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


  •  Mumia on 2020 Elections
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Mumia on 2020 Elections
    03 Nov 2020
    The polls were wrong in 2016, and they may be wrong this year, too, said Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, in an essay for Prison Radio.
  • Anti-Queerness in Africa is Complicated
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Anti-Queerness in Africa is Complicated
    03 Nov 2020
    Thirty African countries have laws against homosexuality, but debate still rages over whether homophobia is endemic to Africa or a European import.
  • Anti-Black Racism is Everywhere in the Americas
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Anti-Black Racism is Everywhere in the Americas
    03 Nov 2020
    Anti-Black racism is not limited to the US, said Jomaira Salas, a doctoral candidate in sociology at Rutgers University and author of an article on Black Latina girls.
  •  Police “Reform” = Counterinsurgency
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Police “Reform” = Counterinsurgency
    03 Nov 2020
    Attempts to “reform” the police through body cameras, so-called “community” policing and other such measures “all presume the continued presence of police” in oppressed communities, said Dy
  • The Billionaires’ Duopoly Wins on Tuesday
    Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
    The Billionaires’ Duopoly Wins on Tuesday
    29 Oct 2020
    Allegiance to the Democratic half of the duopoly – whether active or passive – is still allegiance to corporate rule, not a strategy for transformative change.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us