University of Revolution
by BAR poet-in-residence Raymond Nat Turner
“When the student is ready, the teacher appears”
Cannabis canopy shading dice shooting,
Wine-drinking youth on concrete steps
Of 79th Street School—
“Onk, bet you don’t hit!”
“Bet!” “Bet!”
“Bet, nigga!”
“Bet!”
“Bet!”
Soundtrack punctuating sleepy South Central
L.A. Saturday…
Thirteen months later, they’re baaaack on steps of 79th
Discarding dice for dialectical materialism, betting
Last dollars on cheap Chinese versions of Communist
Manifesto, Marx and Engles, Lenin’s The State and
The State and Revolution, studying Fanon’s Wretched
Of The Earth, reading aloud from Mao’s Little Red Book,
Reciting the Panther 10-Point Program
Neighbors peering from shaded windows, secretly
Proud, dazzled by discipline, dedication, black leather light
Refracting polished boots and berets—alchemy of qualitative
Leaps, black magic like Watts ’65, when Slausons, Gladiators,
Businessmen, Farmers, Rebel Rousers arose from crackling
Flames, black smoke plumes, shards of glass, reborn, Black
Men, nationalists, revolutionaries, claiming Malcolm fathered
Them in the fire…
Maybe there is a God? I certainly, chanted, prayed,
Rhymed, sung, agitated for wet, cold, WikiLeaks
Waking, arousing, Black people to consciousness,
Returning our glorious edge—and then came you—
Through open enrollment, University of Revolution,
Campuses worldwide: Tahrir Square, Wisconsin Capitol,
Wall Street, Oscar Grant Plaza, Ferguson; accelerated learning Sites— nano second lessons, ordinarily requiring months to learn
Then came you! Would you be called, ‘The Ferguson
Generation’ or ‘Gen Ferg,’ were you Madison Avenue-
Made men and women, like your Commander-in-Chief?
Would they dote on you if you were Ready for Hillary?
Would you be celebrated if you helped sell Coke, Pepsi,
Cars and serial wars?
Maybe you’ll be called ‘low-level terror threats’ and
Venomous things spat so often they’ve become cliché?
Fuck them! We, The People, hereby confer Gifted
Student Status upon you, with all rights, privileges,
Responsibilities, thereby granted enrolling in the
University of Revolution, matriculating, turning
The world upside down—making the last, first and
The first last! Gifted Student Status, not artificial
‘Intelligence’ serving alphabet agencies of slavery
Not the ‘best and brightest’ at bunko: credit default
Swaps, sub-prime loans, stealing savings and homes
From calloused hands limping on blistered feet
Gifted Students too smart to let charlatans riding
Bareback and backwards on an ol’ mule harness
You to Kickstarter scam-pains like their blockbuster,
“Malcolm Remixed,” A. Sharlaton portraying ‘mature’
Malcolm to Ben Jealous’s nuanced, Nobel Prize-winning,
National security state-minded Dr King—you peeped them
By bringing brilliant, bottom-up organizing, real
Community organizers, like 1950-70 caliber masters
Of myriad methods and forms of mass struggle: mass
Meetings marches, sit-in, teach-ins, pickets, boycotts,
Mass rallies, strikes, pickets, voter registration, armed
Self-defense; from flash-mobbing miserly Wal-Marts,
To slipping “Which Side Are You On?” in on the St Louis
Symphony, to unfurling anti-racist banners on Monday Night
Football, National TV, revealing inconvenient truths about cold-
Blooded murder…
Brilliant bottom-up organizing of real community
Organizers, dipping digitally into Underground Wells
Of Truth, Douglass, Russwurm, showing and telling
Power of people’s mass action over social media—
Any means necessary, except senior Mike Brown sitting
Down over amber suds with hitman Wilson, beer with po-po!
Welcome to University of Revolution, bastion of life-long
Learning, there’s always more to learn like prerequisites:
LOVE *101
Love the people like Che, Dr King, Bunchy Carter-style
Delegation 101
A Sly thing, different strokes for different folks—some make
Sandwiches, some paint picket signs, some staple them, some
March, some send money, others offer frequent flyer miles,
Some offer exit strategies, escape routes, some sing like Selma
Voice, Betty Mae Fikes, and balm of Gilead Bernice Johnson
Reagon, some orate, some agitate, some strategize, some organize,
Some protest, some invest with returns on their dollars in mind, all
Are needed: militants, dissidents, optimists, romanticists, socialists,
Communists— frontline forces down south, up south, out south!
Solidarity /Proletarian Internationalism 101:
Denouncing Nuremberg Negroz, war criminals like Unca
Jim’s Corporate Bag Clique (CBC) and other empire apologists;
Supporting Palestinians, Pakistanis, Afghans, Iraqis like looking
In a magnifying mirror, seeing yourself in crosshairs of snipers
Opposing deportations of the Deporter-in-Chief
Supporting whistleblowers like Snowden, Manning and Asange
Language to Lose 101
“Mainstream media,” multi-billionaire media, minority media
“Preaching to the choir” given toxic Fox-box rays 24/7
‘The choir,’ too, gets weary and needs good preaching, teaching
“Misleadership Class” excellent leaders of their class, the black
Bourgeoisie, staunch enemies of ours, the working-class
Statistics 101: Figures Don’t Lie, But Liars Figure
4% of the world’s population 25% of the world’s prison population
48 million live in poverty, you call this the world’s richest
country?
VOTING & It’s Overemphasis 101:
June and November every 2-4 years it cannot be our main tool, weapon cannot continue stumbling behind their ol’ mule
I reject visions of Fanny Lou Hamer staggering around all these years, decades, mule shit on her sandals, screamin,’ “Hold your nose and vote!”
* Influenced by Bro Bruce's 101 Series
Raymond Nat Turner can be contacted at Raymond (at) upsurgejazz.com
Raymond Nat Turner © 2014 All Rights Reserved
2020’s hindsight—frost in the rearview mirror. Miles Ahead… I’m Sheltered in Solidarity with National Poetry Month and Jazz Appreciation Month— April in Boston—warm cider
The critics want to wipe clear the actual history of racial oppression that is baked into the social and economic structures of the US.
The police as they exist today need to be abolished, there’s no question. “Diversity doesn’t change the fundamental dynamics of policing.”
Much of what is called the “left” still insists that the American “revolution” of 1776 is “unfinished,” when history shows that white supremacy was the intended result.
Most people contribute to injustice not as direct perpetrators but as indirect participants who enable, perpetuate, benefit from, and inherit histories of violence and contemporary systems of explo
