Parable of Prayer

Parable of Prayer

Rapper M.C. Hammer told us we got to pray just to make it today. And so it is, we must stay prayed up. I do not pray five times a day, I pray all day. I am in constant prayer to remove all evil from my heart. Whenever I think evil thoughts, I pray: seek refuge in Allah from the accursed devil!

Even when I was a dope fiend, I prayed before going out to cope, before I opened my door because I did not know what was on the other side of the door, and I most certainly didn't know what was going to greet me on the streets, especially during "tweekers hours," the most dangerous time in the life of a dope fiend, after midnight and before six in the morning. Anything could happen to a dope fiend during these hours, especially because he would usually be desperate and not on his Ps and Qs, thus likely to fall for anything, buy a rock off the ground because it is in a plastic bag and he is desperate for a hit. He may get robbed on the streets during tweeker's hours, especially if he is by himself.

I used to tell my friends to come with me when I went out to cope because Solomon told us two is better than one, for if I should slip and fall, who shall pick me up? Sometimes my friends wouldn't understand, so I would go alone, but prayed up, even if they didn't want to pray with me.

Many times I have gone to jail, mostly for petty shit, but didn't know how it was going to work out, so I would pray. Before I knew it the jail house doors opened and I walked free. So there is power in prayer.

Even now in my semi-sobriety (I still use my truth serum to write--Hennessy and Bailey's, just to make sure there is no "writer's block," furthermore, one cannot lie with Hennessy!--and certainly not with a little Bailey's mixed in). Of course, sometimes I cross the precipice into stone madness, and I have no doubt the reader can tell, but such is the life of the writer, or this writer!

But even these days I pray going out and coming in, for I am thankful to make it out and back, since anything can happen in the mix.

Often times we must pray when conversing with people because we can tell the conversation is about to escalate and go where it doesn't need to go, beyond the realm of civility into the negro zone or ignut zone, one and the same.

These are dangerous times, times foretold long ago, for brother is against brother, father against son, son against father, wife against husband, husband against wife. Marley told us with our friends, we don't need enemies!

This is a time of great stress, unless one prays constantly to stay in the stress free zone, as I do, and yet I slip into darkness from time to time.

One must be extra careful of the tone test. With the police, if one fails the tone test, one can be shot, arrested--of course if you pass, you are released. Our esteemed negro intellectual Henry Louis Gates of Harvard University failed the tone test and went to jail at his house. He didn't even have enough ghetto sense not to step outside his house to talk with the police.

Every self-respecting Negro in the hood should know how to talk with the police, but apparently Gates was not taught the tone test at Yale, Princeton and Columbia University.

There are a few other matters Gates lacks common sense, such as his recent comments on slavery. Let him tell a Jew to forget the Holocaust, tell the Jew it was a Jewish affair and that Jews benefited more than Hitler and his regime. Tell the Jew he should forget about reparations and go about his life as a Zionist oppressing Palestinians and enjoy himself.

Hammer told us we must pray just to get through the day. Let us pray now for our negro intellectuals in perpetual crisis, as brother Harold Cruse so eloquently delineated in his classic The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual. Don't let me quote my dear brother Ngugi wa Thiango on the state intellectual! Shall we call them simply parrots or apes, as he does? Let us pray for Ngugi wa Thiango and the Pan African revolution!

We must be prepared to apologize at any moment, swallowing one's pride and humbling oneself before the supposedly offended person. Otherwise, a little thing will turn into a big thing. And little people cannot distinguish a little thing from a big thing. Little things are big things in their lives. Their lives are full of little things, only little things, there are no big things in their world, so what to you is a little thing, to them is a big thing, big enough to kill over. It may be a matter of two dollars, yet that is a big thing, no matter that other people in other worlds steal trillions and nothing happens to them, they don't even go to jail! They are rewarded with a bonus!

Pray just to get through the day. Do not linger in the presence of fools. Do not argue with religious people. Be quick to say lakum dinu kum waliya din! To you your way and to me mine.
Otherwise, there may be a fight. They may want to kill you because to their pea brain a little thing is a big thing. I asked my two year old grandson why do people kill? Grandpa, he said, because they want to!

Alas, they want to fight with you because you are near to them, while the real enemy is across town in his gated communities, and they fear going across town because they would be strangers in the night. As they said, the oppressed man is disoriented, doesn't know if he is in the west, east, north or south.

So they will pick a fight with you over the slightest matter. They will set you up, so don't fall into the trap. You can watch their body language as well as their tone of voice. Don't go there with them. Don't play yourself out of pocket! Be wise, you are dealing with a snake, a vile serpent!

Excuse yourself because it is small thing they are determined to make into a big thing, again, simply because there are no big things in their lives. Say to them, let's rob a bank for a trillion dollars! What the hell is a trillion dollars to a ghetto negro, deaf, dumb and blind? Better to say, let's rob a bank for fifty cents, then they will understand and go along with you!
--Marvin X
5/5/10

The people will read from the Wisdom of Plato Negro, Parables and fables of Marvin X, Saturday, May 15, 2pm, at the African American Museum Library, 14th and Martin Luther King, Jr., downtown Oakland. His book is $100.00 but the read-in/teach-in is free, give what you can. Order the book from Black Bird Press, 1222 Dwight Way, Berkeley CA 94702.