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Thursday, May 9, 2013
New York Writers Union Newsletter
Assata Shakur, the Most Wanted Black Liberation Fighter
Assata Shakur has been placed on the 'Most Wanted Terrorists' list, but the move has raised many eyebrows [AP]
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"Don't believe everything you hear. Real eyes realise real lies."-Tupac Shakur
Assata Shakur is now a Muslim. Well, she didn't actually convert to Islam. But in the eyes of the United States government where "terrorism" and threats to the state have become synonymous with Islam and Muslims, the recent placement of Assata Shakur on the FBI's "Most Wanted Terrorist List", has for all intents and purposes, made her one.While her being named to the list shocked many, is it really that surprising, especially when one considers how the "war on terror" has been used as a logic of control to systematically target, undermine and destroy any challenge to the domestic and global realms of US power? Welcome to the Terrordome Recently while in New York, I was on a panel at the Riverside Church that explored the links between the "war on crime" and the "war on terror". I joined an incredible group of mostly black and Muslim activists, individuals (including Yusef Salaam, one of the "Central Park Five"), and family members of individuals who have been persecuted and incarcerated due to the policies of these proxy "wars". As I discussed on the panel, it's no coincidence that the figure of the "black criminal" and the "Muslim terrorist" both emerged in US political culture in the early 1970s due to the neurotic fears of Black Power domestically, and the threats to an expanding US imperial footprint in Muslim countries abroad. For the individuals and family members who have been deeply scarred by these violent state policies, their powerful testimonies of life on the frontlines made plain to all of us there the deep connections that exist between the "war on crime" and the "war on terror", between the "black criminal" and the "Muslim terrorist". Take the logic of "crime" for example. Cle Shaheed Sloan's 2005 documentary Bastards of the Party and Mike Davis' book City of Quartz suggest that the criminalisation of blackness in the late 1960s and early 70s was in essence a counter-insurgency strategy against black communities in the shadow of Black Power, as the "war on crime" (and "war on drugs") became an extension of the dirty wars waged byCOINTELPRO that sought to prevent the future emergence of the exact kinds of political activities that Assata Shakur and others were involved in. As scholars such as Michelle Alexander and Khalil Gibran Muhammad have noted, once the US state defined particular activities as "crime", it then sought to crack down and control it. As the fears of the "black criminal" were stoked, the political will was generated in mainstream America to pass repressive laws that normalised "crime" and linked it almost exclusively to blackness, making all black people suspicious, and leading to state-sanctioned racial profiling, the creation of an urban police state, and the explosion of a massive prison archipelago that Michelle Alexander has called "the new Jim Crow".
Similarly in the "war on terror", the US has named particular acts as "terrorism", delegitimising them and generating the political will through fear to normalise the figure of the "terrorist", making Muslim-looking people, and even Muslim countries themselves, suspects under deep suspicion in their struggles for self-determination. As a result, the need for state security created broad "anti-terrorism" measures that expanded state power, making Muslim countries subject to invasions, sanctions, bombs, and drones, and making Muslim bodies subject to indefinite detention, torture, surveillance and targeted murder, as Muslims got marked as people who don't have the right to have rights. While the system of mass incarceration used the face of the "black criminal" to legitimise itself and disproportionately target black men and women, the tentacles of incarceration soon expanded to include Latinos and other poor people in its orbit. Similarly, the "war on terror" has used the face of the "Muslim terrorist" to narrow the scope of dissent, expand state control, and prevent the creation of alternatives to exploitation and war. But while the Muslim has been the face of this, the logic of "terror" is now being used to target other countries and also black and brown communities domestically, as the fluid category of the "terrorist" continues to morph. Organised confusion While many were shocked that Assata would be placed on the "Most Wanted Terrorist List", some argued that not only is she innocent of the charges against her, but that what she was struggling for as a black revolutionary could not possibly make her a "terrorist". But this begs the question: who is a "terrorist"? And what does he do that would make him one? Would he by chance have a beard? Wear flowing garb? Be a Muslim? By all credible accounts, Assata is not guilty of killing Officer Forester in 1973. But the focus by many on her innocence as the reason why she is not a "terrorist" misses the point completely. Because whether she's innocent or not, the labelling of her as a "terrorist" has more to do with her political beliefs and the liberation struggles that she was a part of. In fact, it's those very beliefs and activities that led to her (and others) being targeted under the FBI's COINTELPRO, persecuted, put on trial, convicted and then forced to ultimately flee the country and live in exile in Cuba. For the US state, when it comes to labelling a "terrorist", innocence or guilt are simply irrelevant details. For her supporters and those on the Left who deny that she's a "terrorist", we have to understand that to the US government that's exactly what she is. But instead of denying it, it's high time that we instead challenge the prevailing logic of "terrorism", refuse to normalise it, and recognise it for what it is: not only a political label used to discredit and undermine struggles for self-determination, but also a legal frame that then gives the state the sanction and power to narrow the scope of dissent and violently crackdown and arrest, incarcerate, torture, bomb, drone, invade, and even assassinate those deemed threats to state interests. But if her allies continue to accept "terrorism" as the ruling paradigm, and make the false and fatal distinction between the struggles of black radicals like Assata from the struggles of Third World peoples fighting for dignity against racist, imperial power in places such as Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, then these supporters are not only misunderstanding and undermining the internationalist legacy of Assata Shakur and the Black Panther Party (who supported the Palestinians and other Third World struggles), but they are also ironically reinvigorating the very same violent state forces that she and the Black Power movement struggled to eliminate. No coincidences, only consequences More than just targeting Assata, the FBI and the Obama Administration have essentially labelled the Black Power movement as "terrorists". But in trying to rewrite and destroy that past, the labelling of Assata as a "terrorist" is also an attack and warning to those who are organising today against the very same forces that Assata was over 40 years ago: police brutality, militarism, imperial war, economic exploitation, and racist state practices that continue to perpetuate black suffering and the decimation of the Global South. And if that wasn't chilling enough, in calling her a "terrorist" and Cuba a "state sponsor of terror", could a drone attack on Assata be that far-fetched? Could the official state policy of targeted assassinations - a policy that ironically mimics the targeted killing by COINTELPRO of Fred Hampton, Bunchy Carter and others - and that now murders Muslims who are deemed threats to US and Israeli interests be in the offing for her? And what about those artists and activists who have supported her and other Cuban solidarity activists: are they not now subject to the "material support for terrorism" law that has imprisoned so many and also severely curtailed the work of Muslim charities seeking to help those in Kashmir, Palestine, Pakistan and elsewhere? If there is a silver lining in this, its that for those black, Latino, Muslim, Arab and South Asian communities who are involved in political work that is now or soon will be lumped into the category of "terrorist", this is an opportunity for us to use our collective exclusion as suspect communities and deepen our links and points of solidarity to vigorously fight the violent forces that target us in a different ways. Despite the mainstream Muslim, black, Latino and South Asian communities who have assumed the logic of "anti-terrorism" and have tied their fates to successes of white supremacy and US empire, the internationalist legacies we have inherited from Malcolm X, Assata Shakur and others within Black radical movements endures. It's seen in the black, Latino, South Asian and Arab organisers in New York and Los Angeles doing work around the NYPD "Stop and Frisk" programme and the "Stop LAPD Spying" campaigns; it's present in the work of artists and activists struggling for migrant justice around the US-Mexico border. It's also evidence in the beautiful work of Angela Davis, Alice Walker, Robin Kelley, Cynthia McKinney and others who recently travelled to Palestine and have spoken out against Zionism and US empire, and in favour of Palestinian self-determination; and it's also born witness in the collective statement of solidarity signed by many black activists and scholars in 2012 called "African Americans for Justice in the Middle East & North Africa". These are exactly the kinds of internationalist political positions that Malcolm X and later Black Power advocates like Assata Shakur took, as they understood the urgent need for global solidarity, seeing the racist links, for example, between the NYPD programme of "Stop and Frisk" and the Bush Doctrine of "Pre-emptive War", between Pelican Bay and Guantanamo Bay, and between Abner Louima and Abu Ghraib. For to not question how the logic of "terrorism" is now being used to silence black and Third World voices is to undermine the very movements that Assata (and so many others) have so valiantly sacrificed their lives and livelihoods for. Let's remember that yesterday it was Nelson Mandela who the United States labelled a "terrorist", and today it's a Palestinian, an Afghan and now Assata. Tomorrow it could be a labour organiser, a student activist, a teacher, or maybe even you. Sohail Daulatzai is the author of Black Star, Crescent Moon: The Muslim International and Black Freedom Beyond America and is co-editor of Born to Use Mics: Reading Nas' Illmatic. He has written liner notes to the 2012 release of the 20th Anniversary release of Rage Against the Machine's self-titled debut album. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Film and Media Studies and the Program in African American Studies at the University of California, Irvine. Follow him on Twitter: @SohailDaulatzai You can follow the editor on Twitter: @nyktweets
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
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MALCOLM SHABAZZ, GRANDSON OF MALCOLM X, KILLED IN TIJUANA, MEXICO
We are heartbroken to announce the U.S. Embassy has just confirmed that Malcolm Shabazz, grandson of Malcolm X, was killed early Thursday morning, May 9, 2013. He died from injuries sustained after he was thrown off a building as he was being robbed in Tijuana. Surely we are from Allah and to Him we return.
Malcolm Shabazz, the grandson of legendary human rights leader, El Hajj Malik el Shabazz, (Malcolm X), has died today, reports the Amsterdam News.He was thrown off of a building during a robbery, and, according to conflicting reports, he was shot.The Amsterdam News has learned, and the U.S. Embasy has confirmed, that Malcolm Shabazz – son of Malcolm X, was killed on early Thursday morning, May 9, 2013. He died from injuries sustained after he was thrown off a building as he was being robbed in Tijuana. “I’m confirming, per US Embassy, on behalf of family, the tragic death of Malcolm Shabazz, grandson of Malcolm X.Statement frm family 2 come,” wrote close friend of the Shabazz family Terrie M. Williams on twitter.Early reports said he was shot and information is still coming in. Malcolm Shabazz is survived by his three year old daughter, Ilyasah, his mother, Qubilah, and his closest aunt Ilyasah among others. Malcolm Shabazz pled guilty and was found guilty of manslaughter and arson and was sentenced to 18 months in Juvenile detention. His stay was extended and he was released four years later. Years later he told the Amsterdam News that he had not set the fire.Malcolm Shabazz was in the process of writing two books, at least one of which was a manuscript, and he was attending John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.
Notes from the Master Teacher of Black Studies: Dr. Nathan Hare to Marvin X, Agent of the Hare Archives
Marvin,
I found the copy of the Great Britain’s biggest black newspaper, which featured Dr J as the “Female Malcolm X.” Also much more. Come back soon. As you saw yesterday to some degree, we were delving in stuff piled high and deep in the closets and ignoring things right up in our face, like Negroes used to skip over things the white folks were hiding from them on the front page of the newspaper.
I’ll look to see you soon. Time is running out. Today I’ll presume to copy my master’s thesis (1957 sports sociology dinosaur, Harry Edwards) at Chicago and the PhD. at CSPP (first dissertation on black male/female relationship openly and unashamedly straight out, setting plans for the late 1970s to late 1990s black male/female relationships movement (see Newsweek, 1979 for “The New Black Struggle).” I don’t figure I need a copy of the dissertation at Chicago, though it had a breakthrough “intracohort analysis” and was a rare black scholar’s publication in a major sociology journal at the time (Social Forces). Cal Berkley and Stanford need to come back out. Whatever happened to the University of Chicago and the University of Southern California. Did the Africanas in the Ivy League ever get the news?
You keep advising Negroes to save the trash. Why do you think anybody would save trash if it really was trash? Usually it is trash, if nobody is around to make some sense of it or give some value to it; though you routinely give more value to a brother’s things than they’re worth, so I guess it balances out, but don’t hesitate to let me tell you what a piece of paper meant or means or could. Remember, we thought we were making the revolution, so a message to Garcia was vital back then, and the consequences could be deadly. But if a brother takes the message to the trash or gives it to the wrong brother in the wrong place at the wrong time, the message is lost in oblivion: ignorance is not bliss, but oblivion.
“Full many a gem of purest ray, serene the dark unfathomed caves of oceans, bare. Full many a flower is born to blush unseen and waste its sweetness on the desert air”
I learned that at Toussaint L’Ouverture High School, a part of the “Creek County Separate Schools” of Slick, Oklahoma, where I as a psychological dropout became a legend in my time. while the teacher, Miss Foshee, was calling on the other kids one by one to get up and stumble through what they had memorized the night before. She had come to the realization that if she called on me last, by then I would know the lines we were to have memorized and then she could whip them over the head by pointing to me. One time we won second place in the state, by competitive white folks standardized testing, with 22 points, from 36 competitors representing Slick and I made twelve points by myself. I was going to be the welterweight champion of the world but they blocked blacks from the Golden Gloves in Oklahoma until I was a junior in college and herded me into college, where they kept me most of my life, moving me to the front of the class as a college instructor, first in white studies at a black university, Howard, and then COORDINATOR of “black studies” at a polka dot university called San Francisco State, before they had the nerve to turn around and put me out. And you wonder why I sing the blues.
So come back soon, you don’t have to look for the blues around here, it’s everywhere and in your face; cast down your storage boxes wherever you are, a change is gonna come. We will make it to the mountaintop, but I’m 80 going on 90 years old, and I want to get there with you. If you mess around until I’m gone before you get there, my ghost will be there to greet you and give you some good old fashioned chastising as soon as you squeeze through the pearly gates.
Nathan
Marvin X Replies to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad on Poetry
Poetry is a science our people do not understand. I am only after the plainest way to get truth to our people!--the Honorable Elijah Muhammad to Marvin X, 1969
Marvin X Agrees with Elijah Muhammad on Poetry
If truth be told, and it must, Elijah Muhammad was/is right about poetry: it is a science our people do not understand. It has taken half a century for me to come to the conclusion he was right, no doubt because I fit his description of the so-called Negro: stiff necked and rebellious, hard to lead in the right direction, but easy to lead in the wrong direction. And so it is rare these days that I read poetry in public, although I still write poetry when the Muse strikes me.
In the introduction to The Wisdom of Plato Negro, parables/fables, Marvin X, Black Bird Press, 2012, Ptah Allah El describes the transition of both Plato and Marvin X away from poetry:
Recently while reading about the Dialogues of Plato, I came across a quote by William Chase Green, former Professor of Greek and Latin at Harvard University. Greene describes Plato's works by profoundly stating, "In yet another field the Platonic Philosophy seeks to find an escape from the flux. Those poets and artists who are content to record the fleeting impressions of the senses, or to tickle the fancies and indulge the passions of an ignorant people by specious emotional and rhetorical appeals, Plato invites to use their art in the service of truth."
These are timeless words describing Plato's classic works, yet if you simply replace Plato's name with Marvin X in the above quote, and review Marvin's work over the past 40 years, you won't be surprised why he has adopted the title "Plato Negro". In this classic volume, the Wisdom of Plato Negro, Marvin X truly becomes Plato personified, as we see him transcend from master poet to philosopher.
Plato was once a master poet until the death of his teacher Socrates in 399 B.C. This marked a turning point in Plato's life causing him to fully convert to philosophy. The same can be said now with Marvin X who recently lost his master teacher John Doumbia and has since elevated beyond poetry, reincarnating as the philosopher "Plato Negro"....
It is clear that Marvin X has become the true Platonist of the day by demonstrating his Platonic love for the people, taking us on a symbolic trip through the Parable of the Cave, where all true analysis takes place, inside the true self....
Muslim American Literature as an Emerging Field
by Dr. Mohja Kahf
Is there such a thing as Muslim American literature (MAL)? I argue that there is: It begins with the Muslims of the Black Arts Movement (1965-75). The Autobiography of Malcolm X is one of its iconic texts; it includes American Sufi writing, secular ethnic novels, writing by immigrant and second-generation Muslims, and religious American Muslim literature. Many of the works I would put into this category can and do also get read in other categories, such as African
American, Arab American, and South Asian literature, "Third World" women's writing, diasporic Muslim literature in English, and so forth. While the place of these works in other categories cannot be denied, something is gained in reading them together as part of an American Muslim cultural landscape. Like Jewish American literature by the 1930s, Muslim American literature is in a formative stage. It will be interesting to see how it develops (and who will be its Philip Roth!)
I suggest the following typology of MAL only as a foothold, a means of bringing a tentative order to the many texts, one that should be challenged, and maybe ultimately dropped altogether. My first grouping, the "Prophets of Dissent," suggests that Muslim works in the Black Arts Movement (BAM) are the first set of writings in American literature to voice a cultural position identifiable as Muslim. Contemporary Muslim writing that takes the achievements of the BAM as an important literary influence also belongs here, and is characterized similarly by its "outsider" status, moral critique of mainstream American values, and often prophetic, visionary tone. In contrast, the writers of what I call "the Multi-Ethnic Multitudes" tend to enjoy "insider" status in American letters, often entering through MFA programs and the literary establishment, getting
published through trade and university book industries, garnering reviews in the mainstream press. They do not share an overall aesthetic but are individual writers of various ethnicities and a wide range of secularisms and spiritualities, and indeed I question my placing them all in one group, and do so temporarily only for the sake of convenience.
On the other hand, my third group, the "New American Transcendentalists," appears to cohere, in aesthetic terms, as writers who share a broad Sufi cultural foundation undergirding their literary work. Their writings often show familiarity with the Sufi poets of several classical Muslim literatures (e.g., in Turkish, Farsi, Arabic, Urdu), as well as with American Transcendentalists of the nineteenth century, and that which tends toward the spiritual and the ecstatic in modern
American poetry. Finally, the "New Pilgrims" is my term for a loose grouping of writers for whom Islam is not merely a mode of dissent, cultural background, or spiritual foundation for their writing, but its aim and explicit topic. Of the four groups, the New Pilgrims are the ones who write in an overtly religious mode and motivation, like Ann Bradstreet, Cotton Mather, and the Puritans of early American history. This does not prevent them from being capable of producing
great literature, any more than it prevented the great Puritan writers. Here is an example of just a few writers in each category, by no means a comprehensive list:
Prophets of Dissent
From the Black Arts Movement:
• Marvin X, whose Fly to Allah (1969) is possibly the first book of poems published in English by a Muslim American author.
Marvin X's Fly to Allah, 1968, is the seminal work in American Muslim literature. Muslim American literature begins with Marvin X! --Dr. Mohja Kahf
• Sonia Sanchez, whose A Blues Book for Blue Black Magical Women (1974) is the work of her Muslim period.
• Amiri Baraka, whose A Black Mass (2002) renders the Nation of Islam's Yacoub genesis theology into drama. As with Sanchez, the author was Muslim only briefly but the influence of the Islamic period stretches over a significant part of his overall production.
Later Prophets of Dissent include:
• Calligraphy of Thought, the Bay area poetry venue for young "Generation M" Muslim American spoken word artists who today continue in the visionary and dissenting mode of the BAM.
• Suheir Hammad, Palestinian New Yorker, diva of Def Poetry Jam (on Broadway and HBO), whose tribute to June Jordan in her first book of poetry, Born Palestinian, Born Black (1996), establishes her line of descent from the BAM, at least as one (major) influence on her work.
• El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X) is an iconic figure for this mode of Muslim American writing and, indeed, for many writers in all four categories.
Multi-Ethnic Multitudes
• Kashmiri American poet Agha Shahid Ali, an influential figure in the mainstream American poetry scene, with a literary prize named after him at the University of Utah, brought the ghazal into fashion in English so that it is now taught among other forms in MFA programs.
• Naomi Shihab Nye, Palestinian American, likewise a "crossover" poet whose work enjoys
prominence in American letters, takes on Muslim content in a significant amount of her
work.
• Sam Hamod, an Arab midwesterner who was publishing poetry in journals at the same time as Marvin X.
• Nahid Rachlin's fiction has been published since well before the recent wave of literature by
others who, like her, are Iranian immigrants.
• Mustafa Mutabaruka, an African American Muslim, debut novel Seed (2002).
• Samina Ali, midwesterner of Indian parentage, debut novel Madras on Rainy Days (2004),
was featured on the June 2004 cover of Poets & Writers.
• Khaled Hosseini, debut novel The Kite Runner (2003).
• Michael Muhammad Knight, a Muslim of New York Irish Catholic background, whose punk rock novel The Taqwacores (2004) delves deeply into Muslim identity issues.
• There are a number of journals where Muslim American literature of various ethnicities can
be found today, among them Chowrangi, a Pakistani American magazine out of New
Jersey, and Mizna, an Arab American poetry magazine out of Minneapolis.
New American Transcendentalists
• Daniel (Abd al-Hayy) Moore is an excellent example of this mode of Muslim American writing. California-born, he published as a Beat poet in the early sixties, became a Sufi Muslim, renounced poetry for a decade, then renounced his renouncement and began publishing again, prolifically and with a rare talent. His Ramadan Sonnets (City Lights, 1986) is a marriage of content and form that exemplifies the "Muslim/American" simultaneity of Muslim American art.
• The Rumi phenomenon: apparently the most read poet in America is a Muslim. He merits mention for that, although technically I am not including literature in translation. Then again, why not? As with so many other of my limits, this is arbitrary and only awaits someone to make a case against it.
• Journals publishing poetry in this mode include The American Muslim, Sufi, Qalbi, and others.
New American Pilgrims
• Pamela Taylor writes Muslim American science fiction. Iman Yusuf writes "Islamic
romance." This group of writers is not limited to genre writers, however.
Dasham Brookins writes and performs poetry and maintains a website, MuslimPoet.com, where poets such as Samantha Sanchez post. Umm Zakiyya (pseud.) has written a novel, If I Should Speak (2001), about a young Muslim American and her roommates in college. Writers in this group also come from many ethnicities but, unlike those in my second category, come together around a more or less coherent, more or less conservative Muslim identity.
Websites tend to ban erotica and blasphemy, for example. The Islamic Writers Alliance, a group formed by Muslim American women, has just put out its first anthology. Major published authors have yet to emerge in this grouping, but there is no reason to think they will not eventually do so. My criteria for Muslim American literature are a flexible combination of three factors: Muslim authorship. Including this factor, however vague or tenuous, prevents widening the scope to the point of meaninglessness, rather than simply including any work about Muslims by an author with no biographical connection to the slightest sliver of Muslim identity (such as Robert Ferrigno with his recent dystopian novel about a fanatical Muslim takeover of America). It is a cultural, not religious, notion of Muslim that is relevant. A "lapsed Muslim" author, as one poet on my roster called himself, is still a Muslim author for my purposes. I am not interested in levels of commitment or practice, but in literary Muslimness.
Language and aesthetic of the writing.
In a few cases, there is a deliberate espousal of an aesthetic that has Islamic roots, such as the Afrocentric Islamic aesthetic of the Muslim authors
in the Black Arts Movement.
Relevance of themes or content.
If the Muslim identity of the author is vague or not explicitly professed, which is often the case with authors in the "Multi-Ethnic Multitudes," but the content itself is relevant to Muslim American experience, I take that as a signal that the text is choosing to enter the conversation of Muslim American literature and ought to be included.In defining boundaries for research that could become impossibly diffuse, I choose to look mainly at fiction and poetry, with autobiography and memoir writings selectively included. I have not included writings in languages other than English, although there are Muslims in America who write in Arabic, Urdu, and other languages. I have looked at the twentieth century onward,
and there is archival digging to be done in earlier periods: the Spanish colonial era may yield Muslim writing, and we already know that some enslaved Muslims in the nineteenth century have left narratives. More research is needed. If one expands the field from "literature" to "Muslim American culture," one can also include Motown, rap, and hip-hop lyrics by Muslim artists, screenplays such as the Muslim American classic The Message by the late Syrian American producer Mustapha Aqqad, books written for children, sermons, essays, and other genres.There are pleasures and patterns that emerge from reading this profusion of disparate texts under the rubric of Muslim American cultural narrative. It is time! I hope, as this field emerges, that others will do work in areas I have left aside in this brief initial exploration.
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Love And War
poems
by Marvin X
preface byLorenzo Thomas
1995
Review
by Mohja Kahf
Have spent the last few days (when not mourning with friends and family the passing of my family friend and mentor in Muslim feminism and Islamic work, Sharifa AlKhateeb, (may she dwell in Rahma), immersed in the work of Marvin X and amazed at his brilliance.
This poet has been prolific since his first book of poems, Fly to Allah, (1969), right up to his most recent Love and War Poems (1995) and Land of My Daughters, 2005, not to mention his plays, which were produced (without royalties) in Black community theatres from the 1960s to the present, and essay collections such as In the Crazy House Called America, 2002, and Wish I Could Tell You The Truth, 2005.
Marvin X was a prime shaper of the Black Arts Movement (1964-1970s) which is, among other things, the birthplace of modern Muslim American literature, and it begins with him.
Well, Malik Shabazz and him. But while the Autobiography of Malcolm X is a touchstone of Muslim American culture, Marvin X and other Muslims in BAM were the emergence of a cultural expression of Black Power and Muslim thought inspired by Malcolm, who was, of course, ignited by the teachings and writings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
And that, taken all together, is what I see as the starting point of Muslim American literature. Then there are others, immigrant Muslims and white American Muslims and so forth, that follow.There are also antecedents, such as the letters of Africans enslaved in America. Maybe there is writing by Muslims in the Spanish and Portuguese era or earlier, but that requires archival research of a sort I am not going to be able to do.
My interest is contemporary literature, and by literature I am more interested in poetry and fiction than memoir and non-fiction, although that is a flexible thing.I argue that it is time to call Muslim American literature a field, even though many of these writings can be and have been classified in other ways-studied under African American literature or to take the writings of immigrant Muslims, studied under South Asian ethnic literature or Arab American literature.
With respect to Marvin X, I wonder why I am just now hearing about him-I read Malcolm when I was 12, I read Amiri Baraka and Sonia Sanchez and others from the BAM in college and graduate school-why is attention not given to his work in the same places I encountered these other authors?
Declaring Muslim American literature as a field of study is valuable because recontextualizing it will add another layer of attention to his incredibly rich body of work.He deserves to be WAY better known than he is among Muslim Americans and generally, in the world of writing and the world at large.
By we who are younger Muslim American poets, in particular, Marvin should be honored as our elder, one who is still kickin, still true to the word!
Love and War Poems is wrenching and powerful, combining a powerful critique of America ("America downsizes like a cripple whore/won't retire/too greedy to sleep/too fat to rest") but also a critique of deadbeat dads and drug addicts (not sparing himself) and men who hate.
"For the Men" is so Quranic poem it gave me chills with verses such as:
for the men who honor wives
and the men who abuse them
for the men who win
and the men who sin
for the men who love God
and the men who hate
for the men who are brothers
and the men who are beasts
"O Men, listen to the wise," the poet pleads:
there is no escapefor the men of this world
or the men of the next
He is sexist as all get out, in the way that is common for men of his generation and his radicalism, but he is refreshingly aware of that and working on it. It's just that the work isn't done and if that offends you to see a man in process and still using the 'b' word, look out. Speaking of the easily offended, he warns in his introduction that "life is often profane and obscene, such as the present condition of African American people."
If you want pure and holy, he says, read the Quran and the Bible, because Marvin is talking about "the low down dirty truth." For all that, the poetry of Marvin X is like prayer, beauty-full of reverence and honor for Truth. "It is. it is. it is."
A poem to his daughter Muhammida is a sweet mix of parental love and pride and fatherly freak-out at her sexuality and independence, ending humbly with:
peace Mu
it's on you
yo world
sister-girl
Other people don't get off so easy, including a certain "black joint chief of staff ass nigguh (kill 200,000 Muslims in Iraq)" in the sharply aimed poem "Free Me from My Freedom." (Mmm hmm, the 'n' word is all over the place in Marvin too.)
Nature poem, wedding poem, depression poem, wake-up call poems, it's all here. Haiti, Rwanda, the Million Man March, Betsy Ross's maid, OJ, Rabin, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and other topics make it into this prophetically voiced collection of dissent poetry, so Islamic and so African American in its language and its themes, a book that will stand in its beauty long after the people mentioned in it pass. READ MARVIN X for RAMADAN!--
Mohja Kahf Associate Professor / Dept. of English, Middle East & Islamic Studies, University of Arkansas-Fayetteville
Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_Marvin_X_the_Father_of_Muslim_American_Literature#ixzz1Tyw34nV1
Monday, May 6, 2013
Archivist Marvin X presents: The Papers of Nadar Ali, Nation of Islam Educator, Director of Imports
The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Messenger of Allah
to the Deaf, Dumb and Blind So-Called Negro
In the Black Arts Theatre tradition of using white faced black actors to represent white people, Marvin, who performed the role of Clay, used his girlfriend Ethna X. Wyatt (Ethna got her X in Fresno at this time, Marvin X didn't join the NOI until 1967, San Francisco Mosque #26) to perform as the white woman Lula. Ethna needed a wig so Marvin asked the town's biggest pimp, Marcel, to loan him one of his white ho's wigs, which he did. More about Marcel later.
Marvin X and his "fish" for the Nation of Islam Brother Nadar Ali, aka Bobby Jones, Educator, International Business Representative of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and Imam Warithdeen Muhammad
Recently, Marvin X was in Fresno for a little R and R and visited Nadar Ali at his family business Salaam Fish, a small cafe in Fresno's Chinatown. In his early eighties, Nadar told Marvin he was called to Chicago to meet with other Muslim officials and the Smithsonian Institute who wanted to establish a room at the Smithsonian for American Muslims. The Muslim officials were so elated, they agreed to donate their archives to the Smithsonian. Enter Marvin X, "Donate," he said to Ali, "By no means, if they want your archives, they must pay for them, Ali!" Ali said he had already agreed and that a truck was on the way from Washington, DC to pick up his archives. Marvin X said to hell with the truck, don't give them shit! Suddenly a light came on in Ali's brain. "Damn, Marvin, this is the second time in my life you had to awaken me, first when you recruited me into the NOI, now with my archives."
This weekend, Marvin was in Fresno due to a death in the family, but he arranged to meet with Ali before he departed. "Let me see what you got, Brother!" Ali invited him to peruse the archives stored at his cafe and Marvin was astounded. Ali has one of the most complete collections of Muhammad Speaks Newspapers. He has boxes of tapes of the Honorable Elijah Muahmmad and Imama Warithdeem Muhammad that he was ready to throw into the trash. But what shocked Marvin X was Ali's collection, though small, of letters from the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. As Marvin and his associate Rashid Ali read through the letters in the inimitable style of the man who raised Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Farrakhan, Warithdin, and millions of others in the greatest movement since the Honorable Marcus Garvey, Marvin X came upon two letters address to himself. Marvin X went into shock! since he doesn't possess the letters, though he remembered the first letter but not the second.
Letter #1
September 30,1969
From: Elijah Muhammad
Messenger of Allah
4847 South Woodlawn Ave.
Chicago, Ill.
To: Mr. Marvin X
1526 Fresno Street
Fresno, CA
As-Salaam-Alaikum
In the Name of Almighty Allah, the Most Merciful Saviour, our Deliverer, Who Came in the Person of Master of Master Fard Muhammad, to Whom Praises are due forever, Master of the Day of Judgment.
To Allah alone do I submit and seek refuge:
Dear Brother:
Your book of poems and proverbs, entitled "Black Man Listen", has been received.
Brother, words do not mean just what they are saying all of the time. If it is read, it may mean something else and you will be disgraced.
Remember that poems are a science and remember again, the Holy Quran warns against poets and their writings. They messed Muhammad up at Medina and Mecca with their writings, because when the poems were understood, it was found that they were against Muhammad and His Teachings. Read William Muir's and Washington Irving's writings on Muhammad. See what they said about these writers (poets). The Holy Quran condemns poetry, therefore, that which the Holy Quran condemns, we condemn.
I am only after the plainest way to the the dead to know of the Truth and not in any science way for them to later try to understand. Poetry is science.
May Allah Bless you and keep you on the Path of Righteousness.
As-Salaam-Alaikum,
Elijah Muhammad
Messenger of Allah
EM/sax
September 30, 1969
Letter #2
December 17, 1969
From:
Elijah Muhammad
Messager of Allah
4847 South Woodlawn Ave.
Chicago, IL
To: Mr. Marvin X
1526 Fresno Street
Fresno, CA
As-Salaam-Alaikum
In the Name of Almighty Allah, The Most Merciful Saviour, Our Deliverer, Who Came in the Person of Master Fard Muhammad, to Who Praises are due forever, Master of the Day of Judgment. To Allah alone do I submit and seek refuge.
Dear Brother:
This letter is in regard to the mimeographed copy, "The Myth of Black Studies", and also the History lesson, which is written in a poem.
Brother, I am only interested in the plainest way to beth the Truth to my people.
Some Black people do not understand Poems. Words do/not mean just what they are saying all of the time. Poems are sciences.
May Allah Bless you with the Light of Understanding.
As-Salaam-Alaikum
Elijah Muhammad
Messenger of Allah
EM/j2x
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