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

We were L.A.—way before they…
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
19 Oct 2022
🖨️ Print Article
We were L.A.—way before they…
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.

Anti-Black Racism
Los Angeles
Black Brown unity

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


More Stories


  • WHO Chief Blasts 'Grotesque' Vaccine Inequality as Rich Nations Block Speedy End of Global Pandemic
    Andrea Germanos
    WHO Chief Blasts 'Grotesque' Vaccine Inequality as Rich Nations Block Speedy End of Global Pandemic
    31 Mar 2021
    "As long as the virus continues to circulate anywhere, people will continue to die, trade and travel will continue to be disrupted, and the economic recovery will be further delayed."
  • New Data on Jail Populations: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
    Alexi Jones and Wendy Sawyer
    New Data on Jail Populations: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
    31 Mar 2021
    The pandemic forced many police departments, courts and jails to take steps that reformers had been demanding for decades.
  •  Black Agenda Radio for Week of March 29, 2021
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Black Agenda Radio for Week of March 29, 2021
    29 Mar 2021
    Expect “Lip Service” from Biden on Immigration Reform
  • Audre Lorde’s Revolutionary Contribution to Black Political Thought
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Audre Lorde’s Revolutionary Contribution to Black Political Thought
    29 Mar 2021
    Black poet and feminist Audre Lorde showed her socialist and revolutionary colors in the wake of the US invasion of Grenada, her parent’s birthplace, in 1983, said Jack Turner, pro
  •  US Black Elite Tied to Capitalism, Not Black Liberation
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    US Black Elite Tied to Capitalism, Not Black Liberation
    29 Mar 2021
    “If we want to have Black liberation, we have to abolish capitalism to do that,” said Kandista Mallett, an activist and columnist for Teen Vogue magazine who authored a recent colu
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us