Saturday, April 11, 2015
POEM FOR AB AND AMINA BARAKA
I AM MUSIC
DRAMA TOO
LOVE DRAMA
CAN'T HEP IT
DRAMA IS MA LIFE
IMAGINE
IN THE HOUSE OF BARAKA
FULL OF DRAMA
24/7
BUT AIN'T TELLIN' NOTHING
TOO MUCH LOVE FADA BARAKAS
CAN'T PARTY WIT NOBODY ELSE
PARTY PARTY PARTY
TALK REVOLUTION
PARTY PARTY
REVOLUTION REVOLUTON
HEP ME SOMEBODY
DINNER AT THE SPANISH RESTAURANT NEXT TO CITY HALL
BAR HOPING ACROSS NEWARK
AMIRI AND AMINA FRIENDS LIKE NO OTHER
LOVE MY FRIENDS TO THE END
NO MATTER THEIR NEGROCITIES
WHAT ABOUT MY OWN
BARAKA SAY MARVIN DON'T STEAL MY TERM NEGROCITIES
OK AB
BUT CHECK THIS
NEGROCITIES
AN INFLAMMATION OF THE NEGROID GLAND AT THE BASE OF THE BRAIN
CAUSED BY BAD HABITS
WHAT YOU SAY IN BLACK MASS
WHERE THE SOUL'S PRINT SHOULD BE
THERE IS ONLY A CELLULOSE POUCH OF DISGUSTING HABITS!
--MARVIN X
410/15
CAN I GET THROUGH THE DAY WITHOUT MY AK
IN HONOR OF ICE CUBE
SIR, I DON'T KNOW IF I CAN GET THROUGH THE DAY
WITHOUT MY AK
MATTER OF FACT
I AIN'T USING NO AK
I'M CHOPPIN OFF HEADS
THROWING 'EM IN DA BAY
HEY HEY
RATS HAVE NO RIGHT TO LIFE
BLACK LIVES MATTER
RATS LIVES DON'T MATTER
REVOLUTION AIN'T FOR BOY SCOUTS
MILLER LITE MOTHERFUCKERS
RATS NEED HEADS CHOPPED
BUKU HARAM FASHION
ISIS MANNER
GOD DON'T LOVE COWARD SOLDIERS
GOD LOVES WARRIORS
GOD DON'T LOVE COWARD SOLDIERS
GOD LOVES WARRIORS.
DON'T BE A COWARD COMMUNITY
OUR TRADITION IS REVOLUTION
PULLMAN PORTERS, BLACK PANTHERS
NO COWARDS ALLOWED
THE STAFF OF SAN FRANCISCO'S BLACK DIALOGUE MAGAZINE VISITED SOLEDAD PRISON, 1966, THEY MADE A PRESENTATION BEFORE THE BLACK CULTURE CLUB. THE CLUB, CHAIRED BY ELDRIDGE CLEAVER AND BUNCHY CARTER, WAS THE BEGINNING OF THE AMERICAN PRISON MOVEMENT. BLACK DIALOGUE STAFF INCLUDES AUBREY LABRIE, MX, ABDUL SABRY, AL YOUNG, ARTHUR SHERIDAN AND DUKE WILLIAMS, MOST WERE STUDENTS AT SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY. HENCE THE CONNECTION BETWEEN BLACK STUDENTS, BLACK INTELLECTUALS AND THE BLACK PRISON MOVEMENT.
ELDRIDGE CLEAVER AND HIS COMRADE ALPRENTICE BUNCHY CARTER, WHO WAS ASSASSINATED ALONG WITH JOHN HUGGINS ON THE CAMPUS OF UCLA BY MEMBERS OF THE US ORGANIZATION.
IN DA BAY
PULLMAN PORTER LAND
BLACK PANTHER LAND
BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT LAND
BLACK STUDENTS UNION LAND
BLACK STUDIES LAND
ASE! ASE! ASE!
BETTER AX SOMEBODY!
BETTER AX SOMEBODY!
--MARVIN X
SIR, I DON'T KNOW IF I CAN GET THROUGH THE DAY
WITHOUT MY AK
MATTER OF FACT
I AIN'T USING NO AK
I'M CHOPPIN OFF HEADS
THROWING 'EM IN DA BAY
HEY HEY
RATS HAVE NO RIGHT TO LIFE
BLACK LIVES MATTER
RATS LIVES DON'T MATTER
REVOLUTION AIN'T FOR BOY SCOUTS
MILLER LITE MOTHERFUCKERS
RATS NEED HEADS CHOPPED
BUKU HARAM FASHION
ISIS MANNER
GOD DON'T LOVE COWARD SOLDIERS
GOD LOVES WARRIORS
GOD DON'T LOVE COWARD SOLDIERS
GOD LOVES WARRIORS.
DON'T BE A COWARD COMMUNITY
OUR TRADITION IS REVOLUTION
PULLMAN PORTERS, BLACK PANTHERS
NO COWARDS ALLOWED
REVOLUTIONARY COMRADE ANGELA DAVIS
ELDRIDGE CLEAVER AND HIS COMRADE ALPRENTICE BUNCHY CARTER, WHO WAS ASSASSINATED ALONG WITH JOHN HUGGINS ON THE CAMPUS OF UCLA BY MEMBERS OF THE US ORGANIZATION.
COMRADE GEORGE JACKSON, MESSIAH OF THE PRISON MOVEMENT
PULLMAN PORTER LAND
BLACK PANTHER LAND
BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT LAND
BLACK STUDENTS UNION LAND
BLACK STUDIES LAND
ASE! ASE! ASE!
BETTER AX SOMEBODY!
BETTER AX SOMEBODY!
--MARVIN X
Thursday, April 9, 2015
Kichange Journal for parents and children, created by Amira Jackmon
Location:
2342 Shattuck Avenue #816, Berkeley, California, United States
Kichange
Kichange! The only currency for today's modern kid
Startup/business
California, United States
http://kichange.com
Startup/business
California, United States
http://kichange.com
Company description
Use of Kichange™ enhances social-emotional learning and math and writing skills and introduces basic economic principles. It is recommended for children aged 6-12.
_____________________________________
Amira Jackmon is the Founder of Kichange™. Amira is an attorney who, for the last four years, has operated as a solo practitioner serving issuers and underwriters in complex public finance transactions and advising small business owners in transactional and litigation matters. Prior to that, she was an associate attorney in a large San Francisco-based law firm. Amira graduated from Stanford Law with a J.D. and from Yale University with a B.A. in Psychology. With her background in finance, her interest in psychology and her experience as a mother, the launch of Kichange™ is a logical next step in her life path.
Inspiration
Since the time that he could barely talk and walk, my son enjoyed a LOVE/HATE relationship with a neighborhood child (we’ll call him "Max"). My son loved to go and play with Max whenever he had the opportunity. But Max was, to put it bluntly, a bully. Though he was, at heart, a good kid, he’d often tease my son by calling him “baby” and other names. They'd argue and sometimes things would even get physical (although it was always an "accident"). My son would often run home crying. Nonetheless, he'd be just as eager to go back there the next day. As a mom, I didn’t know what to do. Of course, if I prohibited him from going to play with Max he’d be just as angry.Through a community workshop I learned a great practice for increasing self-knowledge and writing more effective affirmations. It involves recording very specific instances of positive behavior. I used the technique for myself initially and had great results letting go of old, unhelpful labels about myself. Then I thought, wouldn't it be great to have had this record from a very early age? That's when I started using the practice with my son. We kept a journal to record this work.
One day, when my son was about 4 or 5, he came home crying after Max called him a baby yet again. I was frustrated. “Why do you keep going over there!” I wanted to scream. Instead, as patiently as I could, I asked him, “Well are you a baby?”
“No!” he insists.
“Well what are you?”
“I'm a big boy!"
"Ok, well what else are you besides a 'big boy'"
Shrugging his shoulders, "I don’t know.”
In a flash, it came to me! “Well, go get your journal. Let’s read about who you are.”
He got out his journal and we sat down and began to read some of the entries. Some entries related back to occurrences when he was just 2 years old (I did the writing back then). Instantly, his demeanor changed. His anger dissolved. We both chuckled as we read through these endearing snapshots from his life. We read for less than 5 minutes but it was enough. He was no longer angry at Max and he chose to play happily at home for the rest of the afternoon. Inside, I was ecstatic. Finally, I was no longer helpless. Now I had a go-to-tool to use whenever the inevitable conflict with Max arose.
We have continued to journal in this way and to read from the journal periodically. These days, when my son comes to me upset that someone said this or that, all I have to say is, “Go get your journal.” He generally doesn’t even let me finish my sentence. “Ok, ok, mom. That’s ok. I know who I am.” As an added benefit, this practice has also helped my son to see good in others even when those others do not always behave in a positive manner.
Because of how helpful this tool has been for me and my family, I decided to create the app to share it with others.
How it works
The app has an easy to use interface that helps children write down their positive behavior. The child can take a picture as additional evidence of the positive behavior (artwork, report cards, awards). The entries are compiled in a timeline fashion to be reviewed by the child from time to time.To motivate the child to make the journal entries, the child is rewarded with 5 "Kichange" for each journal entry. "Kichange" is currency for kids that I created as part of a new incentive system. Parents decide how the Kichange can be used. Rewards can be things like screen time, playdates or treats...that is, whatever has "currency" for the kids .
The Kichange journal app provides kids the language and a tool to be masters of their own personal currency and cultivators of their own inner peace. With these skills and knowledge, kids are armed with a powerful immunizer against life's inevitable challenges whether it be bullying, an over-critical parent or the child's own doubts. By dissolving anger and fear, the opportunity for happiness is thereby expanded.
What's next for Kichange Journal App
Kichange is in the beta testing phase and is expected to be available for Iphone/Ipad users in early 2015.Later versions of the app will allow the users to order a hard copy of the journal entries and associated photos as a keepsake.
Wednesday, April 8, 2015
Regarding Pig Murder in South Carolina: Southern Black Arts Movement Conference rescheduled, Sept., 2016
BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT - SOUTHERN
STYLE
CALL FOR PAPERS
What: An international conference on the Black Arts Movement
Where: Dillard University - New Orleans, Louisiana
When: September 9-11, 2016.
Background:
Students represented some of the strongest voices of
self-determination and social change during the Black Arts Movement (BAM). As much as the Black Arts and Black Power Movements were
needed in the 1960s and 1970s, today these movements are vital as a means of
providing historical context and to awakening our youth to issues of voter
disenfranchisement, and inequalities within our social system. This is why the
New Orleans Black Arts Movement (BAM) Conference taking place, September 9-11,
2016 is important. The conference is designed to educate the public about the
contributions of the South’s role in BAM. Why does that matter? The heart pumps
blood so that the entire body operates. The South represents a vital part of
the body of the Black Arts Movement.
On the fiftieth anniversary of the Black Arts Movement, a
question must be asked, “Where do we go from here?” This question is just one
of many that will be answered at the International Conference on the Black Arts
Movement – Southern Style at Dillard University, September 9-11, 2016. The
call for papers on a worldwide level is asking the larger questions including
and in addition to race and culture as we examine the south’s contributions to
the Black Arts Movement, and how that changed us as a nation, and as a world.
The emphasis of this conference is the South because of its rich legacy of
literature, and social activism and as the cultural and spiritual foundation of
many major voices in BAM. The Black Arts Movement, the spiritual twin of the
Black Power Movement is noted for having changed how Black Americans viewed
themselves as a race. Black Americans in the 1960s and 1970s created a new
vision of Blackness, one that celebrated the uniqueness of Black culture.
Participants:
Scheduled speakers include: Jerry Ward, Kalamu Ya
Salaam, Askia Toure, Sonia Sanchez, John Bracey, Jr., Mona Lisa Saloy,
Ishmael Reed, Quo Vadis Breaux, John O'Neal, Eugene Redmond, Chakula
Cha Jua, Haki Madhubuti, James
Smethurst, Jerry Varnado, and Jimmy Garrett.
Call
for papers details:
The
Black Arts Movement Conference welcomes research and creative arts submissions
from people of all cultures and racial backgrounds for this September event in
New Orleans. We are seeking papers related to the Black Arts Movement including
the areas of history, art, music, literature, dance, drama, women, gender, and
southern writers. Proposed presentations may take a variety of forms including
research papers, personal narratives, interviews, theatre / music / multimedia,
food or culinary activities, posters and panel discussions.
The one-page,
100-word abstract/proposal should include your name, the title of your
presentation, any academic or community affiliations, email address, and any
equipment needs. If submitting a
proposal for a research presentation or a panel discussion, send a final copy
of the research paper and/or material on the theme, questions, and participants
for a panel.
The
deadline for submission is May 15, 2016. Late submissions will not be
accepted.
Selection
criteria:
Relevance
to the themes of the Black Arts Movement, originality of perspective or
presentation, contribution to an understanding of the Black Arts Movement, and
artistic or creative significance.
Contact:
Please
send an abstract / proposal and a brief biography to Kim McMillon at kmcmillon@ucmerced.edu.
For those individuals that
would like to attend only, please email kmcmillon@ucmerced.edu.
Marvin X invited the new Yoruba King (in white) to the Black Power Babies conversation in Brooklyn, NY, organized by his daughter, Muhammida El Muhajir. Oba Olatunji's father married Amiri and Amina Baraka. While in South Carolina, Marvin X visited the Yoruba Village in Sheldon, SC. He interviewed the Oba who was steeped in Black Arts Movement consciousness as well as Yoruba mythology. Marvin was deeply impressed with the knowledge the new Oba possessed.
North Charleston NAACP ‘Not Satisfied’ With Police Officer’s Murder Charge
The shooting took place after officer Michael Slager, 33, pulled over 50-year-old Walter Scott for a broken taillight. Police say a struggle ensued and Scott began running away with the officer’s Taser when Officer Slager fired his weapon eight times.
MARVIN X OFTEN RETREATS TO WRITE IN BEAUFORT, SOUTH CAROLINA, ON THE LAND OF BAM QUEEN HURRIYAH ASAR
Hurriyah Asar, aka Ethna X. Wyatt, Queen of Black Arts West, San Francisco, 1966, helped organize Black Arts West Theatre and The Black House, along with playwright Ed Bullins, Hillery Broadous, Carl Bossiere, Duncan Barber, Eldridge Cleaver, Willie Dale and Marvin X. Longtime partner of Marvin X, visited him during his exile in Toronto, Canada, invited him to Chicago where he became associated with the Chicago BAM Movement, including OBAC, Negro Digest/Black World, Hoyt Fuller, Haki Madhubuti, Gwen Brooks, Carolyn Rogers, Val Ward, Chicago Art Ensemble, Afro-Arts Theatre under Phil Choran. Marvin X returns to Chicago May 22 for a conference on his BAM mentor and associate Sun Ra at the University of Chicago.
I am so thankful my BAM comrade and partner Hurriyah gives me space from time to time to write in the paradise of Beaufort, South Carolina. It is heaven to me and I appreciate her hospitality. I love sitting on the beach as the tide rolls in, and even while it dwells. I enjoy the ducks, turkeys, chickens, doves, guineas and other fowl on her land. Hurriyah is truly Queen Mother of the West Coast Black Arts Movement. In San Francisco, Hurriyah (then Ethna Wyatt from Chicago) held Black Arts West Theatre together: Ed Bullins, Hillary Broadus, Duncan Barbar, Carl Bossisser, Danny Glover, Vonetta McGee; musicians: Earle Davis, Monte Waters, Oliver Johnson, Dewey Redman, Rafael Donald Garrett, BJ, et al.
Don't send your dead dog to South Carolina, they think they won the Civil War, yes, they live in the grand denial. So let us not linger in Jerusalem, let us move on to the Second Civil War. I can say I know a little about South Carolina. What a beautiful land, ah, paradise on earth, islands and islands where the Gullah Negroes/Africans lived in almost racial purity. Amiri Baraka came from Johns Island, renamed Jones. Dr. J. Herman Blake, sociologist who brought Malcolm X to UC Berkeley, who advised Dr. Huey P. Newton on his PhD at UC Santa Cruz, also from John's Island. Ain't Mechelle Obama a Gullah Negro/African?
But understand South Carolina, although I am thankful it has served as a writing retreat for me, thanks to my friend Hurriyah Asar. And I am blessed to receive knowledge of the Yoruba religion from the African Village in Sheldon, SC.
But it is a slave community, full of ignut nigguhs though they are blessed with Gullah African consciousness, a beautiful thang. But even the Gullah youth have turned into Nigguhs who want to leave those Islands of Paradise for Savannah and Atlanta so they can die like dogs in the streets, enjoying the best of urbanity. I wish somebody could hep me!
Last time I was in South Carolina, including Charleston, I was told to say nothing, just shut up while you're here. We're not going to help you promote your book, so just shut up cause we tired of you Cali Nigguhs comin' here talkin that radical shit then leavin', then we got to deal with this Peckerwood who knows you were staying with us and now he wants to retaliate on us fa yo shit. You know we all got three minimum wage jobs to make ends meet, so now all he got to do is fire us from one of those jobs and we can't pay the house note or car note or pussy bill, yeah, let's keep it real!
FYI, I wrote How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy in South Carolina, Beaufort. When I went to Staples to copy the manuscript, the sister asked, "Where you from?"
"I'm from here!"
"Naw you ain't!"
"Why you say I ain't from here?"
"Cause we don't say white supremacy down here. We know it, but we don't say it!"
In the South, aside from his Parable of the Black Bird, his manual How to Recover from the Addiction of White Supremacy is the most requested book--in the North as well!
Hurriyah Asar replies to Marvin X on Pig Murder in South Carolina:
Thank you for the accolades but I'm not the Queen, Mother Earth is. I salute you for your visions, your courage, after the messenger u remain the bravest man I know. Every time u left home, back in the day, I was afraid that u would become a statistic, because u never backed down. Now I fear for my sons and everyone's sons and daughters. I'm here in Chicago with my mom and I told her I'm not backing down either.... No Surrender..................Love and solidarity..............Your daughters are brilliant.........................................
BAM Queen Mother Hurriyah Asar feeding her fowl on her land, Beaufort, South Carolina. Hurriyah was co-founder of Black Arts West Theatre and The Black House political/cultural center, San Francisco, 1966-67. She joined Marvin X during his exile in Toronto, Canada, then invited him to depart Canada for Chicago where he connected with the Chicago Black Arts Movement, 1967-68.
Yoruba ceremony at the African Village, Sheldon, South Carolina
Oba Olatunji, founder of the Yoruba African Village, Sheldon, SC. The Oba spread Yoruba African culture in Harlem, helping ignite the Black Arts Movement before departing to establish his African Village in South Carolina.
Queen Mothers of Yoruba African Village, Sheldon, SC
Daughters of Marvin X: Amira, Nefertiti, Muhammida
"The intelligence and creativity of my daughters destroyed any notion of the patriarchal mythology in my mind. They humbled me before the Goddess mythology, along with their mothers and the other women partners and revolutionary female comrades in my life. All praise is due the Goddess!"
Tuesday, April 7, 2015
Musician slain in Black Arts Movement District, downtown Oakland
|
Poem for Lady Day @ 100: Billie Holiday - Strange Fruit
For you Lady Day @ 100
Queen of the Blues Black Classic sound
Strange Fruit hangin above the ground
Black lives Matter then and now
we love the songs you gave
they handcuffed you to yr bed
on the way to your grave
sing Billie
yr songs for eternity
Lover Man, My Man
All of me
Yeah, why not take all of me
Sing Billie
from your heaven throne
God bless the child
that's got his own....
--Marvin X
7 April 2015
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)