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Prison and Spirituality
By
Marvin X
Your mind is in prison.—Malcolm
X
America is a prison house. We exist
in the big yard where we are allowed a few liberties,
otherwise known as zoozoos and whamwhams. We can walk
and talk with friends, be with loved ones, go to the
movies, attend a concert, but we are closely watched,
our mail is read, phones tapped, and it has been like
this for decades, ever since college when we were
followed home each night. When we speak in public,
agents are there. We see them, smell them, feel them,
black devils with the vibe of hatred for Black. They
take note of our comments, crowd reaction.
We are not terrorists, we only speak
the truth. We have no weapons, no guns, no bombs, except
the truth. When they want, we are taken from the big
yard and put into the dungeon, handcuffed, feet chained.
It was for some minor infraction, a traffic ticket or
failing the tone test with an officer. One thing leads
to another, a little thing becomes a big thing. There
was a fight with an officer, a beat down. Thrown into a
cell bleeding. There is court. There is no justice. The
court is rigged. The judge said my crime was telling too
much truth. I was taken away to prison. On the way into
the prison I had smelled dead fish, but I would soon
discover it was not dead fish I was smelling but dead
nigguhs who were faking and playing games like they used
to do in the big yard. They were dangerous. I had
observed them in jail. They would snitch for a meal,
extra food, the privilege of watching TV, especially
dangerous were the dope fiends. They didn't want to hear
any truth. They had me moved off the main line and put
in a special section for truth tellers.
When I got into the prison, the
warden sent for me. He said he just wanted to meet me,
see if I had anything I needed. I said I needed to go
home. He laughed. He said I need to stop telling the
truth. It scares people. He had my report that people
were afraid of me out in the big yard. They were afraid
of losing their jobs if caught talking with me or
reading my writings. He told me to let him know if I had
any problem. I told him I would. I returned to my cell.
Some brothers asked me to meet with
them on the prison yard. They held an election and said
I was the minister of truth. Another brother was the
secretary of truth and the third the captain of truth.
We did not argue with the election results. We held our
first meeting that Sunday in the chapel. A crowd of
brothers came to hear what I had to say. They said it
was the best truth they ever heard. But they knew I
would not be there long. As soon as the truth meetings
are organized, they transfer the minister of truth to
another prison, so the brothers begged me to give up all
the truth I had in the time I had. I did as they
requested as I could see they were sincere and did not
debate with me about what I knew.
My days were spent teaching truth. I
studied also. Each dorm had a library near the entrance.
Soon I had the best books in prison in my locker. The
brothers said that any books on any subject could be
found in my locker. I searched the prison main library
also. All the books with good truth were marked
contraband, but I did not care, I took them to my
locker. But if found, I could get into trouble. I didn't
care about trouble, I wanted truth.
When the truth meetings got too
crowded, the warden called me in to tell me I was being
transferred to another prison. He was sorry to see me
go, but I had to go. I went back to my dorm and told the
brothers goodbye. They were sad but they knew the game.
Early that morning they came for me, chained my hands
and feet and put me on the prison bus. The bus ride was
just the beginning of a merry-go-round through the
prison system so I could understand the price of truth
and learn to shut up. Of course I would not shut up
until death.
Source:
Toward Radical Spirituality, Black Bird Press,
2007 (c) 2006 by Marvin X (El Muhajir)
Marvin X has given permission to
Harvard University to publish his poem "For El Haji
Rasul Taifa" from Love and War: Poems by Marvin X
(1995). The poem will appear in The Encyclopedia of
Islam in America Volume II, Greenwood Press, edited
by Dr. Jocelyne Cesari of Harvard's Islam in the West
Program. Mr. X is co-editor of the forthcoming anthology
Muslim American
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Sex at the Margins
Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry
By Laura María Agustín
This book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work, that migrants who sell sex are passive victims and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label 'trafficked' does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the 'rescue industry' serves to disempower them. Based on extensive research amongst both migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustin, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry, and although they are treated like a marginalised group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice. "Sex at the Margins rips apart distinctions between migrants, service work and sexual labour and reveals the utter complexity of the contemporary sex industry. This book is set to be a trailblazer in the study of sexuality."—Lisa Adkins, University of London |
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The Warmth of Other Suns
The Epic Story of America's Great
Migration
By Isabel Wilkerson
Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, a
sharecropper's wife, left Mississippi
for Milwaukee in 1937, after her cousin
was falsely accused of stealing a white
man's turkeys and was almost beaten to
death. In 1945, George Swanson Starling,
a citrus picker, fled Florida for Harlem
after learning of the grove owners'
plans to give him a "necktie party" (a
lynching). Robert Joseph Pershing Foster
made his trek from Louisiana to
California in 1953, embittered by "the
absurdity that he was doing surgery for
the United States Army and couldn't
operate in his own home town." Anchored
to these three stories is Pulitzer
Prize–winning journalist Wilkerson's
magnificent, extensively researched
study of the "great migration," the
exodus of six million black Southerners
out of the terror of Jim Crow to an
"uncertain existence" in the North and
Midwest. Wilkerson deftly incorporates
sociological and historical studies into
the novelistic narratives of Gladney,
Starling, and Pershing settling in new
lands, building anew, and often finding
that they have not left racism behind.
The drama, poignancy, and romance of a
classic immigrant saga pervade this
book, hold the reader in its grasp, and
resonate long after the reading is done.
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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
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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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
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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