Hustler's Guide to the Game Called LIfe

Coming Soon from Black Bird Press

Hustler’s Guide to the Game

Called Life

Volume II, the Wisdom of Plato Negro

Marvin X

Contents

Parable of Value

Parable of Plato Negro’s Republic of North American Africans

Plato Negro’s Republic and Morality

Plato Negro’s Republic, Newark: A Case Study

Parable of Leave Me ‘Lone

Parable of a Nigguh

Parable of Slow Dance on the Killing Floor

Parable of the Demons

Parable of Solutions

Parable of Da Corner

Parable of Lord Have Mercy

Parable of Jazz

Parable of Nigguh Please!

Parable of Helen Thomas

Parable of Parental Partiality

Parable of the Gaza Concentration Camp

Parable of the Wannabe Actor, Part II

Parable of Women without Men

Parable of Trinkets and Gadgets

Parable of the Man who could Write

Parable of the Man Who Talked to No One

Parable of the Man Who Fell

Parable of the Negro as Terrorist

Parable of the White Woman

Parable of the Dying White Man

Parable of the Tour

Parable of the Mike

Parable of the Reader’s Theatre

Parable of Stormy Weather

Parable of Ancestor Coretta Scott King

Parable of the Religious Haters

Parable of the Poet

Parable of the Oakland Pigs

Parable of Walter Riley

Parable of Oakland’s Day of Absence

Parable of I am Oscar Grant

Parable of Oakland at the Precipice

Parable of the Angel

Parable of Living in the Last Days

Parable of the San Francisco Negro

Parable of the Death and Resurrection of a City

Parable of the Spider

Parable of July 4, 1910

Parable of a beautiful day in the Bay

Parable of a City Traumatized

Parable of Oakland Police Riot

Parable of the Father who lost two Sons

Parable of I Shot the Sheriff

Parable of the Wannabe Actor

Parable of the Letter

Parable of the Moment

Fable of the horse, cow and bull

Parable of Prayer

Parable of the Death Angel

Parable of Pain

Parable of Malcolm’s Killer

Parable of the Immigrant

Parable of Bitch Led Nigguhs

Parable of the Neo-Haitian Revolution

Parable of the Butt Kickers

Parable of the Penguin

Parable of the Catholic Church

Parable of the Poetic Victory

Parable of how to stop killing in the Pan African hood

Platonic Negro Dialogue on the Poetic Mission

Parable of Woman Stoned to Death

Parable of Bobby Seale’s 73^rd Birthday

Parable of Mythology of Pussy and Dick Hits Mississippi

Parable of Mythology of Pussy and Dick Hits Howard University

Parable of Mythology of Pussy and Dick at Howard University, Final Notes

Parable to the Common People of Oakland

Parable of a Pan African Love

Parable of Harlem’s Celebration of Amiri Baraka’s 75th

Parable of Nisa Ra on Mythology of Pussy

Parable of Plato Negro’s Great Grandfather

Parable of Fahizah Alim

Parable of You Don’t Know Me!

Parable of Mythology as Hottest Book in Oakland

Black Bird Press, 2010

1222 Dwight Way

Berkeley Ca 94702

300 pages

$100.00

Order now, pre-publication discount less 40%

Wisdom of Plato Negro in San Francisco Theatre Festival

Sunday, August 8, The Academy of Da Corner Reader's Theatre will perform parables from the Wisdom of Plato Negro at the San Francisco Theatre Festival, Yebra Buena Center, 3rd and Mission, downtown San Francisco. Performers include Rashidah Sabreen, music, Raynetta Rayzetta, choreography/dance, Paradise, reader, Talibah, reader, Valarie Harvey, reader,

Mechelle LaChaux, reader/singer.

Marvin X Calls for Black Arts West Theatre Festival

Marvin X Calls Black Arts West Theatre Festival
Marvin X, godfather of the West Coast Black Arts Movement, is calling a Black Arts West Theatre Festival in honor of Lorraine Hansberry Theatre founders Stanley E. Williams and Quentin Easter, also in honor of Margo Norman, who transitioned recently. Margo performed in the plays of Ed Bullins shortly before he hooked up with Marvin X to establish Black Arts West Theatre in San Francisco's Fillmore District.

Before Black Arts West came on the scene, there was Aldridge Players West, with Adam David Miller, et al. After Black Arts West, there was John Doyle's Grassroots theatre and Michael Cattlett's theatre.

And then came the Lorraine Hansberry. In 1972, Marvin X established Black Educational Theatre in the Fillmore, and in the late 90s, Recovery Theatre in the Tenderloin and throughout the Bay and Northern California. His play One Day in the Life is the longest running play in the history of North American Africans in Northern California. It ran from the late 90s into the new millennium.

Other theatres came and went, and few were able to survive on the meager budgets grant agencies doled out. The Lorraine Hansberry was the exception, partly because of their non-political stance as per the cultural revolution. But when they produced a performance of Marvin X's One Day in the Life, they transcended the apolitical. They'd also produced a work on the Black Panther Party, along with their signature work of August Wilson.

No matter the politics of Stanley and Quentin, and for that matter August Wilson, Marvin X considers them comrades in the arts. Any black artist with an iota of consciousness is all right with me. Actually, I appreciate artists period! Of course I appreciate revolutionary arts even more. But any black artists must have some degree of radical consciousness since he must confront and submit himself to the art of Western mythology.

Even the Lorraine Hansberry theatre brothers told Marvin X, "Marvin, the Black bourgeoisie would like to support you, but they cannot accept your language, if you could only alter your language they will support you." But when Marvin X submitted to the black bourgeoisie request, they did not accept his B script. Even Quentin Easter cried, "Marvin, you have taken all the chocolate out the milk!"

Marvin recalls one night at the Lorraine Hansberry: "The theatre was packed to overflow. Actually, when Stanley came he said, oh, no, this is a fire hazzard! People were seated on the stage."

Usually, I would go into the audience during my monologue, but not this night, the audience was seated onstage for lack of seats. They were from recovery programs from throughout the Bay Area. The Theatre District was horrified when all these recovering addicts took intermission on Sutter Street in the midst of the theatre district.

But more than this, Dr. William H. Grier was in the house. For those who don't know, Dr. William H. Grier is the co-author of Black Rage, the classic psychological study of North American Africans in the 60s. One of his sons is David Allen Grier, but his son Geoffery was playing the role of Black Panther c0-founder Huey P. Newton in my play One Day in the Life.

In truth, Geoffery was never able to match the psychopathic personality of Huey Hewton. Even though Geoffery had been a Crack fiend with me in San Francisco's Tenderloin District, he found it difficult to match the psychopathology of Huey Newton.

But Dr. Grier, being the psychiatrist he was, asked me how I was feeling before the play began.
I responded with a statement that didn't hardly satisfy the doctor. He told his son Geoferry, "I don't know what's wrong with Marvin. He has Mayor Willie Brown introducing his play. He has a packed house. He has a Jaguar car packed outside, yet he's singing the blues."

Dr. Grier, it's called Divine Discontent. In ghetto language, it's called an ungrateful bastard.

No matter, let us put together a Black Arts West Theatre Festival in honor of Stanley Williams, Quentin Easter and Margo Norman, now ancestors in the Black Theatre Movement. Of course, we can never forget Nora Vaughn and her Berkeley Black Repertory Group Theatre.
--Marvin X
7,11,10

Marvin X in SF Theatre Festival

Marvin X in SF Theatre Festival
Marvin X will perform at the San Francisco Theatre Festival, Sunday, August, 8tl, at the Yerba Buena Center, 4th and Mission Streets, San Francisco. Marvin X will performs readings from his book The Wisdom of Plato Negro, Parables/fables. He will be accompanied by Rashidah Sabreen on guitar, choreography by Raynetta Razetta, Linda Johnson, and readings by Paradise, Hunia, Ayo Dele Nzingha and Marvin X.

Stop War on Iran

Take Action Now!

• Sign the Petition - http://www.stopwaro niran.org/ petition. shtml
• Make an Emergency Donation to help with organizing expenses - http://stopwaronira n.org/donate. shtml
• Link to us - http://stopwaronira n.org/link. html

July 1, 2010

PROVOCATIONS AND WAR THREATS AGAINST IRAN:
IS WAR IMMINENT?

In the final two weeks of June we have seen a number of serious developments in the Middle East involving the United States, Israel, and the Islamic Republic of Iran. While almost completely ignored by the U.S. mainstream press, there is considerable alarm around the world and especially in the Middle East. Some of these developments are unprecedented and could denote a sharp escalation in the U.S./NATO and Israeli campaign against Iran, or even all-out war.

Anti-war and progressive people and organizations should note the following:

* On June 18, a U.S. naval carrier group, reportedly accompanied by at least one Israeli vessel, passed through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea and toward the Persian Gulf. The Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Force, , included and aircraft carrier, guided missile cruiser, Aegis-class destroyers and the German frigate GGS Hessen.

*According to Iran's Fars New Agency, the Israeli Air Force recently unloaded military equipment at a Saudi Arabia base near the city of Tabuk.. Even more ominously, the Saudi's are reported to have realigned their missile defense system to allow for an air corridor for Israeli planes in the event of a war with Iran.

* U.S. forces stationed in the Central Asian country of Azerbaijan have massed along the Iran/Azerbaijani border. The U.S. forces, which are part of the so-called war on terror, are supposed to be supporting the war in Afghanistan. Iranian revolutionary guards have called in tanks and anti-aircraft units to the area in what amounts to a war alert.

* On July 1, President Barack Obama signed an agreement negotiated in the U.N Security Council stepping up sanctions on Iran and its economy. However, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) publicly worried that China may undercut the sanctions.

* On June 28, Iran announced that it would not challenge the Israeli blockade of Gaza at this time. An Iranian flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian aid and flying the Red Crescent, the Islamic equivalent of the Red Cross, was en route to Gaza accompanied by Iranian naval vessels. The expedition reportedly had the diplomatic support of both Russia and Turkey.

* Yesterday, June 30, Ali Akbar Salehi, the Islamic Republic's vice president and director of the nuclear program, announced that Iran has produced another 37 pounds of uranium enriched to 20 percent. Iran has a right to do this under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty which it signed (and the Israelis have not signed). Iran maintains that their nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. Significantly, the 20 percent level is far below the level needed to produce a nuclear weapon.

* There has been speculation that if the U.S. and NATO attempt to inspect Iranian ships in order to enforce the new sanctions, the resulting confrontation may lead to war.

* Among the world leaders who have issued strong warnings about U.S. intentions is Fidel Castro, who certainly knows what it is like to have your country threatened with military attack, including with nuclear weapons. In his published Reflections on June 27, he stressed the importance of the Cuban people, and progressives everywhere to be prepared to respond, even to the most horrendous catastrophe, which could be the outcome of a U.S.-Israeli war against Iran: "What would be [the worst] is to suddenly be made aware of news of serious events, without having heard any news whatsoever beforehand about such possibilities, thereby falling into confusion and panic...."

Much analysis is no doubt necessary to determine the seriousness of the above developments. It should be remembered, that almost all large military operations in this era require months, if not years, of meticulous planning. The fact that the Pentagon has not chosen to reveal their plans to the mainstream media does not mean that such plans do not exist. However, the most immediate task of anti-war and anti-imperialists around the world is to to respond quickly to these provocations emanating from Washington and prepare to resist any and all attempts to make war on Iran.

Take Action Now!

• Sign the Petition - http://www.stopwaro niran.org/ petition. shtml
• Make an Emergency Donation to help with organizing expenses - http://stopwaronira n.org/donate. shtml
• Link to us - http://stopwaronira n.org/link. html

More on Oscar Grant

More on Oscar Grant

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – JUNE 30^TH, 2010

Contact: Tony Coleman, Rachel Jackson

(510) 225-4083 or info@oaklandforjustice.org

OAKLAND ORGANIZERS DEFEND RIGHT TO ASSEMBLE AFTER MEHSERLE VERDICT

WHO: Oakland General Assembly for Justice for Oscar Grant

WHAT: Press Conference

WHEN: Thursday, July 1st, 11:00 AM

WHERE: 14th & Broadway, Oakland (at the flag poles in Frank Ogawa Plaza )

As the Mehserle murder trial verdict draws near, Oakland community organizers fear that the Mayor and Oakland Police Department’s contradictory actions will hinder the exercise of First Amendment rights. Officials claim to support free speech, while video of heavily armed officers – marching in military formation, swinging batons on peaceful mock-protesters, and preparing pepper spray, tear gas, and tanks – sends the opposite message: that protestors will be brutalized, for the “crime” of protesting police brutality.

Despite this intimidation, the Oakland Assembly for Justice for Oscar Grant and all victims of police abuse, supports the call for a community gathering at the intersection of 14th Street and Broadway in Oakland , 6pm, the day the verdict is announced.

Tony Coleman of OneFam raises key questions, “After years of cuts to youth services, now the City can pay for PSA’s and pay outreach workers to say that Oakland officials love young people? Where was funding or action against police abuse last year, when Dellums told protesters he ‘was too busy,’ to comment on the shooting of Oscar Grant? And why are gang-prevention officers high on the list of officers to be cut from the OPD? This is hypocrisy, and it’s way too little, way too late.”

“The police are out of control in California and beyond, from Seattle to Detroit to New York , and it’s past time for Obama to step up,” says Rachel Jackson of the New Years Movement for Justice. “Despite the hype, there are no ‘outside agitators’ when a problem is nationwide. The ‘outsiders’ are officers who don’t live in cities they patrol, would never send their children to Oakland schools, and believe the solution to crime is to pack prisons with non-violent offenders.”

Hannibal Shakur from the Laney Black Student Union drives the point home: “I get targeted by the police regularly, including for the ‘crime’ of documenting police abuse on video. It’s offensive and condescending to imply that young black men need ‘outsiders’ to tell us how to respond to racism.”

Regardless of the Mehserle verdict, police violence must stop. At this historical moment, the Oakland Assembly urges us to look to each other for healing and solutions to community problems. The Oakland Assembly for Justice will facilitate a youth-focused program to express and process emotions our on the day of the verdict, in a space where our voices will be heard.

RALLY * OPEN MIC * SPOKEN WORD * YOUTH SPEAK OUT!

Day of the Verdict – Community Gathering – 14th & Broadway, 6pm

The Oakland General Assembly for Justice for Oscar Grant is a grassroots coalition of concerned citizens working with statewide partners to stop the epidemic of police abuse. For more information, see www.oaklandforjustice.org.

From: "Brooks, Desley" <DBrooks@oaklandnet.com>
Date: June 30, 2010 1:07:02 PM PDT
To: "Brooks, Desley" <DBrooks@oaklandnet.com>
Subject: Press Release from the Black Electeds and Clergy of the East Bay.

Contact: Desley Brooks (510) 238-7006

Keith Carson (510) 272-6695

For Immediate Release

Black Elected Officials and Clergy of the Eastbay’s statement regarding Upcoming Oscar Grant Verdict

An Open Letter to the Community:

Within the next couple of days and/or weeks there will be a verdict in the Oscar Grant case. This case has struck a nerve in Oakland and around the world. In anticipation of the verdict the Black Elected Officials and Clergy of the Eastbay wanted to share some information with our community.

Representatives of our organization have been monitoring this case since Oscar Grant was senselessly murdered by Johannes Mehserle on January 1, 2009. We demanded that a reluctant District Attorney file criminal proceedings against Mehserle; we helped to organize community pressure on BART to bring about organizational change and implementation of polices and procedures to ensure that a tragedy like this never happens again; we have attended all of the court proceedings; and most importantly we have demanded justice for Oscar Grant, his family and everyone that Oscar represents – because we all could be Oscar Grant.

A community needs to know that its leadership will stand to protect their interests. While we are hopeful that our Justice System will be just; we are mindful of incidences where it has failed us. When the system failed us in the Rodney King case, the Justice Department stepped in to ensure that the Community’s interests were protected. We, the Black Elected Officials and Clergy of the Eastbay, stand prepared to call upon all State and Federal agencies to seek any and all recourse if an unjust verdict is rendered in this case.

We know that emotions may run high depending on the outcome of Johannes Mehserle’s criminal proceedings. The current State Court proceedings are just one step on the road to justice for Oscar Grant. As such, we are asking that you work with us to shut down anyone who would engage in destructive behavior in our community. We are also asking that you work with us as we continue to demand justice for Oscar. We have been assured that the Justice Department is monitoring the Mehserle case.

Martin Luther King said that peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice. In the same vein as Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Rodney King, and many others we will receive JUSTICE FOR OSCAR GRANT.

The struggle continues,

Hon. Desley Brooks

Hon. Keith Carson

Minister Keith Muhammad

Rev. Dr. Harold R. Mayberry

Rev. Zachary Carey

Hon. Darleen Brooks

Hon. Kathy Neal

Hon. Marlon McWilson

Bishop Keith Clark

Rev. Dr. Kevin Barnes

Hon. Darryl Moore

Hon. Alice Spearman

Partial listing

Desley Brooks

Oakland City Council Member, District 6

City Hall

1 Frank Ogawa Plaza, 2nd Floor

Oakland, CA 94612

(510) 238-7006 (office)

(510) 986-2650 (facsimile)

dbrooks@oaklandnet.com

Keep Making A Difference -- Pay It Forward!

Parable of Oakland Police Riot

Parable of Oakland Police Riot


The Oakland Police are planning to riot. This is the community consensus based on conversations at the crossroads. They shall be waiting for the crowd to gather in front of City Hall after the verdict is announced in the Oscar Grant murder trial. The consensus among the people is that the BART police officer shall not be found guilty of murder. The prosecution has been weak as water, with no real effort to convince the jury Oscar Grant was murdered in cold blood last New Year's day.

Oakland police have been planning for weeks how they will handle the expected protests. They have been training in riot control, the old condemned North County jail has been prepared to handle protesters. Even the jail above City Hall has been made ready. All downtown businesses have been told to close early on Thursday and don't leave cars parked in the downtown area.

OPD Chief Bates says he wants peace but is prepared for war. Mayor Dellums concurs. The religious leaders, aka Pharaoh's magicians, are in league with the police to keeps the masses calm.

Yet the consensus among the people is that, if anything, it shall be a police inspired riot, instigated by agent provocateurs, Cointelpro agents and undercover police. The police want a riot so they can justify not getting laid off, having their budget cut and forced to contribute to their retirement fund. A good riot will make them eligible for Federal funds such as gang abatement monies and other grants from criminal justice and Homeland security.

So the OPD is ready to whup heads and slaughter demonstrators after they are instigated by agent provocateurs.

As far as we're concerned, justice for Oscar Grant was granted by Louvelle Mixon. Dr. Fritz Pointer said Mixon's shootout with the OPD allowed the Oakland masses to enjoy an "obscene pride" after years of police abuse under the color of law.

We are against all violence except in self defense. When the police stop acting like an occupying army and understand they work for the people and not the reverse, perhaps then, and only then, shall there be real peace in the hood.

The Supreme Court's decision to allow Americans to defend themselves with guns must be understood by reading the subtext: let them niggers keep killing each other, so long as they don't cross the line into the white community. If they cross the line, we're ready for them.

We know who sells guns to the brothers and sisters in the hood, and we know who allows the dope in. We cannot disassociate guns and drugs from politicians and developers who are eager to gentrify ghetto neighborhoods with buppies , yuppies and puppies. They will employ such tactics as gang abatement and eminent domain to ethnically cleanse the hood for the pseudo liberal black and white bourgeoisie.

A friend attended a gang abatement meeting full of whites. He wondered aloud where are the guys who are targets of gang abatement? Four of them were in jail and two others are home owners who must now stay one hundred blocks from their homes.

We cannot view this problem solely in a local context, but it must be seen within the wider context of the global wars against the poor in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere. Through the tribal chiefs, America paid insurgents in Iraq to lay down their arms--that was the real surge, not the phony surge of General Patraeus, that was essentially the ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods in Baghdad, separating the Sunnia from the Shia by in numerous checkpoints, along with forcing four million internally and externally displaced refugees. In the most restive Anbar Province, Sunni insurgents were paid to lay down their arms and join the security patrols in their neighborhoods. This is the reason for the dramatic decrease in violence.

They are employing the same tactic in Afghanistan. The plan is to pay the Taliban billions to lay down their arms and pledge allegiance to the corrupt Karzai who is hardly the president of a nation but the Mayor of Kabul, the Capital. The Taliban shall be given jobs, housing and education.

Isn't this fantastic! Jobs, housing and education! Why not try this tactic in the hoods of America, specifically in Oakland, Mayor Ron Dellums, OPD Chief Bates, Attorney General Holder, President Barack Hussein Obama. But oh, no, you rather pay the Taliban because they are a threat to your national security, although there is more violence in the hoods of America annually than the combined violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

Is not the violence in the hoods of America a threat to national security? Children can't go to school, men and women can't go to work and come home safely, worshippers can't attend church, the elderly are prisoners in their homes in the day and night. Where is the national security?

It is costing you one million dollars per soldier per year to occupy Afghanistan, yet you have not reported the killing of one Al Queda soldier on the soil of Afghanistan. And then you say you must stay in Afghanistant until you improve the army who is so illiterate they are too retarded to defend themselves, yet these are the people who ran out Alexander the Great, the Monguls, the British, the Russians, and soon they will run your asses out. Yet you tell us you must occupy their land until they are literate enough to defend themselves?

I rest my case. Let us pray for peace in the streets of Oakland, a valiant city, home of the Western Pullman Porters, home of the Black Panthers. Are you part of the problem or part of the solution?
--Marvin X
Academy of Da Corner
14th and Broadway
6/29/10
www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com
www.parablesandfablesofmarvinx.blogspot.com

The Wisdom of Plato Negro, Parables/fables
Black Bird Press, 2010
311 pages
$100.00

Black Bird Press
1222 Dwight Way
Berkeley Ca 94702

Dolphy bass clarinet

Charles Mingus Meditations On Integration

Film Review: Patrice Lumumba by Raoul Peck

Film Review

Patrice Lumumba

A Film by Raoul Peck

Reviewed By Marvin X
© 2002 by Marvin X

Note: We send out this review on the 50th anniversary of independence in the Congo. Lumumba said he was fifty years ahead of his time, and so it is. But even fifty years later the same problems of poverty, ignorance and disease remain, the Europeans are still there stealing the wealth, although the Chinese have entered the drama. Hopefully, with the Chinese, in exchange for precious minerals, there shall be construction and reconstruction, although we don't understand with a population of seventy million mostly unemployed why Chinese laborers are needed. There seems little jubilation among the population. One Congolese said, "After fifty years of independence, happiness has come to the man in charge and those around him--they eat well and are well paid."

--mx

My African consciousness began with the murder of Patrice Lumumba. After high
school graduation, I enrolled at Oakland's Merritt College and found myself in the midst of the black revolutionary student movement. Students Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Richard Thorne, Maurice Dawson, Kenny Freeman, Ernie Allen, Ann Williams, Carol Freeman and others were rapping daily on the steps at the front door of Merritt College. Some of them wore sweatshirts with Jomo Kenyatta's picture, sold by Donald Warden's African American Association, which held meetings on campus, and sometimes Donald Warden, renamed Khalid Abdullah Tariq Al Mansour, rapped. The theme was often the African independence struggle, especially the Mau Mau's in Kenya.

But a frequent topic was the 1961 brutal murder of the democratically elected Congolese Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba. The brothers were well read and in their raps they documented the facts and figures of the African liberation struggle. They gave reference to such books as Kwame Nkrumah's Neo-Colonialism: the final stage of imperialism, where he documented the riches of Africa, especially the Congo, that the West coveted and committed mass murder to maintain. Patrice Lumumba was the first African leader I'd known about who was assassinated, and the brutal way he was eliminated helped expedite my African consciousness, especially learning how his so-called comrades betrayed him to continue the Western world's plunder of the Congo's vast mineral riches.

On one level, it was hard to believe, since I was attempting to get blackenized and didn't want to face the reality of black treachery. As students, most of us were Black nationalists, not yet the revolutionary black nationalists we would soon become, that allowed some of us to employ a class or Marxist analysis to the Pan African struggle, which Nkrumah's writings brought to the table.

The brothers leaning in the Marxist direction were Ken Freeman, Ernie Allen, and maybe Bobby Seale, all of whom were associated with SoulBook magazine, a revolutionary black nationalist publication featuring the writings of LeRoi Jones, James Boggs, Max Stanford, Robert F. Williams, Sonia Sanchez, Askia M. Toure', myself and others, although I was a budding writer, just out of high school and knew nothing about Marxism.

If I had, it would have helped me understand the class nature of Lumumba's final days. I couldn't comprehend how Mobutu, Kasavubu, and Tshombe could be so wicked to conspire with the white man to kill their brother. It would take the black hands of Malcolm's murderers for me to begin to understand.

Actually, I wouldn't fully understand until years later after reading a monograph by Dr. Walter Rodney, himself the victim of assassination in Guyana, South America, entitled West Africa and the Atlantic Slave Trade, in which he carefully deconstructed African social classes and their role in the slave trade, detailing how the political, military, judicial, and even religious institutions became corrupt and expedited our removal from the Motherland.

Amiri Baraka sings to us:

My brother the king
Sold me to the ghost
When you put your hand on your sister and made her a slave
When you put your hand on your brother and made him a slave
Watch out for the ghost
The ghost go get you Africa
At the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean
Is a railroad of human bones
the king sold the farmer to the ghost....

It is hard to believe it has been forty years since the death of Lumumba, maybe because in the interim we've had innumerable cases in Africa and even in America of similar acts of treachery. Supposedly black ministers were involved in the death of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Black elected politicians have been selling out the black community for at least the past thirty years, especially since the 1972 Gary Convention of the Congress of African People. We have no choice but to see our struggle as class struggle, race being incidental.

We cannot have any illusions that a black face will save us, only black hearts. Those who study the Bible and Qur'an know the history of all men is the story of treachery, deceit, lust, greed, jealousy, envy and murder -- but the glass can be seen as half full: the history of man is also about good transcending evil, liberation defeating oppression, ascension after crucifixion, joy after sorrow, victory over defeat. Yet, how many prophets survived? How many righteous people survived and continued in their righteousness, rather than succumb to iniquities?

Men of Lumumba's character are rare upon the stage of history, men dedicated to the liberation of their people, men who are confident that no matter how great the odds, freedom will come soon one morning.

Raoul Peck's film was depressing because it showed a leader in a Indiana Jones snake pit full of vipers and cobras of the worse sort, snakes who danced to the rhythm of Western drums, not those of the mighty Congo, for Lumumba's mission appeared doomed from the start, he said himself that he was fifty years ahead of his time. This may have been the truest statement of the movie, for only ten years remain before the half-century mark in the modern history of the Congo or Zaire. Maybe in the last ten years of his prophecy, the people of Zaire will become truly free.

What the movie failed to give us were the deep structure motivations for the behavior of men like Kasavubu, Tshombe and Mobutu. Yes, the Europeans were there, had been there stealing the wealth, especially of Katanga Province which held 70% of the nation's riches, but we needed to see the very beginning with Belgium King Leopold's butchery, including his role in the European carving up of Africa at the 1890s Berlin Conference. We need to know the custom of chopping off limbs so en vogue today with diamond seeking armies in Zaire, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and elsewhere originated with King Leopold. Only then can the unaware and unread understand what demonic forces created such inhuman beings as the three main characters that surrounded Lumumba and ultimately brought about his downfall. From the movie we are tempted to say his own people did him in, but we know better, we must know better-think of diamonds, chrome, uranium, plutonium, cobalt, zinc and other minerals.

Look at Zaire today with several competing armies from neighboring countries (Rwanda, Uganda, Angola, et al) warring over the same minerals for the same European masters who instigated the treacherous actions of Kasavubu, Tshombe and Mobutu. Their names have a poetic ring that we should remember forever as the sound of death in a people, the sound of condensation and the lowest rats in creation, but understand they represent class interests and their class mates are visible throughout Africa and the world, even in the American political landscape: we have Clarence Thomas, Ward Connelly and Colin Powell -- new world rats, but rats none the less, who are every bit the measure of the Congo Three.

And let us not forget the reactionary behavior in the black liberation movement, the murder by incineration of Samuel Napier in the Black Panther fratricide, the assassination of Bunchy Carter and John Huggins by the US organization in the BSU meeting room on the campus of UCLA, the Muslims setting a prostitute on fire in San Francisco and other terrorists actions such as the Zebra killings.

Even the Black Arts Movement had its psychopathic shootouts with the wounding of Larry Neal and other acts we need not list. Shall we neglect to mention the hip hop generation also has its catalogue of madness such as the east coast/west coast killing of rap giants Tupac and Biggie Small. Let Lumumba be a lesson for us all. Let's learn from it and move to higher ground. Some of our madness is simply that -- we cannot attribute all evil acts of man to white oppression, although white oppression in inexcusable. We must take responsibility for Black Madness.

We are happy the director created a screen version of this historic drama. The actors made us feel the good in Lumumba and the evil in his associates, black and white, for the whites performed their usual roles as arrogant, paternalistic colonial masters whose aim was to hold power until the last second as we saw when they released Lumumba from prison to attend independence talks in Belgium. We saw the stark contrast of character in the speeches of Lumumba as prime minister and Kasavubu as president. Lumumba was strong, Kassavubu capitulating even on the eve of freedom, signaling his intent to remain a colonial puppet.

For those who came away like myself, and one could sense the sad silence in the audience as they departed the theatre, a friend remarked that we must not give up hope because the enemy will never tell you when you are winning.

For more writings and/or information on Marvin X go to

www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com

www.parablesandfablesofmarvinx.blogspot.com

http://www.blackthinktank.com
http://www.aalbc.com
http://www.nathanielturner.com
http://www.umich.edu,
http://www.konch.com.

The O'Jays - I Love Music (stereo,lyrics)

WHITE SUPREMACY-2 BY MARVIN X

GET YO MIND RIGHT

Marvin X

Pull Yo Pants Up

fada Black Prez

and Yo Self!

Essays on Obama Drama and Parables on the

Hustler’s Guide to the Game Called Life

Father's Day Message from Da Prez

Father's Day Message from your Prez

	Good afternoon, As the father of two young daughters, I know that being a father is one of the most important jobs any man can have. My own father left my family when I was two years old. I was raised by a heroic mother and wonderful grandparents who provided the support, discipline and love that helped me get to where I am today, but I still felt the weight of that absence throughout my childhood. It's something that leaves a hole no government can fill. Studies show that children who grow up without their fathers around are more likely to drop out of high school, go to jail, or become teen fathers themselves. And while no government program can fill the role that fathers play for our children, what we can do is try to support fathers who are willing to step up and fulfill their responsibilities as parents, partners and providers. That's why last year I started a nationwide dialogue on fatherhood to tackle the challenge of father absence head on. In Chicago, the Department of Health and Human Services held a forum with community leaders, fatherhood experts and everyday dads to discuss the importance of responsible fatherhood support programs. In New Hampshire, Secretary of Education Duncan explored the linkages between father absence and educational attainment in children. In Atlanta, Attorney General Holder spoke with fathers in the criminal justice system about ways local reentry organizations, domestic violence groups and fatherhood programs can join together to support ex-offenders and incarcerated individuals who want to be closer to their families and children. Now we're taking this to the next level. Tomorrow, I'll make an announcement about the next phase of our efforts to help fathers fulfill their responsibilities as parents -- The President's Fatherhood and Mentoring Initiative. You can learn more at www.fatherhood.gov. This Father's Day -- I'm thankful for the opportunity to be a dad to two wonderful daughters. And I'm thankful for all the wonderful fathers, grandfathers, uncles, brothers and friends who are doing their best to make a difference in the lives of a child. Happy Father's Day. Sincerely, President Barack Obama

Misty

Misty

Ali Farka - Monsieur le Maire de Niafunké

Ali Farka Touré 'Amandrai'

Pull Yo Pants Up fada Black Prez and Yoself!

Friday, June 18, 2010

PULL YO PANTS UP
FADA BLACK PREZ
AND YOSELF!


ESSAYS ON OBAMA DRAMA


MARVIN X



Black Bird Press, Berkeley
August 2010
50 pages
$14.95.

Contents

Introduction
Excuse Me, Mr. President
Obama, A One Act Play
Jobs for Terrorists Abroad, None for the Hood
Response to State of Union Speech--The End
The Primary
Hillery and Obama, Neck to Neck
Obama's Last Ghost
Transformational or Transactional?
Wins Nomination
Sermon on the Mount
Fake Speech to Muslims
As Predicted
As-Salaam-Afakkum
Weary of Intellectualism
Obama As Joseph

The War that ain’t War

Parable of Oil and White Supremacy
Pull Yo Pants Up fa da Black Prez

Comments on Take this Hammer

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Straight Outta Hunters Point

Posted by Dr. Marvin at 4:24 PM

Comments on Take This Hammer

Comment on film

During the time of the film, 1963, I was a youth worker in Hunters Point, the hilly neighborhood visited in the film. This area of San Francisco has been long coveted by the whites who have finally managed to occupy the area that has the best view and weather in San Francisco. Through gentrification that began around the time of the film,( the term Negro removal was used in those days), whites have finally begun to occupy the community that is extremely zhenophobic, i.e., if you ain't from here, don't come here.

But Hunters Point is a valiant community with the highest rate of black property ownership in the city. Of course all the problems still exist, if not more, drugs, gangs and homicide are epidemic. But it is a militant community. The only rebellion in SF during the 60s happened in Hunters Point.

Many of those housing projects have been and are being torn down and replaced with market rate housing, a few reserved for low income residents. For sure, at the time of Baldwin's visit, there were very few, if any, whites in the area.

The current crisis in the neighborhood is with the old Naval shipyard land that is toxic but in the process of being developed. Radiation dust is periodically blown up into the hilly area by the winds. The area is a cancer cluster with high rates of asthma. There have been community protests for years, recently the Nation of Islam minister addressed the SF Board of Supervisors and called them whores for, yes, putting profits above the health of the people. They are determined to begin developing the land without a thorough clean up of toxic waste. The politicians have flip/floped between support of the community and support of developers.

As per redevelopment in San Francisco, former Mayor Alioto apologized to the North American African community for destroying its economic and cultural life, especially the Fillmore area. Of course there were blacks who collaborated with the destruction.

For an updated film on Hunters Point, see Straight Outta Hunters Point by Kevin Epps.
--Marvin X
www.parablesandfablesofmarvinx.blogspot.com

----- Original Message ----
From: Abdul Alkalimat
To: H-AFRO-AM@H-NET.MSU.EDU
Sent: Wed, June 16, 2010 4:44:53 AM
Subject: Re: Take this Hammer - a James Baldwin documentary

From: Rhone Fraser

I saw this film, thank Earl for sending it, and Alex for making it
possible. I was struck by so many truths Baldwin stated in this film, some of which are in notes on the film I took here, which I would love to discuss on H-Net:

One of the young people interviewed said the only jobs available were those that help you tear down your own home. This speaks to the kind of economy in urban areas that cater to only the economic interests wealthy
philanthropists instead of community centers or schools.

Baldwin said you can't do anything about the moral and psychological effects of living in the ghetto. This reminds me of St. Clair Drake and Horace Cayton's observation in *Black Metropolis* of Richard Wright's similar critique of Bronzeville in Chicago:"For him [Wright], all of the segregated Negro communities were intellectually sterile ghettos into which Negroes had been driven by social forces beyond their control, and which incorporated, in exaggerated form, what Wright considered some of the worst facets of American life: conspicuous consumption, pursuit of the products of a mass culture, devotion to frivolous trivialities, and a plethora of escapist religion. Richard Wright made no pretense of being detached or even tolerant about the way of life in Bronzeville" (x, Black Metropolis) Both Wright and Baldwin see that ghetto as institution that is meant to demoralize Blacks in the service of white supremacy; and both became expatriates as some
time in their lives to protest such an institution. James Baldwin expressed his critique of the ghetto in which he grew up in film, three years after Richard Wright's exiled death. Their critiques of the ghetto and gentrification are still so relevant today.

Baldwin also said 'The society makes the assumption that it is more
important to make profit than it is to make citizens...Children learn it is more important to make profit than it is to be aman. And that's the way society really operates." This is true of every new hi-rise that goes up; a high rise put up by people interested in making money, instead of lobbying to divert more funding FROM military occupations to public schools and arts programs.

When he and his host (I wish we knew his name) looked at the gutted Catholic church in downtown San Francisco, I appreciated Baldwin's calling that gutted church a metaphor for the utility of the Catholic church in the lives of black youth in that time and place. It is still an apt metaphor today, along with his critiques of gentrification when noticing the Catholic church's tacit approval of U.S. military occupation and arms exports across the world.

This was an enlightening video; I had so much more to share about this, but these were most pressing comments I had; thank you for sharing. -RF.