SUN RA SPEAKS - BERKELEY LECTURE PT 1

 

 

Donald Trump: The White Man's Last Hurrah!

"Donald Trump is Marvin X rich and white!"--Elliott Bey, Philadelphia PA

 

 Marvin X and daughter Nefertiti at the Black Arts Movement 50th Anniversary, Oakland's Laney College, 2015. On an intergenerational panel of activists and their children, she called for her father to pass the baton to her generation, "We're qualified and ready, so pass the baton. Don't say it, pass it!" Her remarks went viral. When Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf arrived for the reception, she mentioned his daughter's remarks.photo Ken Johnson

 

Marvin X's smart mouth oldest daughter, Nefertiti, told her father, after meeting his agent for the sale of his archives, Peter Howard (RIP), a rich white man,"Dad, Peter is just like you, an intelligent, arrogant bastard!" Enter Donald Trump, another intelligent, arrogant bastard, and rich, unlike Marvin who was described by one of his students as the poorest famous person she'd ever met. A white patron from Canada who assisted Marvin X's Recovery Theatre in San Francisco said, "I might be poor, Marvin X, but I ain't as poor as you." Alas, some people describe him as the poorest but richest man in the world. In 2001, he produced the Kings and Queens of Black Consciousness at San Francisco State University, participants included Dr. Cornel West, Amiri and Amina Baraka, Ishmael Reed, Rev. Cecil Williams, Rev. Andriette Earl, Phavia Kujichagulia, Tarika Lewis, Dr. Julia Hare, Dr. Theophile Obenga, Rudi Mwongozi, Elliott Bey, et al. In the Q and A, someone asked Marvin X how he brought all these people together, especially with no money? He replied, "I used a device called the telephone." Have you not heard a good name is better than gold?” In her remarks, ancestor Dr. Julia Hare said, "When Marvin X calls, it's like the Lord calling. If he says jump, you say how high!"

Back to the Devil!

For star worshippers, Donald and Marvin are both Gemini, known for intelligence and duplicity, multiple personalities, and throw in an overwhelming degree of narcissism. As per truth, Marvin X may be ahead of Donald because Marvin's mother was a disciple of Mary Baker Eddy and her Christian Science, so Marvin is deeply imbued with truth, although he is known for hyperbole in league with the right wing white nationalist, Prez Trump. If Trump plays with truth at his whim, when Marvin X taught English at the University of Nevada, Reno, his mostly white students informed him they had no knowledge of truth. They asked what did he mean by truth? FYI, they knew one "truth" their parents had taught them, "Niggers are bad news!" Meanwhile they were discovering "Niggers" were very good news as they sucked and fucked the black athletes!

While a teacher at the University of Nevada, Reno, Marvin discovered Nevada was the most conservative state in the union. He taught  at UNR in 1979, during the regime of President Ronald Reagan, whose base of operation was Nevada, Reno specifically. His best friend was Senator Paul Laxalt of Reno. Chair of the RNC was Attorney Frank Fahrenkopf of Reno. One of Marvin's "teacher's pets'' was "Coco" who became an intern for Senator Laxalt. The Nevada people, conservatives and liberals, treated Marvin X royally: he was awarded two planning grants from the National Endowment of the Humanities via the Nevada Humanities Committee and was employed as a planner/data analyst for a Community Service Agency, writing multi-million dollar grants proposals for Head Start and other projects. He also taught at Upward Bound and courses in Technical Writing and Creative Writing at Nevada Community College.

Back to Donald Trump and Marvin X as Black and White Nationalists

Marvin X was born a Black nationalist, i.e., his parents were known as Race people, Blacks who were for their people. If Donald Trump is not a white nationalist, none exists anywhere in the world. Marvin X says, "I'm not mad at Donald Trump for being a white nationalist. Every person should stand and defend their own kind, otherwise they're a sellout. Donald is fighting to preserve the last vestige of white supremacy in America, but the world is already majority non-white and America is on the precipice of becoming the same." So Donald is like a child in Toys R US, fighting for the last toy before a new shipment arrives from, yes, China. He is a dramatic persona with that tragic flaw of hubris or overwhelming pride in himself and his people. No other people matter, for his vision is warped in dreams of a white Christmas that shall be no more. As many of his brothers are doing, he should consider suicide since, as Baldwin said, "White supremacy has led white people to rationalizations so fantastic it approaches the pathological." (FYI, Marvin X interviewed James Baldwin, December, 1968, NYC) Donald is a mad warrior who must represent all those white men who cannot understand or articulate  why their world is coming to an end. So he is in battle with Plato's shadow on the wall that is not of himself but the breathing world in which he shall exist in name only, diminished, for sure, not in any dominant position, no matter his military budget, no matter the building of a Chinese style or Israeli wall to keep out the barbarians. Alas, the barbarians are Donald and his brothers, Vandals who are their own worst enemies and who shall ultimately destroy themselves because they are constitutionally unable to change. Have you heard of the mental virus, unlike Covid19, the mental virus is similar to the virus that infects your computer when the keys and mouse at stuck on stupid and ultimately you must buy a new one or a new hard drive. You can go nowhere until you do so. Yes, you are stuck on stupid as we see America. How stupid is stupid? Example, Trump has been blaming the Western states, i.e., California, Oregon, Washington, for the recent fires but in truth 88% of the land on fire is owned by the Federal Government, not the states.

A primary and fundamental difference between Marvin and Donald is that those who know Marvin know he is a personality in constant transformation, although basically a Black nationalist. Have you seen him embrace the white woman, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf? She supported the creation of Oakland's Black Arts Movement Business District along the 14th Street corridor, downtown. The legislation was pushed through by Lynette McElhaney, President of the City Council. Google Marvin's essay In Search of My Soul Sister, in which he delineates the difference between  Black Secretary of State Condi Rice and Senator Barbara Boxer.

 

 Marvin X and Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf at Laney College,

2015 BAM 50th Anniversary Celebration photo Jahahara

 

 Marvin X and Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf at opening of Marshawn Lynch's Beast Mode outlet, 2016 photo Troy Williams 

 

But Marvin realized long ago when he taught in universities and colleges, especially when he had classrooms of mostly white students, a teacher who hates his students is a very sick puppy and he had no intention to be that puppy. He embraced his white students and they embraced him. He could see they needed knowledge and truth to dispel the world of make believe they inherited from their racist parents. It would be good if Donald Trump, in these Last Days of Whitey, could really become the man he claims to be. For sure, he is trying his best to be brutally honest, a phenomena most of his brothers and sisters cannot phantom. But in his honesty is a plethora of lies and half truths that cannot and will not stand no matter how adamantly he proclaims such antiquated notions of his world

of make believe. He will not be able to exterminate those he feels are roaches, simply because there are too many of them and the blow black will be horrific for Donald and his brothers. They may be forced to undergo long term recovery in some facility like Gitmo.

 

Take a good look at wars America is engaged in at this hour: Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. She is losing everywhere, in fact, hasn't won a war since World War II. Alas, she didn’t win WWII, hell, the Russians sacrificed millions to defeat Hitler.  And America is  still fighting North Korea, she lost in Vietnam. War! What is good for? For the military industrial complex, the global bloodsuckers of the poor? Imagine, she's been bombing Iraq twenty-five years, Afghanistan nineteen. How long can this go on? And he wants to bomb the hell out of ISIS and take their oil? How can America bomb the hell out of ISIS when she is supplying ISIS? Donald knows the truth so why all the drama to deceive the 99%, the deaf, dumb and blind of America, White, Black, Latino/Latina, Asians and Aboriginal? He may be bluntly honest but at his core he is delusional, his soul atrophied, as ancestor poet Amiri Baraka wrote in A Black Mass, "Where the soul's print should be there is only a cellulose pouch of disgusting habits."

I may be an intelligent, arrogant bastard, but someone said, "At his best, Marvin X is clarity of perception." I can see clearly the world of Donald Trump is ephemeral. It is good to see he is trying to stand tall and represent the last hope of White American manhood, but it is too late. The condition of the patient is terminal, he cannot be rusticated. So have a good laugh, Donald,  just know he who laughs last, laughs the longest! We are convinced, the suffering masses shall have the last laugh! We must applaud Donald Trump for calling upon China to release the Muslim millions in socalled Education Centers that are concentration camps. We’ve heard little from the Muslim world on their incarcerated brothers and sisters.

Perhaps the Muslim regimes see the Chinese Muslims as they see the Palestinians in the Gaza concentration camps and West Bank hovels under Zionist occuption. These reactionary Muslim regimes will join the Axis of Evil (Sunni Arabs, USA and Israel) in a futile attempt to counter the rise of Iran that seeks to revive the Persion Empire from the Tigris and Euphrates to the Mediterranean, along with Turkey seeking a resurrection of the Ottoman Empire. What a wonderful world!We wish you well, Donald Trump. Your people need your tragic flaws at this hour. Perhaps you can help them realize their flaws as they rejoice in yours.--Marvin X 9/19/20

Marvin X at his Academy of da Corner, in the Black Arts Movement District, 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland. photo Adam Turner

Coming soon: A video/audio documentary: The Wild Crazy Ride of the Marvin X Experience

 

The Wild Crazy Ride of the Marvin X Experience

A Video/audio documentary based on the archives

of Marvin X

The Life and Times of a North American African

Poet/Playwright/Activist/Educator/Producer/Publisher/Editor/Philosopher

 

“Most of all, I’m a thinker. I’m thinking 24/7. Even when I’m making love, I’m thinking about a poem, or about how nice it would be if there was another beautiful woman beside me (Divine Discontent or the addictive personality?). Sometimes I think it is one of my multiple personalities who desires that other woman, not me. For sure, that other guy ain’t gonna be satisfied until the other woman appears!” LOL

--Marvin X

 

Brief Bio

Born May 29, 1944, Fowler, CA

Parents: Marian Murrill Jackmon and Owendell Jackmon I

Maternal grandparents: John and Eva Murrill, Fowler CA

Maternal great grandfather: Ephraim Murrill, his death at 99 was noted in the Fresno Bee Newspaper, 1941, “....he was respected by both whites and blacks….”

Upon Marvin X’s birth, his parents were publishing the Fresno Voice, a black newspaper in the Central Valley. They also sold real estate. Because of redlining, his parents sold many blacks their first homes, including Odel Johnson, Emeritus President of Laney College, Oakland. When his parents separated while living in Oakland, his mother returned to Fresno to become one of the first black female real estate brokers and the model for black business women.

As a disciple of Mary Baker Eddy’s Christian Science, Marian Murrill Jackmon used her real estate business to counsel blacks on their multiple issues. Clearly, she passed her spiritual baton to her “star child” who cannot escape writing in the didactic mode, no matter prose, poetry, drama. Of course this is the African style as well. Lately Marvin X uses parables and fables to instruct. You shall see his use of didacticism throughout this documentary. Alas, he is a teacher above all else, although academia did not appeal to him. He briefly taught at San Francisco State College/University, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, Fresno State University, Mills College, Merritt, Laney, University of Nevada, Reno, and elsewhere. He still lectures coast to coast at colleges and universities.

But he is most comfortable at his Academy of Da Corner, 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland or Lakeshore Ave.

 

 

 Co-Founder of the Black Students Union, San Francisco State University, 1964

Co-Founder of Black Arts West Theatre, San Francisco, 1966

Co-Founder of the Black House, San Francisco, 1967

Co-Founder of the National Black Arts Movement, 1960s

Founder of Black Educational Theatre, San Francisco, 1972

Co-Founder of the Black Men's Conference, Oakland CA, 1981

Founder of Recovery Theatre, San Francisco, 1996

Co-Founder of the Black Arts Movement Business District, Oakland CA, 2016

 

Marvin X's archives were acquired by the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, also by Dr. Ellen McLarney, Chair,  Islamic Studies Department, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. See her chapter on Marvin X in her forthcoming book on Black Arts Movement writers inspired by Islam. On Marvin X as the father of the genre known as Muslim American literature, see Dr. Mohja Khaf, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. 

 

Comments

 

"When you listen to Tupac Shakur, E-40, Too Short, Master P or any other rappers out of the Bay Area of Cali, think of Marvin X. He laid the foundation and gave us the language to express Black male urban experiences in a lyrical way."

--James G. Spady, RIP

 

"The USA'S Rumi, Saadi, Hafiz!"

--Bob Holman

 

"His writing is orgasmic! ...He reaches in and pulls from a life lived hard, deep, wide, high, low, i.e., a sacrifice in blood. At the root of sacrifice is sacred, which is of God and for God. He has lived and examined the lives of the proverbial 10,000 black men and women. His writings give us the truth of that experience, lived and examined."

--Fahizah Alim

 

"He's Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland!"

--Ishmael Reed

 

"He's the African Socrates teaching in the hood!

--Dr. Cornel West

 

"Marvin X has always been in the forefront of Pan African writing. Indeed, he is one of the founders and innovators of the Revolutionary School of African writing."

--Amiri Baraka, RIP

"The starting point for Muslim American literature is Marvin X!"

--Dr. Mohja Kahf, Professor of English and Islamic Studies, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

 

"...Highly informed, he speaks to many societal levels and to both genders—to the intellectual as well as to the man/woman on the street or the unfortunate in prison—to the mind as well as the heart. His topics range from global politics and economics to those between men and women in their household. Common sense dominates his thought. He shuns political correctness for the truth of life. He is a Master Teacher in many fields of thought—religion and psychology, sociology and anthropology, history and politics, literature and the humanities. He is a needed Counselor, for he knows himself, on the deepest of personal levels and he reveals that self to us, that we might be his beneficiaries.

--Rudolph Lewis, Editor, ChickenBones: A Journal

 

 

 

The Wild Crazy Ride of the Marvin X Experience

Written and directed by Marvin X

 

Executive Editor Ken Johnson

 

Academy of Da Corner Production

from the archives of Marvin X, aka El Muhahjir

 

 

 

Featuring

 

Dr. Cornel West

Amiri Baraka

Sonia Sanchez

Fillmore Slim

Dr. Nathan Hare

Rev. Cecil Williams

Mayor Willie Brown, San Francisco

Mayor Libby Schaaf, Oakland

Muhammida El Muhajir

Amira Jackmon

Nefertitti Jackmon

James Rhodes

Tacuma King

Phavia Kujichagulia

Kumasi

Umar Ben Hasan

Geoffery Grier

Dr. Ayodele Nzinga

Rudi Mwongozi

Destiny Muhammad

Raynetta Rayzetta

Mechelle LaChaux

Kele Nitoto

Suzzette Celeste

Dr. Julia Hare

Ishmael Reed

Tarika Lewis

Bobby Seale

Elaine Brown

Pam Pam

Doris Knight

Hunia Bradley

James Sweeney

Cat Brooks

Mrs. Amina Baraka

Nisa Ra

Val Serrant

Zaid Mwongozi

Sam Anderson

Donald Lacy

Davey D

Mutima Imani

Rev. Andriette Earl

David Murray

Earle Davis

Akbar Muhammad

Abdullah Muhammad

 

 

 

Tentative Segments, 60 minutes each

Narrator Marvin X

1 Intro by Marvin X

2 Conversations with Dr Cornel West, Parts I and II

3 In the Crazy House Called America Concert, African American Cultural Center, San Francisco, cerca 2002

4. Interviewed by Pam Pam, KPOO Radio, San Francisco, audio

5. Conversation with  Black Panther Party Co-founder Bobby Seale

6The Black Arts Movement: Conversation with the Last Poet, Umar Ben Hasan

7Black August  and the American Prison Movement, Marvin X interviews Black August Griot, Kumasi

8Introduction and Conversation with Amiri Baraka At Lannan Foundation, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2009, Audio

9Audio Interview with Donald Lacy on the 50th Anniversary of the Black Panther Party

10Marvin X performance at Yoshi's SF, opens for Amiri Baraka and Roscoe Mitchell of the Chicago Art Ensemble

11Forum on Drugs, Art and Revolution, Sista's Place, Brooklyn NY, participants: Sam Anderson, Sonia Sanchez, Amiri Baraka, Amina Baraka, Elombe Brathe, Marvin X

13 Talk at Black Caucus of California Community Colleges

14 Reading at UC Berkeley with Amiri Baraka

15Marvin X in Concert at Black Repertory Group Theater

16 Kings and Queens of Black Consciousness, SF State University, April 1, 2001

17 Marvin X at SF Juneteenth

18Marvin X, producer of BAM 50th Anniversary, Laney College, Peralta College Television 

19Marvin X at Sun Ra Conference, Symposium on Afro-futurism, University of Chicago

20Marvin X in Concert at Warm Daddy's, Philly, accompanied by Marshall Allen, Danny Thompson, Noel,members of Sun Ra Arkestra; Elliott Bey, Alexander El, Ancestor Goldsky, Rufus Harley on Bagpipes

21Marvin X In Concert with Amiri Baraka, Black Repertory Group Theater, Berkeley

22Amiri Baraka 75th birthday party, Yoshi's SF

23 Marvin X reads Amiri Baraka's Dope at Malcolm X Jazz festival Oakland, accompanied by

David Murray, Earle Davis and the BAM Poets Choir and Arkestra

24 Tenderloin Black Radical Book Fair, 2004

25SF Theater Festival

26Memorial for Jayne Cortez and Amiri Baraka, New York University

27Docudrama One Day in the Life, Banam Place Theatre, North Beach, SF

28Talk at Berkeley City College

29Interview by Junious Ricardo Stanton, Philly Locks Conference

30Interview and Reading at WBAI, NYC, National Poetry Month

31 Reading Nigga Wanna Pimp on Wall Street

 

32. December 12 Movement Press Conference at NY City Hall

33. Reading at UMASS Cultural Center

34 Marvin X reads his short film script Driving Miss Libby (Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf), video

35. Marvin X and Dr. Ayodele read X's fictional interview with President Obama, audio

 

 

Photographers, Videographers

Ken Johnson

Khalid Waajid

William Hammons

Kamau Amen-Ra, RIP

Adam Turner

Gene Hazzard

Peralta Television

Berkeley City College

Greg Fields

Amadi Ajamu

Travion Cotton

Leon Teasley

 

Sponsors of past Marvin X projects

Mayor Willie Brown’s Office

Zellerbach Family Fund

SF Arts Commission

Marin County Board of Supervisors

Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission

Columbia University

National  Endowment for the Arts

National Endowment for the Humanities

California Endowment

Cooperative Center Federal Credit Union

Black Arts Movement Business District, CDC

Akonadi Foundation

WBAI Pacifica Radio, NYC

Hard knock Radio, KPFA Radio, Berkeley

Congresswoman Barbara Lee’s Office

 

If you would like to be a sponsor of this documentary,

call Marvin X: 510-575-7148

Your sponsorship can be tax deductible. Here is a final

comment from our recently departed ancestor, James

W. Sweeney: "Courageous and outrageous, Marvin X

walked through the muck and mire of hell and came

out clean as white fish and black as coal! He is the

freest Black man in non-free America!"

--James W. Sweeney, RIP

 

(c) Marvin X 2020

All Rights Reserved

 

Contact: mxjackmon@gmail.com

 

www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com