Guilty bitch killer pig devil
Who are you bitch killer pig devil crucify nigga jesus
Guilty bitch killer pig devil
Who are you bitch killer pig devil crucify nigga jesus
Marvin X reading at the University of Chicago Sun Ra Conference on Afrofuturism, 2015
photo Burrell Sunrise
Sometime long ago
back in winds of time
after hollow declarations of freedom
liberty or death
soon come slavery reality
negating holy documents
signed by slavers in white wigs
who visited women, men, children cotton pickers in the night
seeking love from Africans in the American slave system
exhausted from can't see to can't see
Sunrise to dust
No matter slave master rape love
Chattel property love
I own you love
Men women children slave master love
Yet sold New Year's Day
Chitterlings gumbo day into the now
We celebrate New Year’s
Black eye peas
Gumbo to honor New Year’s auction block day
Worst day in American slavery system
And we dance on New Year’s?
We should pray all night long
For many thousands gone
Lovers gone
Children gone
Wives husbands
Dis massa care bout love
Tina said what love go ta do wit it?
Did slaves enjoy massa's love
white kind loving hands
tender rapist touch
African men women children
even his children raped sold
nothing to him his precious seed
nothing
commodity for auction block
Massa humans you say
ghosts to me
long gone
yet alive today
blood soaked white minds
suffering denial
addiction of the first kind
Didn't Baldwin say
To solve a problem
first is recognition of the problem
Inheritance no problem for gentrifiers
A check from daddy grandfather
Buy a house from a nigga
Walk dog late into night in nigger hood
Don’t say nothin’ nigga
I walk my dog don’t say shit to me
Would walk my cat if he let me
Cat say fuck you bitch
Leave me lone
Check dem niggas call you miss ann
Becky karen siris
Fake white girls know everything
Ask becky karen siris
Hate crime talk crazy to siris
She say, “Would you talk to your mother like that?
But Siris ain’t real
Ghost 24/7
Bitch know everything in the motherfuckin’ world
Ghost bitch know everything
Still
ghosts don't recognize humans
Don’t give a fuck
Will hang up on you
Ghost spirits travel absent hearts souls
devoid of minds
no there there
Amiri Baraka said it best,
"Where soul's print should be
...only cellulose pouch of disgusting habits!"
We pray kneecaps off to no avail
wail wail
ghosts say
would you like to go to jail?
Maybe, if I can make bail!
Ghosts say, "I can shoot you in the head.
Or release you.
Depends on your voice
Don't you know the tone test?"
Dear brothers and sisters, know the tone test:
1. kill you
2. jail you
3. release you
Depends on your tone of voice.
Please listen to me so I can save your life.
Didn't Jesus give up his coat and cloak to live another day?
Ghosts love death don't you know?
Again, Amiri Baraka said,
"The king sold the farmer to the ghost!"
Baraka said, "In the middle of the Atlantic ocean
is a railroad of human bones...."
Oh, Baraka, you told us, "Don't let them take your UM BOOM BA BOOM!"
You said, "If they take our um boom ba boom
we in deep trouble.
Probably take us a few centuries to get out!"
Don't listen to the ghosts
they sold the farmer
rice growers
iron workers
warriors
priests
holy mothers
children of divine
African ghosts of the kingly kind
Europeans ghosts of the Good Ship Jesus
Can you believe John Hawkins had an Amazing Grace
on the Good Ship Jesus
Can you believe
God saved a wretched wretch like him
John of Amazing Grace
Ghost ship captain
you enjoyed his journey through the door on no return
just remember you ghost lovers
AB said, "The king sold the farmer to the ghost!"
Alas, the black ghosts live as the white ghosts
they are one
what did Nkrumah say, "Neo-colonialism is colonialism playing possum!"
You give us a flag, national anthem but our banks belong to you. IMF is you.
WHO is you! You send the virus and vaccine Covid19.
This is how ghosts dream. Their dreams do not lose do not end
and never do you win with ghost captains of the Good Ship Jesus
you suffer
you bleed
can't breathe
can't breathe
ghosts foot on neck after you dead no pulse dead
foot on neck ghost
hand in pocket ghost
no heart no soul ghost
and you swear they human!
--Marvin X
4/19/21
photo Alicia Mayo
American Ghosts
Sometime long ago
back into the winds of time
after hollow declarations of freedom
liberty or death
yet soon come slavery
negating holy documents
signed by slavers
who visited women, men, children cotton pickers by night
seeking love from Africans exhausted from can't see to can't see
No matter slave love
they were sold New Year's Day
Tina said what love go ta do wit it?
Did slaves enjoy massa's love
white kind loving hands
tender rapist touch
African men women children
even slaver's he raped then sold
they were nothing to him his precious seed
nothing
commodity for the auction block
and these are humans you say
they are ghosts to me
long gone yet alive today
blood soaked into white minds
suffering denial
addiction of the first kind
Didn't Baldwin say
To solve a problem
first is recognition of the problem
ghosts don't recognize
spirits travel absent hearts souls
even devoid of minds
there is no there there
Amiri Baraka said it best,
"Where the soul's print should be
...only a cellulose pouch of disgusting habits!"
We pray kneecaps off to no avail
We may wail wail
the ghosts say only
would you like to go to jail
Maybe, if I can make bail!
Ghosts say, "I can shoot you in the head.
Or release you.
Depends on your voice
Don't you know the tone test?"
Dear brothers and sisters, know the tone test:
1. kill you
2. jail you
3. release you
Depends on your tone of voice.
Please listen to me so I can save your life.
Didn't Jesus give up his coat and cloak to live another day?
Ghosts love death don't you know?
Again, Amiri Baraka said,
"The king sold the farmer to the ghost!"
Baraka said, "In the middle of the Atlantic ocean
is a railroad of human bones...."
Oh, Baraka, you told us, "Don't let them take your UM BOOM BA BOOM!"
You said, "If they take our um boom ba boom
we in deep trouble.
Probably take us a few centuries to get out!"
Don't listen to the ghosts
they sold the farmer
rice growers
iron workers
warriors
priests
holy mothers
children of divine
African ghosts of the kingly kind
Europeans ghosts of the Good Ship Jesus
Can you believe John Hawkins had an Amazing Grace
on the Good Ship Jesus
Can you believe
God saved a wretched wretch like him
John of Amazing Grace
Ghost ship captain
you enjoyed his journey through the door on no return
just remember you ghost lovers
AB said, "The king sold the farmer to the ghost!"
Alas, the black ghosts live as the white ghosts
they are one
what did Nkrumah say, "Neo-colonialism is colonialism playing possum!"
You give us a flag, national anthem but our banks belong to you. IMF is you.
WHO is you! You send the virus and vaccine Covid19.
This is how ghosts dream. Their dreams do not lose do not end
and never do you win with ghost captains of the Good Ship Jesus
you suffer
you bleed
can't breathe
can't breathe
ghosts foot on neck after you dead no pulse dead
foot on neck ghost
hand in pocket ghost
no heart no soul ghost
and you swear they human!
--Marvin X
4/19/21
As per North American Africans vending on Lakeshore Avenue, please be informed that on January 19, 2016, the City of Oakland established the Black Arts Movement Business District along 14th Street from the Lower Bottom to Lake Merritt, thus North American Africans are presently being denied occupation of their Cultural District. FYI, Gov. Jerry Brown, aside from SB946, also established Cultural Districts throughout California and Oakland has applied to have the BAMBD as a certified cultural district. Furthermore, the BAMBD was belatedly incorporated into the City of Oakland's Downtown Plan for the next 25-50 years. As per usual, North American Africans were only included when the plan was in its final stages. We have great doubts bout our inclusion and, more importantly, our equity in said plan, especially if our present exclusion from the designated area is not rectified in the name of social and economic justice. Further, Oakland has yet to fund the BAMBD to any degree whatsoever. There are no banners or signage that the BAMBD exists along the 14th Street corridor and most certainly along Lakeshore Ave where we have staked our claim to a piece of land in our beloved Oakland, known throughout the world as the City of Resistance to white supremacy and domestic colonialism, with the Pullman Porters, the first North American African Union, and the Black Panther Party of Self Defense that challenged police violence under the color of law. But, alas, the OPD was called to subdue the North American African presence at the lake as we exercised our right to be in our own cultural district, i.e., The Black Arts Movement Business District.
Sadly, most North American Africans, including vendors, don't even know we have a cultural and business that extends to Lake Merritt. When it was clear to the community stakeholders of the BAMBD that the City of Oakland was reticent, reluctant, moreover, recalcitrant to establish our district, we established the BAMBD, CDC, under the direction of Dr. Ayodele Nzinga, and she has almost singlehandedly won community benefit packages from developers who've caused displacement leading to the plethora of homeless encampments throughout Oakland. Of course she was opposed by politicians, especially Negropean politicians and they sycophants, including even Negropean business persons who lacked radical consciousness in their attempt to be petty bourgeoise capitalists. Alas, when we literally forced the word "movement" in the name of our district, i.e., Black Arts Movement Business District, certain of them opposed the word "movement" until they got a PE lecture, i.e., political education, from BAMBD co-founders, especially Paul Cobb, Publisher of the Oakland Post News Group, and a long-time radical who informed the petty bourgeoisie businesspersons that it is only because of our radical movement history that we are alive today, since every attempt was made to destroy Oakland's radical movement for social justice. The most recent example is the US Government's attempt to destroy the Black Panther Party as a threat to the national security of the USA, even though the BPP stood on the US Constitution to demand our human rights.
The Oakland Police occupation of Lakeshore Avenue to prevent any semblance of economic equity for the BAMBD and its vendors, is a continuation of Oakland's Jim Crow history to mainly placate lake residents who were expressly informed in SB946 that community animus...does not constitute an objective health, safety, or welfare concern.
It should be clear that for North American African vendors to establish our presence in our BAMBD, we will need to form the BAMBD, CDC Vendors Association to advocate for our economic and social justice, just as the 30,000 Los Angeles vendors. FYI, the BAMBD, CDC was able to win Community Benefit Agreements only because we united with the Asian Community as well as the Latinx, but especially the Asians. I point this out because Afro-Asian unity was formed at the Bandung Conference when the Third World nations declared their policy of non-alignment as per the Capitalists and Communists fighting for global hegemony.
Lake vendors, you can occupy Lakeshore but only with discipline. You can be your own security and employ your own to clean up after yourselves. You can take advantage of Community Benefits from developers along the 14th Street corridor to occupy retail space and warehouse space to store your goods as I proposed years ago during the administration of Oakland's first Black Mayor Lionel Wilson.
With discipline, you can be a presence from the lower bottom to Lake Merritt's Lakeshore Avenue since you have made your footprint there as part of the BAMBD.
As I close, I encourage you to read the thoughts of my dear Sister Cat Brooks on the lake issue, especially as per the police occupation of the vending area we declared.
--Marvin X
Co-founder of the National Black Arts Movement
Co-founder, Black Arts Movement Business District, Oakland
4/10/21
SB 946 Street Vending Bill Summary
SB 946 (Lara) Street Vending Bill Summary: This measure would prohibit a local authority from adopting rules or regulations, by ordinance or resolution, that regulate or prohibit sidewalk vendors unless it first adopts a sidewalk vending licensing program. Bill Description: Specifically, SB 946 allows a local authority to adopt a sidewalk vending licensing program that requires a sidewalk vendor to obtain a license from the local authority before he or she is authorized to sell food or merchandise.
The local authority’s licensing system shall comply with all of the following standards: A local authority shall not restrict the location of a licensed sidewalk vendor unless the restriction is directly related to objective health, safety, or welfare concerns. A local authority shall not prohibit a sidewalk vendor from selling food or merchandise in a park owned or operated by the local authority, except the local authority may prohibit stationary sidewalk vendors from vending in the park only if the operator of the park has signed an agreement for concessions that exclusively permits the sale of food or merchandise by the concessionaire. A local authority may adopt additional requirements regulating the time, place, and manner of sidewalk vending in a park owned or operated by the local authority if the requirements are any of the following: o Directly related to objective health, safety, or welfare concerns. o Necessary to ensure the public’s use and enjoyment of natural resources and recreational opportunities. o Necessary to prevent an undue concentration of commercial activity that unreasonably interferes with the scenic and natural character of the park.
A local authority shall not require a licensed sidewalk vendor to first obtain the consent or approval of any nongovernmental entity or individual before he or she can sell food or merchandise.
A local authority shall not restrict sidewalk vendors to operate only in a designated neighborhood or area, except when that restriction is directly related to objective health, safety, or welfare concerns.
A local authority may prohibit stationary sidewalk vendors in areas that are zoned exclusively residential, but shall not prohibit roaming sidewalk vendors.
A local authority may prohibit sidewalk vendors in areas located within the immediate vicinity of a permitted certified farmers’ market or a permitted swap meet during the limited operating hours of that certified farmers’ market or swap meet.
A local authority may restrict or prohibit sidewalk vendors within the immediate vicinity of an area designated for a temporary special permit issued by the local authority, provided that any notice, business interruption mitigation, or other rights provided to affected businesses or property owners under the local authority’s temporary special permit are also provided to any sidewalk vendors specifically permitted to operate in the area, if applicable.
A local authority shall not restrict the overall number of sidewalk vendor licenses issued unless the restriction is directly related to objective health, safety, or welfare concerns. Perceived community animus or economic competition does not constitute an objective health, safety, or welfare concern.
A local authority may, by ordinance or resolution, adopt additional requirements regulating the time, place, and manner of sidewalk vending if the requirements are directly related to objective health, safety, or welfare concerns, including, but not limited to, any of the following: o Limitations on hours of operation that are not unduly restrictive.
In nonresidential areas, any limitations on the hours of operation for sidewalk vending shall not be more restrictive than any limitations on hours of operation imposed on other businesses or uses on the same street. o Requirements to maintain sanitary conditions. o Requirements necessary to ensure compliance with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (Public Law 101-336) and other disability access standards. o Requiring the sidewalk vendor to obtain from the local authority a permit for sidewalk vending or a valid business license. o Requiring the sidewalk vendor to possess a valid California Department of Tax and Fee Administration seller’s permit. o Requiring additional licenses from other state or local agencies to the extent required by law. o Requiring compliance with other generally applicable laws. o Requiring a sidewalk vendor to submit information on his or her operations, including, but not limited to, any of the following: The name and current mailing address of the sidewalk vendor. A description of the merchandise offered for sale or exchange. certification by the vendor that to his or her knowledge and belief, the information contained on the form is true. The California seller’s permit number (California Department of Tax and Fee Administration sales tax number), if any, of the sidewalk vendor. If the sidewalk vendor is an agent of an individual, company, partnership, or corporation, the name and business address of the principal.
A violation of a local authority’s sidewalk vending program that complies with Section 51038 is punishable only by the following:
An administrative fine not exceeding one hundred dollars ($100) for a first violation. An administrative fine not exceeding two hundred dollars ($200) for a second violation within one year of the first violation. An administrative fine not exceeding five hundred dollars ($500) for each additional violation within one year of the first violation. A local authority may rescind a permit issued to a sidewalk vendor for the term of that permit upon the fourth violation or subsequent violations. If a local authority requires a sidewalk vendor to obtain a sidewalk vending permit from the local authority, vending without a sidewalk vending permit may be punishable by the following: An administrative fine not exceeding two hundred fifty dollars ($250) for a first violation. An administrative fine not exceeding five hundred dollars ($500) for a second violation within one year of the first violation. An administrative fine not exceeding one thousand dollars ($1,000) for each additional violation within one year of the first violation.
Poets made their way up the mountain to read
When the Black Arts Movement Business District was established by the City of Oakland, January 19, 2016, the BAMBD extended from the lower bottom of 14th St to Lake Merritt, but in the City of Oakland's current attempt to remove vendors from the eastside of the lake along Lakeshore Avenue to placate residents traumatized by the Black presence of overwhelming African bodies expressing love, joy, happiness and economic growth, at a high cost of police presence and sanitation, we suggest that community persons be hired for security and other expenses for the vendors along Lakeshore.