Thursday, July 14, 2016

White America, North American Africans and Communal Suicide


Thursday, July 14, 2016


White America, North American Africans and Communal Suicide

"It's a wonder we all haven't all gone stark raving mad!"--James Baldwin, 1968 interview with Marvin X

"Homicide and suicide are two sides of the same coin!"--Dr. Nathan Hare








Suicide among North American Africans is a communal affair, or shall we say societal affair since we live in a hostile environment that invites us to suicide by the very nature of our existence that is marginalized at best, but it is our psycho-social condition that leaves us no way out of suicide on so many levels. The very air we breathe is killing us, but what choice do we have? The food we eat is killing us but how many can afford to shop at Whole Foods? One piece of organic chicken for $5.00? Get real!

Education is toxic for it inculcates us with self-hatred that is destructive to our mental equilibrium. Ancestor Amiri Baraka once said, "We send our children to these colleges and universities and they come back hating us and everything we're about--and they don't even know what we're about!" Dr. Wade Nobles said, "Our men are in prison, but our women are in prison at these universities and colleges." One of my daughters who graduated from Yale and Stanford Law School, told me she and her girlfriends found it almost impossible to date a Black male student. What does this do to the Black sense of self? A beautiful young lady who graduated from Spelman informed me she thought she was black and ugly! So many times Black lives don't matter even to ourselves since we are addicted to white supremacy Type II (Dr. Nathan Hare, foreword to How to Recover from White Supremacy by Marvin X, aka Dr. M). Even our best and brightest live lives of rejection leading to depression and death. And when it is not outright suicide, many of us fall victim to diseases caused by the hostile environment, including and especially the workplace. When my dear friend, Poet/Professor/Critic Sherley A. Williams, died at 51 years old, Dr. William H. Grier, psychiatrist and co-author of the 60s classic Black Rage, told his son to tell me, "Tell Marvin Sherley didn't die from asthma but from the hostile environment at the University of California, San Diego." Indeed, Sherley often told  me her job was toxic and that she hadn't spoken with her colleagues for years! Three brilliant Black women professors at UC Berkeley made their transition, we think, for the same reason as Sherley: Barbara Christian, June Jordan and VeVe Clark. Is not continuing to work in a hostile, toxic environment a form of suicide?

I talked with a friend today who was at work but said she wasn't feeling well but could not go to the hospital because she would be penalized as she had taken too many sick leaves. Yes, she works in a hostile environment as well. Imagine, you are sick but can't afford to leave the job for medical attention. Is this the glory of free market capitalism and wage slavery?

I have no doubt we suffer a plethora of psycho-somatic disorders from America's toxic society. I have read that due to fear of the medical profession and its known experimentation on Blacks (beginning with gynecologists who began this branch of medicine by practicing  on African women in the American slave system without providing any anesthesia), many bourgeoisie Blacks do not seek medical attention even when they have excellent medical insurance. Is this not a suicidal attitude?

Because of white jealousy and envy (along with the crab in the barrel mentality of Black co-workers in competition with their Black fellow workers) most jobs for us are in a hostile work environment that ultimately kills.

Of course chronic unemployment leads to self destructive behavior such as drug abuse and domestic violence. Surely, partner violence leads us to harm our partner and ourselves. Often the violence is fatal, so we kill our partner and ourselves, but is not our partner part of ourselves, hence we kill ourselves. Black on Black homicide is thus a form of suicide because when we kill our brother/sister we kill ourselves! The notion of self is a communal idea or even better, a communal reality, not individual. The self is born of tribal and national mythology and ritual. Can we therefore imagine how pervasive homicide and suicide impacts not only the individual, but the family, village and national group? As a result of the last few days of police violence and the ongoing internal violence, North American Africans are suffering trauma and grief.

Imagine all the families whose members are killed by the police or another Black, but the family tragedy never hits the headlines, never enjoy marches and rallies, and often there is only a miller lite police investigation, for after all, Black lives don't matter, yes, even though we are children of the Creator, precious and holy, each and every one of us.



So we know many homicides are in reality suicides because the person put himself in a homicidal  situation where the person was  killed because they didn't have the strength to kill themselves. Sometimes we escalate a situation to the point we don't give a damn whether we die or live, so often we are killed but if there had been a strong desire to live we wouldn't have escalated the situation to the point of death.


 Sandra Bland


For sure, many of us engage in unsafe sex that is  suicidal for in the deep structure of our minds is the attitude of not caring whether we live or die, as in the case of many persons who contract HIV/AIDS from unsafe sex.

 
--Marvin X
7/14/16

Marvin X's son, Darrel, suffered manic depression and under the influence of psycho-drugs walked into a train at 39 years old. He graduated from UC Berkeley in Arabic and Middle Eastern literature, studied at the University of Damascus, Syria on a Fulbright; also studied at the American University, Cairo, Egypt, and did graduate work at Harvard University. "Dr. Nathan Hare comforted me with the fact that my son's death was one side of the same coin. Hare reminded me Malcolm and Martin died at the same age." Well, death is death by any name! Don't make me quote the infamous Hillary Clinton, "What difference does it make?"

City of Oakland must support Universal African Flag Day!

As a bold act of Kujichagulia, self-determination, what if representatives of the array of organizations and institutions in the Pan African world resolve to adopt the Red, Black and Green Flag that the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey bequeathed to African people as a unifying symbol, as our Flag and proclaim August 17, Garvey’s birthday, Universal African Flag Day
--Ron Daniels, Institute of the Black World




The Black Arts Movement Business District calls upon the City of Oakland to display the above flag as a banner throughout the Black Arts Movement Business District immediately and without further delay, certainly, by Marcus Garvey's birthday, August 17. We further demand that the words LOVE LIFE be placed at the bottom of the banner as agreed upon by Donald Lacy, founder of the Love Live Foundation. The Oakland City Council has approved LOVE LIFE as the official motto of Oakland.

We call upon Mayor Libby Schaaf and President of the Oakland City Council, Lynette McElhaney to make this happen as a priority for the mental health of the North American African citizens of Oakland and all the citizens of Oakland. We call upon the City Council to resolve August 17 as Universal African Flag Day in Oakland.  

Police: from Problem to Solution: 
the Newark, New Jersey Model

Newark, NJ Mayor Ras Baraka and Marvin X


When I was in Newark, New Jersey for the last rites of my friend and comrade, poet/activist Amiri Baraka, his son Ras then a city councilman but was running for mayor. He told me then, "Marvin we got Black brothers on the police force with legal guns who back us, i.e., the community." And I observed positive police/community relations. It is a different feeling when you know the police are on your side. As a matter of fact, during the time of the funeral the police were in and out of the Baraka's house socializing with and protecting Newark's "first family".  Police blocked off the block where the Baraka family lives in the hood.

I was informed some of the officers had grown up with the Baraka children or their parents had been part of the Newark black consciousness, cultural and political movement that was critical in the election of Newark's first Black mayor, Kenneth Gibson. In short, the police were an integral part of the community, as opposed to an occupying army.

Now let's be clear, Ras informed me there were police who supported the opposition, but he felt confident with the percentage of officers on his (the peoples) side. Ironically, I was at the Baraka house once on AB's  birthday (October 7) when the opposition sent officers with warrants to arrest his sons for failure to pay child support. This was done by his political enemies to rattle his cage on his birthday. They do play hard ball in Newark and the opposition is serious. There are former Newark mayors who went down in disgrace for their negrocities (AB term, not mine, he wanted me to let you know) but have sons that they want to be mayor.

Of course Ras won the election as mayor, guided by his brother Amiri, Jr.'s (Middy) strategic planning. Their mother, Mrs. Amina Baraka, has kept me informed of her son's progress as mayor. Even the New York Times gave him brownie points for his first 100 days in office.

Mrs. Baraka informed me there have been no police killings since Ras became Mayor, although brothers killing brothers has not stopped. Mayor Baraka has police walking through the hood, Black and White officers, smiling and greeting the people. Mrs. Baraka said she doesn't know, and many people don't know, what to think of the white officers smiling so much.

But clearly, community policing is working, thus Newark can be and should be a  model for cities trying to upgrade their police departments from acting like brute beasts in blue uniforms. Why should police take the life of the mostly poor, mentally ill and drug addicted? Why would you kill a man hustling single cigarettes, DVDs and CDs? Why would you kill a man for a broken tail light or failure to signal a lane change.? Why should a man suffer a broken spine from a ride in the paddy wagon?

One year ago, July 10,  Sandra Bland was arrested for failure to use signal to change lanes, later found dead in her jail cell.




Surely after all the hell the Black Panther Party suffered trying to combat police terror and brutality fifty years ago( and we celebrate their 50th anniversary for the sacrifice they made), we must try something new, unless we want to continue bumping our heads against a stone wall.

We don't have the power to defeat them because they have too much back up, e.g., the army, navy, air force, national guard, FBI, Homeland Security, etc. At some point we will need a reconciliation or things will go from bad to worse as happened in Dallas, Texas. The nature of the panther is to strike when it is backed up against the wall or corner.

After seeing with my own eyes that there can be at least a symbiotic relationship between the people and the police, I've concluded that we need to get brothers and sisters on the police force, especially in cities where we are in the majority, and the white officers must be socialized to understand they work for the people, the people don't work for them.  The people pay their salaries but not to be brutalized and killed under the color of law. We agree with Chief Brown in Dallas who called for people to be the solution rather than the problem, to become police officers. All they need do is community consciousness, similar to the police who arrested my in Belize, Central America, when I was being deported for entering the country illegally. While I was at the police station awaiting deportation, they surrounded me and when they had me in the center of a circle, they begged me to teach them about Black Power, the real reason I was being deported. Wouldn't it be nice if the American police would ask the Black Lives Matter people to teach them about Black Power rather than try to ridicule the BLM people out of existence because just as the police ain't going nowhere, we don't think Black Lives Matter is either. Stay Woke!




Meanwhile back in Oaktown fada git down!

Activist Cat Brooks, of Oakland, is photographed near Oakland City Hall in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, July 1, 2015. Brooks is the founder of the
Activist Cat Brooks, of Oakland, is photographed near Oakland City Hall in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, July 1, 2015. Brooks is the founder of the Anti-Police Terror Project, co-chair of the ONYX Organizing Committee, member of Black Lives Matter Bay Area and one of the Black Friday 14. Brooks has organized several Black Lives Matter and other protests in Oakland. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group) 


Marvin X,  poet/activist, community planner of the Black Arts Movement Business District  and Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf who is suffering from a police prostitution scandal. She dismissed three police chiefs in nine days.  As per police/community relations, she claims the OPD has made improvements, but community activists are not satisfied with her ever since she began her tenure by meeting with the OPD rather than the community.  With the sex scandal, the OPD has obviously
betrayed her faith and trust in them as protectors and servants of the community. Activist Cat Brooks of the Anti-police Terror Projectn is organizing a recall. We think Mayor Schaaf might benefit with a call to Newark Mayor Ras Baraka.
--Marvin X
7/11/16

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Institute of the Black World Defends Black Lives Matter

 
 
Press Release
Contact: Don Rojas
 
 
Institute of the Black World Defends Black Lives Matter
Calls on Pres. Obama to Visit Baton Rouge and St. Paul, as Well as Dallas
 
New York, July 10, 2016...The Institute of the Black World 21st Century (IBW) is defending the Black Lives Matter Movement against false criticism from right-wing political pundits that the Movement was responsible for the tragic deaths of five Dallas police officers.
 
While condemning the murders, by callous policemen and by a disturbed former Afghanistan veteran, IBW is also calling on President Obama to be "fair and balanced" in his posture towards the horrific and terrorist-like murders in recent days by visiting Baton Rouge and St. Paul after he has visited Dallas on Tuesday and to demonstrate, in both words and deeds, his equal concern for the families and communities of those who died in all three cities.
 
In citing the official statement put out by Black Lives Matter (BLM) leaders on Friday, IBW said the unvarnished truth is that the Black Lives Matter Movement has never called for the murder of police officers and has said over and over again that it is time in this country for policing to be accountable, transparent and responsible.
 
"We agree with the BLM that this is what communities in the United States want to see from the people who protect and serve them," said IBW's President Dr. Ron Daniels. "There needs to be accountable, responsive, transparent policing that has oversight from those communities and that is accountable to the communities they are supposed to protect and serve. We also call on civil rights and human rights organizations to stand with the Black Lives Matter Movement to ensure that they are not scapegoated, repressed and marginalized."
 
Daniels called for an urgent national conversation on race and structural racism saying such a conversation must involve all strata of society and should be more than "just talk and pious rhetoric" and, instead, must produce a public policy agenda of action items that include thorough-going criminal justice reform, comprehensive community-based economic development, and a reparations program that seeks social justice and a starts a process of repairing and healing the ongoing devastating social and psychological consequences from the historical crimes of chattel slavery and legal Jim Crow segregation.
 
"America needs to find the honesty and moral courage to confront the sins of its past and the living consequences of those sins today," said Daniels. "Now is the time for all people of good will to commit themselves to this imperative."
 
The IBW President also noted that the time is long overdue to end the War on Drugs which over the past 25 years has contributed to a spike in police brutality, accompanied by an explosion in the mass incarceration of young black and brown men in vastly disproportionate numbers across the country. "The War on Drugs has been a war on black and brown communities which has broken thousands of families and beat a path of social and economic devastation across the United States," said Daniels.
 
The events in the USA in recent days have sparked outrage and concern in black communities across the world, manifested in a huge demonstration in support of the Black Lives Matter Movement this weekend in London, another in Canada, and expressions of horror in radio and television call-in programs across the Caribbean and in the government of the Bahamas issuing a travel advisory urging its citizens visiting the USA to exercise "extreme caution around police."
 
**************

Police: from Problem to Solution--The Newark, New Jersey Model




Newark, NJ Mayor Ras Baraka and Marvin X


When I was in Newark, New Jersey for the last rites of my friend and comrade, poet/activist Amiri Baraka, his son Ras then a city councilman but was running for mayor. He told me then, "Marvin we got Black brothers on the police force with legal guns who back us, i.e., the community." And I observed positive police/community relations. It is a different feeling when you know the police are on your side. As a matter of fact, during the time of the funeral the police were in and out of the Baraka's house socializing with and protecting Newark's "first family".  Police blocked off the block where the Baraka family lives in the hood.

I was informed some of the officers had grown up with the Baraka children or their parents had been part of the Newark black consciousness, cultural and political movement that was critical in the election of Newark's first Black mayor, Kenneth Gibson. In short, the police were an integral part of the community, as opposed to an occupying army.

Now let's be clear, Ras informed me there were police who supported the opposition, but he felt confident with the percentage of officers on his (the peoples) side. Ironically, I was at the Baraka house once on AB's  birthday (October 7) when the opposition sent officers with warrants to arrest his sons for failure to pay child support. This was done by his political enemies to rattle his cage on his birthday. They do play hard ball in Newark and the opposition is serious. There are former Newark mayors who went down in disgrace for their negrocities (AB term, not mine, he wanted me to let you know) but have sons that they want to be mayor.

Of course Ras won the election as mayor, guided by his brother Amiri, Jr.'s (Middy) strategic planning. Their mother, Mrs. Amina Baraka, has kept me informed of her son's progress as mayor. Even the New York Times gave him brownie points for his first 100 days in office.

Mrs. Baraka informed me there have been no police killings since Ras became Mayor, although brothers killing brothers has not stopped. Mayor Baraka has police walking through the hood, Black and White officers, smiling and greeting the people. Mrs. Baraka said she doesn't know, and many people don't know, what to think of the white officers smiling so much.

But clearly, community policing is working, thus Newark can be and should be a  model for cities trying to upgrade their police departments from acting like brute beasts in blue uniforms. Why should police take the life of the mostly poor, mentally ill and drug addicted? Why would you kill a man hustling single cigarettes, DVDs and CDs? Why would you kill a man for a broken tail light or failure to signal a lane change.? Why should a man suffer a broken spine from a ride in the paddy wagon?




Surely after all the hell the Black Panther Party suffered trying to combat police terror and brutality fifty years ago( and we celebrate their 50th anniversary for the sacrifice they made), we must try something new, unless we want to continue bumping our heads against a stone wall.

We don't have the power to defeat them because they have too much back up, e.g., the army, navy, air force, national guard, FBI, Homeland Security, etc. At some point we will need a reconciliation or things will go from bad to worse as happened in Dallas, Texas. The nature of the panther is to strike when it is backed up against the wall or corner.

After seeing with my own eyes that there can be at least a symbiotic relationship between the people and the police, I've concluded that we need to get brothers and sisters on the police force, especially in cities where we are in the majority, and the white officers must be socialized to understand they work for the people, the people don't work for them.  The people pay their salaries but not to be brutalized and killed under the color of law. We agree with Chief Brown in Dallas who called for people to be the solution rather than the problem, to become police officers. All they need do is community consciousness, similar to the police who arrested my in Belize, Central America, when I was being deported for entering the country illegally. While I was at the police station awaiting deportation, they surrounded me and when they had me in the center of a circle, they begged me to teach them about Black Power, the real reason I was being deported. Wouldn't it be nice if the American police would ask the Black Lives Matter people to teach them about Black Power rather than try to ridicule the BLM people out of existence because just as the police ain't going nowhere, we don't think Black Lives Matter is either. Stay Woke!


 
Meanwhile back in Oaktown fada git down!
Activist Cat Brooks, of Oakland, is photographed near Oakland City Hall in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, July 1, 2015. Brooks is the founder of the
Activist Cat Brooks, of Oakland, is photographed near Oakland City Hall in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, July 1, 2015. Brooks is the founder of the Anti-Police Terror Project, co-chair of the ONYX Organizing Committee, member of Black Lives Matter Bay Area and one of the Black Friday 14. Brooks has organized several Black Lives Matter and other protests in Oakland. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group) ( JANE TYSKA )
 


Marvin X,  poet/activist, community planner of the Black Arts Movement Business District  and Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf who is suffering from a police prostitution scandal. She dismissed three police chiefs in nine days.  As per police/community relations, she claims the OPD has made improvements, but community activists are not satisfied with her ever since she began her tenure by meeting with the OPD rather than the community.  With the sex scandal, the OPD has obviously betrayed her faith and truth in them as protectors and servants of the community. Activists associated with the Black Lives Matter are organizing a recall. We think she might benefit with a call to Newark Mayor Ras Baraka.
--Marvin X
7/11/16


Ancestor Amiri Baraka called for the 27 city tour of the Black Arts Movement artists
to spread consciousness in the present era. In answer to ancestor AB, Marvin X is working on establishing the Black Arts Movement Business District in Oakland. Dr. Nathan Hare says, "Be careful, you're an elder then ancestor!" Marvin realizes this so he is passing the BAMBD baton to the Hip Hop generation who are the legitimate heirs of the Black Arts Movement.

 
Marvin X and Oakland City Council President Lynette McElhaney who pushed through legislation establishing the Black Arts Movement Business District in the 14th Street corridor, downtown Oakland. We thank Madam President for her effort but she was make BAMBD a priority for the mental, spiritual, cultural and economic health of Oakland.
photo Adam Turner, BAMBD


As a bold act of Kujichagulia, self-determination, what if representatives of the array of organizations and institutions in the Pan African world resolve to adopt the Red, Black and Green Flag that the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey bequeathed to African people as a unifying symbol, as our Flag and proclaim August 17, Garvey’s birthday, Universal African Flag Day
--Ron Daniels, Institute of the Black World

The Black Arts Movement Business District calls upon the City of Oakland to display the above flag as a banner throughout the Black Arts Movement Business District immediately and without further delay, certainly, by Marcus Garvey's birthday, August 17. We further demand that the words LOVE LIFE be placed at the bottom of the banner as agreed upon by Donald Lacy, founder of the Love Live Foundation. The Oakland City Council has approved LOVE LIFE as the official motto of Oakland.


We call upon Mayor Libby Schaaf and President of the Oakland City Council, Lynette McElhaney to make this happen as a priority for the mental health of the North American African citizens of Oakland and all the citizens of Oakland. We call upon the City Council to resolve August 17 as Universal African Flag Day in Oakland. 

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Black Classical music: Duke Ellington & His Orchestra - Satin Doll

Police walk off security job in protest of WNBA players support for Black Lives Matter

Minneapolis police officers walk off WNBA security detail in protest of Black Lives Matter

Maya Moore and her Minnesota Lynx teammates sported T-shirts in support of the Black Lives Matter movement on Saturday night. (David Sherman/Getty Images)
Maya Moore and her Minnesota Lynx teammates sported T-shirts in support of the Black Lives Matter movement on Saturday night. (David Sherman/Getty Images)

The Minneapolis Police Department’s motto is “To Protect with Courage, To Serve with Compassion.”

Except when it comes to Saturday night’s Minnesota Lynx game at the city’s Target Center, it seems.
Four Minneapolis police officers, working the game as independently contracted security personnel, walked off the job before this past weekend’s game against the Dallas Wings in response to members of the Lynx wearing T-shirts in support of the Black Lives Matter movement and calling for change in the wake of recent police shootings that left two black men dead, according to the Star Tribune.
“If we take this time to see that this is a human issue and speak out together, we can greatly decrease fear and create change,” Lynx guard, 2014 WNBA MVP and three-time league champ Maya Moore told reporters at a press conference players called prior to the game. “Tonight we will be wearing shirts to honor and mourn the losses of precious American citizens and to plea for change in all of us.”

Moore and her Lynx teammates sported black T-shirts with the words, “CHANGE STARTS WITH US … JUSTICE & ACCOUNTABILITY,” stacked on the front. On the back, the shirts featured the names Philando Castile and Alton Sterling — the two men fatally shot last week by police in Falcon Heights, Minn., and Baton Rouge, La., respectively — along with the phrase “BLACK LIVES MATTER” underneath.

Additionally, the shirts featured a Dallas Police Department emblem in honor of the five officers killed by a rogue sniper during a rally protesting the shooting deaths of Castile and Sterling. Lynx players also denounced the “senseless ambush” of the five fallen officers, according to the Star Tribune, and praised Dallas police for their efforts against the unnecessary use of deadly force in recent years.

So, it seems four Minneapolis police officers walking off a security detail for 7,613 fans in attendance at Saturday’s game was ill-advised at best and downright deplorable at worst. These officers are paid to protect and serve, albeit independently in this scenario, and one would think that should take precedence over political beliefs that clash with what was a rather reasoned take by the Lynx.
In a statement, the Lynx justifiably would not ask the officers to compromise their own beliefs, especially since they were privately contracted and the team employs other security personnel.

At the same time, the actions of the four police officers involved do not exclude them from criticism.
Making matters worse, Minneapolis Police Federation Lt. Bob Kroll, president of the city’s police union, stood firmly by the decision to leave their security post, even calling for others to do the same.
“I commend them for it,” Kroll told the Star Tribune. Adding that the four officers who walked off the job have refused to work future Lynx games and many of their colleagues have joined that lack of effort, Kroll said, “If [the players] are going to keep their stance, all officers may refuse to work there.”
In other words, the Minneapolis police union is asking WNBA players to change their stance against racial profiling if the city would like officers protecting citizens in the stands at Target Center.
This is not good. Not good at all.

According to the Star Tribune, Kroll cited “false narratives” with regard to the public’s response to police shootings of black men in recent years and warned Lynx players, “Rushing to judgment before the facts are in is unwarranted and reckless.” But shouldn’t Kroll be held to the same standard?
Let’s not forget a man was gunned down in front of his fiancée and her 4-year-old daughter by an officer at a neighboring police department, regardless of motive, and calling for change to whatever protocol ultimately left the man dead is hardly a rush to judgment, unwarranted or reckless.

Before you consider whether Castile could have also acted differently in the situation that led to his death, ask yourself if this kicker from Kroll to the Star Tribune comes from a union president who is sensitive to this issue or has no interest in opening a dialogue on black lives mattering: “They only have four officers working the event,” said Kroll, “because the Lynx have such a pathetic draw.”
There’s no doubt the Minneapolis Police Department protects with courage and serves with compassion the vast majority of the time, as most law enforcement units do in the country, but in this particular instance, it sure seems like some of them are running and hiding from the issue at hand.

Revised: Dear white people and the other white people (ignut nigguhs) : Don't ask me shit and don't tell me shit! Boycott white people!

Yes, I am boycotting white people and the other white people (ignut nigguhs) until they go into detox and long term recovery from their full blown addiction to white supremacy lunacy or mental infantile paralysis. At this time they are a danger to themselves and others, thus qualified for the mental institution.

According to ancestor Nelson Mandela, white people are the cause of global strife with their permanent wars that benefit the 1%, especially gun makers. How can America talk about violence in America when it is the number one arms supplier of the world? Ever heard of blow back? Who has the most military bases throughout the world to back up their so-called free trade capitalism, including wage slavery policies?

So Mr. and Mrs. White people and Mr. and Mrs. Other White People (ignut nigguhs), go somewhere to get you a brand new bag, go get a healing in a White Supremacy Recovery Program, then when you are clean and sober and free of any residue of white supremacy mythology (Type I and II), come talk with me, until then leave me the fuck alone with your stupid ass corny shit!
--Marvin X

Monday, July 11, 2016

Randy Weston at 90

Randy Weston at 90
Norman (Otis) Richmond aka Jalali

Randy Weston has reached the age of ninety.  Weston has been on the small planet called earth for nearly a century. He turned 90 on April 5th.

My father Norman Lee Richmond aka Bud joined the ancestors in the early 1970s. I met Weston shorty after Bud left us.  Weston has been the closest to a father to me since Bud. He has supported Diasporic Music and Saturday Morning Live on CKLN -FM 88.1 and Regent Radio.  He did fund raisers for Saturday Morning Live and Diasporic Music on CKLN-FM.

The Brooklyn, New York born Weston also has been a firm supporter of Diasporic Music on Uhuru Radio.  He offered the station copies of his classic album “Uhuru Afrika” aka Freedom Africa during several of our fund raising affairs. The pianist who calls his music “African Rhythms) not “jazz” was recorded in 1960 and was originally released on the Roulette label. Roulette Records was founded in late 1956 by Morris Levy and others. The label had known ties to New York mobsters and Levy ran the label with an iron fist.

If you have seen the 1998 film, “Why Do Fools Fall in Love” starring Halle Berry, Vivica Fox, Lela Rochon and Larenz Tate who portrayed Frankie Lymon you get an idea of what type of character Levy was. The record industry just like the United States Empire was created by gangsters.

Weston was signed by United Artists Records

Weston was signed by United Artists Records with a three year contact in 1958. He recorded a classic piece about his son “Little Niles”. Said Weston, “The reviews for that record were very favorable and I obviously wanted to record “Uhuru Afrika” for United Artists, due to the success of “Little Niles”.
The company felt he wasn’t that well-known at the time and perhaps he should do something more popular.  Said Weston, “...I thought, was that after making this more “popular” record, then I could record Uhuru.” United Artists suggested that he do a recording based on a popular100 Broadway show, which he did to no avail.

C. B. Atkins, who was Sarah Vaughan’s husband and manager at the time had links with Levy. He at one point in history was one of Muhammad Ali’s mangers.  “Atkins went to Roulette Records and talked Morris Levy into it, which was no small feat.”

Weston’s autobiography “African Rhythms” which was composed by the giant himself (he stands at 6 feet 7 inches).  It was composed by Willard Jerkins. It is a must own and read for Africa, Africans and their allies. Robin Kelley has wrote, “African Rhythms is unlike anything I’ve ever read. Randy Weston’s pianist, composer, bandleader, activist, ambassador, visionary, griot– takes the reader on a most spectacular spiritual journey from Brooklyn to Africa, around the world and back again.”

Weston traces his roots and acknowledges his ancestors                  

“He tells the story of this great music that has never been told in print tracing its African roots and branches acknowledging the ancestors who helped bring him to the music from his soul, singing praises songs for these artistic and intellectual giants whose paths he crossed, from Langston Hughes, to Melba Liston, Dizzy to Monk, Marshall Stearns to Cheikh Anta Diop.”

Meeting Fatoumata Mbengue of Senegal

Today Weston is married to Fatoumata Mbengue-Weston of Senegal. Says Weston: “In 1994 I met my African queen. I was in Paris to play a concert with the Gnawa and I was staying at a hotel near an interesting –looking African shop called Saga, which I had always meant to check out , but each time I passed by I seemed to be in a hurry or on some deadline. Even though I passed by every day, it took me a while to finally go in this shop, but somehow the Creator finally directed me there.”

Weston said he found out that Saga meant family in the Wolof language. He even went on to record an album Saga later for the France based label. The 6 foot 7 inch Weston goes on to describe Fatoumata’s shop. “She had everything you could imagine in her shop: statues, beautiful cloth, cards, jewelry, a window full of beautiful African things --- giraffes, seven-foot-tall statues … all kinds of beautiful things. She also had clothing there but nothing that would fit a big man like me. After I started going by the shop fairly frequently she arranged for her tailor to start making clothes for me because I was already wearing African clothes, but Fatou just took it to another level.”

There is an African Internationalist ending to this story. Fatoumata and Randy were married in Eqypt in a Nubian wedding. A sister from Senegal marries a brother from Brooklyn on the Nile. It would make a perfect Nollywood film.

Memorial services for Donna Jackmon, sister of Marvin X

Donna and Marvin X

Oh, Big D
I look out at the Bay waters
Amtrak to Fresno
early sat. morn
we celebrate your going home
to your Lord
from whence you came
Job said naked I came
and naked I go
Big D
we think of the good in you
and praise it
the wonderful lies you told
time after time
you so good
a nigguh would buy the Brooklyn bridge
from you
and you would sell it with that smile and grin
knowing another fool believed your lies
oh, the lies you told about me
of course I think I'm great
but you made me greater than I could imagine
never will forget when I came to Seattle
and you told your boss you couldn't come to work
you had lost contact with your brother who was in route
to Seattle in his private plane
you told your boss you lost contact with me somewhere
over Lake Tahoe
Girl, you lied so good
damn near got the whole family killed when that mafia nigguh
gave you $10,000.00 to keep for him
Big D, now who would give  you  ten thousand dollars to keep
but a damn fool you convinced with that smile, grin and funny laugh
so we'll miss your lies Big D
but we'll remember you and you know
one day I will write even more about you
the fantastic life you lived
but I know for sure
I won't be able to tell your story better than you.
Peace and Love forever
Your brother,
Marvin X
7/16/16 
Memorial Services for Donna Jackmon-Hart will be Saturday, July 16, 2PM, Cooley Funeral Home, Fresno CA. She is survived by three children: Deedra, Monte and Wendy, numerous grandchildren and great grand.

Marvin X and baby brother Tommy

Front to back: Sisters  Suzy, Debbra and Gayle

Oldest brother Ali, Debra and Judy

Black Bird Press News & Review: Race in America--the Grand Denial!

Black Bird Press News & Review: Race in America--the Grand Denial!

Wimbledon 2016: Serena Williams recites Maya Angelou poem before final

Sunday, July 10, 2016

Part two: Unchained Black Hollywood/Book Panel Discussion Q&A!

Marvin X reads "Dope" by Amiri Baraka

Amiri Baraka - Dope

Amiri Baraka and Marvin X on Who Who Who Who?


 Who built this plantation house? Why would the white man build while he had free labor?

If Blacks are criminals in America, how did we get to America? Who brought us here and why?
Who was the captain on the Good Ship Jesus? Who had a miraculous conversion and wrote Amazing Grace, a song Africans should never sing? Who made us preach one sermon: Servants be obedient to your masters?
 
The white man brought us here by kidnapping us from Africa in conspiracy with ruling class Africans who benefited as much from the slave trade as the white man.
 
But who pimped us in America for four hundred years, who made us work the cotton, sugarcane and rice fields, build houses and buildings (including the White House), cook, nurse his little devil babies, who fucked our women, men and children at will on a daily basis but killed us for looking at his woman?

Who cut off our hands when we were caught reading and writing? Who assassinated us for talking about freedom, justice and equality? Who made us ignorant in public schools? Who taught us lies in school that made us believe we were lazy, docile, passive, submissive slaves who sometimes refused to work for nothing, not even a food stamp.
 

Who sold us on the auction block on New Year's Day, the most dreaded day in the life of a slave, i.e., African caught in the American slave system (Ed Howard term)? Who makes us celebrate New Year's Day in our abysmal ignorance of what that day meant to our ancestors? Who calls our celebrations and family outtings "Picknics" or Pick a Nigger and lynch him in a celebration that was often a family outing?

Who kills us daily for driving while Black, walking while Black, singing and playing music while Black? Who robs us then calls us criminals? Who aborts our babies, imprisons our men, women and children for economic crimes, mental illness and drug addiction? Who brings drugs into our communities then blames us for being drug addicts? Who kills us under the color of law but is horrified when we retaliate? Who doesn't believe what goes around comes around?
--Marvin X


SOMEBODY BLEW UP AMERICA
(All thinking people
oppose terrorism
both domestic
& international…
But one should not
be used
To cover the other)


They say its some terrorist, some
barbaric
A Rab, in
Afghanistan
It wasn't our American terrorists
It wasn't the Klan or the Skin heads
Or the them that blows up nigger
Churches, or reincarnates us on Death Row
It wasn't Trent Lott
Or David Duke or Giuliani
Or Schundler, Helms retiring

It wasn't
the gonorrhea in costume
the white sheet diseases
That have murdered black people
Terrorized reason and sanity
Most of humanity, as they pleases

They say (who say? Who do the saying
Who is them paying
Who tell the lies
Who in disguise
Who had the slaves
Who got the bux out the Bucks

Who got fat from plantations
Who genocided Indians
Tried to waste the Black nation

Who live on Wall Street
The first plantation
Who cut your nuts off
Who rape your ma
Who lynched your pa

Who got the tar, who got the feathers
Who had the match, who set the fires
Who killed and hired
Who say they God & still be the Devil

Who the biggest only
Who the most goodest
Who do Jesus resemble

Who created everything
Who the smartest
Who the greatest
Who the richest
Who say you ugly and they the goodlookingest

Who define art
Who define science

Who made the bombs
Who made the guns

Who bought the slaves, who sold them

Who called you them names
Who say Dahmer wasn't insane

Who/ Who / Who/

Who stole Puerto Rico
Who stole the Indies, the Philipines, Manhattan
Australia & The Hebrides
Who forced opium on the Chinese

Who own them buildings
Who got the money
Who think you funny
Who locked you up
Who own the papers

Who owned the slave ship
Who run the army

Who the fake president
Who the ruler
Who the banker

Who/ Who/ Who/

Who own the mine
Who twist your mind
Who got bread
Who need peace
Who you think need war

Who own the oil
Who do no toil
Who own the soil
Who is not a nigger
Who is so great ain't nobody bigger

Who own this city

Who own the air
Who own the water

Who own your crib
Who rob and steal and cheat and murder
and make lies the truth
Who call you uncouth

Who live in the biggest house
Who do the biggest crime
Who go on vacation anytime

Who killed the most niggers
Who killed the most Jews
Who killed the most Italians
Who killed the most Irish
Who killed the most Africans
Who killed the most Japanese
Who killed the most Latinos

Who/Who/Who

Who own the ocean

Who own the airplanes
Who own the malls
Who own television
Who own radio

Who own what ain't even known to be owned
Who own the owners that ain't the real owners

Who own the suburbs
Who suck the cities
Who make the laws

Who made Bush president
Who believe the confederate flag need to be flying
Who talk about democracy and be lying
WHO/ WHO/ WHOWHO/

Who the Beast in Revelations
Who 666
Who decide
Jesus get crucified

Who the Devil on the real side
Who got rich from Armenian genocide

Who the biggest terrorist
Who change the bible
Who killed the most people
Who do the most evil
Who don't worry about survival

Who have the colonies
Who stole the most land
Who rule the world
Who say they good but only do evil
Who the biggest executioner

Who/Who/Who ^^^

Who own the oil
Who want more oil
Who told you what you think that later you find out a lie
Who/ Who/ ???

Who fount Bin Laden, maybe they Satan
Who pay the CIA,
Who knew the bomb was gonna blow
Who know why the terrorists
Learned to fly in Florida, San Diego

Who know why Five Israelis was filming the explosion
And cracking they sides at the notion

Who need fossil fuel when the sun ain't goin' nowhere

Who make the credit cards
Who get the biggest tax cut
Who walked out of the Conference
Against Racism
Who killed Malcolm, Kennedy & his Brother
Who killed Dr King, Who would want such a thing?
Are they linked to the murder of Lincoln?

Who invaded Grenada
Who made money from apartheid
Who keep the Irish a colony
Who overthrow Chile and Nicaragua later

Who killed David Sibeko, Chris Hani,
the same ones who killed Biko, Cabral,
Neruda, Allende, Che Guevara, Sandino,

Who killed Kabila, the ones who wasted Lumumba, Mondlane , Betty Shabazz, Princess Margaret, Ralph Featherstone, Little Bobby

Who locked up Mandela, Dhoruba, Geronimo,
Assata, Mumia,Garvey, Dashiell Hammett, Alphaeus Hutton

Who killed Huey Newton, Fred Hampton,
MedgarEvers, Mikey Smith, Walter Rodney,
Was it the ones who tried to poison Fidel
Who tried to keep the Vietnamese Oppressed

Who put a price on Lenin's head

Who put the Jews in ovens,
and who helped them do it
Who said "America First"
and ok'd the yellow stars
WHO/WHO/ ^^

Who killed Rosa Luxembourg, Liebneckt
Who murdered the Rosenbergs
And all the good people iced,
tortured , assassinated, vanished

Who got rich from Algeria, Libya, Haiti,
Iran, Iraq, Saudi, Kuwait, Lebanon,
Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine,

Who cut off peoples hands in the Congo
Who invented Aids Who put the germs
In the Indians' blankets
Who thought up "The Trail of Tears"

Who blew up the Maine
& started the Spanish American War
Who got Sharon back in Power
Who backed Batista, Hitler, Bilbo,
Chiang kai Chek who WHO W H O/

Who decided Affirmative Action had to go
Reconstruction, The New Deal, The New
Frontier, The Great Society,

Who do Tom Ass Clarence Work for
Who doo doo come out the Colon's mouth
Who know what kind of Skeeza is a Condoleeza
Who pay Connelly to be a wooden negro
Who give Genius Awards to Homo Locus
Subsidere

Who overthrew Nkrumah, Bishop,
Who poison Robeson,
who try to put DuBois in Jail
Who frame Rap Jamil al Amin, Who frame the Rosenbergs, Garvey,
The Scottsboro Boys, The Hollywood Ten


Who set the Reichstag Fire

Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed
Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers
To stay home that day
Why did Sharon stay away ?
/
Who,Who, Who/
explosion of Owl the newspaper say
the devil face cd be seen Who WHO Who WHO

Who make money from war
Who make dough from fear and lies
Who want the world like it is
Who want the world to be ruled by imperialism and national oppression and terror
violence, and hunger and poverty.

Who is the ruler of Hell?
Who is the most powerful


Who you know ever
Seen God?

But everybody seen
The Devil


Like an Owl exploding
In your life in your brain in your self
Like an Owl who know the devil
All night, all day if you listen, Like an Owl
Exploding in fire. We hear the questions rise
In terrible flame like the whistle of a crazy dog

Like the acid of the fire of Hell
Who and Who and WHO (+) who who ^
Whoooo and Whooooooooooooooooooooo!


AMIRI B 10/01

Saturday, July 9, 2016

Video: BLACK HOLLYWOOD UNCHAINED!




Justin Desmangles, Jesse Douglas Allen Taylor, Halifu Osumare, Marvin X Jackmon, Ishmael Reed / video by Johnnie Burrell
Program: Black Hollywood Unchained
Date: July 3, 2016
Time: 1:30-3:30 PM
Location: Koret Auditorium (Lower Level of the San Francisco Public Library) 100 Larkin St.
In Black Hollywood Unchained, Ishmael Reed gathers an impressive group of scholars, critics, intellectuals, and artists to examine and respond to the contemporary portrayals of Blacks in films. Using the 2012 release of the film Django Unchained as the focal point of much of the discussion, these essays and reviews provide a critical perspective on the challenges facing filmmakers and actors when confronted with issues on race and the historical portrayal of African American characters. Reed also addresses the black community's perceptiveness as discerning and responsible consumers of film, theatre, art, and music.

Marvin X discovered Village People Cop, Victor Willis


Village People CopWe Had Some Milli Vanillis in the Group!!

1113-village-people-getty-02Victor Willis -- the cop in Village People -- is about to expose a big disco era secret, and it will forever change the way you hear "Y.M.C.A."

Willis just signed on to do an A&E/Lifetime TV movie based on his life -- and sources close to the deal tell us one of the big reveals is some Village members were lip-syncing. It's unclear exactly which of his bandmates he's calling out for faking it.

Willis was the original lead singer, but left in the early '80s on bad terms. He never performed with the group again, and even threatened to sue them for using "Y.M.C.A." in a recent TV special.
The movie, set to air sometime next year, seems timed to coincide with Victor's attempted comeback. He just released a new single and music vid.

Marvin X discovered Village People Cop, Victor Willis






In 1972, after his release from Terminal Island Federal Prison on draft related charges due to his refusal to fight in Viet Nam, Marvin X returned to San Francisco and established the Black Educational Theatre, Inc., in the Fillmore on O'farrel Street, between Fillmore and Webster. His crew of actors, musicians and dancers cleaned out an old Greek Orthodox church and transformed it into BET. His partner from Black Arts West Theatre, Ethna X. Wyatt (aka, Hurriyah Asar) who also worked with him at BET,  told him about a young man who sang daily up and down Haight Street near Scott where she lived. She urged Marvin to make contact with the young man named Victor Willis.

Marvin finally followed her advice and auditioned Victor for the lead role in the production of his myth-ritual dance drama The Resurrection of the Dead. Resurrection of the Dead was a life changing drama that included a naming rite of passage. Most of the actors kept their names for life, although Victor did not keep his name Bilal, but a now famous dancer Charlene Hunter, was renamed Jamilah and goes by that first name today. Victor as Bilal (the first muezzin or prayer caller in Islam) opened the myth-ritual dance drama with the Adhan or call to prayer, followed by such Marvin X lyrics as: Praise be the Resurrection of the Dead, Lost Queen of Egypt, Black Man Don't Wander Without Aim or Purpose and Allah Loves a Warrior.

Victor went directly from Resurrection of the Dead to roles in New York theatre and eventually lead singer and writer of the Village People. Years later he told Marvin, "It was the spiritual power in Resurrection of the Dead that gave me the energy to be successful in New York. I am forever grateful to you!"

We are so happy to hear Victor is making a come back! It will be The Resurrection of the Dead!
--Marvin X

Marvin X
photo Spencer Wilkerson

Neely Fuller, Jr.: If you don't understand white supremacy...everything else will only confuse you


 

Black people, we are the most unscientific people on the planet. Yet, we harbor some of the most outlandish, untested, heavily opinionated pseudo-intellectual jargon riddled and irrelevant information on the face of the planet earth.

The scientific method has four steps:

1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.

2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation.

3. Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.

4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments.

Can we PLEASE step away from all this mind-numbing nonsense and FINALLY get SERIOUS about ending our condition?

RBG| WHITE SUPREMACY 2 -In A Crazy House Called America- Marvin X

Marvin X At the Black Caucus of California Community Colleges

Marvin X at the San Francisco's Juneteeth 2016 in Fillmore