Final Preview, Poetry Issue, Journal of Pan African Studies, December 2010

Preview #22, Poetry Issue, Journal of Pan African Studies, Marvin X, Guest Editor

Deadline 15 November, 2010

Ptah Allah El, Richmond CA

photo Kamau Amen Ra

BLACK STUDIES WENT TO COLLEGE

AND NEVER CAME HOME

Black Studies went to college and I miss her

And when she comes home, I will hug and kiss her.

Black went to college and started a strike

Then the Third World Liberation fronted the mic.

Black Studies went to college, became a controversy started

Killed Bunchy Carter.

Black Studies lost her destiny and fate

She changed after 1968.

Black Studies went to college got her BA, MA, and PHD.

Now she petty bourgeoisie.

Black Studies went to college and forgot where she came from

She so damn smart, the community going dumb, dumb, dumb…

Black Studies went to college now she ain’t no good

Forgot all about the hood.

Black Studies went to college and pledged Greek

Now she don’t even speak.

Black Studies went to college and became Afrocentric

So complex, she simplistic.

Black Studies is acting like charades

Too many African costume balls and masquerades.

Black Studies went to college and I miss her

When she comes home, I will hug and kiss her.

Ptah A. Mitchell El M.F.D.

Ptah Mitchell is an educator and poet that is dedicated to keep the legacy of African American intellectuals and artists alive in the 21^st Century. Ptah is also the first student to graduate from the University of Poetry, founded by Marvin X. He has written two books, Ghetto Folklore and Tainted Soul.

Shaggy Flores, New York

Negritude

For Pedro Pietri, Tato Laviera, Jesus Papoleto Melendez and Trinidad Sanchez Jr.

We be those Negroes

Born to Slave Hands

Resurrecting forgotten African Gods

When Transplanted to New Lands

Mixing Ebonics

With Splanglish Slang

We be those Negroes

Children of Yoruba y Ibo

Bilingual and Indio

Afro-Caribes

Masters of plantation work

Race mixing

And Orisha Spirit raising

We be those Negroes

Creating Jazz with cats

Named Bird, Dizzy, Duke, and Armstrong

Cubop Bugalu Sal-Soul Searching Journey men

Mongo-Santamaria/Chano Pozo Drum Gods

And Celia Cruz

AZUCAS!

Legends leaving our cultural footprints

On the muddy minds

of the mentally dead

We be those Negroes

Creating Schomburg museums

of Black Studies

In Nuyorican Harlem streets

Where we once dance

during zoot suits riots

to Conga

Maraca

Bata

Break beats

and Palladium Massacres

We be those Negroes

Drawn as Sambos and Jigaboos

By political cartoonist

Who couldn’t erase

The taste of

Africa

From Antillean Culinary

Magicians

Creating miracles

with Curries call SoFritos

We be those Negroes

Younglords

Island Nationalist

Black Panthers

Vieques Activist

Santeros

And Guerreros

Brothers of Garvey

Children of Malcolm

Black Spades

Savage Skulls

Chingalings

And Latin Kings

We be those Negroes

Like Harvard Educated Lawyer

Don Pedro Albizu Campos

Stationed

In all Black regiments

Learning the reality

Of Jim Crow Society

And their gringolandia

Government Race public policies

Calling Bilingual Niggers

Spics

We be those Negroes

Before Sosa

Before Clemente

Before Jackie

Giving Negro league

Baseball legends

A place

Under the sun

to call home

When no one else

Would have them

We be those Negroes

Dancing

Moving

Breaking

Egyptian

Electric Boogalooing

Locking

On concrete jungles

To Cool Herc

Jamaican

Sound Boy Systems

And aerosol

symphony backgrounds

We be those Negroes

Charlie Chasing

Rock Steadying

A dream call Hip-Hop

In Bronx Backyard Boulevards

Between

Casitas and Tenements

With Roaches for Landlords

We be those Negroes

Writing Epics

Like Willie Perdomo testaments

Called “Nigger-Recan Blues”

And Victor Hernandez Cruz

Odes to “African Things”

Hiding our dark skinned

Literary Abuelitas

With Bembas Colora

In places where the Whiteness police

could never find them

We be those Negroes

Denied access to Black Nationalist run

Karenga Kwanza Poetry readings

Because we remind the ignorant

Of the complexity that is their culture

Neither Here nor There

Not quite Brown

Not quite White

We navigate uncharted

Waters

Of Black Identity Boxes

We be those Negroes

Mulatto

We be those Negroes

Criollo

We be those Negroes

Moreno

We be those Negroes

Trigueños

We be those Negroes

Octoroons and Quadroons

We be those Negroes

Cimarrones and Nanny of the Maroons

We be those Negroes

Cienfuegos y Fidel

We be those Negroes

Luis Pales Matos and Aime Cesaire

We be those Negroes

Puentes,

Mirandas,

Riveras,

Colons,

Felicianos,

Lavoes and

Palmieris

We be those Negroes

Judios

Y a veces

Jodios

We be those Negroes

Dominicanos y Cubanos

We be those Negroes

Jaimiquinos y Haitianos

We be those Negroes

Panameños y Borinqueños

We be those Negroes

Seeking freedom from

Irrationality

In an age of Nuclear

Goya Families

And Television

Carbon Copy Clone

Univision/BET/MTV

Slave Children

We be those Negroes

Known by many names

And many deeds

Spoken of in Secret

By African-American

Scholars

In envy during their nightly

Salsa

Dance classes

As they try

To pick up White Girls

We be those Negroes

Caribbean

Negritude

Heroes

Sometimes negating our destiny

But always finding

Peace

In the Darkness

Of Sleep

We be those Negroes

Negroes

We

Be

--Shaggy Flores

Shaggy Flores Nuyorican Massarican Poeta

Tainted Soul

By T. Ptah Mitchell

Blackbird Press, Berkeley, 2010

Pages.148 , $15.00)

This book is a film script about one of the North American Africans ( NAA's) who hijacked a plane, landed in Cuba, got fronted on by the government, thrown in the dungeon, and politicized with 'los gentes veridad', the unspoken mass of 'Afro-Cubans' who go through the same shit as their fellow NAA's here in America. The reader is exposed to a non-romanticized survey of modern Cuba, as well as the classic contradictions of Pan Afrika and the so called Afrikan Diaspora. Without taking a side in the dynamics of this ongoing dialogue on 'how to struggle and how to win', the author does introduce the reader to a world where you don't have to hop on a plane, risk extradition or even xenophobia, since the perspective and stylistics is really first person even when written from second or even third person.

The screenplay was inspired from a book. Reading the script only makes one want to see the movie.

Michael, the main character, is an average nigga from the local NAA community; one of the lumpen, if you will. He has an idealized notion of revolution and Cuba as a haven for North American revolutionaries based on the social climate, recent events and heresay. His main problem is that he is an affiliate of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, and not a member per se, like many in the community who loved and supported the Party but did not follow the ideological and organizational rules to a tee. So Micheal's loyalty to the movement while unquestioned on his part, was questioned by some of his so called comrades. Since he was not part of the 'inner circle' his lines to Cuba are not solid. In fact he might have been led on to do an impossible mission because some of the brothers , doubting Micheal, didn't believe he could pull it off. But when he did pull it off, with little strategy and tactic, no means were provided to support him. He essentially hijacks the plane because he was informed that if he did so, he would be greeted with open arms from the revolutionary Cuban government as an ally against the spread of American imperialism. The problem was that he did not receive authorization and support from the Central Committee of the Party; also, during the hijacking, he made the mistake of jacking a high level undercover agent from Cuba on the plane,who was coming back to Havana to debrief his supreiors.

To Micheal all white people, (except his white ho back in Berkeley of course), were the enemy, so he had no clue that there was another revolutionary on the plane besides him. So by the time the plane landed in Cuba, Cuban did not know whether Micheal was an agent of revolutionary blacks in America, a spy for the American government, since there was no communique between Cuba and the Black Panther Party of this specific activity.

Micheal is thrown in jail after Cuban officials decide that he's an American spy and not a revolutionary and sentences him to 12 years in Havana prison. It is this unknown aspect of Cuban society that for the first time I've seen (save Carlos Moore's book "Castro, the Blacks and Africa") is explored and illustrated, where the parallels of black life in Cuba are similar to black life in the USA. We fill the prisons there, we're dropping out of school there, we're at the bottom of society there. We're labeled as the thugs, criminals and any original social practices we demonstrate become either illegal or subsidized. Sounds familiar?

Here Michael learns from the majority of the Cuban prisoners the harsh reality of Cuban society. The bottom of the slave ship, all these African's from all over the Western Hemisphere, imprisoned for so called 'counterrevolutionary' activities: from attempting to leave Cuba, to criticizing government, etc. But these people never met a real nigga from the USA, and they could not understand why Micheal wanted to come to Cuba so bad, how loud, audacious, courageous and principled he was, even in the face of the Cuban police.

One crucial thing I must say, the ability for Ptah to tell this story and remain objective, authentic and loyal to the audience, with out taking sides requires skill and diplomacy. At times I doubted if this was a 'reactionary' story of a 'revolutionary' story, because so many contradictions come up. Many times I asked myself, do I support Michael smashing on the Cuban government? I mean they have done much to help us Afrikans in America, from medical school, to Assata, Robert F. Williams to Hip Hop. But then I remembered something Kwame Ture (RIP) said to the effect that the principles of socialism and revolution will always remain in tact, it is the human organization we must work on. This informs me that the Revolutionary Government will remain in principle as long as she is honest with herself and accepts criticism from inside as well as from outside. And we must remain vigilant and militant that criticism should be not considered or labeled as 'reactionary' or 'counterproductive'.

Nowadays movies are much like music, if you're promoting revolutionary culture, you'd best have independent means to put out your own art and technology. Kudos to Black Bird Press for putting out the book. As the author says in the introduction, everyone in L.A. has a cousin who is a big shot in Hollywood. So either wait (forever) for some one else to put your movie out for you, or do it your self. Perhaps the more who read Tainted Soul will demand a movie version, as the people demanded a movie that documented one of the most revolutionary acts of modern afrikan history, the liberation of Haiti. A task, that our most ablest of Pan Afrikan artists, Elder Danny Glover so aptly assumed responsibility of.. Tainted Soul in no way compares to a historiography of Haiti, but does contribute to that 'great pan African conversation' and does bring local hood heroes to the forefront of international affairs. Hopefully, we don't have to wait too long for the movie.

--Zulu King

Amiri Baraka Celebrates Abby Lincoln at Eastside Arts

Amiri Baraka Celebrates Abby Lincoln and Max Roach at Oakland’s Eastside Arts

Amiri Baraka celebrated his relationship with fellow artists, now deceased, Abby Lincoln and Max Roach at Eastside Arts theatre tonight. He was accompanied by the Muziki Roberson band. Marvin X opened the set with a reading of his Parable of the Woman in the Box., from his book Mythology of Pussy and Dick, toward Healthy Psychosocial Sexuality.

His parable was warmly received. Marvin X told the audience this coming weekend Eastside Arts will present his first play Flowers for the Trashman (1965, San Francisco State University Drama Department production) along with Opal Palmer Adisa’s Bathroom Graffiti Queen, produced, directed and performed by Ayodele Nzingha.

Amiri Baraka’s performance was great as usual although we expected his wife, Amina, to accompany him as vocalist, performing the work of Abby Lincoln, a close friend of the Barakas. Baraka told of her funeral and the repast that lasted until 5am in the morning at a New York jazz club.

Baraka told of his relationship with Abby and legendary drummer Max Roach, and how they were not only artists but would become lovers and husband and wife. He said this was a 60s marriage of power, along with Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis, and we must add Amiri and Amina Baraka, Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott, Elijah and Clara Muhammad. Baraka told how these marriages helped solidify the liberation movement. They were, after all, symbols and examples of unity, male/female unity utterly lacking in today’s liberation movement. Baraka said he was shocked when Abby and Max separated.

He recited poetry dedicated to the couple, poems he’d read at both their funerals. The band was with him at every point, accenting his poetic message that included a plethora of his classic poems, backed with the music of Max, Monk, and other jazz legends.

This was a concert of spoken word and music at its highest level, performed by the godfather of the Black Arts Movement, our greatest living revolutionary artist. Those hip hop artists need to stop ego tripping and sit at the feet of the masters. When we produced the Kings and Queens of Black Consciousness Concert at San Francisco State University, we recall how Dr. Cornell West sat patiently for five hours before Marvin X called him to the mike. Cornell then declared, "I don't know if I'm a king or queen because there is so much darkness in my soul...but I'm thankful to be here among so many of the maladjusted to injustice." The maladjusted to injustice included: Drs. Nathan and Julia Hare, Mrs. and Mr. Amina and Amiri Baraka, Askia Toure, Ishmael Reed, Rev. Cecil Williams, Tarika Lewis, Destiny Muhammad, Rudi Mwongozi, Eddie Gale, Phavia Khujuchagulia, Tureeda Mikell, Kalamu ya Salaam, Elliott Bey, Marvin X, et al.

--Marvin X

11/13/10

Coming Next Weekend to Eastside Arts

Opal Palmer Adisa's Bathroom Graffiti Queen

and

Marvin X's Flowers for the Trashman

playwrights
Marvin X
Opal Palmer Adisa

Ayodele
Nzingha,
producer,
director,
actress

Two Black Plays at Eastside Arts Alliance

We are happy to announce two black plays will be performed at Eastside Arts Alliance: Opal Palmer Adisa's Bathroom Graffiti Queen and Marvin X's classic Flowers for the Trashman. The plays are produced and directed by Ayodele Nzingha, founder of the Lower Bottom Playaz of West Oakland. Ayodele portrays the Queen in this one-woman production that stole the show at the recent San Francisco Theatre Festival at Yerba Buena Center.

Flowers for the Trashman is Marvin X's first play, produced in 1965 by the drama department at San Francisco State University while he was an undergrad. It is a timeless story of the father-son relationship. It is a classic of the Black Arts Movement and was published in Black Fire, the anthology of BAM, edited by Larry Neal and Amiri Baraka, 1968.

These two plays will provide an evening of powerful theatre by two of the Bay Area's greatest writers, Opal Palmer and Marvin X. Ayodele's role will give the audience a chance to see a great actress deliver a high quality performance. The young brothers in Trashman are equally skilled after performing the play for some time. It is refreshing to see young men doing something positive.

The Eastside Arts Alliance is located at 23rd and International Blvd., Oakland. Dates: November 19.20,21, donation $5.00. 8pm.

Scorecard: Obama since Cairo - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

Scorecard: Obama since Cairo - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

Obama: US-Muslim mistrust must end - Asia-Pacific - Al Jazeera English

Obama: US-Muslim mistrust must end - Asia-Pacific - Al Jazeera English

Obama Drama: When in trouble at home, go abroad--Onward Christian Soldiers

Obama Drama: When in trouble at home, go abroad, Onward Christian Soldiers


After the failure of midterm elections, Obama and his shaggy, effete neo-liberal regime fled America for a propaganda journey throughout Asia. His first stop was India that is one of the new boys and girls on the block, a member of the new global power bloc called BRIC, i.e., Brazil, Russia, India, China. He spent three days begging India to purchase weapons of mass destruction to help the staggering and stalled American economy that may continue its free-fall to the end.
Ironically, for those favoring the end of outsourcing, India says it is willing to outsource jobs to America, with slave wage jobs for unemployed, desperate Americans. Indian MBAs are paid $14,000 per year as opposed to American MBAs at $140,000. Will American workers accept the Indian pay scale? Take it or leave it! America needs India, India doesn't need America. For sure, India doesn't need America facilitation in its dispute with arch-rival Pakistan over Kashmir. America's failure to negotiate a two-state solution in Palestine is a pitiful example of American diplomacy and even handedness. As per Pakistan, America cannot decide if Pakistan is friend or foe. She bombs and invades Pakistan at will, yet claims Pakistan is a partner in the war against terror. An astute Indian student asked Obama why is not Pakistan declared a terrorist state?
Our question is why is not America declared a terrorist state? Its unmanned drone aircraft have killed an unknown toll of Pakistani civilians.

The regional players, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, will play a vital role in the ultimate peace in the area. America will not be involved. There shall never be peace anywhere in the Muslim world as long as the Christian Crusader armies occupy the land. The Afghanistan Taliban say they will not discuss peace with the quisling government of Karsai, Mayor of Kabul, until the Crusaders depart. At present, the Taliban control 80% of the land. Why else would the US concur to hold peace talks with the Taliban. When you're losing, you want to talk. When a wife is getting her ass beat, she wants to talk!

Obama doesn't understand that no amount of rhetoric will placate the Islamic world, thus his speech in Indonesia was poppycock, in line with his Cairo speech, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Yes, 100,000 troops may have departed Iraq since he became president, but 50,000 remain and 200,000 contractors and mercenaries, with the biggest US embassy in the world. Does it sound like America is truly ending its occupation of Iraq? Even the Defense Secretary Gates said there may be some rethinking of the departure date.

Afghanistan is lost, so on to Yemen with drones, Special Ops trained killers and other mercenaries of the Christian Crusader war machine.
--Marvin X

His latest books include Pull Yo Pants Up fada Black Prez and Yoself, essays on Obama Drama;I AM OSCAR GRANT, essays on Oakland; The Wisdom of Plato Negro, Parables/fables; Mythology of Pussy and Dick, toward Healthy Psychosocial Sexuality, Black Bird Press, Berkeley, 2010.

Kill a African, 2 Years, Kill a Dog, 4 Years

Kill an African, 2 Years, Kill a Dog, 4 Years


And so it is, Amerikkka is alive and well. True to the die hard battery. The Africans did not take it well, not well at all, the sentence given to the BART officer who murdered Oscar Grant. No one, most of all the murderer, accepts the lie the police mistook his gun for his Tazer. It is a great legal defense, after all, it worked.

The people of Oakland were mortified, traumatized and beyond belief that they had been tricked into believing justice was the American way. We were hoodwinked and bamboozled by the judge with a long train of tricknology. We understand he was the judge in the Ramparts case of LA police committing a multiplicity of crimes under the color of law, shakedown, false evidence, false confession, robbery, dope dealing, murder, money laundering. The usual. This is the American way, get over it. Get real! Stop crying crocodile tears! Denzil Dowell, Bobby Hutton, Tyrone Guyten, Melvin Black, Oscar Grant, all martyr s caught in the American way. Young people slaughtered by the police. And then we slaughter our own kind. Which is worse, them killing us or us killing us?
No one shall respect you when you don't respect yourself! You shoot each down like dogs. You have lost the human touch. You need a healing. Someone must, in the name of love, lay hands on you. You are a danger to yourself and others, thus fit for the mental ward.

You are angry with the police for killing Oscar Grant, but you give yourselves a pass when it comes to brother killing brother. No march, no rally.

Today at Academy of da Corner, I used the example of the Gay and Lesbian community in San Francisco. As you head down Market Street to the Castro Distric, the gay/lesbian flag is flying on the light posts. The closer you get to the Castro the bigger the flag. So you understand you are in an enviornment of people who have taken authority over their lives. You cannot come into their community calling the punks, dykes, bull daggers, etc. Such verbal abuse is a hate crime, a terrorist threat. You can be arrested by, yes, a gay and/or lesbian police officer.

On the other hand, there is no Red, Black and Green flying in the hood. No sign of national consciousness, that a people are alive to themselves, their soul, spirit. We must fly the national to let all people know we are a community and we shall allow no bullshit in the hood. I gave the example of when you go to Santa Rita County Jail, the inmates demand you take a shower before you hit the bunk, even though you may be exhausted from 24 to 48 hours on concrete benches and floors from holding cell to holding cell. But you washed yo ass! the brothers demanded it. In the hood we must do the same thing, we demand unity, we demand honesty, we demand justice in relations with each other. We must not disrespect brothers and sisters. We must secure our community. The police have not and cannot keep the peace, so we must take it upon ourselves to secure our communities. We cannot have senior citizens robbed at the bus stop by teen age girls or boys. We love our children but they must think a better way out of their economic desperation.

The police shall continue in their iniquity. They have no desire to be peace makers, they are too busy being peace breakers.

Maybe we can break them, in fact, we should disrupt the entire economic and political life of Oakland, let's make the downtown workers flee the back hoard as they did the day of the verdict in the Oscar Grant trial. Let them flee for their lives. Shall we rally everyday for justice, most of all, political justice, and especially economic justice.

Walking by Oakland City Hall tonight, we happened upon a press conference with Jean Quan, soon to be announced Mayor of Oakland. We heard her tell of the measure that she wrote in support of money for the police. The police consume 75% of the City budget. Yet there is no peace in the hood. High unemployment, low educational skills. We shouted to the the mayor-elect, "What about jobs." She mumbled something, some political gibberish.

Yet the president tells the world they are willing to offer schooling, jobs and housing to terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere if they lay down their arms and pledge alliance to the constitution of their lands. But you cannot offer schooling, jobs and housing to the boys and girls in the hoods of America to stop the killing and general mayhem?

If we offer them nothing and they persist is criminal activity, we shall send the slave catchers (police) to jail them, wherein they are worth $50,000.00 per inmate per year. Imagine, the California Correctional Officers Union is the most powerful union in the state. The officers tell the niggers, "Keep coming back. I got me a yacht , now I need one for my son, so keep coming back to jail and prison."

Mayor to be Jean Quan, we call upon you as your first order of business to find employment for the perennially unemployed, that you offer a general amnesty to all inmates in the City jail and Alameda County Jail. This may assuage some of the trauma and unresolved grief in the people of Oakland.

At the Rally of Friday after the sentencing of the officer, we heard expressions of deep pain and sorrow. Many said they were sick to the stomach. Many seemed shocked beyond belief that America is still a racist pig. Just as they had no mercy on Oscar Grant, they shall have none for President Obama but shall continue to crucify him for being a black man in the white house.

They shall obstruct him at every turn, making mockery of his policies. Their entire agenda is to stop him in 2012. Along they way, we shall hear their mantra NO, NO, No, No, no. No, nigger no, no nigger no. So what part you don't understand, the no or the nigger?
--Marvin X
11/8/10

Now Available from Black Bird Press

The Wisdom of Plato Negro, Parables/fables, Vol. I and II, 2010,$100.00, both included.

The Mythology, toward Healthy Psychosocial Sexuality, 416 pages, 2010, $49.95

Send to:
Black Bird Press
1222 Dwight Way
Berkeley CA 94702

Preview # 20, Shaggy Flores

Preview #20, Poetry Issue, Journal of Pan African Studies

Guest Editor, Marvin X

Shaggy Flores, New York City

Letter for Bobo

Sent a letter

To the governor of Mississippi today

Asked him

If he remembers

That the ghost of Chicago Bobo

Still swims

in the shallows

Of the Tallahatchie River

Not far

From the town of Money

Where the only Green

That exists

Is the Evil

That Men Do

On Delta Summer

Back Roads

Sent a letter

To the governor of Mississippi today

Marked it urgent

So that Dixiecrat Hands

Could make

Prompt response

To the actions

Of August 28, 1955

When Wolf Whistles

Sold more then Tickets

And Bryant’s Grocery Market

Began to sell

2-cent Gum

Wrapped

With Grim Reaper

Death Cards

Sent a letter

To the governor of Mississippi today

Questioning

The hospitality of Sumner County

And its motto of prosperity

“A Good Place to Raise A Child”

Land

Of Strom Thurmond

Land

Of Sheriff Clarence Strider

Land

Of Jim Crow

Land

Of the Rope and Mob

Land

Of the Midnight Rides

And Southern

Pecan Tree Picnics

Sent a letter

To the governor of Mississippi today

Attached a copy

Of LOOK Magazine

And a picture

Of a 14 Year Old Corpse

In an open casket

Three Days

For the World to Witness

How a Swamp

Treats the mangled remains

Of Black youth

Wondered

If the names of Demons

Called Bryant and Milam

Still Haunt the Governor

And residents of Mississippi

In their sleep

Sent a letter

To the governor of Mississippi today

Gave him a list

Of his constituents

Told him that the following:

Will Moore
Reverend George Lee

Lamar Smith

Medgar Evers

And Raynard Johnson

Could no longer vote

Because they played

Poker with the Devil

And Drew Jokers

Dressed

As Separate but Equal

Executioners

Sent a letter

To the governor of Mississippi today

Requesting justice

For the family

Of Mamie Till Mobley

And Moses Wright

Provided an account

Of how a child

Carried his father’s ring

To the grave

While a panel

Of Conservative Council Citizens

Took less

Then 67 seconds

To honor

Anglo-Saxon Pride

made it Possible

For two southern boys

To receive $4000 payments

Sent a letter

To the governor of Mississippi today

Inserted a piece of Barb-Wire

And a Blade
from a Progressive Ginning Company Fan

Same as the one

That held Little Emmet

Down in the bowls

Of the Mighty Tallahatchie

Spoke of

Plessy V. Ferguson

And of Black Mondays

Imagined

That Poor Whites

Posing as Hunters

Rolled over in their graves

When Brown v. the Board of Education

Gave Negroes the right

To exist,

To breathe,

To live

In WHITE ONLY spaces

Sent a letter

To the governor of Mississippi today

Waited

67 Nights

For a response

That never came

Cried for 3 days

Prayed for the living

And honored the Dead

Wrote a poem

Ended with the words

When ALL is Quiet

When ALL is Still

In Mississippi

They still hear the screams

Of little

Emmet Till,
Rest in Peace
Emmet Till.

--Shaggey Flores

Shaggy Flores, was born and raised in the Spanish Harlem (NYC) then later in Puerto Rico and finally Springfield, Massachusetts. He received his primary and secondary education in Puerto Rico and Massachusetts. As a child, growing up in Robinson Gardens Housing Projects, he was heavily exposed to the work of the early Nuyorican Poets, his mother being a poet herself. Later in junior high and high school he showed a proficiency for writing and for creating short stories that depicted the Puerto Rican experience. He graduated from the High School of Commerce and eventually met a recruiter for the University of MA (BCP Program) who helped him continue his studies.

During the early nineties at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, he was heavily involved with student politics, resurrecting old student organizations and creating new ones in the process. It was during this period that his work as a Nuyorican poet became known and he began to find elder Nuyorican Poets who could serve as mentors.

He completed his education at Umass with a degree in the African Diaspora and by creating the annual Voices for the Voiceless poetry concert. Voices is one of the largest Diaspora poetry concerts in the Northeast, bringing nationally established African Diaspora writers to the five-college community for one night of poetry. It was at this event that he established the Louis Reyes Rivera lifetime achievement award to honor legendary artists.

Submission deadline November 15. Send your poems on the theme Pan Africanism to jmarvinx@yahoo.com, include brief bio and pic, MS Word attachment

Oakland Braces for Sentencing of Killer Cop

Oakland Braces
for Sentencing of Oscar Grant, Jr. Killer Cop

Again, the City of Oakland circulated a letter to downtown businesses to use their best judgment whether they should leave early on Friday in anticipation of a light sentence for theBART police officer who shot Oscar Grant in the back while under arrest on last New Year's.

Men's Warehouse is boarded up. Shall there be another Day of Absence with white workers fleeing the area early Friday afternoon? They did so when the verdict was announced. They fled by car, bus, subway, taxi, and on foot. It was a day of fear of the North American African response to injustice by Euro Americans, part of a 400 year train of injustices.

Will the murder cop get 14 years? We highly doubt it. Some say five years, 31/2 serve, 1/1/2 years probation. Of course this is a light sentence by a wicked society protecting one of their own who kill under the color of law.

What should be our response? Personally, we feel brother Lovelle Mixon got justice for Oscar Grant when Mixon smoked four Oakland police. The universe has a way of getting justice. Sometimes we pray when God has already answered!

There is no black army for justice. The Oakland Black Panthers were the last to attempt putting police under community control. At least they took the oppression off the people for a moment by having the police focus on crushing the Panthers. Panthers gave the people a time to breathe while the pigs killed Panthers and Panthers killed them. The BPP became a threat to the national security of the United States, according to the FBI's J. Edgar Hoover. His plan COINTELPRO or counter intelligence was to stop the rise of a black messiah by any means necessary, including assassination or outright murder in the case of Chicago BPP leader Fred Hampton, Jr. and Oakland's Lil Bobby Hutton, murdered by the OPD in a shootout in which Minister of Information Eldridge Cleaver was wounded.

When violence occurred a few months ago after the verdict, manslaughter instead of murder, small business owners suffered damage and could not understand why they were attacked. Many purposely displayed an Oscar Grant poster in their windows. The small business owners should be spared violence. But we know agent provocateurs shall be in the crowd. And the police are totally useless and themselves provocative. After the verdict was announced and looting at Foot Locker, radical civil rights attorney Walter Riley was beaten by police as he tried to enter his office next door to the Foot Locker. The police were apparently unconcerned about the looters.

The Nation of Islam's newspaper Muhammad Speaks used to have a cartoon of police brutality that asked in the caption Who do you call for protection? We must protect ourselves. We can provide community security. In Iraq the US stopped the insurgent violence by hiring them to secure their communities. It offered the insurgents jobs, education and housing. It is doing the same in Afghanistan with the Taliban.

So we must move beyond focusing on the police, they are the neo-slave catchers and must fulfill their duties. We can respond to them tit for tat, as Mixon demonstrated, liberty or death!

We can also stop being reactionaries and be proactive with respect to black on black violence. Is Oscar Grant selective suffering? Why is there no anger when we kill each other but only when the white man kills us-- murder is murder, death is death, and wrong is wrong. It is hypocritical for us to only respond to police abuse. What about all the suffering families who've lost loved ones to black on black homicide. Why don't we riot about that, kick some doors in about that?

Why do we not protest black on black murder. Why do we not demand blacks use their arms for community defense rather the attacking each other for mostly minor matters. Ain't no nigguhs getting killed over millions, billions or trillions. Most of the homicide is over pussy and dick, not drugs, but pussy and dick matters between all genders. Domestic violence, partner violence is such that half the community attends court mandated anger management classes.

We must get beyond physical violence, verbal and emotional abuse. We suggest a self imposed tone test with each other and the police. Based on our tone of voice, we can, when stopped by the police, get killed, arrested or released. With each other, whether on the street or in the home, we can use the language of love and unity.

We must practice eternal vigilance, stay aware of our surroundings and not try to function in a mind altered state. These are dangerous times and we must wear the armor of God consciousness. For example, we were trapped in the crowd of the millions for the Giants World Series parade. People were pushing at our back yet there was no room to move. We could have reacted to the constant pushing and shoving, but we kept our cool, refused to respond to the fools at our back. We could have turned around and bust them in the mouth. But we were cool, even though the day was hot, the crowd impossible, we're sweating and fools trying to push us forward.

There comes a time when politics becomes war. But you can't make war if you are not prepared, if you are not organized. Marcus Garvey said the world is moving against all unorganized people.
Mao Se Tung told you to get organized. Yet it is helter skelter in the hood.

We like to cry crocodile tears, attend funerals and suffer our grief alone. Whatever the sentence tomorrow, whatever the community response, this will not bring Oscar Grant back, and yet because family and community organized, a killer cop was at least charged and convicted for the first time in California history. Imagine, Oscar has had more power in death than in life, a few days ago the Longshoreman's union closed down all Bay Area ports in honor of Oscar Grant. There were proclamations by European countries in honor of Oscar Grant. Honor him by continuing to organize against all violence, whether police under the color of law, or black on black violence, or the violence caused by the trillion dollar US defense budget that causes violence around the world.
--Marvin X

Poet, playwright, essayist, Marvin X holds sessions of his Academy of da Corner at 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland and Third and LaSalle, Hunters Point, San Francisco. He's published five books this year: The Wisdom of Plato Negro, Parables/fables, volumes I and II;
The Mythology of Pussy and Dick, toward Healthy Psychosocial Sexuality, Pull Yo Pants Up fada Black Prez and Yoself, essays on Obama Drama, and I AM OSCAR GRANT, essays on Oakland,
Black Bird Press, Berkeley. Visit his blog: www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com. Email: jmarvinx@yahoo.com.

Revolution of a Poet - The Punany Poets' Ghetto Girl Blue

Preview #19, Journal of Pan African Studies

Preview #19, Poetry Issue, Journal of Pan African Studies

Guest Editor, Marvin X

Tony Medina, Washington DC

Slam-A-Lot

Shit Slam Squat & Pee Slam Bacon & Eggs Slam Ham on Rye Slam Shit on Shinola Slam Spit & Drool Slam Vomit Slam Back Alley Wino Piss Slam Maggots Crawling Out An Open Skull Slam Backstabbing Slam Eviction Slam Ass on Pavement Slam Prescription Slam Hungry Man Slam Starvation Slam Bombs Bursting in Air Slam Dead Roach in Spaghetti Slam Dumb Motherfuckers Can’t Think for Self Slam Reading is Detrimental Slam Cain & Able Slam Gentrification Slam Globalization Slam Hull of a Slaveship Slam Middle Passage Slam Ku Klux Klan Slam Goosestep Heil Hitler Nazi Slam Gas Chamber Slam Sodomy Slam Full Frontal Lobotomy Slam One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Slam I Don’t Give a Damn Slam Genocide Slam Smallpox in Blankets for Indians Slam Thanksgiving Day Slam Resurrection Slam Dead Cock Forklift Viagra Slam Stank Ho Slam Auction Block Slam Kill Whitey Slam Maroon Slam Macheteros Slam Boukman Slam Toussant L’Oveture Slam Jean Jacques Dessaline Slam Che Slam Fidel Slam Nat Turner Slam John Brown Slam Sandinista Slam Al Queda Slam Weapons of Mass Destruction Slam HIV Slam AIDS Slam Anthrax Slam Ebola Soup Slam UN Troops Slam Avian Flu Slam Agent Orange Slam Muscatel Slam Mad Dog Slam Ripple Slam Gut Bucket Blues Slam Rot Gut slam Cocaine Slam Crack Slam Crystal Meth Slam Preemptive Slam Slam National Security Slam Defense Department Manufacture AIDS Slam Bush Administration Bomb the World Trade Center & the Pentagon to Go to War with the Middle East & Snatch Up Oil Wells & Undermine the Euro Slam Your Mother’s a Two-Face Slam Poppa Was a Rolling Stone Slam 40 Acres & a Mule Slam Reparations Slam Zionism Slam Gaza Strip Slam Infitada Slam Suicide Bomber Slam Stolen Land Slam Son of Sam Slam I Am What I Yam Slam Green Eggs & Ham Slam High Blood Pressure Slam Sugar Slam Booger Slam Bling Bling Slam Sing Sing Slam Sick & Demented Slam Jimmy Superfly Snucka Slam Spanish Fly Slam Spanish Inquisition Slam Conquistador Slam Christopher Columbus Slam Cuttie Sark Slam Buffalo Soldier Slam Dredlock Rasta Slam Philistine Slam Afro Sheen Slam Colgate & Listerine Slam Robin Island Slam Apartheid Slam Free Winnie Mandela Slam Negroes with Guns Slam Pedophile Priests & Mean Nuns with Big Rulers Slam James Brown Don’t Want None Won’t Be None Slam We Bombed in Baghdad Slam Iraq Cradle of Civilization Reduced to Barney & Betty Rubble Slam Israelis Genociding Palestinians Slam Scentless Bombs Slam Wailing Wall Slam Tears for Fears Slam Blood for Oil Slam Human Cargo Slam NY Life Slave Insurance Slam Trans Atlantic Slave Trade Globalization Slam Goree Island Slam Elmira Slave Castle Slam Exxon Mobile Slam Watergate Slam Iran Contra Slam Guatemalan Genocide Slam Forced Migration Slam Media Manipulation Slam Embedded Journalists Slam Church & State Slam State & Corporate Slam Eleanor Bumpers Slam Underdevelopment Slam Internment Camp Slam Concentration Camp Slam Reservation Blues Slam Whites Only Slam COINTELPRO Slam FBI Slam CIA Slam Ton Ton Macoute Slam Das Boot Slam Il Duce Slam Antonio Gramsci Slam Skull & Crossbones Illuminati Slam Kiss My Black Ass Slam Bitch Better Have My Money Slam Punks Jump Up to Get Beat Down Slam Capitalism & Christianity Slam The Marriage of Hell & Hell Slam Abu Grab Slam Torture Slam Right Wing Reactionary Sociopath Slam Population Control Slam War Crimes Slam I Ain’t Gonna Study War No More Slam O Slam My Best Friend Gayle Slam Stedman & I Slam O Sam I Am Slam Spam Slam Astispumante Slam Hey, You Got Your Chocolate in My Peanut Butter Broke Back Mountain Slam Sperm Juleps Slam Chunky Phlegm Slam Taxation without Representation Slam Santeria Slam Shango Elegba Slam Crayola Slam Payola Slam The Grassy Knoll Slam The Blown Out Skull of Jack Kennedy Slam Ethnic Cleansing Slam Police Brutality Slam All-White Juries Exonerating White Cops Slam Coup de tat Slam Regime Change Slam Bitter Fruit Slam Black Reconstruction Slam Bay of Pigs Slam Anti-American Activities Slam Collateral Damage Slam Electric Chair Slam Shock & Awe Slam Scar Tissue Slam Eczema Slam INS Slam Accelerated Sharing Slam World Bank Slam IMF Slam Another World is Possible Slam Planetary Protest Against War Slam DeBeers Diamond Miners Slam A Piece of the Action Slam Petite Bourgeois Slam Genetic Engineering Slam Petro Dollars Slam Idi Amin Dada Slam Mobutu Slam Shanty Town Slam The G-8 Slam Riot Gear Slam Privatization Slam Neo-con Slam Neo-liberalism Slam Driving Down Wages Slam Tax Write-Off for Corporations Slam Good Governance Slam Obey the IMF Slam Sweatshop Slam Say Hello to My Little Friend Slam Carpet Bagging Slam Carpet Bombing Slam Carpet Cleaning Slam Carpet Cutting Slam Carpet Burns Slam Carpet Munching Slam Carpe Diem Slam Corporate Takeover Slam Corpus Christi Slam Carpal Tunnel Slam Constitutions That Stipulate Only Whites Are Human Beings Slam WTO Slam Extra Virgin Olive Oil Slam Sugarless Slam Fat-free Slam Anorexic Slam Bulimic Slam Regurgitation Slam Vomiting on the Side of a Ship Slam Tedious Extended Metaphor Slam Everything in This Motherfucker but the Kitchen Sink Slam The Kitchen Sink Slam

Tony Medina, two-time winner of the Paterson Prize, is the author of fifteen books, including Committed to Breathing; Follow-up Letters to Santa from Kids who Never Got a Response; I and I, Bob Marley; My Old Man Was Always on the Lam; Broke on Ice; and An Onion of Wars. Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Howard University, Medina’s poetry, fiction and essays appear in over ninety anthologies and publications.

Greg Carr, Washington DC

Poem # 1:

A Poem for Stayers

I want to stay
Squat, full, immense
Full of the broad wealth of age and joy and
Ripe, Sweet Life.

I want to leak
All over the space I occupy
Squishy, syrupy flood
Oozing out of every pore and
Onto everything in sight
Liquid, solid
Life

I want to be the thing you love
More than you love yourself

So that when you are gone
I am still here
Your memory stuck to me and
Leaving the stain
Deeply on the land



Poem # 2: Do Not Concede

Your self
Exists
Do Not Concede it
Then tune your ear
To hear
Your self
Over the din
Under the chorus
Around the edges
Just outside the point of focus

Unfix your sight
Do not concede the
Frame of Reference
Regain your perspective
By blurring the one you inherited
From your Masters
Do Not Concede
Your self

The familiar
Is not the thing you have been forced
To accommodate
Do Not Concede It
To the practical, sensible thing
Listen to your Self
It is old beyond age
And longer than length
It is your lasting, essential tie
To God

Do Not Concede


--Greg Carr

Greg E. Carr, Ph.D., JD
Associate Professor of Africana Studies
Chair, Department of Afro-American Studies
Founder's Library, Room 318
Howard University
Washington, DC 20059

November 15, Deadline for Submissions

Send to jmarvinx@yahoo.com, include brief bio and pic, MS Word attachment

From The Ramparts: From The Ramparts Review Inside Job

From The Ramparts: From The Ramparts Review Inside Job