Protesters at Los Angeles City Council, October 11, 2022 (Photo: Ringo H.W. Chiu/AP)
“Ignorance allied with power
is the most ferocious enemy
justice can have.”
—James Baldwin
Venom-drenched recorded
conversation of rattler city
council criminals—with
Labor serpent fluent in
Forked Tongue—poisoned
the smog—City of Angels
Ruled by devils…
Not our Chicano Moratorium,
MEChA memories of the way
WE were…Could it be that
Class struggle was so simple then?
We were Black and Brown poets
named Myles, Miguel, Alejandro, Raymond…
Named Guzman, Proctor, Mugia, Turner…
burnished by Breakaway sun, singing
songs of solidarity
We were Black and Brown poets
walking vertically, wearing oneness on
our sleeves; standing shoulder to shoulder in
Struggle, filling Compton and L.A. libraries
and stages with four-alarm fire—
WE were L.A.—way before they!
We were Black and Brown poets
carrying compasses: South/East L.A.
We celebrated piping hot pinto beans, juicy
collard greens, hand made tortillas, buttery
cornbread, Jazz, wine, weed and Mariachi
We celebrated boycotted grapes,
brazen black cats, brown berets
and commemorated martyrs—
WE were L.A.—way before they!
We were Black and Brown poets
Sankofa birds flocking, flying forward faster
Resisting Pentagon with the Wind—sausage machine
in South-east Asia gobbling up, grinding down steeled
squads of ghetto/barrio warriors suited for service on
the home-front…
We were ‘Red Car’ babies with complicated
handshakes, Embraces—
way before Black faces in high places
way before Brown faces in high places
white supremacy places at the expense of
Salt of the earth—
WE were L.A.—way before they!
We were Black and Brown poets
Before cesspool plotters/planners backed by
bloody, badged Bandito/Executioner armed wings
arresting
dreams in tarp, tent, cardboard mattress Skid
Rows— Before Huxtabullshitters looking down
Pinocchio
noses at calloused hands, blistered feet of lunch bucket
Brigades…
Before battery-operated, corporate-controlled self
serving ethnic cleansers—treacherous white supremacist
strongmen/women with their worldwide networks—still,
WE were L.A.—way before they!
© 2022. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.
Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet; BAR's Poet-in-Residence; and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC. You can Vote for his work at: GoFundMe and PayPal.
a few flock notes for jaimie breezy branch “The artist must elect to fight for Freedom or for Slavery” —Paul Robeson
Black Agenda Report Book Forum editor Roberto Sirvent interviews community organizer Kalonji Changa.
This week’s featured author is Debra Thompson. Thompson is the Canada Research Chair in Racial Inequality in Democratic Societies and Associate Professor of Political Science at McGill University.…
The city of Jackson is suffering from years of neglect by the state of Mississippi. Residents of the majority Black city need a new water system, but a legacy of racism and antipathy towards their…
Rage is a natural human emotion that is denied to Black people. Black rage is dangerous and is washed away, laundered, as if it were an ill-gotten gain. Too Black explains in the first part of a two-…
