hoppers. They produced children who are high achievers. The only thing that could mar the Black Arts legacy is its tolerance for a lunatic fringe. One, who used to edit a black magazine, but hasn’t written a lick since the 1960s, came out here recently and was greeted warmly, when if you put some white skin on him and covered him with tattoos, he’d be indistinguishable from your ordinary low level skin head,without the Budweiser six pack.
I would give the Black Arts a mixed review. I’m the one who said that in
the global village, nationalism is the village idiot. But I have supported it in concrete ways because the Black Nationalist movement is the only roadblock to black culture becoming extinct!
Moreover,some
of those who were Yacubists of the 60s changed. Muhammad Ali,who met
with the KKK during the 1970s, recently attended his grand son’s Bar
Mitzvah.
____________
____________
* Parry, Robert “How John Kerry exposed the Contra-cocaine scandal,
Derided by the mainstream press and taking on Reagan at the height of his popularity, the freshman senator battled to reveal one of America's ugliest foreign policy secrets” Salon.com, Oct.25,2004
Ishmael Reed,author of “Going Too Far, Essays About America’s Nervous Breakdown”
Email: ireedpub@yahoo.com
Derided by the mainstream press and taking on Reagan at the height of his popularity, the freshman senator battled to reveal one of America's ugliest foreign policy secrets” Salon.com, Oct.25,2004
Ishmael Reed,author of “Going Too Far, Essays About America’s Nervous Breakdown”
Email: ireedpub@yahoo.com
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