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Dr. J. Vern Cromartie Joins Dream Team to Assemble The Hare Papers
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Marvin X Gathers Dream Team of Scholars to Assemble The Nathan Hare and Julia Hare Papers
We are honored to admit to the Dream Team such talented brothers as Itibari M. Zulu and J. Vern Cromartie. We are confident we shall recruit a team of under grand or grad students and/or community persons with skills in organizing materials for this project.
--Marvin X, M.A.
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Dr. Julia Hare
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The Hare Archives
Dr. Nathan Hare and Dr. Julia Hare have appointed Marvin X to assemble their archives for acquisition. When assembled, the Hare archives will be offered to such institutions as the University of California, Berkeley, Bancroft Library, Stanford, Yale and the University of Chicago. As we know, Dr. Nathan Hare was fired from Howard University and later from San Francisco State University where his firing ignited the longest strike in American academic history to establish Black Studies. If you are an academic institution interested in the Hare Papers, please contact Marvin X: 510-2004164, jmarvinx@yahoo.com.
Nathan Hare
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nathan Hare (born April 9, 1933) was the first person hired to coordinate a black studies program in the United States, at San Francisco State University in 1968.
Hare was born on a sharecropper’s farm near the Creek County town of Slick, Oklahoma on April 9, 1933. He attended the public schools of L’Ouverture (variously spelled "Louverture") Elementary School and L'Ouverture High School. The two schools were named after the Haitian Revolutionary and General Toussaint Louverture and were part of the so-called “Slick Separate Schools” in the segregated rural milieu of the late 1930s and 1940s.
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Early life and education
When Hare was eleven years old, his family migrated to San Diego, California, where his single mother took a civilian janitorial job with the Navy air station. As World War II ended and his mother was laid off, his family returned to Oklahoma. This put on hold his ambition to become a professional boxer, something he had picked up after adult neighbors in San Diego assured him that writers all starve to death.
The direction of his life would change again when his English teacher at L'Ouverture High (later closed after the Brown vs Board of Education Supreme Court desegregaton decree, through consolidation into the all-white Slick High School, itself now also closed by consolidation) administered standardized tests to her ninth grade class in English Composition in the search for someone to represent the class at the annual statewide "Interscholastic Meet" of the black students held annually at Oklahoma’s Langston University. Hare represented L'Ouverture and won first prize with more prizes to come in ensuing years; and on that basis the L’Ouverture principal persuaded him to go to college after getting him a fulltime job working in the Langston University Dining Hall to pay his way. By his junior year Hare had moved up in his student employment to Dormitory Proctor of the University Men and Freshman Tutor in his senior year.
When Hare enrolled at Langston University (now only "historically black"), Langston was the only college Black students could attend in the state of Oklahoma. Named for John Mercer Langston, one of only five African Americans elected to Congress from the South before the former Confederate states passed constitutions that essentially eliminated the black vote, the town was a product of the late nineteenth century black nationalist movement’s attempt to make the Oklahoma Territory an all-Black state. In fact, Langston, Oklahoma laid claim to being the first all-black town established in the United States. One of Hare’s professors, the poet Melvin B. Tolson, was mayor of the town for four terms, was named poet laureate of Liberia, and eventually his spectacular style of teaching would be portrayed in "The Great Debaters." Graduating from Langston with an AB in Sociology, Hare won a Danforth fellowship to continue his education and obtained an MA (1957) and PhD in Sociology (1962) from the University of Chicago. Hare received another PhD in Clinical Psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology in San Francisco, California (1975).
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Black Studies
Hare wrote the “Conceptual Proposal for a Department of Black Studies" and coined the term “ethnic studies” (which was being called “minority studies”) after he was recruited to San Francisco State in February 1968 by the Black Student Union leader Jimmy Garrett and the college’s liberal president, John Summerskill. Hare had just been dismissed from a six-year stint as a sociology professor at Howard University, after he wrote a letter to the campus newspaper, The Hilltop, in which he mocked Howard president James Nabrit’s plan (announced in the Washington Post on September 6, 1966) to make Howard “sixty per cent white by 1970.” James Nabrit had been one of the civil rights attorneys who successfully argued the 1954 “Brown vs. Board of Education” case before the U.S. Supreme Court. The “Black Power” cry had been issued just two month’s earlier by one of Hare’s former Howard students, Stokely Carmichael (another of Hare’s students at Howard was Claude Brown, author of Manchild in the Promised Land). Hare had taught sociology at Howard since 1961, the year before he obtained the Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago.
On February 22, 1967, Hare stood at press conference, with a group of students calling themselves “The Black Power Committee,” and read “The Black University Manifesto,” which Hare had written with the input of the Black Power Committee. The manifesto expressly called for “the overthrow of the Negro college with white innards and to raise in its place a black university, relevant to the black community and its needs." Hare had previously published a book called The Black Anglo Saxons and coined the phrase “The Ebony Tower” to characterize Howard University.
In the spring of 1967, he invited Muhammad Ali to speak at Howard and introduced him when the controversial heavyweight champion gave his popular “Black Is Best” speech to an impromptu crowd of 4,000 gathered at a moment’s notice outside the university’s Frederick Douglass Hall after the administration padlocked the Crampton Auditorium in the days leading up to Ali’s refusal of his military draft. Following Hare’s dismissal that June, he briefly resumed his own aborted professional boxing efforts, winning his last fight by a knockout in the first round in the Washington Coliseum on December 5, 1967.
At San Francisco State, where the Black Student Union demanded an “autonomous Department of Black Studies,” Hare was soon involved in a five-month strike for black studies led by The Black Student Union, backed by the Third World Liberation Front and the local chapter of the American Federation of Teachers. Black, white, and Third World students and professors participated in the strike, which also included community leaders and the Black Faculty Union, headed by Hare. The late actor, Mel Stewart was a member of the Black Faculty Unon, but Hare was the only faculty member invited to become a "quasi-member" of the Central Committee of the Black Student Union, which included a student named Danny Glover, who would go on to become a successful Hollywood actor. One of the speakers almost daily at the noonday rallies of the strike was Ronald Dellums, who was later elected to the U.S. Congress and later Mayor of Oakland, California.
After one San Francisco State College president (the late John Summerskill) was fired and another (Robert Smith) resigned, Smith was replaced by the general semanticist S.I. Hayakawa (who would later become a U.S. Senator). Hayakawa used a hard-line strategy to put down the five-month strike, declaring “martial law” and arresting a crowd of five hundred and fifty-seven rallying professors and students (the overwhelming majority of them white). Weeks later, on February 28, 1969, Hayakawa dismissed Dr. Nathan Hare as chairman of the newly formed black studies department, the first in the United States,“to become effective June 1, 1969.” Hare stayed on until June at the request of the Black Student Union and remained for many more months in an unofficial capacity of “Chairman in Exile.”
Hare then teamed with Robert Chrisman and the late Allen Ross (a white printer and small businessman in Sausalito who had immigrated from Russia) to become the founding publisher of “The Black Scholar: A Journal of Black Studies and Research" in November 1969. The New York Times would soon call The Black Scholar “the most important journal devoted to black issues since ‘The Crisis.'” Ten years earlier, in 1959, Hare had briefly been a clerical assistant to the editor of the Journal of Asian Studies then being edited by Andrew Hacker, a white history professor at Northwestern University, where Hare developed a dream of someday editing a “Journal of Negro Studies” ("Negro" was the word still in fashion for blacks in 1959). In 1968, during a break in a television panel including Nathan Glazer, co-author of The Lonely Crowd, Glazer wrote a note to Hare on a white index card saying "Needed: a Black Scholar journal." Before starting The Black Scholar, Hare had written and published articles in magazines and periodicals that included: Ebony, Negro Digest,Black World, Phylon Review, Social Forces, Social Education, Newsweek, and The Times.
After leaving The Black Scholar in 1975, in a dispute over the changing direction of the journal, and obtaining a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology, San Francisco, Nathan Hare began the private practice of psychotherapy, with offices in San Francisco and Oakland. He also focused on forming a movement for “A Better Black Family” (the title of a popular speaking out editorial he wrote for the February 1976 issue of Ebony magazine) shortly after completing a dissertation on “Black Male/Female Relations” at the California School of Professional Psychology.
By 1979, in collaboration with his wife (Dr. Julia Hare, author of How to Find and Keep a BMW (Black Man Working), Hare formed The Black Think Tank, which published the journal of “Black Male/Female Relationships” for several years. After the journal folded, Hare went into the full-time practice of psychology and the development of the Black Think Tank. In 1985, a small book written by him and his wife ("Bringing the Black Boy to Manhood") was disseminated by The Black Think Tank, issuing the call and becoming the catalyst for the contemporary rites of passage movement for African-American boys that emerged as the Hares lectured and spread the idea of the rites of passage for black boys throughout the United States.
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Publications
In addition to dozens of articles in a number of scholarly journals and popular magazines, from The Black Scholar and Ebony to Newsweek, Saturday Review and The Times, Nathan Hare is the author of several books:
• The Black Anglo Saxons. New York: Marzani and Munsell, 1965; New York: Collier-Macmillan, 1970; Chicago: Third World Press edition, Chicago, 1990)0-88378-130-1.
Books in collaboration with his wife, Julia Hare (the former radio talk show host and television guest, who also is a graduate of Langston University) have been published and widely distributed by The Black Think Tank, headquartered in San Francisco. They include:
• Bringing the Black Boy to Manhood: the Passage, San Francisco: The Black Think Tank, 1985, ISBN 0-9613086-1-3.
• Fire on Mount Zion: An Autobiography of the Tulsa Race Riot, as told by Mabel B. Little. Langston: The Melvin B. Tolson Black Heritage Center, Langston University, 1990, ISBN 0-9613086-1-4
• The Miseducation of the Black Child: The Hare Plan to Educate Every Black Man, Woman and Child, San Francisco: The Black Think Tank, 1991, ISBN 0-9613086-4-8.
While publisher of The Black Scholar from 1969–75, Nathan Hare co-edied two books with Robert Chrisman:
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References
• William M. Banks, Black Intellectuals (Foreword by John Hope Franklin), New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1996, pp. 163, 174, 184, 216, 171. ISBN 0-393-03989-7; ISBN 0-393-31674-pbk.
• Richard Barksdale and Keneth Kinnamon (eds), Black Writers of America: A Comprehensive Anthology, New York: Macmillan, 1972, pp. 836–841 .ISBN 0-02-306080-8.
• W. Augustus Low and Virgil A. Clift, eds,Encyclopedia of Black America, New York: Plenum, McGraw Hill, 1981, pp. 747, 803. ISBN 0-306-80221-X.
• Sharon Malinowski, (ed), Black Writers, Detroit, Washington, D.C., London: Gale Research Inc., 1994, pp. 280–281. ISBN 0-8103-7788-8.
• Maulana Karenga, Introduction to Black Studies. Los Angeles: The University of Sankore Press, 1993,passim. ISBN 0-943412-16-1.
• Fabio Rojas, From Black Power to Black Studies: How a Radical Social Movement Became an Academic Discipline, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007, pp. 1, 30, 71-72, 85. ISBN 13:978-0-8018-8619-5; 10:0-8018-8619-8.
• Nathaniel Norment, Jr, (ed),The African American Studies Reader, Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 2001. pp. vii-xlii; 13-21. ISBN 0-89089-640-2.
• James E. Blackwell and Morris Janowitz, (eds), Black Sociologists: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1974, pp. xvi, 202 218, 253-267, 280, 322, 355. ISBN 0-226-05565-5.
• Ishmael Reed, MultiAmerica: Essays on Cultural Wars and Cultural Peace. New York: Viking Penguin, 1997, pp. 328–336.ISBN 0-670-86753-5.
Talmadge Anderson, Introduction to African American Studies, Dubuque: Kendall/Hunt, 1993, pp. 16, 17, 37, 38, 39, 41-44, 45, 120, 126, 133. ISBN 0-7872-3268-8.
Dr. Julia Hare
BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Julia Hare is widely regarded as one of the most dynamic motivational speakers on the major podiums today.
At the Congressional Black Caucus's 27th Annual Legislative Conference chaired by Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Dr. Hare was one of three speakers invited to address the Caucus's kickoff National Town Hall Meeting on Leadership Dimensions for the New Millennium. Her collaborators included distinguished historian, Dr. John Hope Franklin, Chair of President Clinton's Advisory Board on Race, and Dr. Cornel West, Harvard professor and author of the critically acclaimed Race Matters.
Dr. Hare has appeared on "Geraldo", "Sally Jesse Raphael", "Inside Edition", CNN and Company, "Talk Back Live", "News Talk", Black Entertainment Television (BET), "The Tavis Smiley Show", ABC's "Politically Incorrect", CSPAN, and major radio and television affiliated throughout Australia and America. Her commentaries, lectures and topics include: politics, education, religion, war, foreign and domestic affairs, sexual politics and contemporary events.
A prime innovator on issues affecting the black family and society as a whole, Dr. Hare is mentioned or quoted in national newspapers, including "The New York Times", "The Washington Post", "Sun Reporter", "San Francisco Chronicle", "Miami Herald", "Louisville Courier Journal" and "The Oklahoma Eagle" among others. She has appeared in "Ebony", "Jet", "Dollars and Sense", "Heart and Soul", "USA Today", "Today's Black Woman", "Essence" and other periodicals. She is co-author with her husband, Dr. Nathan Hare, of "The Endangered Black Family"; "Bringing the Black Boy to Manhood"; "The Passage"; "The Miseducation of the Black Child" and "Crisis in Black Sexual Politics". Her most recent best-selling book is "How to Find and Keep a BMW (Black Man Working)".
Her work has brought her many accolades and honors, including Educator of the Year for Washington, D.C. by the Junior Chamber of Commerce and the World Book Encyclopedia in coordination with American University; the Abe Lincoln Award for Outstanding Broadcasting, the Carter G. Woodson Education Award; the Marcus and Amy Garvey Award; the Association of Black Social Workers Harambee Award, Third World Publishers' Twentieth Anniversary Builders Award; Professional of the Year from "Dollars and Sense" magazine; Scholar of the Year from the Association of African Historians; Lifetime Achievement Award from the international Black Writers and Artists Union; as well as a presidential citation from the national Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education. Dr. Hare has also been inducted into the Booker T. Washington Hall of Fame.
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Let's Play Black for 28 Days!
Let's play Black for twenty-eight days! Let's try to buy black, walk black, talk black, love black, just for the next 28 days. Let's stop hating black, killing black, abusing black, cheating black, for the next 28 days. --Marvin X
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The Black Think Tank Book Fair, San Francisco Main Library
Dr. Nathan Hare, sociologist, clinical psychologist, father of Black Studies in America
Dr. Cromartie was one of Marvin X's students when he taught Theatre and English at Oakland's Laney College, 1981. J. Vern, also a poet, is now co-chair of the sociology department at Contra Costa College. He has presented a paper on Marvin X's brief tenure as a lecturer in Black Studies at UC Berkeley, 1972.
As we rode back to the Library, J. Vern asked Dr. Hare what were his latest titles? Hare replied he is working on his autobiography. Approaching 80 years, Dr. Hare told Marvin X to finish his book if necessary!
By the time we arrived back at the library, it was time to start the book fair. Dr. Hare told Marvin X to MC, so I followed orders, of course it was a labor of love. We are brothers in struggle, both of us were rejected by academia for being too black and too radical. Around the same time they were removing Dr. Hare from San Francisco State University, Gov. Ronald Reagan was banning me from teaching at Fresno State. He had the court issue me a restraining order banning me from entering the campus, 1969.
The book fair began with authors speaking on their titles. I discussed my Wisdom of Plato Negro, parables/fables, also How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy, noting that Dr. Hare wrote the foreword. I told them if they can get pass Dr. Hare's foreword, they'll be on the rode to recovery. Hare said we suffer from White Supremacy Type II, i.e., self hate!
Dr. Hare took the stage and spoke on the Black Think Thank Book fair. Somewhat frail, the former boxer turned sociologist and clinical psychologist, noted that today is Langston Hughes birthday and
the day of the SFSU strike. He also noted that April 9 is his birthday as well as Paul Robeson's, another banned person in the USA.
Captain Les Williams and his Daughter Penny were up next with their title Victory: Tales of a Tuskegee Airman. At 93 years old, Capt. Williams spoke on what is was like being a national hero.
Many whites and blacks couldn't believe he deserved the honor of a national hero. They convinced him to believe he wasn't a national hero so he stopped telling people about his feat and that of his comrades. He daughter said she had no idea her father was a national hero, a bomber pilot during WWII.
He has credits in the movie Red Wing, but none of the airmen got a dime for consulting on the movie.
Jan Batiste Adkins discussed her book Images of America: African Americans of San Francisco.
She told of early blacks in San Francisco, including one man who earned enough money to buy his family out of slavery. She noted California is named after a black woman.
Mama Ayanna Mashama of the Malcolm X Grassroots Committee told of her community work and family tragedy. She read a poem dedicated to one of her son who was murdered in Oakland. Yes, so many parents are burying their children these days. We live under the shadow of death. Mothers with sons are in mortal fear every time their sons leave the house.
I followed Mama Ayanna with my poem What If, a pantheistic definition of God that transcends religiosity and in the African tradition that God is everywhere and in all things.
Although unable to attend, Dr. Julia Hare stole the show when the video of her classic performance on Tavis Smiley's State of Black America was shown. She is known as the female Malcolm X! Marvin X asked the audience to please pray for Mother Julia Hare and Dr. Nathan Hare as well.
The event was videoed by Johnny Burrell.
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Let us Pray for Dr. Julia Hare, she needs community love! Share your love for Dr. Julia Hare and Dr. Nathan Hare
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Phoenix Rising: Conference on African American Solutions
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MUSEUM OF THE AFRICAN DIASPORA
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January 24, 2013     | ||
| PROGRAMS | |
 | DANCE ACROSS THE DIASPORA Black Swan with The Jetta Martin Dance CompanySaturday, Feb 2, 2013 Bay Area artist Jetta Martin is excited to return to MoAD and present her choreographic exploration, Black Swan. Collaborating with two other classically trained dancers, they will explore the politics and practice of dance that has resulted in a scarcity of black ballerinas. Through a performance followed by a panel discussion, these three dancers will investigate and embody the reality of the "black swan." [more] |
 | EDUCATOR WORKSHOP What's your beat?Sunday, Feb 3, 2013 In What's Your Beat? Rhythm and Prose Science and Celebration in Music & Instrument Making from Re-Purposed Materials we will make interdisciplinary connections between celebrations, recycling, and the science of sound.This workshop is designed for teachers of K-5th Grade, but any educator is welcome to attend. [more] |
 | AUTHORS IN CONVERSATION Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party with Waldo Martin, Joshua Bloom and Ula TaylorSunday, Feb 3, 2013 A conversation with authors Waldo E. Martin, Jr. andJoshua Bloom moderated by Ula Taylor. Black Against Empire is the first comprehensive overview and analysis of the history and politics of the Black Panther Party. The authors analyze key political questions, such as why so many young black people across the country risked their lives for the revolution, why the Party grew most rapidly during the height of repression, and why allies abandoned the Party at its peak of influence. [more] |
 | FILM SCREENING AND DISCUSSION White Scripts and Black Supermen: Black Masculinities in Comic BooksThursday, Feb 7, 2013 A film screening and discussion with Director Johnathan Gayles. White Scripts and Black Supermen: Black Masculinities in Comic Books critically examines the earliest representations (1965-1977) of Black masculinity in comic books and the troubling influence of race on these representations. Thinking critically about the manner in which Black men were first portrayed in hero serials provides insight into broader societal conceptions of the Black man as character, archetype and symbol. [more] |
 | COLLECTOR'S TALK An Afternoon of Art and Legacy with The Kinsey'sSaturday, Feb 9, 2013 Bernard and and Shirley Kinsey have explored and celebrated their African American heritage by collecting items of historical and cultural significance throughout their more than 40 year marriage. The Kinsey Collection, opening at MoAD on Friday, February 8, spans nearly four centuries and documents the hardships and triumphs of the African American experience. This special lecture will take place in the St. Regis hotel. A book signing and guided tour will follow at the museum. [more] |
 | ScholarShare presents MUSEUM FREE DAY - Celebrating Black History MonthSunday, Feb 10, 2013 Join us for a day of free admission at MoAD. The day's programming includes: Martin's Dream with Dr. Clayborne Carson Clayborne Carson will talk about his recently-published book,Martin's Dream: My Journey and the Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., a memoir about his transition from being a teenage participant in the March on Washington to becoming the editor of King's papers. Rebel Dance, Renegade Stance with Dr. Umi Vaughan and DJ Walt Digz Local author and professor Umi Vaughan will present a lecture and signing of his new book about contemporary dance music in Cuba entitled Rebel Dance, Renegade Stance: Timba Music and Black Identity in Cuba. [more] |
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Lake Merritt Love Poem
You think
I am speaking of making love
I am speaking of an action
beyond making love
beyond the physical
into the metaphysical
we perform the act
yet it is not the act
it is what is beyond the act
after all, after the nut
then what?
Yes, it is the other side
where infinite joy lives
raises her eyes
this is why I seek you
not for the joy of you
but the eternal joy
beyond you.
--Marvin X
revised 2/3/13
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Miles Davis - Sketches of Spain (full album) (1080p)
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Timbuktu Manuscripts Saved
As Extremists Invaded, Timbuktu Hid Artifacts
of a Golden Age
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/lydia_polgreen/index.html>
TIMBUKTU, Mali When the moment of danger came, Ali Imam Ben Essayouti knew just what to do. The delicate, unbound parchment manuscripts in the 14th-century mosque he leads had already survived hundreds of years in the storied city of Timbuktu. He was not about to allow its latest invaders, Tuareg nationalist rebels and Islamic extremists from across the region, to destroy them now.
So he gingerly bundled the 8,000 volumes in sackcloth, carefully stacked them in crates, then quietly moved them to a bunker in an undisclosed location.
These manuscripts, they are not just for us in Timbuktu,? Mr. Essayouti said. ?They belong to all of humanity. It is our duty to save them.?
The residents of Timbuktu suffered grievously under Islamic militant rule. Almost all of life?s pleasures, even the seemingly innocent ones like listening to music and dancing, were forbidden. With the arrival of French and Malian troops here on Jan. 28, life is slowly returning to normal.
But the city?s rich historical patrimony <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/world/africa/07mali.html> suffered terrible losses. Timbuktu is known as the City of 333 Saints, a reference to the Sufi preachers and scholars who are venerated by Muslims here. The Islamic rebels destroyed several earthen tombs of those saints, claiming such shrines were forbidden.
During their hasty departure from the city last weekend, the fighters struck another parting blow, setting fire to dozens of ancient manuscripts at the Ahmed Baba Institute, the city?s biggest and most important library.
Irina Bokova, the director general of Unesco, accompanied President François Hollande of France on his visit <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/world/africa/france-hollande-timbuktu-mali.html> here on Saturday to get a firsthand look at the damage the city?s cultural artifacts had sustained. She said that plans are already being made to rebuild the tombs of the saints.
?We are going to reconstruct the mausoleums as soon as possible,? Ms. Bokova said. ?We have the plans, we have the ability to do it. We think this is important for the future of the Malian people, their dignity and their pride.?
In modern times Timbuktu <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/19/arts/design/the-great-mosque-in-djenne-mali.html?pagewanted=all> has become a synonym for a remote place. But the city thrived for centuries at the crossroads of the region?s two great highways: the caravan route across the Sahara passed right by its narrow warren of streets, bringing salt, spices and cloth from the north, and the Niger River brought gold and slaves from West Africa. Traders brought books, and the city?s scribes earned their living by copying them out by hand. These manuscripts cover a vast range of human knowledge ? Islamic philosophy and law, of course, but medicine, botany and astronomy as well.
?You will find all forms of knowledge in these manuscripts,? Mr. Essayouti said. ?Every topic under the sun.?
Beyond their physical presence, Timbuktu?s artifacts are a priceless reminder that sub-Saharan Africa has a long history of deep intellectual endeavor, and that some of that history is written down, not just transmitted orally down the generations.
?This is the record of the golden ages of the Malian empire,? Ms. Bokova said. ?If you let this disappear, it would be a crime against all of humanity.?
The cultural artifacts in Timbuktu ? whose population of around 50,000 has shrunk with the latest troubles ? have faced many dangers over the centuries. Harsh climate, termites and the ravages of time have taken a toll, along with repeated invasions ? by the Songhai emperors, nomadic bandits, Moroccan princes and France. Yet many of the antiquities have endured.
?It is a miracle that these things have survived so long,? Mr. Essayouti said.
Their survival is a testament to the habit of Timbuktu?s families of hiding away their valuable relics whenever danger is near, burying them deep in the desert.
Konaté Alpha?s family has had a collection of about 3,000 manuscripts for generations, and when the Islamist rebels arrived Mr. Alpha called a family meeting.
?We need to find a way to safeguard these manuscripts,? he told his brothers and his father.
He was intimately familiar with the many nooks and crannies in which the city?s residents have long hid their treasured manuscripts. While expanding the family?s compound a decade ago, he found a trove of manuscripts hidden inside a wall.
?The previous owners had hidden them so well they forgot them,? he said with a shrug.
He took his family?s collection and hid it well. He declined to say where.
?We hid them, that is all I will say,? he said.
The manuscripts have been at the center of a broad international effort to preserve the fragile history of Timbuktu. The governments of South Africa and France, along with the Ford Foundation and others, have spent millions to build a new library to house the largest and most important collection of manuscripts at the Ahmed Baba Institute.
When the Tuareg rebels first arrived in Timbuktu in April, they looted and burned many government buildings, and the institute?s interim director, Abdoulaye Cissé, worried that the institute?s sleek new library building would become a target.
But when the Islamist rebels arrived a few days later, the library?s officials explained to them that the library was an Islamic institution worthy of their protection.
?One of the Islamist leaders gave his mobile phone number to the guard and told him, ?If anyone bothers you, call me and I will be here,? ? he said.
But library officials began to worry that the Islamists would discover that the library received financing from the United States, so in August they decided to move almost the entire collection, Mr. Cissé said.
?We moved them little by little to avoid rousing suspicion,? Mr. Cissé said. They were sent to Mopti, then on to Bamako, the capital, for safekeeping.
It turned out the worries were not unwarranted. In the chaotic final days of the Islamist occupation, all that changed. A group of militants stormed the library as they were fleeing and set fire to whatever they could find.
Fortunately, they got their hands on only a tiny portion of the library?s collection.
?They managed to find less than 5 percent,? he said. ?Thank God they were not able to find anything else.?
None of the city?s libraries are in a hurry to return their collections from their hiding places, even though Timbuktu is back under government control. French forces are now stationed in Gao, Timbuktu and outside the town of Kidal, in the north, and airstrikes continue against the militants near the border with Algeria. The fighters have been chased away from major towns, but no one is sure whether they will come back.
?We will keep our manuscripts safely hidden until we are sure the situation is safe,? Mr. Alpha said. ?When that will be we cannot say.?
Scott Sayare contributed reporting from Paris.
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Marvin X speaks at Do 4 Self African Bookstore, Feb 23
Do 4 Self African Bookstore
5272 Foothill Blvd. Oakland
5272 Foothill Blvd. Oakland
Presents
Marvin X
Saturday, Feb. 23, 5-7pm
![]()
Saturday, Feb. 23, 5-7pm
a lecture/discussion
How to Recover
from the Addiction to White Supremacy Type II
Call 510-842-8300 for reservations
seating limited
refreshments served
Call 510-842-8300 for reservations
seating limited
refreshments served
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MARVIN X AT THE BLACK CAUCUS OF CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY COLLEGES
Fresno native Marvin X, poet, professor, activist who was a controversial lecturer in Black Studies at Fresno State University, 1969, is tentatively scheduled to participate at this event to be held at Fresno City College, Feb. 15-17. He has requested to hold an onstage conversation with Kehindi Solwazi, chair emeritus of Black Studies at FCC.![]()
Black Caucus of the California Community Colleges
Fri Feb 15 2013 at 02:00 am 
Add to calendar
Venue : Fresno City College, 1101 E University Ave, Fresno, CA, United States
Created By : Jwyanza HobsonSponsored links
To the Students of California Community Colleges,
On behalf of the Black Caucus of the California Community Colleges, we’d like to invite you to our 12th Annual Leadership Conference. This year’s conference is significant because it marks the 50th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Movement. Come join in the celebration.
Our caucus has included all conference materials with information on how to register for the conference. On behalf of the Black Caucus of the California Community Colleges, thank you for your Leadership representing students statewide.
THE BLACK CAUCUS of the
CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY COLLEGES
Announces the 12th Annual Leadership Conference at
Fresno City College, Fresno, CA
“A CALL TO COMMITMENT”
Shaping a New and Lasting Legacy of Success
For African American Students in California Community Colleges
February 15-17, 2013
On behalf of the Black Caucus of the California Community Colleges, we’d like to invite you to our 12th Annual Leadership Conference. This year’s conference is significant because it marks the 50th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Movement. Come join in the celebration.
Our caucus has included all conference materials with information on how to register for the conference. On behalf of the Black Caucus of the California Community Colleges, thank you for your Leadership representing students statewide.
THE BLACK CAUCUS of the
CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY COLLEGES
Announces the 12th Annual Leadership Conference at
Fresno City College, Fresno, CA
“A CALL TO COMMITMENT”
Shaping a New and Lasting Legacy of Success
For African American Students in California Community Colleges
February 15-17, 2013
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French PhD Student Wants to know about Dr. Nathan Hare's Black Body
From: Nicolas Martin-Breteau
Subject: History PhD & Dr Nathan Hare
To: jmarvinx@yahoo.com
Date: Saturday, February 9, 2013, 7:42 PM
Dear Sir,
My name is Nicolas Martin-Breteau. I am a French doctoral candidate in African American history at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris, France. I study the role of sport and the body in the "long" civil rights movement in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, from the 1890s to the 1960s. I hope to defend my Ph.D. dissertation in late 2013.
I am very much interested in Dr. Nathan Hare's life when he was a young sociology professor at Howard University. For one thing, I discuss his book The Black Anglo-Saxons. Besides, I would like to understand why he was so much involved in sport. According to his biography on wikipedia, Dr. Hare "briefly resumed his own aborted professional boxing efforts" in 1967. Dr. Hare's experience in boxing and his acquaintance with Muhammad Ali (without mentioning the fact that he might have had Stokely Carmichael as student) are fascinating subjects for my thesis.
Dr. Hare's life could help me answer this question: How did Black Power activists envision the role of the black body in the revolution aimed at transforming black Americans and American society? Did they depart from the traditional view of a respectable and decent body radiating with "character" as it had been taught to black youth since the end of the 19th century? Has sport had a special place in the Black Power movement of the 1960s? These topics are hardly studied by historians, except when it comes to the 1968 salute of Smith and Carlos in Mexico, two athletes from San Jose State under the guidance of sociology professor Harry Edwards. I think that much has to be done on the topic of sport and the body as political weapons in the black struggle for equality and freedom in the 1960s.
I have seen that Nathan and Julia Hare's archives are to be donated (http://blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.fr/2013/01/the-hare-papers-offered-for-acquisition.html). I would like to know whether Dr. Hare has already given his personal papers to an archive repository, and if he would like to talk to me about his life. I would be honored to engage in a conversation with him. If you are unable to answer directly to my question, could you please give me Dr. Hare's email address in order me to send him a message?
Thank you very much for your time and help. I am looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Sincerely,
Nicolas Martin-Breteau
U.S. History Doctoral Candidate, CENA, EHESS, Paris
http://www.ehess.fr/cena/membres/martin-breteau.html
https://twitter.com/NMartinBreteau
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Subject: History PhD & Dr Nathan Hare
To: jmarvinx@yahoo.com
Date: Saturday, February 9, 2013, 7:42 PM
Dear Sir,
My name is Nicolas Martin-Breteau. I am a French doctoral candidate in African American history at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris, France. I study the role of sport and the body in the "long" civil rights movement in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, from the 1890s to the 1960s. I hope to defend my Ph.D. dissertation in late 2013.
I am very much interested in Dr. Nathan Hare's life when he was a young sociology professor at Howard University. For one thing, I discuss his book The Black Anglo-Saxons. Besides, I would like to understand why he was so much involved in sport. According to his biography on wikipedia, Dr. Hare "briefly resumed his own aborted professional boxing efforts" in 1967. Dr. Hare's experience in boxing and his acquaintance with Muhammad Ali (without mentioning the fact that he might have had Stokely Carmichael as student) are fascinating subjects for my thesis.
Dr. Hare's life could help me answer this question: How did Black Power activists envision the role of the black body in the revolution aimed at transforming black Americans and American society? Did they depart from the traditional view of a respectable and decent body radiating with "character" as it had been taught to black youth since the end of the 19th century? Has sport had a special place in the Black Power movement of the 1960s? These topics are hardly studied by historians, except when it comes to the 1968 salute of Smith and Carlos in Mexico, two athletes from San Jose State under the guidance of sociology professor Harry Edwards. I think that much has to be done on the topic of sport and the body as political weapons in the black struggle for equality and freedom in the 1960s.
I have seen that Nathan and Julia Hare's archives are to be donated (http://blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.fr/2013/01/the-hare-papers-offered-for-acquisition.html). I would like to know whether Dr. Hare has already given his personal papers to an archive repository, and if he would like to talk to me about his life. I would be honored to engage in a conversation with him. If you are unable to answer directly to my question, could you please give me Dr. Hare's email address in order me to send him a message?
Thank you very much for your time and help. I am looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Sincerely,
Nicolas Martin-Breteau
U.S. History Doctoral Candidate, CENA, EHESS, Paris
http://www.ehess.fr/cena/membres/martin-breteau.html
https://twitter.com/NMartinBreteau
ReplyReply AllMove...CommentsCreateSpaceDraftsHip HopSent Messages
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Marvin X at Schomburg for Elizabeth Catlett Mora Tribute
When I arrived in Mexico City at Betty Mora's house, she was working on this piece honoring the Black Panther Party. I informed her my friends were Huey Newton and Bobby Seale and that I introduced Eldridge Cleaver to them. See my memoir Eldridge Cleaver: My friend the Devil, Marvin X, Black Bird Press, Berkeley, 2009.
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Troy Duster on Merit Scholars, Military and Affirmative Action
Merit Scholars, the Military, and Affirmative Action
January 23, 2013, 12:29 pm
Those opposing affirmative action argued before the Supreme Court in the fall that a deep commitment to individual fairness should trump any concern for diversity. The plaintiff, Abigail Fisher, claimed that she was the victim of racial discrimination because Latino and African-American students with lower scores had been admitted to the University of Texas, while she, who is white, had not. In contrast, proponents of affirmative action argued that diversity is a vital, compelling state interest.
If admission to college were based solely upon test scores, there would be no need for admissions offices: Students would just submit their test scores and high-school grade-point averages, and a computer would admit them in rank order. No college has ever done so, and none ever will. For a wide range of reasons, admissions officers make assessments based on such factors as high-school reputation, recommendation letters, evidence of “late blooming” and community engagement, alumni parents, balance for region and gender, and the wishes of financial donors.
Experienced professionals from military, corporate, and educational worlds have filed briefs in the case supporting the diversity side of the argument. One brief, from 25 four-star generals, admirals, and other military leaders, argued that “a highly qualified and racially diverse officer corps is not a lofty ideal,” but rather “a mission-critical national-security interest.” The military depends upon racially diverse ROTC programs, the generals said, which in turn depend upon racially diverse student populations.
The pre-eminent path to admission to West Point is relevant to this claim about test scores versus other considerations. The military academy, which is designated by Congressional mandate to train Army leaders for the coming generation, gives every Congressional district two admits—an unapologetic quota system. The recommendation of the representative from each district is the ticket to admission, not rankings based upon test scores.
But what of the very embodiment of meritocracy, the annual allocation of National Merit Scholar awards, by the group whose very name represents the meritocratic ideal, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation?
It comes as a shock to many to learn that those recipients are selected under a geographically based quota system, which insulates students from competition with their peers in other states. As a consequence, the states—which confer semifinalist status to roughly one half of one percent of high-school students—have radically different standards.
At the first stage of the selection process, about 16,000 semifinalists for the Merit Scholar awards are selected by test score alone, nationwide. Then comes the interesting part, relevant to the Supreme Court’s decision about what is fair in judging applicants: test scores alone versus diversity. Much like those admitted to West Point, winners of the National Merit Scholar awards are chosen by state.
Here is how it works: The Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test (PSAT) is divided into three parts, worth 80 points each, so that a perfect score would be 240. The cutoff point for each state is different, however. As the chart below shows, in some states the winning score must be as high as 221 to 218 (Massachusetts, New Jersey, California, Maryland, Connecticut). In other states, it is as low as 202 to 200 (Arkansas, Montana, North Dakota, West Virginia, Wyoming). How is that fair? Why not just judge everyone by the same standard, and award Merit Scholarships to those with the highest scores—at the top of the national pool? These are not State Merit Scholars. These are National Merit Scholars.
It is noteworthy that the opponents of affirmative action are not attacking the way in which National Merit Scholars are chosen. Perhaps that is because they understand that it would not serve the interests of the nation better if all Merit Scholars were chosen from only a few states, all of which are “blue,” with none going to the states lagging far behind, all of which are “red.”
And yet because we are a nation that wishes to allocate Merit Scholars to students from coast to coast, and from Alaska (204) and Hawaii (211), we opt for diversity over individual scores on standardized tests. The logic is identical to that of the military academies, not only West Point but the Naval and Air Force Academies as well. Would it serve the nation’s interest better to have its military officers selected from only a few states? In her majority opinion on the topic, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor argued (Grutter v. Bollinger, 2003) that the United States needs to have diversity in its leadership class as a compelling state interest—that it would be intolerable for one segment of the population to dominate those roles.
As the Supreme Court deliberates the Fisher case and the future of affirmative action, the justices need to ask the same question that the National Merit Scholarship Corporation and the military academies have posed: Does a single-minded reliance on “individual merit” as measured by test scores serve the national interest? If its answer is a resounding no, the court will need to explain to history why race—the mechanism of the nation’s most noxious form of systemic discrimination over four centuries—cannot, unlike the roulette of geographical residence (Congressional district or state boundary line) be taken into account in efforts to ensure that the nation’s leaders are as diverse as the nation’s racially and ethnically diverse population.
Troy Duster is a senior fellow and Chancellor’s Professor at the Warren Institute for Law and Social Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He is a past president of the American Sociological Association.
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Dr. Hare replies to French Student on the Sociology of theBlack Body
Salutations, M. Nicolas Martin-Breteau,
Nous vous remercions de votre intérêt pour votre demande et de l'intérêt dans mes observations et expériences. Je suis très familiariser avec le Professeur Loïc Wacquant, qui semble l'héritier présomptif de Bourdieu (dont certaines œuvres que j'ai acheté et lu). J'ai beaucoup apprécié le professeur Wacquant «Body and Soul» et souhaite que j'avais appris à le connaître mieux quand il était dans ce pays. Comme vous le savez peut-il en bas de page de mon mémoire de maîtrise (1957). dans «Body and Soul».
J'ai hâte de communiquer avec vous par courriel ou par téléphone. Pour votre information mon numéro de portable est 41 672 2986, mais en raison de circonstances particulières, je vais passer ces jours, il est généralement préférable de communiquer par e-mail, et d'utiliser le téléphone pour tout le suivi nécessaire ou à la vérification au cas où un courriel peut être accidentellement supprimé ou saccagé par le serveur.
Nathan Hare
415 672 2986
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Robert Reich on the State of the Union's Economy
Coming Tuesday (Hopefully): The State of the Union's Economy
Posted: 02/10/2013 4:45 pm
But for a president himself, the State of the Union provides a unique opportunity to focus the entire nation's attention on the central issue you want the nation to help you take action on.
President Obama has been focusing his (and therefore America's) attention on immigration, guns, and the environment. All are important. But in my view none of these should be the central theme of his address Tuesday evening.
His focus should be on the joblessness, falling real wages, economic insecurity, and widening inequality that continue to dog the nation. These are the overriding concerns of most Americans. All will grow worse if the deficit hawks, austerity mavens, trickle-down charlatans, and government-haters who have commanded center stage for too long continue to get their way.
In coming weeks the GOP will be using another fiscal cliff, a funding crisis, and another debt ceiling showdown to convince Americans of an outright lie: that the federal budget deficit is our most important problem, that it is responsible for the continuing anemic recovery, and that we must move now to reduce it.
The President should make it clear that any Republican effort to hold the nation hostage to the GOP's ideological fixation on the budget deficit and a smaller government will slow the economy, likely pushing us into another recession. And that those most imperiled are the middle class and the poor.
He should emphasize that the real job creators are not the rich but the vast majority of ordinary Americans whose purchases give businesses reason to add jobs. And that if most Americans still cannot afford to buy, the government must be the spender of last resort.
Perhaps it's too much to hope for, but I'd encourage the President to call for boosting the economy: Reversing the recent Social Security tax hike by exempting the first $20,000 of income from payroll taxes and lifting the ceiling on income subject to it, to make up the shortfall. Reviving the WPA and CCC, to put the long-term unemployed directly to work. Raising the minimum wage. Imposing a 2 percent annual tax surcharge on wealth in excess of $7 million to fund a world-class system of education, so all our kids can get ahead. Cutting corporate welfare and the military but not cutting public investments or safety nets the middle class and poor depend on. Giving tax credits to companies that create more new jobs in America. Helping states and locales rehire the teachers, fire fighters, police officers, and social workers they need.
This is the most fragile recovery in modern history, from the deepest downturn since World War II. Most Americans are not experiencing a recovery at all. As has been shown in Europe, austerity economics is a cruel hoax. President Obama must acknowledge this in his State of the Union, and commit to fighting those who would impose it on America.
ROBERT B. REICH, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including the best sellers "Aftershock" and "The Work of Nations." His latest is an e-book, "Beyond Outrage," now available in paperback. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.
Follow Robert Reich on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RBReich
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Black Power Babies Rock Philly
Black Power Babies Rocked Philly on SundayMuhammida El Muhajir's production of Black Power Babies rocked Philadelphia's theatre row on Sunday. After viewing Katori Hill's play The Mountaintop, the audience was invited to the panel discussion Black Power Babies. Panelist included Lois Fernandez, founder of the Odunde Festival, along with her daughter Oshunbumi Fernandez; Dr. Molefi Asante, father of Afro-Centrism; Mrs. Amiri Baraka and son Amiri Baraka, Jr., Marvin X and daughter Muhammida El Muhajir. Michael Coard was the reluctant moderator who desired to be a participant.  L to R, Moderator Michael Coard, Marvin X, Mrs. Amina Baraka, Dr. Molefe Asante  Kenny Gamble and Marvin X  Mrs. Amina Baraka, Marvin X, Muhammida El Muhajir, Kenny Gamble  Dr. Molefe Asante, Mrs. Amina Baraka, Marvin X, Amiri Baraka, Jr., Kenny Gamble  Oshunbumi Fernandez and mother, Lois Fernandez of Odunde Festival  Producer Muhammida El Muhajir and actress Amirah Vann, star of The Mountaintop which preceded Black Power Babies panel  Sara Lomax-Reese, President of WURD am, Marvin X, Muhammida El Muhajir, Mr. Amina Baraka  Black Power Babies 3.0: Mahadevi El Muhajir, daughter of Muhammida El Muhajir and Shani Baraka, daughter of Amiri Baraka, Jr.  Marvin X interviewed by Denise of WURD WURD Speaks Featuring "The Mountaintop" & Black Power Babies900AM-WURDSunday, February 10, 2013 at 3:00 PM (EST)Philadelphia, PA |
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Event Details
First WURD Speaks event of 2013!!!
Join WURD at The Philadelphia Company for an amazing 2-in-1 Black History Monthexperience. The first part of this WURD Speaks event is a viewing of the award winning play, The Mountaintop by Katori Hall and directed by Patricia McGregor. Immediatelyfollowing the play, there will be a captivating discussion titled Black Power Babies: An Intergenerational Discussion Exploring Living the Legacy of a Movement.
The Mountaintop
WINNER – LONDON’S OLIVIER AWARD FOR BEST NEW PLAY AND BROADWAY HIT!
Memphis – April 3, 1968. A gripping re-imagining of the events taking place the night before the assassination of Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. After delivering his magnificent and memorable “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech, an exhausted and defeated Dr. King retires to Room 306 at the Lorraine Motel where he encounters a mysterious and spirited stranger as an epic storm rages outside.
Memphis – April 3, 1968. A gripping re-imagining of the events taking place the night before the assassination of Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. After delivering his magnificent and memorable “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech, an exhausted and defeated Dr. King retires to Room 306 at the Lorraine Motel where he encounters a mysterious and spirited stranger as an epic storm rages outside.
Black Power Babies
An Intergenerational Discussion Exploring Living the Legacy of a Movement
Black Power Babies are the children of men and women active in the black power movement of the 60s -70s that are now leaders in all aspects of society – business, arts, politics, academia, and beyond. Join us as we have multiple parent-child pairs that will give personal accounts and insight on the movement and it’s lasting effects on the world.
This panel discussion will immediately follow “The Mountaintop” performance.
Black Power Babies is a Sun In Leo Production that had it's debut in Brooklyn, NY
VIP Reception
After the eye-opening experience of “The Mountaintop” and the riveting WURD Speaks discussion on Black Power Babies, we will have a VIP reception where you can unwind with food and cocktails. You’ll have the chance to talk with family, friends and those involved with the production about your experience viewing The Mountaintop and Black Power Babies! If you would like to attend, please purchase the VIP Admission & Reception ticket for $75.
*****PLEASE READ*****
Things to keep in mind
- Admission tickets grant you access to The Mountaintop performance and the WURD Speaks Symposium immediately following
- WURD MEMBERS, PLEASE CALL THE STATION BETWEEN 9-5 TO PURCHASE YOUR TICKETS!!!
- VIP Admission tickets grant you access to The Mountaintop performance, WURD Speaks Symposium and VIP reception with food and cocktails
- Tickets to this particular performance and event are only available through WURD and not the Philadelphia Theater Company
- Seating assignments will be given out within a week of your ticket purchase
- This is by far one of the best Black History experiences in Philadelphia
We look forward to seeing you there!!!
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Marvin X Reviews D'jango
Django, finally, the black hero who kills white people! What a change from my childhood attendance at the movie house watching the white man kill Indians and we sometimes cheered at the death of Native Americans while infused with their blood. Whether infused with the white man’s blood or not (and surely most North American Africans are, maybe only Gullah and/or Geeche Negroes can claim they are not) it was a pleasure seeing them die at the hands of Django. Yes, this Spaghetti
Western, this neo-Roots, gave North American African film writers something to think about, even if they know it is highly unlikely we shall now expect to see more of this “resistance” genre in Hollywood. We’ve yet to see Danny Glover’s long expected movie on the Haitian revolution, yet to see a film on Nat Turner’s revolt or Denmark Vesey's or Gabriel Prosser's, although Arna Bontemps novel Black Thunder could provide the basis for a Prosser film.
And why has not Spike Lee given us his version of a resistance film rather than condemn this Western fantasy? I was taught in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University by the great novelist John Gardner, if you don’t like something, use your creativity to write something better.
Being that I am in the Nigguh for Life Club, I am always fascinated by the endless and perennial debate over use of the term, whether nigger or nigguh, now made into a billion dollar word by rappers, reactionary record producers and hip hop culture globally. What fool would not want to use such a profitable term? And nearly all those who claim to abhor the term will, in a moment of passion, make use of it, e.g., I hate you nigguh or I love you nigguh!
I have written about the psycholinguistic crisis of the North American African. As my comrade Amiri Baraka noted, what else do you think they called Africans entrapped in the American slave system, Sir? But imagine an African caught in the American slave system speaking German. Better yet, imagine those Africans caught in the Brazilian slave system who spoke several languages, including Portuguese, Arabic, Hausa, etc., while the slave master could not write his name! For me, the term devil ascribed to the Africans was quite amusing: we saw the depiction of pseudo science when the African skull was noted for areas of passivity. How ironic the Africans were described by the oppressor as devils but all the evil, i.e. kidnapping, rape of men, women and children, torture, terrorism and genocide came from the European “good guys”.
D, jango as a love story was positive. Seeing a North American African fighting to free his woman from the hands of the devil was inspiring since so many of our women these days suffer abandonment, abuse and neglect. So many must don the persona of the male and find their way by any means necessary. Of course it would have been better to show a mass insurrection rather than this individual struggle for freedom. Of course in the world of make believe inhabited by Hollywood, the depiction of a mass uprising would have been way over the top with the possibility of subliminal suggestion. As Dr. Fritz Pointer said when Brother Mixon killed four police in Oakland, D’jango gave us a dose of obscene pride in seeing the whites die, just as we experienced obscene pride when the Los Angeles black policeman, Christopher Doaner, went postal after suffering alleged abuses in the LA police department. I remember being surrounded by LA police when I asked for directions to City Hall.
Long ago, H. Rap Brown (Imam Jamil Alamin) told us violence was as American as cherry pie. D’jango should remind us of America’s roots (laws) that evolved from the violence of the slave system. All the present talk about guns must begin with the examination of America’s roots. Most of the present laws were created to prevent the very acts of the type D’jango carried out. Not only did the slave system fear Africans with guns, but Africans on horses, not to mention Africans who could read and write, and of course three or more Africans standing together was a violation of the Black Codes.
But how can the world’s number one gun merchant talk about clamping down on gun proliferation? Don’t believe the hype. If anything new occurs, the gun merchants will simply increase the export of guns as the call for decrease heightens within America.
Just know America’s fascination with gun violence is predicated on preventing the oppressed from rising up and overthrowing the oppressor. D’jango’s personal mission is an example of what must ultimately occur on the mass level. As New York City Councilman Charles Barron once said, “Every Black man should slap a white man for his mental health!” Yes, for the mental health of the Black man and the white man! We’ve heard there can be no redemption of sin without the shedding of blood.
We believe in peace, non-violence, but we also believe in self defense, that oppression is worse than slaughter. It would be better that all of us North American Africans are murdered outright rather than endure this slow death on the killing floor.
James Baldwin said the murder of my child will not make your child safe. America is now witnessing her children being slaughtered in the suburbs just as poor ghetto children have been slaughtered for decades, and their ancestors the victims of genocide for centuries. Thank God, director Terrentino has given us a fantasy version of what must occur in the real world. His love story is what revolution is about, i.e., freeing the family! Yes, the American slave system was about the destruction of family, thus the task of the North American African is the reconstruction of family. We shall not progress as a people until we reconnect with our women and children, rescue them from poverty, ignorance and disease; emotional, physical and verbal abuse. Ultimately, it is not about killing the white man, which we can never find enough weapons to do so, but it is all about us realizing our women and children are our most precious asset and we shall never make progress until we rescue them from the clutches of the devil. For sure, D’jango realized he could never be free until he saved his woman. For North American African men, this is food for deep thought!
--Marvin X
2/13/13
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Nominate Marvin X for the Purpose Prize
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Dear friend,  The Purpose Prize honors individuals making a monument out of what many consider the leftover years, not only finding personal meaning but doing creative and entrepreneurial work aimed at solving fundamental problems facing the nation and the world today.All in their 60s and beyond, these pioneers have built upon the experiences that have shaped their lives to improve others’ lives. Like Susan Burton (pictured right), who suffered through drug addiction and two decades in and out of prison. Now she helps formerly incarcerated women rebound. And Bhagwati Agrawal, who grew up in India with scarce access to clean water. Now he gives villagers in India the means to collect rain from rooftops, for safe water to drink. For their remarkable work in their encore careers, both Burton and Agrawal won the 2012 Purpose Prize. Who will be next? Nominations are now open for the 2013 Prize, which will award up to $100,000 to social innovators 60 and older. You may nominate a colleague, a friend, even yourself – anyone whose creative endeavors in the second half of life are making a big difference to society. You can find answers to the most frequently asked questions about The Prize here. The deadline for submissions is April 4, 2013. Leading by example, Purpose Prize winners urge us all not to just leave a legacy, but to live one. Help Encore.org find the next deserving group of people who will carry on the tradition. Nominate today, and please spread the word. Sincerely, Marc Marc Freedman Founder and CEO Encore.org | |
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