Lifer, extended by popular demand at the Flight Deck

How does one tell the story of a man who spent more time in prison than Nelson Mandela and Geronimo Pratt combined? With Lifer Dr. Ayodele Nzinga passed the final test of my mentorship. . She's on her own now, she has graduated to master teacher. She has her own theatre company, the Lower Bottom Playaz, in residence at Flight Deck Theatre, 1540 Broadway, downtown Oakland.

Ayodele Nzinga, a genius in her own right from natural creativity and life experience, a lethal combination for creative clarity, has done something no one in the world has done: produced the complete ten play cycle of plays by August Wilson, and in chronological .

We would think Lifer would be a challenge to her, a woman writing a prison drama about men. Yet we know a true artist knows all genders and beyond. Knowing such is the duty of a true artist, yes, to study people. And yet sometimes there is so much drama in our own lives, as per mothers,fathers, grannies, grandpa's, uncles, aunts, cousins, siblings, children, even grandchildren, that we know Ayodele often did not need to think hard about the Glen Bailey Story, Triple OG. FYI, Elder Jahahara Al Kebulan Ma'at says, "We are not O.G., Triple O.G., no, we are G.O.D." As G.O.D., we can do all things and nothing is impossible. For sure, Ayo's language is not over the top in the Marvin X style, but her main job is to tell the story of a man who survived the dungeon, the American Gulag, and after half a century of confinement, walked out with warrior pride and dignity.

Adimu Madyun as Glen Bailey is awesome, as he is in most of the roles he portrayed in the Lower Bottom Playaz productions, especially in the August Wilson Cycle.

The play has been extended another weekend through Feb 2, 3,4, 2018. Be there or b square! Stay woke!
--continued-
--Marvin X

Seventeen year old youth leads joyful noise protest at Oakland Whole(Shithole) Foods

Organizer Lucy

This morning we heard master organizer Cat Brooks on KPFA Morning News praise a seventeen year old female named Lucy for having high energy like herself. This young lady is organizer of the noise protest at this afternoon's gathering at Oakland Whole Foods (Shithole foods, contaminated with full blown toxic racism and white supremacy).  Imagine, the richest man in the world owns this toxic, racist, white supremacist corporation that white and blacks flock to for their daily bread. I must quote right-wing Rush Limbaugh, "The people are so ignorant it is mind numbing."

 But as per the young lady Cat praised this morning, this rainy afternoon we got the chance to bear witness Lucy is the youth of the hour. In sometimes drenching rain, she spoke to the crowd on the need for revolutionary action. "If you ain't about revolution, you can't be a part of this movement! And this racism at Oakland Whole Foods is totally unacceptable and will not be tolerated."

Present at the rally were two victims of Whole (Shithole) Foods racism and white supremacy: photo journalist Adam Turner and the 13 year old boy who was abused by WF while getting Xmas presents for his mother.

Traditions for woke people

West Oakland Classic Black men at Defermery Park/Bobby Hutton Park

See that old man? What he wearing? You don't know? You ain't had no daddy, uncles, grandfather? He classic black man, he got on Stacey Adams, Fedora, Pendleton, Cashmere sweater. Classic black man, up from slavery city hustler, come up any means necessary, take a chance, what is life but a chance. Hey, classic always, bold in depression took some shit from white man. Organize like Pullman Porters Union, first national black union. A Phillip .Randolph, Oakland C.L. Dellums, classic men, solid don't bend solid! check them out young blood. No baseball cap pants sagging
wanna be pimp ass nigga, no, classic king style duke count queen princess royal purple solid don't bend.

7th Street Oakland, up and down selling Jet Ebony. Music loud cafe barber shop bar shoe shine parlor Hammon B 3 don't do this to me time travel 7th Street Lincoln Theatre Loraine's greasy spoon hamburger's fries next to Lincoln black movie house Mr. Freeman owner, flea house rats popcorn
soda pop
Slim Jenkins Supper Club class Earl Father Hines Jimmy Smith Josephine Baker. Daddy, who is she you and mama keep talking bout her. Who is she?

New Century Playground/Gym Rec Center
Ruth Beckford dance teacher natural hair velvet black skin Marcus Garvey tradition
Ruth idol of my youth fine black African queen classic woman ridin' in fancy cars with classic men

McFeely Elementary School then Prescott St. Patrick Catholic School Nuns ruler beat hands no mama daddy no St. Patrick no like Nuns ruler beat hands
No like Holy Mary Mother of Jesus
Go to Lowell Jr. Highel
on basketball team with Joe Ellis Warriors
Cheer leader Doris Elliot
stuck tongue in mouth she did
me scared
tongue in mouth
damn doris
you so fine
yo sista fine too
delores
my brother ollie like delores she him
we left oakland to fresno with mama
not before brothers beat down poor white boy
he killed emmett till mississipp
white boy
don't know meaning of white
poor white boy
below nigga white boy
in nigga school
no racism poor ignut white boy
no knowledge Emmett Till
too poor to hate white boy
brothers beat down
each blow say
this fa Emmett
this fa Emmett
this fa Emmet
1955
poor white boy don't know he white
he too poor to know
we don't know white boy black boy same
deaf dumb blind
85% 99%
victims blood suckers of poor
meet in Devos million dollar ticket each
plot destruction global slaves
kill kill kill
sell bullets both sides no matter
nazis stalinists same
third world come
no capitalists no commuinists
beligion
i be me
you b you
let black man b black man
solid don't bend black man
loving family black man
woman love black man
children loving black man
solid don't bend
liberty or death black man
woman love black man
strong dick black man
woman need dick
dick need pussy
let pussy dick cuma
joy to the world cum
let world babies sing
happy songs
sing
Oh happy day
Edwin
Walter
oh happy day
oaktown getdown
east/west no matter
brother brother
campbell village
acorn projects
line up niggas 'fore i let this uzi on yo ass
line up like you at Safeway
ain't serving til you line up niggas
straighten' that line
don't move nigga
pop dis uzi on that ass
--Marvin X
1/24/18

New book by Gerald Horne, Master historian

The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, and Capitalism in Seventeenth-Century North America and the Caribbean

 

by Gerald Horne

Gerald Horne is John J. and Rebecca Moores Professor of African American History at the University of Houston. A prolific scholar, he has published more than three dozen books, including Confronting Black Jacobins and Race to Revolution, both by Monthly Review Press.

$25.00 – $95.00

Forthcoming in January 2018

Virtually no part of the modern United States—the economy, education, constitutional law, religious institutions, sports, literature, economics, even protest movements—can be understood without first understanding the slavery and dispossession that laid its foundation. To that end, historian Gerald Horne digs deeply into Europe’s colonization of Africa and the New World, when, from Columbus’s arrival until the Civil War, some 13 million Africans and some 5 million Native Americans were forced to build and cultivate a society extolling “liberty and justice for all.” The seventeenth century was, according to Horne, an era when the roots of slavery, white supremacy, and capitalism became inextricably tangled into a complex history involving war and revolts in Europe, England’s conquest of the Scots and Irish, the development of formidable new weaponry able to ensure Europe’s colonial dominance, the rebel merchants of North America who created “these United States,” and the hordes of Europeans whose newfound opportunities in this “free” land amounted to “combat pay” for their efforts as “white” settlers.

Centering his book on the Eastern Seaboard of North America, the Caribbean, Africa, and what is now Great Britain, Horne provides a deeply researched, harrowing account of the apocalyptic loss and misery that likely has no parallel in human history. This is an essential book that will not allow history to be told by the victors. It is especially needed now, in the age of Trump. For it has never been more vital, Horne writes, “to shed light on the contemporary moment wherein it appears that these malevolent forces have received a new lease on life.”

Gerald Horne returns to the scene of the crimes that birthed the modern world. With cinematic flair, he takes us through what at first may appear to be familiar terrain—slavery, dispossession, settler colonialism, the origins of capitalism—but by extending his analytical lens to the entire globe, he delivers a fresh interpretation of the 17th century. His careful attention to European militarism, technology, national and imperial political dynamics disrupt the now common Anglo North American story of the emergence of whiteness, racial slavery, and class consolidation. Thanks to Horne, what Marx once called the ‘secret of primitive accumulation’ is no longer such a secret.

—Robin D. G. Kelley, author, Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination

This is history as it should be done. Acutely perceptive and solidly documented, lucidly presented and uncompromising in its conclusions, The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism reveals the roots of our present socioeconomic nightmare with a force and clarity unrivaled by anything previously available. Gerald Horne, already a leading voice in forging a counterhegemonic understanding of the ‘empire of liberty’ we now inhabit, has truly surpassed himself. This book simply must be read.

—Ward Churchill, author, A Little Matter of Genocide

Gerald Horne strengthens his stature as one of our leading global historians with this ambitious and engaging book. Taking settler colonialism seriously as central to the development of whiteness, he brilliantly situates changes in that tiny part of the 17th century world in what would become the U.S. within far wider worlds of increasingly racialized commodities and cruelties. Among much else Horne demonstrates that colonies were not marginal to capitalism nor to the politics of the colonial powers.

—David Roedgier, University of Kansas; author, Class, Race, And Marxism

Drilling down in the 17th Century Atlantic world made by European colonialism through invasions, occupations, ethnic cleansing, and enslavement of Indigenous Peoples of the Americas and Africa, historian Gerald Horne reveals the roots of white nationalism and capitalism, the pillars of the United States political-economy today. This brilliant, concise monograph is a must-read for all who propose to change the social order.

—Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, author, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States

One of the preeminent global historians of repression and resistance, Gerald Horne has done it again. The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism follows the “three horsemen” that gave rise to the West: slavery, white supremacy, and capitalism. Horne’s erudite look at this seventeenth-century apocalypse brings together the hemispheric struggles of Black and Indigenous peoples for reparations. He shows that transnational solidarity is the greatest foe of settler colonial domination.

—Dan Berger, University of Washington; author, Captive Nation: Black Prison Organizing in the Civil Rights Era

The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism interrogates the roots of white supremacy, enslavement, and racism in the United States. Horne focuses on reconstructing England’s emergence as an empire and the impact of Cromwell’s ‘Glorious Revolution’ on its colonies in the Western Hemisphere in the 17th and early 18th centuries. He notes the ascendancy of the class interests of the ‘surging merchants’ or bourgeoisie in England and their white settler counterparts in the colonies, particularly in North America. The relationship between England’s Caribbean sugar colonies, particularly Jamaica and Barbados, with its settler colonies, is also explored. Horne’s text has relevance for our contemporary political reality and the persistence of settler colonialism ideology, structural racism, and racial capitalism today. His assessment that calls for a ‘massive program of reparations’ from African and Indigenous people to ‘repair immense damage inflicted over centuries’ is provocative and intriguing. The Apocalypse of Setter Colonialism is a must-read for all wishing to understand the historical roots of race oppression in the U.S. today.

—Akinyele Umoja, Professor and Department Chair, Department of African-American Studies, Georgia State University; author, We Will Shoot Back

Gerald Horne’s The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism is a meticulous history of the colonial era, one that opens portals into understanding the power of white nationalism to determine contemporary elections. Horne’s well-researched text maps the evolution of historical cross-class alliances among Europeans and settlers that enabled white voters to consistently choose racial animus over decency. Imperial capitalism, rapacious colonialism, human trade, genocidal wars—all were incubated by the white racism that stabilizes the present order. Apocalypse details how centuries of warfare, greed or need in both the ‘old’ and ‘new’ worlds were resolved by slavery and the spilling of African and Indigenous blood. Despite the efforts of maroonage to stem its rise, a ‘master race’ addicted to a b`ete noire-as-cash crop thrived. Essential reading for those who wish to comprehend how the past led to the violence of the present order, and how best to plot an alternate trajectory.

—Joy James, Williams College; author, Seeking the Beloved Community: A Feminist Race Reader

Praise for Confronting Black Jacobins:

Gerald Horne is one of the great historians of our time. His scholarly erudition is impeccable and his revolutionary fervor is undeniable.

—Cornel West, public intellectual; author, Race Matters

 

today, wed, jan 24, 3pm, rally against racism at oakland whole foods

Shut Down Oakland Whole Foods in Support of Anti-Racism

January 19, 2018 at 12:19 pm.

Posted by LaborSolidarityCommittee

Categories:

 Calendar

 Add to Calendar 

WHEN:

January 24, 2018 @ 3:30 pm – 5:30 pm

WHERE:

Whole Foods
230 Bay Pl
Oakland, CA 94612
USA

 EVENT

NOTE: THIS EVENT WAS MOVED TO WEDNESDAY FROM TUESDAY!! (https://m.facebook.com/events/358126127995640)

The the last two years the Oakland whole Foods store has demonstrated it’s position on race relations, by creating a environment where people of color have been targeted and profiled. Security guards have done everything from physically assault African American individuals resulting in permanent disabilities, to pepper spraying a photojournalist for helping a mentally i’ll man on whole foods property, to racially profiling a young African American teenager as he shopped on their premises. The community is tired of these assaults and demands immediate accountability. We will take a stand!

#SHUTWHOLEFOODSDOWN

Adam Turner was the victim of an unprovoked physical and verbal attack by the Whole Foods security guard. While assisting a man with mental disabilities, Adam was pepper sprayed and called a fucking nigger! A few months before the Adam Turner incident, another North American African male was beaten unconscious by a security guard at the same store. Numerous NA Africans have encountered racism and white supremacy. One AA male employee quit working because he claimed his fellow employees called the NAA customers niggers! It is clear Oakland Whole Foods is a toxic environment for NAA. We therefore call for a rally against this racist environment. We invite the community to stand and demonstrate effectively. We will not tolerate racism in our community.

When: Wednesday, January 24 at 3:30 PM – 5:30 PM PST
Where: Whole Foods Market (Oakland, CA)
230 Bay Pl, Oakland, California 94612

ALL PRESS WELCOME
#FREEDOMOFTHEPRESS
#SHUTDOWNWHOLEFOODS

What to do: Come support Anti-Racism efforts by demonstrating and showing community can impact and disrupt business operations. We will reach national attention to show we will not tolerate any form of racism in out community.

Whole Foods has been attacking folks of color and in the past two years—going as far as attacking and racially profiling two black men, and a young, black teenager in recent reports. Their gentrifying organization must be held accountable for the threat they have posed to our community and it’s time we demonstrate we can reach the top of their organizational structure to show resistance and intolerance to racial terror on any and all fronts.

We will we hold a demonstration in front of the store showing our our stance and position of intolerance for racism in our communities. Please bring any safe objects you have to make noise, signs and bright spirits as we show up for the folks who have become affected and targeted by this racist institution. It is imperative we address racism at the root on all fronts in our communities—especially in recent light of honoring King’s legacy and the path he has helped to pave with his work. We must continue to take action at every level reaching the streets, to circulating though data on social media by addressing and standing for issues we see as matters which affect the lives of many.

Hope to see you all there! Solidarity!

Marvin X: Parable of Black Man/Block Man; Parable of the Rats; Notes on the Mythology of Pussy and Dick

Parable of Black Man/Block Man & Parable of the Rats

When a fool is told a parable, it's meaning must be explained to him.--African proverb

You got black man and block man.

Watch out for block man!

--Sun Ra

There was a black man and a block man, both were black men, but block man had a big block head. He used to stand at the crossroads waiting for black man to come through so he could block him from going in any direction. If black man tried to go east, west, north or south, the playa hatin, jealous, envious block man would cause black man to either stop, stumble or fall.

Sometimes black man would purposely fall because he knew the African proverb that to stumble or fall is only to go forward faster. So after being blocked at one turn, he would fake a fall and go forward on his journey up the hill.

Of course block man would be waiting for him at a pass up the hill and again try to block black man from going farther. But black man, being athletic, was able to leap to the side and gracefully go pass block man.

And even though block man had a lot of friends who were blockheads too, black man had friends in the sun, moon and stars who watched out for him.

Black man had friends in the wind, seas, rivers, trees and all over the earth. So block man didn't have a chance with his evil scheme to block black man. All black man had to do was flow in the flow and make sure he wasn't swimming against the current of the universe, for in the counter flow the block men were waiting patiently for him, sharpening their knives, ready to remove the heart and soul of black man.

So black man planned and block man planned, but black man was the best planner. As long as his mind remained clean and sober, he could see block man coming a mile way.

Parable of the Rats by Marvin X

The rats all have the same gait: they scurry about, back broken by an abundance of lies, half-truths and disinformation, defamation and other tactics of rat behavior. Even their facial expressions have a rat like appearance, so you can see them coming a mile away. You can smell a funky rat. We suspect the two legged variety even has a tail hidden inside their pants or underneath their dresses, yes, there are rats of every gender, every color, class. Some are sewer rats, some are wharf rats, some are subway rats, church rats, house rats. But their behavior is the same. They are on the lower level of humankind, these two legged rats. They can do nothing right. They cannot give justice even with the scale in view while they weigh goods. They will lie while you look at them playing with the scale. They will try to convince you the scale doesn't work while it is their minds that have not evolved to work on the human level.

There is only one thing to do with such rats: set a trap for them or feed them poison cheese and watch them puke and vomit until they die. Better yet, let the cat catch their asses. It is beautiful watching the cat catch a rat, seeing how still the cat will become while stalking his prey. But the cat will lie in wait for the rat as long as it takes, never moving, never batting his eye. And then he leaps upon his prey and devours him. It is a beautiful sight when when the cat and rat game reaches the climax and ends with the consumption of the rat by the cat.
--Marvin X
7/15/15 

Marvin X and student in the Fillmore, San Francisco

 Marvin X and Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf who says, "Marvin X is a wonderful personality!" She gave him a proclamation from the City of Oakland on the 50th Anniversary of the Black Arts Movement.

Poets Amiri Baraka and Marvin X shared a 47 year friendship in black revolutionary arts and politics.
Baraka was more involved that Marvin X yet Marvin not only influenced the Black Arts Movement but
the Black Panther Party, Nation of Islam and Black Studies. He recruited persons like Eldridge Cleaver into the BPP and as per the Nation of Islam, he recruited Nadar Ali (Bobby Jones of Fresno, an educator who became the NOI's Director of Imports.



 Marvin X in heaven, i.e., in the presence of intelligent, berautiful, revolutionary women at Laney College celebration of the Black Arts Movement 50th Anniversary

 Actor Gano Grills as Marvin X; Marvin X and Amiri Baraka (RIP), New Federal Theatre, NY

Customer holding his most provocative  essay Mythology of Pussy and Dick, 2009, an 18 page pamphlet now expanded to a 400 page collection of his writings on male/female relations or psycho-sexuality. According to Oakland poet Paradise Jah Love, "Youth fight over his Mythology of Pussy and Dick as if it were black gold!" Indeed, they steal it from each or simply refuse to return it. As a result, people come back two and three times for another copy, even though Marvin told them, "Don't let your friends steal it!" It is most timely in light of Harvey Weinstein and all the men around the world who have sexually, physically, emotionally and/or verbally abused women and/or children. 

Marvin X was himself an abuser of women and wrote about it years ago in his classic poem Confession of an Ex-wife Beater, his play In the Name of Love (Laney College Theatre, 1981), and the recovery classic docudrama of his Crack addiction and recovery One Day in the Life, performed from coast to coast, e.g., Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, Recovery Theatre, San Francisco; Alice Arts Theatre, Uhuru House Theatre, Oakland; Black Repertory Group Theatre and Berkeley Rep, Berkeley; Sista's Place, Brooklyn, NY, Brecht Forum, Manhattan, NY; Kimako's Blues Theatre, Newark, New Jersey. The dramatic depiction of his last meeting in a West Oakland Crack house with Black Panther Party co-chairman Huey P. Newton was made into a one-act play by Marvin X and Ed Bullins, produced at New York's Federal Theatre by Woody King. On the 2009 national tour of Mythology of Pussy and Dick, Marvin spent a week speaking in classes at Howard University, especially the classes of Dr. Greg Carr and Dr. Tony Medina. "With the ratio of women to men 14 to 1, what do you think is the primary topic of discussion?"

Maestro Marvin X at Oakland's Malcolm X Jazz/Art Festival, accompanied by David Murray and Earle Davis and the Black Arts Movement Poets Choir

Marvin X is known variously as El Muhajir (the migrant), Plato Negro, Rumi, Jeremiah. Alterhough he taught briefly in such academic institutions as Fresno State University, San Francisco State University, University of California Berkeley and San Diego, Mills College, University of Nevada, Reno, Laney and Merritt Colleges and elsewhere, he most enjoys his outdoor classroom known as Academy of da Corner is at 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland, Lakeshore Avenue, Oakland and the Berkeley Flea Market. . Ishmael Reed says, "If you want to learn about motivation and inspiration, don't spend all that money going to workshops and seminars, just go stand at 14th and Broadway and watch Marvin X work. He's Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland!"

Black gods of India like bleaching cream

Dark is divine: What colour are Indian gods and goddesses?

• 21 January 2018

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Image copyrightNARESH NIL

Image captionGoddess Sita is photographed with her twin sons Luv and Kush

In India where light skin is coveted, a new campaign is re-imagining popular Hindu gods and goddesses with a darker skin, writes the BBC's Geeta Pandey in Delhi.

The desire for fairer skin is not new in India and for centuries, fair complexion has been considered superior.

Fairness creams are among the highest selling cosmetic products in the country and top Bollywood actors and actresses regularly appear in commercials endorsing fairness products.

Image copyrightNARESH NIL

Image captionModel Suruthi Periyasamy was "thrilled" when she was chosen to portray Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth

In recent years, creams and gels have been introduced which claim to lighten armpit hair and even female genitals, and advertisements encourage customers to believe that lighter skin tones would help them improve their lives by getting a better job or win them love.

In the past few years, there have been campaigns such as Dark is Beautiful and #unfairandlovely, calling on people to celebrate dark skin.

Yet, the unhealthy obsession with light skin has continued and, as ad filmmaker Bharadwaj Sundar says, it's not just limited to earthly beings, it includes the divine too.

Image captionEven Krishna, who is described as a dark-skinned god in the scriptures, is often shown as fair-skinned

"All the images of the popular gods and goddesses that we see around us, photographs in our home shrines or prayer halls, online, on calendars, stickers and posters in shops and pasted behind auto-rickshaws, all show them to be light-skinned."

In a culture obsessed with fairness, Mr Sundar points out that even Krishna, who is described as a dark-skinned god in the scriptures, is often shown as fair. And so is the elephant-headed Ganesha, even though there are no white elephants in India.

• Has skin whitening in India gone too far?
• #unfairandlovely: A new campaign celebrates dark skin
• Video spoofs India's skin lightening craze

"Everyone here prefers fair skin. But I am a dark-skinned person and all my friends are dark-skinned too. So how do I identify with fair-skinned gods and goddesses?"

To fight this disconnect, Mr Sundar, who is based in the southern city of Chennai, teamed up with photographer Naresh Nil and the two have come up with "Dark is Divine" - a project that portrays gods and goddesses with a darker skin colour.

Image copyrightNARESH NIL

Image captionGod of destruction Shiva is part of the Hindu holy trinity

They recruited "dusky" male and female models, dressed them up as gods and goddesses and shot the campaign images over two days in December and the result is quite stunning.

Model Suruthi Periyasamy told the BBC that she had to face too many rejections in the past "because no-one wanted a dusky model" and that she was "thrilled" when she was chosen to portray Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth.

Image copyrightNARESH NIL

Image captionDurga is almost always portrayed as a fair-skinned goddess

"Lakshmi is the most popular goddess in India, everyone wants a daughter-in-law like her because she brings prosperity so I feel so blessed to be her."

Ms Periyasamy says everyone talks about working with dark-skinned models, but no-one really encourages them. She says she hopes that this campaign will "change the minds of some people to allow us to shine in life".

Since the campaign was launched last month, Mr Sundar says they have received lots of calls and the responses have been largely positive, though some people have accused them of unfair biases, pointing out that goddess Kali is always portrayed as black.

Image copyrightNARESH NIL

Image captionChild Krishna is one of Hinduism's most popular gods

Mr Sundar says he's a devout Hindu and does not mean disrespect to anyone but "if we look around, we find that 99.99% times, the divine is fair-skinned".

"Appearance plays a major role in how we perceive people, especially women, and we felt that this needed to be addressed," he says.

"And through the Dark is Divine project, we are trying to challenge the belief that fair skin is superior."