Sunday, January 15, 2017

Now Available for Black History Month: Marvin X, Living History in Your Midst

Sunday, January 15, 2017


Now Available for Black History Month: Marvin X, Living History in Your Midst

A live dog is better than a dead lion!

Poet, playwright, educator, planner Marvin X, Emory Douglas, Black Panther Party Minister of Culture; comedian, playwright Donald Lacy; Civil Rights attorney, John Burris
photo Standing Rock

Marvin X reading from his play Salaam, Huey Newton, Salaam.
 He opened for Donald Lacy's play Color Struck
photo Alicia Mason
Tureada Miken, Judy Juanita, former editor of the Black  Panther Newspaper, Marvin X. Judy reminded Marvin and told the audience, she remembers Marvin X at Merritt College as skinny as a toothpick. Eldridge Cleaver described him as a skinny Black Buddha.

 Marvin X in Laney College Theatre dressing room, October 1, 2016, getting ready to go on stage. He taught drama at Laney College, 1981, produced his play In the Name of Love.
photo Standing Rock

 Nurjehan, friend and assistant to Marvin X


Marvin X at Oscar Grant Plaza, Oakland
photo Pendarvis Harshaw

Dr. Wade Nobles, former BPP  Chairwoman, Elaine Brown, and Marvin X


Black Arts Movement Business District artists at Oscar Grant Plaza, Oakland

Left to right: Elaine Brown, Dr. Halifu Osumare, Judy Juanita, Portia Anderson,Kujigulia, Aries Jordan, standing Marvin X, producer of the Black Arts Movement 50th Anniversary Celebration at Laney College, Oakland

Marvin at New York University memorial for Amiri Baraka and Jayne Cortez

Harlem, New York reception for Marvin X at home of Rashidah Ismaili, 2014

Marvin X and Nuyorican poet Nancy Mercado

Marvin X, grandson Jameel, Stanley Nelson, director of film Black Panthers, Vanguard of the Revolution, Marvin's daughter Amira Jackmon, Esq. and her daughter Naeema Joy


Marvin X, David Murray, Earl Davis, Val Serrant, Michelle LaChaux at Malcolm X Jazz/Art Festival, Oakland
Marvin X and Amiri Baraka (rip) in conversation at the Lannan Foundation, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2009

 

 January 14,2017

Marvin X notes on Ayodele Nzinga's play Mama at Twilight, Death by Love

Pierre Scott as Pappy, Stanley Hunt III as Son
photo Standing Rock

 Pappy and sons Kriss and Son

 Cat Brookas as Mama, Pierre Scott as Pappy
photo Standing Rock

Cat Brooks as Mama
photo Standing Rock


Ayodele Nzinga's play Mama at Twilight, Death by Love is a powerful family drama dealing with love, faith, belief, dreams and death. She has a cast of seasoned actors in our beloved social activist Cat Brooks as Mama, and seasoned actors Pierre Scott (Dad) and Stanley Hunt as Son. We also had excellent supporting actors in Noelle Guess as Tonya as and Julian Green as Kris.


 Cat Brooks as Mama and Julian Green as son Kris
photo Standing Rock

We must note the music of Sade as a liet motif or recurring musical comment on the theme. Sade's Soldier of a Love became a character and/or choral comment on the main action, constantly reinforcing the central theme of love. Nzinga grapples with love that approaches blindness and denial when the wife contracts HIV but never will admit she may have contracted it from her dope dealing, womanizing, convict husband. Her faith in him is so solid that she won't allow him to be tested. It is the daughter Tanya who finally confronts her dad with the possibility he may have contracted HIV from his frequent visits to prison. In this most poignant scene, son Chris acknowledges his gay identity and departs the household only to return after the transition of his mother. His return ends the play on a note of family unity, as in Shakespeare's All's Well that Ends Well! Or shall we go to Cheikh Anta Diop's theory of African tragi-comedy as the primary theme of African drama as opposed to tragedy as the major theme of Northern Cradle or European dramatic tradition. In the end, family love and unity puts Mama at Tw theilight, Death by Love in the African dramatic tradition.

As we know from her real life role as social activist against police terror, actress Cat Brooks has a powerful voice and her role as Mama revealed she can be sensitive and soft as the daughter Tanya described the feminine gender in her metaphoric delineation of male and female fruits, such as mangoes, pears, oranges, etc.

We have watched Pierre Scott perfect his acting skills in the ten-cycle plays of August Wilson that Dr. Ayodele Nzinga's Lower Bottom Playaz produced in chronological order. Alas, the Lower Bottom  Playaz is the only theatre group in the world to do Wilson's plays in chronological order. He is a seasoned actor whose every move is measured and timed to reveal character.

Now actor Stanley Hunt was born into the theatre of his Mother, Dr. Nzinga, thus he has been in theatre since childhood and knows how to measure his language, verbal and body language to reveal character.

We find it most interesting that the three children are artists: Chris, writer, Son, photographer, and Tonya,dancer. Thus, this play deals with artistic love as well. Son wins a photography grant, though his sister Tonya scolds him for focusing his camera on the breasts and behinds of her fellow dancers.  Tanya gives up her dancing to aid her mother. Kris reveals his writing and sexual identity transcends his family love until he returns home after the transition of his mother.

The set was dominated by Christian symbolism in sync with the Mama's Christian dominated religiosity that did indeed reach the pathological in her denial of her husband's possible infidelity that was challenged by Tonya as we noted above.


Noelle Guess as Tonya
photo Standing Rocki

Ayodele has written a powerful drama of North American African family life. I don't know how anyone in the Bay Area can avoid attending this drama at the Flight Deck Theatre, 1540 Broadway, downtown Oakland. The play runs from January 12 through 29, 2017.
www.lowerbottomplayaz.com
510-332-1319

Now Available for Black History Month: Marvin X, Living History in Your Midst

Sunday, January 15, 2017

Now Available for Black History Month: Marvin X, Living History in Your Midst

A live dog is better than a dead lion!

Poet, playwright, educator, planner Marvin X, Emory Douglas, Black Panther Party Minister of Culture; comedian, playwright Donald Lacy; Civil Rights attorney, John Burris
photo Standing Rock

Marvin X reading from his play Salaam, Huey Newton, Salaam.
 He opened for Donald Lacy's play Color Struck
photo Alicia Mason
Tureada Miken, Judy Juanita, former editor of the Black  Panther Newspaper, Marvin X. Judy reminded Marvin and told the audience, she remembers Marvin X at Merritt College as skinny as a toothpick. Eldridge Cleaver described him as a skinny Black Buddha.

 Marvin X in Laney College Theatre dressing room, October 1, 2016, getting read to go on stage. He taught drama at Laney College, 1981, produced his play In the Name of Love.
photo Standing Rock

 Nurjehan, friend and assistant to Marvin X


 Marvin X at Oscar Grant Plaza
photo Pendarvis Harshaw

Dr. Wade Nobles, former BPP  Chairwoman, Elaine Brown, and Marvin X


Black Arts Movement Business District artists at Oscar Grant Plaza, Oakland

Left to right: Elaine Brown, Dr. Halifu Osumare, Judy Juanita, Portia Anderson,Kujigulia, Aries Jordan, standing Marvin X, producer of the Black Arts Movement 50th Anniversary Celebration at Laney College, Oakland

Marvin at New York University memorial for Amiri Baraka and Jayne Cortez

Harlem, New York reception for Marvin X at home of Rashidah Ismaili, 2014

Marvin X and Nuyorican poet Nancy Mercado

Marvin X, grandson Jameel, Stanley Nelson, director of film Black Panthers, Vanguard of the Revolution, Marvin's daughter Amira Jackmon, Esq. and her daughter Naeema Joy


Marvin X, David Murray, Earl Davis, Val Serrant, Michelle LaChaux at Malcolm X Jazz/Art Festival, Oakland

Saturday, January 14, 2017

Marvin X notes on Ayodele Nzinga's play Mama at Twilight, Death by Love

Pierre Scott as Pappy, Stanley Hunt III as Son
photo Standing Rock

 Pappy and sons Kriss and Son

 Cat Brookas as Mama, Pierre Scott as Pappy
photo Standing Rock

Cat Brooks as Mama
photo Standing Rock


Ayodele Nzinga's play Mama at Twilight, Death by Love is a powerful family drama dealing with love, faith, belief, dreams and death. She has a cast of seasoned actors in our beloved social activist Cat Brooks as Mama, and seasoned actors Pierre Scott (Dad) and Stanley Hunt as Son. We also had excellent supporting actors in Noelle Guess as Tonya as and Julian Green as Kris.


 Cat Brooks as Mama and Julian Green as son Kris
photo Standing Rock

We must note the music of Sade as a liet motif or recurring musical comment on the theme. Sade's Soldier of a Love became a character and/or choral comment on the main action, constantly reinforcing the central theme of love. Nzinga grapples with love that approaches blindness and denial when the wife contracts HIV but never will admit she may have contracted it from her dope dealing, womanizing, convict husband. Her faith in him is so solid that she won't allow him to be tested. It is the daughter Tanya who finally confronts her dad with the possibility he may have contracted HIV from his frequent visits to prison. In this most poignant scene, son Chris acknowledges his gay identity and departs the household only to return after the transition of his mother. His return ends the play on a note of family unity, as in Shakespeare's All's Well that Ends Well! Or shall we go to Cheikh Anta Diop's theory of African tragi-comedy as the primary theme of African drama as opposed to tragedy as the major theme of Northern Cradle or European dramatic tradition. In the end, family love and unity puts Mama at Tw theilight, Death by Love in the African dramatic tradition.

As we know from her real life role as social activist against police terror, actress Cat Brooks has a powerful voice and her role as Mama revealed she can be sensitive and soft as the daughter Tanya described the feminine gender in her metaphoric delineation of male and female fruits, such as mangoes, pears, oranges, etc.

We have watched Pierre Scott perfect his acting skills in the ten-cycle plays of August Wilson that Dr. Ayodele Nzinga's Lower Bottom Playaz produced in chronological order. Alas, the Lower Bottom  Playaz is the only theatre group in the world to do Wilson's plays in chronological order. He is a seasoned actor whose every move is measured and timed to reveal character.

Now actor Stanley Hunt was born into the theatre of his Mother, Dr. Nzinga, thus he has been in theatre since childhood and knows how to measure his language, verbal and body language to reveal character.

We find it most interesting that the three children are artists: Chris, writer, Son, photographer, and Tonya,dancer. Thus, this play deals with artistic love as well. Son wins a photography grant, though his sister Tonya scolds him for focusing his camera on the breasts and behinds of her fellow dancers.  Tanya gives up her dancing to aid her mother. Kris reveals his writing and sexual identity transcends his family love until he returns home after the transition of his mother.

The set was dominated by Christian symbolism in sync with the Mama's Christian dominated religiosity that did indeed reach the pathological in her denial of her husband's possible infidelity that was challenged by Tonya as we noted above.


Noelle Guess as Tonya
photo Standing Rocki

Ayodele has written a powerful drama of North American African family life. I don't know how anyone in the Bay Area can avoid attending this drama at the Flight Deck Theatre, 1540 Broadway, downtown Oakland. The play runs from January 12 through 29, 2017.
www.lowerbottomplayaz.com
510-332-1319

Saturday, January 14, 2017

Marvin X notes on Ayodele Nzinga's play Mama at Twilight, Death by Love

Pierre Scott as Pappy, Stanley Hunt III as Son
photo Standing Rock

 Pappy and sons Kriss and Son

 Cat Brookas as Mama, Pierre Scott as Pappy
photo Standing Rock

Cat Brooks as Mama
photo Standing Rock



Ayodele Nzinga's play Mama at Twilight, Death by Love is a powerful family drama dealing with love, faith, belief, dreams and death. She has a cast of seasoned actors in our beloved social activist Cat Brooks as Mama, and seasoned actors Pierre Scott (Dad) and Stanley Hunt as Son. We also had excellent supporting actors in Noelle Guess as Tonya as and Julian Green as Kris.


 Cat Brooks as Mama and Julian Green as son Kris
photo Standing Rock

We must note the music of Sade as a liet motif or recurring musical comment on the theme. Sade's Soldier of a Love became a character and/or choral comment on the main action, constantly reinforcing the central theme of love. Nzinga grapples with love that approaches blindness and denial when the wife contracts HIV but never will admit she may have contracted it from her dope dealing, womanizing, convict husband. Her faith in him is so solid that she won't allow him to be tested. It is the daughter Tanya who finally confronts her dad with the possibility he may have contracted HIV from his frequent visits to prison. In this most poignant scene, son Chris acknowledges his gay identity and departs the household only to return after the transition of his mother. His return ends the play on a note of family unity, as in Shakespeare's All's Well that Ends Well! Or shall we go to Cheikh Anta Diop's theory of African tragi-comedy as the primary theme of African drama as opposed to tragedy as the major theme of Northern Cradle or European dramatic tradition. In the end, family love and unity puts Mama at Tw theilight, Death by Love in the African dramatic tradition.

As we know from her real life role as social activist against police terror, actress Cat Brooks has a powerful voice and her role as Mama revealed she can be sensitive and soft as the daughter Tanya described the feminine gender in her metaphoric delineation of male and female fruits, such as mangoes, pears, oranges, etc.

We have watched Pierre Scott perfect his acting skills in the ten-cycle plays of August Wilson that Dr. Ayodele Nzinga's Lower Bottom Playaz produced in chronological order. Alas, the Lower Bottom  Playaz is the only theatre group in the world to do Wilson's plays in chronological order. He is a seasoned actor whose every move is measured and timed to reveal character.

Now actor Stanley Hunt was born into the theatre of his Mother, Dr. Nzinga, thus he has been in theatre since childhood and knows how to measure his language, verbal and body language to reveal character.

We find it most interesting that the three children are artists: Chris, writer, Son, photographer, and Tonya,dancer. Thus, this play deals with artistic love as well. Son wins a photography grant, though his sister Tonya scolds him for focusing his camera on the breasts and behinds of her fellow dancers.  Tanya gives up her dancing to aid her mother. Kris reveals his writing and sexual identity transcends his family love until he returns home after the transition of his mother.

The set was dominated by Christian symbolism in sync with the Mama's Christian dominated religiosity that did indeed reach the pathological in her denial of her husband's possible infidelity that was challenged by Tonya as we noted above.


Noelle Guess as Tonya
photo Standing Rocki

Ayodele has written a powerful drama of North American African family life. I don't know how anyone in the Bay Area can avoid attending this drama at the Flight Deck Theatre, 1540 Broadway, downtown Oakland. The play runs from January 12 through 29, 2017.
www.lowerbottomplayaz.com
510-332-1319










Friday, January 13, 2017

Thou dost protest too much: The Reactionary Negro in the Era of Donald Trump

The Reactionary Negro
By Marvin X

"I'm about action, not reaction, construction, not destruction! I do not fear the devil: I fear no one and nothing except Allah!"--Marvin X

Why does the so-called Negro react to everything in the world? Why cannot he/she learn how to be proactive, to originate an agenda and stay on focus no matter what else goes on around him? Remember that old civil rites song, "I Shall Not Be Moved." And the other tune, "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Round." These are songs of the warrior, not the supplicant, and until we don the persona of the warrior we shall continue chasing fires, from coast to coast, like chickens with our heads cut off. What about a general action plan for the next one hundred years—our enemy has one for us, to keep us oppressed for eternity, but what is our plan, for then it doesn't matter what is his plan. 

But if we have no plan, then we shall surely follow his, whether it is expending our energy on a white woman for president or a white Negro—this has nothing to do with the ultimate national aspirations of forty million people. It is about submission to the national agenda of white supremacists and their collaborators. The Democrats and Republicans are both white supremacists who will ultimately attempt to maintain white privilege and power around the world, utilizing the power of North American Africans when it suits the agenda of white supremacy—forget about the dream of democracy for it only has relevance when it can be used as a subterfuge for maintaining and extending white supremacy at home and around the world. One need only take a photo of the US Congress and Supreme Court to understand this is a white man’s land, no matter what the demographics say or suggest for the future.

We are caught in a class war where color makes no difference. There shall be blacks as dangerous to our national health as whites, yet they shall be presented as our saviors and we shall go for the sham liberators just as we would go for fried ice cream or be duped into purchasing the Brooklyn Bridge. 

Wake up, North American Africans and get a healing. Your slothful thinking has you going backward into neo-slavery. You are being attacked by white supremacy from Jena, LA to West Virginia to Yuba City, CA, mainly because you have been lulled to sleep with nursery rhymes of rappers and pseudo prosperity sermons from preachers with more dramatic techniques than Shakespeare. 

You claim to be mature adults and elders with wisdom, yet you appear to suffer arrested development, for your pants sag on your behinds just like your children, adult women have tattoos above the crack of their behinds just as their daughters. Adult men drive cars and SUVs with wheels spinning backwards as do their children and the cars of adults play rap songs unfit for adults with mature minds we would expect to be listening to Miles, Coltrane and Charlie Parker. Thus, you are part of the problem rather than the solution.
So we wonder from who might a solution derive since naturally and traditionally adults are expected to rule their communities. But adults and elders in the North American African communities are terrified of their children, refuse to speak with them or intervene while they practice mayhem and behavior fit for animals. We refuse to hug a thug even when the thug is our own sons and daughters, nephews, nieces and neighbors.

Even when they go to jail, the sons of most men are left to the tender love of their mothers, for the men abandon their sons to the criminal justice system or are themselves victims as well.

And again, reaction is the order of the day, for thinking is confined to the box of Americana, thus the adults in the hood rarely consider taking total and absolute authority over their community, excluding the police, politicians and religious leaders who are mainly agents of pharaoh, Masonic neophytes duty bound to let the blind stay blind.  

But no matter how long it takes, no matter how long the adults linger in passivity and Hamletic indecision, the ultimate solution is for elders to step to the front of the line and represent, take total control over the social life of their community. They must form elder councils of radical men and women who are proactive with ideas fit for the new millennium, integrated with the new technology and wisdom from progressive elements of the global community. 

Ideas such as entrepreneurship and micro credit must be presented to our youth so they can envision solutions to their economic woes other than drugs, pimping, prostitution and murder.

*   *   *   *   *
Response
Ours is a sad household. My cousin arrested summer 2006 for the death of his stepson received 35 years this week, no parole. They used his whole life against him. His white wife along with her girls testified against him and she got off rather scot-free. For evidence against him, there were only photos of the dead boy’s body that were of any consequence. No direct evidence of his guilt, that is, there was no real evidence as far as the boy’s death that could be levied against my cousin. In jail without bail for over a year, he was railroaded.

His family hired a $10,000 black lawyer, who we know now did less than the court-appointed lawyer. Worse, the black lawyer talked my cousin into a "plea bargain" that was not a plea (8 years rather than 50 years), but the "plea" was just a court pressured admission of guilt, 2nd-degree murder, without jury trial, urged on by the $10,000 black lawyer. . . . One wonders how often the poor are railroaded into such plea-verdict trials and end up spending the rest of their lives in jail for crimes never committed.
Here indeed was a "reactionary Negro" in the guise of a hustling black lawyer taking advantage of the ignorance of a defendant and his Christ miracle-believing family. There’s a predatory spirit afoot in this country and you can't tell'em by the color of the skin.

I am afraid, Marvin, we are already a defeated generation. We are hemmed in from all sides. We can scream. But few will respond. Injustice in the land is so deeply manifold. One knows not which way to turn. As far as I know there are no "radical elders" ready to speak to or do anything about the insidious criminalization of our children, which has been going on for decades and may indeed be the main issue before us. As far as I know, there are no "radical" leaders willing to go beyond the status quo, whether in urban, suburban, or rural centers. 

As far as I can see the present agenda is getting a Democrat in the White House, whatever stripe, with no demands on them for relief. 

According to Bill Fletcher (recent Black Commentator issue) the Congress, including Hillary (Obama didn't vote on the issue) has declared the Iranian government (Revolutionary Guards) a terrorist organization. So though we have an American people who want a withdrawal from Iraq, leading Congressmen/women have signed up for a territorial extension of the war. Security (police) forces are now being used to stymie all protest. With a state of perpetual war, we all became captives of war-making sentiment in Washington and military like forces across the globe.

But none of the facts before us will cause the 10,000 black elected officials in the USA to do anything more than urge the black voting masses to go to the polls and pull the lever for a Hillary, an Obama, or an Edwards. We have been out-maneuvered; beat down by a post-civil rights generation of corporate bought elected leaders.

The only radical action I can see now available is a boycott of the polls, a no-confidence vote. But "radical elders" will find that thought unthinkable. So as far as I can see nothing will stop the great boulder of repression from continuing to roll down hill. 

Calling the 10,000 elected reactionaries at this stage may let off some steam but it will not get us much beyond crying into the more horrid whirlwind yet to come—Rudy, www.nathanielturner.com

 *   *   *   *   *
Perhaps the children will step to the front of the line and lead us to freedom. Although presently in a wretched state, we know they are the answer since we are on the way out, but if we can break into their brains with truth then there is hope for the race of the Race.

At my outdoor classroom an older youth cornered younger youth and brought them to my table. He made them ask me questions. A few weeks ago a 16 year old came to my table, saw the book Beyond Religion Toward Spirituality  and said he knew everything about the topicand he did. He had been mentored and was very well read on Afro-centric topics. Yes, he was one in a million, but there are others like him and like the young man did, we must corner them and hold their attention for their heads are like sponges, dry ones at that, ready to absorb the water of truth. peace and love, Marvin