Sunday, January 29, 2017

Reverse Psychology: from Toby to Kunta

Reverse Psychology: How to get Toby back to Kunta Kinti




In my essay The Psycho-linguistic Crisis of the North American African, we discussed language usage as a primary component in the destruction of the African mind brainwashed with European language and mythology. But this psycho-linguistic transformation was carried out with the black bullwhip on the Black African's ass. It was "shock therapy" that forced Kunta Kinti to renounce his name or African identity and become the so-called Negro Toby! So how do we reverse the process to resurrect the African personality buried in the deep structure of the socalled Negro mentality, yes. that mind steeped in passivity, sloth and ignorance? Must not the whip be employed as it was in the original experiment? Well, what did Elijah Muhammad mean when he said, "We must force Black unity!"? What type of force must be employed? If it is physical force, then he meant the whip! If we sense a sado-masochism here, what was life in the American slave system?


Perhaps the era of Donald Trump will be a violent awakening on the Negro psyche and behind! Thus we should be happy the devil has arrived, especially if he forces Black unity!



Black Unity 

Monday, January 23, 2017

BAM Booking Agency signs Def Poetry Jam producer, Bruce Geogre

Open less than 24 hours, The Black Arts Movement Booking Agency has signed on notable clients, including Def Poetry Jam co-producer, Bruce George, Comedian/actor/director Donald Lacy, Felipe Luciano of the Last Poets, Sista Q of Harambee Radio and Gregory Walker of the Brother's Network.  Nikki Giovanni declined. We suspect she has an exclusive contract with Jodi Solomon Agency, but she wished us well. Nikki was the only BAM poet to send a donation for the BAM 50th anniversary celebration at Oakland's Laney College, 2015. Thank you, Sista Nikki!

HBO Def Poetry Jam's co-founder, Bruce George

Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panther Party. Before joining the BPP, Bobby performed in Marvin X's BAM play Come Next Summer, 1965.

Black Arts Movement founders, poet/playwright Marvin X and Felipe Luciano of the Last Poets



Nefertiti Jackmon, recently assumed leadership of the Austin, Texas Black Arts and Culture District.She is seated next to her dad, Marvin X. She participated in the inter-generational discussion on BAM Babies  at
the Black Arts Movement 50th Anniversary Celebration, Laney College, Oakland, 2015. She told her father to pass the baton!

 Kujichagulia, multi-talented poet, musician, dancer, scholar. She is a member of the BAM Poet's Choir and Arkestra.



Nathan Hare, Ph.D., Ph.D., Sociologist, Clinical Psychologist, father of Black and Ethnic Studies. He was the first chairman of Black Studies on a major college campus, San Francisco State University.



TO: BAM Speakers and Artists Bureau
Attn: Marvin X
Planner, Black Arts Movement Business District
 
Thank you for your invitation to be listed as a speaker with the BAM Speakers and Artists Bureau.
It would be an honor -- and I should be delighted to do so. I look forward to complete any and all necessary or appropriate details and agreements to our mutual benefit and satisfaction.
  
Thank you,
 
Nathan Hare, Ph.D., Ph.D.



Gregory Walker, Creative Director of the Brother's Network

Invitation to join BAM Speakers/Artists Booking Agency


Invitation to be listed as a speaker and/or artist with the BAM Speakers and Artists Bureau

Dear friends, fellow scholars, artists, activists
I have tentatively listed you as a speaker/artist
with our newly formed, 2017, BAM Booking Agency. We hope you will agree to a non-exclusive contract for speaking and/or performance engagements. Our commission is 30%. If you agree, you can let us know your requested fee. If you decline to be listed with us, let us know immediately and we will remove your name. If you are not listed and would like to be, please let us know at the earliest.
Sincerely,
Marvin X, planner
Black Arts Movement
Black Arts Movement Business District,
Oakland CA

Black Arts Movement 
Dynamic Speakers and Artists



Askia Toure, poet/activist
BAM co-founder
  
Dr. Nathan Hare, father of Black and Ethnic Studies, San Francisco State University, Clinical Psychologist



Sonia Sanchez, poet, playwright, professor emeritus, Temple University, BAM co-founder

Alfie Politt, musician, arranger 


 
 Nikki Giovanni, poet, professor, BAM co-founder

Prosperity Carter, poet, motivational speaker
King Theo and the Samba Funk Band

 Eliott Bey, BAM master musician

Dr.Tony Montiero, former lecturer in Africana Studies at Temple University


Kathleen Cleaver, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, Professor of Law, Emory University




 Aries Jordan, poet, educator, BAMBD planner


 Dr. Ayodele Nzinga, poet, playwright, director,
producer, BAMBD planner

Have play will travel!
--Dr. Ayodele Nzinga

 
Have play will travel 
--don lacy

Umar Bin Hasan and Abiodun
The Last Poets

The Honorable Ras Baraka, Mayor of Newark NJ, son of BAM Chief Architect, Ancestor Amiri Baraka

The Black Arts Movement Poet's Choir and Arkestra


 Adam Turner, digital scientist, graphic designer, photographer

Janeael Peterson, model

Maestro Marvin X, David Murray, Earle Davis,

members of the Black Arts Movement Poet's Choir and Arkestra

Marvin X, BAM/BAMBD co-founder, poet, playwright,planner, activist, thinker
 "When you listen to Tupac Shakur, , E-40, Too Short, Master P or any other rappers out of the Bay, think of Marvin X. He laid the foundation and gave us the language to Black express Black male urban experience in a lyrical way!"--James G. Spady, Philadelphia New Observer

 THE BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT 
SPEAKERS BUREAU
                          510-200-4164







Saturday, January 21, 2017

For the Women, a poem by Marvin X

 

Black Arts Movement artist Elizabeth Catlett 

For the Women by Marvin X

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_LpNH5FrHbpOwwQ9wjikD2WuUotekSpn14mk9Ag-ibr1ebz3FnR83-mPmo_z9stw9KwHNRxmJ1g57C4j4VzvXIYjaFS2lOivefejhCRhfqPfcxF6y1Oim69aO7SQfiCd9iGUS91V7pzx5/s1600/FullSizeRender(1).jpg Women Writers Panel at Black Arts Movement 50th Anniversary Celebration, Laney College, Oakland, Feb. 7, 2015. L to R: Elaine Brown, Halifu Osumare, Judy Juanita, Portia Anderson, Kujichagulia, Aries Jordan. Standing: Marvin X, BAM producer
photo South Park Kenny Johnson

                                          For the Women





For the women who bear children
and nurture them with truth
for the women who cook and clean
behind thankless men

for the women who love so hard so true so pure
for the women with faith in God and men
for the women alone with beer and rum
for the women searching for a man at the club, college, church, party
for the women independent of men
for the women searching their souls
for the women who do drugs and freak
for the women who love only women
for the women who play and run and never show
for the women who rise in revolt in hand with men
who say never, never, never again
for the women who suffer abuse and cry for justice
for the women happy and free of maternal madness
for the women who study and write

for the women who sell their love to starving men
for the women who love to make love and be loved by men
for the women of Africa who work so hard
for the women of America who suffer the master
for the women who turn to God in prayer and patience

for the women who are mothers of children and mothers of men
for the women who suffer inflation, recession, abortion, rejection
for the women who understand the rituals of men and women
for the women who share
for the women who are greedy
for the women with power

for the women with nothing
for the women locked down
for the women down town
for the women who break horses
for the women in the fields
for the women who rob banks
for the women who kill
for the women of history
for the women of now
I salute you
A Man.
--Marvin X

Monday, January 16, 2017

How Marvin X would allocate the BAMBD Billion Dollar Trust Fund

Marvin X, the Black Arts Movement Business District co-founder and planner, suggests the BAMBD Billion Dollar Trust Fund would be allocated as follows:

$100 million for General Fund
$100 million for Five Year Plan
$200 million for mixed use rental housing (seniors, artists, workers, mentally disabled, recently incarcerated, single parents)
$100 million for mortgage loans, especially for purchase of modified SRO hotel rooms with life estate titles for the chronically homeless, thus ending homelessness overnight
$100 million for job training
$ 100 million for micro and macro loans to entrepreneurs
$100 million to establish the David Blackwell STEM Institute (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math)
$100 for land and real estate acquisition
$100 for reentry assistance to displaced former residents of Oakla

Notes on the Marvin X Tour of San Francisco on MLK, Jr. Holiday, 2017

After attending San Francisco's MLK, Jr. celebration at the Yebra Buena Arts Center, Marvin X gave a group of people a tour of San Francisco, beginning at Fisherman's Wharf. He noted that tourism is a multi-billion dollar industry in San Francisco, the most beautiful city in the world! Yet the only Black representation at Fisherman'se Wharf are brothers performing as robots covered in silver spray paint! "When I used to hustle here as a dope fiend in the 80s and 90s (true I used to make $400.00 per day selling the homeless paper at $20.00 per donation, and true the young brothers used to make $200.00 to $300.00 per day) but this doesn't compare to the billions other ethnic groups (Italian, Asian, Latino, et al.) make.

His tour then went to North Beach with its plethora of Italian restaurants. He recalled how he grew up in West Oakland with its plethora of Black owned businesses. He noted the history of the North Beach literary tradition with the Beatniks. He dropped his tour persons at City Lights Bookstore, after telling them it was the most important bookstore in the world. As per Black people, Marcus Books has that honor despite their Negrocities (Amiri Baraka term). 

He informed his tourists they would be leaving North Beach to enter China town, noting Stockton Street is the main street. As he drove down Stockton Street, he told her passengers to look at the bustling economic activity with stores packed with customers even unto the street. One passenger noted a Walgreen's but Marvin told her, "Yes, it's a Walgreen's but it's a Chinese Walgreen's! Another passenger noted the banks such as Wells Fargo. Again, Marvin X said, yes, but it's a Chinese Wells Fargo.

He departed Chinatown through the Stockton Street tunnel to arrive at the apex of SF's commercial shopping center, Union Square. He informed the passengers he used to control street vendors in Union Square like Malcolm X used to control Harlem. "At one point I had fifty mostly white vendors working under my non-profit papers in Union Square, making thousands of dollars per day. When the SFPD would demand their papers and the officers saw they were my papers, the SFPD officers would turn beet red in disgust that a "Nigger" had this much power in Union Square, as they said about Malcolm controlling Harlem, "That's too much power for a Nigguh." So the SFPD busted me on a daily basis at my own stand at Market and Powell, at the Cable Car turnaround. They came daily to harass me under the color of law but no lawyer would take on the SFPD. Their attorney, Laeewrence Wilson, told us in the recess of a court hearing, "If you beat us in court, we will go to the Board of Supervisors and change the rules," which he did, then later was busted for selling drugs out of his house, yes, the chief attorney of the SFPD, then died of AIDES after doing time in Vacaville State Prison!

I told my riders as we made a one block departure from North Beach to Chinatown, we were now making a one block move from Union Square to the infamous Tenderloin, San Francisco's multi-cultural ghetto of workers, dope fiends, sexual deviants and mentally ill, along with dealers, prostitutes, pimps and ho's from throughout the Bay Area.

I drove them by my beloved Glide Church and showed them the 16 Story building Cecil Williams got in a benefits package for the adjacent construction of the Hilton Hotel.

In spite of the TL's derogation, it has been the most successful district in resisting gentrification. Why, because the TL's non-profit organizations are unified, unlike the Fillmore, Hunters Point and Lakeview!

As it was approaching darkness and my vision was failing, I told my tourists we would resume the tour at a later date.



Sunday, January 15, 2017

J. Douglas Allen-Taylor on Oakland's Black Arts District



IMAGINE A SPECIAL DISTRICT IN DOWNTOWN OAKLAND HIGHLIGHTING BLACK ARTS, BUSINESS, AND ENTERTAINMENT

Now Available for Black History Month: Marvin X, Living History in Your Midst

Sunday, January 15, 2017


Now Available for Black History Month: Marvin X, Living History in Your Midst

A live dog is better than a dead lion!

Poet, playwright, educator, planner Marvin X, Emory Douglas, Black Panther Party Minister of Culture; comedian, playwright Donald Lacy; Civil Rights attorney, John Burris
photo Standing Rock

Marvin X reading from his play Salaam, Huey Newton, Salaam.
 He opened for Donald Lacy's play Color Struck
photo Alicia Mason
Tureada Miken, Judy Juanita, former editor of the Black  Panther Newspaper, Marvin X. Judy reminded Marvin and told the audience, she remembers Marvin X at Merritt College as skinny as a toothpick. Eldridge Cleaver described him as a skinny Black Buddha.

 Marvin X in Laney College Theatre dressing room, October 1, 2016, getting ready to go on stage. He taught drama at Laney College, 1981, produced his play In the Name of Love.
photo Standing Rock

 Nurjehan, friend and assistant to Marvin X


Marvin X at Oscar Grant Plaza, Oakland
photo Pendarvis Harshaw

Dr. Wade Nobles, former BPP  Chairwoman, Elaine Brown, and Marvin X


Black Arts Movement Business District artists at Oscar Grant Plaza, Oakland

Left to right: Elaine Brown, Dr. Halifu Osumare, Judy Juanita, Portia Anderson,Kujigulia, Aries Jordan, standing Marvin X, producer of the Black Arts Movement 50th Anniversary Celebration at Laney College, Oakland

Marvin at New York University memorial for Amiri Baraka and Jayne Cortez

Harlem, New York reception for Marvin X at home of Rashidah Ismaili, 2014

Marvin X and Nuyorican poet Nancy Mercado

Marvin X, grandson Jameel, Stanley Nelson, director of film Black Panthers, Vanguard of the Revolution, Marvin's daughter Amira Jackmon, Esq. and her daughter Naeema Joy


Marvin X, David Murray, Earl Davis, Val Serrant, Michelle LaChaux at Malcolm X Jazz/Art Festival, Oakland
Marvin X and Amiri Baraka (rip) in conversation at the Lannan Foundation, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2009

 

 January 14,2017

Marvin X notes on Ayodele Nzinga's play Mama at Twilight, Death by Love

Pierre Scott as Pappy, Stanley Hunt III as Son
photo Standing Rock

 Pappy and sons Kriss and Son

 Cat Brookas as Mama, Pierre Scott as Pappy
photo Standing Rock

Cat Brooks as Mama
photo Standing Rock


Ayodele Nzinga's play Mama at Twilight, Death by Love is a powerful family drama dealing with love, faith, belief, dreams and death. She has a cast of seasoned actors in our beloved social activist Cat Brooks as Mama, and seasoned actors Pierre Scott (Dad) and Stanley Hunt as Son. We also had excellent supporting actors in Noelle Guess as Tonya as and Julian Green as Kris.


 Cat Brooks as Mama and Julian Green as son Kris
photo Standing Rock

We must note the music of Sade as a liet motif or recurring musical comment on the theme. Sade's Soldier of a Love became a character and/or choral comment on the main action, constantly reinforcing the central theme of love. Nzinga grapples with love that approaches blindness and denial when the wife contracts HIV but never will admit she may have contracted it from her dope dealing, womanizing, convict husband. Her faith in him is so solid that she won't allow him to be tested. It is the daughter Tanya who finally confronts her dad with the possibility he may have contracted HIV from his frequent visits to prison. In this most poignant scene, son Chris acknowledges his gay identity and departs the household only to return after the transition of his mother. His return ends the play on a note of family unity, as in Shakespeare's All's Well that Ends Well! Or shall we go to Cheikh Anta Diop's theory of African tragi-comedy as the primary theme of African drama as opposed to tragedy as the major theme of Northern Cradle or European dramatic tradition. In the end, family love and unity puts Mama at Tw theilight, Death by Love in the African dramatic tradition.

As we know from her real life role as social activist against police terror, actress Cat Brooks has a powerful voice and her role as Mama revealed she can be sensitive and soft as the daughter Tanya described the feminine gender in her metaphoric delineation of male and female fruits, such as mangoes, pears, oranges, etc.

We have watched Pierre Scott perfect his acting skills in the ten-cycle plays of August Wilson that Dr. Ayodele Nzinga's Lower Bottom Playaz produced in chronological order. Alas, the Lower Bottom  Playaz is the only theatre group in the world to do Wilson's plays in chronological order. He is a seasoned actor whose every move is measured and timed to reveal character.

Now actor Stanley Hunt was born into the theatre of his Mother, Dr. Nzinga, thus he has been in theatre since childhood and knows how to measure his language, verbal and body language to reveal character.

We find it most interesting that the three children are artists: Chris, writer, Son, photographer, and Tonya,dancer. Thus, this play deals with artistic love as well. Son wins a photography grant, though his sister Tonya scolds him for focusing his camera on the breasts and behinds of her fellow dancers.  Tanya gives up her dancing to aid her mother. Kris reveals his writing and sexual identity transcends his family love until he returns home after the transition of his mother.

The set was dominated by Christian symbolism in sync with the Mama's Christian dominated religiosity that did indeed reach the pathological in her denial of her husband's possible infidelity that was challenged by Tonya as we noted above.


Noelle Guess as Tonya
photo Standing Rocki

Ayodele has written a powerful drama of North American African family life. I don't know how anyone in the Bay Area can avoid attending this drama at the Flight Deck Theatre, 1540 Broadway, downtown Oakland. The play runs from January 12 through 29, 2017.
www.lowerbottomplayaz.com
510-332-1319