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

Birmingham On The Hudson
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
28 Aug 2012
🖨️ Print Article

 

by Raymond Nat Turner

“Another generation of Gordon Gekkos

Parasitic, psycho, thug CEOs

Funny money men, where anything goes

Republi-crats and Demo-con echoes”

 

Birmingham On The Hudson

by Raymond Nat Turner

Jazz Ballad Chorus

Headed for CUNY with dreams and hope

'Til gettin' swept up in Rope-and-Grope

Tuggin' down his testes on the street

Body-slammed, cursed and browbeat 

Meeting N-Y's finest's fists and feets

Given blurred vision of hoods and sheets

Bruised, bloodied victim of violent scam--

The Hudson banks on Birmingham

The Hudson banks on Birmingham.... 

Hip Hop Feel

Bull Kelly cut fire hoses and cattle prods

For Glockmiesters runnin' in death squads

Protecting and serving corporate masters

The privilege and supremacy of alabasters 

Guarding Merrill-Lynch and Killer Coke

Fighting crime's mirrors and smoke

Drivin' out the poor from dusk to dark

Like smashing Spring in Zucotti Park

 

After the Schultzes seized Native Land

Manhattan real estate rose in demand

They cashed the stolen land into rent

Maintained violently by the 1%

 

In this Age Of Metastasized Cash-ism

Wall Street's Kleptocratic Stash-ism

Mayor Bilbo's businesses blooming brisk

His real estate-driven Stop-and-Frisk

American-styled apartheid pass law

Bilbo's Gestapo's a blue cat's-paw

 

After the Schultzes seized Native Land

Manhattan real estate rose in demand

They cashed the stolen land into rent

Maintained violently by the 1%

 

Another generation of Gordon Gekkos

Parasitic, psycho, thug CEOs

Funny money men, where anything goes

Republi-crats and Demo-con echoes

Putting our lives and health at risk

Run these cons through Stop-and-Frisk

Provocateurs and pundits in cahoots

Will look hip in orange jumpsuits!

Raymond Nat Turner can be contacted at Raymond (at) upsurgejazz.com.

Raymond Nat Turner (c) 2012 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


  • Blacks Should Aim for – and Seek to Understand -- the Stars
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Blacks Should Aim for – and Seek to Understand -- the Stars
    21 Sep 2020
    “We all have the right to know the universe,” said Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, a Theoretical Physicist and Feminist Theorist at the University of New Hampshire and author of the
  • Black Lesbian Intellectuals Shined Light on HIV/AIDS Epidemic
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Black Lesbian Intellectuals Shined Light on HIV/AIDS Epidemic
    21 Sep 2020
    In the wake of the HIV-AIDS epidemic of a generation ago, Black intellectuals argued that “until we eliminate structural inequalities, we’re not going to eliminate the health disparities in medicin
  • Reparations and Anti-Police Torture Demands Produced Results in Chicago
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Reparations and Anti-Police Torture Demands Produced Results in Chicago
    21 Sep 2020
    The young Black people that charged the US government with genocide at a UN conference in Geneva, Switzerland in 2014 helped set the stage for local legislation “for some form of apology and repara
  • The Great White Heist
    Michael Harriot
    The Great White Heist
    16 Sep 2020
    Just because enslaving and stealing labor from Black people was perfectly legal prior to 1868, America should not get to ignore descendants of the people who supplied this nation with 246 years of
  • Freedom Rider: Democrats’ Climate Change Lies
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: Democrats’ Climate Change Lies
    16 Sep 2020
    The Republicans lie about the harm they do to the planet, and the Democrats lie and pretend they’re not doing the very same things.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us