Marvin X on the teachings of Black Arts Movement Master Sun Ra

Friday, July 15, 2011

What did Sun Ra teach?

He taught me the need for discipline in the artistic life, not freedom. He told me to stop teaching my actors freedom when discipline was needed. He demonstrated discipline by keeping his band together for over twenty years. When I got him to take a young actor of mine on European tour, he sent the very talented singer/musician home because he lacked discipline. He taught me not to be so moral, especially when I took a scene out of my musical with a sex scene. He was horrified that I had done so. He said, "Marvin you so right you wrong. That scene was the best one in the play. That's what people want, a little dirt. They don't want to truth, they want the low down dirty truth."

Most importantly, he taught the importance of mythology and ritual theatre, breaking down that fourth wall and merging with the audience, becoming one and indivisible, thus reaching the level of African communal theatre wherein there is no audience, only the community. His Arkestra, including poets, singers, dancers, and mixed media, expanded the potential of black theatre. It was a great experience performing with an Arkestra as opposed to simply reading solo or even with a small band. This is no doubt why I can only conceive of theatre as extravaganza in terms of performance, space and time.

Imagine being able to work with some of the greatest musicians in the world, aside from Sun Ra himself, there was John Gilmore, Danny Thompson, June Tyson, and Marshall Allen. See my DVD Live in Philly at Warmdaddy's, which I call 39 minutes of Jazz history. The set included Marshall Allen and Danny Thompson, along with bagpipe legend Rufus Harley and myself reading poetry. Also Elliott Bey, Ancestor Goldsky and Alexander El.

We can say that Sun Ra had a profound influence on the Black Arts Movement coast to coast. He was a founding member of Amiri Baraka's Black Arts Theatre in Harlem as well as a worker at my Black Educational Theatre in the Fillmore.
--Marvin X

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Marvin X and his Chief Mentor, Sun Ra, 1972

Those who have a problem understanding the complexity of Marvin X need only understand he was a student and colleague of Sun Ra, the bandleader of the Arkestra that Marvin X performed with on the east coast and west coast. Sun Ra worked with Marvin X at his Black Educational Thearte in the Fillmore, 1972. Sun Ra did the musical version of his play Flowers for the Trashaman, retitled Take Care of Business.

Sun Ra and Marvin X did a five hour production of Take Care of Business at the Harding Theatre on Divisadero Street in San Francisco, 1972. Sun Ra also told Marvin X he would be hired to lecture in the Black Studies Department at the University of California, Berkeley. Marvin X doubted Sun Ra since Gov. Ronald Reagan had banned him from teaching at Fresno State College in 1969, the same year he banned Angela Davis from teaching at UCLA. Marvin X did indeed teach at UCB and his off campus class was at his Black Educational Theatre in the Fillmore. Sun Rn worked with him and the Harding Theatre concert was a five hour show without intermission, that consisted of a fifty member cast, including the Sun Ra Arkestra, the Ellendar Barnes dancers, along with the Raymond Saywer dancers and the Marvin X actors.

Academy of Da Corner Episode #2: Broken Systems, Broken Minds

Broken Systems, Broken Minds

by Marvin X


What we perceive as reality is most often a reflection of imagination, of mythology and ritual, or simply the mind of man is the macrocosm, reality the microcosm. Systems thus reflect the mind of man--did not someone say creations only reflect the mind of the creator. Broken systems, therefore, originate in broken minds. Yet we wonder why systems are broken, e.g., school system, political system, economic system, religious and moral systems.

But systems are not the problem, rather it is the minds of men that are broken irreparably, suffering a mental atrophy, an anorexia, a paralysis of imagination. The causation is simple greed, selfishness and lust for power. It is augmented by the quest for the acquisition of things, the wanton addiction to materialism or the world of make believe, the illusion that the microcosm can satisfy the macrocosm, when the real deal holyfield is the inner rather than the outer. Yet men fear to go there, deep down into the metaphysical realm where the darkest mysteries lie seeking edification and recognition. Thus, we find ourselves at the precipice, about to be consumed by the wonder of life.

Elijah told us, "The wisdom of this world is exhausted." And so it is--spent, obsolete, retarded, and yet we wonder why we are immobile, transfixed--stuck on stupid! Why no systems work.
How is it possible for the great Toyota to need recalling, a consummate machine suddenly dysfunctional. What caused this sudden breakdown-- some internal defect in the machine or in the mind of man?

Look at the educational system, confounded by the ideological foundation of white supremacy capitalism that continues to prepare students for a world of work when there is none, especially with living wages in an economic system that demands cheap labor and resources, a socalled free market system that will transcend the national needs for the wants and desires of global finance gangs, connected with, supported and defended by the military, i.e., the Christian Crusaders, soon to be supplanted by Communists from China, India and Russia.

The teachers were long ago taught to teach a new way--back in Egypt they were told to teach with compassion and love. Yet what we see today is the pedagogy of hate. It is a system that rewards ignorance and punishes wisdom and creativity, especially of the thinking variety. Any original thought is suppressed or deemed antisocial thought and behavior, often resulting in the student diagnosed to require psycho drugs that turn him into the zombie required by the society of the walking dead.

The religious system is the same. It is in full blown denial about the meaning of the cross and the lynching tree, about the mission of the prince of peace. For the most part, the religious community is Silent Night about the trillion dollar military budget that allows mass murder to take place across the planet. Along with Silent Night, it sings Onward Christian Soldiers as its sons and daughters crisscross the planet to secure labor and natural resources for the pleasure of the walking dead, and most especially the miserable few who enjoy the high life.

It is all about the glorification of Pharaoh and his magicians. God, in the minds of men, is a business, big business. There is no desire for spirituality, only prosperity, minus compassion for the poor, homeless, jobless and broken hearted, crushed to earth like the pot in the hands of Jeremiah at the gates of his city.

In the minds of politicians, there is no compromise, only preparation for the next election, or the assumption or resumption of power at any and all costs, no lie is exempt, "Vote for me, I'll set you free!" All bribes are acceptable--politicians are thus loyal to lobbyists, not the people who are expendable.

The lips of politicians do not say let us reason together for the sake of the people, for the love of the people, for the consent of the governed. These men and women of the political realm only know the language of no, no, no. As the people starve, become homeless, jobless, we yet hear the mantra of no, no, no, late into the night. No compromise, no reconciliation, only recalcitrance and niggardliness. They are fast to reward the robber barons, the blood suckers of the poor. Eventually, a few crumbs, kibble and bits reach the poor, if ever, unless there is revolt. And then Pharaoh sees the light, suddenly, but he will send his magicians to placate the poor with more crumbs, kibbles and bits.

Between good and evil, evil is the choice, with greed the foundation stone in the minds of men. Amazingly, the people see clearly. They feel change in the wind, not the change in the educational system or the political or religious, but in the wind. They smell the rotten hearts of men who lead into nothingness and dread, with their pitiful strut of the peacock, the one legged dance of the flamingo.

Pharaoh magicians gather in dens of iniquity to share blood money. Teachers, preachers, politicians, all there to party on the backs of the poor. The military stand post at the door of the den, ready to club the wretched into submission, even death, if they dare enter the den of thieves, robbers, murderers, and those who perpetuate the world of make believe.

Inside the den we hear a symphony of sick sounds, giggles, wails, grunts emanating from putrid minds exhausted from wickedness. The result is systematic gridlock--it is 5pm and the freeway is jammed with drivers full of road rage, ready to kill in an instant. It is thus a destruction of self by self, internal combustion.

Unlike the car, there is no forward motion or backward, or perhaps it goes both ways simultaneously, if such is possible in the world of physics, but after all, the minds of men defy all laws, except the law of the jungle and the devil.

But there shall be no forward motion with the present mind-set. Jack must jump out the box of his own making. He must take wings and fly away into a world beyond his imagination.
This is the only way out the morass of his mind. All the technology is to no avail, for he talks, but more often says nothing, he listens but hears nothing, deaf, dumb and blind.
--Marvin X
2/17/10

Poet/playwright/educator/philosopher/planner Marvin X travels to Chicago on May 22 to participate in the Sun Ra Conference at the University of Chicago. He will perform with Sun Ra musicians Marshall Allen and Danny Thompson, also with David Boykin, conference  planner.

Black Bird Press News & Review: Don't Say Pussy or the Psycholingustic Crisis of North American Africans

Black Bird Press News & Review: Don't Say Pussy or the Psycholingustic Crisis of North American Africans: arvin X. Jackmon at 2:52 PM

Inmates oMembers of the Sun Ra Jail will be in the University of Chicago Sun Ra celebration: Marshall Alen, Danny Thompson, Marvin X, et al.

 

www. blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com

Marvin X and son of Chicago's BPP Chairman, Fred Hampton, murdered in a police shootout.
Black Panther Cub will host a reception for Black Liberation/Black Arts Movement Elder Marvin X in Chicago while he attends the University of Chicago celebration of Black Arts Movement Master Sun Ra. Marvin X had a long artistic association with Sun Ra and his Myth-Science Arkestra and will perform with surviving Arkestra members Marshall Allen and Danny Thompson, along with David Boykin and other Chicago musicians and poets.

Notes on Slave Narratives from Marvin X's Academy of da Corner

 Young brothers at Marvin X's Academy of da Corner, reading the Oakland Post Newspaper

photo by Gene Hazzard

 Marvin X and son of Chicago's BPP Chairman, Fred Hampton, murdered in a police shootout.
Black Panther Cub will host a reception for Black Liberation/Black Arts Movement Elder Marvin X in Chicago while he attends the University of Chicago celebration of Black Arts Movement Master Sun Ra. Marvin X had a long artistic association with Sun Ra and his Myth-Science Arkestra and will perform with surviving Arkestra members Marshall Allen and Danny Thompson, along with David Boykin and other Chicago musicians and poets.

Black Arts Movement's poets/mythologists/philosophers Marvin X and Sun Ra

 Rev. Blandon Reemes, Academy of da Corner students/authors Aries Jordan, Latoya Carter and Master Teacher Marvin X, on a visit to Alameda County Juvenile Hall to give out books from North American African authors, donated by the Post Newsgroup, published by Paul Cobb.

 Linda Johnson, dancer, choreographer, dancer Raynetta Rayzetta, Val Serrant, Tumani, drummers

at the 75th birthday celebration of Amiri Baraka at the Lush Live Gallery, San Francisco, produced by Marvin X.

Aries Jordan, one of the students at Academy of Da Corner that Marvin X has mentored.
She survived the Wild Crazy Ride of the Marvin X Experience to publish two books and have a male child, Legend Muhammad.

 Marvin X and Academy of da Corner students Toya Prosperity and Aries Jordan, reading poetry at the Memorial for Geronimo Ji Jaga Pratt, Los Angeles Black Panther Party Leader, at Oakland's Bobby Hutton Park, aka Defermery Park.

Bay Area Black Authors, Artists, Activists celebrate the life of slain journalist Chauncey Bailey at the Joyce Gordon Gallery, 14th and Franklin, Oakland.
photo Gene Hazzard and Adam Turner

 Comrade George Jackson, Messiah of the American Prison Movement

 

Dr. Mohja Khaf, Syrian Poet/Professor at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteeville

 Marvin X as bandleader with the Black Arts Movement Poet's Choir and Arkestra

performing at the Malcolm X Jazz/Art Festival, Oakland, May, 2014

Cornel West's first cousin Kwame Satterfield is Marvin X's stepson. Ase!

I am so horrified at the tales people tell me at Academy of da Corner, whether at Oakland's 14th and Broadway, the upscale Lakeshore Academy or in Berkeley at the ASHBY BART STATION. We are at all locations when we feel like it (prerogative of the Senior Citizen).

The unresolved grief and traumatic stress narratives presented to me in the various locations of Academy of da Corner, are overwhelming to say the least. Yes, some of the tales and stores are beyond tragedy, yet Cheikh Anta Diop taught us there is no African tragedy, only tragi-comedy, for the Southern Cradle believes in tragi-comedy. Tragedy is a concept from the Northern Cradle, Europe, thus it has no place in African mythology.

Perhaps, one day I can present testimonies in the first person, especially since I am pushing the suffering oppressed to write their narratives of how I survived, the essential theme in North Amrican literature, beginning with the socalled Slave Narratives, we say the Narratives of North American Africans caught in the American Slave System (Ed Howard term). I tell them to write one page a day. They said, how can I do this? I say turn off the phone, get the lover off your shoulder, put them out the room for an hour or two, do not show them what you are writing, write, write, write. Got blockage? Get some Henny, weed or Blizo! No writer's block up in here!

Marvin X's Ten Points for Survival in the Streets of Babylon, USA

Ten Points for Youth Survival in the Street

Marvin X at his Academy of da Corner,
14th and Broadway, Oakland, with one of his top students,
brother Jermaine Cash. Author Ishmael Reed says, " Don't spend all that money attending seminars and workshops, if you want motivation and inspiration, just go stand at 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland, and watch Marvin X at work. He's Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland." Bob Holman calls him, "The USA's Rumi, Saadi and Hafiz...." Rudolph Lewis says, "I would put him ahead of Mark Twain, even, as a story teller."






Ten Points for Youth Survival
1. Before going into the street, put on the amour of God or Spiritual consciousness,i.e., yea thou I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil. The Lord is my rod and staff.

2. Be aware of your surroundings. Two are better than one, for if you stumble and fall, who shall lift you up? Do not stay long in unfamiliar places with strange people.

3. Be conscious of the tone test with the police, e.g., if they stop you for any reason, one of three things can happen depending on your tone of voice: they can kill you, arrest you or release you.

4. Be conscious of the tone test with another brother or sister: they can kill you, bum rush you or greet you in peace.

5. Do not wear sagging pants that prevent you from running or fighting. The ghetto, sad to say, is a war zone or hostile environment. Do not pretend you are in La La Land. There are mind fields everywhere, so try not to be in a mind altered state. It is best to be cold sober on the street.

6. Respect elders and do not take liberties with women.

7. Help the poor, say a kind word to the broken hearted.

8. At all times, be a soldier in the army of the Lord.

9. Pray going out and coming in. Be thankful you made it back home safely.

10. Make your home the No Stress Zone.

--Marvin X, Prime Minister, First Poet's Church of the Latter Day Egyptian Revisionists
4/17/11

Marvin X at University of Chicago Conference on Black Arts Movement Master Sun Ra 101st Earthday

Marvin X and Sun Ra at Marvin's Black Educational Theatre, San Francisco, CA 1972. Sun Ra arranged the musical version of Marvin's Flowers for the Trashman, retitled Take Care of Business. Both also lectured at the University of California, Berkeley in Black Studies, 1971-72.

 BAM poet Marvin X with his Poet's Choir and Arkestra, featuring David Murray and Earle Davis, all three were associated with San Ra. This performance is from Oakland's Malcolm X Jazz/Art Festival, 2014

David Boykin, Sun Ra Conference project director

Draft: Notes on Slave Catchers, Slave Resisters, and Stanley Nelson's documentary Black Panthers, Vanguard of the Revolution

Black Panther Party Minister of Culture, Emory Douglas, and Black Arts Movement co-founder Marvin X at screening of Stanley Nelson's Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution,

at the San Francisco International Film Festival. photo Aries Jordan

Marvin X Notes on Slave Catchers/Slave Resisters, Part Two: Black Panthers/Vanguard of the Revolution, directed by Stanley Nelson

In consideration of the request from director Stanley Nelson, i.e., I should delay the release of a review until September, 2015, 

when the film is released to general audiences, and in consideration that I have requested the outtake footage of myself in the film, 

I will not attempt a review  but submit some notes or impressions of the film.

Firstly, I refer the reader to that excellent documentary on the History Channel “Slave Catchers, Slave Resisters” (on Youtube). 

A viewing of this film will give the viewer the roots of the police in the form of the slave catcher. Of course the response to 

the Slave Catcher was the Slave Resister. The film noted the significance of the literary document David Walker’s Appeal, 1829, 

in building the resistance. We know Brother David Walker had a bounty on his head for writing his Appeal. He was found murdered 

in Boston a year after the publication of the Appeal. This reveals the power of the word, the power of art and propaganda. 

Mao taught us all art is propaganda of one class or another. Walker’s literary art was for the liberation of his people, enslaved 

North American Africans. 

We must note Nelson’s film is an inflammatory document. It will either advance the revolution or render us deeper down into the 

dungeon of Americana. Although it is refreshing to see a new generation on the road to carrying out their destiny: the liberation 

of our people, North American Africans, we only ask this generation to study the past carefully before proceeding down the road to 

freedom in a serious manner. Yes, liberty or death should be our mantra, for why should we permit ourselves to continue being 

relegated to the lowest rung on the societal ladder?

Just as Slave Catchers, Slave Resisters, offered us a model from the American slave system, Black Panther/Vanguard of the Revolution 

presents a model from the past, a radical  model for sure, but a model from our most recent experience, i.e.,the 1960s. 

We must study carefully the positive and negative points presented. We should note our internal flaws and the vile nature of external 

forces, not only the awesome fire power of the military/corporate complex, but the additional bags of tricks that were almost insurmountable 

to the 60s revolutionaries, especially in the Black Panther Party, but the Nation of Islam as well, along with all the civil rights groups 

and radical organizations, including the Christian liberation movement lead by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and those who came after his 

transition to the ancestors. 
 

 L to R: Director Stanley Nelson, Black Arts Movement co-founder Marvin X, Black Panther Party Cub, Fred Hampton, Jr. 

photo Aries Jordan

Disinformation, defamation, infiltration, surveillance and other tactics were in the bag of tricks administered by the military/corporate state. 

What methods will be employed by the present generation to resist? It is for them to decide. Will they be able to fight by not fighting? 

Or will the 60s model be unavoidable. Ultimately, we must come to terms with death and transcend it or there can be no bold forward motion. 

Arrest, jail and prison is the natural and normal response from the Slave catcher state, now modern America in 2015. So the revolutionary 

must transcend death, imprisonment, exile and other consequences of striking down the freedom road. 

But, for sure, revolution is a family affair. When all forces unite, all classes that are progressive, the deal is done. We saw this in the 

Slave Catchers, Slave Resisters as well as in Black Panthers, Vanguard of the Revolution. In 2015, half a centuray later, The Black Panthers 

Ten Points what we want and need are the same: decent housing, education, release from the jails and prisons, recovery from drug addiction 

and addiction to white supremacy mythology; economic independence to transcend the mythical job for life syndrome that is suicide and partly 

responsible for the high incarceration rate as a result of joblessness and the resultant criminal route as a survival technique.

In conversation with the producers Stanley Nelson and Laruens Grant, I wanted them to stress the dynamic connection between the Black Arts

 Movement and the Black Liberation Movement. I am happy to say the art of Black Panther Minister of Culture, Emory Douglass, satisfied by 

thirst for BAM inclusion. It was of even more significance to hear Emory explain his functional art that focused on the common people in 

their daily round and new found radical persona, especially in harmony with the Black is Beautiful theme.

We were seated behind Fredericka Newton, Huey’s widow, so we saw her reaction to the film that ended with Huey depicted as a madman. 

But we can say that was his essential personality, for sure revolution made his condition more pervasive, but all of us have been forced 

to don the mask of psychopath. But Dr. Franz Fanon and Dr. Nathan Hare tell us revolution is the only way to regain our sanity or mental 

equilibrium.

Again, these are just some notes on the connection between Slave Catchers, Slave Resisters and the film Black Panther/Vanguard of the Revolution. 

At this present moment, the brothers and sisters in Baltimore are in the resistance mode to the present day slave catchers, i.e. police, aka pigs.. 

As Rev. James Cone would say, little brother Freddie Gray (RIP) was crucified on the cross and the lynching tree!(See Rev. Cone's interview with 

Bill Moyer's, PBS archives).

—Marvin X

Tour Update: The Wild Crazy Ride of the Marvin X Experience National Tour:

 Tommy Smith Track Meet, Edwards Stadium, UC Berkleley

May 3, Saturday, 2015, 7:30AM

Tommy Smith and John Carlos giving Black Power Salute, Mexico City Olympics, 1968.

Marvin X was  invited to participate in the opening ceremonies of the Tommy Smith Track this Sunday, Edwards Stadium, University of California, Berkeley. Tommy Smith and Marvin X grew up in the Central Valley of California; Marvin X in Fresno and Tommy Smith in Lemoore. They played against each other in high school basketball. Marvin and The Edison Tigers beat Tommy's team--he was the only North American African on his team from Lemoore High School.

In Defense of Cornel West--Has Michael Eric Dyson Lost His Mind?

In Defense of Cornel West: Is Barack Obama Right, or Has Michael Eric Dyson Lost His Mind?

Carl Dix with Cornel West at a recent anti-police terror march.

By Carl Dix and Lenny Wolff

April 22, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

(Right now Carl is in Baltimore focused on the fight against police murder and mass incarceration.  Given, however, the seriousness of the attack against Cornel West, he and I have talked at length about this, and I am writing for us both.  Lenny Wolff)

This Sunday, the New Republic posted a vicious attack on Cornel West, “The Ghost of Cornel West,” by Michael Eric Dyson.  This attack is not an academic dispute; it is a hit job against a deeply principled intellectual who refused to put away his critical faculties when Obama took office, who has increasingly stepped out into the struggle against murders by police and mass incarceration, and who has done so in a way that condemns and exposes the crimes—and yes, they are crimes—of the Obama Administration.  All the sound and fury of Dyson’s long rant cannot hide that essential, and shameful, fact.

On one level, Dyson’s attack is beneath contempt and barely merits reply.  But because principle and intellectual rigor are currently so debased in this society, and because powerful forces seem intent on promoting Dyson’s takedown of Cornel West, reply we must. 

Instead of making a reasoned critique of Cornel West’s actual positions, Dyson vacuums up a toxic brew of speculation on personal motives, rumors, criticisms from all kinds of quarters (some of which he says he doesn’t even agree with), and out-of-context bits and pieces from West’s personal life (taking special advantage of moments where Cornel made himself vulnerable by confiding personal regrets), and then he spews this all over his readers.  

Dyson has combined this brew with mis-readings of key concepts developed and/or worked on by West (the rise of nihilism in the Black community during the 80’s/90’s, the role of prophecy as a strand in Black leadership, the relevance of jazz to intellectual undertakings, etc.) that are as superficial as they are willful.  All of this is designed to overwhelm people’s critical faculties and hide the actual substance of what Dyson is attacking and defending.  This is what passes for intellectual criticism in the era of reality TV.  Let’s look at what Dyson says.

First, Dyson indicts Cornel West for a lack of new thought.  Dyson must not have read and listened to West lately, for surely he would have noticed that Black Prophetic Fire is actually a further development of West’s thinking on a number of very important questions.  West uses the form of conversations about six pre-eminent figures in the cause of Black emancipation.  He draws out the contributions and shortcomings of each as he sees it, and in the process further develops his thoughts on the particular role of the Afro-American people in US history and the current day, the (varying, multiple and sometimes contradictory) qualities of what he calls prophetic leadership, the challenges posed by the current era, among other things.  Yes, this is a different form, in keeping with West’s drawing on the jazz tradition—this is improvisation on a theme, done collectively in dialogue with someone who has differing but overlapping views.  How refreshing! 

The actual content of WHAT Cornel gets into here—what he is driving at, how he is posing and approaching these questions, the actual evaluations he makes of these different signal historical figures, the synthesis he is driving at and our respective “takes” on this—is beyond the scope of this letter.  What is relevant here is that Dyson, in claiming that West has no new thinking, never actually engages what Cornel has been saying, in this and other works and forums.  This kind of blatant non-engagement should be seen as unconscionable and ruling whoever does it out of any sort of serious consideration.

Second, Dyson dismisses Cornel West’s work of the past six years as driven by personal spite.  Please!  What a commentary on this gossip-driven culture that such a claim has any legs at all.  One of us, Carl, has actually been in public dialogue with Cornel at least half a dozen times, stretching from the June 2009 dialogue on “In The Age of Obama: What Future for our Youth?” to a dialogue this month on the emergency of murder by police.  You can see these dialogues for yourself on-line, or you can check out any of the other dialogues that Cornel has done with a whole range of people over these past years—including the recent unprecedented dialogue with Bob Avakian at Riverside Church this past November on revolution and religion—and even a few minutes should convince you that Cornel West’s critique of Obama focuses on questions of empire and of Obama’s actual actions as the head of that empire.  (It is—again—stunning, and a sad commentary on intellectual discourse today, that Dyson feels he can get away with attacking Cornel West and never once mention the word “empire” in the whole steaming 9500-word heap.)

 

If the stakes were not so high, it would be almost comical when Dyson instructs Cornel in “how to deliver criticisms of Obama to Black audiences.”  Dyson says you have to start with how much you love and respect Obama and his “achievement” of becoming President, then acknowledge the animosity he’s incurred among the racists and fascists, and only then offer your criticisms for his “missteps and failures.”  As Carl strongly pointed out in discussing this with me, this pat little formula totally leaves out the fact that Obama is Commander-in-Chief of the biggest empire in the world, and is raining down terror and horror on people in that role, and these are CRIMES and not “missteps.”  Dyson then boils Cornel’s supposed inability to follow the formula to West’s “lack of respect” for Obama, when the key difference between the approaches of Dyson and West is precisely whether you expose the objective ROLE of Obama.

Third, it is telling—and speaks very much to the point and purpose of Dyson’s screed—that he delivers a back-handed slap at the fact that Cornel West has increasingly assumed a front-line and very important role in the struggle against police murder.  Dyson goes so far as to say that this activity is nothing but stunts for the camera. 

Let’s look at the facts.  One of us, Carl, co-founded the network to Stop Mass Incarceration with Cornel in August of 2011 in a basement meeting with a dozen other people and nary a camera in sight.  The first action of this network was to link up revolutionaries and anti-police brutality activists with the Occupy movement in October of 2011 to do a series of civil disobedience actions against Stop-and-Frisk in New York.  Yes, Carl, Cornel and the others involved sought to make this known, to get this outrageous abuse in the front of the cameras—innocent as charged!  Cornel came to critical, out-of-the-limelight meetings where strategy and political will was forged with the parents and relatives of police murder victims, immigrant rights activists, clergy, and many others and he made time on a number of occasions to speak at events organized by parents and clergy in particular, and to lend his name and platform to their cases.  It is highly ironic that the New York actions against the police a week ago which Dyson briefly cited in his New York Times op-ed of Friday April 17 were part of national actions which Cornel and Carl led in calling for and helped to organize, including at a critical rally where the two spoke on April 6 in NYC leading up to these actions. 

 

Nellie Bailey of the Harlem Tenants Council (at mic) speaks at a 2012 rally before the opening day of the trial for 20 people who were arrested at a Harlem police precinct during an October protest against NYPD stop-and-frisk practices. Behind her are (from l.) defendants Elaine Brower, Cornel West and Carl Dix. 

What exactly is Dyson’s problem with all this?  Is it that during these past few actions West has been quoted making the point that here we are six-plus years into the reign of a Black president, Black attorney general, and Black head of “Homeland Security” and there has not been a single successful federal prosecution of murder by police?  That in fact this crime has grown during their reign? 

(And here it has to be said, in the face of Dyson’s accusations of egotism, that—as Carl often points out—Cornel has gone out of his way since 1996 and the first time they worked together to credit others and bring them into the spotlight, and more generally to reference the work of others and graciously point to their contributions at any opportunity, even when this goes against the grain of his audience.  In many ways, Cornel West fights to represent what Bob Avakian has called the “largeness of mind and generosity of spirit” so badly needed in society today.)

Dyson’s rant takes on what would, again, be comical proportions were it not for the stakes and dangers of these times when, toward the end of his piece, Dyson delivers his pathetic list of Obama’s “achievements.”  These are supposed “left-wing” accomplishments that Obama has carried out while cleverly pretending to “talk right.”  Here Dyson blots out and covers over Obama’s record as deporter-in-chief, his refusal to even half-heartedly criticize murders by police (let alone do anything about them) until not doing so would have seriously undermined his legitimacy among Black people, his defense of draconian surveillance and attacks on those daring to reveal these crimes, his all-out support for Israel’s genocidal attacks on Gaza, his vicious military predations and outright war crimes from Afghanistan to Libya and most recently Yemen (where, with true  Obama-esque double-talk, he now “condemns” the Saudi airstrikes that he himself authorized!), etc.  And as Dyson once knew when he (correctly) took a whole book to go after Bill Cosby’s “pull-up-your-pants” poison, “talking right”—as Obama does when, at his “Brother’s Keeper” press conference in 2014, he all but openly blamed the murders of Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis on absent Black fathers (when such “absences” have everything to do with the very consciously designed genocidal policy of mass incarceration)^*, or when Obama does his own Bill Cosby imitation at places like the Morehouse graduation ceremony in 2014—has seriously bad consequences.

There is a further irony here when Dyson, who praised Race Matters when it came out, now faults Cornel West’s criticism of nihilism in that book as “blaming the victim.”  First of all, read the damn book and engage it—get into what he’s actually saying and if you, Dyson, have changed your opinion on it now, say why you agreed back then and why you now have changed your mind.  More to the point, it’s really outrageous to say this about Cornel, when a large part of his vocation over decades now has been precisely to uphold, defend and stand with in deed as well as word “the least of these”—those who have been cast out, stigmatized, demonized, despised, incarcerated and murdered by this system. 

I want to conclude by saying that Carl particularly emphasized to me that one has to wonder at the timing of this attack when the network which he and Cornel co-initiated has just mounted a mass outpouring against police murder on April 14, making a major contribution to reseizing the offensive on this for the movement as a whole.  You have to wonder at the timing of this compendium of cheap shots, rank distortions and half-truths, right when we are beginning what promises to be a long hot summer, to invoke that 60’s term—a time when the police have been emboldened by the Justice Department’s whitewash of Darren Wilson’s murder of Michael Brown but when masses of people are increasingly refusing to take this, and not so persuaded by those who would want them to work within the system, and when the Obama administration that Dyson so cherishes has no real answers to this horror.  

You have to wonder as well why Dyson offers not reasoned criticism or disagreement, but a really foul farrago of snark, half-truths and straight-up slanders, seemingly designed to destroy a rare and important truth-teller and, increasingly, front-line activist at just this crucial time.

Michael Eric Dyson: which side are you on?

---

* The conference on Brother’s Keeper took place just days after the anniversary of Martin’s unpunished murder by the vigilante George Zimmerman, and shortly after Jordan Davis’ killer had been found not guilty, in his first trial, of the homicide of Davis.  It is painfully ironic that for all of Obama’s emphasis about absent fathers, the very real presence of both these fathers in their sons’ lives could not prevent white supremacy from murdering them.

 

 

Gregory D. Johnsen - The Last Refuge: Yemen, al-Qaeda, and America's Wa...

Appeal to support Black Panther Party Documentary by Stanley Nelson

 

Dear unknown,

One of the most memorable interviews from THE BLACK PANTHERS: VANGUARD OF THE REVOLUTION came from Wayne Pharr, a founding member of the LA chapter of the Black Panther Party. He passed away last year shortly after giving his truthful and powerful account of being a Black Panther. 

Wayne's story will challenge viewers to rethink the romantic and demonized visions of the Panthers so many have held over the years. Help bring Wayne's authentic voice to audiences across the country.
 

We have to raise $16K by May 5 or we lose it all.
Every dollar counts. Please make an online donation today!
 

We know that times are tough so we are offering great rewards as thanks for your generous support. For less than $100 you can get:

• Tickets to the see actor Wendell Pierce (Selma, The Wire, Treme) in the acclaimed play, BROTHERS FROM THE BOTTOM when it premieres at the Lupin Hall in his hometown of New Orleans
• A signed DVD of the finished film 
• Private link to watch the film online followed by an online Q&A with myself and former Black Panthers
• Black Panther t-shirts, tote bags and official posters from the film
• Tickets to theatrical premieres in Seattle, Baltimore and Maryland
• Rare, signed photo of Kathleen Cleaver from a 1978 rally in San Francisco
• And for the budding filmmakers out there, I will review your rough cut or screenplay and offer detailed advice and feedback. Think of it as a virtual mentorship!

Have you already donated? Thank you! Please share this newsletter with your family, friends and colleagues and encourage them to make a donation and own a piece of their history.

Remember, even though we've raised over $33,000 in 15 days, we will LOSE IT ALL if we do not reach $50,000 by May 5. Your donation of any amount moves us further from that possibility - and closer to our goal.

   

Please make a tax-deductible donation today!
 

Thank you!

With deep gratitude,

Stanley Nelson,

Director, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution
Founder, Firelight Media and Firelight Films