Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Dr. Yacoub's America
Dr. Yacoub's America
In the populist black studies of Elijah Muhammad, we are taught a big-head scientist genetically engineered the white man by separating the dominant and recessive genes from the aboriginal Asiatic black man. Yacoub's bio tech lab was not much different from the bio-tech labs operating in Berkeley and Emeryville, a few blocks from my house. We have no doubt they have cloned a man in these labs, but are simply delaying the announcement.
According to Elijah's Myth of Yacoub, the young scientist found the magnetic attraction between two pieces of steel. We maintain America is the land of Yacoub's children who love playing with steel. America spends a trillion dollars making weapons of steel, making her the number one arms merchant of the world. Children in the hood are addicted to steel as well, whether guns to mainly kill each other or cars they turn into weapons of destruction, using cars in "side shows" where people are needlessly injured or killed. The children will stand in the street or walk directly into a two thousand pound piece of steel and plastic, fearing nothing. If you stop before hitting them, they will curse you and/or pull out a piece of steel to shoot you. They use steel to resolve all disputes, sometimes before a discussion or conflict resolution.
Yocoub utilized three workers on his bio-tech project: the doctor, nurse and undertaker. These workers conspired to create the man of steel or devil. They practiced a form of selective breeding, allowing the black to mate with a brown and a brown with a lighter person until the white devil was created after hundreds of years, 600 to be exact. Two blacks were not allowed to mate in this experiment. Even today, there are some blacks who demand their children not marry another black skinned person, only someone lighter. This is no doubt residue from the Yacoubian psychopathology. If two blacks produced a baby, the doctor, nurse and undertaker would conspire to murder the baby to keep the experiment on track.
In modern America, we must note the three workers, doctor, nurse and undertaker, are aided and abetted by workers from the petrochemical and pharmaceutical industry, who are determined to fulfill their wish, "let us make a man." The petrochemical workers produce the food in oil, not earth. As much as possible the crops are genetically engineered. If not, they are created by a healthy dose of insecticides, pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers and dyes.
Naturally, the oil based rather than soil based food leads Yacoub's children directly from the fruit of petrochemical workers into the hands of pharmaceutical workers in league with the doctor, nurse and undertaker. The prescription drug dealers connect with insurance companies to guide the patient into the hands of the doctor, nurse and undertaker.
When poor Michael Jackson was found dead at the hands of his doctor, we knew the Myth of Yacoub was alive and well. Michael was so addicted to the Myth of Yacoub that he exceeded the limit of propriety in attempting to alter his blackness in favor of the Yacoubian ideal of whiteness. But note his doctor administered the hemlock that took him into oblivion.
There is almost no way to avoid the scheme or conspiracy of the Yacoubian team of workers, the petrochemical, pharmaceutical, medical and funeral agents.
When a man entered prison, the inmates warned him, "Don't get sick. Whatever you do, don't get sick up in here. There's a prison graveyard full of nigguhs who got sick." And so it is the same in America, don't get sick. Yacoub's team of workers are eagerly awaiting you, sharpening their knives until you get to the doctor and nurse, and finally the undertaker.
The only solution is to avoid stress, for dis-ease is brought about from stress, thus the food (petrochemical) is useless and dangerous; the medicine (pharmaceutical) is useless and dangerous as it is not designed to heal only prolong the illness unto death. Part of the last rites administered to the victim of Yacoub is that ride in a steel hearse.
--Marvin X
11/21/10
Monday, November 22, 2010
Brazil Celebrates Black Consciousness Day
Brazil commemorates Black Consciousness Day recalling fugitive slaves’ leader
Hundreds of cities, towns and villages throughout Brazil commemorated Saturday Black Consciousness Day with different festivities and cultural activities. Brazil is considered the second Black Country in the world behind Nigeria, with 75.8 million African-Brazilians and is still exposed to the consequences of racial discrimination.
A hundred twenty two years after the abolition of slavery in 1888, Brazil recalls and honours on November 20th “Zumbi dos Palmares”, the last chief of a republic of fugitive slaves.
Killed on November 20, 1695 by the big landowners of the time he has become a symbol of resistance against slavery and has only lately been recalled as such.
According to Brazil’s statistics office, IBGE, of the 10% poorest and indigent Brazilians, 74% are black or coloured.
Afro-Brazilian organizations admit that some progress has been achieved by Afro-Brazilians in publicity or in less-demeaning roles in the country’s famous soap-opera industry. Similarly the colour of skin is less linked to household cleaning and maintenance services.
In Rio do Janeiro Black Consciousness Day inspired three plays in local theatres, with one of them particularly touching. ”The whip revolt” occurred a century ago, 22 November 1910 when a black officer from the Brazilian navy, Joao Candido, the son of former slaves and crew members of the cruiser “Minas Gerais” mutinied in the bay of Rio do Janeiro.
Candido and the 1.173 men on board threatened to bombard the city with the powerful guns and cannons of the cruiser unless the long established practice of corporal punishment and whip lashing were not abolished by the navy.
It was all triggered when a crewmember was sentenced to a punishment considered exaggerated: instead of the customary 25 whip lashes he was to receive 250 lashes.
United States also adhered to the celebration with a message from the State Department.
“The United States Government and the American people congratulate the people of Brazil as they recognize Black Consciousness Day, also known as Zumbi dos Palmares Day, on November 20. The life of Quilombo leader Zumbi and his unrelenting struggle against slavery stands as an enduring symbol of freedom and justice.
“Today, both Brazil and the United States recognize the important contributions of Afro-descendants in our societies and the imperative of combating discrimination, which has negatively impacted both of our countries. Just last month, our governments, in partnership with civil society and our private sectors, met for the third time in Salvador da Bahia under the historic U.S. – Brazil Joint Action Plan to Eliminate Racial and Ethnic Discrimination and Promote Equality. Together we are celebrating the diversity of our heritage and developing and sharing best practices to ensure equal opportunity for Afro-descendants and indeed all citizens of our nations.
“On this significant day, we congratulate the people of Brazil and look forward to a long and fruitful partnership as, together, we provide leadership and examples of democracy, diversity, and social justice to our Hemisphere and to the world”.
Elijah Muhammad's Great Grandson heads Schomburg
We know the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and Clara Muhammad are smiling to know their great grandson Dr. Khalil Gibran Muhammad will head the world's greatest collection of black history that is housed at the Schomburg Library in Harlem. We think Malcolm and Betty Shabazz are smiling as well.--Marvin X
Meet the new director of Schomburg
http://www.nypl.org/audiovideo/meet-next-director-schomburg-center-drkhalil-gibran-muhammad?sms_ss=email&at_xt=4ceabfb290a32b30,0#comment-3131
Dr. Khalil Gibran Muhammad to head the Schomburg Center
By Herb Boyd
Special to the Amsterdam News
Dr. Khalil Gibran Muhammad, a scholar of African-American history from Indiana University, has been named the new director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.There were more than 200 nominees or scholars seeking the position since the announcement that Dr. Howard Dodson, Jr. would retire from the position next year. Dr. Muhammad, who is the son of the noted New York Times photographer Ozier Muhammad and the great-grandson of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, assumes the position next July.
“I am extremely excited to be selected to fill this prestigious position,” Dr. Muhammad said in an interview Wednesday afternoon at the Abyssinian Baptist Church. “It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity and I hope I can fulfill the legacy left by Dr. Dodson.”
Over the last several months the Schomburg Center has been mired in rumors that the center was imperiled and ever more so upon the notice that Dr. Dodson would no longer be at the helm. Furthermore, there was an outcry from the community with the demand that Dr. Molefi Asante of Temple University be appointed the new director.
“Yes, I am well aware of all the controversy and the first thing I want to do is to secure the trust of the community and the staff here at this historic institution,” Dr. Muhammad said. “This position affords me a national platform to contribute to conversations and even policy debates on issues pertaining to the arts and culture.”
A native of Chicago, Dr. Muhammad served as assistant professor of history at Indiana University for five years, where he completed a major scholarly work The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America (Harvard University Press, 2010).
According to Dr. David Levering Lewis, who nominated Dr. Muhammad for the position, the new director’s book “renders an incalculable service to civil rights scholarship by disrupting one of the nation’s most insidious, convenient, and resilient explanatory loops: whites commit crimes, but black males are criminals.”
“I am currently working a book that will deal with the history of racial politics surrounding the creation and swift dissolution of Prohibition-era ‘tough-on-crime’ laws, specifically New York’s four-strikes law of 1926,” he said.
When asked about some of his immediate plans, Dr. Muhammad said he would devote time and attention to some of the programs already underway at the Schomburg and initiated by Dr. Dodson. “I certainly will continue his thrust into digital technologies, particularly as we reach out to the younger members of our community.”
At 38, Dr. Muhammad, who grew up on the Southside of Chicago, is vitally in touch with the mood, attitude and aspirations of many in the Black and Latino community. A 1993 graduate of University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. in economics, he received his Ph.D. in American history from Rutgers University in 2004, specializing in 20th century U.S. and African American history.
“I know that his career at the Schomburg Center will be one of excellence and innovation,” said Dr. Paul LeClerc, president of the NYPL.
Dr. Muhammad, who is married with three children, said that he will be convening a town hall meeting to get to know the community and for the community to get to know him.
“There has never been a more exciting time in the history of the Schomburg Center,” said search committee member Aysha Schomburg, great-granddaughter of Arturo Schomburg, the center’s founder. “Without any doubt, Khalil has the skills and the passion to build on the legacy. This is a great day for New York and especially for Harlem. We welcome him.”
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Poet/Playwright Returns Home to West Oakland, Performs at Black Dot Cafe
Poet/Playwright Returns Home to West OaklandPerforms at Black Dot Cafe
On Saturday, November 20, Marvin X. Jackmon, poet/playwright/essayist/producer/organizer/teacher, returned to his childhood neighborhood in West Oakland where he attended Prescott elementary and Lowell junior high school.
On Saturday afternoon he had a conversation with actors in the Lower Bottom Playaz who have been performing his first play Flowers for the Trashman, 1965, San Francisco State University Drama Department production while he was an undergrad.
He told the young actors he was flunking an English literature class taught by legendary Medievalist professor/author John Gardner. Gardner asked him what he wanted to do pass the class. The poet said write. The professor said write what. Write a play. Gardner said write it! Flowers for the Trashman was the product. The play became a classic of the Black Arts Movement and established Marvin X as one of founders of the most radical movement in American literature. BAM forced America to include ethnic and gender literature in the academic curriculum. See the Black Arts Movement by James Smithurst, University of North Carolina Press.
The poet described his childhood in West Oakland, Harlem of the West. While I was growing up, West Oakland was the Harlem of the West. I grew up on 7th and Campbell, in my parents florist shop. West Oakland was booming with a vital economic and cultural community on 7th Street, with shops, restaurants, cafes, clubs, associations. It was the end of the railroad line, home of the first black union, the Pullman Porters, led by C. L. Dellums, uncle of Oakland's Mayor Ronald Dellums.
My mother and father were Race people, the name accorded to those who had racial consciousness in the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s. They were activists in many social organizations, especially the NAACP. Before the family moved to Oakland, his parents edited the Fresno Voice, the first black newspaper in the Central Valley. His maternal great grandfather, E. Murrill, was mentioned in 1943 edition of the Fresno Bee Newspaper. He was so well known the newspaper noted that whites and blacks attended his funeral. His maternal relatives were pioneers to the West coast.
After the war, his parents left Fresno and came to Oakland. There my parents opened a florist shop while my mother worked at the Navy Supply Center as a clerk. The Army base at the end of 7th Street employed many blacks who migrated to the Bay Area during WWII. Seventh Street was bumper to bumper cars, especially on the weekends. The street was crowded with people enjoying Negro life and culture. See Marvin's autobiography Somethin' Proper, Black Bird Press, 1998.
The poet told of his introduction to drama at New Century Recreation Center on 5th Street at McFeely School where he attended elementary school. He recalled a dance teacher at New Century was Ruth Beckford, queen of African choreography in the Bay Area. She was one of the most beautiful women of my childhood with her short natural hair, African body and black velvet skin. I adored her whenever I could catch a glance of her. So fine, so fine.
While doing a play at children's play at Mosswood Park, the poet said he was in the sandbox when a little white girl called him a nigger for the first time and told him to get out of the sandbox. In those days, we didn't go to Mosswood Park often and definitely did go to Lake Merritt, only on holidays such as the 4th of July. A nigguh would get his ass kicked by white boys if caught at Lake Merritt.
Pine Street, where the Black Dot Cafe is located, was the ho stroll, from 7th to 16th by the Southern Pacific train station. There was a hotel near the train station where you could rent a room for a few minutes. Although the area where Black Dot is located is gentrified, someone in the audience informed the poet the hotel is still there.
As a child, the poet used to play up and down the streets in the vicinity of Black Dot Cafe, and later he used to sell black newspapers and magazines in the area, including Jet, Ebony, Chicago Defender, Pittsburgh Currier, Detroit Black Dispatch, et al. As a child, he also wrote in the Children's Section of the Oakland Tribune.
As per the play, the setting is a jail cell with the lead character the poet as a young college student with his ghetto friend. They had an encounter with the police coming from a dance and end up in jail for failing the tone test with the police. In jail, the story evolves into a narrative of the father/son relationship, although most critics focus on the rage expressed by Joe, the militant college student who goes off on the white man in the cell. This rage made it a classic of the Black Arts Movement nationwide and worldwide. The play was produced in Europe as well. It appeared in Black Dialogue Magazine and the 60s classic anthology Black Fire, edited by Larry Neal and Amiri Baraka.
In conversation with the actors, they told the poet how the play affected them as fatherless young men, suffering the estrangement and abandonment by their fathers. For them, the play was/is a play within a play, thus giving a level of consciousness as they performed the ritual and were transformed by it. The poet told them this is the purpose of drama, to transform.
He said on one level, the drama reveals his failure as a father since when it was written he had fathered two sons by the age of twenty-one. The play ends with his lines "I want to talk with my sons. I want to talk with my sons." The poet noted that he had been able to talk with one of his two sons, but not with the other who is now almost 50 years old. This son still has feelings of abandonment and neglect. The poet told the young men and women we must break the cycle of such trauma. Otherwise it shall go on forever. Such is the purpose of Flowers for the Trashman, a man-hood training ritual drama to transform lives.
He spoke on the function of ritual drama to transform. This play Flowers for the Trashman is a manhood training ritual so that young men are changed by witnessing it. They will get over some of their hatred and trauma with fathers, for soon they shall be fathers and how shall they behave? Shall their sons hate them, shall they hate their sons, when shall it end?
Truth is, we were not brought over here to have healthy relationships, father/son, mother/daughter. We were brought here for our labor, to be slaves and later wage slaves, coming down to the present. In a 1968 interview with the poet, James Baldwin told him, "For a black father to raise a black son is a miracle. And I applaud the men who are able to do this. It's a wonder we all haven't gone stark raving mad!"
--Marvin X
11/20/10
On Saturday afternoon he had a conversation with actors in the Lower Bottom Playaz who have been performing his first play Flowers for the Trashman, 1965, San Francisco State University Drama Department production while he was an undergrad.
He told the young actors he was flunking an English literature class taught by legendary Medievalist professor/author John Gardner. Gardner asked him what he wanted to do pass the class. The poet said write. The professor said write what. Write a play. Gardner said write it! Flowers for the Trashman was the product. The play became a classic of the Black Arts Movement and established Marvin X as one of founders of the most radical movement in American literature. BAM forced America to include ethnic and gender literature in the academic curriculum. See the Black Arts Movement by James Smithurst, University of North Carolina Press.
The poet described his childhood in West Oakland, Harlem of the West. While I was growing up, West Oakland was the Harlem of the West. I grew up on 7th and Campbell, in my parents florist shop. West Oakland was booming with a vital economic and cultural community on 7th Street, with shops, restaurants, cafes, clubs, associations. It was the end of the railroad line, home of the first black union, the Pullman Porters, led by C. L. Dellums, uncle of Oakland's Mayor Ronald Dellums.
My mother and father were Race people, the name accorded to those who had racial consciousness in the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s. They were activists in many social organizations, especially the NAACP. Before the family moved to Oakland, his parents edited the Fresno Voice, the first black newspaper in the Central Valley. His maternal great grandfather, E. Murrill, was mentioned in 1943 edition of the Fresno Bee Newspaper. He was so well known the newspaper noted that whites and blacks attended his funeral. His maternal relatives were pioneers to the West coast.
After the war, his parents left Fresno and came to Oakland. There my parents opened a florist shop while my mother worked at the Navy Supply Center as a clerk. The Army base at the end of 7th Street employed many blacks who migrated to the Bay Area during WWII. Seventh Street was bumper to bumper cars, especially on the weekends. The street was crowded with people enjoying Negro life and culture. See Marvin's autobiography Somethin' Proper, Black Bird Press, 1998.
The poet told of his introduction to drama at New Century Recreation Center on 5th Street at McFeely School where he attended elementary school. He recalled a dance teacher at New Century was Ruth Beckford, queen of African choreography in the Bay Area. She was one of the most beautiful women of my childhood with her short natural hair, African body and black velvet skin. I adored her whenever I could catch a glance of her. So fine, so fine.
While doing a play at children's play at Mosswood Park, the poet said he was in the sandbox when a little white girl called him a nigger for the first time and told him to get out of the sandbox. In those days, we didn't go to Mosswood Park often and definitely did go to Lake Merritt, only on holidays such as the 4th of July. A nigguh would get his ass kicked by white boys if caught at Lake Merritt.
Pine Street, where the Black Dot Cafe is located, was the ho stroll, from 7th to 16th by the Southern Pacific train station. There was a hotel near the train station where you could rent a room for a few minutes. Although the area where Black Dot is located is gentrified, someone in the audience informed the poet the hotel is still there.
As a child, the poet used to play up and down the streets in the vicinity of Black Dot Cafe, and later he used to sell black newspapers and magazines in the area, including Jet, Ebony, Chicago Defender, Pittsburgh Currier, Detroit Black Dispatch, et al. As a child, he also wrote in the Children's Section of the Oakland Tribune.
As per the play, the setting is a jail cell with the lead character the poet as a young college student with his ghetto friend. They had an encounter with the police coming from a dance and end up in jail for failing the tone test with the police. In jail, the story evolves into a narrative of the father/son relationship, although most critics focus on the rage expressed by Joe, the militant college student who goes off on the white man in the cell. This rage made it a classic of the Black Arts Movement nationwide and worldwide. The play was produced in Europe as well. It appeared in Black Dialogue Magazine and the 60s classic anthology Black Fire, edited by Larry Neal and Amiri Baraka.
In conversation with the actors, they told the poet how the play affected them as fatherless young men, suffering the estrangement and abandonment by their fathers. For them, the play was/is a play within a play, thus giving a level of consciousness as they performed the ritual and were transformed by it. The poet told them this is the purpose of drama, to transform.
He said on one level, the drama reveals his failure as a father since when it was written he had fathered two sons by the age of twenty-one. The play ends with his lines "I want to talk with my sons. I want to talk with my sons." The poet noted that he had been able to talk with one of his two sons, but not with the other who is now almost 50 years old. This son still has feelings of abandonment and neglect. The poet told the young men and women we must break the cycle of such trauma. Otherwise it shall go on forever. Such is the purpose of Flowers for the Trashman, a man-hood training ritual drama to transform lives.
He spoke on the function of ritual drama to transform. This play Flowers for the Trashman is a manhood training ritual so that young men are changed by witnessing it. They will get over some of their hatred and trauma with fathers, for soon they shall be fathers and how shall they behave? Shall their sons hate them, shall they hate their sons, when shall it end?
Truth is, we were not brought over here to have healthy relationships, father/son, mother/daughter. We were brought here for our labor, to be slaves and later wage slaves, coming down to the present. In a 1968 interview with the poet, James Baldwin told him, "For a black father to raise a black son is a miracle. And I applaud the men who are able to do this. It's a wonder we all haven't gone stark raving mad!"
--Marvin X
11/20/10
Friday, November 19, 2010
Introduction
Introduction to Poets
We are supremely honored to have the privilege to assemble this collection of poets from throughout Pan Africa and the Afro-Asian-Indigenous world. We are simply elated to present a variety of poetic expressions from North American Africans of every region. We think the reader shall find what Diop called the Cultural Unity of Africa, a kind of basic mythological order in the deep structure of the poems, expressing the eternal unity of a people, no matter their post traumatic slavery stress syndrome. We see the ancestors, the gods, the living and yet unborn are represented widely by poets from Africa, the Caribbean or America, suggesting the long held notion that African survivals are alive and well, not only in the mythology but psycholinguistics as well.
Concerns include the necessity of calling upon the ancestors and gods, the election of Obama, the continued contradictions of the democratic society in America and the emerging democracies in Africa. Ancestor Emmitt Till is called upon by several poets, including Al Young, Opal Palmer Adisa and others. Shaggy Flores mentioned Till and other tragic heroes of our liberation struggle.
Marvin X and Kalamu Ya Salaam mention the sheroe Dessie X. Woods or Rashidah Muhammad, the valiant woman who killed her rapist in the south, emancipated from prison, she went north and lived an activist life until her transition. The people of Oakland honored her with a street naming.
In dedicating this issue to the Journal of Black Poetry, we were conscious of Dingane's effort to make poetry a tool of communication for liberation. The general theme is Pan Africanism, but we wanted to continue his concept letting a hundred flowers blossom , let a hundred schools of thought contend, in the words of Mao. The reader will see this in the poetry and in the dialogue on the poetic mission, including Haki Madhubuti's statement.
We think the poets represent an inter-generational collection, although we invited hip hop poets and spoken word artists to represent themselves. We certainly didn't want this issue to be a collection of senior citizen poetry. For sure, we think we have gathered together some of the very best writers in America and Pan Africa. The USA regional representation should be balanced enough to see regional and national concerns and rhythms.
We thank Itibari M. Zulu, Senior Editor of the Journal of Pan African Studies for allowing us to edit this issue. It is indeed a labor of love. We also thank all the poets who answered our call. Those who were rejected or who sent poems that may have gotten lost in traffic, please accept our apology but keep on keepin on.
Let us close with acknowledgment of persons who recruited poets for this issue, especially Louis Reyes Rivera, Bruce George, Gwendolyn Mitchell, Eugene Redmond, Muhammida El Muhajir and Tony Medina. Salaam to my associate guest editors, Ramal Lamar and Ptah Allah El. They gave me an oral reading of the material, helped make selections and helped keep me focused on Pan Africanism as the general theme, since they are the next generation of Pan African scholars and poets. Let us not fail to acknowledge the contribution of Rudolph Lewis of Chickenbones.com. His compilation of material we used on the Journal of Black Poetry, and other critical magazines of the period and Dingane's role as publisher/editor was priceless for the historical narrative. Thank you, Rudy.
--Marvin X
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
