Culture Pimps and Ho's in the BAMBD by Marvin X

Culture Pimps and Ho's in the BAMBD

My chief adviser, Rt. Col. Conway Jones, Jr., said to me from the beginning of our symbiotic relationship, i.e., how does a decorated USA military man and a revolutionary Black Nationalist join hands for the betterment of their people in particular and the American people in general?

Nevertheless, these two dirty old men came together in one of America's most radical cities, Oakland, California to advance the cultural revolution of America. Rt. Air Force Col. Jones told the revolutionary poet on the 50h Anniversary of the Black Arts Movement, "Marvin, your production of this event is the biggest thing to happen in Oakland in the last fifty years. This is your time and I support your effort. Just know this: the arts is the most dangerous game in town!"

"More dangerous than politics, economics, religion?"

He replied, "Yes, more dangerous than all those institutions because the arts provide the mythology and propaganda of those institutions. And there is steep competition among artists for the meager resources society provides for struggling artists, no matter what color or class."

So, does this turn artists into pimps and ho's?

"You said it, I didn't! Just know this, whatever you do, you must do it alone because nobody is with you, you are by yourself."

The colonel was not telling me anything new. I recited him my poem entitled I'll Walk Alone."

To myself, I recalled when San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown invited my theatre group to San Francisco after sending his man to view my play One Day in the Life at Oakland's Uhuru House. San Francisco artists objected to our coming into their city, even though my artistic career began at San Francisco State University and the founding of Black Arts West Theatre in the Fillmore. 

But more recently in Oakland, a foundation told me if I wanted a grant I had to partner with a local group that refused to meet with me since they wanted a monopoly on any grant funds coming into the hood. Even after blocking me from getting the grant funds, these rats appeared along side me to receive a commendation from the Alameda County Board of Supervisors.

Of course, artists are known to steal ideas from their socalled comrades. When you establish an original institution, soon come the pseudo artists with their Miller Lite version of such, and of course their Miller Lite version is more acceptable to the establishment and the authentic institution never receives the proper foundation and corporate funding as the pseudo organization with their Miller Lite aesthetics and fake radical ideology, including their multi-cultural, post racial mission of authenticity.

The people have begged me to make such information known to them so they can distinguish the fake from the real, but in the effort to establish a unified front, we have said nothing until now. And even now we say, unity, criticism, unity. Further, lakum dinukum waliya din (Arabic: to you your way and to me mine!).

But the hour is late so we say what we know, especially since it is in harmony with the instructions of my adviser, Col. Conway Jones, Jr. Of course, people ask me why am I associated with a US military man? I say this, "I'd rather be with a true trooper, mass killer, than with a punk bitch ass pseudo revolutionary artist, fake pimp/ho cultural worker, a sycophant of the reactionary political order that will sell out the people for bullshit political correctness, no matter if the people are forced to live in tents under overpasses. It doesn't matter to the artists and politicians allied in a most pitiful association that puts party above the people they claim to represent.

Even though the Col. is a Republican, he sought to bring funds to Oakland from the Trump administration for low-income housing. But he found no takers in the Democratic sycophants of Oakland, including the religious order, political establishment, developers and corporations. He made an appointment for me as co-founder of the Black Arts Movement Business District, to meet with the Trump Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Dr. Ben Carson, But no developer was interested in funds for low-income housing from the Trump administration, so the tent cities continue to grow in Oakland. And the political establishment is just fine with this emergency situation.

 In our beloved city of San Francisco, we have been informed homeless shelters are filled with North American Africans, yes, until they are forced into the central valley towns so the gentrifiers can replace them in the cities, especially areas like Hunters Point, Fillmore and across the Bay in West Oakland (Former Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, now Governor, said, "West Oakland is closer to San Francisco than San Francisco, meaning the West Oakland BART can get riders to San Francisco's financial district in five minutes, so they can maintain their pitiful lives of nothingness and dread, their world of make believe and conspicuous consumption.

The artists are quickly bought off with kibbles and bits of benefits so they will not oppose the mass displacement of the masses whom they falsely claim to be the artistic and cultural representatives. But they are pimps and ho's representing themselves only and in no way can claim to be artistic freedom fighters in the tradition of ancestor Paul Robeson.

--Marvin X

4/28/17