Marvin X in Concert, A Photo Essay by Adam Turner--additions

Marvin X on The Politics of Sports

Today as we replay the political history of athletes such as Muhammad Ali, Tommy Smith and John Carlos, reincarnated in the persona of Colin and now a host of other brothers who have suddenly awakened to the reality of life in racist, white supremacist America, despite their status as muli-million dollar running dogs for professional athletics, we are not shocked at the response of white America, led by the president who has further inflamed the torch of racism by calling the mostly Black athletes sons of bitches. Oh, shit, that white nationalist motherfucker Trump truly crossed the line of propriety by playing the dozens. Now you know Homey don't play dat, not with sacred holy Mother (Of God).

 

Although Dr. Harry Edwards supposedly pioneered the sociology of sports, Dr. Nathan Hare wrote his PhD at the University of Chicago on Sports, and he was a professional boxer himself. But Dr. Hare was so radical he was kicked out of a Negro college, Howard University, where he lectured on sociology and taught Black Power radical Stokely Carmichael, aka Kwame Toure'; he was partly ousted from Howard for bringing Muhammad Ali to campus after he had refused to fight in Vietnam, after all, Ali said, "The Vietcong never called me a Nigger!" Later, Dr. Nathan Hare, after Howard also found his boxing career unacceptable for one of their academics, landed at San Francisco State College/now University to become the first chair of Black and Ethnic Studies at a major American university, igniting the longest student strike in American academic history.

Today as we replay the political history of athletes such as Muhammad Ali, Tommy Smith and John Carlos, reincarnated in the persona of Colin and now a host of other brothers who have suddenly awakened to the reality of life in racist, white supremacist America, despite their status as muli-million dollar running dogs for professional athletics, we are not shocked at the response of white America, led by the president who has further inflamed the torch of racism by calling the mostly Black athletes sons of bitches. Oh, shit, that white nationalist motherfucker Trump truly crossed the line of propriety by playing the dozens. Now you know Homey don't play dat, not with sacred holy Mother (Of God).

For sure, the politics of American sports has reached a level never seen before, even when Muhammad Ali refused to serve as a running dog for American imperialism or when John and Tommy gave the Black Power salute to protest American racism at the Olympics in Mexico City.

It is indeed wonderful to see the Black athletes unite with the suffering masses of North American Africans. These brothers (and surely their are sister athletes as well) have put their careers on the line for social justice, in the identical manner of Ali, Tommy and John. We salute them and welcome them home.
--Marvin X
9/29/17

Live from Planet Woke by Kwan Booth

Live from Planet Woke

On a morning that was remarkable in no other way, the famous sports star stared into the bathroom mirror, at his own face, and the huge problem hovering above it.

A kinky revolution had sprouted atop his head as he’d slept. A tiny 2 inch afro now stood triumphantly after toppling his closed cropped Caesar like a corrupt regime.

After breaking two sets of clippers and chipping his favorite sheers trying to rid himself of the stubborn scruff he headed down to breakfast, where he lamented to his wife while devouring an egg white omelette.

The news was on. A young woman had been shot by police the night before and there were protests happening all over the country. The famous sports star ignored the journalist’s voice like he always did, but had to call his wife’s name loudly to draw her attention away from the big screen.

He complained about the new edition to his profile and worried that it would be taken the wrong way. Like some kind of political statement or act of defiance.

Indeed this new face, with it’s black power coils, did resemble the pictures of the old activists and rabble rousers he’d seen in the books his wife was always reading. Books with titles that promised of uprisings and critical examinations of things that the famous sports star had either taken for granted or never fully understood.

His wife listened to his concerns, clutching a large mug of tea to her chest and nodding with the attentiveness of a compassionate lover.

She told him that he was overreacting. That it was probably just temporary. And besides, “if some people were rattled by a little something like this,” she said “then those people needed to have their coat tails pulled to the real ways of the world that they were living in.”

The famous sports star trusted his wife and knew that she had a much better grasp on these things. So with a heavy sigh, he pulled his jersey over his head with a bit more difficulty than usual, and headed out to practice, where he avoided questions about his new hairstyle and led the team through their morning routine.

But by the end of the month his mini fro had blown out into a perfect 12 inch sphere and a short beard and goatee had sprouted up to match. He’d begun to resemble some of the men on his father’s side, with their dark oak skin and drawls that stretched clear back to Mississippi. The ones that the god fearing Catholics on his mother’s side didn’t like very much.

And despite the fact that he’d made a point to stay away from the bruising debates on race and sex and oppression that had been igniting all over the country, his new ‘do was taking a political stance for him.

He noticed the new attention whenever he wore a hoodie, stood in elevators with white women or made late night grocery store runs. Not famous sports star attention. But something else entirely.

Once his fro reached two feet in length, certain friends said that they were shocked and slightly dismayed that he’d decided to play the race card. They’d never seen that side of him before.

“We didn’t think you were one of those people” they’d said, shaking their heads and scowling like they’d somehow been betrayed.

At the three feet milestone, photos of the star and his new hairstyle were leaked to the media. Sports commentators and pundits denounced his actions and questioned his allegiances. They fumed. Sport was no place to insert one’s personal political opinions.

By the time his afro topped six feet in circumference, the town where he’d grown up-which happened to have more churches per capita than any city in the United States-was torn in two.

At the local pizza parlor where he used to work-someone painted a Hitler moustache on his portrait, right before someone else covered it in kisses.

One restaurant named a hot dog in his honor on the same day that a lynch mob hung a mannequin with an afro from the Oak tree in front of his mother’s house.

By the time the season rolled around the sport star’s afro was the size of the state of Virginia and there was no way that he could play in his current condition.

Which suited him just fine. At his wife’s encouragement he’d began reading the books that she kept in stacks around the house. And the more he read, the more that the protests erupting across the country started to resonate.

He’d taken to spending the majority of his time with his books and his thoughts and his wife and the growing movement of people who’d begun to gather around him-drawn by the news reports and social media feeds and the buzz that something new was coming.

It was like his hair had it’s own gravitational pull as people from all over the world were drawn to the man with the planet sized afro. Together, under the shade of his curly hair, they’d discuss politics and philosophy and revolution, mapping out a new world that the famous former sports star now knew that he played a part in creating.

The afro ballooned until soon it eclipsed all of the west coast and some of the more adventurous had began to climb to it’s peak, scaling the sides to hike across its wide expanse. Desperate to see the world from a new vantage.

Over time they discovered that the kinky curls were an excellent medium for growing crops. A little digging revealed a network of underground freshwater streams. Carpenters sheared off long planks of the dense tresses to build libraries and schools and more and more like minded people began to join.

The famous former sports star’s wife was elected to oversee the development. Villages began popping up on the hairy horizon, with small houses and customs and names that reflected the values this group of idealists were working towards.

At a press conference, when he was asked about the developing community and what he was hoping to accomplish, the famous former sports star said that he was just doing his part to create the world that we all wanted to see.

“We’re just trying to be our best selves” he said, staring directly into the cameras and the flashing bulbs.

“We believe that it’s time to build a world where that can happen.”

And high above them all the sound of hammers and working drifted down to the press conference. The sounds of children and singing soon followed, as the promise of something better floated just above them all, between the ground and the sky. A new world: huge and living and clearly visible to anyone with the courage to just look up.

This short story previously appeared in the Afrofuturism issue of Chicago Literati

Marvin X on Pimpin' --This Saturday, September 30, Marvin X will perform with Blues singer/Mack Fillmore Slim--they will also have a conversation on The Game!

 

 Marvin X, The Master Hustler, i.e., entrepreneur 

"I made $400.00 a day selling the Homeless newspaper. I can sell toilet paper and come up! The lowest hustler in Harlem will sell toothpicks and come up! All the hustler needs is a product and any product will do. During the Crack era, hustlers sold a book of matches for $5.00, a box of matches for $50.00, especially during tweekers hours, i.e., 3AM in the morning. 

At the 1984 Democratic Party Convention in San Francisco, Marvin X made $2,000.00 per day at the four day event selling buttons.The San Francisco Chronicle labeled him the Button King. He also sold buttons at the Republican Party convention in Dallas, Texas. Observing him selling at the front gate of the convention, a Republican told him, "If you make two more dollars, you'll be a Republican!" A Dallas police officer asked him where he was from?" He replied, "I'm from here!" The officer said, "Naw ya ain't, ya ain't from here!" Marvin retorted, "Why you say that officer?" The officer said, "Cause ya smart!"

Marvin X, Opal Palmer Adisa and Ishmael Reed. On this occasion, Marvin X received the Lifetime Achievement Award from PEN Oakland, a literary society.
photo Wanda Sabir

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, downtown Oakland, and watch Marvin X at work. He's Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland!"

Marvin X is also a Master teacher, well loved by students, such as these University of California, Merced students in Professor Kim McMillan's theatre class where he frequently guest lectures. He's taught at UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, Fresno State University, San Francisco State University, University of Nevada, Reno, Mills College, Laney and Merritt Colleges, and elsewhere. He lectures coast to coast, e.g., University of Chicago, University of Houston, Texas, Texas Southern University,
Morehouse, Spelman colleges in Atlanta, Ga., Howard University, Washington, DC., Temple U and University of Penn, Philadelphia, New York University, NYC., Medgar Evers College, Brooklyn, NY., University of Mass, Boston, etc.

Pimpin'

by Marvin X

I am not a pimp. I am a hustler, sometimes a trick. A hustler waits for no one to bring his money, he gets his own. It is beneath his dignity to wait or depend on a woman or anyone to get his hustle going. All he needs is product, almost anything will do, even a roll of toilet paper he can hustle. But the pimp's thing is women, he considers himself their manager and they consider him the same, usually by mutual agreement, often by torture, kidnapping and exploitation, including mind control, deprivation of sleep, food and isolation.

Having never been a pimp, I cannot speak with total authority, although I have been around pimps off and on my entire life, from growing up on 7th Street in Oakland to hanging with pimps in New York. My brother's claim to fame is pimping. He never desired anything else in life but pimping, as a result his life has been pimping and prison, nothing else. I have been deprived of his brotherly love because of his pimping and prison life.

Many of my friends were pimps, including some of my Muslim brothers who said they made their ho's make salat or prayer before they went out on the stroll. I was around Muslim pimps on the east coast who had their women selling bean pies and whoring to buy Crack.

More recently I had the pleasure of meeting several pimps-in-recovery at my theatre in San Francisco's Tenderloin district when we produced the Black Radical Book Fair in 2004. The pimps included Fillmore Slim, Gansta Brown, Jimmy Starr and Rosebud Bitterdose. They claim to have given up pimpin and have indeed written books and films on the gospel of the game.

In the case of Fillmore Slim, he is still greatly respected as the godfather of pimpin, especially on the West coast. He hooked up with me to see if I could help him get the message to young people that pimpin ain't easy and there's a price to be in the game. If you willing to pay the price, then go for it, but just know you are going to pay. Fillmore paid with several prison terms.

He says these young brothers call themselves pimpin but ain't hardly pimpin, ain't doing nothing but messin up the game. Don't have no style, no class. If you saw the BET awards last night, Prince was the only artist with class, the others looked like bums and derelicts, especially the hip hop brothers. As Fillmore said about young pimps, they don't know how to dress. And he said they most certainly don't know how to treat a lady. They want to beat women. He said they don't understand if they don't beat her, she might come back. They want to kill another nigguh if she runs off with him. This ain't part of the game. Don't be killing people, he said, like you own the woman. You don't own nobody. When she choose you, she with you, when she choose somebody else, let her go. Fillmore said these young nigguhs act like they in love. And keep a night job, he says, because pimpin ain't easy.

Young brothers so close up on the ho a trick can't get to her. And the nigguh look more like a woman than the woman. You don't know who to turn a date with, the pimp or the ho. He got earrings in both ears, blond hair and pants hangin off his behind, living at his mama's house, pimpin on a bicycle. Nigguh please.

 

Pimp like Bush. Get you a real ho like Condi Rice that can ho all over the world, that can serve presidents, prime ministers, generals.The white man is the world's greatest pimp: he pimpin you and yo woman, but you don't have a clue. On BET last night he pimped some of our greatest artists, had them parading as nothing but naked whores.

Nigguh pimps got babies on the street, eleven, twelve and thirteen. What they know about ho'in? They don't know how to put a rubber on a nigguh, let alone give head. They need to be in school. Get their GED. And the pimp needs to go with them to get his. Imagine the social consequences of over a million children dropping out of school each year, over 50% of them. Society, including the school, the religious community and the politicians are responsible for children choosing the pimp life, especially when our nation needs scientists and engineers if we are to have a future beyond pimpin and whoring.

posted 29 June 2006