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Black Bird Press News & Review: Notes on Marvin X's call for multiple wives and unlimited ho's (sex workers)
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Namwali Serpell, Winner of the 2015 Caine Prize for African Writing
Namwali Serpell, Winner of the 2015 Caine Prize for African Writing
Congratulations to Namwali, and the other shortlisted writers. To be a part of this esteemed list of writers, click here to find out how to enter your books for the 2016 Caine Prize. Deadline is January 31, 2016.
Oh, and if you’re interested in African writing, and discussions based on African writing, you should check out the Guardian Q&A session with the 2015 Caine Prize Shortlisters {HERE}
Sixteenth Caine Prize for African writing shortlist announced
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Zoë Wicomb | |
Chair of judges, Zoë Wicomb described the shortlist as, "an exciting crop of well-crafted stories."
"For all the variety of themes and approaches, the shortlist has in common a rootedness in socio-economic worlds that are pervaded with affect, as well as keen awareness of the ways in which the ethical is bound up with aesthetics. Unforgettable characters, drawn with insight and humour, inhabit works ranging from classical story structures to a haunting, enigmatic narrative that challenges the conventions of the genre."
She added, "Understatement and the unspoken prevail: hints of an orphan’s identity bring poignant understanding of his world; the reader is slowly and expertly guided to awareness of a narrator’s blindness; there is delicate allusion to homosexual love; a disfigured human body is encountered in relation to adolescent escapades; a nameless wife’s insecurities barely mask her understanding of injustice; and, we are given a flash of insight into dark passions that rise out of a surreal resistance culture."
"Above all, these stories speak of the pleasure of reading fiction. It will be no easy task to settle on a winner."
Each shortlisted writer receives £500 and the winner of the £10,000 prize will be announced at an award ceremony and dinner at the Weston Library, Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, on Monday 6 July.
The 2015 shortlist comprises:
- Segun Afolabi (Nigeria) for “The Folded Leaf” in Wasafiri (Wasafiri, London, 2014)
Caine Prize winner 2005 for “Monday Morning”
Read "The Folded Leaf" - Elnathan John (Nigeria) for “Flying” in Per Contra (Per Contra, International, 2014)
Shortlisted in 2013 for “Bayan Layi”
Read "Flying"
- F. T. Kola (South Africa) for “A Party for the Colonel” in One Story (One Story, inc. Brooklyn, New York City, 2014)
Read "A Party for the Colonel" - Masande Ntshanga (South Africa) for “Space” in Twenty in 20 (Times Media, South Africa, 2014)
Read "Space" - Namwali Serpell (Zambia) for “The Sack” in Africa39 (Bloomsbury, London, 2014)
Shortlisted in 2010 for “Muzungu”
Read "The Sack"
Each of these stories will be published in New Internationalist’s Caine Prize 2015 Anthology in July and through co-publishers across Africa, who receive a print ready PDF free of charge from New Internationalist.
Read a short biography of the five shortlisted writers here.
View this press release as a PDF here...
- Elnathan John (Nigeria) for “Flying” in Per Contra (Per Contra, International, 2014)
Shortlisted in 2013 for “Bayan Layi”
Read“Flying”
- Masande Ntshanga (South Africa) for “Space” in Twenty in 20 (Times Media, South Africa, 2014)
Read“Space”
- Namwali Serpell (Zambia) for “The Sack” in Africa39 (Bloomsbury, London, 2014)
Shortlisted in 2010 for “Muzungu”
Read“The Sack”
- F. T. Kola (South Africa) for “A Party for the Colonel” in One Story (One Story, inc. Brooklyn, New York City, 2014)
Read“A Party for the Colonel”
- Segun Afolabi (Nigeria) for “The Folded Leaf” in Wasafiri (Wasafiri, London, 2014)
Caine Prize winner 2005 for “Monday Morning”
Read“The Folded Leaf”
(The biographies for the shortlisted candidates can be found – here).
To be honest, I was a bit disappointed that this year’s countries shortlist was more of a dichotomy between Nigeria and South Africa. I expected a more diverse pool of stories to enjoy. But hey! Its the stories that matter, right?
I read Namwali Serpell’s story ‘The Sack‘, as it is one of the short stories in the Africa39anthology that I own. I don’t know how I feel about her story…It’s a little confusing to me! From what I gather, the story is about the protagonist (I don’t know if this is a boy or girl) having nightmares about being killed, while the men he/she lives with use a young black orphan to go fishing and later debate whether the orphan should live with them or not. There also seems to be a feud between the men in the house, as one is elderly and seems to be sick and grumpy. Humph! If anyone has read the story and understands it, please do explain!
Elnathan’s use of metaphors in comparing human appearances to animals gave the story some spice. I mostly appreciated how readers can get the full scope of Tachio’s wavering feelings of being a dorm leader, wanting to be mischievous with his friends, to wanting to please Aunty Ketura, seeking advice and comfort from Aunty Ketura etc. I’m yet to read the last three stories on the shortlist, but ‘Flying’ is the most enjoyable story to me thus far. It’s simple, understandable and moving.
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Voices of Color reading
Talking Back: Voices of Color Author Reading
Friday. July 10, 6:30-8:00p
Laurel Books, 1432 Broadway, Oakland
"We must seek integration into revolutionary change, not into a
business-as-usual capitalist America that puts people of color and women in chains. That's what's necessary."
by Nellie Wong, feminist poet, and organizer
excerpt from the editor's Introduction to
TALKING BACK: VOICES OF COLOR
A dynamic anthology featuring voices of youth, feminists, political prisoners,
immigrants and history makers. Edited and with an introduction by Nellie Wong.
More Author Readings Details below!
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Friday. July 10, 6:30-8:00p
Laurel Books, 1432 Broadway, Oakland
"We must seek integration into revolutionary change, not into a
business-as-usual capitalist America that puts people of color and women in chains. That's what's necessary."
by Nellie Wong, feminist poet, and organizer
excerpt from the editor's Introduction to
TALKING BACK: VOICES OF COLOR
A dynamic anthology featuring voices of youth, feminists, political prisoners,
immigrants and history makers. Edited and with an introduction by Nellie Wong.
More Author Readings Details below!
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Bay Area Authors Readings
Sat. July 18, 1:00-4:00p--Modern Times, 2919 24th St.,San Francisco
Sun. July 26, 2:00-3:30--Bird & Beckett, 653 Chenery St., San Francisco
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Sun. July 26, 2:00-3:30--Bird & Beckett, 653 Chenery St., San Francisco
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How White Folks Got So Rich: the Untold Story of American White Supremacy
| How White Folks Got So Rich: The Untold Story of American White Supremacy Updated & Expanded Edition-- Now Available! A pocket-size expose' of American WHITE SUPREMACY. Explores government policies, corporate schemes, "special arrangements," and the devious actions that are at the very foundation of White Wealth & Black poverty in America. If you thought Whites achieved their riches through "hard work," you definitely NEED this book. 136 pages and fully illustrated. Retails for $8; purchase here: http://goo.gl/sxuujP Amazon.com 5-STAR Readers' Reviews: · This is the perfect book! · Unbelieveable! · I did not read this information in any of my high school or college history books! · This book was so much more enlightening than I thought it would be. · This was a very short, but very enlightening book to read....a MUST purchase. · Do yourself a favor and get this book in your personal library. __________________________________ Wholesale discounts up to 50%: http://noirg.org/store/ Email for discount sales: admin@noirg.org Order Today for your Mosque, Study Group, Organization, Street Gang, Church, Synagogue, Business, School... Everything you NEED to know about: The Good Ol' Boy Network · Grandfather Clauses · Government Sabotage: The FBI's COINTELPRO · White-Collar Crime · Organized Crime & Illegal Drugs · Patents · Subprime Mortgages · Federal Reserve Crookery · Indian-Land Grab · White Liberals' Mis-Guidance & Treachery · Hollywood and Racial Propaganda · Black-Talent Snatching · Charitable Giving · Inheritance · Slavery: The Most Profitable Business of ALL TIME · Sugar to Cotton to Oil · Jim Crow Laws · Sharecropping & Predatory Lending · Religious Racism: The "Curse of Ham"· Labor Unions: Racial Cleansing of American Labor · White Domestic Terrorism · Compromise of 1877 · Asian Exclusion Acts · Plessy vs. Ferguson · President of White Supremacy: Woodrow Wilson · The Stock Market--Race Roulette · Public Education: The 4th "R" -- Racism · Be-Out-Before-Sundown Towns · Citizenship & Immigration--For Whites Only · Homestead Act · Farmers Home Administration · Public Housing: "The Projects"· Urban Renewal · Social Security & Pensions · Unemployment Insurance--For Whites Only · National Recovery Act (NRA) or "Negro Removal Act"? · Minimum Wage Law · Racial Profiling in the Housing Market · VA Mortgages--For White Vets Only · Federal Housing Administration--Homeland Insecurity · The Black Tax · Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) · Forced Consumerism & Economic Dependency · G.I. Bill · Building of American Cities · Affirmative Action · Corporate Welfare · Warmonger Welfare · False Flag Nation: Covert Operations · Health Care--a "Sick Care" Industry · Police Power: Keeping Blacks in "Their Place"· Prison Industry · War on Black Drug Users · Race Manufacturing |
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A note from the author: The Education of Kevin Powell
 Greetings my friends! I hope you are well, and your family too. I am posting this very personal note because I am working on a very personal project of which I would like your support, please. It is my 12th and newest book, a memoir of my life, to be published on Tuesday, November 3, 2015, by Simon & Schuster. Never in my life I have written something that has affected me this emotionally and spiritually, and never before have I written something I so badly want to share with the public. The book’s title is THE EDUCATION OF KEVIN POWELL: A Boy’s Journey into Manhood. It is my sincere hope that in telling my life story you will find parts of you in there as well, as I deal with a range of issues, including self-love and love, family, community, depression, trauma, pain, redemption, and healing. My memoir literally goes from the era of the Vietnam War and the end of the Civil Rights Movement to our world today with Barack Obama as president. Here are a few early statements in support of my memoir, from two of America’s most important writers and thinkers: “The Education of Kevin Powell is a raw, deeply painful accounting of a life born of poverty, racism, abandonment, abuse, and complicated love. It is a memoir as much about a mother as it is about her son, a memoir born out of stunning writing and surprising vulnerability. A memoir of rage and insight, heartbreak and hunger. Powerful, brave, and unforgettable.” —Eve Ensler “Poignant and powerful. This story of Black male life in our patriarchal culture, from boyhood to manhood, is raw and passionate. It offers a true and honest portrait of all that Black males endure to survive and, more importantly, to cope with trauma, and to heal and thrive. It should be read by everyone who claims to care about the fate of Black males in America." —bell hooks So I am asking you, please, to PRE-ORDER MY BOOK NOW, by visiting Amazon, or other book sites, or via your local bookstore. It would mean so much to me, as we really want to have a lot of book sales long before the actual publication date. Just like movies need strong showings upon their release, the same applies to books. And if you could encourage others to PRE-ORDER too, that would be an added blessing. I thank you so very much for taking the time to support this book. Sincerely, Kevin |
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A Marvin X Short Short Story: Searching for J.B., King of the Tenderloin, San Francisco
Marvin X and his Muse Fahizah Alim, her words inspire the poet to write
Cover art by Emory, Black Panther Minister of Culture
But let me go back a little in time. In fact, I'd met J.B. as a customer at my stand on Market and Powell, in front of the Cable Car stop that took tourists to Fisherman's Wharf. I was at various times hustling incense and oils, sun glasses, umbrellas, political buttons, Cashmere wool scarves. It wasn't the political buttons that made me the King of Union Square, but the fact I had white boys working under my non-profit papers throughout the downtown area. What the New York police said about Malcolm X in Harlem, "He got too much power for a Nigguh," the San Francisco Police said about me having fifty plus white and black people working under my papers. Imagine, all the vendors selling scarves in the Union Square area worked under my papers. My off and on partner from the Black Arts Movement, Hurriyah Asar, was hustling at Market and Montgomery, in the financial district. The police were harassing her daily because she was one of the first Blacks selling on the streets of San Francisco. The police told her she could only sell if she were a non-profit organization. Okay, I incorporated her but she left town to visit relatives in Atlanta, but not before the chief attorney for the SFPD took us to court, but since she was incorporated under 501 (c) 3, during a recess in the court proceedings, SFPD Attorney Lawrence Wilson said to us in the arrogance of a gay male, "If you beat us in court we'll go to the Board of Supervisors and change the rules." Ultimately, he did what he said, but soon after the chief attorney for the SFPD was busted for dealing drugs out of his house and sentenced to time at Vacaville State Prison, and later died of AIDS.
During the Democratic Convention of 1984, I made $2,000.00 per day at the four day convention, and I did this at Market and Powell, not at the convention center. The San Francisco Chronicle called me the Button King in an article. The old Negroes who stood around conversing at Market and Powell watched me work. They estimated I made $300.00 per hour! In their minds, I was the richest Negro in downtown San Francisco. Little did they know every dime was going to the dope man for Crack. The dope dealers knew I had cash money every day so they lined up to serve me.
But J.B. had come by before I got strung out on Crack. He was one of the many people who bought one stick of incense, which I detested because I was trying to sell one hundred sticks for $5.00. I couldn't understand why anyone would want one stick of incense. Actually, at the time J.B. and others would come by for one stick, I had no knowledge of the Tenderloin, I knew nothing of Skid Row on 6th Street. I knew nothing of eating at Glide, St. Anthony's, St. Martin de Porres and elsewhere. I knew nothing of funky SRO (single room occupancy) hotel rooms that one stick of incense would make livable for the night. After all, I have been in academia, teaching (if only briefly) at Fresno State University, San Francisco State University, University of California, Berkeley and San Diego, University of Nevada, Reno, Mills College and elsewhere. So even though I was only a lecturer and Visiting Professor, in short, I'd been blacklisted or whitelisted when I taught at Fresno State University in 1969. Not only did Gov. Ronald Reagan removed Angela Davis from UCLA because she was a Black Communist, but he removed me because I was a Black Muslim who refused to fight in Vietnam. As Governor, he was President of the State College Board of Trustees and entering their meeting, "I want Marvin X off campus by any means necessary." And so the Superior Court ruled I was never hire to teach at Fresno State, even though 70 students registered for my classes in Drama, Journalism and Black Literature. I gave my students all A's except one Uncle Tom nigguh.
--continued-
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Is Marvin X really America's Plato, Rumi, Saadi, Hafiz, Mark Twain--who in the hell is this personality called Marvin X?
Review by Rudolph Lewis
Rudy Lewis long ago recognized the genius of Marvin X
For Marvin X, a founder and veteran of the Black Arts Movement of the late 60s/early 70s, we who strive for a rebirth of humanity must choose to be a mentor rather than a predator. “No matter what, I am essentially a teacher,” he lectured at California College of the Arts, where he was invited by poet devorah major. Marvin has taught at Fresno State University; San Francisco State University; UC-Berkeley and San Diego; University of Nevada, Reno; Mills College, Laney and Merritt Colleges in Oakland. But, Marvin warns, “The teacher must know . . . no matter how many years he gives of his soul, his mental genius is not wanted” (“Parable of the Poor Righteous Teacher,” 12).
Gov. Ronald Reagan ran him out of Fresno State University, 1969, with the help of the FBI’s Cointelpro which employed a hit man who sought him out after an agent provocateur murdered his choir director Winfred Streets, who died from a shotgun blast to the back (“Parable of American Gangsta J. Edgar Hoover,” 171).
Pressured out of black studies academia, Marvin contends such programs now attract “sellout” Negroes, or if such African American elites are sincere and dedicated and allowed to remain, many die early from “high blood pressure, depression, schizophrenia, paranoia.” One or more such conditions, he believes, brought on the early and unexpected deaths of poet June Jordan, scholars Barbara Christian, and Veve Clark at UC Berkeley and Sherley Ann Williams at UC San Diego (“Parable of Neocolonialism at UC Berkeley,” 115). There remain nevertheless many educated colored elite all too willing to put “a hood over the hood” and lullaby the masses with “Silent Night,”
while “colonialism [is] playing possum” (“Parable of the Colored People,” 42).
while “colonialism [is] playing possum” (“Parable of the Colored People,” 42).
In “Wisdom of Plato Negro,” Marvin teaches by stories, ancient devices of instruction that appeal to a non-literate as well as a semi-literate people. (Fables differ from parables only by their use of animal characters.) The oldest existing genre of storytelling used long before the parables of Jesus or the fables of Aesop, they are excellent tools, in the hands of a skilled artist like Marvin X, in that he modifies the genre for a rebellious hip hop generation who drops out or are pushed out of repressive state sponsored public schools at a 50% clip. Marvin X is a master of these short short stories. Bibliographies, extended footnotes, indexes, formal argumentation, he knows, are of no use to the audience he seeks, that 95 percent that lives from paycheck to paycheck.
These moral oral forms (parables and fables), developed before the invention of writing, taught by indirection how to think and behave respecting the integrity of others. Marvin explained to his College of Arts audience, “This form [the parable] seems perfect for people with short attention span, the video generation . . . The parable fits my moral or ethical prerogative, allowing my didacticism to run full range” (“Parable of a Day in the Life of Plato Negro,” 147). But we live in a more “hostile environment” than ancient people. Our non-urban ancestors were more in harmony with Nature than our global racialized, exploitive, militarized northern elite societies.
The American Negro or the North American African, as Marvin calls his people, is a modern/post-modern phenomenon, now mostly urbanized, and living in domestic war-zones for more than three centuries. Black codes have governed their speech and behavior; they have been terrorized generation to generation since the early 1700s, by patty rollers, night riders, lynchers, police and military forces, usually without relief by either local or federal governments, or sympathy from their white neighbors or fellow citizens, though they have bled in the wars of the colonies and the nation to establish and defend the American Republic. Their lives have been that of Sisyphus, rising hopes then a fall into utter despair. Such are the times we still live.
To further aide the inattentive reader, most of the 83 sections of this 195-page text begins with a black and white photo image. Although most of these parables were composed between January and April 2010, some were written earlier. A few were written in 2008 (e.g., “Parable of the Basket,” 109) during the election campaign, and a few in 2009 (“Parable of Grand Denial,” 153) after the installation of Barack Obama as president of the United States. Three of these short short stories—“Parable of the Man with a Gun in His Hand,” “Parable of the Lion,” and “Parable of the Man Who Wanted to Die”—were first published in the June 1970 issue of Black World. His classic “Fable of the Black Bird” (86) was written in 1968. The “Fable of the Elephant” (7) and the “Fable of Rooster and Hen” (97) are quite similar in form and style to the black bird fable.
Marvin’s traditional or “classic” parables and fables, written during the BAM period, differ from the ancient fables and parables, which were told in an oral setting within a rural community with some wise men available by a campfire or candle light to explain the story told. In written form the writer in some manner must explain or make the meaning evident, preferably without the mechanical explanation tacked on. That would be a bore and not quite as pleasing to a hip urban audience, as what has been achieved by Marvin’s improvisation on the genre.
Thus Marvin uses humor, sarcasm, irony, exaggerated and sometimes profane language of one sort or another to capture the inattentive reader’s attention. In the first parable, “Parable of Love” (2), Marvin explains, “every writer is duty bound to speak the language of his people, especially if he and his people are going through the process of decolonization from the culture of the oppressor.” His parables are “highly political” and intended also as a kind of “spiritual counseling.” As he points out in “Parable of Imagination,” artists in their work must “search the consciousness for new ways of representing what lies in the depth of the soul and give creative expression to their findings” (160).
“Under the power of the devil,” our lives tell us a story we hardly understand, Marvin discovered from his teachers Sun Ra, Elijah Muhammad, and others. The church, the mosque, the temple do not provide the needed spiritual consciousness for out time. Nor do 19th century radical political ideologies. As Stokely Carmichael told us in 1969, ideologies like communism and socialism do not speak to our needs. They do not speak to the issue of race. We are a colonized people, he argued, whose institutions have been decimated, our language mocked (e.g. Bill Cosby), our culture when not yet appropriated and stolen called “tasteless” by black bourgeois agents or stooges (e.g., Jason Whitlock in his criticism of Serena Williams at Wimbledon doing a joyful jig after her victory and winning a gold medal).
In “Wisdom of Plato Negro,” Marvin X is about the work of decolonization, though BAM has been commodified as a tourist icon at academic conferences and in university syllabi. The “sacred” work of the artist remains. Its object is to “shatter lies and falsehoods to usher in a new birth of imagination for humanity” . . . to “promote economic progress and political unity” . . . to undermine “pride, arrogance, and self-importance” (160). Although he is critical of the black bourgeoisie, Marvin knows that they have skills our people need, that we must find a way to bring them home. They must learn to have as much respect for the Mother Tongue as they have for the King’s English (“Parable of the Black Bourgeoisie,” 35).
“Wisdom of Plato Negro” deals not only with the political but also with the personal. That means he cannot live his life in an academic (or ivory) tower, or up in a mountain, writing and publishing books. In “Parable of the Man Who Left the Mountain,” written in 2008, he explains, “in the fourth quarter of my life, I can only attempt to finish the work of being active in the cause of racial justice, of using my pen to speak truth, to put my body in the battlefield for the freedom we all deserve” (45).
Though he sees the problem as economic and political, one that keeps us poor and powerless, our oppression is “equally” one that creates “a spiritual disease or mental health issue.” (45). Racial supremacy for him not only affects the body or the potential to obtain wealth, it also affects the soul. It is at the heart of the drug war crisis. Black people seek to “medicate” themselves with drugs or the ideology of racial supremacy to find relief from the pain of racial oppression and the suppression of the imagination. Drugs and racial supremacy both are addictive and create dependency. In numerous instances, Marvin calls for moderation of desires and discipline, to “detox” from an addiction to racial supremacy and other “delusional thinking” (“Parable of Sobriety,” 177).
Marvin centers himself in his “classroom/clinic,” his “Academy of da Corner” at 14th and Broadway, Oakland, California. There he sells his “empowering books” and offers insight, advice to mothers (e.g., “Parable of the Woman at the Well,” 58), wives (e.g. “Parable of the Preacher’s Wife,” 29), and lovers. “Other than the white man, black men have no other pressing problem—maybe with another brother, but 90% of the brothers come to Plato with male/female problems” (“Parable of a Day in the Life of Plato Negro,” 148). In contrast to his street work, the racial experts seem rather lost. Marvin reports on a 2008 conference held in Oakland by the Association of Black Psychologists, which has a membership of 1,500 Afrocentric psychologists. Even the experts with two and three Ph.D., “victims of white witchcraft,” he discovered do not know how to heal the community. When leaders don’t know, “why not turn to the people?” (“Parable of the Witch Doctor,” 24).
There is much more that can be gained from a slow reading of “Wisdom of Plato Negro” than what I have tried to recall in this short report. Marvin X writes about such topics as sexuality and creativity and their relationship, on war, the weather and global warming, and numerous other topics that all tie together if we desire to bring about a rebirth of humanity. This highly informative, insightful, and creative volume can be of service to the non-reader as well as students and seasoned scholars, if they want to be entertained or to heal their bodies and souls so that they can become mentors rather than predators.
“Wisdom of Plato Negro” ends with the “Parable of Desirelessness” (193), which mirrors the “Parable of Letting Go” (61). In the materialist culture of contemporary capitalism we are beset on all sides by “greed, lust, and conspicuous consumption.” There are a “billion illusions of the monkey mind” that lead nowhere other than an early death, suicide, or cowardly homicide. We all must “hold onto nothing but the rope of righteousness.” That will guide us along the straight path to full and permanent revolution and liberation.
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Additional Notes by Rudolph Lewis on The Wisdom of Plato Negro
Thanks, Marvin, I am deep into the Parables. I am looking at the construction of the book. I see that you have shortened it. I found your parable of the lecture at the California College of Arts helpful in that it presented a brief response to what your parables are. I have taken about fives pages of notes, many come from Parable of Imagination. That was masterful in your insight into the role that the educational system play in the suppression and the oppression of those on the margins, particularly black youth.
I'll try to keep the review short (500 words or so) but we'll see. I am still making myself pregnant. I have been skipping about in the text, which may indeed be advantage for the reader you have in mind. But I wanted to see how you constructed the work. I see that most of the pieces were written between January and April of 2010. But you also have pieces from 2008 and 2009, and pieces published in 1970 and 1973. I do not know that you called them "parables" at the time.
I am still meditating on the whole notion of "parable" and "fable." I checked the dictionary definitions. I have yet to read the fables. I have read at least one of the dialogues. I will get to the one on "bitch" sometime tonight. I remember the parable of the man who talked to cows. That was indeed humorous.
In any case my present task is to finish reading the last four or five parables. I am now on the Hoover piece and your experience with the FBI. You are rare indeed: to have been steeped in all of that and lived to the tell tale, and to tell it as boldly as if you were still there. As Gore Vidal pointed out in writing his memoir, Memory is piled upon memory upon memory, and so we remember our memories for we tell them through filters of life, knowledge, and years and years of intellectual and other experiences.
But the thing is that so many who lived through the experiences of the 60s and 70s are living other lives, lives of the status quo, lives that they owe to the company store. You may in this incarnation of Marvin be the only revolutionary of the 60s an 70s who is struggling as ever for a "revolution of conscious and society" in the present. I have looked at some of the material from the 50th anniversary of SNCC and other civil rights veteran. Their memories do not inform their present.
Of course, Julius Lester may be an exception. He was always a man of the Imagination. But I have not kept up with his novels. Some of them however seem quite to the point, though I do not know how he resolves the conflict that continues, or exactly who his audience is. As you may know he is now a Jew.
In any case, your Call for a Renaissance of the Imagination is exceedingly important. What seems most important is that you never cut yourself off from the lumpen (the dopefiends, the hustlers, the workers), those who have tragic relationships with their lovers and children, those who can’t afford a $100 an hour psychiatrist. It is indeed important that you point out the deficiency of health care in our communities and how everything is commodified in the interest of the few.
Your "classroom/clinic" has kept you grounded to the realities of racial oppression. Many racial activist have sold their souls and become wheeler/dealers of the powers that be. A few went into city and state government, like Marion Barry and courtland Cox, and Ivanhoe Donaldson, and Julian Bond and John Lewis. Many are union execs, and on the leash of their whites bosses. Union execs are part mafia/part political hacks of the Democratic Party. Obama can kill a million spy on hundreds of millions and they will die for Obama, rather than the common man, woman, and child. Of course, like any sane conscious person Obama is preferable to Romney and Tea Party. But to die for Obama is to lose the way of ethics in defense of humanity.
Well, what I am trying to say. I am deep into your Wisdom, in your thought, thinking and construction of a literary work that is quite post-modern, an interactive text that would not have been possible before the invention of the web, as indicated by your dialogues.
My only comparison to what you have done is Jerry Ward's "The Katrina Papers." Of course, his book is grounded by the destruction of an American city, New Orleans , and the tragic destruction of his own home and much of its contents, including papers, records, tapes and other personal items.
But of course, your work is grounded by your Academy of the Corner, and your daily contact with the ongoing tragedies of our people. Those stories are told in your parables. I thank God for a Marvin X, a Plato Negro.
I will try to have a review of the book by Wednesday.
Loving you madly, Rudy
Muhammad Speaks Reviews
The Wisdom of Plato Negro
The Wisdom of Plato Negro
Marvin X has provided a reflective work that explains the condition of Black people in America today. He not only explains how we have arrived at this wretched juncture in our history, but offers wisdom as to how we may regain the love of self and family that was decimated through the drug and cultural wars that were aimed at our people.
It is sad to note that a people who were coming of age and promise in the 1960’s and 1970’s were nearly destroyed by the ‘deliberate’ crack epidemic which robbed us of ourselves, and robbed our children of their parents.
Marvin X candidly admits that his addiction to crack robbed his children of their father and his wife of a husband.
The reader is indeed lucky that he survived his addiction, and that his talent for writing and storytelling survived so that his work may live as a testament and instruction to future generations.
He rightly describes the current economic crisis Black America sees itself in as our being the ‘donkey’ of the world that every other people ride to economic prosperity. Black people live with this reality daily, as we patronize others who come to this country sell us food, liquor, do our nails, sell us hair, and the list goes on. We witness them take our money, and deliberately not live in our community. We know that they would never think of patronizing us. Yet, we are willing participants in our own exploitation.
Why do we continue this path to economic destruction? Are we like the parable of the elephant as described by Marvin X? The circus elephant tied by a simple rope and did as his trainer instructed, until one day, he decided to break free, wreaking havoc on everything in his path?
Are we Samson, who brought the pillars down on the temple and destroyed himself along with his tormentors?
The Wisdom of the Plato Negro is a must read for it explains the contemporary condition of our people. What path we will take to correct this condition is in our hands.
Raushana Karriem
Editor-in-Chief Muhammad Speaks Newspaper, Atlanta GA
8/29/12
Review by Ishmael Reed
Professor Emeritus, UC Berkeley
Photo: Michael Simon |  |
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If someone would write a book demythologizing the Black Power movement, how would they assess it? One of great nobility, or one of hypocrisy, one of courage or one of cowardice, one that fostered change in the status quo, or one
that was part of the problem. Or would one conclude that it was one having mixed results.
That it modified the direction of The Civil Rights Movement, which was heading toward Anglo Saxon assimilation, the way that many Irish, Italian and other white ethnic groups lost their roots and thereby lost their souls, is indisputable.
Marvin X, who is not only a terrific writer but a Black Power historian has served us well by listing all of the 60s poets who were influenced by Islam and other non-Western sources, (though, without Muslim scholars there’d be no Western civilization.)
African writers, whom I interviewed for my book about Muhammad Ali find African American Muslim conversion puzzling since they view Islam as an invader’s religion and one that treats the indigenous population, harshly, but one cannot underestimate the influence of Islam upon the world.
However,if I had to pin down the influences upon Marvin X’s The Wisdom of Plato Negro,Parables/Fables,I would cite the style of Yoruba texts. I studied for some years under the tutoring of the poet and scholar Adebisi T.Aromolaran ( “ Wise Sayings For Boys and Girls”)and was guided through some texts in the Yoruba language which revealed that didacticism is a key component of the Yoruba story telling style. Africans use proverbs to teach their children the lessons of life. Marvin X acknowledges the Yoruba influence on his book, The Wisdom of Plato Negro, Parables/Fables.
He imparts wisdom by employing cautionary tales and uses his own life and mistakes to consul the young to avoid mistakes. George Bernard Shaw said that if you don’t write your own plays, others will write them for you and they will “degrade”and “vulgarize” you. As part of a grant, I attended local theater for three years and found the portraits of blacks to be offensive,mostly. The women were prostitutes and the men were like the black man in “Precious,” a bestial evil.
Marvin X in “One Day In the Life”, his classic play about recovery, which I saw at the Black Rep., the only local theater that doesn’t depend upon a audience that desires guilt free productions, was one of the few plays that wasn’t escapist, or preached post racism or blamed the victim.
Moreover, unlike some of the books written by popular African American writers, his book does not look backward to the period of slavery, though some of that is here. He writes about the contemporary problems of a community under attack. He blames crack for causing “ a great chasm between adults and children, children who were abandoned,abused, and neglected, emotionally starved and traumatized.”
Pundits,scholars and reporters who have posed as experts on the inner city, but
don’t live here, have blamed the middle class for abandoning the urban centers.They’re wrong. The middle class is making all of the cash from profits from vice. They run the motels, where the prostitution trade takes place.
don’t live here, have blamed the middle class for abandoning the urban centers.They’re wrong. The middle class is making all of the cash from profits from vice. They run the motels, where the prostitution trade takes place.
When Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker slapped an injunction against two prostitution hotels which were scenes of child sex trafficking, beatings and rapes by pimps, the proprietors complained that she cost them $80,000.
The middle class are the absentee landlords, who plopped down a crack house in my neighborhood, they’re storeowners who make hundreds of thousands of dollars selling liquor. None of these proprietors is black! When I asked the Muslim who runs the Northside Supermarket, who was paid a fawning tribute by a clueless Chronicle reporter, who painted him as some kind of Santa Claus, when those attending our neighborhood crime meetings have complained about the criminal activity in from of his store for years,I was called out of order by an Oakland policeman, who turned out to be a friend of his, when I asked what a Muslim was doing selling liquor?
I wrote, “I am sure that I’m not the only North Oakland resident who is outraged by Chronicle writer, Justin Berton, portraying Yahya ‘Mike" Korin of Northside Supermarket as some kind of neighborhood Robin Hood who hands out turkeys to the poor at Xmas.
“I've attended meetings over the years, where our neighbors, black, white, and Hispanic, have complained about this store which attracts some of the most unsavory elements in our neighborhood and whose violent behavior has threatened the safety of our residents.” I had to mention whites because “Mike” was claiming
that only newcomers were protesting against his store, and that he was some
kind of benevolent uncle to the folks.
Marvin X exposes the situation of other ethnic groups invading black neighborhoods and making the lion’s share of profits from vice, while the media focus upon the mules of the operation, the pathetic and disgusting pimps, the drug dealers who are killing each other over profits that are piddling next to the great haul made by the suppliers of the guns and the drugs. Don’t expect the local newspapers to cover this end of the distribution.
Marvin X writes: “ The so-called Negro is the donkey of the world, everybody
rides him to success. If you need a free ride to success,jump on the Negro’s back and ride into the sunset. He will welcome you with open arms. No saddle needed, just jump on his back and ride him to the bank.”
rides him to success. If you need a free ride to success,jump on the Negro’s back and ride into the sunset. He will welcome you with open arms. No saddle needed, just jump on his back and ride him to the bank.”
When you learn that the government ignored the dumping of drugs into our neighborhoods by their anti-communist allies, you can understand the meaning of Marvin X’s words. Not only are invading ethnic groups and white gun suppliers benefitting from using the black neighborhoods as a resource ,but the government as well.*
Marvin X also takes aim at the Dream Team academics who “parrot” the line
coming down from the One Percent that the problems of blacks are self-inflicted.
“The state academics and intellectuals joined loudly in parroting the king’s every wish. Thank God the masses do not hear them pontificate or read their books. After all, these intellectual and academic parrots are well paid, tenured and eat much parrot seed. Their magic song impresses the bourgeoisie who have a vested interested in keeping the song of the parrot alive.”
“The state academics and intellectuals joined loudly in parroting the king’s every wish. Thank God the masses do not hear them pontificate or read their books. After all, these intellectual and academic parrots are well paid, tenured and eat much parrot seed. Their magic song impresses the bourgeoisie who have a vested interested in keeping the song of the parrot alive.”
Marvin X’s answer to this intellectual Vichy regime has been to cultivate
off campus intellectuals by conducting an open air classroom on 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland, which is how the peripatetic philosophers like
Plato used to impart their knowledge in open air academies.
off campus intellectuals by conducting an open air classroom on 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland, which is how the peripatetic philosophers like
Plato used to impart their knowledge in open air academies.
The Black Arts movement expanded the audience for poetry. It inspired thousands of young people to write. They are the grandmothers and grandfathers of the Hip Hoppers. They produced children who are high achievers. The only thing that could mar the Black Arts legacy is its tolerance for a lunatic fringe. One, who used to edit a black magazine, but hasn’t written a lick since the 1960s, came out here recently and was greeted warmly, when if you put some white skin on him and covered him with tattoos, he’d be indistinguishable from your ordinary low level skin head,without the Budweiser six pack.
I would give the Black Arts a mixed review. I’m the one who said that in
the global village, nationalism is the village idiot. But I have supported it in concrete ways because the Black Nationalist movement is the only roadblock to black culture becoming extinct!
Moreover,some of those who were Yacubists of the 60s changed. Muhammad Ali,who met with the KKK during the 1970s, recently attended his grand son’s Bar Mitzvah.
____________
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* Parry, Robert “How John Kerry exposed the Contra-cocaine scandal,
Derided by the mainstream press and taking on Reagan at the height of his popularity, the freshman senator battled to reveal one of America's ugliest foreign policy secrets” Salon.com, Oct.25,2004
Ishmael Reed,author of “Going Too Far, Essays About America’s Nervous Breakdown”
Email: ireedpub@yahoo.com
Derided by the mainstream press and taking on Reagan at the height of his popularity, the freshman senator battled to reveal one of America's ugliest foreign policy secrets” Salon.com, Oct.25,2004
Ishmael Reed,author of “Going Too Far, Essays About America’s Nervous Breakdown”
Email: ireedpub@yahoo.com
Order Now
The Wisdom of Plato Negro by Marvin XBlack Bird Press
1222 Dwight Way
Berkeley CA 94702
195 pages
$19.95
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Black Bird Press News & Review: Nathan Hare on Marvin X's love letter to Dr. Julia Hare
Black Bird Press News & Review: Nathan Hare on Marvin X's love letter to Dr. Julia Hare: Come to think of it, maybe you should come by the office anyway when I’m not at home, so you wouldn’t have to be writing love letters to elderly women and carrying on. Dr J and I probably wouldn’t have been married fifty-seven years if I had let the ice man and any and everybody who took a notion come by and hang around.--Dr. Nathan Hare
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Pope chews coca (cocaine) leaves on visit to Bolivia
Bolivian President Evo Morales hugged Pope Francis after the pontiff got off a Bolivia de Aviacion jet at the report for the capital of La Paz. Morales then hung a pouch around Francis' neck, woven of alpaca with indigenous trimmings. It is of the type commonly used to hold coca leaves, which are chewed by people in the Andes to alleviate altitude sickness.
Pope Francis News: Pope May Chew Coca Leaves During to Visit to Bolivia
Posted: Jun 29, 2015
Pope Francis delivers his Christmas Day message from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica on Dec. 25, 2014 in Vatican City, Vatican. The 'Urbi et Orbi' blessing (to the city and to the world) is recognised as a Christmas tradition by Catholics with the Pope Francis focusing this year on the peace in the world. (Photo : Franco Origlia/Getty Images)
For his upcoming visit to Bolivia on July 8, Pope Francis has allegedly asked to participate in the traditional chewing of coca leaves, which have for thousands of years been used in the Andes as a mild medicinal stimulant, and, since the late Victorian era, as the raw source for cocaine.
As reported by the BBC, the Vatican has not yet commented on whether or not this is true.
Although coca leaves were declared an illegal substance under the 1961 U.N. Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the growing of coca leaves for religious and medicinal purposes is legal and licensed in Bolivia. A large number of indigenous Bolivians consider the coca to be a sacred plant. Peruvian congresswoman Maria Sumire has addressed the insensitivity she feels is being displayed by the U.N. regarding a leaf that has been used as far back as 8,000 years ago by Andes-dwelling people.
"The United Nations lacks respect for the indigenous people ... who have used the coca leaf since forever. ... For indigenous people, coca is a sacred leaf that is part of their cultural identity," said the congresswoman, via Natural News.
In 2009 Bolivia's constitution declared the coca leaf to be "a cultural patrimony."President Evo Morales has been campaigning to decriminalize the consumption of coca leaves for years.
If Pope Francis chews coca leaves in his upcoming visit, this would be the highest profile figure to ever do so and would go a long way in promoting Morales’s efforts at decriminalization.
Back in 2009, film director Oliver Stone famously chewed coca leaves and played soccer with the president.
"We will be awaiting the Holy Father with the sacred coca leaf," said Machicao.
The Latest: Morales has politically charged gifts for pope
7:25 p.m.
President Evo Morales has given Pope Francis some politically loaded presents during the traditional exchange of gifts between heads of state.
Chief among them: A crucifix carved into a wooden hammer and sickle, the Communist symbol uniting labor and peasants. The image also appears on a medallion Morales gave to Francis that he wore around his neck.
Another politically charged gift: A copy of "The Book of the Sea," which is about the loss of Bolivia's access to the sea during the War of the Pacific with Chile in 1879-83. Bolivia took its bid to renegotiate access to the Pacific to the International Court of Justice in 2013, while Chile has argued the court has no jurisdiction because Bolivia's borders were defined by a 1904 treaty. The court is expected to rule by the end of the year if it has competence to decide the case.
Francis, for his part, gave Morales a mosaic of the Madonna and a copy of his recent encyclical on the environment.
6:10 p.m.
Pope Francis stopped the popemobile briefly on the way to the presidential palace in La Paz, Bolivia, near where the body of a fellow Jesuit priest was dumped in 1980 after a military dictatorship had him killed.
The priest, Luis Espinal, was an outspoken defender of the poor, like Francis. He was also unorthodox. A skilled communicator, he used film and journalism as tools. His body was found with 12 bullet holes.
The pope got out at the roadside site, laid flowers and led the waiting crowd in a minute of silence and then prayer.
Francis said that Espinal was, in the pope's words, "our brother victim of interests that did not want him to fight for Bolivia's freedom."
It was the second time in as many months that Francis has recognized a priest slain by the far right in Latin America during a period in which the United States backed dictatorships. In May, Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador was beatified 25 years after he was killed.
5:45 p.m.
In his welcoming remarks to the pope, Bolivian President Evo Morales said Francis is working toward the same goals as his government by advocating for "those most in need."
In Morales' words: "He who betrays a poor person, betrays Pope Francis."
The president recalled how the Catholic Church many times in the past was on the side of the oppressors of Bolivia's people, three-fourths of whom are of are indigenous origin.
But Morales said things are different with this pope and the Bolivian people are greeting Francis as someone who is "helping in the liberation of our people."
Bolivia's government does have its differences with the church, however. In recent weeks, various senior officials have engaged in a heated war of words with a Spanish priest who demands that the Morales administration devote more funds to public health.
5:30 p.m.
Pope Francis has praised Bolivia for taking important steps to include the poor and the marginalized in its political and economic life, but insists that the Catholic Church also has a "prophetic" role to play in society.
In his arrival speech, Francis recalled that Catholicism took "deep root" in Bolivia centuries ago and said the church "has continued to contribute to its development and shape its culture."
Bolivian President Evo Morales is an Aymara Indian known for anti-imperialist rhetoric and he came to power championing the country's 36 indigenous groups.
But Morales has roiled the local church with anti-clerical initiatives, including declaring in the constitution that the overwhelmingly Catholic nation is a secular state.
He has also angered lowlands indigenous groups by pushing oil and natural gas drilling in wilderness areas on their traditional lands. The Catholic Church has helped give voice to those indigenous groups in their struggle.
4:55 p.m.
Bolivian President Evo Morales hugged Pope Francis after the pontiff got off a Bolivia de Aviacion jet at the report for the capital of La Paz.
Morales then hung a pouch around Francis' neck, woven of alpaca with indigenous trimmings. It is of the type commonly used to hold coca leaves, which are chewed by people in the Andes to alleviate altitude sickness.
Children in traditional garb from some of Bolivia's 36 different native peoples swarmed the pope in a group hug and he took the hand of two as they walked him off the tarmac with Morales.
The crowd at the airport is about 4,000 people, bundled against the gathering cold as the sun drops to the horizon. Many tens of thousands of people are lining the motorcade route, which winds eight miles down off the wind-swept plateau into the capital along a steep bluff.
4:15 p.m.
Pope Francis has arrived at the international airport near Bolivia's capital to begin the second leg of his three-nation South America visit.
His flight landed an hour later than scheduled, due to a delayed departure from Quito, the capital of Ecuador.
Francis is scheduled to spend only four hours in the Bolivian capital of La Paz because of worries about the effects of its high altitude on the 78-year-old pontiff. The city is 13,123 feet (4,000 meters) above sea level.
Tonight he will fly to Santa Cruz, a city in the lowlands of central Bolivia.
4 p.m.
Bolivia's ABI official news agency is reporting that Pope Francis will chew coca leaves to fight off altitude sickness when he arrives for a visit to the capital of La Paz.
Francis has just one functioning lung and La Paz and the neighboring city of El Alto where the airport is are 13,123 feet (4,000 meters) above sea level. The city he's just left, Quito, Ecuador, is nearly a mile lower.
While it's not certain that the pope will actually chew coca, a native Ayamara woman among those waiting in El Alto to see the pope pass by says she would love to see that.
Ines Canqui notes that the indigenous people of the Andes often chew coca. In her words, "We know it gives strength. You don't get tired and, what's more, it will help him not feel strongly the altitude change."
3:30 p.m.
Bolivians are gathering to greet Pope Francis in the teeming city of El Alto, and are being whipped by stiff winds under a piercing sun on the Andes high plain.
Some are shielding themselves under tarps, others with umbrellas. They are singing hymns in varying styles, some in two of Latin America's dominant non-Spanish tongues.
The international airport for Bolivia's capital of La Paz is in the neighboring city of El Alto.
The vast majority of El Alto's 1.2 million people are native Aymara like Bolivian President Evo Morales. Together with Quechua-speakers they dominate Bolivia's western highlands, accounting for 90 percent of the population.
Merchant Teofilo Quispe brought his 6-year-old son to see the pope. Quispe says he is Catholic but not much of a believer. He says he's a bit confused about Morales' receiving the pope, asking of the socialist president: "Wasn't he an atheist?"
3:20 p.m.
Bolivians will have to wait a little longer for the arrival of Pope Francis.
Church officials say the plane carrying the pontiff left Quito, Ecuador, behind schedule and will arrive in La Paz about 45 minutes later than planned. Francis had been scheduled to land near Bolivia's capital at 4:15 p.m.
Archbishop Edmundo Abastoflor of La Paz also says the welcoming ceremony may be moved inside the airport to avoid chilling the 78-year-old pope. The airport is 4,000 meters (about 13,123 feet) above sea level and the temperature is around 54 degrees Fahrenheit (12 degrees Celsius).
2:15 p.m.
Ecuador's biggest indigenous group is expressing frustration that it didn't have a private audience with Pope Francis as it sought during his three-day visit. It didn't even have a few minutes on the margins. In fact, it had to break protocol to deliver a letter to the pope.
Twenty-five delegates of the Federation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, or CONAIE, attended an invitation-only gathering Tuesday evening that included business leaders, and cultural and sports figures. Delegates, however, were unable to approach the pope, so they asked a girl to hand him the letter.
Federation official Severnino Sharupi says CONAIE deserved a meeting because Francis "puts the poor and the environment at the center of his discourse and we represent both causes."
The pope calls the indigenous the best stewards of the environment and the most affected by deforestation and contamination.
CONAIE is at odds with President Rafael Correa over his encouragement of oil drilling and mining on traditional native lands in the Amazon wilderness.
The pope left Ecuador for La Paz, Bolivia, on Wednesday.
1:20 p.m.
Pope Francis is on his way to Bolivia after three days in Ecuador, where he celebrated Masses, met with clergy and lay groups and spoke about the need to protect the environment. Bolivia, one of South America's poorest nations, is the second of three countries Francis will be visiting on his tour of the continent.
Before boarding the Boliviana de Aviacion plane, the pope hugged and blessed dozens of children who were dressed in traditional Andean garb.
Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said his goodbyes to Francis as the pope walked up the stairs of the plane. Per his usual, Francis carried his small black suitcase.
The pope is expected to arrive in La Paz, Bolivia, in the late afternoon.
12:25 p.m.
Bolivian president Evo Morales is planning to shorten the speech he wrote to welcome Pope Francis to La Paz this afternoon. The highland city sits at an elevation of nearly 2½ miles (4,000 meters) above sea level.
Marianela Paco Duran, Bolivia's minister of communication, told reporters Wednesday that Morales had planned to speak 15 minutes when Francis arrived in La Paz. Instead, she said he'll only speak for five minutes.
She explained: "The Bolivian people want to hear from the pope and see the pope as much as possible. For that reason, and considering the pope's health, our president will use minimal time for his words of welcome."
The stop in La Paz is being kept to four hours to spare the 78-year-old pope from spending much time at a high altitude, which can cause nausea and headaches for people not acclimated to it. The rest of his Bolivian stay will be in Santa Cruz, which is about 1,300 feet (416 meters) above sea level.
Francis looked to be in good spirits during his last appearance in Ecuador, where he joked with priests and nuns in Quito after ditching his prepared remarks.
11:55 a.m.
Pope Francis ditched the speech prepared for a gathering of Ecuadorean priests and nuns, saying he just didn't feel like reading it. Instead, he delivered an off-the-cuff monologue that drew laughs from the crowd gathered at Quito's El Quinche shrine.
Francis urged the clergy and sisters gathered to never forget where they came from, and to never feel that they deserve anything.
Noting the various native languages spoken in Ecuador, he said: "Don't forget your roots."
10:45 a.m.
Greeted by shouts of "Long live the pope!," Francis has entered the sanctuary of El Quinche for his final public event in Ecuador before departing for Bolivia.
The pope was received by a crowd that cheered, applauded and practically bathed his popemobile in rose petals.
Francis was presented with a bouquet of roses, one of the main cultivated products of the region. He then approached a statue of the virgin of El Quinche, pausing to pray.
The sanctuary, some 50 kilometers (32 miles) east of Quito, is where Pope Francis is speaking to some 6,500 priests and seminarians.
9:50 a.m.
Pope Francis is visiting an Ecuadorean nursing home that is run by the Missionary Sisters of Charity, the religious order founded by Mother Teresa. More than a dozen nuns welcomed the pope and presented him with a white collar with blue tassels, the colors of the order.
The pope met with residents of the home and offered them blessings. Many of the residents are in wheelchairs.
The Quito home is for elderly who lack the resources to remain in their own homes or family members able to care for them.
9:15 a.m.
Pope Francis has emerged from the nunciature in Quito where he spent the night. Hundreds who had been waiting for him are applauding and a children's chorus is singing. Many people are throwing rose petals as the pope waves to them.
Along the route that Francis will take to visit an elderly home, thousands are lined up. After the visit to nursing home, Francis will meet with local clergy and then fly to Bolivia for the next leg of his trip.
8:45 a.m.
The next stop on the pope's South American tour is Bolivia. He'll be heading there later today.
Before leaving Ecuador, in Quito he'll met with elderly people and give a pep talk to local clergy.
Then he'll head to Bolivia, where church-state tensions over everything from the environment to the role of the church in society are high on the agenda.
In La Paz, Pope Francis will be welcomed by Bolivian President Evo Morales, an Aymara Indian known for his anti-imperialist and socialist stands.
The stop in La Paz is being kept to four hours to spare the 78-year-old pope from the taxing 4,000-meter (13,120-foot) elevation. The rest of his Bolivian stay will be in Santa Cruz.
Francis and Morales have met on several occasions. The most recent meeting was in October when the president, a former coca farmer, participated in a Vatican summit of grassroots groups of indigenous and advocates for the poor who have been championed by Francis.
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Black Hollywood Unchained edited by Ishmael Reed
In Black Hollywood Unchained, Ishmael Reed gathers an impressive group of scholars, critics, intellectuals, and artist to examine and respond to the contemporary portrayals of Blacks in films. Using the 2012 release of the film Django Unchained as the focal point of much of the discussion, these essays and reviews provide a critical perspective on the challenges facing filmmakers and actors when confronted with issues on race and the historical portrayal of African American characters. Reed also addresses the black community’s perceptiveness as discerning and responsible consumers of film, theatre, art, and music.
Twenty-eight contributors including this book’s editor, Ishmael Reed, offer insightful, informed and provocative points of view on the ever changing, yet unchanged, landscape of Hollywood and film production in America. While the 2012 release of Django Unchained was the film that generated nation-wide conversations and many of the essays in this collection, this book intentionally extends that dialogue about race, history, entertainment and the image of Blacks on the screen to include an examination of the culture of contemporary films and television. Black Hollywood Unchained is critical of the roles of actor, film-maker and viewer as it asks questions that redirect our thinking about the multi-billion dollar industry we call “the movies.”
Contributors
J. Douglas Allen-Taylor, Houston A. Baker Jr., Amiri Baraka, Playthell G. Benjamin, Herb Boyd, Cecil Brown, Ruth Elizabeth Burks, Art T. Burton, Stanley Crouch, Justin Desmangles, Lawrence DiStasi, Jack Foley, David Henderson, Geary Hobson, Joyce A. Joyce, Haki R. Madhubuti, C. Liegh McInnis, Tony Medina, Alejandro Murguía, Jill Nelson, Halifu Osumare, Heather D. Russell, Hariette Surovell, Kathryn Waddell Takara, Jerry W. Ward Jr., Marvin X, Al Young
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African model Nykhor Paul blasts white makeup artists: Dear White People....
African model Nykhor Paul blasts white makeup artists for neglecting black beauty
Nykhor Paul has a searing message for the fashion industry, which has plenty of problems when it comes to racial diversity and inclusivity.
In a lengthy Instagram caption, the Sudanese beauty blasts makeup artists for asking her to bring her own makeup to shows and shoots because they don’t have the appropriate beauty products to complement her dark skin.
In a lengthy Instagram caption, the Sudanese beauty blasts makeup artists for asking her to bring her own makeup to shows and shoots because they don’t have the appropriate beauty products to complement her dark skin.
“Dear white people in the fashion world! Please don’t take this the wrong way but it’s time you people get your (bleep) right when it comes to our complexion! Why do I have to bring my own makeup to a professional show when all the other white girls don’t have to do anything but show up wtf! Don’t try to make me feel bad because I am blue black its 2015 go to Mac, Bobbi Brown, Makeup forever, Iman cosmetic, black opal, even Lancôme and Clinique carried them plus so much more. There’s so much options our there for dark skin tones today. A good makeup artist would come prepare and do there research before coming to work because often time you know what to expect especially at a show! Stop apologizing it’s insulting and disrespectful to me and my race it doesn’t help, seriously! Make an effort at least! That goes for NYC, London, Milan, Paris and Cape Town plus everywhere else that have issues with black skin tones. Just because you only book a few of us doesn’t mean you have the right to make us look ratchet. I’m tired of complaining about not getting book as a black model and I’m definitely super tired of apologizing for my blackness!!!! Fashion is art, art is never racist it should be inclusive of all not only white people, (bleep) we started fashion in Africa and you modernize and copy it! Why can’t we be part of fashion fully and equally?”
Welp!
And, Nykhor’s beauty deserves to shine because look at how freaking flawless she is at all hours of the day and night. Like, bish whet?!
(Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2014)
(Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)
(Bennett Raglin/WireImage)
(AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
(GUILLAUME HORCAJUELO/EPA)
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Pope calls world leaders 'cowards'--the pursuit of money 'the dung of the devil'
Pope calls world leaders 'cowards'
Papal mass draws one million in Ecuador
(CNN)Pope Francis delivered a hellfire-and-brimstone denunciation of modern capitalism on Thursday night, calling the "unfettered pursuit of money" the "dung of the devil" and accusing world leaders of "cowardice" for refusing to defend the earth from exploitation.
Speaking to a group of grassroots organizers in Bolivia, the Pope called on the poor and disenfranchised to rise up against "new colonialism," including corporations, loan agencies, free trade treaties, austerity measures, and "the monopolizing of the communications media."
Here's what one prominent American priest had to say about the speech:
My copy of the Pope's speech may have more underlined sections than not. It was a pretty long, too, as even Francis admitted:
Here's are the Pope's 7 most pungent quotes:
1. "This system is by now intolerable: farmworkers find it intolerable, laborers find it intolerable, communities find it intolerable, people find it intolerable ... The earth itself ... also finds it intolerable."
2. "And behind all this pain, death and destruction there is the stench of what Basil of Caesarea called 'the dung of the devil.' An unfettered pursuit of money now rules. That is the dung of the devil."
3. "Working for a just distribution of the fruits of the earth and human labor is not mere philanthropy. It is a moral obligation. For Christians, the responsibility is even greater: it is a commandment."
4. "It is not enough to let a few drops fall whenever the poor shake a cup which never runs over by itself."
5. "I humbly ask forgiveness, not only for the offenses of the Church herself, but also for crimes committed against the native peoples during the so-called conquest of America."
6. "The new colonialism takes on different faces. At times it appears as the anonymous influence of mammon: corporations, loan agencies, certain 'free trade' treaties, and the imposition of measures of 'austerity' which always tighten the belt of workers and the poor."
7. "Our common home is being pillaged, laid waste and harmed with impunity. Cowardice in defending it is a grave sin. We see with growing disappointment how one international summit after another takes place without any significant result."
Pope Francis also called the recent persecution of Christians a "genocide."
"Today we are dismayed to see how in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world many of our brothers and sisters are persecuted, tortured and killed for their faith in Jesus. This too needs to be denounced: in this third world war, waged piecemeal, which we are now experiencing, a form of genocide -- and I stress the world genocide -- is taking place, and it must end."
Below are some other interesting moments from the Pope's weeklong visit to South America.
A Communist crucifix
Pope Francis celebrated Mass with nearly a million Bolivians in Santa Cruz on Thursday. But the scene that has set a thousand tongues wagging is a gift from Bolivian president Evo Morales.
On Wednesday evening in La Paz, Morales presented Francis with wooden crucifix laid atop a hammer and sickle, the Communist symbol conceived during the Russian Revolution.
You can see the symbol in the photo below.
Bolivian President Evo Morales presents Pope Francis with a gift of a crucifix carved into a wooden hammer and sickle, the Communist symbol uniting labor and peasants in La Paz, Bolivia, on July 8.
The links and battles between Communism and the Catholic Church are an extremely sensitive subject in Latin America, the Pope's home continent. While he was an archbishop in Argentina, Francis tried to strike a delicate balance between championing the poor and avoiding class warfare.
According to reports, Morales told Francis that the "Communist crucifix" was modeled on a design created by the Rev. Luis Espinal, a politically active priest murdered in Bolivia in 1980. (The Pope stopped and prayed at the site of the shooting on Wednesday evening.)
It's unclear whether the Pope told Morales, "That's not right," or simply said: "I didn't know that."
In any case, Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi had the final word:
"Certainly," he told reporters, "it will not be put in a church."
Francis gets the nun's rush
A visibly winded Pope Francis landed in La Paz, Bolivia -- one of the world's highest capitals -- on Wednesday.
Vatican officials say the Pope did not chew coca leaves, as had been widely discussed. But he did drink coca tea, another South American remedy for altitude sickness, on the plane ride from Ecuador to Bolivia.
(The Catholic Herald has a good explainer on coca, whose leaves are considered sacred by indigenous peoples.)
For all the concern about altitude sickness, though, a Catholic nun might have given Francis his most surprising moment when she rushed toward him at La Paz Cathedral.
The Pope quickly recovered, and gave the nuns a blessing, as you can see in the video below.
It's another indication of just how excited South Americans are to welcome home the first pope from their continent.
In a speech to Bolivian authorities later on Wednesday evening, the Pope continued to press the big themes of his weeklong trip through three South American countries: challenges to the family, economic fairness and environmental protection.
Francis called for dialogue between Bolivia and its neighbor, Chile, over access to the Pacific Ocean (a complaint Bolivian President Evo Morales reportedly mentioned to the Pope earlier on Wednesday).
He also said that Bolivia is at a "historic crossroads" and urged political, religious and cultural leaders to work together.
"In this land whose history has been marred by exploitation, greed and so many forms of selfishness and sectarianism, now is the time for integration."
Coca leaves for El Papa?
Pope Francis landed in La Paz, Bolivia, on Wednesday afternoon, a city nearly 12,000 feet above sea level.
As noted above, there had been a lot of discussion about how the 78-year-old pontiff, who has only one fully functioning lung due to a childhood bout with pneumonia, will handle the extremely high altitude.
At least one Bolivian official suggested that he should chew coca leaves, a local and legal remedy in his host country.
Check out the video below by our Shasta Darlington, in which she asks people in La Paz what Francis should do.
Altitude sickness an issue for Pope Francis in Bolivia01:49
A papal pep talk
Addressing priests and nuns in Ecuador on Wednesday, the Pope said he had prepared a speech -- but didn't want to deliver it.
Instead, the pontiff spoke spontaneously for about 30 minutes, in a speech that showcased his sprightly sense of humor.
He teased nuns who would rather watch soap operas than care for the needy. He joked that he doesn't remember quotes and Bible passages as well as he once did. And he warned priests, and bishops for that matter, not to fall prey to "spiritual Alzheimer's," a punchy phrase he has used quite often in the last few years.
The word that Francis kept coming back to is "gratuidad," mentioning it at least a dozen times during the papal pep talk. Translated into English the word is somewhat clunky: gratuitousness.
I asked a translator I've been working with a little more about "gratuidad." Is it common word in Spanish, I wondered?
It's not, said Richard Singer, the translator, and I could see that he had circled it in the Pope's prepared remarks. Singer said that he had wanted to make sure it was correct and look up what, precisely, it meant.
Literally, it means "something freely given," sort of like a "gratuity."
But unlike a tip for a waiter, "gratuidad" means not only a gift, but also one that's not necessarily deserved.
That fit with a big theme of the Pope's message to nuns and priests: Remember your roots, and don't think you're special just because you've received a calling from God.
"You did not buy a ticket to get into the seminary," he told them. "You did nothing to 'deserve' it."
Embracing the elderly, talking selfies with the young
As Pope Francis continues his trip through South America, it's clear that he wants to particularly embrace three groups of people: the young, the sick and the elderly.
As you can see in this video from Tuesday in Ecuador, that embrace is quite literal.
Woman in wheelchair carried to meet Pope00:44
The Pope said he's often asked why he focuses so intently on what some Christians call the "least and the lost."
Read the Gospel, Francis answered on Tuesday, specifically Matthew 25. In that passage, Jesus says that in the Last Days, Christians will be asked whether they fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the sick.
"This is the heart of the Gospel," the Pope said.
Mr. President, don't drill in that rainforest
Also on Tuesday night, the Pope took his eco-friendly message to the masses, calling for a new system of global justice based on human rights and care for the environment rather than economic profits.
"The goods of the Earth are meant for everyone," the Pope said, "and however much someone may parade his property, it has a social mortgage."
Francis' call for environmental protection, a prevalent theme in his papacy, came on the second full day of his weeklong tour of South America. He was speaking to a group of civic leaders and indigenous people at San Francisco Church in Quito, Ecuador's capital city.
Later this week, Francis will visit Bolivia and Paraguay. Like Ecuador, both countries are home to vast natural resources but also problems like deforestation, pollution and widespread poverty.
In recent months, indigenous groups have protested Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, saying that his promotion of drilling and mining near the Amazon rainforest could ruin their ancestral homeland.
The Pope left little doubt about whose side he takes.
"The tapping of natural resources, which are so abundant in Ecuador, must not be concerned with short-term benefits," Francis said.
It was interesting to see the Pope speak so specifically about his host country's environmental policies. An apt analogy might be Francis coming out against the Keystone Pipeline when he addresses the U.S. Congress this September.
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Genocide in the 20th Century: Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1992-1995
In the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, conflict between the three main ethnic groups, the Serbs, Croats, and Muslims, resulted in genocide committed by the Serbs against the Muslims in Bosnia.
Bosnia is one of several small countries that emerged from the break-up of Yugoslavia, a multicultural country created after World War I by the victorious Western Allies. Yugoslavia was composed of ethnic and religious groups that had been historical rivals, even bitter enemies, including the Serbs (Orthodox Christians), Croats (Catholics) and ethnic Albanians (Muslims).
 Former Yugoslavia |
 Ethnic Groups |
During World War II, Yugoslavia was invaded by Nazi Germany and was partitioned. A fierce resistance movement sprang up led by Josip Tito. Following Germany's defeat, Tito reunified Yugoslavia under the slogan "Brotherhood and Unity," merging together Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, along with two self-governing provinces, Kosovo and Vojvodina.
Tito, a Communist, was a strong leader who maintained ties with the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War, playing one superpower against the other while obtaining financial assistance and other aid from both. After his death in 1980 and without his strong leadership, Yugoslavia quickly plunged into political and economic chaos.
A new leader arose by the late 1980s, a Serbian named Slobodan Milosevic, a former Communist who had turned to nationalism and religious hatred to gain power. He began by inflaming long-standing tensions between Serbs and Muslims in the independent provence of Kosovo. Orthodox Christian Serbs in Kosovo were in the minority and claimed they were being mistreated by the Albanian Muslim majority. Serbian-backed political unrest in Kosovo eventually led to its loss of independence and domination by Milosevic.
In June 1991, Slovenia and Croatia both declared their independence from Yugoslavia soon resulting in civil war. The national army of Yugoslavia, now made up of Serbs controlled by Milosevic, stormed into Slovenia but failed to subdue the separatists there and withdrew after only ten days of fighting.
Milosevic quickly lost interest in Slovenia, a country with almost no Serbs. Instead, he turned his attention to Croatia, a Catholic country where Orthodox Serbs made up 12 percent of the population.
During World War II, Croatia had been a pro-Nazi state led by Ante Pavelic and his fascist Ustasha Party. Serbs living in Croatia as well as Jews had been the targets of widespread Ustasha massacres. In the concentration camp at Jasenovac, they had been slaughtered by the tens of thousands.
In 1991, the new Croat government, led by Franjo Tudjman, seemed to be reviving fascism, even using the old Ustasha flag, and also enacted discriminatory laws targeting Orthodox Serbs.
Aided by Serbian guerrillas in Croatia, Milosevic's forces invaded in July 1991 to 'protect' the Serbian minority. In the city of Vukovar, they bombarded the outgunned Croats for 86 consecutive days and reduced it to rubble. After Vukovar fell, the Serbs began the first mass executions of the conflict, killing hundreds of Croat men and burying them in mass graves.
The response of the international community was limited. The U.S. under President George Bush chose not to get involved militarily, but instead recognized the independence of both Slovenia and Croatia. An arms embargo was imposed for all of the former Yugoslavia by the United Nations. However, the Serbs under Milosevic were already the best armed force and thus maintained a big military advantage.
By the end of 1991, a U.S.-sponsored cease-fire agreement was brokered between the Serbs and Croats fighting in Croatia.
In April 1992, the U.S. and European Community chose to recognize the independence of Bosnia, a mostly Muslim country where the Serb minority made up 32 percent of the population. Milosevic responded to Bosnia's declaration of independence by attacking Sarajevo, its capital city, best known for hosting the 1984 Winter Olympics. Sarajevo soon became known as the city where Serb snipers continually shot down helpless civilians in the streets, including eventually over 3,500 children.
Bosnian Muslims were hopelessly outgunned. As the Serbs gained ground, they began to systematically roundup local Muslims in scenes eerily similar to those that had occurred under the Nazis during World War II, including mass shootings, forced repopulation of entire towns, and confinement in make-shift concentration camps for men and boys. The Serbs also terrorized Muslim families into fleeing their villages by using rape as a weapon against women and girls.
The actions of the Serbs were labeled as 'ethnic cleansing,' a name which quickly took hold among the international media.
Despite media reports of the secret camps, the mass killings, as well as the destruction of Muslim mosques and historic architecture in Bosnia, the world community remained mostly indifferent. The U.N. responded by imposing economic sanctions on Serbia and also deployed its troops to protect the distribution of food and medicine to dispossessed Muslims. But the U.N. strictly prohibited its troops from interfering militarily against the Serbs. Thus they remained steadfastly neutral no matter how bad the situation became.
Throughout 1993, confident that the U.N., United States and the European Community would not take militarily action, Serbs in Bosnia freely committed genocide against Muslims. Bosnian Serbs operated under the local leadership of Radovan Karadzic, president of the illegitimate Bosnian Serb Republic. Karadzic had once told a group of journalists, "Serbs and Muslims are like cats and dogs. They cannot live together in peace. It is impossible."
When Karadzic was confronted by reporters about ongoing atrocities, he bluntly denied involvement of his soldiers or special police units.
On February 6, 1994, the world's attention turned completely to Bosnia as a marketplace in Sarajevo was struck by a Serb mortar shell killing 68 persons and wounding nearly 200. Sights and sounds of the bloody carnage were broadcast globally by the international news media and soon resulted in calls for military intervention against the Serbs.
The U.S. under its new President, Bill Clinton, who had promised during his election campaign in 1992 to stop the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, now issued an ultimatum through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) demanding that the Serbs withdraw their artillery from Sarajevo. The Serbs quickly complied and a NATO-imposed cease-fire in Sarajevo was declared.
The U.S. then launched diplomatic efforts aimed at unifying Bosnian Muslims and the Croats against the Serbs. However, this new Muslim-Croat alliance failed to stop the Serbs from attacking Muslim towns in Bosnia which had been declared Safe Havens by the U.N. A total of six Muslim towns had been established as Safe Havens in May 1993 under the supervision of U.N. peacekeepers.
Bosnian Serbs not only attacked the Safe Havens but also attacked the U.N. peacekeepers as well. NATO forces responded by launching limited air strikes against Serb ground positions. The Serbs retaliated by taking hundreds of U.N. peacekeepers as hostages and turning them into human shields, chained to military targets such as ammo supply dumps.
At this point, some of the worst genocidal activities of the four-year-old conflict occurred. In Srebrenica, a Safe Haven, U.N. peacekeepers stood by helplessly as the Serbs under the command of General Ratko Mladic systematically selected and then slaughtered nearly 8,000 men and boys between the ages of twelve and sixty - the worst mass murder in Europe since World War II. In addition, the Serbs continued to engage in mass rapes of Muslim females.
On August 30, 1995, effective military intervention finally began as the U.S. led a massive NATO bombing campaign in response to the killings at Srebrenica, targeting Serbian artillery positions throughout Bosnia. The bombardment continued into October. Serb forces also lost ground to Bosnian Muslims who had received arms shipments from the Islamic world. As a result, half of Bosnia was eventually retaken by Muslim-Croat troops.
Faced with the heavy NATO bombardment and a string of ground losses to the Muslim-Croat alliance, Serb leader Milosevic was now ready to talk peace. On November 1, 1995, leaders of the warring factions including Milosevic and Tudjman traveled to the U.S. for peace talks at Wright-Patterson Air Force base in Ohio.
After three weeks of negotiations, a peace accord was declared. Terms of the agreement included partitioning Bosnia into two main portions known as the Bosnian Serb Republic and the Muslim-Croat Federation. The agreement also called for democratic elections and stipulated that war criminals would be handed over for prosecution. 60,000 NATO soldiers were deployed to preserve the cease-fire.
By now, over 200,000 Muslim civilians had been systematically murdered. More than 20,000 were missing and feared dead, while 2,000,000 had become refugees. It was, according to U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke, "the greatest failure of the West since the 1930s."
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Monotheism and White Supremacy
Part IV: Human, Cultural and Religious Evolution
Belief Systems, Monotheism and White Supremacy
By Heather Gray
Introduction
This is part IV of what I began a few months ago: "Part I: History and Violence of Christianity", "Part II: The Roots of White Supremacy" and "Part III: About the Advent of Agriculture and Hierarchy".
In the previous article I addressed issues surrounding the advent of agriculture. The primary theses are that with agriculture we witnessed the beginning of hierarchical societies and the desire by the elite and others to have a "surplus" of food readily available. The question was, as always, how to ensure the surplus? What tools are needed for that purpose? Religion was one of those critical devices.
Scholar Jared Diamond notes that the roles of religion are the following - and which have ebbed and flowed over time: (1) explanation of the world around us which he notes was the original function; (2) diffuse anxiety; (3) provide comfort; (4) organization and obedience; (5) codes of behavior towards strangers; (6) justifying war; (7) badges of commitment (Diamond - "The World Until Yesterday"). I will touch upon some but not all of these and primarily "organization and obedience".
Changing our Belief Systems
The complexity of creation stories and other vast components of the world's spiritual elements in hunter-gatherer societies that tend to venture into all aspects of our lives and environment, had likely been too complex and time consuming for the humans living on the huge plains of Central Asia, North Africa and elsewhere as the domestication of plants evolved. In fact, North Africans, followed by Europeans, due largely to the advent of agriculture, began to develop a more toned down and/or refined and simplified version of the spirit or religious world - as in ultimately with the monotheistic creation of Judaism, as the progenitor, followed by Christianity and Islam. In many instances, what might have been profound about these faiths has, historically, often been twisted for the service of the elite.
With Christians there was one God, one savior, and a heaven (along with prescribed ways to get there) which was a radically reduced, refined or less complex belief system then was the case with hunter-gatherer societies. Further, the monotheistic religions radically changed our concepts of and relationship to nature. They essentially took the belief of the "divine" out of our understanding of the natural world. Regarding a substantive inclusion of nature in the faith, it is interesting to compare this with the Hindu faith that precedes Christianity by some 2,000 years:
Western religious thought based upon Biblical traditions regards nature as something created by God. If nature is sacred, it is so as God's creation. This is the basis of the approach to ecology in western religious traditions. They ask us to protect nature as God's creation, but do not afford nature any sanctity of its own. However, they are generally suspicious of nature Gods and regard worshiping the Earth itself as a form of idolatry. That is why they have historically rejected nature based or pagan religions as unholy, including Hinduism.
The Hindu view of nature is based upon the Vedas, Upanishads and Vedanta and their philosophical views, as well as Hindu devotional and ritualistic practices. According to Hindu thought, there is no separation between the Divine and the world of nature. They are the two aspects of the same reality. The cosmic reality is one like the ocean. Nature or the manifest world is like the waves on the surface of the sea. Brahman or the unmanifest Absolute is like the depths of the sea. But it is all water, all the same single ocean (Hindu View of Nature).
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Hindu texts and scriptures are full of references to the worship of the divine in nature. And they continue to be relevant today. Millions of Hindus recite Sanskrit mantras daily that revere their rivers, mountains, trees and animals. Many also follow, for religious reasons, a vegetarian diet and oppose the institutionalized killing of animals for human consumption. The Earth, depicted as a Goddess or "Devi", is worshipped in many Hindu rituals. (GLOBAL IDEAS) |
As with agriculture, monotheism also radically altered the status of women in society and had males dominating in the belief system - a male God, male savior and prophets etc. which then effected the social relationships and attitudes toward women and more often maligned them or lowered their status considerably. Monotheistic religions are often referred to, appropriately, as patriarchal. Before males predominated in the now contemporary major religious faiths, there were both female and male goddesses and gods in most of our religions, in fact:
In the agricultural society, having a more simplified religious system helped to control the masses - everyone was seemingly to be on one accord with the elite having a higher status within the religious infrastructure. As mentioned, the powers that be wanted to ensure surplus food availability for non-farmers and the workers/farmers were required to fulfill that demand (Diamond - "The World Until Yesterday"). For that purpose, religion (Christianity or not) was used as a vehicle for making sure people fulfilled those demands and acted appropriately. In other words, from the outset there was a system of slave-like conditions.
Prior to the exclusivism of the Monotheists, there were hundreds of gods and goddesses alive and worshipped in cultures throughout the world. There is evidence that the early Jews worshipped Asherah, a goddess, along with Yahweh, their male deity, and the Jewish mystical tradition acknowledges Shekinah as the feminine principle of life....
When gods are both male and female, there is some parity between men and women. Both have their proper roles, and both are Divine....
When a solo male God became the source of life and salvation, feminine characteristics got transferred to masculine. When God, and men, are responsible for fertility, nature, creation and destruction, the feminine gets shoved aside, destroyed, or buried in the rubble (Goodman).
In the agricultural society, having a more simplified religious system helped to control the masses - everyone was seemingly to be on one accord with the elite having a higher status within the religious infrastructure. As mentioned, the powers that be wanted to ensure surplus food availability for non-farmers and the workers/farmers were required to fulfill that demand (Diamond - "The World Until Yesterday"). For that purpose, religion (Christianity or not) was used as a vehicle for making sure people fulfilled those demands and acted appropriately. In other words, from the outset there was a system of slave-like conditions.
As Diamond has said, one of the functions of religion was "organization and obedience". (Diamond - "The World Until Yesterday"). Below he explains the process:
...how does the chief or king get the peasants to tolerate what is basically the theft of their food by classes of social parasites?....The solution devised by every well-understood chiefdom and early state society - from ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, through Polynesia, Hawaii, to the Inca Empire - was to proclaim an organized religion with the following tenets: the chief or king is related to the gods, or even is a god; and he or she can intercede with the gods on behalf of the peasants, e.g., to send rain or to ensure a good harvest (Diamond - "The World Until Yesterday").
To repeat, the agricultural society, with its its attendant monotheistic faith, was overall about hierarchy and wealth accumulation.
Karl Marl, who wisely noted that religion was an "opiate" of the masses, would appreciate Diamond's historical account. Yet, Marx's "opiate" strategy had been created centuries before his assessment in the 19th century. Also, as the Dalai Lama has stated, "Marx was not actually against religion or religious philosophy per se, but 'against religious institutions that were allied, during Marx's time, with the European ruling class'" (Smithers).
Karl Marl, who wisely noted that religion was an "opiate" of the masses, would appreciate Diamond's historical account. Yet, Marx's "opiate" strategy had been created centuries before his assessment in the 19th century. Also, as the Dalai Lama has stated, "Marx was not actually against religion or religious philosophy per se, but 'against religious institutions that were allied, during Marx's time, with the European ruling class'" (Smithers).
Monotheism in Europe
The control of the people continued as monotheism became engrained in the subsequent European culture. Further, with Christianity, Europeans ultimately decided they had all the answers regarding the creation story and everything else religious, which included the correct way to worship with all the attendant ceremonies that developed over time. As they proclaimed they had all the answers, anyone who might challenge Christianity in Europe and most certainly those outside of Europe, was suspect. Further, historically, as Christianity became more powerful throughout much of the early church history, anyone who challenged the church in Europe was often vulnerable to losing his or her livelihood or life.
In addition to a food supply through exploitation and desire for wealth, the diverse agricultural society began to build structures, buildings, vehicles for travel (sea and land), and weapons systems to eventually control more land and people of the world. Europeans thought of themselves superior compared to others, under the circumstances, or compared to those without these structures, weapons and Christianity.
For centuries, the Catholic Church was ultimately the largest and most powerful Christian entity in Europe. Ultimately, the formidable aristocracy and the governments aligned themselves with the church as well, of course - it was too dangerous not to do so. And through the excessive violence of the Crusades (starting in 1096) and other intimidating practices, the Catholic Church made sure it had an obedient populace throughout its geographic area in Europe. But regardless of whether it was the Catholic or ultimately the addition of the Protestant church in Europe, the fundamentals of the faith were much the same. Virtually all had belief in the selfsame God, Jesus, the gospels etc., in varying degrees, and they all seemingly agreed (outwardly at least) that this was the ultimate truth. With their certainty of the truth, Europeans then colonized most of the world along with their missionaries as the shock troops.
A different spirituality or religion other than Christianity was, therefore, an excuse to exploit other cultures throughout the world. This was, then, coupled with "people of color", other than those with white skin, as another excuse to exploit. It was a deadly mixture - Christianity plus racism. I define racism as follows: "Almost everyone or every group discriminates in some way, however "racism" is having the power to enforce your discriminatory attitudes or beliefs". Europeans ultimately had the "power" to enforce their discriminatory beliefs and we still suffer from this.
Europeans in their arrogance even decided, as another excuse to exploit, that people other than themselves were not human or perhaps did not have souls.
Europeans in their arrogance even decided, as another excuse to exploit, that people other than themselves were not human or perhaps did not have souls.
British historian Michael Wood says it best. He"asserts that the indigenous peoples were not considered to be human beings and that the colonizers were shaped by 'centuries of Ethnocentrism, and Christian monotheism, which espoused one truth, one time and version of reality''" (Wikipedia).
This "superior" attitude predominated as Europeans began to colonize and it was around this time that racial differences became yet another tool for exploitation to take other lands and control its people. In a review of of Robert Sussman's "Myth of Race" (2014) the following is noted about the beginnings racial hierarchies:
These hierarchies of racial inequality were created around the same time as European exploration and colonisation was beginning. In the ensuing five centuries, there has been a more sophisticated development of notions of race that incorporate science, politics, religion and social organisation to promote ruling regimes at the expense of the powerless (Moses).
Concerning ideas about those outside of Europe, it is best expressed by the Pope himself. The first wave of European colonialism and empire building, in fact, started in the early 15th century with the Portuguese conquest of Cueta in 1415 and has been on-going ever since in varying degrees. Here's information about the Pope's comments in 1455:
Religious zeal played a large role in Spanish and Portuguese overseas activities. While the Pope himself was a political power to be heeded (as evidenced by his authority to decree whole continents open to colonization by particular kings), the Church also sent missionaries to convert to the Catholic faith the indigenous of other continents. Thus, the 1455 Papal Bull Romanus Pontifex granted the Portuguese all lands behind Cape Bojador and allowed them to reduce pagans and other enemies of Christ to perpetual slavery (Wikipedia).
The above was the "Bull Romanus Pontifex (Nicholas V) on January 8, 1455. Here is some background:
The kingdoms of Portugal and Castile had been jockeying for position and possession of colonial territories along the African coast for more than a century prior to Columbus'"discovery" of lands in the western seas. On the theory that the Pope was an arbitrator between nations, each kingdom had sought and obtained Papal bulls at various times to bolster its claims, on the grounds that its activities served to spread Christianity.
The bull Romanus Pontifex is an important example of the Papacy's claim to spiritual lordship of the whole world and of its role in regulating relations among Christian princes and between Christians and "unbelievers" ("heathens" and "infidels"). This bull became the basis for Portugal's later claim to lands in the "new world," a claim which was countered by Castile and the bull Inter caetera in 1493 (Native Web).
Essentially, the Pope in 1455 gave his followers the message that anyone in the world who didn't believe in Christ (the pagans) could be enslaved forever. In fact, finally, it was in the 1990's that Pope John Paul II apologized for much the Catholic Church had done for centuries including its involvement in the African slave trade - see below a partial list of the Pope's apologies in the 1990's.
Pope Paul II's apologies in 1990s and 2000s
Pope Paul II officially made public apologies for over 100 of wrongdoings by the Catholic Church, including (the dates are when he made the apology). Below are some of these apologies:
* The legal process on the Italian scientist and philosopher Galileo Galilei, himself a devout Catholic, around 1633 (31 October 1992).
* Catholics' involvement with the African slave trade (9 August 1993).
* The Church's role in burnings at the stake and the religious wars that followed the Protestant Reformation (May 1995, in the Czech Republic).
* The injustices committed against women, the violation of women's rights and for the historical denigration of women (29 May 1995, in a "letter to women").
* The inactivity and silence of many Catholics during the Holocaust (16 March 1998)
* For the execution of Jan Hus in 1415 (18 December 1999 in Prague). When John Paul II visited Prague in 1990s, he requested experts in this matter "to define with greater clarity the position held by Jan Hus among the Church's reformers, and acknowledged that "independently of the theological convictions he defended, Hus cannot be denied integrity in his personal life and commitment to the nation's moral education." It was another step in building a bridge between Catholics and Protestants.
* For the sins of Catholics throughout the ages for violating "the rights of ethnic groups and peoples, and [for showing] contempt for their cultures and religious traditions". (12 March 2000, during a public Mass of Pardons).
* For the actions of the Crusader attack on Constantinople in 1204. To the Patriarch of Constantinople he said "Some memories are especially painful, and some events of the distant past have left deep wounds in the minds and hearts of people to this day. I am thinking of the disastrous sack of the imperial city of Constantinople, which was for so long the bastion of Christianity in the East. It is tragic that the assailants, who had set out to secure free access for Christians to the Holy Land, turned against their own brothers in the faith. The fact that they were Latin Christians fills Catholics with deep regret. How can we fail to see here the mysterium iniquitatis at work in the human heart? ".
On 20 November 2001, from a laptop in the Vatican, Pope John Paul II sent his first e-mail apologising for the Catholic sex abuse cases, the Church-backed "Stolen Generations" of Aboriginal children in Australia, and to China for the behaviour of Catholic missionaries in colonial times.
An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie, for an excuse is a lie guarded.
-Pope John Paul II (Wikipedia)
Conclusion
As the monotheistic concept spread to various parts of the world, the west encountered hunter-gatherer societies that had, of course, maintained their religious traditions as they had done for thousands of years. The hunter-gatherers, then, were ultimately to come up against aggressive and often arrogant Christians, who served the interests of the colonizers, who undermined these traditional societies, tried to control and, in many cases, destroy them altogether. After all, the European elite sought land, natural resources and labor for their own benefit.
It was this background out of which white supremacist attitudes grew and prevailed. Europeans thought they were superior because of the things they made and the beliefs they decided were true compared to everyone else. The Catholic church, among others, helped to mold this attitude.
The apologies from the Pope are certainly helpful and welcome, but we still suffer from the consequences of these church policies and attitudes that have in many instances become engrained in the western psyche.
The apologies from the Pope are certainly helpful and welcome, but we still suffer from the consequences of these church policies and attitudes that have in many instances become engrained in the western psyche.
Agriculture and monotheism also radically changed our social relationships from egalitarianism within our group, as hunter-gatherers, as well as between women and men. It importantly, in the European model, led toward racial inequality and slavery and moved us further away from nature.
In summary, the advent of agriculture was not about need or nutrition as some might say, it was ultimately about wealth for the few. Regarding the partnership between agriculture and monotheism, monotheism and/or religion was used as a tool to control the masses and perhaps to offer some comfort to those being exploited. Marx was right.
References
Armstrong, Karen A History of God: The 4000 Year Quest for Judaism, Christianity and Islam, A Ballantine Book, (Random House) (1993)
Beckert, Sven Empire of Cotton: A Global History Borzoi Book (Alfred A Knopf) (2014)
Diamond, Jared
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies W.W. Norton & Company (2006)
The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn From Traditional Societies? Viking (Penguin) (2012)\
Goodman, Lion "The Divine Masculine" Women Waking the Woirld (October 25, 2014)
Gray, Peter "How hunter-gatherers maintained their egalitarian ways" (Nov 2 2011)
Lorenz, David, The Role of the Christian Missionaries in Chinua Achebe's 'Things Fall Apart Seminar Paper, University of Stuttgart (May 2005)
Johnson, Theodore "Africans Have Apologized for Slavery, So Why Won't the US?" The Root
(June 2014)
Luthuli, Albert Let My People Go: The Autobiography of Albert Luthuli Tafleberg Publishers and Mafube Publishing (2006)
Manning, Richard Against the Grain: How Agriculture has Hijacked Civilization, North Print Press (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux) (2004)
Smithers, Stuart "The Spiritual Crisis of Capitalism: What would the Buddha do?" Adbusters (29 June 2012)
Sussman, Robert WaldThe Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea
President and Fellows of Harvard College (2014)
Wells, Spencer The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey Penguin, UK; Princeton University Press and Random House, US (2002)
White, Matthew Atrocities: The 100 Deadliest Episodes in Human History W.W. Norton & Company (2011)
Heather Gray is a writer and radio producer in Atlanta, Georgia and has also lived in Canada, Australia, Singapore, briefly in the Philippines and has traveled in southern Africa. She served as the director of the Non-Violent Program for Coretta Scott King in the mid-1980's in Atlanta; and for 24 years worked with the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund focusing on Black farmer issues and cooperative economic development. She holds degrees in anthropology and sociology.
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What If by Marvin X
Poem: What If
By Marvin X
What if there was no God but God
No Allah Jesus Jehovah Buddha Marx Lenin Jah Damballah
What if there was no God but God
No religion but God
No Muslim, Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Hindu
No God but God
No Baptist Sunni Shiite Zionist Hebrew Communist Sikh Catholic God in Christ
Methodist Sufi
Atheist
No God but God
No woman man child grandmother grandfather uncle aunt
No God but God
No holiday except everyday holy day
No Sabbath but everyday no Juma’a but everyday
No prayin but all day
All day we say nothing but No God but God
No more Bible Qur’an Torah
No God but God
No talk conversation no sermon no speech no words but silence and
NO God but God
No moaning no laughing
No God but God
No talk no tears no wars
No God but God
No killing no lying
No God but God
No Al Humdulilah
No Hallelujah
No Hail Krishna
No Jah Rastafari
No God but God
The One
The Unity
Eternal
Everlasting
Loving
Peaceful
Maker
Owner
No God but God
What if what if what if
Maybe maybe maybe
Believe it believe it
Because it is
One God One Truth One Reality One Unity
No sects schisms divisions religions boxes tribes nations
One humanity One God
What if there is no God but God
What if what if what if
No temple no church no masjed
No God but God
No preacher no imam no rabbi no priest no minister no shaman no poet
No God but God
No prophet no messenger no messiah
No God but God
What if gay marry gay
Lesbian marry lesbian
Man marry woman
Man marry women
Woman marry men
Ho’s be with tricks
Tricks be with ho’s
What if what if what if
There is No God but God
No one beats woman
No one beats man
No one beats child
No one kills no one
No God but God
What if there is no war
What if there is peace on the planet
No God but God
What if guns are no more
No God but God
All is God
God is All
God is the people
God is the cow
God is the horse
God is the tree
God is the river
God is the fish
God is the child
God is the youth
God is the old people
God is the poor
God is the rich
God is the hungry
God is the sick
God is the dope fiend
God is the alcoholic
God is the sinner
No God but God
What if what if what if
There is no God but God
What if God is the captive you won’t liberate
The child you won’t love
The mama you hate
The daddy you hate
What if there is No God but God
What if God is the fear
You won’t release
God is the pain you won’t release
God is the love you won’t release
God is the tears you won’t cry
God is the lies you tell
God is the mountain you won’t climb
God is the success you won’t try
God is the beauty you don’t see
God is time
Running out the hourglass
God is the body you refuse to heal
God is the mind you refuse to feed
What if what if what if
What if God is ready when you ain’t ready
What if God is ready when you get ready
What if what if what if
What if there is no God but God
What if God is the forgiveness you won’t give
What if God is the denial you drown in like a hog in slop
What if what if what if
What if God is the peace in your house
The love in your life
The joy on your face
The happiness in your heart
The thankfulness of your smile
What if there is NO God but God
What if my life and my death are all for God
Not for woman, not for man
Not over a woman, not over a man
Life and death are all for God
What if what if what if
What if I grieve for nothing
Because God is everything
Whatever God wants I want
Whatever God don’t want I don’t want
Whatever God has I have
Whatever God don’t have I don’t want
What if what if what if
There is No God but God.
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Hubris Syndrome--Psychologists Discover New Personality Disorder Among Political Leaders--Parable of the Parrot by Marvin X
Copyright 2015, and all prior years, zoomhealth.net, all rights reserved.
Hubris Syndrome - Psychologists Discover New Personality Disorder Among Political Leaders
October 30, 2010, last updated April 29, 2012
By LOUISE CARR, Contributing Columnist
It’s commonly believed that politicians won’t get anywhere in today’s political climate without a strong dose of persuasiveness, charm, self-confidence, and the willingness to take risks and make difficult decisions. After all, who elects a leader who shies away from decision-making and doesn’t speak up for the country? You don’t even consider running for office unless you believe you are the best person for it.
But these qualities of successful leadership often walk hand-in-hand with less desirable traits – refusal to listen to advice, impetuous behavior, impulsiveness and recklessness.
According to a new study by David Owen and Jonathan Davidson at the House of Lords, London, UK and the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, USA, published in 2009, when these negative traits take over, the leader’s capacity to make judgments and decisions is severely compromised, leading to political and societal disaster.
This behavior, the researchers claim, points to "hubris"--- an excessive pride and self-confidence along with overwhelming contempt for others. Is hubris an exaggerated form of normal leadership characteristics? Or is hubris in political leaders an alarming personality disorder that causes harm to everyday people?
What Is Hubris Syndrome?
The authors look at hubris in leaders as a personality disorder, a syndrome with defined symptoms and a cause. Power causes hubris syndrome – it’s a disorder of power and high office, particularly when power is associated with success and when minimal restraints are placed on the leader. Symptoms of hubris syndrome may be familiar to anyone who has observed the nastier side of politics over the years.
People with hubris syndrome often take action first and foremost to enhance their own image and place an exaggerated importance on how they look and come across to the public. That politician who turns up only to events that further their career and has a scripted response that always manages to be about themselves? Hubris syndrome.
Leaders with hubris syndrome tend to speak in a messianic tone, showing high levels of self confidence that border on the “god-like.” Hubris syndrome sufferers equate themselves with a higher power and believe they are accountable only to that higher power – not to the people. The leader who uses the royal “we” – “we have become a grandmother” – is exhibiting hubris syndrome.
Hubris syndrome is characterized by a loss of contact with reality, a reckless and restless impulse ultimately ending in incompetence.
Who Suffers From Hubris Syndrome?
Parable of the Parrot by Marvin X
The economic and political dependence of this African neo-colonial bourgeoisie is reflected in its culture of apenmanship and parrotry enforced on a restive population through police boots, barbed wire, a gowned clergy and judiciary; their ideas are spread by a corpus of state intellectuals, the academic and journalistic laureates of the neo-colonial establishment.
--Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Decolonizing the Mind
for Ngugi Wa Thiong'o and the Pan African Revolution
The king wanted parrots around him. He wants all his ministers to wear parrot masks. He said he had to do the same for the previous king. He only said what the king wanted to hear, nothing more, so he advised his ministers to do the same. In fact, they must encourage the people to become parrots.
Yes, he wanted a nation of parrots. Don't say anything the kings does not want to hear. Everything said should be music to his ears. And don't worry, he will tell you exactly what he wants to hear in his regular meetings and public addresses to the nation. Everyone will be kept informed what parrot song to sing. No one must be allowed to disagree with the king. This would be sacrilegious and punishable by death.
The king must be allowed to carry out the dreams that come to his head. No one else should dream, only the king. In this manner, according to the king, the people can make real progress. There shall always be ups and downs, but have faith in the king and everything will be all right. Now everyone sing the national anthem, the king told the people.
There must be a chorus of parrots, a choir, mass choir singing in perfect unity. Let there be parrots on every corner of the kingdom, in every branch and tree. Let all the boys sing like parrots in the beer halls. Let the preacher lead the congregation in parrot songs. Let the teachers train students to sound like parrots. Let the university professors give good grades to those who best imitate parrot sounds. Let the journalists allow no stories over the airwaves and in print if they do not have the parrot sound.
The king was happy when the entire nation put on their parrot masks. Those who refused suffered greatly until they agreed to join in. The state academics and intellectuals joined loudly in parroting the king's every wish. Thank God the masses do not hear them pontificate or read their books. After all, these intellectual and academic parrots are well paid, tenured and eat much parrot seed.
Their magic song impresses the bourgeoisie who have a vested interest in keeping the song of the parrot alive. Deep down in the hood, in the bush, the parrot song is seldom heard, only the sound of the hawk gliding through the air in stone silence looking for a parrot to eat.
--Marvin X 4/5/10
from The Wisdom of Plato Negro, parables/fables, Black Bird Press, Oakland.
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The Coming Battle of Fallujah: it's about to get messy in Iraq!
It's about to get unspeakably messy in Iraq
By Pamela Engel10 hours ago
Iranian-backed Shia militias are preparing to launch an operation to retake Fallujah, a Sunni-dominated city in Iraq, from the Islamic State terror group, Loveday Morris of the Washington Post reports.
And it looks like it's going to get messy.
While Fallujah's proximity to Baghdad, Iraq's capital, makes it strategically important for the Iraqi government, sending in militias that have been known to burn down Sunni villages might not pay off in the long run.
Eissa al-Issawi, the head of Fallujah’s local council, told the Post that if the Shia militias are allowed to lead the charge to retake the city from Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL, Daesh), "there would be much destruction, and much blood."
US Marines fought the bloodiest battle of the Iraq war in Fallujah in 2004.
"Then fighting the Islamic State’s predecessor, the group known as al-Qaeda in Iraq, Marines fought street to street, contending with sniper fire, roadside bombs and booby-trapped buildings," Morris notes.
ISIS captured Fallujah in January 2014, and is consequently entrenched in the city. And the Iran-backed militias don't have the best track record: They struggled to oust a much smaller group of ISIS militants from the town of Tikrit and the US had to provide air cover to finish the siege.
Some residents want to leave Fallujah to escape the upcoming fight between ISIS and the Shia militias, but that doesn't seem possible.
A 29-year-old resident told the Post: "There’s a state of terror. We know there will be an assault, we want to leave, but Islamic State doesn’t let anyone leave. They want to use us as human shields."
Interesting map released by ISCI-tied PMU showing ISF & PMUs surrounding ISIS in Fallujah. Via @IraqLiveUpdate: pic.twitter.com/6epjGibL7z— Ahmed Ali (@IraqShamel) July 9, 2015And it's not just ISIS the civilians have to worry about.
The Shia militias, backed by Iran, are apparently close to running amok. Michael Pregent, a former US intelligence officer and military adviser to the Iraqi security forces, wrote this week that the Shia-led government in Baghdad might have little control over the militias it allows to fight the Islamic State (also known as ISIS, ISIL, and Daesh).
"The introduction of Shia militias into Sunni areas has a polarizing effect on the Sunni population," Pregent told Business Insider via email.
"They will be wearing green bandanas and have [Iranian Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei posters on their windshields and they are intentionally sending a message to the Sunni population [that] 'things have changed and we are now in control,' meaning Iranian-backed Shia militias now run the security and political apparatus."
(REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani ) A member from Hashid Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces) holds a picture of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (L) and Iraq's top Shi'ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani (R) in Baghdad March 31, 2015.
Morris wrote in the Post that "the move by the militias effectively carves operations against the extremists in Iraq’s Anbar province into two spheres of influence — with Iranian-supported militias zeroing in on Fallujah as US-backed forces target Ramadi, the provincial capital, 40 miles farther west toward the border with Syria."
(Google Maps) Fallujah is located between Ramadi and Baghdad.
The US has insisted that Iraqi security forces take the lead in the assault on Ramadi, so the Shia militias likely saw an opportunity with Fallujah.
"Fallujah is where the [Shia militias] know they can lead because leading the fight for Ramadi was never going to be an option for them," said Michael Knights, a research fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told the Post.
(The Institute for the Study of War)
Meanwhile, Sunni fighters that the US says are key to defeating ISIS for good have been largely sidelined in the fight so far because Baghdad and Tehran are reportedly concerned that they might one day rise up against the government.
This all leads to the current predicament of having Shia fighters moving into Sunni areas, rather than Sunni fighters defending their own territory.(Wikimedia Commons) Fallujah, Iraq.
Although Iraqi officials said in May that they've enlisted 1,000 fighters for a Sunni militia to aid the country's security forces in Sunni-dominated Anbar province, those fighters don't seem to be participating in the Fallujah operation. And Iran's influence in the region is becoming increasingly obvious.
This week, Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani was spotted near Fallujah:
— Elijah J. Magnier (@EjmAlrai) July 8, 2015Shia militias have emerged as the most effective fighting force against ISIS in Iraq, but some say the Shia fighters aren't much better than the ISIS terrorists they're trying to expunge. (Others, however, have welcomed the Shia militias as the best option for helping Sunni tribal fighters drive ISIS out of Iraq.)
Shiraz Maher, a senior fellow at the International Center for the Study of Radicalization and himself a former extremist, pointed out that, like ISIS, the Shia militias train child soldiers:
Just as Islamic State train child soldiers, here's the Iranian backed Hashed Ash-Shaabi doing exactly the same. pic.twitter.com/Z7vscPtPN2— Shiraz Maher (@ShirazMaher) July 8, 2015Sunnis in some areas that Shia militias have liberated from ISIS have complained that the militias view them with distrust and are preventing them from returning to their homes.
"The militias see no difference between Sunni military-aged-males and ISIS fighters," Pregent told Business Insider recently. "They view Sunnis that have not left ISIS-controlled areas as collaborators and use heavy handed tactics against the population. ISIS will exploit these events to the detriment of the US strategy and Baghdad."
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White woman killed on the street in Los Angeles
Carrie Jean Melvin, 30
Posted July 7, 2015
Shortly after 10 p.m., Melvin and her boyfriend were walking north on McCadden Place and were on their way to grab food when a black man walked up to the two and opened fire on the woman, police said.
The gunman then jumped into a black sedan and drove off, away from the popular tourist area.
Melvin was pronounced dead at the scene.
Investigators are still trying to determine why Melvin, 30, but not other people on the street at the time, was shot. Her boyfriend was unharmed.
There was no initial evidence suggesting the shooting was part of a botched robbery, LAPD Det. John Skaggs said. There was also no conversation between the couple and the gunman before he opened fire.
“We just don’t know,” Skaggs said. “On the one hand, she didn’t have any known enemies. On the other hand it looks like it was directed toward her … We’re looking at all angles.”
Melvin’s father called his daughter’s death “incredibly senseless.” Bernie Melvin said she had studied film at UC Santa Cruz and moved to Hollywood about four years ago to break into the entertainment industry. Like many young Angelenos, he said, Carrie Melvin worked several jobs – waitressing, bartending – while pursuing that dream.
“She was really kind of spreading her wings,” he said. “It’s an extreme loss to us. She had a lot to give and her life was cut short.”
Skaggs said that investigators believe the shooting was an isolated incident because the circumstances didn’t match any recent crimes.
Initial information suggests that the gunman acted alone. He was described as a male black in his mid-20s, about 6 feet tall, wearing dark clothes, including a dark hooded jacket.
Anyone with information can call detectives at (213) 382-9470. Those who wish to remain anonymous can call Crime Stoppers at (800) 222-8477.
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Black Bird Press News & Review: Notes on Marvin X's call for multiple wives and unlimited ho's (sex workers)
Black Bird Press News & Review: Notes on Marvin X's call for multiple wives and unlimited ho's (sex workers):
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3. No matter the sexual gender of said marriages, partner violence must be banned. Emotional violence must be banned. Verbal violence must be banned. And this must be true for tricks and sex workers as well. If you have been with sex workers, you know they will do things for you no wife will do, and their prime object is to satisfy you, for a price, of course. And most men will not hesitate to give the sex worker a generous reward for having a positive attitude, especially when she transcends the wife or wives.
4. As per multiple wives, do not bring two or more women together who do not like or love each other. This is setting the stage for a toxic hell that will be transmitted to the children. Trust me, I know this from experience. When it was clear to me my wives would never love each other, I shifted my focus to trying to make my children by different mother's love each other--I think I succeeded in this.
4. As per multiple wives, do not bring two or more women together who do not like or love each other. This is setting the stage for a toxic hell that will be transmitted to the children. Trust me, I know this from experience. When it was clear to me my wives would never love each other, I shifted my focus to trying to make my children by different mother's love each other--I think I succeeded in this.
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Marvin X reads at benefit for Y.E.S. (Youth Empowerment Services), Sunday, July 19, 2015
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