Marvin X and students in anthology Stand Our Ground, for Trayvon Martin and Marissa Alexander

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« Still Chained: Django, Tarantino and the Exploitation of Black History

Stand Our Ground: New Global Poetry Anthology Raising Funds for Justice!

Books

April 9, 2013

Title: Stand Our Ground:Poems for Trayvon Martin and Marissa Alexander

Publisher: FreedomSeed Press (Philadelphia, PA)

Paperback, 272 pages

Publication Date: April 22, 2013 

ORDER NOW!

$25.00

All proceeds will be shared with the families of Martin and Alexander to aid in their respective pursuits of justice.

READ AN EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK!

For more information on the book: StandOurGroundBook.com.

In Stand Our Ground: Poems for Trayvon Martin and Marissa Alexander 65 poets from all over the world join together in one voice for justice, freedom and peace. Stand Our Ground is the definitive testament of a revolutionary generation. In this historic collection Black Arts Movement legends Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Haki R. Madhubuti, Marvin X  and Askia M. Toure’ are joined by poets of all ages from across the United States and around the world representing countries in Africa, Asia, Europe as well as North and South America and the islands of the Caribbean.

The cases of Trayvon Martin and Marissa Alexander expose the duplicity of an American justice system that remains rooted in racism and sexism. Stand Our Ground is an effort to raise funds for both families to aid in their pursuit of justice even as it raises the consciousness of a generation toward the pursuit of a movement of justice for all!

The book’s editor, Ewuare X. Osayande, is a poet, educator and activist. The author of several books including Blood Luxury with an introduction by Amiri Baraka (Africa World Press) and Whose America?: New and Selected Poems with an introduction by Haki R. Madhubuti (Black Proletariat Press). He is an adjunct professor of African American Studies at Rutgers University.

In the introduction for Stand Our Ground Osayande writes, “This book has been a labor of love. My love for my people. My love for humanity. I acted because I knew it was not enough for me to just march, or write an editorial or to just allow myself to sit and simmer in the face of wrong. I acted because I knew that there were others like me. I knew that if I acted, others would join with me, and, together, we could create a work that would simultaneously raise collective support for these two families and raise the collective consciousness of our generation. So in the Summer of 2012 the call went out and this is the result. A collection of poems. But not just any collection of poems. Herein are contained –

Death-defying poems

Injustice-decrying poems

Poems that speak truth to power

Poems that break chains in freedom’s name

Poems that confront abuse

and provide sanctuary for the bruised

Poems that escape from cells

Poems that provide a pathway back from hell

Poems that refuse to be silent

Poems more just than the judge’s gavel

Poems that have tasted cop’s mace

stared down the barrel of a gun in defiance

Shackled poems trying to break free

Poems picking the locks on our minds

Poems that transcend place and time

that tell the histories and herstories

that have been banned from the textbooks

Poems that refuse to look the other way

Poems that say what needs to be said

Poems that resurrect the dead

Poems that refuse to sell their souls

Poems that revolt and rebel

that holler, scream and yell

Poems that leave us speechless

that tell us truths we don’t want to hear

Poems that leave the status quo

quivering in fear

Poems that know that justice is like rain

to the seeds of peace

Poems that move us to act

like you know

Marching poems

Chanting poems

Ranting poems

Poems sick and tired of being sick and tired poems

Poems that inoculate us against ignorance

Poems that make us think

Poems on the brink

Poems that challenge us to see

the world as it could be

as it should be

Poems in love with freedom

Poems that resist

that resist

that resist

that resist racism and sexism

that refuse to be conned

Poems for a mother named Marissa

and a young brother named Trayvon.”

Available for purchase exclusively at http://standourgroundbook.com/.

Free Marissa Alexander!

Dear Friend, Please join the Free Marissa Now Campaign. The terrible injustice of the not-guilty verdict for Trayvon Martin's killer has brought Marissa Alexander's racist and sexist treatment by Florida courts to center-stage of U.S. and world attention. It is infuriating to think how Stand Your Ground was used to avoid any penalties for killing a Black teenager, while a Black woman is serving a 20-year sentence for firing a warning shot that injured no one to stop an attack by her abusive husband. As the national Free Marissa Now campaign has stated: "The dramatically different outcomes of these cases is a lesson in how the criminal justice system routinely fails to support black people who defend themselves from violence on the streets, in their homes, and from institutions." Over the last year Radical Women has collaborated with other organizations to build a massive outcry to win justice in this case. Lead organizers of the Free Marissa Now Campaign include: African-American/Black Women's Cultural Alliance, INCITE!, New Jim Crow Movement, Pacific Northwest Alliance to Free Marissa Alexander, Radical Women, and Southern Freedom Movement. The campaign has worked in close collaboration with Marissa Alexander and Marissa’s mother, Ms. Helen Jenkins. The Free Marissa Now Campaign issued an excellent statement about the Zimmerman verdict that you can find on their facebook page or watch a videoof Radical Women Organizer Helen Gilbert reading it at a 7/14/13 protest in Seattle. For more information about the how the dynamics of race and sex come together in Marissa Alexander's case, read the Radical Women statement issued June 2012. What you can do immediately: Visit the Free Marissa Now facebook page; "like" the page and be part of updates and discussions.   Join conference calls to build an international mobilization to free Marissa.  Email freemarissanow@gmail.com to receive information about the next conference call.   Sign and forward the online petition.   Donate to Marissa’s legal defense via Paypal at the websitewww.justice4marissa.com. Write to Marissa to let her know that she has supporters working for her release. Send messages to: Marissa Alexander #2012033887 500 East Adam St. Jacksonville, FL 32202 Endorse the Free Marissa Now Campaign and ask organizations you know to endorse. Download an endorsement form athttp://radicalwomen.org/Marissa_endorsement_form.pdf   Spread the word with friends, families, co-workers, and via social media.  Follow Free Marissa Now at facebook.com/freemarissanow andfreemarissanow.tumblr.com.   In solidarity, Anne Slater National Organizer, Radical Women Statement from Free Marissa Now Campaign July 12, 2013 Free Marissa Now Statement: The political climate created by the George Zimmerman trial has shed light on the opaque imaginations of what some think is a post-racial nation. We are heartbroken for Trayvon Martin's family, who have demonstrated brave resolve throughout this ordeal and we hold them in our thoughts as we move forward. We send strength to the family of Jordan Davis, another unarmed Black male Florida teen murdered by a white male who claimed Stand Your Ground, and many others who are gearing up for their journey through these same halls of due process. As long as the Florida justice system has a double standard for identifying criminal behavior, it breaches our core right to safety. The Zimmerman case is about the freedom to safely walk the streets without being profiled and pursued as a criminal based on reemerging Jim Crow codes, especially in the south. Paradoxically, this trial has been juxtaposed to the Marissa Alexander case; a black woman who stood her ground in her home to defend herself from domestic violence and was consequently sentenced to twenty years in prison when no one was physically injured by her actions.  The dramatically different outcomes of these cases is a lesson in how the criminal justice system routinely fails to support black people who defend themselves from violence on the streets, in their homes, and from institutions. The Free Marissa Now Campaign is organizing to win freedom for Marissa Alexander, a proud African American mother of three with an MBA and a survivor of domestic violence. In August 2010, Marissa fired a single warning shot in the ceiling to halt her abusive partner during a life-threatening beating in her home. Marissa's husband, who has previously landed Marissa in the hospital after beating her, admitted in a sworn statement that he was the aggressor, threatened her life and was so enraged that he did not know what he would do.  Despite the fact that Marissa caused no injuries and has no previous criminal record, and despite the fact that Florida's self-defense law includes the right to Stand Your Ground, she was arrested by Jacksonville police, charged with aggravated assault, and sentenced to twenty years in the Florida criminal correctional system. We must take a stand against the criminalization of all survivors of domestic and sexual violence.  Marissa's case is one of many that shows us how Black women and other marginalized people are especially likely to be criminalized, prosecuted, and incarcerated while trying to navigate and survive the conditions of violence in their lives. Freeing Marissa is a social justice action against intimate partner and systemic violence against all women, and an urgent call for the end of mass incarceration and support for truly transformative solutions to violence. The Free Marissa Now Campaign is calling for the grassroots community to stand your ground about your right to give voice to this situation and not be complacent. Our hope was to see justice done for the death of young Brother Trayvon Martin, who couldn't tell his side of the story, and for his family. We grieve deeply with them and for others whose lives have been impacted by violence with no opportunity for redress. We will continue to support survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault to defend themselves without fear of criminalization and to tell their stories. We see this as another defining moment for racial and gender justice that comes on the heels of the rollback in voting rights. There is justifiable cause for rage and protest of the violence of racism embedded in the Florida criminal justice system. This is not the time to shut down but show up and turn rage into resistance through organized and peaceful protests.  We need to build a movement to stop racist murder and race and sex bias in the courts. We encourage people to use their resources to organize and voices to speak truth to power to create change. We are standing our ground for peace and justice.  We encourage organizers and survivors to share in our collective power and take action to Free Marissa Alexander! Join us online at facebook.com/freemarissanow andfreemarissanow.tumblr.com and contact us at freemarissanow@gmail.com Donate to Marissa Alexander's legal defense fund at www.justice4marissa.com Sign the petition at http://www.change.org/petitions/florida-governor-rick-scott-free-marissa-alexander More ways to take action: http://freemarissanow.tumblr.com/action Join Radical Women — you are needed! Connect with a chapter near you or contact the Bay Area chapter at baradicalwomen@earthlink.net. You can learn more about RW through The Radical Women Manifesto, an exhilarating exploration of Marxist feminist theory and organizing methods, buy a copy or read it on Google Books. Find other fiery Radical Women writings atwww.RadicalWomen.org. Donations are appreciated! As a grassroots group, Radical Women is sustained by support from people like you. Please contribute online or mail a check, payable to Radical Women to 5018 Rainier Ave. S., Seattle, WA 98118. Radical Women, Bay Area Chapter 747 Polk Street, San Francisco, CA 94109 Phone: 415-864-1278 * Fax: 415-864-0778 baradicalwomen@earthlink.net www.RadicalWomen.org

Celebrate International Nelson Mandela Day

Nelson Mandela Day Pledge your 67 Minutes or more -Make Every Day A Mandela Day

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

840360#

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