The Parable of the Fire
Parable of the Fire
There was a pile of weeds in the backyard. They were an eyesore to the neighborhood. People complained until the man in the white house decided to burn them down. He lighted the pile of weeds and they began to burn. Then a wind came and started blowing the embers into the field nearby. The man saw he could have a problem if he didn't do something quickly, so he grabbed the water hose and began sprinkling water on the pile of weeds.

He put water on the top of the pile and the flames seemed to subside. He continued pouring water on the top of the pile until he thought the fire was out, since he didn't see anymore flames. He went inside and went to sleep. While he was asleep the smoldering fire underneath began to burn again until the flames could be seen by neighbors who called the fire department. They rushed to the scene. When the man heard the fire trucks he got up and ran outside to see the pile of weeds flaming high with embers going up into the night sky.

The firemen put out the fire and told the man to get out of the way so they could finish the job he had half done. He did as told and the firemen extinguished the fire, including the smoldering weeds on the bottom.The firemen told him to never forget the fire underneath that can smolder for days and flame up periodically, depending on the wind. Just because you put water on the top, don't think the fire is out. Remember the smoldering flames underneath that must be suppressed.2/19/10

The condition of the American economic and financial crisis is analogous to the Parable of the Fire. The fire took place in the back yard of the White House. The President was the man trying to put the fire out. He applied the socalled conservative voodoo trickle down theory to the fire, starting at the top as the President did with his bailout of the banks, insurance companies and corporations. While the trickle down theory did assuage the meltdown, the crucial factor was not at the top but the fire smoldering underneath.

But being so smart he outsmarted himself, the President proclaimed a victory over the crisis, even though the fire underneath was yet burning with unemployment, mortgage debt, homelessness and growing anger among the people since many were also starving for they were without money for basic survival.

The President even continued sleeping without addressing the issue at hand, jobs, jobs, jobs, rather he focused on health insurance that even if passed would be unaffordable since people are unemployed. Like the man putting out the fire, his energy was misplaced though well meaning.
The neighbors who called the fire department are all those who were for him initially and even those who were against him.

The fire is causing a symbiotic unity among the people that will likely cause his removal from the White House. Yes, dissatisfaction brings about a change, real change. It appears the President will be evicted from the White House after his first term. The winds are gathering to sweep him from office. The winds of war are yet blowing in the East, costing him trillions of dollars.

There are even little fires in the fields nearby caused by the embers blowing in the wind. The global financial system is yet burning. Greece is on fire and other nations are no out of danger. There is the fire of the drug war on the President's border.

Seven thousand murders in the last few years. Even inside the border there is fire in the cities, with thousands murdered in the inner cities, yet we hear nothing from the sleeping President.
He promises to address the problem of education, housing and employment with the avowed enemies of his country before addressing the smoldering fire of discontent in his backyard. We wonder does he hear the cries of the people or is the siren of the fire truck so deafening that it drowns out the voices of those suffering on the bottom of the pile of weeds.
--Marvin X
2/20/10

Black Male Suicide

Black Male Suicide
Why are so many young men killing themselves?
By: Henrie Treadwell Posted: September 15, 2008

Not long ago, suicide and African Americans were almost never mentioned in the same breath. Despite confronting challenges from slavery to Jim Crow to structural racism, blacks rarely took their own lives. It was a positive health disparity. Until now.
There is alarming evidence that the suicide rate for young African-American men is escalating, and just as much evidence of how ill-equipped America's health-care system is to handle it.
From 1980 to 1995, the suicide rate for black adolescents rose from 5.6 per 100,000 of the population to 13 per 100,000, according to recent research by Clare Xanthos, a health services research specialist. For young black men, these changes represent a doubling of the suicide rate, making it the third leading cause of death among that demographic.
If the trend continues, it could ripple through black communities, increasing the number of children who grow up fatherless, further burdening African-American women who will have fewer partners to help them raise families. Clearly, it is a complex problem that is directly related to the life experiences of young African-American men. While the suicide rate for young black men has risen, the suicide rate for black women remains among the lowest of any demographic.

So why are young black men killing themselves?
Young black males live in some of the most-difficult circumstances in our society; the data show that black men go to jail, drop out of school and are victims of crime at rates far higher than their white counterparts. Moreover, young black males are more likely to live in more challenging family environments. Sixty-eight percent of all black households are single-parent households—pointing to an absence of male role models for young boys.

The combination of family stress, violence in their communities and the discrimination they face is taking a toll. Some mental health specialists argue that the rates may even be higher. Dr. Alvin Poussaint, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, says that "death-by-cop" incidents should be counted as suicides. He believes that some despondent young men intentionally break the law so someone else will kill them.
"How many young men who put themselves in situations where it's very likely that they're going to get shot to death are actually committing suicide?" Poussaint asked in a recent interview on National Public Radio. "There is such a thing as what we call victim-precipitated homicide, which is suicide. The most classic example would be suicide by cop."
This rising suicide tide can impact black middle-class teenagers in white suburbs, as well as those in inner-city neighborhoods. In fact, Xanthos argues that black youths living in white communities often face the trauma of not relating to their white neighbors and also feeling estranged from blacks from poorer, urban settings. Certainly, the suicide of James Dungy, the 18-year-old son of Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy, underscored that suicide can strike the rich and poor.
What's clear is that black communities, health-care professionals and public-health officials must mobilize to meet the challenges presented by this problem.
The stigma on mental illness in the black communities is so great that obvious signs are frequently ignored, even by close family members and friends. The first step must come from parents and friends recognizing the behavior patterns that indicate a problem, and then working to get help. And public-health programs, such as Medicaid, must make it easier for young black men to get the counseling and treatment they need.
Even at that point, other problems develop including the lack of black therapists, counselors and psychiatrists to help these patients. Just 4 percent of the nation's psychiatrists, 3 percent of the psychologists and 7 percent of social workers, are black.
The problems weighing on many black youths are created by racism along with the other tensions that they face in everyday life. In these instances, an African-American counselor or physician may be more likely to reach a solution.

Xanthos also issues a call for "bicultural'' training for young black males, teaching survival skills to black men about how to live in a white society. Such training would better prepare black youths for integration into schools and workplaces that are predominantly white, while also preparing them to confront and overcome the discrimination they are likely to face in American society.

Henrie M. Treadwell, Ph.D. is associate director of development at the National Center for Primary Care of Morehouse School of Medicine. He is also director of Community Voices, a non-profit working to improve health services and health-care access, for all Americans.
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Dr. Nation Replies on His Fictive Theory

Dr. Nathan Hare Replies to Dr. Rodney Coates:



Rodney,

I see, looking back on the Inbox that you addressed me (“Nate”) in what looks like your reply to Marvin X. Anyway, “Where Do Old Revolutionaries Go?” is a moving poem. Profound and eloquent. I like it, but I just want to say something on behalf of the old revolutionaries, many of whom cannot be heard, lest somebody might take a notion to play us cheap:

We’re still here, and ready for the revolution, still dangerous, pressed to the wall, crying, dying, but fighting back; lean and mean (unlike Michelle Obama and the late Elijah Muhammad said of our “fat, satisfied and greasy” youth).

We’re counting on the young revolutionaries to get up and try to catch up with us, because the struggle continues.Nathan,

P.S. On part 2

I think it’s sad that the memory of the young revolutionary is so short they can neither see ahead nor back to the old revolutionary’s sorry past. I have said repeatedly in recent years that part of our problem as a people, speaking of the young and the old, is we have been looking so far back for so long that now our memory is longer than our understanding. But there has always been a problem of the generations.

A black weekly newspaper here asked me and my wife a week or so ago to do something on the importance of Black History Month. We chose to put together “A Conversation with the Father of Black History.” Conversing with Carter G. Woodson.

I was surprised in a brief rereading of Woodson to discover or to rediscover how forward looking he had been, in more than one way, despite my enduring impatience with history and Woodson’s having been lambasted for conformity in a biography by his assistant.

Somebody just called here by chance and said for their own reasons they’ll fax us on Tuesday a scanning of the newspaper containing the conversation, which covered the whole of the front page (hence too big for my scanner) and most of page 2 as well. A highly unusual occurrence for that or any weekly.

Fanon might say it’s useless to compare the generations anyway, when as Camus suggested, every generation must discover or create its own destiny, remembered or not, Many are those who have been remembered posthumously, in death while ignored in life, and vice versa.

But in the long run the history that is made, if not written, will live even if it is forgotten. I remember something Huey Newton once said: “if you can move one grain of sand, the world will never be the same again.” Texting from the battleground of an unfinished revolution.

Nathan


Dr. Hare to Dr. Rodney Coates
Rodney, I don’t disagree with that, if I understand it. I’m afraid I missed those other “fronts,” coming into this conversation as I did at the “fictive” point. It would hardly behoove me to denigrate all persons in the university – if I read you correctly – anymore than I would all who remain on this larger plantation called America, in any modicum of peace and tranquility. I have often sought a hollow comfort in something I once heard Arthur Miller say on the radio, when asked why he wasn’t teaching at a university, and he replied that “a revolutionary cannot teach.” But the comfort not only was hollow, it was empty and somehow sad. I was just telling one of my former students, who wrote the other night that I had been her favorite professor at Howard -- as happily so many do – and I went on to tell her about the emotional devastation leaving Howard had been for me, that I had thought I would be at Howard forever, and how if I could have stayed there till now I would have taught just about everybody worthwhile and the world wouldn’t have been quite the same again. It was at the highest administrative levels, always with pressure from outside political, corporate and police instigation, that I confronted the balance of my academic oppression. Colleagues I could abide, even when we differed politically. Indeed in every instance when I was brought up for a hearing by administrators before committees they handpicked the committees (colleagues in some fashion), who might have been expected to support the administration, instead supported and voted for me; but the administrators fired me anyway. The same thing when I was trying to get back into universities all over this country, focusing on black studies from 1981 to 1988, whenever I would get past the politics of persons on the hiring committees (which admittedly could sometimes be a trip), always some high level administrator would step into block my hiring; and that was the case all over this land. In any event, whatever I have done outside the university setting could have been done so much better within it, for more than reason, if only I could have stayed for a while. Right now I must spend my days devoted to the task of self-employment in a dwindling and outrageous health insurance market (on which a black people’s psychologist’s clients invariably depend for all practical purposes), especially given my history at universities, which follows and weighs in on me in many subtle and complex ways, so that I hardly have time to do anything else, even if I had somebody to stand on the left and the right of me.

So the struggle continues, and ironically it looks like something may be brewing out there, and predictably, and I just hope I’m still around to see it when the morning comes. But I’ll tell everybody inside and outside the university, like Joe Louis’s old trainer, Jack Blackburn, said to Joe Louis in the corner when he was losing to Billy Conn and would go out the next round and knock him out: “You got to knock him out to win, and I can’t keep coming back up these steps if you don’t take the man out.” What are you waiting on, Rodney… Marvin…et.al… ad infinitum, ibid., op cit…passim…etc…? Nathan Hare, A.B., M.A., 3/5ths MSJ, Ph.D., Ph.D.

From: Coates, Rodney D.

TO: Dr. Nathan Hare

Nate: We be’s talking on several fronts..and it is on several fronts that we continually must make it…there is never only one solution, style, or method of approach..but we must continually use all means necessary to effect our liberation……and yes…I have worked from within and also from without the university….we can ill afford to not make use of all of our resources…in fact the problem…as I see it is that we have declared our bases…and have failed to link these bases to an effective strategy to maximize our resources…revolution dictates that there are always infiltrators that work within the system…..while there are those within the community..and there are even those outside of the community…being held within institutions directly aimed to destroy them…(Mumia, et al)…the problem has always been that we only view the reality within those limited spheres..and not adequately see how to link past the boundaries of those spaces…thus …few have done what Cox… Du Bois or Clark or even Derrick Bell …have done within the academe..to use these resources to train, entertain, and maintain scholars both within and outside of the academe..few have done what Malcolm X…Nate and Julia…Marvin X..Lil Joe..and Marva Collins have done outside of the academe..to link those trapped in the walls of the ghetto..in the belly of the beast…to help the family survive…and few have done what Mumia…Stanley Tookie Williams.. and other institutionalized brothers and sisters that have shined the light, directed the path, and have demonstrated that manhood…true manhood is not dictated by ones fate, or ones hate, or ones place but one’s reality that they define, and mandate… ..we be what we be…we work from where we work..to make this a better place to be…real…

From an institutionalized brother…
The song that lies silent in the heart of a mother sings upon the lips of her child.. Kahlil Gibran
Rodney D. Coates Professor

Marvin X Reply to Dr. Hare

Doc, you are right, ain't no university cared two cents for me, sure didn't pay me two cents. Well, your great Howard University did allow me to speak for several days on the MOP--well, they did treat me to lunch in the faculty lounge--but like you say, maybe they did this because the walls are indeed tumbling down. Yes, I do need to think about that university concept. I was moved the other day when there were three of us poets (Charles Blackwell, Q.R. Hand and myself) standing at 14th and Broadway and Charles said what if each of us poets took a corner. I said, yes, we could bring about a change in concsciousness. Think what would happen if other scholars took to the street corners like Donald Warden, Richard Thorne, Mamadou Lumumba, and others did in the early 60s in Oakland and San Francisco's Fillmore--what a revolution happened! Not to mention what happened in Harlem on the corner of 125th and Seventh Aveneue, with Dr. Ben, Dr. Clarke, Malcolm X and others.

What are these black scholars waiting for--again, you said it, maybe for the university walls to fall down. Hell, in a minute the Wallls of Jerico may fall, give another earthquake or two. I love that blackout the precious students put on at the gates of UC Berkeley. Peace and long life,

Marvin

From: Nathan Hare
To: Marvin X
Hey, Dr.M, Plato Negro, since I don’t know that much about poetry you could be cursing me out here, but move to the top of the class for giving me serious thought. Or is fictive thought not serious? I’m afraid “fictive” is truly going to carry more weight now than “factive,” because they’ve turned “factive” into a pharmaceutical drug, which takes it off the streets. Speaking of which, why do you call your street academy the “University of Poetry?” You know neither one of us never got along with no university. And that’s a fact, or is it a fict? When is a fact not a fict, Professor? Both of them are four letter words. Besides, I suspect that Plato never got along with any university either, but settled for an “academy.” ( Li’l Joe could probably run down some real good history on the oppressive rise of the “university”). Anyway, I can see your University of Poetry Academy, the Poetry School of Poetry Schools sprouting up all over the hood (something like the Academy of the Arts University, the Art School of Arts Schools downtown and around San Francisco already) bypassing a whole lot of white tape and tricknocracy that is certain to confront any claim to a “university,” let alone a University Negro. And nobody wants a Negro University anymore (now called “Black” or “historically black”, i.e.,“HBCU”). Got to have a Spanish or a romance language ring, like “Plato Negro,” or “Africana.” Or maybe it should be the University of Poetries Academy, the Poetry School of Poetries Schools, which could include negroes and poetries beyond the white man’s grasp, and blacks and people of color, high tech coloreds, and Africans, or at least Africanas and all the afrocentrics and egocentrics and eccentrics; so as to get ahead of the white man’s fictive arts and tricknocracy, including his poetocracy, and avoid the “university” wall the Day of Action says just might be tumbling down. Soon there will be black days of action coming ‘round the mountain. So run and tell that. Nathan Hare http://www.blackthinktank.com/ 415-929-0204

Brown’s records are “under lock and key” at the University of Southern California

A task force was created in 2007 to investigate the disappearance or destruction of documents related to Brown’s time as mayor of Oakland.

In Oakland, a computer hard drive was found at City Hall and some inconsequential documents were located in a dumpster, but nothing much of substance was ever recovered.

The Return of Gov. Moonbeam

California is already well known as La la land, Wild Wild West, last frontier, end of the white man's world, after all, once on the west coast Asia awaits us, the non-white world. So Cali is indeed the last frontier, and strange things do indeed happen here, e.g., actors become governors, prisons are the universities of the poor, and now the prospect of a straight nut as governor awaits us. Jerry Brown, now Attorney General of California, has shed any semblance of liberal and some time ago, after becoming mayor of Oakland, embraced the right wing agenda of the police state. And now with himself as the chief law enforcer, wants to advance to the governorship, or more properly return to the governorship, or shall we say mothership!

While mayor of Oakland, he perfected his right wing agenda. He tricked liberals and radicals and won the mayor's race, then swiftly discarded the left wing persona for the devil's mask. The police occupation of Oakland increased, along with drug selling and homicides, throw in gentrification or ethnic cleansing. He told whites if they bought property in the old black neighborhood of West Oakland, they would be closer to San Francisco than San Francisco, since the last BART stop is West Oakland and within less than ten minutes one is in San Francisco's financial district.

Brown created the atmosphere so Chauncey Bailey, editor of the Oakland Post Newspaper, could be murdered downtown Oakland in broad daylight. As he departed the mayor's office for Sacramento, his email records were deleted, financial as well. One of his scams was the Fox Theatre and his school of the "white" arts.

To add insult to injury to the citizens of Oakland, Mayor Ron Dellums called upon Attorney General Jerry Brown to investigate the investigation of the assassination of Chauncey Bailey, when Jerry Brown himself should be investigated for his role in setting the atmosphere for the murder of Chauncey, just as Farrakhan admitted he fanned the flames for the murder of Malcolm X.

Jerry Brown allegedly said, "I'm going to get that nigger from snooping around City Hall and the police department." Chauncey was then a reporter for the Oakland Tribune, but was fired for a most trivial reason, but no doubt with the blessing of then Mayor Brown.

But in fact, the last story Chauncey worked on was corruption at City Hall and the Oakland Police Department's role in shaking down drug dealers, planting false evidence, money laundering and homicide under the color of law.

Actually, the entire political establishment is connected to the assassination of Chauncey, Brown, Don Perata, the now declared candidate for next mayor, and others. The OPD gave the alleged assassins a license to cause total mayhem in the community. Alas, an OPD officer was the chief advisor and mentor of the Black Muslim Bakery brothers, who are now fall guys for the OPD in the murder of Chauncey.

This same officer was put in charge of the crime scene and headed the raid on the Bakery in less the 24 hours after his murder. He claimed the case solved when he got a confession (since recanted) and the murder weapon. No other homicide in Oakland was "solved" so quickly. The officer was briefly taken off duty but returned just before the old chief of police retired so he wouldn't incriminate the chief. You know the drill, "I'll give you your job back if you don't rat on me."

Jerry Brown's hands are as bloody as the OPD in this matter. A woman at Burger King last night said Jerry Brown should be put under the jail for what he did as mayor of Oakland. And sadly, for Mayor Ron Dellums to ask JB to investigate the investigation of CB, when JB should himself be investigated, is the height of the ridiculous and approaches the theatre of the Absurd and theatre of the Deranged.

And now Governor Moonbeam wants to return to the governor's mansion, but this time as right wing Democrat. And the supreme tragedy is that he faces little opposition, even after pushing for the indictment of the San Francisco Eight for forty year old crimes, which most of them successfully defended themselves in spite of Moonbeam's indictment. By the way, we've heard nothing of the Attorney General's investigation of the CB assassination.

Since he faces no opposition from his party, we suspect his views are in harmony with the electorate, now brain dead from the economic meltdown.

Well, good-bye Terminator with your Crack-neck wife, and enter the Dragon, Dr. Moonbeam. Surely the Great Quake is soon to come. Watch the animals, when they head for the hills, let us join them and head for the hills before the tsunami consumes us and we drown.
--Marvin X

http://www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com/
2/6/10

Marvin X as Silent Warrior

marvin x a silent warrior

mavin x a silent warrior ?
you talkin bout mavrin x
a silent warrior!
he stands in front of rite aid drug store preaching and teaching youth
and all who will listen
almost everyday
everyone knows him coast to coast
he lectures all over
he's written several books
how then do you say he's a silent warrior
i saw his play one day in the life
my sister who goes to s.f state says he's always there
spreading and tellin it just like it is
the truth the whole truth and nothin but the truth
so help him god
what hasn't marvin done in pursuit of the truth
yea i said it
and i'll say it again
marvin x is a silent warrior
we don't hear him we can't even see him
yet he's right there in our face
teaching and preaching to our whole race
the human race
you are human aren't you
like so many other silent warriors
malcolm x marcus garvy angela davis, harriett tubman, martin l king jr ,bobby seal, elijah muhammad, ida b wells, ella collins
huey newton, bobby seale, angela davis, queen mother moore, mae mallory, betty shabazz and the list go on
we didn't hear them either just like marvin x
they were invisible
we didn't change we didn't pick up the torch and continue
we kill each other at the drop of a hat when we pass each other on the street
we wont even speak
we seem to have so much contempt for one another
the hate is written all over our face
that's why they are silent warriors
we refuse to see and we refuse to hear
therefore marvin x is a silent warrior
when will we see when will we hear
and more importantly when will we do for self
for one another as our warriors taught us?
--alfajiri
2/2/10

Black Out at UC Berkeley

News Updates:
UC Berkeley Students Protest UCSD Racist Acts
By Riya Bhattacharjee
Monday March 01, 2010

Contributed photo
Black students at UC Berkeley protest racist acts at UCSD Monday.

Contributed photo

UC Berkeley students during a silent protest Monday, after which they marched to the university's administrative offices at California Hall.UC Berkeley became the scene of yet another protest Monday when a group of students and supporters staged a “Blackout 2010” blockade of Sather Gate. The group—comprised mainly of black students on campus—wore black clothing, with black scarves around their mouth, to silently protest racist acts at UC San Diego, including an off-campus event mocking Black History Month.

The situation escalated when a noose was found hanging in UCSD’s Geisel Library two weeks later. An e-mail message from Blackout’s organizers said the Feb. 14 “Compton Cookout” themed party encouraged “female participants to be ‘ghetto chicks’ with gold teeth, cheap clothes and ‘short, nappy hair ...’ and ‘a limited vocabulary,’ while consuming ‘chicken and watermelon.’” It pointed out that state Bill AB 412 makes placing a noose on school property a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison and a fine of up to $5,000.

“It is deplorable that while our students, faculty and staff work to heal the campus, a few misguided individuals tried to divide it,” UC San Diego Chancellor Marye Anne Fox said in a statement Feb. 26. “We are feeling real pain, and we will take real action. The safety of our students, faculty, and staff is my primary concern.”

Fox said that an individual had come forward and admitted responsibility for the latest incident due to pressure from the UCSD community. “This underscores the fact that our university is banding together,” her statement said. “We will not tolerate hate on our campus, and all criminal acts will be punished.”

UC President Mark Yudof met with students in Sacramento today and pledged to focus on system-wide strategies to prevent further acts of intolerance. The Berkeley campus protesters stood or sat silently back-to-back, arms linked, blocking a major part of Sather Gate, the main entrance to campus, from 11: 30 a.m. to 2 p.m., after which they marched to California Hall, where Chancellor Robert Birgeneau and other administrators have their offices.

“We are brothers and sisters in a nonviolent, silent demonstration, standing in solidarity with the UCSD students who have been affected by blatant acts of ignorance and hatred,” a flyer from protest organizers said. UC Berkeley senior Lajuanda M. Asemota, who helped organize the “Blackout,” said the protest also wanted “to call attention to all the things happening on the Berkeley campus despite the administration’s promises about racial diversity.”

The protest, which remained non-violent, had about 200 students at its peak. Pedestrians were able to pass through the narrow side arches of Sather Gate, although a female protester was reportedly pushed by a student trying to squeeze through. In front of California Hall, the group read out a letter addressed to Birgeneau which expressed disappointment with a message he sent to the student body on Feb. 24.

In his letter, Birgeneau condemned the racist acts at UCSD and outlined the steps UC Berkeley has taken to promote equity and inclusion among faculty, staff and students “We are distressed by the recent event involving UC San Diego students that mocked the commemoration of Black History Month,” Birgeneau’s letter said. “We have zero tolerance for deliberate acts that discriminate or demean others based on race, gender, national original, sexual orientation, or any other personal characteristic, and know that all UC campuses share that view.”

Birgeneau said that a team comprising of students and staff was working with the Vice Chancellor to organize a Climate Forum later this semester. “They expressed their outrage regarding the UCSD event and are working to discourage and prevent such incidents at Berkeley,” his letter said. “An excellent step in this direction was the early response by the CalGreeks community deploring and distancing themselves from the actions at UCSD.”

The letter to Birgeneau from the Berkeley protesters said that his message “failed to explicitly address the ‘deliberate acts that discriminate[d] and demean[ed] others based on race...” at UCSD.” “We are disgusted that the administration is merely ‘distressed’” by the offenses,” the students’ letter said. The letter went on to outline what they said were racist incidents on the UCB campus, including:

• “A hate crime committed by the men’s crew team in which members encircled, assaulted, and poured beer on a black female student while calling her “n***er” repeatedly. UCPD was called, and did nothing.”

• “An incident in science class in which the professor turned out the lights for a classroom presentation and a student yelled, “Where did all the black people go?” The professor made no rebuke.”

• “An on-campus PETA demonstration comparing enslaved Africans, lynched Black Americans, and Tuskegee experiment subjects to chickens, pigs, and cows. Canines were brought to a peaceful protest to “calm” the situation.”

• “A hate crime in which the African-American Theme House Co-Op was vandalized with swastikas.”

• “An article in the [campus student newspaper] Daily Cal which stated that Blacks are seven times more likely to kill than whites” “Though these incidents seem isolated, they are in fact symptomatic of a deeper issue that plagues the University of California as a whole—a continued marginalization of the Black student body,” the letter said.

The letter criticized the low population of black students on campus—3.49 percent of 35,843 students—since the passage of Proposition 209 and the failure of the UC administration to recruit and retain Black students or appoint Black faculty members. Signed “3.49 percent,” the letter concluded by saying that the protesters hoped that the “few hours of discomfort” they had caused would “be indicative of the anguish experienced daily by Black UC students.”

“The UC Berkeley Black community stands here silent,” the letter said. “Silent because we fear for the future. Silent because the past is prologue. Silent because there is nothing left to say. Our silence, then, is your opportunity to act.” Asemota said UC Berkeley Executive Vice Chancellor George Breslauer and Vice Chancellor Harry Le Grande came out to talk with the group after they finished reading out the letter. “Breslauer said he was really sorry about the things outlined in the letter and that stuff like that continued to happen on campus,” she said. “He said that the campus administration would come forward with a resolution.” http://www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com/

Open Letter to Obama on Black Music

OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA(THE-RE-MIX)

“What About We People Who Are Darker Than Blue?”

By Norman (Otis) Richmond

As this is being written President Barack Hussein Obama is yet toissue a proclamation for Black Music Month which is in its 30th yearof observance. Toronto’s Mayor David Miller however, issued aproclamation for Black Music Month on May 11th, 2009.
President Obama did issue of a statement in support of what he isreferring to as African American Appreciation Month on June 2nd.President Obama has taken in one felt swoop an international music andnationalized it. African American music is international music.Recall, it was The Black Music Association created be Kenny Gamble, EdWright and others that brought together Stevie Wonder & Bob Marley inthe Wailers in concert to demonstrate this fact.
Sir Duke Ellington pointed out nearly a century ago that we as apeople must call our music “Negro’ (Black) music so others could notclaim it.
Black music is one of the many gifts that Africa and Africans havegiven to the world.
President Obama gave a brilliant speech at El – Azhar University inCairo, The 44th president has proven that he is one of the mostintelligent if not the most intelligent head of state in the historyof the USA.
The president’s speech was like a vintage Earth, Wind & Fireperformance. However, it was just that -- a performance. MumiaAbu-Jamal pointed out “But in truth Obama had them at “Salaam-Alaikum”the universal Muslim greeting meaning “Peace beyond to you. Peace it’ssad to say is hardly a reality when ones own government is at war withits own people.”
While the president was touring the Middle East he failed to recognizethe 30th anniversary of Black Music Month. More than one person hasraised the issue that, “Maybe he didn’t know?” I find thisunbelievable. He recently hosted Stevie Wonder, Earth Wind & Fire andSweet Honey in the Rock at the White House. He even invited Odetta tosing at his Inauguration; however, she joined the ancestors before thehistorical event.
How can a man who spent most of his adult life in Chicago claim to be“deaf, dumb & blind” of Black Music Month? Chicago is the home ofMahalia Jackson, Martin Luther King’s musical lieutenant, CurtisMayfield, Jerry Butler Mavis and Pop Staples, Ernest Dawkins, R.Kelly,Common & Kanye West.
The June issue of Ebony Magazine, which I brought in the middle ofMay, is dedicated to Black Music Month. This issue has Jade PinkettSmith on the cover and features a photo of President Obama, and thefirst lady Michelle Obama with Queen Elizabeth II at BuckinghamPalace.
After being called out by The Caribbean World News Network, PresidentObama did rightly proclaimed June National Caribbean American HeritageMonth. President Obama issued this statement on June 2nd.
According to the June 6th issue of the New York Times he signed aproclamation establishing the Ronald Reagan Centennial Commission. Thecommission is supposed to organize activities to mark the 100thanniversary, in 20011, of President Reagan’s birth. What about wepeople who are darker than blue – President Obama?
If a Ronald Regan Centennial Commission is in order what about a BlackMusic Month Commission with people like Randy Weston, Dee DeeBridgewater, Cassandra Smith, Amiri Baraka and Queen Latifah? RaynardJackson of Philadelphia has opined, “It’s a no brainer to do a townhall meeting with singers, producers, and songwriters during BlackMusic Month.
The music of African people has been an international force since theFisk Jubilee Singers, gospel group from Nashville, Tennessee conqueredEurope in 1873. Since that period jazz, calypso, reggae r'n'b, hip-hopand African beats have come to be the most popular and influential artforms in the world. Bob Marley, Louis Armstrong and Miriam Makeba areknown all over this the small planet we call earth.
The great saxophonist Archie Shepp once said, “What Malcolm X saidJohn Coltrane played”. This was the expression of Africans in NorthAmerican. The same thing occurred in the Caribbean and in Africa.
In the Caribbean Walter Rodney (Guyana) and Bob Marley (Jamaica) werethe concrete expressions of this phenomenon in the 1970s and early1980s. On the mother continent Thomas Sankara (Burkina Faso) and FelaAnikulapo Kuti (Nigeria) are examples of music and politicscomplimenting one another in the 1990s.
Despite its influence on the planet it was only 30 years ago that theBlack Music Association (BMA) persuaded the U.S. government torecognize Black Music Month. In June 1979, around the time theSugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" was being released; Kenny Gambleled a delegation to the White House to discuss with President JimmyCarter the state of Black music.
At the meeting, Carter asked trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and drummer MaxRoach if they would perform "Salt Peanuts", to which Gillespie repliedthat he'd only do so if the President (who made a fortune as a peanutfarmer) provided the vocals.
Since that great and dreadful day when Carter butchered the song, Junehas been designated Black Music Month.
It must be mentioned that in 1979 the world was witnessing arevolutionary breeze as Maurice Bishop and the New Jewel Movementseized state power in Grenada, Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas sweptthe counter revolutionary forces out of power in Nicaragua like abroom and the Shah of Iran was dethroned after being installed inpower by the CIA in 1953.
The soundtrack to all of this was (Gene) McFadden and JohnWhitehead’s, “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now” which was released in 1979.Recall, “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now” was played at the 2008 DemocraticNational Convention on the night Illinois Senator Barack Obamaaccepted the Democratic Party nomination for President of the UnitedStates.
Since 1984, thanks to the efforts of the BMA/TC, Toronto Mayors JuneRowlands, Barbara Hall and Mel Lastman, respectively, has recognizedJune as Black Music Month. On the 25th anniversary of Black MusicMonth, Mayor David Miller presented the proclamation at City Hall. Thelate Milton Blake, Jay Douglas, Michie Mee, Norman (Otis) Richmond(Jalali) and others participated in this event.
When broadcaster and community activist the late Milton Blake andNorman (Otis) Richmond created the Black Music Association's TorontoChapter in 1984, it was our intention to plug African-Canadian musicmakers into the international music market.
At that moment the only African Canadian that was internationallyknown was Oscar Peterson. Since that time Eric Mercury, HarrisonKennedy (as a member of the Chairmen of the Board), Deborah Cox,Devine Brown, Glenn Lewis and Kardinal Offishall have conquered theworld--musically.
By not recognizing Black Music Month in 2009 you have taken a stepbackward Mr. President. As our Comrade /Leader Maurice Bishop told us30 years ago, "Forward Ever. Backwards Never”.
One of the greatest Africans to ever grace the planet Ghana’s KwameNkrumah said the same thing 20 years before Comrade Bishop.