Monday, July 5, 2010
Parableof the San Francisco Negro
Parable ofthe San Francisco Negro
photos by Khalifa Does
PlatoNegro spent the afternoon of July 4, 2010, at the San FranciscoFillmore Jazz Festival. Now we know San Francisco is Plato's favoritecity, known as one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and Platoloves beauty and truth. But if truth be told, the San Francisco JazzFestival is a classic example of ethnic cleansing or gentrification.Those with a distaste for the term Negro, need to do a memory check asthe old men did who sat and stood in the back of Plato as he vended hisbooks and gave out posters of Oscar Grant, the young man murdered incold blood on New Year's Day a year ago by a BART police officer, nowcharged with murder.
Plato arrived in the late afternoon of thelast day of the two day festival. The crowd was whiter than snow, a seaof whites passing up and down Fillmore. Plato could hear the old men athis back talking about the old days in Fillmore, when there would behardly any whites on Fillmore, and instead of the streets filled withwhites, it would be filled with blacks full of joy and happiness intheir world, despite their negrocities. On almost any night, therecould be heard jazz up and down Fillmore Street, the main drag in theSan Francisco Black community. We were called Negroes then, yet we hadculture and community, a thriving community.
Today you hate theterm Negro, you want to be Black, African, African American, NorthAmerican African, yet you have nothing on Fillmore. Not a pot to pissin. You've been castrated, lynched, crucified, mortified, pasteurizedand homogenized.
You've been invaded by aliens from anotherplanet, some ET motherfuckers. Plato was set up near a stage for Swingdancers. He didn't see many blacks swing dancing. Actually, he didn'thear any jazz where he was posted. There was a stage behind him but itwas vacant. People were seated in the audience area but there was nomusic. A New Orleans brass band came through doing Second Line music,but it weak, like a West Coast imitation. You know when you hear thatSecond Line music you got to get up and cut a step. Plato didn't move asthe band passed.
Blacks and Whites gave a donation for his OscarGrant poster. One white man asked Plato what are "they" going to dowhen the verdict is announced. Plato replied, they're going to pray toJesus! The white man didn't seem satisfied with the answer. He seemedseriously troubled, as though he had been put on and had by a smartNegro, which he had! Don't let Plato go to his arrogant mood.
PaulSmith, a trumpet player from Plato's Black Arts West Theatre, 1966,came by. Paul got hooked on heroin and stopped playing his trumpet yearsago, but he kept up with Plato and his writings. Plato told Paul hislatest book was a thirty hitter, knowing Paul understood dope fiendlanguage. Yeah, Paul, you read my book you going into an epilepticseizure, you gonna call the paramedics, you will run out into the middleof Fillmore Street butt naked! Paul understood.
Earl Davis,another trumpet player from Black Arts West, came through with his SunRa painted shoes and cap. Earl is an angry old man in his 70s. He dareswhite people show him how they have a right to sing the blues. Were youin the cotton field with me, were you on the lynching tree with me, wereyou in the slave hut when massa came to fuck me and my woman? Don'ttell me bout no blues white ofay motherfucker. That's Earl!
Nottoo many original Fillmore Negroes still around. You can spot them likethe old men standing in my backfield. dressed cleaner that anPhiladelphia Negro, and you know that's hard to do cause that PhillyNegro is trying to outdo that New York Negro, although I've noticednobody
can out peacock that Louisiana, New Orleans, Lake CharlesNegro! He struts like a peacock straight outta Africa.
Let truthbe told, Black Fillmore is dead, there shall be no revival. A Japaneseasked Plato where is Japan town? Plato said, you're in it! Ok, go up ablock past Geary. Now the whites always had Upper Fillmore, the Negroeshad lower. But not these days, the whites have it all, hook, line andsinker. They all up in yo face with their white supremacy bullshit.Walkin round like they own the place--and they do! You couldn't go toyour homosexual banker to get a real estate loan, but they could. Otherthan subsidized rental housing, your ass in out the Fillmore, and SanFrancisco for that matter. Even the HUD rules have changed to allowmiddle class whites to qualify for the housing projects that have beenrenovated into nice townhouses. There is a zero tolerance crimepolicy--fuck up once and your ass is out, granny too.
Let it beknown former Mayor Alioto apologized for destroying the economic andcultural vitality of the Fillmore with "Negro Removal" but the nigguhson the Redevelopment Agency never apologized. Does the white man have aright to sing the blues--if he tells the truth?
As per OscarGrant, Plato told the people why are you praying when God has alreadyanswered.
Louvelle Mixon granted Oscar justice, and the brother inWashington State co-signed. So Oscar Grant is justified. The first timePlato met Black Panther Huey P. Newton at Richard Thorne's room, Hueyasked Plato, "What is your program?" To the students in the BSU at aLaney College, in the name of Huey Newton, I ask, "What is yourprogram?" To the people of Oakland, I ask, in the name of Huey, what isyour program? Burning down small businesses ain't no program. Burningdown people's cars ain't no program. Voting for the wicked Jerry Brownfor governor ain't no program either. What is your program? What is youragenda? What is your plan for the next fifty to one hundred years? Canyou think that far ahead. If you can't, you ain't a Negro, ain't Black,ain't African, ain't nothing. We think, therefore we is, therefore weplan!
--Marvin X
7/5/10
https://theblacklist.net/
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