preface, black august, 2017

To extricate racism and white supremacy from American culture is as impossible as trying to remove all the cancer in meat: if all the cancer was removed, there would be no meat to eat! from the three-fifths of a man and involuntary servitude of the us constitution to the cross and lynching three of American Christianity, racism is more bloody than a woman's five day cycle, alas, racism is a cycle of human horror, terror and debauchery, beginning in the 1440s when the Portuguese slave ships arrived in west Africa. yes, slavery in America and the Americas reduced kunta kinte to toby and he remains a stunted personality suffering menticide, nutricide, homicide and suicide.

It has been and shall remain a most difficult task that requires ineluctable energy to reverse the nigger toby and reconstruct the royal African kunta kinte. It shall require revolutionary violence that shall make the American civil war a children's party.

The mau mau in Kenya is a model of the internal violence necessary to clean the house of reactionary Toby nigguhs, addicted to white supremacy type ll. Did not Harriet Tubman arm herself to force brainwashed nigguhs to flee the slavery plantations, including her husband?
--marvin x
black august, 2017

Race in America: The Grand Denial by Marvin X

RACE IN AMERICA: The Grand Denial

Publié le 26 avril 2008 par hort

www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com

RACE IN AMERICA: The Grand Denial

Denial is quite simply the evasion of reality. Denial can be personal or communal, for sometimes an entire nation can be in denial about its abominations, for they are too painful to make adjustments in the collective psyche and the personal reality, for to do so would incriminate the mythology and ritual of said society, and thus the normal daily round would be disrupted and dysfunctional, for painful adjustments would be in order, and as long as we can avoid the painful the better, after all, the status quo can be maintained.

America has lived in grand denial. In the words of Baldwin white supremacy has caused this nation to believe in rationalizations so fantastic it approaches the pathological. She has lived among slaves and masters and the descendants of slaves and masters far too long without any meaningful degree of reconciliation or compensation, even apology is long overdue. Other colonial societies such as the French and Australia recently apologized for colonialism, but not America , the chief colonizer of the modern world. She is mainly guilty of domestic colonialism, having enslaved the Native Americans, and then kidnapped millions of Africans who were brought to these shores for eternal servitude. After emancipation, America promised the freed Africans a few acres and a mule, but never delivered. She promised freedom after her slaves provided 200,000 troops who were decisive in the Civil War, but disarmed them and returned them to virtual slavery called Reconstruction, which was short-lived and essentially put the freed slaves in neo-servitude, at the whim of terrorists known as Klu Klux Klan.

White America benefited from four centuries of slavery and neo-slavery. The neo slaves fought in her imperial wars against fascism abroad but were subjected to fascism upon returning home. A few slaves benefited from slavery, even having slaves themselves, yet in the end found themselves facing the glass ceiling, especially when they refused to be running dogs for imperialism now called globalism. General Colin Powell is the most recent example. America duped him and made a fool of him before the world when he gave his fabricated United Nation’s speech to justify the invasion of Iraq . He was replaced with a more pliant Negress in the person of Condi Rice. We are urged to recognize racial progress in her shameful role as Secretary of State. We have achieved equality, for have we not placed ourselves (African Americans) in the position to be charged with war crimes, having justified the slaughter of a million Iraqi men, women and children in the unprovoked occupation and destruction of the jewel of Arabic culture and civilization?

But in our grand denial, blacks as well as whites will attempt to convince the world this point of view is left wing poppycock, the thoughts of a disgruntled segment of the black Americans who have failed to enjoy the benefits of capitalism, now globalism--no matter the disparities in birth and death, education, wage parity, housing, health care, homicide and suicide, in every aspect of Americana.

To mention race is to open a can of worms best left unopened because it makes Americans nervous, uneasy, and disturbed mentally if not physically. White Americans are made to feel guilty, thus etiquette demands no mention of race in civil discourse or casual conversation because we are all too sensitive and the endgame might be violence of the worse kind. And so we are mostly silent on the subject until this ugly monster of our body politic raises its head as it inevitably does from time to time, then after the most brief discussion, all sides are urged to sweep it under the carpet until the next round. Thus this racial drama continues ad infinitum without any real resolution and certainly no reconciliation.

We may have a plethora of interracial marriages with the resultant biracial children, yet nothing has been solved except for a kind of don’t ask don’t talk racial harmony, along with the children growing up in racial confusion called the tragic mulatto syndrome, whereby they try as best they can to choose sides in this racial drama without end. Clearly, Barak Obama is caught between the racism of his preacher and white grandmother. His endgame will be of great interest to the world at large, and even if he doesn’t become president of the US , he will have a role to play in racial politics globally

.Obviously, his persona is bigger than America , having an African father and a Muslim middle name (Hussein) that has endeared him to the Islamic world, no matter the outcome of the presidential election. With his now classic speech on race, putting himself in league with Booker T. Washington’s Atlanta Compromise and Martin Luther King’s I Have A Dream, Obama, much to his dismay, has now become a Race Man, in the classic sense of that term whose definition escapes all but those of historical consciousness, which is most of us, black and white—except that we must now realize there is only the human race, except for those in league with me who claim membership in the Divine Race.

America’s Grand Denial can only be overcome by recovery from our racist white supremacy heritage, beginning by accepting the scientific definition of the human race (or Divine, if you agree with my spiritual notion), then entering a program of detoxification, recovery and discovery. Detoxification includes deprogramming our white supremacy values of domination and exploitation, including patriarchal authority and capitalist greed that has led us to the present recession/depression worldwide. The free market economy is nothing more than pimping by gunboat diplomacy. You sell me your labor and natural resources at the cheapest price or I will take them at gunpoint, under the guise of bringing you democracy—an advance from the naked colonial era of spreading Christianity.

Recovery is discarding the Grand Denial that there is a problem or that the problem has been remedied, therefore stop making whites the villain and blacks the victim, in fact, forget the entire matter—although blacks already suffer acute amnesia to the degree that they are a danger to themselves and others. And who would tell a Jew to forget the Holocaust? And does not the Jew remind the world at every turn what the Germans did to them? We have a thousand times more right to tell the world what happened to us than any Jew, for our suffering lasted four centuries, not four or five years. For their four or five years (1939-1945) the Jews were given a state while we have not acquired one acre for four centuries (1619-2008) of slave labor and government sanctioned terror that even Hitler emulated with his destruction of the Jews.

In order to recover from the addiction to white supremacy, America must make a searching and fearless moral inventory; she must admit to God the exact nature of her wrongs; be ready to have God remove her defects of character (being saved by the grace of Jesus Christ has not and will not solve America’s white supremacy addiction—the white Christian mythology allowed us to be burned on the cross or lynching tree—yes, strangely similar to Jesus). Rev. James Cone suggests America can only recover from the addiction to white supremacy by coming to an understanding of the relationship of the cross and the lynching tree. Listen to Billie Holiday’s Strange Fruit and ponder the life of Jesus Christ. You have had Jesus in your midst for over four hundred years and crucified him on a daily basis, even unto this present hour. America must examine her census, her graveyards in the south and north, the bills of sale, the insurance policies, her jail and prison inmates, the mental hospital patients gone mad as a result of white supremacy addiction—then make a list of all the Africans harmed, the Native Americans, the poor whites treated worse than you treated niggers—then make amends to such people, including reparations in the form of land and sovereignty.

Discovery for America in general will be when she accepts the radicalization of her culture to bring it in harmony with the global village, which involves the dismantling of institutions that perpetuate domination and exploitation of her citizens and other peace loving peoples throughout the world. If America persists in her Grand Denial, then she must prepare for her self destruction, for it shall come at the hands of the man in the mirror, not from any external forces.

Dr. M is the author of How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy, A Pan African 13 Step Model, Black Bird Press, Berkeley CA. mxjackmon@gmail.com

Friday, August 11, 2017

Marvin X Notes on the Cal Shakespeare production of Black Odyssey by Marcus Gardley

Award-Winning Playwright Marcus Gardley Odysseys to Oakland

Ayah Mouhktar | Photo: Courtesy of Cal Shakes | August 3, 2017

Black Odyssey at Cal Shakes is a modern retelling of Homer’s epic poem.

The Odyssey is literature’s ultimate homecoming story. For Marcus Gardley, it’s providing a literal homecoming.

Gardley, an Oakland-born, award-winning playwright, is making his California Shakespeare Theater debut this month with the West Coast premiere of Black Odyssey, a modern retelling of Homer’s epic poem in which an African American veteran returning from Afghanistan makes his way back to Oakland. (Earlier iterations of the production have taken place in Harlem, but the locale has been adjusted for an East Bay audience.) Gardley’s previous works, including The Box: A Black Comedy and The House That Will Not Stand (which premiered at Berkeley Rep in 2014), have drawn critical acclaim.

And unlike Homer’s protagonist, whom only the dog recognizes, Gardley can expect a hero’s welcome home. The play reflects all things Bay Area, from its music and cast to the examination of the African American experience, says Cal Shakes artistic director Eric Ting. “This represents the best of what Cal Shakes can do.”
Aug. 9–Sept. 3

Marvin X, Master poet/playwright, co-founder of the Black Arts Movement, Notes on Black Odyssey

photo Pendarvis Harshaw

Tonight we watched a preview performance of Black Odyssey by Marcus Gardley at the Cal Shakespeare Theatre in Orinda. My daughter, Attorney Amira Jackmon, invited me to attend the outdoor performance with my grandchildren. Since I hadn't seen them for months because Amira has the El Muhajir spirit and is ever on the move throughout the universe, usually accompanied with her children, Naeemah and Jameel, I was elated to spend the evening with my peoples.

Ironically, when I showed them the latest issue of the Movement Newspaper, Naeemah asked, "Grandfather, when you gonna put me on the cover of your newspaper?" I replied, "Naeemah, you know I had the same thought tonight that I should put you and Jahmeel on the cover. I will do so soon." Actually, in the August issue, there are two poems in which my children and grandchildren are mentioned.

When my daughter asked me about Black Odyssey, I told her I didn't know the play but I suspected it was based on the Greek myth stolen from African mythology and reinterpreted through the lens of North American African mythology. Once the play began, I knew I was correct. It began with Ulysses beating the drum, then choral voices in an African language, evolving into the "Stolen Legacy" (George M. James, W.E.B. DuBois) Greek myth morphed into North American African personas and narrative based on situations in the hoods of the Bay, with references to the white hoods as well, e.g., Rockridge, Acorn, et al.

Because of the cold, I was only able to endure the first half. I forgot or didn't realize it's an outdoor theatre, so although Orinda is located immediate after one departs the tunnel from Berkeley, the weather changed drastically and I was totally unprepared, even though they gave out blankets, so I endured the first half then departed to wait in my daughter's car. My daughter said, "Dad, the tickets cost too much for us to leave now!" I told her I would no doubt come again, if only to review the play for my newspaper. She and her chillin' decided to endure the cold for another hour and twenty minutes. As per myself, I am suffering extreme attention deficit disorder these days, not that I have no suffered it throughout my life. After the play, my daughter reminded me, "Dad, do you know how long your productions usually are?" I said, "Ok, but I'm thinking my next concert will be one hour long. The first set of the recent Sun Ra Arkestra concert at the San Francisco Jazz Center lasted one hour, after which I departed, even though the Arkestra has been a part of my life since I performed with Sun Ra and his Arkestra off and on since 1968 in Harlem, NY. And as per time, Sun Ra and I performed a five hour concert of my musical Take Care of Business in San Francisco at the Harding Theatre on Divisadero, 1972, without intermission. Times change. As Sun Ra taught, "We are on the other side of time!"

But the first half revealed that we have an excellent writer in Marcus Gardley, who is from Oakland. There was no question of his masterful weaving of African, Greek and North American African mythology into a unified and organic whole, full of poetry and philosophy about manhood rites of passage and male/female relations. For example, when the 16 year old son of Ulysses, (J. Alphonse Nicholson), Malachai (Michael Curry) encounters his mother, Nella Pell (Omoze Idehenre), mom tells him if he wants to be a man as he proclaims, then buy his own shoes and clothes, pay his own rent. Finally, the 16 year old says, "Mom, I don't wanna be a man, " especially after she was ready to throw his X-box out the window.

I was astounded at the dexterity of the writer in so smoothly working the ancient Greek myth into North American African mythology and simultaneously incorporating African song, dance, music and mythology into his dramatic narrative. I proclaim him a genius of poetry and drama!

When Eldridge Cleaver observed my 1981 Laney College Theatre production of In the Name of Love, he said, "Marvin, you have returned drama to the poetic tradition of Shakespeare." Well, One Day in the Life was a poetic drama. Black Odyssey is the same. I only saw the first half, but my daughter and grandchildren said they enjoyed the second half as well. My daughter said the second half, especially when Ulysses returned home from his journey, was very powerful, very touching and emotional, when he embraced his faithful wife.

If you read my notes on the Sun Ra Arkestra concert at the San Francisco Jazz Center, I discuss the Black Arts Movement Theatre tradition of "Ritual Theatre", well, Black Odyssey utilized this concept of having the actors depart the stage into the audience, thus consciously or unconsciously placing themselves in the Black Arts Movement Theatrical tradition, which connects us with aboriginal myth-ritual theatre. I plan to go back to see the second half of this wonderful play and production.

I will go prepared for the cold night air in Orinda. If you North American Africans can travel to the Concord Pavilion for Snoop Dog, you can endure the cold night air of the Cal Shakespeare Theatre to see Black Odyssey.

Don't miss it cause brother Marcus talkin bout your myth-ritual reality right here in the Bay, let alone all the references to North American African history and mythology, including icons of Black liberation, i.e., Medgar, Malcolm, Martin, Emmit Till, down to Black Lives Matter, police killings, black on black homicide, yes, the Black Odyssey continues to the other side of time, as Sun Ra taught!

Marvin X giving his opening monologue to One Day in the Life, Buriel Clay Theatre, San Francisco, circa 2002, the longest running North American African drama in Northern California history, run extended from 1996 thru 2002. Nearly every drug recovery program in the Bay Area saw this drama that became a recovery classic. Recovering addicts knew the script so well when Marvin X tried to do a B Script to satisfy the Black Bourgeoisie, the recovery audience walked out in disgust that he had capitulated to the black bourgeoisie and their world of make believe and Miller Liteism!

Marvin X at his Academy of da Corner, 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland. Ishmael Reed says, "If you want to learn about inspiration and motivation, don't spend all that money going to workshops and seminars, just go stand at 14th and Broadway and watch Marvin X at work. He's Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland!"

"I do not come to 14th and Broadway to make money by selling books. Sometimes, I think I do but Allah soon reveals to me my mission has nothing to do with money although the people provide me with more money that I expect. Sometimes people drop $20.00 and $10.00 dollars in the glass pot and keep going.

But if you want to know the beauty of our people, when I give books on credit, I never keep record, yet 99% of them pay me when they can, without fail, this is the beauty of our people you need to know. As per the youth who come by with pants hanging off their asses, if I say, "Pull yo pants up," 99% do so without hesitation, only one percent replay with negative bullshilt like, "You ain't my daddy, you can't tell me what the fuck to do!" Sometimes they walk by and read my thoughts: when they get to the curb they pull their pants up without me saying anything, then turn around and look at me with a smile, then continue across the street. They can read minds as we all can. This is the beauty of our people, even our children that you fear to talk with, say a kind word with, give a word of wisdom to while they are starving for elder knowledge.

When I go to the barber shop operated by youngsters, they turn to me and say, "OG, teach us, teach us O.G. Tell us some wisdom, O.G. O.G., when you were a youngster, when you got an STD, you took a pill and stopped your drip. These days, if we get an STD, we might die!"

So let us celebrate Black Odyssey by our brother Marcus. He has much to teach us as per manhood rites of passage and manhood/womanhood relations. Dress fada cold and get yo black asses to Orinda for a myth-ritual healing!
--Marvin X, Black Arts Movement Theatre Elder
9/10/17

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Randolph Belle grand opening at the Laurel Street Fair, Sat. Aug 12

Grand Opening at the Laurel Street Fair

Saturday, August 12th, 2017
11am to 7pm
3718 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland

Come visit us for our GRAND OPENING during the Laurel Street Fair!
This year's theme at the Fest is "World Music"

Join us for a day of fun and family!
We will have fine art and local crafts for sale as well as kids activities
and complimentary family photos when you sign up for our email list.

Featured Artists

We will be featuring several local artists and artisan craftspeople including Lucy Beck and Gene Dominique.

LUCY BECK- Lucy's work starts with being backlit. She takes multiple shots of the same image, changing only exposure, and then combining 6-10 photos to reveal small parts of each exposure. This process slowly builds up a painterly looking picture.

GENE DOMINIQUE- "A photographer I admire noted that anyone can create a good picture. What is harder to create is a series of related photographs that together tell a compelling story. So that's what I aim for in my work: the compelling story." In the series "Havana Street Scenes", Gene illustrates how Havana is many things to many people.

RBA Creative is a design, communications and consulting firm, which provides a comprehensive offering of creative services for corporate and nonprofit clients. RBA Creative has opened a new office and studio in the Laurel District of Oakland with co-working opportunities for artists, photographers, and creative professionals. The space offers a place to exhibit work, meet clients, and build businesses in a supportive environment. Amenities include a photography and production studio, meeting space, shared marketing and access to business equipment. RBA will also provide high-resolution photography, printing, and fine art reproduction services. A range of affordable membership options are available. Come visit to learn more!

Laurel Street Fair

MacArthur Blvd. between High Street and 35th Ave.
11am to 7pm
Saturday, August 12th, 2017

RBA Creative is located at 3718 MacArthur Blvd.
www.rbacreative.com

This is a fun and family oriented street fair with local vendors, food, drinks and music.
Bring your friends and neighbors!
Can’t wait to see you there!

For more information about the Laurel Merchant District visit www.laureldistrictassociation.org

Wednesday, August 9, 2017

marvin x says usa should send delegation of black women for peace to north korea

marvin x

angela davis, marvin x and sonia sanchez

marvin x says the usa should send a delegation of black women peace activists to north korea. the group should include former black panther party leaders kathleen cleaver and elaine brown. fyi, cleaver's son maceo celebrated his 1st birthday at a party hosted by the wife of premier kim ii sung. madam sung also named the cleaver's daughter joju who was born in north korea. elaine brown also visited north korea as a bpp official. other black women for peace should include angela davis, congresswoman barbara lee, poet alice walker, congresswoman maxine waters, sonia sanchez and former congresswoman cynthia mckinney.