Intergalactic Myth-Science Solar Arkerstra - Sun Ra

Parable of Solitude, from Notes of Artistic Freedom Fighter Marvin X

Parable of Solitude, from Notes of Artistic Freedom Fighter Marvin X

I love Duke's tune In My Solitude, although I long wanted to rename the tune In My Negritude to express my African consciousness. But, as my dear friend Amina Baraka likes to say, if truth be le told, I learned solitude from childhood. My mother told one of my wives she recalled I could spend hours and hours playing with my toys in solitude. And I remember such, in the backyard of our house on 7th and Campbell in West Oakland. I recall in my play house organizing toy soldiers. After all, my childhood hero was General Eisenhower. I remember the end of World War II and then the establishment of Palestine. At the drive-in theatre with my parents, I remember the newsreels of Palestinians fleeing across that bridge into Jordan. I didn't know what was going on and didn't bother to ask my parents, but those fleeing refugees bothered me deeply, a child born in 1944 and witnessing  the 1948 struggle of Palestine. And then came the conflict in North Korea in the 1950's. I recall the cartoons showing human waves of Koreans and Chinese slaughtered by the USA. Even now I see the North Koreans and Chinese grinning as they attacked the US and were slaughtered. I had no understanding of such events even though my parents were conscious, after all my father was a Race Man and mother a Race Woman. They published the Fresno Voice, a Black newspaper in Fresno, California. Although they published a Race newspaper and were social activists, they never explained foreign events to me such as Palestine and the Korean conflict. I remember when the Korean Conflict ended in the 1950s because a brother ran through the projects shouting the Korean was over. Of course, it is still going on and we are anxiously awaiting Rocket Man's rocket to land in Los Angeles as I write.

Growing up in Fresno and Oakland, California, especially in Oakland where I played with those toy soldiers in solitude, I soon began writing in the Children's Section of the Oakland Tribune. I also wrote short stories at Prescott Elementary School. But it was when my parents separated and Mom returned to Fresno and established her Real Estate business that my creativity and solitude began in earnest, after all, I was in the house with six sisters with their eternal chatter and solitude was my only refuse even though my one year older, Ollie, was no comfort since he was a constant visitor to Juvenile Hall and the California Department of Corrections, so I retreated into my room to avoid the chatter of my sisters. In my room, I created my world of make believe, along with reading a plethora of books from book clubs that when I became a teenager, the books were accompanied with Rainer Ale or Green Death that was my company when girlfriends and boyfriends were not around, along with grandfather who shared my room, especially when my brother was in the company of the California Department of Corrections, although there were times when he and I were both in Juvenile Hall and only my grades saved me from California Youth Authority. I remember Mom leaving Juvenile Court with me (my brother was on his way to CYA), and the judge didn't send me to CYA along with my brother only because of my grades. Yes, I was an honor student fuck up. The judge said it would cost the State as much to send me to college as it cost to send me CYA, so he released me. I asked Mom why she wasn't crying? Mom said, "Son, I might not be crying on the outside, but I'm crying on the inside!"

With my brother gone to CYA and eventually to the Department of Corrections, I did indeed enjoy a life of solitude. I shared my bedroom with my grandfather, but he was most often drunk on Gin while I was drunk on Rainer Ale or Green Death as we called it. My room closet was so full of empty quart bottles of Rainer Ale that Mom asked me to please clean them out, please!

Meanwhile, my six sisters were in the living room of our housing projects abode living their life with their girlfriends and boyfriends. For sure, my six sisters had the finest girlfriends in the world. One eventually won the Miss California Contest, but in the age-grade structure of our ghetto society, I did not think of hooking up my sister's girlfriends or my own friends younger sisters, although I lusted for them and later learned they were lusting for me as well. Eventually, I was devastated when I found my best friend hiding in the closet of my sisters. Even though I was a part of the age-grade ghetto society, still, I couldn't understand why my best friend didn't tell me he was dating my sister. Yet, I knew if I dated a sister of my friends, it would have been totally out of line. e

I only dated girls in my age-grade until much later in life when my sister's girlfriends connected with me and let me know they'd wanted me since our teenage days. Even then, my sisters sometime played block woman and tried to prevent me from connecting with their girlfriends, now grown and most often living in the Bay Area. As they say in the hood, "I caught them in the 33rd!"

No matter the females, my creativity was a constant, although I often misread my creativity for sexuality, perhaps the most critical misreading of my life that cost me the lost of my productivity as a creative artist.

For sure, my sexual desires were  a tragic misreading of my creative energy that became a violent expression in my partner relationships simply because I was never satisfied and would never be able to achieve such satisfaction through my sexual explorations, no matter how many wives and  extramarital affairs, even when I was more than sexually satisfied though ultimately unsatisfied, for after all, when one is addicted to anything, there is no satisfaction, one is lost in the illusion and chases the dragon until one finally realizes as the mystics teach, "All is illusion!"

Surely something is terribly wrong when one enjoys wives and partners, yet finds himself masturbating in the night.  Surely a dance student was right when she said, "Marvin X, I ain't giving you no pussy because you got enough pussy already!" She was right because even if she had given me her pussy, it would have not been enough!" The addict wants more and more and more.

Thus, the only reality is knowing there is no reality except the metaphysical, i.e., beyond reality into the deep down purple funk of the self that transcends the material, physical and all that is not in the deep structure of the mind and heart. As Dr. Hare told us, "In the bottomless caverns of addiction in any form, there seems no amount of religiosity, coke, crack, alcohol or sex sufficient to sedate the social angst and shattered cultural strivings...."

So where and when does one find that ultimate satisfaction beyond sex, money and material illusions?

I found it in my creativity, the joy and happiness that even money and sex could not satisfy, even a wife or woman could not. Only in solitude was I happy and joyful and in full submission to the Creator of the Universe, as Sun Ra often told me I had to do.

Yes, even when I enjoyed five years of solitude in the mountains with very few visitors and no sex, only then did I submit to the Creator and let Him guide my pen. And He did, forcing my hand to write His will and discard my silly notions of creativity.

And I am pleased for in those five years of solitude, I wrote five books and healed from all my trauma and unresolved grief. And those who read my books said it wasn't the subject matter of the books but rather the tone that healed them from their stress, unresolved grief and trauma.

Initially, I didn't understand where one reader was coming from since he was not speaking of the subject matter. It was the tone of peace in the book that soothed him from the stress of his life.

It was then that I realized it was the peace in which I wrote that gave him peace, no matter what I wrote, rather what soothed him was the peaceful tone in my book. And, for sure, five years in solitude in nature, among birds, bees, deer, turkeys, hawks, cows, horses,  I was at peace with myself and thus able to spread my little light, even when I didn't know I was spreading light. Sometimes we don't realize it is not what we say but how we say it that is the healing balm of Gilead. What did JB say, "Talkin' loud, saying nothin!" Nigga you yappin and yappin but ain't sayin nothin!

I had to tell myself it wasn't the material or subject matter,  but simply the tone of peace derived from my environment and state of mind that caused me to enjoy neural placidity or a change of my nerve cells that was transferred to my book and to the reader. Imagine, if a mother is calm, cool and collected, her children will be so as well.

And yet it is unfortunate so many of the things I say the average human being cannot comprehend, and often I know my suggestions cannot be comprehended by those of low information vibration. Yet I cannot dumb down, so I challenge the low information vibration people to be their greater self rather than their lower self and force themselves to seek the Upper Room of their Father's House.

In my solitude I must focus on my bliss or holy purpose. Take what you can from me and throw the rest into the dustbin. For sure, I do not desire you to follow me, rather follow the mind God gave you as my Mother told me to do!
Ache!
Marvin X
2/22/18

The Black Arts Movement and Chicago's Spoken Word Scene

Chicago’s Spoken Word Scene is Serious Business

Defender Contributing Writer | Charles Preston

The late Amiri Baraka, a forbearer of the Black Arts movement, once poignantly stated, “…we need poems that kill.” in his aptly titled poem “Black Art”.  The poem is a reflection of the Black Nationalist ideology that Baraka, and many others, held while navigating Black life after the assassination of Malcolm X, and still undergoing collective suffering after the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. “Black Art” not only crystallizes the Black Power ethos of its time, but it was the precursor for today’s revolutionary spoken word that details the socioeconomic condition of the oppressed and strikes back at the establishment.

There are a variety of oratorical, philosophical, and poetic influences in contemporary Black Chicago’s spoken word scenes. Go to any open mic and you can see the influence that Gwendolyn Brooks, Mike Hawkins (Brother Mike), Kanye West, Malik Yusef, Margaret Walker, Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes, Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Askia Toure, Marvin X and many others worthy of mention have had on Black artists across the city.

This diversity can also be seen in Chicago’s geographic location. Places such as the Southside Community Arts Center in Bronzeville, the KLEO Center in Washington Park, the Quarry in South Shore, Chicago State University in Roseland, and now the TrapHouse in Gresham all display a wide spectrum of Blackness and represents the many communities committed toward the art. But Black people practicing spoken word is obviously a continuance of the art form, but not necessarily a subscription to the ideology of the Black Arts Movement.

“Is there a Black Arts Movement in contemporary Chicago? Absolutely,” says RJ Eldridge. Eldridge is a multidisciplinary artist and educator. He has contributed to Chicago’s “open mic” scene through his own awe-inspiring spoken word performances and instructing budding youth artists in various spaces including Young Chicago Authors, the non-profit organization that created the biggest national youth poetry competition Louder Than A Bomb.

“Chicago is both a contemporary metaphor for blackness, and ground zero for a Black Arts renaissance whose thrust, and influence, extends far beyond its geographic boundaries, and will continue to reverberate in the history of Black people.”It is imperative to recognize that artists of the Black Arts Movement rose to prominence in a period of massive resistance and social struggle. To these ancestors, activism and art were inextricable. Yes, they did write “….poems that kill.”, but more impressively, many were able to exercise their ideology by expressing solidarity to and participating amongst the radical organizers of the time. Baraka even established the Black Arts Repertory Theatre and School (BARTS), practicing his Black Power politics of self-determination by creating a Black space for Black art that is owned and operated by and for Black people.But today, Black Chicagoans find it difficult to build, own, and sustain spaces for Black poetry. Ayinde Cartman, poet, organizer, and West African percussionist, has long used spoken word for instruction and as a medium for education for years in Chcago. Cartman believes that there is a dearth of open mics in Black communities in comparison to the amount of artists that exist within them.

“Chicago has so many outstanding poets that its unreal how difficult it is to sustain regularly attended open mics,” says Cartman.

“Simultaneously, its absurd how often I meet people who love open mics but can’t find any. This is a minor indicator of how much our community needs functional communication. I’m working on it.”

Newcomers to Chicago, such as Resita Cox, echo the insistence on creating Black spaces for spoken word. Cox is a spoken word poet and just recently moved to Chicago from Kingston, North Carolina. Only living in the city since last summer, Cox has been able to recognize the connection that spoken word has with Chicago and emphasizes how expression is for healing as much as it is for liberation.

“Expression spaces are abundant here, but I’ve noticed the areas that need the expression spaces the most, the areas who need the most healing, are lacking spaces like that, I call them expression deserts,” says Cox.

“I started People Say, a monthly open mic on 79th and Ashland in partnership with Trap House Chicago, to try to fight these expression deserts that exist, mainly on the South and West Sides, and give people who need it the most the resources to heal through art, and even equally important, a space to feel safe.”

As we celebrate Black Arts, and more specifically the art of spoken word, we must never divorce its beginnings and purpose from performance. Those beginnings are found in Black resistance informed by socioeconomic oppression and its purpose was to amplify voices that jarred the status quo and yearned for freedom through self-determination.

Resita Cox puts it eloquently, “Spoken word doesn’t only heal, it is a key tool in the overall fight for Black Liberation, and that is why it is important to continue to make spaces for Black people to express throughout Chicago, and across the country.”

Notes of Artistic Freedom Fighter Marvin X: How to transcend the low information vibration

MLK, Jr. and MX

"You can be a Christian nigga, Muslim nigga, Communist nigga, Capitalist nigga, Democrat nigga, Republican nigga, Gay/Lesbian nigga, but you still a nigga in America. When WEB DuBois spoke in China's Tienanmen Square, after being introduced to a million people by Chairman Mao, our greatest intellectual ever produced in the hells of North America, WEB DuBois, said, "Thank you for your kind remarks, Chairman Mao, but in my country, America, I am just a nigga!' "

--Marvin X

February 21, 1965

Assassination of Malcolm X, El Hajji Malik El Shabazz. Since then has anyone done anything Malcolm said we should do? Alas, is anyone doing the things the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said do, e.g., do for self? What about the teachings of Marcus Garvey or Noble Drew Ali, or Booker T. Washington? Jesus, Prophet Muhammad? For the most part, most of us have no intention to do anything anyone said. Elijah said we are hard to lead in the right direction, easy to lead in the wrong direction. And why do we love the devil? Because he gives us nothing!

Black Arts Movement co-founders poet/playwright Marvin X and father of Afro-futurism Sun Ra, the mystical man from Egypt and  another planet, outside X's Black Educational Theatre in the Fillmore, San Francisco, 1972. Both men taught Black Studies at University of California, Berkeley, 1972. Sun Ra and his Myth-Science Arkestra arranged the musical version of X's BAM classic Flowers for the Trashman, renamed Take Care of Business, performed with a cast of 50 at San Francisco's Harding Theatre, a five hour concert without intermission.  Cast included the Ra Arkestra, X's cast, plus the Raymond  Sawyer and Ellendar Barnes dancers. The audio version of Sun Ra's UCB lectures are on Youtube. Marvin X's archives are in the Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley. 

Let us recall the dialogue Sun Ra had with a Negro in Ra's classic film Space is the Place (shot in Oakland):

Sun Ra 

What ya doin?

Negro

Ain't doin nothin.

Sun Ra

Wanna job?

Negro

Doin what?

Sun Ra

Doin nothin!

Negro

Well, how much ya gonna pay me?

Sun Ra

Ain't gonna pay ya nothin!

These days you can't pay a nigga to do nothin or somethin! Ya didn't hear me. I repeat, you can't pay a nigga to do nothing or somethin. More importantly, whatever the nigga do, he ain't gonna do it right! Yes, he won't do wrong right or right right! For example, my daughter bought a taco truck but couldn't hire her own kind, they wanted to tell her how to run her business. She had to fire them.

She hired a Mexican who didn't like working for a nigga. She hired a white man who didn't like working for a nigga. She closed her business. Yet, I'm so proud of my daughter. She called me to go with her to buy the truck but I was in a meeting so she went to East Oakland by herself  and paid $20,000.00 cash for the truck! 

But there's light at the end of the tunnel and it ain't the train comin at ya. We are so deep in the low information vibration, even a fantasy film such as Black Panther may be the spark the ignites the prairie fire of Black African consciousness in the present era.

As some of you know, I have called for the necessity of reversing the "breaking in" process that psycho-socialized and traumatized us and  transformed our African identities  from Kunta to Toby.

If Black Panther has any possibility of rekindling  our African personalities so long dormant in the deep structure of our low information vibration Negroid minds, steeped in "Negrocities" (AB term he wanted you to know, not a MX term) but now allowing us to acknowledge African mythology and rituals in our lives, then there is the most wonderful possibility that Toby may indeed one day  reclaim his true royal identity as Kunta, and most especially devoid of that royal corruption of kings and queens who, along with the Europeans, benefited from the triangular trade and the surplus capital Africans and Europeans accumulated from 400 years of slavery. See Dr. Walter Rodney's How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, also his classic monograph West Africa and the Atlantic Slaver Trade. 

My recently departed patron, Abdul Leroy James, used to said, "The Negro ain't never done nothing right in his life!" No matter what intellectuals thought about Roots and no matter what they think about Black Panther, if this film can make the so-called Negro or Toby reclaim his long suppressed African consciousness and move toward the Kunta man and Kunta woman, then let us thank the filmmakers. 

We imagined a most violent process to return Toby to Kunta, after all, the historical reality is that Toby was beaten with a black bullwhip to transform his personality. And there are societal forces ready to force him to continue his persona as Toby and never return  to Kunta, to traumatize Toby for eternity,  although we suspect the oppressor's plan will fail and Toby will resist and persist until he recovers his mental equilibrium that Dr. Frantz Fanon and Dr. Nathan Hare teach us about, although this process can only be achieved through the process of revolution. Ultimately, a movie won't accomplish the revolutionary process, only on the ground seizure of land and political institutions. 

Again, a single spark can ignite a prairie fire. Here in the Bay Area during the fire storm in the hills, embers traveled down to the hood and set houses on fire. So a little ember, a fantasy film has the possibility of being the catalyst to help us begin again that Sisyphusian

journey up the mountain to reach the mountain top Dr. King told us about. And perhaps for once and maybe for all times, we shall begin to follow the wisdom of our ancestors such as David Walker, Nat Turner, Denmark Vesey, Gabriel Prosser, Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells, Booker T., WEB DuBois, Noble Drew Ali, Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X. 

--Marvin X/El Muhajir

2/21/18

Oaktown

City of Resistance

Children and the National Security of America

The latest mass killing in Florida at the school that left 17 children dead and an equal number wounded, including teachers, recalls the apology poet Askia Toure gave for our generation leaving work undone in the 60s struggle for liberation. When I listened to him speak at the University of California, Merced,  I rejected his apology, even took the mike to explain that we who fought America's domestic colonialism faced the military might of the United States, the awesome power of the US Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, National Guard, CIA, FBI, snitches and agent provocateurs. In short, we suffered a military defeat, especially with the additional force of drug and chemical warfare. We thus left this generation in obvious peril at the hands of an inept, corrupt society of adults, whether politicians, educators, law enforcement, religious leaders and others duty-bound to secure our children. And race is totally and absolutely irrelevant, for our children are in danger from inner cities to suburbs, from urban centers to rural communities.

We saw the inability of the US military machine to prevent 9/11, and all the terrorist acts that have taken place on this soil before and after 9/11, including school shootings, church shootings, Las Vegas, Florida's LGBT nightclub, Fort Hood Military Base, etc.

I am at a loss to tell our children we have passed the baton of a wretched land to them, which was the reason for Askia's apology. . We did what we could to make America the so called land of the free and home of the brave.

A few months ago my daughter begged me to pass the baton to her generation because they are qualified and ready. Well, recent events in Florida appear to be the straw that broke the camel's back. But this time it is not the adults but the children themselves who, in spite of their trauma and grief, have transcended the horror of their lives to take authority over their situation.

Initially, they are appealing to adults to solve the problem of their security, but we know from past events adults are incapable of securing their lives because of political expediency, thus we suspect our children shall  be  left with no alternative but to secure they own lives.

After they march on Washington and see no solution, we suspect they will gather to secure themselves. We think their ROT C's may be one answer. Alas, the killer at the Florida school was a member and wore his ROTC T-shirt on the day of death.

Yet, as we discovered in our teaching career that peer teaching is a great method to exhibit leadership and diffuse chaos in the classroom, the ROTC or some other student led security project may be the alternative to the utter failure of adult leadership in school security.

Anytime authorities visit the house of a mentally ill student 39 times and can't discern a serious problem, yes, even after the sick boy announced on social media he wanted to be a school killer, and it was reported to the FBI, we know adults are useless and no faith must be placed in them. Students are thus on their own and have no choice but to secure their own lives.

Even their parents are useless, thus they have no choice but to configure plans to save their lives themselves. Dismiss the notion their brains are not fully developed until age 25, they must take authority immediately to secure themselves since adults cannot. Let us not hear about mental health treatment and gun control, the hour for talk has passed and our children have no choice but to take authority over their lives.The best adults can do is shut up and let their/our children take control.

During the Crack Era, many parents were out of control so children who had to take control of the household, even going to work or even prostituting to put food in the house, sometimes to pay the rent, since their parents were lost in the world of addiction.

Today adults are lost in political agendas that persist with each election, no matter whether Republican or Democrat, so let children take control until adults crawl out of their world of make believe that is so pathological that even with a trillion dollar military budget, they cannot secure the lives of their children but rather continue eternal wars for the arms industry.
---Marvin X
2/20/18

Dancing in Blackness, a memoir by Halifu Osumare, Black Arts Movement co-founder

Praise for Halifu Osumare’s

Dancing in Blackness

"As per the West coast Black Arts Movement, especially its origins at San Francisco State College/now University, Halifu was there from the beginning and thus is a critical personality in the BAM dance genre, also as organizer of dance venues in the Bay, especially Oakland's Alice Arts Theatre, now Malonga Center. She is among such Bay Area choreographers as Grand Diva Ruth Beckford, Ed Mock, Raymond Sawyer, Ellendar Barnes, Deborah Vaughn, Linda Johnson, Traci Bartlow, Rehema Yenbere, Jamilah Charlene Hunter, Delores Cayou, et al."--Marvin X, BAM co-founder

Dancing in Blackness is a professional dancer's personal journey over four decades, across three continents and twenty-three countries, and through defining moments in the story of black dance in America. In this memoir, Halifu Osumare reflects on what blackness and dance have meant to her life and international career.  Osumare's story begins in 1960s San Francisco amid the Black Arts Movement, black militancy, and hippie counterculture. It was there that she chose dance as her own revolutionary statement. She moved to Europe, where she taught "jazz ballet" and established her own dance company in Copenhagen. Returning to the United States, she danced with the Rod Rodgers Dance Company in New York City and played key roles in integrating black dance programs into mainstream programming at the Lincoln Center. After dance fieldwork in Ghana, Osumare returned to California and helped develop Oakland's black dance scene. Along the way, she collaborated with major artistic movers and shakers: among them, Katherine Dunham, Pearl Primus, Jean-Léon Destiné, and Donald McKayle.  Now a black studies scholar, Osumare uses her extraordinary experiences to reveal the overlooked ways that dance has been a vital tool in the black struggle for recognition, justice, and self-empowerment. This is the inspiring story of an accomplished dance artist and a world-renowned dance scholar who has boldly developed and proclaimed her identity as a black woman.

"Osumare has engaged with black dance as performer, choreographer, educator, arts administrator, researcher, and activist in the United States, Africa, and Europe, and through multiple careers. In this equal parts memoir, autoethnography, history, encyclopedic catalog, and sociocultural analysis, she traces her activities from the 1960s through the late 1990s, as she becomes a tenacious advocate for black dance. . . . An eclectic melange."--Library Journal  "Finally someone who knows a dancer's process and a choreographer's vision that has tackled the mystery that is the magic of contemporary African American dance. In Dancing in Blackness, Halifu Osumare has extricated the fundamental influence of Dunham, the choreographic strategies of Rod Rodgers, Eleo Pomare, Chuck Davis, Donald McKayle, and Alvin Ailey, as well as illuminating the paths they created for Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Bill T. Jones, Garth Fagan, and Diane McIntyre. What a wealth of treasure and scholarly and aesthetic understanding Osumare brings to this often misunderstood and woefully neglected American art. Bravo!"--Ntozake Shange, author of for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf  "Dancing in Blackness belongs on every dancer's and artist's shelf. It is a wonderful personal telling of the black experience in dance, in art, in life, and of the dance world in Boston, New York, and the whole Bay Area. It is beautifully written--an engaging and fact-filled narrative where you meet the choreographers of the period, their work and visions, trials, successes, and triumphs."--Donald McKayle, choreographer of Rainbow Round My Shoulder  "Halifu Osumare is a relevant voice from the Black Arts Movement of the '60s and '70s. She has danced the talk, music, and history of that period and beyond. This is a must read for insight into a black artist's personal and professional journey."--Kariamu Welsh, editor of African Dance: An Artistic, Historical and Philosophical Inquiry  "Coming of age amid the counterculture and Black Power in San Francisco, Osumare becomes a professional dancer in Europe and New York before returning home to realize her mission as an artist, activist, and thinker. Her memoir reveals an astonishing ability to evoke and to historicize her lived experience."--Susan Manning, author of Modern Dance, Negro Dance: Race in Motion  "An unapologetic, rapturous travelogue detailing life, love, and an abiding mission to further the place of black dance in global histories."--Thomas F. DeFrantz, author of Dancing Revelations: Alvin Ailey's Embodiment of African American Culture  "Osumare affirms the spiritual and tangible power for dance to teach, energize, heal, and inspire all peoples on this human journey."--Joselli Audain Deans, consultant, Black Ballerina

Dr. Abdul Alkalimat on the Black Panther movie

The Black Panther movie: Why is it dangerous?  Why do we fall for it?

Abdul Alkalimat

Veteran Black Liberation Activist, Educator, Researcher and a founder of Black/Africana Studies.

(2/18/18)

The Panther movie is out and people are going in droves to check it out.  Both Black and white.  This requires clear hard-headed thinking.  It’s not about the actors in the film and their careers.  Can’t blame a brother or a sister for needing a payday and a chance to make it inside the system, in this case Hollywood.   It’s certainly not about the capitalists promoting it on all media, as they have the dual interest of making money and controlling our consciousness to prevent our movement from making sure they stop making all this money.  It has to be about our clear understanding of history, and how we can get free from this system. 

The first thing is that they know how to go fishing.  Beautiful Black people celebrating culture and positive relations.  A view of traditional Africa that defies all logic and historical experience but gives Black people a view of the past that can be imagined as the technological future.  This fits the imaginative rethinking of ancient Egypt as an answer for our future.  Our situation is so dire that we will reach out for this Hollywood fantasy as if it can be helpful, healing, and a lens through which to view history.  There is dialogue about freedom, but in no way reflects the past or gives positive advice for us.

Lies can’t get us where we need to go. 

Let’s take a quick look at this film.  It is a replay of the conflict of the 1960s between cultural nationalism and revolutionary nationalism, the US organization of Karenga and the Panthers of Huey Newton and Bobby Seale.  The story is about who is going to control the Kingdom of Wakanda.  The point of conflict is the Panther as a metaphor for a Black liberation change agent.  The cultural nationalist is the King of Wakanda, who uses their special natural resource plants to become the Black Panther.  He is a friendly associate with the CIA.  The reference to the actual Black Panthers, meaning the child of Wakanda (aka Killmonger) who grew up in Oakland, is a sort of gangster living a Fanonian fantasy that violence will change the world.  He too is the son of a member of the royal family. This guy was trained by the CIA and begins the film in alliance with a white South African fascist.  The big lie is that to be a Panther one has to be of “royal blood,”  and not simply a victim of the system who stands up to fight back. 

Another big lie is that the CIA is an ally in the fight for a better world.

The film is a commercial hodgepodge of references to other popular films:

1.       A young women plays the part of the tech-savvy Q of James Bond movies

2.       The space ships are a nod to Star Wars

3.       The CIA agent is the star from the Hobbit movies

4.       The car chases refer to the Fast and Furious films

5.       Moving into Wakanda makes you think of Stargate

In 2018 we live in a moment of spontaneous movement and there is the possibility that another version of the real Panthers will likely emerge.  Some original Panthers are still incarcerated and being brutalized by the system they dared to oppose.  A movie like this has the bait to pull us in like fish about to be hooked by the system.  People see the film and feel good, but isn’t that what people say about first getting high on drugs.  We know how drug addiction turns out.

This film is dangerous and we must be vigilant against culture used to control and oppress.

Power to the People! Long live the warrior spirit of the 

Black Panther Party

Power to the people of Oakland CA

City of Resistance!

Marvin X Speaks at San Francisco State University

Marvin X Speaks at San Francisco State University

Marvin X returned to his Alma Mater, San Francisco State University, for a Black History Month talk in Davey D's class on Hip Hop. Davey D asked the poet about ideological differences between the Black Arts Movement and the political liberation movement, especially between BAM at the Black Panther Party. The poet said much of the dispute centered around arm struggle, with the Panthers decrying all those who refused to pick up the gun. He said armed struggle became an issue in the founding of the BPP since Bobby Seale and Huey distinguished themselves from their intellectual friends when they picked up guns to defend the community against police occupation and abuse under the color of law.

It was only until the Panthers attended the Pan African Cultural Festival in Algeria that they gained an understanding of the necessary role of art and culture in the liberation movement.

What was ironic was that many of the Panther leaders came through Marvin X's Black Arts West Theatre, including Bobby Seale (co-founder), Eldridge Cleaver, minister of information, Emory Douglas, minister of culture, George Murray, minister of education, and Samuel Napier, minister of distribution. Bobby was in Come Next Summer, X's second play writtern prior to and performed before he established Black Arts West, 1966, with playwright Ed Bullins, Hurriyah (Ethna X), Carl Bossiere, Duncan Barber, Hillery Broadous.

This is why Marvin X disputes Larry Neal's assertion that BAM was the sister of the liberation movement. Marvin says BAM was more like the Mother, especially on the West Coast.

When Eldridge Cleaver financed the Black House with his royalties from the best seller Soul on Ice, 1967, after his release from prison, Marvin X and Ed Bullinsoperated the cultural component with Cleaver manning the political division, but Cleaver was exposed to a healthy dose of culture from co-founders Bullins and X, along with Amiri Baraka's Communications Project that performed at Black House. Other artists were Sarah Webster Fabio, Reginald Lockett, Avotcja and the Chicago Arts Ensemble.

Aside from armed struggle there were differences over the use of Marxism as a tool of analysis. Cleaver wanted the artists to be Marxist oriented but Islam was a greater influence than Marxist Leninism, although the writers and poets did indeed read Mao Tse Tung's Talks on Art and Literature at Yenan Forum.

But Islam dominated Black Arts West and Black House, aside from Cleaver and Ed Bullins, Black House members Marvin Jackmon (later Marvin X), Ethna Wyatt (later Ethna X), singer Willie Dale and his wife Vernastine were drifting into the Nation of Islam. While Cleaver had California Communist Party Secretary Roscoe Proctor giving seminars on Communism at Black House, Black Arts West Guru Alonzo Batinhad a profound influence on those drifting toward Islam. Ahmedia Muslim language instructor, Ali Sharif Bey, infused the artists with his knowledge of Arabic and Urdu. He was Marvin's first Arabic teacher and gave him his first Arabic name, Nazzam Al Fitnah, organizer from persecution.

Bey said the poet is an organizer or systematizer, for he creates a system or mythology with the body of his work. The third Islamic influence was from Aaron Ali, a former minister in the NOI but had been set down by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Aaron Ali was a shaykh or holy man who taught linguistics to all who entered his domain. One could not enter without assuming the most humble persona. He used to debate in the hood with San Francisco semanticist SI Hayakawa, the English professor who became President of SFSU and crushed the Student Strike at SFSU, using State violence. Aaron Ali called Hayakawa an Oriental with an Occidental Mind! By suppressing the student strike, Hayakawa proved Aaron Ali was right.

The issue of arm struggle exploded after Marvin X introduced Eldridge to Bobby Seale and Huey Newton. Eldridge immediately joined the Black Panther Party and proceeded to evict the artists. Thereafter relations between the politicos and artists/intellectuals degenerated.

The original split happened when Bobby departed from the SoulBook magazine intellectuals, Ernie Allen, Mamadou Lumumba, Carol Freeman,Isaac Moore and others, claiming there were cowards for not taking up arms, even though they had founded the first Black Panther Party in the Bay Area, the Black Panther Party of Northern California. When Huey Newton and Bobby Sealeconnected, they demanded the intellectual Panthers take up arms or give up the Panther name.

To make their point, the BPP of Self Defense fired off rounds at a house party in San Francisco hosted by the intellectual Panthers. Thus began the bitter struggle between the political nationalists and the cultural nationalists, culminating in the assassination of Alprentis Bunchy Carter and John Huggins in the BSU meeting from at UCLA.

The assailants were members of the US organization under the leadership of KwanzaFounder Maulana Ron Karenga, the supreme cultural nationalist who guided AmiriBaraka into Karenga's Kawaida religion, a syncretized belief system concocted by Karenga.

Apprently Karenga taught Baraka the organizing skills necessary to put together an organization that enabled Ken Gibson to be elected Newark, New Jersey's first black mayor. After Karenga's men were indicted for the murder of Carter and Huggins, Baraka severed his ties with Karenga and after witnessing Gibson selling out to Newark Plantation Master Prudential Insurance before inauguration day, yes, after organizing ten thousand North American Africans at the Congress of African People, Baraka is totally disillusioned with Cultural Nationalism and elected politicians, definitely after the Gary Convention of 1972 when they openly revealed their sell out personas.

It is at this point that Baraka dons the Marxist hat he wears today, thus switching with Cleaver who saw Jesus in the moon in his Paris exile and returned home a Born Again Christian. Cleaver switched to the right when it was clear the left was not going to assist him in returning from his Paris, France exile. He had fled the US after the shootout with Oakland Police Department in which Lil Bobby Hutton was murdered in cold blood by the OPD.

The notes above are a more detailed account than what was presented in Davey D's class.

I told the students revolution only happens when all forces in society unite, whether the armed struggle people, along with the non-violent persons, artists, workers, students, elders, children, teachers, preachers, prisoners and ex-prisoners, only then are we able to make revolution.

The poet asked the class to give a shout out to the people of Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Jordan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Morocco who are in the process of revolution. What is ironic is that they used methods used in our revolution, especially during the civil rights era with Martin Luther Kings, Jr.'s non-violence. During their 18 days of deposing Pharaoh Mubarak, the people did not fire a bullet that we know about. They used our technique to win their freedom. With their million man march, they perfected our MMM and showed what we should have done when the million black men marched: we should have remained in DC until our agenda was met, no matter what, i.e., reparations, land, self-determination, sovereignty , etc. But we got out of town before sundown. Marvin quoted Sun Ra who taught him, "The Creator got things fixed, if you don't do the right thing, you can't go forward or backward, you just stuck on stupid."

Marvin told the students, "We may need to return to DC with a million black men, a million white men, a mission Asians, a million Latinos, a million gays and lesbians.

The people of the Middle East are showing you how to lay down before tanks, if you are really serious about shaking off the slave system. He told the students it is their fault if they are being subjected to tuition hikes at every turn, program cuts, and other high fees.

He told them he had met at student on the way to class that asked what should be done about tuition and fees. Marvin had told her to do exactly what her father did when he was a student at SFSU. He was part of the student strike to demand justice in academia, including a fair share of Associated Students funds, a black studies department. How can you SFSU students have this legacy yet accept the status quo? Close this motherfucker down! Dr. X said. The administration, representing the State, will come to you on bending knees, what do you students want? Full scholarships, ok. No program cuts, ok. No hiking of student fees, ok. Now, will you students please go home! Please leave the campus! If you stand up, the oppressor stands down. Look at the Middle East. Look at the history of SFSU!

Furthermore, Marvin X said, your President had guaranteed the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan that if they will lay down their arms and pledge allegiance to the constitutions of their lands, the USA will provide them with education, employment and housing.

If your President can do this for terrorists abroad, you must demand he do the same for youth at home.

Marvin X then gave his solution to the homeless problem. I have a simple solution, the life estate. This can end homelessness immediately by giving all homeless youth and adults a life estate, that is a title to an apartment or home that they own for life. The property cannot be transferred, sold, rented, willed or any other change of ownership. A transition of the owner, the property reverts to a community trust. The will take a basic level of stress off the poor. Marvin X said he'd watched a documentary of senior citizens in China who lived in a senior village with a life estate. But to end homelessness in America, the life estate can be utilized. X said it is all about thinking outside the box.

He told students to strive for ideological clarity, to seek knowledge beyond their white supremacy education. Study events in the Middle East, study economic planning in the Americas, in Venezuela, Boliva, Nicaragua, Brazil. Study the complexities of Haiti. And whatever you do, don't whip the white man's ass like Haiti did. You see the result. He will hate you forever.

It is not much different in the American South. There are many in the south who still can't get over that they lost the Civil War. The South functions in a state of grand denial, yet every one is armed, the south is an armed camp, men and women are armed.

Brothers tell me they would never drive down those southern roads at night without their guns. The South sings the blues for the return of the Slave System. The Africans know the Whites would love to put them back in chains. The prison system is nothing but the slave system under the US Constitution that allows involuntary servitude. And then the South practices the most wretched wage slavery, forcing persons to work two and three minimum wage jobs to survive.

The poet turned to his book How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy. The book was written in South Carolina, and when he went to copy the manuscript, the black woman clerk asked the poet where he was from. He said South Carolina. She said no you ain't because we don't say that word down here, White Supremacy. Yes, the South has a way to deal with language, more polite, more subtle, more innuendo , circumlocution, an etiquette of the most profound degree since it is about survival.

Marvin noted that black people in the South tell Cali Negroes not to come down there taking that talk then leave them with the white man. They've had four hundred years dealing with The Cracker and they don't need Cali Negroes stirring up things then leaving.

Nevertheless, he told the students he envisions a Second Civil War to finish the first, since the first left us in virtual slavery or essentially still a captive of the Slave System until today.

He told them as per their college education, don't believe the State is broke, or that America is broke, rather know the wealth is being hoarded by the blood suckers of the poor. It must be seized from them and redistributed to the masses of the people, especially the workers, the poor righteous teachers and others. Let's share the wealth! We shall not long endure capitalist greed.

And don't believe the media propaganda from the Jim Crow Media that America is broke. How can America be broke when half the money owned China is due American corporations who are part owners in Chinese corporations? Dr. Nathan Hare says don't believe anything the white man says until proven to be a fact.

As per Dr. Hare, Marvin turned to his book How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy, telling students Dr. Hare teaches us there are two types of White Supremacy, Type I and Type II. Type II is Black people who suffer white supremacy, who must detox, recover and discover their true mission in life.

These are just a few of the points Marvin X made during his talk at San Francisco State University tonight.

A superb slice of history and analysis!--John Woodford, former Editor of Muhammad Speaks and Michigan Today, Professor Emeritus University of Michigan

A great, tremendous work!

--Dr. Fritz Pointer, Professor Emeritus,  Contra Costa College