Marvin X reviews Black Panther

Marvin X reviews the film Black Panther



Let me begin with praise to ancestor Sun Ra and his Myth-Science philosophy. Throughout watching Black Panther, I kept thinking of Sun Ra's film Space is the Place in which  his space ship lands on earth and he deplanes dressed as an Egyptian god, or shall we say Supreme god Ra. I imagined how Sun Ra would have expressed his Myth-Science philosophy with the resources of Disney. But have no doubt Sun Ra would have much praise for the Afro-futurist mythology of Black Panther. He claimed he was from space  via Egypt or Kemet. Black Panther was a myth-science film that clearly projected Ra's teachings, even to the point of the "Negro" (he was half Wakandan) Killmonger identifying with his maternal ancestors who refused to be victims of the European-American  slave system, instead they jumped ship rather than suffer oppression. The Qur'an says, "Persecution is worse than slaughter!" Sun Ra used to say that Africans must pay reparations to North American Africans for selling us to Europeans. Killmonger's final statement redeemed him from his reactionary behavior, especially as a running dog for American imperialism. His body was covered with marks of his life as a killer for imperialism, aka, globalism. We recall a veteran Special Forces Marine who would not read my writings too long because my words made him angry for all the killing he was forced to do throughout the world. He said America should be bombed every day for her murderous deeds throughout the world. Killmonger was a similar victim, although he becomes the villain whose main focus was to seize the throne in a succession struggle, after the old king killed his father in Oakland, of all places, although the Black Panther Party was born and died in Oakland after being labeled by the FBI as the number one threat to the internal security of the USA.

The film's focus on the struggle for succession tackles a constant theme of African or Kemetic culture and history, from the early days of Nile Valley culture. Chancellor Williams writes about struggle over succession rites as a chief reason for migrations when African kingdoms fell into chaos, along with invasions and ecological factors. Aside from being blessed with a precious metal, the above factors may explain the Wakandan xenophobia, or tribalism or narrow minded nationalism. Some critics have called the Wakandans reactionary because they were for themselves first and foremost, rejecting Pan Africanism outright, or any degree of internationalism.  Although after the rebirth of King T'Challa, and his return to the throne, he attempts to change the political ideology of his nation.

Many or perhaps millions who have seen Black Panther and thoroughly enjoyed it as a Hollywood fantasy from the Disney world of make believe, do not want to hear any discussion of the deeper nature of Black Panther. After all, it's not a documentary. But Chairman Mao taught us all art is propaganda and reflects the values and mission of one class or another, either the bourgeoisie ruling class or the oppressed masses. Disney's Black Panther primarily gave us a film glorifying the African ruling class, a class many African revolutions fought to eliminate, especially for their role in the slave trade, in which they accumulated surplus capital along with the Europeans, not to leave out the Arabs. Even after independence, the African ruling class morphed into neo-colonialism. When the white man was called colonizer in Black Panther, the audience laughed. The Wakandans were never colonized but most African nations suffered colonization which morphed into neo-colonialism that Kwame Nkrumah told us was, "Colonialism playing possum."

While the film is a political disaster by projecting African royalty with its tainted past and/or present, those enamored of African culture will enjoy a boost of cultural consciousness. We Africans are a beautiful people, a cultured people, a people of genius in science and technology. If Black Panther replaces sagging pants with Dashikis, surely, the film must be applauded. If it forces women to throw off their wigs as the woman did in the film, it must be applauded. The music, the chants, the communal dancing, the most colorful costumes and traditional ritual face makeup, should help Africanize a starving population of North American Africans. The technology seemed excessive although we need to see African people utilizing science, technology, artificial intelligence, time travel.

Again, the negative is that the only two North American Africans in the film were killed for reactionary behavior, suggesting Black Americans are villains or not "real Africans," which prompted a North American African  woman to depart the cinema shouting "Killmonger for life!" I translate her statement as, "I'm a Nigga fa life!"
--Marvin X
3/4/18

Addendum:The Psycholinguistic Deconstruction of the word Nisa as per Women in the film Black Panther

In the Arabic language, Nisa has two meanings depending on syllable stress. Nisa means woman in one definition and another syllable stress Nisa means forget her, i.e., to forget the woman. We are thankful for ancestor Imam Warith Din Muhammad for his lecture on Nisa, chiding men for forgetting women. Of course in the patriarchal mythology women are booty at best, i.e., the spoils of war. Females were often buried in the desert sands because they were of no value in the patriarchal society.

And yet, how ironic it was that the wealthy trade woman Khadijah economically uplifted the budding prophet Muhammad Ibn Abdullah when she put him over her resources and most importantly was the one who comforted him when the Angel Gabriel gave him divine revelations that overwhelmed him. He sought refuge in her and she encouraged him to pursue his divine mission.

Still, in the patriarchal society, Muhammad did his best to teach respect of women or Nisa, and taught men not to forget women. Although,  as per family, he admonished believers that Allah is first and foremost, "If your wives, children and the wealth you acquire are dearer to you than Allah, then wait until His command comes, and He guides not the unjust!"

As per plural marriage or polygamy, he said if you can't give justice and equality (and he said you never can) don't even try it. I bear witness the Prophet was right because I could not be just and equal in my polygamous marriages that were a total failure, especially  when I realized the women would never love each other. They didn't even like each other. One wife told me she would have loved her co-wife if I wasn't in the picture, since they were on a similar spiritual vibration. And even after I was separated from them both, they bought and sold from each other at the Berkeley Flea Market.

From the beginning of my polygamous life,  I focused on making my children of three mothers love and respect each other, even if the mothers could not do so, and in fact, taught hatred to my children in the typical manner of mothers in plural marriage no matter in America or Africa and elsewhere.

No matter, my children are closer than I know and are even secretive in their loving sibling relationships. Alas, often they keep hidden from me their deep love and respect for each other. My oldest son Marvin K said long ago, "We're all smart!" He thus acknowledges the DNA or genetic connection between his siblings. 

As per women in the film Black Panther, I neglected to note the most wonderful role they played.. Imagine, a woman military general, a woman scientist, an independent woman seeking to discover her bliss in the best manner of Joseph Campbell,  even though she was loved by and loved the king, but only submitted to him after he had his Osirian resurrection  Women were repeatedly shown as warriors, not to mention their awesome communal ritual powers as dispensers of wisdom. Their physical beauty alone was overwhelming, especially bald headed and locked and their costumes were an antidote to the dress of our women addicted to European-colonial dress.

For sure, African women executed power, beauty and intelligence that should inspire North American African women and all women to transcend the patriarchal mythology, whether African or European!
--Marvin X/El Muhajir
3/8/18

On Thursday, March 8, 2018, 6:49:50 PM PST, Marvin X Jackmon jmarvinx@yahoo.com [blackantiwar] wrote:

 

On Thursday, March 8, 2018, 6:05:02 PM PST, Marvin X Jackmon jmarvinx@yahoo.com [blackantiwar]

wrote:

 

Bay Area folks, don't miss the Respect Hip Hop Exhibit at the Oakland Museum of California, March 24-August 12, 2018. As per the Black Arts Movement as the foundation of Hip Hop, the archives of Marvin X and the Black Arts Movement will be displayed. FYI, the Museum is planning a permanent exhibit of the Black Power Movement, including the Black Arts Movement. The museum is discussing a partnership with Oakland's Black Arts Movement Business District, CDC, of which the museum is a venue in the district and a permanent exhibit of Oakland's Black radical political,cultural and economic history is vital to uplift those stuck in the low information vibration, says Marvin X. As a BAM/BAMBD co-founder, Marvin has begun meetings with the Oakland Museum to make the Black Power Exhibit a reality and homage to all those freedom fighters who gave selflessly their sweat, blood and tears. Marvin X says, "Oakland is one of the most radical cities in America, similar to Fallujah, Iraq, a city of resistance that was decimated by US forces. Oakland suffered the same decimation vie Cointelpro, Army, Navy, Marines, National Guard, local police, agent provocateurs and snitches. There were snitches who told of planned rebellions and simply reported on the Black Mood.   

".....Marvin X is a teacher of primeval knowledge, a knower of both street poetry and book poetry. In fact, he combines the two in a powerful way. Each verse is a teach act, each stanza--a class. His use of alliteration, rhymes, assonance, dissonance and free rhymes indicates he has absorbed the teachings of the academy. Yet, the street consciousness lying in the cut of its content links him directly to the poets of the new idiom called Rap." Of course critic James G. Spady placed Marvin X at the very foundation of Rap, whether conscious or unconscious, "When you listen to Tupac Shakur, E-40, Too Short, Master P or any other rappers out of the Bay Area of Cali, think of Marvin X. He laid the foundation and gave us the language to express black male urban experiences in a lyrical way!"--James G. Spady, Philadelphia New Observer Newspaper

Marvin X says, "Of all the rappers in the Bay who absorbed my spiritual energy, only Askari X can claim my crown! Askari, no matter his mental condition, took the torch of Black Islam and ran to the mountain top shouting, "Laeelahah, elaillah, Elijah Muhammad rassululah!" Askari X went on to honor his master teacher, Master J founder of the Ansaru Allah. But Askari recognized me as the reincarnation of Marcus Garvey and addressed me as Marcus Garvey. I recognized his talent as superior to Tupac or any other rappers. Not only could he sing but he had the Islamic mythology that made him stand taller than other rappers stuck on the low information vibration.

Askari X

Biography

Askari X, aka Ansar El Muhammed and Ricky Murdock, is a hip-hop artist from Oakland, California. He has 3 albums and is on many compilation albums and as a guest on several albums. He is famous for coining the term RBG. Stic.man and M-1 of Dead Prez talk about Askari X often in music and credit him as one of their main musical influences.

Askari X is known for black power messages combined with spiritual Islamic themes. His lyrics have a message similar to Fred Hampton, Bobby Hutton, Marcus Garvey, Huey P. Newton, and Malcolm X, including the Black Panther mentality and political manifesto of Malcolm X: "by any means necessary." His sound is characterized by slow powerful drum beats and a flow similar to Tupac. His message is similar to rap artists Dead Prez, X-Clan, Immortal Technique, Public Enemy, and Steve B.I.K.O.

Askari X espouses a mixture of ideologies, one being that of a revolutionary, who uses carnal weapons and guns to obtain freedom, along the lines of the Black Panthers and the African People's Socialist Party. The other being that of s/c Black Islam (Teachings of thee Nation of Islam) as taught by Ansar El Muhammad, Thee Select One, thee ALLAH Master J, which is foundated on the teachings of Thee Messenger, Thee Glorious Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, which strictly forbids the use of or even possession of guns or carnal weapons of any sort. Askari X also mixes in various levels glorifying the Thug culture, slang, even drug use at times, all with an intent of capturing the imagination of African American youth with audio imagery similar to the conditions they grow up in. As any movie script writer, director, or producer, Askari X without double standard could be innocent of any negative influence his songs may have on those who listen to his songs.

Askari X stands out from other revolutionary underground hip-hop artists with his powerful, blunt, and direct message in support of the black liberation struggle and for being one of the first artists of the RBG movement. Taking anti-racism to a militant level, Askari X supports a revolution against violent racism that matches the notorious aggression of the white supremacist movement. His genre could be identified as a conscious rap artist.

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On Thursday, March 8, 2018, 1:33:06 PM PST, Marvin X Jackmon jmarvinx@yahoo.com [blackantiwar] wrote:

 

cover photo Alicia Mayo
cover design Adam Turner

INTRODUCTION

By Nathan Hare

With the return of “white nationalism” to the international  stage and the White House and new threats of nuclear war, the black revolutionary occupies a crucial position in society today. Yet a black revolutionary of historic promise can live among us almost unknown on the radar screen, even when his name is as conspicuous as Marvin X (who may be the last to wear an X in public view since the assassination of Malcolm X).

This semblance of anonymity is due in part to the fact that the black revolutionary is liable to live a part of his or her life incognito, and many become adept at moving in and out of both public and private places sight unseen. For instance, I didn’t know until I read Marvin X’s  “Notes of Artistic Freedom Fighter” that when he put on a memorial service for his comrade and Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver, 1998, he was unaware that Eldridge’s ex, Kathleen Cleaver, had traveled from the East Coast and slipped into the auditorium of the church with her daughter Joju. As one of the invited speakers I had noticed her curiosity when I remarked that I had been aware of Eldridge before she was (he and I /had had articles in the Negro History Bulletin in the spring of 1962) and had met her before Eldridge did, when I was introduced to her while she was working with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee at Tuskegee institute, but luckily for Eldridge I was happily married to the woman who years later would escort Kathleen around San Francisco in what I recall as a failed search for a black lawyer to take his case when he returned from exile in France.

Like many other persons across this promised land, I also thought I knew Marvin X. I can clearly recall seeing him walk into the offices of The Black Scholar Magazine, then in Sausalito, with a manuscript we published in the early 1970s.... However, his reputation had preceded him. For one thing, then California Governor Ronald Reagan had publicly issued a directive to college administrators at UCLA and Fresno State University to get Angela Davis and Marvin X off the campuses and keep them off.

Then over the years I continued to encounter him: when he organized the First National Black Men’s Conference, 1980, Oakland Auditorium, that drew over a thousand black men (without benefit of media coverage) to pay their way into a conference aimed at getting black men to rise again.  I was a member of his Board of Directors. I also attended a number of other conferences he organized, such as the Kings and Queens of Black Consciousness, San Francisco State University, 2001, and the San Francisco Black Radical Book Fair, 2004, as well as productions of his successful play, “One Day in the Life,”  with a scene of his last meeting with his friend, Black Panther Party co-founder, Dr. Huey P. Newton, in a West Oakland Crack house.

I will never forget the time he recruited me and the seasoned psychiatric social worker, Suzette Celeste, MSW, MPA, to put on weekly nighttime workshops in black consciousness and strategies for “overcoming the addiction to white supremacy.” On many a night I marveled to see him and his aides branch out fearlessly into the gloom of the Tenderloin streets of San Francisco and bring back unwary street people and the homeless to participate in our sessions, along with a sparse coterie of the black bourgeoisie who didn’t  turn around or break and run on seeing the dim stairway to the dungeon-like basement of the white Catholic church.

But when I received and read Marvin’s manuscript, I called and told him that he had really paid his dues to the cause of black freedom but regretfully had not yet received his righteous dues.

As if to anticipate my impression, the designer of the book cover has a silhouetted image of Marvin, though you wouldn’t recognize him if you weren’t told, in spite of the flood lights beaming down on him from above like rays directly from high Heaven, as if spotlighting the fact that Marvin ‘s day has come.

You tell me why  one of the blackest men to walk this earth, in both complexion and consciousness, is dressed in a white suit and wearing a white hat; but that is as white as it gets, and inside the book is black to the bone, a rare and readable compendium of Marvin’s unsurpassed struggle for black freedom and artistic recognition.

Black revolutionaries wondering what black people should do now can jump into this book and so can the Uncle Tom: the functional toms find new roles for the uncle tom who longs for freedom but prefers to dance to the tune of the piper; the pathological tom, whose malady is epidemic today, as well as the Aunt Tomasinas, can be enlightened and endarkened according to their taste in this literary and readable smorgasbord.

“Notes of Artistic Freedom Fighter Marvin X” is a diary and a compendium, a textbook for revolutionary example and experience, a guide for change makers, a textbook for Black Studies and community action, including city planners who will profit from his proposals and experiences in his collaboration with the mayor and officials of Oakland to commercialize and energize the inner city, with a Black Arts Movement Business District (BAMBD) that could be the greatest black cultural and economic boon since the Harlem Renaissance.  No longer just talk and get-tough rhetoric, his current project is cultural economics, Oakland’s Black Arts Movement Business District, an urban model evolving in real time in the heart of downtown Oakland, where people like Governor Jerry Brown once tried their hand before they turned and fled back into the claws of the status quo.

I can’t say everything is in this book, just that it reflects the fact that  Marvin, for all he has done on the merry-go-round of black social change, is still in the process of becoming.

Readers from the dope dealer to the dope addict to the progressive elite, the Pan African internationalist, the amateur anthropologist, the blacker than thou, the try to be black, the blacker-than-thous, the try to be white (who go to sleep at night and dream they will wake up white) and other wannabes; in other words from the  Nouveau Black to the petit bourgeois noir and bourgie coconuts, “Notes of Artistic Freedom Fighter Marvin X” is a fountainhead of wisdom, with a fistful of freedom nuggets and rare guidance in resisting oppression or/and work to build a new and better day.

Dr. Nathan Hare

3/8/18

 Dr. Nathan Hare, Father Black and Ethnic Studies, with his student, Marvin X

photo Adam Turner 

Notes of Artistic Freedom Fighter Marvin X

Introduction by Dr. Nathan Hare

Black Bird Press, Oakland, April, 2018

limited edition, signed

paperback

500 pages

$29.95

Pre-publication discount price $19.95

To pay by credit card, call 510-200-4164

email: mxjackmon@gmail.com

film screening BUSINESS IN THE BLACK

Intergalactic Myth-Science Solar Arkerstra - Sun Ra

Parable of Solitude, from Notes of Artistic Freedom Fighter Marvin X

Parable of Solitude, from Notes of Artistic Freedom Fighter Marvin X

I love Duke's tune In My Solitude, although I long wanted to rename the tune In My Negritude to express my African consciousness. But, as my dear friend Amina Baraka likes to say, if truth be le told, I learned solitude from childhood. My mother told one of my wives she recalled I could spend hours and hours playing with my toys in solitude. And I remember such, in the backyard of our house on 7th and Campbell in West Oakland. I recall in my play house organizing toy soldiers. After all, my childhood hero was General Eisenhower. I remember the end of World War II and then the establishment of Palestine. At the drive-in theatre with my parents, I remember the newsreels of Palestinians fleeing across that bridge into Jordan. I didn't know what was going on and didn't bother to ask my parents, but those fleeing refugees bothered me deeply, a child born in 1944 and witnessing  the 1948 struggle of Palestine. And then came the conflict in North Korea in the 1950's. I recall the cartoons showing human waves of Koreans and Chinese slaughtered by the USA. Even now I see the North Koreans and Chinese grinning as they attacked the US and were slaughtered. I had no understanding of such events even though my parents were conscious, after all my father was a Race Man and mother a Race Woman. They published the Fresno Voice, a Black newspaper in Fresno, California. Although they published a Race newspaper and were social activists, they never explained foreign events to me such as Palestine and the Korean conflict. I remember when the Korean Conflict ended in the 1950s because a brother ran through the projects shouting the Korean was over. Of course, it is still going on and we are anxiously awaiting Rocket Man's rocket to land in Los Angeles as I write.

Growing up in Fresno and Oakland, California, especially in Oakland where I played with those toy soldiers in solitude, I soon began writing in the Children's Section of the Oakland Tribune. I also wrote short stories at Prescott Elementary School. But it was when my parents separated and Mom returned to Fresno and established her Real Estate business that my creativity and solitude began in earnest, after all, I was in the house with six sisters with their eternal chatter and solitude was my only refuse even though my one year older, Ollie, was no comfort since he was a constant visitor to Juvenile Hall and the California Department of Corrections, so I retreated into my room to avoid the chatter of my sisters. In my room, I created my world of make believe, along with reading a plethora of books from book clubs that when I became a teenager, the books were accompanied with Rainer Ale or Green Death that was my company when girlfriends and boyfriends were not around, along with grandfather who shared my room, especially when my brother was in the company of the California Department of Corrections, although there were times when he and I were both in Juvenile Hall and only my grades saved me from California Youth Authority. I remember Mom leaving Juvenile Court with me (my brother was on his way to CYA), and the judge didn't send me to CYA along with my brother only because of my grades. Yes, I was an honor student fuck up. The judge said it would cost the State as much to send me to college as it cost to send me CYA, so he released me. I asked Mom why she wasn't crying? Mom said, "Son, I might not be crying on the outside, but I'm crying on the inside!"

With my brother gone to CYA and eventually to the Department of Corrections, I did indeed enjoy a life of solitude. I shared my bedroom with my grandfather, but he was most often drunk on Gin while I was drunk on Rainer Ale or Green Death as we called it. My room closet was so full of empty quart bottles of Rainer Ale that Mom asked me to please clean them out, please!

Meanwhile, my six sisters were in the living room of our housing projects abode living their life with their girlfriends and boyfriends. For sure, my six sisters had the finest girlfriends in the world. One eventually won the Miss California Contest, but in the age-grade structure of our ghetto society, I did not think of hooking up my sister's girlfriends or my own friends younger sisters, although I lusted for them and later learned they were lusting for me as well. Eventually, I was devastated when I found my best friend hiding in the closet of my sisters. Even though I was a part of the age-grade ghetto society, still, I couldn't understand why my best friend didn't tell me he was dating my sister. Yet, I knew if I dated a sister of my friends, it would have been totally out of line. e

I only dated girls in my age-grade until much later in life when my sister's girlfriends connected with me and let me know they'd wanted me since our teenage days. Even then, my sisters sometime played block woman and tried to prevent me from connecting with their girlfriends, now grown and most often living in the Bay Area. As they say in the hood, "I caught them in the 33rd!"

No matter the females, my creativity was a constant, although I often misread my creativity for sexuality, perhaps the most critical misreading of my life that cost me the lost of my productivity as a creative artist.

For sure, my sexual desires were  a tragic misreading of my creative energy that became a violent expression in my partner relationships simply because I was never satisfied and would never be able to achieve such satisfaction through my sexual explorations, no matter how many wives and  extramarital affairs, even when I was more than sexually satisfied though ultimately unsatisfied, for after all, when one is addicted to anything, there is no satisfaction, one is lost in the illusion and chases the dragon until one finally realizes as the mystics teach, "All is illusion!"

Surely something is terribly wrong when one enjoys wives and partners, yet finds himself masturbating in the night.  Surely a dance student was right when she said, "Marvin X, I ain't giving you no pussy because you got enough pussy already!" She was right because even if she had given me her pussy, it would have not been enough!" The addict wants more and more and more.

Thus, the only reality is knowing there is no reality except the metaphysical, i.e., beyond reality into the deep down purple funk of the self that transcends the material, physical and all that is not in the deep structure of the mind and heart. As Dr. Hare told us, "In the bottomless caverns of addiction in any form, there seems no amount of religiosity, coke, crack, alcohol or sex sufficient to sedate the social angst and shattered cultural strivings...."

So where and when does one find that ultimate satisfaction beyond sex, money and material illusions?

I found it in my creativity, the joy and happiness that even money and sex could not satisfy, even a wife or woman could not. Only in solitude was I happy and joyful and in full submission to the Creator of the Universe, as Sun Ra often told me I had to do.

Yes, even when I enjoyed five years of solitude in the mountains with very few visitors and no sex, only then did I submit to the Creator and let Him guide my pen. And He did, forcing my hand to write His will and discard my silly notions of creativity.

And I am pleased for in those five years of solitude, I wrote five books and healed from all my trauma and unresolved grief. And those who read my books said it wasn't the subject matter of the books but rather the tone that healed them from their stress, unresolved grief and trauma.

Initially, I didn't understand where one reader was coming from since he was not speaking of the subject matter. It was the tone of peace in the book that soothed him from the stress of his life.

It was then that I realized it was the peace in which I wrote that gave him peace, no matter what I wrote, rather what soothed him was the peaceful tone in my book. And, for sure, five years in solitude in nature, among birds, bees, deer, turkeys, hawks, cows, horses,  I was at peace with myself and thus able to spread my little light, even when I didn't know I was spreading light. Sometimes we don't realize it is not what we say but how we say it that is the healing balm of Gilead. What did JB say, "Talkin' loud, saying nothin!" Nigga you yappin and yappin but ain't sayin nothin!

I had to tell myself it wasn't the material or subject matter,  but simply the tone of peace derived from my environment and state of mind that caused me to enjoy neural placidity or a change of my nerve cells that was transferred to my book and to the reader. Imagine, if a mother is calm, cool and collected, her children will be so as well.

And yet it is unfortunate so many of the things I say the average human being cannot comprehend, and often I know my suggestions cannot be comprehended by those of low information vibration. Yet I cannot dumb down, so I challenge the low information vibration people to be their greater self rather than their lower self and force themselves to seek the Upper Room of their Father's House.

In my solitude I must focus on my bliss or holy purpose. Take what you can from me and throw the rest into the dustbin. For sure, I do not desire you to follow me, rather follow the mind God gave you as my Mother told me to do!
Ache!
Marvin X
2/22/18

The Black Arts Movement and Chicago's Spoken Word Scene

Chicago’s Spoken Word Scene is Serious Business

Defender Contributing Writer | Charles Preston

The late Amiri Baraka, a forbearer of the Black Arts movement, once poignantly stated, “…we need poems that kill.” in his aptly titled poem “Black Art”.  The poem is a reflection of the Black Nationalist ideology that Baraka, and many others, held while navigating Black life after the assassination of Malcolm X, and still undergoing collective suffering after the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. “Black Art” not only crystallizes the Black Power ethos of its time, but it was the precursor for today’s revolutionary spoken word that details the socioeconomic condition of the oppressed and strikes back at the establishment.

There are a variety of oratorical, philosophical, and poetic influences in contemporary Black Chicago’s spoken word scenes. Go to any open mic and you can see the influence that Gwendolyn Brooks, Mike Hawkins (Brother Mike), Kanye West, Malik Yusef, Margaret Walker, Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes, Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Askia Toure, Marvin X and many others worthy of mention have had on Black artists across the city.

This diversity can also be seen in Chicago’s geographic location. Places such as the Southside Community Arts Center in Bronzeville, the KLEO Center in Washington Park, the Quarry in South Shore, Chicago State University in Roseland, and now the TrapHouse in Gresham all display a wide spectrum of Blackness and represents the many communities committed toward the art. But Black people practicing spoken word is obviously a continuance of the art form, but not necessarily a subscription to the ideology of the Black Arts Movement.

“Is there a Black Arts Movement in contemporary Chicago? Absolutely,” says RJ Eldridge. Eldridge is a multidisciplinary artist and educator. He has contributed to Chicago’s “open mic” scene through his own awe-inspiring spoken word performances and instructing budding youth artists in various spaces including Young Chicago Authors, the non-profit organization that created the biggest national youth poetry competition Louder Than A Bomb.

“Chicago is both a contemporary metaphor for blackness, and ground zero for a Black Arts renaissance whose thrust, and influence, extends far beyond its geographic boundaries, and will continue to reverberate in the history of Black people.”It is imperative to recognize that artists of the Black Arts Movement rose to prominence in a period of massive resistance and social struggle. To these ancestors, activism and art were inextricable. Yes, they did write “….poems that kill.”, but more impressively, many were able to exercise their ideology by expressing solidarity to and participating amongst the radical organizers of the time. Baraka even established the Black Arts Repertory Theatre and School (BARTS), practicing his Black Power politics of self-determination by creating a Black space for Black art that is owned and operated by and for Black people.But today, Black Chicagoans find it difficult to build, own, and sustain spaces for Black poetry. Ayinde Cartman, poet, organizer, and West African percussionist, has long used spoken word for instruction and as a medium for education for years in Chcago. Cartman believes that there is a dearth of open mics in Black communities in comparison to the amount of artists that exist within them.

“Chicago has so many outstanding poets that its unreal how difficult it is to sustain regularly attended open mics,” says Cartman.

“Simultaneously, its absurd how often I meet people who love open mics but can’t find any. This is a minor indicator of how much our community needs functional communication. I’m working on it.”

Newcomers to Chicago, such as Resita Cox, echo the insistence on creating Black spaces for spoken word. Cox is a spoken word poet and just recently moved to Chicago from Kingston, North Carolina. Only living in the city since last summer, Cox has been able to recognize the connection that spoken word has with Chicago and emphasizes how expression is for healing as much as it is for liberation.

“Expression spaces are abundant here, but I’ve noticed the areas that need the expression spaces the most, the areas who need the most healing, are lacking spaces like that, I call them expression deserts,” says Cox.

“I started People Say, a monthly open mic on 79th and Ashland in partnership with Trap House Chicago, to try to fight these expression deserts that exist, mainly on the South and West Sides, and give people who need it the most the resources to heal through art, and even equally important, a space to feel safe.”

As we celebrate Black Arts, and more specifically the art of spoken word, we must never divorce its beginnings and purpose from performance. Those beginnings are found in Black resistance informed by socioeconomic oppression and its purpose was to amplify voices that jarred the status quo and yearned for freedom through self-determination.

Resita Cox puts it eloquently, “Spoken word doesn’t only heal, it is a key tool in the overall fight for Black Liberation, and that is why it is important to continue to make spaces for Black people to express throughout Chicago, and across the country.”

Notes of Artistic Freedom Fighter Marvin X: How to transcend the low information vibration

MLK, Jr. and MX

"You can be a Christian nigga, Muslim nigga, Communist nigga, Capitalist nigga, Democrat nigga, Republican nigga, Gay/Lesbian nigga, but you still a nigga in America. When WEB DuBois spoke in China's Tienanmen Square, after being introduced to a million people by Chairman Mao, our greatest intellectual ever produced in the hells of North America, WEB DuBois, said, "Thank you for your kind remarks, Chairman Mao, but in my country, America, I am just a nigga!' "

--Marvin X

February 21, 1965

Assassination of Malcolm X, El Hajji Malik El Shabazz. Since then has anyone done anything Malcolm said we should do? Alas, is anyone doing the things the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said do, e.g., do for self? What about the teachings of Marcus Garvey or Noble Drew Ali, or Booker T. Washington? Jesus, Prophet Muhammad? For the most part, most of us have no intention to do anything anyone said. Elijah said we are hard to lead in the right direction, easy to lead in the wrong direction. And why do we love the devil? Because he gives us nothing!

Black Arts Movement co-founders poet/playwright Marvin X and father of Afro-futurism Sun Ra, the mystical man from Egypt and  another planet, outside X's Black Educational Theatre in the Fillmore, San Francisco, 1972. Both men taught Black Studies at University of California, Berkeley, 1972. Sun Ra and his Myth-Science Arkestra arranged the musical version of X's BAM classic Flowers for the Trashman, renamed Take Care of Business, performed with a cast of 50 at San Francisco's Harding Theatre, a five hour concert without intermission.  Cast included the Ra Arkestra, X's cast, plus the Raymond  Sawyer and Ellendar Barnes dancers. The audio version of Sun Ra's UCB lectures are on Youtube. Marvin X's archives are in the Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley. 

Let us recall the dialogue Sun Ra had with a Negro in Ra's classic film Space is the Place (shot in Oakland):

Sun Ra 

What ya doin?

Negro

Ain't doin nothin.

Sun Ra

Wanna job?

Negro

Doin what?

Sun Ra

Doin nothin!

Negro

Well, how much ya gonna pay me?

Sun Ra

Ain't gonna pay ya nothin!

These days you can't pay a nigga to do nothin or somethin! Ya didn't hear me. I repeat, you can't pay a nigga to do nothing or somethin. More importantly, whatever the nigga do, he ain't gonna do it right! Yes, he won't do wrong right or right right! For example, my daughter bought a taco truck but couldn't hire her own kind, they wanted to tell her how to run her business. She had to fire them.

She hired a Mexican who didn't like working for a nigga. She hired a white man who didn't like working for a nigga. She closed her business. Yet, I'm so proud of my daughter. She called me to go with her to buy the truck but I was in a meeting so she went to East Oakland by herself  and paid $20,000.00 cash for the truck! 

But there's light at the end of the tunnel and it ain't the train comin at ya. We are so deep in the low information vibration, even a fantasy film such as Black Panther may be the spark the ignites the prairie fire of Black African consciousness in the present era.

As some of you know, I have called for the necessity of reversing the "breaking in" process that psycho-socialized and traumatized us and  transformed our African identities  from Kunta to Toby.

If Black Panther has any possibility of rekindling  our African personalities so long dormant in the deep structure of our low information vibration Negroid minds, steeped in "Negrocities" (AB term he wanted you to know, not a MX term) but now allowing us to acknowledge African mythology and rituals in our lives, then there is the most wonderful possibility that Toby may indeed one day  reclaim his true royal identity as Kunta, and most especially devoid of that royal corruption of kings and queens who, along with the Europeans, benefited from the triangular trade and the surplus capital Africans and Europeans accumulated from 400 years of slavery. See Dr. Walter Rodney's How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, also his classic monograph West Africa and the Atlantic Slaver Trade. 

My recently departed patron, Abdul Leroy James, used to said, "The Negro ain't never done nothing right in his life!" No matter what intellectuals thought about Roots and no matter what they think about Black Panther, if this film can make the so-called Negro or Toby reclaim his long suppressed African consciousness and move toward the Kunta man and Kunta woman, then let us thank the filmmakers. 

We imagined a most violent process to return Toby to Kunta, after all, the historical reality is that Toby was beaten with a black bullwhip to transform his personality. And there are societal forces ready to force him to continue his persona as Toby and never return  to Kunta, to traumatize Toby for eternity,  although we suspect the oppressor's plan will fail and Toby will resist and persist until he recovers his mental equilibrium that Dr. Frantz Fanon and Dr. Nathan Hare teach us about, although this process can only be achieved through the process of revolution. Ultimately, a movie won't accomplish the revolutionary process, only on the ground seizure of land and political institutions. 

Again, a single spark can ignite a prairie fire. Here in the Bay Area during the fire storm in the hills, embers traveled down to the hood and set houses on fire. So a little ember, a fantasy film has the possibility of being the catalyst to help us begin again that Sisyphusian

journey up the mountain to reach the mountain top Dr. King told us about. And perhaps for once and maybe for all times, we shall begin to follow the wisdom of our ancestors such as David Walker, Nat Turner, Denmark Vesey, Gabriel Prosser, Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells, Booker T., WEB DuBois, Noble Drew Ali, Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X. 

--Marvin X/El Muhajir

2/21/18

Oaktown

City of Resistance

Children and the National Security of America

The latest mass killing in Florida at the school that left 17 children dead and an equal number wounded, including teachers, recalls the apology poet Askia Toure gave for our generation leaving work undone in the 60s struggle for liberation. When I listened to him speak at the University of California, Merced,  I rejected his apology, even took the mike to explain that we who fought America's domestic colonialism faced the military might of the United States, the awesome power of the US Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, National Guard, CIA, FBI, snitches and agent provocateurs. In short, we suffered a military defeat, especially with the additional force of drug and chemical warfare. We thus left this generation in obvious peril at the hands of an inept, corrupt society of adults, whether politicians, educators, law enforcement, religious leaders and others duty-bound to secure our children. And race is totally and absolutely irrelevant, for our children are in danger from inner cities to suburbs, from urban centers to rural communities.

We saw the inability of the US military machine to prevent 9/11, and all the terrorist acts that have taken place on this soil before and after 9/11, including school shootings, church shootings, Las Vegas, Florida's LGBT nightclub, Fort Hood Military Base, etc.

I am at a loss to tell our children we have passed the baton of a wretched land to them, which was the reason for Askia's apology. . We did what we could to make America the so called land of the free and home of the brave.

A few months ago my daughter begged me to pass the baton to her generation because they are qualified and ready. Well, recent events in Florida appear to be the straw that broke the camel's back. But this time it is not the adults but the children themselves who, in spite of their trauma and grief, have transcended the horror of their lives to take authority over their situation.

Initially, they are appealing to adults to solve the problem of their security, but we know from past events adults are incapable of securing their lives because of political expediency, thus we suspect our children shall  be  left with no alternative but to secure they own lives.

After they march on Washington and see no solution, we suspect they will gather to secure themselves. We think their ROT C's may be one answer. Alas, the killer at the Florida school was a member and wore his ROTC T-shirt on the day of death.

Yet, as we discovered in our teaching career that peer teaching is a great method to exhibit leadership and diffuse chaos in the classroom, the ROTC or some other student led security project may be the alternative to the utter failure of adult leadership in school security.

Anytime authorities visit the house of a mentally ill student 39 times and can't discern a serious problem, yes, even after the sick boy announced on social media he wanted to be a school killer, and it was reported to the FBI, we know adults are useless and no faith must be placed in them. Students are thus on their own and have no choice but to secure their own lives.

Even their parents are useless, thus they have no choice but to configure plans to save their lives themselves. Dismiss the notion their brains are not fully developed until age 25, they must take authority immediately to secure themselves since adults cannot. Let us not hear about mental health treatment and gun control, the hour for talk has passed and our children have no choice but to take authority over their lives.The best adults can do is shut up and let their/our children take control.

During the Crack Era, many parents were out of control so children who had to take control of the household, even going to work or even prostituting to put food in the house, sometimes to pay the rent, since their parents were lost in the world of addiction.

Today adults are lost in political agendas that persist with each election, no matter whether Republican or Democrat, so let children take control until adults crawl out of their world of make believe that is so pathological that even with a trillion dollar military budget, they cannot secure the lives of their children but rather continue eternal wars for the arms industry.
---Marvin X
2/20/18