Obama Drama

The Daily Beast
U.S. Politics
Newsweek Magazine

The Black War Over Obama

African-American leaders fear academic rebel Cornel West’s fierce attacks on the president could spell trouble in 2012.
Aug 15, 2011 1:00 AM EDT

How did Cornel West become the administration’s No. 1 gadfly? The noted African-American scholar and radio host may have helped Barack Obama into the White House, but he has spent the better part of the president’s term taking shots at him, calling him a “black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs,” among other names. “These last few weeks have only proven my point about Brother Obama,” West says in his signature “one love” voice as he talks about the debt-reduction debacle on Capitol Hill. “He simply caved in again.”

Never mind the slings and arrows of Tea Partiers. The most politically problematic criticism of Obama these days is coming from his base. And there’s no question that there is a deep reservoir of frustration, confusion, and even rage among many in the African-American community for West to tap into. With unemployment hovering near 17 percent for African-Americans (the national average rate is 9 percent) and 11 percent of black homeowners facing imminent foreclosure, African-Americans have ample reason for anxiety about the coming budget cuts that Obama reluctantly signed into law this month. The Congressional Black Caucus chairman called the recent debt deal “a sugar-coated satan sandwich” that will do little to help communities already struggling.

West and his longtime friend, radio host Tavis Smiley, have taken their criticism of Obama to the streets, launching a two-week, 15-city “poverty tour,” aimed at forcing the powers that be to once again focus on the “least among us” and getting the president to “wake up.” Their efforts are increasingly stoking fears among some African-American leaders that West and Smiley could discourage black voters from turning out when the nation’s first African-American president stands for reelection in 2012.

“The negative discussion Dr. West is having can only put more apathy in the hearts of African-Americans and could ultimately cause them to lose more faith in the entire political process,” says the Rev. Otis Moss III, pastor of Obama’s former church in Chicago. “Where will that leave us?”

Lately, Obama’s supporters in the black community are fighting back. As West and Smiley pulled up aboard their “Call to Conscience” bus in Detroit in early August, a crowd of hecklers awaited them outside the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center. “We will not stand silent as Smiley and West criticize the man who brought us health-care reform, one of the greatest accomplishments for the poor in this country’s history,” says a spokesperson for Detroiters for Better Government.
Barack Obama

Photo illustration by Newsweek (source photo: Jemal Countess / Wireimage-Getty Images)

The pushback is not just coming from community organizers. “The poor did horribly under every president before Obama, and yet there wasn’t this level of outcry toward them by these men,” says Michael Eric Dyson, professor of sociology at Georgetown. “That makes folks skeptical about the intent.”

West insists he does not intend to suppress support for Obama’s reelection. “If African-Americans choose to stay home this time and not go to the booth, it would be most regrettable -given the options,” he says. “But that can’t stop my message.”

It’s hard to say how much electoral impact the Princeton professor and the media personality might have. Obama retains overwhelming support among black voters. Still, the numbers have been slipping. He received a staggering 96 percent of the African-American vote in 2008. In a poll done by Black Entertainment Television in March, black approval of Obama had slid to 85 percent. According to a recent Washington Post/CBS poll, the number of African-Americans who believe Obama’s actions have helped the economy has dropped from 77 percent in October to about half that this month.

That’s not the kind of news the president’s reelection team wants to hear heading into a campaign year.

Obama’s team has reached out to West several times and invited him to meet with the president, a White House official says, adding that West has declined. For his part, West says he has received a call from White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, but did not get invited to meet with Obama. “A beer summit won’t help our issues,” West adds, recalling the now-famous meeting the president had with a white police officer and Harvard’s Skip Gates following a tense confrontation between the two in 2009.

Gates stands by West, his longtime friend: “He is completely sincere in his concern for the poor. I may disagree, as brothers sometimes do, with the way the message is being handled, but I commend him for his work and his passion.

How did Cornel West become the administration’s No. 1 gadfly? The noted African-American scholar and radio host may have helped Barack Obama into the White House, but he has spent the better part of the president’s term taking shots at him, calling him a “black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs,” among other names. “These last few weeks have only proven my point about Brother Obama,” West says in his signature “one love” voice as he talks about the debt-reduction debacle on Capitol Hill. “He simply caved in again.”

Never mind the slings and arrows of Tea Partiers. The most politically problematic criticism of Obama these days is coming from his base. And there’s no question that there is a deep reservoir of frustration, confusion, and even rage among many in the African-American community for West to tap into. With unemployment hovering near 17 percent for African-Americans (the national average rate is 9 percent) and 11 percent of black homeowners facing imminent foreclosure, African-Americans have ample reason for anxiety about the coming budget cuts that Obama reluctantly signed into law this month. The Congressional Black Caucus chairman called the recent debt deal “a sugar-coated satan sandwich” that will do little to help communities already struggling.

West and his longtime friend, radio host Tavis Smiley, have taken their criticism of Obama to the streets, launching a two-week, 15-city “poverty tour,” aimed at forcing the powers that be to once again focus on the “least among us” and getting the president to “wake up.” Their efforts are increasingly stoking fears among some African-American leaders that West and Smiley could discourage black voters from turning out when the nation’s first African-American president stands for reelection in 2012.

“The negative discussion Dr. West is having can only put more apathy in the hearts of African-Americans and could ultimately cause them to lose more faith in the entire political process,” says the Rev. Otis Moss III, pastor of Obama’s former church in Chicago. “Where will that leave us?”

Lately, Obama’s supporters in the black community are fighting back. As West and Smiley pulled up aboard their “Call to Conscience” bus in Detroit in early August, a crowd of hecklers awaited them outside the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center. “We will not stand silent as Smiley and West criticize the man who brought us health-care reform, one of the greatest accomplishments for the poor in this country’s history,” says a spokesperson for Detroiters for Better Government.
Barack Obama.

The pushback is not just coming from community organizers. “The poor did horribly under every president before Obama, and yet there wasn’t this level of outcry toward them by these men,” says Michael Eric Dyson, professor of sociology at Georgetown. “That makes folks skeptical about the intent.”

West insists he does not intend to suppress support for Obama’s reelection. “If African-Americans choose to stay home this time and not go to the booth, it would be most regrettable -given the options,” he says. “But that can’t stop my message.”

It’s hard to say how much electoral impact the Princeton professor and the media personality might have. Obama retains overwhelming support among black voters. Still, the numbers have been slipping. He received a staggering 96 percent of the African-American vote in 2008. In a poll done by Black Entertainment Television in March, black approval of Obama had slid to 85 percent. According to a recent Washington Post/CBS poll, the number of African-Americans who believe Obama’s actions have helped the economy has dropped from 77 percent in October to about half that this month.

That’s not the kind of news the president’s reelection team wants to hear heading into a campaign year.

Obama’s team has reached out to West several times and invited him to meet with the president, a White House official says, adding that West has declined. For his part, West says he has received a call from White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, but did not get invited to meet with Obama. “A beer summit won’t help our issues,” West adds, recalling the now-famous meeting the president had with a white police officer and Harvard’s Skip Gates following a tense confrontation between the two in 2009.

Gates stands by West, his longtime friend: “He is completely sincere in his concern for the poor. I may disagree, as brothers sometimes do, with the way the message is being handled, but I commend him for his work and his passion.”

Popular talk-radio personality Tom Joyner recently joined the fray, writing an open letter to West suggesting that he and Smiley were motivated more by a desire for attention and book sales than a genuine concern for the plight of the poor. (The two co-host a Public Radio International daily radio show, and Smiley owns a book imprint that publishes most of West’s written works. Smiley’s most recent book, Fail Up, was released in May.)

The Rev. Al Sharpton has also voiced concerns that the pair’s efforts may do more harm than good. “African--Americans are struggling with many issues, and serious discussions need to be had by all,” Sharpton says. “But instead, West has resorted to personal attacks … All that does is distract the attention from where it needs to be. I’ve said that to Cornel and explained the damage being done.”

West has openly admitted being angered by perceived slights from Obama after his election. He says he campaigned nonstop for Obama in 2007, hosting more than 60 events, yet he says he didn’t receive inauguration tickets and lost all access to Obama once he was in office. Smiley fell out of favor with many African-Americans prior to the 2008 election, owing to his unrelenting criticism of Obama. Many think his distaste for the president influenced West’s attitude.

Some of Obama’s staunchest allies are confident a truce is near. Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree, who befriended both Barack and Michelle Obama in the 1990s, introduced the couple to West in early 2007. Ogletree sounds determined to resolve what he terms a “disappointing distraction” as soon as possible.

“This is not about two very brilliant men squashing a beef,” says Ogletree of Obama and West. “This is about what’s best for this country … The two men will meet before 2011 is over, and this won’t be allowed to impact the 2012 reelection of Barack Obama. That’s simply not an option.”

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Allison Samuels is a senior writer at Newsweek. Her work has also appeared in Rolling Stone, O, Essence and Vibe magazines. She's also the author of Christmas Soul, published by Disney/Jump At the Sun, and Off The Record, (Harper Collins/Amistad).

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The Mythology of Love

The Mythology of Love


Beyond Myth


Myth is all there is, like air, without myth we cannot breathe, therefore we die. Myth is the essence of religion. There are no rituals without myth--myth is the story, the word, hence the foundation of ritual. We take the myth and create the drama as in the original Osirian drama of resurrection, first the story then the enactment of the story, followed by the absorption of myth into the social-psychology of a people. Myth then becomes the foundation of culture, the purpose of existence and the goal of after-life.

Yes, culture is all that we do but all that we do is based on the myths we live by. When we suggest transcending myth it is an awesome challenge to the psyche and thus to the society. What white person wants to give up the myth of white supremacy. It is the essence of their being. Shall they become black? But black is not simply a color, it is a culture that is bound by myth as well. When we suggest giving up myth, we realize the task is daunting, for what shall a person stand upon, what rock, what reality?

We want the schools to change but again it shall involve dismantling the American mythology, all the lies, stories, dreams, holidays, statues, images, symbols that abound the society--in short, a decolonialization must occur—or call it detoxification. The teachers cannot teach a different way because they are victims of myth as well, trapped in their madness which is the essence of all they have been taught and certified to teach.

The black American psychologists are grappling with the problem of myth as I write. At their last national conference in Oakland they spoke about casting out Eurocentric psychology and returning to the ancient African healing philosophy. They want to transcend European psychotherapy for a more holistic approach that will embrace the entire being of the spiritually ill person, for sure, the mental is related to the physical to the social to the political to the economic. But as with education, how shall the mental health workers get certified to teach African healing when they have been trained in Eurocentric psychology? And what is the mythological foundation of African healing?

Imagine throwing out white education, but the question is can they heal the black mind with white psychology? As much as we applaud the psychotherapeutic peer group approach, prescribed in my manual How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy, even the peer group is not sufficient unless the group bonds together in a holistic manner to overcome the myriad ills due to oppression.

The myth of love is an example of how we are entrapped in mythology. Love becomes an ever changing illusion based on materialism and economic security, thus it is a physical thing that in the end causes us to cry, "What does love have to do with it?" But in reality love is all there is. God is Love! Yet we spend a lifetime seeking that which is our essence. Surely we must be on the wrong path or in the wrong house of love. And after a lifetime with the beloved, we wonder was it in vain, a waste of energy, a pitiful existence with a beloved who hated our guts, was jealous, envious, greedy, yet this was our mate, this was us.

And so detoxification is in order to begin our recovery from sick mythology. We resist and deny anything is amiss but we must summon the strength to make a change, to jump out the box toward a brighter day. We fight leaving the comfort zone for it is all we know, like the slaves upon emancipation: where shall we go, what shall we do without the master? He was our everything, our god, our lover, our enforcer, our rapist even. But deconstructing alien mythology is the only way out, just as the dope fiend must stop using dope upon the pain of death. Now some choose death, the die-hards who claim dope is the best thing that ever happened to them. So they are not satisfied until they fall into the pit. The society addicted to sick mythology is no better than the common dope fiend. It is determined to commit mass suicide. America is not alone in this manner. It is the same with Israel, North Korea, Iran and elsewhere. Mythology (call it ideology if you wish) will be the final determinant of the political actions in the above nations.

Will they transcend their mythology and live or persist in their inordinacy until they die? The sooner we get beyond myth into a progressive, radical and revolutionary state of mind, the better we shall all be. But it would be a step forward if we simply stopped believing in the superiority of myth. This notion of superiority is probably worse than the myth itself. The myth of white supremacy is no better or worse than other myths, but the problem is when whites want to spread their myth and force it upon others who have their own mythology.

As far as I am concerned, let the whites in the American south keep their confederate flag, just don’t subject it upon me and my people. Keep that shit in yo house, your church or wherever you dwell and I don’t. And if I fly the Star and Crescent, leave me the hell alone. But let’s go deeper into the world of myth for a story is composed of words, thus we must consider linguistics or language when attempting to transcend myth, for the devil is in the language. We may therefore find ourselves in need of a new language in order to transcend myth, for we speak a mythical language, and just as we do not understand the mythology, we do not understand the language. To have a common language suggests we have agreed upon definitions, but again, what do you mean by love, and are you prepared to love your enemy? Can you love yourself, and who or what is yourself? Who is the black self, what is it?

We grappled with this problem in the 60s in trying to define a black aesthetic. What is beauty and truth to us? Suddenly the Negro was ugly and black was beautiful, and for a moment there was a consensus and a people moved forward. And then came the breakdown and the consensus was gone. The natural hair style was no longer en vogue. Ugly became beautiful. Ugly was freedom, although we never got a consensus on what freedom meant, nor do we have one today. What is freedom to you is not freedom to me. You say freedom is a job, and that’s the totality of your freedom. Other people fight for land, natural resources, self determination, but you say just give you a job and you are satisfied. So how can we unite?

You say freedom is having sex between persons of the same sex. Nothing else matters to you in life. But we ask what does sex have to do with it? Were you put aboard the slave ships so you could have sex with the same gender loving persons, is this why your ancestors suffered in the cotton and cane fields, was it for sexual freedom, or what is possibly something that went far beyond pussy and dick, getting a nut in the dark or in some alley, bathroom, park? Again, we need to define some terms before we can move forward into the new era. Let’s list some terms and define them—and how can we do this when terms are ever shifting, for language is dynamic and fluid, Negro, Colored, black, African, Bilalian, Moorish, et al. We are forever changing our identity because we cannot come to a consensus as a people. At least the white people know they are white, they may not know anything else, but they know they are white.

You don’t know if you are black or white, man or woman—for the sands are constantly shifting under your feet—the result of your insecurity, personal and communal. It is an identity crisis of the most profound degree imaginable. So myth is composed with language, from myth to ritual, from ritual to reality, but language is the foundation. The child’s world only becomes real when it takes command of its “mother tongue.” Within the mother tongue is myth which is composed of surface and deep structure terminology and meaning, the said and the unsaid, the seen and the unseen.

We are that child that has yet to master language, hence our world is chaos without solid, safe and secure definitions, leading us not to know what is real and unreal, a confusion of self and kind. We are not certain our brother is a friend or foe. We are not sure if our mate is friend or foe, lover or hater. In a moment of passion we may hear words we never thought was in the heart of our lover, or we may use such words ourselves. Now there is more doubt and insecurity in an already fragile relationship, that more than likely originated in lust rather than anything that can be called love. And so we see the task before us, a psycho-linguistic mythological conundrum that will take centuries to resolve since in the global village our mythology is bound with other mythological tribes and nations, some of which seek our life blood.

We may be forced out of our slumber to shed the old raggedy clothes of worn out mythology, whether religious or political, sexual or social. Elijah told us the wisdom of this world is exhausted—one need only look around and listen to the language, the babble blowing in the wind, in spite of all the technology, all the human advancement. Surely, in spite of it all, reverse evolution has set in, a kind of atrophy, a freezing of the mental apparatus, a paralysis of thought while the very hour challenges us with the need for grand vision to make that great leap forward into the new millennium.
--Marvin X, from the Mythology of Love, essays on male/female relations, 2011

Common - The Corner ft. The Last Poets

Meet me at Academy of da Corner, 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland.

Toward A Pan African Mental Health Peer Group

Toward A Pan African Mental Health Peer Group


A few years ago, I called upon Dr. Nathan Hare, our esteemed sociologist and clinical psychologist, and author of the classic The Black Anglo-Saxons, to establish a mental health group we decided to call Black Reconstruction. Along with Dr. Hare, the group was facilitated by social worker, Suzzette Celeste, MSW, MPA. The group took place at my Recovery Theatre in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district. Before the group sessions were disbanded for several reasons, including logistics and promotion, we discovered a few things. One, the group should have been divided into the severely mentally ill and the functionally mentally ill, although the dual diagnosed (those with mental and drug problems) could attend either session, for many times the drug addict and mentally ill are indivisible personalities.

Two, Dr. Hare concluded such mental health peer group sessions should be established in every community nationwide. And I add worldwide. A mental health worker need not be present, but following the 12-step model of AA, let the peers facilitate the session, since there are simply not enough mental health workers to serve the population of mentally disabled persons. The US Surgeon General estimated 20% of Americans are mentally ill. Three, although the Pan African community suffers the brunt of mental disorders caused by oppression, “situational disorders” as Dr. Franz Fanon called them, when whites attended, we saw they too suffer and could participate since much of oppression does not discriminate --and more importantly, the colonizer is as mentally ill, if not more so, than the colonized.

The victimizer with his boot on the neck of the oppressed is sick with the idea of domination. So, yes, racism has affected more blacks than whites, but middle and lower class whites are an exploited economic class as well. Capitalism and imperialism do not discriminate--all workers are exploited and they are programmed into the virus of consumerism wherein their paltry wages acquire the cheap goods of a materialistic society.

Half the goods they acquire are not needed, but the workers and their children are programmed by persistent advertising, often of a subliminal nature. And there is only a matter of degree between the exploited white worker and the black worker. For sure, blacks and women lack wage parity. Yes, a white worker with a prison record can get a job quicker than a black worker with no police record, but once on the job, the white worker is exploited none the less and suffers mental trauma as well. His white skin does not save him from wage slavery and the resultant psycho-social diseases, including drug abuse, partner violence and child abuse, emotional if not physical.

Nevertheless, our main focus is healing the Pan African community, those descendants of slavery and colonialism throughout Africa, Europe and the Americas. This book should also have relevance to the Muslim world, Arabs in particular, who suffer as well the ravages of colonialism and neo-colonialism. Yes, Muslims and Arabs suffer from the trauma of white supremacy as the West devours their oil fields and other resources, and permits reactionary regimes to flourish in spite of their anti-democratic behavior.

The ravages of slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism (including domestic colonialism) necessitate the formation of Pan African mental health peer groups throughout Pan Africa, whether on the continent, Europe, Caribbean and the Americas, especially North America. Let us all come together in small groups for peer healing sessions.

Radical Pan African mental health peer groups can be a powerful antidote to help heal the lingering, traumatic effects of slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism. We can see throughout Pan Africa that even when we advance politically and economically, the scourge of cultural imperialism causes mental retardation of a kind that produces stunted men and women who might otherwise continue the radical freedom agenda, but yet (and often in the name of revolution) continue reactionary behavior and practices no different from their former masters. We label such behavior white supremacy, even if it is now black face white supremacy. In the Caribbean they call it, “Black men with white hearts.” Indeed, such behavior is a disease of the heart, of the spirit, and thus no amount of political/economic liberation will suffice--we cannot live on bread alone, but our wretched mental condition stifles real progress toward that divine state of mind wherein we are free of tribal, ethnic, religious and cultural hatred, strife, desires of domination, exploitation, greed and lust for power, i.e., white supremacy.

The advantages and positives of Western civilization do not outweigh the sordid and vile behavior we have inculcated and practice with each other, and thus the time has come to make radical changes as we advance into the new millennium, personal changes in our spiritual consciousness that will transform our political, economic and social behavior. Yes, we are in the era of high technology, but our behavior is often of a bestial nature, for we have lost the civility and serenity of the natural order, even the animals display personalities more at peace than we so-called evolved human beings. As we became urbanized, we are no longer cognizant of natural love for each other and the planet we share with animals and plants. Many city children have never touched an animal, a cow, horse or chicken, a duck, a bird. We may teach gender equality, but we see in the animal kingdom there is leadership based on gender, sometimes the male but often the female. So as we evolve we might need to refer to the animals for wisdom and knowledge of how configure society that decreases psycho-social destabilization that has brought us to the present need for this discussion of how to remedy the most pressing political, economic, social, and spiritual issue of our time: white supremacy.

NOTE:

Until further notice, persons seeking to attend the Pan African Mental Health Peer Group can meet Dr. M at Academy of da Corner, 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland.
Email me to find out day and time or make an appointment. jmarvinx@yahoo.com.

Thousands Protest US in Africa at Harlem Rally

RALLY IN HARLEM TO PROTEST ATTACKS AFRICA AND BLACK COMMUNITIES IN THE U.S.

HARLEM: Thousands Protest Attacks on African People on the Continent and in the U.S.


By People's Media Center NYC

Thousands rallied at Malcolm X Boulevard in Harlem Saturday, August 13 to protest the attack on African people on the Continent and in the United States. The heinous bombing of Libya by the US and NATO, illegal sanctions against Zimbabwe by the West, and the Bloomberg administration’s destruction of housing, jobs, education, health care and police abuse, are all a systematic assault on African communities.

Special guest speakers included: Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam; Father Miguel d'Escoto, former President of the UN General Assembly and former Foreign Minister of Nicaragua; Dr. Molefi Asante of Afrocentricity International; Viola Plummer of the December 12th Movement; NOI Minister Akbar Muhammad, and many others.

The rally garnered international attention with the participation of Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockman. Father d'Escoto spoke against the “war of aggression on Libya.” Further stating “There is no people in the whole planet who know less about what the United States does abroad than Americans. They are systematically deceived. This is the very foundation of what they call democracy in this country.” Father d'Escoto went on to outline the need for reform in the United Nations, emphasizing the domination of the voting members of the UN Security Council over all other countries.

“We never underestimate our people's ability to analyze a situation. The vast majority of folk are clear about the attack on African people and want to do something to fight back. Mainstream media propaganda about strong African leaders like Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and President Robert Mugabe is just like what they say about Black people here who do not bow down to the status quo,” said Gregory Perry of Queens.

Bronx Coordinator Kamau Brown stated, “Colonel Gaddafi and the people of Libya have built their country from the poorest to the richest country in Africa. He is the key person in the organizing effort to build a United States of Africa. President Mugabe has dared to take back the land stolen by European settlers and give it back to the people of Zimbabwe.”

“The attack on us here is insidious. Police brutality and harassment, gentrification of our communities, housing foreclosures, destruction of public education, closing hospitals, the prison industry, the list goes on and on. They all destroy lives. The NATO bombs in Libya and the illegal sanctions in Zimbabwe kill people. Black people understand that it's time for Pan African Unity.” Brown concluded.

Rally Saturday: Africa for Africans

Greetings Sister and Brother Leaders:

Hope to find you and your families well. A friendly reminder. Hope you'll join us this Saturday, 8/13, 11 am, at U.N. Plaza in San Francisco (@ Civic Center BART station) for our STAND-UP FOR AFRICANS! STOP THE BOMBING OF LIBYA! REPARATIONS NOW Rally. Many thanks for your consideration.

Baba Jahahara Amen-RA Alkebulan-Ma'at

"Take your righteous steps... and, let our Divine do the rest. Walk in Faith... on each and every day!"


July 6251 KMT/2011

Greetings to our African-Descendant Organizations and Justice-seeking Allies in the Oakland/San Francisco Bay Area:

In solidarity with the masses of people in Libya, the entire African continent, Haiti—and the millions upon millions facing increased imperialist military, police and corporate violence; as well as worsening conditions of life in communities, workplaces and prisons around the U.S., African Diaspora and internationally—We appeal to you and your organization’s members to join our STAND-UP FOR AFRICANS! Rally for Justice and Healing Gathering, on Saturday, 13 August 2011, at 11 am. We will assemble in the 1945 birthplace of the United Nations, downtown San Francisco, California. Our location is the United Nations’ Plaza, located on Market Street b/w Seventh & Eighth. (Take BART or MUNI trains to the United Nations’ Plaza/Civic Center stations). We are also expressing our unity with the Millions March being organized by the December 12th International Secretariat and others in Harlem, New York (please visit www.millionsmarchharlem.com for more information)

Sixty years ago, in 1951, our courageous Ancestors (such as WILLIAM and LOUISE PATTERSON, LOUIS BURNHAM, JOHN PITTMAN, JAMES MALLOY, HARRY HAYWOOD, ESLANDA and PAUL ROBESON, RUSSELL MEEK, W.E.B. DUBOIS, JAMES FORD, BENJAMIN DAVIS, and many other outstanding activists) organized the WE CHARGE GENOCIDE campaign to the United Nations’ General Assembly. They exposed to the world “The Crime of Government Against the Negro (African-descendants in the U.S.) People”; and sought to secure international support and immediate relief. It is in that great tradition—and the spirit of our collective Victory ten years ago at the U.N.’s “Third World Conference Against Racism” in Durban, South Africa—that WE STILL CHARGE GENOCIDE for the continuing crimes against humanity and nature; and proclaim that AFRICAN NATIONS AND ASCENDANTS DESERVE AND DEMAND REPARATIONS NOW!

We condemn the imperialists’ attempts to murder the Gadhafi family; to disrupt, dismantle, divide and destroy that independent nation’s infrastructure, economy, and self-defense capabilities; and, to accelerate their robbery of oil and militarization of the African continent. We also acknowledge the threat by some in the African Union to withdraw from the U.N. based on the “security council’s” (along with NATO’s and President Barack Obama’s) unjust and bombastic actions, in Libya. We are launching our “Dismantle the United Nations’ ‘Security Council’ Monopoly! Support Equality and Democracy Through One Nation/One Vote: Petition to the People of the World.” Finally, We are reactivating our “Establish a Permanent Forum for African Descendants at the U.N.” effort, from 2009. Your participation, leadership and contributions are most welcome to help popularize these campaigns for truth, justice, peace and Reparations.

In Unity! For those on the west coast who are unable to travel to New York, We look forward to seeing you on Saturday, 13 August, 11 am, at the United Nations Plaza, in Frisco!

Initiated by FONAMI (Foundations for Our New Alkebulan/Afrikan Millennium), Members of N’COBRA in Oakland/San Francisco Bay Area, the ANSWER Coalition and other activists

Reach us at:

support@africansdeservereparations.com

510.759.4311 [Call: 510.759.4311] [Call: 510.759.4311] [Call: 510.759.4311] [Call: 510.759.4311] [Call: 510.759.4311] [Call: 510.759.4311]

Special invitations to participate in this 13 August mobilization extended to a number of spiritual, cultural, political and justice organizations, including: African People’s Socialist Party; All African People’s Revolutionary Party; All of Us or None; Bay View Newspaper; Committee for Defense of Human Rights and SF-8; Committee to Free Cuban Five; Haiti Action Committee; International Longshore Workers Union; It’s About Time/Black Panther Alumni; KPFA/Pacifica Radio; KPOO; Congresswoman Barbara Lee; Malcolm X Grassroots Movement; Nation of Islam; Party for Socialism and Liberation; Prisoners of Conscience Committee; Wo’se Community Church of the Sacred Way; and other groups.

************************************************************************

STAND-UP FOR AFRICANS!

Rally for Justice and Healing Gathering

Saturday, 13 August 2011

11 am

United Nations’ Plaza, downtown San Francisco

Market Street b/w Seventh & Eighth (at UN Plaza/Civic Center BART and MUNI stations)



WE STILL CHARGE GENOCIDE!!!

End the U.S. and European Terrorist Wars, Torture, Murder, Robbery and (Re-) Colonization of Africans!

Life Over Capitalist Debt and Death! Human Needs, Not Corporate Greed!

Arrests, Trials and Convictions for the Criminal Political, Military and Financial Gangsters and Banksters!

Stop the Bush-Obama Imperialist “AFRICOM” (aka, U.S. African Command) Militarization of Africa!

Dismantle the so-called “security council” of the United Nations! Support One Member Nation, One Vote!

REPARATIONS NOW…

FOR LIBYA, ZIMBABWE, HAITI AND ALL AFRCAN NATIONS AND DESCENDANTS, PALESTINE, IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN!!!

This action initiated by the FONAMI (Foundations for Our New Alkebulan/Afrikan Millennium), Members of N’COBRA in Oakland/San Francisco Bay Area, the ANSWER Coalition and other groups.

c/o FONAMI P.O. Box 10963 Oakland, CA 94610

support@africansdeservereparations.com 510.759.4311 [Call: 510.759.4311] [Call: 510.759.4311] [Call: 510.759.4311] [Call: 510.759.4311] [Call: 510.759.4311]

We are in unity with the Millions March taking place in Harlem, New York ( www.millionsmarchharlem.com for info)



Baba Jahahara Amen-RA Alkebulan-Ma'at

Part TWO: 30 Years of Teaching and Writing

Part Two: 30 Years of Teaching and Writing: The Public Career of Marvin X by James G. Spady, Philadelphia New Observer,1997

copyright (c) 1997 by James G. Spady

...The poetry of Marvin X is deeply rooted in the cosmological convictions of his ancestors and his community. His individual identity is inextricably linked to his communal identity. That is why it functions as a source of power and inspiration. Because he is open to the magico-realist perception or reality and has the authentic experiences of the streets, Marvin's works strike a chord. Nowhere is this better exemplified than in a recent collection, Love and War, 1995.

"Read Love and War for Ramadan!"--Dr. Mohja Kahf, University of Arkansas, Department of English and Islamic Literature



cover art by Emory Douglas, Black Panther Minister of Culture



He introduces the work with these words, "Love and War is my poetic story of rediscovering self love and the internal war (Jihad) to reconquer my soul from the devil who whispers into the hearts of men, Al Qur'an. But I am also mindful of socio political conditions of my people. And this reality fills me with compassion and love, forcing me once again (now that I am clean and sober) to put on the armor of God and return to the battlefield. This collection is a signal of my return to the struggle of African American liberation after an absence of nearly a decade, caused by disillusionment and drug abuse. I return with the spirit of my friend, Huey P. Newton, rip, shaking my bones. He and I were often in the same drug territory and but for the grace of God, I chould have easily suffered a fate similar to his. I came close many times. Praise be to Allah."



"Marvin X was my teacher, many of our comrades came through his black theatre: Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Emory Douglas, George Murray and Sam Napier."
--Dr. Huey P. Newton,co-founder of the Black Panther Party



...Craft is essential to Marvin X's poetry and drama. He knows the possibilities and constraints of the form. And he also knows how to expand. He credits Sun Ra with having helped him to realize the full possibilities of theatre. Marvin read his poetry in San Ra's grand musical energy field and he closely observed Sonny's skillful exploration of our Omniverse and all of its real possibilities. Was int not Sun Ra who told Marvin X that he would be teaching at U.C. Berkeley before it happened?




Marvin X and Sun Ra, both Gemini





...Nearly 30 years ago, Marvin sought to teach the relationship of Islam and Black Art. In his published conversation with Amiri Baraka, he attempted to reconcile and provide voices and faces for the different expressions of Islam in the West.

As a skilled interviewer, he allows Askia Toure and Baraka's divergent views of Islam to be placed into the record. In the afterword he states, "I believe the Honorable Elijah Muhammad is at least ten years ahead of any Black group working for freedom, justice and equality in the hells of North America. The Islamic ideology, discipline and organizational structure permits the masses of our people to fully develop their self-identity, self defense and self-government."

Again, X is out front. He recognized the tremendous influence Islam had on the Black Arts Movement. He is a case study in that type of influence....


Elijah and Malcolm, major influences on Marvin X. He honors both men.



....Marvin X is credited with convincing Eldridge Cleaver to use his advance against royalties from the popular book Soul on Ice, to help set up Black House. The building became "the mecca of political, cultural activity in The Bay Area. Among artists featured were: Sonia Sanchez,Vonetta McGee, Amiri and Amina Baraka, Chicago Art Ensemble,
Avoctja, Emory Douglas, Sarah Webster Fabio, et al. Playwright Ed Bullins joined Marvin and Eldrdige at the Black House, along with Marvin's partner, Ethna X (Hurriyah Asar), and singer Willie Dale, Cleaver's buddy from San Quentin.

Eldridge Cleaver, see Marvin X's memoir, Eldridge Cleaver, My friend the Devil, 2009 Upon his release from Soledad prison, Marvin X was the first person he hooked up with. Later Marvin introduced him to Huey Newton and Bobby Seale.


....Marvin X is a teacher of primeval knowledge, a knower of both street poetry and book poetry. In fact, he combines the two in a powerful way. Each verse is a teach act, each stanza--a class. His use of alliteration, rhymes, assonance, dissonance and free rhymes indicates he has absorbed the teachings of the academy. Yet, the street consciousness lying in the cut of its content links him directly to the poets of the new idiom called Rap.



Black Panther co-founder Bobby Seale who attended Oakland's Merritt College along with Huey Newton and Marvin X. Bobby performed in Marvin's second play Come Next Summer before founding the Black
Panther Party.

His experimental verses are wholistic, historical and yet dialogical. The dynamic complexities of the situation creates in the reader an urgent need to know more. Can we expect anything elswe from a good teacher?

30 Years of Teaching and Writing: The Public Career of Marvin X

30 Years of Teaching and Writing: The Public Career of Marvin X

Copyright James G. Spady, 1997

Philadelphia New Observer

Marvin X has been teaching for a long time. He has established his tenacity. As one of the founders of the Black Arts Movement (BAM), he became a teacher in an emerging field called Black Studies. Like Sonia Sanchez, Amiri Baraka, Larry Neal, Askia Toure and others, Marvin X both contributed to and later taught those pivotal courses that constituted a new discipline.

For the last thirty years, this gifted poet, journalist, dramatist, oral historian (he appears to be the only participant in the Black Arts Movement that conducted intensive and extensive oral interviews with the key participants, as well as international political, cultural and educational leaders)and teacher, has established an unusual record. Marvin X has taught at the University of California at San Diego, Mills College, San Francisco State University, Fresno State University,
Laney and Merritt Colleges in Oakland, University of Nevada,Reno, and the University of California at Berkeley.

His peers were among the first to recognize his ability. The well-known African American man of the Arts and Letters, Amiri Baraka, refers to Marvin X as "one of the outstanding African writers and teachers in America. He has always been in the forefront of Pan African writing. Indeed, he is one of the founders and innovators of the new revolutionary school of African writing."

One of the best known playwrights in America is Ed Bullins. He refers to X as "one of the founders of the modern day Black theatre movement. He is a Black artist par excellence." The editor of Black Scholar magazine, Robert Chrisman, spoke of Marvin as "an extraordinary distinguished poet who has a powerful sense of meaningful drama"....

After high school (1962), Marvin enrolled in Oakland City College, aka Merritt College. There he met Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, who went on to found the Black Panther Party. It was at OCC that Marvin began to undergo a vital change. He listened intently as speaker after speaker addressed the ever-growing members of the cognoscente at Oakland City College. They, like many area colleges, benefited from the organizing and conscious-raising activities of the Afro American Association under the leadership of a young black lawyer, Donald Warden (now Khalid Abdullah Al Mansour). Marvin's early writings appeared in the Merritt College literary magazine.

Upon receiving the A.A. degree, Marvin went on to San Francisco State University, 1964. Marvin wrote a play for one of his English classes. The professor, legendary novelist John Gardner, was sufficiently impressed to carry it over to the theatre department. In the Spring of 1965, Marvin X's one-act play "Flowers for the Trashman" was produced at San Francisco State, a novel experience for an African American. It is even more exceptional in that it was his first play. (Published initially in Black Dialogue, Winter, 1966 and later in Black Fire, edited by Larry Neal and LeRoi Jones).

Marvin X soon met Philly playwright Ed Bullins, introduced to him by Art Sheridan, founding editor of Black Dialogue magazine. Ed and Marvin founded Black Arts West Thetre in the Fillmore. Black Arts West was certainly influenced by the Black Arts Movement in the East, mainly New York and Philadelphia.

The role of Amiri Baraka in shaping national Black consciousness can not be overemphasized. However, Marvin X, Hillary X, Ethna X, Duncan X (as they would become in a few months after joining the Nation of Islam, circa 1967), along with Ed Bullins and Farouk (Carl Bossiere, rip)were part of an indigenous Black Arts Movement....

--Continued--

London Bridges Falling Down, Falling Down

In solidarity with the family and friends of our son Mark Duggan

The PASCF extends our deepest sympathy and forthright solidarity to the family and friends of our son Mark Duggan. Between 6.15pm and 6.41pm on Thursday 4th August 2011 our 29 year old son Mark was shot dead by London Metropolitan Police gunmen in Tottenham Hale North London.

Coming two weekends before our Marcus Garvey African Family Day with its theme of African Youth Thirty Years On: State Destruction or Self-Liberation, the Tottenham Uprising of 6-7th August 2011 confirms something that was never in doubt: the capacity of our African Youth (and our wider African community) militantly to resist injustice and oppression.


Contextualising the current uprising

There is a rising amount of injustice and oppression around at the moment. The racist ruling class is making working people (Africans especially) pay for the destructive structure and operation of a capitalism increasingly dominated by finance capital. This system commoditises everything (including nothing) in pursuit of super profits. When this blows up in its face with bogus AAA instruments proving to be what they always were - worthless - it is the capitalist state that 'saves' the finance sector and the economy as a whole. It has to do so by printing and borrowing money.

Ideologically right wing capitalists then attack the state for being too large and too debt-burdened. They demand 'cuts' to 'save the nation and posterity.' Poor people pay. The objective noose around the neck of capitalism tightens. The right wing demands tax cuts for the rich. The banks, for their part, as part of 'rebuilding their balance sheets' virtually refuse to lend or lend at interest rates of way above that at which they borrow. The banks pay next to nothing on savings. The finance houses (banks by another name) make super profit by attacking money (the national currencies of all nation-states are commodities that are not just traded but attacked for profits).

This completely irrational aspect of the system cannot be curbed because finance capital is king. And so the crisis deepens. The USA and the EU/Euro Zone and the UK (Sterling) are in trouble. So is Japan (its industrial production-based miracle has run its course). So too is China, the leading lender into this system and itself a social powder keg. The question there is: can a Communist/(Stalinist) party structure successfully manage a corrupt capitalist economy in which workers are exploited in myriad un/traditional ways? Those (like Ghaddafi) who dare to propose currency (absolutely not system) alternatives get targeted for murder/regime change. Well serious!

State oppression brings people’s resistance

Injustice and oppression reign on the streets of the UK (and elsewhere) as well. The Metropolitan Police is not only in bed with the corporate criminals like News International, taking bribes left right and centre. It also has its officers killing, humiliating and criminalising Africans. If they can get away with shooting our sons Derrick Bennett, Azelle Rodney and a Brazilian, Jean Charles de Menezes (shot some 7/8 or more times in the head in public) why not the killing of Smiley Culture (What were handcuff marks doing on his wrists if he stabbed himself to death using a knife with body-penetrating force?) and why not Mark Duggan on Thursday 4th August. Eye witnesses say Mark was shot dead by armed police after being 'subdued' and fully under their control. The bullet he is alleged to have fired is now being said to have come from a police issued firearm. It is now officially admitted that the media facilitated the police in the telling their usual lies that Mark had shot one of them before himself being shot dead. If Mark's unlawful killing was fuel, the open assault upon a young African sister towards the end of a peaceful demonstration was more fuel, and lighted match.

On top of that, we have a national DNA data base with African people massively over-represented on it! We have Joint Enterprise Statute, dangerous in conception being abused by the police, the state prosecution services and the courts! The Police are in Schools - taking names and information, managing the long-term criminalization of another generation of an entire community as they participate in process of rampant exclusion and false charging of African Youth!

Perhaps more than ever and disproportionately at the expense of African people, the police are dealing in drugs and facilitating gangs of many sorts! The police are abusing stop and Search powers exploiting fears about gun and knife crime in trying to justify this humiliating outrage?

Late on Saturday 6th August PASCF members witnessed a search on Railton Road, Brixton (Starting point of the Brixton Uprising of 1981 provoked by the Swamp 81 stop and search Operation!) The victim of that search was an African who appeared well into middle age. One of the police men doing the search had on surgical gloves and only barely avoided stripping the man, so invasive was he. Our member asked that policeman if, having found no evidence of a crime, he had ever had reasonable grounds for suspecting the African and as he walked off he said the African man would tell us what it was about. The poor victim had no idea what the search had been about. He had been asked for a search and had felt obliged to say 'yes'.

On 8th August the Hackney part of the ongoing Uprising followed immediately upon precisely one of these lawless fishing exhibition type searches by Metropolitan Policemen.

Youth are the spark of the revolution

Of course the struggle continues with London in flames. So far our children are rising up in Tottenham, Enfield, Islington, Waltham Forest, Walthamstow, Wood Green, Camden, Harlesden, Shepards Bush, Ealing, Queensway, Ladbroke Grove, Notting Hill, Chelsea, Hounslow, Croydon, Brixton, Loughborough Junction, Crystal Palace, Tooting, Streatham, Clapham, Merton, Camberwell, Peckham, Lewisham, Catford, Lee, Blackheath, Woolwich, Surrey Quays, Old Kent Road, Tower Bridge, Bromley, East Dulwich, Ilford, Chingford, Dalston, Hackney, Canning town, East Ham, Barking, Isle of Dogs, Oxford Circus, Bristol, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, West Bromwich, Nottingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Surrey and Suffolk. In addition to militarily defeating the British police force, they summoned Parliament, the Prime Minister, the Home secretary, the Mayor of London and other officials all of whom were on holiday.

Not only do our young people presently have the capitalist state on the run but they are demonstrating its logistical limitations for all who have eyes to see. The political pity is that Marx’s working class/proletariat - theoretically history’s appointed "grave diggers of capitalism" - is visible only as one source, along with Black Members of Parliament, of scared, inane and reactionary comments about the spreading Uprising.


Pan-Afrikan Society

Commmunity Forum

07944-204-955

www.pascf.org.uk; pascfevents@gmail.com

Statement of the PASCF on the London Uprisings

11th August 2011

GET YO MIND RIGHT, A Video by Marvin X

Get Yo Mind Right is Marvin X's version of the barber shop, shot in East Oakland, 38th and MacArthur. The videographer and editor is Pam Pam. Marvin must not only pay for his haircut but the young barbers force him to teach on a variety of subjects, politics, religion, history, manhood and other topics. We also see the neighborhood psychopath doing his thing. One barber is a young Black Panther baby; a customer from Philadelphia is a disciple of Noble Drew Ali's Moorish Science Temple. A youth explains why he wears the do rag and cap. Enjoy this video that Fahizah Alim of the Sacramento Bee called "the Real Barbershop."

Marvin X at the Philadelphia International Locks Conference

Black Males in America

August 9, 2011

Black Males in America, Setting a Path for a Better Future

“To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.” W.E.B. DuBois

It has become somewhat cliché to refer to the harsh realities of being a Black male in America as the “Black Male Crisis.” After all, as far back as the 1980’s newspapers and magazines were running features describing the evisceration of African-American men from society. Conferences were held, research reports issued, and some states established commissions; all with the singular purpose of identifying measures to improve conditions for Black men. Despite these good intentions, three decades later, Black males are in a precarious state in America and against the backdrop of a historic recession their prospects are dim unless we move aggressively to alter their course.

Just how bad is it for Black men? A recent report issued by the College Board reached a stunning and sobering assessment of the quality of life for Black males. The report titled “The Educational Experiences of Young Men of Color,” reviewed the current research on educational pathways. The report notes that unemployment is the most likely postsecondary destination for Black males who do not end up incarcerated or meet an early death.

At the CBCF, we have aligned some of our policy initiatives to address issues around young Black men. This work continues today as we continually engage the policy process on issues such as mass incarceration, a more rational drug policy, the improvement of our public schools and job training and employment.

Corporate leadership and wealthy citizens can and must play a pivotal role in providing opportunities for young black males; through training and employment. Just last week New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that he would invest $30 million of his personal wealth behind a city initiative aimed at improving the lives of young minority males.

To find out more on the issue of Black males, read the landmark publication by senior research analyst at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Ivory Toldson, Ph.D., “Breaking Barriers: Plotting the Path to Academic Success for School-age African-American Males.” http://cbcfinc.org/newsroom/press-room.html.

You are invited to join Dr. Toldson as he releases a follow up of the report “Breaking Barriers Two(BB2) during CBCF’s 41st Annual Legislative Conference (ALC) from September 21-24 in Washington, DC.: The 88-page research report focuses on the roles that schools and communities can play in promoting academic success among African-American males and reducing the disproportionate contact that young black males have with the juvenile justice system. Rep. Cedric Richmond (LA-02), a panel of experts and foundation executives will join Dr. Toldson to discuss national strategies to improve educational outcomes for African-American males.In addition to the release of BB2, the Conference will offer a half dozen issue forums and brain trust sessions confronting this issue and seeking viable solutions. To find out more and to register for ALC visit us @www.alc11.org.


Meanwhile, what can you do? Get involved, share your thoughts with your member of Congress and the White House and voice your opinion. When citizens are informed, engaged and active participants in moving the country in the right direction, our nation is that much stronger.

Darcus Howe BBC News Interview On Riots

The History of Black August

The History of Black August

Marvin X Speaks at Howard University

Marvin X at Howard University, Washington DC

Final Notes on Mythology of Pussy Lecture


Marvin X ended his visit at Howard University with a reading/discussion of Mythology of Pussy, specifically focusing on psychosexuality at Howard. But it wasn’t until the end of his lecture/discussion that a female student dropped a bomb on him, telling him the answer he had been seeking: how Howard women deal with the brothers to satisfy their sexual needs. A sister whispered to him, “Mr. X, we get what we want from the brothers by tossing them around. They think they’re tossing us, but we do the tossing. If we want Joe tonight, we get him, then let another sister have him the next night, but he thinks he’s getting over on us—it ain’t so. We calling the shots! If a girl wants Dante and another does as well, we tell one girl to hold up, let sister have Dante tonight, you get him tomorrow. That’s how we do it.”

And so it is. As Nisa Ra said in her comments on Mythology of Pussy, “Men think they are players when, in fact, they are getting played. He thinks it’s his pussy—but he don’t have a pussy!” Howard student President L. Davis, my homeboy from the Bay (Richmond, Ca—and thanks Prez for your assistance while I was at Howard)—said during the meeting that the girls chose “silly nigguhs” rather than real down brothers, real men!

My thought is that silly girls chose silly nigguhs, especially since it’s all about pussy and dick, nothing more, although I called upon students to get to a higher level as Phavia says in her poem Yo, Yo, Yo: “If you think I’m just a physical thing, wait til you see the spiritual power I bring….” Students appeared to understand the need to resocialize and recover from the addiction to white supremacy mythology.

For now though, it’s all about P and D as Sun Ra called it. One brother came to the meeting only to give me five dollars since he had gotten a pamphlet last week. He told me he’d read it and that I was on the right path. He said, “Don’t back up, don’t back up, keep going forward with Mythology of Pussy.”

Indeed, when I asked the audience should I say Mythology of P—they said hell no, say Mythology of Pussy!

In my final remarks on Howard, I must give an evaluation of my host professor, Dr. Greg Carr, one of the finest young scholars black America has produced. From what I heard and observed, he is well loved by students. I would say he is the hardest working man in academia—the James Brown of black scholars—I was exhausted watching him teach. As brother Ptah (another bright scholar from San Francisco State University who is my colleague) noted, “Dr. Carr is like a rapper with his high energy level.” Indeed, he paces back a forth from black board to black board, writing important names, places and dates. He is thorough and detailed, going through the text word by word, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, page by page.

But while this is an index of his acumen, it reveals the abject failure of students coming prepared to his lecture. As he said to me, simply, “They don’t read!” And so he must essentially baby-sit them because they come to class unprepared, forcing him to go through the text they should have read beforehand. This reveals their laziness, sloth and lack of respect for the great mind before them. This is one reason I am not in academia: I would kick those slothful nigguhs out my class. I would not baby-sit them—either come prepared or get the hell out. If I’m prepared, you better be also—don’t disrespect me. I’m here to give you knowledge, you’re giving me nothing except revealing your negrocities (Baraka term).”

But perhaps Dr. Carr realizes the students are victims of American education that makes them dumb at best—compared to what? Not compared to white American students but compared to students in China and India, students whose genius and fortitude is reflected in the rapid advance of their nations in the era of globalism.

This is why the white man is outsourcing to India and China. Why should he pay an American MBA $140,000 per year when he can hire an Indian MBA for $14,000 per year who is just as, if not more qualified than his American counterpart? And so I call upon Howard students to come out of their sloth and give Dr. Carr, Dr. Tony Medina and other young scholars equal energy and effort. In the words of Marcus Garvey, up you mighty people, you can accomplish what you will! And in the words of David Walker, let us dispel our ignorance and wretchedness in consequence of education.
--Marvin X
Howard University
Washington, DC
30 September, 2009

Parable of Desirelessness

Parable of Desirelessness

During his life, he'd had everything, money, dope, women, more love than any man could handle. In short, he was spoiled rotten. Now he was bored to tears. Maybe he was just an ungrateful bastard, since his cup had run over with goodness and mercy.

While on drugs, he discovered he needed very little, although he desired much. As a dope addict he survived on nothing but dope. No woman, no sex, food, clothes, bath, place to stay. Nothing but dope. For a time he lived in a cardboard box, slept in an alley or doorway. Sometimes he had a woman in the box with him. They smoked dope, made love and prayed in the box.

But it came to a point when he did his dope alone. He hustled alone, coped his dope and went to his room and smoked. In his supreme selfishness, he cut loose his friends. He definitely wouldn't get loaded with them because they were a nuisance. So he lived in solitude except for the demons in his head who visited him nightly. They talked to him and became real people. They were outside his door, he imagined. He could hear them talking. They were going to kill him for sure. They were outside his door discussing how to slay him. He heard them talking in the wind, the rustle of the leaves on the tree. They talked to him each night. It went on for years.

Finally, he did self recovery--no program worked for him, only because he wouldn't work it, thinking he was smarter than the recovery people. They told him to just relax and let himself heal, but he wouldn't. He wanted to continue writing in recovery. They told him not to write, just still himself and heal. So he left the program. This went off and on for years until he decided to recover his way. He went to ocean beach and let the cold ocean heal him. He went to the hot tub and relaxed. People could see he was healing. They could see it in his skin--there was a glow that was obvious to all.

As he recovered, he began to ponder what things he needed to survive. Did he need a woman that was usually a vexation? Most friends were a vexation. He eliminated women and men. Then his car, another vexation. He rode the bus. Got rid of his cell phone. No TV, no video player.
The black movies he found disgusting. He listened to the radio, mainly the news, even though it was bullshit white supremacy misinformation, fiction, his doctor said. He lived in his imagination and devoted time to his greatest joy, thinking and writing.

He gave his writings away on the street. It was his way of giving something back as they teach in recovery. And he shared his wisdom with whomever sought him out, but he sought out no one.
Of course he loved his children and grandchildren and would do anything for them, if and when they needed him.

But mostly, he realized there was nothing out there, but all was inside the self. So where was there to go except inside himself, to unravel the conundrums within his wretched self. Maybe he could raise himself to higher ground, maybe reach the upper room of his father's house. Surely he had been down in the dungeon, the bottomless pit of life. Where else can one go but up. But up is not out, rather within, peeling away the one billion illusions of the monkey mind Guru Bawa taught us about.

What is there to need, what is there to desire, to want? This can be an endless search into the void, the chasm of nothingness and dread. He refused to go there. He'd seen his friends go there, the endless search for things, trinkets, like children in Toys R Us, running here, running there to consume.

And yet there was no need, only desire, and desire was infinite, never ending except in frustration and dread. Desire was an intoxicant, a drug worse than all other drugs combined. The only thing to desire was no desire, to detox and recover from all illusions. Solomon told us all is vanity and vexation of spirit.

And so he looked inside the self, not selfishly, but selflessly with desirelessness. And he found satisfaction, for the more he had nothing, the more he had everything. The more he stilled himself, the more his mind opened to infinite possibilities.

This was not poverty consciousness but the consciousness that all is illusion, transitory and ephemeral. For what do you do when you have everything, yet in an instant it is wiped out. Remember the fire storm in the Oakland/Berkeley hills? And there you stand ready to destroy the self that remains, yet the self was the only reality.

Self is beyond individual. It is communal. Self is the breathing world. When we recognize the personal, we acknowledge the communal, the connection will all that is real and everlasting. Thus the test of the self is in interaction with other selves, no matter how vexing the encounter. Silence will save the day. Listen to the thousand voices in the silence of the wind.

Rumi said it best, "If you come to the garden, it don't matter. If you don't come to the garden, it don't matter."
--Marvin X
4/15/16

Review: Eldridge Cleaver and Memoirs

Eldridge Cleaver, Marvin X and Memoirs

By Rudolph Lewis, editor Chickenbones
http://www.nathanielturner.com/





Marvin has a "memoir." Promotionally, it is about Eldridge Cleaver, my least favorite Black Panther. I am down with Huey. For Bobby there is always gagged in Chicago .

There was whiteness: everybody could see that fairly well by 1969 and we could see that it was a whiteness that did not tolerate and doesn't allow you to pretend that you have no understanding of whiteness and its operations. In this game of subjection, Eldridge's point indeed in his crazed cranium, mistakes nor ignorance aren't forgiven. All literary work is about "power"—that is mastery.

For a month or so I daily saw this writer writing a book—piece by piece (part by part). Marvin X exudes power. He just turned 65 but he removes space like Archie Moore 44 in the ring. The book is Marvin. I know it is an odd thing to say a book is an author. If that is the case this “memoir” is indeed a memoir in the most perfect sense of one thing being another. Marvin pulls his memoir through the mode of “storytelling.”

Marvin, his memoir, each identifies with the people: to paraphrase Langston, in all their beauty and ugliness too. Marvin can walk into a barroom and in seconds have everyone laughing or falling out on the floor. Marvin doesn’t feel uncomfortable like Cornel West speaking before a class of black middle-class folk, or uncomfortable like other self-corporate prophetic leaders. These are objects of his jest, ridicule, scorn. Their pretensions, their respectability. Other than a poet, playwright, director, publisher, and editor, Marvin X is a recovering addict who works daily in drug invested communities.

He knows where his allegiance lies and in whom to invest. I want to be open in this discussion as much as necessary. I encouraged this book while Marvin was writing madly and emailing part after part, revision after revision. I found it all so riveting. Watching a writer write a book himself day after day, hour after hour, and the next thing I know we are on part 32, is quite an unusual and extraordinary experience.

The writing process is indeed important. Each of us has his own way of going about it. Marvin’s last approach, similar to other Marvin escapades, intentionally and directly seeks an audience for his memoir. Actually, he was out on the road—a book tour. In Houston , Texas. On a book tour, Marvin sends what one might call a “barrage” of responses to event or current events, keeping in touch with friends, writers, publishers and more.

In ways he is always a political organizer as well as self-promoter. He makes his way as speaker, writer, event organizer, performer. He keeps people tied to one another and valuing their lives. Marvin is uniquely developed into an informed black man who is religious, spiritual, and political.

He is as representative of the Black Arts Movement (BAM), then and now, as anyone I can think. In ways Marvin is galactic to the point you think he’s standing still, still mired in the betraying clays of the 1960s and 1970s. Ones need to be half-crazed, extremely intelligent, and extraordinarily visionary for his words to reenact the BAM world, as is achieved in memoir, to see the hole we are clearly in and still remain faithful that “Blackness” will find a way.

The memoir fell silent. Marvin moved onto South Carolina . Then he was in New York , Philly. And then New Jersey . Where he hooks up with his buddy, Amiri Baraka. From what I observed for the last decade is that Marvin loves Baraka, right or wrong, and would die for Baraka. This day. This moment view love I knew when I was a soldier out on the streets of Baltimore . Brothers I would die for. That kind of enthusiasm about changing whiteness in the land and thus the world, well, that kind of “militancy” was buried with Mr. Jim Crow. The resulting vision of the NAACP.

Marvin X suspends the past present future like a diamond and makes us believe in “blackness” when it has grayed and entered a nursing home. Yet Marvin believes, he’s a soldier to the death. I did not want Marvin’s memoir to end. We were only at the beginning, though at chapter 39, chapters fairly short.

In New York Marvin was talking about Amiri’s response and willingness to help secure Marvin a book deal for his memoir. From Marvin I received some piece of a rejection notice, all too stereotypical. I do not know where the cat was. But it seems he did not think the “memoir” was worthy of work or revision. What Marvin has as his “memoir” is indeed phenomenal. In its present form one can find nothing like it or better in representing the BAM world. The larger frame of the book could withstand double its size.

The expose could be put to work toward understanding what caused BAM writers to decline, and why the BAM literary legacy is more critical, than before or since the Harlem Renaissance . Two extraordinary playwrights. August Wilson and Marvin X have maintained their reverence and significance of the BAM period. Maybe Wilson is more introspective. Maybe less or differently ideological than Marvin. But both believing there is indeed such a thing as a “black perspective,” whether you want to agree with it or not.

It is this kind of daily believing that makes Marvin X our saving grace. Many of us are too willing to give up the significance and totality of what can be called Black Life in America , of the significance of identity in the personal, social, and economic progress or “success.” One cannot have a healthy psychic if one half of your people are free and the other half wallow in ignorance and superstition. How Moses satisfied such a state of being? I don’t want to hear about COINTELPRO or slave catchers.

I want to hear more on how or why Huey died the way that he did. I want to hear more about why Cleaver’s madness was entertained by anyone sane in the black community—a rapist and murderer. I want real discussion why Baraka’s walk away from cultural nationalism of the 1970s no less an act of betrayal than Cleaver in Cuba , in Algeria , in France , and black in the United States .

The expose does not work so well if there's no thorough attempt to make any sense out of BAM failing to seize the high ground. Maybe there was an inadequacy, a sweep in BAM, that was too large, too public, and in other aspects too personal, to be sustained as a social movement for a people spread out across a nation.

I love Jimi Hendrix not one iota less to know that he died (by some reports murdered) in a drug house. My love for Huey is eternal. What I’ve heard and read so far brings nothing of import to account for Huey’s rise and fall. That’s from Marvin as well. How Huey came to the drug house? How for that matter Marvin X? Often we see it more in the light of spectacle, of shame, and guilt. Not only drug use but the entire cultural breakdown of race, sex, and gender, during that period, breaking down for new frontiers. At the time we were all under its spell. Woodstock !!! Too many of us cultural radicals have warped into cultural conservatives, sometimes a too willingness to serve the Beast, at other times a cold hard decision, like “Allah does not pay as much as Jesus.” We are all Januses. Some more fortunate than others.

At the Crack House the doors of Hell are open, how low a man, a woman will stoop, what acts she will perform for crack’s grain of joy. The deconstruction of crack must continue. That the whole scene is made unlawful shows how far the respectable stoops to crush any kind of resistance, political, social cultural or otherwise.

I’ve read two other memoirs by black male writers: one Jerry W. Ward, Jr., The Katrina Papers (2008, $18.95) and the other by E. Ethelbert Miller, The 5th Inning (2009). Miller’s memoir is more personal, though it too contains social commentary. Jerry Ward’s work is post-modern, the memoir imitates, sets itself up as the same powerful forces of post-Katrina—powerful with the fragments of people’s lives on motor boats and housetops; great sludge and dead bodies floating down the streets of your neighborhood.

Marvin self published his memoir. Each of these memoirs is special. Read them. My feeling is that most publishers are not interested in black male memoirs. But many readers including females may find a great interest in these three black male writers and how differently they situate black life in America .

--Rudolph Lewis, Editor, Chickenbones.com
www.nathanielturner.com