Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Build Back Better Street Heat- Shoe Leather Legislators-Pavement Policymakers
BAR Poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner
10 Nov 2021
🖨️ Print Article
Build Back Better Street Heat- Shoe Leather Legislators-Pavement Policymakers
Build Back Better Street Heat- Shoe Leather Legislators-Pavement Policymakers

CODE RED!!

 

Calling all street heat—shoe leather legislators— 

Calling all pavement policymakers bored by the bigtop:

clean coal clowns; fossil fools; net zero acrobats; carbon

jugglers…Bored by greasy-thumbed grifters and jingoist 

gangsters; Bored by junk metal-chested generals disguised 

as donkeys inside elephants—Tethered to tits on Wall Street’s 

bull… Blocking! Stalling! Gaslighting! Waging war by other names…

 

Calling all street heat—shoe leather legislators— 

Calling all pavement policymakers bored by the bigtop:

tired of 2/4 Dancers dancing the Limbo from bended knees;

Tired of them spinning spineless legislation swaddled in

rectangular rags—reaching across their arid aisle and

Externalizing excrement. Leaving dung-splattered streets to

3 monkeys who See No Oil; Hear No Coal; Speak of No Gas as evil…

 

Calling all street heat—shoe leather legislators— 

Calling all pavement policymakers… Who’ll stop 

the circus from sullying our names with climate 

crime? Who’ll say their names—their Wall Street 

gang names—reconnecting them to climate crimes?

Who’ll say Superstorm Chevron?

Nor’ easter Exxon; Tsunami Shell?

And who’ll say Blackened bird BP?

 

Calling all street heat—shoe leather legislators— 

Calling all pavement policymakers who may—or

may not—remember the Arab Spring; Remember Occupy

lingo “1%”/“99%.” Remember knitted brows; Remember  

putting forehead to problems

created by person Hoods—aka corporate kings and queens…

 

Calling all street heat—shoe leather legislators— 

Calling all pavement policymakers recall rubber 

bullet, plastic cuff, bloody, broken bone, stolen eyeball- 

tooth trauma…Recall draconian sentences required to

arrest killer cops; wrench slavers statues from pedestals; 

Rechristen schools, streets, parks, plazas, teams; Retire 

Unca Ben, Aunt Jemima with stars and bars at NASCAR

Calling all street heat—shoe leather legislators—

and scholars 

 

Calling all pavement policymakers—and professors…

Study resistance. Major in mass action. Your gait, your

posture’s perfect—like ours once were— 

Matriculate 2020-like. And defend dissertations entitled:

“Fossil Fuels, Force and Deception of The Corporate State—

University Of The Streets…”

 

© 2021. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.  

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


More Stories


  • Black Agenda Radio
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist , Austin Cole
    The Black Alliance for Peace Calls for a Boycott of the World Cup
    17 Jun 2026
    The Black Alliance for Peace and other organizations have called for a boycott of the 2026 World Cup being held in the United States. Before any matches were played, the U.S. banned players, fans,…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    The Knicks and New York's Disappearing Black Communities
    17 Jun 2026
    It is true that the New York Knicks' journey to a championship brought disparate communities together, but gentrification remains the norm in the city that is the capital of capital. Black people are…
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: Reconstruction, Seventy-Five Years After, W. E. B. Du Bois, 1943
    17 Jun 2026
    “Without the help of the American Negro, the abolition movement would have been impossible.”
  • ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    “Don’t Worry Be Happy”: The World Cup as an International Psy-Op
    17 Jun 2026
    FIFA uses the World Cup to present the United States as a legitimate nation, but the U.S. is a rogue state committing crimes against humanity. The call for a boycott is a call to decolonize football…
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    When the Revolution Comes
    17 Jun 2026
    Chris Smalls and his best friend, Derrick Palmer, led the first successful drive to unionize an Amazon warehouse. He believes that labor must decouple from the Democratic Party, as he explains in his…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us