Comments on Outlaw Magazine's feature essay "The Mythology of Pussy and Dick" by Marvin X/El Muhajhir

COMMENT Contents

Don’t judge a book by its cover, Delores Nochi Cooper

Marvin X in the Tradition, Lil’ Joe, RIP

Why Young Men and Women Need to Read MOPD, Rudolph Lews

Marvin X’s DNA, Fahizah Alim

Mr. Black Man, You don’t have a pussy!, Nisa Ra

Dear Marvin X, Kenyalyn Makone-Anunda

Confession of an Elder, Askia Toure

Notes from the Hip Hop Generation, Desirae Rosgen

Don’t judge a book by its cover 

Delores Nochi Cooper

“Is Marvin X the only courageous one among us who dares  ‘tell the truth and shame the devil’?”

–D. Nochi

Mythology of Pussy and Dick is a compilation of everything that Marvin X has written on the subject of sexuality in America. There are those who will miss this opportunity to receive wisdom from our brother because of the language he uses to describe the male and female anatomy, and that is a tragedy because this information is crucial for men and women who are suffering from a psycho-linguistic crisis and inflicting actual violence in their male/female and partner relations including same gender loving persons, and these dysfunctional interactions are witnessed by children who are the next generation of couples.  Those same people who dare to judge his  choice of words, linger in the comfort of their bedrooms watching violent shows on big screen TVs that depict graphic details of violence  perpetrated against others, and call they it entertainment. If children learn more from what they see than what we tell them, how will they process and act upon the continued sexual chaos that is being manifested in our families and our society? 

The author has proven himself to be a leader and a teacher who has the best interest of the community at heart.  He speaks truth with language that can be understood by the least of us and the best of us. His credentials supersedes his education at some of the finest institutions in California; he embraced the system and defied the system; he was oriented in the Muslim tradition of polygamy as plural marriage (see his play In the Name of Love, Laney College Theater production 1981); he has held his own with intellectuals and psychopaths; and he has evolved in the words of James Sweeney “…from the muck and mire of hell clean as white fish and as black as coal”, and as a living testament.

We all have war stories to tell relationships gone bad. The difference between Marvin X and the rest of us is that Marvin X has lived that what he is speaking about, has survived it and is willing to talk about it, and holds nothing back narrated in language that will grab your attention. 

Each story is rich with commentary which speaks to society’s attitudes about male and female relationships: rape, athletes, toxic love, crack house sex, women without men, language of love, religious persecution of women (a woman stoned); gay and lesbian youth, same sex marriage, and much more…

His method of writing parables as commentary about events in real time is ingenious. If you are a follower of his blog, then you know with each daily entry he not only provides us with happenings, locally and nationally, but he walks us through, and allowing us to take a look at those events from a historical and global perspective.

Marvin X has chosen to desensitize our society by using words like pussy and dick. Language is fluid and if it’s primary use is for communication, and if through words one fails to hit the target, then what is the point? It may be that the author is before his time, and in future generations, pussy and dick will become words of endearment, not relegated to the present negative connotations. Perhaps it will become a mantra chanted over and over as a pre-sex ritual. Why not? Lord knows we could use some more effective ways to get beyond reckless abandonment.

In this book, Marvin X demonstrates that he has a tender side, especially The Maid the Ho, the Cook.  Lil Joe describes this story as “One of the most beautiful pieces about real love I’ve ever read. The image of ‘crack-heads’ as scandalous and without human dignity is destroyed by Marvin’s recollection of this sister with whom he fell in love”. Because the object of mx’s affection is a whore, there are those, and you know who you are, who will lose the essence of this story which addresses real feelings and real interactions between a man and a woman, perhaps, you have only loved when it was safe to do so.  But all of us who have loved surely know that passion and feelings can at times be both spontaneous and unsolicited.

Is Marvin X the only courageous one among us who dares  “tell the truth and shame the devil”?

Delores Nochi Cooper

Lil’ Joe on Marvin X in the Tradition

Marvin X, as an artist i.e. truth teller-trailblazer,  you have always been cutting edge both in what you lived, experienced and the naked truth you bare in "emptying of Spirit out of itself" (as Hegel would put it) as did Trane's Offering. Very rare, and whether we all recognize it now or not we are fortunate to witness such openness and honesty, though it makes the smug uncomfortable in their fake comforts; show is the unessential masquerading as essential and therefore art as truth ripping off masks is often seen as dangerous exposure.

I was reading Delores Nochi's Introduction to your new contribution, Mythology of Pussy and Dick: Toward Healthy Psychosocial Sexuality, and thinking of what she observed: "Mythology of Pussy and Dick is a compilation of everything Marvin X has written on sexuality in America and the world. There are those who will miss this opportunity to receive wisdom from our brother because of the language he uses to describe the male and female anatomy, and his perceived objectification of women and men, and this is a tragedy because this information is crucial for men and women who are suffering from a psycholinguistic crisis inflicting actual violence upon lovers in their male/female and same gender loving relationships. These dysfunctional interactions are witnessed by children who are the next generation of couples....” I agreed with her and at the same time recalled the fate of those who preceded you in this undertaking – for instance the social scientist and psychologist Wilhelm Reich e.g. The Function of the Orgasm, Sexual Revolution and Sex-Pol [he was thrown into an American federal prison and his books burned in 1956, he died in an American prison in1957http://en.wikipedia/wiki/Book_burning#Wilhelm_Reich.27s_publications_.28by_U.S._Food_and_Drug_Administration.29

Also I thought of Lenny Bruce: Bruce served in the navy during World War II (1942-45) and began performing stand-up comedy in 1946. As he gained popularity in New York nightclubs, his brand of comedy shifted from impersonations to free-wheeling monologs satirizing religion and politics. He released several comedy albums and appeared occasionally on TV, especially as a guest of Steve Allen and Hugh Hefner. In 1961 he was arrested after a performance in San Francisco and charged with obscenity. Bruce was acquitted, but for the next few years he was frequently in trouble with the law for using raw language on stage -- a no-no back then. In 1964 he was convicted of obscenity in New York and jailed for a few months (in 2003 Governor George Pataki posthumously pardoned him). http://www.answers.com/topic/lenny-bruce

 .

Delores' take on the depth and honest language of your work also made me remember the radical 60s and the writings of early contemporary feminists, such as the analysis of sexual biology by Anne Koedt The Myth of Vaginal Orgasm http://www.uic.edu/orgs/cwluherstory/CWLUArchive/vaginalmyth.html

But more directly your artistic style and the Avant-Garde revolutionary love and rebellion poetry and music of Archie Shepp - in particular his Blase http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpE9SN81H6E

So! Your latest contribution here is evidence that the struggle continues! Thanks and stay strong!

--Lil Joe

Why our young men and women must read Marvin X’s MOPD, Rudolph Lewis

This book will be a great source by which young people can come to grips with their troubling sexuality. It will help move the internal conflicts from below the solar plexus to above the neck. For many young people, especially black men in their 20s and 30s, there is little more than hot amorphous vapor in that region. So-called urban lit is their bible in coming to grips with the violent urgings of their penis. I used to conceal my own risings with a jock strap. It took me some time to train myself to sit still: running after a woman, any attractive woman, was an addictive impact on the soul. Your teachings in this matter is a kind of how-to book, much needed within our oppressed communities where inordinate violence is turned within, on our women, on our children, and our reckless unfulfilled manhood.

--Rudolph Lewis, Editor, Chickenbones.com

On Marvin X’s DNA, Fahizah Alim

Another thing that can be said on your behalf is that you had good DNA to transmit to your children. And you selected good mothers to nurture your seed and rear your children while you were out and about struggling with your Nafs al-Ammara Bissu' (demons). Allah is the Best Knower. If you hadn't descended into "Hell" you wouldn't be able to understand the depth of the despair and desperation that encompasses so many of our Black Men, which also allows you to reach out to them and speak FOR them. Most often, it is the one who has experienced the most intense of life's experiences who is best able to produce great art that touches the heart. Can you imagine Aretha Franklin being able to sing " I Never Loved a Man" without having her heart crushed? To quote one appropriate old gospel hymn: "Must Jesus bear the Cross alone and all the World go Free? No, there's a cross for Everyone and there's a Cross for me."

--Fahizah

Mr. Black Man, You don’t have a pussy!, Nisa Ra

People write this word on the wall as if it is something dirty and nasty. How can the organ through which life is created be something nasty, not to be mentioned, as if it is vile? 

 And it ain't his--he don't have a pussy! When will men get this simple point?

We want to see people learn this information about themselves because there's other things to do in this world, responsibilities, other people depending on them--men need to stop thinking about how many pussies they can get with--how many women they have played when they have only played themselves--start doing what real men do--start constructing their place in the world--be there for their children--just as you are doing now, Muhajir (Marvin), helping your daughter with your grandson.

–Nisa Ra

Dear Marvin X,Kenyalyn Makone-Anunda

It is not often that I write commentaries but you asked for some feedback.

You will not remember me because so many people must have come by your table. However, the title of your book destabilized me so much so that I returned on Sunday - drove all the way from Delaware to purchase the $5 mythology series. I strive not to use graphic language in my speech so it is jarring to see it in text. I strive to avoid most graphic communicative language as much as possible, so I was surprised to find myself intrigued and captivated by the boldness of the title. It was an awkward experience to visit your table. Perhaps because I am researching female circumcision in Africa which was a rite of passage ritual for me at age 9.

We are a people coming to the truth too late. We have taught each other that one can only stand guard over their own soul and that we are unable to be our community's keeper . I speak to my daughter and two sons about the choices available to them today. I tell my children that they have absolute freedom of choice to do whatever action they desire. But I also tell them that what they do not have is the freedom to choose the consequences of those choices whether deliberate or unintentional. The laws of the universe; the laws of nature; and also the laws of society determine the consequences of our choices. I tell them the truth not so much that they will change the world but that they can protect, guard and armor themselves. Ultimately, we are all individually responsible for whatever choices we make.

Slavery and its aftermath did not happen in a vacuum. In Africa, Africans sold Africans into slavery; colonialism was only able to flourish because African chiefdoms worked against themselves and each other (then and now); its African women who accept and engage in polygamy (then and now); its African women who circumcise the girl child (then and now); it’s a black women beauty industry that mutilate ’s African hair (then and now); and the list could go on…... It’s not that I am without hope but it’s a lonely place to be when one can see past the rhetoric. Traumatized and broken, we are a people coming to the truth too late. In many, many areas of our lives the “horse has already left the barn.”

Perhaps there should be a Mythology Eight that attempts to address what could be done after the horse has left the barn…..?

Kenya

Kenyalyn Makone-Anunda

Confession of an Elder, Askia Toure’

Beloved Ones,

Forty years ago, I had a very backward, chauvinistic view of women, and battered and abused some good sisters. Like all such gender criminals, I projected my insecurities on my victims. Since then, I turned my hypocritical life around, but found that the obscene damage that I had done left deep scars. Many times we cry out in our contemporary pain,

after waking up and realizing our transgressions. But we must understand that there are laws in this grand Universe which operate whether we realize it or not. Eastern philosophy defines these laws as Karma. Yes, it is wonderful that we come to our senses, over many decades, and discover true maturity. However, that which was done in the Past might still affect our lives in the Present. I hope that we brothers all realize our past heinous acts were no better than the oppressors we continue to struggle against today. Many of us  have been forgiven by our former mates. But can we forgive ourselves by walking a different Walk in this 21 Century New World? The youths and kids need us healed, and healing as fathers, brothers, uncles, elders and loving friends.

Truly we are the leaders that we have been hoping and praying for!

In Love and Struggle

Askia Toure