cover of november issue of the movement newspaper

flower children, summer of love and black nationalism

For some of us in San Francisco's Black Arts West Theatre, the Summer of Love began months before when a wave of beautiful black women arrived from Chicago. One of them was Ethna Wyatt, a "fine fox" (our Black Dialogue Magazine had the fox section of women photos). She qualified for that section. But she was the daughter of a Communist mother who indoctrinated her about civil rights. Ethna attended the March on Washington and had a Peace tatto above her navel. We celebrated her 21st birthday making love.

 

Ethna X Wyatt/Hurriyah Asar

She turned me on to my first and only LSD trip. One trip was enough for me. It happened sometime between '66 and '67 while we lived on Lily Street. One Sunday we dropped acid and I went crazy, verbally attacking our neighbors on the way to church. When the couple returned from church, the man asked what was wrong with me? I told him our people needed air and water. Cursing and shouting, I asked him didn't he hear about the riot that broke out when a brother went into a white bar and was denied a drink of water? He told me I needed to chill out and not embarrass him again in front of his wife. Ethna pulled me into the house and tried to help me come down.

For sure, we were not flower children, although I hustled my writings to the white hippies on Haight Street who were thirsty for literature about black people. They would pay for a blank piece of white paper to get hipped to blackness, especially after Black Power erupted. But we had no time for white hippies. We were black nationalists and eventually organized Black Arts West Theatre on Fillmore Street. Whites were not allowed in our theatre, even though some of our co-workers were acting black but sleeping white, e.g., playwright Ed Bullins and actor Carl Bossiere. We forcibly moved Carl out of his white girlfriend's apartment.

When BAW disbanded due to male ego tripping--Ethna's feminine energy kept us from killing each other, Eldridge Cleaver and I organized The Black House on Broderick St. Again, we had to forcibly move him from his white woman's house, Attorney Beverly Axelrod, into The Black House. We thought it was a contradiction for the chairman of Black House to be sleeping at the white house!

All the props in that famous photograph of Huey Newton in the wicker chair came from Eldridge's room at the white house.



Whites were not allowed at Black House. When Amina and Amiri Baraka worked with us at BH, Amina has never forgotten what Ethna told a white woman at the door who said she was white and Native American,"The Native American can come in but the white got to go!"



Eldridge loved blasting music in his room  by a white hippie named Bob Dylan. We didn't pay any attention to his lyrics, his white voice was unacceptable. We, especially Ethna and I, were into jazz, after all, we performed with jazz musicians at our theatre, Black Arts West, e.g., Dewey Redman, Donald Garret, Monte Waters, Earle Davis and Oliver Johnson. The Chicago Art Ensemble performed at Black House. Those living at BH included Ethna, Ed Bullins, Eldridge and singer Willie Dale, his wife Vernasteen and myself. Willie Dale sang the revolutionary black anthem A White Man's Heaven Is A Black Man's Hell better than the author, Louis Farrakhan. After I introduced Eldridge to the Black Panthers, Huey and Bobby, he wrote in the Black Panther newspaper, "Don't fuck with the white hippies. If you fuck with them we will fuck you up." We blacks were beating white hippies because they were white. Ethna and I used to beat up nigguhs with their white woman or man, in our narrow minded, dogmatic black nationalism. But by the time Eldridge wrote his lines as BPP Minister of Information, we artists were gone from BH and it morphed into the San Francisco Black Panther headquarters.

We were so happy when Eldridge fell in love with Kathleen.



We had one thing in common with white hippie flower children: opposition to the Vietnam War.
Soon after leaving Black House and joining the Nation of Islam, 1967, I departed America for Toronto, Canada as a draft resister. After a few months, Hurriyah joined me in Toronto. Two brothers joined me as resisters: Oswald X from San Francisco State College/University and Norman Richmond from Los Angeles. Norman still lives in Toronto.
--marvin x
10/18/17

Black Bird Press News & Review: HOW I WROTE FABLE OF THE BLACK BIRD, THE CLASSIC CHILDREN'S STORY OF THE 1960s Black Arts/Black Liberation Movement

Black Bird Press News & Review: HOW I WROTE FABLE OF THE BLACK BIRD, THE CLASSIC CHILDREN'S STORY OF THE 1960s Black Arts/Black Liberation Movement

From all around they came to see him do tricks. The little bird knew a lot of tricks the master trained him to do. He was a good house pet. For days and days the black bird would sit in the cage looking at himself in the mirror. 'He is such a beautiful black bird," all the visitors said. ":Yes," the master said, "I have a good bird." To himself the master said, "This black fool has made me rich doing tricks and he's too dumb to fly away to freedom. What a stupid bird!"

Lou Rawls - Tobacco Road (1963)

HOW I WROTE FABLE OF THE BLACK BIRD, THE CLASSIC CHILDREN'S STORY OF THE 1960s Black Arts/Black Liberation Movement

Marvin X, 24 years old,  underground in Harlem, NY, 1968
co-founder of the Black Arts Movement

photo Doug Harris

You remind me Richard Wright first hit Chicago on the run from Mississippi, as I did also, coming out of Oklahoma, headed straight North. Richard Wright concluded that “flight” was the theme of the black male’s existence, always “on the run,” trying to get and keep a foot outside the cage.

Nathan Hare

In 1967, I was drafted to serve in Vietnam, but refused to be a running dog for American imperialism and colonialism. Although I joined the Nation of Islam the same year, I was also under the influence of the Black Panther Party. So although the Honorable Elijah Muhammad told his followers to go to jail as he did,  rather than serve in the devil's wars, the Black Panther Party said we must not only resist the draft but we must resist arrest, so rather than listen to my leader and teacher, I listened to my BPP friends from Oakland's Merritt College, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale and the man I introduced to them, Eldridge Cleaver.

I had a relative playing pro football in Toronto, Canada, Ted Watkins, so I made contact and went into exile. I soon discovered racism was as Canadian as hockey--and they play a lot of hockey in Canada. The Caribbean immigrants described their journey to Canada as the Middle Passage. But it was an educational experience for a young black man outside of America for the first time. In Toronto, I was mentored by two of the greatest African writers: Austin Clarke and Jan Carew. And I was taught Shi'ite Islam by Hussein Al- Sharistani, president of the Muslim Student Association of the US and Canada. He taught me prayers in Arabic and his version of Islam which were somewhat similar to the theology of Elijah Muhammad, .e.g., he told me the Shi'ites also wanted a Nation of Islam. Hussein became a nuclear scientist and after suffering persecution and prison under Saddam Hussein because he wouldn't work on the bomb, when the US invaded and overthrew Saddam, he was offered the prime minister position but instead became Minister of Oil and close associate of the Grand Ayotollah Sistani.

I was joined in Toronto by my partner from Black Arts West and The Black House, San Francisco, Sister Ethna X. Wyatt, aka Hurriyah Asar, but before long she departed home to Chicago. She wrote me about a Chicago poet named Don L Lee and sent me his book of poems. She told me about the Chicago Black Arts Movement and suggested I should come, so I departed underground to Chicago, stopping in Detroit with the BAM family. In Chicago I initially lived with Hurriyah's family on the North side. They had a bird in a cage and the cage door was open but I noticed the bird wouldn't come out. I wrote the black bird fable from observing the bird. Even though underground and wanted by the FBI, I connected with the Chicago BAM, Don, aka Haki, Gwen Brooks, Hoyt Fuller of Negro Digest/Black World, Chicago Art Ensemble, Phil Choran at the Afro-Arts Theatre, et al.

I go a job in the Loop, downtown Chicago and moved to a room on the  South side, 57th and Kimbark, not far from a main intersection, 63rd and Cottage Grove. I was on 63rd and Cottage Grove the morning after MLK, Jr. was assassinated. The West side was burning.  The South side was under National Guard occupation.  When my people on the North side left a letter on my door saying the FBI had come there looking for me, I knew it was time to depart Chicago, so I contacted my friend, playwright Ed Bullins, who was now in residence at the New Lafayette Theatre in Harlem, He offered me a job as associate editor of Black Theatre Magazine, so I departed Chicago, a Black bird on the run!

In the 60s, there were few black children stories, so the black bird became a classic by default. It was choreographed by San Francisco dancer Raymond Sawyer. While underground, I read it at the Black Power Conference in Philly under the name O. Black.

FYI, Marvin X was arrested on a visit to Montreal, Canada, and returned to San Francisco to stand trial for draft evasion. After being found guilty and after being banned from teaching at Fresno State University by Gov. Ronald Reagan, who also banned Angela Davis from teaching at UCLA, 1969, Marvin X went into exile a second time. This time to Mexico City and Belize, from which he was deported back to America where he served five months in Terminal Island Federal Prison. His court speech was published in the Black Scholar Magazine, cerca 1970.
--Marvin X/El Muhajir
10/18/17

 

The cage door was always open, but the little bird wouldn't come out. He loved the cage, he had been in it so long.

Other birds would fly into the house and beg the little bird to come out, but he wouldn't. Sad, the other bird would fly away home to paradise, their hearts white with anger and sorrow for their lost brother who loved the cage. He is so hard headed!, the other birds said on their way home, "but we will get him out, we will get him out!"

He was a smart bird, nobody could tell him anything, except his master. He could sing too, when the master sang, the little bird sang too. He knew all the master's songs by heart. He didn't like bird songs!

 "Come fly away with us,' the other birds would say. But the little bird did not want to go for self. ''I like being in a cage," he said, "You birds are the crazy ones, get away from me!"

From all around they came to see him do tricks. The little bird knew a lot of tricks the master trained him to do. He was a good house pet. For days and days the black bird would sit in the cage looking at himself in the mirror. 'He is such a beautiful black bird," all the visitors said. ":Yes," the master said, "I have a good bird." To himself the master said, "This black fool has made me rich doing tricks and he's too dumb to fly away to freedom. What a stupid bird!"

The master fed the little bird crumbs from his table. The little bird loved the crumbs so much, he wouldn't eat anything else, not even when the other birds sneaked into the master's house and offered the bird some righteous soul food!

One day the master's house caught on fire. nobody knew how the fire started, not even the little black bird. The master fought hard to put the fire out but there were too many flames, so he ran outside and left the little black bird behind.

The flames grew bigger and bigger but the little black bird just sat in his cage. Maybe, he was waiting for his master to return. Then suddenly, a friendly bird flew into the house. "Black bird," he yelled, "Don't you see the house in on fire? Hurry, come fly away with me!" "But I love my cage," the black bird cried, "I want to stay!" "You want to burn?" said the friendly bird.

The friendly bird went into the cage, grabbed the black bird and flew away from the burning house.

 "Bye, master," the black bird yelled as he passed his master crying in the yard. "Bye master!" the little bird called out again. 

He was on his way home.

AB

Amiri Baraka aka, Everett LeRoi Jones was an Afrkian activist, writer and probably best known as a playwright and poet.

"God has been replaced, as he has all over the West, with respectability and air conditioning."
--- Amiri Baraka

Born Everett LeRoi Jones in Newark, New Jersey, on October 7, 1934 his father was a postman and fork-lift operator and his mother, Anna Lois Russ, was a social worker. Jones studied philosophy and religion at Rutgers, Columbia, and Howard Universities, though he earned no degree. After these experiences, Jones joined the US Air Force for three years. An anonymous letter to his commanding officer accusing him of being a communist led to the discovery of Soviet writings, for which Jones was put on gardening duty and given a dishonorable discharge for violation of his oath of duty.

From there, Jones went to New York's Greenwich Village in 1957. He began working in a record warehouse, which fueled his interest in Black music, and brought him into contact with writers such as Nat Hentoff, Martin Williams, and Allen Ginsberg. The influences these individuals had on Jones' early career affected his Beat-era poetry. One year later, he founded Totem Press. Jones also spent time in Fidel Castro's Cuba in the early 1960s.

Jones married Hettie Cohen in 1960, a Jewish woman he had been working with while writing for Yugen magazine. By 1964, he had achieved some fame in the New York literary community. He wrote critically acclaimed off-Broadway plays, beginning with "The Dutchman" in 1964, followed by "The Slave" in 1965. In this era, Jones also recorded and performed with the free jazz group the New York Art Quartet.

After the murder of Malcolm X in 1965, Jones dropped his Beat identity. He left Greenwich Village for Harlem and changed his name to Imamu Amiri Baraka, embracing the new Black liberation ideology. Amiri Baraka has undergone many changes in his life and professional career as a writer and poet. In 1965 Baraka divorced Cohen, abandoning her and their two children. Cohen would later write in her autobiography, "How I Became Hettie Jones," that Baraka had physically abused both her and the children for years. Malcolm X's murder also marks the point in Baraka's career where charges of racism, homophobia, and anti-Semitism were made against him. "I don't see anything wrong with hating white people," Baraka told a U.S. News and World Report writer. One of Baraka's popular Harlem street performances in 1965 involved a Black valet murdering white victims. From 1965 to 1974, Baraka devoted himself to the Black Nationalist cause and the Congress of Afrikan Peoples.

After moving to Harlem, Baraka and several other associates began The Black Arts Repertory Theater (BART). Its stated goal was to "create an art that would be a weapon in the Black Liberation Movement." BART was a short lived endeavor, lasting only one year. Funding came largely from then-President Lyndon Baines Johnson's Great Society programs. When Jones' senior aid, Sargent Shriver, came to visit BART as part of a public relations campaign, Jones refused him admission to the premises, telling the "Jew Shriver" to "go /*#* himself." It was in the 1960s and early 1970s that Baraka penned what many see as his most anti-Semitic works: After the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968, Baraka was jailed during the riots that broke out in Newark. Baraka then became heavily involved in local electoral politics.
He was key member in the campaign to elect a Black mayor, drawing people like Jesse Jackson and Harry Belafonte to Newark. In that election year, Baraka's efforts helped Kenneth Gibson became Newark's first Black mayor. Baraka commented on the election's revolutionary implications: "We will nationalize the city's institutions," he wrote before the vote, "as if it were liberated territory in Zimbabwe or Angola." Unfortunately, Gibson was later thrown out of office on fraud and conspiracy charges. Around 1974, Baraka abandoned Black Nationalism, Marxism, and Third Worldism, dropping the Muslim Imamu from his name.

In 1980, Baraka claimed to have overcome his hostility to Jews. He wrote in "Confessions of a former Anti-Semite," he should be understood as anti-Zionist. "Zionism is a form of racism. It is a political ideology that hides behind the Jewish religion and the Jewish people, while performing its negative tasks for imperialism." As for Jews, he made it clear that the ones he approved of were those who weren't too Jewish. He praised "the movement among middle-class Jews to become straightup Americans," and said that "shedding their 'Jewishness' represents a progressive trend." When Rutgers University denied him tenure in 1990, he criticized the tenure committee, denouncing its members as "Ivy League Goebbels," "white supremacists," and "powerful Klansmen," whose "intellectual presence makes a stink across the campus like the corpses of rotting Nazis." Baraka had a small, though memorable role in the 1998 film Bullworth.

In the fall of 2001, Baraka composed a poem called "Somebody Blew Up America." The poem was read publicly and circulated, and later became the source of controversy when he was named Poet Laureate of New Jersey. The poem was written about the 9/11/01 attacks. Among other criticisms, some people interpreted sections of the poem as saying that the Israeli government had prior knowledge of the attack or even were responsible.

Following the controversy, Baraka stated that the poem was not anti-Semitic and stated further that, "I do believe, as I stated about England, Germany, France, Russia, that the Israeli government, certainly its security force, SHABAK knew about the attack in advance." It must be noted that many critics have argued that the various 9/11 conspiracy claims regarding Jews or Israel are baseless. Governor James McGreevey called for Baraka's resignation as poet laureate, and when he refused, asked the state legislature to abolish the post, which it did in 2003.

Baraka collaborated with hip-hop group The Roots on the song "Something in the Way of Things (In Town)" on their 2002 album Phrenology.

In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante included Amiri Baraka on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.

In 2003, Baraka's daughter Shani, aged 31, and her lesbian partner, Rayshon Homes, were murdered in the home of Shani's sister, Wanda Wilson Pasha, by Pasha's ex-husband, James Coleman. Prosecutors argued that Coleman shot Shani because she had helped her sister separate from her husband. A New Jersey jury found Coleman (also known as Ibn El-Amin Pasha) guilty of murdering Shani Baraka and Rayshon Holmes, and he was sentenced to 168 years in prison for the 2003 shooting.

His son, Ras Baraka (born 1970), is a politician and activist in Newark, who served as principal of Newark's Central High School, as an elected member of the Municipal Council of Newark (2002–06, 2010–present) representing the South Ward. Ras Baraka became Mayor of Newark, July 1, 2014. 2014 Newark mayoral election.

Death

Amiri Baraka died on January 9, 2014, at Beth Israel Medical Center in Newark, New Jersey, after being hospitalized in the facility's intensive care unit for one month prior to his death. The cause of death was not reported initially, but it is mentioned that Baraka had a long struggle with diabetes. Later reports indicated that he died from complications after a recent surgery. Baraka's funeral was held at Newark Symphony Hall on January 18, 2014.

Source: The African American Desk Reference Schomburg Center for research in Black Culture and Wikipedia

LAS VEGAS SECURITY GUARD DISAPPEARS

Las Vegas guard Jesus Campos vanished after visiting urgent-care clinic, union leader says

www.foxnews.com

The Mandalay Bay security guard who disappeared last week moments before he was scheduled to break his silence in television interviews has not been heard from since he went to a walk-in health clinic, his union president said.

David Hickey of the Security, Police, and Fire Professionals of America (SPFPA) told reporters Friday that he got a text the night before saying Jesus Campos was taken to a UMC Quick Care facility, though he did not specify where or whom the text came from.

A spokesperson at the UMC Quick Care, which has eight locations throughout the Las Vegas area, told Fox News on Monday that they had "heard nothing" about Campos visiting them.
Multiple requests from Fox News for SPFPA to comment on the matter were not returned Monday.
Hickey said he was meeting with MGM officials Thursday afternoon in the hours before Campos’ scheduled television appearances, including one with Fox News.
LAS VEGAS SECURITY GUARD JESUS CAMPOS DISAPPEARS MOMENTS BEFORE TV INTERVIEWS
But when the meeting ended, Campos had fled.
Police say hotel security guard Jesus Campos was shot by the gunmen before the mass shooting, which killed 58 people.  (AP)
"For the past four days he's been preparing ... we had a meeting with MGM officials, and after that meeting was over, we talked about the interviews, we went to a private area, and when we came out, Mr. Campos was gone," Hickey told reporters, according to Fox 5 Las Vegas.
Hickey said Campos had requested to go public and wanted to tell his story and move on from the Oct. 1 shooting investigation. Police say he was shot just before the crazed gunman killed 58 at music festival on the Las Vegas Strip – though the sequence of events is still in dispute.
Campos was last photographed in public on Oct. 10, accepting an “SPFPA Hero Award” for bravery in the line of duty, while dining with Hickey and others at a high-end Vegas steakhouse. But soon afterward, investigators said that the security guard was shot before the massacre, raising questions about whether the hotel did enough to prevent the bloodshed.
Hickey has said that before he vanished, Campus was looking forward to telling his side of the story.
"Right now I'm just concerned where my member is, and what his condition is. It's highly unusual,” Hickey said Friday. “I'm hoping everything is OK with him and I'm sure MGM or the union will let (media) know when we hear something," he said.
Fox News' Greg Norman contributed to this report.

HOLLYWOOD'S LOW DOWN DIRTY TRUTH--PREYING ON LITTLE BOYS

Hollywood’s Other ‘Open Secret’ Besides Harvey Weinstein: Preying on Young Boys

www.thedailybeast.com

TINSELTOWNHollywood’s Other ‘Open Secret’ Besides Harvey Weinstein: Preying on Young Boys‘This is a place where adults have more direct and inappropriate connection with children than probably anywhere else in the world,’ claimed former child actor Corey Feldman.Ira Madison III10.16.17 11:15 PM ETLast week, former child actor Corey Feldman (Stand by Me, The Goonies) tweeted that he’d been asked for a statement about Harvey Weinstein’s sexual-harassment and rape allegations. It makes sense, since he has spent years speaking out about sexual abuse in Hollywood—not of women, but of young men. He has long alleged that pedophilia is the worst problem in Hollywood and that it’s in part responsible for his best friend Corey Haim’s eventual death by drug overdose.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter in 2016, Feldman said: “[Haim] had more direct abuse than I did. With me, there were some molestations, and it did come from several hands, so to speak, but with Corey, his was direct rape, whereas mine was not actual rape. And his also occurred when he was 11. My son is 11 now, and I can’t even begin to fathom the idea of something like that happening to him. It would destroy his whole being. As I look at my son, a sweet, innocent, 11-year-old boy and then try to put him in Corey Haim’s shoes, I go, ‘Oh my God—well of course he was erratic and not well-behaved on sets and things like that.’ What more could we expect of him really?”

He continued, “Everybody deals with things differently. I’m not able to name names. People are frustrated, people are angry, they want to know how is this happening, and they want answers—and they turn to me and they say, ‘Why don’t you be a man and stand up and name names and stop hiding and being a coward?’ I have to deal with that, which is not pleasant, especially given the fact that I would love to name names. I’d love to be the first to do it. But unfortunately California conveniently enough has a statute of limitations that prevents that from happening. Because if I were to go and mention anybody’s name, I would be the one that would be in legal problems and I’m the one that would be sued. We should be talking to the district attorneys and the lawmakers in California, especially because this is where the entertainment industry is and this is a place where adults have more direct and inappropriate connection with children than probably anywhere else in the world.”

Legal problems stemming from sexual-harassment or -assault allegations are a major issue in Hollywood, and contribute to a culture of silence.Weinstein is alleged to have paid off at least eight of his accusers—on the condition that they agree to strict nondisclosure agreements to prevent their stories from going public. Furthermore, the movie mogul’s employment contract at The Weinstein Company reportedly protected him from being fired because of sexual-harassment allegations.

Beyond the legal hurdles, Weinstein accuser Rose McGowan alleges that the actor Ben Affleck knew about his sometime employer’s predatory behavior and failed to speak up, while other A-listers Matt Damon and Russell Crowe were named by journalist Sharon Waxman as unwittingly helping to kill a New York Times exposé on Weinstein back in 2004.

Similar barriers exist in the cases of abuse allegations from younger men in Hollywood. Feldman once discussed child abuse on The View, where Barbara Walters charged that he was “damaging an entire industry.”

And when people make allegations that are later withdrawn or dismissed, it becomes that much more difficult for victims to speak up. Famed director Bryan Singer (X-Men) has had accusations leveled against him for years, from a lawsuit alleging that he made minors shower in the nude on film for Apt Pupil in 1997 to sexual-abuse allegations in 2014. The Apt Pupil lawsuit was later dismissed due to lack of evidence, and the other sexual-abuse lawsuits were withdrawn by the accusers. However, that hasn’t stopped actors from singling out Singer. On Sunday, as the Weinstein scandal continued to unfold, actress Evan Rachel Wood tweeted, “Yeah lets not forget Brian [sic] Singer either.”

And then there was former The Real O’Neals star Noah Galvin, who in a since-deleted quote from an interview with Vulture, said: “Yeah. Bryan Singer likes to invite little boys over to his pool and diddle them in the f—ing dark of night. (Laughs.) I want nothing to do with that. I think there are enough boys in L.A. that are questionably homosexual who are willing to do things with the right person who can get them in the door. In New York there is a healthy gay community, and that doesn’t exist in L.A.”

The quote was later removed from the interview and Galvin issued an apology on Twitter: “I sincerely apologize to Bryan Singer for the horrible statement I made. My comments were false and unwarranted. It was irresponsible and stupid of me to make those allegations against Bryan, and I deeply regret doing so.”

The Singer allegations were also to be included in An Open Secret, filmmaker Amy Berg’s eye-opening documentary on the child sexual-abuse epidemic in Hollywood, but were later excised from the final cut. (Singer, for his part, stated that, “The allegations against me are outrageous, vicious, and completely false.”)

In the case of Weinstein, the abuse lasted decades, but it took an actress of Ashley Judd’s stature to finally speak out about him and let the floodgates open. Unfortunately, such a groundswell is not likely to come from an actor like Feldman, an ’80s star who doesn’t have the industry cachet of an Ashley Judd.

But perhaps the tide is turning and the shame associated with being a male victim of abuse is beginning to vanish. Brooklyn Nine-Nine actor Terry Crews spoke out last week about being sexually assaulted by a high-level Hollywood executive in the wake of the Weinstein news. So did James Van Der Beek, who blasted Weinstein for his crimes before sharing his own story: “What Weinstein is being accused of is criminal. What he’s admitted to is unacceptable—in any industry. I applaud everybody speaking out. I’ve had my ass grabbed by older, powerful men, I’ve had them corner me in inappropriate sexual conversations when I was much younger... I understand the unwarranted shame, powerlessness & inability to blow the whistle. There’s a power dynamic that feels impossible to overcome.”

If that weren’t enough, the media finally began taking the industry to task over its embrace of filmmaker Victor Salva.

In 1988, while filming his debut feature Clownhouse, Salva sexually abused his 12-year-old star. He eventually pleaded guilty to five felony counts: lewd and lascivious conduct, oral copulation with a person under 14, and three counts of procuring a child for pornography. Still, Salva has been allowed to direct film after film in the wake of his conviction, from Powder to the Jeepers Creepers trilogy.

Documentaries like An Open Secret and the testimony of former child actors like Feldman have long contested that pedophilia and the abuse of young men is Hollywood’s other dark secret. If that is truly the case, what more will it take for it to come to light?

Harvey Weinstein and the Mythology of Pussy and Dick

by Marvin XThe matter of sexual improprieties transcends patriarchal culture, race and gender into pure power relationships between human beings. Yes, sexual improprieties are pervasive in the arts, academia, the corporate workplace, in all religions and every other social institution and/or environment. As per Hollywood and the casting couch, let us be honest, Hollywood is not the only villain, but all the arts: even in the Black Arts Movement, and alas, in the Black Liberation Movement, such sexual improprieties were pervasive, and I repeat, in academia as well, including Black studies, along with all other academic studies.When I taught English at a certain university and a student complained to my dean, and after I denied all charges, the dean made me agree to have sexual encounters with grad students only, leave the freshman girls alone. She noted that I had been under surveillance and was observed in a restaurant having dinner with the freshman student who complained about my sexual behavior as an instructor. 

As a writer, director, producer, actor and lecturer and visiting professor in academia, I took full advantage of my position saturated in male privilege. If Harvey Weinstein is guilty, let me be hyperbolic: so is every man. As I examine global patriarchal culture, I conclude men are predators, women are prey. In war, we know men are expendable and disposable but women are booty or spoils of war.

But as I said at the outset, sexual domination transcends gender. We have known gay men in theatre who demanded sexual liberties with young gay actors or said in classical language, demanded the young brothers join them on the casting couch. And don't think for a moment lesbian women in the arts do not take full advantage of their power positions as per young females, demanding sexual improprieties for career advancement. Of course this madness goes on in the corporate workplace.
The American South has a sordid history of black women performing sexual acts to keep their jobs, alas, with full knowledge of their husbands! As they say in Houston, Texas, "You better AX somebody!" And not to put this madness on the "Dirty South," years ago Jet Magazine (the Negro Bible), revealed a great percentage of Black women confessed to having sex with the boss on the job!
This entire matter is about power and privilege, not gender, although in the majority global patriarchal culture, men are the villains, though other genders are on the rise. Again, this is a global pandemic that encompasses all religions, no matter Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Yoruba, Hindu, et al. Certainly, we must note the pedophilia in the Catholic church, Muslim madrassas, Yoruba manhood training rites, etc. It is well known America allows Afghanistan soldiers to have sexual relations with young boys as a cultural rite.
And it well known 30% of USA soldiers are victims of rape, alas, male and female! I asked a former female member of the US Army, why and how was she violated since she was armed when she was raped, she replied, "We are not trained to retaliate!"
So the Mythology of Pussy and Dick continues and no solution is in sight as long as the patriarchal culture dominates, and again, it is quite doubtful the matriarchal culture will deconstruct this abomination. Alas, did not Hillary Clinton, socalled champion of women's rights, defend her husband's sexual improprieties and try to destroy the women he debased? So much for the feminine mystique!

Without the total destruction of mythological religiosity in all spiritual institutions, along with the deconstruction of white supremacy capitalism and its newborn babe globalism that transcends racism, pathological sexual relations shall persist! There is a light at the end of the tunnel: women will soon be able to drive in Saudi Arabia!
--Marvin X/El Muhajir
10/10/17