Parableof Prayer
Parable ofPrayer
Rapper M.C. Hammer told us we got to prayjust to make it today. And so it is, we must stay prayed up. I do notpray five times a day, I pray all day. I am in constant prayer to removeall evil from my heart. Whenever I think evil thoughts, I pray: seekrefuge in Allah from the accursed devil!
Even when I was a dopefiend, I prayed before going out to cope, before I opened my doorbecause I did not know what was on the other side of the door, and Imost certainly didn't know what was going to greet me on the streets,especially during "tweekers hours," the most dangerous time in the lifeof a dope fiend, after midnight and before six in the morning. Anythingcould happen to a dope fiend during these hours, especially because hewould usually be desperate and not on his Ps and Qs, thus likely to fallfor anything, buy a rock off the ground because it is in a plastic bagand he is desperate for a hit. He may get robbed on the streets duringtweeker's hours, especially if he is by himself.
I used to tellmy friends to come with me when I went out to cope because Solomon toldus two is better than one, for if I should slip and fall, who shallpick me up? Sometimes my friends wouldn't understand, so I would goalone, but prayed up, even if they didn't want to pray with me.
Manytimes I have gone to jail, mostly for petty shit, but didn't know howit was going to work out, so I would pray. Before I knew it the jailhouse doors opened and I walked free. So there is power in prayer.
Evennow in my semi-sobriety (I still use my truth serum to write--Hennessyand Bailey's, just to make sure there is no "writer's block,"furthermore, one cannot lie with Hennessy!--and certainly not with alittle Bailey's mixed in). Of course, sometimes I cross the precipiceinto stone madness, and I have no doubt the reader can tell, but such isthe life of the writer, or this writer!
But even these days Ipray 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 praywhen conversing with people because we can tell the conversation isabout to escalate and go where it doesn't need to go, beyond the realmof civility into the negro zone or ignut zone, one and the same.
Theseare dangerous times, times foretold long ago, for brother is againstbrother, father against son, son against father, wife against husband,husband against wife. Marley told us with our friends, we don't needenemies!
This is a time of great stress, unless one praysconstantly to stay in the stress free zone, as I do, and yet I slip intodarkness from time to time.
One must be extra careful of thetone test. With the police, if one fails the tone test, one can be shot,arrested--of course if you pass, you are released. Our esteemednegro intellectual Henry Louis Gates of Harvard University failed thetone test and went to jail at his house. He didn't even have enoughghetto sense not to step outside his house to talk with the police.
Everyself-respecting Negro in the hood should know how to talk with thepolice, but apparently Gates was not taught the tone test at Yale,Princeton and Columbia University.
There are a few other mattersGates lacks common sense, such as his recent comments on slavery. Lethim tell a Jew to forget the Holocaust, tell the Jew it was a Jewishaffair and that Jews benefited more than Hitler and his regime. Tell theJew he should forget about reparations and go about his life as aZionist oppressing Palestinians and enjoy himself.
Hammer told uswe must pray just to get through the day. Let us pray now for our negrointellectuals in perpetual crisis, as brother Harold Cruse soeloquently delineated in his classic TheCrisis of the Negro Intellectual. Don't let me quote my dearbrother Ngugi wa Thiango on the state intellectual! Shall we call themsimply parrots or apes, as he does? Let us pray for Ngugi wa Thiango andthe Pan African revolution!
We must be prepared to apologize atany moment, swallowing one's pride and humbling oneself before thesupposedly offended person. Otherwise, a little thing will turn into abig thing. And little people cannot distinguish a little thing from abig thing. Little things are big things in their lives. Their lives arefull of little things, only little things, there are no big things intheir 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 abig thing, no matter that other people in other worlds steal trillionsand nothing happens to them, they don't even go to jail! They arerewarded with a bonus!
Pray just to get through the day. Do notlinger in the presence of fools. Do not argue with religious people. Bequick 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 peabrain a little thing is a big thing. I asked my two year old grandsonwhy do people kill? Grandpa, he said, because they want to!
Alas,they want to fight with you because you are near to them, while thereal enemy is across town in his gated communities, and they fear goingacross 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 theslightest 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'tgo there with them. Don't play yourself out of pocket! Be wise, you aredealing with a snake, a vile serpent!
Excuse yourself because itis 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 trilliondollars to a ghetto negro, deaf, dumb and blind? Better to say, let'srob a bank for fifty cents, then they will understand and go along withyou!
--Marvin X
5/5/10
The people will read from the Wisdomof 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 isfree, give what you can. Order the book from Black Bird Press, 1222Dwight Way, Berkeley CA 94702
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