Thursday, February 11, 2016

Beyonce' and her girl gang as Black Panthers at Super Bowl

Beyoncé, Media Hype, 2016 Super Bowl Madness

WATCH] Beyonce Falls? Super Bowl Halftime Show Almost Goes Wrong ...

 
Beyonce and her Girl Gang


NB Commentary: I enter this discussion kicking and screaming and swearing to myself that I am not, and I mean, am not gonna fall prey to the hype. But today, I had to come forth with another blog post.  I was compelled by the comments under many of the pictures posted of her and her girl gang at the Super Bowl and how some folks were actually seeing it as a Powerful Movement, a statement about Black Power, a high five to Malcolm X, and the insane indicators of it being an Illuminati ritual. But what really took me to the top of the clock was the actual lyrics, which in no way seem to reflect any of this, in fact quite the contrary. So here I am again, with something to rant on about That!!!

Let me begin my rant with a shout out to Cookie Couture who posted the lyrics to Beyoncé song.
"Thank you for this. You know how you witness something and something inside you goes off and tells you that there is something wrong with this because inside of you, you can feel it going in all kinds of different directions. Well, thanks again, I really appreciate you posting those lyrics!!"
Nowadays, we cannot take lightly the impact of the media. It's in your face in an instant and manipulating you and brainwashing you in the millisecond. Nowadays, it's more dangerous due to the advance technology they can use to grab your brain and do all kinds of trickery with it.
The invention of motion pictures and later television, herald the beginning of an epic age, where the minds of the masses are in the hands of the elite controllers who can massage, manipulate, brainwash and control the narrative to such a degree that people believe that what they see is real and true.
People identify with the character on the screen so much so that they protect them as if they have an intimate relationship with them, all because of what they see on the screen. People project themselves into the personification of a made up image on the screen and it becomes their alters. For that matter, fans are as much MK-Ultra slaves as much as the people they Idolize and Adore. The Cult of Personality has replaced the Gods and Goddesses of ancient times.
The people on the big screen are fallible human beings, but the masses need Gods so they elevate them to the status of "Gods" and defend their "Persona" as if it's real, or actually means anything. The psychological irony of this is that their "Persona" does mean something for the hungry masses, but 99% of them won't use this power for anything other than maintaining the status quo of the Elite Moguls who control them from behind the scenes. Their true creativity is eclipsed by the greed, avarice and debauchery that is the world of celebrity. If they step out of the mold that was designed for them, they will fail or meet a worse fate. Thus the hype is just that, hype, form no substance, yet the impact of such superficiality is as deadly has a thousand poison arrows.
And Now to the Lyrics. You decide, how progressive these are.

What happened at the New Wil’ins?
Bitch, I'm back by popular demand
[Refrain: Beyoncé]
Y'all haters corny with that illuminati mess
Paparazzi, catch my fly, and my cocky fresh
I'm so reckless when I rock my Givenchy dress (stylin')
I'm so possessive so I rock his Roc necklaces
My daddy Alabama, Momma Louisiana
You mix that negro with that Creole make a Texas bama
I like my baby heir with baby hair and afros
I like my negro nose with Jackson Five nostrils
Earned all this money but they never take the country out me
I got a hot sauce in my bag, swag
[Interlude: Messy Mya + Big Freedia]
Oh yeah, baby, oh yeah I, ohhhhh, oh, yes, I like that
I did not come to play with you hoes, haha
I came to slay, bitch
I like cornbreads and collard greens, bitch
Oh, yes, you besta believe it
[Refrain: Beyoncé]
Y'all haters corny with that illuminati mess
Paparazzi, catch my fly, and my cocky fresh
I'm so reckless when I rock my Givenchy dress (stylin')
I'm so possessive so I rock his Roc necklaces
My daddy Alabama, Momma Louisiana
You mix that negro with that Creole make a Texas bama
I like my baby heir with baby hair and afros
I like my negro nose with Jackson Five nostrils
Earned all this money but they never take the country out me
I got a hot sauce in my bag, swag
[Chorus: Beyoncé]
I see it, I want it, I stunt, yellow-bone it
I dream it, I work hard, I grind 'til I own it
I twirl on them haters, albino alligators
El Camino with the seat low, sippin' Cuervo with no chaser
Sometimes I go off (I go off), I go hard (I go hard)
Get what's mine (take what's mine), I'm a star (I'm a star)
Cause I slay (slay), I slay (hey), I slay (okay), I slay (okay)
All day (okay), I slay (okay), I slay (okay), I slay (okay)
We gon' slay (slay), gon' slay (okay), we slay (okay), I slay (okay)
I slay (okay), okay (okay), I slay (okay), okay, okay, okay, okay
Okay, okay, ladies, now let's get in formation, cause I slay
Okay, ladies, now let's get in formation, cause I slay
Prove to me you got some coordination, cause I slay
Slay trick, or you get eliminated
[Verse: Beyoncé]
When he fuck me good I take his ass to Red Lobster, cause I slay
When he fuck me good I take his ass to Red Lobster, cause I slay
If he hit it right, I might take him on a flight on my chopper, cause I slay
Drop him off at the mall, let him buy some J's, let him shop up, cause I slay
I might get your song played on the radio station, cause I slay
I might get your song played on the radio station, cause I slay
You just might be a black Bill Gates in the making, cause I slay
I just might be a black Bill Gates in the making
[Chorus: Beyoncé]
I see it, I want it, I stunt, yellow-bone it
I dream it, I work hard, I grind 'til I own it
I twirl on my haters, albino alligators
El Camino with the seat low, sippin' Cuervo with no chaser
Sometimes I go off (I go off), I go hard (I go hard)
Get what's mine (take what's mine), I'm a star (I'm a star)
Cause I slay (slay), I slay (hey), I slay (okay), I slay (okay)
All day (okay), I slay (okay), I slay (okay), I slay (okay)
We gon' slay (slay), gon' slay (okay), we slay (okay), I slay (okay)
I slay (okay), okay (okay), I slay (okay), okay, okay, okay, okay
Okay, okay, ladies, now let's get in formation, cause I slay
Okay, ladies, now let's get in formation, cause I slay
Prove to me you got some coordination, cause I slay
Slay trick, or you get eliminated
[Bridge: Beyoncé]
Okay, ladies, now let's get in formation, I slay
Okay, ladies, now let's get in formation
You know you that bitch when you cause all this conversation
Always stay gracious, best revenge is your paper
[Outro]
Girl, I hear some thunder

Golly, look at that water, boy, oh lord
AND NEXT,
 TRENDING ON THE OTHER END OF THE MASS MIND CONTROL SCALE
COMES THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE.
BELIEVE IT OR NOT????
FEBRUARY 10, 2016
ARE BEYONCE’S ‘FORMATION’ LYRICS ANTI-COP, PRO-BLACK OR JUST PLAIN PERFECT?
The lyrics and video to Beyonce’s new single “Formation” shouldn’t be surprising to any fans who have been closely following the political leanings of the pop artist and her husband Jay-Z. While the power couple have often tried to keep it quiet, they’ve been huge financial supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement. Last year, activist Dream Hampton revealed that the couple had poured in tens of thousands of dollars in bail money without a second thought when Baltimore and Ferguson protestors were jailed. After those tweets were deleted, he later suggested that they didn’t really want to largely publicize the fact, reported The Guardian.
That attitude seems to be shifting when peering into the video, performance and lyrics behind Beyonce’s “Formation.” Just as she gained accolades for aligning herself with feminism on her 2013 surprise self-titled album, Beyonce has once again recognized the power of pop and the cult of her own artistry to send a message. This time, it’s about the police violence faced by the black community.
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Michelle Alexander: Why Hillary Clinton Doesn't Deserve the Black Vote

Why Hillary Clinton 

Doesn’t Deserve the Black VoteMichelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow

From the crime bill to welfare reform, policies Bill Clinton enacted—and Hillary Clinton supported—decimated black America.

By Michelle Alexander


Hillary Clinton loves black people. And black people love Hillary—or so it seems. Black politicians have lined up in droves to endorse her, eager to prove their loyalty to the Clintons in the hopes that their faithfulness will be remembered and rewarded. Black pastors are opening their church doors, and the Clintons are making themselves comfortably at home once again, engaging effortlessly in all the usual rituals associated with “courting the black vote,” a pursuit that typically begins and ends with Democratic politicians making black people feel liked and taken seriously. Doing something concrete to improve the conditions under which most black people live is generally not required.
Hillary is looking to gain momentum on the campaign trail as the primaries move out of Iowa and New Hampshire and into states like South Carolina, where large pockets of black voters can be found. According to some polls, she leads Bernie Sanders by as much as 60 percent among African Americans. It seems that we—black people—are her winning card, one that Hillary is eager to play.
And it seems we’re eager to get played. Again.

The love affair between black folks and the Clintons has been going on for a long time. It began back in 1992, when Bill Clinton was running for president. He threw on some shades and played the saxophone on The Arsenio Hall Show. It seems silly in retrospect, but many of us fell for that. At a time when a popular slogan was “It’s a black thing, you wouldn’t understand,” Bill Clinton seemed to get us. When Toni Morrison dubbed him our first black president, we nodded our heads. We had our boy in the White House. Or at least we thought we did.

Black voters have been remarkably loyal to the Clintons for more than 25 years. It’s true that we eventually lined up behind Barack Obama in 2008, but it’s a measure of the Clinton allure that Hillary led Obama among black voters until he started winning caucuses and primaries. Now Hillary is running again. This time she’s facing a democratic socialist who promises a political revolution that will bring universal healthcare, a living wage, an end to rampant Wall Street greed, and the dismantling of the vast prison state—many of the same goals that Martin Luther King Jr. championed at the end of his life. Even so, black folks are sticking with the Clinton brand.

What have the Clintons done to earn such devotion? Did they take extreme political risks to defend the rights of African Americans? Did they courageously stand up to right-wing demagoguery about black communities? Did they help usher in a new era of hope and prosperity for neighborhoods devastated by deindustrialization, globalization, and the disappearance of work?
No. Quite the opposite.
* * *
When Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992, urban black communities across America were suffering from economic collapse. Hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs had vanished as factories moved overseas in search of cheaper labor, a new plantation. Globalization and deindustrialization affected workers of all colors but hit African Americans particularly hard. Unemployment rates among young black men had quadrupled as the rate of industrial employment plummeted. Crime rates spiked in inner-city communities that had been dependent on factory jobs, while hopelessness, despair, and crack addiction swept neighborhoods that had once been solidly working-class. Millions of black folks—many of whom had fled Jim Crow segregation in the South with the hope of obtaining decent work in Northern factories—were suddenly trapped in racially segregated, jobless ghettos.

On the campaign trail, Bill Clinton made the economy his top priority and argued persuasively that conservatives were using race to divide the nation and divert attention from the failed economy. In practice, however, he capitulated entirely to the right-wing backlash against the civil-rights movement and embraced former president Ronald Reagan’s agenda on race, crime, welfare, and taxes—ultimately doing more harm to black communities than Reagan ever did.
We should have seen it coming. Back then, Clinton was the standard-bearer for the New Democrats, a group that firmly believed the only way to win back the millions of white voters in the South who had defected to the Republican Party was to adopt the right-wing narrative that black communities ought to be disciplined with harsh punishment rather than coddled with welfare. Reagan had won the presidency by dog-whistling to poor and working-class whites with coded racial appeals: railing against “welfare queens” and criminal “predators” and condemning “big government.” Clinton aimed to win them back, vowing that he would never permit any Republican to be perceived as tougher on crime than he.

Just weeks before the critical New Hampshire primary, Clinton proved his toughness by flying back to Arkansas to oversee the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, a mentally impaired black man who had so little conception of what was about to happen to him that he asked for the dessert from his last meal to be saved for him for later. After the execution, Clinton remarked, “I can be nicked a lot, but no one can say I’m soft on crime.”

Clinton mastered the art of sending mixed cultural messages, appealing to African Americans by belting out “Lift Every Voice and Sing” in black churches, while at the same time signaling to poor and working-class whites that he was willing to be tougher on black communities than Republicans had been.

Clinton was praised for his no-nonsense, pragmatic approach to racial politics. He won the election and appointed a racially diverse cabinet that “looked like America.” He won re-election four years later, and the American economy rebounded. Democrats cheered. The Democratic Party had been saved. The Clintons won. Guess who lost?
* * *
Bill Clinton presided over the largest increase in federal and state prison inmates of any president in American history. Clinton did not declare the War on Crime or the War on Drugs—those wars were declared before Reagan was elected and long before crack hit the streets—but he escalated it beyond what many conservatives had imagined possible. He supported the 100-to-1 sentencing disparity for crack versus powder cocaine, which produced staggering racial injustice in sentencing and boosted funding for drug-law enforcement.

Clinton championed the idea of a federal “three strikes” law in his 1994 State of the Union address and, months later, signed a $30 billion crime bill that created dozens of new federal capital crimes, mandated life sentences for some three-time offenders, and authorized more than $16 billion for state prison grants and the expansion of police forces. The legislation was hailed by mainstream-media outlets as a victory for the Democrats, who “were able to wrest the crime issue from the Republicans and make it their own.”

When Clinton left office in 2001, the United States had the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Human Rights Watch reported that in seven states, African Americans constituted 80 to 90 percent of all drug offenders sent to prison, even though they were no more likely than whites to use or sell illegal drugs. Prison admissions for drug offenses reached a level in 2000 for African Americans more than 26 times the level in 1983. All of the presidents since 1980 have contributed to mass incarceration, but as Equal Justice Initiative founder Bryan Stevenson recently observed, “President Clinton’s tenure was the worst.”

Some might argue that it’s unfair to judge Hillary Clinton for the policies her husband championed years ago. But Hillary wasn’t picking out china while she was first lady. She bravely broke the mold and redefined that job in ways no woman ever had before. She not only campaigned for Bill; she also wielded power and significant influence once he was elected, lobbying for legislation and other measures. That record, and her statements from that era, should be scrutinized. In her support for the 1994 crime bill, for example, she used racially coded rhetoric to cast black children as animals. “They are not just gangs of kids anymore,” she said. “They are often the kinds of kids that are called ‘super-predators.’ No conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first we have to bring them to heel.”

Both Clintons now express regret over the crime bill, and Hillary says she supports criminal-justice reforms to undo some of the damage that was done by her husband’s administration. But on the campaign trail, she continues to invoke the economy and country that Bill Clinton left behind as a legacy she would continue. So what exactly did the Clinton economy look like for black Americans? Taking a hard look at this recent past is about more than just a choice between two candidates. It’s about whether the Democratic Party can finally reckon with what its policies have done to African-American communities, and whether it can redeem itself and rightly earn the loyalty of black voters.
* * *
An oft-repeated myth about the Clinton administration is that although it was overly tough on crime back in the 1990s, at least its policies were good for the economy and for black unemployment rates. The truth is more troubling. As unemployment rates sank to historically low levels for white Americans in the 1990s, the jobless rate among black men in their 20s who didn’t have a college degree rose to its highest level ever. This increase in joblessness was propelled by the skyrocketing incarceration rate.

Why is this not common knowledge? Because government statistics like poverty and unemployment rates do not include incarcerated people. As Harvard sociologist Bruce Western explains: “Much of the optimism about declines in racial inequality and the power of the US model of economic growth is misplaced once we account for the invisible poor, behind the walls of America’s prisons and jails.” When Clinton left office in 2001, the true jobless rate for young, non-college-educated black men (including those behind bars) was 42 percent. This figure was never reported. Instead, the media claimed that unemployment rates for African Americans had fallen to record lows, neglecting to mention that this miracle was possible only because incarceration rates were now at record highs. Young black men weren’t looking for work at high rates during the Clinton era because they were now behind bars—out of sight, out of mind, and no longer counted in poverty and unemployment statistics.

To make matters worse, the federal safety net for poor families was torn to shreds by the Clinton administration in its effort to “end welfare as we know it.” In his 1996 State of the Union address, given during his re-election campaign, Clinton declared that “the era of big government is over” and immediately sought to prove it by dismantling the federal welfare system known as Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC). The welfare-reform legislation that he signed—which Hillary Clinton ardently supported then and characterized as a success as recently as 2008—replaced the federal safety net with a block grant to the states, imposed a five-year lifetime limit on welfare assistance, added work requirements, barred undocumented immigrants from licensed professions, and slashed overall public welfare funding by $54 billion (some was later restored).
Experts and pundits disagree about the true impact of welfare reform, but one thing seems clear: Extreme poverty doubled to 1.5 million in the decade and a half after the law was passed. What is extreme poverty? US households are considered to be in extreme poverty if they are surviving on cash incomes of no more than $2 per person per day in any given month. We tend to think of extreme poverty existing in Third World countries, but here in the United States, shocking numbers of people are struggling to survive on less money per month than many families spend in one evening dining out. Currently, the United States, the richest nation on the planet, has one of the highest child-poverty rates in the developed world.

Despite claims that radical changes in crime and welfare policy were driven by a desire to end big government and save taxpayer dollars, the reality is that the Clinton administration didn’t reduce the amount of money devoted to the management of the urban poor; it changed what the funds would be used for. Billions of dollars were slashed from public-housing and child-welfare budgets and transferred to the mass-incarceration machine. By 1996, the penal budget was twice the amount that had been allocated to food stamps. During Clinton’s tenure, funding for public housing was slashed by $17 billion (a reduction of 61 percent), while funding for corrections was boosted by $19 billion (an increase of 171 percent), according to sociologist Loïc Wacquant “effectively making the construction of prisons the nation’s main housing program for the urban poor.”

Bill Clinton championed discriminatory laws against formerly incarcerated people that have kept millions of Americans locked in a cycle of poverty and desperation. The Clinton administration eliminated Pell grants for prisoners seeking higher education to prepare for their release, supported laws denying federal financial aid to students with drug convictions, and signed legislation imposing a lifetime ban on welfare and food stamps for anyone convicted of a felony drug offense—an exceptionally harsh provision given the racially biased drug war that was raging in inner cities.
Perhaps most alarming, Clinton also made it easier for public-housing agencies to deny shelter to anyone with any sort of criminal history (even an arrest without conviction) and championed the “one strike and you’re out” initiative, which meant that families could be evicted from public housing because one member (or a guest) had committed even a minor offense. People released from prison with no money, no job, and nowhere to go could no longer return home to their loved ones living in federally assisted housing without placing the entire family at risk of eviction. Purging “the criminal element” from public housing played well on the evening news, but no provisions were made for people and families as they were forced out on the street. By the end of Clinton’s presidency, more than half of working-age African-American men in many large urban areas were saddled with criminal records and subject to legalized discrimination in employment, housing, access to education, and basic public benefits—relegated to a permanent second-class status eerily reminiscent of Jim Crow.

It is difficult to overstate the damage that’s been done. Generations have been lost to the prison system; countless families have been torn apart or rendered homeless; and a school-to-prison pipeline has been born that shuttles young people from their decrepit, underfunded schools to brand-new high-tech prisons.
* * *
It didn’t have to be like this. As a nation, we had a choice. Rather than spending billions of dollars constructing a vast new penal system, those billions could have been spent putting young people to work in inner-city communities and investing in their schools so they might have some hope of making the transition from an industrial to a service-based economy. Constructive interventions would have been good not only for African Americans trapped in ghettos, but for blue-collar workers of all colors. At the very least, Democrats could have fought to prevent the further destruction of black communities rather than ratcheting up the wars declared on them.

Of course, it can be said that it’s unfair to criticize the Clintons for punishing black people so harshly, given that many black people were on board with the “get tough” movement too. It is absolutely true that black communities back then were in a state of crisis, and that many black activists and politicians were desperate to get violent offenders off the streets. What is often missed, however, is that most of those black activists and politicians weren’t asking only for toughness. They were also demanding investment in their schools, better housing, jobs programs for young people, economic-stimulus packages, drug treatment on demand, and better access to healthcare. In the end, they wound up with police and prisons. To say that this was what black people wanted is misleading at best.
To be fair, the Clintons now feel bad about how their politics and policies have worked out for black people. Bill says that he “overshot the mark” with his crime policies; and Hillary has put forth a plan to ban racial profiling, eliminate the sentencing disparities between crack and cocaine, and abolish private prisons, among other measures.

But what about a larger agenda that would not just reverse some of the policies adopted during the Clinton era, but would rebuild the communities decimated by them? If you listen closely here, you’ll notice that Hillary Clinton is still singing the same old tune in a slightly different key. She is arguing that we ought not be seduced by Bernie’s rhetoric because we must be “pragmatic,” “face political realities,” and not get tempted to believe that we can fight for economic justice and win. When politicians start telling you that it is “unrealistic” to support candidates who want to build a movement for greater equality, fair wages, universal healthcare, and an end to corporate control of our political system, it’s probably best to leave the room.

This is not an endorsement for Bernie Sanders, who after all voted for the 1994 crime bill. I also tend to agree with Ta-Nehisi Coates that the way the Sanders campaign handled the question of reparations is one of many signs that Bernie doesn’t quite get what’s at stake in serious dialogues about racial justice. He was wrong to dismiss reparations as “divisive,” as though centuries of slavery, segregation, discrimination, ghettoization, and stigmatization aren’t worthy of any specific acknowledgement or remedy.

But recognizing that Bernie, like Hillary, has blurred vision when it comes to race is not the same thing as saying their views are equally problematic. Sanders opposed the 1996 welfare-reform law. He also opposed bank deregulation and the Iraq War, both of which Hillary supported, and both of which have proved disastrous. In short, there is such a thing as a lesser evil, and Hillary is not it.
The biggest problem with Bernie, in the end, is that he’s running as a Democrat—as a member of a political party that not only capitulated to right-wing demagoguery but is now owned and controlled by a relatively small number of millionaires and billionaires. Yes, Sanders has raised millions from small donors, but should he become president, he would also become part of what he has otherwise derided as “the establishment.” Even if Bernie’s racial-justice views evolve, I hold little hope that a political revolution will occur within the Democratic Party without a sustained outside movement forcing truly transformational change. I am inclined to believe that it would be easier to build a new party than to save the Democratic Party from itself.
She may be surprised to discover that the younger generation no longer wants to play her game. Or maybe not. Maybe we’ll all continue to play along and pretend that we don’t know how it will turn out in the end. Hopefully, one day, we’ll muster the courage to join together in a revolutionary movement with people of all colors who believe that basic human rights and economic, racial, and gender justice are not unreasonable, pie-in-the-sky goals. After decades of getting played, the sleeping giant just might wake up, stretch its limbs, and tell both parties: Game over. Move aside. It’s time to reshuffle this deck.



Michelle Alexander Michelle Alexander is a legal scholar, human rights advocate, and author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (The New Press).
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Wednesday, February 10, 2016

WURD Speaks: Black Power Babies

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Thursday March on City Hall for Malonga and Equitable Development

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Donald Trump--the White Man's Last Hurrah!

"Donald Trump is Marvin X rich and white!"
--Elliot Bey, Philadelphia PA

Donald Trump in Univision's black list - Abasto

Donald Trump, the Last White Man


PicMonkey Collage - NY Daily News

 Marvin X and daughter Nefertiti at Oakland's Laney College, 2015
photo Ken Johnson

Marvin X's smart mouth oldest daughter, Nefertiti, told her father after meeting his agent, Peter Howard (RIP), a rich white man,"Dad, Peter is just like you, an intelligent, arrogant bastard!" Enter Donald Trump, another intelligent, arrogant bastard, and rich, unlike Marvin who was described by one of his students as the poorest famous person she'd ever met. For star worshipers, Donald and Marvin are both Gemini, usually known for intelligence and duplicity, multiple personalities, and throw in a little or a lot of narcissism.

Marvin X was born a Black nationalist, i.e., his parents were known as Race people, Blacks who were for their people. If Donald Trump is not a white nationalist, none exists anywhere in the world. Marvin X says, "I'm not mad at Donald Trump for being a white nationalist. Every person should stand and defend their own kind, otherwise they're a sellout. Donald is fighting to preserve the last vestige of white supremacy in America, but the world is already majority non-white and America is on the precipice of becoming the same."

So Donald is like a child in Toys R US fighting for the last toy before a new shipment arrives from, yes, China. He is a dramatic persona with that tragic flaw of arrogance and hubris or overwhelming pride in himself and his people. No other people matter for his vision is warped in dreams of a white Christmas that shall be no more. As many of his brothers are doing, he should consider suicide since, as Baldwin said, "White supremacy has led white people to rationalizations so fantastic it approaches the pathological."

But, no, Donald is a mad warrior who must represent all those white men who cannot understand why their world is coming to an end. And so he is in battle with the shadow on the wall that is not of himself but the breathing world in which he shall exist in name only, for sure not in any dominant position, no matter his military budget, no matter the building of a Chinese style or Israeli style wall to keep out the barbarians. Alas, the barbarians are Donald and his brothers, Vandals who are their own worse enemies and who shall ultimately destroy themselves because they are constitutionally unable to change.

This is the difference between Marvin and Donald. Those who know Marvin know he is a personality in constant transformation, although basically a Black nationalist. Have you seen him embracing the white woman, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf? She supported the creation of Oakland's Black Arts Movement Business District along the 14th Street corridor, downtown. The legislation was pushed through by Lynette McElhaney, President of the City Council. Google Marvin's essay In Search of My Soul Sister, in which he delineates the difference between Condi Rice and Barbara Boxer.

 Marvin X and Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf at Laney College, 2015 BAM 50th Anniversary Celebration
photo Jahahara

 
Marvin X and Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf at opening of Marshawn Lynch's Beast Mode outlet, 2016
photo Troy Williams 

But Marvin realized long ago when he taught in universities and colleges, especially when he had classrooms of mostly white students, a teacher who hates his students is a very sick puppy and he had no intention to be that puppy. He embraced his white students and they embraced him. He could see they needed knowledge and truth to dispel the world of make believe they inherited from their racist parents.

It would be good if Donald Trump, in these Last Days of Whitey, could really become the man he claims to be. For sure, he is trying his best to be brutally honest, a phenomena most of his brothers and sisters cannot phantom. But in his honesty is a plethora of lies and half truths that cannot and will not stand no matter how adamantly he proclaims such antiquated notions of his world of make believe. He will not be able to exterminate those he feels are roaches, simply because there are too many of them and the blow black will be horrific for Donald and his brothers. They may be forced to undergo long term recovery in some facility like Gitmo.

Gitmo: 10 years of injustice and disgrace - CNN.com

Take a good look at wars America is engaged in at this hour: Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. She is losing everywhere, in fact, hasn't won a war since World War II. She's still fighting North Korea, she lost in Vietnam. War! What is is good for? The military industrial complex, the global bloodsuckers of the poor? Imagine, she's been bombing Iraq twenty-five years, Afghanistan sixteen. How long can this go on? And he wants to bomb the hell out of ISIS and take their oil? How can America bomb the hell out of ISIS when she is supplying ISIS? Donald knows the truth so why all the drama to deceive the 99%, the deaf, dumb and blind of America, White, Black, Latino/Latina, Asians and Aboriginal?

He may be bluntly honest but at his core he is delusional, his soul atrophied, as ancestor poet Amiri Baraka wrote in A Black Mass, "Where the soul's print should be there is only a cellulose pouch of disgusting habits."

I may be an intelligent, arrogant bastard, but someone said, "At his best, Marvin X is clarity of perception."

I can see clearly the world of Donald Trump will be, at best, ephemeral. It is good to see he is trying to stand tall and represent the last hope of White American manhood, but it is too late. The condition of the patient is terminal, he cannot be rusticated. So have a good laugh, Donald,  just know he who laughs last, laughs the longest! We are convinced, the suffering masses shall have the last laugh!

My friends are laughing at me this hour. They are mystified that from a tent and table on 14th and Broadway, downtown, I am able to influence the politics of Oakland. How can a man with two dollars demand one billion dollars for his people? But I do so with humility, not arrogance. I heard it said, "Ask and it shall be given."



Marvin X at his Academy of da Corner, in the Black Arts Movement District, 14th and Broadway, down town Oakland. photo Adam Turner

So we wish you well, Donald Trump, your people need your tragic flaws at this hour. Perhaps you can help them realize their flaws as they rejoice in yours.
--Marvin X
2/9/16

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Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Black Arts Movement Poets Choir and Arkestra seeks performance venue for benefit concert for the BAMBD


The Black Arts Movement Poets Choir and Arkestra is now available for concerts benefiting the Black Arts Movement Business District. Please consider inviting us for a benefit concert at your venue. Depending on their schedule, we will be accompanied by YGB, Young, Gifted and Black.

For booking, please call 510-200-4164

 l
 The BAM's multi-talented Kujichagulia
 

The Black Arts Movement Poets Choir and Arkestra, University of California, Merced, 2014

BAM Poets Choir and Arkestra, Malcolm X Jazz/Art Festival, Oakland CA, 2014
photo collage by Adam Turner, BAM graphics designer

BAM poet/organizer Marvin X, David Murray and Earle Davis, Malcolm X Jazz/Art Fest, Oakland
photo Adam Turner

BAM performer Dr. Ayodele Nzinga, poet, playwright, producer, director, actress

BAM Poets Choir and Arkestra members Tureada Mikel, Val Serrant and Tarika Lewis

BAM poet Paradise Jah Love

BAM singer Mechelle LaChaux

Special Guests 
YGB
Young Gifted and Black

For booking, please call 510-200-4164
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BAMBD calls for volunteers




Dear Community:
If you have time to volunteer with the Black Arts Movement Business District, please connect with BAMBD organizer Marvin X: 510-200-4164; email: jmarvinx@yahoo.com. If you need more information, check out the archives of the Oakland Post News Group.org and/or www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com.


We need people with skills in high tech, marketing, communication, advertising, promotion, producing, editing, sales, fund raising, strategic planning, grant writing, finance, vending, archiving, etc. We're also looking for poets, actors, spoken word artists, musicians, visual artists, architects, builders, etc.


If you have any of the above skills and wish to volunteer your time, please send your resume to: jmarvinx@yahoo.com. We will connect with you ASAP.

FYI, the BAMBD is a do for self project. We want to be economically independent at the earliest possible date, not reliant upon government and/or corporate funding. Due to bureaucratic delays and unreliable budgets, we can’t expect government agencies to deliver all our needs. We must organize ourselves and help ourselves. We realize time is of the essence as land and properties in the BAMBD area are rapidly becoming in short supply and yet with every passing minute vital resources such as jobs, housing, performance space, business space is fading into the sunset, not only in the BAMBD but throughout the City.



 Marvin X and Mayor Libby Schaaf. We appreciate the Mayor, but we must do for self! photo 
Troy Williams, Post News Group
 City officials seem caught up in the bureaucratic process and will be hard pressed to deliver the people's needs, although they are responding with abundant resources for developers and those entering the City to gentrify neighborhoods, which means that we should work closely with the newly formed Department of Race and Equity. 

Those who want to see the BAMBD as a thriving cultural and business district must give generously of their talent, time and resources. The time is now!

Left to right: Poet Aries Jordan, Gerry Garzon, Director, Oakland Public Library, BAMBD Planner, Marvin X; Mr. Garzon's assistant, Post News Group Publisher, Paul Cobb, BAMBD Media Specialist, Adam Turner


On the positive, today the BAMBD planners met with Gerry Garzon, Director of the Oakland Public Library. We established a partnership that will allow us to make use of library facilities, establish permanent exhibits, digitize BAMBD archives,discuss acquisition of said archives by the OPL and make the African American Museum/Library more accessible to the public.  

 Sincerely,
Marvin X,
BAMBD Planner 
2/8/16


Council President Lynette McElhaney, Marvin X, Duane Deterville; Middle row: Gerry Garzon (Oakland Public Library), Tureeda Mikell, Jaenal Peterson, Aries Jordan, David McKelvey, Eric Murphy (Joyce Gordon Gallery); Back row: Eric Arnold, Kwesi Wilkerson, Charles Johnson, Alicia Parker (Oakland Planning Department), Shomari Carter (Supervisor Keith Carson's Office). Far right: Elder Paul Cobb, Publisher, Oakland Post News Group. 


Black artists gather at Frank Ogawa/Oscar Grant Plaza in front of Oakland City Hall, prior to full City Council vote that established the Black Arts Movement Business District, January 19, 2016. Front: Khalid Waajid; Amir Aziz, Duane Deterville, Judy Juanita, Eric Arnold, Tureada Mikell, Marvin X, Tarika Lewis, DeMar-con Gipson, Blystk Kmba, Crsna Cox, Jaenal Peterson, Jahaninh Omi Bahari, Janeah Taylor, Yancie Taylor, Tracy Mitchell, Ron Linzie, Dennis X, Wanda Ravernell
photo Adam Turner
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Monday, February 8, 2016

Black Bird Press News & Review: Marvin X- "Black History is World History" (poem written in the 80's)@Fr...

Black Bird Press News & Review: Marvin X- "Black History is World History" (poem written in the 80's)@Fr...
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Black Bird Press News & Review: Marvin X- "Black History is World History" (poem written in the 80's)@Fr...

Black Bird Press News & Review: Marvin X- "Black History is World History" (poem written in the 80's)@Fr...
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BAMBD supports rally for Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts


In solidarity with artists from the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts, Community Rejuvenation Project, the Chinatown Coalition, local residents and businesses — have launched a petition to Maria Poncel of Bay Development to demand mitigation and community givebacks from the 16-story market-rate housing development of the parking lot at 250 14th Street.

On February 3rd, the Planning Commission gave away millions of dollars in value to Bay Development, without ensuring the community's needs were met and mitigating negative impacts on the Malonga Center and the covering up of the community mural above uplifting Oakland's artists and history.

A rally will be held on Thursday, February 11, beginning at 11:30 AM at the parking lot at 14th and Alice and marching to City Hall (you can meet us there at 12pm for a brief rally) to file the appeal, and to demand that Mayor Libby Schaaf and City Council overturn the decision until the community's demands are met:

1) Finance or fundraise 100% of replacement mural costs.

2) Dedicate the ground floor of the parking garage to Malonga Arts Center staff and patrons, to support the continued flourishing of this city treasure at the heart of the newly designated Black Arts Movement Cultural and Business District.

3) Make at least 15-28% of the units affordable to families earning less than $64,000, as the Lake Merritt Specific Plan calls for. That means setting rent at $1,600 or below for at least 18 of the 126 units.

In addition, the community has started a GoFundMe campaign to raise the funds to appeal the Oakland Planning Commission’s approval of the development: https://www.gofundme.com/xyn67r9t

Sign & share the petition: https://www.change.org/p/bay-development-build-real-community-benefits

We are also demanding that Mayor Schaaf and City Administrator Sabrina Landreth fire the Planning Director Rachel Flynn (who denies there is a housing crisis in Oakland & is fast-tracking gentrification) and reform the Planning Department by replacing planning staff and Planning Commissioners with people who care more about residents than developers.

Please join us and invite your friends.
The bigger the signs the better, and bring your instruments to make some noise!

#KeepOaklandCreative #HousingJustice
 
 
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Sunday, February 7, 2016

THE AFRICAN MOORS IN SPAIN

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BBC's "Islamic History of Europe" and "Science and Islam"

BBC's  "Islamic History of Europe" and "Science and Islam"
by Heather Gray

In addition to the excellent documentary "When the Moors (Muslims) Ruled in Europe" I  recently shared (see note below from reader), there are other exemplary contemporary productions about Islam by the BBC and they are the following: the "Islamic History of Europe" that offers an intellectual history of Islamic contributions in Europe; and the three part series "Science and Islam". They are well worth watching and are posted below:

Islamic History of Europe

BBC Science and Islam 1 - The Language of Science


BBC Science and Islam 2 - The Empire of Reason


BBC Science and Islam 3 -
Discovering The Great Works of Islamic Astronomers



Note from a reader that is much appreciated

A reader kindly sent an email and I thank him for the correction and additional information about "Bettany" Hughes who produced the video "When the Moors Ruled in Europe". He makes reference to a message he found when going to this link on YouTube:  "video contains content from Channel 4 (in Britain), who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds". I, however, received no such note on YouTube and found that 753,043 have watched the video. Nevertheless, I do find this notification about copyright on many other videos on YouTube and of necessity I am, of course, attentive to the issue. If any others of you did find such a note about the Bettany Hughes video please let me know. Also, this film can be found in other places such as, for one, Top Documentary Films.

He also kindly sent further explanation about  copyright issues and that "there has always been incompatibility between the UK and the USA, for as long as I can remember, back to the mid-1960s." Regarding Bettany Hughes, he offers the following additional information:
Hello, Heather
"Brittany Hughes" is in fact BETTANY. Her own Page is: http://www.bettanyhughes.co.uk/ There is good information at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bettany_Hughes from which you will see that she is a prolific and highly regarded writer and broadcaster.
Another note from a reader:
I am somewhat familiar with the history of the Muslim presence in Europe and also somewhat astonished by how it has been ignored by the American and perhaps also the Europeans. Their access to the Muslim libraries was the basis of the Renaissance and also the "discovery of the New World".  Thanks for sharing!
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The Third Crusade: Saladin & Richard the Lionheart Documentary

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Black Bird Press News & Review: Film Screening: Black Panthers, Vanguard of the Revolution

Black Bird Press News & Review: Film Screening: Black Panthers, Vanguard of the Revolution
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When the Moors (Muslims) Ruled Europe: Documentary (full)

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