Monday, October 2, 2017
Saturday, September 30, 2017
Marvin X on The Politics of Sports

Although Dr. Harry Edwards supposedly pioneered the sociology of sports, Dr. Nathan Hare wrote his PhD at the University of Chicago on Sports, and he was a professional boxer himself. But Dr. Hare was so radical he was kicked out of a Negro college, Howard University, where he lectured on sociology and taught Black Power radical Stokely Carmichael, aka Kwame Toure'; he was partly ousted from Howard for bringing Muhammad Ali to campus after he had refused to fight in Vietnam, after all, Ali said, "The Vietcong never called me a Nigger!" Later, Dr. Nathan Hare, after Howard also found his boxing career unacceptable for one of their academics, landed at San Francisco State College/now University to become the first chair of Black and Ethnic Studies at a major American university, igniting the longest student strike in American academic history.
Today as we replay the political history of athletes such as Muhammad Ali, Tommy Smith and John Carlos, reincarnated in the persona of Colin and now a host of other brothers who have suddenly awakened to the reality of life in racist, white supremacist America, despite their status as muli-million dollar running dogs for professional athletics, we are not shocked at the response of white America, led by the president who has further inflamed the torch of racism by calling the mostly Black athletes sons of bitches. Oh, shit, that white nationalist motherfucker Trump truly crossed the line of propriety by playing the dozens. Now you know Homey don't play dat, not with sacred holy Mother (Of God).
For sure, the politics of American sports has reached a level never seen before, even when Muhammad Ali refused to serve as a running dog for American imperialism or when John and Tommy gave the Black Power salute to protest American racism at the Olympics in Mexico City.
It is indeed wonderful to see the Black athletes unite with the suffering masses of North American Africans. These brothers (and surely their are sister athletes as well) have put their careers on the line for social justice, in the identical manner of Ali, Tommy and John. We salute them and welcome them home.
--Marvin X
9/29/17
Friday, September 29, 2017
Live from Planet Woke by Kwan Booth

Live from Planet Woke
On
a morning that was remarkable in no other way, the famous sports star
stared into the bathroom mirror, at his own face, and the huge problem
hovering above it.
A
kinky revolution had sprouted atop his head as he’d slept. A tiny 2
inch afro now stood triumphantly after toppling his closed cropped
Caesar like a corrupt regime.
After
breaking two sets of clippers and chipping his favorite sheers trying
to rid himself of the stubborn scruff he headed down to breakfast, where
he lamented to his wife while devouring an egg white omelette.
The
news was on. A young woman had been shot by police the night before and
there were protests happening all over the country. The famous sports
star ignored the journalist’s voice like he always did, but had to call
his wife’s name loudly to draw her attention away from the big screen.
He
complained about the new edition to his profile and worried that it
would be taken the wrong way. Like some kind of political statement or
act of defiance.
Indeed
this new face, with it’s black power coils, did resemble the pictures
of the old activists and rabble rousers he’d seen in the books his wife
was always reading. Books with titles that promised of uprisings and
critical examinations of things that the famous sports star had either
taken for granted or never fully understood.
His
wife listened to his concerns, clutching a large mug of tea to her
chest and nodding with the attentiveness of a compassionate lover.
She
told him that he was overreacting. That it was probably just temporary.
And besides, “if some people were rattled by a little something like
this,” she said “then those people needed to have their coat tails
pulled to the real ways of the world that they were living in.”
The
famous sports star trusted his wife and knew that she had a much better
grasp on these things. So with a heavy sigh, he pulled his jersey over
his head with a bit more difficulty than usual, and headed out to
practice, where he avoided questions about his new hairstyle and led the
team through their morning routine.
But
by the end of the month his mini fro had blown out into a perfect 12
inch sphere and a short beard and goatee had sprouted up to match. He’d
begun to resemble some of the men on his father’s side, with their dark
oak skin and drawls that stretched clear back to Mississippi. The ones
that the god fearing Catholics on his mother’s side didn’t like very
much.
And
despite the fact that he’d made a point to stay away from the bruising
debates on race and sex and oppression that had been igniting all over
the country, his new ‘do was taking a political stance for him.
He
noticed the new attention whenever he wore a hoodie, stood in elevators
with white women or made late night grocery store runs. Not famous
sports star attention. But something else entirely.
Once
his fro reached two feet in length, certain friends said that they were
shocked and slightly dismayed that he’d decided to play the race card.
They’d never seen that side of him before.
“We didn’t think you were one of those people” they’d said, shaking their heads and scowling like they’d somehow been betrayed.
At
the three feet milestone, photos of the star and his new hairstyle were
leaked to the media. Sports commentators and pundits denounced his
actions and questioned his allegiances. They fumed. Sport was no place
to insert one’s personal political opinions.
By
the time his afro topped six feet in circumference, the town where he’d
grown up-which happened to have more churches per capita than any city
in the United States-was torn in two.
At
the local pizza parlor where he used to work-someone painted a Hitler
moustache on his portrait, right before someone else covered it in
kisses.
One
restaurant named a hot dog in his honor on the same day that a lynch
mob hung a mannequin with an afro from the Oak tree in front of his
mother’s house.
By
the time the season rolled around the sport star’s afro was the size of
the state of Virginia and there was no way that he could play in his
current condition.
Which
suited him just fine. At his wife’s encouragement he’d began reading
the books that she kept in stacks around the house. And the more he
read, the more that the protests erupting across the country started to
resonate.
He’d
taken to spending the majority of his time with his books and his
thoughts and his wife and the growing movement of people who’d begun to
gather around him-drawn by the news reports and social media feeds and
the buzz that something new was coming.
It
was like his hair had it’s own gravitational pull as people from all
over the world were drawn to the man with the planet sized afro. Together,
under the shade of his curly hair, they’d discuss politics and
philosophy and revolution, mapping out a new world that the famous
former sports star now knew that he played a part in creating.
The
afro ballooned until soon it eclipsed all of the west coast and some of
the more adventurous had began to climb to it’s peak, scaling the sides
to hike across its wide expanse. Desperate to see the world from a new
vantage.
Over
time they discovered that the kinky curls were an excellent medium for
growing crops. A little digging revealed a network of underground
freshwater streams. Carpenters sheared off long planks of the dense
tresses to build libraries and schools and more and more like minded
people began to join.
The
famous former sports star’s wife was elected to oversee the
development. Villages began popping up on the hairy horizon, with small
houses and customs and names that reflected the values this group of
idealists were working towards.
At
a press conference, when he was asked about the developing community
and what he was hoping to accomplish, the famous former sports star said
that he was just doing his part to create the world that we all wanted
to see.
“We’re just trying to be our best selves” he said, staring directly into the cameras and the flashing bulbs.
“We believe that it’s time to build a world where that can happen.”
And
high above them all the sound of hammers and working drifted down to
the press conference. The sounds of children and singing soon followed,
as the promise of something better floated just above them all, between
the ground and the sky. A new world: huge and living and clearly visible
to anyone with the courage to just look up.
This short story previously appeared in the Afrofuturism issue of Chicago Literati
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