Michelle Alexander on White Supremacy

Is the New Jim Crow the Same Old White Supremacy?: On Michelle Alexander

posted Oct 1, 2013

Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, will present her work at an event beginning at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 2, in Dixon Hall on Tulane University’s Campus. More on the event here.

By Gahiji Barrow

The New Jim Crow has captivated many Americans’ attention since it was published in 2010. Michelle Alexander has become the poster woman for ending the drug war and mass incarceration, for policy reform and for mass movement organizing. She wrote this book for liberals like her to alert them that this system—in which people are being targeted, criminalized, stereotyped to support popular complacent consent for criminalization, incarcerated, and then denied full citizenship upon release—is  a legacy to the racial caste system that was Jim Crow. While this I believe to be true, I also believe that there is more to unfold in the story than Alexander has presented in her book.

The New Jim Crow has become, to some, the seminal reading on the current state of American incarceration and how it got that way. It has been a ringing alarm for some who could have gone their whole lives and never known about the way that the war on drugs has disproportionately affected certain vulnerable segments of the population and made others vulnerable that may have not otherwise been. She has highlighted the transformation from Jim Crow segregation to a more subtle system, backed up by notions of public safety and allegedly operating according to a dictum of colorblindness. The rapid fire of a lynching has been turned over to the slow crock pot cookery of the criminal justice system that titillates the fear response of the “free” and lets the “guilty” decay in cells.

Alexander addresses how the police have been militarized in response to the tough-on-crime movement led by ambitious politicians . The way this book and Alexander’s amplified message raised public consciousness probably helped to contribute to a sea change—with all of the current administration’s continuance of imperialistic, hegemonic, and economically insatiable policies (drone strikes, energy policy, surveillance extension, American exceptionalism…) at least its members are rethinking sentencing policy and the war on drugs. But will this rethinking go far and be extensive enough? The Obama Administration did not equalize the crack-to-cocaine possession sentencing disparities, nor did it push for the legal system to respond to drugs as a health crisis. Alexander also presses her reader to understand that, although legislation may ease pressure off of the most impacted, it is not going to be the way we end injustice.

While this book focuses on the war on drugs and the racism inherent in mass incarceration, it isn’t a complete indictment of the prison system as one of subjugation of the classes, commodification of their bodies, destroyer of their communities, perpetuator of their oppression,  and a method of forced migration that furthers gentrification. The Prison Industrial Complex, as it has metastasized, is a collision of pathologies of the American collective psyche that values profits over people and White bodies over all others. It is a state-sanctioned theft of property and personhood. And while Alexander uses statistics that are helpful to illustrate the quantified aspects of an issue, I worry that we will connect with the numbers and not the people impacted. And while the PIC doesn’t necessarily have to be racialized, it undeniably is. Within the American context, and the specific ways in which race has been codified and valuated here, until we fully address and deconstruct White Supremacy, everything we create and implement as a national unit will be polluted by racially discriminatory execution, no matter how benign the language around it seems.

Not all people find this book palatable or easy to swallow. While reading reviews of the book, I noticed a lot of the unfavorable ones where people wrote about her being biased and, thus, uncredible. They state that drugs are still illegal and people committing crime is the problem. They write about self-responsibility and that she is cherry picking facts. Tulane University’s student-run newspaper, the Hullabaloo, ran a review that characterized the book as “hyperbole,” full of ”skewed statistics,” and concluded that Alexander should “go back to English class.” In some of these reviews, there is some critical discourse around her omissions that, if included, may have painted a fuller picture, but most of them sound like anti-Black racism and White supremacy deniers—people who are unable to recognize themselves as barriers toward racial justice and collective liberation because of their agreement with the myths that either this system works or doesn’t disparately impact Black, Latino, indigenous, and other impoverished and marginalized communities of color.

Michelle Alexander speaks last year at Dillard University. She did not give a shout out.

One critique of Alexander’s book I do agree with is that she doesn’t mention the myriad Black radicals of the past and present who saw the prison apparatus for what it was and resisted it. She ignores that history of struggle to maintain a liberal tone, tiptoeing cautiously, trying to pull the liberal middle-class left further left without alienating them. As Joseph Osel pointed out in his article, it is a “whitewash and a black out” that makes invisible the work that has been done and is being done. The state suppression of these Black radicals, therefore, also cannot be brought up along with all the political prisoners that are still imprisoned because they dared challenge the American authority. But talking about these people is essential in telling and understanding this story, precisely because it is suppression of potential political radicals  that is at the heart of the social control that mass incarnation affords the U.S. government—social control that quells dissent.

I have been a witness to her dismissal of people and their work. I was in attendance, along with many other community organizers and social-justice-minded folks, when she spoke at Dillard University last year. At one point in her talk, she stated that we needed to “start a mass movement.” I was with her when she said she wants to abolish the Prison Industrial Complex. But she lost me when she failed to mention the various people and organizations I work with who have been on the ground in New Orleans and around the country fighting the multi-headed hydra. I spoke with her after the event and relayed my feelings that she just dismissed people in that room and failed to connect the audience with the work or the movement, and that a “shout out would have been nice.” She replied that she wished she would have. So did I.

That incident made me start to think about the celebrity activist/scholar who hops around the country and/or world telling of their “discoveries” while achieving fame and status and it made me ask what their role really is in dismantling social systems of oppression. And who are they accountable to? These are questions that I still ask—having critical conversations, even with other people in the movement, about revered movement icons and elders can be difficult and impossible, depending on how much rockstar koolaid has been drank. It is something we need to be conscious of as people who want to end all social castes. Holding one person above another is one of the core values that allows for mass incarceration to exist.

While this book and Alexander don’t go far enough for me in exposing that the globally sanctioned structure of racial casting has always led to state-proliferated mechanisms of domination and control, and although I find it unfortunate that someone who may still be grasping with all of these far-reaching effects is one of the loudest voices on this issue, maybe now that more people are having this conversation because of her book, it will force them to recognize the deep societal and personal implications of mass incarceration.

This August, Alexander released, via Facebook, a statement in which she acknowledged her siloed presentations of the past and vowed to “connect the dots between poverty, racism, militarism and materialism. I’m getting out of my lane.” Let’s hope she does and includes the environment, patriarchy, and other interconnected elements, because someone in her position has a great responsibility to expand awareness of the truth and all of the multifaceted implications that mass incarceration reveals. Without a holistic understanding of our current situation, we will be doomed to repeat inherited oppressive patterns and will never fully heal or move on.

Gahiji Barrow does community activist work and lives in New Orleans, he works for Voice of The Ex-offender and is a member of the national Prison Industrial Complex abolition organization Critical Resistance. He also hosts a news radio program on WTUL New Orleans 91.5fm on Monday mornings from 8am-10am.

Black Women Lynched

Black Women who were Lynched in America

Posted on August 1, 2008 by Henrietta Vinton Davis

The lynching of Laura Nelson

(Note: this post  is just a partial list of Black Women who were lynched in America.  More research has revealed there are over 150 documented cases of African American women lynched in America.  Four of them were known to have been pregnant. You can see the full list at the post Recorded Cases of Black Female Lynching Victims 1886-1957: More on Black Women Who Were Lynched.)

Unidentified Man and Two Women Lynched.

Printed as a community service by Dr. Daniel Meaders, Professor of History at William Patterson University, and author of several books and articles, including Dead or Alive, Fugitive Slaves and White Indentured Servants Before 1800 (Garland Press, 1993)

*** If you think what you are about to read is important, please leave us a comment below and share your thoughts. We want to know what led you to search for this information. It has been getting a lot of attention lately and we value your input.

Jennie Steers
On July 25, 1903 a mob lynched Jennie Steers on the Beard Plantation in Louisiana for supposedly giving a white teenager, 16 year-old Elizabeth Dolan, a glass of poisoned lemonade. Before they killed her, the mob tried to force her to confess but she refused and was hanged. (100 Years at Lynching. Ralph Ginzburg)

Laura Nelson
Laura Nelson was lynched on May 23, 1911 In Okemah, Okluskee, Oklahoma. Her fifteen year old son was also lynched at the same time but I could not find a photo of her son. The photograph of Nelson was drawn from a postcard. Authorities accused her of killing a deputy sheriff who supposedly stumbled on some stolen goods in her house. Why they lynched her child is a mystery. The mob raped and dragged Nelson six miles to the Canadian River and hanged her from a bridge.(NAACP: One Hundred Years of Lynching in the US 1889-1918 )

Ann Barksdale or Ann Bostwick
The lynchers maintained that Ann Barksdale or Ann Bostwlck killed her female employer in Pinehurst, Georgia on June 24, 1912. Nobody knows if or why Barksdale or Bostick killed her employer because there was no trial and no one thought to take a statement from this Black woman who authorities claimed had ”violent fits of insanity” and should have been placed in a hospital. Nobody was arrested and the crowd was In a festive mood. Placed in a car with a rope around her neck, and the other end tied to a tree limb, the lynchers drove at high speed and she was strangled to death. For good measure the mob shot her eyes out and shot enough bullets Into her body that she was “cut in two.”

Marie Scott
March 31, 1914, a white mob of at least a dozen males, yanked seventeen year-old Marie Scott from jail, threw a rope over her head as she screamed and hanged her from a telephone pole in Wagoner County, Oklahoma. What happened? Two drunken white men barged Into her house as she was dressing. They locked themselves in her room and criminally “assaulted” her. Her brother apparently heard her screams for help, kicked down the door, killed one assailant and fled. Some accounts state that the assailant was stabbed. Frustrated by their inability to lynch Marie Scott’s brother the mob lynched Marie Scott. (Crisis 1914 and 100 Years of Lynching)

Mary Turner 1918 Eight Months Pregnant
Mobs lynched Mary Turner on May 17, 1918 in Lowndes County. Georgia because she vowed to have those responsible for killing her husband arrested. Her husband was arrested in connection with the shooting and killing Hampton Smith, a white farmer for whom the couple had worked, and wounding his wife. Sidney Johnson. a Black, apparently killed Smith because he was tired of the farmer’s abuse. Unable to find Johnson. the killers lynched eight other Blacks Including Hayes Turner and his wife Mary. The mob hanged Mary by her feet, poured gasoline and oil on her and set fire to her body. One white man sliced her open and Mrs. Turner’s baby tumbled to the ground with a “little cry” and the mob stomped the baby to death and sprayed bullets into Mary Turner. (NAACP: Thirty Years of Lynching in the U.S. 1889-1918  )

Maggie Howze and Alma Howze -Both Pregnant
Accused of the murder of Dr. E.L. Johnston in December 1918. Whites lynched Andrew Clark, age 15, Major Clark, age 20, Maggie Howze, age 20, and Alma Howze, age 16 from a bridge near Shutaba, a town in Mississippi. The local press described Johnston as being a wealthy dentist, but he did not have an established business in the true sense of the word. He sought patients by riding his buggy throughout the community offering his services to the public at large in Alabama. Unable to make money “peddling” dentistry, the dentist returned to Mississippi to work on his father’s land near Shabuta. During his travels he had developed an intimate relationship with Maggie Howze. a Black woman who he had asked to move and lived with him. He also asked that she bring her sister Alma Howze along. While using the Black young women as sexual objects Johnson impregnated both of them though he was married and had a child. Three Black laborers worked on Johnston’s plantation, two of whom were brothers, Major and Andrew Clark. Major tried to court Maggie, but Johnson was violently opposed to her trying to create a world of her own that did not include him. To block a threat to his sexual fiefdom, Johnston threaten Clark’s life. Shortly after Johnston turned up dead and the finger was pointed at Major Clark and the Howze sisters. The whites picked up Major, his brother, Maggie and her sister and threw them in jail. To extract a confession from Major Clark, the authorities placed his testicles between the “jaws of a vise” and slowly closed it until Clark admitted that he killed Johnston. White community members took the four Blacks out of jail, placed them in an automobile, turned the head lights out and headed to the lynching site. Eighteen other cars, carrying members of the mob, followed close behind. Someone shut the power plant down and the town fell into darkness. Ropes were placed around the necks of the four Blacks and the other ends tied to the girder of the bridge. Maggie Howze cried, “I ain’t guilty of killing the doctor and you oughtn’t to kill me.” Someone took a monkey wrench and “struck her In the mouth with It, knocking her teeth out. She was also hit across the head with the same instrument, cutting a long gash In which the side of a person’s hand could be placed.” While the three other Blacks were killed instantly, Maggie Howze, four months pregnant, managed to grab the side of the bridge to break her fall. She did this twice before she died and the mob joked about how difficult it was to kill that “big Jersey woman.” No one stepped forward to claim the bodies. No one held funeral services for the victims. The Black community demanded that the whites cut them down and bury them because they ‘lynched them.” The whites placed them in unmarked graves.

Alma Howze was on the verge of giving birth when the whites killed her. One witness claimed that at her “burial on the second day following, the movements of her unborn child could be detected.” Keep in mind, Johnston’s parents felt that the Blacks had nothing to do with their son’s death and that some irate white man killed him, knowing that the blame would fall on the Black’s shoulders. The indefatigable Walter White, NAACP secretary, visited the scene of the execution and crafted the report. He pressed Governor Bilbo of Mississippi to look into the lynching and Bilbo told the NAACP to go to hell. (NAACP: Thirty Years of Lynching in the U.S.. 1889-1918 ) (Papers of the NAACP)

Holbert Burnt at the Stake
Luther Holbert, a Black, supposedly killed James Eastland, a wealthy planter and John Carr, a negro, who lived near Doddsville Mississippi. After a hundred mile chase over four days, the mob of more than 1,000 persons caught Luther and his wife and tied them both to trees. They were forced to hold out their hands while one finger at a time was chopped off and their ears were cut off. Pieces of raw quivering flesh was pulled out of their arms, legs and body with a bore screw and kept for souvenirs. Holbert was beaten and his skull fractured. An eye was knocked out with a stick and hung from the socket. (100 Years of Lynching by Ralph Ginzburg)

WHO ARE OUR REAL HEROES?
American mobs lynched some 5.000 Blacks since 1859, scores of whom were women, several of them pregnant. Rarely did the killers spend time in jail because the white mobs and the government officials who protected them believed justice meant (just us) white folks. Lynching denied Blacks the right to a trial or the right to due process. No need for a lawyer and a jury of your peers: the white community decided what happened and what ought to be done. After the whites accused Laura Nelson of killing a white deputy In Oklahoma, they raped this Black woman, tied her to a bridge trestle and for good measure, They lynched her son from a telephone pole. Had the white community reacted in horror after viewing the dangling corpses of Laura Nelson and her son? No, they came by the hundreds, making their way by cars, horse driven wagons, and by foot to view the lynching. Dressed in their Sunday best, holding their children’s hands and hugging their babies the white on-lookers looked forward to witnessing the spectacle of a modern day crucifixion. They snapped pictures of Laura Nelson, placed them on postcards and mailed them to their friends boasting about the execution. They chopped of f the fingers, sliced off the ears of Ms. Holbert, placed the parts In jars of alcohol and displayed them in their windows.

White America today know little or nothing about lynching because it contradicts every value America purports to stand for. Blacks, too, know far too little about the lynchings because the subject is rarely taught in school. Had they known more about these lynchings, I am almost certain that Blacks would have taken anyone to task, including gangster rappers, for calling themselves niggers or calling Black women “hoes” and “bitches.” How could anybody in their right mind call these Black women who were sexually abused, mutilated, tortured and mocked the same degrading Please do not throw this away. Give it to a friend or a names that the psychopathic lynchers called them? relative. Peace.

What Black woman in her right state of mind would snap her fingers or tap her feet toihe beat of a song that contained the same degrading remarks that the whites uttered when they raped and lynched them The lynchers and the thousands of gleeful spectators called these Black women niggers when they captured them, niggers when they placed the rope around their necks and niggers when their necks snapped. Whites viewed Black women as hated black things, for, how else can one explain the treatment of Mary Turner? The lynch mob ignored her cries for mercy, ripped off her clothes, tied her ankles together, turned her upside down, doused her naked body with gas and oil, set her naked body on fire, ripped her baby out of her, stomped the child to death and laughed about it. Blacks purchased Winchesters to protect themselves, staged demonstrations, created anti-lynching organizations, pushed for anti-lynching legislation and published articles and books attacking the extralegal violence. Many pocked up. left the community never to return again. Others went through bouts of sadness, despair, and grief. Some broke down, a few went insane. Others probably fell on their knees, put their hands together, closed their eyes and begged Jesus for help. Jesus help us. Do not forsake us. But Jesus. the same white man the lyncher’s ancestors taught us to love, never flew out of the bush in a flame of fire armed with frogs and files and locusts to save Mary Turner. No thunder, no rain, no hail and no fire blocked the lynchers from hanging Laura Nelson. He did not see the “affliction” of the Holberts; he did not hear the screams of Marie Scott or the cry of Jennifer Steers.

So who are our real heroes?. Little Kim Is not a hero. Oprah is not a hero.. Whoople Goldberg is not a hero. Michael Jordan is not a hero. Dennis Rodman Is not a hero. They are entertainers, sport figures. creations of the media, media icons and they are about making huge sums of money and we wish these enterprising stars well. . Mary Turner, Laura Nelson, Marie Scott and Jennie Steers are your true historical heroes. Niggers they were not. Bitches they were not. Hoes they were not. They will not go down in history for plastering their bodies with tattoos, inventing exotic diets, endorsing Gator Ade, embracing studIo gangsterism, They were strong beautiful Black women who suffered excruciating pain, died horrible deaths. Their legacy of -strength lives on. These are my heroes. Make them yours as well.

Addendum===Below are women who were lynched in addition to the initial findings of Dr. Daniel Meaders. They can be found in the pages of the book 100 Years of Lynching by Ralph Ginzburg.

Mae Murray Dorsey and Dorothy Malcolm
On July 25, 1946, four young African Americans—George & Mae Murray Dorsey and Roger & Dorothy Malcom—were shot hundreds of times by 12 to 15 unmasked white men in broad daylight at the Moore’s Ford bridge spanning the Apalachee River, 60 miles east of Atlanta, Georgia. These killings, for which no one was ever prosecuted, enraged President Harry Truman and led to historic changes, but were quickly forgotten in Oconee and Walton Counties where they occurred. No one was ever brought to justice for the crime.

Ballie Crutchfield
Around midnight on March 15, 1901 Ballie Crutchfield was taken from her home in Rome to a bridge over Round Lick Creek by a mob. There her hands were tied behind her, and she was shot through the head and then thrown in the creek. Her body was recovered the next day and an inquest found that she met her death at the hands of persons unknown (euphemism for lynching).

After Walter Sampson lost a pocketbook containing $120, it was found by a little boy. As he went to return it to its owner, William Crutchfield, Ballie’s brother, met the boy. Apparently, the boy gave him the pocketbook after being convinced it had no value. Sampson had Crutchfield arrested and taken to the house of one Squire Bains.

A mob came to take Crutchfield for execution. On the way he broke lose and escaped in the dark. The mob was so blind with rage they lay blame on Ballie as a co-conspirator in her brother’s alleged crime and proceeded to enact upon their beliefs culminating in the aforementioned orgy of inhumanity.

Belle Hathaway
At 9 o’clock the night of January 23, 1912 100 men congregated in front of the Hamilton, Georgia courthouse. They then broke into the Harris County Jail. After overpowering Jailor E.M. Robinson they took three men and a woman one mile from town.

Belle Hathaway, John Moore, Eugene Hamming, and “Dusty” Cruthfield were in jail after being charged with the shooting death a farmer named Norman Hadley.

Writhing bodies silhouetted against the sky as revolvers and rifles blazed forth a cacophony of 300 shots at the victims before the mob dispersed.

Sullivan Couple Hung as Deputy Sheriff and Posse Watch
Fred Sullivan and his wife were hanged after being accused of burning a barn on a plantation near Byhalia, Mississippi November 25, 1914. The deputy sheriff and his posse were forced to watch the proceedings.

Cordella Stevenson Raped and Lynched
Wednesday, December 8, 1915 Cordella Stevenson was hung from the limb of a tree without any clothing about fifty yards north of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad outside Columbus, Mississippi. The gruesomely horrific scene was witnessed by thousands and thousands of passengers who traveled in and out of the city the next morning.

She was hung there by a bloodthirsty mob who had taken her from slumber, husband and home to the spot where she was raped and lynched. All this was done after she had been brought to the police station for questioning in connection with the arson of Gabe Frank’s barn. Her son had been suspected of the fire. The police released her after she convinced them her son had left home several months prior and she did not know his whereabouts.

After going to bed early, a knock was heard at the door. Her husband, Arch Stevenson went to answer, but the door was broken down first and his wife was seized. He was threatened with rifle barrels to his head should he move.

The body was left hanging until Friday morning. An inquest returned a verdict of “death at the hands of persons unknown.”

5 Hanged on One Oak Tree
Three men and two women were taken from the jail in Newberry, Florida on August 19, 1916 and hanged by a mob. Another man was shot by deputy sheriffs near Jonesville, Florida. All this was the result of the killing the day prior of Constable S.G. Wynne and the shooting of Dr. L.G. Harris by Boisey Long. Those who were lynched had been accused of aiding Long in his escape.

Mary Conley
After Sam Conley had been reprimanded by E.M. Melvin near Arlington, Georgia, his mother Mary intervened to express her resentment. After Melvin slapped and grappled with her, Sam Conley struck Melvin on the head with an iron scale weight, resulting in his death shortly afterward.

Although Sam escaped, his mother was captured and jailed. She was taken from the jail at Leary and her body was riddled with bullets. Her remains were found along the roadside by parties entering into Arlington the next morning.

Bertha Lowman
Demon Lowman, Bertha Lowman, and their cousin Clarence Lowman were in the Aiken, South Carolina jail when it was raided by a mob early on October 8, 1926. The three had been in jail for a year and a half while they were tried for the murder of Sheriff and Klansman Henry H.H. Howard. Howard was shot in the back while raiding the house of Sam Lowman, father to Bertha and Demon. Klansmen filed by Howard’s body two-by-two when it laid in state. A year after his funeral a cross was burned in the cemetery at his grave.

Although the Lowman’s were tried and sentenced to death, a State Supreme Court reversed the findings and ordered a new trial. Demon had just been found not guilty when the raid on the jail occurred. Taken to a pine thicket just beyond the city limits their bodies were riddled with bullets.

The events which resulted in this lynching are surreal to say the least. Samuel Lowman was away from home at a mill having meal ground on April 25, 1925. Sheriff Howard and three deputies appeared at the Lowman Cabin three miles from Aiken. Annie Lowman, Samuel’s wife and their daughter Bertha were out back of the house working. Their family had never been in any kind of trouble. They did not know the sheriff and he did not know them. Furthermore, they were not wearing any uniform or regalia depicting them as law enforcers. Hence the alarming state of mind they had when four white men entered their yard unannounced, even if it was on a routine whiskey check. It was even more distressing because a group of white men had come to the house a few weeks earlier and whipped Demon for no reason at all. After speaking softly to each other the women decided to go in the house.

When the men saw the women move towards the house they drew their revolvers and rushed forward. Sheriff Howard reached the back step at the same time as Bertha. He struck her in the mouth with his pistol butt. Mrs. Lowman picked up an axe and rushed to her daughter’s aid. A deputy emptied his revolver into the old woman killing her.

Demon and Clarence were working in a nearby field when they heard Bertha’s scream. Demon retrieved a pistol from a shed while Clarence armed himself with a shotgun. The deputies shot at Demon, who returned fire. Clarence’s actions are not clear. When it was all over a few seconds later the Sheriff was dead. Bertha had received two gunshots to the chest just above her heart. Clarence and Demon were wounded also. In total five members of the Lowman family were in put jail.

Samuel Lowman returned to find in his absence he had become a widower with four of his children in jail along with his nephew. In three days he would be charged with harboring illegal liquor when a quarter of a bottle of the substance is found in his backyard. For that the elderly farmer was sentenced to two years on the chain gang.

18 year old Bertha, 22 year old Demon and 15 year old Clarence were tried for the Sheriff’s murder and swiftly found guilty. The men were sentenced to death with Bertha given a life sentence.

Demon’s acquittal made it appear that Clarence and Bertha would been freed as well. The day they were murdered they were taken from the jail, driven to a tourist a few miles from town and set loose. As they ran they were shot down.

Mr. Lowman contended one of the deputies who coveted the Sheriff’s job was his real killer. The same man later led the mob which slew Lowman’s children and nephew. Apparently, he knew they could identify him as the culprit.

Marvin X (the Human Earthquake) coming to Seatte WA soon

If you are Sleepless in Seattle, better rest before the Human Earthquake arrives to git down fada git down! Marvin X has been invited to drop science on the conscious  and unconscious community in Seattle.

The poet/teacher hasn't been to Seattle since 1995 when he sought refuge in the Northwest after his partner made her transition. He began writing his autobiography Somethin' Proper during his stay. "I was treated royally in Seattle by both Blacks and Whites. I will never forget how white women cried after reading my poster poem For the Women. They wanted to know how a man could write such a poem. I told them black women suffered abuse at my hands so I could see the light and become more sensitive to the feminine gender. Also, seeing my three daughters come into womanhood was a game changer for me. I call my attitudinal healing a Pauline conversion, similar to how Saul turned into Paul on the road to Damascus."

Left to right: Amira, Nefertiti,  Muhammida and dad, Marvin X

Marvin X is tentatively scheduled to read and dialogue sometime in mid March. Details are being finalized. For more information, call Hakim Trotter at 206-856-3024.

I Am American


I am American
no citizen of the United States
gave that up years ago
in Toronto
protesting US in Vietnam
exiled in Canada
underground to Chicago, Harlem
crucified at Fresno State University
Angela Davis was on the cross too  UCLA, 1969

I am American
exiled a second time in Mexico City
with exiled Americans from the Americas
Cuba, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Columbia, Guatemala, El Salvador, Brazil
they call me Pele Pele Pele on the streets of Mexico City
want to touch my hair for good luck

I am American
Mexico City founded by Africans
now exiled by president for life regimes
young men of resistance
women too, wife is with me
young men
put aboard planes that landed in Chapultepec Park
cerca de Paseo de Reforma
we live near the park circa de Metro
lovers in the park on Sundays
we are in love
she is pregnant with Nefertiti
I am American
cannot speak with my brothers in exile
Jorge from Choco, Columbia
Enrique from Venezuela
I speak Spanish pochito
muy pochito
no Portuguese
say Poder Negro to my revolutionary amigos.
They comprende
I give black power salute

I am American
flee Mexico City for Belize
through Yucatan, Vera Cruz, Merida, Chetumal
land of Yanga el Africano Mexicano
Yanga so bad the Spanish gave him a town
San Lorenzo de los Negroes
down in Vera Cruz
I flee against advice of Elizabeth Catlett Mora
revolutionary artist
begged me not to go
negroes in raw colonialism
not neo-colonialism she said

I am American
young hard headed
easy to lead in the wrong direction
hard to lead in the right direction

Elijah said

I am American
I want to hear English
tired of Spanish
basta ya!
I want to see los Negroes
in Belize
esclavos pero Negroes
yo esclavo tambien
I am American

Americas is my land
all of it
before Columbus
Before Maya Aztec Incas Olmec
I was here
I came by canoe from Ghana, Mali, Songhay
land of Sonni Ali, Askia the Great
bling bling of Mansa Musa
a thousand camels with gold on his haj to Mecca

I am American
in Belize los Negroes speak English
pero muy rapido pero English
Espanol tambien
I am American
Norte Americano Africano
Simon Bolivar Americano
Simon Simon Simon

I am American
North Central South American
Caribbean American
I am American
from Toronto, Montreal
to Georgetown, Caracas

Slums of Mexico City are mine
shacks of Belize
madness of Kingston
cocaine of Port of Spain
yes, Trinidad
land of C. Eric Williams
victim of Capitalism and Slavery
Guyana is mine
interviewed PM Burnham at his residence
Africans with AK47s at his gate
genocide of Jonestown
assassination of Dr. Walter Rodney
how can we forgive the reactionaries
who never turn into Buddha heads
who never put down their butcher knives

Mao said

I am American
in Belize I join the revolution of Evan X and Shabazz
on trial for sedition
government is games old people play they say
this sedition
covered trial for Muhammad Speaks
this was my sin
1970 Wikileaks
emperor no clothes
people no clothes
no water no electricity no toilet
no nothing
brothers want to know why I left America with no gold
they want to go to American for gold
why did I leave without gold
what is America but gold
nothing else but gold
slaves and gold

I am American
people rich in Belize
poor yet rich
joy and peace, sun and land
gardens of paradise
islands in the sun
I live on Gales Point
a little shack with no water no electricity no bathroom
but happy
wife is pregnant and happy
except for sand flies
mosquitoes love her blood
bathe in the river
out house on the other side of the island
catfish collect waste
people do not swim on that side of the island
do not eat catfish

I am American
people beg me teach black power
no check with village headman

drunk man sings outside my house
day comin ta git ya in da mornin
been down here teachin dat black power
day comin to get ya in da mornin, boy

wife and I laugh
wish dat drunk nigguh git way from our door
they come in the morning

I am American
on boat into the city
five hour ride through jungle
police on boat
under arrest
don't know it
police undercover
don't say nothing
get to the city
he don't say nothing
police come to friends house
call me out
I grab rifle
put it down
surrender
mulatto greets me outside
under arrest
go to Ministry of Home Affairs
Minister reads deportation order
presence not beneficial to welfare of the British Colony
shall be deported to United States next plane to Miami
leaving at 4pm.
Until then you are under arrest.
Mulatto takes me to police station
sit down. No cell, no handcuffs.
police gather around me
circle of police
what's up.
broder man, teach black power!
I am American

victim of slave system
police victims too
teach us broder man.
Marcus Garvey came 1923
told you get Queen England off yo walls.
1970 you still got white bitch on yo walls.
Get bitch off yo walls!
police crack up
you all ite broder man

point uncle tom police
black man white heart
black man white heart!
I am American

Plane come Mulatto push me onto the plane. refused to leave without my wife. The plane door slammed. Fly south to Tegucigalpa, Spanish Honduras.
ask for asylum . Espera un momento, Negro!
marched back onto the plane.

land in Miami. gentlemen greet me at the airport. Escort me to Dade County Jail. put in a pit with dead, deaf dumb and blind negroes.
call them brother.
we ain't yo brother, nigguh. I am silent.
gentlemen transfer me to Miami City jail, Federal facility.
White Cuban drug dealers greet me. What you want, my brother.
need money, food? We send outfood to the restaurant, what you want.

I am American
hamburger, fries milkshake!
No problema, hermano!
give me money to call wife.
She home in America.

I am American
Cubans say whatever you need let us know.
I am American
like Simon Bolivar
like Che
like Fidel
Toussaint
like Nat Turner
Grabriel Prosser
Harriet Tubman
Like Garvey
Elijah
Malcolm
Stokely (Kwame Toure)
CLR James
Padmore
Chavez
Morales

I am American.
--Marvin X1/29/11

Memorial Day, 2007

I am a veteran
Not of foreign battlefields
Like my father in world war one
My uncles in world war two
And Korea
Or my friends from Vietnam
And even the Congo “police action”
But veteran none the less
Exiled and jailed because I refused
To visit Vietnam as a running dog for imperialism
So I visited Canada, Mexico and Belize
Then Federal prison for a minute
But veteran I am of the war in the hood
The war of domestic colonialism and neo-colonialism
White supremacy in black face war
Fighting for black power that turned white
Or was always white as in the other white people
So war it was and is
Every day without end no RR no respite just war
For colors like kindergarten children war
For turf warriors don’t own and run when popo comes
War for drugs and guns and women
War for hatred jealousy
Dante got a scholarship but couldn’t get on the plane
The boyz in the hood met him on the block and jacked him
Relieved him of his gear shot him in the head because he could read
Play basketball had all the pretty girls a square
The boyz wanted him dead like themselves
Wanted him to have a shrine with liquor bottles and teddy bears
And candles
Wanted his mama and daddy to weep and mourn at the funeral
Like all the other moms and dads and uncle aunts cousins
Why should he make it out the war zone
The blood and broken bones of war in the hood
No veterans day no benefits no mental health sessions
No conversation who cares who wants to know about the dead
In the hood
the warriors gone down in the ghetto night
We heard the Uzi at 3am and saw the body on the steps until 3 pm
When the coroner finally arrived as children passed from school
I am the veteran of ghetto wars of liberation that were aborted
And morphed into wars of self destruction
With drugs supplied from police vans
Guns diverted from the army base and sold 24/7 behind the Arab store.
Junior is 14 but the main arms merchant in the hood
He sells guns from his backpack
His daddy wants to know how he get all them guns
But Junior don’t tell cause he warrior
He’s lost more friends than I the elder
What can I tell him about death and blood and bones
He says he will get rich or die trying
But life is for love not money
And if he lives he will learn.
If he makes it out the war zone to another world
Where they murder in suits and suites
And golf courses and yachts
if he makes it even beyond this world
He will learn that love is better than money
For he was once on the auction block and sold as a thing
For money, yes, for the love of money but not for love
And so his memory is short and absent of truth
The war in the hood has tricked him into the slave past
Like a programmed monkey he acts out the slave auction
The sale of himself on the corner with his homeys
Trying to pose cool in the war zone
I will tell him the truth and maybe one day it will hit him like a bullet
In the head
It will hit him multiple times in the brain until he awakens to the real battle
In the turf of his mind.
And he will stand tall and deliver himself to the altar of truth to be a witness
Along with his homeys
They will take charge of their posts
They will indeed claim their turf and it will be theirs forever
Not for a moment in the night
But in the day and in the tomorrows
And the war will be over
No more sorrow no more blood and bones
No more shrines on the corner with liquor bottles teddy bears and candles.

--Marvin X
25 May 2007
Brooklyn NY

This poem appears in the anthology Stand Our Ground, dedicated to Trayvon

Martin and Marissa Alexander, edited by Ewuare X. Osayande.

Chained and Bound
by Marvin X
A song based on how prisoners are brought to federal court “chained and bound”

You got me chained and bound
But you can’t keep me down
I was born to be free
To have my liberty
By any means necessary

Our time has come
Our day is here
Black man stand
Have no fear
Dare to struggle
Dare to win
Then the world
Will be ours again
You got me chained and bound
But you can’t keep me down.

The devil is a paper tiger
He rules with the gun
But there will be no law and order
Until black justice is done
You got me chained and bound
But you can’t keep me down.

Come, My Brothers, seize the time
No more dope, no more wine
No no no/no no no — No!
You got me chained and bound
But you can’t keep me down
Come, My Brothers, break the chains
There can be no peace til freedom reigns

You got me chained and bound
But you can’t keep me down
No, no no/no no no — No!
--Marvin X

from Woman, Man's Best Friend, poems,
proverbs, parables, lyrics, Black Bird Press, 1972

Ten Steps to Detox from the Addiction to White Supremacy by Marvin X

Here are some additional steps to Detox from White Supremacy 

1. Turn off TVs and remove them from your house.
2. Stop buying white supremacy movies and white movies in black face.
3. Stop your woman and children from buying goods at white supremacy malls and stores.
4. Stop buying food that contributes to you getting white supremacy diseases. Most of the food is grown in oil, not soil. So you go from the petrochemical food to the pharmaceutical legal drug dealers in conspiracy with the doctor, nurses and undertaker, as described by Elijah Muhammad in the Myth of Yacub.
5. Stop believing in any myths, stories, tales, from the white man, including his religious myths, male/female myths of ownership and domination, or the socalled Patriarchy. As Dr. Nathan Hare teaches us, everything the white man says is a lie until proven to be a fact. This is Dr. Hare's "fictive theory." Furthermore, don't believe anything nigguhs say either until proven to be a fact.
6. Be in this world but not of this world. Stop worshiping white values and rituals such as Xmas, Easter, 4th of July, New Years (the day slaves were auctioned).
7. Think outside the box of white philosophy, psychology, sociology, economics, history, linguistics.
8. Communicate with your mate by silence, not yapping day and night on the cell phone, talking loud but saying nothing, Mr. Loud and Wrong, as James Brown told us. Use ESP.
9. Detox your children in all the above or they shall grow up to be little devils, ungrateful bastards we call them, who will hate everything you are about, especially after you send them to the white man's colleges and universities to be edumaked. They will hate you because they have been brainwashed by the devil, yet they don't even know what you are about, as Amiri Baraka has said. And if you ain't about freedom, liberation,
land and sovereignty, you ain't about nothing, just a another nigguh in the woodpile, cannon fodder, fuel for the devil's fire.
10. Discard slavery religion and come into spiritual consciousness: you are within God and God is within you. Ain't nobody who's been dead two thousand years coming back to save you.Forget this fairy tale and live life to the fullest, your heaven and hell are right here on earth. Have any of the men and women who've been to outter space seen heaven during their journey? Did they see God in space? Angels? Surely, they should have passed God on their way to space or on the way home!

--Marvin X

See How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy by Dr. M (Marvin X), Black Bird Press, 2007, 1222 Dwight Way, Berkeley Ca 94702, $19.95. 

Notes on Toni Morrison, Jayne Cortez and Amiri Baraka

 Tony Morrison

W.E.B. DuBois to Chairman Mao before a million people at Tienanmen Square,

"Thank you for praising me, but in my country I am just a nigguh."

Jayne Cortez and Amiri Baraka lives were celebrated Feb 4 at New York University. 

Oakland's Black Arts Renaissance