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Shani Baraka and her lover Ray Ray, killed by Shani's brother in law who came to kill her sister who was not at home. Shani was a lesbian but she told her mother, "Marvin X is the only man I like." See Marvin's essay Inside Baraka's The Toilet: A Love Letter to Gay and Lesbian Youth, Black Bird Press. "Shani was one of the most humble women I ever met. Everything I said to her she said 'Yes'! This is why I loved her and told her father I wanted to marry her." He thought I was joking after a night of drunkenness but I was serious in my old man wretchedness. After I told Shani to come back to the West coast with me and she said yes, I told Amiri I wanted to marry Shani. He said, "Marvin, you get drunk and say the damnest things!" But I was so serious I told her mother, Amina, and she said, "Take her!" But I never did, so see my essay above Love Letter to Gay and Lesbian Youth." I am honored to say I was the first person to sleep in her bedroom after her transition to the ancestors, a bedroom full of her trophies as guard basketball player. As a guard myself, I never thought about challenging her to a one on one and I played with the best at Oakland's playground of champion's Bobby Hutton Park, aka, Defermery Park.
Darrel Jackmon and father Marvin X
"He was the love of my life."
