Saturday, March 14

Dear Marvin X,

What it is, Bro? How you gon' write about San Francisco State Univ. and leave my name out of it? Gee, as I remember it, both Sis. Sonia and I taught Danny Glover & Benny, and other young militants. As I remember, that while writing w/Dingane on the Journal, and making a controversial criticism of Amiri—being, as I remember it, the only principled writer to criticize him about some the theories that he forwarded in his plays—which almost caused a rebellion among Black Dialogue editors—while most people were busily kissing his feet as a kind of Cult of Personality Messiah—I was almost hounded out of town; but held firmly without wavering.

And Gee, didn't you and I co-found the Huey P. Newton Defense Committee, when Huey successfully heroically fought his way out of a police ambush? Let me see, Gee, wasn't that original founding meeting attended by attorney William Patterson, his comrade, Mr. Crawford, Sis. Nebbie Crawford (his beautiful daughter); and didn't Baba Patterson lecture two Muslim bros, Marvin & Askia, about being "narrow Nationalists," and while we disagreed, we never confronted the Elder, out of respect.. And later, we collectively convinced Jim Lacey to head the Defense Committee, which he did, after arriving back from Nkrumah's Ghana.

With all due respect, Marvin, what goes with the Historical Amnesia? I had to add those missing portions of that History—or become a missing person—like what happened to me recently in Harlem, when we collectively honored Amiri—and I thanked him for helping me develop my voice, and we hugged each other—and when the nigga wrote the article for the Amsterdam News, he "erased" my name from history—like I wasn't there, even though Amiri & Askia embraced to warm applause from the audience. Excuse my "sensitivity" about being erased from history—especially by comrades.

As for the culture of the Temple Univ. Black Studies Conf., I've been asked to chair the Cultural Panel by Comrade Dr. Muhammad Ahmad, and I've chosen a beautiful sista, Bolade Akintolayo from Brooklyn to co-chair of this panel with me. As Always, you know you're welcome to participate on this panel—and bring the flavor of the W.Coast Black Arts experience, and also raise the Generation Dialogue w/the Hip-Hop generation, sistas & bruthas. I accept your timely criticism that much of the Black Arts experience has been too East-Midwest oriented, omitting key experiences of both the West Coast and the beautiful, Blues-rooted, as opposed to "dirty," South.

I know and respect you, Marvin X, as much as I did when I welcomed you to Harlem. Whenever you come to any city I'm in, I'll always uphold your leadership, talent and experience. Let's go forward together and heal these many wounds among us.

Peace and Power, In Struggle,

Askia Toure

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Bro Askia, even though most of you generals are almost ten years older than I am, I too sometimes suffer from amnesia. This is not intentional because I am conscious of revisionist history these days, so I certainly don't want to be guilty of this, so I thank you for making me aware of ignoring your contribution to our liberation. You taught and fought at San Francisco State University as well as made a major contribution to BAM in Harlem, no one can deny this.

It is good to hear from you since our last meeting in Boston. I look forward to seeing and participating with you at Temple and also at the Smithsonian, even if I am not on the program. It was suggested to me today that a group of us need to do a national tour to educate our people on the correct history of BAM, Black Studies and Black Liberation.

Peace and Love, Marvin X

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Marvin, a very interesting dialogue between you and Askia. But part of the conversation seems to be missing, namely, your writing about what happened at San Francisco State University.
 
In any case these dialogues are important. So are reports from these conferences. If the dialogues go no farther than the conference walls, are the organizers and participants fully doing all that must be done. I will not be attending the conference at Temple, but I am interested in the proceedings.
 
Here are some words once uttered that still find their resonance:
 
"We need facts figures precision and skill. It is work and study that will change the world. The rest is clearly bullshit."  Amiri Baraka (1973)
 
We need conference reports. History of the 60s and 70s is important. But history of yesterday has its importance as well.
 
Peace and love, Rudy

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Rudy, I recently spoke to Davey D's class on hip hop at San Francisco State University. D wanted me to make the historical connection between BAM and Hip Hop. Of course for me, I began my journey into black consciousness, black art, black liberation at Oakland's Merritt College after graduating from high school. The first "rappers" (as in H. Rap Brown, now Jamil Alamin) I heard were on the steps of Merritt. They were, among others, Bobby Seale, Richard Thorne, Huey Newton, Ken Freeman, Ernie Allen, Ann Williams, Carol Freeman and others--led by attorney Donald Warden (Khalid Abdullah Tariq Al Mansur) and his Afro-American Association. The "rappers" rapped on black consciousness, discussing issues in E. Franklin Frazier's Black Bourgeoisie, the writings of Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyatta's ethnography Facing Mt. Kenya, Patrice Lumumba, Nelson Mandela, Fidel Castro's speech "History Will Absolve Me," and others topics.

Bobby Seale calls us the neo-black intellectuals. A sister who recalls us said she labeled us the petty bourgeoisie intellectuals, nevertheless we were striving for consciousness and doing so outside of the classroom, at cafes and each others rooms. I was formally introduced to Huey Newton at Richard Throne's room.. After Richard showed Huey some of my aphorisms, Huey asked me, "Man, what is your program?" I asked the students the same question in Davey D's class.

 The topic the students were pondering was is hip hop a social movement. And if so, what is hip hop's program? Is it about spreading consciousness as we were about at Merritt and later at San Francisco State College. I displayed my early writings and the publications I was associated with while a student at SF State, such as Journal of Black Poetry, Black Dialogue, Soulbook, Black Scholar and Negro Digest/Black World. Journal of Black Poetry and Black Dialogue was produced by us while poor, starving students at SFSU.

At the same time we produced plays (my Flowers for the Trashman, Jimmy Garrett's We Own the Night) and held poetry readings on campus. Danny Glover was one of our actors.

My point is that we were young people on the move to save ourselves and the world. I don't know if I see hip hop saving people and the world even though it is now world youth culture.

BAM has had a direct impact of what is now called "Rap," but most rap is a long way from what we were rapping about at Merritt and SFSU. Conscious rap has been drowned out by the bitch, ho, motherfucker genre. When I wrote in a poem "motherfuck the police," I was coming from a revolutionary perspective not from some hip hop gang banger's individualistic point of view. And it was from this revolutionary perspective that BAM evolved and the liberation movement, particularly the Black Panther Party who took on the police. The Panthers began as defenders of the community. What I want to stress is that we were youth on the move. And of course it was the same in the South with the brothers and sisters in SNNC.

Students at SFSU evolved from the Negro Students Association to the Black Students Union, then toward the establishment of the first black studies program in America, at least on a major college campus. Huey and Bobby had continued to fight for black studies at Oakland's Merritt College.

So is there a connection between the black liberation movement, BAM, Black Studies (all youth inspired and directed) and Hip Hop? Yes and no. We had ideology and program. Does Hip Hop have ideology and program? BAM, Black Studies and Black Liberation inspired world youth culture as does Hip Hop, but much if not most of Hip Hop culture cannot be called revolutionary. Much of Hip Hop is fad and fashion, styling and profiling. Yes, the Panthers styled and profiled, but with a revolutionary agenda, not for bling bling. The Muslims styled and profiled but with a revolutionary agenda: the establishment of a nation.

Marvin X

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What Black Liberation Means in the Obama Era?

High generational expectations as represented in Professor Floyd Hayes' "Intergenerational Disconnect" will not be met for generations to come in black communities, if ever.  That yesterday he speaks of admiringly cannot and will not be replicated. The world he speaks of—the past leaders and the past generations up to the 1970s—is a middle class one with middle-class values. That success-oriented black middle-class was trapped by Jim Crow, forced to live among the black poor that it partially despised because of their ignorance and loose sexual behavior. Today's black middle class is comfortable and mobile: its concerns are that of most liberal and moderate Americans.

More and more like the white professional middle classes its members only come into contact with the black poor and rabble in passing, the nightly news, TV, hoodlum or comedy films. Or if they are in their family, they socialize only rarely, e.g., a funeral. They are just not part of the same set; their interests, lifestyles, perspectives, goals are tangential. Liberation for the black professional classes is here; for the black poor working classes is a Disney, hip hop dream.

There's always a kind of revisionism which clouds the historical truth. There was a global revolution afoot in that period of the 50s, 60s, and 70s. With world war, colonialism, and mass killings in the background, the world was becoming smaller; new nations in Africa and Asia were being born daily. Colonial provincialism was breaking down and the youth of that time were getting to know other peoples and other cultures. It was the dawning of a Third World, of a new Age of Aquarius. All that idealism died a governmental death, as professor Floyd points out.

The world now is even much smaller, maybe too small. Mexico and Columbia, and Afghanistan are maybe too close for the poor and restricted children of black and Hispanic ghettos. There is no liberal idealism of the Other, who may be strapped with a high-powered rapid-firing gun, a bomb, or a phone detonator. College students groups or like those of SNCC and CORE cannot be found today. There is rather a great global contest for the shortage of work and money.

I doubt if there will ever be such mass movements and such leaders of yesteryear ever again, as we knew with Douglas and Delany, Washington and Du Bois, Garvey and Randolph, King and Malcolm, or groups like the Elijah’s Black Muslims or King’s SCLC, or Carmichael’s SNCC protesters and their black power advocates or Newton’s Panthers and their “Power to the People.” Genocides will probably become more frequent than mass protests. State terrorism is now the rage against those entrenched in revolutionary suicide. Did you hear that the Israelis experimented new weapons on the Gazans that tears flesh from bones and leaves buildings standing: the use of chemical warfare via phosphorus clusters. 

Also look at the literature and racial writers a bit closer that Floyd believes are still worthy of consideration by the youth of today:

The youth of today have no love, admiration, appreciation for such writers and their intellectual sacrifices. (Dr. Ben is in a nursing home, helpless to find better accommodations.) I see only the smallest exceptional students reading such literature, which basically argues for the humanity of African peoples. Growing up I recall the prevalence of doubt on such a core human issue, and an urgency for change. Most black kids today take their present rights and privileges for granted. As Professor Floyd points out the present reading generations are geared toward the “personal” as can be seen in Kam Williams' The Best Black Books of 2008.

Professor Floyd goes farther in this line of thought in the lack of gravitas:

America is indeed a "failing and decadent empire" and black kids are "historically rudderless." By some this political view of the now generation by earlier generations can be rationalized and justified. Yet America's global power will continue to be dominant far into the future, most young people believe, and they are probably right to think so, even Communist China wants America to succeed as the world’s greatest economic market. The accommodating "Everything is everything" came on the scene early, even by 1968. Cynicism stinks to high heaven in our communities: everything is seen as a hustle.

There's indeed a reluctance to open old wounds, as with the post-slavery generation, except maybe those ex-slaves interviewed in the 30s during the FWP era. They were too old to care about reprisals. They were already out of the orbit of concern and respect. There are so many RIPs adorning ghetto walls that old wounds of struggle and glory have no place of honor. Today's RIPS begin and end in pettiness and bullshit.

But the racial ills and sacrifices of the pre-80s are not the lens through which most middle-class Americans, not to speak of the hip-hop generations, see or envision America. History and historical villains are constantly being accommodated, cleaned up, rehabilitated, and dressed up for the market, as in Up from History: The Life of Booker T. Washington. Or as in the latest film on Notorious B.I.G. If anything, the youthful generations are concerned about the immediate, like random police brutality or black on black crime.

The younger generations are slipping and dodging, even in their sagging pants, for immediate gratification. So concerned for their bellies and immediate satiation they know not what to believe or think. They have little clarity of what "respect" is. Theirs is an inward and outward violence, which has become a mainstay that crosses generations, but coming now from a more deadly and different kind of dynamism and psychic. Professor Floyd comes to the nexus of now and then:

I would say the politics of black youth are local, very local. (Check out Ted Wilson's From Gangs of the Ghetto to Gangstas of the Inner City.) I am not certain exactly what Professor Floyd's intent is in the phrase "to recapture historical knowledge" What knowledge: Manners? Respect for Elders? What elders: those buying crack and smack from young slingers. These young gangsters can't tell the difference between you and me and their clientele! They have no depth. They are not literate. For them it is kill or be killed. If there is any issue found disturbing among youth it is this randomness of police brutality, prison slavery, and corrupt courts. But many of these drop-outs in their radical individualism begin early not to expect much out of life. They have little fear of cops or prisons. 

Such racial class issues do not make for the markings of a mass movement. These events are indeed vastly "disconnected," except by traditional racial devaluing. But such events are the life blood for hip hop cultural proselytizers (drug slinging, rapping, black on black violence, and gangster styling). Among these youth and their raps, there is little concern for the politics of the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, or the connections of these places with the unfortunate lives of black youth. The concept of Third World solidarity is dead.

Yes, their "value systems are reflective of their parents' acquisitive and indifferent orientation." Buying and acquiring are American as apple pie. We have just passed an economic bill that bets on people spending and buying, whatever. But the youth of today have made it their own under the influence of the entertainment industry (primarily the sports and music industries). They have their own uniforms and accessories. Their orientation: the quickest way to get those Benjamins and get the brand name accessories, like iphones and ipods? 

The great struggle before us is an internal one. For the country is willing to leave  the  black  poor behind to our own cultural designs. The prison industry grows in this downturn. We are not in need of military like organizations to lead the people.  The  religionists have failed to seek out the children of the poor. The schools have failed to challenge the children of the poor. We are in need of parents, even in their poverty, to set more realistic and restrictive goals for their children, more appropriate behavior, more ordering of their time, a greater respect for work, for those who are older and educated.

For instance, I was talking to a high school history teacher in the hall weeks ago and a female student passed by and called him "Boo."  A teenage girl and a 60 year old man! And she is one of the better students. Too many parents want to be their children's friend; too many educators want to be loved by their students. Thus, we have a lenience that sustains looseness and slovenly behavior.

There is not so much of a "disconnect" as a lack of real "respect" between the generations. Public school principals and other educators are not establishing the right behavior and right principles for young people to strive in a Right Wing America. They have given themselves over to the ethics and moralities of the culture of poverty, e.g., get over by any means necessary. Obama cannot and will not single out the black poor to point out their cultural shortfalls. The discipline job then is left to the sadism of cops, prison guards, and other criminals.

Our educators have given themselves over to careerism (go along to get along) and standardized testing. Many of them are ready to retire from education by the time they reach their 40s. They are tired of the bizarre and loose behavior of young people who know little or nothing about the world, who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Floyd ends with the ultimate goal of generational concerns:

I would indeed like for someone to define for me what "the struggle for black liberation" means in the Obama Era. In my view "black liberation" is as dead as Martin and Malcolm. The black poor will become a universal: a source of cheap labor, liberal sentiment, and exotic entertainment.

There indeed needs to be a struggle for human development and social justice but I am uncertain we can speak of these needs that cry out globally in 1960s "terms" like “liberation” when fundamentalism and extremism have become the order of the day.

I wonder indeed whether 21^st century hip hoppers will speak soon in such cool terms as, "Obama, that's my nigger, even if he don't get any bigger!"

Rudy

On Cecil Brown's Dude, Where's My Black Studies Department  -- Thus Africans and Caribbean Negroes were in many cases less radical, even though much of the African American radical tradition comes from immigrants, such as Marcus Garvey, George Padmore, Kwame Toure, Malcolm X and Farrakhan. As Amina Baraka informed me, "We're all West Indians." And this is true because kidnapped Africans were brought to the Caribbean for "the breaking in," then transferred to North America and elsewhere. And we must ask ourselves would we rather have a radical immigrant African in black studies or a reactionary Negro only because he is a Negro. Marvin X,  Africa or America: The Emphasis in Black Studies Programs

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Eldridge Cleaver: My Friend the Devil A Memoir of My Association With Eldridge Cleaver By Marvin X How to Order BLACK BIRD PRESS, 11132 NELSON BAR ROAD / CHEROKEE CA 95965 / 510-472-9589,  mrvnx@yahoo.com

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Go, Tell Michelle African American Women Write to the New First Lady Edited Barbara A. Seals Nevergold and Peggy Brooks-Bertram

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Books by Marvin X Love and War: Poems  / In the Crazy House Called America  Woman: Man's Best Friend /  Beyond Religion Toward Spirituality Marvin X on YouTube

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The White Masters of the World

From The World and Africa, 1965

By W. E. B. Du Bois

W. E. B. Du Bois’ Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization (Fletcher)

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Ancient African Nations

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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan  /  The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll  /  Only a Pawn in Their Game

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posted 15 March 2009