Saturday, February 6, 2021

Marvin X's Notes on the Land Question, A Conversation with his daughters Nefertiti and Attorney Amira Jackmon, facilitated by the African American Museum Library Curator Bamidele Demerson

 

Marvin X's Notes on the Land Question: A Conversation with his daughters Nefertiti and Amira Jackmon facilitated by Bamidele Demerson, Curator of the African American Museum Library
Oakland, CA, February 6, 2021

As I said at the opening of our conversation today on Zoom, I give all praise and honor to my ancestors, i.e., my parents Owendell and Marian Murrill Jackmon, for this talk on the Land Question, the essential question as per our liberation from American oppression. 

At my birth, May 29,1944, my parents were publishing The Fresno Voice, a black newspaper in the central valley of California, additionally, they were real estate brokers who sold most of the North American Africans their first homes in Fresno during and after WWII, since redlining was the practice of white real estate brokers. So I am honored to have had conscious parents or as they were called back then A Race Man and Race Woman, meaning they were for the people. Consciously and subconsciously. I have the spirit my parents blessed me with and I am happy to see my daughters, Amira and Nefertiti in the tradition. (And don't let me leave out my daughter Muhammida El Muhajir, now a resident in Accra, Ghana, and a leader in the Blaxit Movement that is urging Black Americans to return to the Motherland as she has done, along with several thousand young and old North American Africans. See her TED Talk and interviews on Al Jazeerah and the BBC.)


Muhammida El Muhajir, middle daughter of Marvin X. 

In the sometimes arrogant manner of her father, she said, "Dad, tell North American Africans don't come to Accra, Ghana without checking in with me! My Howard University alumnus, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, tried it but we ended up at the same house party in Accra!" Muhammida is the Pan African Editor of BBPNR. 


Today's discussion was centered on the Land Question issue of our magazine Black Bird Press News and Review, a quarterly that began in response to the need to have our own voice after the City of Oakland established the Black Arts Movement Business District, January 19, 2016, as part of its Downtown Plan for the next 25-50 years, although we were not aware of this plan until it neared the final report. 

The Black Arts Movement Business District comprises over 100 blocks from the Lower Bottom of 14th Street to Lake Merritt that Blacks have recently claimed as vending space, despite complaints beginning with Bar B Que Becky and Lakeshore Ave. residents. Just as Asians double park in Chinatown, Blacks park in the middle of Lakeshore Ave. since parking is limited.
This is a question of space and land that we have been perennially deprived of or severely proscribed. In this BAMBD area and a plethora of market rate housing developments and retail spaces that likely will be unaffordable for those artists, merchants and business persons in our designated BAMBD District. More than likely, rather than equity owners in the City of Oakland Downtown Plan for the next 25-50 years, we shall be museum pieces, relics of what used to be but is no more, archives at the African American Museum Library and the Oakland Museum of California adjacent to the end of our district at Lake Merritt.

Let me digress on black bodies in space and time

Imagine this: On a speaking engagement at the University of Virginia, I was invited by my host to sit in on a graduate seminar on Space. The professor noted that 900 slaves lived on one acre of land. I wanted out of her lecture at this point as it was overwhelming to me. And then later my host wanted me to see the house Thomas Jefferson built on the campus. When we arrived at the house, I asked him what brick did Thomas Jefferson lay? My host was disgusted that I could not appreciate the land use and labor of Thomas Jefferson. I was horrified that my host gave such honor and respect to such a devil, child molester and slave owner. Alas, my host was my nephew and I'd been invited by the campus NAACP that changed the room where I was supposed to speak three times to make sure few students heard me. This is not new. I have been invited to speak on college campuses and paid thousands of dollars but hardly any students were in the audience because the hosts didn't want students to hear my talk. 



Today's  Zoom discussion was centered on the Land Question issue of our magazine Black Bird Press News and Review, a quarterly that began in response to the need of having our own voice after the City of Oakland established the Black Arts Movement Business District, January 19, 2016, as part of its Downtown Plan for the next 25-50 years, although we were not aware of this plan until it neared the final report. In short, we were not to be an integral and/or equitable part of said plan, perhaps, an afterthought as we have been throughout our sojourn in the wilderness of North America, especially after we were liberated from the American slave system, with the critical help of 200,000 North American African troops who were made to disarm before we could achieve self-determination, sovereignty and full independence, thus our condition morphed into virtual slavery under short-lived Reconstruction followed by Jim Crow and raw white supremacist state supported terror, including KKK lynchings, especially slave catcher violence that soon became police violence under the color of law down to the present moment. 

As Guest Editor Nefertiti explained that land theft was an essential component of our disenfranchisement, beginning with the nullification of the 40 Acres and a Government mule promised the ex-slaves until President Lincoln was assassinated. Those without land became sharecroppers or virtual slaves. Black land owners were often prepared to defend their land with armed self-defense groups. (See We Will Shoot Back by Akinyele Umoja, and the classic Negroes With Guns by Robert F. Williams. Of course armed self defense by North American Africans reached its zenith with Oakland's Black Panther Party for Self Defense under co-founders Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton, 1966.)

The destruction of Black Wall Street, 1921, was defended by armed black warriors although the white racist massacre left an untold number of black victims not known even to this day.

In a summary discussion of the Land Question issue of BBPNR, Attorney Amiri Jackmon explained her community investment project known as MiniUP, based on twenty-years as a high finance bonds attorney. She is transferring her knowledge of finance to enable community development projects owned by the community. She explained the Land Trust is fine for low investment projects but not if investors seek a large return on their money. The land trust can be utilized to prevent gentrification, if nothing else. Since she expanded her portfolio to estate planning, she was asked about probate because so many Blacks lose their property in probate court, especially due to sibling rivalry, jealousy and/or severe mental illness, including fear of death on the part of the deceased relative, perhaps the reason they did not have a living trust. Attorney Jackmon said in California there is a very cheap document that can be filed to escape probate court and the expense of estate planning. 

African American Museum Library Curator, Bamidele Demerson, discussed his article on Property Rites in Gullaland, South Carolina. In his field study of the Gullah people, he noted their traditional property inheritance rites that were trans-legal, i.e., property descended through patriarchal lineage and housing and land was owned accordingly, i.e., the wife moved with her husband's family, a tradition well known in the Caribbean and Africa.

Marvin X noted that during the times he wrote at the home of a friend in Beaufort, South Carolina, she lived on the property of a Gullah patriarch whose family members lived next door or across the road from each other. 

Marvin X noted the Gullah young people have no love for their beautiful island property and seek to escape to Savannah and Atlanta, and New York, Bamidele added, and too hell with their island paradise. Yes, the Gullah Negro rather be in the cities of hell rather than their paradise islands that Ted Turner tried to purchase so much of the land they ran him out of the area! 

What did Malcolm X say in Message to the Grass Roots? "The only landless revolution is the Negro revolution."

In the first Great Migration, we ran from the south to the north only to become wage slaves, landless and disconnected from our elder's knowledge as well. The Second Great Migration back to the South began around 1970, if I recall of Nefertiti's remarks. New York Times writer Charles Blow's new book The Devil You Know calls for another Great Migration back to the South, only this time he hopes we will assume the necessary political power to secure ourselves on the land. I say it will be dubious without a military force for our Black National Security, including an Iron Dome air defense system to prevent another Black Wall Street attack by white supremacists full of rage, jealously and envy at Black National Liberation and political power.

Curator Bamidele asked Guest Editor Nefertiti if she will continue this discussion in our print issue and online conversations. She did not answer affirmatively but let me deal with my daughters because the Land Question is the only question as Malcolm X said, "Revolution is based on land. Land is the basis of all independence. Land is the basis of freedom, justice and equality." (Message to the Grass Roots, November 10, 1963)
--Marvin X
2/6/21

P.S. A video of this Zoom discussion will be available ASAP from the African American Museum Library and/or

Please make a generous donation of any amount to support Black Bird Press News and Review, a quarterly publication. Subscription is $100.00 annually. Subscribe to BBPNR: Black Bird Press, 339 Lester Ave., Suite 10,
Oakland Ca 94606. Donations should be sent to our GoFundMe campaign:
https://gofund.me/099bb92d




Please subscribe to our quarterly magazine, $100.00 per year. Or donate to our GoFundMe
campaign: https://gofund.me/099bb92d

To subscribe send $100.00 to Black Bird Press, 339 Lester Ave., Suite 10, Oakland CA. 94606.

The next issue is April 1, 2021. Guest Editor is Dr. Ayodele Nzinga. The issue will discuss the
Black Arts Movement Business District, CDC under her direction.








Attorney Amira Jackmon writes billion dollar bonds for cities, states and corporations. She is a 
graduate of Yale, B.A., Psychology, and Stanford University Law School.  She has argued cases
before the Texas Supreme Court and won cases against Burger King and the Port of Oakland.
Her client, the late developer Willie Cook said, "She is the smartest woman I ever met, white or black. She represented me in my suit against the Port of Oakland, opposed by seven high priced lawyers and whipped them all without raising her voice!" 



Nefertiti Jackmon, former Director of Austin's Six Square Black Cultural District. She now leads the Housing Displacement Department for the City of Austin, TX. She is soon to take the helm of her father's Black Bird Press News and Review, a print and online magazine, A Journal of the Black Arts Movement. 


Nefertiti, Cornel West and Amira at the Kings and Queens of Black Consciousness Concert/Conference, San Francisco State University, 2001, produced by Marvin X.

Friday, February 5, 2021

OAKLAND'S AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM LIBRARY PRESENTS POET/PUBLISHER MARVIN X AND DAUGHTERS ON THE LAND QUESTION



Please subscribe to our quarterly magazine, $100.00 per year. Or donate to our GoFundMe
campaign: https://gofund.me/099bb92d

To subscribe send $100.00 to Black Bird Press, 339 Lester Ave., Suite 10, Oakland CA. 94606.

The next issue is April 1, 2021. Guest Editor is Dr. Ayodele Nzinga. The issue will discuss the
Black Arts Movement Business District, CDC under her direction.








Attorney Amira Jackmon writes billion dollar bonds for cities, states and corporations. She is a 
graduate of Yale, B.A., Psychology, and Stanford University Law School.  She has argued cases
before the Texas Supreme Court and won cases against Burger King and the Port of Oakland.
Her client, the late developer Willie Cook said, "She is the smartest woman I ever met, white or black. She represented me in my suit against the Port of Oakland, opposed by seven high priced lawyers and whipped them all without raising her voice!" 



Nefertiti Jackmon, former Director of Austin's Six Square Black Cultural District. She now leads the Housing Displacement Department for the City of Austin, TX. She is soon to take the helm of her father's Black Bird Press News and Review, a print and online magazine, A Journal of the Black Arts Movement. 


Nefertiti, Cornel West and Amira at the Kings and Queens of Black Consciousness Concert/Conference, San Francisco State University, 2001, produced by Marvin X.

Wednesday, February 3, 2021

Video: Marvin X- "Black History is World History", Fresno City College Black Studies Event.


Black History Is World History


By

Marvin X



Before the Earth was
I was
Before time was
I was
you found me not long ago
and called me Lucy
I was four million years old
I had my tools beside me
I am the first man
call me Adam
I walked the Nile from Congo to Delta
a 4,000 mile jog
BLACK HISTORY IS WORLD HISTORY
I lived in the land of Canaan
before Abraham, before Hebrew was born
I am Canaan, son of Ham
I laugh at Arabs and Jews
fighting over my land
I lived in Saba, Southern Arabia
I played in the Red Sea
dwelled on the Persian Gulf
I left my mark from Babylon to Timbuktu
When Babylon acted a fool, that was me
I was the fool
When Babylon fell, that was me
I fell
BLACK HISTORY IS WORLD HISTORY
I was the first European
call me Negrito and Grimaldi
I walked along the Mediterranean from Spain to Greece
Oh, Greece!Why did you kill Socrates?
Why did you give him the poison hemlock?
Who were the gods he introduced
corrupting the youth of Athens?
They were my gods, black gods from Africa
Oh, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle
Whose philosophy did you teach
that was Greek to the Greeks?
Pythagoras, where did you learn geometry?
Democritus, where did you study astronomy?
Solon and Lycurgus, where did you study law?
In Egypt, and Egypt is Africa
and Africa is me
I am the burnt face, the blameless Ethiopian
Homer told you about in the Iliad
Homer told you about Ulysses, too,
a story he got from me.
BLACK HISTORY IS WORLD HISTORY
I am the first Chinese
China has my eyes
I am the Aboriginal Asian
Look for me in Vietnam, Cambodia & Thailand
I am there, even today, black and beautiful
BLACK HISTORY IS WORLD HISTORY
I used to travel to America
long before Columbus
came to me asking for directions
Americo Vespucci
on his voyage to America
saw me in the Atlantic
returning to Africa
America was my home
Before Aztec, Maya, Toltec, Inca & Olmec
I was hereI came to Peru 20,000 years ago
I founded Mexico City
See my pyramids, see my cabeza colosal
in Vera Cruz and Yucatan
that's me
I am the Mexican
for I am mixed with all men
and all men are mixed with me
I am the most just of men
I am the most peaceful
who loves peace day and night
Sometimes I let tyrants devour me
sometimes people falsely accuse me
sometimes people crucify me
but I am ever returning I am eternal, I am universal
Africa is my home
Asia is my home
Americas is my home
BLACK HISTORY IS WORLD HISTORY
--Marvin X/El Muhajir
ASA




Friday, January 29, 2021

Parable of the Negro busy doing nothing

Parable of the Negro busy doing nothing



In Master Sun Ra's Afro-futuristic film Space in the Place, he asks a Negro what he was doing? The Negro replied nothing. Sun Ra then asked the Negro if he wanted a job? The Negro replied doing what? Sun Ra said doing nothing. How much you gonna pay, asked the Negro. Sun Ra said I ain't going to pay you nothing! 

Master Teacher the Honorable Elijah Muhammad had a lesson that asked Why do we love the devil? Answer: Because he gives us nothing!

And so it is, the Negro loves nothing. Doesn't his name Negro end in zero, nothing? Didn't he work 400 years for nothing, not even one food stamp, one proper meal (unless he was a house Negro) because the field Negroes ate animal food along with the horses, cows, pigs and chickens. They made the best of animal food and still eat it today even though it causes multiple diseases as we saw in the film Soul Food. Even after Granny died from eating Soul Food, her children continued eating the very food that caused her death, nothing food, nutritionally deficient food that makes us prime victims of Covid 19 in the present era.

Eldridge Cleaver, my most controversial friend among many (Mama said I had the worse friends in the world and she met many of them but she said Eldridge was the worst RIP), made the astute observation that we are tired in our genes, i.e. DNA, from 400 years of free labor, thus this is the reason the Negro is busy doing nothing today. You can't even pay a Negro to do something, even if you pay him in advance he may not show up and for sure he will not show up after payday. Let's be real. Why won't he show up?

Because he's busy doing nothing. He's so busy doing nothing he won't answer his cell phone and you know he knows you are calling to find out why he won't come to work, especially after you have paid him in advance, of course a gross error on your part in believing in such a wretched human being who's mental equilibrium is shattered almost beyond repair. In short, he is exhausted in his DNA from labor, free labor, thus often money will not inspire him to show up for work on time, no matter how much you have mutually agreed to pay him. 

I've had musicians leave my concert before I was able to pay them because they were no doubt in a hurry to get their dope that was more important than money, if you can imagine such. Well, I admit there were times when I was a dope fiend and dope was more important than money. On one occasion or several, I left a white man in charge of my stand while I made a dope run and when the white man came with my money I was too busy doing dope to stop to get the money from the white, even though my dope friends told me to take a break and let the white man give me my money. You know when a dope fiend is sprung he dope give a funk about money, pussy or anything in the world except his next blast into the sunset or moon or some other planet when he can fly into nothingness and dread. Yes, of course, he is busy doing nothing or maybe (in the Crack era) smoking hot air to the point of exhaustion, physically, mentally and emotionally--yes, from doing nothing but drowning on dry land in a room filled with smoke that killed the flies or had them crawling on the floor like slow motion zombies and he joined the flies in their dance of nothingness and dread. Getting up the next morning as he had done a thousand mornings on zero, broke, hungry, nasty, filthy, although may have saved 50 cents for his breakfast, a Snickers bar, that he survived on for years in his sojourn into nothingness and dread. 

So know the Negro who lives on zero but is busy doing nothing and knows nothing but nothing until the magic whip strikes his black ass to awaken his long dormant DNA that only resistance will save his black ass from the whip and lynching of his mind, heard, body and soul. 

Let the Negro know is is something and not nothing but he must pull up his pants, yes, his bootstraps, yes, as Booker T told him, do so wherever you are, and Garvey told him the same, Africa for the Africans, those at home and those abroad, Elijah told him to do for self because they day would come when he would have no choice because the slave master would drop him like a hot potato in his own white supremacist nothingness and dread. Yes, the socalled Negro would be compelled to rise from his slumber and denial of his divinity and accept the challenge to be the descendent of King Tut, Queen Nefertiti and all the warrior kings and queens, warrior workers and craft persons who transcended the do nothing syndrome in the do for self dimension and raised themselves to the Upper Room of their Fathers and Mothers house of Divine Consciousness and Political Power.

--Marvin X

1/30/21


Tuesday, January 26, 2021

Toward the final draft of Part 3, The Wild Crazy Ride of the Marvin X Experience


Tuesday, January 26, 2021
Toward the final draft of Part 3, The Wild Crazy Ride of the Marvin X Experience
Part Three of a Ten Part Series includes the following:
Amiri Baraka and Marvin X in Conversation at the Lannan Foundation, Santa Fe, NM, 2009

Marvin X in Concert at the Black Repertory Group Theatre, Berkeley CA, accompanied by
Percussionists Tacuma King and Kele Nitoto, Violinist Tarika Lewis, Harpist Destiny Muhammad, Choreographer/dancer Raynetta Rayzetta RIP, and Spiritualist Suzzette Celeste.
Amiri Baraka reading at UC Berkeley, accompanied by Marvin X reading, October 7, 2007
Marvin X reading at New York University Memorial for poets Jayne Cortez and Amiri Baraka, accompanied by bassist Henry Grimes, February 4, 2014
Marvin X reading Amiri Baraka's poem Dope at the Malcolm X Jazz/Art Festival, Oakland
accompanied by the Black Arts Movement Poets Choir and Arkestra, featuring
David Murray and Earle Davis, 2015, Eastside Arts Center Production
Your comments are welcome, also your kind donation of any amount for this project. Please go to my GoFundMe account: gf.me/u/zdpc8c

For more information, please call 510-575-7148, email: jmarvinx@yahoo.com
Your donation can be tax deductible.

Minister Farrakhan on Amiri Baraka

Monday, January 25, 2021

Toward the final final final draft of The Wild Crazy Ride of the Marvin X Experience Part Three of a 20 part series on the life and work of Artistic Freedom Fighter Marvin X


I want to thank Ancestor Amiri Baraka for 47 years of friendship and comrade as artistic freedom fighters in the Black Arts and Black Liberation Movement. I want to thank all those who accompanied me in my concert at the Berkeley Black Repertory Group Theatre: Percussionists Master Tacuma King and his associate Kele Nitoto, Master Violinist Tarika Lewis, also the first female member of the Black Panther Party, Harpist of the Hood Destiny Muhammad and her sound engineer husband Christwell Muhammad; my favorite choreographer/dancer Rayzetta Raynetta, and Suzzette Celeste who shares her words in inspiration. And most of all, I thank Dr. Mona Scott and Sean Scott of the Black Repertory Group Theatre. Let me acknowledge the musicians who accompanied me reading Amiri Baraka's poem Dope at the Malcolm X Jazz/Arts Festival produced by Eastside Arts, Oakland. I give all praise to my Editor Ken Johnson who has videoed and edited my work over the last 40 years. Thank you, thank you Ken Johnson. Everybody knows I am not easy to work with but they also know when we begin a project we will not stop until we go from process to product. 

If you would like to donate to this video/audio documentary, please go to my GoFundMe account:
gf.me/u/zdpc8c

Sunday, January 24, 2021

Parable of the milkshake


Parable of the Milkshake


In Memory of Robert Bey

A Philly Negro Supreme
Lost his mind in the US military




In Philly they have a drink in the hood called The Milkshake, aka The Marvin X. In bars it might be known as a Separator, i.e., Brandy and Irish Cream over rocks. In North Philly and Germantown, it's called the Marvin X, drank from a canning jar filled with rocks. 

From coast to coast, whether in a bar or in the hood, Marvin X warns his friends that his favorite drink is not a milkshake. Some macho men are hesitant because it is sweet, thus a bitch drink in their macho minds, but after the Marvin X hits their ass, they go into the Zone, ah, yes, The Separator separates mind from body. If you don't want your mind separated from your body don't fuck with the Marvin X drink!

One mad Crazy nigga in North Philly  filled his canning jar with the Marvin X, almost emptying the fifth of Hennessy. Marvin X looked at the Philly nigga but said nothing since the Philly Nigga had a 9 millimeter on the table beside his drink.

To himself Marvin X said Drink nigga drink, just don't put your hand on the 9 millimeter, crazy ass Philly cheese steak eating nigga.
--MARVIN X
1/23/21

Death of a Philadelphia Negro

 Death of a Philadelphia Negro


My buddy told me

Death of the Philadelphia Negro


Write a poem bout a Negro

Who wants to die

Live for what

I ain't doing nothing

You doing something

You got projects

I ain't doing shit

Blood clots in my legs

They want to cut

Can't cut

Heart 30%

What about stints in my legs

Doc say

How long will I live

Doc say it's debatable

Depends on you

Can't operate on legs

Heart too weak

What you want to do

I want some liquor and dope

Anything to kill pain in my legs

Doc say you in pretty bad shape

Buddy

One leg is black

May need to cut

How long will I live

Doc don't know

Depends

What you want to do

I'm ready to go

Ain't doing nothing

Doc say you had heart attacks 

I ain't felt no heart attack

Don't matter you had 'em

Well so what doc

I'm ready to go home

Eat some mushrooms and

Float like Santa Claus

Join Sun Ra on Jupiter

Ain't nothing happening here

I ain't doing nothing

Why stay

All my friends gone

You bout one or two friends Left buddy tell me

My kids doing they thing

Ain't worried bout me

Worried bout they cars

Mustang BMW Bentley

Don't give a fuck bout me

I'm dead man walking

Let me get in the shower

Put on my clothes jewelry

Go to poker party

8 o'clock

House party

Niggas got everything

Hennessy blunts

Cocaine all over card table

Niggas feeling good

Ain't wearing no stupid ass masks

Let me get to the party

Last Poet's right

Niggas go party bullshit

Party bullshit.


It's strange though

When you know 

death is knocking 

on your door

You know you got to open door

Let death come in

Sit down at table

But death ain't playing poker!

--MARVIN X

1/21/21






Friday, January 22, 2021

Parable of the blind man


 
Parable of the blind man


Blind man rather be dead than blind

Say he cursed Special Forces Vet

Crawling around jungle

Killing Viet Kong 

usa running dog

said anybody who goes into military and kills 

comes home crazy.

Don't care about money in bank

Just want to die

Was biochemist

Made healing herb potions

Now gotta heal thyself

Community Angel

Used to sit at my table

Academy of Da Corner

Downtown Oakland

Pay for books if woman know she Queen of universe

She had to know who she was

Didn't pay for man books

He wasn't blind then

He was grumpy bitter

Grew up in Brooklyn

Didn't know blackness

Til he met Hurriyah and Marvin X

We love blind man

He lost love of self

Want to kill self

They took him to hospital

Rest home

Let apartment go

Archives books tapes computer

Trashed

Say he on another level now

Don't need that shit

I tell him come sit with me

Academy of Da Corner Lakeshore

He sits

Talks with young man with detail car service

Blind man ask if he knew my poem

Black History is world history

He say no

Blind man jam me

Why he don't have your poem

Out of print

You better get him your poem

I say Google it

He Google my reading

Blind man happy

Ethiopian come by

Blind man ask why

Ethiopian kill Ethiopian

Tribes

Ethiopian say they ignut

Gotta come up from ignut

White Native American come by

Blind man say you white man

White Man say his mama black native American

Grew up on reservation

Cardboard shoes

With his mama had to sit

Back of bus

Drink at Black water fountain

By himself he drink at White fountain

Confused child

Blind man stopped hating

White Native American

I take him home

His care provider help him from car

He tells her

I hate to say it but

I enjoyed myself today.

Ache'

Can't make the blind man see

Can make him live!

--MARVIN X

1/22/21




 https://vimeo.com/120866516


Marvin X You don't know me

 https://vimeo.com/120866516


Thursday, January 21, 2021

Part 3 final final The wild crazy ride of the marvin x experience

j

Includes Amiri Baraka and Marvin X at the Lannan Foundation, Santa Fe NM; Marvin X 
reading at Yoshi's San Francisco; Marvin X at the Berkeley Black Repertory Group 
Theater, accompanied by percussionists Tacuma King and Kelly Nitoto, harpist vocalist 
Destiny Muhammad, violinist Tarika Lewis, dancer Raynetta Rayzetta RIP, and Suzzette Celeste, 
words of inspiration and Marvin X reading Amiri Baraka's poem Dope at the Malcolm X Jazz/Art Festival, Oakland CA, 2015, accompanied by musicians David Murray and Earle Davis.

Sunday, January 10, 2021

Who has the truth

 


5


Who has the truth

I want the truth
So help me God
The whole truth
Not his truth her truth
Black truth white truth
Jewish truth Muslim truth
Christian truth
Church of God in Christ truth
Buddha truth
Yoruba truth
Vudoo truth
Hebrew Jah truth
Ignut rapper truth
Hip Hop 5% truth
Elijah truth
Noble Drew Ali truth
Garvey truth
Father Divine truth
Rev Ike truth
Rev Jim Jones truth
Hillary Clinton truth
Trump truth
Biden Harris truth
Communist Socialist Capitalist truth
Atheist truth
Pimp truth
Ho' truth
Dope fiend truth
Lesbian gay transexual trysexual truth
Hennessy blunt smoker truth
Adulterer fornicator truth
I want the whole truth
So help me God.
--MARVIN X
1/10/21
Revised from Marvin X, Jet Magazine, cerca 1975

Saturday, January 2, 2021

Revised Part Three, Segment A of the Wild Crazy Ride of the Marvin X Experience




Shani Baraka and her lover Ray Ray

Parable of talking with the dead in the Necropolis

 Parable of talking with the dead in the necropolis


Actress Cat Brooks
photo Adam Turner


Poet Marvin X
photo Adam Turner

He walked into the necropolis, city of the dead, (necro, according to Grimm's law, the consonants c,k and g are interchangeable or equal, thus necro and negro mean the same, something dead). 

He tried to hold their hand but it was limp without life so he dropped their hand and it fell to their side, hanging like an appendage of sorrow, sad its fake had been to do nothing throughout its existence as part of the necro's body as it circumnavigated the necropolis. The arms waved but to no purpose for the other necros could not respond in kind since they were dead as well. Their spirits had been sucked from them long ago by the vampire who walked among them smiling as their friend but in truth he was the blood sucker of the poor who ate their children for breakfast lunch and dinner. 

Mothers and fathers wondered why their children were lifeless, their only desire was to be on the machine the vampire provided them to join the robot world of the creatures on the screen before them, where they played games of murder and slaughter of the enemy. When the game ended the vampire laughed through the screen at the children he devoured with a vibration while their parents stood in wonder at their children who were no longer their children. Their children had no longer the desire to kiss their mother and father but only looked at them in despair because the parents had not fully joined them in the vampire games. 

Parents wondered how they could break the spell of the vampire. Parents withdrew their children from the public schools when they realized the schools were making their children dope fiends of the low information vibration. Their children came home to get stuck on the vampire games of murder and parents were in shock their child was no longer their child but some agent of the vampire who sucked their blood and brain cells into his wretched mouth for breakfast lunch and dinner.
--Marvin X
1/2/21

Welcome 2021

 Welcome to 2021


Welcome to all of you who survived 2020, one of the most wretched years in the history of mankind, beginning with germ warfare, Covid19, a long planned germ agent of the Globalists and the new boys on the block, the Chinese Communists. The Europeans and the European Americans (Left and Right, Democrats and Republicans) thought they could either associate themselves economically with the Chinese Communists or, in the mind of white nationalist President Donald Trump, make them submit to fair trade instead of the free trade agreement that the Chinese have taken full advantage of. Abysmally ignorant of the ten thousand year cultural history of China, Trump apparently thought he could make a fair trade deal with the Chinese, but with their Art of War political and military strategy, China has obviously out thought the American cultural savages by passing a hard coup military engagement with the Americans, instead instituted a soft coup by utilizing germ warfare with Covid19 in harmony with the globalists who have long sought the New World Order even before they assisted Mao and the 1949 revolution. You do understand some people work both sides of the fence, i.e., gun sellers sell to all sides, what difference does it make to them--it's a money thang, not a moral or political thang.

Having assisted Mao, the globalists figured they could eventually win them to the capitalist economic notion but the long cultural history of the Chinese gave them the psychological advantage to patiently convince their mostly western European globalist sycophants to surrender their capitalist model for the Chinese model of economic synchronization, i.e., a mixed economic model of capitalism and communism. The greedy capitalist blood suckers of the poor were eager to join the Chinese in their model of wage slavery. The globalist bloodsuckers were/are multi-cultural in economic agreements with the Chinese, thus Africans are rapidly selling out the Motherland to China, including the sale of land and, most importantly, precious metals, in exchange for cheap made in china goods, including imitation African art and crafts such as Kenti cloth and mud cloth, thus depressing the economics of African artists and craftsmen and women. 

North American African entrepreneurs, athletes, rappers and other entertainers are eager and without any moral sensibility to have their gear Made in China, although let it be known that Made in China is a misnomer because 40% of the goods made in China are made in conjunction with European, American, Asian, African and Latin corporations, thus the China are not the sole devils in this economic quagmire that involves the slave labor of Muslim Chinese, Tibetan Buddhists and other ethnic and political dissidents to the Chinese Communist model.
We understand that socalled clothing for the global fashion industry are subcontracted by China to North Korean slave factories. What a wonderful world as we enter 2021.

For North American Africans, the question is not what the Chinese, Globalists and/or white nationalists are doing but what is our Black Agenda for the 50 million descendants of African victims of the American slave system (Ed Howard term)? Shall we continue as sycophants of the Democratic party--thank God in the last election many North American Africans dismembered their umbilical cord with the Demon-cratic Party to vote for Donald Trump. Of course, in my political thinking, the choice in America is between Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

I repeat, what is the Black Agenda? Surely it is not news to us except those on the lowest level of the low information vibration that the germ warfare agent Covid 19 is affecting North American Africans who are perennially sufferers of America's health disparities and inequities.


Marvin X at the University of Chicago Sun Ra Conference on Afro-Futurism, 2015
photo Burrell Sunrise

In my 1968 interview with James Baldwin at his New York apartment, he said our condition proves America does not believe in Christianity, democracy or anything else relating to our freedom, justice and equality. Alas, our arrival on these shores was a journey in genocide, then we joined the Native Americans in their drama of genocide. As per disease, see the classic but little known study by sociologist Dr. E. Franklin Frazier's Race and Culture Contacts in the Modern World: "The diseases of the Europeans were more devastating that their guns upon the native peoples throughout the Americas." In 2021, we can repeat his words: The toxic environment North American Africans are forced to suffer are more damaging that, yes, the guns and bullets he provides us to kill ourselves in suicides and homicides. FYI, many suicides are in fact homicides because the person was too cowardly to kill himself/herself so they put themselves in a position for someone else to kill them, especially the police!

Our agenda has always been to stay or go? Study the 19th Century Black Convention Movement on down to the Civil Rights and Black Power Conferences of the 1960s. Agenda: Civil Rights, i.e., integration or Black Power, separation, including land and sovereignty. 

As we enter 2021, we see the English have decided to politically separate from their European brothers in the European Union. North American African, mostly young people, have created Blaxit, the modern version of the Return to African Movement our ancestors have called for, most often associated with Marcus Garvey although the called was part of the agenda debated throughout the 19th century. 

Blaxit has been answered by the Hip Hop generation and their elders, especially in Ghana where the five thousand North American Africans in Accra are, yes, causing gentrification with their education and standard of living, my daughter, Muhammida El Muhajir, among the leaders of the Blaxit Movement. So the question remains and shall persist until we arrive at consensus that may ultimately require a plebiscite or vote of the people as with Brexit in England. For sure, we have more issues with America than the English have with the European Union.

In a few days, we shall see if the time has come for North American Africans to advance the call of Blaxit or some form of sovereignty in several states for reparations due, especially if the second civil war begins with the disputed election of Biden's 3.0 Obama regime or shall we endure Donald Trump 2.0 blatant white nationalism. As per a Biden-Obama 3.0 or Trump 2.0, I suggest Blaxit 1.0, we return to the Motherland or stake our claim to five states or more on this land as we enter the second civil war with the resultant Balkanization of the United States of America into ethnic enclaves. For sure, the whites shall claim their part, along with La Raza La Raza La Raza, and the Asians and of course Native Americans. Shall the North American Africans not claim their share of the American pie or shall they cling to their white master's coat-tail and cast their fate to this ass blowing in the wind!
--Marvin X/El Muhajir
1/2/21

P.S. I am in production of the video documentary The Wild Crazy Ride of the Marvin X Experience, produced and edited by Marvin X and Ken Johnson, a tentative 10-20 Part series on the life and times of Marvin X. Please consider a generous donation to my GoFundMe account to make this project happen. https://gofund.me/d4ab535f



We have completed drafts of Parts 1-3 that you may view at www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com

Thanks to all my friends and supporters throughout the six decades of my involvement in the black arts and liberation movement. We give praise and honor to all the ancestors and all the unacknowledged workers and veterans, especially those suffering physical and mental disabilities as a result of America's domestic war against those true patriots who fought in the name of the US Constitution and for civil and human rights. MX