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
  • omnibus

Twerkers of the World you might…(Or when they go low we get high?)
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
01 Jul 2021
Twerkers of the World you might…(Or when they go low we get high?)
Twerkers of the World you might…(Or when they go low we get high?)

“History repeats itself,  first as tragedy, second as farce.” —Karl Marx

Bleach barker, low-Barr, last days of Pompeo—of
Decaying empire; of paper towel-tossing, pussy-
grabbing presidents… An a couple of big black
booties—a couple of pumping rumps are atop an
Ambulance as it attempts to transport mass murder victim #
300 something to some pay or die hospital; day 170 of the yr.

“If it bleeds it leads…” “If it twerks it works!”
Pulling the plug on police abolition and defunding dialogue; on
Green New Deal discussion; on climate catastrophe-drought/fire
Talks; And extinguishing street heat vaccines for the virus of
Lynching. 
Troll Patrol in tow—Multibillionaire media has its game plan…

Booties call attention to themselves, gyrating, pulsating and
pumping atop an ambulance after another
Suspicious shooting sows shell casings of confusion. After another
Suspicious shooting—Spring Psy-Op— acts as a lobotomy erasing 
memory of movement more grounded—less Ass—more Mass, more
Class in character—a fiery movement of rainbow millions!

Twerkers of the World, you might… wanna rewind to yesteryear(?)
Flickering embers of two decades that scorched apartheid. Dark,
difficult days after the champagne-caviar Cayman Island 
Class killed King and LAPD did Israeli things to Palestinian-like
people of Watts. Days when a Watts Writers Workshop poet penned the
Poem with jarring title: “Ain’t no ambulances for no nigguhs tonight…” *

*Before he became 2005 Police Benevolent Association Man of the Year.

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

Raymond Nat Turner is an accomplished poet and performing artist, and an official of the National Writers Union. Find more of his work at http://upsurgejazz.com

COMMENTS?

Please join the conversation on Black Agenda Report's Facebook page at http://facebook.com/blackagendareport

Or, you can comment by emailing us at comments@blackagendareport.com

poetry

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


Related Stories

Editors, The Black Agenda Review
POEM: Poem for Walter Rodney, Edward Kamau Brathwaite, 1981  
11 June 2025
“any where or world where there is love there is the sky and its blue free
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
A few lines for the Poet Ojenke...
21 May 2025
RIP: Rise In Poetics to Ra
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
POEM: Reflections after the June 12th March of Disarmament, Sonia Sanchez, 1982
18 December 2024
“I have come to you tonite not just for the stoppage
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Love My Black Job
11 September 2024
Love my Black Job— Black Student Union Job! Hired at L.A. City College As “The Peoples Poet!”
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
POEM: Enemy of the Sun, Samih al-Qasim, 1970
29 May 2024
Read against the terrible incineration of Rafah today, this poem of resistance and refusal, by Pa
Image of Refaat Alareer sitting in a crowd of graduates
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
POEM: If I Must Die, Refaat Alareer, 2023
13 December 2023
Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer, a martyr of zionist state genocidal violence, has left us with a tale of resistance and hope.
Protest for Palestine at the White House
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Trigger Warning
22 November 2023
Trigger Warning Palestine’s the Answer— What was the Question?
Another June 1
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Another June 1
07 June 2023
                                       
BAR Book Forum: Jon Jon Moore’s “The Calling: Poems”
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: Jon Jon Moore’s “The Calling: Poems”
16 February 2022
In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book.
Our ‘democracy’
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Our ‘democracy’
23 July 2021
Shangri-La—untaxed, socially-distanced champagne- caviar, Cayman Island, yacht crowds who

More Stories


  • Khaled Barakat
    Saudi Arabia and France are Leading a ‘Political Genocide’
    06 Aug 2025
    The New York Declaration doesn't merely betray Palestine. It weaponizes the language of statehood to formalize the suppression of a people's right to exist without colonial rule.
  • Nicholas Mwangi
    Youth-led anti-corruption movement surges in The Gambia
    06 Aug 2025
    Gambians from all walks of life – led by the youth-driven GALA movement mobilized across the country on July 23 in an anti-corruption protest as momentum for change grows.
  • Isabel Lourenço
    The Only Fair Negotiation Between Morocco and the Polisario: When, Not If, to End the Occupation
    06 Aug 2025
    Morocco's colonial project in Western Sahara has persisted not through legitimacy, but through the complicity of other nations and United Nations inaction.
  • Nicholas Mwangi
    Angola: 22 killed during mass protests against fuel prices
    06 Aug 2025
    Angola, one of Africa’s top oil producers, is in turmoil after protests erupted over a sharp fuel price hike driven by IMF-backed subsidy cuts.
  • BAR Radio Logo
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio August 1, 2025
    01 Aug 2025
    In this week’s segment, we discuss football, why it isn’t popular in the US, how it can be, sports as consciousness raising, and the nation of Brazil and its Black population. But first, we have the…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us