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Black
History Month
Artist
Profile Marvin X
By
Daniel King
Friday, February 24, 2006
In the mid-1960s, playwright Marvin X founded
the Black House, the Black Education Theater and many other
Tenderloin stages that served as headquarters for the Black Arts
Movement.
In 2004, X put on the Tenderloin Book Fair
and University of Poetry, a sprawling daylong lit fest. Now 61,
he's writing a book about Islamic history in the Bay Area and is
writing a play with Dead Prez.
King: The Black Arts Movement is built
on many ideals. Which, for you, are the strongest?
Marvin: The Black Arts Movement is
about consciousness-raising music and literature. It's about the
Paul Robeson concept of the artistic freedom fighter; about
making statements that saturate the political nervous system.
King: You've been called a radical
activist. What would you tell a group of 20-year-old playwrights
if they said they don't care about radicalism?
Marvin: I would say what Mao Zedong
said: "Let a hundred schools of thought contend." I
don't want anything to do with them. Go do your thing. I've got
a mission to actually change something. Like Bush said, you with
me or against me. Contrary to Bush, the main addiction in
America is not oil, it's white supremacy. That's the addiction
from which all other addictions spring. Deal with the problem of
supremacy, and you'll solve the greed for oil, the murder for
oil. That's what's radical to me. We need a thousand Frantz
Fanons, and white people need to have a 12-step
supremacy-recovery program. Go in, have a detox. Maybe it'll
help you, and us.
King: Do you think hip-hop is to black
culture now what jazz in the 60s was to the Black Arts Movement?
Marvin: No! Jazz in the 60s was
aligned with the freedom struggle, the music of Archie Shepp,
Pharoah Sanders. It was liberation music. Hip-hop don't have
that, at least not on BET, MTV. That's because the ruling class
don't want people awake. They want people asleep. . . . I grew
up in a politically charged household. My parents were involved
in the NAACP and published a black newspaper in Fresno, so it's
not strange for me to be politically conscious.
King: What do you think about the
concept of Black History Month?
Marvin: Now people are writing about the Black
Arts Movement. But you won't dare invite the originators, who
are still alive. You don't want them around because that would
reveal your contradictions.
Source:
SFGate.com
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Marvin X has just finished the first draft of his novel MAMA
SAID. He is seeking a patron of the arts to help him publish
sixteen titles:
New
Mama Said, novel, 2006
Up From Ignorance, essays, 2006
When I Think About the Women in My
Life, poems, 2006
Five Plays, 2006
Parables and Fables (illustrated
by Ahmed Ali), 2006
History of Black Muslims in the
San Francisco Bay, 1954-2004
Marvin X Reader,
Marvin X: A Critical Look
Reprint
Fly To Allah, 1969
Woman--Man's Best Friend, poems,
proverbs, parables, 1972
Confession of An Ex-wife Beater,
poems, 1986
Love and War, poems, 1995
Somethin Proper, 1998
In the Crazy House Called America,
essays, 2002
Wish I Could Tell You the Truth,
essays, 2005
Land of My Daughters, poems, 2005
If you would like to support the work of Marvin X, contact
him at 11132 Nelson Bar Road, Cherokee CA 95965, or email: mrvnx@yahoo.com,
call 510-472-9589 posted 26 February 2006
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What Orwell Didn't Know
Propaganda and the New Face of American Politics
By Andras Szanto
Propaganda. Manipulation. Spin. Control. It has ever been thus—or has it? On the eve of the 60th anniversary of George Orwell's classic essay on propaganda (Politics and the English Language), writers have been invited to explore what Orwell didn't—or couldn't—know. Their responses, framed in pithy, focused essays, range far and wide: from the effect of television and computing, to the vast expansion of knowledge about how our brains respond to symbolic messages, to the merger of journalism and entertainment, to lessons learned during and after a half-century of totalitarianism. Together, they paint a portrait of a political culture in which propaganda and mind control are alive and well (albeit in forms and places that would have surprised Orwell). The pieces in this anthology sound alarm bells about the manipulation and misinformation in today's politics, and offer guideposts for a journalism attuned to Orwellian tendencies in the 21st century. |
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The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story
of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government
By Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer
American democracy is informed by the 18th century’s most cutting edge thinking on society, economics, and government. We’ve learned some things in the intervening 230 years about self interest, social behaviors, and how the world works. Now, authors Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer argue that some fundamental assumptions about citizenship, society, economics, and government need updating. For many years the dominant metaphor for understanding markets and government has been the machine. Liu and Hanauer view democracy not as a machine, but as a garden. A successful garden functions according to the inexorable tendencies of nature, but it also requires goals, regular tending, and an understanding of connected ecosystems. The latest ideas from science, social science, and economics—the cutting-edge ideas of today—generate these simple but revolutionary ideas: (The economy is not an efficient machine. It’s an effective garden that need tending. Freedom is responsibility. Government should be about the big what and the little how. True self interest is mutual interest. |
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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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If you like this page consider making a donation
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
1950
1960
1965
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1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
____ 2005
Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
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January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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