photo Alicia Mayor
Marvin X returns to his classroom in the Laney College Theatre, aka Odell Johnson Theatre, opens for Donald Lacy's Color Struck. Marvin read from the scene in his play One Day in the Life, depicting his last meeting with his friend from Merritt College, 1962, Dr. Huey P. Newton, in a West Oakland Crack house. The play became a recovery community cult classic. After his drug recovery drama, Marvin went on to declare that if one can recover from drugs, one can recover from the addiction to white supremacy, alas, the CDC has declared white supremacy is the cause of the mental health epidemic. Now I am known for hyperbole, so let me say the CDC says mental health is epidemic. America appears to still suffer from denial that racism is systemic and the most critical factor of mental illness in America. The American response to Critical Race Theory is clear evidence she is not ready to enter the necessary long term recovery program that would allow neural placidity to occur, i.e., a change in the brain cells due to a changed environment. But let's be clear as Dr. Nathan Hare delineated in his Foreword to Marvin X's manual How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy, "Whites suffer from addiction to white supremacy type I, blacks suffer from addiction to white supremacy type II, and do not mix the two!" Alas, how can the oppressor suffer the oppression of the man with the boot on his neck, as George Floyd suffered? We can't even comprehend the suffering of Officer Derek Chuvin. Perhaps white people can explain Chuvin's addiction to Type I white supremacy. Was his addiction mild, moderate or severe?
Crusin' Oakland
Sunny July day in da bay
Gotta git ta north oakland
'fore chinese cleaners close
San Pablo Stanford
Chinese there before I born
Makin' millions off you know who
never hired nigga in hunid years
nigga don't care
he donkey of world
everybody rides a nigga to success
downstairs in my apartment building
latinx girl children scream hollar in play
everyday
didn't know girls screamed so loud
like a Sun Ra Arkestra John Gilmore
upper register sax sound
let the children scream
Haki said Don't Cry, Scream
Leave North Oakland to Westside
childhood turf
Defermery/Lil' Bobby Hutton Park
vendor tents baseball game
Shout to woman from my car
What's going on here
Police playin' West Oakland she say
I say wow ain't dat nice
Police playin West Oakland
yes it is, yes it is
I heard Mayor Libby and OPD Chief were gonna march today
maybe this was end of march
Baseball game with my westside peoples
Cruise down Adeline to 14th
BAMBD town (Black Arts Movement Business District)
Heard the anti-police terrorism project caravan to Lowell Park for "Pick Nic" pic a nigga
2021 we still say pic nic? Hmmmmm
Well X you still say da N word
WTF I'm from west oakland
nigga wasn't no bad word
but if you called a nigga black
you might have a fight
and don't call his mama black
might git ass whuppin'
At Lowell Park Cat Brooks was speaking
Told how artists as activists can change world
with stories tales of truth paintings murals mind changing
Cat spoke of Carole Fife, new councilwoman of west oakland
we got ya in gul
don't forget how ya got in 'an where ya came from
Cat said we go be on yo ass gul
like roy rogers on trigger
better stand 'n deliver
don't get sucked into Mayor Libby Schaaf's Jerry Brown in drag dreams
police dreams of nothingness and dread
wanna stop da killin'?
give nigga jobs
secure da hood if nothin else
won't let a nigga hold a stop sign on construction sites
an' ya wonder why we kill late into night
don't give a fk 'bout Juneteenth 4th a Jew lie
New Year's auction block day
Easter wit rabbit's laying chicken eggs
Xmas bout a homeless nigga
who came to save world
Crusin' Oakland
Stop by Arab liquor store
nigga beggin fa dolla
make me wanna holla
i'm blessed
come out ta give nigga dolla'
I used to hustle too
crack days of yore'
dolla nigga busy talkin ta nigga on bike
I drive on da lake
stop at watermelon man
black man guarantee his melons
they ain't from Mexico?
Naw, Bakersfield
Hell, I'm from Fresno gimme two
check out vendors at lake
police got niggas roped off with cones
control niggas with cones these days
better'n police dogs I must say
horses pepper spray
cones contain unofficial vendors
liquor weed vendors
Hey hey hey
got good weed
all a nigga want all a nigga need
good weed
official vendors wanna be wit unofficial
they make more money
they vice vendors
square git ya nowhere
cruise on to gas station
gotta go deep east
they my peoples too
Think I don't love them
They from west oakland too
580 to keller
Bancroft to 90th
pass liquor store Olive
closed down now
used to be busy waterhole
gamblin' killin' popo know
was store public nuisance
Arab sellin guns dope too
won't buy nothin' from a nigga
they sand niggas too
Ain't Hajar they moma
Abraham screwed when Sarah old
she had Isaac
Hajar Egyptian maid had Ishmael
fled to well of Zem Zem
Mecca in the night
Cruise down 90th to friend house
raising three boys ain't his
he don't have no kids
boys no daddy
he daddy love 'em true
they stuck on computer games earphones
can't hear me say hello
I say hey stupid they look up
faintly hear me call 'em stupid
baby boy #3 come in room
I say how ya doin'?
I'm good he say
Oh, you don't do nothin bad
Yeah, I'm bad I beat my big brother
I say kick 'm in da head
he tried brother blocked his move
Thank God for the fathers
who raise children not their own
even such children ungrateful bastards
we call them
how you hate man was yo daddy
woman was yo mama
never seen real mama and daddy
and you say man and woman who raised yo funky ass ain't shit
Fk you ungrateful bastard
I depart deep east
hit 98th Bancroft
'nother nigga beggin' when I turn at light
blow my horn
give nigga the dolla nigga a liquor store didn't want
after he git ma dolla 'nother car call him over
he come past me with pep in step
I see five dolla' bill in his hand
He gone ta see crack man
Didn't know crack was still 'round
but I heard it was
98th to 580 freeway
but goin back #13
I love #13 cause it so green
trees n' things
some niggas never been on #13
sometimes I turn down my cruising music
Jimmy Smith Hammond B-3
wanna hear silence of trees
talk to me trees green leaves
remind me of dirty south roads
glad #13 freeway
get off on Park to my apartment up from Lakeshore
Yeah, I heard the gunshots on Juneteenth from my apartment
Thought the copter was gonna land on my roof
God/Allah told me don't go out yo house on Juneteenth
God/Allah said I'm don't care if a million niggas at lake
peace be still my servant
I listened to My Lord
Sami allahu liman hamida/Allah hears those who praise Him
Rabbana laka al hamd/Our Lord to Thee is due all praise
Al hamdu lilah.
Next day I got email say: "You have been awarded a grant of $100,000."
Peace be still.
As I entered my apartment from crusin' Oakland
young girls were screaming
were they running from the boys?
--Marvin X
7/10/21
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