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

Managers
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
01 Mar 2023
🖨️ Print Article
Managers
Mayors Eric Adams of New York, Karen Bass of Los Angeles, Lori Lightfoot of Chicago, and Sylvester Turner of Houston. (NY Times photographers An Rong Xu, Erin Schaff, Akilah Townsend, Michael Starghill Jr.)

                                                                                                        Managers

 

Pomp and circumstance! Praise Dancing

precarity!

Knighting ‘em ‘enlightened,’ ‘progressive!’

Crowning ‘em ‘reformers!’

Or, tagging ‘em transparent Bassackwards

Tribesmen like Strong-arm Williams.

Like Thom-ass Clarence. Like Raytheon’s

Raven. Like woke Drone Ranger—Or

Calling ‘em/her/they/them…Big Mama or

Tiny Tim…

Color ‘em music stand black, mocha

expresso, high yellow, or coco brown…

Tag ‘em BIPOC, Hip Hop, Homegrown,

Transgender, Disabled, with two PhDs!

Pronouns We The People! Names like:

Martin Lou Harriet Douglass X III!

Still the ship of state stays its course…

Can’t turn on a dime—can’t reverse itself!

They’ll check hip boxes—

Coronating them President, Police Chief,

Mayor, White Supreme Court justice,

Capitalist Hill careerist, Governor, Warden…

but be ‘bout the business of business. Remote

controlled, battery-operated, omnidirectional—

Intersectional instruments of corporate class rule.

State apparatus—still coming at us!

Supervising sweeps of howling belly, cupped hand

Encampments. Sweeping ‘em under rugs of the rich.

Sweeping crumpled signs/crossed red lines up into

Gun towers/grey bars concertina wired to Wall Street;

Managing misery in capital’s tilted table, thumb on scale,

loaded dice casino; Where even the Race Card’s

marked…



© 2023. 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.

Black Face in High Place

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


Related Stories

Musings from the Margins #2: From Atlanta and Haiti, to Niger, the Western War Against Africans and Collective Humanity Intensifies
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
Musings from the Margins #2: From Atlanta and Haiti, to Niger, the Western War Against Africans and Collective Humanity Intensifies
09 August 2023
The war against Africans intensifies, the puppets and stooges do as they are ordered, while others are satisfied with empty gestures.
The Super Bowl and the Trouble with First Black Symbolism
Gus Griffin
The Super Bowl and the Trouble with First Black Symbolism
08 February 2023
Whether Super Bowl quarterbacks, or presidents, or police chiefs, unquestioned admiration of the "first Black" should come to an end.
Laboring Beyond Black Representation
Too Black
Laboring Beyond Black Representation
06 April 2022
The allure of Black representation in high places can be very dangerous.
Elections and the Illusion of Black Political Power
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Elections and the Illusion of Black Political Power
03 November 2021
Black politicians may be openly conservative or pretend leftists but their constituents rarely get what they need.

More Stories


  • Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement
    Georges Ibrahim Abdallah: “Together, and only together, do we win.”
    04 Feb 2026
    After 41 years in French captivity, revolutionary militant Georges Ibrahim Abdallah speaks, offering an analysis of October 7th, global fascism, and the Palestinian resistance.
  • Prince Kapone
    Reuters’ ‘Market Story’ and the American Pole: PetroChina, Venezuelan Oil, and the Siege That Calls Itself Trade
    04 Feb 2026
    Reuters sells custodial plunder as a pricing issue, turning blockade into “market caution.” We restore the missing record: seizures, supervision, and the re-routing of Venezuelan oil revenue through…
  • Mafa Kwanisai Mafa
    Trump, White Farmers and the War on Zimbabwe’s Sovereignty: Why Africans Must Reject this Neo-Colonial Push
    04 Feb 2026
    The push by white farmers to enlist Donald Trump in a compensation battle over Zimbabwean land is a brazen, neo-colonial plot to undo African liberation history.
  • Communist Party Marxist - Kenya , Booker Omole
    Statement of Solidarity with the Islamic Republic of Iran Down with US Imperialism Forward with the Sovereignty and Dignity of Oppressed Nations
    04 Feb 2026
    The imperial assault on Iran is punishment for the crime of sovereignty, a protracted siege that oppressed nations worldwide recognize as a weapon threatening their own future.
  • BAR Radio Logo
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio January 30, 2026
    30 Jan 2026
    In this week’s segment, we talk about human rights and citizenship and the Trump administration's persecution of Haitian immigrants. We begin with a discussion of the need to protect the 14th…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us