Sunday, June 26, 2016

Poem Times of Fire by Ayodele Nzinga, MFA, PhD



times of fire

by Ayodele Nzinga, MFA, PhD
it is a time of fire
an age of rising
like waves on a
black sea we are
the pouring over after
being pressed down
fire on the water we are
the lesson of the lynching tree
the answer to cotton
the trespassers of language
undressing the weapons
hidden in ink
we are the dreams
projected from projects
the residual of slave hollars
before the rebellions
we are the pouring over
after pressing down
down we have walked
miles in the rain & not
drowned we will light
the sun we come with
fire we are of fire & water
we are closer to the dust
knowing we fall like seeds
come forth in abundance
thrive in the slimmest chance
we come bearing fire
born in a time where vanity
rules truth tellers are slain
poets are labeled mad & fire
is born tended carried in bellies
hearts minds souls
hot like fire baby
we don't want new dealers
we want to write a new deal
renegotiate the treaty papers
the terms of engagement
the boundaries of the public
sphere & all thoughts of
manifest destiny
we come with fire
fire heals & destroys
we don't want a new dealer
in this time of callous
disregard the unwashed
walk along the river's
edge wrapped in the echo
tapped out on iron
Ogun proceeds
Shango gathers the rear
the sound conjures
an unslave ditty
with a free style
cadence breaking
the air of ignorance
disrupting sinister off-key songs of
self-divined too big to fail
democratic failures playing
one note  on the backbones
of the oppressed wrapped in lawless
law ink weapons protecting
invisible war criminals
law stealing lying dirty hands
operation stealth cloaked in subliminal
sound bites selling us crazy
talking heads full of schemes
no quarter offered
none asked
we have come with fire
to light paper houses
deconstructing language
writing the narrative of
rebellion burning with forward
motion on our breath
prayer is better than sleep
action more divine than prayer
movement is life we moving
proof of life
on fire with no more
time to dance you a jig
juggle two realities
pretend like you make sense
truth is a sword
one reality refuse to
be crazy for you
might be a good time
for you to stop pretending
like you crazy too truth
is a sword cutting through
concocted innocence
perceived fragility
& delusions of supremacy
one reality
not invisible
carrying fire
forward motion on
our breath armed
with fire & truth
hot like fire baby

The Holloway Series in Poetry - Amiri Baraka

"It's Nation Time" Amiri Baraka

Brexit, Texit, Blaexit! or The Republic of New Afrika




From Brexit to Texit? Renewed calls for Texas secession after EU vote




The state flag of Texas.
FORT WORTH, Texas -- Britain's startling vote to leave the European Union has reignited talks of secession in Texas, CBS Dallas-Fort Worth reported.

Daniel Miller, head of the Texas Nationalist Movement, sent a tweet to Gov. Greg About Friday morning calling on him to schedule a statewide referendum on "Texas independence."
The hashtag #Texit was trending locally, according to CBS DFW. People at the Fort Worth Stockyards had mixed reactions to the idea.
"It's worth a shot. I'd be happy," resident Tab Pigg told the station, saying the East and West Coasts "run everything."

"No one knows we're even here," Pigg continued. "Best thing we could do is let them have it. They want to make a wreck out of their part of the world, let 'em wreck it."
"I feel like that's almost a little arrogant," said Clavin Wiese, a tourist from Boston visiting Fort Worth. "What are you, too good to be part of the rest of us, the United States? I don't know."
Texas was an independent country from 1836 to 1845 and breaking away from the U.S. has been an age-old debate there.

In December, the Texas Republican Party rejected a proposed, non-binding ballot initiative that would have let voters consider secession during the March 1 primary.
The measure would have read: "If the federal government continues to disregard the Constitution" and Texas sovereignty, the state "should reassert the prior status as an independent nation."
State GOP leaders also abandoned a plank in the party's platform last month that would have supported a secession referendum.

Miller told Reuters his group has a quarter of a million supporters and will try again for a statewide vote in 2018.
"Texit is in the air," he said.

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry is among those who have vaguely flirted with the idea of secession in the past, although a spokeswoman said in 2012 that while Perry "shares the frustrations many Americans have with our federal government," for the former GOP presidential candidate "believes in the greatness of our Union and nothing should be done to change it."

Saturday, June 25, 2016

How to Love a Thinking Woman, a poem by Marvin X, from Land of My Daughters, Black Bird Press




How to Love a Thinking Woman
by
Marvin X


Make love to her mind
Treasure that she has a mind
Precious and whole, holy
Up from slavery
from negrocities
Of every kind
Low life, rot gut, rat level
let her know
Lick her all over

thrill her with original thoughts/actions
Be revolutionary, radical, bodacious
Stay beyond the common
Have some class about yaself
With the classic lady
Wearing a mind of her own
So you too
Be unusual
Say unusual things
Beyond I love you baby
Pussy and dick kindergarten games
With bling bling on your minus brain brain
Say I love you too
But show it
talk is cheap
Better to show her your love
Or she will think about you and wonder

Say things
She's never heard before
Ihdhina sirata al mustaqim (guide us on the straight path)
Make her laugh til she comes in panties
With serious jokes to get her mind off the world
Never let her figure you out
Be always a mystery
When she figures you out you're through
Don't be that dumb

A thinking woman is not a man
Need not be lesbian or bisexual
but if she is lost and turned out
twisted, mannish, computer down
make her party with you and her girls

If she's really a thinking woman
She wants a man of superior thinking
Not a dummy
Unread, illiterate, ignut nigguh
Who wants her cause she fine
But don't have a clue bout her mind
And never will in a thousand years
So he gets her drawers
And babies come
But he never grows like the babies
And wants her to shut up
Don't think at all
Don't figure him out
Mr. Mystery who ain't no mystery
A very well known type
Easily cast for a B movie
Yet trying to ride first class
Without a ticket
Without a thought of his own
Holding on for dear life
With the thinking woman
Who tells him nightly of world events
He cares nothing about
Or even black art on the wall
He tears down before you call 911
After he punched a hole in the wall
Because he disagreed with your
Independent thought not from the Masjed
Since he's so sunni beyond sunni
Won't be a Shia to save his punk ass life
fundamental islam might  make him the revolutionary man he vows never to be
since he might have to think beyond traditional myth and ritual.
Unless he goes to school somewhere
Besides the ignut barber shop and ignut prison
Although prison is no sin
Unless he makes it his home
And comes out with AIDS
Swearing he ain't gay.
The cellie who sucked his dick was a woman
He swears.

Listen to another thinking woman
Your other girlfriend maybe
Who might have a similar thought
And probably will
About the world
Don't be shocked she has the same thoughts
Your  main woman has
Same spiritual ideas
Actually, they go to the same new thought church,
So yes, they think the same,
amazed
Surprised at this double trouble
Or is it double truth
Ain't but one thought, really
You simple minded rappin ass nigguh
Rhyming like you in kindergarten
Real poetry don't rhyme,
I thought you knew

One Mind, One Truth, One Thought
let her know you love her
As she ponders the universe
Don't disturb her quiet moments
In her study
her prayer and meditation
Searching new thought from old truths.
If you know everything she knows
Shut the fuck up and pretend
Learn how to act with the thinking woman

Walk her walk, talk her talk
If you know better, act like she's the genius
She ain't always wrong
And most of the time she right

If you touch her right
Even in her thinking mode
She will scream into the night
And be amazed at the reality of love
How in the hell did you figure out how to
Rock her world?
She had it all together til you came or made her come
As it were
Now her thoughts are all discomposed, shattered like glass

And when you want to beat her
Because her thoughts overlap her lips
Beat her with your mind
Or slap her with your penis even
Across her mouth
She will be amazed at your ingenuity.

We are merely free slaves
One generation away
My grandfather was a cotton picker
My mother was a cotton picker
Even I was a cotton picker
Up from slavery
Never forget the pain of ancestors
Distant and present
The whip, the rape of men and women
The bloody abortion of children
Never forget and always know
We are in the land of murderers
And the children of murderers
Think about it
and never think
This is some heaven on earth
For it is surely hell until
The hour of freedom
Until we think in unity
And rise

Man and woman
In unity
Beyond murder
Beyond hell
Beyond ignorance and fear
Beyond gender hatred
To the region forbidden to all but the true

So climb the mountain together
Man and woman thinking
Into the ripples of the  pond
Climb atop the green hills
Sit by the ancient tree and consider
All the beauty, all the blessings
For all the labor and pain

And in enjoy the wealth
Of your woman's mind
Enjoy the pleasure of her womb
And be true to her and yourself
And welcome each other into the valley of peace
Where the lake of love awaits thinkers
Of every kind
Let the Lord know you know Him and serve Him
Let Him bless you and rain love upon you in His name.
As-Salaam-Alaikum wa rhamatulahi wa barakatuhu.
Peace be unto you and the mercy of Allah and His blessings.

In Memoriam, a poem for Donna Jackmon

Power to the People: Brexit delivers blow to the globalists aim of world domination and wage slavery

Brexit is a bad omen for world commerce

Friday , June 24, 2016 - Jim Tankersley
  
(c) 2016, The Washington Post.

The economic story of the past quarter-century was the rapid advance of globalization, the unleashing of trade and commerce among countries rich and poor - a McDonald’s in every European capital, “Made in China” labels throughout Toys R Us. The Brexit vote on Thursday ends that story, at least in its current volume. Voters will soon tell us what sort of sequel they’d prefer.

A slowdown in trade growth has already gripped the globe over the past several years, according to data from the World Trade Organization. Prospects now look bleak for completion of major new trade agreements, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership and a new accord between the United States and the European Union, no matter who wins the U.S. presidential election in November.

Political factions in other European countries are clamoring to follow Britain out the door of the European Union. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is promising to levy the highest set of tariffs in the past century for America against China, Mexico and other key trading partners. His presumptive Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, has vowed to renegotiate existing deals such as the North American Free Trade Agreement.

These developments come at the hands of an anxious working class across the West, whose members feel left in the cold by many developments of the rapid integration of foreign products and people into their lives.

It is clear from the results of the British vote, and from Trump’s rise in U.S. politics, that there is a large backlash against the results of globalization so far.

Native-born workers without college degrees are venting their frustrations with immigrants, with factory jobs outsourced abroad and with a growing sense of political helplessness - the idea that their leaders no longer respond to concerns of people like them.

University-educated voters in Britain overwhelmingly sided with the “remain” campaign in Thursday’s vote; those without college degrees powered the victory for “leave.” The top issue among those voting to go was Britain’s right to act independently. The second-highest was immigration.
In the United States, throughout the Republican primaries and into the general-election campaign, white voters without college degrees have formed the core of Trump’s support, and polls show they, too, are frustrated with immigration and economic integration (in the form of free trade).
The forces driving those populist uprisings, both against EU bureaucrats in Brussels and elected officials in Washington, are complex and intertwined. They include long-simmering racial tensions and increased political polarization.

But across the West, the economist Branko Milanovic argues, the rise of populism corresponds to a decline in the income share held by the broad middle classes of those countries.

Milanovic has studied global inequality trends extensively and is the creator of a semi-famous chart showing how the rise of global trade boosted incomes for the poorest and very richest workers in the world - everyone, really, except for the working class in the West.

In a recent blog post, Milanovic writes that in the United States and other rich countries, “populism is rooted in the failure of globalization to deliver palpable benefits to its working class.”

With the Brexit vote, the populist movement can already claim a victory: It has won a clear reversal from the economic-integration trend of the past decades.

Now the question is whether the movement will ultimately push the world into a more Western-worker-friendly form of globalization - or a full-fledged retreat to protectionism.
Either seems possible.

In the protectionist scenario, countries such as France and Spain could follow Britain out of the European Union. Trump could win and impose his 45 percent tariffs on trading partners, and China, Mexico and others could retaliate with WTO complaints and tariffs of their own. Economists worry about those possibilities. Some have warned that they could trigger a global recession. (If Brexit has not begun to, already.)

In the “reformed globalization” scenario, if you will, political leaders could re-engineer the terms of trade to better cushion workers against shocks and better ensure the gains from trade are broadly spread among workers in rich countries, and do not just flow to the rich.

This appears to be Clinton’s stated goal, for example. “I recognize we have to make some changes in trade agreements,” she told The Washington Post in an interview this week, “but I also believe we can’t shut our borders to trade.”

Last month in Washington, the first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, a former Barack Obama economic adviser named David Lipton, gave a speech titled, “Can Globalization Still Deliver?” In it, he called for a “new form of globalization that works for all” - one that clearly shows working-class voters “the opportunities of collaboration and integration.”

“Too many people in the developed world see only a loss of jobs to lower-wage destinations,” Lipton said.

“Too many people fear that immigration is compromising their economic well-being. Too few see clearly the payoffs - poverty reduction, the innovation that comes from shared ideas, higher living standards from greater access to trade and higher returns to the wealthy world from investment partnerships with developing countries.”

But if they want to sell wary workers on the gains from integration - to salvage a new era of globalization, instead of launching a new dawn of economic retrenchment - public officials might need to be more honest with themselves about the trade-offs that come with deepening economic ties.
Harvard University economist Dani Rodrick dubs those trade-offs the “inescapable trilemma of the world economy.” What that means is that we can have any two of these three things, but never all three: democracy, national sovereignty and global economic integration. In other words, you can’t have people voting their own interests, in a country that always places its own interests above the shared interests of the global community, while also stitching everyone’s economies together seamlessly.

“If we want more globalization,” Rodrick wrote in a 2007 blog post that has only grown in relevance over the past eight years, “we must either give up some democracy or some national sovereignty. Pretending that we can have all three simultaneously leaves us in an unstable no-man’s land.”
A land of Big Macs, cheap toys and more and more Brexits.
brexit-globalization

Liberated Minds Black Homeschool and Education Expo

The Annual Liberated Minds Black Homeschool & Education Expo - Cultivate the Black Genius in Your Children - Atlanta

 
Dr. Claud Anderson Addresses Black Homeschoolers, Parents, and Educators on Rearing Black Children for Economic Power

On the weekend of July 15-17, one can experience Dr. Claud Anderson, one of the foremost sought-after speakers on entrepreneurship, author of Powernomics and president of The Harvest Institute, a nationally recognized think tank that does research, policy development, education and advocacy to increase the self-sufficiency of Black America. Dr. Anderson will do a first of its kind live web address to Black homeschoolers, parents, and educators on developing the economic empowerment of Black children at The 2016 5th Anniversary Liberated Minds Black Homeschool and Education Expo in Atlanta taking place at The Georgia Piedmont Technical College Conference Center.

According to Queen Taese, the founder of The Annual Liberated Minds Black Homeschool and Education Expo, "The future of Black people depends on how we mentally groom our children surrounding money and wealth. We cannot only focus on our great African legacy that once was; our children must be equipped with the necessary mindset and skills, in order to be completely prepared to bring economic wealth and Black cultural prosperity to our communities."

According to Queen Taese, the founder of The Annual Liberated Minds Black Homeschool and Education Expo, "The future of Black people depends on how we mentally groom our children surrounding money and wealth. We cannot only focus on our great African legacy that once was; our children must be equipped with the necessary mindset and skills, in order to be completely prepared to bring economic wealth and Black cultural prosperity to our communities."

Dr. Claud Anderson will give this live web address, which will also be broadcasted internationally via internet, over a Sunday Brunch at The 5th Anniversary Liberated Minds Black Homeschool and Education Expo, a proven Black economic hub of Empowerment for Black Businesses that services the educational needs of Black homeschoolers, parents, and educators. In addition, there will be some of the country's most prominent Black entrepreneurs and educators such as Delxino and Deborah Wilson de Briano of Tag Team Marketing, Chike Akua of Success Quest Bootcamp, Aunkh Aakhu of Better Marketing Mastery, Michael Imhotep of the African History Network, Samori Camara of The Warrior Start Up, and DJ Jordan from Us Lifting Us, all under one roof. The focus areas will be The Keys to Successful Entrepreneurship, Family Financial Abundance, and How to Rear Black Children into Conscious Millionaires.

The Liberated Minds Black Homeschool and Education Expo provides all weekend training and workshops that focus on how to best cultivate Black children, as well as powerful networking, and a multitude of Black exhibitors with everything from Black books, curriculum materials, enrichment programs, and other resources that assist in "Cultivating the Genius in Black Children", which is the theme of this year's expo. For more information, one can visit http://www.liberatedmindsexpo.com/ or call 678-368- 8593.

Thursday, June 23, 2016

KPOO's Donald Lacy interviews Marvin X on the 50th Anniversary of the Black Panther Party

KPOO FM Radio's DJ Donald Lacy interviews Marvin X on the 50th Anniversary of the Black Panther Party


Donald Lacy of San Francisco's Black owned radio station KPOO FM interviews Black Arts Movement co-founder poet/playwright Marvin X on the 50th Anniversary of the Black Panther Party and Black Arts Movement and the recent establishment of the Black Arts Movement Business District along the 14th Street corridor, downtown Oakland.


download on Dropbox

17 Marvin x (2).mp3

don lacy shared from Dropbox


Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Rosewood Massacre

Rosewood massacre

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rosewood massacre
Part of Racism in the United States
=A photograph of ashes from a burned building with several people standing nearby and trees in the distance
The remains of Sarah Carrier's house, where two African-Americans and two whites were killed in Rosewood, Florida in January 1923
Levy County
Levy County
Coordinates 29°14′0″N 82°56′0″W
Date January 1–7, 1923
Target Blacks
Deaths 8(official figure)
150 in some reports[1]
The Rosewood massacre was a violent, racially motivated massacre of blacks and destruction of a black town that took place during the first week of January 1923 in rural Levy County, Florida. At least six blacks and two whites were killed, and the town of Rosewood was abandoned and destroyed in what contemporary news reports characterized as a race riot. Racial disturbances were common during the early 20th century in the United States, reflecting the nation's rapid social changes. Florida had an especially high number of lynchings of black males in the years before the massacre, including a well-publicized incident in December 1922.

Prior to the massacre, the town of Rosewood had been a quiet, primarily black, self-sufficient whistle stop on the Seaboard Air Line Railway. Trouble began when white men from several nearby towns lynched a black Rosewood resident because of unsupported accusations that a white woman in nearby Sumner had been beaten and possibly raped by a black drifter. When the town's black citizens rallied together to defend themselves against further attacks, a mob of several hundred whites combed the countryside hunting for black people, and burned almost every structure in Rosewood. Survivors from the town hid for several days in nearby swamps until they were evacuated by train and car to larger towns. Although state and local authorities were aware of the violence, no arrests were made for what happened in Rosewood. The town was abandoned by its former black residents; none ever moved back.

Although the rioting was widely reported around the United States at the time, few official records documented the event. Survivors, their descendants, and the perpetrators remained silent about Rosewood for decades. Sixty years after the rioting, the story of Rosewood was revived in major media when several journalists covered it in the early 1980s. Survivors and their descendants organized to sue the state for having failed to protect Rosewood's black community. In 1993, the Florida Legislature commissioned a report on the massacre. As a result of the findings, Florida became the first U.S. state to compensate survivors and their descendants for damages incurred because of racial violence. The incident was the subject of a 1997 feature film directed by John Singleton. In 2004, the state designated the site of Rosewood as a Florida Heritage Landmark. Officially, the recorded death toll of the first week of January 1923 was six blacks and two whites. Historians disagree about this number. Some survivors' stories claim there may have been up to 27 black residents killed, and assert that newspapers did not report the total number of white deaths. Minnie Lee Langley, who was in the Carrier house siege, recalls that she stepped over many white bodies on the porch when she left the house.[2] Several eyewitnesses claim to have seen a mass grave filled with black people; one remembers a plow brought from Cedar Key that covered 26 bodies. Others claimed as many as 150 people were killed.[1] However, by the time authorities investigated these claims, most of the witnesses were dead, or too elderly and infirm to lead them to a site to confirm the stories.[3]

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Marvin X at the San Francisco's Juneteeth 2016 in Fillmore

Black Bird Press News & Review: Don't miss the discussion by Black Hollywood unChained contributors at the SF Main Library, July3, 1:30PM

Black Bird Press News & Review: Don't miss the discussion by Black Hollywood unChained contributors at the SF Main Library, July3, 1:30PM

Magazine for Black Parenting

BLACK IS BACK: The Incredible Story Behind the Relaunch of the First Parenting Magazine for Black Parents

 Successful Black Parenting magazine, originally founded in 1993 and launched in 1995 with 35,000 issues, debuted as the first national print magazine for African American parents. The founders closed the magazine in 1997. Twenty-one years later, they are bringing it back.
Continued after the jump ....

"The time is right to connect with issues being addressed by Black Lives Matter, like the way racism has resurfaced in our society, and to respond to the concerns and aspirations Black parents have about their children's future. There's also a vibrant spirit in our community that continues to work for a better world, so it's the perfect time to relaunch," said Janice Celeste, formerly Janice Robinson-Lopez, one of the founders and editor-in-chief of the magazine. "We started when my children were babies. Now, my three daughters are adults and successful in their career and family lives. I'm even a grandmother now." Success is key to everything Celeste does, right down to her own children. Her oldest daughter has her master's degree, another is a fashion designer and modeling agent, and her youngest daughter is supermodel, Sessilee Lopez, seen on Victoria's Secret runways and on the cover of Vogue. "All families need support. Black families are no different. Children also have to see positive images of themselves in the media," said Celeste, adding, "You cannot be what you cannot see."
"Recently, Janice and I have been saying, 'If we had had the resources we have today, the magazine would still be on newsstands,'" said Marta Sánchez, the magazine's co-founder and managing editor. Celeste agreed, "Today we have more connections, contacts and access to social media that can get the word out." Sánchez recalled, "This publication was our baby, we saw it walk, then run. At that time, we had just enough money to fail. We financed the venture with our money and donations from family and friends, but what we really needed was a million-dollar budget. We were like two fleas holding on to a bucking bull!"
Celeste and Sánchez have a big plan. The digital launch comes first with a crowdfunding campaign for research and development for print issues, which will launch in 2018. "Print is evolving," said Celeste. "It's definitely not dead. We have to cater to the needs of different readers, those who prefer digital and those who want to feel the quality of paper in their hands."
On the website, there is something for everyone. There are columns for single moms to grandparents.  "We are the voice of Black families," said Celeste, "Our magazine advocates for parents—all caregivers—and children. The magazine is just the start of much more to come."
For updates, sign-up on Successful Black Parenting's website atSuccessfulBlackParenting.com. The crowdfunding campaign is set to raise $20k for research and development. A second phase to raise $2m in venture capital is for the print publication. To contribute, visit Indiegogo.com or (http://bit.ly/SBPIndiegogo)
Contact: Janice Celeste
Email
(424) 272-6717
SOURCE: Successful Black Parenting
NAPLES, Fla.June 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --