Just know this: when Marvin X concluded his remarks and departed the stage, he was congratulated by the audience, who overwhelmingly enjoyed his remarks.
Marvin X
Berkeley Juneteenth
Sunday, June 21, 2015
Black Arts Movement poet/playwright/essayist Marvin X was allowed five minutes by MC James W. Sweeney. Sweeney is a close friend and supporter of Marvin X. In his Forward to Marvin's book of essays In the Crazy House Called America, 2002, Sweeney said, "Courageous and outrageous! He walked through the muck and mire of hell and come out clean as white fish and black as coal."
Sweeney recently experienced the Human Earthquake at the Second Annual Sacramento Black Book Fair. The book fair planning committee congratulated Marvin X for bringing the event alive, for spitting truth with fire, in the grand oral tradition of North American Africans. But with Marvin X it is not only how he speaks truth but the raw (thirty hitter package, in drug culture linguistics) nature of his narrative. "Ain't no shame in my game!"
He began with thanking the Berkeley Juneteenth planning committee, then gave honor to ancestor Lothario Lotho who was the MC until he joined the ancestors. The crowd gave honor and respect to Lothario Lotho. Marvin knew Lothario's mother who was an actress with playwright Ed Bullins who joined with Marvin X to found Black Arts West Theatre, San Francisco, 1967. When Marvin X connected with Ed Bullins, Lothario's mother was acting in an Ed Bullin's play, thus, Lothario was a child of the Black Arts Movement.
Since it was Father's Day, Marvin X not only honored fathers but all the mothers who are fathers as well. The crowd cheered! FYI, Marvin X is the child of a mother who raised nine children of her own by herself and two grandchildren who thought their grandmother was their mother! At the same time, Marvin X's mother was the first Black woman real estate broker in Fresno, CA. With Marvin's father, his mother published the Fresno Voice, a black newspaper, along with their real estate business during the late 40s and into the 50s, until they were forced to depart Fresno when his father violated his fiduciary relationship as a real estate broker. The moved to West Oakland where his parents opened a florist shop. Marvin X grew up on 7th and Campbell, on the strip of Harlem West. His parents were part of the petit black bourgeoisie who had enough consciousness to do for self in the tradition of Marcus Garvey and Elijah Muhammad. Marvin's parents were in the tradition of the Race Man and Race Woman, the Black Nationalist tradition.
Marvin X spoke about South Carolina and the mass murder of nine people in a church, founded by Demark Vesey who plotted a revolt at the church in 1822. Marvin X said, "Uncle Tom nigguhs snitched to the massa. We still got Uncle Tom nigguhs round here today, right now...."
Then he turned to the white woman who wants to be black. He said, "I support the white woman who wants to be black. I don't support black women who want to be white! I don't support black women in blond wigs and bleaching cream, Korean eyes, Korean nails!"
I am here to tell the truth, this is why I am not attracted to money. If you stay poor, you can tell the truth, Dr. Nathan Hare told me. Now if money is your objective, you must decide what side you are on. My mentor Sun Ra said there are musicians who commercialized on the Creator and departed the planet as a result. My life is not about money, but truth!
As I conclude, I want to congratulate the Berkeley Juneteenth planning committee, especially the editor of Vision Magazine, Delores Nochi Edwards, James W. Sweeney, Berkeley NAACP President
Mansour Id-deen
Marvin X spoke about South Carolina and the mass murder of nine people in a church, founded by Demark Vesey who plotted a revolt at the church in 1822. Marvin X said, "Uncle Tom nigguhs snitched to the massa. We still got Uncle Tom nigguhs round here today, right now...."
Then he turned to the white woman who wants to be black. He said, "I support the white woman who wants to be black. I don't support black women who want to be white! I don't support black women in blond wigs and bleaching cream, Korean eyes, Korean nails!"
I am here to tell the truth, this is why I am not attracted to money. If you stay poor, you can tell the truth, Dr. Nathan Hare told me. Now if money is your objective, you must decide what side you are on. My mentor Sun Ra said there are musicians who commercialized on the Creator and departed the planet as a result. My life is not about money, but truth!
As I conclude, I want to congratulate the Berkeley Juneteenth planning committee, especially the editor of Vision Magazine, Delores Nochi Edwards, James W. Sweeney, Berkeley NAACP President
Mansour Id-deen
At the end of his five minute speech, Sweeney asked the poet if he wanted to read a poem. Marvin declined, telling Sweeney, "Read you poem, Sweeney! as he exited the stage.
Now if Marvin had had his way, he romantically and idealistically wanted to read Father's Day in Harlem, from Love and War Poems, 1995, Black Bird Press:
Now if Marvin had had his way, he romantically and idealistically wanted to read Father's Day in Harlem, from Love and War Poems, 1995, Black Bird Press:
Father's Day in Harlem
Father's Day in Harlem
ain't nothin nice
Nothin like Mother's Day
oh, no
Father's Day is sad
like a funeral
with
no
body in the casket
Ma Daddy?
Where is the Motherfucker?
You seen him?
I'm lookin fada no good son of a bitch!
I ain't got no gift fa his ass
He better have somethin fa me
no good bastard
II
Well, he ma daddy
what the hell
he all ite sometimes
when I see him
whenever that is
when he got money
ain't chasin women
drunk high
he all ite
sometimes
Marvin X
6.17.95
Philly
As per the image of the Black Soldiers during and after the Civil War, we lament that 200,000 North American African brothers with arms, disarmed and we have suffered ever since, our lives have been at the whim of White Supremacy America! We need a North American African security force in every community, coast to coast. The Arabs say, "Truth in Allah but tie your camel!"