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

They Wear The Masks
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
19 Aug 2026
🖨️ Print Article
ICE

“We wear the mask that grins and lies, 
it hides our cheeks and shades our eyes …” 
                           â€”Paul Laurence Dunbar

They wear the masks —
while looting our vast power of the purse 
J6-pardons, or simply worst of the worse

They wear the masks —
concealing profits of private prison-profiteers
rounding up co-workers, comrades, and peers

They wear the masks —
abducting co-workers, neighbors, and next of kin
white supremacist predators … hunting dark skin

They wear the masks —
hiding Hitlerian, stroke-twisted, swastika smirks
and sadistic glee — showing off torturous works

They wear the masks —
cloth covering the cruel and Corrupt Reich Cult
spreading COVID-ish violence, terror and tumult

They wear the masks —
revealing only cold, crimson of bloodshot eyes
from guzzling Goebbels’ and Boss Tweet’s lies …

They wear the masks —
of a quickly collapsing, mass murderous empire
reduced to ruling by brutal beatings and gunfire

They wear the masks —
shrouding servile snouts, wrinkled cruel and sadistic
battering our better aspirations, while going fascistic

They wear the masks —
that someday soon our mighty millions must remove —
for the chance to change; to better; and really improve!

© 2026. 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.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Fascism
white supremacy
Deportation
state violence
private prisons

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


Related Stories

​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
Neoliberalism to Trumpism: The Re-Normalization of White Supremacy as State Ideology
29 July 2026
The crisis of late-stage capitalism has stripped away the liberal disguise and revealed white supremacy as the official ideology of t
Devin B. Martinez
ICE Killings Fuel Nationwide Protests
22 July 2026
Recent killings at the hands of federal agents have fueled protests across the US, including a nationwide day of action on July 18.
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
DOCUMENT: “We Will Find You and We Will Kill You”: United States Counterterrorism Strategy, 2026
15 July 2026
“Americans should be safe to live their lives without the fear of terror attacks, the threat of Jihadists, the flooding of our commun
Black Alliance for Peace NYC/NJ Citywide Alliance
Collective Statement Delivered at Delaney Hall Rally - June 12, 2026
15 July 2026
Capitalist predation and imperialism displace people from their homelands. Once in the U.S.
Abayomi Azikiwe
Detroit People’s Tribunal Takes Mask off ICE
08 July 2026
Activists gathered from various areas of Michigan to report on the excesses and brutality of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
F$$K the Fourth: Declaring Our Collective Independence from the Sinking Ship of U.S. Empire
01 July 2026
The settler colonial state is now more corrupt and more unequal than even the genocidal "founding fathers" imagined.
Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
Trump and America’s Fascist Forefathers
01 July 2026
Donald Trump is not an anomaly, but the heir of fascism which began in 1776 and continued throughout U.S. history.
Elias Isquith
White supremacy and slavery: Gerald Horne on the real story of American independence
01 July 2026
It's time to revisit America's heroic creation myth and what really happened in 1776, author-historian tells Salon.
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
War House hosted cage-fighting for 250th what’s next?
24 June 2026
Navy Blue Angels fly over. Air Force Thunderbirds fly over.Offal Office to South Lawn, War House warlords walk onBlood. 
Joshua Reaves Charmelus
"You Gotta Do the Road Work": Ben Passmore on the UFC, White Nationalism, and Radical Fight Culture
24 June 2026
Earlier this month, Donald Trump's White House hosted the UFC for a day-long event known as “Freedom 250” — fights the media compared

More Stories


  • Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Zohran Mamdani and the New York City Mayor's Race
    31 Oct 2025
    Margaret Kimberley was recently a guest on James Fauntleroy’s YouTube program, Jaybefaunt. They discussed the upcoming mayoral election in New York City that pits the Democratic Party nominee, Zohran…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    The Shutdown and Neverending Hostility to the Welfare State
    29 Oct 2025
    The federal government shutdown is a fight between Trump and democrats, but it is also emblematic of the tenuous nature of the welfare state in the U.S. The duopoly parties are both committed to…
  • ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    The United States and Israel: The Tale of Two Rogue Settler-Colonial States United by A Commitment to White Supremacy and Barbaric State Violence
    29 Oct 2025
    The genocide in Gaza, the threat to Venezuela, and the targeting of Iran are not isolated crises. They are coordinated fronts in a single war effort attempting to enforce imperial dominance.
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    STATEMENT: The Challenge to the Colonial Powers, Delegates to the Fifth Pan-African Congress, 1945
    29 Oct 2025
    “Africans, as a last resort, may have to appeal to force in the effort to achieve Freedom, even if force destroys them and the world.”
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    The US Targets Colombians by Sanctioning Gustavo Petro
    29 Oct 2025
    “I do not have a dollar in the United States. There is no account to freeze for me.”  - Colombian President Gustavo Petro, solidarity rally in Bogota, 10/24/2025
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us