Call for West Coast Black Arts Theatre Festival

Invited Participants

Sean Vaughn Scott
Ise Lyfe
Geoffrey Grier
Michael Lange
Linda Johnson
Ayodele Nzinga
Destiny Muhammad
Tarika Lewis
Thomas Simpson
Donald Lacy
D'wayne Wiggins
Joyce Gordon
Geoffrey Pete








Marvin X Calls Black Arts West Theatre Festival
Marvin X, godfather of the West Coast Black Arts Movement, is calling a Black Arts West Theatre Festival in honor of Lorraine Hansberry Theatre founders Stanley E. Williams and Quentin Easter, also in honor of Margo Norman, who transitioned recently. Margo performed in the plays of Ed Bullins shortly before he hooked up with Marvin X to establish Black Arts West Theatre in San Francisco's Fillmore District.

Before Black Arts West came on the scene, there was Aldridge Players West, with Adam David Miller, et al. After Black Arts West, there was John Doyle's Grassroots theatre and Michael Cattlett's theatre.

And then came the Lorraine Hansberry. In 1972, Marvin X established Black Educational Theatre in the Fillmore, and in the late 90s, Recovery Theatre in the Tenderloin and throughout the Bay and Northern California. His play One Day in the Life is the longest running play in the history of North American Africans in Northern California. It ran from the late 90s into the new millennium.

Other theatres came and went, and few were able to survive on the meager budgets grant agencies doled out. The Lorraine Hansberry was the exception, partly because of their non-political stance as per the cultural revolution. But when they produced a performance of Marvin X's One Day in the Life, they transcended the apolitical. They'd also produced a work on the Black Panther Party, along with their signature work of August Wilson.

No matter the politics of Stanley and Quentin, and for that matter August Wilson, Marvin X considers them comrades in the arts. Any black artist with an iota of consciousness is all right with me. Actually, I appreciate artists period! Of course I appreciate revolutionary arts even more. But any black artists must have some degree of radical consciousness since he must confront and submit himself to the art of Western mythology.

Even the Lorraine Hansberry theatre brothers told Marvin X, "Marvin, the Black bourgeoisie would like to support you, but they cannot accept your language, if you could only alter your language they will support you." But when Marvin X submitted to the black bourgeoisie request, they did not accept his B script. Even Quentin Easter cried, "Marvin, you have taken all the chocolate out the milk!"

Marvin recalls one night at the Lorraine Hansberry: "The theatre was packed to overflow. Actually, when Stanley came he said, oh, no, this is a fire hazzard! People were seated on the stage."

Usually, I would go into the audience during my monologue, but not this night, the audience was seated onstage for lack of seats. They were from recovery programs from throughout the Bay Area. The Theatre District was horrified when all these recovering addicts took intermission on Sutter Street in the midst of the theatre district.

But more than this, Dr. William H. Grier was in the house. For those who don't know, Dr. William H. Grier is the co-author of Black Rage, the classic psychological study of North American Africans in the 60s. One of his sons is David Allen Grier, but his son Geoffery was playing the role of Black Panther c0-founder Huey P. Newton in my play One Day in the Life.

In truth, Geoffery was never able to match the psychopathic personality of Huey Hewton. Even though Geoffery had been a Crack fiend with me in San Francisco's Tenderloin District, he found it difficult to match the psychopathology of Huey Newton.

But Dr. Grier, being the psychiatrist he was, asked me how I was feeling before the play began.
I responded with a statement that didn't hardly satisfy the doctor. He told his son Geoferry, "I don't know what's wrong with Marvin. He has Mayor Willie Brown introducing his play. He has a packed house. He has a Jaguar car packed outside, yet he's singing the blues."

Dr. Grier, it's called Divine Discontent. In ghetto language, it's called an ungrateful bastard.

No matter, let us put together a Black Arts West Theatre Festival in honor of Stanley Williams, Quentin Easter and Margo Norman, now ancestors in the Black Theatre Movement. Of course, we can never forget Nora Vaughn and her Berkeley Black Repertory Group Theatre.
--Marvin X
7,11,10

Academy of da Corner Reader's Theatre

Ptah Mitchell


Aries Jordan


























Academy of da Corner Reader's Theatre to perform Mythology of Love


On the first day of Summer, Academy of da Corner Reader's Theatre rehearsed on the northwest campus at 14th and Broadway. Professor Lumukanda was absent so Plato Negro, aka Marvin X, took over his classroom to rehearse Mythology of Love, his womanhood and manhood rites of passage. The script for Mythology of Love is based on his 1981 Laney College theatre production of In the Name of Love, a ritual drama that examined polygamy, domestic violence and other aspects of male/female relations.

Mythology of Love is a poetic drama based on selected poems of the poet called "The USA's Rumi," (Bob Holman). Eldridge Cleaver said of In the Name of Love, "Marvin X has returned theatre to the Shakespearean tradition of poetic drama."

Mythology of Love lead actors include Aries Jordan as Eternal Woman and Ptah Mitchell as Eternal Man. Michelle LaChaux will act and sing in the production. The rehearsal went well on the first day of summer in the Bay. Aries and Ptah have the potential to excel in their roles since they are familiar with each other, thus have a level of respect on the personal and artistic level, both are poets and budding dramatists, who will perform original material at the Mythology of Love Festival. This project will more than likely become a three day event that will include the work of Bay Area playwrights Opal Palmer Adisa, Ayodele Nzinga, Geoffery Grier, Ise Lyfe, Michael Lange and others.

Actors interested in this production should contact Marvin X: jmarvinx@yahoo.com. Send a resume and pic.

BAM Fundamentally Changed America

Woody King, Detroit BAM,
producer, New Federal Theatre, NYC


Marvin X
poet,playwright, essayist
c0-founder of Black Arts West
Theatre, Fillmore District and
Black House,
San Francisco
Member of New Lafayette Theatre,
Harlem, NY, 1968-69





Barbara Ann Teer,
National Black Theatre Founder
(RIP)



Poet Askia Toure
A Key Figure in BAM





















Playwright Ed Bullins,
one of most prolific playwrights in
America
C0-founded Black Arts West Theatre
and Black House with Marvin X
(Black House founders included
Eldridge Cleaver, Ethna X. Wyatt
(Hurriyah Asar)



Omar Ben Hasan and Abiodun of Last Poets
Continued the poetic tradition, laid the
path for "Rap"












Haki Madhubuti (Don L. Lee) poet of
the Chicago BAM




Amina and Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones),
BAM founders







poet/playwright
Sonia Sanchez,
Queen of BAM


poet Nikki Giovanni, a major player
of BAM


Sun Ra, BAM Master
musician, philosopher
mythologist, poet
dramatist of the
highest order













Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Harvard Negro Intellectual in Crisis








Sometimes referred to as "the artistic sister of the Black Power Movement," the Black Arts Movement stands as the single most controversial moment in the history of African-American literature--possibly in American literature as a whole. Although it fundamentally changed American attitudes both toward the function and meaning of literature as well as the place of ethnic literature in English departments, African-American scholars as prominent as Henry Louis Gates, Jr., have deemed it the "shortest and least successful" movement in African-American cultural history.

-- "Black Creativity: On the Cutting Edge." Time (Oct. 10 1994): 74-75.

It is sometimes most difficult for outsiders, especially from academia, to understand what was essentially a grass roots artistic movement that advanced the radical consciousness of North American Africans. How can one say BAM "fundamentally changed American attitudes both toward the function and meaning of literature as well as the place of ethnic literature in English departments," and in the same breath call it the "shortest and least successful" movement in African-American cultural history. Perhaps its failure is that it did not totally liberate the black masses from domestic neo-colonialism. Will hip hop rap finish the work?
--Marvin X

White America Discovers Marvin X

White America Discovers Marvin X--Fifty Years Later


Marvin X and his Academy of Da Corner rocked the San Francisco Theatre Festival today. Not only did the largely white audience enjoy his very first play Flowers for the Trashman, 1965, produced by the drama department at San Francisco State University, but they enjoyed as well his current production of The Wisdom of Plato Negro, Parables/fables.

Additionally, the audience was blessed with the productions of his two top drama students, Ayodele Nzingha, Lower Bottom Playaz, and Geoffrey Grier, San Francisco Recovery Theatre. Both playwrights, actors and directors evolved from the mentoring of Marvin X.

Ayodele as actress, director and producer was consummate in her rendition of Opal Palmer Adisa's Bathroom Graffiti Queen. Since an actor can only excel when given a proper script, we must acknowledge the fine writing of Opal Palmer Adisa. But the actor takes the script to the next level of excellence and Ayo surpassed the script with her acting ability.

Her Lower Bottom Playaz performed in grand manner Marvin X's first play Flowers for the Tashman. The playwright was totally pleased with the young men who delivered the drama in the classical form it deserved after a half century in the Black Arts Movement.

Ayo's Mama at Twilight remains a touching story of denial and faith in the family drama about HIV/AIDS. The Lower Bottom Playaz of West Oakland, childhood home of Marvin X, have had time to become well skilled in the presentation of their repertory. All the actors must be congratulated. Someone mentioned they were especially happy to see the young men's performance in Flowers for the Trashman.

Geoffrey Grier's plays, Jet, The Spot, and Night at the Blackhawk, are equally honorable and worthy of praise. We especially enjoyed his production of Amiri Baraka's Dutchman. The audience enjoyed it as well. Even though we may have wanted a younger actor to perform the role of Clay, the person who did it was so skillful we excused his age.

It was amazing to see that Flowers for the Trashman and the Dutchman are indeed classics that have withstood the test of time. Fifty years later they are still relevant and powerful dramas of black consciousness in America. Lula said to Clay that it's all about your manhood. And so it is.

The day ended with the Wisdom of Plato Negro, Parables/fables by Marvin X. The mostly white audience sat in anticipation as members of Academy of the Corner Reader's Theatre gathered on stage. Marvin X opened with singer/guitarist Rashidah Sabreen's original song A Real Love, joined by Marvin's poem What is Love. The audience sensed they were in for something different.

Paradise Jah Love came with Parable of the Penguin, then Parable of Oakland's Day of Absence, recounting the day the Oscar Grant verdict was announced. It was a communal ritual read also by Talibah, who joined with her drum. It the background was the music of Elliott Bey's synthesizer. Rashidah added dance numbers. The group held up poster pictures of Oscar Grant.

Mechelle LaChaux performed Parable of the Cell Phone. The audience went stone wild. Mechelle is an actress and singer, so her linguistic flexibility is unmatched. Marvin X's language will put Tyler Perry in pre-school. Critic Wanda Sabir said his language will "knock the socks off old ladies." Well, there were several senior women in the audience who didn't miss a linguistic beat.

We think the hottest piece was Parable of the Woman in the Box, performed by choreographer/dancer Raynetta Rayzetta, accompanied by Rashidah. Raynetta is X's favorite choreographer/dancer. She had the audience inside the box with her, as someone said.

X ended with his poem You Don't Know Me, accompanied by a Rashidah Sebreen original song.

White America has discovered Marvin X! Yes, fifty years later!

The USA's Rumi...the politics of Baraka, the ecstasy of Hafiz, the wisdom of Saadi....
--Bob Holman, Bowery Poetry Club, New York City

If you want to learn about motiviation and inspiration, don't spend all that money going to workshops and seminars, just go stand at 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland, and watch Marvin X at work. He's Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland.
--Ishmael Reed

Marvin X is available for readings/lectures on a variety of topics. jmarvinx@yahoo.com.

BAM in San Francisco Theatre Festival

The Black Arts Movement in San Francisco Theatre Festival



As we in the Black Arts Movement mourn and celebrate the transition of our sister, Barbara Ann Teer, to the ancestors, it is merely a coincidence--if you believe in such things--that the West coast BAM will perform a variety of works at the San Francisco Theatre Festival, Sunday, July 27, from 11am til 5 pm. It was a son of BAM, Geoffrey Grier of Recovery Theatre San Francisco who urged the producers of the festival to include elements of BAM and its descendants, so we have scenes from Geoffrey’s play The Spot, Ayodele Nzinga's Death by Love, Amiri Baraka's Sisyphus Syndrome, and Marvin X free-style monologue based on his book HOW TO RECOVER FROM THE ADDICTION TO WHITE SUPREMACY. Grier and Nzinga are products of Marvin X's Recovery Theatre production of his One Day In The Life. Grier portrayed Black Panther cofounder Huey P. Newton and Nzinga co-directed and was the Crack Ho, in this docudrama of addiction and recovery based on the life of Marvin X.

His actors, as he urged them to do, have gone on to establish their own theatres in the BAM tradition of theatre as therapy and healing. Grier, after learning of Sister Teer's transition, called Marvin X to tell him her passing made him realize his mission that X tried to teach him for several years. He is rededicating himself to the original mission of X's Recovery Theatre. In fact, Grier's The Spot deals with blacks in the hood and those caught in the criminal justice system. Yes, a subject and problem in need of healing solutions.

Ayodele's subject is AIDS and how it impacts the family. Thus, these children of BAM are squarely in the tradition whether they know it or not. Sometimes artists get caught in their egos and forget the origin of their mission. Ayodele may be more humble than Grier in acknowledging their mentor, Marvin X. She is doing her PhD thesis on his role in the Black Arts Movement.

Other North American Africans in the Festival include Michael Lange (brother of Love Boat’s Ted Lange) and Afro-Solo, a black gay company.

If you can’t make the festival, catch Marvin X next Saturday, August 2, 4pm in Oakland at the African American Library/Museum, 14th and Martin Luther King, Jr., downtown Oakland. He will discuss and sign his latest book HOW TO RECOVER FROM THE ADDICTION TO WHITE SUPREMACY, A PAN AFRICAN 12 STEP MODEL.

Bobby Seale on Black Theatre

On February 19, 2011
Bay Area Black Authors, and
Post Newspaper Group
presented
Journal of Pan African Studies
Poetry Festival and Chauncey
Bailey Book Fair at
Joyce Gordon Gallery, Oakland


photos Gene Hazzard



















Black Panther co-founder Bobby Seale and Marvin X. Before founding the BPP, Bobby performed in Marvin's Black Arts West theatre, 1966.

















Ministers of Poetry Phavia Kujichagulia and Marvin X


















Bobby Seale gagged
and chained
in court after charged
with disturbing the peace
of the 1968 Democratic
Convention in Chicago

Poet Charles Blackwell









Bobby Seale stole the show at yesterday's poetry festival and book fair, sponsored by Bay Area Black Authors and the Post Newspaper Group at the Joyce Gordon Gallery. The main purpose of the event was to purchase books from local authors for donation to the incarcerated at juvenile hall, country jail and prisons. The PNG purchased ten books from selected authors.

A woman commented to organizer Marvin X, "This is so beautiful and peaceful." We think she reflected the consensus of opinion on the event that had a full house in spite of the rain.

Black Panther Party co-founder, Bobby Seale was called to speak by his friend from Merritt College, 1962-64, Marvin X. Bobby was to told to speak for five minutes, but once he began reciting Bay Area and Black Panther history, the MC, Brother Ptah told Marvin X later, "He was not about to interrupt the Chairman and co-founder of the BPP. "Marvin X, you were the only one with enough stature to tell Bobby give up the mike." Bobby talked about a half hour.

But we didn't want to stop Bobby from giving his narrative on how he and Huey came together to found the organization that became one of the biggest threats to the national security of the United States during the 60s, according to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.

After Marvin X recited the list of books that Huey Newton, Bobby and he studied outside of class at Merritte College while they unknowingly became the new black intelligentsia of the 60s, he called out for Bobby to help him remember such books as:

Huey P. Newton, BPP co-founder

Myth of the Negro Past, Melville J. Herskivits
Negro Slave Revolts, Herbert Aptheker
Neo-Colonialism, the last stage of imperialism, Kwame Nkrumah
History Will Absolve Me, Fidel Castro
Black Bourgeoisie, E. Franklin Frazier
Black Reconstruction, W.E.B. DuBois
Wretched of the Earth, Franz Fanon
Facing Mt. Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta

Bobby told how he came into black consciousness while working as an engineer and a Merritt College student. It is quite astounding to her black history from the horse's mouth, not filtered by revisionism. And Bobby's memory is precise, down to names, dates and times covering fifty years of history.

The audience was in a trance at his presence and presentation. He recalled his relationship with Marvin X, even recited Burn, Baby, Burn, a poem by Marvin X on the Watt's Rebellion in 1965. There are those who say this is Marvin X's greatest poem. Marvin X has never told Bobby he was in the audience when Bobby recited Burn, Baby, Burn in Harlem, 1968, in front of the Theresa Hotel, New York's Academy of da Corner at 7th Avenue and `125th Street. By this time there was a rift between the Black Arts Movement and the Black Panthers, so they were not speaking. It was an ideological issue over the use of whether or not to use arms in the black liberation movement.

The BPP denounced so-called cultural nationalists and intellectuals for not picking up arms. The BPP did not come to an understanding of the role of culture and art in the liberation of a people until they attended the Pan African Cultural Festival in Algiers, Algeria, then they softened their attack on artists and cultural activists.


Marvin X introduced Eldridge Cleaver to his friends Bobby Seale and Huey Newton. EC immediately joined the BPP. Bobby Seale has said Marvin kept Eldridge from the BPP, then in another breath blames Marvin for bringing the Minister of Information to the BPP. Marvin did indeed take Eldridge to the the BPP to get him out of the Black House, the political cultural center they had founded, along with playwright Ed Bullins and Marvin's mate, Ethna X (Hurriyah). But when EC joined the BPP, they immediately kicked out the artists and established the Black House as the San Francisco headquarters of the Black Panther Party.


Ironically, Huey Newton said, "Marvin X was our teacher, many of our comrades came through his Black theatre, including Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver (Black House), Emory Douglas, Samuel Napier, George Murray."

This art work by Elizabeth Catlett Mora demonstrates the necessary unity between art and political liberation, as well as the necessity of male/female unity. During his second exile, Marvin X came to Mexico City seeking refuge from refusing to fight in Vietnam. Elizabeth and her husband gave him refuge. When he walked in their casa, Elizabeth was working on this piece.

Bobby told how he used to recite the poem as a prologue in X's second play Come Next Summer. Bobby played the lead role. He told of his arrest for reciting Burn, Baby, Burn on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, at the height of the socalled Free Speech Movement.

On the day Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, Bobby started a one man riot, breaking windows and kicking in doors. His talk ended with a recitation of the preamble to the US Constitution. The audience was ecstatic.

Another highlight was Phavia Kujichagulia's reading of her poem about the Human Race and her classic Yo,Yo, Yo, with the classic refrain on the feminine gender, "If you think I'm just a physical thing, wait til you see the spiritual power I bring." Marvin X used the line as the leit motif in his controversial pamphlet on male/female sexuality that Oakland youth and adults claim it empowers them.



San Francisco's first North American African poet laureate, devorah major, also read her entry in the JPAS. Her father, Reginald Major, was a BPP supporter who authored a book on the Panthers.


Ed Howard was introduced as a member of the West Oakland Renaissance Committee, a group of elders who grew up in West Oakland. Also acknowledged was Leonard Gardner, another member of the group that includes Maxine Ussery, Paul Cobb, Larry Moore, Joe Johnson,
Marvin X, et al. Ed Howard tried to redefine language usage with his call to utilize the term "slave system" rather than refer to us as slaves, since impossible for slaves to build the American civilization. How could slaves design and build the White House? How could slaves fight and die in the American revolution? How could slaves publish a newspaper in 1827, Freedom's Journal?

Queen Mother Jerri Lange read from her book Jerri: A Black Woman's Life in the Media, a narrative of her life as one of the first black women to have a television show in the Bay Area.

Fritz Pointer, professor emeritus of English at Contra Costa College (brother of the Pointer Sisters), read his entry in the Journal of Pan African Studies Poetry issue, guest edited by Marvin X. JPAS Senior Editor, Itibari M. Zulu read his poem about wanting to be like Congresswoman Barbara Lee.

Fritz's poem claimed that Oakland residents experienced an "obscene pride" when Mixon shot four OPD officers. Sadly, Fritz claimed, many citizens rejoiced after suffering years of abuse from police under the color of law, down to the present moment with the BART police murder of Oscar Grant, the OPD killing brother Jones and others. Indeed, the Black Panther Party was formed in response to the Richmond police killing of Denzil Dowell. The first issue of the Black Panther Newspaper headlined the Denzil Dowell murder.

Dr. Fritz Pointer

Music was provided by DJ Jah D, drummer Kwic Time and Blues living legend, Augusta Collins.
Ptah Allah El, author of two book under the mentoring of Marvin X, read his controversial poem Black Studies Went to College But Never Came Home. Another author being mentored by Plato Negro, Ishmael Reed's title for Marvin X, is Aries Jordon, who released her first book of poetry at the event. Her entry also appears in the Journal of Pan African Studies that Ptah calls the New Bible because it comes as we enter the new millennium and is an expression of Pan African Consciousness as we end this 25,000 year cycle of history. The JPAS thus presents advance history in accordance with African culture and civilization. Aries Jordon read a poem addressed to the elders and said she still awaits a response.

Members of Academy of da Corner Reader's Theatre read from the JPAS: Geoffrey Grier
read an entry from Michael Simanga of Atlanta, Eugene Allen read Letter to the Governor of Mississippi by New York Poet Shaggy Flores, Jermaine Marsh read Dr. Nigger, by Dr. Neal Hall
of Philadelphia. Paradise Jah Love read his classic They Love Everything About Me but Me!"


Poet Marvin X did not read poetry but grabbed his famous grandson Jah Amiel and had the three year old recite the Arabic prayer Surah Al Fatihah after him, then told him, "Now go to you mama!" who was seated nearby. Amira, one of his three daughters, is a an attorney, a Yale University and Stanford Law School grad. Grandfather X told the audience at two years old, Jah Amiel told him, "Grandpa you can't save the world but I can."

Singer, actress Mechelle LaChaux closed out the Reader's Theatre segment performaning Parable of the Cell Phone by Marvin X, about a woman talking on the cell phone in her casket.
The audience went wild with applause.

Of course the event was also a tribute to slain Oakland Post Editor, Chauncey Bailey. Marvin X addressed Chauncey in his opening remarks, quoting what James Baldwin said on the assassination of Malcolm X, "The hand that pulled the trigger didn't buy the bullet." Marvin maintained those accused of killing Chauncey should be expanded beyond the Black Muslim Bakery Brothers to include the Oakland Police Department, since one of their officers mentored the Bakery brothers. Why would the sons of Dr. Yusef Bey kill the man who worked with their father for years at Soulbeat Television?

Marvin alleged it was because the brothers were inspired by their OPD mentor who was supposedly a member of the OPD group of black officers shaking down drug dealers, money laundering, planting false evidence, false arrests, and possible homicide (including the murder of Chauncey Bailey) under the color of law.

The mentor of the BMBB was in charge of the crime scene, no doubt a conflict of interest. This officer refused to interrogate an eye witness at the crime scene. A security guard at the scene recognized the officer as one of the police who used to shake him down back in his hustling days.

Bay Area Black Authors, in cooperation with the Post Newspaper Group, is planning an anthology of essays called The Black Bailey Project, in contrast to the Chauncey Bailey Project that has served as the establishment's version of events in the Chauncey Bailey matter.

Author Ishmael Reed uses the term Jim Crow Media to describe racism in the press. Marvin X says the establishment press represents and defends the state, not the people. The Chauncey Bailey Project has made millions of dollars spreading the state, (including the OPD and City Hall's version) of why Chauncey Bailey was killed: because he was investigating the Black Muslim Bakery bankruptcy proceedings--that was public information, along with the sexual allegations of the founder, Dr. Yusef Bey, though he was deceased.

Ironically, a woman at Saturday's event confronted Marvin X about the Black Bailey Project version. She reminded him that Chauncey had written an article in defense of Dr. Bey when he was indicted for sexual improprieties. If Chauncey defended Dr. Bey, this is more reason why his sons would not rush to kill him, unless they were motivated by their mentor, OPD officer Longmire.

In his remarks, Marvin X drew from Shakespeare's Othello. Chauncey Bailey's case is similar to how Iago planted seeds in the mind of Othello to make him kill his beloved Desdemona when she in fact, had been a faithful wife. Iago was motivated by pure racism, jealousy and envy. The OPD was motivated by fear that Chauncey's investigative journalism would reveal corruption at the OPD and City Hall. Indeed, then Mayor, now Governor Jerry Brown, is alleged to have said, "I'm going to stop that nigger from snooping around the OPD and City Hall." When Jerry Brown departed City Hall his internet records disappeared. Then comes Mayor Ron Dellums who calls upon Jerry Brown, in his persona of Attorney General, to investigate the Chauncey Bailey OPD investigation, when the AG, himself, needed to be investigated! By the way, we never learned the results of AG Jerry Brown's investigation. Don't hold your breath!

Bay Area Black Authors return to the Joyce Gordon Gallery during Women's History Month when the women poets in the Journal of Pan African Studies will read, along with a performance of Opal Palmer Adisa's drama Bathroom Graffiti Queen, a one-woman play directed and performed by Ayodele Nzingha. This Women's History event will be on Saturday, March 19, 3-6pm at the Joyce Gordon Gallery, 406 14th Street at Franklin, downtown Oakland.
For more information: jmarvinx@yahoo.com, www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com.

Plato Negro on the Art and Soul of Oakland

Plato Negro on the Art and Soul of Oakland
What we want to examine is how art was separated from the soul. We have a stinking suspicion that this is more of the Western psychodrevel for we are clear in our holistic philosophy that art and soul are one, that they cannot be separated or in anyway disconnected simply because one is the causation of the other, i.e., art is the absolute reflection of the soul.

And it was/is clear from the reality of the Art and Soul Festival that the Soul of Black Folks predominates this annual Labor Day event in Oakland, the most multicultural city in America, if you believe the hype. Ask the white restaurant patrons if they felt multicultural while being robbed at dinner in the string of restaurant takeover robberies of late by young hooded black men. And the Art and Soul Festival itself was as segregated as any even in deepest Mississippi. Saturday was probably the most multicultural day of the three day event. Sunday was white folks day to enjoy the Art and Soul of Oakland or the Bay Area, but come Monday, Labor Day, this was Nigger or Nigguh Day, depending on your ethnicity.

On Monday, the Blacks came early, lining up from 13th and Broadway for the ticket booth at 14th and Broadway. Compared to Sunday, one could say the whites were almost absent, and the Blacks were out in full force, no matter the severity of their Negrocities, the insanity of hip hop youth or the full blown madness of their parents. Labor Day was Oakland’s Congo Square day, to celebrate the beauty and love of unity, if only superficial, as in the varieties of color in the Black Nation, seeing them mix together in peace and harmony, for the most part, although we understand one vendor was robbed, though the event is fenced in, so we wonder how the robber thought he was going to get away. But back to the Art and Soul of this happening so needed in a town suffering much grief and trauma as a result of impotent political, educational, spiritual, economic and cultural leadership that dawns the persona of Invisible Man to the people, the suffering masses who are barely able to eke a living from the wage slave economy that has forced many Blacks from the city to the valley, in such central valley towns as Sacramento, Stockton,Tracy, Modesto, Madera and Fresno. Again, Art and Soul are one, or rather art is the reflection of the soul of a people, their deepest fears, loves, joys, hopes, dreams and aspirations. Separating art from soul is the likely cause of schizophrenia so evident in the youth, the gays, lesbians and even straight people. Why is their daily round a masquerade? As Chris Rock said of the woman, “Every thing about you is fake and phony.” Your hair is fake, your eyes, your nails, your smile, your fuck—you are a fraud, a scam that must be exposed before you do more harm to yourself and others.

You have forgotten the language of love, you and your man, thus you are consumed by the bitter bitch syndrome, you and your man—yes, he is bitter bitch too. When he buys his dope from the youth, they address him as “bitch ass nigguh.” In truth, he has separated his art from his soul. Rather than deliver truth to the youth so desperate for his attention and wisdom, he presents himself as a walking contradiction to everything he should be about.

On no occasion should the elders buy dope from children. This is a contravention of nature and the children rebel when they see us coming. Actually, they are hostile to us in general. For they have observed our many contradictions in male/female relations, parental/child relations, and the myriad fears they have seen us express when dealing with the hostile society we are passing onto them, which in no way are they prepared to handle, though a hip hop father told me of his concern that he support his daughter and instruct her so that she knows how to deal with a man when she matures.

He knows that if he does not instruct her, she is destined for failure in her male/female relations, after all, how will she talk with a man, how will she respect him and accept him, trusting him will all her affairs, when, in reality, as a young lady informed me—how can she accept my view of history and reality when she has never seen black people in power, only in submission to white supremacy. Art and soul must be integrated, and it is anathema to attempt the separation. It is similar to the problem with the people of Oakland and the police. When the police truly serve and protect the people, there will be no walls of separation between them, for they shall be one and the same. Until such a time, it shall be war between the people and the police. The Black Panther Party of Oakland ultimately realized it was futile to fight the police, since they can call such associates as the National Guard, United States Army, Air Force and Navy. But they also proved these official gangs (under the color of law) must be challenged and not allowed to be the brute beasts in blue uniforms they are known to be—simply another gang like the Cripps, Bloods, BGF and others.

We must stand on the shoulders of Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Lil Bobby Hutton, John Huggins, Alprentice Bunchy Carter, Fred Hampton, George Jackson and the man thousands gone but not forgotten. And must not forget our women warriors as well,Ida B. Wells, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Angela, Asata, Clara Muhammad, Betty Shabazz, Coretta Scott King.

In short, we must unite our art and soul into one human machine of radical execution. We are the fearless and the selfless, the sacrificial and the sacred fighters who have come to avenge our ancestors and elders, and there is no price great enough that we are not willing to pay.