Confession of Ex basketball player Marvin X 9/12.18

Confession of Ex Basketball Player Marvin X
draft 9/10/18

Preface

What I am about to tell you is going to shock you beyond belief as I shocked DJ Davey D when I told him I was writing this essay Confession of an ex-basketball player. But it's true. It is a story of how one can transcend the illusions of life, things we thought were priority, vital to our breath of air, yet, Solomon told us when I was a child I did childish things, when I became a man childish things mean nothing. Elijah Muhammad taught us the world was not made for sport and play. He told all his followers, including Muhammad Ali, the world was not for sport and play. HEM's sole focus was our liberation into a nation of our own. But we must take a break, R and R, sometimes, sooner or later.

All armies must, even in the low intensity national liberation battle of North American Africans. Sports is a sometimes necessary diversion from the real world of dread, make believe and conspicuous consumption, the one billion five trillion illusions of the monkey mind (Guru Bawa).ort

But some of us come to realize sports is indeed a diversion from the real world that would drive us to the brink of suicide or homicide if this world was our sole focus. Like music, sports soothes the wild beast in us while stimulating our tribal instincts in athletic prowess.

For me as a child, teenager and college student, basketball was my life, a way to get away from home in a safe space. Shooting basketball probably saved me from descending off the precipice of juvenile criminality, although the coaches bet I would fuck up before the season was over at Edison High in Fresno. For sure, although an A student and athlete, several times I found myself in Juvenile Hall for stealing from the snack shop at White's Theatre where all us Blacks went on Sunday.

The question is how did I get so far away from something I loved? 

Shall we say there are passages (tech language portals) we go through in life. A critical ritual in Christology is the seven stations of the cross, although the primary Christian myth-ritual is crucifixion, resurrection, ascension.
As I Write Tonight

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As I write, the music of my childhood growing up in West Oakland is playing, the Hammond B3 organ. Honestly, even now when I hear the Hammond, I time travel to growing up on 7th Street, West Oakland, Harlem of the West: that Hammond B3 organ takes me immediately to 7th Street: organ music blasting from cafes, beauty and barber shops, restaurants, pool halls, shoe shine parlors like Perry's, John Singer's Club; upstairs was the Pullman Porters Union, the first Black union in America, headed by C.L. Dellusm, uncle of Congressman and former Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums.

There was Slim Jenkin's Restaurant where Josephine Baker was advertised for months, along with Earl Father Hines. When I passed Slim Jenkins hustling Jet and Ebony, I was fascinated at the billboard advertising Josephine Baker because my parents talked about her so much. I was in elementary school and in the Cub Scouts as I hustled Jet and Ebony magazines up and down 7th, from Peralta to Pine Street, so I mostly stood outside and listened to the music, although I could enter barber and beauty shops, pools halls and hear the juke box up close. Customers didn't know I was more interested in the music than selling Jet and Ebony.

I sold down 7th to Pine which was the end of the line for the district, now called the Lower Bottom, although I never heard that term until lately. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who uses the term Lower Bottom did not grow up in West Oakland. But the socalled Lower Bottom was the end of the line, actually Pine was the Ho' Stroll and the across from the Amtrak Station on Pine was the Ho' Hotel, rooms rented by the hour. I sold Jet and Ebony in this area, making my way back to 7th via Peralta Street passing the West Oakland Library where as elementary school children they tried to teach us about Negroes in literature, although I wasn't ready nor were my classmates as I recall.

Beyond Pine and Seventh Streets, the "Lower Bottom"

Pine was the last street in West Oakland, next was the Army Base and Naval Supply Center, where Mom worked from time to time as a clerk typist while Dad held down the Florist Shop at 7th and Campbell. We lived in back of the shop without hot water and the toilet was outside the back door. We bathed in a tin tub after heating water on the stove. From our living quarters in back of the shop, we could look out the window to view the Negroes "acting a fool" on 7th as Granny said when she came to visit and sat in the window on weekends when 7th was crowded with people enjoying the night life, including sailors, soldiers and common folk. The sidewalks  were crowded and cars were bumper to bumper. I think Granny relished watching our people when the clubs let out: that's when the drama began over the Mythology of Pussy and Dick: Army and Navy brothers fighting with hood brothers over women. 

Basketball at New Century Rec Center

My basketball career began at New Century Rec Center, next door to MacFeely Elementary School, where I spent the 3rd and 4th grade. But New Century's gym was my home away from home. Soon I was addicted to basketball. It became my drug of choice. At New Century I saw a dance teacher that my elementary school mind said she was a beautiful queen. I could not say she was an African queen because I knew nothing about Africa except Tarzan and Jane.

Dance teacher Ruth Beckford was royal with her short natural--who had a natural in the 50s? All I knew was she was black and beautiful. But my primary interest was basketball. When I got to Lowell Junior High, I made the team and a cheer leader tongue kissed me, scaring me to death. I knew nothing about the tongue kiss. But on the Lowell team was Joe Ellis who went on the play for the Warriors. At a basketball school, I won a trophy for hitting 9 of 10 at the free throw line. McClymonds star and NBA player Paul Silos was there.

DeFermery Park, aka Bobby Hutton Park 

Defermery Park basketball court separated stars from wannabees, after all Bill Russell played there, Paul Silos, Joe Ellis, Jim Hadnot and other  graduates of McClymonds who went professional, McClymonds, School of Champions, pride of West Oakland and the City at large after producing so many State champions in all sports. Let me acknowledge my homeboy from Fresno, Coach Benny Tapscott. 

Basketball in Fresno

As Mom and us children moved back and forth from Oakland to Fresno depending on Mom and Dad marital relations because they  were tripping and eventually divorced, but when in Fresno my basketball career continued at Frank H and Frank Smith on the West Side. We used to play at Frank Smith on the outside courts. Benny Tapscott was there, Odell Johnson, later stared at St. Mary's and became President of Laney College. All the Edison High players were there, especially Edison High star Billy Hicks, my neighbor in the projects. Odell went to Catholic School but his brothers made the team at  Edison High.

I recall playing basketball at Defermery with the Pointer brothers (brothers of the Pointer Sisters singing group); the Aikens brothers, et al. If you could, and I did, maintain myself on court with the McClymonds brothers, I didn't feel bad. But New Century Rec had prepared me for the Defermery acid test.

Lowell Jr. High trained me to engage the Defermery Park brothers, hell, we all played at New Century. It was the West Oakland's best gym.

OG Basketball Player, 91 years old

A few days ago in the parking lot of a grocery market, I recognized a brother I remembered from New Century and Defermery: he always had a braid in his hair. He was sitting at the wheel of a faded gold classic Cadillac. As I headed into the market I recognized him and couldn't resist saying something to him. I said, "Hey, bro, I remember you playing basketball at Defermery. Matter of fact, didn't you play at New Century?"

He said yes. I said, "Hell, bro., you was old in the 50s as I recall. How old are you now?" He said, "91. I graduated from high school in 1944. Wasn't no Merritt College or Laney so I went to Community College in San Francisco." I was honored to be in his presence because I surely remember him, especially at Defermery, a master of the game. There were other brothers like Big Joe who used to use his weigh to muscle into the hole. at New Century and Defermery.

Basketball in Fresno

In Fresno, Edison was the school of champions. I spent my high school years on the team at Edison. I recall we played against Lemoore High School that had one black player, Tommy Smith. With five Blacks on our team, Tommy and his crew weree no match, we beat their asses. It was like Lebaron James playing the Warriors. Do the math: 1 vs 5!

But we were humbled to see John Carlos and Tommy Smith raise their fists at the Mexico City Olympics.  Soon after John and Tommy's Mexico City affair that shocked the world that descendants of  the American Slave System (Ed Howard term) had the nerve to raise their fists at USA domestic colonialism, I found myself exiled in Mexico City, along with many other political refugees from throughout the Americas. I was one of many young political refugees from Dominican Republic, Cuba, Columbia, Venezuela to whom Mexico gave refuge. Thank you, Mexico, thank you.

Mexico City Exile

My Mexico City contact was the great revolutionary artist Elizabeth Cattlett Mora. She picked me up from the bus station and gave me initial refuge but said I could not stay with her because she was being watched because she was a Communist, although teaching at the University. Alas, before the Olympics students at the university were massacred and when parents went to the university the parents disappeared, so Betty Mora gave me temporary refuge and connected with those who could help me further.

Blacks in Mexico City, 1970

There was a community of Black Americans in Mexico City who had no plans of returning to the United States of America, in fact, they informed me that any human beings who wanted to endure the oppression meted out to North American Africans in the USA needed to endure such but it was not for them. These North American Africans had adjusted themselves to Mexican culture as an alternative to blatant USA racism, although Mexico had it's racism in its attempt to reconcile its mixed heritage of Spanish, Indian and African. After all, Mexican revolutionary heroes were Yanga, Vicente Guerrero, Afro Mexican George Washington and Abraham Lincoln of Mexico. Zapata, Afro Mexican revolutionary hero. 

Praise for Mexico

I loved Mexico's leit motif Por favor (please) repeated on every occasion to show civility, humility and appreciation.

We praise Mexico for giving refuge to political refugees from throughout the Americas. Elder revolutionary Betty Mora instructed me that I would be fine as long as I stayed out of Mexican politics, which I did, until I decided to teach Black Power to students at an English language school and was fired. I spent time and hustled books with brothers at the African and Caribbean embassies. We had conversations on politics, in particular brothers from Ghana who informed they felt more equipped to deal with their English ex-colonial masters than the Russians President Nkrumah associated with, who sold them unusable military equipment. We think Nkrumah's vision of a United States of Africa was beyond these ambassadors. Brothers at the Caribbean embassies informed me they could not buy my Black Power literature even though they could travel home with diplomatic bags. At this time, 1970, Black Power literature was banned throughout the Caribbean. Why do you think Marcus Garvey left Jamaica, Stokely Carmichael and CLR James left Trinidad? These were slave and neo-colonial colonies. When I told my host in Mexico City, Betty Mora, I was going to Belize, then British Honduras, she was horrified, "No, Marvin, don't go, Belize is still a colony of Great Britain. They are in raw colonialism not neo-colonialism." As a hard headed North American African, I ignored the wisdom of Betty and departed to Belize with my wife now pregnant with our child we would name Nefertiti. Many years later, Nefertiti accompanied me to Alameda County Juvenile Hall where I spoke to the youth in the gym. When Nefertiti saw the females come into the gym, Nefertiti whispered, "Dad, those girls look tore up." And they did. Nefertiti told me later that at first she couldn't identify with the girls until she thought about her parents being in flight from oppression when she was conceived." We are in flight in our socalled land of the free and home of the brave. Tore up from the floor up, children, parents, grandparents, community. We are under great stress, most importantly our mental condition, but physical condition as well, especially our obesity. I am working on mine, especially when I recall my athletic past along with the How to Eat to Live teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad who ignited the American health food revolution. 

I connected with the grandsons of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad who were attending school at the University of the Americas, described by one of my Mexico City hosts as "a din of iniquity". They were the sons of Herbert Muhammad, Manager of Muhammad Ali.  I was sent a press badge as Foreign Editor of Muhammad Speaks, appointed by Herbert Muhammad, who was also Publisher of Muhammad

Speaks. I wrote articles on Afro-Mexicans, including stories on Elizabeth Cattlett Mora, perhaps our greatest revolutionary artists; in the mode of Gwendolyn Brooks, Elizabeth Cattlett Mora identified with youth in the Black Power Movement, respecially the Black Panthers, thus, like Gwen, Betty Mora is a Master BAM Elder, her works speaks for itself, see Negro Es Bellow, i.e., black is beautiful using Black Panther iconology, a piece she was working on when she gave Marvin X refuge at her house. She and her husband, muralist Poncho Mora, were witnesses at the civil marriage of Marvin X and Barbara Hall, mother of their daughters Nefertiti and Amira. In the Maroon tradition, Marvin X snatched student Barbara Hall from Fresno State University, where he taught journalism, black literature and drama in the Black Studies Department, 1969, 70 students registered for his classes until Gov. Ronald Reagan discovered the lecturer was on trial in San Francisco for refusing to fight in Vietnam. Entering the State College Board of Trustees meeting, the said, "I want him off campus by any means necessary." Marvin faced Freesno Superior Court and was banned from Campus, the College claimed he was never hired, although he gave final grades to his 70 students from his classroom across the street from FSU at the Christian Center that provided him a classroom. FYI, Gov. Reagan also removed Angela Davis from lecturing at UCLA because she was a Black Communist, along with Marvin X, a Black Muslim who didn't allow whites in his classes, including the media. FYI, Mormons taught at FSU at this time and they believed Blacks could not enter the priesthood, later changed. Banned by Fresno Superior Court from entering FSU, Marvin X was simultaneously fighting his draft case in San Francisco. Students from throughout California supported his fight against serving in Vietnam. A group called the United Students of California said, "We want Marvin X not in jail, not in Vietnam but in the classroom."

After being found guilty of draft evasion, Marvin X didn't wait for sentencing, he went into exile a second time, this time to Mexico City and Belize, Central America, from which he was soon arrested and deported back to America. In Belize, then British Honduras, the Minister of Home Affairs said in his deportation order: Your presence in not beneficial to the British Colony of Honduras, therefore you shall be deported back to the United States of America. Until the plane leaves to Miami at 4PM, you shall be placed under arrest. 

   

Who Won Tonight?

Who won tonight? Warriors! Warriors! Warriors! Everybody loves winners. I love winners. I salute the Oakland Warriors! Oakland is the City of Warriors, City of Resistance, like Fallujah in Iraq, destroyed yet resistant. Oakland North American Africans, yes, City of Champions by the Warriors victory tonight, the Pullman Porters Union, Black Panther Party and the battle continues....Let the now generation take the baton, let them not reinvent the wheel but learn from Ancestor mistakes and avoid them, move into the world of your making. Khalil Gibran said your children come through you but they are not you. You are the bow, they are the arrow! 

I am not watching the game. I am writing this article. I have never watched a Warrior game or any other NBA game. I can't believe myself after spending my childhood and young adulthood playing basketball night and day, sleeping and eating basketball.

But truthfully, I cannot believe as a basketball player--and I did not mention I was on the team at Merritt College after graduation from Edison and returning to Oakland to attend Merritt.  Before I get to Merritt, let me finish my high school career as a guard. Most significantly, I suffered a knee injury that pretty much ended my career because the injury recurred even when I got to Merritt College. But at Merritt my main problem was my West Oakland brothers from McClymonds, John Aikens, Jackson, Bobby Chapman, hell, our first team guard could dunk! But I was not going into the hole with those tall brothers from McClymonds, they weren't going to elbow me in the head. After suffering another knee injury on the road, I think it was against Fresno City College, I gave up basketball and started playing tennis. Wasn't that many blacks into tennis in 1963. When I beat a tall white boy on the tennis court, he threw his racket down and walked off the court.

I continued playing tennis until I taught at the University of Nevada, Reno, and my children visited me for the summer. My son, Darrel, a high school tennis champ, beat me set after set and laughed all the way. I was then that I realized youth is no match for the elders. My son ended my tennis career forever.

My athletic interest was rekindled when my oldest son Marvin Keith played college football as defensive end, captain of the defense. The few of his college games I attended, I saw him sack the quarterbacks. And this was all right with me until he thought I was the quarterback to sack as abandoned father.

I was elated when he tried out for the San Francisco 49s but was cut. He didn't pursue his athletic career but went into computer programming. When he worked for PGE, he said, "Dad, do you know how much I make?" I said no son, he said, "Eight thousand dollars every two weeks." All I could say was wow. He showed me his hand computer  that controlled all the PGE computers in Northern California. After my son was cut from the 49rs, I had no further interest in football, although I played football, yes, tackle football in the hood with no protective gear. You think we had gear in the hood?
But as hustler I made money during the San Francisco Super Bowels, hustling caps, shirts, etc.

The Battle of the Bay World Series

When the 1989 earthquake hit the Bay, I was hustling T shirts at the Eastbay Terminal. I was at Mission selling when the quake hit and I had to take shelter in the cove of a building. A Latina woman was shouting for me to take cover with her as the quake caused buildings to fall before my eyes. The Battle of the Bay was no more. I boarded an AC Transit bus to Oakland, but after getting on the bridge aboard the bus, the bridge fell and cars went into the bay. When the AC bus stopped, passengers were ordered off the bus and we walked back to the terminal. The rest is another story,just know North American Africans celebrated Xmas in October.

Warriors win NBA title again

The beauty of Oakland is that it is the City of Warriors in every genre, sports, politics, arts, culture, radical solutions.

What About Warrior Politics

Can Oakland solve its pressing housing crisis caused by gentrification and globalism? We hope you understand Globalism transcends White Supremacy. When I moved into a subsidized apartment by the Lake, Latinos were the repairmen, but after the change ownership of Asians, the Latino workers are no more, only Chinese who speak no English.

We must therefore update our analysis of oppression, alas, it is no longer the white man but Global Man who cares nothing about racism only economics. You may be surprised at this multi-cultural phenomena that may include global investors from Latin America, Africa, Arabia, China, India, at al.

City of Resistance 

And yet, few understand Oakland as City of Resistance to USA domestic colonialism.
Oakland resisted with armed resistance, no MLK, Jr. non-violence;Oakland style, fuck the police, back dat ass up bitch pig ass motherfucka.

Don't  no Oakland soldiers fear yo ass OPD pig motherfucker, back yo ass up. We 7th Street Niggas.
Back yo ass up. Yeah, we crazy so don't fuck wit us. Leave us the fuck alone. West Oakland fa life.
Power to the People!

Warriors Victory and continued occupation of Oakland's Lake Merritt

The Warrior Celebration in Oakland continued Black people's occupation of Lake Merritt along Lakeshore Ave. Vendors were numerous with African clothing, jewelry, art work, food, books(Marvin X) and socializing with ample marijuana and alcohol, a celebration of Black Unity, Joy and Entrepreneurship.

We call upon politicians to make the necessary policy changes to make permanent the Black presence at the Lake an extension of the Black Arts Movement District that begins from the Lower Bottom of 14th Street to Lake Merritt. This should be done in the name of racial and economic parity. North American African vendors should be exempt from City and State taxes for five to ten years pending reparations. Lake vending should be a pilot project to extend Black vending along the 14th Street corridor to inspire a Black economic and cultural Renaissance in Oakland, once known as Harlem of the West!

--Marvin X, BAMBD Co-founder

9/12/18