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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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Pimpin and Spirituality
By
Marvin X
I am not a
pimp. I am a hustler, sometimes a trick. A hustler waits
for no one to bring his money, he gets his own. It is
beneath his dignity to wait or depend on a woman or
anyone to get his hustle going. All he needs is product,
almost anything will do, even a roll of toilet paper he
can hustle. But the pimp's thing is women, he considers
himself their manager and they consider him the same,
usually by mutual agreement, often by torture,
kidnapping and exploitation, including mind control,
deprivation of sleep, food and isolation.
Having never been a pimp, I cannot speak with total
authority, although I have been around pimps off and on
my entire life, from growing up on 7th Street in Oakland
to hanging with pimps in New York. My brother's claim to
fame is pimping. He never desired anything else in life
but pimping, as a result his life has been pimping and
prison, nothing else. I have been deprived of his
brotherly love because of his pimping and prison life.
Many of my friends were pimps, including some of my
Muslim brothers who said they made their ho's make salat
or prayer before they went out on the stroll. I was
around Muslim pimps on the east coast who had their
women selling bean pies and whoring to buy Crack.
More recently I had the pleasure of meeting several
pimps-in-recovery at my theatre in San Francisco's
Tenderloin district when we produced the Black Radical
Book Fair in 2004. The pimps included Fillmore Slim,
Gansta Brown, Jimmy Starr and Rosebud Bitterdose. They
claim to have given up pimpin and have indeed written
books and films on the gospel of the game.
In the case of Fillmore Slim, he is still greatly
respected as the godfather of pimpin, especially on the
West coast. He hooked up with me to see if I could help
him get the message to young people that pimpin ain't
easy and there's a price to be in the game. If you
willing to pay the price, then go for it, but just know
you are going to pay. Fillmore paid with several prison
terms.
He says these young brothers call themselves pimpin but
ain't hardly pimpin, ain't doing nothing but messin up
the game. Don't have no style, no class. If you saw the
BET awards last night, Prince was the only artist with
class, the others looked like bums and derelicts,
especially the hip hop brothers. As Fillmore said about
young pimps, they don't know how to dress. And he said
they most certainly don't know how to treat a lady. They
want to beat women. He said they don't understand if
they don't beat her, she might come back. They want to
kill another nigguh if she runs off with him. This ain't
part of the game. Don't be killing people, he said, like
you own the woman. You don't own nobody. When she choose
you, she with you, when she choose somebody else, let
her go. Fillmore said these young nigguhs act like they
in love. And keep a night job, he says, because pimpin
ain't easy.
Young brothers so close up on the ho a trick can't get
to her. And the nigguh look more like a woman than the
woman. You don't know who to turn a date with, the pimp
or the ho. He got earrings in both ears, blond hair and
pants hangin off his behind, living at his mama's house,
pimpin on a bicycle. Nigguh please.
Pimp like Bush. Get you a real ho like Condi Rice that
can ho all over the world, that can serve presidents,
prime ministers, generals. Dr. Bey used to say, "If you
going to do something, do it in a big way." Some would
say Dr. Bey did right and wrong in a big way (may he
rest in peace). And my daddy said, "If you gonna be
something, be the best."
The white man is the world's greatest pimp: he pimpin
you and yo woman, but you don't have a clue. On BET last
night he pimped some of our greatest artists, had them
parading as nothing but naked whores.
Nigguh pimps got babies on the street, eleven, twelve
and thirteen. What they know about ho'in? They don't
know how to put a rubber on a nigguh, let alone give
head. They need to be in school. Get their GED. And the
pimp needs to go with them to get his. Imagine the
social consequences of over a million children dropping
out of school each year, over 50% of them. Society,
including the school, the religious community and the
politicians are responsible for children choosing the
pimp life, especially when our nation needs scientists
and engineers if we are to have a future beyond pimpin
and whoring.
posted 29 June 2006
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Marvin X has given permission to
Harvard University to publish his poem "For El Haji
Rasul Taifa" from Love and War: Poems by Marvin X
(1995). The poem will appear in The Encyclopedia of
Islam in America Volume II, Greenwood Press, edited
by Dr. Jocelyne Cesari of Harvard's Islam in the West
Program. Mr. X is co-editor of the forthcoming anthology
Muslim American Literature, University of
Arkansas Press, edited by Dr. Mojah Khaf. He is also in
the forthcoming Muslim American Drama, Temple
University. * *
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update 29 July 2008 |
