Today's UCLA shooting: Deja Vu, 1969, two Black Panther Party leaders slain at UCLA

As soon as we heard the news about two killed at UCLA, we flashed back to the 1969 murder of Black Panther Party members Alprintice Bunchy Carter and John Huggins in the Black Student Union meeting room. The latest twin killing appears to be a murder suicide, not similar to the killing of BPP leaders Bunchy and Huggins, supposedly in a power struggle over the BSU between the BPP and the US organization headed by Ron Karenga, labeled as a "cultural nationalist" by the BPP. FYI, the BPP called all those who did not believe in armed revolution as cultural nationalists. We know the US organization (socalled founders of Kwanza but we learned Kwanza originated in Oakland with the Afro-American Association, of which Ron Karenga was the Los Angeles representative) was connected with COINTELPRO (the US Government's counter intelligence program to prevent Black Liberation, including the rise of a Black Messiah, Hoover). Geronimo Ja Jigga who assumed leadership of the Black Panther Party upon the death of Bunchy, put the blame squarely on the police rather than the US organization, although the Steiner brothers were members of US and were charged and convicted of the twin murder.

Geronimo served 27 years in prison after COINTELPRO framed him for a murder he didn't commit since he was in Oakland at a Black Panther Party central committee meeting, taped by the FBI but when the BPP split between Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver, the Oakland BPP would not testify for Geronimo because he was part of the Eldridge Cleaver faction. And of course the FBI would not disclose their recordings that revealed Geronimo was in Oakland.


His years in prison, humbled Geronimo to the extent when Ron "Maulana" Karenga arrived in San Quentin Prison for terrorizing Black women, i.e., forcing a water hose down their throats because he suspected they were snitches, he told the brothers who wanted to take out Karenga to give him a pass and they did.

Ironically or strangely, the Steiner brothers went to prison and served time in the same cell, then mysteriously escaped to reappear in French Guyana, South America. After years in exile, one brother turned himself in and was sent back to America to serve time although it was longer than he thought he had agreed to with the authorities. Nevertheless, he was released from San Quentin to Oakland, headquarters of the BPP, but he told people he was not afraid to be in the turf of the BPP. He had it together, yes, even though he will be present during the 50th anniversary of the BPP. Furthermore, he has done reconciliation with the widow of John Huggins, Ericka Huggins, so in his mind, everything is cool.

Since seeing Straight Outta Compton, I am reminded of the scene when the rappers who crossed each other, but soon after get in each others face like nothing has happened. This seems to be the nature of a certain kind of rat who will fuck over you then come around as though he's done nothing to you and want to continue business as usual. How do we categorize such rats: sewer rats, church rats, house rats, wharf rats or subway rats? And how do you include such rats in a United Front?

Parable of the Rats by Marvin X

The rats all have the same gait: they scurry about, back broken by an abundance of lies, half-truths and disinformation, defamation and other tactics of rat behavior. Even their facial expressions have a rat like appearance, so you can see them coming a mile away. You can smell a funky rat. We suspect the two legged variety even has a tail hidden inside their pants or underneath their dresses, yes, there are rats of every gender, every color, class. Some are sewer rats, some are wharf rats, some are subway rats, church rats, house rats. But their behavior is the same. They are on the lower level of humankind, these two legged rats. They can do nothing right. They cannot give justice even with the scale in view while they weigh goods. They will lie while you look at them playing with the scale. They will try to convince you the scale doesn't work while it is their minds that have not evolved to work on the human level.

There is only one thing to do with such rats: set a trap for them or feed them poison cheese and watch them puke and vomit until they die. Better yet, let the cat catch their asses. It is beautiful watching the cat catch a rat, seeing how still the cat will become while stalking his prey. But the cat will lie in wait for the rat as long as it takes, never moving, never batting his eye. And then he leaps upon his prey and devours him. It is a beautiful sight when when the cat and rat game reaches the climax and ends with the consumption of the rat by the cat.
--Marvin X
7/15/15



 The first time I met Eldridge and Bunchy was when the staff of Black Dialogue Magazine, who were mostly students in the BSU at San Francisco State College, now University, were invited to make a presentation to the Soledad Prison Black Cultural Club, 1966, which was in fact the foundation of the American Prison Movement. I observed the club was a military organization within the prison. Prison griot (historian) Kumasi said, "You guys had your revolution on the outside, we had our revolution on the inside! It was kill or be killed!"


I write this narrative because during this time I was fighting to teach in the Black Studies Department at Fresno State University. Governor Ronald Reagan told the State College Board of Trustees, of which he was president as governor, "Get Marvin X off campus by any means necessary."

My mother was a real estate broker in Fresno so when I didn't have classes at FSU, I would answer the phone at her office, A lady called and when I answered the phone, she said, "Is this Marvin X? Boy, you still out there fightin' dem white people? You ain't dead yet?"

No, I wasn't dead yet, and even the Black police said, "Marvin X, while you were fighting to teach at Fresno State College, you made things better for everybody, including us Black police. Before you came to FSU, we couldn't patrol the white side of town!"

But my most traumatic experience was my speaking tour of Los Angeles, sponsored by students who called themselves the United Students of California. They drove up to Fresno and San Francisco to support my court case in Fresno--I was issued a court restraining order to not enter the FSU campus.
The Los Angeles students took me on a tour of L.A., including the BPP office where they had the shootout with the L.A. pigs, blood still on the walls; then they took me to the UCLA BSU meeting room where Bunchy and John were killed, blood still on the walls!!!!! I wish somebody would help me!