Hip Hop Lines Up for Marvin X Benefit

Hip Hop Lines Up for Marvin X Benefit

Rapper Young Nia will perform at the Benefit for Marvin X's Black Bird Press, celebrating the release of his latest book The Wisdom of Plato Negro, Parables and Fables, 2010, 309 pages,
$100.00.

Young Nia is daughter of Bay Area rap living legend Askari X. She is featured on the CD Tha Grand Entrance, a compilation featuring original tracks by the beats, rhymes & life youth.

The benefit is Saturday, May 15, 2pm, at the African American Museum Library, 14th and Martin Luther King, Jr., downtown Oakland. The book is $100.00 but the event is free (give what you can).

We will be honored with another daughter in the black arts, Timothy Reed, novelist. She is novelist, poet, professor Ishmael Reed's daughter.
Also, Mechelle LaChaux's rapper child, Myelleamzi Johnson, aka Kiwi.
She will read Parable of the Madpoet.
















Malcolm Shabazz Hoover, poet/educator, son of activist/educator Mary Hoover.
His selection is Parable of the A Students.

Hip Hop and Literary Critic James G. Spady on Marvin X

Brace yourself and listen to this master narrator tell his story. Bold, callous, calculating, cultivating, coniving but always deeply poetic. Marvin X drives us through the depths of a hell so chilling as to leave the reader in a deep freeze. When you listen to Tupac Shakur, E. 40, Too Short, Master P or any other rappers out of the Bay Area of Cali, think of Marvin X. He laid the foundation and gave us the language to express Black male urban experiences in a lyrical way.

We are talking about the existential experiences of Black men in the era following the departure of Sam Cooke and Otis Redding and before Tupac's exile.

We enter the millennium fully cognizant of the possibilities but ever mindful of the colonized terrain we exist in daily. Marvin X...illuminates the necessary tensions between residual and emerging orders. He also provides insight into fluid identities shaped in this space and time.
--James G. Spady, Philadelphia New Observer, December, 1999



Hip Hop entrepreneur, filmmaker (Hip Hop the New World Order)
Muhammida El Muhajir (Marvin X's daughter) confers with Mary J. Blige

Final Lineup for May 15th Benefit for Black Bird Press

Is Marvin X a Parable or Fable? I doubt Marvin X exists! I double doubt there is a Plato Negro!

--Amiri Baraka
photo Kamau Amen Ra

Quite extraordinary! Who else in America publishes two and three books a year? Who else within the Black Community engages our folks daily to liberate themselves in real and cyberspace?
Congratulations! on your wondrous achievements.
--Rudolph Lewis, founding editor, Chickenbones, A Journal

He’s the new Malcolm X! Nobody’s going to talk about his book, HOW TO RECOVER FROM THE ADDICTION TO WHITE SUPREMACY, out loud, but they’ll hush hush about it.—Jerri Lange, author, Jerri, A Black Woman’s Life in the Media

Beyond Religion, Toward Spirituality, essays on consciousness

He is a Master Teacher in many fields of thought—religion and psychology, Sociology and anthropology, history and politics, literature and the humanities.

He is a needed Counselor, for he knows himself, on the deepest of personal levels and he reveals that self to us, that we might be his beneficiaries…. If you want to reshape (clean up, raise) your consciousness, this is a book to savor, to read again and again—to pass onto a friend or lover.

—Rudolph Lewis, Editor, ChickenBones: A Journal

Wish I Could Tell You The Truth, essays

….Malcolm X ain’t got nothing on Marvin X. Still Marvin has been ignored and silenced like Malcolm would be ignored and silenced if he had lived on into the Now.

Marvin’s one of the most extraordinary, exciting black intellectuals living today—writing, publishing, performing with Sun Ra’s Musicians (Live in Philly at Warm Daddies, available on DVD from BPP), reciting, filming, producing conferences (Kings and Queens of Black Consciousness, San Francisco Black Radical Book Fair); he’s ever engaging, challenging the respectable and the comfortable. He like Malcolm, dares to say things fearlessly, in the open (in earshot of the white man) that so many Negroes feel, think and speak on the corner, in the barbershops and urban streets of black America….

—Rudolph Lewis, Editor, ChickenBones: A Journal

In The Crazy House Called America, essays

…People who know Marvin X already know him as a peripatetic, outspoken, irreverent, poetic “crazy nigger,” whose pen is continually and forever out-of-control. As a professional psychologist, I hasten to invoke the disclaimer that that is in no way a diagnosis or clinical impression of mine. I have never actually subjected this brother to serious psychoanalytical scrutiny and have no wish to place him on the couch, if only because I know of no existing psycho-diagnostic instrumentality of pathology of normalcy that could properly evaluate Marvin completely.

—Dr. Nathan Hare, Black Think Tank, San Francisco

Land of My Daughters, poems

Marvin X has been a witness to history. He shows that an excellent minority writer can raise issues that the mainstream publishers and book reviewers find hard to grapple with…. He, Huey P. Newton, Eldridge Cleaver and others were also casualties of the chemical attack on African Americans in the form of Crack and alcohol waged by corporations and a government that placed questionable foreign policy goals above the health of its citizens…. Many of those who inspired the cultural revolution of the 1960s remain stuck there. This volume shows that Marvin X has moved on.

—Ishmael Reed, novelist, poet, essayist, publisher, Oakland

Iraq…how did we get there and how do we get back? The consciousness-altering book of poems that tells the tale, in no uncertain terms and yet always via poetry, is the astonishing Land of My Daughters: Poems 1995-2005 by Marvin X. Marvin X is the USA’s Rumi, and his nation is not “where our fathers died” but where our daughters live. The death of patriarchal war culture is his everyday reality. X’s poems vibrate, whip, love in the most meta- and physical ways imaginable and un-. He’s got the humor of Pietri, the politics of Baraka, and the spiritual Muslim grounding that is totally new in English—the ecstasy of Hafiz, the wisdom of Saadi. It’s not unusual for him to have a sequence of shortish lines followed by a culminating line that stretches a quarter page—it is the dance of the dervishes, the rhythms of a Qasida.

—Bob Holman, Bowery Poetry Club, New York City

The African American Museum Library

14th and Martin Luther King, Jr., downtown Oakland
presents
a benefit for Black Bird Press
celebrating the release of Marvin X's
The Wisdom of Plato Negro
Parables and Fables

Saturday, May 15, 2pm
Donation for book $100.00
(one hunid)
Admission to event:
free
(give a donation)

The Linda Johnson Dancers
will perform Parable of the
Woman in the Box. Alona Clifton will read.






Alona Clifton has 35 years of activism and engagement in political, social and economic grassroots efforts. Her activism centers on providing better access, opportunity, and equity to African Americans in particular and to the greater community as a whole. Her desire to be involved and to be an active participant in social justice was shaped in the movements of the 1960’s during her teenage years.







Paradise is a Bay Area living legend in poetry.
His selection is Parable of the Penguin.



Novelist Timothy Reed
will perform Parable
of the Pit bull.
photo by
Kamau Amen Ra

























August Collins will
open show. He was
recently inducted
in the the Blues
Hall of Fame and
signed with Sony.













Phavia Khujichagulia
is an ethno-musicologist,
poet, trumpet/coronet,
dancer, historian. She
will read Parable of
the Green Revolution.







San Francisco Bay View Newspaper writer,
professor Wanda Sabir will read Parable
of the Heart. photo by Kamau Amen Ra







Dr. J. Vern Cromartie is
chair of the Sociology Department
at Contra Costa College. He is a
Marvin X scholar and student.
Parable of the Hustler will be his
contribution.









Geoffrey Grier of San Francisco
Recovery Theatre will read Parable of the Poor Righteous Teacher.
Eugene Allen and Ptah Allah El will perform also.
photo by Kamau Amen Ra


Mr. James W. Sweeney
will read Parable of the
Preacher's Wife. Mr. Sweeney
is a long-time associate and adviser
to Marvin X
.






Mechelle LaChaux, actress, singer, will perform Parable of the Cell Phone along with Baron Cope.














James Moore, Jr. produces the Annual Kwanza Show in Oakland, among other produciton. He will read Parable of the Good Children.

Rasheeda Sabreen will perform material from

upcoming CD The Language of Love, her original
songs with poetry read by Marvin X. Rasheedah Sabreen has been singing as long as she has been talking. She received her first acoustic guitar at the age of fifteen. Rasheedah's creative expression includes singing, acoustic and electric guitar, dancing,visual art, and short story writing.






Ramal Lamar will read Parable of the Parrot. He is a math teacher and will obtain his M.A. in Logic from Cal State U. East bay in May. He is an associate of Academy of Da Corner.
photo by Kamau Amen Ra
















Charlie Walker,
author, businessman,
activist will read
The Parable of what right?
photo by Kamau Amen Ra





Reginald James will read the Parable of Black Man and Block Man. Reginald James is an independent journalist. He hosts the internet radio show, The Black Hour."

Hunia Bradley is an educator/activist/actress. She will read Parable of the Woman at the Well.






Ayodele Nzingha is a c0-founder of Recovery Theatre and established her own theatre in West Oakland, the Lower Bottom Playazs. Poet, playwright, director, actor, she is one of Marvin X's brightest students. Ayo will read The Parable of the Real Woman.
photo by Kamau Amen Ra


Malcolm Shabazz Hoover. He will preface Parable of the A Students.

Academy of Da Corner Reader's Theatre
Program

Musical interlude, Augusta Collins
Greetings, Veda Silva
Biography of Author, Carolyn Mixon
The Wisdom of Plato Negro, Introduction by Ptah Allah El
Parable of Love, Marvin X
Parable of the Heart, Wanda Sabir
Parable of the Real Woman, Ayodele Nzingha
Parable of Black Man and Block Man, Reginald James
Parable of the Woman in the Box, Alona Clifton,
choreography by Linda Johnson
Parable of the Penguin, Paradise
Parable of the Hustler, J. Vern Cromartie
Parable of what right? Charlie Walker
Parable of the Poor Righteous Teacher, Geoffery Grier
Parable of the Parrot, Future
Parable of the Black Bird, Lumukonda

15 Minute Intermission

Musical interlude, Rasheedah Sabreen and Marvin X
Parable of the Cell Phone, Michelle LaChaux and Baron Cope
Parable of the Rooster and the Hen, Fuad Satterfield
Parable of the Pitbull, Timothy Reed
Parable of the Preacher's Wife, James W. Sweeney
Parable of the A Students, Ramona Massey, Malcolm Shabazz Hoover
Parable of the Good Children, James Moore, Jr.
Parable of the Donkey, Gregory Fields
Parable of the Woman at the Well, Hunia Bradley
Parable of the Green Revolution, Phavia Khujichagulia
Parable of the Madpoet, Kiwi da Beast
Parable of Desirelessness, Marvin X

Q and A
Book signing
Refreshments

This event is a project of the Academy of the Corner Reader's Theatre and Black Bird Press, in cooperation with San Francisco Recovery Theatre and the Lower Bottom Playaz.

Thanks to the African American Museum Library, Greg Bridges of KPFA radio, Terry Collins of KPOO radio, Paul Cobb of the Oakland Post, Wanda Sabir of San Francisco Bay View. Thanks to the crew documenting this event: photographers Gene Hazzard and Kamau Amen Ra; videographers Ken Johnson, Adam Turner, Khalid Wajjib and Gregory Fields.

order the book from
Black Bird Press, 1222 Dwight Way, Berkeley CA 94702.
$100.00
send a donation ASAP.
Marvin X is available for booking: jmarvinx@yahoo.com

Plato Negro's Chief Advisor Speaks

Dr. Nathan Hare on Marvin X's autobiography Somethin' Proper

In Somethin' Proper, we quickly see that we are inside the pages not only of Marvin's private political papers, comprising a lyrical diary shaped to be read and enjoyed like a novel by the masterful hands of an internationally noted black poet, but we are being escorted to the cutting edge of a fascinating postmodern black literary genre in the making, the notes of an undying modern black warrior who refuses to give up, give out or give in!....
...If we honor the likes of Patrick Henry for saying "give me liberty or give me death," it is no matter that when the Negro says give him liberty or death the white man tries to give him death!....

...In his powerlessness and victimization, with nothing left to lean on, the black man is likely to mount the seesaw, if not the roller coaster of racial psycho-social dependency and messianic religiosity (becoming the mad-dog religious fanatic, believing in a savior other than himself) on the one hand, and the individual chemical dependent on the other.... Marvin deconstructs both. In the bottomless caverns of addiction in any form, there seems no amount of religiosity, coke, crack, alcohol or sex sufficient to sedate the social angst and shattered cultural strivings.

The more the black man attempts to medicate his anxiety and to mask his depression and self doubts with pretense and hostility, the more fhe finds himself in trouble with the persons he must love and be loved by than with the alien representatives of the society that would control and castrate his manhood....
--Dr. Nathan Hare, from the introduction to Somethin' Proper, autobiography of a North American African Poet, Marvin X, Black Bird Press, Berkeley, 1998.

Parable of the Butt Kickers

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Parable of the Neo-Haitian Revolution

Parable of the Neo-Haitian Revolution


After Palmares (1530-1653) in Brazil, Haiti was the second republic of ex-slaves in the Americas. Palmares was liberated territory for nearly a century. Haiti won its independence in 1804 after defeating the Spanish, English and French colonizers, including a crushing defeat of Napoleon, Europe's greatest military strategist.

Haiti has never been forgiven for her victory of the European slave masters. Since her victory, she has been prescribed to poverty, ignorance and disease, military occupation and brutal dictatorships throughout the centuries. Even her attempt at democracy is perennially sabotaged by the former colonial powers. Her last duly elected president sits exiled in South Africa, seized in the night by American imperialists.

Since the earthquake, the eagles are gathering for the carcass, making sure of American hegemony. This time she is using black face sycophants to spearhead the island's reconstruction and gentrification. Obama appears in league with Haiti's traditional mulatto ruling class, orchestrating global fundraising with the gold dust twins, former presidents Bush and Clinton. Recently, reactionary entrepreneur Robert Johnson has ingratiated himself with a billion dollar reconstruction contract.

For sure, the neo-revolution will not benefit the Haitian masses, but is clearly designed to profit the usual suspects and those who have long coveted the islands beauty and ambiance, just as whites yearned for that precious real estate in San Francisco called Hunters Point. It is an open secret Hunters Point has the best view and best weather in San Francisco. Similarly, Haiti is that romantic island in the sun, originally the richest slave colony in the Americas, impoverished by demanding the ex-slaves pay compensation to its former masters for the loss of "their property."

Haiti is eternally mocked and blocked by the West, namely the United States, for that original revolutionary victory. Her leaders have been depicted as incapable, paranoid personalities, best described by Eugene Oneil's classic racist drama Emperor Jones. President Aristide is the most recent "unacceptable" personality.

We wonder when will the Haitian people come together with the Vudun version of democracy wherein all the gods are represented equally in their sacred ritual, thus all the people allowed expression of their God given right to freedom, justice and equality?

Will they not be punished until they call forth the ancient spirits who gave them victory over the Spanish, French and English? Now they must overcome the American, that grand deceiver who comes in sheep's clothing but is a wolf of the most vicious kind.
--Marvin X
4/26/10

You Are Invited to A Public Reading of Marvin X's Parables and Fables



African American Museum Library
14th and Martin Luther King, Jr.
downtown Oakland
proudly presents
A Benefit read-in/teach-in/Book Party

Celebrating the release of Marvin X's
The Wisdom of Plato Negro
Parables and Fables

Saturday, May 15, 2pm
Donation $100.00 (for book)
admission free
Space limited
RSVP 510-637-0200




Tentative Program

Musical interlude, Augusta Collins
Greetings, Veda Silva
Biography of Author, Carolyn Mixon
The Wisdom of Plato Negro, Introduction by Ptah Allah El
Parable of Love, Marvin X
Parable of the Heart, Wanda Sabir
Parable of the Real Woman, Ayodele Nzingha
Parable of Black Man and Block Man, Baron Cope
Parable of the Woman in the Box, Alona Clifton
Parable of the Penguin, Paradise
Parable of the Hustler, J. Vern Cromartie
Parable of what right? Charlie Walker
Parable of the Poor Righteous Teacher, Geoffery Grier
Parable of the Parrot, Ramal Lamar
Musical interlude, Rashidah Sabreen
Parable of the City of God, Rev. George Murray
Parable of the Cell Phone, Michelle LaChaux
Parable of the Rooster and the Hen, Fuad Satterfield
Parable of the Pitbull, Timothy Reed
Parable of the Preacher's Wife, James W. Sweeney
Parable of the A Students, Ramona Massey
Parable of the Good Children, James Moore, Jr.
Parable of the Donkey, Gregory Fields
Parable of Desirelessness, Marvin X

Q and A
Book signing
Refreshments

This event is a project of the Academy of the Corner and Black Bird Press. Thanks to the African American Museum Library, Greg Bridges of KPFA radio, Terry Collins of KPOO radio, Paul Cobb of the Oakland Post, Wanda Sabir. Thanks to the crew documenting this event: photographers Gene Hazzard and Kamau Amen Ra; videographers Ken Johnson, Adam Turner and Khalid Wajjib. Interviews by Gregory Fields.
Please send a generous donation to
Black Bird Press
1222 Dwight Way, Berkeley CA 94702
www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com
jmarvinx@yahoo.com

Parable of the Penguin

Parable of the Penguin

The news broadcaster announced several motorists thought they spotted a penguin waddling along the freeway. Since the freeway was inland, the announcer wondered how was it possible for the little creature to find its way to the freeway. He said the highway patrol was coming to the scene and would try its best to safely rescue the little bird, but when the patrolman arrived at the scene, the creature was elusive, but he was certain they could capture the bird as it waddled along.

A short time later the newsman interrupted the program with a correction. They had made a mistake about the penguin. It wasn't a penguin as originally reported. The waddling creature was actually a diminutive teenager with his pants sagging.

He was arrested for being under the influence of drugs and taken to the mental hospital for observation. He was also given a citation for indecent exposure.
--Marvin X
4/25/10

On Saturday, May 15, 2pm, please join Marvin X at the African American Museum Library, 14th and Martin Luther King, Jr., downtown Oakland, to celebrate the release of his latest book The Wisdom of Plato Negro, parables/fables.

The event is a benefit read-in/teach-in for Black Bird Press. Donation is $100.00. RSVP 510-637-0200.

Local writers, poets and community people will read from the parables and fables. There will be entertainment by singers Rashidah Sabreen, Michelle LaChaux and Augusta Collins. Readers include Ayodele Nzingha, Geoffery Grier, Hunia Bradley, James Moore, Jr., James W. Sweeney, Paradise, Ramal Lamar, Ptah Allah El, Wanda Sabir, Alona Clifton, Charlie Walker, J. Vern Cromartie and Timothy Reed.

The event will be documented by photographers Kamau Amen Ra and Gene Hazzard, also videographers Ken Johnson and Adam Turner. Gregory Fields will interview.

Special thanks to Greg Bridges of KPFA radio, Terry Collins of KPOO radio, Paul Cobb of the Oakland Post Newspaper and Wanda Sabir.

For more information, please call Vida Silva, Museum Project Coordinator at 510-637-0199.

Parable of the Hunid Dollar Dope Book

The African American Museum Library

14th and Martin Luther King, Jr., Oakland

and

Academy of Da Corner
Reader's Theatre

proudly presents

a benefit book party
read-in/teach-in

celebrating Marvin X's latest book
the Wisdom of Plato Negro Parables and Fables

Saturday, May 15, 2pm, 2010 Donation for book $100.00
(one hundred dollars)

Admission free
(give what you can)
Seating limited RSVP
510-637-0200

The Reader's Theatre Program

Musical interlude, Augusta Collins
Greetings, Veda Silva
Biography of Author, Carolyn Mixon
The Wisdom of Plato Negro, Introduction by Ptah Allah El
Parable of Love, Marvin X
Parable of the Heart, Wanda Sabir
Parable of the Real Woman, Ayodele Nzingha
Parable of Black Man and Block Man, Reginald James
Parable of the Woman in the Box, Alona Clifton
Parable of the Penguin, Paradise
Parable of the Hustler, J. Vern Cromartie
Parable of what right? Charlie Walker
Parable of the Poor Righteous Teacher, Geoffery Grier
Parable of the Parrot, Ramal Lamar
Musical interlude, Rashidah Sabreen and Marvin X
Parable of the City of God, Rev. George Murray
Parable of the Cell Phone, Mechelle LaChaux and Baron Cope
Parable of the Rooster and the Hen, Fuad Satterfield
Parable of the Pitbull, Timothy Reed
Parable of the Preacher's Wife, James W. Sweeney
Parable of the A Students, Ramona Massey
Parable of the Good Children, James Moore, Jr.
Parable of the Donkey, Gregory Fields
Parable of Desirelessness, Marvin X

Q and A
Book signing
Refreshments

Documentation: photographers Gene Hazzard and Kamau Amen Ra; videographers Ken Johnson, Adam Turner, Khalid Wajjib, Freddie Boone, Gregory Fields.

The event is a benefit for Black Bird Press
1222 Dwight Way, Berkeley CA 94702
order your book now $100.00
or send a generous donation

www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com
jmarvinx@yahoo.com

Benefit for Black Bird Press

The African American Library/Museum
hosts

Black Bird Press
Academy of Da Corner

Benefit
Read in/teach in
Book Party

4/23/10

Dear Friend,

On Saturday, May 15, 2 pm, we will celebrate the release of my latest book The Wisdom of Plato Negro, Parables/Fables by Marvin X.


I am requesting your presence at this event that is also a benefit for Black Bird Press. Most of my twenty books are out of print, plus new titles await publication. Actually, funds are needed for a proper run of The Wisdom of Plato Negro. A limited edition costs nearly twenty dollars per book to print. So funds are urgently needed.

As one of the founders of the Black Arts Movement, we are attempting to advance the cultural revolution. Black Bird Press is my contribution, but I need your support at this time.

The Wisdom of Plato Negro is priced at $100.00 to benefit the BBP book projects.

As many of you know, over the past three or four years, we have given away copies of my books at 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland (retail value $20,000.00). But this is an investment in educating and saving our people, adults and youth.

I was so happy to hear youth tell me recently that reading one of my books changed their lives. A young sister said my book empowered her, she didn’t know she had that much power. Mothers and fathers have purchased my books for their at-risk sons and daughters. Even senior brothers tell me they learn something from my books. So I’m convinced I’m on the right path.

Your support is needed. If you can’t attend the benefit celebration at the African American Library/Museum on Saturday, May 15, 2 p.m., 14th and Martin Luther King, Jr., downtown Oakland, please send a generous donation of any amount to Black Bird Press, 1222 Dwight Way, Berkeley CA 94702. With a donation of one hundred dollars or more, you will receive a autographed copy of The Wisdom of Plato Negro.

To celebrate the publication of The Wisdom of Plato Negro, Parables/Fables, I am asking poets, writers and community people to join in reading from the parables/fables. The following are especially invited to read:

Ishmael Reed
Cecil Brown
devorah major
Ayodele Nzingha (confirmed)
Linda Johnson
Phavia Khujichagulia
Tureada Mikel
Paradise (confirmed)
Art Sheridan
Aubrey LaBrie
Duke Williams
Rev. George Murray
Charile Walker (confimed)
Will Ussery
Al Young
Geoffery Grier (confirmed)
Ptah Allah El (confirmed)
Ramal Lamar (confirmed)
Suzzette Celeste(confirmed)
James W. Sweeney(confirmed)
Abdul Sabry
Nathan Hare
Marcel Diallo,
Dr. Julia Hare
Danny Glover
Jimmy Garrett
Rehemah Bah
Hunia Bradley,
Michael Lange
Jerri Lange
Benny Stewart
Opal Palmer Adisa
Donald Lacy
Greg Bridges
Davey D
Chinaka Hodge
Ise Lyfe
Marc Barmuthi Joseph
Fritz Pointer
Avotcja
Naru Kwina
Amir Sulaiman
Wanda Sabir (confirmed)
Lee Hubbard
Adam Turner
Roxanne,
Dr. Oba T'shaka
Timothy Simon
Kweli Tutashinda
Latifa Simon
Lige Dailey
J. Vern Cromartie (confirmed)
Alona Clifton (confirmed)
Ken Johnson (confirmed)
Gregory Fields (confirmed)
Timothy Reed (confirmed)
Michelle LaChaux (confirmed)
James Moore (confirmed).


For my reading/performance, I will be accompanied by singer Rashidah Sabreen. If you missed us on KPFA this past Monday, please go to the archives www.kpfa.org/transitionsontradition.

Sincerely,

Marvin X, Publisher, editor, author

Black Bird Press

1222 Dwight Way, Berkeley CA 94702

www.parablesandfablesofmarvinx.blogspot.com

Book Release Party for Marvin X

Saturday, May 15, 2pm

There will be a reading and book signing for Marvin X's

The Wisdom of Plato Negro, Parables/Fables

African American Library/Museum,

14th and Martin Luther King, Jr.,

Downtown Oakland

For more information contact Veda Silva, Museum Project Coordinator, 510-637-0199.

Book price $100.00
309 pages

If you can't make the party, the book is available from:

Black Bird Press
1222 Dwight Way,
Berkeley CA 94702

Please support one of the founders of the Black Arts Movement. Advance the cultural revolution!

Quite extraordinary! Who else in America publishes two and three books a year? Who else within the Black Community engages our folks daily to liberate themselves in real and cyberspace?
Congratulations! on your wondrous achievements.
--Rudolph Lewis, founding editor, Chickenbones, A Journal

Now Available from Black Bird Press

The Wisdom of Plato Negro
Parables/Fables
Marvin X

“Is Marvin X a parable or fable? We doubt a Marvin X exists! We double doubt there is a Plato Negro!”

—Amiri Baraka

"He's the USA's Rumi!"

--Bob Holman

"Jeremiah, I presume! I am sure these parables are a first in America exploiting this literary category. People will wonder where to place these parables and fables. You have expanded contemporary literature. I suspect there is nothing like them in post-modern American literature."

--
Rudolph
Lewis, Founding Editor
ChickenBones: A Journal

"If you want to learn about motivation and inspiration, don't spend all that money going to workshops and seminars, just go stand at 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland and watch Marvin X at work. He's Plato teaching on the streets of Oakland."

--Ishmael Reed

The works of “Plato Negro” prove to be a major contribution to the field of African Philosophy. These works provide a model for a standard approach toward reflective thinking and critical analysis for African people, still trying to define their own philosophical worldview.

What Plato’s works did to inspire classical Greece and the European generations to follow, we hope this brilliant piece of literature from “Plato Negro” will shed light on Africans today and future generations to come. Write on “Plato Negro”.

--Ptahotep A. El (Trace 101)

Minister of Education, Academy of Da Corner

Mail order only
The truth is priceless, freedom is not free.

Suggested donation: $100.00 (one hundred dollars)


What is the value of truth? The actual value of a hamburger
is $200.00 when factored in the slave labor of tomato, lettuce and cucumber field workers, also the health problems of workers subjected to fields sprayed with pesticides and fertilizers. Also hormone grown beef affects the health of consumers.


Black Bird Press
1222 Dwight Way, Berkeley CA 94702

www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com
jmarvinx@yahoo.com

Introduction by Ptah Allah El

Preface: A Dialogue—Ishmael Reed, Dr. Nathan Hare, Dr. Rodney D. Coates

Contents

Parables and Fables

Parable of Love 1

Fable of the Donkey 6

Fable of the Elephant 7

Parable of the Heart 9

Parable of the Black Brotherhood 11

Parable of King Tut 13

Parable of the Sacred 16

Parable of the Poor Righteous Teacher 19

Parable of the Parrot 21

Parable of a Happy Dope Fiend 23

Parable of the Man who loved his Mama 24

Parable of the Madpoet 28

Parable of the Witchdoctor 31

Parable of the Preacher’s Wife 37

Parable of the Rabbit 40

Parable of the Black Bourgeoisie 43

Parable of Iraq 46

Parable of the War that is not War 50

Parable of the Colored People 52

Parable of the Man Who Left the Mountain 55

Parable of the Girl Ignut of Men 60

Parable of the A Students 63

Parable of the Good Children 66

Parable of Man, Beasts, Ancestors, Nature 68

Parable of the Drunk Man 70

Parable of the Hustler 73

Parable of the Woman at the Well 76

Parable of the Gambler 78

Parable of Letting Go 79

Parable on Death of Dreams 80

Parable of the Bar 83

Parable of the Table 84

Parable of the Bitter Bitch 86

A Dialogue on Bitch 88

Parable of the Weather 94

Parable of the City of God 95

Parable of the Sick Soul 96

Parable of the Criminal Society 99

Parable of Monks and Ministers 102

Parable of the Dirty South 103

Parable of the No People 105
Fable of the Black Bird 106
Parable of the Real Woman 108
Parable of the Cell Phone 110
Parable of the Man With the Gun in Hand 114
Parable of the Gangsta 116
Fable of the Rooster and the Hen 118
Parable of the Pit Bull 120
Parable of Black Man and Block Man 122
Fable of the Sleeping Lion 124
Parable of the Baby Carriage 125
Parable of the Woman in the Box 127
Parable of the Fire 129
Parable of the Basket 131
Parable of the Man Who Wanted to Die 133

Parable of Snow in Oakland 135

Parable of Neo-colonialism at University of California, Berkeley 137

Parable of What Right? 142

Parable of the Cross and the Lynching Tree 144

Parable of Who Killed Chauncey Bailey 147

Parable of the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea 149

A Platonic Negro Dialogue on the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea 153

Parable of the Return of Gov. Moonbeam 167

Parable of the Oakland Police Gang 170

Parable of the Family 172

Parable of the North American African as Haitian 176

Parable of Same Sex Marriage, Straight Men, Prostitution 180

Parable of Zionism and National Insanity 182

Parable of Obama Drama 186

Parable of the Green Revolution 190

Parable of Gang Violence and Political Power 192

Parable of who asks the Negro? 196

Parable of broken systems, broken minds 199

Parable of Cornel West as angry black man 203

Parable of the Sub-prime Negro 204

Parable of the Man Who Talked with Cows 206

Parable of A Day in the Life of Plato Negro 207

A Dialogue on White Supremacy 212

Parable of the Grand Denial 217

Parable of Imagination 221

Parable of Dope, Mamas and Preachers 231

Parable of the Fall of America 234

Parable of Evil in the World 235

Parable of American Gangsta J. Edgar Hoover 238

Parable of Sobriety 242

Parable of Michael Jackson 246

Parable of Suicide 248

Parable of Message to the White Man 250

Parable of the Ash Cloud 258

Parable of One Million School Dropouts 260

Parable of Tiger Woods and the Mythology of Dick 264

Parable of the Dick Slave 266

Parable of Toxic Love 268

Parable of Rape 270

Parable of the Dick and Gun 274

Parable of the Mythology of Dick and Pussy 275

Parable of Gay and Lesbian Youth 293

Parable of Creativity and Sexuality 300

Parable of the Old Lovers 303

Parable of Desirelessness 306

www.parablesandfablesofmarvinx.blogspot.com

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