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Books by Marvin X
Love and War: Poems /
In the Crazy House Called America /
Woman: Man's Best Friend /
Beyond Religion Toward Spirituality
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Beyond Black
Rage/White Supremacy
The Retreat to Recover
By Dr. M
Anger and rage are
the dominant emotions expressed at the Pan African
Mental Health Peer Group sessions to recover from the
addiction to white supremacy. The initial emotion is joy
due to the relief and excitement of persons finding
themselves in a safe space to express themselves,
finally and freely. The consensus in such a space has
been long overdue and why has it taken so long to figure
out the solution to an unbearable situation of
stultification. What a relief to be in a space where
persons can speak and be heard, accepted and not
rejected or told they are too angry or too emotional.
Poetically speaking, it is as though they have been
standing in the rain but finally someone has arrived
with an umbrella.
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As each addict to white
supremacy does his/her check-in, anger is
clearly the dominant emotion, with women
expressing the most severe degree of
outrage, the men maintain their well known
cool pose until they go deeper into their
testimony, then we see their rage equals if
not surpasses that of the women. There are
those of both genders who want to do acts of
violence to white society. They are pissed
at the hostile environment on the job and
want to attack their boss or co-workers.
Again, they are overjoyed to be in a space
where their anger can be expressed without
recrimination.
There are those upset at
the recent arrival of white people in the
hood. They don’t understand why the white
people are there, how they got there, and
why nothing can be done to get them out,
such as burning down their houses or even
burning crosses on their lawns, such is the
severity of the rage—totally irrational,
making those addicted a danger to themselves
and others. |
Some of the blacks
addicted to white supremacy are angry at other blacks.
They cannot understand the negative behavior of blacks,
why they are killing each other nightly, why youth are
out of control, or why the police harass them for simply
being black.
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Of course violence is the ultimate
result of anger and rage, and there are
quite a few men and women forced into court
mandated anger management classes. Homicide
and suicide are clearly on the rise,
especially as we slip into the worldwide
recession/depression, for tension is
heightened, frustration is deep because many
persons cannot decipher a solution to their
economic woes. Misplaced aggression is the
order of the day because the cause is never
attacked such as blood sucking oil
companies, scheming and scamming mortgage
companies who graciously gave sub-prime
loans only to foreclose, and the perennial
wage slave bosses. More often the object of
rage is the wife, another brother or sister
in the hood who is just as frustrated as the
victimizer. |
 |
Obama’s run for
president has given hope to some in the hood, but many
can see how racism is tearing him down at every turn,
even his wife has been attacked for saying she only of
late is she proud of being an American, as if we owe
America the Nobel Peace prize for oppressing us through
the centuries down to the present moment. Even his
pastor is ridiculed for having black consciousness and
teaching liberation theology—so what if some of his
sermons crossed the line of propriety, according to
white American standards. If Obama is harmed, look for
the ghettoes of America to explode from anger and rage.
The Retreat to Recover
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At a
retreat to recover from the addiction to
white supremacy, peer group members
expressed joy at escaping the city to the
country, finding themselves in nature,
seeing pine trees standing tall, upright,
the sound of water flowing in the creek, the
beautiful rolling hills, cows grazing in the
distance, lizards running about—bowing up
and down as if in salat (prayer), the mighty
hawk gliding above our heads, deer and wild
turkey outside the window, stars in the
night sky, a phenomena never seen in the
smog filled city.
After
observing the wonder of God, a peer group
member said she was beginning to finally
understand there was no need to be angry at
white people, she now felt the urgent need
to recover her mental balance so she could
follow her bliss, not spend time in anger
and rage due to her hostile environment and
the resulting addiction to white supremacy,
the cause of much stress, disease and death.
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Overpowered by the
beauty of nature, she saw the need to focus on her
destiny as a divine being in harmony with the beauty in
her midst. She said a light had come on in her head so
that she see clearly now the infinite possibilities of
life.
The retreat began
with the ritual entering the gate of the land, stopping
at the creek for a moment of silence to ponder the sound
of water, acknowledge the ancestors, to say a prayer
asking permission to be on the land:
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O Ancestors, we come in peace and
righteousness
We ask permission to be on this sacred land
today
We praise our Native American ancestors
whose blood
Is on this land. We ask that they grant us
permission to walk
On solid ground as we seek their healing
energy.
Facilitator:
Ahlan wa sahlan (welcome to my home
And may you walk on solid ground.)
Ahlan wa sahlan.
Group: Ache. |
The group walked up
the hill to the meeting house where a meal awaited them:
baked salmon, baked chicken, brown rice, bean vegetable
soup and potato salad, carrot juice, sweet water from
the well.
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Ahlan wa sahlan.
Al humdulilah. |
Grace: We acknowledge the Creator
and thank Him for the breath of life, thank Him for the
beauty of life, thank Him for the intelligence and
wisdom we are blessed with, thank Him that we have the
consciousness to desire unity with our brothers and
sisters in America, Africa and the Diaspora, thank Him
that in spite of slavery, colonialism and
neo-colonialism, we yet have African and spiritual
consciousness and are determined to make the cultural
revolution a success; thank Him for keeping us on the
straight path to national liberation and Pan African
liberation . . . (from Step 11, p. 92).
After the meal, the group unpacked
and began a session of biblo-therapy, a discussion of
the 13 Steps to recover from the addiction to white
supremacy.
Step 1
We admit we are not powerless over
self hatred, racism and white supremacy thinking, but
our lives have become unmanageable, partly because we
live in denial and fear.
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Denial is quite simply the evasion of
reality. Denial can be personal or communal,
for sometimes an entire nation can be in
denial about its abominations, for they are
too painful to make adjustments in the
collective psyche and the personal reality,
to do so would incriminate the mythology and
ritual of said society, thus the normal
daily round would be disrupted and
dysfunctional, for painful adjustments would
be in order, and as long as we can avoid the
painful the better, after all, the status
quo can be maintained. . . .
But in our grand denial, blacks as well as
whites will attempt to convince the world
this point of view is left wing poppycock,
the thoughts of a disgruntled segment of
black Americans who have failed to enjoy the
benefits of capitalism, now globalism--no
matter the disparities in birth and death,
education, wage parity, housing, health
care, homicide and suicide--in every aspect
of Americana.
(from
"Race: The Grand Denial," unpublished
essay by Dr. M) |
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Fear is the residue of slavery, the torture,
rape, murder, the mores of submission and
passivity whipped into our ancestors and
elders and transmitted through DNA to the
present generation who live in fear of white
authority, especially the police who are the
modern day slave catchers. But fear remains
as the single most element that prolongs
white supremacy. We fear each other, we fear
success, we fear to do for self or to
attempt self sufficiency on the economic
level—for how shall we live without a
paycheck from the white man, how shall we
make it? We fear associating with a black
radical brother or sister, after all, the
white man is watching us always, he has
spies tracking our every move, we are
certain of it. . . . We fear the
woman and man we love, for surely they will
betray us, it is only a matter of time, they
are going to cross us, so we cannot trust
them ever, no matter how much they say they
love us and no matter how much we love them.
We cannot unite with the brotherhood or
sisterhood because we fear something is
surely to go wrong, money will be stolen,
our wife or girlfriend will run off with
another brother.
(from
How to Recover, Step 1, page 30) |
With respect to fear, the group was
asked to do an exercise to dispel fear of each other.
They were told to give each other a massage as they sat
at the conference table. The purpose was to help them
get to know each other. This exercise was said to be one
of the highlights of the retreat. It relaxed everyone,
making them feel safe.
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In the name of love we come
We go
Peace in the name of love
In the name of love we exist forever
We are the thrashing floor
The opening door
In the name of love
Life is for love
Give love
Receive love
Submit to love
Do not deny love
Suffer only a little while for love
Let not love make you suffer
Long suffering is not love
Peace is love
A face of joy is love . . .
Tell me of love you who have loved longer
than I
In the fire of love
In the heaven of love
I am a child
In the name of love
Let me grow in love
I am the black bird in love
I fly with love
I swoop into the ocean and pluck the fish
In the name of love
Oceans flow with love
Let the ocean wash me with love
Even the cold ocean is love
The morning swim is love
The ocean chills me with love
From the deep come fish
Full of love . . .
(from
"In the Name of Love" by Dr. M/Marvin X) |
Step 2
We have come to
believe that a power within ourselves—for we are within
God and God is within us—can restore us to sanity,
freedom, self-determination, independence and nationhood
as a Pan African people, as spiritually conscious human
beings.
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Nothing and no one can
help us until we are ready to help
ourselves. Even God tells us we must take
the first step, then He will take ten. . . . We
must call upon that power within to restore
us to sanity, to cast away our fears, the
inferiority complex we have allowed to
master our soul as a result of believing the
white supremacy hype. We must call upon the
power within and the Higher Power without,
call it God, Allah, Jesus, Jah, whatever,
whomever, just know we must tune into the
source of spiritual power to overcome our
addiction to white supremacy that has us
disunited, hateful, selfish, greedy, with
hearts full of evil and murder. In such a
state of mind, how can we be successful in
life, certainly we are in no condition to
love or to be loved. We are a wretched
wretch and of no good to ourselves or anyone
else. In such a mental state, we cannot
think of freedom, justice,
self-determination, independence. . . . So
we call upon the Higher Power to heal our
sick minds and hearts. . . . |
Step 3
We have made a
decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care
of God as we understand it: that God is a power within
ourselves. Yes is the message to ourselves, yes, the
magic word. . . .
Find a place to be silent, silent
as the trees, as the wind, as the rolling hills.
Meditate on the purpose of this retreat, on the purpose
of your life.
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The
language is silence. It speaks louder than
words. Sometimes it is better to say
nothing, let life reveal itself. . . .
Sometimes the mouth cannot keep quiet. It
must chatter out of fear not being heard.
Yet one is heard in the silence. It is when
one talks that one is not heard. The eyes
speak, the heart, the hands, the feet speak.
Hear the feet running in fear. Hear the feet
running in love. Hear the arms moving in
hate. You do not talk to me, yet I hear
everything you say. No, no, no, that is all
you say. Everything about you is no. Your
lips say no, your eyes, your heart, your
mind, your arms, legs, feet. You are a no
person. I run from you. You say no to God. .
. . When you say
yes to life you open the world of infinite
possibilities. Yes to love. Yes to success,
yes to hope, yes to truth, yes to
prosperity, yes to divinity, yes to
resurrection, yes to ascension, yes to
eternity…. Yes is the language of God. Yes
is the language of Divinity, Spirituality.
All
the prophets said yes. Adam said yes.
Abraham said yes. Moses said yes. Solomon
said yes. Job said yes. Jeremiah, Isaiah
said yes . . . Jesus said yes, Muhammad . .
. Elijah and
Malcolm, Martin, Garvey, Harriet Tubman and
Sojourner Truth said yes. Fannie Lou and
Rosa Parks, Betty Shabazz and Coretta Scott
said yes. Mama and daddy said yes, grandma
and grandpa said yes. All the ancestors said
yes. Forevermore, let go of no and say yes.
Dance to yes. Shout to yes. . . .
(from
Beyond Religion, Toward Spirituality,
Dr. M) |
All negativity in the family must
cease immediately because it is not of the Most High and
cannot be redeemed in the temple of holiness. Fly into
the winds Pan Africa, fly into the winds of the Most
High and be as one with the wind, yes, even that
whirlwind Garvey told you about that was sure to come
and has come, let us rejoice. Say again, we are within
the Higher Power and the Higher Power is within us. Say
again, the tide is turning because we are turning the
tide. Ache, Amen, Amin, Hotep.
Step 4
We shall make a searching and
fearless moral inventory of ourselves . . .
We can never stand tall
until we face all the truth about ourselves, as Sun Ra taught,
the low down dirty truth, that is what we want to examine, for
the plain truth is not good enough, rather, we want to low down
funky truth. Cornel West says everybody wants to hide the funk,
tame the funk, disguise the funk, but we are only enabled and
empowered when the funk comes through. . . .
|
A
sister volunteered to clean the funk in the
house. She said this would be her
contribution to the retreat. So she began to
clean the dust, the spider webs, the grime,
the clutter. Others joined her, but she took
the lead. Amina Baraka said, “The only way
you can clean the funk is to get down and
clean the funk!”
We
cannot be healed until we clean the funk in
our lives, the baggage, the waste, the
clutter that prevents us from thinking
clearly, from hearing the voice of God when
He speaks to us. Why are you still praying
when God has already answered? You are
blocking the message to your mind—you are
blocking your blessings with your filth, yet
you want to be in heaven. For too long my
patron has begged me to clean up so God can
bless me in a big way! So I thank the
sisters who came like angels to help me
clean up my act. Surely God will not bless
us until we stop acting ungratefully, until
we take a complete inventory of ourselves
and make corrections to qualify for our
blessings. |
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…What if we leaped into the sun
What if we danced around the pond
Mud on our face and body
Naked but entwined with love
Perhaps a smile would come
We would be grateful for the breath of
life
So precious we would
fight and fight and fight . . .
(from Remembering Shani Baraka) |
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After reading and discussing several
more steps, the facilitator asked the
group to apply white paint on their
faces and walk to the pond, a short
distance into the woods. One person
resisted taking the walk but finally
submitted, and once at the pond was
overjoyed she had decided to come. The
walk to the woods and arriving at the
pond full of clear water from the
mountain transformed her spirit and
the spirit of all present. One person
wanted to shout so she did. On the other
side of the pond cows were grazing. The
bull roared as if to reply to her shout.
Turtles stuck their heads out of the
water. One person conversed with them.
The turtles lingered, then disappeared
only to reappear.
Upon returning from the pond, the group
continued reading the steps. Step 5
caused persons to break down. This step
involves admitting to God and to another
human being the exact nature of our
wrongs. When the facilitator read the
text about apologizing for being a dope
dealer, a sister confessed that she too
had been a dope dealer and apologized to
those persons whose lives she destroyed.
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She began to cry
and had to be comforted.
When the
facilitator read from the text the apology to black
teachers and professors, another person testified she
had been mean and cruel to her college professors and
apologized. She too began to cry and had to be
comforted.
The retreat ended
with the ritual washing of the white paint off the
faces. During the retreat, the facilitator received a
call from poet Amiri Baraka, and when he was asked to
give a message to the group, said simply, “White off!”
And so it is.
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But the
retreat revealed a problem deeper than the
addiction to white supremacy, for after all,
white supremacy is an illusion for no one is
superior to another, thus the old folks said
white people suffer lunacy and should be
left alone, as one does the crazy uncle in
the family. The Holy Qur’an says, “Leave
them alone in their inordinacy blindly
wandering on. . . . ”
The
real problem for Pan Africans is to ascend
from the animal plane to our divine self, to
be in this world but not of it, to strive to
express our greatness, to defy the hostile
environment by not giving energy to it—expel
the anger and rage with love, but be always
on the alert and wear the armor of God, only
then can we walk untouched through the
valley of the shadow of death, only then can
we sit in the presence of our enemies, yet
our cup shall overflow with goodness and
mercy, and we shall dwell in the house of
the Lord forever. Ache. |
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If you or your group would
like to attend a retreat to recover from the addiction to white
supremacy, call Dr. M at 510-355-6339. Email:
jmarvinx@yahoo.com. Order his book HOW TO RECOVER FROM THE
ADDICTION TO WHITE SUPREMACY, foreword by Dr. Nathan Hare,
afterword by Ptah Allah El, Black Bird Press, POB 1317 Paradise
CA 95967, $19.95.
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posted 3 April 2008 |
