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Final Call from the Afro Horn of Francisco Mora Cattlett

Cover art by David Mora Catlett

In Francisco Mora Catlett's Afro Horn, we have rhythms from Pan Africa, i.e., Africa, Cuba, Mexico and the USA or North American Africans. This Diasporic music is, I think, a synchronization  of Francisco's cultural and musical heritage and artistic inclination. He spent years as a Sun Ra drummer, and we most certainly hear Sun Ra's sound in Afro Horn. The Cuban Yoruba tradition is loud and clear, as well as the Afro-Latin tradition. This is Pan African consciousness music at its greatest!

Cover art by David Mora

It is as well above all traditions except the infinite, the long going story of humanity rising from the depths of despair to celebration and relief.

Many moments in this album remind us of Hancock's Maiden Voyage, just traveling along the space ways, as Sun Ra would put it. It is a journey to somewhere, we know not where and we don't care, we only want the ride to some place better than this, that mystical place Afro Horn begs us to go, inspired by the metaphysical Henry Dumas.

And there is are moments with horn and drum. Moments of Coltrane and the best of his tradition, it is all captured here and transformed into the sound of the Afro Horn.













Art by Elizabeth Cattlett Mora
celebrating the Black Panther Party

For My Brothers: Mythology of P**** and D*** by Marvin X

Sunday, 7-7-13, I met Brother Marvin X Jackmon, a well known brother in the black arts and power movement. We had a very interesting conversation about the state of the movement and the value of the written works of our political and revolutionary thinkers. Those archives are extremely valuable and too often we are tossing them into trash cans. Or at the least, we don't understand the value of them.
Check him out here: http://blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.co...
http://aalbc.com/authors/marvinx.htm

Marvin X at Hunters Point Wellness Boot Camp

Wellness coach Alfredo Ennis, Poet/essayist/philosopher Marvin X, aka Plato Negro,  and his assistant, Quita Kirk, after workout at San Francisco's YMCA Wellness Boot Camp in Hunters Point. Marvin will participate in the Black Men's Wellness Day at the Hunters Point YMCA, July 25. Marvin will address Black Men and Black Rage.

photo Michael Bennett, Wellness Program Director, BVHP YMCA

Black Star Film Festival presents: Hip Hop: The New World Order by Muhammida El Muhajir

August 3, 2013
4:30pm EST
Drexel University
Philadelphia

Originally shot over 10 years ago, and considered the first film to document hip hop globally, the project has mushroomed into a rare archive and video survey of pioneering artists and communities around the world during the turn of the 21st century including Questlove (The Roots), dead prez, Method Man, Roots Manuva (UK), DJ Muro (Japan), Oxmo Puccino (France) and Marcelo D2 (Brazil) who have since emerged as global cultural icons.

After being screened over the years as a work in progress, Hip Hop: The New World Order is finally being released and will premiere at the BlackStar Film Festival before launching an international promotional tour.

We are all Trayvon--The Whole Damn System is Guilty!

"Americans are afraid there will be riots, like there were after the King verdict in 1992. But we should not fear riots. We should fear a society that puts people on trial the day they are born," writes Sarah Kendzior [Reuters]

When I was a child I watched policemen beat a man nearly to death, and I watched my country acquit them. I was shocked that police would attack a man instead of defending him. I was shocked that someone would record the attack on video and that this video would mean nothing. I was shocked that people could watch things and not really see them. I was shocked because I was a child. I was shocked because I am white. Twenty-one years after the Rodney King verdict, Americans have proven again that in a court of law, perception matters more than proof. Perception is rooted in power, a power bestowed upon birth, reified through experience, and verified through discrimination masked as fairness and fact. Trayvon Martin is dead and the man who killed him walks free. Americans are afraid there will be riots, like there were after the King verdict in 1992. But we should not fear riots. We should fear a society that puts people on trial the day they are born. And after they die. Recession-fueled racism The Trayvon Martin trial was not supposed to happen. This is true in two respects. The Trayvon Martin trial only took place because public outrage prompted Florida police to arrest George Zimmerman, the man who killed him, over a month after Martin's death. The Trayvon Martin trial took place because that same public went on to try Martin in his own murder, assessing his morality like it precluded his right to live. It was never a trial of George Zimmerman. It was always a trial of Trayvon Martin, always a character assassination of the dead. Over the past few decades, the US has turned into a country where the circumstances into which you are born increasingly determine who you can become. Social mobility has stalled as wages stagnate and the cost of living soars. Exponential increases in university tuition haveerased the possibility of education as a path out of poverty. These are not revelations - these are hard limitations faced by most Americans. But when confronted with systematic social and economic discrimination, even on a massive scale, the individual is often blamed. The poor, the unemployed, the lacking are vilified for the things they lack. One might assume that rising privation would increase public empathy toward minorities long denied a semblance of a fair shot. But instead, overt racism and racial barriers in America have increased since the recession. Denied by the Supreme Court, invalidated in the eyes of many by the election of a black president, racism erases the individual until the individual is dead, where he is then recast as the enemy. Trayvon Martin was vilified for being "Trayvon Martin". If he were considered a fully human being, a person of inherent worth, it would be the US on trial. For its denial of opportunity, for its ceaseless condemnation of the suffering, for its demonization of the people it abandons, for its shifting gaze from the burden of proof. The Trayvon Martin case only sanctioned what was once tacit and disavowed. A young black man can be murdered on perception. A young black man becomes the criminal so that the real criminal can go free. Americans should not fear riots. They should fear a society that ranks the death of children. They should fear a society that shrugs, carries on, and lets them go. A tragedy A friend of mine on Facebook posts updates from a website called " Black and Missing but Not Forgotten ". The site exists because the default assumption is that a black and missing child will be forgotten. It exists because the disappearance of a black child is considered less important than the disappearance of a white child. It exists because a large number of Americans has to be reminded that black children are human beings. New video in racialised Florida killing In June, the Supreme Court invalidated part of the Voting Rights Act , stating that "our country has changed", implying that discrimination against African-Americans was a thing of the past. In May, the city of Chicago shut downmajority black public schools. In April, a black high school student, Kiera Wilmont, was prosecuted  as an adult after her science project exploded. In February, The Onioncalled nine-year-old black actress Quvenzhane Wallis an extremely vulgar name. The US that proclaims racism a thing of the past abandons and vilifies black children. Many Americans, of many races, will be outraged that George Zimmerman has gone free. They will advocate for tolerance and peace. This is a noble sentiment, but what the US needs is a cold, hard look at social structure. We need to examine and eliminate barriers to opportunity, some of which are racially biased in an overt way, but many of which are downplayed because they are considered ambiguous social issues - social issues, like decaying public schools, low-wage labor and unemployment, that affect African-Americans at disproportionate rates. Trayvon Martin was murdered before we could see what kind of person he would become. But the truth is, he had a hard road ahead of him no matter what he did. He would have confronted an America of racial and class barriers that even the most ambitious young man cannot override without a good deal of luck. In a US of diminished opportunities, luck is nothing to bank on. Neither is hope, or dreams, or the idea,espoused by President Obama, that for young black men, "there's no longer any room for excuses". Trayvon Martin shows that there is plenty of room for excuses. There is even more room for social and economic reform, for accountability, and for change. Above all, there is room for responsibility. The death of Trayvon Martin is a US tragedy. He was part of a broken system we all experience, but that black Americans experience in ways white Americans cannot fathom. The children who grow up like Trayvon Martin, discriminated against and denied opportunity, are everyone's responsibility. Providing them a fairer, safer future should be a public priority. Americans should not fear riots. They should fear apathy. They should fear acquiescence. They should not fear each other. But it is understandable, now, that they do. Sarah Kendzior is an anthropologist who recently received her PhD from Washington University in St Louis. Follow her on Twitter:  @sarahkendzior

S.O.S.--Calling All Black People

A Black Arts Movement Reader

A major anthology of readings from the Black Arts Movement

edited by John H. Bracey Jr., Sonia Sanchez, and James Smethurst

• Description
• Reviews
• Author

Description

This volume brings together a broad range of key writings from the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, among the most significant cultural movements in American history. The aesthetic counterpart of the Black Power movement, it burst onto the scene in the form of artists’ circles, writers’ workshops, drama groups, dance troupes, new publishing ventures, bookstores, and cultural centers and had a presence in practically every community and college campus with an appreciable African American population. Black Arts activists extended its reach even further through magazines such as Ebony and Jet, on television shows such as Soul! and Like It Is, and on radio programs.

Many of the movement’s leading artists, including Amiri Baraka, Ed Bullins, Nikki Giovanni, Woodie King, Haki Madhubuti, Sonia Sanchez, Askia Touré, Marvin X and Val Gray Ward remain artistically productive today. Its influence can also be seen in the work of later artists, from the writers Toni Morrison, John Edgar Wideman, and August Wilson to actors Avery Brooks, Danny Glover, and Samuel L. Jackson, to hip hop artists Mos Def, Talib Kweli, and Chuck D.

S.O.S—Calling All Black People includes works of fiction, poetry, and drama in addition to critical writings on issues of politics, aesthetics, and gender. It covers topics ranging from the legacy of Malcolm X and the impact of John Coltrane’s jazz to the tenets of the Black Panther Party and the music of Motown. The editors have provided a substantial introduction outlining the nature, history, and legacy of the Black Arts Movement as well as the principles by which the anthology was assembled.

Review

"This book will add immeasurably to our ability to understand and teach a crucial aspect of modern African American and American literary history. Something crucial involving race and art overtook American culture in the 1960s and 1970s, and the nation would never be the same again—a seismic shift that had everything to do with the political, cultural, and aesthetic impact of the confrontational Black Arts and Black Power movements."—Arnold Rampersad, author of Ralph Ellison: A Biography

"This book has the potential to be an amazing teaching and research tool and should appeal to a wide audience of scholars and academics across a variety of fields from sociology and literary studies, to Africana studies and history. The introduction alone provides an invaluable account of the cultural output, impact, and legacy of the Black Arts Movement for scholars and students."—Amy Abugo Ongiri, author of Spectacular Blackness: The Cultural Politics of the Black Power Movement and the 
Search for a Black Aesthetic

From top left: Herbert Stokes, Ben Caldwell, Salimu, Charles Fuller, Sonia Sanchez, LeRoi Jones, Ed Bullins, Marvin X, N. R. Davidson, Jr.

Marvin X Speaks on Harambee Radio, Friday, 10PM

Marvin X interviewed at the Black Power Babies, Philly, March, 2013

www.harambeeradio.com click on "Listen Live"

or dial 1-805-309-0111

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Listeners can now tune in without being online.

 

Dalani

Generalismo Marcus

Generalismo Marcus
led us on many battles
through the ages
the African campaign
much destruction
famine drought
fights for the throne
when kings and queens departed
we followed the stars
Ogotomeli told us about

found ourselves far away from the Nile or Hapi
sorrow songs met us in the west
kingdoms came and went
until we found ourselves
in the door of no return
for a time we thrived
then got weak
no safety in the land
mock battles enslaved us
brought us low
the kings conspired
greed set upon us
trinkets for gold and slaves

Generalismo Marcus
recounted all this
showed us the map back home
if we listened and we did

Told us how great we had been
all the trials along the Nile or Hapi
now was our chance
maybe the last
for all time
to do the right thang
Black Power
Generalismo cried
remember the star
Ogotomelli saw
follow it without detour
it will take you to that mountain
then down into the valley
across the stream
into the meadow
where mothers breastfeed their babes
in the sun
warriors train in the forest
knives machetes sharp
fear is a foreign tongue
death in battle is the joy of life
Generalismo Marcus chides us
for weakness
stand tall he said
do not let fear confound you
this foreign tongue
leap upon the enemy
strike fear into them
not in yourselves
ever on the alert
vigilant
not boastful
humble to the God
ancestors
elders
say blessings daily
for the dead, living
yet unborn
There is no turning back
no room for cowards
only victory is acceptable
no defeat possible
if we listen to Generalismo Marcus
map in hand
the right path clear
there is no doubt
we can win
we shall win.
--Marvin X
7/16/13

Your Presence is a Crime against the state--every glance of the eye is a threat

"Your very presence is a crime against the state, every glance of the eye is a threat."--Richard Wright, Native Son

Novelist Richard Wright wrote those words for the defense attorney in the trial of the hero Bigger Thomas, who killed a white woman in fear. But we can say the words apply to Dred Scott, subject of the 1857 Supreme Court Case when Chief Justice Taney said, "No black man has rights a white man is bound to respect." Taney's words came again to haunt us when Emmitt Till was murdered in Mississippi for reckless eyeballing and whistling at a white women. These days, the black man is killed simply for walking while black.

James Baldwin took issue with Richard's notion that Bigger Thomas represented the feelings of the Black nation, that we would ever feel so isolated and depressed that we would resort to murder, and yet on this day, a black mother of a son uttered the words that she felt like getting a gun to kill the first white people she saw on the street. Of course, by 1968, James Baldwin, in an interview with me, stated it was a wonder we all haven't gone stark raving mad, and that it was a miracle for a black father to raise a son in such a hostile environment. Does America understand or give a damn about the fears of black mothers and fathers while their sons are out on a night in town? Of course not, after all, whites need not fear for their sons if they are stopped walking or driving while white!

In Amiri Baraka's Dutchman, the young black man Clay asked the white woman Lula what was their conversation about? She replied, "It's about you. Everything we've been discussing is about you and nothing else." America is about race and nothing else. It has always been about race and nothing else. To quote James Baldwin, "Nothing else happened here but you (the black man)!" To suggest any other topic of importance is grand denial since America is essentially  about the containment of the African slave population so whites can enjoy white privilege, i.e.,  their version of freedom, democracy, capitalism and Christianity.

For the Africans caught in the American slave system, there is only one question: how do we liberate ourselves finally and totally, by whatever means necessary? If it doesn't happen today, surely it will happen tomorrow, for sure, the giant shall not be contained, and if need be, he shall liberate himself, and if necessary, destroy America in the process, but he shall be free!
--Marvin X
7/15/13

Zimmerman Innocent; America Guilty and the sentence is death!

A black man has no rights which a white man is bound to respect, said Chief Justice Taney in that infamous 1857 Supreme Court decision. And so it is in 2013. Surely Black America could get the drift of the Zimmerman. America has long made Blacks the villains and themselves the victims in their perverted white supremacy mythology and delusional psychosocial pathology.

What should be our response? The Art of War teaches us that one cannot make war unprepared. To respond emotionally will not suffice. We have been at war with America since kidnapped and brought to this wilderness of North America. The primary objective of the American social system has been and still is containment of the African population, to make sure they don't revolt and overthrow the slave system now known as global capitalism and free trade. While injustice to the descendants of slaves is pervasive, revolt must be kept to a minimum, thus the primary source of control is the unjust system of justice, economic deprivation rather than independence and of course, the Overseer, in the form of house niggers, teachers, preachers and politicians. They shall now come forth to convince the oppressed to remain passive and obedient to the Master. They will inform them no amount of violence shall be tolerated and they shall be looked upon as terrorists , even though we've had centuries to know the real terrorists, such as the one found innocent of murdering an unarmed man, Trayvon Martin.

Again, what should be our response? North American Africans must have a long range plan to bring our war with America to a conclusion. It must be a united plan based on self-determination, land and sovereignty. Sorry, voting will not suffice, jobs are not the answer long-term. We will never gain true freedom while we are merely consumers rather than producers. As long as we are consumers, we shall be exploited by anyone who desires to enter our communities to make us victims of bloodsuckers.

The murder of our people by others should not bother us more than the murder of us by us. This is what disturbs me more than police murder or murder under the color of law. We can stop all murder by standing together as a people and stop thinking we are Americans or that we are ever going to be Americans. Real Americans don't need the Voting Rights Act renewed.

When we collectively decide to jump out of the box of disunity and self hatred into the box of unity and love, we shall continue are reactionary behavior to every instance of white injustice. We must plan for the next 50 to 100 years, not for tomorrow or the next day. We must know where we want the next generations to go so all their needs are fulfilled as divine beings in human form.

We should know by now college is not the panacea for everyone. How many billionaires  went to college? For that matter, how many college graduates can find a job these days? We must think of creative ways to solve our economic morass.

Although economic security is a partial solution to our mental health issues, bread alone will not solve the problem of life in a hostile environment. We must carve a space for those who love to live in peace and not remain victims of savage beasts full of hatred for those who have done them no wrong.

At all times, we must think and plan, not emotionally react to every incident, killing or injustice under the color of law.

We know what goes around comes around, thus we should know something bad is coming to America for her sins against the innocent. Let us pray we are not around when the God of Justice arrives with sword in hand. Let us wear the amour of God and stay ever on the alert as we travel through the Valley of the Shadow of Death called America!
--Marvin X
7/14/13

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Race in America: The Grand Denial

By Dr. Marvin X

Tuesday, September 16, 2009

Denial is quite simply the evasion of reality. Denial can be personal or communal, for sometimes an entire nation can be in denial about its abominations, for they are too painful to make adjustments in the collective psyche and the personal reality, for to do so would incriminate the mythology and ritual of said society, and thus the normal daily round would be disrupted and dysfunctional, for painful adjustments would be in order, and as long as we can avoid the painful the better, after all, the status quo can be maintained.

America has lived in grand denial. In the words of Baldwin , white supremacy has caused this nation to believe in rationalizations so fantastic it approaches the pathological. Racism has survived among slaves and masters and the descendants of slaves and masters far too long without any meaningful degree of reconciliation or compensation, even apology is long overdue. Other colonial societies such as the French and Australia recently apologized for colonialism, but not America , the chief colonizer of the modern world.

She is mainly guilty of domestic colonialism, having enslaved the Native Americans, and then kidnapped millions of Africans who were brought to these shores for eternal servitude. After emancipation, America promised the freed Africans a few acres and a mule, but never delivered. She promised freedom after her slaves provided 200,000 troops who were decisive in the Civil War, but disarmed them and returned them to virtual slavery called Reconstruction, which was short-lived and essentially put the freed slaves in neo-servitude, at the whim of terrorists known as Klu Klux Klan.

White America benefited from four centuries of slavery and neo-slavery. The neo slaves fought in her imperial wars against fascism abroad but were subjected to fascism upon returning home. A few slaves benefited from slavery, even having slaves themselves, yet in the end found themselves facing the glass ceiling, especially when they refused to be running dogs for imperialism now called globalism.

General Colin Powell is the most recent example. America duped him and made a fool of him before the world when he gave his fabricated United Nation's speech to justify the invasion of Iraq . He was replaced with a more pliant Negress in the person of Condi Rice. We are urged to recognize racial progress in her shameful role as Secretary of State. We have achieved equality, for have we not placed ourselves (African Americans) in the position to be charged with war crimes, having justified the slaughter of a million Iraqi men, women and children in the unprovoked occupation and destruction of the jewel of Arabic culture and civilization?

But in our grand denial, blacks as well as whites will attempt to convince the world this point of view is left wing poppycock, the thoughts of a disgruntled segment of the black Americans who have failed to enjoy the benefits of capitalism, now globalism--no matter the disparities in birth and death, education, wage parity, incarceration, housing, health care, homicide and suicide, in every aspect of Americana.

To mention race is to open a can of worms best left unopened because it makes Americans nervous, uneasy, and disturbed mentally if not physically. White Americans are made to feel guilty, thus etiquette demands no mention of race in civil discourse or casual conversation because we are all too sensitive and the endgame might be violence of the worse kind.

And so we are mostly silent on the subject until this ugly monster of ours its head as it inevitably does from time to time, then after the most brief discussion, all sides are urged to sweep it under the carpet until the next round. Thus this racial drama continues ad infinitum without any real resolution and certainly no reconciliation. We may have a plethora of interracial marriages with the resultant biracial children, yet nothing has been solved except for a kind of don’t ask don’t talk racial harmony, along with the children growing up in racial confusion called the tragic mulatto syndrome, whereby they try as best they can to choose sides in this racial drama without end.

Clearly, Barak Obama is caught between the racism of his preacher and white grandmother. His endgame will be of great interest to the world at large, and even if he doesn’t become president of the US , he will have a role to play in racial politics globally. Obviously, his persona is bigger than America , having an African father and a Muslim middle name (Hussein) than has endeared him to the Islamic world, no matter the outcome of the presidential election.

With his now classic speech on race, putting himself in league with Booker T. Washington's Atlanta Compromise and Martin Luther King's I Have A Dream, Obama, much to his dismay, has now become a Race Man, in the classic sense of that term whose definition escapes all but those of historical consciousness, which is most of us, black and white except that we must now realize there is only the human race, except for those in league with me who claim membership in the Divine Race.

 

America's Grand Denial can only be overcome by recovery from our racist white supremacy heritage, beginning by accepting the scientific definition of the human race (or Divine, if you agree with my spiritual notion), then entering a program of detoxification, recovery and discovery.

Detoxification includes deprogramming our white supremacy values of domination and exploitation, including patriarchal authority and capitalist greed that has lead us to the present economy is nothing more than pimping by gunboat diplomacy. You sell me your labor and natural resources at the cheapest price or I will take them at gunpoint, under the guise of bringing you democracy” an advance from the naked colonial era of spreading Christianity.

Recovery is discarding the Grand Denial that there is a problem or that the problem has been remedied, therefore stop making whites the villain and blacks the victim, in fact, forget the entire matter although blacks already suffer acute amnesia to the degree that they are a danger to themselves and others.

And who would tell a Jew to forget the Holocaust? And does not the Jew remind the world at every turn what the Germans did to them? We have a thousand times more right to tell the world what happened to us than any Jew, for our suffering lasted four centuries, not four or five years. For their four or five years (1939-1945) the Jews were given a state while we have not acquired one acre for four centuries (1619-2008) of slave labor and government sanctioned terror that even Hitler emulated with his destruction of the Jews.

In order to recover from the addiction to white supremacy, America must make a searching and fearless moral inventory; she must admit to God the exact nature of her wrongs; be ready to have God remove her defects of character (being saved by the grace of Jesus Christ has not and will not solve America’s white supremacy addiction—the white Christian mythology allowed us to be burned on the cross or lynching tree, yes, strangely similar to Jesus). Rev. James Cone suggests America can only recover from the addiction to white supremacy by coming to an understanding of the relationship of the cross and the lynching tree. Listen to Billie Holiday's Strange Fruit and ponder the life of Jesus Christ.

You have had Jesus in your midst for over four hundred years and crucified him on a daily basis, even unto this present hour. America must examine her census, her graveyards in the south and north, the bills of sale, the prison inmates, the mental hospital patients gone mad as a result of white supremacy addiction then make a list of all the Africans harmed, the Native Americans, the poor whites treated worse than you treated niggers then make amends to such people, including reparations in the form of land and sovereignty. Discovery for America in general will be when she accepts the radicalization of her culture to bring it in harmony with the global village, which involves the dismantling of institutions that perpetuate domination and exploitation of her citizens and other peace loving peoples throughout the world. If America persists in her Grand Denial, then she must prepare for her self destruction, for it shall come at the hands of the man in the mirror, not from any external forces. --Dr. M

Dr. M is the author of How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy, A Pan African 13 Step Model, Black Bird Press, 1222 Dwight Way, Berkeley CA , $19.95.

How To Stop The Killing in the Pan African Hood

By Marvin X

"The reactionaries will never put down their butcher knives, they will never turn into Buddha heads."—Mao

We are talking about a condition in the hearts of men, an evil sore festering and stinking like rotten meat, to use that Langston Hughes metaphor. It is a spiritual disease more prevalent than HIV, for it consumes whole countries, not only Pan Africa, but it may be said to originate in Europe because lying and murder is the great theme of this culture, and Africa and Africans throughout the Diaspora are victimized and suffer this malady equally with their colonial Mother. See how Europe butchered the butcher's sons in Iraq, or is this the democratic way of life she is bringing to the sand nigguhs?

The problem is how to throw off the vestiges of colonialism to become the New Man and New Woman. Of course, we must first recognize how sick colonialism has made us throughout Pan Africa. Somehow we must bow down and ask forgiveness of our Higher Power, the ancestors, the living and the yet unborn. There must be a cleansing ritual performed until the mud and slime of Western culture is purged from our minds, bodies and souls. The Western gods must be destroyed, crushed to the earth and stomped into eternity, for they have blessed us with ignorance, superstition, greed, lust and pure evil, allowing us to become worse than beasts in the field, committing the worse atrocities, yea, even worse than all the teaching of our colonial masters.

No doubt Africa is paying for the great sin of sending her sons and daughters into slavery. Has Africa asked forgiveness of herself, yet she wails for apology from the slave master's children. Has she given reparations to her descendants lost in the wilderness of North America? Has she ever sent a symbolic ship or plane to bring them home? So Pan Africa lives a slow death because she allows corrupt, boastful, arrogant leaders to control her nations, her leaders shelter each other, covering their multiple sins, protecting themselves from people's justice that would rightfully hang them like Mussolini and his wife.

Like jack in the box, Pan Africa must jump out of her iniquities, she must call forth the divine energy within the bowels of her soul and step into the New Day of light, breath and health. She cannot allow her children to devour her from coast to coast, sea to sea, from America to Africa, but children only mock the behavior of adults, so we cannot blame them, children are children, so adults must step to the front of the line, no matter how busy they are doing nothing, for they are surely doing nothing if the village is in chaos, security being the top priority of civilization.

Everyone must become the central command, every man and woman must be about the business of teaching new values, new ways of thinking and acting that are not harmful to the human soul and the human condition. The world is so full of wisdom it escapes us because our quest is for the trivial, the low things of life, not the things in the upper room, but those in the basement, in the gutter of our minds and hearts, that is where we dwell, that is our focus and this is why we suffer.

Kobe gives his wife a four million dollar rock, but will it placate her soul, will material things correct a spiritual problem of faith and trust? The West has a sordid history buying people as Pan Africa can attest, but everyone is not for sale, those of integrity will jump ship, will eat the whip and the gun, for persecution is worse than slaughter, the Qur'an teaches. No, physical weapons cannot solve the problem. Look at Israel, she has the all the modern weapons but she cannot defeat the spirit of a people determined to be free. So Pan Africa's children can and must be armed with a new consciousness. Even Fidel Castro has said the new weapon is consciousness!

Like Johnny Appleseed, we must go about spreading consciousness, teaching unconditional love and forgiveness, sharing knowledge and wealth with the poor and ignorant, the brokenhearted and oppressed. I am not trying to be sentimental, but we can and must flip the script as they say in the hood. Again, like Jack, we must jump out the box of mental and physical oppression by taking a new look at reality, by stopping a moment to wonder at the pleasure in the sun, the trees, the sea and mountains, the glory of being alive each moment to share human love, being grateful we have a moment on this earth to whisper truth to children that they may rise and be a pleasure to the ancestors watching everywhere.

Yes, we must transcend block man and block woman, the block within ourselves even, and reach forth into the realm of new possibilities, not allowing evil and her brothers and sisters to control the air and sun that comes each day blessing us with another moment to walk in the light, escaping the darkness of ignorance, greed, lust and violence.

Black men, go into the hood and take the guns from your sons, yes the sons you abandoned, neglected and rejected, the sons who look like you although you deny this, the sons who walk with sad hearts, hardened because they long for you, for your love and guidance, for your wisdom and strength, after all, Mama did all she could to raise her manchild in the promised land. * * * * *

A Response to "Killing in the Pan Africa Hood"














By Rudolph Lewis

Marvin, there is great wisdom that should be heeded in your essay "How To Stop the Killing in the Pan African Hood." I am aware that a new set of values (though possessed by our enslaved ancestors but now abandoned under the "new world order") and a new perspective of our place in the world, of our past and future are earnestly needed in these dire times. The most important of these new perspectives is couched in your paragraph that reads as follows: Has Africa asked forgiveness of herself, yet she wails for apology from the slave masters' children. Has she given reparations to her descendants lost in the wilderness of North America? Has she ever sent a symbolic ship or plane to bring them home? So Pan Africa lives a slow death because she allows corrupt, boastful, arrogant leaders to control her nations, her leaders shelter each other, covering their multiple sins, protecting themselves from people's justice that would rightfully hang them like Mussolini and his wife.

In short, you suggest our critical sword should have a double edge—that is, the slave trade involved African nations and European nations collaborating for the purposes of wealth and power. They got rid of their "niggertrash." Many of those descendants of the tribal kings and chiefs who sold millions of slaves still play significant roles in the politics of today's African nations. And they will sell us again and their people again in the 21st century, if the World Bank and other internationalist (globalist), corporatist agencies offer the right price. (Check out Paul Kingsnorth's essay on South Africa and the ANCA Shattered Dream.)

In the contest for wealth and power, "black" and "white," however, are not real distinctions but illusions, a means for escapism or sidetracking those who wish to do the "good." I know "evil" has become a popular theme in the discussion of international politics and the resistance to corporate imperialism, especially from the bully pulpit of the presidency. So-called righteous men love to stand behind such symbolic bulwarks. I hope we do not become agents of such trite rhetoric—it indeed will lead us astray. It is necessary that we keep on the straight and narrow and keep both edges of our sword whetted sharp. At no time must we sink back into mythologizing the world for the sake of political convenience, to hear merely the rhythm of our own voices.

Beneath most Pan-African rhetoric (from the 19th century to the present), there is this underlying notion of Africa as paradise into which Satan (the white man) introduced evil. I recommend strongly that all Pan-Africanists and sympathizers and all other petty-bourgeois, pseudo-revolutionaries read the Malian Yambo Olouloguem's novel Bound to Violence. Or any non-romantic account of Africa before European trade began. Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart will provide some evidence even in the "wholeness" of tribal life, all was not well.

Even though there was a sense of justice, and right and wrong. There were some practices or acts that were just horrid, unnecessary, and "evil." If true be told, there was more evil in Africa than one could shake a stick at. The process of empire building in Africa by Africans themselves and the perennial struggles for power and the retention of power included the wholesale slaughter of tribes (genocide), butchery, debauchery of every sort (religious, political and social), cannibalism, incest, and so on—all these acts of evil existed before modern Europe stepped onto the soil of Africa or worked out its first deal for a cargo of slaves. The emperors, kings and queens, and chiefs—to whom we have become so inured (and want to imitate by dress, manners, and religion)—did not achieve those aristocratic titles by their sweetness and benevolence but by the same means we are familiar with today in those who strive to rule and conquer. That is, they did it the old-fashioned way—by violence, exploitation, and oppression.. The aberrations we see in Africa and at home are not new. This violence for wealth and power is just as old as the first time one brother killed another for his wife or his ass. This contest for dominance has always been bloody and this violence and evil were not invented by Europe or whites. We must do away with this myth—the white man alone as incarnate Devil. Otherwise, in a perverse way, we make Africans less than human—we make them into externally corrupted angels. There is no sanctity in having a black skin or in Africanity.

This type of mythologizing gives our leaders too much credit and too much room for collaboration with corporate power and a means of duping the masses of the poor and the black working classes. It is no longer sustainable that we ask or recommend that the masses of "Pan-Africa" live vicariously by distant observation and/or proximity to power and wealth. That an elite should live in comfort and security while the great masses attend them hand and foot with all their hearts and souls is no longer acceptable if we truly have egalitarian goals for our society.

That kind of barbaric nobility is no longer proper in a civilized world in which democracy and human rights have been given revitalized meanings in which every man is a king and queen, or at least be acknowledged with that kind of respect, integrity, and dignity. Our critical sword should not only land on the heads of the great aberrations of society—the likes of a Idi Amin, a Mobutu, a Bokassa, or a Sgt. Doe or a Charles Taylor, but also those respectable heads of state like Mbeki, Obasanjo, and the other African leaders who smilingly welcomed Bush to Africa and are ever-ready to make their deals with globalization.

Such African leaders with such narrow interests sold our ancestors into the Americas. And not only those African leaders there, but also here at home, we should do some swinging at our black elected and appointed officials (city councilmen, legislators, cabinet secretaries), yes and also corporate and ecclesiastical functionaries, and other notable heads, such as the leaders of civil rights organizations like the NACCP, whose board is ruled by corporate executives or such flunkies and running dogs. They too must be made to pay for their sins of neglect and moral blindness. If we lapse into the anti-white, anti-American, anti-Western rhetoric, we will sorely miss the point and provide more fuel for these black elites to further misdirect the energies of the masses of Pan-Africa along lines of escapism and support for the status quo.

If we are to make real changes within our communities some of our petty bourgeois aspirations must be abandoned. We can no longer naively defend black middle-class sellout politicians and preachers. We must recognize a real change in the face, rhetorical aspirations, and the present corporate ties that our leaders have established. It is fine to cite Walter Rodney's How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, as some Pan-Africanist Marxists tend to do. That is well indeed. I am far from a white apologist—a corner in which some may want to paint me. But I do not want to be a black apologist, either -- I was not taught that way. The NAACP is headquartered here in Baltimore and they just had a conference and they had nothing to say about the 40% unemployment rate here among black males (18-35); the high murder rate (about 300 a year, mostly young black males); a 50% drop-out rate from high school; neighborhoods in which only 25% of adults have a high school diploma. Brothers and sisters are paraded to jails like our ancestors to Goree Island!!! Whatever the justification for their apprehension is inadequate and should cause some shame to those who run this city and those who support the powers to be—which here in a majority black city, means a black middle class and those who work government jobs or receive money from corporate elites

Damn, brother, we have grown ass men on the corner selling single cigarettes for 35 cents a piece. What kind of enterprise is that? And it is not just a few. Is that any way to gain a livelihood? And our shit-head leaders are worrying about whether Bush or democratic presidential candidates come to their meeting. Ain't that a matter to be indignant and upset about? But it seems we are so spiritually sick we take it as a norm the misery and the downtrodden state of the poor (black and white). That the oppressed are overlooked and allowed to continue to sink into the abyss is a grand betrayal by our leaders. Murder and mayhem is not just coming from the bottom dregs of society. We have a general slavery and devastation in which silence and passivity is imposed by poverty, the gun, and prisons?

With these reservations, I support heartily the sentiments contained in your plea for earnest black work, black renewal, and black progress. http://www.nathanielturner.com/

Pianist Alfie Pollitt and his band perform at benefit for the John Coltrane House, Philly

 

Brewerytown Living, The John Coltrane House and Philadelphia Jazz Project are proud to announce a John Coltrane tribute and benefit concert taking place July 18th from 6-8pm at Veteran’s Memorial Park, 31st Street and Girard Avenue in Brewerytown. The concert is also being sponsored by the local Brewerytown businesses and nonprofits MMPartners, RyBrew, Shifty’s Tacos, Dhengi Brand, GAMBA, Fairmount CDC and Give and Go Athletics. Saint Benjamin Brewing Company is also a sponsor. Free to the public, this concert will feature performances of Coltrane’s music by Alfie Pollitt and his band, and is intended to both build awareness and raise funds for The John Coltrane House. Local restaurants Shifty’s Tacos and Rybrew will provide food, and Saint Benjamin Brewing Company will provide beer to taste. The John Coltrane House is a National Historic Landmark, and is located at 1511 N 33rd Street in Brewerytown. The legendary saxophonist purchased it in 1952. After his passing, the house was lived in by his mother and well as his Cousin Mary, also the title of a well-known composition of Coltrane’s. The house fell into disrepair over recent decades, and now the recently formed non-profit The John Coltrane House, led by Lenora Early, is working to restore it and open it to the public as a museum and center for Jazz studies. Poet Marvin X reading with Alfie Pollitt at Cleff Jazz Club, Philly, March, 2013, at the Black Love Lives Conference, University of Penn   Entertainment by Alfie Pollitt's Jazz Quartet Tenor/Saprano Sax - George Barron Bass - Lee Smith Drums - Allen Nelson Piano - Alfie Pollitt

Oakland Celebrates International Nelson Mandela Day, Thursday, July 18

We are Oscar Grant: Film Fruitvale Station opens at Grandlake Theatre, Oakland

BAY   Grand Lake Theater - Oakland     LA   ArcLight - Hollywood   Landmark - West Los Angeles

Marvin X Reads Parable of Woman on Cell Phone at Brecht Forum, NYC

Marvin X, veteran poet /activist of the Black Arts Movement reads poetry with Ras Moshe on tenor saxophone. 

This was recorded at "Our Americas: A Tribute to Pablo Neruda and Louis Reyes Rivera" October 25, 2012 at the Brecht Forum, New York City.

Pan African Film Festival at National Black Arts Festival, ATL

Thursday, July 18 12:00pm Pan African Shorts Series  2:30pm Inside Story (2011/South Africa/Narrative Feature/98min) Director: Rolie Nikiwe Dreaming of a professional soccer career, Kalu, a young Kenyan, gets a contract to play soccer in South Africa and begins a promising career and relationship with the coach's daughter. On the verge of soccer stardom, he learns he is HIV positive. Through stunning computer animation, audiences actually go inside Kalu, witnessing the moment of infection and come face-to-face with HIV. A story of triumph in what could have been dispair. Stars Hakim Kae-Kazim. PAFF 2012 Special Jury Recognition-Feature Narrative; ZIFF 2012 Best African Film 4:30pm Mugabe: Villain or Hero? (2012/UK/Documentary/116min)  Director: Roy Agyemang Is there more to Robert Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe, than is being shown on our television screens? What’s the true extent of Mugabe’s support inside Zimbabwe? What has happened to the country that they all called the bread basket of Africa – and why? These questions and more led British filmmaker Roy Agyemang on a journey to Zimbabwe to make a documentary about President Robert Mugabe. What started out as a three-month mission turned into three life-changing years, culminating in a rare interview with one of the world’s longest-serving yet most reviled leaders. Mugabe: Villain or Hero? Is an epic personal journey, narrated by Agyemang who, together with his UK-based Zimbabwean fixer, found themselves in Mugabe’s entourage, on Colonel Gaddafi’s private jet and around a host of prominent African leaders. PAFF 2013 Special Jury Recognition-Documentary 7:30pm Toussaint Louverture *Opening Night Feature (2012/Martinique/France/Narrative Feature/180min + 15min intermission) Director: Philippe Niang The two-part epic film of the life of Haitian revolutionary, Toussaint Louverture who led the first successful slave revolt in world history by defeating the imperialist armies of Napoleon Bonaparte and setting up the first free Black nation in the Western Hemisphere. Stars Jimmy Jean-Louis, Aïssa Maïga and Sonia Rolland. PAFF 2012 Best Feature; PAFF 2012 CAPRI Capital Partners Award for Best Actor; PAFF 2012 Audience Award--Narrative Feature; AMAA 2012 Best Diaspora Feature; ZIFF 2012 Special Mention - Best Direction Friday, July 19 12:00pm How to Steal 2 Million (2011/South Africa/Narrative Feature/88min) Director: Charlie Vundla Just released from prison, Jack cannot find work until his former partner, Twala, recruits him for a job that should net 2R million. A sexy, modern-day film noir with plot twists that will keep viewers guessing to the end. AMAA 2012 Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress and Best Editing 2:00pm Better Mus' Come (2011/Jamaica/Narrative Feature/104min) Director: Storm Saulter A coming of age drama set in Jamaica's turbulent 1970s against the backdrop of the cold war, a national water crisis, and political corruption that gave birth to the polarized violence gripping the streets of Kingston both then and now. PAFF 2012 Best Director First Feature   4:15pm The Education of Auma Obama (2011/Germany/Documentary/79min) Director: Branwen Okpako An absorbing look at the life and times of Auma Obama told from her homestead in Kenya during the run-up to the 2008 US Presidential elections that brought her brother Barack Obama to power. Wonderful archival footage, including footage of a very young Barack Obama visiting with Michele, helps to unfold the story of a family dedicated to political activism and social engagement and allowing viewers a new appreciation of the President’s African roots. PAFF 2012 Festival Founders’ Award – Documentary; AMAA 2012 Best Diaspora Documentary 6:05pm Stones in the Sun (2012/Haiti/US/Narrative Feature/95min) Director: Patricia Benoit In the midst of increasing political violence, a young couple, two sisters, and a father and son are driven from Haiti to New York, where they must confront the truths of their interlocked pasts. PAFF 2013 Best Feature Narrative; AMAA 2013 Prize for Best Diaspora Feature 8:15pm The Good Wifey (2013/US/Narrative Feature/90min) Director: T.A. Williams A happily married man expecting his first child gives in to the temptation of a beautiful former classmate and has what he thinks is a one-night-stand. Stars Tangi Miller, David Ramsey, Persia White, Chico Benymon and Akuyoe Graham 10:05pm Mama Africa (2011/South Africa/Germany/Finland/Documentary/90min) Director: Mika Kaurasmäki Tracing the life and music of the legendary fabulous Miriam Makeba through more than 50 years of performing. Engaging commentaries from friends and colleagues, some who knew her since she started her musical career. This documentary tells of her remarkable journey as one of the world greatest vocalists and leaders of the Pan African struggle globally, specifically the fight for majority rule in South Africa . With fascinating subject matter and fabulous music, this celebration of a dedicated life is sure to entertain, enlighten and inspire. PAFF 2012 Special Jury Recognition-Documentary; ZIFF 2012 Best Documentary Saturday, July 20 12:00pm Elza (2011/Guadeloupe/France/Narrative Feature/80min) Director: Mariette Monpierre A young Parisian woman of Caribbean descent returns to her native island of Guadeloupe looking for the father she has never known. Stunning visuals and an incredible soundtrack makes this a beauty, not to be missed! PAFF 2012 Festival Programmers’ Award—Narrative; PAFF 2012 Special Jury Recognition-Feature Narrative; FESPACO 2013 Paul Robeson Prize for Best Film of the Diaspora 1:50pm Let Clay Be Clay (2013/US/Narrative Feature/88min) Director: Darryl McCane Twenty-years after her daughter's murder, a still grieving mother has not given up on bringing those she believes to be responsible for her death to justice. A gripping story, inspired by events that are all too true in today’s Black communities 3:40pm Things Never Said (2012/US/Narrative Feature/111min) Director: Charles Murray Kalindra Stepney is an emerging spoken-word poetess, someone who willingly speaks her thoughts, but she's an artist who has yet to find her voice. A native of California, Kal has dreams of taking her poems to New York and the infamous Nuyorican Café stage. Haunted by a miscarriage and saddled with Ronnie, a husband who's angry and without direction - he uses his fists as a form of speech - Kal tries desperately to find an outlet for her struggling voice. Stars Elimu Nelson, Omari Hardwick, Tamala Jones and Michael Beach. PAFF 2013 Special Jury Recognition-Feature Narrative 6:05pm War Witch (2012/Canada/Narrative Feature/90min) Director: Kim Nguyen A poignant and harrowing portrait of Komona, a 14-year-old girl who has been kidnapped from her African village by rebels to become a child soldier. Berlin Film Festival 2012 Silver Bear for Best Actress Rachel Mwanza; Tribeca Film Festival 2012 Best Narrative Feature; Academy Award Nominee – Best Foreign Language Film 8:05pm Otelo Burning (2011/South Africa/Narrative Feature/72min) Director: Sara Blecher Set in 1989, when the fight against apartheid is at its peak, three black South African boys escape their township lives through surfing, discovering something in the waves for which everyone is fighting: freedom. A rich, emotional powerful narrative that resonates teenage male rivalry, love, politics, hard choices and some incredible surfing. Includes music from South African Hip Hop artist Reason. AMAA 2012 Achievement In Cinematography; AMAA 2012 Achievement In Editing 9:50pm Charles Lloyd: Arrows into Infinity (2012/US/Documentary/118min) Director: Dorothy Darr & Jeffery Morse Catapulted to worldwide fame in his 20s, Charles Lloyd was one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 1960s. By his early 30s he abandoned a public life of performance and recording and went into seclusion in Big Sur. Follow the artist’s spirtual quest. PAFF 2013 Audience Award—Documentary Click Here to Buy a Pass to see 6 Films (excluding Opening Night Feature "Toussaint Louverture") for only $45! The PAFF Pass is only available now through July 12th, so get yours today!

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