Unfinished Business: Freeing Ourselves of Racism Forum at All Souls
Tim Wise Sam Anderson
Media Contact: Bernadette Evangelist 646-765-3639
Unitarian Church on Tuesday, May 17 –
AN EVENING TO EXPLORE HARD TRUTHS ABOUT OUR ROLE IN PERPETUATING RACIAL INJUSTICE
New York, April 25, 2016 - In these troubled times of mass incarceration, police brutality and
blatant racism, how can we understand our own racism, examine entitlement, and take a larger
role in creating a truly just society?
Anti-racist educator and author Tim Wise; and activist, teacher, writer and founding member of the Black Panther Party, Sam Anderson, will help explore these issues.
Unfinished Business: Freeing Ourselves of Racism
7 P.M. Tuesday, May 17,
the All Souls Unitarian Church
Lexington Avenue at 80th Street
New York City
There will be reports by some who have been affected by systemic racism. Lurie Daniel Favors, Esq., General Counsel, Center for Law & Social Justice, Medgar Evers College, will moderate
the program.
This extraordinary event is presented by Big Apple Coffee Party, a group of New York City
grass roots activists, and All Souls Peace & Justice Task Force. It is co-sponsored by New
York Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement (CAIC), and Occu-Evolve
(OWS).
For more information, email bigapplecoffeeparty.org
or call 212-252-2619.
Admission is free
Refreshments will be served. Donations appreciated.
Foreword: Sweet Tea/Dirty Rice, New and Selected Poems by Marvin X
By Ayodele Nzinga, MFA, PhD
I
have known Marvin X for decades. We go back to “In the Name of Love”( a
poetic drama, Laney College Theatre, 1981) when he taught theatre at
Laney, and we go forward in the name of love. He is my teacher. A
teacher expands a student’s world, offers them a foundation to grow on
or to push against. It is the duty of a student to learn, to comprehend
and overstand the journey of the teacher.
A teacher can
open doors, mentor and launch you into the world of creativity to carve
your own path. It is an artist's dream to be a part of the inner-circle
of those whose work you admire most. I find myself at the table with
my betters because Marvin X cleared a place for me. Through Marvin I
have met some of the greatest North American African creators of this
or any other time. I have sat with him exchanging ideas with Amiri
Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Ed Bullins, Eugene Redmond, Ishmael Reed, Askia
Toure and other artistic intellectuals and freedom fighters. For that I
am eternally grateful and indebted to pay it forward and hold high the
banner of BAM that gave movement to the world as my standard.
It
is my great honor to offer this foreword to his latest collection of
poetry, Sweet Tea/Dirty Rice. The book is delicious, the work superior,
and the writer at the top of his poetic form. Sweet Tea/Dirty Rice is
raw, beautiful, painful, low-down, funky and uplifting: like hearing Nat
Turner has risen.
Marvin X is the West Coast (actually
bi-coastal) Black Arts Movement Impresario. He is credited with being
the father of Muslim American Literature. He is an icon of the Black
Arts Movement, whose ever growing body of work, belies the end of the
most prolific era in American Literature. X is one of our living
depository on the history of the Black Arts Movement. He should be
recognized as one of the most accessible public intellectuals, noted for
his Plato like open air class rooms called Academy of da Corner at 14th
and Broadway, Lakeshore Avenue,Oakland, and the ASHBY Flea Market,
Berkeley. But he sets up his Academy of da Corner coast to coast. A
young brother from Oakland was shocked to see the poet on the streets of
Philadelphia. Before setting up shop in Brooklyn, he got permission
from the numbers runners on the corner.
The style may
be reminiscent of Plato, but as Ishmael Reed notes in his review The
Sayings of Plato Negro, there is distinct Yoruba flavor to X’s work. He
has been called the Rumi of the USA, compared to Hafiz and Saadi, but
at the end of the day he is himself, a collection of fine points, bright
light and wisdom gleaned from a full life. His philosophy of love,
truth and funk, has made its way into the world view of many travelers
looking for signs of life, proof of humanity, and a reason to carry on
in times that try the soul. I am John Coltrane, a soaring manifesto and a fitting
frame for the sublimity of what follows. Christian Terrorist, an example
of the low down dirty truth promised here; it, like other poems,
scrapes you bare, leaving only the essential right and wrong to deal
with.
Marvin X is lover, assassin, terrorist and
shaman, shining in his divinity and profoundly common, he is with his
genius, and his genius is awake and slaying what you thought poetry
could do. This is poetry for the struggle of finding your humanity,
poetry to go to war with, poetry to love by. Marvin is a poet who writes
with his own blood, shares his dark truth and spiritual enlightenment.
Often
he is the Master teaching what he himself needs to overstand, sometimes
he is the pilgrim dragging us where we have not quite dared to venture,
mostly he is a humanist in deep reflection on the experience of being
human. Don’t read these poems if you don’t want to be saved because you
might catch the holy ghost by accident. The poet has often said if he
were a Christian, he would be a member of the Church of God in Christ or
COGIC. He married and/or partnered spirit filled women, some from
COGIC. There are ample love poems to and about these women in Sweet
Tea/Dirty Rice.
Don’t read these poems for comfort
because some of them will terrify you. Read these poems if your soul is
hungry and you need sustenance. Read these poems if you are terrified of
the dark, for they will comfort you with their black heartened
illumination of real life with its funk and glory behind ‘the black
wall’.
Read these poems if you are black and bruised;
this is a love song for you. If you don’t know, I will tell you, Marvin
X loves Nigguhs. That comes across in his work: a love song for his
Nigguhs, my Niggas, them niggers, and the Negro’s amongst us. It is a
conversation for us, about us, but I don’t think he cares if others
listen. His mother, may she rest in peace, tried to release him of the
burden loving Black folks, but to our great benefit he ignored her. He
writes about that conversation in The Negro Knows Everything, "Marvin,
leave dem Nigguh's alone!..." She also told him, "You don't need dem
Nigguhs, Marvin, dem Nigguhs need you. They just using you! Use the mind
God gave you and leave dem Nigguhs alone!" That’s a Marvin thing, if
you manage to get his attention and you tell him something, it may well
end up in a book. Nothing is safe, nothing is too sacred, and nothing
too profane for Marvin’s pen. Dr. Julia Hare said, "He writes with venom
in his pen. If there was ink in his pen, one could recover, but you
cannot recover from the venom!"
Marvin has poured
himself into Sweet Tea/Dirty Rice and distilled it into a love song for
his people. Marvin is in love with love and I am in love with Sweet Tea/
Dirty Rice. It is a collection of the best of X spanning earlier
collections and riveting new work. Marvin has been declared the finest
of modern revolutionary writers by the most revolutionary writer,
scholar/poet of our time, Amiri Baraka.
I call him my
teacher, mentor, Baba. He watered me when life was a desert and the gift
of my art could have turned to chafe. He gave me the gift of choosing
to become a North American African, a divining rod under which I have
come to understand us, a new tribe here in the belly of the beast, with a
mishmash of customs gleaned from throughout the Diaspora, made whole
cloth in the wilderness of North America, forming the foundation on
which we stand.
Marvin stands on that foundation and
urges us to see clearly, love as if our existence depended upon it, and
reach towards the firmament of American Africanness to organize the
stars in the black space above and around us. That is a call for
expanded consciousness to those who can hear and follow – space is the
place. He, following Sun Ra, transcends some of the shackles that bind
us collectively. He often tells me he is bored to tears here and awaits
a bigger adventure. I am grateful he is still here and that his gift is
as sharp as an old school Harlem hustler’s double edge razor, the kind
that cuts both ways. His work cuts both ways extolling us to a higher
self by addressing our ignorance. He has been instructive in both his
positive contribution of his best mind, in his unparalleled honesty
about his own dark spaces, the embodiment of his flaws, and his unending
reach for his higher self amid the funk of this life.
Sweet
Tea/Dirty Rice is raw, beautiful, painful, low-down and funky,
uplifting like hearing Nat Turner has risen.--from the introduction, Dr.
Ayodele Nzinga, BAM Oakland, founder, Lower Bottom Playaz
He
has always been in the forefront of Pan African writing. Indeed, he is
one of the founders and innovators of the revolutionary school of
African writing.
--Amiri Baraka
Marvin X is the USA’s Rumi...X’s
poems vibrate, whip, love in the most meta- and physical ways
imaginable and un-. He’s got the humor of Pietri, the politics of
Baraka, and the spiritual Muslim grounding that is totally new in
English –- the ecstasy of Hafiz, the wisdom of Saadi.
--Bob Holman, Bowery Poetry Club, New York City
His
love poems will resound as long and as deeply as any love poems ever
written by anyone: Shakespeare, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonia
Sanchez, Maya Angelou.
--Fahizah Alim
...This
is more than poetry--it is singing/song, it is meditation, it is
spirit/flowing/flying, it is blackness celebrated, it is prophecy, it is
life, it is all of these things and more, beyond articulation....
--Johari Amini (Jewel C. Lattimore)
With
respect to Marvin X, I wonder why I am just now hearing about him-I
read Malcolm when I was 12, I read Amiri Baraka and Sonia Sanchez and
others from the BAM in college and graduate school-why is attention not
given to his work in the same places I encountered these other authors?
Declaring Muslim American literature as a field of study is valuable
because recontextualizing it will add another layer of attention to his
incredibly rich body of work.He deserves to be WAY better known than he
is among Muslim Americans and generally, in the world of writing and the
world at large. By we who are younger Muslim American poets, in
particular, Marvin should be honored as our elder, one who is still
kickin, still true to the word!
--Dr. Mohja Kahf, Professor of English and Islamic Literature, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
When
you listen to Tupac Shakur, E-40, Too Short, Master P or any other
rappers out of the Bay Area of Cali, think of Marvin X. He laid the
foundation and gave us the language to express Black male urban
experiences in a lyrical way.
--James G. Spady, Philadelphia New Observer Newspaper
Marvin X
photo Kamau Amen Ra
Contents
I Am John Coltrane
Christian Terrorists
The Negro Knows Everything
Little African Woman
I Am American
Party of Lincoln Sinking
To Mexico With Love
Don't Let My Son Look Like This
Talkin Ignut
What is Love
I Will Go into the City
For the Women
I Don't Want to Know Your Name
I Release You
Funny thing I Already Knew
Fly Like a Hawk
Oh, Mighty Kora
Poem for Unresolved Grief
You Don't Know Me
It is Fine to Dream
If Only You Knew How Beautiful You Are
Wish I could fly like hawk
African Blues Ain't Blue Oh, Mighty Kora Again the Kora Empire
Don't ask, don't take Something is Goin on up in here Post Black Negro Remembering Dad And We Wonder And then there are Angels Cyberspace Dead Memorial Day Dream Time 2 I Am John Coltrane If I Were A Muslim In Good Standing Old Warriors In the Temple of X There Was an Island
A Street Named Rashidah Muhammad (Dessie X) Poem for Clara Muhammad
Prayer for Young Mothers
This
Yes, it’s all there
When I think about the women in my life
Letter to dead negroes in cyberspace
We’re in love but you don’t know me
Growing up
In my solitude, for Duke
A Day we never thought
Mama’s bones
Love is for the beloved
Lesbian
Poem for unresolved grief
Song for Reginald Madpoet
Benazir Bhutto
Dis Ma Hair
Ancestors II
Facing Mt. Kenya
O, Kora, Elegy for John D
Who are these Jews?
For Jerri Jackmon
When Lemmie Died
And then the end
How does it feel to be a nigger
No black fight
Praise song for Askia Toure Bank the Bankers Don't dream bout ma man Ah, air so fresh I Am a Revolutionary Do you want to see me tomorrow Can you feel the spirit My people were never slaves Poem #3 for R Poem #2 for R O, Malcolm X Fathers sing blues too To Egypt with Love Letter to my grandson, Jahmeel Closure Kamau Don't Say Pussy What If Too Funky in Here Same Lover/Different Name Baraka/Blessed Beyond Love Apology to my higher self Let a Million Men March Two Poets in the Park Rain in the Valley Testimony, A Love Song Moment in Paradise How to love a thinking woman How to love a thinking man or Never Love A Poet Ancestors III Remember Shani Baraka When Parents Bury Children In the Name of Love
A scene from Marvin X's BAM classic Flowers for the Trashman, produced by Kim McMillon's theatre students at University of California, Merced. On May 25, 2016, Marvin X will dialogue with her students on art and social activism.
Jose Caballero, 20, far right, a UC Merced management major, leads a
group of actors in a call and response Monday for the rehearsal of the
Voices of the Revolutionary Theatre Collective. The group will perform
two free shows, which feature a number of scenes from plays written
during the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s.
Thaddeus Millertmiller@mercedsunstar.com
By Thaddeus Miller Merced Sun Star
June 30, 2015
UC Merced’s Global Arts Studies Program plans a performance
Thursday to explore the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s,
which performers say speaks about the troubles of today.
A
theater and an arts class at UC Merced have teamed to put on the Voices
of the Revolutionary Theatre Collective, which will offer two free
shows this week.
The first performance is at 11 a.m. at
UC Merced’s Lakireddy Hall, COB Room 102 at the 5200 N. Lake Road
campus. The second show is set at 6 p.m. at Merced Multicultural Center,
645 W. Main St.
The play features 18 actors performing
in 10 scenes snipped from larger works of black writers and those
inspired by black writers, including Marvin X, Amiri Baraka and Sonia
Gutierrez, to name a few. A summer art class pitched in to design the
sets.
“The whole theme is, what are we doing to better the planet?” said Kim McMillon, a local writer and the show’s director.
The
stories are told from the points of view of people of color and feature
people of color as the main characters, performers said, but speak to
the human condition to which all people can relate.
The
show starts with a call and response featuring the whole cast, in which
Nathalie Ortega, 21, a psychology major at UC Merced, puts a call out
to “black people.”
“We’re following up with calling all humanity, because we want to be inclusive as well,” the Bay Area native said.
Ortega
is also featured in Baraka’s “Dutchman,” which explores the main
character’s insecurities about his race, social status and masculine
prowess.
Another performer, 22-year-old Rodolfo Rojo of Los
Angeles, said many of the segments deal with racism and terror that
whites carried out upon people of color in the 1960s, but echoes to
recent tragedies. “We did not actually deal with this,” the management
major said. “We’re seeing it all over again.”
He pointed, as an
example, to the killings of nine people on June 19 at a historically
black church by the hands of a white man in Charleston, S.C. “It’s like
history is repeating itself,” Rojo said.
He is set to perform
“Ballad of Birmingham,” a poem by Dudley Randall that tells the story of
the 1963 bombing of a black church that killed four girls in Alabama.
The
works range in tone and even include satire and comedy. “Git on Board”
by George C. Wolfe satirizes the trans-Atlantic slave trade and American
culture by calling it “Celebrity Slaveship.”
Rhonda Randle, 20, a
psychology major from Oakland, said she wanted a role in “Git on Board”
because it’s a satire about such heavy subject matter. “It’s a
lighthearted way of letting people know what happened,” she said.
The show culminates in the entire cast singing Marvin Gaye’s classic “What’s Going On?”
The performance is aimed at adults and features adult language, so it may not be suitable for children.
For more on the show, email McMillon at kmcmillon@ucmerced.edu.
Read more here: http://www.mercedsunstar.com/news/local/education/uc-merced/article25833373.html#storylink=cpy
Steve McCutchen, left, who joined the party in 1968; Timothy Thompson,
who joined in 1970; Elaine Brown, former chair; Melvin Dickson, who
joined in 1969;
Bobby McCall, who joined in 1970; and Malik Edwards.
As
a high school senior in Sacramento, James Mott cut class to watch the
Black Panthers march into the state Capitol in their leather jackets and
berets, carrying shotguns.
Mott couldn't resist falling in
behind them, and now he is at the front of the line as the Black Panther
Party cranks up to mark its 50th anniversary celebration, beginning
with an all-day symposium Saturday at Laney College. "
The Black
Panthers were the single greatest effort by blacks in the United States
for freedom and self-determination," he said, as keynote speaker for a
news conference Friday at the Oakland Museum of California. The museum
will be the site of a three-day conference on the Panthers that will
take over the entire 7.5-acre museum compound for three days, Oct.
20-23. The symposium will coincide with the museum exhibit "All Power to
the People: Black Panthers at 50," which will include original Panther
berets and rarely seen photographs of day-to-day life among the
Panthers, taken by party members. The marquee item, borrowed from
Stanford, will be the original draft of the Panther "10 Point Platform
and Program" written by hand by party co-founder Bobby Seale. Seale
noticeably absent
Seale, who has written a screenplay about his
life in the Panthers, was noticeably absent from Friday's event. That's
because he is putting on his own 50th anniversary events on behalf of
the National Alumni Association of the Black Panther Party, which he
says will draw more than 200 Panthers to the Bay Area in October. Also
absent was David Hilliard, founding member and chief of staff of the
Panthers. He was on the schedule but called in sick. This left it to
several later members, led by Mott, who now goes by the name Saturu Ned,
67, and Elaine Brown, 73-year-old former chairwoman of the Black
Panther Party. Brown, an activist and one-time presidential candidate,
arrived with her right arm in a sling, the result of a much-publicized
dustup with Oakland City Councilwoman Desley Brooks, in an Oakland soul
food joint. Brown has filed suit against the city and Brooks for $7
million, claiming injuries that required surgery.
Oakland Mayor
Libby Schaaf was on hand for the news conference to claim her own link
to the Panthers. This is based on the fact that Schaaf is also 50 and is
the 50th mayor of Oakland. "Growing up in Oakland with the Black
Panther Party gave me a skeptical eye," Schaaf began her remarks, later
concluding them by declaring October to be Black Panther History Month
in the city of Oakland.
There was no specific event that launched
the Black Panther Party, but the generally agreed-upon date is Oct. 15,
1966. The one person who does not agree on that date is Seale, who was
reached by phone Friday, as his plane landed after a speech at the
University of Oregon. Seale said the founding date was Oct. 22, 1966,
which was his 30th birthday and the day he and the late Huey Newton
finished the "10 Point Platform and Program" for the Black Panther Party
for Self Defense (as it was originally called).
After stopping by Marvin X's
outdoor classroom at 14th and Broadway, downtown
Oakland, Ishmael Reed told the students gathered around
Marvin X, "He's the modern day Plato, teaching his
students on the street." Marvin told the people gathered
in front on DeLauer's bookstore, "Ishmael Reed is my
elder. He's always been supportive of my projects and I
deeply appreciate him for this."
Ishmael had come to the bookstore
/24/7 new stand to get a copy of the Sunday Los
Angeles Times which carried a review of his latest
book. He said the review cut him up as usual. He said
people cut him up for his views on Alice Walker and
other feminists, but according to Ishmael the most
critical review of Walker's Color Purple was by
Toni Morrison.
The people who stop at the open air
classroom include a cross section of Oakland's humanity,
including whites, blacks, youth and elders. David
Glover, director of OCCUR, stopped through to advise
Marvin to be a part of the cultural committee for the
Ron Dellums administration soon to take the reins of
Oakland.
A young sister stopped to say she
was in pain because her friends are being killed on the
streets for no reason. She has vowed not to be a victim
but she is traumatized at the loss of some many friends.
She is 19.
The police officer who works the
beat that includes 14th and Broadway, comes through
picking up litter. Seems a waste of time for the officer
to pick up litter when there are so many unsolved
homicides. The officer is known to post up at 12 o'clock
to listen to Plato talk with his variety of students.
A brother came by to challenge
Plato, telling him he didn't know anything, especially
since he wasn't from the south, New Orleans in
particular. Plato told him New Orleans was as much a
killing floor as Oakland, look at the recent deployment
of National Guard to stop the murders.
Another brother came through and
invited Marvin to speak with youth at a West Oakland
school. He agreed, telling the brother, "I recently
spoke with children at the Black Repertory Group's
summer camp. I was deeply impressed with their
intelligence. They asked serious questions, as serious
as any I've received from college and university
students across the country."
On Sunday, July 30, Plato was given
a book party in Richmond, another Bay Area killing
floor. But the party, hosted by Sister Shukuru, was
probably the most powerful gathering of black
consciousness people in Richmond history. The party was
attended by movement elders and organizers, including
Alona Cliffton, Phil Hutchins of SNCC, Margo Dashiel, Dr. James Garrett,
Dr. J. Vern Cromartie, Jim Lacey, Ann Lynch, Suzzette
Celeste, Richmond poet President Davis representing
conscious hip hop.
Poet Opal Palmer Adisa gave a
reading of her work that was as spicy and hot as a two
dollar pistol in South Philly.
The audience was enraptured by the
musical accompaniment of Elliott Bey Savoy, who backed
Marvin's reading and the audience discussion. A brother
showed a video of himself reading Marvin X's poem The
Origin of Blackness in Venezuela. He read in Spanish,
then English. The poem was originally written in
English/Arabic. Marvin then read an updated version on
the theme of the poem, Black History is World History.
Much thanks to Sister Shukuru, a great organizer,
formerly with Brooklyn's East.
Super poem, even better presentation, combined pure artivity with
authority, plus the environment of my father and self. I cry in joy as I
hear this perfect self expression.--Stevon Williams, actor, singer
Hotep,
On January 19, the Oakland City Council passed legislation establishing
the Black Arts Movement Business District. We thank them, especially
City Council President Lynette McElhaney and Moveon.org. It is time for
the BAM Poets Choir and Arkestra to hit the road to complete the 27 City
BAM Tour ancestor Amiri Baraka suggested to continue our cultural
revolution and united front of progressive people.
That's why I created a petition to Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, which says:
"We call upon Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf to support a benefit concert
for Straight Outta Oakland, The Black Arts Movement 27 City Tour,
featuring the Black Arts Movement Poets Choir and Arkestra. We suggest
the benefit concert happen at the Paramount Theatre with the Oakland
Symphony performing with the BAM Poets Choir and Arkestra. "
Will you sign my petition? Click here to add your name: