My good hustling brother Charles Duplechain taught me to stay away from square motherfuckers. He said square motherfuckers will get you killed. I must add, Elijah taught us to trust no one. We think Malcolm lost this fundamental lesson from his teacher, for it is somewhat clear he trusted Elijah too much and it may have cost him his life, not to suggest Elijah was responsible for his death, but certainly there were a plethora of jealous and envious officials around Elijah that were willing to take him out if he played into their hands, and apparently he did so, seemingly not knowing when it was time to advance and retreat. The Art of War might be helpful here. Consider the terrain, the land, the sea, the mountains, the cross roads, the valley, the plain. Do not fight uphill, fight downhill. Do not fight in the water, et al. Fight from a position of strength not weakness.
The problem with squares is that they understand none of this, but advance into life with rose colored glasses, having succumb to starry eyed idealism, thus they have an agenda not rooted in reality to say nothing of thinking beyond reality into the metaphysical, where all thought originates. The square think they know while they know not. In classic drama this is called the tragic flaw that leads the great to fall into the abyss.
The squares must stop thinking they know everything, for the wise man knows that he knows nothing, thus he is willing to jump out of the box into new thought, while the square is locked in provincialism and narrow mindedness of the worse kind. The square has convinced himself/herself that she/he is on the right path while a simple check with reality would correct him/her that they are surely on the wrong path, not the Sirata Al Mustaqim (straight path).
It is here that the square is most dangerous, for while he is fishing in the dark without a search light, he continues in his inordinacy, blindly wandering on, Al Qur'an.
Thus the man or person of vision must separate himself from the square because the visionary is clear of the task before him, that he must carve new vistas in the universe, not be stuck in the tales of mother, father and grandparents. Recall the movie Soulfook: grandma simply didn't know the food she was eating was taking her out. And then after her transition to ancestor hood, the family continued eating the diet that killed grandma. This is, again, the nature of the square: to continue into the precipice, not heading warnings from the Master Teacher who has simply lived long enough to know the endgame.
Example: one of my students was having a problem with his car. I told him to stop tripping and call his car doctor, which he finally did and was relieved when his car doctor advised him of the situation. My student then asked me how did I know what to do? Wouldn't it be logical to call your doctor if you have one? Does one need to enter Elderhood to know this, or is this blindness an expression of squareness and white supremacy edumakation?
And so I appreciate those years I spent drug addicted, homeless, loveless, sleeping in doorways, allies, and cardboard boxes, on the BART, at the Eastbay Terminal. This was my true education, not the classes I took at San Francisco State University. Yes, it was in the Crack House that I learned manners and decorum. As my father said (RIP), son, you ain't even a good dope fiend. A good dope fiend will have a way to get his dope on a daily basis, and a proper dope fiend will not steal from his parents, woman, friends, but will hustle to get his dope. And he will not get so low that he must prostitute himself and embarrass himself before the world as I did when Eldridge Cleaver and I got caught burglarizing a house to obtain money for Crack. When the news hit the media, my family was embarrassed, especially my father who said I shamed the family name. Nigguhs in Alaska read about our exploits in Jet Magazine, the Negro Bible.
I believe harm reduction is the best model to overcome addictions of any kind, including the addiction to white supremacy. The square thinks white supremacy is a bygone phenomenon, yet any damn fool knows the facts: for every one black man entering college, four go to prison. And as Dr. Wade Nobles noted, our black women are in prison as well in these white supremacy universities, struggling like hell to overcome issues of sexual identity, and yet with all their proper knowledge, they shall be very lucy to find a husband or mate their equal, especially from their ethnic group of eligible males, so many of whom wallow in wretchedness and depravity of the most morbid kind, subjecting their women to a myriad STDs, including HIV and AIDS.
Surely, there is no time to be square, but one must be hipped to what's happening in the cosmos, not just in America, Africa or the Diaspora, but one must, in the spirit of Sun Ra, have cosmic consciousness and understand a new spirituality is sweeping the planet. The square motherfucker must jump out of the box and join the world revolution of a new kind of thinking that makes one aware of all things, the living, the dead and yet unborn. The square who is blind in this world, shall be blind in the hereafter, so jump out of the box and claim your blessing for your labor under the sun.
P.S. I recently learned there are only two kinds of people in the world. The hip and the unhip, those who want to block hipness to keep people in the box, such as taught in the Masonic tradition that says let the dead stay dead, unless they desire to be initiated into the secret order. But those of us who received Supreme Wisdom know that the duty of the civilized man is to teach the uncivilized. If we fail to perform our duty, we shall suffer a severe chastisement by Allah. I have received such a chastisement so this is why I say what I say. And I say this to end: put on the armor of God for the people were destroyed for lack of knowledge, i.e., the most despicable aspect of the square is that he/she lacks knowledge yet pretends, as in that song by the Platters, The Great Pretender!
--Marvin X/El Muhajir
8/12/12
www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com
jmarvinx@yahoo.com
Marvin X was born May 29, 1944 in Fowler, California, near Fresno. Marvin X is well known for his work as a poet, playwright and essayist of the BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT or BAM. He attended Merritt College along with Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. He received his BA and MA in English from San Francisco State University.
BEYOND RELIGION, TOWARD SPIRITUALITY, ESSAYS ON CONSCIOUSNESS
In the Crazy House Called America
Love and War: Poems
