Marvin X notes on the upcoming Nigga Debate at The Qilombo

The Psycho-linguistic Crisis of the North American African

4/16/98 (c) 1998
By Marvin X
www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com

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I have long wanted to discuss language problems relating to the psychology of the oppressed. Let's begin with the notion that the oppressed is a disoriented person suffering symptoms of amnesia :he is not quite sure who he is, where he is, where he came from or where he is going.

We know to a great extent he was stripped of his cultural trappings and forced to don the apparel of the so-called negro, for American slavery would not allow him to retain knowledge of his African self--it was a danger to the slave master's plan of eternal servitude. So the proud African was beaten down from Kunta Kinte to Toby, perhaps the first level in his psycho-linguistic crisis: who am I, what is my name? Once in the Americas, he was no longer Yoruba, Hausa, Ibo, Congo, Ashante but Negro, and according to Grimm's law (the consonants C,K, and G being interchangeable) he was a dead, from the Greek Necro, something dead, lifeless, without motion and spirit. Of course, he retained some of his African consciousness in the deep structure of his mind, in the bowels of his soul and he expressed it in his dance, his love life, his work habits, his songs and shouts, but basically he was a trumatized victim of kidnapping, rape and mass murder--genocide, for after all, when it was all said and done, between 50 and 100 million of his brothers and sisters were lost in the Middle Passage, the voyage between Africa and the Americas, thrown to the sharks that trailing slave ships, one of which was named Jesus, perhaps the same one whose captain had the miraculous conversion and wrote the song Amazing Grace! But changing the African into Negro was a primary problem in terms of identity which persists until today, even as we speak a new generation is now in crisis trying to decide whether they shall be called by Christian, Muslim or traditional African names, trying to decide whether they are Americans, Afro-Americans, African-Americans, Bilalians, Khemites, Sudanese, or North American Africans.

With this term I've tried to emphasize our cultural roots by making Africa the noun rather than the adjective. Also, I wanted to identify us geo-politically: we are Africans on the continent of North America, as opposed to Africans in Central and South America, the Caribbean, Europe, Asia or the Motherland. As such, we are unique and have created an original African Culture in North America, imitated throughout the world.

The whole world wants to talk like us, dance like us, sing like us, dress like us: we have the highest standard of living of any Africans in the world and are thus in the position of leadership even though we lack any degree of National sovereignty, are yet a defacto Nation, albeit captive and colonized, exploited 24/7 by any pimp fearless enough to enter the ghetto, and there are many from around the world, including Asians, Arabs, Jews, Africans, West Indians, and Latins. I refuse to be sympathetic to anyone exploiting North American Africans--call me anti Pan African, anti Third World, whatever, but don't pimp my people and expect me to accept it because you're from Africa or Jamaica. I wouldn't go to Jamaica and exploit Jamaicans, then have the nerve to refer to them as "you people." I would be nice and diplomatic on their turf--then talk about them when I got home.

We are often derided by our African and Caribbean brothers, sometimes called "black Americans" but often simply "Americans," said in the most derogatory manner, as if we're dirt or feces, meanwhile they are in America enjoying the benefits of our struggle with the white man. If everything is so cool in Jamaica, why did they leave their Island in the sun?

With the last statement, we enter the Pan African psycholinguistic crisis, transcending the borders of North America, and perhaps the crisis of the North American African cannot be understood except in terms of the international Pan African struggle for liberation from neo-colonialism, the last stage of imperialism. The colonized man--wherever he is, wherever he's from--is a sick man, mentally ill. And as Franz Fanon pointed out, the only way the colonized man can regain his mental health is through the act and process of revolution. Dr. Nathan Hare tells us in his introduction to my autobiography SOMETHIN' PROPER, that neither messianic religiosity nor chemical dependency will free us. We must grab the bull by the horns or slay the dragon.

I referred to an African as black brother recently. He responded, "Why do you call me that?" "What do you want me to call you," I asked. He said, "Call me gentleman." And the beat goes on. Here was a man blacker than night, ashamed of himself, preferring to be called a gentle man rather than Black man, once proud, but now whipped into gentleness, or servility, expressing clearly the mark of oppression, the mark of the beast.

The recent discussion of Ebonics was most certainly an example of the psycholinguistic crisis of North American Africans. Of course we are bilingual, with one pattern of speech used in the "slave huts" and one for the "big house." Technically, if we were able to deconstruct the language of the "slave huts" we would be in a position to deconstruct the "big house" language as well. And why shouldn't deconstruction of the Mother Tongue be the point of departure for acquiring language skills? Let's start with the child's primary language and build; teach the child that even his so-called slang, dialect or African speech patterns can be examined and explained according to the rules of grammar, the universal rules of grammar, i.e., the science of linguistics. Is there any sound, any speech pattern in any language that cannot be explained and thus respected on a scientific level?

We know that no matter what language Africans speak, whether English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, we speak it from an African speech pattern, from an African grammatical structure. Is there a genetic basis for this phenomenon, I'm not sure, but its existence appears universal throughout Pan Africa.

Nigger or Nigguh has caused the most severe psycholinguistic crisis among North American Africans. Earlier we traced its etymology to the Greek Necro, something dead, which is more befitting and functional than the Spanish Negro (black), or Niger, from the river. We became dead beings in the transformation from Africa to America, so quiet as its kept, Negro is very appropriate to call us. Of course the Honorable Eliajah Muhammad said we were so-called Negroes and therefore not truly Negroes, but temporarily under the spell of white magic--white power--which caused us to be deaf, dumb and blind to the knowledge of self and others, therefore dead. We had become the living dead, dispised and rejected around the world, even today, although the vailent struggle of the 60s put us in a more favorable light in the eyes of the world. The dead socalled Negro awakened and shook off the chains on his brain and let the world know he was no longer dead, no longer a tool and fool of the white man. He rejected being called Negro and Nigger and became Black man, the Aboriginal Asiatic Black man, ruler of the planet earth, god of the universe. For a moment, it appeared he truly believed this mythology, which was as valid as any other mythology, at least it was original and Afrocentric. But with the destruction of the black liberation movement, we can say the Negro returned, as per plan of the U.S.A.'s counter intelligence program, Cointelpro: kill the black man and bring back the Negro or shall we say the Nigger that the Master used to know, and to make sure he remains dead, introduce CRACK to make him a first class zombie, the corpse of a man.

Imagine, for the first time in history, the black women lost her ass behind crack, meanwhile the white woman was at Gold's gym working on acquiring an ass, which I must admit, she has obtained. But this point takes us off course into psychosomatics. Let's stay with psycholinguistics.

In the 70s, 80s and 90s, the so-called Negro has been fighting to erase the N word from our vocabulary, particularly brothers in prison who have been the most negroid in their death dealing criminality. Perhaps in their guilt, they have been trying to purify their behavior and speech to gain self respect and dignity--if caught using the N word, they will require the user to do any number of pushups. This is very noble, but the reality is that the N word has now transcended the North American African community and is in wide use by Asian, Latin and white youth who call each other nigguh as a badge of honor. We no longer have a monopoly on our language, and this is another reason for the present crisis: our culture is forever eluding our control, consequently making us the most insecure people on earth. We have lost everything on the good ship America--for three centuries we lost complete and total control over the fruits of our labor, the primary source of security. How else does one secure the family, the women and children?

Not long ago, I heard rappers discussing their tour of Italy. Upon arriving at the airport, the first thing they heard Italian youth discussing was how many "Bitches" they had, obviously influenced by hip hop culture or shall we say specifically gansta rap--yeah, ganstas who when caught are ignorant of a preliminary hearing. But let us deconstruct the controversial term BITCH. Besides Nigger or Nigguh, no other term has caused more controversy of late, no other term has created a crisis situation among North American Africa, prompting the Million Man Marchers to vow never to use the term again. They claimed it demeaned the black woman, the mother of civilization. My personal view is that crack culture demeaned the black man and women to the extent that the term "bitch" has taken on new meaning and now refers to both male and female, and a discussion of the term cannot be limited to the feminine gender. Youth in the dope culture will quickly address a tweeking, fumbing OG as "punk bitch." For example, to a male they will say, "Punk-bitch, you better take this dope and get the fuck up outta here wit da quickness." This sentence is most indicative of the pyscholinguistic crisis because it reveals the utter destruction of filial piety (respect or duty of children to elders) in the North American African community. When adults began buying crack from children, children saw the utter weakness in the older generation and lost total respect which was expressed in verbal denunciations such as "punk bitch." In my recovery drama ONE DAY IN THE LIFE, a youth confronts the late Huey Newton and myself with the following words as we sat in a West Oakland crack house: "Yeah, you nigguhs is dope fiends, you ain't no revolutionaries, so don't say shit to me bout no program. How you gon buy dope from me and my podnas--I mean, I'm in recovery now but when I was a dealer, you couldn't come to me and tell me you some revolutionaries--you some punk-bitch nigguhs. When you get your shit together we'll have some respect fa ya, but until then, don't talk to us bout no revolution, O.G., cause if I saw ya comin on my turf, I'd make a movie out that ass, podna. Don't be no walkin contradiction ma nigguhs."

My associate, J.B. Saunders, asked me to include a word-picture of male "bitch behavior" as expressed in the crack ritual. An example of this comes from the obserevation of monkeys when the female is ready to present herself to the male. She will go to a corner of a cage or by a tree and exposed her rear end to the male, letting hm know he can come and get her or know her as the Bible says. In the crack house, the male bitch will expose his posterior in his ritual of crawling on all fours around the room, supposedly looking for crack, but mainly picking up lint and other particles, even chips of dry wall. The ultimately expression of male bitch behavior is the so-called straight guy who under desperation, i,e. , when the tweeking ritual is exhausted, will present his posterior to the dope dealer--accompanied with the words "I'll do anything for another hit," and perform homosexual acts to obtain more crack, but in his psycho-linguistic crisis he adamantly denies he is gay, all the while swallowing the dope dealer's penis and cum. The worse bitch in the world is the bitch in denial! And even that bitch will--in a moment of scandalous activity declare, "I know I'm a bitch." But why bitch? My views on the matter are prejudiced by the fact that I grew up in a house with six sisters who referred to themselves as bitches--and I must say, many times acted like bitches, if we mean behavior unbecoming a woman--such behavior being acceptable only during PMS or pregnancy! But is it demeaning to say, "That's a fine bitch!" We know words only have the power we give them, i.e., we define words. Bourgeoisie culture cannot define mass culture or the culture of the grass roots. A rich man cannot tell a poor man what to say. If a rich man comes to the poor man's community, he better talk like a poor man or he may be a dead man! Those who want to criminalize black language are in many cases people who are in the business of criminalizing black people for the benefit of the real criminals, the Masters of the Realm. Not only do you not like the way I talk, but you don't like my dress, my eating habits, my choice of drugs, they way I pray and the loud manner of my worship, how I earn a living--my hair or non-hair--actually, you don't like anything about me, in fact, you wish I were dead, if fact, you do everything you can to kill me, in fact, you have now made a new industry of confining me for life without the possibility of parole.

From a writer's perspective, a poet, much of endgame in the psycholinguistic crisis is censorship, pure and simple, a violation of First Amendment rights and human rights. I have a right to say what I want to say the way I want to say it. This is an old tired discussion we encountered thirty years ago in the Black Arts/Black Culture revolution of the 60s: shall we define ourselves or the shall the masters and their pitiful bourgeoisie imps impose their definitions, their hypocritical, perverted moral standards. If a bitch is bitch call her a bitch. If yo mama is a bitch call her a bitch. If your wife is a bitch call it, your daughters call it. The worse bitch in the world is the bitch in denial. And as I've said, men are known to be bitches too!

There was a time when we were kings and queens, in Africa and during the 60s in America, but this was B.C., before crack. With the coming of crack, we reduced ourselves beyond slavery. We returned to the auction block of the crack house, and indeed, in fact, became bitches and hoes. With crack, the sexual etiquette of North American Africans has been forever altered and whether we will again reach the level of kings and queens depends more on the success of our total liberation than our correct grammatical structure, after all, we see Asians, Arabs, Latins, come to America and get rich while speaking no English, yet we are being deluded by our leaders into believing we must speak the Kings English in order to be successful. If nothing else, the rappers have shown us they can make millions for themselves and billions for the white man utilizing three words: bitch, hoe and motherfucker. The tragic reality is that the black bourgeoisie failed to teach inner city youth proper English or anything proper for that matter, so the upper class must reap with rewards of neglect, in the form of their children as well, enraptured by rap and thus incomprehensible to the middle-class parents--as my daughter has said, "You might not like rap, but if you want to understand me, you better try to understand rap." To paraphrase Eryka Badu, the psycholinguistic crisis goes on and on......on and on..... 

SUNDAY, JULY 16, 2017

transcending the psycho-linguistic crisis of north american africans

Toward the Unity of North American Africans--Unity of Language

Language unifies a people, when they speak a common language, when there is a consensus on word definitions, an agreement on what terms are sacred and what words are profane and obscene.
Chaos comes into a culture when these is no longer a consensus on language, or what we call a psycholinguistic crisis, for words define reality. Words are the vehicle we use to express our interpretation of reality. When the words lose a once agreed upon meaning, it is as though the earth shifts beneath our feet, for we are no longer able to communicate with each other. We then suffer a mental paralysis, a breakdown of the psyche because we are talking loud but saying nothing.

The words thus lose their meaning for there is no agreement. If the culture in its normal state is communal but suddenly the focus shifts to the supremacy of the individual, then we have a problem. We cannot unite for freedom when there is no agreed definition of freedom. For you, freedom is a job. For her, freedom is land and economic independence. For him, freedom is being with same gender loving people, and for her it is the same. Nothing else matters. So what items can we agree upon that defines freedom? And are we going around the corner together or do we have a divisive situation that shall lead us nowhere except to tread water in a pitiful state until we drown, since we refuse to help each other push our agenda items because we don't agree.

We started out on freedom but got diverted into things not communal but individual. Or the language was polluted by class division. The bourgeoisie culture police attempted to define the terms of reality. We wonder by what right do they assume the gate keeper role. Perhaps by being placed into leadership by the oppressor.

In the 1960s, we revolted against the language of the colonial elite, the leadership of the liberation movement shifted because a new consensus on language came into vogue, the language of black power that transcended civil rights to human rights, that shifted from integration to liberation and yes, sometimes, separation. The old language was suddenly obsolete. The term Negro was cast into the dustbin of history. The Negro psycholinguistics shifted from passivity and non violence to revolution.

The Black Arts Movement helped to cause the paradigm shift in terms of language. We revolted from the bourgeoisie socalled proper speech. In our plays, poems, essays, songs, we broke free of the conservative language. We used such terms as motherfucker, yes, bitch, devil, cracker, peckerwoood, and other terms to express our rejection of the American language in favor our our Mother tongue, the raw ghetto language so despised by our culture police, for they were rejected as well. Of course we went to the extreme when we said anyone over thirty should be killed (Bobby Seale). But the expression in grass roots language advanced the freedom mentality in our people. We suddenly realized we can say what we want, we're truly free to do so.

Of course there was reaction, from the oppressor and the colonial elite. The police attempted to ban our plays, to invade our performances, to arrest us if we showed up to perform. The bourgeoisie refused to support us with their money. All this was actually good because it inspired us to continue doing our thing, realizing we were truly independent, no longer slaves to anyone.

We were not able to return to our native language as Ngugi wa Thiango has called upon African writers to do, for we have no idea what it is, though we attempted to learn Swahili, Arabic and Yoruba. And the little we learned helped advance our black consciousness and heal our psycholinguistic crisis. Yes, these languages unified some of us. We held classes in the hood with grass roots people who wanted to transcend the English or American language we called the slave master's language, so how can we ever break free speaking this devil language. This is the language of the kidnapper, the rapist, the man and woman who lynched us, who stole our very identity and replace it with his notion of our very being. Thus, it is he and his language that is profane and obscene, and must be rejected, for it is not the language of love, it is the language of violence and madness.

We thus call for silence as the language of love, since our psycholinguistic crisis is so great it is the cause of physical, emotional and verbal violence with our mates. Almost any word we say is cause for argument. And it is the same when we gather at conferences and gatherings. We must spend an inordinate amount of time debating terms, defining what we mean by freedom, liberation, reparations, gender identity. Yes, what is a woman, what is a man. Today "black brothers" is a gay term. How did "black brother" shift from revolutionary black men to gay men? Of course language is fluid and undergoing constant change. And those with power attempt to define the terms. How else did we come upon this English/American language? It was a violent act, a long process of domination and oppression. Toby was physically abused until he renounced his holy name Kunta Kinte. Muhammad Ali reversed the process, not only by renaming himself but forcing his opponent to call out his name in the ring. Ali chanted, "What's my name, what's my name?" as he beat down his opponent, but he was calling for more than name recognition but for the recognition of his being as a free black man, the member of the Nation of Islam, a transcendence of his American slave identity.

And yet today we have a reaction by the culture police such as Bill Crosby and others who would have us claim our American identity and stop naming our children African and/or Muslim names. He doesn't tell Jose to call himself Joe. He doesn't tell the Chinese who get rich in the hood selling us their food but speaking no English/American to go learn English/American.
He don't tell the Arabs who get rich selling us swine and wine in the name of Allah, to stop speaking Arabic in the hood and speak English/America.

Clearly, Bill Crosby suffers a psycholinguistic crisis of major proportion. And he is not alone. It is again for this reason that I call for the language of silence as the language of love, until we can indeed arrive at a new consensus. The Million Man March brothers took a vow to never use the term bitch. But in the hood bitch is clearly a trans-gender term, for males are called bitches these days, especially when they come incorrect in the dope culture. The dope boys will address an adult male dope fiend as punk bitch. "Punk bitch you better take this dope and get the fuck up otter here wit da quickness 'fore I smoke yo ass."

It's possible the language shifted when adults began buying dope from children, especially during the Crack era, reversing the natural order of adults serving children, thus children lost all respect for their elders and this aspect of the psycholinguistic crisis resulted. It was being addressed with this language when I was a dope fiend that made me want to recover so that I would no longer be so verbally debased by children who had every right to talk to me in this manner because I was, as a dope fiend, in the persona of a punk bitch!

There shall be no language of love until we stop behaving like a nigguh or punk bitch. Don't tell me to stop saying motherfucker while you are in bed with your mother, son, daughter. Who is the real motherfucker up in here, me or you? I'm saying it but you doing it!

Language confusion exists when there are contradictions in behavior, especially adult behavior that the children observe. And so when we hear them on the street, at school, in the clubs, in their raps, we must ask ourselves where they got this language from, and more importantly, what is the meaning of it. They are simply trying to do as we did, give order to reality by way of language. Is it better to be silent, to say nothing since the entire language is vile, polluted and corrupted. Let us not go to an examination of the political language, double speak, evasiveness,
subterfuge. See George Orwell's Politics and the English Language. Listen to the politicians lie and attempt to deceive the world with words, yes, talking loud but saying nothing. Vote for me, I'll set you free. Change we can believe in. Change is gonna come. A chicken in every pot!

Yes, silence, there are possibilities for unity if, we just be quiet. To speak is to fail the tone test, for anything we say is suspect, for we don't trust the language, the words, and most of all, we are not truthful in our expressions, in short, we have become liars too, in harmony with the ruling class and the culture police or those colonial elite gate keepers in league with the blood suckers of the poor.

Some day we shall arrive at the language of love, where we say what we mean and mean what we say, where we understand the tone test and can pass it, with the police, with a brother and with a sister, especially our mate who was going to make love with us until we said the wrong thing, even though we didn't intend to do so, something just slipped out carelessly, but we blew it. Baby's mood changed because we said the wrong word, or she took it the wrong way.

Let us strive to reach a consensus on this pitiful bastard language we speak, for these words are killing us, literally. Better to speak as little as possible until we can transcend to a language that unifies us and allows us to love each other unconditionally.

--Marvin X
12/13/10

Jul 19 at 3:31 PM

Black Bird Press News & Review: The Psycholinguistic Crisis of North American Africans: Why we can't get a consensus on the definition of freedom

Black Bird Press News & Review: The Psycholinguistic Crisis of North American Africans: Why we can't get a consensus on the definition of freedom

Please, No Partner Violence in America: from Xmas to Superbowl Sunday

"I lost my left eye behind partner violence, so I forgive the woman who blinded me, and I ask the forgiveness of the women I physically, verbally and emotionally abused!"

--Marvin X

\

Angela Davis, Marvin X, Sonia Sanchez

"In the presence of Angela and Sonia, I bow down to goddesses as co-revolutionary and represent myself as warrior man, not weak ass man with no love and respect for the goddess who stands with god!"--Marvin X

Confession of an Ex-Wife Beater

I beat her because she loved me

I beat her

Gouged my fingers into her eyes

Stomped her on the floorvi

Because she loved my dirty drawers

I beat her

Put my hands on her throat and squeezed

Until her eyes looked like marbles

I beat her

Because she loved me

Because she gave me a child

That looked just like me

I beat her

Because I stood trembling

Watching the child ooze from her womb

I beat her

Because she wouldn’t give me some pussy

I tore her panties off and took the pussy

I beat her

Then said to her, “Baby, I love you so much.

You’re so precious to me, let me kiss you.”

And she let me

Then I beat her for letting me

Because I was drunk

Too much rum

I beat her

Too much weed

I beat her

Too much coke

I beat her

My you are so precious to me

I beat her

My I love you so much baby

I beat her

Because she was faithful

Because she was patient

I beat her

While my child stood terrified

I beat her

Kicked her

Sat on her

Punched her in the mouth

In my madness

Because she said the wrong word

Because she said nothing

Because she said the right word

Because she said too many words

Because she had a thought

Independent of mine

I beat her

Knocked her too the floor

Because she called the police

I beat her

How could she call the white man on me

As Black as I was

I beat her

Because she called her mama

I beat her

Because she called the operator

I beat her

Because she picked up the telephone

I beat her

Because she left me and I found her hiding in the closet

I beat her because I took her to Mexico and she wasn’t happy

I beat her because I took her to New York

And she didn’t smile

I beat her

Because I was sick

And she told me so.

I beat her.

--Marvin X, from In the Name of Love, Laney College Theatre, 1981

I Shot Him

I shot him

Because he loved me

He loved me so much he came home smelling

Like his other bitch’s pussy

I shot him

I didn’t kill him

But I shot him

Because I got the phone bill

And saw he’d called his other bitch

On my birthday

I shot him

Cause I got papers on him

Yeah, I got papers on the motherfucker

To use his filthy language

I shot him

And I ain’t sharing him with nobody

I don’t care what the Muslims say

Bout a nigguh can have four wives

I don’t care what the Holy Qur’an say

I don’t care bout the African tradition of polygamy

I don’t care how many mo women it is for every man

I shot him

I don’t care if women are turning lesbian and bisexual

Cause they don’t want no man

I want my man. I love my man

But I shot him!

--Marvin X, from In the Name of Love, Laney College Theatre, 1981

Partner Violence and Spirituality

By Marvin X

"I beat her because she loved me."— mx

Any semblance of partner or domestic violence is antithetical to spirituality. No person who beats another can claim spiritual consciousness, rather they should claim animal consciousness. And no matter what any scripture says, I say domestic violence or partner violence must be outlawed totally and absolutely, no matter where it exists anywhere on the planet earth, simply because it does no good whatsoever, and ultimately drains the sand out the hour glass of love and respect between human beings.
It has a traumatic effect on the mate and children, thus it must be avoided at all cost. To beat another human being is the height of savagery and men, in particular, must rise above savagery and step up to their divinity.
I speak as one who was such a savage and it was all to no avail. In the end, the sand was indeed drained out of the hour glass of love and respect. I subjected my family to great pain, literally, and suffering, and many times it was due to my altered state of mind, i.e., drugs and alcohol. Too much domestic and partner violence is initiated when one or both partners are in an altered state of mind, so we must be advised to check yourself before you wreck yourself.
You know the ritual: even before the first drink someone is angry, then the drink, then another and another until the wrong word is said and its on. But the alcohol was the devil who forced up old issues that were supposedly resolved, old pain, wounds, treachery, sexual improprieties, money, anything, even jealousy between mates, or some other evil thought or suggestion due to the altered state of mind. Yes, loose lip sink ships, and we can be very loose with the devil juice or some other drug that diminishes any possibility of anger management.
Before we know, what started out as a beautiful evening turns into a nightmare: blood is flowing, bones broken, police in the house, somebody goes to jail, another goes to the hospital or morgue, children are taken to child protective services. The mental damage is irreparable.
I wrote a play (In the Name of Love) about my madness which my ex-wife and daughter came to see. After the play my daughter asked me why did I need to tell all that stuff about how I beat her mother. I told her it was for the healing of myself and the community.
Years later I gave a reading and my ex-wife was there. A poet requested I read the poem about domestic violence (Confession of An Ex-wife Beater, see Dr. Julia Hare's How to Find A BWM, chapter, The Violent Male) that was in the play. At first I resisted because the poem had been in the play that my wife and daughter had seen, and since my ex had come to the reading to support me, I certainly didn't want to upset her. But the poet insisted I read the poem, so I did. And it did indeed upset my ex--when we got to her house, she claimed she'd never heard the poem before. I couldn't convince her that she had, and furthermore, she said I had never apologized for beating her, so I apologized, and of course it ruined our evening since her suppressed memory was jolted. But some healing occurred so I thank the poet for forcing me to read the poem, Lamont Steptoe.
We can't imagine what we do to each others psyche with partner violence, let alone what it does to us physically. And things go from bad to worse, so if we don't' get started we won't need to stop.
I suggest therapy at the first sign of physical violence because it is possible to save relationships with therapy before police or relatives intervene.
Dr. Nathan Hare suggests couples need not break up due to violence, but I say it is unacceptable and must not occur for one moment because things go from bad to worse, and certainly, people professing spiritual consciousness must be above physical abuse, although emotional and verbal abuse is just as bad.
We are a people in need of much healing before we can come together, far too many times we come together and don't know a damn thing about each other, then all hell breaks loose, we discover we're in the house with a monster, a devil, a beast. Then we have babies by the monster, the beast. And it's possible we're both monsters, neither one can claim a clean bill of health.
But let us renounce violence at the outset, then proceed to process the emotional issues, since we know we come together far from a state of divinity and have much healing work to do before we can claim spirituality.

Marvin X on Partner Violence,

A Pauline Conversion

On the matter of partner violence, Marvin X long ago experienced a Pauline conversion, similar to how Saul suffered a conversion on the road to Damascus and transformed into Paul, the champion of Christianity. Marvin's conversion was not religious but perhaps spiritual for he has come to recognize women as spiritual beings in human form, thus they are not to be treated lightly or rather roughly.

He has well documented his domestic violence in his plays and poetry, especially the poem Confession of an ex-wife beater and the play In the Name of Love, Laney College Theatre, 1980.
There is no woman who can say he laid a hand on them in recent years. He rarely argues with women but prefers to stay in the no stress zone. His solution for domestic peace these days is to exercise the language of love, in which he stresses silence due to the psycholinguistic crisis inherent in our use of the English or American language, wherein words are most often misunderstood and lead to violence because we have lost the art of diplomatic conversation in male/female relations, especially when mind altered drugs are involved, especially alcohol, those distilled spirits who soon are no longer still.

Of course women have no choice but to use their mouths in confrontation with men, since they often lack the physical power to subdue men. They resort to verbal violence or emotional violence, a kind of revenge to ultimately win the battle of the sexes.

But the truth is that domestic or partner violence is pandemic, a global nightmare in every religion and every nation on the planet earth. It has become the scourge of humanity, and yet it shall persist until the patriarchal mythological order perpetuated by men is destroyed, yes, all the myths that make females chattel property must be cast into the dustbin of history.

Women who buy into the myth must be detoxed and recover. It is not about feminism or misogyny, but about recognizing the spirituality of all human beings, whether male or female.
As per females, Phavia says it best in her poem Yo, Yo, Yo, "If you think I am just a physical thing, wait til you see the spiritual power I bring." So there is no need to think in gender specific terms but simply think of each other as spiritual beings in human form, thus we are not to be abused, harmed, disrespected, neglected in any way, shape or form, physically, verbally or emotionally.

I have come to hate partner violence with the Passion of Paul. I wish it could be wiped from the face of the earth tonight, though it won't happen until people come into the new spiritual consciousness sweeping the world. For sure, partner violence is part of the Slave System, based on religious mythology, whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Yoruba, Rasta. This mythological system lies in the deep structure of said religions, but it must be uprooted or the religions will be uprooted when the people achieve true spiritual consciousness. Of course it is also rooted in the capitalist slave system (Ed Howard term) that debases human beings outright with wage slavery that perpetuates stress leading directly to partner and/or domestic violence. Persons are stressed at not receiving a living wage, then often practice misplaced aggression onto their partner rather than confronting their greedy capitalist boss who has been pimping them to death. In their cowardice, men beat their women into a pulp yet let the greedy boss escape their wrath, while the women have been nothing but dutiful slaves to their husbands, washing their dirty drawers, caring for their children, while often working full time themselves to compliment their wage slave mates.

Only a workers revolution can really solve this problem that entails a redistribution of the wealth stolen by the capitalist blood suckers of the poor. When the economic order is a slave system, the entire society is reduced to such, for all institutions contribute to the whole demonic social economic order.

The education system must be thrown into the dustbin of history as well, along with the other archaic institutions that perpetuate such madness. Children are dropping out of school and shall continue to do so simply because they are smarter than their teachers and parents. They know school is bullshit, a perpetuation of the slave system and they reject it outright. Yes, they are that smart, smart enough not to be hoodwinked and bamboozled by an educational system that is totally irrelevant to the lives they live in the hood. After all, their teachers are trained to only instruct a curriculum that perpetuates the world of make believe.

We feel sorry for the new Mayor of Oakland, Jean Quan, who tonight called for 2000 mentors to help Oakland youth, yet help them do what, adjust to the slave system of white supremacy education that robbed their parents of their humanity and spirituality? It is the educational system that has taught our youth they should be treated as chattel slaves or the personal property of each other. Otherwise, why would the boys think they own the girls, or girls own other girls or boys own other boys?


As per women, the tragedy is how they become addicted to partner violence but exercise the typical classical denial of the addicted personality. They make excuses for their mate, even imagine him to be a good guy, even when he has taken them to the edge of death.

It is a sick state of mind and the women in this condition need to be taken to a shelter where they can detox and recover from their addiction to madness, for one human who beats another into submission is mad, insane, a danger to himself and others. And the person who accepts such inhumane treatment is sick as well, quite similar to the relationship, if not exactly the same, of the oppressor to the oppressed. Dr. Nathan Hare says that there can be no master except when one agrees to be a slave.

Yes, we come to love oppression, even make excuses for the oppressor: he didn't mean it, he really loves loves me, I deserved it cause I hit him first or I talked about his mama or his little penis!

The truth is that we have monsters in our midst, men who are drunk on this patriarchal mythology and must be taken to a detox center, and meanwhile the women who are addicted must themselves be taken to a safe place.

Only when they both recover should there be any consideration to the possibility of reconciliation. Only when they discover they are both spiritual beings in human form and must be treated thusly, should they be allowed to come together.

Meanwhile, the community must intervene to help the helpless, especially those women in denial and who wish to continue in their inordinancy blindly wandering on, as the Qur'an says. They are a danger to themselves and others, especially their children who are traumatized as well and then grow up to emulate violent social interaction, especially in male/female relations.

And please don't tell me you love the one you with and he/she loves you, for this is a bold face lie, because you don't even know the one you with and he/she doesn't know you. If you knew you were dealing with a spiritual being in human form, we know you would not abuse them or be abused by them. So you are living a lie. You don't know jack shit about your mate, more than likely you met them in a din of iniquity and had nothing but lust on your mind.

And even if you met them at church or the majed is still no reason to think you know them. The Nation of Islam used to refer to matches as thirty day wonder marriages, for they lasted all of thirty days, long enough to allow the persons to get their sex jones off, then they divorced, thus could not be charged with fornication.

But the tragedy is the amount of marriages that last for years under the cloud of ignorance as I say in my poem You Don't Know Me. There are persons who have been together for thirty years yet are total strangers. They don't have a clue who they are in bed with, but fake the funk, as they say in the hood.

And let us not talk about the golden handcuff syndrome, yes, those bourgeoisie persons who live well heeled to the extent they endure the most wretched partner abuse, yet because of the material comforts continue to endure it, these are often the professional class that includes doctors, lawyers, engineers, professors, lobbyists, et al. In their gated communities they live lives more wretched than the persons pushing shopping carts and enjoying rot gut wine.

Again, I am horrified of this partner violence. How naive I was to think because I stopped the world stopped. What kind of bubble was I in? I have a friend in prison who stabbed his woman 16 times and threw her onto the freeway. Just the other day I heard a couple talking downtown Oakland. The man told the woman he was going to sniff some powder cocaine and return to kill her. What savagery is this and how long can this go on?

And the virus has infected our children. Girls 16-25 years old are suffering a high rate of partner abuse. We must jump out of the box of ignorance and wretchedness, no matter the cause, whether mythological, economic, religious, political or whatever.

We must, can and will come into the understanding we are spiritual beings in human form, i.e., divine beings in the image of God and Goddess. Thus we must step up from savagery to civility, from animal to divine, and we must do this now, overnight or suffer a severe chastisement. You see events are moving in the universe at a rapid pace. One need only look at events in the Middle East and Africa. The universe is on the move and if you don't move with it, you shall be removed, fast, quit and in a hurry. I warn you, you must get into the flow of the flow of the universe that is moving toward absolute righteousness, up from slavery and ignorance. Does not your Bible tell you the people were destroyed for lack of knowledge?

For all my violent behavior against the women who loved me, it caught up with me in the drug culture when I was attacked on numerous occasions, stabbed, guns pulled on me, bum rushed, robbed, etc.

As with Job, I knew it was God allowing the devil to teach me a lesson. We know God told Job you can do any and everything to him but kill him, and so I survived it all to tell you the above words. Hopefully, a hint to the wise is sufficient.

If anything, beat your boss, as a woman who called into a radio station said to me, "Beat your boss, asshole!"
As-Salaam-Alaikum,
Marvin X
2/26/11

Domestic Violence Fact Sheet

Domestic violence, also called intimate partner violence (IVP), partner abuse, and spousal abuse, is a serious, preventable public health problem that affects millions of Americans. The terms domestic violence or intimate partner violence describe physical, sexual, or psychological harm by a current or former partner or spouse. This type of violence can occur among heterosexual or same-sex couples and does not require sexual intimacy.

Domestic violence can vary in frequency and severity. It often starts with emotional abuse. This behavior can progress to physical or sexual assault, and several types of domestic violence may occur together.

Types of Domestic Violence
There are four main types of intimate partner violence (Saltzman et al. 2002):

• Physical violence is the intentional use of physical force with the potential for causing death, disability, injury, or harm. Physical violence includes, but is not limited to, scratching; pushing; shoving; throwing; grabbing; biting; choking; shaking; slapping; punching; burning; use of a weapon; and use of restraints or one's body, size, or strength against another person.

• Sexual violence is divided into three categories: 1) use of physical force to compel a person to engage in a sexual act against his or her will, whether or not the act is completed; 2) attempted or completed sex act involving a person who is unable to understand the nature or condition of the act, to decline participation, or to communicate unwillingness to engage in the sexual act, e.g., because of illness, disability, or the influence of alcohol or other drugs, or because of intimidation or pressure; and 3) abusive sexual contact.

• Threats of physical or sexual violence use words, gestures, or weapons to communicate the intent to cause death, disability, injury, or physical harm.

• Psychological/emotional violence involves trauma to the victim caused by acts, threats of acts, or coercive tactics. Psychological/emotional abuse can include, but is not limited to, humiliating the victim, controlling what the victim can and cannot do, withholding information from the victim, deliberately doing something to make the victim feel diminished or embarrassed, isolating the victim from friends and family, and denying the victim access to money or other basic resources. It is considered psychological/emotional violence when there has been prior physical or sexual violence or prior threat of physical or sexual violence. In addition, stalking is often included among the types of IPV. Stalking generally refers to "harassing or threatening behavior that an individual engages in repeatedly, such as following a person, appearing at a person's home or place of business, making harassing phone calls, leaving written messages or objects, or vandalizing a person's property" (Tjaden & Thoennes 1998).

Domestic Violence Is A Serious Public Health Problem

• Each year, women experience about 4.8 million intimate partner related physical assaults and rapes. Men are the victims of about 2.9 million intimate partner related physical assaults. (Tjaden and Thoennes 2000).
• Intimate partner abuse resulted in 2,340 deaths in 2007. Of these deaths, 70% were females and 30% were males. (Bureau of Justice Statistics 2011).
• The medical care, mental health services, and lost productivity (e.g., time away from work) cost of domestic violence was an estimated $5.8 billion in 1995. Updated to 2003 dollars, that’s more than $8.3 billion. (CDC 2003; Max et al. 2004).
• Physical violence by an intimate partner has also been associated with a number of adverse health outcomes (Breiding, Black, and Ryan, 2008). Several health conditions associated with intimate partner violence may be a direct result of the physical violence (for example, bruises, knife wounds, broken bones, back or pelvic pain, headaches). Studies have also demonstrated the impact of intimate partner violence on the endocrine and immune systems through chronic stress or other mechanisms (Crofford, 2007; Leserman and Drossman, 2007) Examples include:
• Fibromyalgia
• Irritable bowel syndrome
• Gynecological disorders
• Pregnancy difficulties like low birth weight babies and perinatal deaths
• Sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS
• Central nervous system disorders
• Gastrointestinal disorders
• Heart or circulatory conditions
• Children may become injured during violent incidents between their parents. A large overlap exists between intimate partner violence and child maltreatment (Appel and Holden 1998).
• Physical violence is typically accompanied by emotional or psychological abuse (Tjaden and Thoennes 2000). IPV-whether sexual, physical, or psychological-can lead to various psychological consequences for victims (Bergen 1996; Coker et al. 2002; Heise and Garcia-Moreno 2002; Roberts, Klein, and Fisher 2003):
• Depression
• Antisocial behavior
• Suicidal behavior in females
• Anxiety
• Low self-esteem
• Inability to trust others, especially in intimate relationships
• Fear of intimacy
• Symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder
• Emotional detachment
• Sleep disturbances
• Flashbacks
• Replaying assault in the mind
• Women with a history of intimate partner abuse are more likely to display behaviors that present further health risks (e.g., substance abuse, alcoholism, suicide attempts) than women without a history of intimate partner abuse.
• Partner abuse is associated with a variety of negative health behaviors (Heise and Garcia-Moreno 2002; Plichta 2004; Roberts, Auinger, and Klein 2005; Silverman et al. 2001). Studies show that the more severe the violence, the stronger its relationship to negative health behaviors by victims.
• Engaging in high-risk sexual behavior
• Unprotected sex
• Decreased condom use
• Early sexual initiation
• Choosing unhealthy sexual partners
• Multiple sex partners
• Trading sex for food, money, or other items
• Using harmful substances
• Smoking cigarettes
• Drinking alcohol
• Drinking alcohol and driving
• Illicit drug use
• Unhealthy diet-related behaviors
• Fasting
• Vomiting
• Abusing diet pills
• Overeating
• Overuse of health services

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Risk Factors for Domestic Violence

Risk factors are associated with a greater likelihood of intimate partner violence victimization or perpetration. They are contributing factors and may or may not be direct causes. Not everyone who is identified as "at risk" becomes involved in violence.

Some risk factors for domestic violence victimization and perpetration are the same. In addition, some risk factors for victimization and perpetration are associated with one another; for example, childhood physical or sexual victimization is a risk factor for future perpetration and victimization.

A combination of individual, relational, community, and societal factors contribute to the risk of becoming a victim or perpetrator of IPV. Understanding these multilevel factors can help identify various opportunities for prevention.

Individual Risk Factors

• Low self-esteem
• Low income
• Low academic achievement
• Young age
• Aggressive or delinquent behavior as a youth
• Heavy alcohol and drug use
• Depression
• Anger and hostility
• Antisocial personality traits
• Borderline personality traits
• Prior history of being physically abusive
• Having few friends and being isolated from other people
• Unemployment
• Emotional dependence and insecurity
• Belief in strict gender roles (e.g., male dominance and aggression in relationships)
• Desire for power and control in relationships
• Perpetrating psychological aggression
• Being a victim of physical or psychological abuse (consistently one of the strongest predictors of perpetration)
• History of experiencing poor parenting as a child
• History of experiencing physical discipline as a child

Relationship Factors

• Marital conflict-fights, tension, and other struggles
• Marital instability-divorces or separations
• Dominance and control of the relationship by one partner over the other
• Economic stress
• Unhealthy family relationships and interactions

Community Factors

• Poverty and associated factors (e.g., overcrowding)
• Low social capital-lack of institutions, relationships, and norms that shape a community's social interactions
• Weak community sanctions against violence (e.g., unwillingness of neighbors to intervene in situations where they witness violence)

Societal Factors

• Traditional gender norms (e.g., women should stay at home, not enter workforce, and be submissive; men support the family and make the decisions)
• Oppressive mythological values rooted in patriarchal religions that define women as the chattel property of men, thus the partner can be subjected to physical, mental and emotional abuse that is sanctioned by the religions, whether Christianity, Islam, Judaism, traditional African, Vudun, Rasta, Yoruba, et al.
  Fathers Sing Blues Too
• 
  
  Fathers get the blues too
  like mothers
  over children
  worry bout them
  think about them
  try to be example for them
  sometimes children don't get it
  repeat lessons mama and daddy did
  childhood ghosts appear
  and they are not sure why
  yet father knows like mama
  parental instinct
  vibe
  
  photo Pendarvis Harshaw
  
  
  father can tell when children not happy
  long before they decide to talk and cry
  we knew from the beginning it wasn't going to work
  but said nothing
  keep out of children's bizness
  they grown
  let them sink or swim
  but unhappiness is unacceptable
  father can't stand unhappy child
  when all the while we knew
  we knew our baby had the blues
  they didn't know each other
  they never do in America
  they don't ask dad or mom
  just hook up wit some nigguh
  in the name of love
  that wasn't love
  maybe lust in the night
  a momentary thing
  tension reliever
  but not love
  not steel that sharpens steel
  some unequal thing that should've never happened
  wasn't meant to be
  and never will be
  only for a moment
  a child
  then departure
  for another
  same person
  different name.
  
  father knows
  like mother
  call it instinct
  a vibe
  father sings the blues
  worries hair out
  wish he never had these kids
  sometimes
  cause they always have problems
  even grown
  especially then
  big problems then
  not little kid problems
  we listen
  advise
  hope they will do the right thing finally
  to be happy.
  ---Marvin X
  2/17/11

Partner Violence

and

Parable of the Dick Slave

You desire domination over your mate, your pussy. You own it, it is your chattel or personal property. And the woman, in her companion view, claims to own your dick. The pussy and dick drama is on. She is also addicted to white supremacy ideas of ownership and domination, thus she will kill over her dick, just as he will over her pussy. Yet we are supposedly free human beings, not property of each other, love slaves, if you will.

The NFL quarterback McNair (RIP) was shot four times in his sleep because he was giving up dick across town. Even though he had a wife, one of his girlfriends obviously thought she had "papers" on his dick. And we know the Thanksgiving Day present Tiger received for trying to make his booty call. Clearly his wife thinks she has eternal rights to his dick. Oh, this is called marriage?The whole matter cost Tiger a few hundred million and he has yet to regain his composure to play golf at his optimum.
I was asked why I did not advocate marriage in Mythology of Dick and Pussy (www.mythologyofdickandpussy.blogspot.com). Nor will I advocate marriage here. When the blind lead the blind they both fall into the ditch together. Marriage should await revolution, otherwise it is doomed to failure as we see in the present 50% divorce rate.
Marriage in this society is another gamble in futility, though we praise those couples strong enough the remain together in the midst of this hell hole called capitalist swine America. The present marital structure is a product of the full blown addiction to white supremacy materialism or conspicuous consumption, wherein the man and woman are cogs in the wheel of global wage slavery.

They are merely consumers for the capitalist blood suckers of the poor. The wife conspires and collaborates with the capitalist pimps to enslave the husband and addict him as well to consumerism until he and she retire dirt poor with all the concomitant diseases of the hostile environment they've endured throughout life.
As an additional form of social control, she conspires with the preacher to demand church attendance of her man, making him bow down at the alter of another pimp in the name of the Lord. The poor man's dick is caught in the vice of wage slavery pimps, the preacher, police and the deaf, dumb and blind wife or mate. Again, Dr. Nathan Hare:
"Of all the many disorders and distortions that plague the black male, each and every day, perhaps the ones that take the heaviest tool on his ravished brain are those that--if not contained by armed resistance--revolve around the painful difficulty of gaining control over his individual and collective destiny, around what is known in mental health circles as "the locus of control," the dilemma of resistance to the enemy from without and the enemy from within (including the self, if we consider that there can be no master without those who, for whatever reason, are willing to be a slave....)"
The dick and pussy drama is thus a product of the capitalist society, though it originates in primitive culture, especially in the mythology and ritual of religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam, but traditional African religions as well, although some African religions have a more balanced approach to gender relations, more sexual equality and inheritance rights. There is polygamy (plural wives) and polyandry (plural husbands).
In these societies, pussy and dick relations are thus more equitable and we would therefore imagine social relations more peaceful and successful, although Africa is currently suffering widespread partner abuse and rape is pandemic. In short, the dick is running wild in Africa! Still, there are those Afrocentric "Kemetic" scholars who suggest we return to the philosophy of Ma'at or Egyptian religion of ten thousand years ago as a way out of our morass and before we slip over the precipice.
Getting the masses of North American Africans to return to Ma'at or African philosophy is at best a romantic notion, with as much chance as the Egyptian mythology of Isis finding and reconstructing the dick of her husband Osiris. And then again, it may indeed take the black woman to reclaim her man's dick or phallus, retrieving it and her pussy from the ravages of the addiction to white supremacy.

For now, the norm is patriarchal domination, consistent with the capitalist society of ownership of property, domination and oppression of men, women and children--yes, the children are addicted to greedy capitalist materialism as well, the learned behavior from their parents. Imagine the gullible fools we are: a young sister was downtown Oakland coming out of Footlocker with three pair of tennis shoes that cost $370.00, made in China for 50 cents per pair.
We must face the sad reality that we are not in Africa, but captives of the West, of the white man's values, sadly addicted to his dick and pussy drama until we decide to detox and recover from such aberrant social behavior that is antithetical to our psychosocial health.
--Marvin X
from Mythology of Dick and Pussy, toward Healthy Psychosocial Sexuality, Black Bird Press,
Berkeley CA,2010.

Parable of Woman in the Box

Parable of the Woman in the Box

There was a woman who lived inside a box. Her whole life had been spent inside the little box, squeezed in from all sides. She never went outside the box. People brought her food to eat but she ate it inside the four walls of the box. She was cramped to the point of being crippled because she could never stand up inside the box. Not only her body but her brain and spirit were crippled from living inside the box.

Her thinking was confined to what she could imagine inside the box, and that was very little, no big grand thoughts, only micro imaginings. Even her God was a little god, one that fit into the box. She could not envision her God outside and that her God ruled the whole world, not just her little world inside the box.

Now and then she would beat on the walls of her box in a vain attempt to break them down and escape. But whenever she did, someone would come by and whisper to her to be quiet, she was making noise and disturbing other people.

She would comply with their request, trying to be nice, since she really was a nice person, she just didn't know how to escape the box. And she had to be nice to the person who brought her food because they might not return if she got angry and loud, started screaming, hollering and foaming at the mouth. Inside the box, she lived the life of a stunted woman, her mental growth stunted as well.

She could not imagine the finer things of life, or how she might expand her spiritual development. She did not know how she might be able to fend for herself, make her own money for food and other things she needed, even if she stayed inside the box, but she really wanted to get out. Somehow she gathered the energy to have a thought that went beyond the box, energy that would stop her from being a stunted woman, unable to stand tall and rise from her condition inside the box.

She began to figure a way out, a way to free herself, mind, body and soul. She had to do some hard thinking but she was determined to liberate herself. She saw nails in the walls and began to tinker with them, push them a little with her fingernails, then wiggled around and backed into one wall, then the
other. After a time, she could see a little break between the walls. She came up with a name for the nails that kept her down. One nail she called ignorance. She knocked and knocked until it loosened. Then she beat and pressured another nail in the box she called passivity. When she put counter pressure on that nail the box started shaking.

She tinkered with another nail she called lack of desire and will. Then she started talking to the walls, telling them to open up she was coming out. She
even told her little God to give her a hand. Her little God gave her a hand. Some people came by and seeing the walls shaking, tried to pound on the nails, but the woman commanded the nails to stop in their tracks and they did as she commanded. She continued her resistance until the walls of the box gave in and was able to gradually stand and eventually began to do a little dance.
--3/10/10

From The Wisdom of Plato Negro, Marvin X, BBP,2010

You Don't Know Me

By Marvin X

You don't know me

you had a chance to know me

before we made love

you had a chance to know my mind

understand my fears

learn about issues

help me heal some things

but you wanted to make love

so you don't know me

we made love

but you don't know me

don't have a clue

think I'm a good dick

or some good tight pussy

but you don't know me

and never will now

because you wanted to make love

you wanted to get a nut

we didn't even talk much

a little bit leading up to sex

I went along

I was horny too

but you don't know me

and I don't know you

now we never will

we blew it forever

because we made love

too fast too quick too soon

now you think you own me

I can't breathe

can't talk on the phone to friends

because we made love

because I gave you some dick

you gave me some pussy

now I'm no longer human

I'm your love slave

you're my slave

we're in love

but you don't know me

we gonna get married

but you don't know me

we're gonna have children

but you don't know me

you're gonna beat my ass

but you don't know me

you're going to jail

but you don't know me

we're getting a divorce

but you don't know me

now we're friends

"Just Friends" Charlie Parker tune

But you don't know me

and never will.
--Marvin X

Part One: Techno Sex and the Mythology of Pussy and Dick by Marvin X

From the cover of Black Dialogue Magazine, 1966, San Francisco CA

There is nothing like an idea that's time has come. In 2009, when Marvin X penned and published his now classic 18 page essay in pamphlet form, The Mythology of Pussy and Dick, the sexually conservative so-called Negroes, especially the black bourgeoisie (see E. Franklin's 1962 classic The Black Bourgeoisie) who yet live in the world of make believe and conspicuous consumption as delineated by sociologist and Howard University Professor Dr. Frazier, as well as those neo-colonial elite or tenured negroes yet suffering Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, Harold Cruse. Dr.Hare he only wants to hear when they transcend the crisis in the Kingdom of Africana, that mythical kingdom in the world of make believe Frazier taught us about. My daughter calls them the "pseudo conscious!"

The pseudo-consciousness, puritan black radicals condemned Marvin X for the title of his treatise, even though they were taught not to judge a book by its cover. Some of the black radical puritans could not get past the cover title, even when encouraged to do so by their revolutionary comrades. BAM writer Mae Jackson pleaded with Mrs. Amina Baraka to skip the cover and get to the message but she refused even after a 47 year friendship with Marvin X as co-founder of the National Black Arts Movement. The PC women at Howard dismissed the pamphlet because the title objectified women even if only to be provocative to get their attention, but no, the PC women, are so right they wrong as my mentor Sun Ra said of my ultra righteousness when he arranged the musical version of my play Flowers for the Trashman, renamed Take Care of Business, Black Educational Theatre, San Francisco, 1972.

 Marvin X and student at Howard University conference on the Black Arts Movement

 Howard Cheer Leaders kneel in honor of Colin's stand against police brutality in US

Kwame Toure/, aka Stokeley Carmichael, Howard student of Dr. Nathan Hare

Sociologist Dr. Nathan Hare, removed from Howard University faculty after bringing Muhammad Ali to campus and pursuing his pro boxing career while professing. His behavior was found beneath the dignity of Howard U. academia. Dr. Hare went on to become the first Chair of Black Studies at San Francisco State College/University and sparked the longest student strike in US academic history to establish black and ethnic studies, both terms he coined. After San Francisco State University, none of the 400 black studies departments in America hired him to teach. With two PhDs, was he unqualified or simply too damn black in consciousness? 

As per Marvin X's treatise, ironically, a white man, Peter Howard, (RIP), Berkeley bookseller and agent for archives (he sold the archives of Eldridge Cleaver, Ishmael Reed, Marvin X, et al., to the Bancroft Library at University of California, Berkeley), after reading the pamphlet, told Marvin X, "This is not for black people, this is for white people!"
According to childhood friend and supporter, Rashid Easley, "The Mythology of Pussy and Dick is for the liberation of men and women. Those who are too blind to see it as a document of liberation are now totally unable to understand Harvey Weinstein and the #Metoo Movement.

No matter Marvin's residue of patriarchal addiction, he unequivocally preaches the equality of women and their absolute rights as owners of the bodies and minds."

For sure, the grassroots people, fought over the pamphlet as if it were black gold, said poet Paradise Jah Love. A young man gave multiple copies to his friends and reported to Marvin X, "After reading it, two brothers went to court and won custody of their children."

The consensus of women is that it freed them and made them realize they controlled the power of their wombs, something they were not clear on. After reading the pamphlet with her mother, a 16 year told the author, "I wished I'd read it when I was eight!"

One young man read the MOPD and told Marvin, "After I read your pamphlet, I was ready to get my life together, since I discovered I did not own that which I thought I owned," which is the main message.

Marvin learned his lesson after falling in love with a Crack ho' who taught him she owned her pussy and could give it up to whomever she pleased. Once Marvin understood this, he and ho' became best of friends and he helped her recover from Crack. See his story The Maid, the Ho, the Cook, essays, In the Crazy House Called America.

Meanwhile, in the ho' house, a madam told her girls, "Don't try to leave with my Mythology of Pussy and Dick. Leave my motherfuckin' pamphlet here, bitches!"

Even after Marvin warned people who purchased The MOPD at his Academy of da Corner, 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland, where he teaches (Ishmael Reed called him Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland), don't let your friends steal it, many came back for another copy two and three times, admitting Marvin had told them their friends would either steal it or simply let them know they were not returning the pamphlet!

Not only youth, but even seniors confessed, "Boy, I hate to admit you taught me something new in that pamphlet!" Well, old dogs can learn new tricks!

And then Marvin X embarked on a national book tour with his provocative and controversial pamphlet, stopping at Grambling University, making a guerrilla run through the cafeteria, then showing up in Jackson, Mississippi at the Jackson State, Grambling football gave, passing out the MOPD at the front gate of the stadium. After soon many people passed through the turnstiles with the pamphlet in their hands, the ticket takers came begging for copies.

And then he arrived at Howard University, Washington, DC, where professors Dr. Tony Medina and Dr. Greg Carr allowed him to lecture in their classes for a week on The Mythology of Pussy and Dick. FYI, Dr. Carr is so magnificent, students are told they cannot graduate from Howard without taking one of his classes. He is also Chair of the African Studies Department. But nevertheless, with a female/male ratio of 14 to 1, what do we suspect is the topic of priority at Howard? Sex, sex, sex, after all the girls come to Howard seeking mates, but imagine their frustration being 14 to 1! In Dr. Tony Medina's class, a female broke down during Marvin's lecture/discussion, sobbing, "I thought I was cute, but when I got here there were 13 other cute girls!"

One day as Marvin X concluded his lecture on the Mythology of Pussy and Dick, a female came up to him before he left the lectern and whispered in his ear, "Dr. X, let me tell you how we deal with Dante: he think he playin' us, but we playin' him:sistas decide who go be wit Dante Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thurday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Yes, we sistas work out a schedule to share Dante, but he don't have a clue, think he playin' us but the playa gettin' played! Now that's how we do Dante here at Howard, Dr. X!

For sure, no subject is more powerful than biology, so even though Howard students have great scholars like Dr. Carr, their lectures cannot compete with techno sex messages sent while Dr. Carr is lecturing his heart out, in the fashion of James Brown singing, sweating, dancing, preaching, reading from the text word by word, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, simply because students are busy with text messages to satisfy their carnal desires and basic match making, most often at the urging of their parents, "Girl, go to Howard and find you a Negro that wanna be a doctor. And don't bring no black ass nigguh home to meet me. Find one of dem yella nigguhs, gul!" Of course this color caste prescription further depletes the gene pool for any possible satisfaction of the mythology of pussy and dick! Poor sistas will be lucky to secure any young man for a life mate! 14 to 1! Especially when perhaps 50% of the brothers are gay! Alas, HIV is rampant in DC! Also at other black negro collages and universities.

On another occasion, I was invited to lecture at Morehouse College in Atlanta, but I was instructed to lecture on partner violence and told to say nothing about homosexuality. I accommodated my hosts at Morehouse and and also when I went across the street to speak with the Spelman ladies.

continued

Dr. Nathan Hare on Techno Sex and Sexual Engagement Contracts

Marvn,

My take is in a technocratic society we inevitably become more technocratic, more like the machines we increasingly make and rely on compelling us to jump to the phone or ipod or whatnot and push their buttons to cause them to do things for us or/and allow us to do things – why not also sex? –  where everything else is increasingly objectivized, including persons now taken as objects to be manipulated and quantified and studied, taking people as objects and turning them into things is inevitable --  progress -- hence the  people pushing it or leading the way are called “progressives.”

In the search of mankind for some guide, science is winning over religion like religion won over magic. Eventually we’ll push a button to breathe or not to breathe, let alone to maximize the efficiency of sex and the apparatus of reproduction once left to the will of God. People who complain are anachronistic and old-fashioned at best. Why not a contract for sex if a contract for non-sex or everything else? 
I remember when I forgot and left the marriage license at home and the preacher made me go get it while he paused in and held up the sacred ceremony, before he would perform the marriage; ditto in a church years later in another part of the country when a friend was being married and I was the best man (witness) when he forgot his license to marry. Why not a license for any sex or gender? Except that it hasn’t worked with marriage, but not because it hasn’t been tried.

Indeed, what seems to be unfolding and foretold by the social philosopher in this post is the coming escalation in the objectivizing and thingification of the human being, where people are seen as things, to be objectified and thingifed and manipulated like machines as we become more and more like machines while controlling others and being controlled by machines. Of course we must have a contract or a license, just as we do a car.

In marriage, man (and woman, the female part of the connection or hookup or plugin) once tried polygamy, but it didn’t work; monogamy, which isn’t working, as we speak; so we may now be entering the early phases of what our friend, the late Eldridge Cleaver no less, called “omnigamy,” the coming marital form wherein everybody will be married to everybody else.

But by then we would have completed what we are going through now and discovered that even a contract or license won’t do us any good, with our only hope being some superhuman recognition that we are all in this together (in the words of the lae great progressives, Ossie Davs and Ruby Dee, instead of being separated by unlicensed and unbridled artificiality and superficial passion taking us decades to recognize, let alone to try to comprehend.

Have a blessed and holy day  And don’t forget to pray. For yourselves. Everybody’s always allowing as how they are praying for me. Pray for yourself. Lest you soon have to have a license or a contract with a preacher to pray, lest you use the Lord’s name in vain.

Nathan Hare

Phone: 415-474-1707

Fax: 415-589-7983

Backup: 415 672 2986